MSDeploy: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.

Our company has started deploying all of its numerous web applications via automated (or at least scripted) deployment with MSDeploy. This has worked fine, up until very recently where one machine in particular seemed to be cursed and simply didn't want to work. Even when we nuked the VM and completely recommissioned it from scratch from our VM web server template, we still kept getting the following error:

Error: Could not complete the request to remote agent URL 'https://myserver:10987/MSDeployAgentService'.
Error: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a send.
Error: Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.
Error: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
Error count: 1.

The problem turned out to be caused by the fact that we hadn't correctly configured the Management Service for MSDeploy (even though we use a custom port for the MsDepSvc deployment service, the Web Management Service (WMSvc) wasn't correctly configured): 

1. Because we were behind a load balancer, we needed to specifically set the IP address of the server
2. We were attempting to use SSL, but we didn't have a certificate specified in the Management Service configuration.

Here's what our configuration looked like in the end, obfuscated to protect the guilty:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Journey to robust web services: my clients are unable to connect!

I've been testing out some web services I've been working on extensively on my own machine, but the time has finally come where I want to start making clients that aren't running on the same machine. In one case, I have a WCF service running on Windows 7, but the client I want to connect to that service is running on Windows 8 on a separate machine. When I tried to connect, I would get a variety of errors, the most common of which being that the socket on the server was forcibly closed. I Googled around a bit, and the most common cause of this problem that I found was that the server's quota's were being reached and therefore the client was being rejected, however this shouldn't have been the case for me since there was no way my quota's could have been reached. After further research, I found that since I don't want security (yet), I had to apply some settings in order for clients that weren't on my localhost to connect. In order to allow external clients to connect, I had to change the following :

1. In my , I had to change my base address to use the network name of my computer (rather than localhost) in the base address URL.
2. In the net.tcp and ws2007HttpBindings for my services, I had to go to the the child element of the elements, and explicitly set mode="None" on those elements, otherwise they may assume some form of security by default depending on the type of the binding.

Now, I did mention above that I don't want to add security (*YET*) being the important qualifier of that statement. Security is of course always paramount, and should always be baked into a product as early as possible. As soon as I get to it, I'll add a post about all the steps required to add security to your WCF clients and services, along with links to the relevant MSDN articles (and any other useful ones that I may find.

Beginning with SQL Server

Given changes in the environment in which our business does it's business, I've had to start learning to use SQL Server and various other Microsoft technologies lately. A quick note on connecting to a foreign SQL Server instance (ie another company's ...) :

Create an alias for the database so that Enterprise Manager has something to work with

Open up the Client Network Utility which should be included in the Start menu programs group for your SQL Server installation.

Start -> Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server -> Client Network Utility -> Alias (tab) -> Add... (button).

Under 'Server alias' enter an easy to remember name for the connection. Under 'Network libraries' select the TCP/IP option. Under 'Connection parameters' enter the DNS name or IP address under 'Server name' of the server you wish to connect to. Change the option for 'Dynamically determine port' if the server you're attempting to connect to doesn't run under the standard port of 1433 for SQL Server. Hit 'Ok' to save your settings, then 'Ok' to close out of the Client Network Utility.

Create a new SQL Server Registration to add your SQL Server instance to the Enterprise Manager

Open Enterprise Manager. It should be in the same programs group in the start menu as the Client Network Utility. Once open, create a new SQL Server Group if you haven't already got one (or haven't got one that you want to add your new SQL Server instance to). Then add a new SQL Server Registration. You should be prompted by a Wizard at this point. (If you're not, then you've probably already disabled the Wizard and don't need to be reading this tutorial.) In the wizard, click on 'Next' to proceed to the SQL Server selection screen. Under the list of available servers, you should see the alias you just created in the previous step. Select it and click on 'Add >' to add it to the list of added servers, and then click on 'Next'. After this, you should be prompted for credentials, and the rest is pretty self explanatory.