Run .exe file from website doesn't working - c#

I can't figure out why - but it's not working!
In similar web application project, with same code - it's working well,
but from website - nothing!
I tried to use all kinds of possibilities from: System.Diagnostics.
ProcessStartInfo info = new ProcessStartInfo(exePath);
info.CreateNoWindow = true;
info.UseShellExecute = false;
Process.Start(info);
and tried another way using:
Response.Redirect(FilePath); //with and without the extension
and i got that it worked for all other kinds of extensions (like pdf,html..) but never for the .exe!
One more thing: It's did make small window asked if i want to save or open current file, but the file name changed from fileName.exe to: fileName_exe
(and then: which program you want to open the file with question...)
Thanks For Advance!

You can't pass through browser. You should have some "backdoor" to execute it, and this backdoor should be process what have neccesary permissions.
As to solution of this problem you should create service what can accept requests to execute some file, and invoke it himselft. Then you just run service on you server and send your service this requests.

Related

C# Console Application fails reading files on restart

Its hard to place everything in the title, but I hope I can explain this as good as I can. Basicly I made a C# Console Application that reads a certain file every now and then. The Application runs on a Virtual Machine from Google Instances. Now I have created another Console Application that is capable of managing the other application, like closing them or restarting the executables.
The Issue:
When I start the Console Application by hand (manual), it works fine and reads the files like it should. I could close and open this as much as I like and it still works. The problem is when my second Console Application tries to restart the first Console Application. The restart works fine and most functions like certain ftp connections work, but it stops reading files and gives a null back as result. There happen to be no debug errors nor does it display an error on the console.
What I want is that the second application could restart my first application without making it run where some functions appear to be blocked.
The Code I use:
string loc = File.ReadAllText(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + "\\"+ "location.txt");
Process p = new Process();
p.StartInfo.FileName = loc;
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = true;
p.Start();
I tried running it as p.StartInfo.Verb = "runas"; but this has no positive result either. Could this be an issue with the Google Virtual Machine, possible firewall settings or code related issues.
Extra
This code does work on my own laptop and so does it work after restarting.

ASP.NET Process Start

I made new project (ASP.NET MVC Web Application) using Visual Studio Web 2013 Express Edition. Loading index page, redirects and everything works fine, except that in some part of my code I need to create Process and execute it, wait for it to finish, parse output of that external application and show that output to the user. However I get nothing. While debugging the code line by line:
ProcessStartInfo info = new ProcessStartInfo();
info.FileName = Tool;
info.Arguments = filename + " " + avArray;
info.CreateNoWindow = true;
info.UseShellExecute = false;
info.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
Process p = new Process();
p.StartInfo = info;
p.Start();
p.WaitForExit();
Process exits immediately, someone would say it is pretty fast program, but application needs at least 5 seconds (sometimes 20 seconds) to complete.
What I think is happening is that process is not created in the first place, as my IIS settings or whatever other settings are not allowing me to run this EXE. What do I do to change this?
I've been trying to this for the past 2 weeks, I've read probably every post about it, and tried every solution suggested. I am choosing to write on this post since it is the most recent.
First of all, I am using VS2013, testing on IIS Express, and then on IIS 8.5., the webpages version is 3, and the target framework 4.5. And I am assuming that (as with my case) the goal is to launch the process on the server.
What I learned:
Using IIS Express should allow you to run the process without problems. You can try to allow it to launch the window, or start your process through the shell just to be sure that it is actually launching (a shell window should popup and close). If this happens, verify that you are giving the correct path to to your program, etc. So far so good.
Going into the IIS 8.5 is a totally different matter. Theoretically, the bad way of doing it should be preatty straight-forward: you create an app-pool for that server, give it a high privileged account (local system or network system, for instance); go to AdministrativeTools->Services->IIS, LogOn tab, and allow interaction with the desktop. You should be able to do the same as in IISExpress, but in my case is just the same as with a low privilege account.
I actually started by trying just to use impersonation, but also was not able to launch the process with IIS8.5. EDIT: I retried this again today, and the api won't even run if I enable impersonation.
I've spent more time than I would like with this, any input on why I can't get this to work properly with IIS8.5 (#clzola: IIS Express should do the job) is very welcome.

Run process.start() in a network

I have written a win application that works on a network.
In one of its forms user can browse and select file from local computer and add it to a list, so the application copies these files to a folder in My Network Places that no users can access to it but one that i have created already for my application so i have his username and password.Every things works fine up to here.
In this form user can also open a file by select it and press open button, so the file should open in an application that relates to its extension(for example test.xlsx should open in Exel.exe).I have used Process.Start() to do this but for each extension i receive an individual error(for example "Access is denied" for NotePad and "RunTime error" for AdobeReader and "Not enough memory" for Excel).
What is my mistake?
Note : I have used ImpersonatUser to logon that user in my application.
Edit : I have used following code to open the file :
Using(WindowsImpersonationContext impersonateUser = LogonMethod())
{
ProcessStartInfo pInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(filePathWithExtension);
pInfo.Domain = MyDomainName;
pInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
Process.Start(pInfo);
}
Note : My LogonMethod uses LogonUser method of advapi32.dll.
The behavior you are seeing is almost expected.
it looks like you are not launching application directly, but rater using association by file name. I don't believe you'll get application launched under account you want. You can check what account application is run unrder using task manager.
Most application are not tested to run in "run as" context, so they may work correctly or fail randomly.
I could not solve this problem, so i have used another way.I have copied the file to a temp folder and then used Process.Start to open this new file.

