Month: February 2013

  • Control Windows 8 from Android: Win8 Controller

    Windows 8 Controller

    This software turns an android phone into a multitouch controller for windows 8. It’s however not free except the very basic features – those being enough to take control of the mouse and access the Start Screen and the Desktop.

    Click to Read More

    Win8 Controller comes with a client part to be installed on the Android, and a server part to be installed on the remote Windows 8 PC.  Using this software you control the remote PC as if it is a tablet.

    It works quite fine for most features:

    • Move the mouse
    • Click, double-click, right-click
    • Access the Start Screen, Swipe to the left or to the right (you have put your finger at the very bottom of the Android screen), Tap or Drag tiles, …
    • Use the keyboard of the Android

    I have the following issues:

    • I can’t switch to the Start Screen touching the Android screen with four (or five) fingers.
    • I loose control of the mouse as soon as the “Task Manager” is open on the remote PC and has the focus. I re-gain the control if I run another application which fakes the focus. However, I can’t close the “Task Manager” clicking its close button.
    • Win8 Controller doesn’t run as a service and I can’t use it as long as I am not logged on the remote PC with a user. This is mainly a blocking issue on my HTPC where I have replaced the Windows Shell with Media Center. Indeed, only services can run in the background if the Shell is not run.

    Details: http://www.win8controller.com/

    Download: http://www.win8controller.com/#&download

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  • Status of FlexRAID Jobs currently running

    While you manually trigger a FlexRAID job using the client FlexRAIDcmd.exe or when a FlexRAID Scheduled Job is started, its status is not displayed automatically in the Web UI currently opened.

    Click to Read More

    The Web UI needs to be reloaded in the Browser (Ctrl + F5). Doing so,

    • A status windows should now be displayed for the current process and
    • The job should also now appear in the “Command Execution Center” (FlexRAID UI > Your Configuration > Tool Box).
      • In that “Command Execution Center”, the “Pause”, “Resume” and “Abort” buttons should now be accessible.
    To get the status of the current job, using the FlexRAID client (FlexRAIDcmd.exe), type in a command prompt: [ps]FlexRAIDcmd.exe localhost – – status[/ps]

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  • WCF Services – The request failed with HTTP status 405: Method Not Allowed.

    This error occurred while testing WCF services moved from old Windows Servers 2003 on some of our new Windows Server 2008 R2 with IIS 7.5 (not on all). It appeared that depending on the setup sequence, .Net features were not all correctly configured, a.o. the .svc handlers…

    Click to Read More

    Here is the commands to be used in order to fix the setup:

    [bash]

    “C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe” -i -enable
    “C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\servicemodelreg.exe” -i
    “C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe” -i -enable
    “C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\servicemodelreg.exe” -ia

    [/bash]

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  • Use FlexRAIDCmd within PowerShell scripts to gracefully stop FlexRAID

    When using FlexRAID in Real-Time mode, the Pool must be stopped before stopping the service, i.e., also before shutting down the server. The best approach is to define a Shutdown Task in Windows to manage this…

    Click to Read More

    The Shutdown Task will run a Powershell Script using the FlexRaidClient to query the state of FlexRAID and trigger actions…

    The FlexRaidClient for windows, named FlexRaidCmd.exe, is not installed by default with the service. It must be downloaded as an Option here.

    The syntax is: FlexRAIDClient Host Port Timeout Command

    Once installed, one can use the Command “view” in a cmd prompt RUN AS Administrator on the server to Start/Stop the pool:

    FlexRAIDCMD localhost - - view class1_0 start
    FlexRAIDCMD localhost - - view class1_0 stop

    The – –  are used as “default values” for the Port and Timeout parameters
    class1_0 must be used for the new driver (=> class1) and to access the first pool (=> ID = 0).

    Starting the pool takes about ~50 seconds.
    Stopping the pool takes less than 10 seconds.

