bindingConfiguration vs bindingName

Question

What exactly is the difference between bindingConfiguration and bindingName elements in a WCF endpoint element? The reason that I ask is I am creating an endpoint which uses basicHttpBinding and SSL. I configured the web.config like this:

<basicHttpBinding>
<binding name="basicHttps">
  <security mode="Transport">
    <transport clientCredentialType="None"/>
  </security>
</binding>

<endpoint binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="basicHttps" contract="Hsp.Services.Interface.Catalog.ICatalogService" address="" />

However, when using bindingConfiguration then https isn't working. When I change bindingConfiguration to bindingName it works as expected. So, what exactly is the difference between the two?

Answer 1

The binding= attribute just defines, which binding (protocol) you want - basicHttpBinding, wsHttpBinding, netTcpBinding etc.

Those bindings all have system default values - if you don't specify any binding configuration, those system defaults will be used.

What you've defined in your <bindings> section of your config is a binding configuration - a set of parameters for your binding of choice that will be used instead of the system defaults.

So the binding= and the bindingConfiguration= need to match - you cannot define one binding (e.g. basicHttpBinding) but then assign a binding configuration for a different binding.

That however still doesn't explain why your https doesn't work - that must be some other problem. Can you elaborate a bit more? How does it not work? Just no response, or do you get an error (if so: what is that error??)

Answer 2

From the MSDN documentation

bindingConfiguration: A string that specifies the binding name of the binding to use when the endpoint is instantiated. The binding name must be in scope at the point the endpoint is defined. The default is an empty string. This attribute is used in conjunction with binding to reference a specific binding configuration in the configuration file. Set this attribute if you are attempting to use a custom binding. Otherwise, an exception may be thrown.

bindingName: A string that specifies the unique qualified name of the binding for definition export through WSDL. The default is an empty string.

I've never used bindingName, but it seems to only affect the WSDL generated for your endpoint. If something isn't working when you use bindingConfiguration="basicHttps", then it sounds like you have a misconfiguration that's preventing it from working correctly (if no bindingConfiguration is specified, the defaults will be applied, which is what's happening when you change bindingConfiguration to bindingName). I don't think <transport clientCredentialType="None"/> is valid, the possible values are Basic, Certificate, Digest, Windows, or NTLM. See Transport Security Overview