New Features in WCF 4.5 - Part 6

In this WCF Tutorial Series on "New Features of Windows Communication Foundation v4.5", we have covered a lot of exciting features like Simplified Configuration, WCF Configuration Validation, ASP.NET Compatibility Mode default change, BasicHttpsBinding, Task-based Programming model, etc. In this part-6 of WCF Tutorial, we will explore the following:

• Multiple Authentication Support
• Contract First Development

• New Features in WCF 4.5 - Part 1
• Simplified Generated Configuration
• Validating WCF Configuration
• New Features in WCF 4.5 - Part 2
• Single WSDL file
• Tooltip and Intellisense Support
• New Features in WCF 4.5 - Part 3
• ASP.NET Compatibility Mode default change
• BasicHttpsBinding
• New Features in WCF 4.5 - Part 4
• Task-based Programming Model
• New Features in WCF 4.5 - Part 5
• ChannelFactory Caching

WCF - Multiple Authentication Support

In previous versions of Windows Communication Foundation, if we wanted to have multiple authentications for a single service, we achieve this by creating a separate endpoint for that particular WCF Service. But now, WCF 4.5 supports Multiple Authentications at single endpoint. So, we can configure single endpoint of a WCF Service to support multiple authentications (e.g. Windows, Basic, Anonymous, etc.).

The above diagram clearly describes how multiple authentication is supported by WCF 4.5.

Multiple Authentication can be achieved in two simple steps as follows:

• In IIS, host the WCF Service and enable multiple authentications like Anonymous, Basic or Windows Authentication.
• In configuration file, update security mode settings as follows:
  XML

  <security mode="TransportCredentialOnly">
            <transport clientCredentialType="InheritedFromHost" />
            </security>

WCF - Contract First Development

As we know that with previous versions of Windows Communication Foundation, while creating proxy using SvcUtil.exe tool, the output generated file contains the Service Contract, Client operations as well as Data Contracts. There was no way to generate the Service Contract only. But with Windows Communication Foundation v4.5, now it's possible to generate the Service Contract only using SvcUtil.exe tool as follows:

svcutil.exe "http://localhost:MyFirstWCFService/Service1.svc?wsdl" /serviceContract

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