Services Tool

Luware products consist of a set of services running on a server. The services integrate closely with each other and connect to Skype For Business and other components of the Windows world (e.g. Active Directory). It is generally recommended to start / stop services in a specific order to ensure that access to the database is guaranteed and that, for example, when endpoints are created or stopped in Skype for Business, they are also created or stopped properly. 

The Luware services tool assists in this process with the following features:

• Automation of multiple service start/stop processes.
• Storage of server and/or service configurations for selective startup / shutdown scenarios.
• Automatic collection of existing service configuration parameters and log files into a ZIP archive, e.g. for analysis and Luware support purposes.

To ensure that the services have been started or stopped correctly, the event viewer or log files must be inspected during the services respective start/stop process. Only when terms like "successfully started" or "started and in hot standby" appear, the service has really been started successfully. 

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Installation and Setup

The tool is delivered as an MSI installation package. "Start Lucs Services.msi"

1. "Copy" the MSI file to a server where Luware products are listed. If an instance of the tool is already installed, make sure it is not running.
2. Double click the MSI package and follow the instructions on the screen.
3. Proceed to select an installation directory and confirm.
4. Confirm the next steps until the installation is complete.

Installation Output

→ The following directories and files are set up during the installation:

• On your Desktop and Start Menu you will see a new icon "Start LUCS services"
• A folder LUCS_Starter is set up under your "Documents". Here you will find a number of XML files, such as "Service2Start.xml" or "Service2Stop.xml". Those will be relevant later.
• Under the installation path, the DLLs and application files necessary for running the program are installed.

Working with the Tool

As the Services Tool performs administrative tasks it must be started in administrative mode.

1. When starting the tool, a corresponding UAC (User Account Control) message appears, which you must confirm with "Yes".
2. The tool tries to detect Luware services installed on the computer when it is started.
   

First Startup and UI Overview

The tool tries to detect the installed LUWARE services at the first start and reads out first information (version numbers) of installed services. 

The UI (User Interface) of the tool is divided into 3 areas:

Configuration Tab

After starting, all Luware services found are displayed on the Configuration tab. 

The following columns are displayed here in the grid: 

• Selected: with the help of a checkbox, you can select whether a service in the list should be processed when you click on the Start button or not.
  Double click on the column to reverse the previous selection.
• Start: if the entry is selected, the service is started when it is executed; if the entry is not selected (but is selected in the first column), it is stopped.
  Double click on the column to reverse the previous selection .
• Server Name: name of the server on which the service is executed. Services from other servers can also be entered here
• Service: Name of the service
• Service Version: The automatically determined version of the service (if available)
• Logfile: Path to the respective log file of the service. Please note that as of version 3.7, the log file must be named with a * in front of the .txt. The program then determines the exact name based on the date the log file was written.
• Start-Success: message expected in case of a successful start of the service
• Stop-Success: message expected in case of a stop of the service.
• Alternative Success: in some situations there may be a modified Success message (e.g. for services running in Hot Standby)
• Timeout: how long to wait for the execution of a Stop/Start command. This is specified in minutes
• Start-Type:
  • -1: not specified
  • 0 : is used for websites
  • 2: Service is set to Automatic Start
  • 22: Service is set to Automatic (Delay)
  • 3: Service is set to Manual Start
• Website: if a website (such as LUCS Webconfigurator) is to be started/stopped, the name of the website from the IIS is entered here (e.g. Luware-LUCS-FE).

Adapt the automatically-read configuration to your environment and then click on Save. Save the file with an appropriate name so you can identify it later.

Configuration Example

A customized configuration to stop the LUCS services on server LVSE0161 could look like this: 

Services that are started on the server are highlighted in green. Services that have not been started are highlighted in grey. 

Stopping of Services

Load Configuration

To stop services, customize the automatically captured list or open a previously saved configuration file. To do this:

1. Click "Load Config"
2. Select a previously saved configuration file:

Verify Configuration

As soon as you have selected a file and click on "Open", the file is parsed and checked whether the services are active or inactive. Corresponding status messages are displayed in the results tab.

To verify the configuration before execution, switch to the "Configuration" tab. For services that are to be stopped, the "Start" field is no longer activated.

Execute Configuration

1. Check if the settings fit and select the services for which actions should be performed.
2. Switch back to the Results tab. Then click on "Execute". The job will now be executed.

Status Messages

In the message window, the messages are displayed in different colors:

• Green messages mean that a step could be executed successfully.
• Yellow messages mean that a partial step could be executed successfully.
  For example, yellow messages mean that a service could be stopped, but the service has not actually finished.
• Red messages mean that an unexpected situation has occurred.
  For example, you will see red messages when you want to stop a service that is already stopped and the stop cannot be confirmed by the log file.
• Black messages are used to mark a major step event. 

In the lower part of the window (in the button bar) you can see messages that indicate which server and service are currently being processed. 

