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Sometimes I Make My Day...

08 September 2011 • by Bob • Scripting

This past weekend I was writing a quick piece of Windows Script Host (WSH) code to clean up some files on one of my servers, and I had populated a Scripting.Dictionary object with a bunch of string data that I was going to write to a log file. Obviously it's much easier to read through the log file if the data is sorted, but the Scripting.Dictionary object does not have a built-in Sort() method.

With this in mind, I set out to write a sorting function for my script, when I decided that it would might be more efficient to see if someone out in the community had already written such a function. I quickly discovered that someone had - and it turns out, that particular someone was me!

Way back in 1999 I published Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) article 246067, which was titled "Sorting a Scripting Dictionary Populated with String Data." This KB article contained the following code, which took care of everything for me:

Const dictKey  = 1
Const dictItem = 2

Function SortDictionary(objDict,intSort)
  ' declare our variables
  Dim strDict()
  Dim objKey
  Dim strKey,strItem
  Dim X,Y,Z

  ' get the dictionary count
  Z = objDict.Count

  ' we need more than one item to warrant sorting
  If Z > 1 Then
    ' create an array to store dictionary information
    ReDim strDict(Z,2)
    X = 0
    ' populate the string array
    For Each objKey In objDict
        strDict(X,dictKey)  = CStr(objKey)
        strDict(X,dictItem) = CStr(objDict(objKey))
        X = X + 1
    Next

    ' perform a a shell sort of the string array
    For X = 0 to (Z - 2)
      For Y = X to (Z - 1)
        If StrComp(strDict(X,intSort),strDict(Y,intSort),vbTextCompare) > 0 Then
            strKey  = strDict(X,dictKey)
            strItem = strDict(X,dictItem)
            strDict(X,dictKey)  = strDict(Y,dictKey)
            strDict(X,dictItem) = strDict(Y,dictItem)
            strDict(Y,dictKey)  = strKey
            strDict(Y,dictItem) = strItem
        End If
      Next
    Next

    ' erase the contents of the dictionary object
    objDict.RemoveAll

    ' repopulate the dictionary with the sorted information
    For X = 0 to (Z - 1)
      objDict.Add strDict(X,dictKey), strDict(X,dictItem)
    Next

  End If

End Function

Sometimes I make my day. ;-]

How to add or Elements through Scripting

01 June 2011 • by Bob • IIS, Scripting

I had a question recently where someone was trying to add <clear /> or <remove /> elements to a collection in their IIS 7 configuration settings. With that in mind, for today's blog I thought that I would discuss a couple of ways to add <clear /> and <remove /> elements by using two specific scripting methods: AppCmd and VBScript.

It should be noted that you can also use JavaScript or PowerShell, but I'm not covering those because the syntax for those is available elsewhere. (JavaScript syntax is available in the Configuration Editor in IIS Manager, and the PowerShell syntax is available through the Web Server (IIS) Administration Cmdlet Reference.) You can also use Managed-Code, and the syntax for that is also available in the Configuration Editor in IIS Manager; but compiled code isn't scripting, is it? :-)

Here's the scenario, IIS makes it possible to modify the contents of an inherited collection in two ways:

• You can clear the contents of an inherited configuration section, as illustrated by the following configuration excerpt:

  <configuration>
     <system.webServer>
        <defaultDocument enabled="true">
           <files>
              <clear />
           </files>
        </defaultDocument>
     </system.webServer>
  </configuration>

• You can remove an item from an inherited collection, as illustrated by the following configuration excerpt:

  <configuration>
     <system.webServer>
        <defaultDocument enabled="true">
           <files>
              <remove value="index.html" />
           </files>
        </defaultDocument>
     </system.webServer>
  </configuration>

With that in mind, let's look at scripting those settings.

