Digital Signature on WCF SOAP message - wcf

Question

I've got a requirement to connect to a web service using a digital signature. I'm using .NET 4.0 and WCF (Service Reference), and X509 SSL certificate, but can't find any suitable instructions on how to properly accomplish the goal.
I've found hundreds and hundreds of posts and blogs, etc, on encrypting soap messages, signing data, and the lot, with numerous examples using everything from X509Certificate1, X509Certificate2, X509Certificate3, DSACryptoServiceProvider, RSACryptoServiceProvider, setting up config in the web.config, setting up the config in code, using basicHttpBinding, or wsHttpBinding, or using WSE, WSE2, WSE3, ad nauseum.
Basically, I've found all kinds of information that is completely useless to me, as I've not been able to find a single complete example of how to simply add a digital signature to a soap message.
It certainly sounds like it should be a simple process, by the reading of examples of what digital signatures are, but I can't find a single useful implementation.
Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Answer 1

I think it depends on the security setup in the WCF binding. If you're just looking for the structure of your SOAP message, create a client using .NET and turn message logging on for the service. That will record every message being sent back and forth. I had to do this once, and found that the data encoding WCF uses (TLSNego) is proprietary, so a non-WCF client won't work.

Answer 2

A bit of a late answer, but hopefully this might help someone who lands here...
Using WCF client to connect to a SOAP service that used WS-Security with digital signature on the messages means you have to use a custom client binding. Some of the details might vary depending on your service, for example, the service WSDL (or the service provider might tell you if you cannot get the WSDL) might define a different message security version, but I have made this work using a client configuration like this:
<bindings>
<customBinding>
<binding name="WSHttpBinding_IService">
<security defaultAlgorithmSuite="Default" authenticationMode="SecureConversation"
requireDerivedKeys="true" includeTimestamp="true" messageProtectionOrder="SignBeforeEncrypt"
messageSecurityVersion="WSSecurity11WSTrustFebruary2005WSSecureConversationFebruary2005WSSecurityPolicy11BasicSecurityProfile10"
requireSignatureConfirmation="false" canRenewSecurityContextToken="true">
<secureConversationBootstrap defaultAlgorithmSuite="Default"
authenticationMode="MutualSslNegotiated" requireDerivedKeys="true"
includeTimestamp="true" messageSecurityVersion="WSSecurity11WSTrustFebruary2005WSSecureConversationFebruary2005WSSecurityPolicy11BasicSecurityProfile10"
requireSignatureConfirmation="false">
<localClientSettings detectReplays="true" />
<localServiceSettings detectReplays="true" />
</secureConversationBootstrap>
<localClientSettings detectReplays="true" />
<localServiceSettings detectReplays="true" />
</security>
<textMessageEncoding />
<httpTransport />
</binding>
</customBinding>
</bindings>