WCF TCP Channel Access - wcf

I have a Windows service that opens a WCF TCP port for communication. It was working fine up till about 3 weeks ago - and after an update (service is running on Windows Server 2016) the TCP channel stated failing - with closed port message when trying to access functionality on the TCP channel. Does anyone know what would have caused this.
Peter

Related

Running a UDP server using WCF?

I have been investigating about creating a UDP server, at first i though i would have to get a dedicated server as i want to run EXE on the server but i currently have a shared server and i believe most ports are open.
I notice that with the WCF 4.5 (pre release) you can create UDP services, would these work in the same way as a UDP server hence a client could send messages to the UDP service in the same way (i.e. UDPClient class).
I presume this is available in 4.5 only and not 4 / 3.5?
What are the pros and cons of running a UDP server vs WCF service with UDP binding?
As far as hosting the UDP WCF service, can this be done on IIS like a standard WCF HTTP service?
Or a console application is required? Of course if a console app is required or something similar then this doesn't help me as I would still need a dedicated server to host the item. This is where i am a little confused.
Here's what I've read in What’s new in WCF 4.5? UDP transport support:
The binding is not supported in IIS/WAS, since there is still no UDP shared listener for WAS

Https and streaming? IDuplexSessionChannel via http - client port open by default?

I have some small questions of which I think they're quite easy to answer for a WCF expert, but which I don't exactly know. I'm hoping they're not to obvious:
Does transport security (http with
ssl) work in conjunction with
streaming? If no, how can I transfer
large data in a secure way to the
client?
If I am not completely off the track
an IDuplexSessionChannel requires
the client to open a port too, so
that the service can contact the
client via a callback. Does this
also affect an IDuplexSessionChannel
which comunicates via http? Port 80
should be open by default, shouldn't
it?
Yes streaming works with HTTPS (basicHttpBinding).
Yes duplex session channel requires port opened on the client because duplex communication over HTTP really means one connection from the client to the server and one reverse connection from the server to the client. Port 80 doesn't have to be opened by default on the client - if it is, it is most probably already associated with some web server so it cannot be used for the communication. Duplex communication is also WCF specific (it is not interoperable) and it leads to other consequences. For example in Windows Vista \ Windows 7 \ Windows 2008 Server with UAC you must run the client with elevated privileges or allow listening on the port by using netsh command line utility.
I'm not sure how these two questions are related but wsDualHttpBinding (implementation of IDuplexSessionChannel) doesn't support streaming or transport security.

connecting with WCF client

I am trying to connect to a Java based service from WCF .NET client.
the address of the service is something like https://xxxxx:4444/myownservice
I can successfully access the WSDL on
https://servername:4444/myownservice/?WSDl
but when I run the proxy client , the process is timing out and gave me this error message
"Could not connect to ..... TCP error code 10060: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond xxxxx:4444
where xxxx is the server name
I tried to telnet the server with the port number, and telnet failed (using server name or its IP address).
I can ping to the server.
My question is:
if I can browser the wsdl with
http://xxxxx:4444/servicename/?WSDL
does it mean that the port 4444 is open?
or not necessarily
It's possible that the service was up and running when you grabbed the WSDL, but that it dropped thereafter. Since you can't telnet to it, I'd say the service is down. Since you can ping it, I'd say the server itself is running. Ping operates on a different port.

Connection refused - nettcp WCF Service from work - client connecting over VPN

Here's the scenario: A client machine has connected to the 'Work network' via VPN (Cisco VPN Client). The work network hosts a machine that has a WCF service with nettcp binding. The client tries to connect to this service and gets an exception as follows:
Could not connect to
net.tcp://workMachine:2010/SomeService.
The connection attempt lasted for a
time span of 00:00:01.3180754. TCP
error code 10061: No connection could
be made because the target machine
actively refused it workMachine:2010.
Things I tried:
Changed the Workgroup of the client
machine to the work network
workgroup
Added domain/username/password for the Windows Networking Password vault, so that it can be used to connect
Changed the wcf service path with an IP address instead of the workMachine name
Checked client machine firewalls and added to allow the wcf client through it
All above failed and didn't work.
Has anyone encountered similar issues?
The client machine is on Windows 7
SecurityMode of the WCF service is set to NONE - so that shouldn't be an issue.
Any insights will be helpful
You may need to supply client credentials explicitly through your proxy object.
Assume that the proxy object in the code below implements one of the ClientBase interfaces.
proxy.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.UserName = "clientaccount";
proxy.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.Password = "S3cr3t1337Pwd";
Could you - just for testing purposes - expose the same service on the same machine using a HTTP endpoint, and try to connect to that one from your VPN client?
NetTcp is an excellent choice behind the corporate firewall - just don't know how the Cisco VPN client might cause troubles here, that might not show up when using an http-based protocol. Just a wild guess for now, but if you have nothing else to go on, give it a try!
Marc
Just another thought to assist with debugging of these kind of issues, using CMD execute "netstat -a" (you can append the -o switch and find the related process id also) and see if the port in question is currently open, if it isn't you may have an issue with the SMSvcHost.exe (this is the Windows process for managing an IIS hosted TCP Service).
I've had this issue before and rectified it by restarting the following services (obviously you'll need to carefully consider this if you are dealing with a live production system):
NetTcpActivator (Net. Tcp Listening Adapter)
NetTcpPortSharing (Net. Tcp Port Sharing Service)
and possibly if relevant:
NetMsmqActivator (Net. Pipe Listener Adapter)
NetPipeActivator (Net. Pipe Listener Adapter)
Hope this helps someone!
J.

WCF + SSL wsDualHttpBinding or netTcpBinding

I need to create a self-hosted WCF service.
I need secure duplex connection between client and server through Internet.
I read some documents of WCF and found that the netTcpBinding is suitable for intranet application, because the SSL is only point 2 point. If it is an internet application, the connection must not be point 2 point, am I correct? so SSL in transport security with netTcpBinding is not suitable?
so what combination should I use to create a secure duplex internet application?
thank you very much.
I have tried http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WCF/WCFWPFChat.aspx
this tutorial use netTcpBinding and endpoint localhost
I change the endpoint localhost to a name based url, forward a port in my router to my development PC, open the same port at Windows firewall.
The client program can chat with each cients program in different machines, BUT the callback connection will lost after one minute.
I also tried changing the binding to wsDualHttpBinding, the clients program can chat with each clients in the same machine and kept the callback connection in the reliableSession inactivityTimeout setting. However another client program in another machine cannot join the server, if I turn off Windows firewall on that machine, the client program can connect.
It seems that tcp binding can let the client program connecting to the server with Windows firewall turn on. but callback connection lost.
and the wsDualHttpBinding can keep the callback connections. but cannot connect to server if Windows firewall on.
Is there a way to kept the netTcpBinding callback connection as in the wsDualHttpBinding?
It sounds like you have two issues- duplex connection and security.
If you truly need a duplex connection (eg, server-initiated callbacks), neither of these will work very well over the internet unless you have very fine control over the firewalls on both ends (the client still has to expose a publicly accessible HTTP endpoint for the server to call back). The best way would be to use the new relay services with .NET 4.0- this allows for a mimic'd server-initiated connection through firewalls.
EDIT: this is now called AppFabric, and is part of the Windows Azure infrastructure
On the security front, you can always use message security over the service bus, but I don't see a reason why transport security would be a problem either.
To answer user248724,
The client program can chat with each
cients program in different machines,
BUT the callback connection will lost
after one minute.after one minute.
You need either have the client or the server to ping each other at least every minute to keep the connection socket alive.