Hosting a WCF service in a windows service - configuration, debugging

Question

Situation:

I have a solution with 3 projects:

• Project 1: Type WCF Service
• Project 2: Type Console application (hosts project 1)
• Project 3: Type Console application (calls methods of the WCF service, has a service reference to project 1)

Right now for debugging I run project 2 executable as Administrator, this opens the service. Then I run project 3 executable to call methods of the WCF service.

Question 1: I would like to install the service as a Windows Service so that it is always available, meaning when I want to test/use methods of the service I can. How do I instlal the WCF service as a windows service?

Question 2: Currently the WCF service has Console.WriteLine statements to display results of method calls. Because this service is hosted in project 2 the Console.WriteLines write stuff to Project 2 executable. What will happen to those WriteLines when the WCF service is inside a windows service?

Question 3: The WCF service gets config values from app.config using System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings - will the windows service still have access to the app.config? If so how does it resolve where/which app.config to use?

Question 4: How do I debug a WCF service which is hosted in a windows service?

Answer 1

1. You don't install WCF services as Windows services directly. You'll either need to host the service in a web server (like IIS) or install your Service Host (Project 2) as a service.
2. The output will simply be discarded (see this related question). If you need to retain the output then implement a log library like log4net or NLog.
3. The Windows Service will still have access to the app.config and it follows the same config location semantics as a console application. See this related question for more information about where the config lives.
4. To debug a Windows Service, you can use the "Attach to Process" feature built into Visual Studio. See the MSDN page for more information.