Printing by executing a process in a Windows Service

I have a Windows Service that needs to start a process to send a file to the printer (I found that solution there https://stackoverflow.com/a/4875755/1228738) . I do this using the Process.Start().
My problem is that nothing happens.
The service is actually installed on my developer machine (win7, x64). I tried installing it as LOCAL SYSTEM, NETWORK SERVICE, LOCAL SERVICE with the same result every time.
I tried those way of starting my process :
Process p = new Process();
p.StartInfo.FileName = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Foxit Software\\Foxit Reader\\Foxit Reader.exe";
p.StartInfo.Arguments = "-p myFile.pdf";
p.Start();
and
Process.Start("C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Foxit Software\\Foxit Reader\\Foxit Reader.exe", "-p myFile.pdf");
and also
ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
startInfo.FileName = "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Foxit Software\\Foxit Reader\\Foxit Reader.exe";
startInfo.Arguments = "-p myFile.pdf";
Process.Start(startInfo);
When I execute the same code in a winform application, everything works fine, the file is sent to the printer. But in the Windows Service, nothing happens.
I saw that post https://stackoverflow.com/a/6271309/1228738, which explains why I would not see the UI, that's fine I don't have any UI anyway. But as said in the comment section, a process with no user input should be OK. The process that I start don't need any user input.
The only thing I can think of right now, is that because of session isolation (https://stackoverflow.com/a/5063750/1228738), the service can't find any installed printers... Can that be the case ? If so, any suggestion how to work around that ? And if not, any idea of what's wrong ?
Thanks!
EDIT #1
I tried running the service with my user account, and it's working, so I guess my fears are confirmed... the users LOCAL SYSTEM and NETWORK SERVICE have no installed printers.
So I'll refine my question a little bit. Is there a way for those account to access printers installed on the computer ?
EDIT #2
We finally decided that a user will be created for running that service and in that user accounts we'll install the printer on which to print.
I guess this question can be closed now.
Thank you all for your help.
I had this issue too, this trick solved it
Go to services ---> Double click the required service ---> proceed to logon tab
Supply the Log-in credentials from which printer was installed.
Run your service, then check the printer queue.
Reason: Local system account does not have those printer installed !
See screen shot below.
Check out this MSDN Page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324565
According to this page, you cannot print from ASP.NET pages or Windows services using .NET.
The solution here is tho share your local printer and call Foxit with
-/t yourfile.pdf \\localhost\YourSharedPrinter
That way your service does not need an UserProfile and no DefaultPrinter.

Why can't my ASP.NET web service kick off a process, but my .NET console app can?

This is code from a class library:
proc.StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(CmdPath, "+an -b");
proc.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
proc.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
proc.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
proc.Start();
proc.WaitForExit();
This works perfectly as I would expect when called from a console test app. When I take the same library and call the method from an ASP .NET web service it just hangs.
Is there something I am missing here, perhaps permissions? The ASPNET service has access to the folder where the EXE is, and I see it running in Task Manager, though it isn't doing anything.
If anyone could tell me what I'm doing wrong, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
EDIT: Sorry for the lack of information. CmdPath goes to the command line interface for our scheduling software. I'm passing in commands based on the documentation they provided. I have one method to get a list of jobs, and another method to run a job. ...hmm idea. The client normally uses Active Directory to login, I think impersonation is going to be necessary. Going to test now.
EDIT 2: Ok, now the client is blowing up with AccessViolation issues. This is obviously a permissions thing. If the software uses integrated AD authorization, and I impersonate my AD account, will that be sufficient? I'm doing impersonation using the tag in web.config.
I think you will face a lot of problems launching an executable server side using the ASPNET identity, have you tried impersonating an identity with appropriate priveleges (this does work btw), but again launching an executable on the server side is probably not a good idea to begin with.
The ASP.Net user account probably doesn't have permissions to execute. Can you give a bit more information as to why you are trying to do this as there may be a better way of doing it.
It could be a permissions issue. The ASPNET service may have permissions to the executable, but does it have permissions for everything the executable does.
For example, if the executable copies files, does the ASPNET account have full rights to the source and destination paths of those files? The same questions need to be asked of everything the executable does.
If you need to get around this, you can use impersonation, or assign the web site to run under a different account in IIS, but those are not recommended practices, and more trouble than they're worth in most cases.
By default the ASP.NET worker process has less security than most local account (certainly an account that a developer uses or the logged in account on a server.)
There are two main ways to move forward:
Give the asp.net process more priviledges. See This Link for a good explanation of how to do that.
Have asp.net run under an account with more priviledges. See This Link for a good explanation and how to get that process running under a different account.
Either will work for you.
When you redirect standard output don't you need to use ReadToEnd to read the response from StandardOutput?
You probably should check what is your executable performs, cos ASP.NET works under user with limited rights (NETWORK SERVICE on IIS 6.0) and you executable also gets this rights and runs under same user. As far as you waiting on until it finishes its work, probably something wrong in the executable you are trying to run. I suggest you to make a simple experiment - switch your WebApplication to build-in in VS web server, called "Casini" and check your code behavior. By means of this you can prove yourself that it's not ASP.NET's fault. If I am right the only thing you will need to do is to investigate problems of you executable and determine what rights it needs.
Instead of Impersonation or giving Asp.net more privileges, how about launching the process under different credentials.
In the sample below, UserWithVeryLimitedRights would be a new account that you create with just enought rights to run the app.
Doing so may minimize the security risks.
ProcessStartInfo StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
SecureString ss = new SecureString();
string insecurePassword = "SomePassword";
foreach(char passChar in insecurePassword.ToCharArray()) {
ss.AppendChar(passChar);
}
StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
StartInfo.Password = ss;
StartInfo.UserName = #"UserWithVeryLimitedRights";
StartInfo.FileName = #"c:\winnt\notepad.exe";
Process.Start(StartInfo);

Categories