在部署窗口服务托管的WCF服务时如何管理端口号

Question

Sorry if this sounds very simple but I am very new to wcf/network so please bear with me.

I want to deploy a window service hosted WCF service to three servers (Dev, UAT, Prod) hence the endpoint url for each server needs to be stored in database so that deployment can be automated using a script. The window service does nothing but hosting the wcf service and when it starts, I set the endpoint url to be localhost:8081/MyCompnay/MyService and simply use a default BasicHttpBinding to pass into the service host constructor. I am currently choosing a random port number (8080 is almost for sure in use already), I wonder what's the optimal way of managing port number in such a case that the service will be deployed to different servers? I am concerned that even if I make the port number configurable, it could happen that the same port number might be taken by some other applications when my service is restarted after a shutdown (for whatever reason!). I want to be sure that the port number I set won't be taken by other applications. Hope I have made this clear.

Answer 1

There is never a guarantee that the port number will not be taken. You could have a series of port numbers that you try and work your way through them until you find one that works. If you don't find one that works then you error out and inform the user. Choose port numbers above 49151 as these are considered private ports .

If you don't need the HTTP binding, you could use a Named Pipe binding that doesn't require a port, but there are different limitations to using that as well.

There is also the option of registering your port number with the IANA and then anyone using your port is technically the bad app, but there is no preventing it. This is overkill for a good majority of applications.