Hello everyone,

in our new product version we had to change our ASA windows service to
a SYSTEM process because we have the Windows7 requirement that users
can start/stop the database. In Windows7 a service can only be started/
stopped by an administrator.

So far so good. First we had no problem but now the Systemtest found
the problem that the dbsrv9.exe (9.02.3984 latest one) will be
terminated if a user logoff from Windows. Thats no Windows7 problem,
it occurs at a WindowsXP system as well.

To prove that it is a Sybase problem I found the following way to make
it simple reproducible without our software:

1) User Account way => correct behaviour
2) System Account way => incorrect behaviour


1) Behaviour as USER process. USER processes should be terminated if a
user make a logoff.

- open CMD Shell
- start dbsrv9.exe, e.g. our parameters:
Dbsrv9.exe -gb idle -ct- -ch 20M -gl all -ti 0 -n windowsxp_pas -x
tcpip "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Siemens
Energy\SICAM PAS PQS\Database\pas.db"

- open Task Manager or Process Explorer. You can see it is a USER
process under CMD and then DBSRV9.EXE
- make a User logoff
- User login
- open Task Manager or Process Explorer. You can see the CMD process
was terminated and the DBSRV9.EXE as well.

=> correct behaviour


2) Behaviour as SYSTEM process. SYSTEM processes may not be terminated
if a user log off.

- open CMD Shell
- e.g. take this trick to open a SYSTEM CMD Shell (see also
http://security.fnal.gov/cookbook/LocalSystem.html):
write "at 12:25 /interactive c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe"
At 12:25 starts a CMD Shell under SYSTEM control. Just take a minute
in the future e.g. 12:27.

- start the DBSRV9.EXE in this SYSTEM Shell dbsrv9.exe
- open Task Manager or Process Explorer. You can see the CMD and
DBSRV9.EXE are both SYSTEM processes
- User log off
- User login
- open Task Manager or Process Explorer. You can see the CMD SYSTEM
process has survived but the DBSRV9.EXE process died.
=> DBSRV9.EXE has another behaviour as other processes under SYSTEM
context. You can reproduce and test this behaviour with a lot of other
applications e.g. Notepad or C or C# programs. These processes always
stay after a user logoff if they are under SYSTEM context.


Do you have an idea why the DBSRV9.EXE has another behaviour?
Do you have an tip what I can do to solve the problem?


In our old product the DBSRV9.EXE runs as a normal Windows service.
But it has to function without windows service too :-(


Thanks & Greetings from Germany
-Marco Wagner-

It should work when you disable the interaction with the desktop in
the Service.

Regards

Hi,

we do not use a windows database service. We have a System account
process.
I dont know a possibility to forbid a process the interaction with
desktop.

By the way I got the next "mystery":

If you use a CMD (SYSTEM Account) Shell then you get the behaviour as
I explained before.
BUT if you use schtasks to start this dbsrv9.exe then you get a system
account process which will not be terminated if the
user makes a log off. I investigate at the moment if this scenario can
help us. But I doubt it because the schtasks
is an administration tool.



On Jun 16, 2:22*pm, tduemesnil <tduemes... (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote:

did you take a look in dbsvc tool ?

dbsvc -u "service name" can start a installed service
dbspawn can also load the server in the background.


Perhaps you can ask at http://sqla.stackexchange.com/