what is the "behaviorConfiguration" attribute of service? - wcf

Question

what is the "behaviorConfiguration" attribute of service?
<services>
<service name="WcfServiceNetMSMQ.Service1" behaviorConfiguration="WcfServiceNetMSMQ.Service1Behavior">
<host>
<baseAddresses>
<add baseAddress = "http://localhost:8010/WcfServiceNetMSMQ/Service1/" />
</baseAddresses>
</host>
<endpoint address ="net.msmq://localhost/private/myqueue" binding="netMsmqBinding" contract="WcfServiceNetMSMQ.IService1">
<identity>
<dns value="localhost"/>
</identity>
</endpoint>
<endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
</service>
</services>

Answer 1

There are 3 important sections when you configure a WCF service.
1) Defining the Services:
<services>
<service behaviorConfiguration="SOAPRESTDemoBehavior" name="SOAPRESTDemo">
<endpoint address="rest" behaviorConfiguration="SOAPRESTDemoEndpointBehavior" binding="webHttpBinding" contract="ISOAPRESTDemo" />
<endpoint address="soap" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="ISOAPRESTDemo" />
</service>
</services>
NOTE the value of behaviorConfiguration is a reference to a section further on in the config see below...
2) Defining the 'Service Behaviours'
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="SOAPRESTDemoBehavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
3) Defining the 'Endpoint Behaviours'
<endpointBehaviors>
<behavior name="SOAPRESTDemoEndpointBehavior">
<webHttp/>
</behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
All 3 sections are the basics for what you need to set up a service (although this can be done programatically).
With regard to your question the behaviorConfiguration section relates to point 2 and 3 in my points above. Its where you lay out the sort of actions you want your service to have. for example above I have said that I want to allow MetaData to be published. This will essentially create a WSDL which describes the service.
The full config is here:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" />
</system.web>
<system.serviceModel>
<!--Set up the service-->
<services>
<service behaviorConfiguration="SOAPRESTDemoBehavior" name="SOAPRESTDemo">
<endpoint address="rest" behaviorConfiguration="SOAPRESTDemoEndpointBehavior" binding="webHttpBinding" contract="ISOAPRESTDemo" />
<endpoint address="soap" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="ISOAPRESTDemo" />
</service>
</services>
<!--Define the behaviours-->
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="SOAPRESTDemoBehavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
<endpointBehaviors>
<behavior name="SOAPRESTDemoEndpointBehavior">
<webHttp/>
</behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Answer 2

It is a reference to another configuration section:
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="WcfServiceNetMSMQ.Service1Behavior">
</behaviors>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
Where this section contains some global configuration for the whole service.

Answer 3

here's an example of it, it carries some properties of the connection of the service.
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior name="WcfServiceNetMSMQ.Service1Behavior">
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" />
</behavior>
Notice that the name in this service behavior corresponds to the one you specified earlier.
Hope that helps.

Answer 4

You will get this error with Behavior name is not setup correctly.
The HTML document does not contain Web service discovery information.
Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved: 'http://blabla.com/WebService/Processor.svc'.
Content Type application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8 was not supported by service 'http://blabla.com/WebService/Processor.svc'. The client and service bindings may be mismatched.
The remote server returned an error: (415) Cannot process the message because the content type 'application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8' was not the expected type 'text/xml; charset=utf-8'..
If the service is defined in the current solution, try building the solution and adding the service reference again.