Hosting a secured RESTful WCF Service (https) with and without IIS

Create a new console app project in VS.NET 2010. Now add reference to the dll's

     a.  System.ServiceModel
     b.  System.ServiceModel.Web
     c.  System.Runtime.Serialization

The Program.cs Main method has the following code

public class Program

{

public static void Main(string[] args)

{

Uri baseAddress = new Uri("https://"+Environment.MachineName+":54321/hello");

using (ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(HelloWorldService), baseAddress))

{                

WebHttpBinding web = new WebHttpBinding();

web.Security.Mode = WebHttpSecurityMode.Transport;                

host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IHelloWorldService), web, "").Behaviors.Add(new WebHttpBehavior());                                

host.Credentials.ServiceCertificate.Certificate = (X509Certificate2)GetX509Certificate();                               

host.Open();

Console.WriteLine("The service is ready at {0}", baseAddress);

Console.WriteLine("Press <Enter> to stop the service.");

Console.ReadLine();                

host.Close();

}

}

private static X509Certificate GetX509Certificate()

{

X509Store store = new X509Store(StoreName.My, StoreLocation.LocalMachine);

store.Open(OpenFlags.OpenExistingOnly);

X509Certificate certificate = null;

X509Certificate2Collection cers = store.Certificates.Find(X509FindType.FindBySubjectName, "localhost", false);            

if (cers.Count > 0)

{

certificate = cers[0];

}

store.Close();

return certificate;

}

}

[ServiceContract]

public interface IHelloWorldService

{

[WebGet(UriTemplate="SayHello/{name}")]

string SayHello(string name);

}

public class HelloWorldService : IHelloWorldService

{

public string SayHello(string name)

{

return string.Format("Hello, {0}", name);

}

}

Now we create certificate by creating a batch file of the below commands (taken from MSDN) and executing it from VS.NET command prompt:

echo off

setlocal

call :setscriptvariables %1

IF NOT DEFINED SUPPORTED_MODE call :displayusage

IF DEFINED SUPPORTED_MODE call :cleancerts

IF DEFINED SETUP_SERVICE call :setupservice

IF DEFINED SETUP_CLIENT call :setupclient

GOTO end

:cleancerts

REM cleans up certs from previous runs.  

certmgr.exe -del -r CurrentUser -s My -c -n %CLIENT_NAME%

certmgr.exe -del -r CurrentUser -s TrustedPeople -c -n localhost

certmgr.exe -del -r LocalMachine -s My -c -n localhost

certmgr.exe -del -r LocalMachine -s TrustedPeople -c -n %CLIENT_NAME%

certmgr.exe -put -r LocalMachine -s My -c -n %COMPUTER_NAME% computer.cer

IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 (

DEL computer.cer      

pause

certmgr.exe -del -r LocalMachine -s My -c -n %COMPUTER_NAME%

)

:cleanupcompleted  

GOTO :EOF

:setupclient

makecert.exe -sr CurrentUser -ss MY -a sha1 -n CN=%CLIENT_NAME% -sky exchange -pe

IF DEFINED EXPORT_CLIENT (      

certmgr.exe -put -r CurrentUser -s My -c -n %CLIENT_NAME% client.cer

) ELSE (      

certmgr.exe -add -r CurrentUser -s My -c -n %CLIENT_NAME% -r LocalMachine -s TrustedPeople

)

GOTO :EOF

:setupservice

makecert.exe -sr LocalMachine -ss MY -a sha1 -n CN=%SERVER_NAME% -sky exchange -pe

IF DEFINED EXPORT_SERVICE (      

certmgr.exe -put -r LocalMachine -s My -c -n %SERVER_NAME% service.cer

) ELSE (      

certmgr.exe -add -r LocalMachine -s My -c -n %SERVER_NAME% -r CurrentUser -s TrustedPeople

)

GOTO :EOF

:setscriptvariables

REM Parses the input to determine if we are setting this up for a single machine, client, or server

