WCF in a windows service

Question

Hi All,

I have a windows service that exposes a TCP connection (using WCF). This service starts and works fine on my machine (which uses windows firewall).

My colleagues are using mcafee security software (which includes a firewall). When they start the windows service it works some of the time, but the rest of the time the service times out (takes over 30 seconds to start). They get messages in their event log saying ...

Windows Firewall was unable to notify the user that it blocked an application from accepting incoming connections on the network.

We have a WIX installer which installs this windows service.

So my question is how do I make the WIX installer insert the firewall rules, more importantly will that work with mcafee? Do you think that will solve the problem?

What is the standard way of dealing with windows services that expose TCP connections? Normally a prompt would appear for a standard GUI or console app, but I am guessing this is impossible for a windows service.

Answer 1

The WiX v3 toolset ships with a Firewall extension that can configure the Windows firewall. I don't know much about McAfee but hopefully they read the Windows firewall configuration. If not, you'll need an API to poke holes in McAfee's firewall.