Keep RDP Session Alive After Disconnect - sql

Maybe there is a better way. Here is what I want to do.
I connect and download quotes all day and night using Web Server / Browser Based Application and SQL Database. How can I move this session to my web server so I do not have to use local resources to manage this process? When I connect to my Web Server using RDP, it will, of course, log me off all applications (including web browser) when I exit.
Thank for help and advice.
Craig

With RDP you should not be logged off. The session should remain even if you close RDP. But if you want to perform automatic repetitive tasks on a server, you should look into cron jobs, services or daemons, instead of relying on a user session with a running application.

Related

web logic server Breach Help! How do Find Signs of what data if any was accessed?

A Weblogic server got hacked and the problem is now removed.
I am looking through the infected VM's now in a sandbox and want to see what if any data was accessed on the application servers.
the app servers were getting hammered with ssh requests and so we identified the infected VM's as the web logic VMS, we did not have http logging on. Is there any way to Identify if any PII was Compromised?
Looked through secure logs on weblogic as well as looked through the PIA logs
I am not sure how to identify what if any data was accessed
I would like to find out what went out of our network and info or data
what should I be looking for
is there anything I can learn from looking at the weblogic servers running on red hat?
I would want to believe that SSH was not the only service being hammered, and that was a large attempt to make eyes be on Auth logging whilst an attempt on other services is made.
Do you have a Time frame that you are working with?
Have the OS logs been checked for that time frame?
.bash_history been checked? env variables? /etc/pass* for added users? aliases? reverse shells open on the network connections? New users created on services running on that particular host?
Was WebLogic the only service running on this publicly available host?
What other services and ports were available?
Was this due to an older version of Weblogic or another service, application, plugin?
Create yourself an excel spreadsheet and start a timeline.
Look at all the OS level logging possible and start to make note of anything that looks suspicious, to then follow that breadcrumb to exhaustion.

How to access postgresql DB server that has "too many clients" and kill connections?

I was careless when I made some changes to my C# web service which accesses a postgresql database server at my work, and I forgot to close some connections I made. After testing the service many times over the past few days, I realized too late that I forgot to close my connections and now I can't access the server.
I've googled other solutions but they all involve me changing the max connection size in the postgres.conf file. The problem is that I don't have such a file on my own computer. I'm assuming the conf file is on the original machine that hosts the database server?
Is there any solution to this so that I can access the server again, and kill the old connections, without going to the original host machine of the database?
The only other options are:
to connect as the database superuser, which has superuser_reserved_connections other users cannot use; or
if you can, ssh in to the DB server and kill -TERM individual PostgreSQL worker backends. (on windows, that'd be rdp'ing in and using End Process on the backend postgres.exe processes, but it's much harder to pick a safe one to terminate on Windows, you'd want to use Process Explorer to examine the process heirachy and arguments so you can pick a regular backend).
In future you can prevent this by setting a connection limit on the user your appserver connects as; see ALTER USER.

Can the GUI of an RDP session remain active after disconnect

I'm running automated testing procedures that emulates keystrokes and mouseclicks 24/7.
Although it runs fine locally, on an RDP session it stops running once minimized or disconnected. Apparently, the GUI doesn't exist if you can't physically see it on the screen.
There is a registry work-around for keeping the GUI active for minimizing the window, but I know of no way to keep it alive after disconnect.
Ideally, I would have this run on the server Windows console session which would not care about being disconnected but in a hosted environment (I tried Amazon and Go Daddy) there is no way to access the console session.
Does anyone know how I can get around this? Basically any solution that allows me to run my application on a VPS. I need the reliability of a host but the flexibility to run it as if I was sitting right in front.
Yes, you can.
There are two types of sessions in Windows: The "console" session which is always active, and there can only be a max of one of, and "terminal" sessions, a la RDP. Using "rdpwrap" on Github, you can have an unlimited number of terminal sessions.
RDP sessions will become "deactivated" when there is not a connection to them. Programs will still run, but anything that depends on GUI interaction will break badly.
Luckily, we may "convert" a terminal session into a console session instead of disconnecting from Remote Desktop normally by running the following command from inside the terminal session:
for /f "skip=1 tokens=3" %%s in ('query user %USERNAME%') do (tscon.exe %%s /dest:console)
This will disconnect you from the session, but it will still run with full graphical context. This answers your question. You can reconnect to it and it will become a terminal session again, and you can do this infinitely. And, of course, autohotkey works perfectly.
But, what if you need more than one persistent, graphics-enabled session?
To get an unlimited amount of graphics-persistent sessions, you can run Remote Desktop and start terminal sessions from within the "main" session described above. Normally Remote Desktop prevents this "loopback" behavior, but if you specify "127.0.0.2" for the destination, you will be able to start a terminal session with any number of the users on the remote machine.
The graphics-persistentness will only be present on terminal servers if they are not minimized, unless you create and set RemoteDesktop_SuppressWhenMinimized to 2 at the following registry location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server Client
With this you can get an unlimited number of completely independent graphics-persistent remote sessions from a single machine.
This could be a workaround, altough I have not tried it myself and it involves having another machine
Let's assume that at the moment you are creating a session to myserver.com
Local Client ----> myserver.com
Instead of doing that, you could try having a separate server (let's call it myslave.com) and use that to establish a session
Local Client ----> myslave.com ----> myserver.com
Then if you disconnect the Local Client ---> myslave.com session the GUI of the session between myslave.com ----> myserver.com should remain active.
It will work only if you are connected to the console session of myslave.com.
I found a similar way. I had same problem, i downloaded rdp wraper which allows you configure multiple session rpd server and one tool which is included (rdpchecker.exe) allows you connect to localhost so you can connect to your server from your server and you dont need that middle client.
This could be a workaround, altough I have not tried it myself and it involves having >another machine
Let's assume that at the moment you are creating a session to myserver.com
Local Client ----> myserver.com
Instead of doing that, you could try having a separate server (let's call it myslave.com) and use that to establish a session
Local Client ----> myslave.com ----> myserver.com
Then if you disconnect the Local Client ---> myslave.com session the GUI of the session
between myslave.com ----> myserver.com should remain active
If you are using a windows server you don't even need another machine.
1) Connect to the server with the remote desktop connection (#con1).
2) Create a new alias for your server system like "127.0.0.2" in Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts .
3) Now establish a new remote desktop connection from your windows server (in #con1) to itself (#con2).
4) Finally start your GUI needing application e.g. UI-Path in #con2 and then close #con1.
I ran into the same problem and noticed that using VNC (TightVNC) to take over the remote machine seems to solve the issue. I guess VNC uses the console screen. Once activated and logged-in it stays logged-in, also after a VNC disconnect. Make sure that the screen never turns off in the power options.
Take note that keeping the console logged-in on a VPS is in general not recommended.

