Deploying WCF Service with both http and https bindings/endpoints

Question

I've written a WCF web service for consumption by a Silverlight app. Initially, the service only required a basic http binding. We now need to be able to deploy the service for use under both http and https. I've found some settings for web.config that allow me to do this as follows:

<system.serviceModel>
  <behaviors>
    <endpointBehaviors>
      <behavior name="SilverlightFaultBehavior">
        <silverlightFaults />
      </behavior>
    </endpointBehaviors>
    <serviceBehaviors>
      <behavior name="CxtMappingWebService.CxtMappingWebServiceBehavior">
        <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true" httpsGetEnabled="true" />
        <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="True" />
      </behavior>
    </serviceBehaviors>
  </behaviors>
  <bindings>
    <basicHttpBinding>
      <binding name="SecureHttpBinding">
        <security mode="Transport" />
      </binding>
      <binding name="BasicHttpBinding">
        <security mode="None" />
      </binding>
    </basicHttpBinding>
  </bindings>
  <services>
    <service name="CxtMappingWebService.CxtMappingWebService" behaviorConfiguration="CxtMappingWebService.CxtMappingWebServiceBehavior">
      <endpoint address="" bindingConfiguration="SecureHttpBinding" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="CxtMappingWebService.ICxtMappingWebService" behaviorConfiguration="SilverlightFaultBehavior" />
      <endpoint address="" bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="CxtMappingWebService.ICxtMappingWebService" behaviorConfiguration="SilverlightFaultBehavior" />
      <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
    </service>
  </services>
</system.serviceModel>

Unfortunately, however, there's a problem with this.

This web service needs to be deployed to hundreds of our customers' servers, and not all of them will be using https. Deploying it to a server that doesn't have an https binding set up in IIS causes it to fail. Is there a way to have both of these bindings in the web.config by default without it dying if there's not an https binding set up in IIS?

We've got a possible solution for this problem, but it doesn't really fit well with our deployment requirements.

Has anybody else encountered anything like this before, and how did you resolve it?

Solution 1

The accepted answer on this page is not of much use if you don't use an installer. The correct answer lies in a later edit by the OP himself, all one needs to do is bind both http and https ports in IIS and then use the configuration below.

            <service name="CxtMappingWebService.CxtMappingWebService" behaviorConfiguration="CxtMappingWebService.CxtMappingWebServiceBehavior">
              <endpoint address="" bindingConfiguration="SecureHttpBinding" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="CxtMappingWebService.ICxtMappingWebService" behaviorConfiguration="SilverlightFaultBehavior" />
              <endpoint address="" bindingConfiguration="BasicHttpBinding" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="CxtMappingWebService.ICxtMappingWebService" behaviorConfiguration="SilverlightFaultBehavior" />
              <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" />
            </service>

That worked just fine for me!

Solution 2

In the end, we decided to go with external files using the configSource attribute for the bindings, behaviors, and services sections of the web.config, like so:

<bindings configSource="bindings.config" />
<behaviors configSource="behaviors.config" />
<services configSource="services.config" />

This way, we deploy it by default with those external files set up for http access only, and give the customer instructions (or assist them) on how to edit the external files to set up for https access. This also allows us to deploy future changes to the web.config itself without overwriting the external config files.

Solution 3

This would be handled by the installer you use to deploy the service. It should be a prerequisite (or at least leave an option in the installer) to deploy the both endpoints or only the http one.

Solution 4

Two of your endpoints have the same URI. This is not permitted in WCF. You should be able to specify endpoints with different bindings, but the URI's must be different (i.e. different port number or different contract).

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