I am working on an application which reads eventlogs(Application) from remote machines. I am making use of EventLog class in .net and then iterating on the Log entries but this is very slow. In some cases, some machines have 40000+ log entries and it takes hours to iterate through the entries.
what is the best way to accomplish this task? Are there any other classes in .net which are faster or in any other technology?
Man, I feel your pain. We had the exact same issue in our app.
Your solution has a branch depending on what server version you're running on and what server version your "target" machine is running on.
If you're both on Vista or Windows Server 2008, you're in luck. You should look at System.Diagnostics.Eventing.Reader.EventLogQuery and System.Diagnostics.Eventing.Reader.EventLogReader. These are new in .net 3.5.
Basically, you can build a query in XML and ship it over to run on the remote computer. Maybe you're just searching for events of a specific type, or maybe just new events from a specific point in time. The search runs on the remote machine, and then you just get back the matching events. The new classes are much faster than the old .net 2.0 way, but again, they are only supported on Vista or Windows Server 2008.
For our app when the target is NOT on Vista/Win2008, we downloaded the raw .evt file from the remote system, and then parsed the file using its binary format. There are several sources of data about the event log format for .evt files (pre-Vista), including link text and an article I recall on codeproject.com that had some c# code.
Vista and Windows Server 2008 machines use a new .evtx format that is a new format, so you can't use the same binary parsing approach across all versions. But the new EventLogQuery and EventLogReader classes are so fast that you won't have to. It's now perfectly speedy to just use the built-in classes.
Event Log Reader is horribly slow... too slow. WTF Microsoft?
Use LogParser 2.2 - Search for C# and LogParser on the Internet (or you can use the log parser commands from the command line). I don't want to duplicate the work already contributed by others.
I pull the log from the remote system by having the log exported as an EVTX file. I then copy the file from the remote system. This process is really quick - even with a network that spans the planet (I had issues with having the log exported to a network resource). Once you have it local, you can do your searches and processing.
There are multiple reasons for having the EVTX - I won't get into the reasons why we do this.
The following is a working example of the code to save a copy of the log as an EVTX:
(Notes: "device" is the network host name or IP. "LogName" is the name of the log desired: "System", "Security", or "Application". outputPathOnRemoteSystem is the path on the remote computer, such as "c:\temp\%hostname%.%LogName%.%YYYYMMDD_HH.MM%.evtx".)
static public bool DumpLog(string device, string LogName, string outputPathOnRemoteSystem, out string errMessage)
{
bool wasExported = false;
string errorMessage = "";
try
{
System.Diagnostics.Eventing.Reader.EventLogSession els = new System.Diagnostics.Eventing.Reader.EventLogSession(device);
els.ExportLogAndMessages(LogName, PathType.LogName, "*", outputPathOnRemoteSystem);
wasExported = true;
}
catch (UnauthorizedAccessException e)
{
errorMessage = "Unauthorized - Access Denied: " + e.Message;
}
catch (EventLogNotFoundException e)
{
errorMessage = "Event Log Not Found: " + e.Message;
}
catch (EventLogException e)
{
errorMessage = "Export Failed: " + e.Message + ", Log: " + LogName + ", Device: " + device;
}
errMessage = errorMessage;
return wasExported;
}
A good Explanation/Example can be found on MSDN.
EventLogSession session = new EventLogSession(Environment.MachineName);
// [System/Level=2] filters out the errors
// Where "Log" is the log you want to get data from.
EventLogQuery query = new EventLogQuery("Log", PathType.LogName, "*[System/Level=2]");
EventLogReader reader = new EventLogReader(query);
for (EventRecord eventInstance = reader.ReadEvent();
null != eventInstance;
eventInstance = reader.ReadEvent())
{
// Output or save your event data here.
}
When waiting 5-20 minutes with the old code this one does it in less than 10 seconds.
