Develop Reference

C# UpdateSession behind proxy (WUApi.dll)

Hi I'm trying to make a C# app that can check for missing windows updates. I can get my code to work when a user is logged in as that seems to sort out my proxy authentication issues but I want it to run on startup, before a user logs in. Below is my code, it runs fine from visual studio or when I build it and run on another PC but when I set it to run on startup and restart the PC all I get is "System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80240438): Exception from HRESULT: 0x80240438 at WUApiLib.IUpdateSearcher.Search(String criteria)"
IUpdateSession uSession = new UpdateSession();
uSession.WebProxy.AutoDetect = false;
uSession.WebProxy.Address = "http://ipAddress:port";
uSession.WebProxy.UserName = #"Domain\user";
string password = "password";
uSession.WebProxy.SetPassword(password);
IUpdateSearcher uSearcher = uSession.CreateUpdateSearcher();
ISearchResult uResult = uSearcher.Search("IsInstalled=0");

Your proxy is probably Active Directory integrated and does not accept this kind of login.
You may try to create a scheduled task which runs in the context of the wanted user and start your code there.

IBMMQDotnetClient using windows credentials instead of application specified credentials

In using IBMMQDotnetClient v9.2.0.1 in .NET Core, I attempt to connect to a client using
private MQQueueManager Connect()
{
System.Collection.Hashtable properties = new System.Collections.Hashtable();
properties.Add(MQC.USER_ID_PROPERTY, "username");
properties.Add(MQC.PASSWORD_PROPERTY, "password");
// more settings below
return new MQQueueManager(QueueManagerName, properties);
}
The issue is this still attempts to pass my personal windows credentials even after having set the userid and password when configuring the queue manager properties. How do I ensure that the credentials passed by the application replace my personal windows creds when running the application.
Edit:
For more context, the output options are configured as:
public static readonly int OUTPUT_OPTIONS = MQC.MQOO_OUTPUT;
I am not sure if there can be other options that can ensure the passed creds are used as opposed to the windows creds.

For anyone in the future that runs into a similar situation I wanted to give an update on my resolution. I ended up running the IIS server with the credentials that were authenticated with MQ as opposed to a Network Service and this fixed the issue. This allowed me to use the queue manager that had already been set up, without changing its settings in any way.

Connecting to TfsTeamProjectCollection fails due to Application Pool Identity

I have ASP.Net application which uses TFS API and works under Domain. The problem is that locally everything works fine. After deployment to IIS, which is configured to use ApplicationPoolIdentity, my app is giving me 500 Internal Server Error. When I set Identity to use my username and password everything works fine again. App uses Windows authentication, and is used by multiple users.
We're submitting data to TFS, and if Identity is configured to my username, the in TFS history it shows that I have modified that item. We need it to be the user that actually made the modification.
Before in some places, like "Assigned To" or "Deployed By" I used
var currentDisplayName = System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement.UserPrincipal.Current.DisplayName;
After I discovered this issue, resolved it by using
var currentDisplayName = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name;
But the issue where when i use Identity - ApplicationPoolIdentity, the app is not working.
Method where i get Team Project Collection:
var tfsTeamProjectUrl = ConfigurationProvider.TfsTeamProjectUrl;
var teamProjectCollection = new TfsTeamProjectCollection(new Uri(tfsTeamProjectUrl));
teamProjectCollection.EnsureAuthenticated();
return teamProjectCollection;
Locally this works fine, but on IIS, it wants to use Identity from IIS App Pools, But i need it to use credentials from the actual user.
UPDATE
I tried to Impersonate the actual user by doing this:
var tfsTeamProjectUrl = ConfigurationProvider.TfsTeamProjectUrl;
var baseUserConnection = new TfsTeamProjectCollection(new Uri(tfsTeamProjectUrl));
var ims = baseUserConnection.GetService<IIdentityManagementService>();
var username = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.User.Identity.Name;
var identity = ims.ReadIdentity(IdentitySearchFactor.AccountName, username,
MembershipQuery.None, ReadIdentityOptions.None);
var teamProjectCollection = new TfsTeamProjectCollection(new Uri(tfsTeamProjectUrl), identity.Descriptor);
teamProjectCollection.EnsureAuthenticated();
return teamProjectCollection;
But now i'm gettin
An exception of type 'Microsoft.TeamFoundation.TeamFoundationServerInvalidResponseException' occurred in Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.dll but was not handled in user code
Additional information: Please contact your administrator. There was an error contacting the server.
Technical information (for administrator):
HTTP code 500: Internal Server Error

