WCF: What is a ServiceHost?

Question

As I\'m currently learning to use WCF Services, I am constantly encountering tutorials on the internet which mention using a ServiceHost when using a WCF Servic

Answer 1

Your service implementation is just a .NET class - you need to have a runtime environment for it, so it can be executed somehow. That's what the ServiceHost is for - it will load your service class, set up the endpoints and channel listeners and all that stuff, and thus give your service class an "ecosystem" to live and operate in.

You can either instantiate a ServiceHost class yourself in a console app, a Windows service, or even a Winforms app, and thus make your WCF service class available to the outside world - or you can delegate that work to IIS or WAS. Even IIS or WAS will use a ServiceHost to host your WCF service - they just do it automagically behind the scenes, and "on demand" - whenever a request for your WCF service comes in.

Marc

Answer 2

A ServiceHost basically provides you everything you need to host a WCF service in a non-IIS or WAS setting. A common place for a ServiceHost would be in a console app or Windows service. See the example code from MSDN for how to setup a ServiceHost in a console app.