As custom action of a WiX-based installer (MS Windows 7), I need to check out some files from a StarTeam server. stcmd seems to provide all functionality and I am able to perform the checkout with UID and password provided via parameter -p.
Since the installer is run by different users, I obviously need a mechanism to inquire the StarTeam login credentials at run-time instead of hard-coding UID/pw.
I was browsing the StarTeam manual but was not able to figure out if the StarTeam programs provide a solution to that problem. Any suggestions?
Sorry, this just doesn't make sense to me. Typically you include files from source control in the MSI at build time not install time. What does install time buy you other then complexity? Now application runtime would make sense to me. You could create and install an application that prompts the user for creds and then periodically polls star team for updated files. (Windows service, scheduled task, logon autorun...)
Couldn't you could prompt your users for the login information during the install and then pass them to the stcmd.exe?
Meh, the solution is trivial. When using an empty password, stcmd automatically asks for the password. Example:
stcmd connect username:#hostname:portnumber
Using the stateful commands is recommended since the credentials are stored internally for all subsequent commands.
I need a little help from you.
I have to migrate several applications from WAS 7 to WAS 8.5 with a script in Jython using wsadmin. The thing is that on WAS 7 there are a lot of Datasources and i only need to import the Datasources that are used by the applications that i have to migrate.
Long story short: i have to get the datasource properties for a specific application.
Thanks for your help!
UPDATE: After this I have to install the applications using the exported properties of datasources.
If your application developers were smart enough to use resource references, you can find JNDI names of the Datasources used by the application in the web admin console Applications > applicationName > Resource References. If not, you will have to somehow learn what the datasources are (application documentation, developers, sources). There is no other way than references to know datasources used by given app.
Then I'd suggest you to use Property files wsadmin commands to extract relevant information from one environment and apply to the other. (Or just give you datasources configuration for use in jython scripts).
If don't want to use Property files commands you can use command assistance in the console to help you create jython files, or use some already provide Jython script library
For details see:
Using properties files to manage system configuration
Accessing command assistance from the administrative console
JDBC configuration scripts (library)
It appears there was previously an extension for MMC in Wix2 advising the xmlns http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/MmcExtension - attempting to read this URL results in an error page currently.
I cannot seem to locate equivalent for Wix3.6, is this deliberately (re)moved, or just missing?
It was removed, you have to manually create the registry keys. This link has a good summation of what you need to do.
The old extension was just a wrapper for the code included in the link above. I'm not sure why they took it out.
You can use also the heat tool (you can find it in the wix bin/ directory).
the usage is simple, you just need to export the registry key generated with installutil and launch the command:
heat reg <your_exported_registry> -o <output_filename>
Related info:
Having generated the registry entries, the larger issue for our MMC snapin was that it was extending the AD Users and Computers Snapin - in particular extending the node types for other directory object types.
I had hoped such a wix extension would cover such, but it was not in the earlier version.
While waiting for Microsoft to address Windows File/Registry protection overly protecting ADUAC and SMADUAC and GPO etc. our customer have requested we work around this.
Using a custom action we take ownership from WRP TrustedInstaller and grant access to Adminstrators group to modify the NodeType key so that additional keys can be added.
Functions sourced initial from MSDN examples
SetPrivilege Example Code
Taking Ownership Example Code
Modify ACL Example Code - this was adjusted Taking ownership to extend ACL rather than create new ACL and blast the old
Some further items of Note:
Pre Win7 - Alternate method to taking ownership would be to use SE_RESTORE_NAME to allow direct changing of an ACL, however installer process from Win7 deliberatly prevents it, this also prevents take ownership from being able to restore the original owner.
Platform Types: SetNamedSecurityInfo doesn't allow 32 bit execution against 64 bit registry - Windows OS limitation still present in Windows 8
It does however allow a 64 bit execution to address both the 64 and wow6432 sections.
For a binary custom action at least need a platform specific dll.
I want to run a Tomcat app in Cloudbees. This app accesses some private and confidential properties from the file system. How could I access a file system on Cloudbees? Please note that it should be highly protected, e.g. 700 or similar.
Regards,
Marco
RUN#Cloud platform don't provide a persistent (nor distributed) filesystem. So you can't use it to as canonical store for those files, but need to use an external file store to match your security requirements, and copy them as application is starting (or lazy-load) to java.io.temp directory. As files are stored on RUN#Cloud there is no security issue as your server instance is fully isolated, and files will be deleted after application undeployed/passivated
So you can use Amazon S3 or comparable to store files
Another option is for you to attach properties to the RUN#Cloud instance as configuration parameters, and access them as System properties. See http://wiki.cloudbees.com/bin/view/RUN/Configuration+Parameters
If they data is modest in size - you could consider using properties - using the CLI you can set them using
bees config:set propertyName=value
you can then access that as a System property (for example) in your application. The properties themselves are stored encrypted by cloudbees.