Maybe WMI can help you:
WMI with C#
Have you tried using the remoting features in powershell 2.0? They allow you to execute cmdlets (like ones to read event logs) on remote machines and return the results (as objects, of course) to the calling session.
You could place a Program at those machines that save the log to file and sends it to your webapplication i think that would be alot faster as you can do the looping local but im not sure how to do it so i cant ive you any code :(
I recently did such thing via WCF callback interface however my clients interacted with the server through WCF and adding a WCF Callback was easy in my project, full code with examples is available here
Just had the same issue and want to share my solution. It makes a search through application, system and security eventlogs from 260 seconds (using EventLog) about a 100 times faster (using EventLogQuery).
And this in a way where it is possible to check if the event message contains a pattern or any other check without the requirement of FormatDescription().
My trick is to use the same mechanism as PowerShells Get-WinEvent does and then pass it through the result check.
Here is my code to find all events within last 4 days where the event message contains a filter pattern.
string[] eventLogSources = {"Application", "System", "Security"};
var messagePattern = "*Your Message Search Pattern*";
var timeStamp = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-4);
var matchingEvents = new List<EventRecord>();
foreach (var eventLogSource in eventLogSources)
{
var i = 0;
var query = string.Format("*[System[TimeCreated[#SystemTime >= '{0}']]]",
timeStamp.ToUniversalTime().ToString("o"));
var elq = new EventLogQuery(eventLogSource, PathType.LogName, query);
var elr = new EventLogReader(elq);
EventRecord entryEventRecord;
while ((entryEventRecord = elr.ReadEvent()) != null)
{
if ((entryEventRecord.Properties)
.FirstOrDefault(x => (x.Value.ToString()).Contains(messagePattern)) != null)
{
matchingEvents.Add(entryEventRecord);
i++;
}
}
}
Maybe that the remote computers could do a little bit of computing. So this way your server would only deal with relevant information. It would be a kind of cluster using the remote computer to do some light filtering and the server would the the analysis part.
Related
So we have created an updated version of a WSP for SharePoint 2010 due to our migration/update from 2007 to 2010.
The WSP is a event handler/reciever for ItemAdded() and we have it working as intended. Issue is that the operation seems to only work for one computer/machine and no others.
When the Item is Added to a list the WSP creates a Folder in Shared Documents library, creates a wiki page, then updates the new List Item with links to the Shared Doc and Wiki.
When triggered by Machine #1 and User #1 all operations work, when Machine #2(M2) and user #2(U2) or M3 and U3 non of the tasks take place when a new Item is created.
User #2 can log in on M1 and create a new item and all operations work. But if U1 uses M2 or M3 to create an item the events don't trigger. Machine #1 is able to trigger the event as many times as they want but no other computer is able to.
If you were able to follow is it something with the code or some sort of cache setting on the local machine or the SP server, or something else? Any help is appreciated.
Update: All machines are on the same network. Non of the machines are the server but various personal laptops. Development was done on a separate machine. All are accessing via the same URL. All users have same access. This is on our test site currently which would be switched to being production once migration/upgrade takes place.
Before current .WSP deployment we noticed the same issue but it was reverse, Machine #2 did all the updates but Machine #1 and #3 couldn't. Only thing we can think of was that those machines were the first to trigger the event after deployment.
I'm Not doing the .WSP install but our IT guy is(won't let us have access :/ but I understand) but below is the install commands he is running.
