How can I add authorization header to the request in WCF?

Question

I'm working on a Windows Form application and there's a WCF service that needs to be called. I need to add a header (authorization - custom) to the request before it's sent to the service. I have a custom inspector class as well. I tried the following but the service is not called, somehow, and it returns an exception.

public object BeforeSendRequest(ref Message request, IClientChannel channel)
{
    MessageHeader header = MessageHeader.CreateHeader("Authorization", "", "Basic Y19udGk6Q29udGlfQjNTVA==");
    OperationContext.Current.OutgoingMessageHeaders.Add(header);
    HttpRequestMessageProperty httpRequestProperty = new HttpRequestMessageProperty();
    httpRequestProperty.Headers.Add("Authorization", "Basic Y19udGk6Q29udGlfQjNTVA==");
    httpRequestProperty.Headers.Add(HttpRequestHeader.UserAgent, "Continental");
            OperationContext.Current.OutgoingMessageProperties[HttpRequestMessageProperty.Name] = httpRequestProperty;
    sentMessages.Add(request.ToString());
    return null;
}

I also tried simplest way like this one:

MessageHeader header = MessageHeader.CreateHeader("Authorization", "", "Basic Y19udGk6Q29udGlfQjNTVA==");
request.Headers.Add(header);

but it's the same, authorization header is added but it does not reach the service, how can I know what header is received by the service? I used SOAP UI and service responds well when I add such a header manually in the request (before running).

Answer 1

If there's some problem with your BeforeSend method, this is how I implemented it when adding authentication to some webservice calls.

private const string Authorization = "Authorization";
public object BeforeSendRequest(ref Message request, IClientChannel channel)
    {
        object httpRequestMessageObject;
        if (request.Properties.TryGetValue(
            HttpRequestMessageProperty.Name, out httpRequestMessageObject))
        {
            var httpRequestMessage = httpRequestMessageObject as HttpRequestMessageProperty;

            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(httpRequestMessage.Headers[Authorization]))
            {
                httpRequestMessage.Headers[Authorization] = "Basic Y19udGk6Q29udGlfQjNTVA==";
            }
        }
        else
        {
            var httpRequestMessage = new HttpRequestMessageProperty();
            httpRequestMessage.Headers.Add(Authorization, "Basic Y19udGk6Q29udGlfQjNTVA==");

            request.Properties.Add(HttpRequestMessageProperty.Name, httpRequestMessage);
        }

        return null;
    }