I've actually moved to OpenShift since then and I solved the problem. Thank you for your answers
Where would you write an error log file, say ErrorLog.txt, in Windows? Keep in mind the path would need to be open to basic users for file write permissions.
I know the eventlog is a possible location for writing errors, but does it work for "user" level permissions?
EDIT: I am targeting Windows 2003, but I was posing the question in such a way as to have a "General Guideline" for where to write error logs.
As for the EventLog, I have had issues before in an ASP.NET application where I wanted to log to the Windows event log, but I had security issues causing me heartache. (I do not recall the issues I had, but remember having them.)
Have you considered logging the event viewer instead? If you want to write your own log, I suggest the users local app setting directory. Make a product directory under there. It's different on different version of Windows.
On Vista, you cannot put files like this under c:\program files. You will run into a lot of problems with it.
In .NET, you can find out this folder with this:
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData)
And the Event Log is fairly simple to use too:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.eventlog.aspx
Text files are great for a server application (you did say Windows 2003). You should have a separate log file for each server application, the location is really a matter of convention to agree with administrators. E.g. for ASP.NET apps I've often seen them placed on a separate disk from the application under a folder structure that mimics the virtual directory structure.
For client apps, one disadvantage of text files is that a user may start multiple copies of your application (unless you've taken specific steps to prevent this). So you have the problem of contention if multiple instances attempt to write to the same log file. For this reason I would always prefer the Windows Event Log for client apps. One caveat is that you need to be an administrator to create an event log - this can be done e.g. by the setup package.
If you do use a file, I'd suggest using the folder Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData rather than SpecialFolder.ApplicationData as suggested by others. LocalApplicationData is on the local disk: you don't want network problems to stop you from logging when the user has a roaming profile. For a WinForms application, use Application.LocalUserAppDataPath.
In either case, I would use a configuration file to decide where to log, so that you can easily change it. E.g. if you use Log4Net or a similar framework, you can easily configure whether to log to a text file, event log, both or elsewhere (e.g. a database) without changing your app.
The standard location(s) are:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\MyApp
or
C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Application Data\MyApp
(aka %UserProfile%\Application Data\MyApp) which would match your user level permission requirement. It also separates logs created by different users.
Using .NET runtime, these can be built as:
AppDir=
System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData)
or
AppDir=
System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData)
followed by:
MyAppDir = IO.Path.Combine(AppDir,'MyApp')
(Which, hopefully, maps Vista profiles too).
Personally, I would suggest using the Windows event log, it's great. If you can't, then write the file to the ApplicationData directory or the ProgramData (Application Data for all users on Windows XP) directory.
The Windows event log is definitely the way to go for logging of errors. You're not limited to the "Application" log as it's possible to create a new log target (e.g. "My Application"). That may need to be done as part of setup as I'm not sure if it requires administrative privileges or not. There's a Microsoft example in C# at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307024.
Windows 2008 also has Event Log Forwarding which can be quite handy with server applications.
I agree with Lou on this, but I prefer to set this up in a configuration file like Joe said. You can use
file value="${APPDATA}/Test/log-file.txt"
("Test" could be whatever you want, or removed entirely) in the configuration file, which causes the log file to be written to "/Documents and Settings/LoginUser/Application
Data/Test" on Windows XP and to "/Users/LoginUser/AppData/Roaming/Test on Windows Vista.
I am just adding this as I just spent way too much time figuring how to make this work on Windows Vista...
This works as-is with Windows applications. To use logging in web applications, I found Phil Haack's blog entry on this to be a great resource:
http://haacked.com/archive/2005/03/07/ConfiguringLog4NetForWebApplications.aspx
%TEMP% is always a good location for logs I find.
Going against the grain here - it depends on what you need to do. Sometimes you need to manipulate the results, so log.txt is the way to go. It's simple, mutable, and easy to search.
Take an example from Joel. Fogbugz will send a log / dump of error messages via http to their server. You could do the same and not have to worry about the user's access rights on their drive.
I personally don't like to use the Windows Event Log where I am right now because we do not have access to the production servers, so that would mean that we would need to request access every time we wanted to look at the errors. It is not a speedy process unfortunately, so your troubleshooting is completely haulted by waiting for someone else. I also don't like that they kind of get lost within the ones from other applications. Sure you can sort, but it's just a bit of a nucance scrolling down. What you use will end up being a combination of personal preference coupled along with limitations of the enviroment you are working in. (log file, event log, or database)
Put it in the directory of the application. The users will need access to the folder to run and execute the application, and you can check write access on application startup.
The event log is a pain to use for troubleshooting, but you should still post significant errors there.
EDIT - You should look into the MS Application Blocks for logging if you are using .NET. They really make life easy.
Jeez Karma-killers. Next time I won't even offer a suggestion when the poster puts up an incomplete post.