Add-SPSolution -LiteralPath "OurPath/ourFile.wsp"
Install-SPSolution -Identity ourIdentity -WebApplication http://myhost.com/ -GACDeployment
Below is the main part of the code
public class CreateWikiAndFolder : Microsoft.SharePoint.SPItemEventReceiver
{
public override void ItemAdded(SPItemEventProperties properties)
{
try
{
//this.DisableEventFiring();
base.EventFiringEnabled = false;
string sUrlOfWikiPage = string.Empty;
string sUrlOfNewFolder = string.Empty;
string sSubsiteRUL = string.Empty;
string sCurrentItemTitle = properties.ListItem["Title"].ToString();
string sWikiListName = "TR Wikis";
string sDocLibName = "Shared Documents";
string sTRListID = "TR Status";
if (sTRListID.ToUpper().Equals(properties.ListTitle.ToString().ToUpper()))
{
//Create the Folder
sUrlOfNewFolder = CreateFolder(properties.ListItem.Web, sDocLibName, sCurrentItemTitle);
//Create the Wiki
string ItemDispFormUrl = String.Concat(properties.ListItem.Web.Url, "/", properties.ListItem.ParentList.Forms[PAGETYPE.PAGE_DISPLAYFORM].Url, "?ID=", properties.ListItem.ID.ToString());
sUrlOfWikiPage = CreateWiki(properties.ListItem.Web, sWikiListName, sCurrentItemTitle, ItemDispFormUrl, sUrlOfNewFolder);
//Update the current TR Item
SPWeb myWeb = properties.ListItem.Web;
myWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
SPListItem myListItem = properties.ListItem;
SPFieldUrlValue shareFolderURLValue = new SPFieldUrlValue();
shareFolderURLValue.Description = "Shared Folder";
shareFolderURLValue.Url = sUrlOfNewFolder ;
myListItem["SharedFolder"] = shareFolderURLValue;
myListItem.Update();
myWeb.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;
}
base.EventFiringEnabled = true;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
//Currently throwing nothing
}
}
}
It could be a hardcoded path/url, however there is not enough information to identify the problem, I would be glad to update my answer with a more detailed theory if you provide more details or if you share some of your code.
Figured out the issue. I didn't include them with the above file code. But we were StreamWriting to a text file on the server to help us with debugging. Issue was with that, When user 1 was logged on their machine and the log files didn't exist, they would get generated. Now no other users then had read/write access to those files and so it errored out at our debug files for anyone else. But that Windows user could run it as much as they wanted as they were the owner of the file :/
How do I get the XML from a specific EventLogEntry using C# on Windows XP? I already know the EventLog type (Security) and the event entry id.
EventLogWatcher and other classes are only available in Windows Vista and newer.
You can do this with LogParser. Its a utility built by an x Microsoft Employee Gabriele Giuseppini that reads a tonne of log file formats - FAST!
I've successfully used it with Event Logs before.
There is a C# interface from the good folks over at http://visuallogparser.codeplex.com
For Windows XP, you can use the EventLogReader and EventLogQuery classes to query EventLogRecords from the event log quite efficiently. This API is available since .NET Framework 3.5 (so it should work perfectly fine on Windows XP).
First, you need the name of the event log to query (either its file system path or name), and second an XPath expression that acts as the record selector. A few examples are given at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/wes/consuming-events
Basically, it works as follows:
static string RetrieveApplicationEventDetailsXmlById(string eventId)
{
const string logName = "Application";
string queryExpression = string.Format("*[System/EventId=\"{0}\"]", eventId);
var eventLogQuery = new EventLogQuery(logName, PathType.LogName, queryExpression);
using (var reader = new EventLogReader(eventLogQuery))
{
EventRecord record;
if ((record = reader.Next()) != null)
{
return record.ToXml();
}
}
return null;
}
Given that a valid XPath expression has been specified, a call to the reader´s Next method returns the next available LogEventRecord object that allows retrieving the event´s details in XML format via the ToXml method.
I'm looking for help from anyone who's worked with the verbot sdk.
I'm making a program that I want to use the LearnedKnowledge.vkb, Teacher.vkb, and any standard bot (julia, for example). Those who've used this before will know that with the rules in Teacher, you can essentially write responses to things that the bot doesn't understand, and train it on the fly.
I'm planning on using speech recognition and text-to-speech, but my problem right now is that after I load the knowledgebases, I can't seem to get any response from the bot.
