Services2 - File-system plugin to list and manage services

[Dalai]

Does it work with the MMC snap-in (services.msc) and/or the old Services 2.4 plugin? Does the remote system list a user connected to the IPC$ share in fsmgmt.msc (under Sessions)?

Regards
Dalai

[Dalai]

I did a little research and can tell you this: Remote management in general works a little bit different since Vista "thanks" to UAC.

I made some tests with service remote management in particular and can conclude the following:
1. As stated before, the credentials of the local and remote user must match, regardless of the OS of the local and remote systems.

2. Access to a remote Win2k/XP works, administrative privileges are only required to change services (start/stop, edit, etc). So, it's exactly the same as managing local services.

3. Access to a remote Vista (or higher) system requires administrative privileges on the remote system, even for the listing of services! I don't know why. Additionally, it requires either UAC to be disabled or a registry switch to be set, so the access token is not filtered by the remote system. More information can be found in this topic: Accessing workgroup computer using lusrmgr.msc which links to this MS KB site: Description of User Account Control and remote restrictions in Windows Vista.

I successfully tested this registry setting and can access a Win7 system, even with UAC enabled. However, the user on the remote system must be a member of the Administrators group. I still don't know why Vista+ systems have this requirement and whether it can be disabled (e.g. via secpol.msc).

The registry setting for the record, and to use in a .reg file:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy"=dword:00000001

I hope this helps to shed a little more light on this issue.

[ADD]
Disabling UAC and changing the registry doesn't seem to be necessary, if the built-in administrator account is enabled and used for remote management. This may be due to UAC not being in approval mode for this account.

I appreciate any hints and feedback on this matter, if anybody has some more insight, please let me know!
[/ADD]



Regards
Dalai

[petermad]

I have now made sure that the credentials of the local and remote user mathes on all matches computers.

I am running as administrator on all machines. After adding the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy"=dword:00000001 to all machines (and rebooting), it now works partially - that is from my XP computer I can access all the 4 other computers

The rest is kind of random:

pc1 (Win XP) can see pc2, pc3, pc4 and pc5
pc2 (Win 7) can see pc4 and pc5
pc3 (Win 8.1) can see pc2 and pc5
pc4 (Win 7) can see pc2, pc3 and pc5
pc5 (Win 8.1) can see pc2, pc3 and pc4

There is no distinct pattern, except that pc5 can be seen from all the other computers, and pc1 cannot be seen by any of the other computers.

UAC is enabled on all Win 7 and Win 8.1 computers.

[Dalai]

What do you mean by "can see"? In the list of computers when you use the "Browse" button? You can just enter the remote computer's name into the field. Or did you mean "can access"?

Remote Management might have to be enabled in the Windows Firewall as well, before you can even access the remote system. I guess, you've seen a message like "The RPC server is unavailable" when trying to access a system (or the services) remotely. If not, the firewall is not an issue, and you can skip the following paragraphs. The fact that you can access the other systems from your XP system makes me think that it's not the firewall that blocks anything.

-----

So far, I haven't found a way to create a script (or single command) to activate remote management in the firewall which is independent from the system's language. The command below will only work on English systems. It would be too easy to make a command line tool work language-independent, wouldn't it? Typical MS . If someone knows a way to do this, please don't hesitate and let me know.

Code: Select all

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Remote Services Management" new enable=yes

Of course, the rules can be disabled again by using "enable=no". The rules can also be enabled/disabled via Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Advanced Settings > Inbound Rules. In the column "Group" look for "Remote Services Management" in the language of your OS, and enable them.

-----

As I said above: before you run this command, or change any firewall settings, you should ensure that the firewall is the culprit. It may be easier to temporarily disable it (MpsSvc) on the remote system to find that out rather quickly.

Regards
Dalai

[petermad]

By "can see" I mean that the plugin is able to add the computer to the list of Remote Computers, So yes - "can access" is probably more correct.

I will look into the firewall issue later

[Dalai]

Update to Version 0.6.1

Code: Select all

Version 0.6.1 [2015-06-21]
[+]  Service properties dialog, Advanced tab: Added button to launch MMC
     snap-in (services.msc) with either local or remote system. This is
     an option that allows to edit service properties this plugin doesn't
     provide (e.g. Recovery).
[+]  Try harder to find service executables by searching for them in
     directories specified in %PATH% to be able to show file details in TC
     panel. That even works for "unusual" command lines like
     "system32\VBoxService.exe".
[*]  Plugin settings dialog: Repositioned two of the checkboxes that were
     moved by mistake in v0.6.0
[*]  Updated Danish translation, thanks to petermad!
[*]  Updated Russian translation, thanks to Alexander Gvaramiya (Nero Wolfe)!
[*]  Updated Italian translation, thanks to squeeze69!
[*]  Updated Chinese translation, thanks to SunX!
[*]  Updated Hungarian translation, thanks to Bluestar!
[*]  Updated Dutch translation, thanks to Jaap Kramer!
[*]  Smaller changes and optimization

Download link is available in the first post.

