WCF: Net.TCP multiple bindings, same port, different IP Addresses

Answer 1

Mel,

While I've never tried this before myself, here's some samples to look at that I've heard before. You may want to create your binding object first and then add the same instance to the AddServiceEndpoint method, just a thought so you're not creating new bindings every time as I remember reading somewhere that netTCPBindings should be a 1:1 relationship with the address (even though you're using different addresses).

I don't think you have to worry about port sharing as your opening up multiple ports.

Here's a sample of what you may want to accomplish with multiple ports.

http://www.aspfree.com/c/a/Windows-Scripting/WCF-and-Bindings/2/

Here's a good sample for using portsharing on the NetTcpBinding.

http://blogs.msdn.com/drnick/archive/2006/08/08/690333.aspx

-Bryan

Answer 2

Thanks for the info Corazza!

I've figured out how to accomplish this. I was going about this all the wrong way.

My ultimate goal was to have the service listening on every IP Address available on the machine. Trying to bind to each address individually is the wrong way of doing this.

Instead, I only needed to bind the service to the machine's Host Name (not 'localhost') and WCF automatically listens on all adapters.

Here's the corrected code:

public static void StartHosts()
    {
        try
        {
            // Formulate the uri for this host
            string uri = string.Format(
                "net.tcp://{0}:{1}/ServerTasks",
                Dns.GetHostName(),
                ServerSettings.Instance.TCPListeningPort
            );

            // Create a new host
            ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(ServerTasks), new Uri(uri));

            // Add the endpoint binding
            host.AddServiceEndpoint(
                typeof(ServerTasks),
                new NetTcpBinding(SecurityMode.Transport) 
                        { 
                            TransferMode = TransferMode.Streamed
                        },
                uri
            );

            // Add the meta data publishing
            var smb = host.Description.Behaviors.Find<ServiceMetadataBehavior>();
            if (smb == null)
                smb = new ServiceMetadataBehavior();

            smb.MetadataExporter.PolicyVersion = PolicyVersion.Policy15;
            host.Description.Behaviors.Add(smb);

            host.AddServiceEndpoint(
                ServiceMetadataBehavior.MexContractName,
                MetadataExchangeBindings.CreateMexTcpBinding(),
                "net.tcp://localhost/ServerTasks/mex"
            );

            // Run the host
            host.Open();
        }
        catch (Exception exc)
        {
            DebugLogger.WriteException(exc);
        }
    }