How do i run a Windows service in Azure Service Fabric? - windows-services

Question

I have a Windows service for test purposes that i want to migrate to Service Fabric. The service does nothing more than writing to a txt-file on my drive when it starts and when it stops. It works fine when i manually start and stop the service after installing it on my machine. Can i achieve the same result on service fabric or does the implementation be different?
I have created a guest executable with the service and deployed it to a local cluster following this guide.

Answer 1

First of all, I don't like this answer. After playing with it, I'm convinced the best way is to just port the code to a service fabric app. I would love to see a better "bolt-on" solution, but I haven't found any others. Every answer I've seen says "just run the exe as a Guest Executable", but a Windows Service exe doesn't "just run". It needs to be ran as a Windows Service which calls the OnStart entry point of the Service class (which inherits from ServiceBase).
The code below will allow your Windows Service to run in Service Fabric, but Service Fabric seems to report WARNINGS! So it's FAR from perfect.
It shouldn't require any changes to your OnStart or OnStop methods, however it does require some basic plumbing to work. This is also helpful if you wish to debug your windows services, as it allows you to pass in a /console command line argument and have it run in a console window.
First, either create your own ServiceBase class, or simply paste this code into your Service class (by default it's called Service1.cs in a C# Windows Service project):
// Expose public method to call the protected OnStart method
public void StartConsole(string[] args)
{
// Plumbing...
// Allocate a console, otherwise we can't properly terminate the console to call OnStop
AllocConsole();
// Yuck, better way?
StaticInstance = this;
// Handle CTRL+C, CTRL+BREAK, etc (call OnStop)
SetConsoleCtrlHandler(new HandlerRoutine(ConsoleCtrlCheck), true);
// Start service code
this.OnStart(args);
}
// Expose public method to call protected OnStop method
public void StopConsole()
{
this.OnStop();
}
public static Service1 StaticInstance;
private static bool ConsoleCtrlCheck(CtrlTypes ctrlType)
{
switch (ctrlType)
{
case CtrlTypes.CTRL_C_EVENT:
case CtrlTypes.CTRL_BREAK_EVENT:
case CtrlTypes.CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT:
case CtrlTypes.CTRL_LOGOFF_EVENT:
case CtrlTypes.CTRL_SHUTDOWN_EVENT:
StaticInstance.StopConsole();
return false;
}
return true;
}
[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
private static extern bool AllocConsole();
[DllImport("Kernel32")]
public static extern bool SetConsoleCtrlHandler(HandlerRoutine Handler, bool Add);
public delegate bool HandlerRoutine(CtrlTypes CtrlType);
public enum CtrlTypes
{
CTRL_C_EVENT = 0,
CTRL_BREAK_EVENT,
CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT,
CTRL_LOGOFF_EVENT = 5,
CTRL_SHUTDOWN_EVENT
}
Now change your Main method in Program.cs to look like this:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var service = new Service1();
if (args.Length > 0 && args.Any(x => x.Equals("/console", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)))
{
service.StartConsole(args);
}
else
{
ServiceBase.Run(
new ServiceBase[]
{
service
});
}
}
You may need to rename 'Service1' to whatever your service class is called.
When calling it through Service Fabric, make sure it's passing in the /console argument in ServiceManifest.xml:
<CodePackage Name="Code" Version="1.0.0">
<EntryPoint>
<ExeHost>
<Program>WindowsService1.exe</Program>
<Arguments>/console</Arguments>
<WorkingFolder>Work</WorkingFolder>
</ExeHost>
</EntryPoint>
</CodePackage>
If you wish to use this as a debuggable Windows Service, you can also set your 'Command line arguments' to /console under the Project settings > Debug tab.
EDIT:
A better option is to use TopShelf. This will work without warnings in Service Fabric, however it does require some code refactoring as it becomes a Console project instead of a Windows Service project.