Here's what I have: The Verbot5Library.dll, from verbots.sourceforge.net (I got the editor and player too, to make sure the files were working). In my program, I set up the variables as such:
Verbot5Engine verbot = new Verbot5Engine();
KnowledgeBase kb = new KnowledgeBase();
KnowledgeBaseItem kbi = new KnowledgeBaseItem();
State state = new State();
XMLToolbox xmlToolboxKB = new XMLToolbox(typeof(KnowledgeBase));
Then I initialize the verbot engine and load the kbs:
// using the xmlToolboxKB method I saw in this forum: http://www.verbots.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2984
kbi.Fullpath = #"C:\\[full path to kb...]\\";
kbi.Filename = "LearnedKnowledge.vkb";
kb = (KnowledgeBase)xmlToolboxKB.LoadXML(kbi.Fullpath + kbi.Filename);
verbot.AddKnowledgeBase(kb, kbi);
kbi.Filename = "julia.vkb";
kb = (KnowledgeBase)xmlToolboxKB.LoadXML(kbi.Fullpath + kbi.Filename);
verbot.AddKnowledgeBase(kb, kbi);
//trying to use LoadKnowledgeBase and LoadCompiledKnowledgeBase methods: verbot.LoadKnowledgeBase("C:\\[full path to kb...]\\LearnedKnowledge.vkb");
//verbot.LoadCompiledKnowledgeBase("C:\\[full path...]\\julia.ckb");
//verbot.LoadCompiledKnowledgeBase("C:\\[full path...]\\Teacher.ckb");
// set up state
state.CurrentKBs.Add("C:\\[full path...]\\LearnedKnowledge.vkb");
state.CurrentKBs.Add("C:\\[full path...]\\Teacher.vkb");
state.CurrentKBs.Add("C:\\[full path...]\\julia.ckb");
Finally, I attempt to get a response from the verbot engine:
Reply reply = verbot.GetReply("hello", state);
if (reply != null)
Console.WriteLine(reply.AgentText);
else
Console.WriteLine("No reply found.");
I know julia has a response for "hello", as I've tested it with the editor. But all it ever returns is "No reply found". This code has been taken from the example console program in the SDK download (as very little documentation is available). That's why I need some pointers from someone who's familiar with the SDK.
Am I not loading the KBs correctly? Do they all need to be compiled (.ckb) instead of the XML files (.vkb)? I've used the verbot.OnKnowledgeBaseLoadError event handler and I get no errors. I even removed the resource file Default.vsn needed to load the Teacher, and it throws an error when trying to load it so I'm pretty sure it's all loading correctly. So why do I always get "No reply found"?
resolved: see http://www.verbots.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=13021#13021
I'm building a web application in which I need to scan the user-uploaded files for viruses.
Does anyone with experience in building something like this can provide information on how to get this up and running? I'm guessing antivirus software packages have APIs to access their functionality programatically, but it seems it's not easy to get a hand on the details.
FYI, the application is written in C#.
Important note before use:
Be aware of TOS agreement. You give them full access to everything: "When you upload or otherwise submit content, you give VirusTotal (and those we work with) a worldwide, royalty free, irrevocable and transferable licence to use, edit, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works, communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content."
Instead of using a local Antivirus program (and thus binding your program to that particular Antivirus product and requesting your customers to install that Antivirus product) you could use the services of VirusTotal.com
This site provides a free service in which your file is given as input to numerous antivirus products and you receive back a detailed report with the evidences resulting from the scanning process. In this way your solution is no more binded to a particular Antivirus product (albeit you are binded to Internet availability)
The site provides also an Application Programming Interface that allows a programmatically approach to its scanning engine.
