Is it possible to create a standalone, C# web service deployed as an EXE or Windows service?

c# web-services windows-services embeddedwebserver
Jason Swager picture Jason Swager · Jun 18, 2009 · Viewed 29.9k times · Source

Is it possible to create a C# EXE or Windows Service that can process Web Service requests? Obviously, some sort of embedded, probably limited, web server would have to be part of the EXE/service. The EXE/service would not have to rely on IIS being installed. Preferably, the embedded web service could handle HTTPS/SSL type connections.

The scenario is this: customer wants to install a small agent (a windows service) on their corporate machines. The agent would have two primary tasks: 1) monitor the system over time and gather certain pieces of data and 2) respond to web service requests (SOAP -v- REST is still be haggled about) for data gathering or system change purposes. The customer likes the idea of web service APIs so that any number of clients (in any language) can be written to tap into the various agents running on the corporate machines. They want the installation to be relatively painless (install .NET, some assemblies, a service, modify the Windows firewall, start the service) without requiring IIS to be installed and configured.

I know that I can do this with Delphi. But the customer would prefer to have this done in C# if possible.

Any suggestions?

Answer

Paulo Santos picture Paulo Santos · Jun 18, 2009

Yes, it's possible, you may want to have a look at WCF and Self Hosting.

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