    If the command fails due to a syntax error, the error message can be found in the file log.log
    If the command succeed, there is nothing logged at all in the log file but a message displayed in the console (cmd prompt)

    Quote

    {“success”: true, “status”: null, “commandMessages”: [{“messageCode”: “successStoragePoolStarted”, “messageData”: [“V”]}], “serverMessages”: null}
    => Le pool de stockage est bien démarré pour le volume: V:…

    Notice: In a normal cmd prompt (not run as admin), the command returns an error due to an access denied on the log file:

    Quote

    log4j:ERROR setFile(null,true) call failed.
    java.io.FileNotFoundException: log.log

    Notice: if the Web UI was open before executing a Start/Stop, it must be reopened (or refreshed: CTRL-F5) otherwise it does not display the new state of the pool.

    Regarding the log.log file, this one has better be located in a fix location. Edit the file log4j.properties and set a path like:

    log4j.appender.default.File=C:/FlexRaid/FlexRAIDCmd.log

    Pay attention to the path separator! It’s not the one used by Windows but the one used in Java!

    To shutdown the FlexRaid server after stopping the pool, use the command shutdown-server.

    FlexRaid localhost - - shutdown-server

    If the pool is still running, we get the following response:

    Quote

    {“success”: false, “status”: null, “commandMessages”: [{“messageCode”: “errorShutdownNotAllowedStoragePoolServiceRunning”, “messageData”: []}], serverMessages”: null}
    => Pour pouvoir arrêter le service “host”, le service de pool de stockage doit être arrêté!

    If the service stops successfully, we get :

    Quote

    {“success”: true, “status”: null, “commandMessages”: [{“messageCode”: “successServerShutingDown”, “messageData”: []}], “serverMessages”: null}
    => Arrêt du serveur en cours…

    To restart the service, we can use:

    net start "FlexRaid"

    Notice: I didn’t find yet on the forum the difference between ‘FlexRaid localhost – – shutdown-server’ and ‘net stop “FlexRaid’. To my knowledge ‘net stop’ is synchronous and therefore maybe preferred to stop the service properly before shutting down ?! (FlexRaid message seems to indicate it’s asynchronous)

    Notice: If I run “FlexRaid localhost — shutdown-server” while the service is not running, I get obviously an exception “Connection refused: connect : ConnectException” but also this message in the log file (log.log):

    Quote

    ERROR: Unexpected character (‘A’ (code 65)): expected a valid value (number, String, array, object, ‘true’, ‘false’ or ‘null’)
    at [Source: java.io.StringReader@2f3d698; line: 1, column: 2] org.codehaus.jackson.JsonParseException: Unexpected character (‘A’ (code 65)): expected a valid value (number, String, array, object, ‘true’, ‘false’ or ‘null’)
    at [Source: java.io.StringReader@2f3d698; line: 1, column: 2]

    Now, here is how to create a “shutdown task” in the Local Group Policies of a Windows Server 2012:

    1) Enable script execution on the server
    a) On the Start Screen right-click the Windows PowerShell tile and run it As Administrator
    b) execute “Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned” in that shell and answer “Y”

    2) Create the script
    a) Create a file “StopFlexRaid.ps1” in your “FlexRaid Client” folder (e.g.).
    b) Type the script found bellow in the file (change the path to FlexRaidCmd)

    3) Use the script as Shutdown Script
    a) On the Start Screen, type “gpedit.msc” and run it.
    b) Go to the node “Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Scripts (Startup/Shutdown)”.
    c)  Edit “Shutdown” and in the tab “PowerShell script”, “Add” StopFlexRaid.ps1

    Notice:
    – Shutdown scripts are run as Local System, and they have the full rights that are associated with being able to run as Local System.
    – Shutdown scripts are run synchronously. The Server should wait on the script before shutting down.

