Advertising Identity on the Server

What does adding an identity to a service endpoint do in configuration? When I tried it, nothing happened.

The questioner is asking about supplying an endpoint identity in the configuration of a service. Here's the configuration element we're talking about, with some considerable editing to keep the example simple.

 <service>
 <endpoint address="..." binding="..." bindingConfiguration="..." contract="...">
  <identity>
   <servicePrincipalName value="name" />
  </identity>
 </endpoint>
</service>

This configuration on the service doesn't actually change any runtime behavior. Clients will connect and function properly regardless of what the setting says. Instead, this value is used when advertising the service in metadata. Clients are suggested to use the advertised service identity unless someone comes along and supplies a different identity for the client configuration.

That means you shouldn't just make up a value for the service configuration. The service runs with a particular identity and putting a value here does not change what that identity is. Either make sure the configuration matches the service or don't include this value to avoid tripping up clients that make use of metadata.

Next time: Using Supporting Tokens

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 26, 2007
  The documentation for behavior, binding element, and binding extensions in configuration says that using