Develop Reference

role of service element in web.config file for a WCF

what's the exact role of service element in web.config file for a WCF? I have seen instances where WCF services work perfectly without service element.
Here's a sample config file, whose service I can call from code behind & script (same/different domain)
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0"/>
</system.web>
<system.serviceModel>
<serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true"/>
<!--Calling from different domain -->
<standardEndpoints>
<webScriptEndpoint>
<standardEndpoint name="" crossDomainScriptAccessEnabled="true">
</standardEndpoint>
</webScriptEndpoint>
</standardEndpoints>
<behaviors>
<endpointBehaviors>
<behavior name="EndPointBehavior">
<enableWebScript />
</behavior>
</endpointBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>
<system.webServer>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
<directoryBrowse enabled="true"/>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>

Beginning with WCF 4.0, the framework introduced the concepts of default endpoints, behaviors and bindings. This was to make WCF configuration easier. In the config file you posted, there are no defined endpoints or bindings, so the service will create a default endpoint at the location of the service file (i.e., if you have the service file at C:\inetpub\wwwroot\MyService\MyService.svc and the IIS Application is named MyService, it would be http://<servername>\MyService\MyService.svc).
The out of the box default binding is basicHttpBinding for http. So this gives you a default endpoint with basicHttpBinding. You can still explicitly define endpoints and bindings, and you can define a binding and set it to be the default for all services in that config that use that binding (by omitting the name attribute), and you can also change the binding used for a given transport in <protocolMapping> section in the <system.serviceModel> section. For example, if you wanted to use wsHttpBinding for all http requests by default, you could do this:
<protocolMapping>
<add binding="wsHttpBinding" scheme="http"/>
</protocolMapping>
There's a very good article that covers this here - A Developer's Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation 4.

The Service attribute value in the ServiceHost directive cannot be found

Okay, I've spent the day looking at this error and all of the posts re, but I still can't seem to find where I've gone wrong. I can communicate with the web service find from an external web service client but I cannot browse the .svc file from within VS or from IIS. I'm publishing to a mapped drive on IIS 6 server, .NET 4.0.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Web.config
<services>
<service name="BiteSizeLearningWS.TranscriptService">
<endpoint address=""
binding="wsHttpBinding"
contract="BiteSizeLearningWS.iServiceInterface" />
</service>
</services>
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true">
</serviceHostingEnvironment>
<standardEndpoints>
<webHttpEndpoint>
<standardEndpoint name="" helpEnabled="true" automaticFormatSelectionEnabled="false" defaultOutgoingResponseFormat="Json" faultExceptionEnabled="false"></standardEndpoint>
</webHttpEndpoint>
</standardEndpoints>
</system.serviceModel>
<system.webServer>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
</system.webServer>
Service.svc
<%# ServiceHost Service="BiteSizeLearningWS.TranscriptService" %>
IserviceInterface.cs
namespace BiteSizeLearningWS
{
[ServiceContract]
public interface iServiceInterface
...

Solved. My mistake was that the classname that implemented the service interface did not match my service name in my svc file. I didn't realize that they had to match.
I.e.
My service name was:
<%# ServiceHost Service="BiteSizeLearningWS.TranscriptService" %>
But my implementation was:
public class TranscriptServiceLibrary : iServiceInterface
Rather than
public class TranscriptService : iServiceInterface
Sorry, everyone. I obviously didn't include the one file that everyone needed to determine the problem. Thank you for all of your input.

WCF Service no Endpoint

When I run WCF Test Client I get an error :
Error: Cannot obtain Metadata from
localhost:52875/ControllersInfo.svc If this is a Windows (R)
Communication Foundation service to which you have access, please
check that you have enabled metadata publishing at the specified
address.
Metadata
contains a reference that cannot be resolved:
localhost:52875/ControllersInfo.svc'. There was no
endpoint listening at localhost:52875/ControllersInfo.svc that
could accept the message. This is often caused by an incorrect
address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if present, for more
details.
Here is my web.config file
<configuration>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0">
<assemblies>
<add assembly="System.Data.Entity, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" />
</assemblies>
</compilation>
</system.web>
<system.serviceModel>
<standardEndpoints>
<webHttpEndpoint>
<standardEndpoint helpEnabled="true" automaticFormatSelectionEnabled="true" />
</webHttpEndpoint>
</standardEndpoints>
<services>
<service name="dev_FineReceiptsService.ControllersInfo">
<endpoint kind="webHttpEndpoint" contract="dev_FineReceiptsService.IControllersInfo" />
</service>
</services>
</system.serviceModel>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="FineReceiptsTestEntities" connectionString="metadata=res://*/FineTest.csdl|res://*/FineTest.ssdl|res://*/FineTest.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string="Data Source=msdev01;Initial Catalog=FineReceiptsTest;Integrated Security=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True"" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
</connectionStrings>
</configuration>
Can anyone tell me what I have done wrong ?
I tried to find similar question but none of them helped me.

Your service is REST-based service (since you specified the webHttpBinding).
However, the WCF Test Client is a SOAP-based testing tool - you can test SOAP service with this - basicHttpBinding, wsHttpBinding etc.
But you cannot use the SOAP-based WCF Test Client to test your REST-based WCF service... that won't work. Use a regular web browser, potentially combined with Fiddler or something like that to test your REST services .

