Self-hosting ASP.NET Web API

Just a simple example, showing how to self-host ASP.NET Web API.

1. On an elevated console (“Run as administrator”), execute “netsh http add urlacl url=http://+:8080/ user=<your user name>”, to allow the running user to listen on port 8080.
2. On Visual Studio, create a “Console Application” project.
3. Change the project’s Target Framework property from “.NET Framework 4 Client Profile” to “.NET Framework 4 profile”.
4. Install the AspNetWebApi.Selfhost NuGet package
5. Create a public ApiController derived class.

public class HelloController : ApiController
{
  public HttpResponseMessage Get()
  {
    return new HttpResponseMessage
        {
          Content = new StringContent("Hello HTTP")
        };
  }
}

1. In the program’s Main method,
   1. Create a HttpSelfHostConfiguration, initialized with the base address.
   2. Add the default route: MapHttpRoute(“default”, “{controller}/{id}”, new { id = RouteParameter.Optional });
   3. Create a HttpSelfHostServer, initialized with the above configuration object.
   4. Open the server, bearing in mind that the OpenAsync method is asynchronous.

static void Main(string[] args)
{
  var config = new HttpSelfHostConfiguration("http://localhost:8080");
  config.Routes.MapHttpRoute("default", "{controller}/{id}", new { id = RouteParameter.Optional });
  var server = new HttpSelfHostServer(config);
  server.OpenAsync().Wait();

  Console.WriteLine("Server is opened");
  Console.ReadKey();

1. Run the program, open a browser and access http://localhost:8080/hello.

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That’s it. You now have a self-hosted ASP.NET Web API server.

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