We run a web application with many (50+) WCF service hosts (Written in C#, running on Win 2008R2/IIS 7.5) for integration with different external vendors. We would like to add another service to each of these hosts for administration. This service can be generic enough that we have a single service definition which we define in some library which we can reference from the integration projects. But is there a way of actually adding the endpoint only in configuration? That is, I would like to avoid adding a .svc file, and only add some rows in the web.config service-section.
I tried adding this to the web.config:
<service name="Contracts.AdminService">
<endpoint address="AdminService" contract="Contracts.IAdminService" binding="basicHttpBinding" />
</service>
This does not work however. If I add a simple .svc file like below it works
<%# ServiceHost Language="C#" Debug="true" Service="Contracts.AdminService" CodeBehind="Contracts.AdminService.cs" %>
However, I would really like to avoid this so that it is less likely that a mistake is made when setting up a new host (we already do a bunch of automatic stuff with the config file, so adding a new service would be trivial). Is this possible? Any drawbacks?
Found the answer myself after a while. The solution is WCF 4's file-less activation. This let me just add this to my web.config:
<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true"
multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true">
<serviceActivations>
<add relativeAddress="AdminService.svc" service="Contracts.AdminService"/>
</serviceActivations>
</serviceHostingEnvironment>
After this I can access the service by going to http://<hostname>/<path>/AdminService.svc.
WCF services are hosted in a ServiceHost.
ServiceHosts must be manually created when you are not hosting your WCFs in IIS/WAS, as both IIS/WAS interact with the ServiceHost on your behalf.
What you are basically doing inside the .svc file in IIS is instantianting a new ServiceHost.
Because ServiceHost can only host a single service type, if you plan on creating new types of services for adminsitration, you will need a service host for each of those new types.
So, the short answer to your questions is that you can't just add some information in your web.config for the new services you are going to create, you also need a mechanism to instantiate a ServiceHost.
Related
I have been given a WSDL file from a provider and I have added it as a Service Reference to my C# project in Visual Studio 2013.
I can see the relevant classes I need but when I call the functions on them nothing is transmitting from my program. I have configured Wireshark to listen but no data is coming from my program when I run it.
Where in Visual Studio can I see the IP address/URL that the web service is trying to connect to? At some point I assume it establishes a HTTP connection, where can I see this code to check the URL/IP address?
The WSDL file does not contain the address of the service endpoint. You probably created a Service Reference or a Web Reference, which has created a client class for you. If you instantiate this client (lets call it ExampleClient) with the default constructor:
var serviceCLient = new ExampleClient();
Then the URI will be the path of the WSDL file you imported. This mostly works fine if you import a generated WSDL file file the actual service URI, but in your case, you need to tell it where the service is running. You can either pass the service URI in the constructor:
var serviceCLient = new ExampleClient("http://example.com/service/endpoint");
Or edit your app.config or web.config (depending on project type). It will have something like this:
<system.serviceModel>
<client>
<endpoint address="C:\path\to\your.wsdl" etc etc etc... />
</client>
</system.serviceModel>
And you should change the address attribute there.
For old style web references, you can right click on the reference in Visual Studio (under your project in the Web References folder, and select "properties". The properties screen contains a "Web Reference Url" which you can edit to point to the actual service URI.
From an existing WebApplication I use to make calls to WCF services. Proxies for these services was created using Add Service Reference menu. Thus generating >> Web.config in this project.
I have added another class library project to the solution. This project also adds reference to the service. Thus generating >> App.Config file in this project.
I understand, in an N-Tier application, we should have common gateway to the service. Just out of curiosity I would like to know -
For WCF calls originated in WebApp, propagated to class library which config file (App/Web) would be referred
for locating client endpoint configurations ?
The web.config file will be used for locating the service.
The reason is because in this case, the app domain belongs to the web app, not the class library, and the default config file for this app domain is the web.config.
#musefan is correct. It is the web.config that is used.
If you want to, you can split some confuguration sections into seperate files and reference them from the main web.config. You might want to do this so you can maintain the WCF client and server config in a single place to ensure they are consistent.
foe example, if you want to seperate out the <client> section, you would do this:
<client configSource="client.xml" />
Where client.xml is a file containing the relevant client config information.
This blog post tells you how to do it in a bit more detail.
http://blog.andreloker.de/post/2008/06/keep-your-config-clean-with-external-config-files.aspx
I am in need of help with manipulating the web.config of a site programmatically via C#. The site in question hosts a Silverlight 5 application which communicates with the server runtime via WCF RIA services.
The code that I am writing is part of a bootloader for an automated build-deploy-test scenario aimed at testing the WCF Ria service stack. The issue at question is that in order to test the services properly the unit test code needs to be able to communicate with the Ria Services via a new soap endpoint.
To effectively make this work the site needs a copy of the Microsoft.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting dll in it's bin folder, and a new soap endpoint which would make the domain services config section look like the following:
<system.serviceModel>
<domainServices>
<endpoints>
<add name="OData" .../>
***<add name="Soap" type="Microsoft.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.SoapXmlEndpointFactory, Microsoft.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>***
</endpoints>
</domainServices>
</system.serviceModel>
While I do believe I could modify the web.config via the C# xml api, I was wondering if there is another way to do so via the ConfigurationManager?
I would do config manipulation as part of the build script.
I am currently using YDeliver as the build/deploy framework in my project and since it runs on top of Powershell, I manipulate XML using the xml api in posh.
my code includes a reference to a webservice, if I want it to run, I need the following section in my app.config:
<client>
<endpoint address="http://123.45.6.78:8080/ASPPO/StartASPPOCallBack"
binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="StartASPPOCallBackPortBinding"
contract="ASPPOCallBack.StartASPPOCallBack" name="StartASPPOCallBackPort" />
</client>
My problem is now, that my code gets called by a SSIS-package and this doesn't have any app.config. So I somehow need to include all the settings I need directy in the code, because I will get a System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException otherwise.
But I actually have no idea where to put it. Can you give me a hint?
If your code is invoked by SSIS (not via external app) you have to modyfy .config file of application which will execute your SSIS package: DTExec.exe, dtshost.exe, devenv.exe, DTExecUI.exe. Here you have more info of appropriate .config locactions: http://www.sqlis.com/post/Where-is-my-appconfig-for-SSIS.aspx
Alternatively you can configure your endpoint in code (not via .config file) similar to http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dbrowne/archive/2010/07/08/how-to-configure-an-ssis-package-to-access-a-web-service-using-wcf.aspx
When added a service reference in vs.net 2008, the url to the wcf service is hardcoded in the generated files.
How can I extract this out to my web.config so I can potentially change the url?
The service reference should automatically generate configuration data, including the endpoint, into your web.config. The URL will be inside the client configuration:
<endpoint address="http://localhost:8732/Service.svc/"
binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_IService"
contract="Service.IService" name="WSHttpBinding_IService" />
When creating a client instance, you also have the option to override the endpoint address in one of the overloaded constructors.
Nothing should be hard-coded in the generated files. Are you sure you're adding a "service reference" and not an old-style "web reference"?