WSHttp binding and ReliableSession / MaxRetryCount - wcf

Question

When using a WSHttpBinding in WCF with reliableSessions enabled, my service reference updates itself to:
<reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" enabled="true">
</reliableSession>
I cannot add the maxRetryCount attribute to the reliableSession as long as the binding is configured as a WSHttpBinding.
Now my question: what is the value of maxRetryCount when using a WSHttpBinding, and is there any way to change this in config; without the use of a CustomBinding?

Answer 1

You cannot set the maxRetryCount on a standard wsHttpBinding configuration. In order to set that value, you need to create a separate custom binding and then reference that from your service or client config:
<system.serviceModel>
<bindings>
<customBinding>
<binding name="wsCustomBinding">
<reliableSession maxRetryCount="15"/>
<textMessageEncoding/>
<httpTransport />
</binding>
</customBinding>
</bindings>
<services>
<service name="MyService">
<endpoint address="http://localhost:7878/MyServoce"
binding="customBinding"
bindingConfiguration="wsCustomBinding"
contract="IMyService" />
</service>
</services>
</system.serviceModel>
Defining a custom binding isn't hard - but you need to make sure you specify the elements that make up the binding in the right order - see the MSDN docs on custom bindings for a reference.
If you want to share the custom binding configuration between server and client, you could also put that <bindings> section into a separate bindings.config file, and then reference that external file from your web.config/app.config:
<system.serviceModel>
<bindings configSource="bindings.config">
Visual Studio will complain about this and show red squiggly underlines - but trust me - the technique works, I use it in production every day (the Visual Studio XML schema describing the config stuff isn't complete and accurate).
Marc