Using AppCmd

AppCmd.exe is a great utility that ships with IIS 7, which allows editing the configuration settings for IIS from a command line. This also allows you to create batch scripts that automate large numbers of configuration changes. For example, the following batch file enables ASP session state, sets the maximum number of ASP sessions to 1000, and then sets the session time-out to 10 minutes for the Default Web Site:

appcmd.exe set config "Default Web Site" -section:system.webServer/asp /session.allowSessionState:"True" /commit:apphost

appcmd.exe set config "Default Web Site" -section:system.webServer/asp /session.max:"1000" /commit:apphost

appcmd.exe set config "Default Web Site" -section:system.webServer/asp

I'm a big fan of IIS 7's AppCmd.exe, but unfortunately it has two rather large limitations:

• AppCmd.exe does not directly support clearing the contents of a configuration section. (But there's a workaround that I list below.)
• AppCmd.exe does not support removing an item from a collection.

These limitations have caused me some grief from time to time, because I often want to script the modification of collections, and I would love to remove items or clear a collection.

How to add a <clear /> element using AppCmd:

Although it's kind of a hack, there is a way to force AppCmd.exe to add a <clear /> element.

Here's what you need to do in order to clear the list of default documents for the Default Web Site:

1. Create an XML file like the following and save it as "CLEAR.XML":

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <appcmd>
       <CONFIG CONFIG.SECTION="system.webServer/defaultDocument" path="MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST" overrideMode="Allow" locked="false">
           <system.webServer-defaultDocument  enabled="true">
               <files>
                   <clear />
               </files>
           </system.webServer-defaultDocument>
       </CONFIG>
   </appcmd>

2. Run the following command:

   appcmd.exe set config /in "Default Web Site" < CLEAR.xml

Unfortunately this technique does not work for <remove /> elements. :-( But that being said, you can add a <remove /> element through VBScript; for more information, see the Using VBScript section.

Using VBScript

Fortunately, VBScript doesn't have AppCmd.exe's limitations, so you can add both <clear /> and <remove /> elements.

How to add a <clear /> element in VBScript:

The following steps will clear the list of default documents for the Default Web Site:

1. Save the following VBScript code as "clear.vbs":

   Set adminManager = WScript.CreateObject("Microsoft.ApplicationHost.WritableAdminManager")
   adminManager.CommitPath = "MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST/Default Web Site"
   Set defaultDocumentSection = adminManager.GetAdminSection("system.webServer/defaultDocument", _
     "MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST/Default Web Site")
   Set filesCollection = defaultDocumentSection.ChildElements.Item("files").Collection
   filesCollection.Clear
   adminManager.CommitChanges

2. Run the VBscript code by double-clicking the "clear.vbs" file.

How to add a <remove /> element in VBScript:

The following steps will remove a single item from the list of default documents for the Default Web Site:

1. Save the following VBScript code as "remove.vbs":

   Set adminManager = WScript.CreateObject("Microsoft.ApplicationHost.WritableAdminManager")
   adminManager.CommitPath = "MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST/Default Web Site"
   Set defaultDocumentSection = adminManager.GetAdminSection("system.webServer/defaultDocument", _
     "MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST/Default Web Site")
   Set filesCollection = defaultDocumentSection.ChildElements.Item("files").Collection
   addElementPos = FindElement(filesCollection, "add", Array("value", "index.html"))
   If (addElementPos = -1) Then
      WScript.Echo "Element not found!"
      WScript.Quit
   End If
   filesCollection.DeleteElement(addElementPos)
   adminManager.CommitChanges
   
   Function FindElement(collection, elementTagName, valuesToMatch)
      For i = 0 To CInt(collection.Count) - 1
         Set element = collection.Item(i)
         If element.Name = elementTagName Then
            matches = True
            For iVal = 0 To UBound(valuesToMatch) Step 2
               Set property = element.GetPropertyByName(valuesToMatch(iVal))
               value = property.Value
               If Not IsNull(value) Then
                  value = CStr(value)
               End If
               If Not value = CStr(valuesToMatch(iVal + 1)) Then
                  matches = False
                  Exit For
               End If
            Next
            If matches Then
               Exit For
            End If
         End If
      Next
      If matches Then
         FindElement = i
      Else
         FindElement = -1
      End If
   End Function

2. Run the VBscript code by double-clicking the "remove.vbs" file.

More Information

For more information about scripting and IIS configuration settings, see the following:

• Getting Started with AppCmd.exe
• IIS 7 Configuration Reference
• Web Server (IIS) Administration Cmdlets in Windows PowerShell

Note: This blog was originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/robert_mcmurray/

A Little Scripting Saved My Day (;-])

27 July 2009 • by Bob • IIS, Scripting

I have mentioned in previous blog posts that I tend to write many of my blog posts and walkthroughs for IIS.NET based on code that I've written for myself, and today's blog post is the story of how one of my samples saved my rear over this past weekend.

