How to stop certificate errors temporarily with WCF services

Question

Hi All,

I am testing an early release of a WCF web service I have created. On the client side when I use VS to 'add service reference' that all works.

But when I try to use the service I get the error,

Could not establish trust relationship for the SSL/TLS secure
channel with authority **

Where the stars represent the IP address of the server.

Anyway on the server there is a security certificate but it has been self generated just for testing, so I am not concerned about certificate errors for the moment.

On the client side an app.config has been generated for me,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <system.serviceModel>
        <bindings>
            <wsHttpBinding>
                <binding name="BindingName" closeTimeout="00:01:00"
                    openTimeout="00:01:00" receiveTimeout="00:10:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00"
                    bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
                    maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="65536"
                    messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true"
                    allowCookies="false">
                    <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384"
                        maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />
                    <reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00"
                        enabled="false" />
                    <security mode="Transport">
                        <transport clientCredentialType="Windows" proxyCredentialType="None"
                            realm="" />
                        <message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true" />
                    </security>
                </binding>
            </wsHttpBinding>
        </bindings>
        <client>
            <endpoint address="***************"
                binding="wsHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="BindingName"
                contract="***************" name="BindingName">
                <identity>
                    <servicePrincipalName value="***************" />
                </identity>
            </endpoint>
        </client>
    </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

So what settings do I need to change to temporarily ignore certificate errors?

Answer 1

Set the CertificatePolicy PRIOR to initializing your WCF service on the client. Here's how (just make a call to the SetCertificatePolicy method)

 /// <summary>
    /// Sets the cert policy.
    /// </summary>
    private static void SetCertificatePolicy()
    {
        ServicePointManager.ServerCertificateValidationCallback += ValidateRemoteCertificate;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Remotes the certificate validate.
    /// </summary>
    private static bool ValidateRemoteCertificate(object sender, X509Certificate cert, X509Chain chain, SslPolicyErrors error)
    {
        Debug.WriteLine("Trusting X509Certificate '" + cert.Subject + "'");
        return true;
    }

Answer 2

Check the answer to this question:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/338385/how-do-i-tell-wcf-to-skip-verification-of-the-certificate

it gives two possible solutions: 1. using just config entries on the client side or 2. use a custom certificate validator that uses both code and config entries