How to get gzip compression working in WCF 4.5

c# .net wcf self-hosting
NickD picture NickD · Mar 28, 2013 · Viewed 24k times · Source

WCF 4.5 supports GZIP without third party libraries or handwritten extensions. I got it working via TCP Binding, but cannot find a way to get it working via HTTP Binding. my wcf - Service is self hosted in a windows service.

Addon: i am not allowed to use IIS; i can't switch to any WCF replacement.

this works with gzip:

binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="tcpCompressionBinding" name="tcp"

and this is what i currently use for http:

binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="httpBinding" name="http"

The documentation does not really help me: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd456789.aspx.

But, according to this it should work:

Beginning with WCF 4.5 the WCF binary encoder adds support for compression. The type of compression is configured with the CompressionFormat property. Both the client and the service must configure the CompressionFormat property. Compression will work for HTTP, HTTPS, and TCP protocols. If a client specifies to use compression but the service does not support it a protocol exception is thrown indicating a protocol mismatch. For more information, see Choosing a Message Encoder

Answer

jpw picture jpw · Apr 7, 2013

As per request I copied my comment as answer:

"Since this property is only exposed on the binaryMessageEncodingBindingElement, you will need to create a custom binding like the following to use this feature: 

<customBinding>
  <binding name="BinaryCompressionBinding"> 
    <binaryMessageEncoding compressionFormat="GZip"/> 
    <httpTransport /> 
  </binding>
</customBinding>

and receive compressed messages and therefore the compressionFormat property must be configured on the binaryMessageEncoding element on both client and service. "Both the client and the service need to agree to send

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