One of the servers that I manage is used to host web sites for several friends of mine. (It's their hobby to have a web site and it's my hobby to host it for them.) Anyway, sometime on Sunday someone let me know that one of my sites didn't seem to be behaving correctly, so I browsed it with Internet Explorer and saw that I was getting an HTTP 503 error. I've seen this error when an application pool goes offline for some reason, so I didn't panic - yet - because I knew that the web site was in a separate application pool. With that in mind, I browsed to a web site that is in a different application pool. Same thing - HTTP 503 error. This was beginning to concern me.

I logged into the web server and ran iisreset from a command-line - this threw the following error - and now I was really starting to become agitated:

I knew that the cause of the error should be in the Windows Event Viewer, so I opened the System log in Event Viewer and saw the following error:

Now that I was armed with the file name and line number of the failure in my configuration settings, I was able to go straight to the source of the problem. (I love IIS 7's descriptive error messages - don't you?) Once I opened the file and jumped to the correct location, I saw several lines of unintelligible garbage. For reasons that are still unknown to me - my applicationHost.config file had become corrupted and IIS was dead in the water until I fixed the problem. I looked through the file and removed most of the garbage and saved the edited file to IIS - this got the web sites working, but only partially. Some necessary settings had obviously been removed while I was clearing all of out the unintelligible garbage, and it might take me a long time to discover what those settings were.

The next thing that I did was to take a look in my two readily-accessible backup drives; I have two external hard drives that keep a backup of the web server - one hard drive is directly plugged into the web server via a USB cable, and the other hard drive is plugged into a physically separate server that rotates drives with off-site storage on a monthly basis. The problem is, my weekly backups had just run, so the copy in each backup location had been overwritten with the corrupted version. (I'm going to have to rethink my backup strategy after this - but that's another story.) The backup copy in my off-site storage location should be intact, but that copy would be a few weeks old so I would be missing some settings, and I would have to drive an hour or so round-trip in order to pick up the drive. This wasn't an ideal solution - but it was definitely a feasible strategy.

It was at this point that I remembered that I had written following blog post some time ago:

I wrote the script in that blog post for the server that I was currently managing, and because of this preventative measure I had dozens of backups going back several weeks to choose from. So I was able to quickly find a copy with no corruption and I restored that copy to my IIS config directory. At this point all of my web sites came online with all of their functionality. Having fixed the major issues, I used WinDiff to verify any settings that might have been changed between the restored copy and the corrupted copy.

So in conclusion, this story had a happy ending, and it left me with a few lessons learned:

• You can never have too many backups
• I need to rethink how I roll out my backup strategy with regard to using external hard drives
• Writing cool scripts to automate your backups can save your rear end

That sums it up for today's post.

Note: This blog was originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/robert_mcmurray/

Batch File: Delete Duplicate Files

24 December 2008 • by Bob • Windows

Using this Batch File

Some time ago a friend of mine gave me a bunch of JPG files, but for some reason she had two copies of every image in the collection. The names of the images had all been randomized, and since there were hundreds of files in the collection it would have taken hours to find and delete the duplicates. With that in mind, I wrote the following batch file that loops through the collection of files and does a binary comparison to find and delete duplicate files.

To use the example code, copy the batch file code from below into Notepad and save it as "_del_dupes.cmd" in the folder where you have duplicate files

Note: As with many utilities that I write - this is a destructive operation, meaning that it will delete files without prompting, so you should always make a backup just in case something goes terribly wrong... ;-]

