Casabac GUI Server as Windows Service

Transcription

1 GUI Server as Windows Service This document shows an example how to run GUI Server as a system service on windows (NT, 2000, XP). Unfortunately you cannot create a service with a plain windows installation. This document describes how to create such a service using utilities of the optional package NT Resource Kit. There is a free download available provided by Microsoft. Goal The GUI Server starts automatically after a windows boot. This start up mechanism is typically used with a productive installation of GUI Server on a central server. It does not make sense during the development phase. Documentation Within Microsoft s Knowledge Base there is an article (#137890) how to install any program as windows service ( The following example focuses on how to run GUI Server as service. NT Resource Kit The example makes use of two utilities that are part of the NT Resource Kit: INSTSRV.EXE SRVANY.EXE Check if you already installed the NT Resource Kit on your machine. Open a command shell and execute command INSTSRV. If you already have installed the NT Resource Kit you will see the following output: If you get an error message (command is not known) proceed with Installing INSTSRV.EXE and SRVANY.EXE otherwise skip that chapter. 1/1

2 Installing INSTSRV.EXE and SRVANY.EXE 1. Download the NT Resource Kit There is a free download of the NT Resource Kit provided by Microsoft: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/reskit/nt35/i386/i386.exe Create a new directory (e.g. C:\NTRESKIT) and save I386.EXE (7.136 KB) to this location. 2. Extract I386.EXE I386.EXE is a self-extracting executable. One way to extract the content is to double click the file. With that the content (> 200 files) will be extracted to the local directory. 3. Expand INSTSRV.EX_ and SRVANY.EX_ Expand file INSTSRV.EX_ to INSTSRV.EXE and SRVANY.EX_ to SRVANY.EXE. To do so open a command shell within the directory and execute the following two commands: expand INSTSRV.EX_ INSTSRV.EXE expand SRVANY.EX_ SRVANY.EXE Service Installation Let s have a look onto a standard GUI Server installation: <installdir>/bin /jre /log /tomcat Batch files for starting the GUI Server Java runtime environment (Sun) Standard location where runtime logs are place Tomcat servlet engine You start the GUI Server by executing file GUIServer.bat that is located within <installdir>/bin. Unfortunately there is no way to install this program directly as service. It must be wrapped by an executable that implements the windows service interface. SRVANY is used for that. The installation is done within two steps: First you register SRVANY with a unique name as new service. Second you link the installed service with GUI Server. 1. Install The Service The installation of SRVANY as new service is done using the command INSTSRV: path\instsrv MyService path\srvany.exe where path is the drive and directory of the Windows NT Resource Kit and where MyService is the name of the new service. Please note: the name must be unique, i.e. there must not be an existing service with this name. Background info: this command creates a new registry entry with name MyService at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services. 2. Link Service To GUI Server In order to link the new service to the start file of GUI Server update your registry by adding three keys below HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MyService: Application= C:\\<installdir>\\bin\\GUIServer.bat AppDirectory= C:\\<installdir>\\bin AppParameters= 2/2

3 Example In the following we create the service MyGUIServer that relates to the GUI Server installation in directory C:\casabac25. The path to the NT Resource Kit is C:\NTRESKIT. 1. Open a command shell and execute: C:\NTRESKIT\INSTSRV MyGUIServer C:\NTRESKIT\SRVANY.EXE Please note: the extension EXE is mandatory. You should see the following output: The service is installed successfully! But: the service uses the account Administrator with whatever password. As you can see in the output message you must now go to the Control Panel and use the Services Applet to change the account name. Set Login as to Local Account. 3/3

4 2. Second Step: Add the following entries to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MyGUIServer: Application="C:\\casabac25\\bin\\GUIServer.bat" AppDirectory="C:\\casabac25\\bin" AppParameters="" The registry updates for this example are stored within a text file. You can download this file using the following URL: Replace the name of the service (MyGUIServer) and the installation directory (c:\casabac25) and change the file extension to reg. Afterwards double click onto that file. The following popup occurs: Execute the registry update by a click onto Yes button. A second popup occurs with a success message. 4/4

5 Controlling The Service After installation you will see the service within the Service Applet of windows (open Control Panel- >System Management->Services). You see there is a line MYGUIServer: The service will be started on next start of windows. You can start the service directly using the Start command. For that open the popup menu (use the right mouse button) and select Start. Please note: Unfortunately stopping the service just terminates the service wrapper SRVANY. The actual service ( GUI Server) is still running. Use the task manager to stop the GUI Server (kill process java.exe that is started from user System ). Deinstallation Use command INSTSRV with option remove to uninstall the service. Please note: the service must be stopped before you can uninstall it. The following command uninstalls service MyGUIServer. INSTSRV MyGUIServer remove You will see the following success message: 5/5