I have a WCF Service (with installer) that I have built and installed in Windows Services. Opened up Admin Tools, Services, and started the service without a problem.
So now I'm beginning a new project (a simple Windows forms app). I want to consume my new WCF, but have no idea how. I can't seem to add a reference / add a service reference to it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jason
When the Windows service hosting your WCF service is up and running and properly configured, you should be able to use either Visual Studio's Add Service Reference or the command-line svcutil tool to connect to that service.
Just type in the address where the service lives.
This requires that your service has metadata exchange enabled (as a service behavior) as well as provides at least one MEX (Metadata Exchange) endpoint in its config. Do you have those available??
Service behavior:
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="mex">
<serviceMetadata />
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
and then your service must reference this configuration.
Service config:
<services>
<service name="YourService"
behaviorConfiguration="mex"> <!-- reference the service behavior with the serviceMetadata element ->
<endpoint .... (your regular endpoint here) />
<endpoint name="mex"
address="mex"
binding="mexHttpBinding"
contract="IMetadataExchange" />
</service>
</services>
Related
Background
I have created ASMX web services in the past and have been able to access the service from the web browser and Ajax GET requests using the address convention: MyService.asmx/MyMethod?Param=xxx
I just got started using WCF and created a new web service in my ASP.NET project. It creates a file with the .svc extension such as MyService.svc.
Current Situation
I am able to consume the service using the WcfTestClient that comes with VS2008. I am also able to create my own WCF Client by either adding a service reference in another project or using the svcutil.exe commandline to generate the proxy and config file.
The Problem
When I try to use the service from a browser using MyService.svc/MyMethod?MyParam=xxx, I get a blank page without any errors.
What I have tried
I have already added a basicHttpBinding to the web.config and made it HttpGetEnabled in the behavior configuration. I also added the [WebGet(UriTemplate = "MyMethod?MyParam={MyParam}")] attribute to my operation contract.
I have already followed the information in this other stack overflow question:
REST / SOAP EndPoints for a WCF Service
However, I either get a blank page or an HTTP 404 Error after following those steps. There's nothing special about the code. I am just taking in a string as a parameter and returning "Hello xxx". This is a basic "Hello WCF World" proof-of-concept type thing.
UPDATE - Here's the relevant code
[ServiceContract]
public interface IMyService
{
[WebGet(UriTemplate = "MyMethod/MyParam={MyParam}")]
[OperationContract]
string MyMethod(string MyParam);
}
Web.Config - system.serviceModel Section
<system.serviceModel>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="MyServiceBehavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<services>
<service behaviorConfiguration="MyServiceBehavior" name="MyService">
<endpoint address=""
binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="IMyService" />
<endpoint address="MyService.svc"
binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="IMyService" />
<endpoint address="mex"
binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
</service>
</services>
</system.serviceModel>
Looking at your web.config serviceModel section, I can see that you need to add a webHttpBinding and associate an endPointBehavior that includes webHttpGet.
Your operation contract is correct. Here's how your system.serviceModel config section should look in order for you to be able to consume the service from a GET HTTP request.
<system.serviceModel>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="MyServiceBehavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
<endpointBehaviors>
<behavior name="WebBehavior">
<webHttp />
</behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<services>
<service behaviorConfiguration="MyServiceBehavior" name="MyService">
<endpoint address="ws" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="IMyService"/>
<endpoint address="" behaviorConfiguration="WebBehavior"
binding="webHttpBinding"
contract="IMyService">
</endpoint>
<endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
</service>
</services>
</system.serviceModel>
Be sure to assign a different address to your wsHttpBinding endpoint, otherwise you will get an error saying that you have two endpoints listening on the same URI.
Another option is to leave the address blank in the wsHttpBinding, but assign a different address to the webHttpBinding service. However, that will change your GET address as well.
For example, if you assign the address as "asmx", you would call your service with the address "MyService.svc/asmx/MyMethod?MyParam=xxxx".
The normal WCF requests are always SOAP requests - you won't be able to get this going with just your browser, you'll need the WCF Testclient for that.
There is an add-on for WCF called the WCF REST Starter Kit (which will also be included in WCF 4.0 with .NET 4.0), which allows you to use GET/POST/PUT/DELETE HTTP commands to query WCF services and such. You need to write your services specifically for REST, though - you can't have SOAP and REST on the same service call.
