How to: Develop a WCF Data Service Running on IIS

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This topic shows how to use WCF Data Services to create a data service that is based on the Northwind sample database that is hosted by an ASP.NET Web application that is running on Internet Information Services (IIS). For an example of how to create the same Northwind data service as an ASP.NET Web application that runs on the ASP.NET Development Server, see the WCF Data Services quickstart. 

Note

To create the Northwind data service, you must have installed the Northwind sample database on the local computer. To download this sample database, see the download page, Sample Databases for SQL Server.

This topic shows how to create a data service by using the Entity Framework provider. Other data services providers are available. For more information, see Data Service Providers (WCF Data Services).

After you create the service, you must explicitly provide access to data service resources. For more information, see How to: Enable Access to the Data Service (WCF Data Services).

To create the ASP.NET Web application that runs on IIS

  1. In Visual Studio, on the File menu, select New, and then select Project.

  2. In the New Project dialog box, select either Visual Basic or Visual C# as the programming language.

  3. In the Templates pane, select ASP.NET Web Application. Note: If you use Visual Studio Web Developer, you must create a new Web site instead of a new Web application.

  4. Type NorthwindService as the name of the project.

  5. Click OK.

  6. On the Project menu, select NorthwindService Properties.

  7. Select the Web tab, and then select Use Local IIS Web Server.

  8. Click Create Virtual Directory and then click OK.

  9. From the command prompt with administrator privileges, execute one of the following commands (depending on the operating system):

    • 32-bit systems:

      "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe" -i

    • 64-bit systems:

      "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg.exe" -i

    This makes sure that Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is registered on the computer.

  10. From the command prompt with administrator privileges, execute one of the following commands (depending on the operating system):

    • 32-bit systems:

      "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe" -i -enable

    • 64-bit systems:

      "%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe" -i -enable

    This makes sure that IIS runs correctly after WCF has been installed on the computer. You might have to also restart IIS.

  11. When the ASP.NET application runs on IIS7, you must also perform the following steps:

    1. Open IIS Manager and navigate to the PhotoService application under Default Web Site.

    2. In Features View, double-click Authentication.

    3. On the Authentication page, select Anonymous Authentication.

    4. In the Actions pane, click Edit to set the security principal under which anonymous users will connect to the site.

    5. In the Edit Anonymous Authentication Credentials dialog box, select Application pool identity.

    Important

    When you use the Network Service account, you grant anonymous users all the internal network access associated with that account.

  12. By using SQL Server Management Studio, the sqlcmd.exe utility, or the Transact-SQL Editor in Visual Studio, execute the following Transact-SQL command against the instance of SQL Server that has the Northwind database attached:

    CREATE LOGIN [NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE] FROM WINDOWS;
GO

    This creates a login in the SQL Server instance for the Windows account used to run IIS. This enables IIS to connect to the SQL Server instance.

  13. With the Northwind database attached, execute the following Transact-SQL commands:

    USE Northwind
GO
CREATE USER [NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE] 
FOR LOGIN [NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE] WITH DEFAULT_SCHEMA=[dbo];
GO
ALTER LOGIN [NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE] 
WITH DEFAULT_DATABASE=[Northwind]; 
GO
EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_datareader', 'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE'
GO
EXEC sp_addrolemember 'db_datawriter', 'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE'
GO

    This grants rights to the new login, which enables IIS to read data from and write data to the Northwind database.

To define the data model

  1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the name of the ASP.NET project, and then click Add New Item.

  2. In the Add New Item dialog box, select ADO.NET Entity Data Model.

  3. For the name of the data model, type Northwind.edmx.

  4. In the Entity Data Model Wizard, select Generate from Database, and then click Next.

  5. Connect the data model to the database by doing one of the following steps, and then click Next:

    • If you do not have a database connection already configured, click New Connection and create a new connection. For more information, see How to: Create Connections to SQL Server Databases. This SQL Server instance must have the Northwind sample database attached.

      - or -

    • If you have a database connection already configured to connect to the Northwind database, select that connection from the list of connections.

  6. On the final page of the wizard, select the check boxes for all tables in the database, and clear the check boxes for views and stored procedures.

  7. Click Finish to close the wizard.

    Note

    This generated data model exposes foreign key properties on entity types. Data models created using Visual Studio 2008 do not include these foreign key properties. Because of this, you must update the client data service classes of any client applications that were created to access the Northwind data service that was created using Visual Studio 2008 before attempting to access this version of the Northwind data service.

To create the data service

  1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the name of your ASP.NET project, and then click Add New Item.

  2. In the Add New Item dialog box, select WCF Data Service.

  3. For the name of the service, type Northwind.

    Visual Studio creates the XML markup and code files for the new service. By default, the code-editor window opens. In Solution Explorer, the service will have the name, Northwind, with the extension .svc.cs or .svc.vb.

  4. In the code for the data service, replace the comment /* TODO: put your data source class name here */ in the definition of the class that defines the data service with the type that is the entity container of the data model, which in this case is NorthwindEntities. The class definition should look this the following:

    Public Class Northwind
    Inherits DataService(Of NorthwindEntities)

    public class Northwind : DataService<NorthwindEntities>

See Also

Concepts

Exposing Your Data as an OData Service (WCF Data Services)