WCF only accepts localhost - wcf

Question

I'm writing my first WCF in Visual Studio Express, and configured it to run under IIS Express. My Web.config is as bellow. From my browser I can access the service if I do a Get request on http://localhost:50000/Service1.svc, but not http://10.0.0.26:50000/Service1.svc where 10.0.0.26 is my ip. How to configure WCF of IIS Express to accept IP addresses. Ultimatly my service is tio be reached accross the network.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="aspnet:UseTaskFriendlySynchronizationContext" value="true" />
</appSettings>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.5" />
<httpRuntime targetFramework="4.5"/>
</system.web>
<system.serviceModel>
<services>
<service name="medSaveWCF.Service1">
<endpoint address="../Service1.svc"
binding="webHttpBinding"
contract="medSaveWCF.IService1"
behaviorConfiguration="webBehaviour" />
</service>
</services>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior>
<!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the values below to false before deployment -->
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" httpsGetEnabled="true"/>
<!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set the value below to true. Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing exception information -->
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
<endpointBehaviors>
<behavior name="webBehaviour">
<webHttp/>
</behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<protocolMapping>
<add binding="basicHttpsBinding" scheme="https" />
</protocolMapping>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
</system.serviceModel>
<system.webServer>
<httpProtocol>
<customHeaders>
<add name="Access-Control-Allow-Origin" value="*" />
<add name="Access-Control-Allow-Headers" value="Content-Type, Accept" />
</customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
<!--
To browse web app root directory during debugging, set the value below to true.
Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing web app folder information.
-->
<directoryBrowse enabled="true"/>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>

Answer 1

(Side note: I have blogged about this, including additional setup steps you need to use SSL: http://blog.kutulu.org/2015/01/using-iis-express-with-remote-systems.html)
The problem is that IIS Express only listens on the localhost address, by default. The reason is, IIS runs as a user process, but uses the same HTTPD.SYS system library that the full IIS does. By default the HTTPD.SYS configuration does not allow user processes to bind to an external address. To fix this you'll need to do three things:
Edit the IIS configuration to bind to a new port
Update HTTPD.SYS to permit your user to use that new binding.
Tell WCF you have multiple bindings.
Step One: IIS Express Setup
The IIS Express configuration is done directly through the XML configuration file, which is found at:
C:\Users\[username]\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config
If your project is already set up to work with IIS Express, you'll find a configuration block starting around 150 lines into the file -- look for the XML <sites> tag, and you'll find a <site> element:
<site name="MySolution.MyProject" id="2">
<application path="/" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">
<virtualDirectory path="/"
physicalPath="C:\Projects\MySolution\MyProject" />
</application>
<bindings>
<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:50000:localhost" />
</bindings>
</site>
Inside that <bindings> element is the list of ports and hostnames that IIS Express binds to when running that particular site, you just need to add a new binding element:
<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:50000:10.0.0.26" />
Step Two: HTTPD.SYS Permissions
Full disclosure: this step is optional if you are willing to run Visual Studio and IIS Express as an admin user. But that defeats the entire purpose of IIS Express, which is a user-mode web server, so don't do that.
Instead, you just need to use the netsh command to reconfigure HTTPD.SYS to allow you to bind to the ports you want. Specifically, you need to use the http add urlacl command.
Launch an administrative command prompt and/or PowerShell prompt and do this:
netsh http add urlacl url=http://10.0.0.26:5000 user=Everyone
Once both are done, shut down IIS Express so VS will restart it, and you should be all set.
I wrote myself a small Powershell script to go through and do this for a whole range of ports:
$LowPort = 50000
$RangeSize = 99
for ( $i = 0; $i -le $RangeSize; $i++ )
{
netsh http delete urlacl url="http://${IISHost}:$($LowPort + $i)/"
netsh http add urlacl url="http://${IISHost}:$($LowPort + $i)/" user=Everyone
}
That way I don't have to remember to do this every time, I just need to use a port in the 50000 - 50100 range.
Step Three: Inform WCF
By default, WCF only binds to one site per project. For real IIS this is fine, because that's the *:80 binding you probably want. For IIS Express, you need separate bindings per IP address so you need to tell WCF to use them all. This is easy, just add this to your WCF configuration:
<configuration>
<system.serviceModel>
<serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
</system.serviceModel>
</configuration>
Once all that's done, shut down IIS Express and let VS restart it and you should be all set.