Benefits of running apache as a service?

I've just installed XAMPP and just wondering what are the benefits of running Apache as a service?
One of the benefits is that when installed as a service is that you can limit the privileges (directories read/write access, network access, this means better security of course) of the account that runs it (the default is the LocalSystem account on Windows, you can find more about it here).
And as admin pointed out, you can also keep the service running without you being logged in all the time.
The benefits of a service in general (on Windows) :
It can automatic start at System Logon
Start and stop not related to a specific user session
Run in Background
Can run under a special account (LocalSystem, Network Service)
From Vista/Server 2008 onwards run in Session 0 (Isolation)
If you use apache only for developing purpose you can avoid to install it as service and run it when needed directly from your user session, in a production enviroment is highly recommended to install and run it as service ...
-Don't have to start it after each boot.
-If you log off the server continues running.
If you will use the server all the time, set it as a service... If not, just start it when you need it to keep the resourses free.

How can I prevent a server from becoming locked after a Remote Desktop session

As part of our databuild run a 3rd party program (3D Studio Max) to export a number of assets. Unfortunately if a user is not currently logged in, or the machine is locked, then Max does not run correctly.
This can be solved for freshly booted machines by using a method such as TweakUI for automatic login. However when a user connects via Remote Desktop (to initiate a non-scheduled build, change a setting, whatever) then after the session ends the machine is left in a locked state with Max unable to run.
I'm looking for a way to configure windows (via fair means or foul) so either it does not lock when the remote session ends, or it "unlocks" itself a short while after. I'm aware of a method under XP where you can run a batchfile on the machine which kicks the remote user off, but this does not appear to work on Windows Server.
There is a separate terminal service connection available called the 'console' connection.
You can connect to this space using mstsc /console /v:servername. Use mstsc /? for full command line options.
This allows you to connect, open up the terminal services manager and boot the bad sessions.
Logging in over RDP shouldn't affect whether the console locks. If you don't log out of RDP (just closing the client keeps your session pending), then your session will be locked. You can solve that with idle timeouts in Terminal Services Manager.
If your console is locking, that's a seperate policy in Local Computer Settings or some such. If you have a domain, set it with a GPO. If you need the exact name of the policy, let me know and I'll dig it up for you.
I assume by unlock you want to make sure that disconnected sessions are logged off. To do this
Administrative Tools | Terminal Services Configuration
Right-Click RDP-TCP on the Connections folder and choose Properties
Go to the Sessions tab and select the Override user settings check box
Configure the End a Disconnected session to your needed timeout value
more reading at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758177.aspx
You might want to look at using the "shadow" utility. This allows you to essentially proxy into an existing remote desktop session. You could log into the console of the machine with the account you need, then users could open non-console remote desktop sessions to the machine (or to another machine) then use shadow to connect to the same console session. The users will have to be in the administrators group on the machine.
Although, this might be as simple as telling people not to use the console session when logging into the machine using remote desktop.
Possible Solution from here.
To disable the Lock Computer button,
open Regedit and browse to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
System and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
System and create a new REG_DWORD
value in each called
DisableLockWorkstation. Setting this
value to 0 will allow the Lock
Computer button to be used, while 1
will disable it.
There may be a problem if you are running these tasks as Administrator and others are logging in via Remote Desktop as Administrator. The task should be run from its own account.
With the most recent terminal services client you can connect to the console using the /ADMIN switch.
So "Computer:" will be something like:
myworkstation.mydomain.local /ADMIN
-Ed