Pipeline API

Developer Documentation

This repository contains the IP intelligence engines for the .NET implementation of the Pipeline API.

The specification is also available on GitHub and is recommended reading if you wish to understand the concepts and design of this API.

Visual Studio 2019 or later is recommended. Although Visual Studio Code can be used for working with most of the projects.

The core IP intelligence projects are written in C and C++. The Pipeline engines are written in C# and target .NET Standard 2.0. Example and test projects mostly target .NET 8.0 though in some cases, projects are available targeting other frameworks.

For runtime dependencies, see our dependencies page. The ci/options.json file lists the tested and packaged .NET versions and operating systems automatic tests are performed with. The solution will likely operate with other versions.

The API does detections using a local (on-premise) data file or cloud service (coming soon).

In order to perform IP intelligence on-premise, you will need to use a data file.

ip-intelligence-data submodule repository instructs how to obtain a 'Lite' data file, otherwise contact us to obtain an 'Enterprise' data file.

You will require resource keys to use the Cloud API, as described on our website. Get resource keys from our configurator, see our documentation on how to use this.

• FiftyOne.IpIntelligence - Ip intelligence engines and related projects.
  • FiftyOne.IpIntelligence.Engine.OnPremise - .NET implementation of the IP intelligence on-premise engine.
  • FiftyOne.IpIntelligence.Shared - Shared classes used by the IP intelligence engines.
  • FiftyOne.IpIntelligence - Contains IP intelligence engine builders.
  • FiftyOne.IpIntelligence.Cloud - A .NET engine which retrieves IP intelligence results by consuming the 51Degrees cloud service. This can be swapped out with either the on-premise engine seamlessly.

The easiest way to install is to use NuGet to add the reference to the package:

Install-Package FiftyOne.IpIntelligence

IP Intelligence on-premise uses a native binary (i.e. compiled from C code to target a specific platform/architecture). The NuGet package contains several binaries for common platforms. However, in some cases, you'll need to build the native binaries yourself for your target platform. This section explains how to do this.

• Install C build tools:
  • Windows:
    • You will need either Visual Studio 2022 or the C++ Build Tools installed.
      • Minimum platform toolset version is v143
      • Minimum Windows SDK version is 10.0.18362.0
    • Linux/MacOS:
      • sudo apt-get install g++ make libatomic1
• If you have not already done so, pull the git submodules that contain the native code:
  • git submodule update --init --recursive

Visual studio should now be able to build the native binaries as part of its normal build process.

You can package a project into NuGet *.nupkg file by running a command like:

dotnet pack [Project] -o "[PackagesFolder]" /p:PackageVersion=0.0.0 -c [Configuration] /p:Platform=[Architecture]

📝 Using AnyCPU might prevent the unmanaged (C++) code from being built into .Native.dll library. Use x64/arm64 specifically.

📝 If creating cross-platform package from multiple native dlls, put all 4x FiftyOne.IpIntelligence.Engine.OnPremise.Native.dll into respective folders:

../
    macos/
        arm64/
        x64/
    linux/
        x64/
    windows/
        x64/

and add to the packaging command:

/p:BuiltOnCI=true

related CI scripts:

• BuiltOnCI var:
  • [https://github.com/51Degrees/common-ci/blob/main/dotnet/build-project-core.ps1]
  • [https://github.com/51Degrees/common-ci/blob/main/dotnet/build-package-nuget.ps1]
  • [https://github.com/51Degrees/common-ci/blob/main/dotnet/build-project-framework.ps1]
  • [https://github.com/51Degrees/ip-intelligence-dotnet/blob/main/ci/run-performance-tests-console.ps1]
• Copying native binaries:
  • [https://github.com/51Degrees/ip-intelligence-dotnet/blob/main/ci/build-package.ps1]

We currently do not strong name assemblies due to downsides for developers. The main of which is that .NET Framework on Windows enables strict loading of assemblies once an assembly is strong named. A strong-named assembly reference must exactly match the version of the loaded assembly, forcing developers to configure binding redirects when using the assembly.

If it is absolutely critical for your use case to integrate a strong-named assembly - please create a feature request issue.

Examples can be found in ip-intelligence-dotnet-examples repository.

Tests can be found in the Tests/ folder. These can all be run from within Visual Studio or by using the dotnet test command line tool.

Some tests require additional resources to run. These will either fail or return an 'inconclusive' result if these resources are not provided.

• Some tests require an 'Enterprise' data file. This can be obtained by purchasing a license.
• Tests using the cloud service require resource keys with specific properties. A license is required in order to access some properties.

For complete documentation on the Pipeline API and associated engines, see the 51Degrees documentation site.