I created a service in Visual C++. Installed it using instsrv.exe and srvany.exe.
When I check at the Services applet in Control Panel, the service is registered. But when I want to start it, this message appears:
the service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some service stop automatically if they have no work to do, for example the Performance logs and Alert Service.
I just have this code inside my OnStart function:
(void)system("C:\ReleaseExe\Example1Server.exe");
I my code correct? Or is there any other way to code it to make sure that the service can be in running state?
Assuming that exe you are starting up is actually your service, this is the wrong way to do it.
The Windows Service Control Manager (SCM) actually calls into your service's EXE via defined entry points - you need to provide the logic to do what your particular service needs in those entry points, including notifying the SCM of state changes in your service (STOPPED-> RUNNING, RUNNING->STOPPED, and so on).
Read the background info on MSDN, starting here, for clarification of what you must provide. Note that OnStart is specific to implementing Services in managed code, you won't be doing it that way in Visual C++. Perhaps C# would be an easier route?
Related
I have implemented a background service that sends some data to server.
But the service is only triggered after the trigger is fired.
I want the service to fire immediately as and when its registered.
I have tried
DeviceTrigger
LocationTrigger
SystemTrigger(Internet available/Timezone-changed)
MaintenanceTrigger
TimeTrigger
but they all are fired when their conditions are met as documented. Does any one have any idea how to get this work, btw I'm on windows phone 8.1 and C++.
PS. I just want my service to get triggered as it is registered.
AFAIK you can’t do that directly. Microsoft is very strict about what background tasks can and cannot do because battery life depends on it.
There’s a workaround.
Move your server-sending functionality from your background service into a separate DLL. Call that DLL from both background service process, and the GUI process. If you need to, in that DLL you can guard shared resources with a named mutex or use any other IPC mechanism that works across processes.
We have a service running on a Windows Server 2003 machine. This service watches a particular folder on an FTP server, and when files appear there, it invokes one of a few different executables to process them.
I've been asked to find a way for staff to be alerted in some way when this service hangs or stops.
Can anyone suggest anything with just this much information? If not, what else would you need to know?
Seems we could write ANOTHER service to watch THIS service, but then there's a chance THAT one would stop ... so we haven't resolved anything.
About the only thing that I know if is writing another application or service that monitors if that service is running; something like that shouldn't have any unexpected behavior and stop, hopefully.
Another thing to do is go to the service in Windows, go to its properties, and then go to recovery options. From here, you can set the behavior of a service if it is to fail. The options in Windows 7 are to restart the service or computer, or run a program. This program could send some sort of notification. However, I don't know if any or all of these options exist in Server 2003. This would also not likely work if the service were to just hang, but a service watching it probably wouldn't either.
Also, if you have the source code, you can override some of the service-related methods such as OnStop() (for C#) to send a notification, but I don't believe this works with a failure.
My personal choice would be to set the recovery options just to restart the service on failure, unless it repeatedly fails, which there is also an option for. But just do what you think will work best for you; there isn't really a fail-safe method to do it.
UPDATE:
I did check, and Server 2003 does indeed have the same recovery options in the service manager. As the guys said above, you can deal with that, but it is only in C++ from what I have seen; there is also a command prompt way to do it:
sc failure [servicename] reset= 0 actions= restart/60000
I found that command here and you can look at it more in its MSDN documentation. You could call this command from C# or other languages if you are not using C++, or use it directly from the command prompt if you do not have the source code.
Use ChangeServiceConfig2() to define Failure Actions for your service. You could use that to invoke an external command to issue the alert (or do pretty much anything else you want) if the service terminates unexpectedly.
The SCM (the component which handles services) has built-in auto-restart logic that you can take advantage of to restart your service, as necessary. Additionally and/or alternatively, you can configure 'custom actions' to be associated with a failure of the service - the custom action can include launching a program of your own, which could then log the failure, and perhaps manually restart your service.
