I have been thinking about this subject for a while now, but this is my first attempt to get some help. So maybe I am still not asking the right questions, and I apologize for this. Btw, this is a "theorical" question, I am not asking for codes... AND, english is not my native language (sorry again)...
Well, I need to (programatically) create a method to allow a software inside a LAN (behind router/firewall) perform some action when a button in my website is clicked. The software is in a completely remote location, not in same computer/server as the website.
I know I could create some kind of thread in the software to periodically listen to a boolean database field, or maybe a text file in the website. But I think today we might have some better (more efficient) tecnology for this necessity...
I would like to know what is (or are) the most efficient solution(s) for this approach. By efficient I mean lightweight (do not overload my website with periodical requests) and fast (users need to wait just few seconds when click the button to get a response).
I appreciate any kind of thoughts and ideais about a possible solution for this necessity, and thanks in advance!
First...you have an uphill struggle since doing what you want is VERY DANGEROUS and typically not allowed, since the point of a web app is to disengage from the hosting OS. Otherwise, hackers would have a huge front door into peoples machines.
Second...you're not clear on where the 'software' is located. Will it be executed on the web server that is hosing your web site, is it on a completely remote computer on the LAN, or is it to pull the exe back and execute on you're machine that happens to be on the LAN?
With that...you can check out these links for some guidance:
https://community.serif.com/forum/8612/x7-run-exe-eg-notepad-exe-by-clicking-button-in-website
How to launch an EXE from Web page (asp.net)
Finally, you might be able to use the website button to call into a web api that will execute the exe.
Theoretically you could create a Stored Procedure on a SQL server, that is started as a result of the button click. For example the button click could increment a counter by querying the server then, as a result, run the procedure. You can even pass arguments into it. Within the stored procedure on the SQL server you would then tell it to run the program (preferably a service), using PowerShell.
Your button will call a stored procedure.
This stored procedure will call 'xp_cmdshell' with parameters.
Powershell will then tell remote computer to run application.
BUTTON > T-SQL Stored Procedure > xp_cmdshell (PowerShell) > Remotely Start Executable.
Related
I need to deploy an application onto some Windows machines for purposes of data collection from a group of people (i.e. the application will be used to gather responses to a series of survey questions). The process is interactive, alternating between displays of text and images with specific timing requirements. I have put together a prototype application using HTML and JavaScript that implements the survey. However, there are some unique constraints on the deployment environment that have me stuck:
While the machine is Internet-connected, the client requires that the survey application must run fully local to the PC that it runs on. Therefore, sending the survey results to a remote server is not permissible. Obviously, saving to a local file from a Web browser is typically not permitted for security reasons.
Installation of applications onto the machines that will run the survey is not permitted.
The configuration of the machines is not known specifically a priori, but I can assume some recent version of Windows with IE8+.
The "no remote access" requirement was a late comer, and has thrown a wrench into the plan of just writing a simple Web application that could post results to an HTTP server. I'm now looking for the easiest way forward. Two main approaches come to mind:
Use a GUI framework that provides a control that can display HTML/JavaScript; running a full-blown application on the PC would allow me to save the results to the filesystem. I've never done this, but it seems like in this day and age it shouldn't be too difficult. This would allow me to reuse much of my existing prototype implementation, but I would need some way of transferring the results (which would be stored in a JavaScript data structure) outside of the Web control to where the rest of the application could access it.
Reimplement the entire application using some GUI framework (I've used PyQt successfully before, although not on Windows). This approach is obviously less desirable than #1 due to the lack of reuse. However, it may be necessary if #1 isn't feasible.
Any recommendations for the best way to go? Ideally, I'm looking for a solution that can be run in a "portable" manner from a USB thumbdrive or similar.
Have you looked at HTML Applications (HTA)? They work in IE5+ and can use Windows Scripting Host to write to local drives and UNC shares...
Maybe you can use a portable web server with a scripting language on the server side. http://code.google.com/p/mongoose/ Mongoose, for example, you can run PHP, CGI, etc. .. scripts. Then, simply create a script to save a file to your hard drive. And let the rest of the application in the same manner.
Use a script to start the web server, and perhaps a portable web browser like K-Meleon to start the application http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/ This is highly configurable. Or start the system explorer to your localhost URL.
