Consuming web services through a firewall

figured out how to do this - was quite a bugger ...

The web service itself works correctly and can be consumed from a non-firewall env. (e.g. from home), but not from a company behind a firewall

"When you use a .NET client to consume a Web service through an HTTP proxy server, you may receive the following error message:

The underlying connection was closed: The remote name could not be resolved.

CAUSE

An HTTP proxy server exists between the Web service and the .NET client, and the proper proxy settings have not been configured.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, supply the proper proxy configuration settings to the .NET client."

This would mean, if your consuming the web service from an asp.net application, then the following code needs to be added to the web.config file under the 'configuration' node

<system.net><defaultProxy><proxy usesystemdefault = "true" /> </defaultProxy> </system.net>

however, should the default settings not automatically detect the proxy server settings, set 'usesystemdefault' to false and then explicitly designate the proxy server:

<configuration> <system.net> <defaultProxy> <proxy usesystemdefault = "false" proxyaddress="http://proxyserver" bypassonlocal="true" /> </defaultProxy> </system.net> </configuration>

i found some info on the web and msdn

• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q318140/
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307220/
• http://www.dotnet247.com/247reference/msgs/11/57110.aspx

Thanks to the sadev guys, I found out you could also try setting the proxy explicitly on the web service before calling it from the client:

Dim myWebService as New MyWebServiceProxy
myWebService.Proxy = New System.Net.WebProxy([proxy address], [port])myWebService.
[MethodToCall]

although you might need to set the credentials as well then.

Norton Internet Security

Another possible cause could be (and was the case) because of Norton Internet Security being used on the client's pc. Somehow this prevented the web service from being consumed correctly. You can bypass this security by changing it's (NIS) settings to allow the web service.