R – Is basicHttpBinding really required when exposing a WCF service as a Web Service for .NET 2.0 Target Client

bindingnetwcfweb services

I have a WCF service and am hosting it in a Windows Service.

I tried to add a reference for the service from a Windows Form client built on .NET 2.0. I could get the Web Reference by pointing to the httpGetUrl="http://localhost:8002/HBAccess/help/mex" but when I check the Reference.cs—It only contains a namespace with nothing in it.

Now I add the basicHttpBinding and repeat the same steps:

And now I can see the classes for the web service.

My senior colleague insist that setting the httpGetEnabled to true would be sufficient to export the WCF service via http and make a proper web reference.

Could anyone point me to what I am missing here?

<system.serviceModel>
<services>
  <service behaviorConfiguration="HBAcsNX.HBAccessBehavior" name="HBAcsNX.HBAccess">
        <!--<endpoint address="" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="HBAcsNX.HBAccess" />-->
        <endpoint address="HBAccess" binding="netTcpBinding" contract="HBAcsNX.HBAccess" />
        <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
                <add baseAddress="net.tcp://localhost:18264/HBAccess/" />
                <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8002/HBAccess/" />
          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
  </service>
</services>
<behaviors>
  <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="HBAcsNX.HBAccessBehavior">
          <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="True" httpHelpPageUrl="http://localhost:8002/HBAccess/help" />
          <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" httpGetUrl="http://localhost:8002/HBAccess/help/mex" />
        </behavior>
  </serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>
</system.serviceModel>

// Resulting Reference.cs (Empty proxy stub with only namespace)

#pragma warning disable 1591
namespace Form.ServiceClient {
}
#pragma warning restore 1591

Best Answer

the problem is mexHttpBinding isn't actually exposing your service, its only exposing a defenition of your service, and since .net 2.0 doesn't understand nettcp you get an empty namespace, you need basicHttpBinding becuase that is your actually service endpoint.

if you look at the contracts you see that the contract for mexHttpBinding isn't even "HBAcsNX.HBAccess" but rather "IMetadataExchange".

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