coverband / EasyService

Turn your console app into a Windows Service in just few minutes.

EasyService

EasyService is a .NET library intended to simplify development and maintenance of Windows services. With just a few lines of code you will get a complete Windows service that can be debugged using the debugger and installed by running service.exe install.

Benefits

• Focus on your service logic instead of learning details of .NET Service API and InstallUtil.
• Transform any console application into a self-installing Windows service.
• Painless debugging. It is much easier to debug a console application than a service.
• Access all startup and service recovery settings not supported by .NET framework.

Quick Start

1. Create a new console application project.
2. Reference EasyService.dll.
3. Copy example code shown below to your project's Program.cs.
4. Change // pretend to work hard line to do something useful... or not.
5. Build the project.
6. Install and start your new service by executing service.exe install and service.exe start.

Done!

using System;
using System.Threading;
using EasyService;

class MiniService : ServiceBase
{
    protected override void MainLoop(CancellationToken stopEvent)
    {
        try
        {
            // do some useful work here {

            while (true)
            {
                try
                {
                    // pretend to work hard
                    stopEvent.WaitHandle.WaitOne(5000);

                    // periodically check stop event
                    stopEvent.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();
                }
                catch (Exception)
                {
                    // recover from errors or just sleep for some time
                    if (stopEvent.WaitHandle.WaitOne(30000))
                        break;
                }
                finally
                {

                }
            }

            // } 
        }
        catch (OperationCanceledException)
        {
            // ignore
        }
    }
	
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Initialize your service
        var service = new MiniService();

        // Configure service hosting
        var settings = new ServiceHostingSettings
        {
            ServiceName = "MiniService",
            DisplayName = "Minimal Service",
            Description = "Minimal service description",
            StartMode = ServiceStartMode.Automatic,
            ServiceAccount = ServiceAccount.LocalSystem,
            RecoveryOptions = new ServiceRecoveryOptions
            {
                FirstFailureAction = ServiceRecoveryAction.RestartService,
                SecondFailureAction = ServiceRecoveryAction.RestartService,
                SubsequentFailureAction = ServiceRecoveryAction.RestartComputer,
                ResetFailureCountWaitDays = 1,
                RestartServiceWaitMinutes = 3,
                RestartSystemWaitMinutes = 3
            }
        };

        // Parse command-line options and execute
        ServiceHost.Run(service, settings, args);
    }
}

Command-line Reference

A Windows service built with EasyService supports command-line arguments which can be used to install, uninstall, start, and stop the service. If no command is provided the service will be started as a console application.

service.exe [command]

Command	Description

                             |Runs the service as a console application

help |Displays help install [account] [password] |Installs the service. You can also set log-on account and password. uninstall |Uninstalls the service start |Starts the service if it is not already running stop |Stops the service if it is running