Metadata endpoints expose WSDL + XSDs which describes SOAP services. There is no support for exposing metadata for REST. Since your are using webHttpEndpoint, you can not use WCFTestClient. For testing a Rest Service, RestSharp or Browser can be used.
If you need to add metadata to SOAP service with simplfied configuration you need to add this behavior:
<configuration>
<system.serviceModel>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior>
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" />
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Error in Window application when it will call WCF

I have developed window application and in that i am calling WCF at particular time interval however there is no error in inserting data into database through WCF but in log entry i am getting one error regarding WCF Endpoint as per below
2011-22-09 10:16>>Error: There was no endpoint listening at
myserviceUrl(.svc) that could accept the message. This is often
caused by an incorrect address or SOAP action. See InnerException, if
present, for more details.
app.config file as per below and i guess that probably error should be in below configuration
<client>
<endpoint address="myserviceUrl(.svc)"
binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding_IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF"
contract="Dashboard2WCFData.IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF"
name="BasicHttpBinding_IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF" />
</client>
Below is my (WCF)service's configuration..
<configuration>
<configSections>
<section name="dataConfiguration" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Data.Configuration.DatabaseSettings, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Data, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"/>
</configSections>
<dataConfiguration defaultDatabase="Connectionstr"/>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="Connectionstr" connectionString="myconnectionstring"/>
</connectionStrings>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" />
</system.web>
<system.serviceModel>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
</system.serviceModel>
<system.webServer>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
Please help me to sort out of this issues.
Thanks.

You need to make sure that the endpoint is configured at the service side, not just your client. In other words, if the client uses myserviceUrl(.svc), the address needs to be specified in the service's config file.
Based on the error message you got, try this in the service's config file:
<endpoint address="myserviceUrl(.svc)"
binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding_IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF"
contract="Dashboard2WCFData.IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF"
name="BasicHttpBinding_IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF" />
Note that you'll need to ensure your service has the appropriate binding section named "BasicHttpBinding_IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF".
If you need a more thorough example, post your service's config file and we'll help you out.
UPDATE
Add an endpoint section, and a binding section if you have any values set to other than the default values:
<system.serviceModel>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
<serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
<services>
<service name="myServiceName">
<endpoint address="myserviceUrl(.svc)"
binding="basicHttpBinding"
bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding_IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF"
contract="Dashboard2WCFData.IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF"
name="BasicHttpBinding_IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF"/>
<endpoint name="mexHttpBinding"
contract="IMetadataExchange"
binding="mexHttpBinding"
address="mex" />
</service>
</services>
<bindings>
<basicHttpBinding>
<binding name="BasicHttpBinding_IApicaAzureMonitorAgentReceiverWCF" />
</basicHttpBinding>
</bindings>
In the <binding name="" section is where you'd set the values for the binding. If you don't do this (and don't specify the section in the endpoint's bindingConfiguration attribute) WCF will use the default values for basicHttpBinding.
NOTE: With WCF 4.0 and later, you actually don't need to specify an endpoint (or create a .svc file if hosting under IIS), as WCF will supply a default endpoint based on the URI of the service. See A Developer's Introduction to Windows Communication Foundation 4 for details on this and other new features in 4.0.

You need to specify in address attribute the whole virtual path
for example http://localhost/yousite/myservice.svc

WCF .svc worked but not the config file

I am trying to use the configuration file to define endpoint and services information. I have a very simple code that contain OneWay service and a Duplex service. The OneWay worked when I haven't try to alter the configuration file.
Now, I want to use the configuration file to define both service.
Service1 contract name is IOneWayService and the Service2 contract name is ICallBackService.
Both have implemented code in their concrete respective classes name OneWayService.svc.cs and CallBackService.svc.cs.
The configuration file at this moment look like that :
<configuration>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" />
</system.web>
<system.serviceModel>
<serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true">
<serviceActivations>
<add relativeAddress="OneWayService.svc" service="TestingWcf.OneWayService"/>
<add relativeAddress="CallBackService.svc" service="TestingWcf.CallBackService"/>
</serviceActivations>
</serviceHostingEnvironment>
<services>
<service name="TestingWcf.OneWayService">
<endpoint address="http://localhost:60847/One"
binding="wsHttpBinding"
contract="IOneWayService" />
</service>
<service name="TestingWcf.CallBackService">
<endpoint address="http://localhost:60847/Two"
binding="wsHttpBinding"
contract="IDuplexService" />
</service>
</services>
<behaviors>
<serviceBehaviors>
<behavior>
<serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
<serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>
</behavior>
</serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>
<system.webServer>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
I always have this error when trying to execute the OneWayService via this url : http://localhost:60847/OneWayService.svc
The contract name 'IOneWayService'
could not be found in the list of
contracts implemented by the service
'OneWayService'.
Anybody have an idea why?
Edit
I have removed the multipleSiteBindingsEnabled= true from the servinceHostingEnvironment tag and in the contract added the namespace and I could runt the OneWayService.
Also, the Duplex cannot be bound to the wsHttpBinding. I had to change it to NetTcpBinding. But, I had an other error with the Duplex :
Configuration binding extension
'system.serviceModel/bindings/NetTcpBinding'
could not be found. Verify that this
binding extension is properly
registered in
system.serviceModel/extensions/bindingExtensions
and that it is spelled correctly.
From this point, I am lost again.
Edit 2
I did an error in the binding name. I had a capital letter for NetTcpBinding and it does require a lowercase: netTcpBinding. However, it's still not working, now I have:
The protocol 'net.tcp' is not
supported. >.< !!!

OK, that explains it - Visual Studio by default uses the built-in Cassini web server (unless you've already switched to using IIS Express) - and that server doesn't support anything but plain http.
Cassini doesn't support net.tcp and anything like that.
You will need to start using a separate IIS virtual directory and first enable all the necessary support stuff (in the Add/remove Windows Features dialog)