Jargon Tunnel Broker
Running as a Service on Windows NT/2000/2003

Overview:

The Jargon Tunnel Broker can be set up to run as a service on Windows NT/2000/2003. This allows you to start and stop it using the Services applet from the Control Panel, or with the "NET START/STOP" commands from a command prompt or batch file that is run as a scheduled task. Running as a service avoids the need to keep open the Tunnel Broker GUI Control Panel and command prompt windows.

This document describes how to set up the Jargon Tunnel Broker to run as a Service on Windows NT/2000/2003.

Requirements:

The zip version of the Tunnel Broker install file contains versions of the necessary Windows Toolkit programs (instsrv.exe and srvany.exe) for each supported Windows version in the following folders. This assumes that the Tunnel Broker is installed in C:\tunnel.

C:\tunnel\win32\RunAsSvc\Win2000
C:\tunnel\win32\RunAsSvc\Win2003
C:\tunnel\win32\RunAsSvc\WinNT

Note: The entire set of Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools can be downloaded from Microsoft at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9d467a69-57ff-4ae7-96ee-b18c4790cffd&DisplayLang=en
This toolkit has many useful utilities.

Installation Instructions:

1. From a command-prompt on the NT Server, go to the appropriate folder for your operating system (from above list) and then type the following (modify the pathname as needed for your install directory and Windows OS version):

.\instsrv TunnelBroker C:\tunnel\win32\RunAsSvc\[WinXXXX]\srvany.exe

2. Open up the Control Panel-->Services icon.
Select the TunnelBroker service and edit its properties in the "Startup ..." dialog:

Startup Type: manual
Log on As:
   (x) This account: DOMAIN\Administrator
          Password: <your administrator password>
   Confirm Password: <repeat password>

(Note: Administrator is used because a user must have network permissions to use srvany.exe)

3. Run RegEdit.exe.

Notes:

Regedit is a dangerous program! Back up your registry files first!!
The following assumes that the Jargon Tunnel Broker is installed in the folder "C:\tunnel".
If installed elsewhere, substitute the correct folder name for this value.
Do NOT enter any quote marks around the values

Create Key:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TunnelBroker\Parameters
(Note: "HKLM" is "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE", abbreviated here for brevity)

Under "Parameters", create an "Application" value of type REG_SZ (string):
C:\Program Files\JavaSoft\JRE\1.3\bin\java.exe
(or wherever a JRE 1.2 or 1.3 java.exe executable is installed).

Also create an "AppParameters" Value of type REG_SZ (string):
-classpath C:\tunnel\lib\jtunnel.jar;C:\tunnel\lib\o4glrt.zip b.Server C:/tunnel/system/tunnel.ini
(NOTE1: This goes all on one line, it may be line wrapped here for readability)
(NOTE2: Yes, the value has both "\" and "/" slashes)

Also create an "AppDirectory" value of type REG_SZ (string):
C:\tunnel\win32

4. Start the service and watch it run.

Starting and Stopping Tunnel Broker and AppServer

The Tunnel Broker must be started after the Progress AppServer is not only started, but has fully initialized and started all its server agents. For this reason, the Tunnel Broker CANNOT be started automatically because it will try to attach to AppServer agents before they are ready, while the AppServer is still busy getting itself organized.

To start and stop the Tunnel Broker manually, go into the Services applet (from the Control Panel or Administrative Tools in Start Menu).

You can also automate the starting and stopping of both processes by using batch scripts that are run by the Windows Task Scheduler.

Create four batch files containing these commands. The name of the AdminService may vary depending on your version of Progress, look in the Services applet for the correct service name. Samples of these scripts are included in the C:\tunnel\win32\RunAsSvc folder.

start_tb.bat: net start TunnelBroker
start_as.bat: net start AdminService9.1D
stop_tb.bat: net stop TunnelBroker
stop_as.bat: net stop AdminService9.1D

Then set these up to run as scheduled tasks:
Start-->Programs-->Accessories-->System Tools-->Scheduled Tasks

For example, you could set up these scheduled tasks (run as administrator):

If you have a really slow server, wait more than 5 minutes before starting the tunnel broker.

If using a unix or linux server, you can do similar things with shell scripts and 'cron'.

Screen Samples

See the attached screen images for examples of the Registry entries for a sample Tunnel Broker setup. Note that this sample uses different directories for the java.exe program and the tunnel broker working directory, compared to the above examples. The above examples are the recommended default values, but you can use whatever directories you want.

The first screen shows the TunnelBroker service values that were created in steps 1 and 2 above. NOTE: ObjectName in this image is the user that the service runs as. This user must have network permissions. This service cannot run as the LocalSystem account. "Administrator" will work.