How to set up my WCF service to be able to be accessed by remote clients

Question

I have a WCF service that is being hosted in a windows service and I can connect to it and consume its services just fine when using the same machine, but when I try to run my client on a remote machine it times out and won't connect. I thought I could just update the app.config file for the client with the IP of the service machine instead of localhost, but that didn't work. Here is the app.config of the client:

<system.serviceModel>
<bindings>
  <wsDualHttpBinding>
    <binding name="WSDualHttpBinding_IWCFService" 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">
      <readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384"
        maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />
      <reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" />
      <security mode="Message">
        <message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true"
          algorithmSuite="Default" />
      </security>
    </binding>
  </wsDualHttpBinding>
</bindings>
<client>
  <endpoint address="http://192.168.1.141:8731/Design_Time_Addresses/WCF/WCFService/"
    binding="wsDualHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="WSDualHttpBinding_IWCFService"
    contract="WCFService.IWCFService" name="WSDualHttpBinding_IWCFService">
    <identity>
      <dns value="192.168.1.141" />
    </identity>
  </endpoint>
</client>

And here is the app.config of the serivice:

<system.serviceModel>
<services>
  <service name="WCF.WCFService" behaviorConfiguration="WCFBehavior">
    <endpoint address="" binding="wsDualHttpBinding" contract="WCF.IWCFService">
      <identity>
        <dns value="localhost" />
      </identity>
    </endpoint>
    <endpoint
      address="mex"
      binding="mexHttpBinding"
      bindingConfiguration=""
      contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
    <host>
      <baseAddresses>
        <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8731/Design_Time_Addresses/WCF/WCFService/" />
      </baseAddresses>
    </host>
  </service>
</services>
<behaviors>
  <serviceBehaviors>
    <behavior name="WCFBehavior">
      <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="true"/>
      <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="true" />
    </behavior>
  </serviceBehaviors>
</behaviors>

Is there something I need to do on the service side to allow remote connections or am I just no configuring the client correctly?

Answer 1

This may seem like a simplistic suggestion, but have you checked the firewall on your server to make sure that it's not blocking communications? I spent three days banging my head on a wall until I noticed that.

Answer 2

It might be a better option than simply disabling the windows firewall to add a rule for the specific port using:

Firewall -> Advanced Settings -> Inbound Rules -> New Rule.

Answer 3

This seems like you are doing this from home based on your 192 address.

You will need to punch a whole in your router and windows firewall to start. After that if you want to access this out side of your house you should try using DynDNS to fake having a static IP for hosting the service.

Answer 4

Are you able to telnet to your service? If it is not a firewall issue, I suspect from the service security. Since it configured to authenticate via windows credential, which requires your service and client to be in the same domain, correct me if I'm wrong.