I want to build a service to provide console access (eg. xm console domain) via a web browser to Xen virtual machines. Does such a program already exist? If not, where should I start?
Slicehost offers this service. I'm just wondering how to go about cloning it or using whatever software that they did.
Slicehost built their web console using AjaxTerm.
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A little background (before I get downvoted to oblivion!)
I'm working on an intranet-hosted ASP.NET web application in a highly secure environment. At the moment it's deployed by building a package in Visual Studio, the zip file is copied onto the server and installed in IIS using WebDeploy (right-click -> Deploy -> Import Application).
What I'd like to do is deploy a sanitised version of this application to an Azure Web Site for demonstration purposes, however most of the standard Azure deployment methods do not apply to me because:
I work on a secure network so Visual Studio is blocked from connecting to Azure (rendering 95% of documentation irrelevant!)
installable software is strictly controlled on this network so I cannot install the Azure SDK needed to create Service Definitions, Configurations and Packages
The only machine I have access to which can connect to Azure is woefully underpowered and can only run puTTY, PowerShell and basic text editors.
At the moment, I have a Windows VM in Azure just running IIS and WebDeploy - this works but seems like overkill (and a good way to burn through my credit) when Web Apps in theory do everything I need.
What can I do?
Another option may be to checkin the WebDeploy package to a free subscription of Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS = TFS in the cloud) and then create a deployment pipeline in VSTS using the new Release Management features.
https://www.visualstudio.com/features/release-management-vs.aspx
in that case:
1) FTP from your machine using your own FTP client or i would recommend to use PSFTP from Putty package.
2) Still WebDeploy, but use that to generate the needed files, then you can use PowerShell like that.
You can also use https://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/ to connect to azure websites. It works with HTTP, only problem could be a corporate proxy.
I have a requirement to install a desktop application written in visual c++ when our customers log in our asp.net web site. The desktop app will be installed once, but will be updated as a newer version is available. What is the best way to do this?
My second question is that is there a way for my asp.net web app to interact with a window service installed on customer computer and direct the window service to control USB devices.
My work uses software by a company called Citrix. There is some client side software that goes on the client's PC. When setup correctly, we can click a link on our sharepoint site that will trigger the citrix client software to launch a WPF desktop application from a network drive that will run locally on the clients computer (might be in a virtualized space that Citrix creates). This seems to work well, it runs our WPF applications that use windows authentication. This is all I know about it. You can research more if you're interested.
To answer that second question... Your window service would need to expose some kind of service for the client (asp.net web app) to communicate to it with. So ideally I think setting up the windows service to host a WCF service inside it and use something like named pipes or HTTP protocol to communicate with your application. I don't know what kind of USB devices you are trying to control though, that will take research on your part. But if you can control them with a local console application, you should be able to do the same with a windows service.
Good luck. Hope this was helpful.
You can't install an app from a web site, best you can do is prompt the user to download the installer. And asp.net (or any website in general) can't interact with the window service on the client. Imagine going to a website which changes your service settings, installs viruses, etc. A website is pretty much limited to changing cookies and local storage on the client, anything else on the client is inaccessable.
I have built a WCF service that is hosted in a Windows Service following this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733069.aspx. Part of what the code in the service does is join a multicast group and listen for data that is broadcast to the group. Then it processes it. I have found that when I install the service manually using InstallUtil it works fine. To install it manually I do the following:
Build the MyService project in Visual Studio.
Right click on the Visual Studio Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator
Navigate to the folder that has the MyService.exe file
Run the InstallUtil command as follows: installutil.exe MyService.exe
The service installs in Windows fine and then I start it. Then I run my ASP.NET application which is the client for the service and it runs fine. The service receives and processes the data just fine.
However I am trying to use Advanced Installer to build an MSI or EXE that will install the service and the ASP.NET application all at once so it doesn't have to be done manually. I am able to successfully create the Advanced Installer project that does this and it actually installs both the ASP.NET application and the Windows Service just fine and it starts my Windows Service too. However the really strange thing is that when I run the application I find that my service code can not receive any multicast data. It seems to block on that line of code and I never get any data. Does anyone know why this would happen? I have tried using an EXE and using "Run As Administrator" when I do the Advanced Installer installation. Here is the code from my service.