    Here is the StopFlexRaid script:

    [ps]

    $srvName = "FlexRAID"
    $flexCmd = "C:\Program Files (x86)\FlexRAID 2.0 Client\FlexRAIDCMD.exe"
    $servicePrior = Get-Service $srvName
    #"$srvName is currently " + $servicePrior.status

    function ExitWithCode
    {
    param
    (
    $exitcode
    )
    "Exit with code $exitcode"
    #$host.SetShouldExit($exitcode)
    #exit
    }

    $flexCmd = "C:\Program Files (x86)\FlexRAID 2.0 Client\FlexRAIDCMD.exe"

    function ExecuteFRCmd([string]$cmd, [string]$hostname="localhost", [string]$port="-", [string]$timeout="-")
    {
    $error.clear()

    $pinfo = New-Object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo
    $pinfo.FileName = $flexCmd
    $pinfo.RedirectStandardError = $true
    $pinfo.RedirectStandardOutput = $true
    $pinfo.UseShellExecute = $false
    $pinfo.Arguments = "$hostname $port $timeout $cmd"
    $p = New-Object System.Diagnostics.Process
    $p.StartInfo = $pinfo
    $p.Start() | Out-Null
    $p.WaitForExit()
    $output = $p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd()

    if ( $error.count -eq 0)
    {
    # Clean the JSON message (remove the trailing text (=> blabla))
    $output = $output -replace ‘(?<First>.*)=>.+’, ‘${First}’
    }
    else
    {
    $output = $null
    }

    return $output
    }

    function IsAnyTaskRunning()
    {
    $running = $FALSE

    $state = ExecuteFRCmd("status")

    if ($state -eq $null)
    {
    throw "Command failed to execute"
    }
    else
    {
    #Write-Host "States: $state"

    $process = $state | ConvertFrom-Json

    $message = $process.commandMessages.messageCode
    if ($message -eq "successNoProcessSinceServerStartup")
    {
    #Write-Host "No Process started since Server startup"
    }
    else
    {
    $processID = $process.status.referenceCode

    do {
    $state = ExecuteFRCmd("status "+$processID)
    $process = $state | ConvertFrom-Json

    switch ($process.status.status)
    {
    { @("STATUS_STARTED", "STATUS_PROCESSING", "STATUS_PAUSING", "STATUS_RESUMED", "STATUS_RESUMING") -contains $_ }
    {
    #Write-Host task $processID – $process.status.task – is running
    $running = $TRUE
    }
    { @("STATUS_COMPLETED", "STATUS_ABORTED", "STATUS_ABORTING", "STATUS_PAUSED") -contains $_ }
    {
    #Write-Host task $processID – $process.status.task – is not running
    }
    }

    $processID -=1
    } while (($processID -gt 0) -and ($running -eq $FALSE))
    }
    }

    return $running
    }

    Write-Eventlog -Logname ‘Application’ -source ‘FlexRAID’ -eventID 1 -EntryType Warning -Category 0 -message "Graceful FlexRAID Shutdown triggered"

    $wid = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()
    $prp = new-object System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal($wid)
    $adm = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole]::Administrator
    $IsAdmin = $prp.IsInRole($adm)
    if (-not $IsAdmin) {
    write-host "Current powershell process is not running with Administrator privileges"

    $message = "Graceful FlexRAID Shutdown not running with adhoc rights…"
    Write-Eventlog -Logname ‘Application’ -source ‘FlexRAID’ -eventID 1 -EntryType Error -Category 0 -message $message
    cmd /c shutdown -a
    ExitWithCode -exitcode 2
    }
    elseif ($servicePrior.status -eq "Stopped")
    {
    "$srvName is already " + $servicePrior.status
    }
    elseif ($servicePrior.status -ne "Running")
    {
    "$srvName is not Running but " + $servicePrior.status
    }
    else
    {
    $running = IsAnyTaskRunning
    if ($running -eq $TRUE)
    {
    $message = "FlexRAID process(es) still running and preventing Server to shutdown…"
    $message
    Write-Eventlog -Logname ‘Application’ -source ‘FlexRAID’ -eventID 1 -EntryType Error -Category 0 -message $message
    cmd /c shutdown -a
    ExitWithCode -exitcode 2
    }
    else
    {
    "Wait on the Storage Pool to stop. This can take a few seconds."

