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https://github.com/imcf/auto-tx

Official GitHub mirror of the AutoTx intelligent background transfer service.
https://github.com/imcf/auto-tx

data-transfer dotnet email-notification service spooling transfer-service windows

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Official GitHub mirror of the AutoTx intelligent background transfer service.

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README 

        
# ![AutoTx logo][img_autotx_logo] AutoTx - AutoTransfer Service



AutoTx is a Windows service doing background file transfers from a local disk to

a network share, licensed under the [GPLv3](LICENSE), developed and provided by

the [Imaging Core Facility (IMCF)][web_imcf] at the [Biozentrum][web_bioz],

[University of Basel][web_unibas], Switzerland.



It is primarily designed and developed for getting user-data off microscope

acquisition computers **after acquisition** (i.e. not in parallel!) with these

goals:



- The user owning the data should be able to log off from the computer after

  initiating the data transfer, enabling other users to log on while data is

  still being transferred.

- Any other interactive session at the computer must not be disturbed by the

  background data transfer (in particular any data acquisition done by the next

  user at the system).

- No additional software has to be operated by the user for initiating the

  transfer, avoiding the need for learning yet another tool.



## Features



- **User-initiated:** data is actively "handed over" to the service by the user

  to prevent interfering with running acquisitions.

- **Monitoring of system-critical parameters:** the service has a number of

  configurable system parameters that are constantly being monitored. If one of

  them is outside their defined valid range, any running transfer will be

  immediately suspended and no new transfers will be started.

- **Auto-Resume:** if a transfer is interrupted due to system limitations or the

  operating system being shut down the transfer gets automatically resumed as

  soon as possible without requiring any user interaction.

- **Email notifications:** the user is notified via email of completed

  transfers, as well as on transfer interruptions (system being shutdown or

  similar).

- **Error reporting:** in addition to user notifications, the service will send

  error notifications via email to a separate admin address. Optionally, the

  service offers the possibility to monitor free disk space on the local disks

  and send notifications to the admins as well. Various measures are implemented

  to prevent the service from flooding you with emails.

- **Tray Application:** complementary to the service an application running in

  the system tray is provided, showing details on what's going on to the user.

- **Headless and GUI:** submitting a folder for transfer can either be done by

  dropping it into a specific "*incoming*" folder (using the File Explorer or

  some post-acquisition script or whatever fits your scenario) or by using the

  guided folder selection dialog provided through the tray app context menu.



## Concept



The service is expected to operate in an *ActiveDirectory* (AD) environment,

with a dedicated AD-account (referred to as the *service account*) being used to

run the service on the client computer(s). Furthermore, a network share is

expected (currently only a single one is supported) where the service account

has appropriate permissions to copy data to.



For any user that should be allowed to use the transfer service, a dedicated

folder has to exist on this network share, the name of the folder being the

(short) AD account name (i.e. the login name or *sAMAccountName*) of the user.



After the user initiates a transfer (i.e. hands over a folder to the AutoTx

service), the folder gets **immediately** moved to the *spooling* location on

the same disk. This is done to prevent users from accidentially messing with

folders subject to being transferred as well as for internal bookkeeping of what

has to be transferred.



When no other transfer is running and all system parameters are within their

valid ranges, the AutoTx service will start copying the files and folders to a

temporary transfer directory inside the target location. Only when a transfer

has completed, it will be moved from the temporary location over to the user's

folder. This has the benefit that a user can't accidentially access data from

incomplete transfers as well as it serves as a kind of implicit notification: if

a folder shows up in their location, the user will know it has been fully

transferred.



Once the transfer is completed the folder is moved from the local *spooling*

directory to a "*grace*" location inside the spooling directory hierarchy. This

is done to prevent accidentially deleting user data. Currently no automatic

deletion of data is implemented. Instead, the service keeps track of the grace

location and will send notification emails to the admin once a given time

period has expired (defaulting to 30 days).



## Under the hood



For the actual transfer task, the service is using a C# wrapper for the

Microsoft RoboCopy tool called [RoboSharp][web_robosharp].



Logging is done using the amazing [NLog][web_nlog] framework, allowing a great

deal of flexibility in terms of log levels, targets (file, email, eventlog) and

rules.