_groupAddress = IPAddress.Parse(_myIPAddress);
_listener = new UdpClient(_myPort);
_groupEP = new IPEndPoint(_groupAddress, _myPort);
_listener.JoinMulticastGroup(_groupAddress);
byte[] _bytes = _listener.Receive(ref _groupEP);
It seems to block on that last line of code and it never receives any data. This only happens when I install using Advanced Installer. When I install manually it works fine.
A service is configured to run under the identity of a user. Is this different when you install with the different methods?
Do you use the same port number in both cases, if not it could be the firewall.
99% sure that you have checked it, but check that the service is running after it is installed using advanced installer.
Check the event log for problems with the service.
It may be that your Windows Service is not running with sufficient credentials to perform this action. To test this, I'd recommend trying to change the user account being used for the service to see if that makes any difference.
To do this, go to the services applet (start, run, type services.msc). Find your service, right-click, properties, "Log On" tab, choose "This Account" and select an administrator user account that the service can run under.
I initially thought as the guys said this was a problem with the user credentials. But since you said in both cases the service is installed under the LocalSystem the problem seems to be elsewhere.
I recommend you first check the system "Events Viewer" for any messages regarding your message failing to start, maybe there you can find more information about the failure case.
If you can't find more detailed there I suggest a little bit of reverse engineering, to see what InstallUtil does and Advanced Installer doesn't, or the other way around. Advanced Installer comes along with the Repackager tool. You can use this tool to capture the system changes performed when running "InstallUtil" by providing a dummy executable to the Repackager when it is asking for the setup package, for example Notepad.
When the Repackager launches Notepad, leave it open and run your install command for the service, after the service finished installing, close Notepad and leave the repackager do its job. Then analyze the new project that it generates to see what resources has captured, like files, registry, services, etc...
You can also capture the install package create by Advanced Installer to see if the services installation from it creates less or more registration info for your service.
I've created an Azure server instance. I've deployed a simple application to it. As part of the deployment process I enabled Remote Desktop Connections.
I have some standard ASP.net applications that run on Windows, is there something to stop me deploying these applications manually to IIS using Remote Desktop. I've read so much about having to migrate standard ASP.net apps to Azure. I don't want to this as we will have customers who will still use Windows Server 2003/2008 so I don't want to have to maintain 2 versions.
Well, as I understand it, in theory you could deploy stuff using remote desktop. But when the instance shuts down/restarts you'll lose it all (unless you've built it into your startup scripts) and have to re-load everything each time. The main reason they suggest you have at least two instances is so that when one shuts down for updates etc there is always at least one other running.
The "Windows Azure Accelerator for Web Roles" project allows you to create an Azure web role which then enables you to use web deploy for all your other web sites - I'm guessing that will be a whole lot better approach and is definitely worth a look. Also, I believe smarx.com is a good place to browse for info and ideas.
Using a startup task and the Azure Bootstrapper you can download, unzip, install almost any kind of 3rd party software that supports either xcopy deployment (just copy the files) or an unattended(silent) install.
Assuming you aren't using Azure storage or anything like that, there shouldn't be any difference with the IIS application. If you are using anything specific to Azure, you can use the RoleEnvironment.IsAvailable to test if you are running inside Azure or not. That will return true for the emulator as well. If you want to use Azure storage from both, you can add the settings in the web.config to use if not running in Azure.
I need my application to create shortcuts to my application on all computers connected to a particular network, when the Setup is run.
Please advise how is it possible in Setup Project.
Thanks
Furqan
This is usually done through separate installations:
one on the server to install the application
one on each client to create shortcuts and/or configuration files or registry entries
You can use a single installer for both installations, but when using Visual Studio setup projects it's easier to create separate installers.
For automation you can deploy the client installer through network deployment software, for example Active Directory (GPO). I didn't find a GPO tutorial online so I can post it here, but you can contact me if you need some guidance.