Marc
As marc_s says, the REST Starter Kit can help, but you should also be aware that .NET 3.5 has support for REST services directly in it. It's not quite as complete as what you can do with the starter kit, but it is useful.
The way it works is that you put a [WebGet] attribute on your operations to indicate where in the URL the various parameters should come from:
[WebGet(UriTemplate = "helloworld/{name}")]
string Helloworld(string name);
See this portal for tons of information.
Note, you can have the same service exposed as both SOAP and REST if you specify multiple endpoints/bindings in the configuration.
I have the very simplest Console based host for a simple WCF service. The app config for the service is:
<system.serviceModel>
<services>
<service name="MagicEightBallServiceLib.MagicEightBallService"
behaviorConfiguration="EightBallServiceMEXBehavior">
<endpoint address=""
binding = "basicHttpBinding"
contract = "MagicEightBallServiceLib.IEightBall" />
<!-- Enable the MEX endpoint-->
<endpoint address="mex"
binding ="mexHttpBinding"
contract ="IMetadataExchange" />
<!--Need to add this so MEX knows the address of our service -->
<host>
<baseAddresses>
<add baseAddress="http://localhost:8080/MagicEightBallService"/>
</baseAddresses>
</host>
</service>
</services>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="EightBallServiceMEXBehavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>
The host program shows its running perfectly:
** Console Based WCF Host *
***** Host Info ******
Address: http://localhost:8080/MagicEightBallService
Binding: BasicHttpBinding
Contract: IEightBall
Address: http://localhost:8080/MagicEightBallService/mex
Binding: MetadataExchangeHttpBinding
Contract: IMetadataExchange
**************************************************
The service is ready
When I attempt to browse to or generate a proxy I get:
HTTP Error 404.0 - Not Found
I can't figure out what's wrong. You can't get any simpler than this!
I have faced the same problem when reading Troelsen's book and could not find any answer online. Anyway it seems that the problem is in the project type for MagicEightBallLib. Troelsen suggests that you create a Visual C# -> Windows -> Class Library project, but he does not explain what modifications you need to make for it to work. If you instead use the Visual C# -> WCF -> WCF Service Library project, it will automatically start the WcfTestClient.exe, and add new tab in project's Preferences called "WCF Options". I tried to compare the differences between .csproj files for both types of projects but there is just too many.
So the solution is to just start with the WCF Service Library project type instead of Class Library, and adjust names of interfaces and classes so they fit what is in the book.
If anyone knows which particular parts of the .csproj file are responsible for enabling this, I'd very much like to hear about it.
Hope this helps.
Instead of using localhost:8080 use 127.0.0.1:8080. That's how I got the example to work on my windows 10 machine.
I'm a newbie to WCF. So here's the thing : I have two systems, one running the wcf service and the other running the client.
I'm able to ping the IP of the service, and also able to see the link when I put it into my browser. (It shows me the service is up and running).
Howver, when I try to run wcftestclient from cmd, it gives me this error :
Error: Cannot obtain Metadata from http://172.16.70.125:8080/Service If this is a Windows (R) Communication Foundation service to which you have access, ...
I've been trying this all day, and its says the same thing.
Could someone please let me know what's wrong and how to fix this?
Thanks,
Thothathri
The WcfTestClient utility depends on the WSDL being available for the service. The WSDL is provided by the Metadata Exchange (or 'mex') endpoint. You are probably missing that endpoint. Look for something like this in your config, or add it if it is missing:
<service ... >
<endpoint ...(your usual endpoint for the service)... />
<endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
</service>
Has your service exposed a metadata endpoint? Only relevent portions of config included
<services>
<service behaviorConfiguration="metadataBehavior" name="MyService">
<endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
</service>
</services>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="metadataBehavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
Do you have metadata exchange enabled on your service? Your service should provide a mex endpoint for metadata in order for WcfTestClient to work AFAIK.
MSDN: How to: Publish Metadata for a Service Using a Configuration File
I know that similar question was asked here :
Running SOAP and RESTful on the same URL
Hosting WCF soap and rest endpoints side by side
but didn't find an answer to my problem.
