Launching a console app on the server via asp.net

[epigram]

I've got a console utility app that I need to launch on my web server
via an aspx page. I need to do this so I can launch the console app
from a web page from any client pc in my office.

When I try to do this (using the Process object in the
System.Diagnostics namespace) the process starts and then exits
immediately. From what I understand this is related to security.
This is not a "graphics" program, so I don't think this is a
winstation issue, but I could be wrong because it is possible that
this console app displays strings on the console.

The odd thing is I was able to launch notepad.exe. Although, just
launching notepad is pretty benign when compared to my utility program
which is creating a data connection to an Access db and
opening/creating/deleting files. So, this still may be a security
issue.

I thought that the anonymous account for asp/asp.net was
LocalPcDomain\IUSR_LocalPcDomain. So, I gave this account total
access to my entire C drive. That didn't help. I noticed that when I
launched notepad, that the user was ASPNET. What is this account?

In any case, I gave this account total access to my C drive, but this
still did not alleviate the problem. Any ideas on how to achieve
this?

Thanks

 

[Wes Henderson]

Hmmm. To decide once and for all whether or not the problem is with user
permissions, you could try:

a) launch the process under an admin account using impersonation... see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306158#4 -
"impersonate a specific user only when you run a particular section of code"

or

b) make the ASPNET account a member of an administrators group
!!Temporarily!!

If it still does not launch properly, I doubt it's a problem with
permissions/security.

Regards,
Wes Henderson

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