title: How to ping or check status of WCF service using net.tcp endpoint from remote server?
body: <p>I really come from the world of <code>Http</code> and never did much with the old .NET Remoting which used TCP, but I understand the TCP concepts and now have implemented several WCF services using the net.tcp binding over the last few years. Most of the time it is up, running, I consume it, end of story. However sometimes the server setup is more advanced and I get communication errors that exist on 1 server and maybe not from another. To prove if it is a firewall/server/etc. issue I need to see if the WCF service can even be seen or reached without issue. This is for a Windows Service hosted WCF service using net.tcp that I am trying to figure out this situation.</p>
  
  <p>The thing is with a WCF service exposed via a HTTP binding, I can just plop the URI in the browser to view the service page letting me know the service is running properly. Easy test.</p>
  
  <p>How do I do the equivalent for a WCF service exposed via a net.tcp binding? Is there any tool or command I can use to test for example <code>net.tcp//mycustomWCFService:8123/MyService</code> ? I have seen a few posts on writing code to programmatically determine if the WCF service is available but I do not want to do it this way. I want to do this check if at all possible <em>without</em> code, analogous to me pulling up the http endpoint in a browser.</p>
  
  <p>Any help is appreciated, thank you!</p>