How to use Autofac with a CustomServiceHostFactory in an IIS hosted WCF service? - wcf

Question

Lets say I have a simple service contract:
[ServiceContract(Namespace = Constants.MyNamespace)]
public interface IAccountService
{
[OperationContract]
Account GetByAccountNumber(string accountNumber);
}
Here is the service:
[ServiceBehavior(Namespace = Constants.MyNamespace)]
public class AccountService : IAccountService
{
private readonly IUnitOfWorkAsync _uow;
private readonly IRepositoryAsync<Account> _repository;
public AccountService(IDataContextAsync dataContext)
{
_uow = new UnitOfWork(dataContext);
_repository = new Repository<Account>(dataContext, _uow);
}
public Account GetByAccountNumber(string accountNumber)
{
return _repository.GetByAccountNumber(accountNumber);
}
}
Here is the CustomServiceHostFactory:
public class CustomServiceHostFactory : ServiceHostFactory
{
protected override ServiceHost CreateServiceHost(Type serviceType, Uri[] baseAddresses)
{
var builder = new ContainerBuilder();
builder.RegisterType<MyDbContext>().As<IDataContextAsync>();
builder.Register(c => new AccountService(c.Resolve<IDataContextAsync>())).As<IAccountService>();
using (var container = builder.Build())
{
var host = new CustomServiceHost(serviceType, baseAddresses);
host.AddDependencyInjectionBehavior<IAccountService>(container);
return host;
}
}
}
..where CustomServiceHost creates all of the bindings/behaviors programmatically. I am using file-less activation so my .config file just has section like this:
<serviceHostingEnvironment>
<serviceActivations>
<add service="Company.Project.Business.Services.AccountService"
relativeAddress="Account/AccountService.svc"
factory="Company.Project.WebHost.CustomServiceHostFactory"/>
</serviceActivations>
</serviceHostingEnvironment>
I publish to IIS and can view the site in a browser. It says "you have created a service". However, any call I try to make to the service from my client application gives the following error:
Instances cannot be resolved and nested lifetimes cannot be created from this LifetimeScope as it has already been disposed.
How do you use Autofac with WCF and a CustomServiceHostFactory?
I am able to use poor man's DI as a workaround for now but was hoping to get this working. I can't seem to find any good examples on the web. Thanks.

Answer 1

Don't dispose of the container. Instead of a using statement, keep the container alive. It needs to live as long as the host.
You'll notice in the default Autofac WCF stuff the container is a global static that lives for the app lifetime - that's why.