Verifying Results

If the service could be started / stopped successfully, a corresponding message is displayed on the screen in the results area: 

Starting / stopping a service is always done in 2 steps:

1. Start the Windows service
2. Check the log file until the success message is listed

Accordingly two different messages are displayed:

• ... stopped (Service): this message shows that the service could be stopped successfully
• ... stopped (LogFile): this message indicates that the corresponding entry has also appeared in the log file and thus the service has actually stopped successfully.

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Checking the final status

The listed "⁞⁞⁞⁞⁞" characters indicate that the execution is still in progress. In parallel, the timer is updated and displayed in the lower area with "Time elapsed".

In this example, the "TM CIC" service component on the server was shut down.

In the "Task Manager > Services Tab" view of the server the result looks as follows :

In the Start Tool Configuration, successfully stopped services are grayed out when checked:

You can now load another configuration file at any time via the Load config" button and then start it via "Execute". 

Server Configuration

When the tool is started, it first scans the local server. Via the configuration button you have the possibility to enter a list of servers. You can also save and load lists at any later point in time.

If you want to create a new list:

1. Enter the server names and the host type into the list.
   If you also use the LUCS/TM Dashboard, you should be able to use the XML file used there. Note that a separate file type has been introduced for the list (*.xmlc). This consists of an XML file in terms of content, but has been given the file extension XMLC for better differentiation.
   
   
2. Please enter the following values as host type:
   1. Luware: all Luware application servers
   2. SfB: all Skype for Business FrontEnd servers
3. You can then save the file via the "Save button". After Saving the Service versions are shown per server
   
   

Loading an existing XMLC Configuration

To load an existing file, click the "Load" button and select an existing file:

→ The configured servers are displayed.

Special Configurations

If services are to be started or stopped on another server, the paths to the log files must be specified as UNC paths - thus in the form:

\\<serverName>\C$\program files\Luware AG\LUCS-ICH\RegularLog*.txt

Stopping of Websites on Remote Servers

If websites are to be started/stopped on other servers, at least port 135 TCP must be enabled in the firewall of both servers. If further problems occur when accessing a remote server, the access rights and other firewall ports must be checked. 

Filtering of Servers

Since many servers can be involved in larger installations, it can be very time-consuming if, for example, you have to pick out and select the relevant servers by hand. Here the tool now offers you the possibility to select individual servers with the help of a context menu.

  Please note that multiple servers must be comma-separated ","

1. To do this, right-click in the header of the configuration table. A context menu with 3 entries opens:
   
   
   1. Sort
   2. Invert
   3. Select Server
   4. Select Services
2. Click on "Select Server". → A small additional window opens in which you can enter the servers.
3. As soon as you click on "Save", the servers are selected, all other servers are deselected:

Filtering of Services

You can also filter the list by services using the "Select Services option" in the context menu.

The same window opens as for the selection of servers. Enter a selection of services – for example – "PS, SMD" and confirm the selection with "Save".
→ The corresponding services are selected from the list.
→ The selection is taken over in the configuration Note that the sorting will not be changed.

Sort & Invert

Using the context menu from the previous chapter, you can also sort individual columns ("Selected, Start, ServerName") or invert the selection. This means that services that were selected are deselected, services that were marked to start are then set to stop accordingly. To do this:

1. Right-click on the column header
2. Select either "Sort" or "Invert"

Changing windows service startup timeouts

When starting a Windows service, a timeout can be defined. The default is 5 seconds, which we recommend as a baseline for most services. When your servers react a bit slower you can try slowly increasing this value to find a good balance between script execution performance and "false positive" errors.

In the input field for the timeout time, you adjust this time, depending how fast your servers react. 

• Either enter the time directly
  or
• Select a different value with the up/down arrow keys.

Once you have entered the value, it will be taken into account the next time you start/stop a Windows service.

What happens on a timeout? The tool ignores this problem with Luware services (and reports it only with a red message in the message output window). It checks the regularLog afterwards. Only if there is an error reported within the timeout it will be flagged accordingly, otherwise there will just be a "Timeout" remark.

Zip Archives for Configuration and Logfiles

The tool allows you to backup configuration and log files in one step. To do this:

1. click "..." after the input field for the zip file.
2. Select a target directory and a target file.
   
3. Observe the results tab and progress bar to monitor while files are collected into the ZIP
   

Temporary ZIP archives

Please note that a temporary folder is created in your "Documents\Lucs_Starter" directory during this process. When you find any leftovers from previous attempts you can delete them.

Support Cases

In case you encountered an issue with your Luware product, send this finished ZIP file to Luware support for further analysis. Make sure to include helpful information as to:

1. When the error occurred (exact timestamps help find the root cause)
2. Which actions were performed prior to the error (e.g. an incoming call was received via PSTN)
3. Which actors where involved (e.g. name of the Service, Agent, Number called etc.)
   

   Email:	support@luware.com
   Web:	https://luware.com/en/support/
   Support Hotline CH	+41 58 404 2807
   Support Hotline DE	+49 711 8998 9621
   Support Hotline UK	+44 20 3300 2751
   Cloud Service Status	https://status.luware.cloud/