Develop Reference

why Control M OS Job that executes an exe gets stuck mid execution?

I have a c# exe that reads some log lines from a remote unix server using sed. when I run this exe several times on my windows server or even my dev pc, it executes fine. However, when I try to run it as a cyclic OS job in Control M eventually (sometimes at the first execution, seems to happen at random) it gets stuck but doesn't throw an exception or anything.
The command of the job runs a .bat file, and the cyclic is configured to 0 minutes with pause time being controlled dynamically by the exe with a thread.sleep.
after searching the web and seeking recommendation from other areas of my workplace that use control M, I have so far tried changing my agent to use local user with ctmwincfg, I also tried with changing the agent service to the same user (had to reverse this one as the agent stopped working properly), I also changed from directly executing my exe on the job to using a .bat file.
one of my hostgroup agents is windows server 2016 and 3 more are windows server 2012

I wasn't able of finding a solution within control M itself, but rather in the code of the .exe. I used a task, it allows the program to terminate the stuck method after a timeout, which in turn allows the control M job to finish normally.
var task = Task.Run(() => MyStuckMethod(arg));
if (task.Wait(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30)))
return task.Result;
else
throw new Exception("Timed out");
Alternatively, there are a few workarounds within control M which involve sending alerts or creating shouts and then automating the kill of the job, but this is not useful for my case.
Example in BMC communities

Automating IISRESET via remote desktop connection after a TFS build

I want to automate a process, which is invoked after a successful build on TFS. The process will RDP to a test server, then call a C# application on that server, and reset IIS on that server. Each step will return the result so whether or not to call next step is based on the previous step.
There are a few obstacles in implementing it. Below is what I want to know if it is possible, and how to code it.
1) Invoking the process via a build on TFS
There is an option in Build definition to invoke automated test. I assume that the process can be invoked by implementing it as a test.
2) RDP to remote server
I found the links below, which might be a solution
Process rdcProcess = new Process();
rdcProcess.StartInfo.FileName = Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(#"%SystemRoot%\system32\cmdkey.exe");
rdcProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = "/generic:TERMSRV/192.168.0.217 /user:" + "username" + " /pass:" + "password";
rdcProcess.Start();
rdcProcess.StartInfo.FileName = Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(#"%SystemRoot%\system32\mstsc.exe");
rdcProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = "/v " + "192.168.0.217"; // ip or name of computer to connect
rdcProcess.Start();
Run mstsc.exe with specified username and password
Automating remote desktop connection
3) IISReset
I think it should be simply invoke "IISRESET" after RDP, but the problem is that, HOW to captrue the result of running IISRESET.
The tools that might be suitable are:
1) Powershell - I don't know much about Powershell but am willing to learn if required
2) C#
My question is that how to implement it, any code example, and idea would be very much appreciated.

Check my answer here which is somewhat related: Answer
If the user which runs the TFSBuild Service on the build server have enough rights on the test server then you can use psexec or powershell to run your commands remotely. Read the below links:
PSEXEC
PowerShell Remote commands
There is no inbuilt activity/process which can help you run scripts on remote machines in TFS build workflow.
Step 1 for you is to identify how you are going to run scripts on the remote machine, as mentioned above you can either use PSEXEC or Powershell (though running PowerShell on remote computers may be a little more complicated to set up).
Step2, write the actual scripts to do the work, stop services, install MSI etc.
Step3, Edit your current build defintion - create a new custom activity or make use of InvokeProcess activity from within your build definition to invoke the script that you have created in Step 2. InvokeProcess Activity

in most cases you do not need to run iisreset
if you want to upgrade an asp.net application, try to put app_offline.htm in the application folder, it will stop an application and application files will be unlocked
after upgrading an application, it will restart automatically, or you can "touch" web.config to force restart

You might be better using the Lab Build to run the scripts as part of an environment ob the target computer. It can run any powershell against that machine as well as deploy and execute applications....

Question: HOW to capture the result of running IISRESET
I believe the old fashioned way, Hope this is what you are looking for
c:> IISRESET >> C:\temp.log
You can use the above either from CMD or powershell

In the past I have used Psexec to run commands against a remote server and where ever we need to control flow on the result of that command, we simply piped the console out to a shared folder and checked for our success flag.
I am not sure if TFS can run commands in this manner but we implemented it on hudson/jenkins.
This won't answer your question directly but it may offer a better way forward
An Example:
psexec.exe \remoteserver "iisreset > h:\iisreset.log"
Then run a grep or similar against the iisreset.log with your success flag as a condition to run the next step.

C# program parameters from the command line?

I'm trying to start a C# program running, and then give it command from the cmd.exe after it's started running. For instance, suppose I started my .exe from the command line (C://FILEPATH/my_program.exe). I'd then like to have that program continue running, and then have me be able to pass commands to it that it is capable of handling. In my ideal world this would be something like "C://FILEPATH/my_program.exe run_my_command()" which would execute the run_my_command function, or "C://FILEPATH/my_program.exe k", which would do something in response to the char k that I'd pre-programmed in. I know that, as I've typed, would start a new copy of my_program.exe. I'd only like to have one running while I pass something like that in.
Does anyone know how to do this? Sample code would be wonderfully appreciated. Thanks!!