Here a VirusTotal.NET a library for this API
Here the comprensive documentation about their API
Here the documentation with examples in Python of their interface
And because no answer is complete without code, this is taken directly from the sample client shipped with the VirusTotal.NET library
static void Main(string[] args)
{
VirusTotal virusTotal = new VirusTotal(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ApiKey"]);
//Use HTTPS instead of HTTP
virusTotal.UseTLS = true;
//Create the EICAR test virus. See http://www.eicar.org/86-0-Intended-use.html
FileInfo fileInfo = new FileInfo("EICAR.txt");
File.WriteAllText(fileInfo.FullName, #"X5O!P%#AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*");
//Check if the file has been scanned before.
FileReport fileReport = virusTotal.GetFileReport(fileInfo);
bool hasFileBeenScannedBefore = fileReport.ResponseCode == ReportResponseCode.Present;
Console.WriteLine("File has been scanned before: " + (hasFileBeenScannedBefore ? "Yes" : "No"));
//If the file has been scanned before, the results are embedded inside the report.
if (hasFileBeenScannedBefore)
{
PrintScan(fileReport);
}
else
{
ScanResult fileResult = virusTotal.ScanFile(fileInfo);
PrintScan(fileResult);
}
... continue with testing a web site ....
}
DISCLAIMER
I am in no way involved with them. I am writing this answer just because it seems to be a good update for these 4 years old answers.
You can use IAttachmentExecute API.
Windows OS provide the common API to calling the anti virus software which is installed (Of course, the anti virus software required support the API).
But, the API to calling the anti virus software provide only COM Interface style, not supported IDispatch.
So, calling this API is too difficult from any .NET language and script language.
Download this library from here Anti Virus Scanner for .NET or add reference your VS project from "NuGet" AntiVirusScanner
For example bellow code scan a file :
var scanner = new AntiVirus.Scanner();
var result = scanner.ScanAndClean(#"c:\some\file\path.txt");
Console.WriteLine(result); // console output is "VirusNotFound".
I would probably just make a system call to run an independent process to do the scan. There are a number of command-line AV engines out there from various vendors.
Take a look at the Microsoft Antivirus API. It makes use of COM, which should be easy enough to interface with from .NET. It refers specifically to Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office, but I don't see why you wouldn't be able to use to to on-demand scan any file.
All modern scanners that run on Windows should understand this API.
Various Virus scanners do have API's. One I have integrated with is Sophos. I am pretty sure Norton has an API also while McAfee doesn't (it used to). What virus software do you want to use? You may want to check out Metascan as it will allow integration with many different scanners, but there is an annual license cost. :-P
I also had this requirement. I used clamAv anti virus which provides on-demand scanning by sending the file to their tcp listening port. You can use nClam nuget package to send files to clamav.
var clam = new ClamClient("localhost", 3310);
var scanResult = clam.ScanFileOnServerAsync("C:\\test.txt"); //any file you would like!
switch (scanResult.Result.Result)
{
case ClamScanResults.Clean:
Console.WriteLine("The file is clean!");
break;
case ClamScanResults.VirusDetected:
Console.WriteLine("Virus Found!");
Console.WriteLine("Virus name: {0}", scanResult.Result.InfectedFiles[0].FileName);
break;
case ClamScanResults.Error:
Console.WriteLine("Woah an error occured! Error: {0}", scanResult.Result.RawResult);
break;
}
A simple and detailed example is shown here. Note:- The synchronous scan method is not available in the latest nuget. You have to code like I done above
For testing a virus you can use the below string in a txt file
X5O!P%#AP[4\PZX54(P^)7CC)7}$EICAR-STANDARD-ANTIVIRUS-TEST-FILE!$H+H*
Shameless plug but you might want to check out https://scanii.com, it's basically malware/virus detection as a (REST) service. Oh also, make sure you read and understand virustotal's API terms (https://www.virustotal.com/en/documentation/public-api/) - they are very clear about not allowing commercial usage.