Note to the translators who haven't sent an updated translation within the last week: There is one new string that needs translation - line 102 in English.lng. Again, TC's Compare by contents can help .

Feedback is highly appreciated!

Regards
Dalai

[deus-ex]

Thank you for providing an updated release of this very nice plugin. I'm loving it.
No issues to report, runs smoothly and does what it says on the tin.

[petermad]

Updated Danish translation can be downloaded at:

http://madsenworld.dk/tcmd/wfx_Services2_0.6.1_dan.zip

[Dalai]

2deus-ex
Thanks! Nice to hear/read.

2petermad
Thanks! I've included the updated translation and reuploaded the plugin archive, which is unchanged apart from that.

Regards
Dalai

[Dalai]

Update to Version 0.7.0

Code: Select all

Version 0.7.0 [2015-11-20]
[+]  Added option Monitor to [Services2] section. See readme for details
[*]  Fixed an error that caused the plugin to open the wrong service from
     TC's search window, especially when services on different (remote)
     computers were found. Note that this bugfix required a rewrite of
     a small portion of the plugin's code - which might have introduced
     new bugs; please report any bugs, errors and so on.
[+]  Plugin settings dialog: The translator's name (or more precisely
     the contents of the Translator key) of every language file will now
     be shown next to the language file name

Version 0.6.2 [2015-11-08]
[!]  No public release!
[*]  Return icons to TC in requested size. Previously, the plugin's internal
     icons were always large, all others were small.
[*]  Fixed wrong placement of dialogs on multi-monitor systems.
     Previously the dialogs were placed on the primary monitor, now they
     will be placed on the active monitor (the one TC is displayed on)

Download link is available in the first post.

Nothing new in the language files with this release.

Feedback is highly appreciated!

Regards
Dalai

[Dalai]

After a long time I've had some time to update this plugin to Version 0.8.1

Code: Select all

Version 0.8.1 [2019-06-07]
[+]  Added \remote subdir containing scripts and other files that can
     help enable remote service management. See new section 5
     "Remote service management" in Readme file.
[*]  Updated Readme to include a whole new section about Remote service
     management and the caveats that come with it.
[+]  Plugin now shows service DLL in service properties dialog, F3 function
     and custom columns
[+]  Added new placeholder {SvcDll} for internal/external tools
[*]  Fixed: Plugin wasn't able to work with services with a colon in their
     name, despite it returned them as such to TC.
     Now every special character except backslash should work.
[*]  Service properties dialog, Advanced tab: Plugin checks for the
     validity of the specified account first and now shows correct error
     message if it's invalid.
[+]  Service properties dialog, Advanced tab: Added checkbox that shows if
     a service runs under virtual/managed service account (Win7 and higher)
[*]  Fixed: Plugin wasn't able to set any properties of services that used
     virtual accounts or managed service accounts (e.g. MSSQL server
     services). Sorry for the inconvenience.
[+]  Added new option DisablePanelAutoRefresh to [Services2] section. See
     Readme and/or Services2.sample.ini for details.
[*]  Improved number of keyboard shortcuts available to internal and
     external tools significantly by supporting ENTER, UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT
     and many more. See Readme for details.
[+]  Added configuration for keyboard shortcuts for internal tools, allowing
     to override/disable the F3 key that was hardcoded so far. See Readme
     for details on the new shortcut options.
[*]  Expanded default custom columns view to include service name and PID
[*]  Changed/corrected processorArchitecture in plugin manifest
[*]  Some smaller bug fixes, code cleanup and optimization

Version 0.8.0 [2016-12-05]
[!]  No public release!
[+]  Added service PID to service properties dialog, F3 function and
     custom columns
[*]  Fixed: plugin was not able to start services that depend on service
     groups (e.g. apcupsd). Sorry for the inconvenience.

Version 0.7.1 [2015-12-18]
[*]  Fixed a potential buffer overflow in FsContentGetValue interface
     function
[*]  Return FS_FILE_EXISTS in FsGetFile so TC can ask the user whether
     to overwrite existing files
[*]  Sanitize filenames in FsGetFile, i.e. replace illegal/special characters,
     so that all files can be copied to the local file-system

Download link is available in the first post.

Note to the translators: There are some new strings (compared to the last publicly available version 0.7.0) that need translation - lines 48, 51, 77, 80, 83-84 and 108 in English.lng. In Services2.lng (for custom columns) there are two new strings in lines 5 and 10. At this time I don't need to point you to TC's compare by contents .

Feedback is highly appreciated!

Regards
Dalai

[petermad]

2Dalai
Danish translation for v. 0.8.1 can be downloaded at: http://madsenworld.dk/tcmd/wfx_Services2_0.8.1_dan.zip

[Dalai]

2petermad
Thanks! I've reuploaded the plugin archive file with the updated Danish language files included (no other changes).

Regards
Dalai

[norti]

Sorry, but wincmd.ru domain isn't available anymore, can you upload it to somewhere else?
Thanks

[petermad]

Sorry, but wincmd.ru domain isn't available anymore, can you upload it to somewhere else?

First post: http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/Services2.html