The only problem may be that the user has to modify the firewall for the first time you run the server?
So I've started using MvcMiniProfiler on our websites and quite like it. We have a Windows Application component/framework that is leveraged by the website and I was wondering if it was possible to use the profiler on that. I'm assuming not, but maybe there is a subcomponent of the code that could be used? I see that there is a way to configure where the results are stored (i.e. Sql Server) so maybe it is close to possible?
We have the following flow:
Website submits job to 'broker' then returns a 'come back later' page.
Broker runs and eventually data in the websites database gets updated by the broker.
Website displays the results.
I'd be great if there was a way I could get the entire workflow profiled. If there is no way/no intentions from the developers to make MvcMiniProfiler available to Windows applications, any recommendations for similar styled profilers?
You could get this working by using SqlServerStorage, there is very little in the code base that heavily depends on ASP.NET, in fact the SQL interceptor is generalized and so it the stack used to capture the traces.
I imagine that a few changes internally need to be made, eg: use Thread.SetData as opposed to HttpContext but they are pretty superficial.
The way you would get this going is by passing the "profiling identity" into the App and then continuing tracking there. Eventually when the user hits the site after it happens, it would show up as little "chiclets" on the left side.
A patch is totally welcome here but it is not something it does in its current version.
(note to future readers, this is probably going to be out of date at some point, if it is please suggest an edit)
Yes, there's a Windows porting of MiniProfiler: http://nootn.github.io/MiniProfiler.Windows/
I'm using the Selenium Client (v 1.2.18) to do automated navigation of retail websites for which there exists no external API. My goal is to determine real-time, site-specific product availability using the "Check Availability" button that exists on a lot of these sites.
In case there's any concern, each of these checks will be initiated by a real live consumer who is actually interested in whether or not something's available at that store. There will be no superfluous requests or other internet badness.
I'm using Selenium's Grid framework so that I can run stuff in parallel and I'm keeping each of the controlled browsers open between requests. The issue I'm experiencing is that I need to perform these checks across a number of different domains, and I won't know in advance which one I will have to check next. I didn't think this would be too big an issue, but it turns out that when a Selenium browser instance gets made, it gets linked to a specific domain and I haven't been able to find any way to change what domain that is. This requires restarting a browser each time a request comes in for a domain we're not already linked to.
Oh, and the reason we're using Selenium instead something more light-weight (eg. Mechanize) is because we need something that can handle JavaScript.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I suppose you are restricted from changing domain because of same origin policy. Did you try using browser with elevated security privileges like iehta for internet explorer and chrome for firefox browsers. While using these modes of browsers, use open method in your tests and pass the URL which you want to open. This might solve your problem.
I have a project idea in my head that I am considering trying to execute, but this desktop programmer doesn't really know where to begin when it comes to web server development!
I would like to have a script respond when an e-mail is received at an address, which would query a database, make some decision, and then possibly forward this e-mail to another address. I know I can accomplish the actual parsing and database interaction in Perl or PHP (or really any scripting language) if I write the script and put it into my hosted CGI-BIN directory. But beyond there, I'm a little lost.
In summary:
My specific question is: How do I in essence 'hook in' to the mailbox and execute a script when an e-mail is received?
My more general question is: How do I respond to user events beyond just a requesting a URL? If I wanted to run an application for accepting License codes, for example, how would I accomplish that? (listening for messages on an open socket or port, executing actions against a database, etc.)
My (possibly too-broad) question is: What would my next step be in going deeper? What books or resource made it all click, and made you fell like you had the strength of 1000 IT (wo)men?
More about my background/what I already know:
I've never ventured too far in web development, but the world has grown so interconnected, I can't really continue to sit in the dark. I know how to code and script, write PHP/MySQL websites, and I can navigate a *nix machine with some competency.
Have spent the last 5-10 years focused in the C-family of languages. I replaced a crude knowledge of ASP with a crude knownledge of PHP, with very little JavaScript; lots of VBScript and more recently, Python.
You'll need to poll the POP3/IMAP mail server for messages. PHP has libraries for handling those protocols for you PHP IMAP. The next step is to get that script running. The most rudimentary way of doing that is to execute it as a cron task that checks the mail server and responds to the emails. On the other hand PHP is not necessarily the language for automating background tasks. Perl has those facilities also, as does Python.