Batch File Example Code

@echo off

dir *.jpg /b > _del_dupes.1.txt

for /f "delims=|" %%a in (_del_dupes.1.txt) do (
   if exist "%%a" (
      dir *.jpg /b > _del_dupes.2.txt
      for /f "delims=|" %%b in (_del_dupes.2.txt) do (
         if not "%%a"=="%%b" (
            echo Comparing "%%a" to "%%b"...
            fc /b "%%a" "%%b">NUL
            if errorlevel 1 (
               echo DIFFERENT
            ) else (
               echo SAME
               del "%%b"
            )
         ) 
      ) 
   )
)

del _del_dupes.?.txt

Automating IIS 7 Backups

08 March 2008 • by Bob • IIS, Scripting

Many years ago I wrote the following KB article:

Truth be told, I wrote the script in that article to help me manage several servers that I controlled. Once I finished the script, I found myself routinely giving it out to customers in order for them to automate their backups, so I decided to turn it into a KB. When IIS 6 came out, Microsoft shipped the IIsBack.vbs script to help customers automate backups.

One of the great things in IIS 7 is the deprecation of the metabase, which has been replaced by applicationHost.config, but the need for backing up your configuration settings is still there. With this in mind, I wrote a small batch file that I schedule to create backups of my configuration settings using the APPCMD utility. Since I've been giving this to customers at Microsoft TechEd, I thought it might make a nice blog post for everyone that can't make it to TechEd.

To use the script, copy the code below into Windows Notepad, then save it to your computer as "BackupIIS.cmd". (I usually save it in "%WinDir%\System32\Inetsrv", but you could save it to your executable search path as well.)

@echo off
cls

pushd "%WinDir%\System32\inetsrv"

echo.| date | find /i "current">datetime1.tmp
echo.| time | find /i "current">datetime2.tmp

for /f "tokens=1,2,3,4,5,6" %%i in (datetime1.tmp) do (
   echo %%n>datetime1.tmp
)
for /f "tokens=1,2,3,4,5,6" %%i in (datetime2.tmp) do (
   echo %%m>datetime2.tmp
)
for /f "delims=/ tokens=1,2,3" %%i in (datetime1.tmp) do (
   set TMPDATETIME=%%k%%i%%j
)
for /f "delims=:. tokens=1,2,3,4" %%i in (datetime2.tmp) do (
   set TMPDATETIME=D%TMPDATETIME%T%%i%%j%%k%%l
)

appcmd add backups %TMPDATETIME%

del datetime1.tmp
del datetime2.tmp

set TMPDATETIME=

popd
echo.

You can use Task Scheduler in Windows Server 2008's Server Manager to schedule this script to run at whatever interval you choose, although I usually schedule it to run once a week.

Backups will be created in the following path:

Where yyyymmdd is the year, month, day, and hhmmssii is the hour, minute, second, millisecond for the time of the backup.

I hope this helps!

Note: This blog was originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/robert_mcmurray/

Creating XML Reports for FSRM Quota Usage

25 October 2007 • by Bob • Scripting

I had a great question in follow up to the "Secure, Simplified Web Publishing using Microsoft Internet Information Services 7.0" webcast that I delivered the other day, "How you can you programmatically access the quota usage information from the File Server Resource Manager (FSRM)?"

First of all, there is a native API for writing code to access FSRM data detailed at the following URL:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb625489.aspx

That's a bit of overkill if you're just looking to script something.

There is a WMI interface as well, but it’s only for FSRM events.

So that leaves you with a pair of command-line tools that you can script in order to list your quota usage information:

• storrept.exe - Used to manage storage reports
• dirquota.exe - Used to manage quota usage

Right out of the box the first command-line tool, storrept.exe, can generate a detailed XML report using a user-definable scope. To see this in action, take the following example syntax and modify the scope parameter to your desired paths:

storrept.exe reports generate /Report:QuotaUsage /Format:XML /Scope:"C:\"

 You can also specify multiple paths in your scope using a pipe-delimited format like:

/Scope:"C:\Inetpub|D:\Inetpub"

When the command has finished, it will tell you the path to your report like the following example:

Storage reports generated successfully in "C:\StorageReports\Interactive".

The XML-based information in the report can then be consumed with whatever method you usually use to parse XML. It should be noted that storrept.exe also supports the following formats: CSV, DHTML, HTML, and TXT.

This XML might be okay for most applications, but for some reason I wanted to customize the information that I received, so I experimented with the second command-line tool, dirquota.exe, to get the result that I was looking for.

