Running Cumulus as a Service

[gwheelo]

Over the past year there has been some discussion concerning running Cumulus as a "Service." I have been part of that as I have been doing just that for quite some time. At one point I mentioned in this fourum that Cumulus operated flawlessly as a service but I was unable to open the console on the desktop. To access the console I stopped the service and started Cumulus normally. It was then pointed out to me that if I checked the "Interact with Desktop" item on the service configuration window I could have it both ways - and yes it worked just great.

Well many builds later and a few re-installs for maintenance and system re-configuration I discover that Cumulus (v.1.8.6.812) no longer is available to the Desktop while running as a service. In the current installation of have checked the "Allow to Interact with Desktop" box in the service configuration window and the "Stop second instance" box in Cumulus configuration.

Have I missed something or done something wrong. Is ther anyone out there who can share the appropriate information to help me out.

George Wheelock
http://www.wheelocknet.net/cumulus/now.htm

[panioman]

Hi,

Can you explain how you got it to work a a service?

So far I am unable to. I am using anyserviceinstaller on a windows home server.

If I run it on the desktop everything works ok

Thanks

Ron

[hans]

this might help
http://www.techeez.com/windows_tips/ser ... der_nt.htm

and only under a logonname,you can open the registry,goto
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

in the rightpane,rightclick and add a new string value.
call it cumulus
rightclick on it and modify value
for the value put in the path off cumulus.exe ,mine is :
C:\Program Files\Cumulus\cumulus.exe (case sensitive)

restart pc,cumulus should start
(in practise it's the same as putting it in the startup folder)

[JeffTaylor]

This is how you can run Cumulus as a service. It's long winded, but this is how I did it using Windows Server 2008r2 and my Maplins bought Fine Offset WH1081.

You will need to do some downloads first. Get the Windows Server 2003 Resource kit tools from here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/downloa ... x?id=17657

Install it, and ignore any compatibility issues that windows pops up. We're only after an executable called SRVANY.EXE. Don't download this executable from anywhere other than Microsoft directly. SrvAny is a simple service shell. I'm sure you can fiddle about with the SC (Service Create) command, but this way really works.

Go into the folder where you installed the tools, and copy SRVANY.EXE into a more sensible location. E.g. "C:\SrvAny\" If you're like me, I don't like clutter in my root folders, so I've got mine in "C:\Program Files (x86)\SrvAny\" (That's "C:\progra~2\SrvAny\" in old DOS 8.3 directory speak) It doesn't matter where it is, as long as it stays there and doesn't get deleted.

Now for some command prompt fun.

Run up an administrator command prompt. The best way to do this is to put a command prompt icon onto your taskbar, then right click it, and then right click the command prompt icon that pops up in the context menu. That will give you the option to "Run as administrator" This is so we don't get any permission shenanigans from the SC command.

We're now going to create the service. I'm going to use default locations, so please change to your systems file paths as appropriate.

In the command prompt run the following command:

sc create Cumulus binpath= C:\SRVANY\SRVANY.EXE DisplayName= "Cumulus"

Please note the space after each "=" SC is finicky about its command line.

Now we have to use REGEDIT for the final setup hurdle. Open regedit, and using the tree on the left, navigate to:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cumulus

In the tree, right click on "Cumulus", click "New" and then click on "Key"

Type in: "Parameters" and press return

Now click on the "Parameters" key, and in the window on the right, underneath the "(Default)" key, right click and add a new "String Value".

Type in: "Application"

Right click on the new value called "Application" and click "Modify"

Type in the path to your Cumulus executable, e.g.

C:\Cumulus\Cumulus.exe

Make sure that "SYSTEM" has full read/write access to your cumulus folder.

OK. Setup is done, we just need to give the service a tweak and fire it up:

Open the "Services" console (Just type, services into the search if you can't find it)

Scroll down and find your new "Cumulus" service. Right click it, and click properties in the context menu.

Change the "startup type" to Automatic. Click the "Apply" button in the bottom right hand corner. Now click the "Start button" and it should be running on its own!


This is how I got the program to run happy on my Windows 2008r2 server. I made sure that the exe's involved (SRVANY.EXE and CUMULUS.EXE) were in folders that don't have any spaces in them just to make things simple. SRVANY seems to have been deprecated, or just forgotten about. There's no need to spend money on any of those service shells you can get. The only issue doing it this way, is that to run the console you need to stop the service first. However, if you're running it as a service you probably won't be using the console much anyway

*Edited to remove "Description" from the SRVANY command prompt*