I have an existing GUI application that should have been implemented as a service. Basically, I need to be able to remotely log onto and off of the Windows 2003 server and still keep this program running.
Is this even possible?
EDIT: Further refinement here... I do not have the source, it's not my application.
Windows services cannot have GUIs, so you will need to either get rid of the GUI or separate your application into two pieces - a service with no UI, and a "controller" application. If you have the source code, converting the non-GUI code into a service is easy - Visual Studio has a 'Windows Service' project type that takes care of the wrapping for you, and there is a simple walkthrough that shows you how to create a deployment project that will take care of installation.
If you opt for the second route and need to put some of the original GUI code into a controller, the controller and service can communicate via WCF, .NET Remoting or plain socket connections with a protocol you define yourself. If you use Remoting, be sure to use a "chunky" interface that transfers data with as few method invocations as possible - each call has a fair amount of overhead.
If the UI is fairly simple, you may be able to get away with using configuration files for input and log files or the Windows Event Log for output.
Has anyone used a third party product like: Always Up?
Seems to do what I need. It's the capability to keep running through login / logout cycles I need. And the capability to ignore that it's a GUI app and run it anyway.
They must be linking into the exe manually and calling WinMain or something.
You can wrap it up into srvany, though you may need to assign it an actual user account (as opposed to LocalService or some such)
I've had good experience with winsw. I was able to convert quite easily my batch files to services using it.
I've used it for nginx as well, per this answer.
Do you actually need it to run as a service or do you just need it to stay running when you aren't connected? If the latter, you can disconnect instead of logging off and the application will continue running. The option should be in the drop down list after choosing Shut Down or you can call tsdiscon.exe.
Do you have the source? In many cases the difference between a stand alone application and a service are minimal.
Most of the changes are related to hooking the code into the service manager properly. Once done, you'll know that any problems that occur are a result of your programming and not any other program.
What happens if you create a service. That service is configure to interact with the desktop. Configure it to run a some user and to start automatic. From the service CreateProcess on this other application. I'd guess this is quick to try using C# (C/C++ was alot of code to even be a service if I recall). Would that work??
BUT!
My first thought would be to create a virtual computer in a server-class virtual host (like Virtual Server, HyperV, VMWare). Those virtual machines will run as service (or whatever Hyper V does). The virtual machine would always be running - regardless of logging in and out.
Make this virtual computer auto login to windows (TweakUI can set this up) and then just launch the GUI app using a shortcut to the Startup folder. You can even remote desktop into it use the program's GUI (I bet Always Up can't do that).
You can use ServiceMill to achieve this operation.
Basically you install ServiceMill Server on your server.
Then click on right button over your executable file and "Install as a ServiceMill Service".
Next you configure some things (user/password, if you want to interact with desktop or if you prefer to hide the ui... and set the start mode to automatic).
Another tool from Active+ Software can be a solution, ServiceMill Exe Builder which allows you to create services from Command Line and this is great if you are using a Continuous Integration Server or if you plan to distribute your component as a service without having to think about service integration (plus it is royalty free).
FireDaemonPro turns most GUI apps into services; it's not free, but it might be worth getting it.
First I would have to ask why your service needs a user interface. Most likely it does not but you probably need a client that gets data from this service. The reason services don't usually have GUI's is they may not have a window environment to run in. Services can start and run without a user logged in to the machine. In this case there would be no desktop for the service GUI to run in.
Having said that you can set properties on the service to run as a user as suggested by Mark. You can also specify in the properties of the service to "Allow service to interact with desktop". Only do this if you know a user will be logged in.
A service shouldn't have a GUI, since it should run without any needing any intervention from a user, and there are all sorts of problems associated with finding and communicating with the correct users desktop.
Since, presumably the reason for asking this is to be able to remotely monitor the application, the way to do it would be to have two applications. The service side (written basically as a console application) and the client/monitoring GUI side. The service would use some remote connectivity (when I did this I used Named Pipes) to communicate with the client/monitoring application. Either should be able to run without the other, and certainly the service should be able to run with out the client.