I have a WCF service which programmatically creates its endpoints rather than using a config file - I'm looking into this as our field engineers are prone to break XML easily and we may use different types of binding in different scenarios.
This works well in self-hosted environments (console app, windows app) and as a Windows Service.
Can I do this with a service in IIS or do I have to provide a .SVC file for each endpoint ?
Also will the endpoint address from the client end have to include the .SVC extension ?
This is not a service intended to be used by third parties, only by our client components. We may expose parts of our API later but not initially.
If you're using .NET Framework 4.0 (and later), you can use the ASP.NET routing integration to define a service using a custom ServiceHostFactory implementation. A few things you'll need:
In web.config, set the attribute aspNetCompatibilityEnabled on the <system.serviceModel / serviceHostingEnvironment> element to true
Add a global.asax / global.asax.cs file, and in the Application_Start add a new ServiceRoute to the ASP.NET RouteTable.Routes collection. The service route requres you to define a new service host factory, where you can define your endpoints programmatically.
With that you'll be able to have endpoints without the ".svc" in their addresses. You can also use the service host factory without using routes, by creating a .svc file for each service (not endpoint), and using the Factory attribute in the <%# ServiceHost directive.
For more information about service host factories, check the post at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/carlosfigueira/archive/2011/06/14/wcf-extensibility-servicehostfactory.aspx.
Related
I've this WCF service hosted in a Sharepoint 2010 web application. The WCF has been created using the following factory:
Factory="Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Services.MultipleBaseAddressWebServiceHostFactory, Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerRuntime, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"
As you can see this is creating a REST-type service. Because we needed to consume it client-side via jQuery.
Now we also need to access it from a .NET project (WinForms). I've tried adding the Service Reference in VS but it doesn't find anything. I guess that's because it's not a SOAP service right?
So how can I consume it in C# .NET project without breaking the existing jQuery support?
Yes, Add Service Reference does not work for WCF REST services. You have a couple of options here:
Add another endpoint to your service, a SOAP-based one, so that you'll be able to use Add Service Reference on your client. I don't know exactly what the MultipleBaseAddressWebServiceHostFactory does, but you could look how it creates its endpoint(s) and recreate that in another factory - and then add the additional SOAP endpoint
Another alternative is to share the interface definition (the service contract plus any existing data contracts) between the service implementation and the .NET client. Having that interface you can use the WebChannelFactory<T> to create a proxy to the REST service (like you'd have one for a SOAP service).
Ok, so I have implemented my services, created a new WCF service website to host my services in IIS and used svcutil to export metadata to the .xsd and .wsdl files. From these files I generated the service proxy.cs and .config files and added them to the client.
One of my service operations returns a Generic List to the client though. I know how to change the CollectionType of the deserialized DataType by configuring the Service Reference when it has been added from visual studio (Add Service Reference), but how do I change (or set during the creation of the proxy with svcutil(?)) the CollectionType?
There is a switch /collectionType:<type> you can add to specify the type. See the MSDN docs for all the detail.
I'm using custom basic authentication module (http://www.custombasicauth.codeplex.com) for authenticating users in WCF service. I've used a custom membership provider and in the ValidateUser method I've making a db call and returning true if the authentication succeeds. I also created a binding that uses transport security for the WCF service. Everything works fine now the problem is the client want two endpoints to be created for the WCF service and the custom basic authentication should happen for one endpoint not for the other.
Is it really possible to achieve this by using the custom authentication module or I have to try some other ways?
This is not possible when hosting your service in IIS. IIS has authentication scoped per whole virtual directory and your endpoints are exposed on the same service = single resource in single virtual directory. You must either move to self hosting and host service in windows service (you will not need that module anymore) or you must deploy the service again to different virtual directory or web application and change security configuration in each deployment separately (= every endpoint will be in separate deployed service).
I am trying to figure out how to get an handle on the endpoints of the service host and modify their identity. I have endpoints defined in the config file but want to modify the endpoints programmatically depending on the environment (ex:QA, UAT, Prod)
Service is hosted on IIS6 and I am using a servicehostfactory to provide my extended servicehost class to IIS.
I am using opening event to get an handle on the endpoints that are already defined from the config file but can't figure out how to modify their identity. Is that even possible? Are endpoints are immutable after they are created?
If I can't modify the endpoints then is the "Opening" event of the servicehost is the correct event to add a service endpoint?
ServiceHosts are not immutable until they are Opened. You can modify the description of an endpoint after calling AddServiceEndpoint.
When you say Opening event, do you mean you've subclassed ServiceHost and are overriding OnOpening? If so, that's a fine place to add endpoints.
Alternatively, if you're using your own ServiceHostFactory, you can just add your endpoint(s) after calling base.CreateServiceHost.
I'm developing a .NET 2.0 client application that needs to connect to a WCF service. I add a web reference to a basicHttpBinding WCF service that we've developed and VS creates the proxy class and the config paraphenalia which is fine. The problem is that I only want to use a small fraction of the methods that the WCF service implements and not carry around the extra implementations that the client app doesn't need.
I was thinking of creating a different basicHttpBinding endpoint and put the methods there. Is there a way for only one endpoint of a WCF service to be referenced by a .NET 2.0 project?
Regards,
Frank
When you add a web reference to a service, you always get all the service methods. It's the service (implementation) that defines the scope of what ends up in the WSDL.
The only option to limit the scope of the method your client generates would be to create a second WCF service on the backend, which only implements those few methods that you want in your client - just having a second endpoint won't really help.