windows service

Question

can i install WCF (windows service) on client machine and call this service on asp.net web page(on the server machine)?

Answer 1

This would mean that your client pc would behave like a server/service seen from the point of the ASP.NET application. This can be done, after all you're simply exposing your endpoint from the client machine.

If it's for testing purposes then you could do it but from a production point of view it looks rather bad to me as the client pc can be turned off, what's the failover of this machine, is it monitored like a server, ...

Answer 2

If the purpose of doing this is to debug calls to the DLL made by the client, then it would be better if you make a WinForms app to do the test calls with logging that can be run on the client machine to diagnose any problems.

If instead you are trying to set up an architecture where you can access the client machine from remote via web service call it technically it could be done but you would have to know things about the client like the IP Address you are exposing as the endpoint, any firewalls that may exist, etc.

Answer 3

You could make you client service to call via duplex to your server app, thus the late can reach your client no matter where she might be.

Also in WCF 4 you have relay bindings which allow you to publish your service 'some where else'

Here's a couple of links that you might find ineterseting: WsDualHttpBinding ,wcf relay

Answer 4

Why are you trying to access a wcf service hosted on the client machine from asp.net on the server machine??

Surely if you wanted to do something like see the machines on the network or something it would be better to have a master host server, and run a service on all the clients to call into the master server every so often to say hey, I am here.

If this is not what you are doing... why is the server trying to talk to a client?