The simplest solution would be for your second instance of "my_program.exe" to look for an existing instance that's already running, "pass" the message over to it and then exit immediately.
The usual way this is implemented is via named pipes (System.IO.Pipes in .NET 3.5+). When your program starts up, listen on a named pipe with a given name. If there's something else already listening on that pipe, send the message to it and exit.

You are describing a typical service and command tool. The service (demon) runs in the background and executes commands. The command tool takes user commands and passes them to the service. See Windows Service Applications. Having a service instead of starting several processes takes care of some issues your approach has, like security isolation between the processes (eg. one user starts the a command, another user starts another command and gets executed in the context of the first user) and process lifetime issues (user launches a command and then closes his session).
The command tool would communicate with the process via classic IPC (local RPC, pipes, shared memory, etc).

Set service dependencies after install

I have an application that runs as a Windows service. It stores various things settings in a database that are looked up when the service starts. I built the service to support various types of databases (SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, etc). Often times end users choose to configure the software to use SQL Server (they can simply modify a config file with the connection string and restart the service). The problem is that when their machine boots up, often times SQL Server is started after my service so my service errors out on start up because it can't connect to the database. I know that I can specify dependencies for my service to help guide the Windows service manager to start the appropriate services before mine. However, I don't know what services to depend upon at install time (when my service is registered) since the user can change databases later on.
So my question is: is there a way for the user to manually indicate the service dependencies based on the database that they are using? If not, what is the proper design approach that I should be taking? I've thought about trying to do something like wait 30 seconds after my service starts up before connecting to the database but this seems really flaky for various reasons. I've also considered trying to "lazily" connect to the database; the problem is that I need a connection immediately upon start up since the database contains various pieces of vital info that my service needs when it first starts. Any ideas?

Dennis
what your looking for is SC.exe. This is a command line tool that users can use to configure services.
sc [Servername] Command Servicename [Optionname= Optionvalue...]
more specificly you would want to use
sc [ServerName] config ServiceName depend=servicetoDependOn
Here is a link on the commandlike options for SC.EXE
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms810435.aspx

A possible (far from ideal) code solution:
In you startup method code it as a loop that terminates when you've got a connection. Then in that loop trap any database connection errors and keep retrying as the following pseudo code illustrates:
bool connected = false;
while (!connected)
{
try
{
connected = openDatabase(...);
}
catch (connection error)
{
// It might be worth waiting for some time here
}
}
This means that your program doesn't continue until it has a connection. However, it could also mean that your program never gets out of this loop, so you'd need some way of terminating it - either manually or after a certain number of tries.
As you need your service to start in a reasonable time, this code can't go in the main initialisation. You have to arrange for your program to "start" successfully, but not do any processing until this method had returned connected = true. You might achieve this by putting this code in a thread and then starting your actual application code on the "thread completed" event.

Not a direct answer put some points you can look into
Windows service can be started Automatically with a delay. You can check this question in SO for some information about it.
How to make Windows Service start as “Automatic (Delayed Start)”
Check this post How to: Code Service Dependencies

Canceling a programatically started SQL Server Express Install

During my application setup, the user has the option of installing a new SQL Server Express 2005 instance in the local machine if they don't want to use an already existing SQL Server 2005 in their network for whatever reason.
As the SQL Server installation is optional, I don't have it as a prerequisite of my installer. Instead, I just bundle the sqlexpr32.exe setup in my install media and programatically launch it with the appropriate command line arguments in order to perform an automatic install. (Note: I'm using the /qb command line flag so the install is not silent, it shows the user interface, but does not ask for any user input). And in case anyone wants to know, I'm following this Microsoft article on how to launch the SQL Server Express setup.
This is what I'm doing in my custom install action:
// All this runs on a background thread so the user
// can cancel my app's setup at any time
// Launch the installer
Process setupProcess = new Process();
setupProcess.StartInfo.FileName = "sqlexpr32.exe";
setupProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = " a bunch of command line args here";
setupProcess.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false; // to avoid a shell window
setupProcess.Start();
// At this point the SQL Server installer is running
// Monitor the process on 2-second intervals:
while (!setupProcess.WaitForExit(2000))
{
if(WasCancelled) // flag that is set when the user cancels my app's setup
{
// This following line is my problem. Sending CloseMainWindow does not
// seem to work. The SQL Server installer just keeps running.
setupProcess.CloseMainWindow();
setupProcess.WaitForExit();
break;
}
}
// After this point I build a results report for the user.
// My app's installer does not yet quit even if it was canceled.
So my question is: How could I 'signal' the SQL Server installer process to cancel and exit?
This line does not seem to do anything:
setupProcess.CloseMainWindow();
This also does not work:
setupProcess.Close(); // This closes my handle. Not the target process.
And I obviously wouldn't want to just kill the process as I could be leaving the user's machine in a not-so-desirable state, in the best case with a lot of garbage files or worse, with a corrupt install.
Any ideas? Sending keys or simulating user clicks? Or hopefully something less hacky?
EDIT:
I think I have found out why CloseMainWindow does not work:
The process I start (sqlexpr32.exe) is not really the one that shows the UI for the SQLServer Installer, but a self-extracting exe that in turn launches the sql server real setup.exe as a child process. So this issue gets even harder. =(

What if you wait until the installer finishes, and after that - if the user has cancelled the main process - you uninstall it immediately?
I know it's a more time consuming process but it's clear and easy.