Configuring the Windows Process Activation Service for Use with Windows Communication Foundation
This topic describes the steps required to set up Windows Process Activation Service (also known as WAS) in Windows Vista to host Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) services that do not communicate over HTTP network protocols. The following sections outline the steps for this configuration:
Install (or confirm the installation of) the WCF activation components required.
Create a WAS site with the network protocol bindings you wish to use, or add a new protocol binding to an existing site.
Create an application to host your services and enable that application to use the required network protocols.
Build a WCF service that exposes a non-HTTP endpoint.
Configuring a Site with Non-HTTP bindings
To use a non-HTTP binding with WAS, the site binding must be added to the WAS configuration. The configuration store for WAS is the applicationHost.config file, located in the %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config directory. This configuration store is shared by both WAS and IIS 7.0.
applicationHost.config is an XML text file that can be opened with any standard text editor (such as Notepad). However, the IIS 7.0 command-line configuration tool (appcmd.exe) is the preferred way to add non-HTTP site bindings.
The following command adds a net.tcp site binding to the default Web site using appcmd.exe (this command is entered as a single line).
appcmd.exe set site "Default Web Site" -+bindings.[protocol='net.tcp',bindingInformation='808:*']
This command adds the new net.tcp binding to the default Web site by adding the line indicated below to the applicationHost.config file.
<sites>
<site name="Default Web Site" id="1">
<bindings>
<binding protocol="HTTP" bindingInformation="*:80:" />
//The following line is added by the command.
<binding protocol="net.tcp" bindingInformation="808:*" />
</bindings>
</site>
</sites>
Enabling an Application to Use Non-HTTP Protocols
You can enable or disable individual network protocols at the application level. The following command illustrates how to enable both the HTTP and net.tcp protocols for an application that runs in the Default Web Site.
appcmd.exe set app "Default Web Site/appOne" /enabledProtocols:net.tcp
The list of enabled protocols can also be set in the <applicationDefaults> element of the site’s XML configuration stored in ApplicationHost.config.
The following XML code from applicationHost.config illustrates a site bound to both HTTP and non-HTTP protocols. The additional configuration required to support non-HTTP protocols is called out with comments.
<sites>
<site name="Default Web Site" id="1">
<application path="/">
<virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="D:\inetpub\wwwroot" />
</application>
<bindings>
//The following two lines are added by the command.
<binding protocol="HTTP" bindingInformation="*:80:" />
<binding protocol="net.tcp" bindingInformation="808:*" />
</bindings>
</site>
<siteDefaults>
<logFile
customLogPluginClsid="{FF160663-DE82-11CF-BC0A-00AA006111E0}"
directory="D:\inetpub\logs\LogFiles" />
<traceFailedRequestsLogging
directory="D:\inetpub\logs\FailedReqLogFiles" />
</siteDefaults>
<applicationDefaults
applicationPool="DefaultAppPool"
//The following line is inserted by the command.
enabledProtocols="http, net.tcp" />
<virtualDirectoryDefaults allowSubDirConfig="true" />
</sites>
Building a WCF Service That Uses WAS for Non-HTTP activation
Once you perform the steps to install and configure WAS (as described previously), configuring a service to use WAS for activation is similar to configuring a service that is hosted in IIS.
For detailed instructions about building a WAS-activated WCF service, see How to: Host a WCF Service in WAS.