I would recommend using this approach:
using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NET.VirusScan.Api;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NET.VirusScan.Client;
using Cloudmersive.APIClient.NET.VirusScan.Model;
namespace Example
{
public class ScanFileAdvancedExample
{
public void main()
{
// Configure API key authorization: Apikey
Configuration.Default.AddApiKey("Apikey", "YOUR_API_KEY");
var apiInstance = new ScanApi();
var inputFile = new System.IO.FileStream("C:\\temp\\inputfile", System.IO.FileMode.Open); // System.IO.Stream | Input file to perform the operation on.
var allowExecutables = true; // bool? | Set to false to block executable files (program code) from being allowed in the input file. Default is false (recommended). (optional)
var allowInvalidFiles = true; // bool? | Set to false to block invalid files, such as a PDF file that is not really a valid PDF file, or a Word Document that is not a valid Word Document. Default is false (recommended). (optional)
var allowScripts = true; // bool? | Set to false to block script files, such as a PHP files, Pythong scripts, and other malicious content or security threats that can be embedded in the file. Set to true to allow these file types. Default is false (recommended). (optional)
var allowPasswordProtectedFiles = true; // bool? | Set to false to block password protected and encrypted files, such as encrypted zip and rar files, and other files that seek to circumvent scanning through passwords. Set to true to allow these file types. Default is false (recommended). (optional)
var restrictFileTypes = restrictFileTypes_example; // string | Specify a restricted set of file formats to allow as clean as a comma-separated list of file formats, such as .pdf,.docx,.png would allow only PDF, PNG and Word document files. All files must pass content verification against this list of file formats, if they do not, then the result will be returned as CleanResult=false. Set restrictFileTypes parameter to null or empty string to disable; default is disabled. (optional)
try
{
// Advanced Scan a file for viruses
VirusScanAdvancedResult result = apiInstance.ScanFileAdvanced(inputFile, allowExecutables, allowInvalidFiles, allowScripts, allowPasswordProtectedFiles, restrictFileTypes);
Debug.WriteLine(result);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Debug.Print("Exception when calling ScanApi.ScanFileAdvanced: " + e.Message );
}
}
}
}
Note that this way you can even control whether you filter out non-virus threat payloads such as executables, scripts, encrypted/password-protected files, etc.
This approach has a free tier and can also validate the contents of the files that you upload.
We tried two options:
clamav-daemon installed on a tiny linux container + "nClam" .NET library to interact with it. Works fine, but Clam AV misses a lot (a lot!) of viruses, especially dangerous macros hidden in MS Office files. Also ClamAV virus database has to be kept in memory at all times, which uses around 3.5GB of memory, which requires a rather expensive cloud virtual machine.
Ended up using Windows Defender via MpCmdRun.exe CLI api. See answer here
You can try to use DevDragon.io.
It is a web service with an API and .NET client DevDragon.Antivirus.Client you can get from NuGet. Scans are sub 200ms for 1MB file.
More documentation here:
https://github.com/Dev-Dragon/Antivirus-Client
Disclosure: I work for them.
From my experience you can use COM for interfacing with some anti-virus software. But what I would suggest is a bit easier, just parse scan results after scanning. All you need to do is to start the scanner process and point it to file/folder you want to scan, store scan results into file or redirect stdout to your application and parse results.
//Scan
string start = Console.ReadLine();
System.Diagnostics.Process scanprocess = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
sp.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = #"<location of your antivirus>";
sp.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
sp.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
sp.StartInfo.Arguments = #"/c antivirusscanx.exe /scan="+filePath;
sp.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
sp.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
sp.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true; sp.Start();
string output = sp.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
//Scan results
System.Diagnostics.Process pr = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
pr.StartInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
pr.StartInfo.Arguments = #"/c echo %ERRORLEVEL%";
pr.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true;
pr.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true; pr.Start();
output = processresult.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
pr.Close();
Is there any API for writing a C# program that could interface with Windows update, and use it to selectively install certain updates?
I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of storing a list in a central repository of approved updates. Then the client side applications (which would have to be installed once) would interface with Windows Update to determine what updates are available, then install the ones that are on the approved list. That way the updates are still applied automatically from a client-side perspective, but I can select which updates are being applied.
