Dirigent Overview

Dirigent is a multi-platform remote app control & multi-machine system management tool. It allows

• Launching a given set of apps in given order on multiple different machines according to a user-defined launch plans

• Monitoring if the apps are running, optionally restarting them automatically.

• Remotely starting individual apps/plan, querying the app/plan status.

• Easy access to predefined files from different apps or different machines (like apps logs)

• Downloading a package of files from multiple different machines at once (like system config files etc.)

• Quickly running tools targeted to selected machine (like a VNC)

• Automation of the above tasks via user scripts written in C#, running on different machines (RPC)

• Controlling via a simple GUI apps running in a system tray

• Remote control via a CLI utility or via a TCP connection.

It depends on .net 6.0, running on Windows (fully featured) and Linux (limited features).

Contents

Concepts

Apps

Plans

Commands

Scripts

Tools

Actions

Environment Variables

Configuration

Agent process

Shared Config

Local Config

Remote Control

Remote control using CLI

Web API

Design

Architecture

Design notes (not up to date)

Building from source

Requires: net 6, powershell, Visual Studio 2022

Building a release

1. Run the new_release.bat
2. Find the built binaries in the release folder

Development & debugging in Visual Studio

1. Open src/Dirigent.NetCore.sln in Visual Studio and rebuild.
2. Make the Dirigent.Agent.WinForms the startup project
3. Run with command line --isMaster 1 --machineId m1 --debug 1
   1. Alternatively you can run different variants of run_*.bat scripts

Quick Start Guide

Configure launch plans

Define launch plans, i.e. what apps to start on what computer in what order. Store it into a SharedConfig.xml config file next to the Dirigent.Agent.exe on a computer chosen to be the Dirigent Master.

For example the following plan "plan1" contains two applications. One named "a" should be run on machine 'm1', the other is named "b" and should be run on machine m2.

Both apps are based on the same template apps.notepad defining the basic attributes that are then overridden with settings from the element.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Shared>
    <Plan Name="plan1" StartTimeout="10">
        <App
            AppIdTuple = "m1.a"
            Template = "apps.notepad"
            StartupDir = "c:\"
            CmdLineArgs = "aaa.txt"
            >
            <WindowPos TitleRegExp="\s-\sNotepad" Rect="10,50,300,200" Screen="1" Keep="0" />
        </App>

        <App
            AppIdTuple = "m2.b"
            Template = "apps.notepad"
            StartupDir = "c:\"
            CmdLineArgs = "bbb.txt"
            Dependencies = "m1.a"
        />
    </Plan>

    <AppTemplate Name="apps.notepad"
            Template = ""
            ExeFullPath = "c:\windows\notepad.exe"
            StartupDir = "c:\"
            CmdLineArgs = ""
            StartupOrder = "0"
            RestartOnCrash = "1"
            SeparationInterval = "3.5"
    >
        <InitDetectors>
          <WindowPoppedUp TitleRegExp="\s-\sNotepad"/>
          <TimeOut>5.0</TimeOut>
        </InitDetectors>
    </AppTemplate
</Shared>

What that plan will do if launched?

1. Opens a notepad app (called 'a') on machine m1 with file c:\aaa.txt.
2. Waits for the notepad to open. The window will be positioned to specified screen coordinates.
3. Waits 3.5 seconds
4. Opens another notepad (called 'b') on machine m2 with file c:\bbb.txt.
5. If the 'a' notepad doesn't start in 5 seconds, the plan indicates a failure. Moreover, because 'b' is defined to be dependent on 'a', the 'b' notepad won't be launched.

Deploy agents

On each machine install the Dirigent binaries (Windows Desktop .net runtime required).

Assign a unique machineId to each agent so it could identify its application in the launch plan. The machineIds need to match those used in the SharedConfig.xml.

On first machine start the agent in master mode (there must be exactly one master):

Dirigent.Agent.exe --machineId m1 --isMaster 1

On second machine start the agent in slave mode; specify the IP address of the master machine

Dirigent.Agent.exe --machineId m2 --masterIp 10.1.1.2

Tell Dirigent what to do

Issue a Start Plan command, either from Dirigent's UI, or via a CLI.

For example using a command ling control app:

Dirigent.CLI.exe --masterIp 10.1.1.2 StartPlan plan1

Multiple commands can be executed at once if separated by a semicolon. For example

Dirigent.CLI.exe --masterIp 10.1.1.2 StartApp m1.a; StartApp m2.b