Running as Windows service

[nicolasr75]

I often would like to create small, zero-configuration/installtion, self-contained, self-hosted web APIs that should run independent of IIS. On the other side they should run 24/7, independent of user logout and automatic system restarts.

What options do I have to run a self-hosted web app as a Windows service instead of a commandline app?

[davidfowl]

In RC2 there's a Windows service host https://github.com/aspnet/Hosting/tree/dev/src/Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.WindowsServices. It only works on .NET Framework, not .NET Core (which is probably fine because it's windows only anyways).

[nicolasr75]

Thanks David. I think I don't get how this works. I used the HelloMvc sample from cli-samples and converted it to use net461, restored, built and ran, everything works as expected.
Next I added
"Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.WindowsServices": "1.0.0-*"
to project.json, restore and build work and
dotnet run
still works.

Now, how to install the service? I thought about doing
sc create MyAspNetService ....

But which executable would I use?

There was one created in
bin/Debug/net461
and another one in
bin/Debug/net461/win7-x64

Both of these cannot be started by the SCM.
Or do I have to call dotnet with parameters?

[MaximRouiller]

Something similar found here:

http://taskmatics.com/blog/run-dnx-applications-windows-service/

[MaximRouiller]

I think dnx could be easily be replaced by dotnet on the cmd prompt.

[nicolasr75]

Thanks for the link. I tried to transfer the ideas but in the end couldn't get it to work. I list the steps I tried:
Added
Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.WindowsServices
to the dependencies.
Derived the Program class from WebHostService.
At this point dotnet restore, dotnet build and dotnet run all work.
Then I did dotnet publish and tried to start the exe in
bin\Debug\net461\win7-x64\publish
directly which also worked.
Then I used sc.exe create ... to register this exe as a service but the scm fails to start it with timeout.
According to the article you posted I also tried to call it via
dotnet run mypath
or
dotnet mypath run
but that doesn't work either because dotnet does not seem to understand a path parameter.
At that point I ran out of ideas :-(

[MaximRouiller]

Is dotnet in your global path?

The actual command should be something like this :

sc.exe create MyService binPath= "C:\path\to\dotnet ""C:\path\to\my\project\folder"" run" 

Another example I found was something like this:

sc.exe create "My Self-hosted Website" binPath= "C:\Users\YOUR_USER_NAME\.dnx\runtimes\dnx-clr-win-x86.1.0.0-rc2-16357\bin\dnx.exe -p C:\YOUR_DIRECTORY\WWWService\ run --windows-service"

[MaximRouiller]

If you can copy/paste what you tried and the output, we could help a bit more.

[nicolasr75]

Here is what I did.
I modified HelloMvc sligthly, see the following project.json and Program.cs

{
  "content": [
    "wwwroot",
    "Views",
    "web.config"
  ],
  "compilationOptions": {
    "preserveCompilationContext": true,
    "emitEntryPoint": true
  },
  "dependencies" : {
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Diagnostics": "1.0.0-*",
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc": "1.0.0-*",
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.Kestrel": "1.0.0-*",
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.StaticFiles": "1.0.0-*",
    "Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.WindowsServices": "1.0.0-*",
    "Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console": "1.0.0-*",
    "Microsoft.NETCore.Platforms": "1.0.1-*",
    "System.Runtime.Serialization.Primitives": "4.1.1-*"
  },
  "frameworks": {
    "net461": { }
  }
}

using System.IO;
using System.Diagnostics;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.WindowsServices;

namespace HelloMvc
{
    public class Program : WebHostService
    {
         private readonly EventLog _log = 
             new EventLog("Application") { Source = "Application" };

        public Program(IWebHost host) : base(host)
        {
            _log.WriteEntry("Test from my Asp.net service.", EventLogEntryType.Information, 1);

        }

        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            var host = new WebHostBuilder()
                        .UseKestrel()
                        .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
                        .UseDefaultHostingConfiguration(args)
                        //.UseIISIntegration()
                        .UseStartup<Startup>()
                        .Build();

            host.Run();
        }

        protected override void OnStarting(string[] args) 
        { 
            _log.WriteEntry("Asp.net service starting.");
        }

        protected override void OnStarted() 
        { 
            _log.WriteEntry("Asp.net service started.");
        }

    }
}

dotnet restore, dotnet build and dotnet run work.
Then I did dotnet publish to create a self-contained package that I transferred to a test computer. On that test computer dotnet is installed and returns the following information

.NET Command Line Tools (1.0.0-rc2-002395)

Product Information:
Version: 1.0.0-rc2-002395
Commit Sha: c83a2fb6f9

Runtime Environment:
OS Name: Windows
OS Version: 10.0.10586
OS Platform: Windows
RID: win10-x64

Navigated into the publish directory and did

C:\Users\Public\Documents\dotnet>HelloMvc.exe

Output is

dbug: Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.Internal.WebHost[3]
      Hosting starting
dbug: Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.Internal.WebHost[4]
      Hosting started
Hosting environment: Production
Content root path: c:\Users\Public\Documents\dotnet
Now listening on: http://localhost:5000
Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.

So this works as expected. Now I tried to register this HelloMvc.exe as a service with

C:\WINDOWS\system32>sc create AspNetTestService binPath= "C:\Users\Public\Documents\dotnet\HelloMvc.exe"
[SC] CreateService SUCCESS

Trying to start it fails:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>sc start aspnettestservice
[SC] StartService FAILED 1053:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

The Windows Event Log shows
A timeout was reached (60000 milliseconds) while waiting for the AspNetTestService service to connect.
Should I really try to increase the timeout and test again? I think I really misunderstand how it's supposed to work.
I will try your suggestions now.

[lankaapura]

Does anyone tried this with RC2? Would be great if can share a sample.

[evkw]

Ive got a service running with something that looks like below. Using net451 framework though.

My service takes in a config.json however and because services run from System32, if the config.json file is not there, it fails.

Havent figured out how to make the service look for files in the executables path

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting.WindowsServices;

namespace Service1
{
    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var host = new WebHostBuilder()
                .UseKestrel()
                .UseContentRoot(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
                .UseIISIntegration()
                .UseStartup<Startup>()
                .Build();

            if (Debugger.IsAttached)
            {
                host.Run();
            }
            else
            {
                host.RunAsService();
            }
        }
    }
}

[pfedotovsky]

@evkw Could you please provide full source code?

[ivan-prodanov]

Guys, I just wrote an answer at StackOverflow about this. I got a console app running as a website app hosted as a windows service (sounds cozy I know)

[Noeek]

The important key point is:

host.RunAsService();

not "host.Run();"

[guardrex]

@davidfowl @DamianEdwards @shanselman

... works on .NET Framework, not .NET Core (which is probably fine because it's windows only anyways).

... except that Nano Server can't do that. Will .NET Core get a Windows Service capability (for Nano) eventually?

[davidfowl]

That's not currently on the roadmap. I'd file an issue on CoreFx asking for ServiceBase to be ported over.