Posts tagged .NET

If you have spent anytime in WCF land the first thing you learn about is the joys of configuration.  For the coming release of .NET 4 and WCF 4 the team heard that feedback and has made configuration much easier for the development experience.

Let’s take a look at what’s changed:

Sample 1 – WCF Configuration on .NET 3.5 SP1

  <system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service name="WcfServiceConfig35.Service1" behaviorConfiguration="WcfServiceConfig35.Service1Behavior">
        <!-- Service Endpoints -->
        <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="WcfServiceConfig35.IService1">
          <!--
              Upon deployment, the following identity element should be removed or replaced to reflect the
              identity under which the deployed service runs.  If removed, WCF will infer an appropriate identity
              automatically.
          -->
          <identity>
            <dns value="localhost"/>
          </identity>
        </endpoint>
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
      </service>
    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="WcfServiceConfig35.Service1Behavior">
          <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
          <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set the value below to true.  Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing exception information -->
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>

By the way, I left out about 100 lines of other configuration “stuff” that had to do with System.Web, etc.

Sample 2 – WCF Configuration for the same service as Sample 1, in .NET 4

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" />
  </system.web>
 <system.webServer>
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Notice there is no (none, nada, zero) system.serviceModel element.  That said, if you start your service this way you have one teeny issue:

By default WCF disables metadata publishing (security through obscurity) so no one could query your service WSDL to build a client.  In order to do that, you simply need the default code that WCF 4 puts in your config.

Sample 3 – WCF Configuration to enable metadata publishing, in .NET 4

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0" />
  </system.web>
  <system.serviceModel>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior>
          <!-- To avoid disclosing metadata information, set the value below to false and remove the metadata endpoint above before deployment -->
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
          <!-- To receive exception details in faults for debugging purposes, set the value below to true.  Set to false before deployment to avoid disclosing exception information -->
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false"/>
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
    <serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" />
  </system.serviceModel>
 <system.webServer>
    <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"/>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

I will certainly be looking forward to the easing of the configuration pains in WCF 4!