It seems like IIS is deciding to try to access TFS with the app pool identity instead of the credentials that you are explicitly supplying. You are authenticating to the server but then not using the server object, so the app was reverting to whatever identity it was running under.
Try to use the authentication with below code:
string tfsServerUrl = "http://servername:8080/tfs";
System.Net.NetworkCredential tfsCredential = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("ServiceAccountName", "password", "DOMAIN");
TfsConfigurationServer tfs = new TfsConfigurationServer(new Uri(tfsServerUrl), tfsCredential);
tfs.Authenticate();

How to start a process from an IIS hosted WCF service?

I would like to run a process from an intranet client on the WCF service side. In my case a client asks a server to create a new process on the server's machine under the provided credentials. WCF service is hosted on IIS 7.5 and I start a process using this code
var processInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("C:\\Windows\\System32\\notepad.exe")
{
UserName = "some user",
Password = MakeSecureString("some password"),
UseShellExecute = false,
LoadUserProfile = true
};
Process process = Process.Start(processInfo);
This code works if I host WCF service as a self-hosted console application running under admin user and I see the notepad started under another user. It fails on IIS with no exception, but process is immediately terminated
process.HasExited = true;
process.ExitCode = -1073741502;
On IIS WCF application is running under the user with admin rights and has got full trust defined in web.config. I cannot use self hosted application as it doesn't support easy continuous delivery (like WebDeploy with IIS web farms).
Q: How can I start a process on a server side from WCF service hosted on IIS?
EDIT:
I stumbled upon this post, with similar issues and I tried all the methods there, including all possible variations for Process.Start and P/Invoke with CreateProcessWithLogonW and CreateProcessAsUser I also tried granting additional permissions to users. Non of this would work with the error messages identical to the ones the guy had posted.

Oleksii, the point is that if you host the WCF service in a console application, there is a windows session (a user logged in and Windows Explorer loaded) for that user and the notepad is opened and shown for that user, so you see it in the UI.
when you host your WCF service in IIS, being a server, IIS requires and allows no user interaction and works also if no user is logged in; in that context there is no UI to host your notepad or other UI enabled applications, you could execute a process for elaboration or other batch jobs but not render a windows UI application, because Windows Explorer is not loaded for you and there is no place to render your process's UI.

here is what I use to call GnuPGP to do encryption. How does your setup compare?
private int ExecuteCommand(string arguments, string passPhrase, int timeout)
{
Process processObject;
ProcessStartInfo pInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(_executablePath, arguments);
pInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
pInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
pInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
pInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
pInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
processObject = Process.Start(pInfo);
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(passPhrase))
{
processObject.StandardInput.WriteLine(passPhrase);
processObject.StandardInput.Flush();
}
string result = processObject.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
string error = processObject.StandardError.ReadToEnd();
if (!processObject.WaitForExit(timeout))
{
throw new TimeoutException("GnuPG operation timeout. Waited " + timeout + " milliseconds ");
}
int exitcode = processObject.ExitCode;
Error = error;
Output = result;
return exitcode;
}

There's an apppool setting to make sure it loads the user profile.
loadUserProfile Optional Boolean attribute.
Specifies whether IIS loads the user profile for the application pool identity. Setting
this value to false causes IIS to revert to IIS 6.0 behavior. IIS 6.0 does not load the
user profile for an application pool identity.
The default value is false.
That along with being a domain user as the identity with enough permissions might work?? I know that at a minimum the user will need a user profile.
That said, it's a little bit of an odd architecture. It seems like a better arch would be to have a persistent process like a windows service that the site communicates with but I'm not sure what your constraints are.
Hope that helps.

how to get under which username a process running

its very irritating, i found a code sample to get username from stackoverflow on how to get under which username a process running and its working fine in console app but not working in windows service. returnVal is 2 and not showing username and domain. Can anyone tell me do i need to change any setting in windows service.

Try running the service under an account that has enough privileges to call GetOwner().

I believe that what you're after is simply:
string user = Environment.UserName;
The service itself is running using some system account but you said you're looking for your own account name, meaning the logged in user account.