This is not my role in the company by the way, I was really just wondering if there is an API for windows update and how to use it.
Add a Reference to WUApiLib to your C# project.
using WUApiLib;
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e){
base.OnLoad(e);
UpdateSession uSession = new UpdateSession();
IUpdateSearcher uSearcher = uSession.CreateUpdateSearcher();
uSearcher.Online = false;
try {
ISearchResult sResult = uSearcher.Search("IsInstalled=1 And IsHidden=0");
textBox1.Text = "Found " + sResult.Updates.Count + " updates" + Environment.NewLine;
foreach (IUpdate update in sResult.Updates) {
textBox1.AppendText(update.Title + Environment.NewLine);
}
}
catch (Exception ex) {
Console.WriteLine("Something went wrong: " + ex.Message);
}
}
Given you have a form with a TextBox this will give you a list of the currently installed updates. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa387102(VS.85).aspx for more documentation.
This will, however, not allow you to find KB hotfixes which are not distributed via Windows Update.
The easiest way to do what you want is using WSUS. It's free and basically lets you setup your own local windows update server where you decide which updates are "approved" for your computers. Neither the WSUS server nor the clients need to be in a domain, though it makes it easier to configure the clients if they are. If you have different sets of machines that need different sets of updates approved, that's also supported.
Not only does this accomplish your stated goal, it saves your overall network bandwidth as well by only downloading the updates once from the WSUS server.
If in your context you're allowed to use Windows Server Update Service (WSUS), it will give you access to the Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration Namespace.
From there, you should be able to do some nice things :)
P-L right. I tried first the Christoph Grimmer-Die method, and in some case, it was not working. I guess it was due to different version of .net or OS architecture (32 or 64 bits).
Then, to be sure that my program get always the Windows Update waiting list of each of my computer domain, I did the following :
Install a serveur with WSUS (may save some internet bandwith) : http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=5216
Add all your workstations & servers to your WSUS server
Get SimpleImpersonation Lib to run this program with different admin right (optional)
Install only the administration console component on your dev workstation and run the following program :
It will print in the console all Windows updates with UpdateInstallationStates.Downloaded
using System;
using Microsoft.UpdateServices.Administration;
using SimpleImpersonation;
namespace MAJSRS_CalendarChecker
{
class WSUS
{
public WSUS()
{
// I use impersonation to use other logon than mine. Remove the following "using" if not needed
using (Impersonation.LogonUser("mydomain.local", "admin_account_wsus", "Password", LogonType.Batch))
{
ComputerTargetScope scope = new ComputerTargetScope();
IUpdateServer server = AdminProxy.GetUpdateServer("wsus_server.mydomain.local", false, 80);
ComputerTargetCollection targets = server.GetComputerTargets(scope);
// Search
targets = server.SearchComputerTargets("any_server_name_or_ip");
// To get only on server FindTarget method
IComputerTarget target = FindTarget(targets, "any_server_name_or_ip");
Console.WriteLine(target.FullDomainName);
IUpdateSummary summary = target.GetUpdateInstallationSummary();
UpdateScope _updateScope = new UpdateScope();
// See in UpdateInstallationStates all other properties criteria
_updateScope.IncludedInstallationStates = UpdateInstallationStates.Downloaded;
UpdateInstallationInfoCollection updatesInfo = target.GetUpdateInstallationInfoPerUpdate(_updateScope);
int updateCount = updatesInfo.Count;
foreach (IUpdateInstallationInfo updateInfo in updatesInfo)
{
Console.WriteLine(updateInfo.GetUpdate().Title);
}
}
}
public IComputerTarget FindTarget(ComputerTargetCollection coll, string computername)
{
foreach (IComputerTarget target in coll)
{
if (target.FullDomainName.Contains(computername.ToLower()))
return target;
}
return null;
}
}
}