I have a windows service on multiple clients that I constantly update manually. I'm trying to find a way of updating the service automatically either by a server call, or just checking for updates every day. The only thing that I really have to do is to download the new files, stop the service, replace the files and start the service again.
I found the Squirrel.Windows library that adds auto-updating for .Net apps, but I don´t know how can I implement it for a Windows Service. What would be the best option to tackle this problem?
[...] service automatically either by a server call
I've used MSDeploy/WebDeploy using both the command line or from the Visual Studio publish UI command.
Check this other Q&A I've auto-answered it myself Generated *.SourceManifest doesn't include additional runCommand WebDeploy settings.
You can deploy the service executable and satellite assemblies and/or configuration files using regular MSDeploy and then execute a runCommand of some PowerShell or batch file somewhere in the server's file system (f.e. C:\deploy_service.cmd so you'll be able to update this and all servers running your Windows Services running a single MSDeploy command.
Related
A solution consists of...:
Web app
Console app ("jobserver", which pulls jobs and processes them)
All is C#, .Net Core 5.
I have continuous deployment set up, so new versions of the web app are deployed to Azure Web App automatically.
However, the console app, I cannot figure out a good way to deploy to a Windows server (or pull). Right now, I go to the server, stop the app if it is not doing anything (otherwise I wait a bit). Then I copy the files over and start it up again. All manually.
I can think of several complicated workarounds, but I am thinking there must be easier way.
What are some ways the deployment of exe file could be handled? How are others handling this?
Ps. The console app cannot run on Azure Web App or as WebJob or similar, because it has requirements that means it has to run on a "real" windows server.
You can use the PowerShell on Target machines or SSH tasks to run commands on a remote machine. Similarly, to copy files, you can use Windows Machine File Copy or Copy Files Over SSH to copy your .exe to the server.
There is one windows service which is installed on one of our servers and working fine.
I tried to replicate the same on the other server, so I took the exe setup from one server to another and tried to install the windows service using installUtil.exe
It is giving me
The Commit phase was completed successfully. The transacted install has been completed.
but the service cannot be found in the services list and it is also giving me this message at the time of installation.
No public installers with the RunInstallerAttribute.Yes, the attribute could be found in the xyz.exe assembly.
Remove InstallState file because there are no installers.
and I am not sure why this is happening? I tried googling but most of them have given the solution to add installer to the project.
But if the installer is not added how the service is running on the first server
is there another way to install the service?
Could it be related to the Windows OS version?
This is probably a duplicate but I can't find recent posts and most sources recommend external tools.
We have a service that is installed via Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Installer Projects. I assume for updating the service I need an additional tool that does the following:
Stop the service (or is it better to make the service itself check for updates and stop itself?)
Copy the new files to the install folder
Call installutil.exe MyUpdatedService.exe (or is this obsolete if the service is updated ?)
Start the service
We already have a tool for steps 1., 2. and 4. for regular applications. Do I need to implement a ServiceController Class to interact with the service or could any program start/stop the service?
If you want an external c# application, you need ServiceController.
You could stop the service from within the service, but you cannot really start it afterwards.
You don't need to update service registration once it's registered, you only need to replace the service binaries.
Rename old service binaries while service is still running
Not sure if this is possible on all versions of Windows, also it has to be a rename.
Copy new version under the original name
Restart the service
This would unload the old version and load the new one.
The service interruption is the shortest possible.
Clean-up the old version
Once the old version is stopped, you'll be able to remove old binaries.
I inherited a couple c# windows service projects. I have fixed some bugs in the code and now I need to deploy the new executable. What is the normal process for updating / replacing a windows service? I have remote desktop access to the server that I am installing it on.
Just stop the service and replace the executable and possibli the additional dependency you have updated. Of course it could be helpful have a backup of the running service, just to be safe :)
If you need to know exactly where the service is running, open Service Control Manager, select your serice, and look in the properties/general: you will find the executable path.
It's enough to replace exe and dlls. Obviously you have to stop the service first. If dlls were registered in GAC they might be used by other software on that machine, in such case before compiling and deploying change their version.
For a .Net Windows Service you need to use the InstallUtil command line tool to uninstall the old service, then use it to install the new one.
See...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/50614e95(v=vs.80).aspx
There is a weird issue I am facing. I created my first windows service looking through various blogs and tutorials.
Then created setup for that adding installer etc. It works fine while installing , un-installing via Visual Studio but it fails when i deploy it .
Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log.
* Activation of C:\Users\bhuvint\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\CPNS Library\ServicePackage\CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected:
+ You cannot start application CommonPushNotificationWindowsService from this location because it is already installed from a different location.
+ You cannot start application CommonPushNotificationWindowsService from location file:///C:/Users/bhuvint/Documents/Visual%20Studio%202010/Projects/CPNS%20Library/ServicePackage/CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application it is already installed from location file:///C:/inetpub/wwwroot/ServicePackage/CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application. You can start it from location file:///C:/inetpub/wwwroot/ServicePackage/CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application or you can uninstall it and reinstall it from location file:///C:/Users/bhuvint/Documents/Visual%20Studio%202010/Projects/CPNS%20Library/ServicePackage/CommonPushNotificationWindowsService.application.
I have already un-installed the service and trying to install it from the deployed service in the same pc to test. But it fails with above error.
I feel i have deployed the windows service the wrong way. Could you guys please suggest how to deploy a windows service ?? (I have looked through net. All suggest building it and installing it from visual studios. But how to publish it is the thing which i need.)
Please help asap.
Possibly you built the setup project before uninstalling the preovious service. In that case you can't use the new setup to uninstall the service, since the setup won't be the same and can't be able to access the service installed.
You should try to go to a previous version of your project and uninstall the service and for the future unistall the service each time you're building your setup project.
This happened to me several times.
Run visual studio in debug mode, and in your properties of your service project goto tab build events in Post-Build event command line and add a -d so you can run your service without installing it, it will run as an console app
The LocalService account acts as a non-privileged user on the local computer, and presents anonymous credentials to any remote server. Use the other accounts with caution, as they run with higher privileges and increase your risk of attacks from malicious code.
If your service application will not install correctly, check to make sure that the ServiceName property for the service class is set to the same value as is shown in the installer for that service. The value must be the same in both instances in order for your service to install correctly.
NoteNote
You can also look at the installation logs to get feedback on the installation process.
You should also check to determine whether you have another service with the same name already installed. Service names must be unique for installation to succeed.
STUPIDITY PERSONIFIED
As i told i was deploying my service. So this published code had a "setup.exe" file to it. Now I had already created a setup project for the windows service , which i was using for the installing , uninstalling . And i din't know (These words needs courage !!) that msi file created is required to install the windows service. So as i got through the folder structure of the setup project. I came across the .msi file . And hence the problem got solved. The Main problem was :
Me not knowing to use setup projects
And I confused setup.exe with the published windows service with the setup of windows service.
I am really sorry for stealing bandwidth off your precious time. Thanks to all for the valuable inputs.