    $state = ExecuteFRCmd("view class1_0 stop")

    $state
    $abort = "False"

    if ( $state -eq $null)
    {
    "Storage Pool failed to stop"
    $error[0] $message = "FlexRaid Storage Pool failed to stop and is preventing Server to shutdown: " + $error[0] $message
    Write-Eventlog -Logname ‘Application’ -source ‘FlexRAID’ -eventID 1 -EntryType Error -Category 0 -message $message
    cmd /c shutdown -a
    ExitWithCode -exitcode 2
    }
    else
    {
    $process = $state | ConvertFrom-Json

    $message = $process.commandMessages.messageCode
    if ($message -eq "successStoragePoolStopped")
    {
    "Storage Pool successfuly stopped"
    Write-Eventlog -Logname ‘Application’ -source ‘FlexRAID’ -eventID 1 -EntryType Warning -Category 0 -message "Storage Pool stopped before shutting down"
    }
    else
    {
    if ($message -eq "errorNoActiveStoratePool")
    {
    "Storage Pool actually not started"
    }
    else
    {
    $abort = "True"
    $event = "FlexRaid Storage Pool failed to stop, preventing Server to shutdown: " + $state
    $event
    Write-Eventlog -Logname ‘Application’ -source ‘FlexRAID’ -eventID 1 -EntryType Error -Category 0 -message $event
    cmd /c shutdown -a
    ExitWithCode -exitcode 3
    }
    }

    if ($abort -eq "False")
    {
    $error.clear()
    Stop-Service $srvName
    if ( $error.count -eq 0)
    {
    Write-Host -NoNewLine "Waiting on $srvName to stop "
    $timeout = new-timespan -Minutes 1
    $sw = [diagnostics.stopwatch]::StartNew()
    while (((Get-Service $srvName).status -ne "Stopped") -and ($sw.elapsed -lt $timeout))
    {
    Write-Host -NoNewLine "."
    sleep 1
    }
    "."
    }

    $serviceAfter = Get-Service $srvName
    if ($serviceAfter.status -eq "Stopped")
    {
    "$srvName is now " + $serviceAfter.status
    ExitWithCode -exitcode 0
    }
    else
    {
    "$srvName failed to stop. It is now " + $serviceAfter.status
    ExitWithCode -exitcode 1
    }
    }
    }
    }
    }[/ps]

    Here is the code to start FlexRaid, useful while testing.

    [ps]

    $srvName = "FlexRAID"
    $flexCmd = "C:\Program Files (x86)\FlexRAID 2.0 Client\FlexRAIDCMD.exe"
    $servicePrior = Get-Service $srvName
    #"$srvName is currently " + $servicePrior.status

    function ExitWithCode
    {
    param
    (
    $exitcode
    )
    "Exit with code $exitcode"
    #$host.SetShouldExit($exitcode)
    #exit
    }

    if ( ($servicePrior.status -ne "Stopped") -and ($servicePrior.status -ne "Running"))
    {
    "$srvName is not Stopped but " + $servicePrior.status
    }
    else
    {
    if ($servicePrior.status -eq "Running")
    {
    "$srvName is already " + $servicePrior.status
    }
    else
    {
    Start-Service $srvName

    Write-Host -NoNewLine "Waiting on $srvName to start "
    $timeout = new-timespan -Minutes 1
    $sw = [diagnostics.stopwatch]::StartNew()
    while (((Get-Service $srvName).status -ne "Running") -and ($sw.elapsed -lt $timeout))
    {
    Write-Host -NoNewLine "."
    sleep 1
    }
    "."
    }

    $serviceAfter = Get-Service $srvName
    if ($serviceAfter.status -eq "Running")
    {
    "$srvName is now " + $serviceAfter.status

    $error.clear()
    "Wait on the Storage Pool to start. This can take a while."
    $stopPool = Start-Process $flexCmd -ArgumentList "localhost – – view class1_0 start" -NoNewWindow -Wait -PassThru

    if ( $error.count -eq 0)
    {
    ExitWithCode -exitcode 0
    }
    else
    {
    "Storage Pool failed to start"
    $error[0] ExitWithCode -exitcode 2
    }
    }
    else
    {
    "$srvName failed to start. It is now " + $serviceAfter.status
    ExitWithCode -exitcode 1
    }
    }

    [/ps]

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