How to set keep alive interval for HTTP connection in WCF

Question

Http transport channel in WCF uses persistent HTTP connections by default. How to control keep alive timeout for those connections? Default value is 100s. I found that value

Answer 1

Take a look here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080721055556/http://blog.magenic.com/blogs/jons/archive/2007/05/04/The-Tao-of-Microsoft-WCF-CustomBinding-Configuration-Elements.aspx

There is a detailed discussion of manipulating the keep alive property during an http connection.

Answer 2

I found the solution for this. The problem is that the underlying kernel http.sys has it's own timeout and it will break the connection.

http://mmmreddy.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/wcf-use-of-http-transport-sharing-persistent-tcp-sessions/

netsh http add timeout timeouttype=idleconnectiontimeout value=120

Also, this question is similar to this What 130 second timeout is killig my WCF streaming service call?

Answer 3

From this answer, and what I can read here, it looks like you want to create a custom http binding, and set the inactivityTimeout attribute.

From the MSDN article:

<bindings>
  <customBinding>
    <binding name="Binding1">
      <reliableSession acknowledgementInterval="00:00:00.2000000" enableFlowControl="true"
                        maxTransferWindowSize="32" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00" maxPendingChannels="128"
                        maxRetryCount="8" ordered="true" />
      <security mode="None"/>
      <httpTransport authenticationScheme="Anonymous" bypassProxyOnLocal="false"
                    hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard" 
                    proxyAuthenticationScheme="Anonymous" realm="" 
                    useDefaultWebProxy="true" />
    </binding>
  </customBinding>
</bindings>

Answer 4

It sounds to me like you're wanting to adjust the Keep-Alive HTTP header. You should read this article on HTTP keep-alive and first determine if this is really something worth your time.

If it is, try creating a Message Inspector. This should allow you to modify the HTTP headers for each message that gets sent out:

public class KeepAliveMessageInspector : IClientMessageInspector
{
    // ...

    public object BeforeSendRequest(
        ref System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message request,
        System.ServiceModel.IClientChannel channel)
    {
        // Add/modify the Keep-Alive header
        var httpRequestMessage = new HttpRequestMessageProperty();
        httpRequestMessage.Headers.Add("Keep-Alive", "9000");
        request.Properties.Add(
            HttpRequestMessageProperty.Name, httpRequestMessage);
        return null;
    }

    // ...
}

Answer 5

How about this? Seems it may be a function of your IIS Server and nothing to do with the WCF service? I know this link applies to IIS6, but maybe it serves as a foundation to something similar in IIS7? http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/WindowsServer2003/Library/IIS/73566f83-c257-4941-8ed8-7ae45b2e7985.mspx?mfr=true

Answer 6

Setting ServicePoint.MaxIdleTime should let you change the default 100 second idle timeout on the persistent HTTP connections.

https://www.visualbasicplanet.info/windows-communication/configuring-http-connections.html