Is YARP same proxy used internally by Grpc.AspNetCore.Web?

[AnthonyPaulO]

When configuring an asp.net app for grpc-web, you can either use Envoy or the Grpc.AspNetCore.Web middleware. Would anyone happen to know if YARP is based on this middleware proxy?

I ask because my boss has a React app that gets market-data from an ASP.NET 8 Core Grpc-Web Service he created with this middle-ware enabled, and he told me that when he puts an Envoy proxy in between, the app performs better as it streams much faster than when the React app communicated directly with the grpc-web service with the middleware proxy enabled. I'm wondering if this middleware proxy is at all related to the YARP proxy, because if it isn't, then perhaps if I enabled the YARP proxy instead of the built-in Grpc.AspNetCore.Web proxy I would get similar gains.

Any devs here in the know?

Many thanks in advance!

Anthony

[MihaZupan]

I'm not sure I fully understand the question, but Grpc.AspNetCore.Web and YARP are completely separate things.
You should be able to use YARP in front of a server that uses Grpc.AspNetCore.Web though.

[AnthonyPaulO]

Hi! Sorry, I didn't get any notification of a reply. I'm probably not making myself very clear. I have a grpc-web browser app that needs to connect to a grpc asp.net service that does not have grpc-web support. Here's a snippet from Microsoft's Website:

There are two choices for how to add gRPC-Web to an ASP.NET Core app:

Support gRPC-Web alongside gRPC HTTP/2 in ASP.NET Core. This option uses middleware provided by the Grpc.AspNetCore.Web package.
Use the Envoy proxy's gRPC-Web support to translate gRPC-Web to gRPC HTTP/2. The translated call is then forwarded onto the ASP.NET Core app.

By default, Kestrel does not support gRPC-web; I have to either use the middleware mentioned [Grpc.AspNetCore.Web] or an envoy proxy as a middle-man. This Grpc.AspNetCore.Web middleware is obviously a proxy performing much of the same duty as envoy; accepting the browser's grpc-web http1 requests, translating them to http2 and whatever other magic it has to do to make this all work, and passing it along to kestrel, and vice-versa for the responses.

Question #1: Does this middleware share a code-base with Yarp? I saw mention somewhere of something along those lines.

Question #2: Is Yarp capable of replacing Envoy in the scenario I mentioned? A grbc-web browser trying to http1 connect to an http2 grpc (not grpc-web) asp.net service with Yarp in the middle acting as a proxy that performs the necessary magic conversion?

[Tratcher]

Grpc.AspNetCore.Web isn't a proxy, it's an in-memory adapter that just changes the request to look like normal gRPC:
https://github.com/grpc/grpc-dotnet/blob/d07efb500c2024e6e6b59dd00d9bd4bc75541e1b/src/Grpc.AspNetCore.Web/Internal/GrpcWebMiddleware.cs#L66

It doesn't share any code with YARP. You may be able to use Grpc.AspNetCore.Web together with YARP to replace envoy here.

[AnthonyPaulO]

Grpc.AspNetCore.Web isn't a proxy, it's an in-memory adapter that just changes the request to look like normal gRPC: https://github.com/grpc/grpc-dotnet/blob/d07efb500c2024e6e6b59dd00d9bd4bc75541e1b/src/Grpc.AspNetCore.Web/Internal/GrpcWebMiddleware.cs#L66

It doesn't share any code with YARP. You may be able to use Grpc.AspNetCore.Web together with YARP to replace envoy here.

Thank you so much for clearing up my misunderstanding. In that case there's no need for a proxy at all, but this leaves me at a loss to explain why a browser grpc-web client connecting to a grpc service via envoy enjoy superior performance characteristics (as per some metrics available online) vs connecting to a kestrel grpc service with grpc-web middleware enabled and no proxy. If anyone has any idea, I would much appreciate it.

Thanks again Tratcher!