I have two custom servicehostfactories that enables Dependency Injection :
public class StructureMapSoapServiceHostFactory : ServiceHostFactory
public class StructureMapRestServiceHostFactory : WebServiceHost2Factory
The implementation details are not important here.
Then I definied two endpoints in web.config
<system.serviceModel>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="mexGet">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" />
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
<endpointBehaviors>
<behavior name="jsonBehavior">
<webHttp/>
</behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<bindings>
<mexHttpBinding>
<binding name="mexHttpBinding" />
</mexHttpBinding>
</bindings>
<services>
<service behaviorConfiguration="mexGet" name="ServiceImplementation.ServiceCategory">
<endpoint address="rest"
binding="webHttpBinding"
contract="Contracts.ServiceContracts.Mobile.IServiceCategory"
behaviorConfiguration ="jsonBehavior"/>
<endpoint address="soap"
binding="basicHttpBinding"
contract="Contracts.ServiceContracts.Mobile.IServiceCategory" />
<endpoint name="mexHttpBinding"
address="mex"
binding="mexHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="mexHttpBinding"
contract="IMetadataExchange" />
</service>
</services>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" />
</system.serviceModel>
Then I created two .svc files for each custom host factories :
ServiceCategoryRest.svc
ServiceCategorySoap.svc
I don't like it. What I would like to do is to have URL in that style :
REST : http://server:port/rest/categories/{id} which mapps to the implementation of my ServiceCategory.GetCategory(int id)
SOAP : http://server:port/soap/GetCategory?id=someId
My questions are. Do i need different svc files to activate host services ? If I need there two .svc files, how can I achieve the URI above ? I'm afraid that I should configure IIS rewriting or something but would like to avoid that.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Thomas
You can achieve what you're looking for with service routes - part of ASP.NET routing, available from ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 on up.
Check out these resources:
RESTful WCF Services with No svc file and no config
Drop the Soap: WCF, REST, and Pretty URIs in .NET 4
making a WCF REST stand-alone service exe from scratch – part 1 of 4, creating the minimal bare service
Using Routes to Compose WCF WebHttp Services
In .NET 3.5 SP1, you need to add some extra infrastructure to your web.config (web routing module etc.) - while in .NET 4, this is all already built in.
After few searches I found out that in fact I don't need two different .svc files and two different ServiceHostFactories.
I kept only the StructureMapRestServiceHostFactory : WebServiceHost2Factory and ServiceCategoryRest.svc which handles well requests in REST mode and call in RPC-SOAP mode.
So if you want to run side by side the REST and the SOAP you can do it only with WebServiceHost2Factory.
If then you want to get rid of the .svc part from the URL, please read the Rick Strahl post west-wind.com/weblog/posts/570695.aspx.
I have developed an ASP.NET application that includes a WCF service. This service needs to be consumed by third party applications. This service has worked fine while testing in my development environment. My development environment is using IIS 7.0 on Window 7 RC 1. However, I cannot use the service once it is in my staging / production environment. My staging / production environment is a Windows Server 2003, IIS 6 environment.
When I attempt to reference the service when it is in the IIS 6 environment, I receive an error that says:
Error: Cannot obtain Metadata
...
Interesting, I noticed a subtle, but I believe important, difference in my testing an staging/production environments.
In my test environment, I noticed that I can access the Service page via a url with the following template:
http://localhost/MyApp/services/myService.svc
I also noticed that in my test environment, I can see the WSDL information if I visit a url with the following template:
http://localhost/MyApp/services/myService.svc?wsdl
However, in my staging / production environment, I cannot see the WSDL information. Oddly enough, I can see the Service page though.
Here are the configuration settings related to my services in my production environment.
<system.serviceModel>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="myServiceBehavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" />
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true"/>
<services>
<service behaviorConfiguration="myServiceBehavior" name="myService">
<endpoint address="" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="myService" />
<endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding"
contract="IMetadataExchange" />
</service>
</services>
</system.serviceModel>
Why would I be able to see the Service page but not the WSDL page in the Windows Server 2003 IIS 6.0 environment?
Thank you!
Have you enabled metadata exchange?
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled = "true"/>
Have you defined the metadata exchange endpoint
<endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration=""
name="mexendpoint" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
To add to Shiraz's answer, the following MSDN article covers publishing service metadata in reasonable detail:
Publishing Metadata Endpoints (MSDN Library)