REM sets the appropriate name variables

call :setcomputername

IF [%1]==[] CALL :singlemachine

IF [%1]==[service] CALL :service

IF [%1]==[client] CALL :client

set CLIENT_NAME=client.com

GOTO :EOF

:singlemachine  

SET SUPPORTED_MODE=1

SET SETUP_CLIENT=1

SET SETUP_SERVICE=1

SET SERVER_NAME=localhost

GOTO :EOF

:service  

SET SUPPORTED_MODE=1

SET SETUP_SERVICE=1

SET EXPORT_SERVICE=1

SET SERVER_NAME=%COMPUTER_NAME%

GOTO :EOF

:client  

SET SUPPORTED_MODE=1

SET SETUP_CLIENT=1

SET EXPORT_CLIENT=1

GOTO :EOF

:setcomputername

REM Puts the Fully Qualified Name of the Computer into a variable named COMPUTER_NAME

for /F "delims=" %%i in ('cscript /nologo GetComputerName.vbs') do set COMPUTER_NAME=%%i

GOTO :EOF

:displayusage

ECHO Correct usage:

ECHO     Single Machine - Setup.bat

ECHO     Client Machine - Setup.bat client

ECHO     Service Machine - Setup.bat service

:end

Now open Microsoft Management Console and Select File --> Add/Remove Snap-in to add the Certificates - Current User and Certificate - Local Machine stores

Navigate to Certificate - Local Machine Personal Store to find a server certificate called localhost (self signed) created and installed.

Now Open your IIS and right click on the default website to add HTTPS binding to it with your port number matching that you have defined in your console app (for my its 54321) and select the certificate to be "localhost" ( the certificate that was created in the above steps) and click "OK" and "Close"

Now start your Console app to have your service running and now open fiddler and perform a GET request as shown:

GET https://rajeshwin7:54321/hello/sayhello/rajesh HTTP/1.1

User-Agent: Fiddler

Host: rajeshwin7:54321

Now you get back a response as below:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Content-Length: 90

Content-Type: application/xml; charset=utf-8

Server: Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0

Date: Fri, 04 May 2012 14:51:25 GMT

<string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">Hello, rajesh</string>

When no IIS is present open up command prompt and enter the following at the command prompt to do a http port mapping for ssl certificate using the netsh tool in winvista and above OS and httpcfg for winxp.

C:\> netsh http add sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:54321 certhash=6797aea29440de9389bc636e15a35b741d8c22a3 appid={2e80948d-9ae6-42c9-ad33-294929333965}

certhash -- Thumbprint id of the certificate created above. The thumbprint id can be obtained by opening up the Microsoft Management Console - Add/remove snap in for certificate store of computer account on local machine and then navigate to personal store to find the certificate (assuming it has been installed as given above) and then  double click on the certificate and navigate to the details tab to find the thumbprint id as one of the properties(just copy it to use in the above netsh command by removing the spaces)

appid -- is the guid associated with your application that can be found in your assembly.cs file in your project properties folder as shown below:

Now to clean up the certificate create a bathc file with the below commands and execute it using Vs.NET command prompt:

echo off

setlocal

set CLIENT_NAME=client.com

call :setcomputername

call :cleancerts

DEL client.cer > NUL 2>&1

DEL service.cer > NUL 2>&1

GOTO end

:cleancerts

REM cleans up certs from previous runs.

certmgr.exe -del -r CurrentUser -s My -c -n %CLIENT_NAME%

certmgr.exe -del -r CurrentUser -s TrustedPeople -c -n localhost

certmgr.exe -del -r LocalMachine -s My -c -n localhost

certmgr.exe -del -r LocalMachine -s TrustedPeople -c -n %CLIENT_NAME%

certmgr.exe -put -r LocalMachine -s My -c -n %COMPUTER_NAME% computer.cer

IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 (

DEL computer.cer

pause

certmgr.exe -del -r LocalMachine -s My -c -n %COMPUTER_NAME%

)

:cleanupcompleted

GOTO :EOF

:setcomputername

REM Puts the Fully Qualified Name of the Computer into a variable named COMPUTER_NAME

for /F "delims=" %%i in ('cscript /nologo GetComputerName.vbs') do set COMPUTER_NAME=%%i

GOTO :EOF

:end

You can remove the ssl certificate mapping to a port using netsh command as below:

c:\> netsh http delete sslcert ipport:0.0.0.0:54321