## Requirements



- **ActiveDirectory integration:** no authentication mechanisms for the target

  storage are currently supported, meaning the function account running the

  service on the client has to have local read-write permissions as well as full

  write permissions on the target location. The reason behind this is to avoid

  having to administer local accounts on all clients as well as having easy

  access to user information (email addresses, ...).

- **Permissions:** for the CPU load monitoring to work, the function account has

  to be a member of the "*Performance Monitor Users*" group, either via GPO /

  ActiveDirectory or by adding it to the corresponding local group on each

  client.

- **.NET Framework:** version 4.5 required.

- **Windows 7 / Server 2012 R2:** the service has been tested on those versions

  of Windows, other versions sharing the same kernels (*Server 2008 R2*,

  *Windows 8.1*) should be compatible as well but have yet been tested.

- **64 bit:** currently only 64-bit versions are available (mostly due to lack

  of options for testing), 32-bit support is planned though.



# Installation



See the [instructions for installing the service](INSTALLATION.md) for details.



# Operation



## Configuration



The AutoTx service configuration is done through two XML files. They are

structured in a very simple way and well-commented to make them easily

readable. The first file `config.common.xml` defines settings which are common

to all AutoTx installations in the same network. The second file contains the

host-specific settings for the service and is using the machine's hostname for

its file name (followed by the `.xml` suffix). Both files are located in the

`conf/` folder inside the service installation directory and share the exact

same syntax with the host-specific file having priority (i.e. all settings

defined in the common file can be overridden in the host-specific one).



Having the configuration in this *layered* way allows an administrator to have

the exact same `conf/` folder on all hosts where AutoTx is installed, thus

greatly simplifying automated management.



Example config files (fully commented) are provided with the source code:



- [A minimal set](Resources/conf-minimal/) of configuration settings required

  to run the service.

- [The full set](Resources/conf/) of all possible configuration settings.



## Email-Templates



Notification emails to users are based on the templates that can be found in

[Mail-Templates](Resources/Mail-Templates) subdirectory of the service

installation. Those files contain certain keywords that will be replaced with

current values by the service before sending the mail. This way the content of

the notifications can easily be adjusted without having to re-compile the

service.



## Logging



The Windows Event Log seems to be a good place for logging if you have a proper

monitoring solution in place, which centrally collects and checks it. Since we

don't have one, and none of the other ActiveDirectory setups known to us have on

either, the service places its log messages in a plain text file in good old

Unix habits.



Everything that needs attention is written into a file called

`.AutoTx.log` in the `var/` subdirectory of the service's installation

directory. The contents of the log file can be monitored in real-time using the

PowerShell command `Get-Content -Wait "$($env:COMPUTERNAME).AutoTx.log"` or by

running the [Watch-Logfile.ps1](Scripts/Watch-Logfile.ps1) script.



The log level can be set through the configuration file.



## Status



Same as for the log messages, the service stores its status in a file, just this

is in XML format so it is easily usable from C# code using the core

Serialization / Deserialization functions. Likewise, this file is to be found in

the `var/` directory and called `status.xml`.



## Grace Location Cleanup



After a transfer has completed, the service moves all folders of that transfer

into one subfolder inside the `$ManagedDirectory/DONE//` location. The

subfolders are named with a timestamp `YYYY-MM-DD__hh-mm-ss`. The grace location

checks are done

 - at service startup

 - after a transfer has finished

 - once every *N* hours, configurable for every host



## Updates



The service comes with a dedicated updater to facilitate managing updates and

configurations on many machines. See the [Updater Readme](Updater/README.md) for

all the details.



# Contributing



Please see the [Development And Contribution Guide](CONTRIBUTING.md) for details

about compiling from source, filing pull requests etc.



[img_autotx_logo]: https://git.scicore.unibas.ch/vamp/auto-tx/raw/master/Resources/auto-tx-logo.png



[web_imcf]: https://www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/imcf

[web_bioz]: https://www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/

[web_unibas]: https://www.unibas.ch/

[web_robosharp]: https://github.com/tjscience/RoboSharp

[web_robosharp_fork]: https://git.scicore.unibas.ch/vamp/robosharp

[web_nlog]: http://nlog-project.org/