You can read more about such custom actions on MSDN by looking at the documentation of the structure used to configure such actions: SERVICE_FAILURE_ACTIONS. Once you fill that structure, you notify the SCM by calling the ChangeServiceConfig2 function.
Please don't ask "well, what happens if my failure handler program crashes" :)
I have an executable that I would like to set to run as a service. Using the sc.exe tool provided by windows (see KB article here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/251192), I successfully "registered" the service. However, when I go to the Service Management Console (Start->Run->services.msc) and start the service, I get the following error:
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
After reading around my initial impression is that service executables have to conform to an API, and that among the required functions/methods a service has to respond to are a start/stop/restart command. However, this seems to defeat the whole point of the sc.exe tool which is advertised with the ability to turn any executable into a service.
Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
This is the code you are looking for:
sc create SERVICENAME binPath= "cmd /c c:\programlocation\program.exe"
It will not rid you of error 1053, but at least this will apply to the console (CMD) who already did the job of running the app in the background (check task manager to confirm).
Take a look at Topshelf-project which turns many arbitrary executables into services.
When you reference Topshelf, you can run your exe from a command-line, or install it into Windows Services with:
your.exe install
Even with topshelf registered, you would still want to have a logging facility -- such as log4net -- to monitor bootstrapping activities that could prevent it from launching in a timely fashion.
One very likely cause of this behavior is the application that is started is displaying a request for interaction with the end user (messagebox, input prompt, licensing dialog, etc). We have run into this more than once. This usually happens with applications that aren't designed to run as services. You could try running the service as Local System and check the Allow service to interact with desktop checkbox.
The other possibility is that the user the service is configured to run as doesn't have access to resources (disks, databases, etc). If the process works correctly interactively, then try changing the service's user credentials to your user and see if that gets you any further.
Update
Apologies, I assumed the question was regarding srvany which is the application you are looking for.
When a machine reboots, do all the services which are run under the accounts (system/service/network service) get run before a user logs on?
JD.
Services have a "start type" defined per-service, those types are boot, system, auto, demand, disabled. Services also have dependencies on each other, defined in the registry.
Services with boot and system start type are started during the time period when only NT Native binaries can run (the Win32 API is not yet ready). For example, these services include such as csrss.exe which provides some of the Win32 API.
Once Win32 has been initialized, the services with start type automatic are started. During this time, the service which allows the user to log in runs -- this displays the login prompt and does allow the user to log in.
In every case, if the service being start depends on other services, then the other services will be started in advance.
So, yes, it is possible for users to log in prior to the execution of a service. However, if the login service were to depend on your service... Better, though, if you detect that your service has started. Considering using a named global event with CreateEvent() api. Your service creates the event, your application awaits the event before calling the service. Also, your app can use the ServiceControl API to start the service only when in use.
The windows "Services.msc" management plug-in hides the boot and system services. To learn more about these startup types, refer to this API documentation: MSDN: ChangeServiceConfig Function .
Yes, using (by default) a built-in Windows account. In Services (run services.msc) there is a "Log On As" column that tells you the user that the service logs in as.
I do not think so. This should be asynchronous. If you are fast enough to log on, some of the services will still be coming up. This does not include "system" services
I have an .exe I want to start when the Win2k3 server boots. Does .exe needs to be setup as a custom service. If so, what is the process to setup the custom service?
I assume you don't really mean at boot time (you would have to write a driver service for that) but rather at user mode system start up.
If your process is uncomplicated you could just set it up as a scheduled task - with the trigger set to system start. If it needs to interact with the system more, i.e. needs to be paused, needs to be shutdown, warned of system events such as power events or shutdown, etc. then you should probably look to convert it to a Win32 service.
If you do need to convert to a service then start reading here and then continue with something like Richter's or Miller's books until you really understand what you are doing. Then write your service application.
If you want to create that service manually, you can use sc.exe for the job. However that exe must be capable to run as service of course.
XYNTservice a simple service that can start pretty much any program as a service.
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/xyntservice.aspx