Question

My service can work with normal WCF calls, but to expose metadata (the wsdl file) I have to change configuration in such a way the normal WCF host fails.

I’ve spend countless hours on google trying to solve this, big problem there is that hosting a service inside a website is never discussed (yes this is different).

requirements:

• Runs in an existing web site
• Use sessions
• Operable with Java, and as much .net versions as possible.
• Expose metadata (wsdl will be enough)

edits:

• IIS cannot be used
• I’m using .NET 4 and WCF 4.

In this configuration the metadata can be reached (through the wsdl file) but when trying to host the normal wcf endpoints I get and InvalidOperationException:

Could not find a base address that matches scheme http for the endpoint with binding WSHttpBinding. Registered base address schemes are [].

So the base address is ignored.

But when I supply full addresses to the endpoints (simply copy the base address in front of the current address) the normal WCF calls work fine, but when trying to access metadata I get the following error:
No protocol binding matches the given address ‘http://localhost:8080/Functionality‘.

Protocol bindings are configured at the Site level in IIS or WAS configuration.

Here is the web.config serviceModel section, I made a small test web site just for testing this, but it would be to much to post all of it here, if you send me a pm though I will e-mail it to you.

 <system.serviceModel>
  <services>
   <service behaviorConfiguration="metadataSupport" name="MyStuff.TestWithMetadata">
    <endpoint address="Functionality" binding="wsHttpBinding" name="FunctionalityBinding"
     contract="MyStuff.ITestWithMetadata" />
    <host>
     <baseAddresses>
      <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8080/" />
     </baseAddresses>
    </host>
   </service>
  </services>
  <behaviors>
   <endpointBehaviors>
    <behavior name="metadataSupport">
     <webHttp />
    </behavior>
   </endpointBehaviors>
   <serviceBehaviors>
    <behavior name="metadataSupport">
     <!--Navigate with browser to httpGetUrl for the wsdl file-->
     <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" httpGetUrl="Metadata" />
     <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="false" />
    </behavior>
   </serviceBehaviors>
  </behaviors>
  <serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="false">
   <serviceActivations>
    <add relativeAddress="TestWithMetadata.svc" service="MyStuff.TestWithMetadata" />
   </serviceActivations>
  </serviceHostingEnvironment>
 </system.serviceModel>

If anyone has any ideas on how to solve this, please help out.

Answer 1

When you host your service in IIS (which I assume from your requirement “Runs in an existing web site”), then your base address in the config is moot – it will not be used at all.

When hosting in IIS, your service address is determined by:

• your server name
• possibly a port number
• the virtual directory (and possibly subdirectories thereof) where the *.svc file lives
• the *.svc file itself (including extension)

So it might be something like:

http://MyServer:7777/ExistingWebApp/TestWithMetadata.svc

or whatever it is that you have in your case.

You seem to be using .NET 4 and WCF 4 (never mentioned that…..) and in that case, you could skip the *.svc file altogether by adapting your config entry:

<serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="false">
    <serviceActivations>
        <add relativeAddress="MyService" service="MyStuff.TestWithMetadata" />
    </serviceActivations>
</serviceHostingEnvironment>

In this case, the value of relativeAddress= becomes the service address (within the virtual directory this web.config lives in) – so your service address would be something like:

http://MyServer:7777/ExistingWebApp/MyService

No need for a *.svc file at all in this situation.