Adding a certificate to a WCF client. Cannot find X.509 certificate

Question

I have a WCF client that is going to authenticate against some web service using a certificate issued by said service. At first my client used a https binding as below:

var httpsBinding = new BasicHttpsBinding();
httpsBinding.Security.Transport.ClientCredentialType = HttpClientCredentialType.Certificate;
httpsBinding.Security.Mode = BasicHttpsSecurityMode.Transport;

but this gave the following error:

InvalidOperationException: The client certificate is not provided. Specify a client certificate in ClientCredentials.

I then added the following code to my client configuration:

this.ChannelFactory.Credentials.ClientCertificate.SetCertificate("test", System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.StoreLocation.LocalMachine, 
                System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.StoreName.My);

And now I get the error

System.InvalidOperationException: 'Cannot find the X.509 certificate using the following search criteria: StoreName 'My', StoreLocation 'LocalMachine', FindType 'FindBySubjectDistinguishedName', FindValue 'test'.'

I am absolutely certain that the certificate is placed in the Personal folder on my Local Machine, but it still cannot find it. I have tried placing the certificate in various folders, renaming it, using the thumbprint for identification, but my application still can't find it. What could be the issue here?

Abraham Qian Abraham Qian · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-08T03:24:32

I suggest you set up the certificate by using X509FindType.FindByThumbprint.

ServiceReference1.ServiceClient client = new ServiceReference1.ServiceClient();
//client.ClientCredentials.ServiceCertificate.SetDefaultCertificate(StoreLocation.LocalMachine, StoreName.Root, X509FindType.FindByThumbprint, "cbc81f77ed01a9784a12483030ccd497f01be71c");
client.ClientCredentials.ClientCertificate.SetCertificate(StoreLocation.LocalMachine, StoreName.My, X509FindType.FindByThumbprint, "9ee8be61d875bd6e1108c98b590386d0a489a9ca");

It corresponds to the below value.

In order to allow WCF service could access this local certificate, we usually add Everyone account to the management group of the certificate private key.
Besides, WCF service with authenticating the client with a certificate, this usually requires that we set up both the service certificate and the client certificate on the client-side.
Feel free to let me know if there is anything I can help with.

Adding a certificate to a WCF client. Cannot find X.509 certificate

1 Answers