currently I am writing a deployscript for our build system.
I have an ec2 machine that i want to push my installer to, install the program and then run the program (exe). The program is in fact a server that should run forever. I already tried doing this with Powershell Remoting, this is not satisfying because a permanent connection is needed (if the powershell remote session disconnects, the process terminates).
Now I am looking into Invoke-WMIObject, is this really the best way to go, or am I missing something obvious?
Requirement is that the whole build process can be run from a powershell script (which is executed by our build server).
The server is running windows 2008 Server R2
kind regards
You could run your server program as a Windows Service - just wrap it with one of available free service wrapper utilities like nssm. You can use PSRemoting to recreate and start the service on the remote server each build by running Stop-Service, & nssm remove, & nssm install and Start-Service.
Alternatively (though probably not so easily managed in your build), you could remotely create and run a task in Task Scheduler with Scheduled Tasks Cmdlets.
You can use PsExec from SysInternals, but that's a standalone utility. However, you can still embed the logic in your PS script. If you are still in need of WMI, then you might wanna check this. It includes snippets of VB scripts and a detailed explanation of what to do.
I have a Windows installer script for a Windows application I'm delivering to customers. I want to have the application installed as a Windows service.
I've been reading up on various ways to do this. The closest I've found that can do this from a command is sc.exe as described in Create windows service from executable here at Stackoverflow, but this command requires running it as administrator, which as far as I can tell, also requires submitting an administrator's password.
In my build script, there's no way to right-click and "run as administrator".
Is there any way to do this from a build script (I'm using my company's installation packager to do this, which uses Ant-like XML build files with an command and statements -- so, much like running at the Windows command line). If I could figure out a command-line implementation that my customers can use I could give them this package.
Thanks for any tips.
Scott
I would like to send a windows service program to our client that does not have InstallUtil (no rights to distribute) and this one will be multiple installations in the same machine.
I found something at this point: Inno Setup for Windows service?
But I am not clear how to:
add the InnoSetup script and where to add this script?
For the if and else: System.Environment.UserInteractive? if a service is not installed, then it will be going inside this if?
Thanks in advance.
I have provided a step-by-step solution for how to add command-line install/uninstall to your Windows service using C#. This solution lets you avoid requiring the use of InstallUtil.
How to make a .NET Windows Service start right after the installation?
You need to add an installer to your service setup project, and a custom action. This article will get you started.
Is there any quick way to, given an executable file, create a Windows service that, when started, launches it?
To create a Windows Service from an executable, you can use sc.exe:
sc.exe create <new_service_name> binPath= "<path_to_the_service_executable>"
You must have quotation marks around the actual exe path, and a space after the binPath=.
More information on the sc command can be found in Microsoft KB251192.
Note that it will not work for just any executable: the executable must be a Windows Service (i.e. implement ServiceMain). When registering a non-service executable as a service, you'll get the following error upon trying to start the service:
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
There are tools that can create a Windows Service from arbitrary, non-service executables, see the other answers for examples of such tools.
Use NSSM( the non-Sucking Service Manager ) to run a .BAT or any .EXE file as a service.
http://nssm.cc/
Step 1: Download NSSM
Step 2: Install your sevice with nssm.exe install [serviceName]
Step 3: This will open a GUI which you will use to locate your executable
Extending (Kevin Tong) answer.
Step 1: Download & Unzip nssm-2.24.zip
Step 2: From command line type:
C:\> nssm.exe install [servicename]
it will open GUI as below (the example is UT2003 server), then simply browse it to: yourapplication.exe
More information on: https://nssm.cc/usage
these extras proved useful.. need to be executed as an Administrator
sc create <service_name> binpath= "<binary_path>"
sc stop <service_name>
sc queryex <service_name>
sc delete <service_name>
If your service name has any spaces, enclose in "quotes".
Many existing answers include human intervention at install time. This can be an error-prone process. If you have many executables wanted to be installed as services, the last thing you want to do is to do them manually at install time.
Towards the above described scenario, I created serman, a command line tool to install an executable as a service. All you need to write (and only write once) is a simple service configuration file along with your executable. Run
serman install <path_to_config_file>
will install the service. stdout and stderr are all logged. For more info, take a look at the project website.
