title: When setting up a WCF client and server, how synchronized does the config files must be?
body: <p>Most of the WCF examples out there show you how to configure WCF client and server. Now, what happens if you differ the configuration slightly between them? I mean, who has the final word?</p>
  
  <p>Let's take this client configuration for example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;configuration&gt;
  &lt;system.serviceModel&gt;
      &lt;bindings&gt;
          &lt;wsHttpBinding&gt;
              &lt;binding name="WSHttpBinding_ISampleService" closeTimeout="00:01:00"
                  openTimeout="00:01:00" receiveTimeout="00:01:00" sendTimeout="00:01:00"
                  bypassProxyOnLocal="false" transactionFlow="false" hostNameComparisonMode="StrongWildcard"
                  maxBufferPoolSize="524288" maxReceivedMessageSize="65536"
                  messageEncoding="Text" textEncoding="utf-8" useDefaultWebProxy="true"
                  allowCookies="false"&gt;
                  &lt;readerQuotas maxDepth="32" maxStringContentLength="8192" maxArrayLength="16384"
                      maxBytesPerRead="4096" maxNameTableCharCount="16384" /&gt;
                  &lt;reliableSession ordered="true" inactivityTimeout="00:10:00"
                      enabled="false" /&gt;
                  &lt;security mode="Message"&gt;
                      &lt;transport clientCredentialType="None" proxyCredentialType="None"
                          realm="" /&gt;
                      &lt;message clientCredentialType="Windows" negotiateServiceCredential="true"
                          algorithmSuite="Default" establishSecurityContext="true" /&gt;
                  &lt;/security&gt;
              &lt;/binding&gt;
          &lt;/wsHttpBinding&gt;
      &lt;/bindings&gt;
      &lt;client&gt;
          &lt;endpoint address="http://localhost:8080/SampleService" binding="wsHttpBinding"
              bindingConfiguration="WSHttpBinding_ISampleService" contract="ISampleService"
              name="WSHttpBinding_ISampleService"&gt;
          &lt;/endpoint&gt;
      &lt;/client&gt;
  &lt;/system.serviceModel&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p></p>
  
  <p>Usually the server side will have the exact same binding configured on its exposed server.</p>
  
  <p>But what happens now if on the server side is defined with openTimeout = 00:00:30. What will be the timeout? Who wins? I do the same question for all other parameters.</p>
  
  <p>The whole thing seems a big mess, how can you tell, for each element of the configuration  (binding, client, service, behavior, etc.) and all their details, which parameters is required and in which side (client or server)?</p>
  
  <p>It seems you could define the entire binding with all timeout parameters on the server side and on the client side simply put the minimum required configuration so all parameters from the server are accepted. But now, what are the minimum required parameters on the client considering the server has a more in depth configuration?</p>
  
  <p>What are the best practice when configuring client and server using WCF regarding parameters for each element of the configuration: bindings, services, client/endpoint and behavior?</p>
  
  <p>When conflicting parameters are defined between client and server how WCF handles it?</p>