Hosting WebAPI using OWIN in a windows service

Question

I've self-hosted Web API using OWIN (inside a windows service). From what I understand, this is enough to make HTTP requests come to the windows service. I'm able to hit the WebAPI URL (http://localhost/users) locally (from the same machine), but not from other machines. I'm using port 80, IIS is stopped. Other websites (hosted in IIS, on port 80) work fine when IIS is running.

//In the windows service:

public partial class Service1 : ServiceBase
{
    ...
    ...

    protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Starting service...");
        string baseAddress = "http://localhost:80/";
        WebApp.Start<Startup>(baseAddress);  //This is OWIN stuff.
    }
    ...
    ...
}

public class Startup
{
    // This code configures Web API. The Startup class is specified as a type
    // parameter in the WebApp.Start method.
    public void Configuration(IAppBuilder appBuilder)
    {
        // Configure Web API for self-host.
        var config = new HttpConfiguration();
        WebApiConfig.Register(config);
        appBuilder.UseWebApi(config);
    }
}

Do I need to do something more to get this working from other machines? (I've a feeling that the incoming http requests are not being forwarded to the windows service, but only to IIS. When you hit locally, probably it does not go through the OS module that listens for http requests. Just a guess.)

Answer 1

Your machine's firewall could be blocking the incoming requests. You could do:

You could Run wf.msc command to open up Windows Firewall with Advanced Security and add a new Inbound Rule for TCP port 80.

(You should notice couple of inbound rules starting with World Wide Web Services.... These are for IIS. I am not sure if enabling these rules would be enough to even allow your windows service to receive the requests...you can try and see if this works otherwise as suggested before, you can create a new inbound rule..)

Update:
Based on your comment, it could be that because of your Url registrations you are unable to hit the service. Following are some examples of registering multiple urls with HttpListener.

StartOptions options = new StartOptions();
options.Urls.Add("http://localhost:9095");
options.Urls.Add("http://127.0.0.1:9095");
options.Urls.Add(string.Format("http://{0}:9095", Environment.MachineName));

using (WebApp.Start<Program>(options))
{

You can read more about the url registration in the following links:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb630429.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb677364.aspx