Service Installation Updates

The service can automatically be updated by running the Update-Service.ps1 script. It will check a remote location (configurable via a config file) and do the following tasks:

• check if new service binaries should be installed on the system
• check if new configuration files are available for the given machine
• validate if configuration and service are compatible (in all possible combinations, i.e. new binaries with existing config, new config with existing binaries and finally new binaries with new config files)
• update those components that were detected to require updating before
• restart the service if applicable
• report to the Windows Event Log as well as via email
• upload the local service log file to the storage location that is also used to retrieve updates

Config File Options

An example config file for the update script is provided as UpdaterConfig-Example.inc.ps1. The values should be mostly self-explaining, so just a few comments here:

• $InstallationPath refers to the local directory where the service executables have been installed, e.g. C:\Tools\AutoTx
• $UpdateSourcePath points to the base directory on a storage location (most likely some UNC path) where the service update files are provided. See the next section for details on the structure therein.
• $Pattern is a regular expression that will be used to locate possible update packages in the given path matching this expression.

Folder Structure

The $UpdateSourcePath folder structure is expected to be like this:

├─── Configs
│   ├─── config.common.xml
│   ├─── <HOSTNAME1>.xml
│   └─── <HOSTNAME2>.xml
├─── Logs
│   ├─── <HOSTNAME1>
│   │   └─── AutoTx.log
│   └─── <HOSTNAME2>
│       └─── AutoTx.log
└─── Service
    ├─── Binaries
    │   ├─── build_2018-01-21_17-18-19
    │   │   └─── AutoTx
    │   └─── build_2018-01-23_11-22-33
    │       └─── AutoTx
    └─── UpdateMarkers
        ├─── <HOSTNAME1>
        └─── <HOSTNAME2>

Permissions

The updater script needs to be run with an account that has applicable permissions to start and stop the service, has write permissions to the local service installation directory and the $UpdateSourcePath location (the latter one only requires write-permissions for the Logs folder for uploading the log files).

Automatic Updates

To automate the above, a scheduled task has to be created. This can easily be done by using the following PowerShell commands (or by running the provided Install-UpdaterTask.ps1 script):

# create a repetition interval
$TimeSpan = New-TimeSpan -Minutes 10


# configure a JobTrigger for the task using the repetition interval from above,
# repeating forever
$JobTrigger = New-JobTrigger `
    -Once `
    -At (Get-Date).Date `
    -RepetitionInterval $TimeSpan `
    -RepeatIndefinitely


# configure the JobOptions for the task (battery options should not be required
# on a fixed system, but doesn't hurt either)
$JobOptions = New-ScheduledJobOption `
    -RunElevated `
    -StartIfOnBattery `
    -ContinueIfGoingOnBattery


# set credentials for running the task (requires permission to start/stop the
# service and overwriting the configuration and binaries)
$Cred = Get-Credential

# register the job for execution
Register-ScheduledJob `
    -Name "Update-AutoTxService" `
    -FilePath C:\Tools\AutoTx-Updater\Update-Service.ps1 `
    -ArgumentList C:\Tools\AutoTx-Updater\UpdaterConfig.inc.ps1 `
    -ScheduledJobOption $JobOptions `
    -Trigger $JobTrigger `
    -Credential $Cred `
    -Verbose