Communicate Between Two Machines on the Same Network (WCF)

Use WCF with a TCP/IP binding.

Starting with the result from the previous section, all you need to do is change the configuration information in both the server and the client. In fact, you could just have multiple endpoints on the server and allow clients to connect however they desire.

Here’s the server’s app.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <system.serviceModel>
    <services>
      <service name="WCFHost.FileService"
               behaviorConfiguration="FileServiceMEXBehavior">
        <endpoint address=""
						binding="netTcpBinding"
						contract="FileServiceLib.IFileService"/>
						<endpoint address="mex"
						binding="mexTcpBinding"
						contract="IMetadataExchange"/>
        <host>
          <baseAddresses>
            <add baseAddress="net.tcp://localhost:8080/FileService"/>          </baseAddresses>
        </host>
      </service>

    </services>
    <behaviors>
      <serviceBehaviors>
        <behavior name="FileServiceMEXBehavior">
          <serviceMetadata  />
        </behavior>
      </serviceBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
  </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

					    

The client’s app.config is similarly modified:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <system.serviceModel>
        <bindings>
          <netTcpBinding>
						<binding name="netTcpBinding_IFileService" />
						</netTcpBinding>
        </bindings>
        <client>
          <endpoint address="net.tcp://remote-pc:8080/FileService"
						binding="netTcpBinding"
						bindingConfiguration="netTcpBinding_IFileService"
						contract="IFileService"
						name="netTcpBinding_IFileService"/>
        </client>
    </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Note

To adequately test this on a modern operating system, you may have to create a firewall exception to allow connections to the server.

That’s it. With just a configuration change, the underlying protocol completely changes and you can communicate over the network.