Lost in history

As mentioned in my previous post , WWSAPI follows a common pattern to set properties (which in most cases are just configuration settings). Each property structure consists of three fields: id , value and valueSize . The field id is an enum value of the...

When you use WsUtil to generate stub code and then work with the generated structures, you may get E_INVALIDARG when making the call to the service and, with WWSAPI tracing turned on, see the error message “ A NULL WS_STRUCT_DESCRIPTION was specified...

In my previous post on WsUtil , I explained how the generated helper functions can simplify the creation of WS_SERVICE_PROXY and WS_SERVICE_ENDPOINT. In both of these functions, the first parameter is a pointer to a same binding template. When no security...

One of the design principles of WWSAPI is to be very stringent at the API contract, as we believe ambiguous or loose API contract does not help developers write high quality applications. Being stringent means not only to document the API contract clearly...

WWSAPI properties are designed to control the behavior of the WWSAPI objects like service proxy, channel, XML reader/writer, etc. Each property has a property id, an associated value type, a target object and allowed actions. All property structures have...

In my previous post on interoperating with WCF BasicHttpBinding endpoint , I explained that you had to set the channel properties to match SOAP version and addressing version on the server side. Wouldn’t it be great if you don’t have to do all that? That...

WWSAPI supports two WS-Addressing versions: the existing W3C recommendation version ( 1.0 ) and the older 2004/08 version ( 0.9 ). WS-Addressing defines a set of SOAP headers to describe the message recipient, targeted action and some other basic messaging...

There are two versions of SOAP supported by WWSAPI and most other web services stacks: SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2 . Although the basic message layout in the two SOAP versions is the same (Header and Body inside Envelope), there are three main differences:...

Not many people are aware of our commitments to ship WWSAPI to downlevel platforms. Nikola just sent out an email annoucing the availability of the RC bits for downlevel platforms: https://connect.microsoft.com/WNDP/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID...

I have been in the testing discipline for almost 8 years. Over the years there have been different forces to push me into development. Somehow I stayed, despite the fact many people outside and even inside Microsoft don’t give much regard to testers....

In Windows 7, LiveID can be used with WWSAPI in two scenarios: 1. SSPI over TCP ( WS_TCP_SSPI_TRANSPORT_SECURITY_BINDING ) with the default SPNEGO package : on both client and server 2. HTTP Negotiate header authentication ( WS_HTTP_HEADER_AUTH_SECURITY_BINDING...

My previous post on header authentication comparison between WWSAPI and WCF mentioned the impersonation level. Here is a bit more detail as people still seem to be caught by surprise due to this difference. I mentioned that WCF client could set the impersonation...

In my post on WWSAPI federation support , I explained how to set up secure conversation on the WWSAPI client to work with a WCF server using WSFederationHttpBinding. In this post, I’ll show how to use secure conversation without federation. Secure conversation...

It turns out that with the example code as is, starting a server at an HTTP or HTTPS address does not require the process to be run as an admin (elevated on Vista and Win7). No namespace needs to be reserved either. This is because the code uses localhost...

The Kerberos over SSL samples (like the calculator one ) demonstrate WWSAPI mixed mode security that matches the WCF’s KerberosOverTransport authentication mode. In this mode, the Kerberos AP-REQ ticket is wrapped in a WS-Security header for client and...

Nikola asked me to write a post on how to set up machine to run our security examples. Here it goes. To run WWSAPI security examples (like the one doing Basic authentication over SSL ), you need to set up the client and server certificates for SSL...

In part 1 of this topic, I explained that some Unicode characters would be rejected by WWSAPI’s XML reader and writer because they are not considered legal in XML spec. There is an XML reader property and an XML writer property to allow such characters...

Although all Unicode characters can be carried in XML document, not all characters are considered legal according to XML 1.0 spec , the version used by SOAP and supported by WWSAPI. As you can see in the production copied below, ASCII characters under...

So I was testing WWSAPI client to ASMX interop. After getting the basic Hello World scenario working, I decided to require Windows authentication on the web application and impersonate the client identity. Then I reran the client without changing the...

Just when I thought I had seen all possible 403 Forbidden errors and could pinpoint the 403 issues without looking into traces, I found myself surprised by another 403 error. I was testing a WWSAPI client to WCF server interop scenario. Only this time...

In my previous post I explained how to do HTTP header authentication protected by SSL in WWSAPI. In this post, I’ll show how to do header authentication without SSL. In WCF, this mode is called TransportCredentialOnly and is only available in BasicHttpBinding...

In WCF’s standard bindings, HTTP header authentication can be used in WSHttpBinding with security mode Transport. In this security mode, the client credential type can be set to either Basic, Digest, Ntlm or Windows (Negotiate scheme) to enable HTTP header...

Just like WCF, WWSAPI supports Basic, Digest, NTLM and Negotiate HTTP header authentication (If you are not familiar with HTTP header authentication, you can read more details about it at Nicholas Allen’s HTTP authentication post ). The two implementations...

In case you haven't see it, check out the Channel 9 video on WWSAPI .

It's my first day at work in 2009 after a long vacation. I plan to continue the WWSAPI to WCF interop blogging, but I will also post entries on some tricks and tips of using WWSAPI in general. I wish they can be helpful.