WCF: relativeAddress,baseAddress and binding - wcf

Question

I am new in WCF and start my experience with a simple file-less application part of which (web.config) you can see below:
<serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true">
<serviceActivations>
<add
factory="System.ServiceModel.Activation.ServiceHostFactory"
relativeAddress="./RelativeAddress.svc"
service="WCF_Transactions.MyService1"/>
</serviceActivations>
</serviceHostingEnvironment>
Now I can access service at
http://localhost:18148/RelativeAddress.svc
Then I add next lines:
<services>
<service name="WCF_Transactions.MyService1" behaviorConfiguration="MyBehavior1">
<host>
<baseAddresses>
<add baseAddress="http://localhost:18148/" />
</baseAddresses>
</host>
<endpoint address="/RelativeAddressX.svc" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="WCF_Transactions.IService1"></endpoint>
</service>
</services>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="MyBehavior1">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
So I expect that my service could be accessible through next address:
http://localhost:18148/RelativeAddressX.svc
but I can't do this. What have I misunderstood?

Answer 1

MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733749.aspx:
*
There are two ways to specify endpoint addresses for a service in WCF.
You can specify an absolute address for each endpoint associated with
the service or you can provide a base address for the ServiceHost of a
service and then specify an address for each endpoint associated with
this service that is defined relative to this base address. You can
use each of these procedures to specify the endpoint addresses for a
service in either configuration or code. If you do not specify a
relative address, the service uses the base address.
*
So according to your example you have base adress
http://localhost:18148/
and it will be combined with RelativeAddress.svc, as a name of your svc file. And then it will try to combine this string with /RelativeAddressX.svc as a part of endpoint adress. So you will have something like
http://localhost:18148/RelativeAddress.svc/RelativeAddressX.svc.
Your endpoint must not specify the path to svc in IIS. It should containg only a logical adress, assosiated with this point.
So try to change your endpoint to the following:
<endpoint address="RelativeAddressX" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="WCF_Transactions.IService1"></endpoint>
And it should be accessible by the path
http://localhost:18148/RelativeAddress.svc/RelativeAddressX

Answer 2

You don't need to specify in the config file when hosting in IIS or Cassini - the base URL is provided by the web server. The element is used when self-hosting. Cassini (VS build in web-server) will ignore it.
Here is a good page about WCF addressing:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163412.aspx
Here are some related posts:
WCF Service Endpoints vs Host Base address
WCF, changing the baseAdress of an endpoint