Call authenticated web service in asp.net MVC

Question

My problem is in calling authenticated (has username and password) web service (asmx) in ASP.NET MVC

I did the following:

1. I added the web service to the project by adding service reference to the solution

2. Tried to create proxy class of the service by using wsdl.exe tool using the following command syntax

   wsdl /username:******** /password:************* /domain:********** web service url.asmx?wsdl

but it gave me the following error:

There was an error downloading web service url://???.asmx?wsdl. The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.

I can view the service in browser by giving username and password.

When I search for using svcutil.exe to create proxy class I found that it can't be used for authenticated web service.

I want to ask if there is another way to create proxy class , or if we can call authenticated web service in asp.net mvc application without proxy class.

Answer 1

I got a project with the same behavior, a Web Service (asmx) was behind a VPN and they use username/password to access it, but inside the VPN it was ok.

It will be hard to generate the proxy class directly from Visual Studio (maybe lack of support for such scenarios) but the trick is really easy as long as you can see the schema in a browser (the wsdl part).

do this:

1. open the ?wsdl link in a browser, go to Source Code mode and copy the entire code to a file in your local computer, let'a assume c:\temp and called service.wsdl
2. copy svcutil.exe to c:\temp (it's in .NET Framework folder, just search for it)
3. open a terminal in c:\temp (Shift + Right Click inside the folder and choose Open command window here)
4. run the following command: svcutil service.wsdl /out:proxy.cs /config:proxy.config

This will generate 2 files, the proxy.cs and the proxy.config

• proxy.cs is your web service wrapper, all you need is to add to your project
• proxy.config has the <system.serviceModel> that you need to append to your web.config file.

Now, all you need to do is follow the generated wrapper and write something like:

// Web Service initialization and authentication
client = new MyNamespace.ServiceSoapClient();
client.ClientCredentials.UserName.UserName = cUser;
client.ClientCredentials.UserName.Password = cPass;

// do something
client.InsertCompetitor(model);

// close connection
if (client != null && client.State == System.ServiceModel.CommunicationState.Opened)
    client.Close();