Files

T

Christoph Schwörer f045b99a25 Codebasis als Dateien ins Arbeitsrepo statt als Gitlink

QuellCode/CentronERP war nur als Gitlink (Submodul-Referenz auf 79c1142)
getrackt, ohne .gitmodules und ohne erreichbares Remote. Der
Untersuchungsgegenstand der Versuchsreihe war damit nicht reproduzierbar
gesichert: Ein Klon haette ein leeres Verzeichnis erhalten, und die Belege
der 3.287 Anforderungen waeren nicht ueberpruefbar gewesen.

Umstellung:
- Historie nach c:\DEV\CentronERP_git_snapshot_79c1142 ausgelagert
  (vollstaendig lesbar, enthaelt 79c1142 und Vorgaenger 89ccfd6)
- Gitlink aus dem Index entfernt
- Dateiinhalt aufgenommen: 24.557 Dateien, rund 333 MB

Die verschachtelte .gitignore der Codebasis gilt weiter, Build-Artefakte
bleiben ausgeschlossen. Details in Versuche/Versuch_01/_Codebasis-Nachweis.md

2026-08-26 07:43:51 +02:00

7.4 KiB

Raw Blame History

Run the c-entron Web-Service on Linux

Right now we don't create Linux version of our web-service by default.
But you can create a version manually by running the build-web-service-linux target from the Centron.Scripts project.

It creates a c-entron Web-Service Linux.zip file which contains the web-service for Linux.

How to prepare the Linux server

The Linux web-service is a framework-dependent version, which means you need to install .NET on the Linux server.
How to install .NET on Linux
The above link also contains a list of all Linux distributions that are supported by .NET.
As far as I know, we should support all of them, but we only tested with Ubuntu and Debian.

Make sure to install the correct version of .NET that is needed for our web-service.
As of right now (Jan. 2024), c-entron.NET and the web-service are running on .NET 8.

Also some other dependencies are required for the web-service to work correctly.
See here which other dependencies are required

How to install the c-entron Web-Service on Linux

Copy the c-entron Web-Service Linux.zip archive to the server, and extract it wherever you want to install it.
For example purposes, lets use /opt/centronws.

Now we need a WebServiceConfig.xml, which on windows is created by the c-entron Web-Service Connection Manager - but this tool is not available on linux, and right now we don't have a linux-alternative for it.
So I recommend to copy the WebServiceConfig.xml from a windows-installation of the web-service.

After the web-service is copied and configured, you can start it by executing the Centron.Host.Console application.

You might get some permission errors along the way - fix them by making the Centron.Host.Console executable, and giving read-permissions to the directory.

You should see some command-line output from the web-service, and after a couple of seconds the web-service should be started and available per HTTP.

How to use HTTPS

HTTPS configuration is very different between Linux and Windows, because on Windows its using Windows-only configuration.

So on Linux, you have to edit the WebServiceConfig.xml. Add a WebServiceCertificateFilePath XML-node with the path to your pfx-certificate.
And add another XML-node WebServiceCertificatePassword containing your password for the pfx-certificate.
For example, if you placed the certificate next to the web-service /opt/centronws/https-certificate.pfx, and the password is 123456, adjust the WebServiceConfig.xml to look like this.

<WebServiceConfig>
  <!-- Usual settings that also work for windows -->
  <WebServiceAddress>https://localhost:443</WebServiceAddress>
  <DatabaseConnectionString>VGhpcyBpcyB3aGVyZSB5b3VyIERhdGFiYXNlQ29ubmVjdGlvblN0cmluZyBzaG91bGQgYmU=</DatabaseConnectionString>

  <!-- The 2 following nodes should be added manually -->
  <WebServiceCertificateFilePath>./https-certificate.pfx</WebServiceCertificateFilePath>
  <WebServiceCertificatePassword>123456</WebServiceCertificatePassword>
  
  <!-- Other settings omitted -->
</WebServiceConfig>

Restart the Centron.Host.Console, and the c-entron Web-Service should be available per HTTPS with a valid certificate!

How to make the web-service run in the background

You can use whatever mechanism or service you want for that, just execute the Centron.Host.Console application.

One possibility is, to use systemd to run the web-service (this obviously only works if systemd is available on your Linux distribution).

To use systemd create a new file /etc/systemd/system/centronws.service with the following contents (adjust paths and user if necessary):

[Unit]
Description=c-entron web-service

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/opt/centronws # will set the Current Working Directory (CWD)
ExecStart=/opt/centronws/Centron.Host.Console # systemd will run this executable to start the service
SyslogIdentifier=centronws # to query logs using journalctl
User=c-entron # which user should execute the service, use 'chown yourusername -R /opt/centronws' to take ownership of the folder and files, use 'chmod +x /opt/centronws/Centron.Host.Console' to allow execution of the executable file.
Restart=always # ensure the service restarts after crashing
RestartSec=5 # amount of time to wait before restarting the service
KillSignal=SIGINT # copied from dotnet documentation at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/linux-nginx?view=aspnetcore-3.1#code-try-7
AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE # give the executed process the CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE capability. This capability allows the process to bind to well known ports.

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After creating this .service file, we have to execute some commands.

Reload the systemd services using sudo systemctl daemon-reload
Make sure the new service was discovered correctly using sudo systemctl status centronws
Start the c-entron Web-Service using sudo systemctl start centronws.service

If you want the c-entron Web-Service to start when the machine starts, you can run sudo systemctl enable centronws.service

Differences between Linux and Windows as a c-entron User

There are a couple of limitations when running on Linux, in comparison to running on Windows.
Most of them can be fixed in the future, but right now these limitations apply.

Sub-Web-Services

The Sub-Web-Services don't work on Linux. All of the code regarding them is contained in the c-entron Web-Service Connection Manager, which is not available on Linux.
A refactoring is needed here.

Our latest stance on this topic is:
If a customer is running his web-service on linux, then he is a poweruser.
And as a poweruser he can copy the web-service, configure it for another database, and create another systemd service all by himself.

What is left to do to make the Linux UX good?

Web-Service configuration tool

On windows we have the Web-Service Connection Manager, but we currently don't have a similar tool for linux.
Right now you're out of luck and have to hand-edit the WebServiceConfig.xml file, which is a very bad user experience.

What I would like to have is some kind of CLI that guides the user through web-service configuration.
It would be extra nice if you could call the Centron.Host.Console.exe with a configure command, and then it steps you through the configuration (web-service url, certificate, path, database connection, etc.).

Certificate password encryption

Right now the certificate-password is written in plaintext in the WebServiceConfig.xml file.
Once we have the Web-Service configuration tool from above, we should encrypt the certificate-password instead.
Just as we already encrypt the database connection-string and proxy password.

Tool to read your Hardware-ID

On windows it's very easy, because the Web-Service Connection Manager shows you your Hardware-ID.
On linux this is currently not available, and you as the user can't really do anything by yourself.
Right now the workaround is: Send your linux /etc/machine-id to a developer, and he magically creates the Hardware-ID from it.

A better experience would be, to have some kind of CLI that prints you your own Hardware-ID.
Would be nice if it also was on Centron.Host.Console.exe, with a hardware-id command, and all it does is print out your Hardware-ID.

7.4 KiB Raw Blame History