A working configuration file is very simple, as demonstrated below. But it also has many useful features such as <env> and <persistent_env> below.
<service>
<id>hello</id>
<name>hello</name>
<description>This service runs the hello application</description>
<executable>node.exe</executable>
<!--
{{dir}} will be expanded to the containing directory of your
config file, which is normally where your executable locates
-->
<arguments>"{{dir}}\hello.js"</arguments>
<logmode>rotate</logmode>
<!-- OPTIONAL FEATURE:
NODE_ENV=production will be an environment variable
available to your application, but not visible outside
of your application
-->
<env name="NODE_ENV" value="production"/>
<!-- OPTIONAL FEATURE:
FOO_SERVICE_PORT=8989 will be persisted as an environment
variable to the system.
-->
<persistent_env name="FOO_SERVICE_PORT" value="8989" />
</service>
Same as Sergii Pozharov's answer, but with a PowerShell cmdlet:
New-Service -Name "MyService" -BinaryPathName "C:\Path\to\myservice.exe"
See New-Service for more customization.
This will only work for executables that already implement the Windows Services API.
I've tested a good product for that: AlwaysUp. Not free but they have a 30 days trial period so you can give it a try...
I created the cross-platform Service Manager software a few years back so that I could start PHP and other scripting languages as system services on Windows, Mac, and Linux OSes:
https://github.com/cubiclesoft/service-manager
Service Manager is a set of precompiled binaries that install and manage a system service on the target OS using nearly identical command-line options (source code also available). Each platform does have subtle differences but the core features are mostly normalized.
If the child process dies, Service Manager automatically restarts it.
Processes that are started with Service Manager should periodically watch for two notification files to handle restart and reload requests but they don't necessarily have to do that. Service Manager will force restart the child process if it doesn't respond in a timely fashion to controlled restart/reload requests.
You can check out my small free utility for service create\edit\delete operations. Here is create example:
Go to Service -> Modify -> Create
Executable file (google drive): [Download]
Source code: [Download]
Blog post: [BlogLink]
Service editor class: WinServiceUtils.cs
Probably all your answers are better, but - just to be complete on the choice of options - I wanted to remind about old, similar method used for years:
SrvAny (installed by InstSrv)
as described here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/deployment/create-user-defined-service
I have another method, using the open-source library called Topshelf.
I used it in a c# project, but maybe its available in different programming languages.
Here's a video that explains how to use it a little.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y64L-3HKuP0
The crux of this issue for a lot of people is that you can't install any old .exe as a service unless you use the old method that Tomeg used. I couldn't find the windows nt toolkit that's needed to get that to work.
I was stuck in a corner and this was my way out.
I have a windows server 2003 up in the internet.
But sometime I need to restart it.
After restart, I want one of the applications to run.
I want to do this all programatically.
I can now remotely restart the server.
But the question is how can I ask that piece of software to be executed (more precisely, I want to execute a .BAT file to ask a tomcat to run)?
Because I don't want to manually log in to the machine and start that application. That is time consuming. Is there any possible way, once the machine is started, my application will be run as well?
If you're developing an application that should always be running on the server, you probably need to implement it as a Windows service. For C#, see the classes in the System.ServiceProcess namespace -- you will need to inherit from ServiceBase.
Alternatively, you can set the program to be run as a scheduled task on boot. See the Task Scheduler API to do this.
You can install Cygwin and then do it the same way we'd do it on a Linux box: via ssh, using keys.
OpenSSH is not part of the default Cygwin install, so be sure to select it. It's in the Net category.
Then, after you've installed Cygwin and sshd, read /usr/share/doc/Cygwin/openssh.README to learn how to set up sshd as a service, so it will answer requests automatically, without you having to start the ssh daemon manually.
Finally, set up keys, as described in the link above.
Part of the ssh protocol is a way to ask a remote machine to launch a program. Setting it up with keys lets you do it without needing a password.
You could try xCmd, which is a freeware app to run a command on a remote machine.