First of all, using dirquota.exe quota list returns information in the following format:

Quotas on machine SERVER: Quota Path: C:\inetpub\ftproot Source Template: 100 MB Limit (Matches template) Quota Status: Enabled Limit: 100.00 MB (Hard) Used: 1.00 KB (0%) Available: 100.00 MB Peak Usage: 1.00 KB (10/25/2007 2:15 PM) Thresholds: Warning ( 85%): E-mail Warning ( 95%): E-mail, Event Log Limit (100%): E-mail, Event Log

This information is formatted nicely and is therefore easily parsed, so I wrote the following batch file called "dirquota.cmd" to start things off:

@echo off echo Processing the report... dirquota.exe quota list > dirquota.txt cscript.exe //nologo dirquota.vbs

Next, I wrote the following vbscript application called "dirquota.vbs" to parse the output into some easily-usable XML code:

Option Explicit

Dim objFSO, objFile1, objFile2
Dim strLine, strArray(2)
Dim blnQuota,blnThreshold

' create objects
Set objFSO = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile1 = objFSO.OpenTextFile("dirquota.txt")
Set objFile2 = objFSO.CreateTextFile("dirquota.xml")

' start the XML output file
objFile2.WriteLine "<?xml version=""1.0""?>"
objFile2.WriteLine "<Quotas>"

' set the runtime statuses to off
blnQuota = False
blnThreshold = False

' loop through the text file
Do While Not objFile1.AtEndOfStream

  ' get a line from the file
  strLine = objFile1.ReadLine

  ' only process lines with a colon character
  If InStr(strLine,":") Then
    ' split the string manually at the colon character
    strArray(1) = Trim(Left(strLine,InStr(strLine,":")-1))
    strArray(2) = Trim(Mid(strLine,InStr(strLine,":")+1))

    ' filter on strings with parentheses
    strLine = strArray(1)
    If InStr(strLine,"(") Then
      strLine = Trim(Left(strLine,InStr(strLine,"(")-1)) & "*"
    End If

    ' process the inidivdual entries
    Select Case UCase(strLine)

      ' a quota path signifies a new record
      Case UCase("Quota Path")

        ' close any open threshold collections
        If blnThreshold = True Then
          objFile2.WriteLine "</Thresholds>"
        End If

        ' close an open quota element
        If blnQuota= True Then
          objFile2.WriteLine "</Quota>"
        End If

        ' signify a new quota element
        objFile2.WriteLine "<Quota>"

        ' output the relelvant information
        objFile2.WriteLine FormatElement(strArray(1),strArray(2))

        ' set the runtime statuses
        blnQuota= True
        blnThreshold = False

      ' these bits of informaiton are parts of a quota
      Case UCase("Source Template"), UCase("Quota Status"), _
          UCase("Limit"), UCase("Used"), _
          UCase("Available"), UCase("Peak Usage")

        ' close any open threshold collections
        If blnThreshold = True Then
          objFile2.WriteLine "</Thresholds>"
        End If

        ' set the runtime status
        blnThreshold = False

        ' output the relelvant information
        objFile2.WriteLine FormatElement(strArray(1),strArray(2))

      ' these bits of informaiton are thresholds
      Case UCase("Warning*"), UCase("Limit*")

        ' open a threshold collection if not already open
        If blnThreshold = False Then
          objFile2.WriteLine "<Thresholds>"
        End If

        ' output the relelvant information
        objFile2.WriteLine FormatElement( _
          Left(strLine,Len(strLine)-1), _
          Replace(Mid(strArray(1), _
          Len(strLine))," ","") & " " & strArray(2))

        ' set the runtime status
        blnThreshold = True

    End Select
  End If
Loop

' close any open threshold collections
If blnThreshold = True Then
  objFile2.WriteLine "</Thresholds>"
End If

' close an open quota element
If blnQuota= True Then
  objFile2.WriteLine "</Quota>"
End If

' end the XML output file
objFile2.WriteLine "</Quotas>"

objFile1.Close
objFile2.Close
Set objFSO = Nothing

' format data into an XML element
Function FormatElement(tmpName,tmpValue)
  FormatElement = "<" & Replace(tmpName," ","") & _
  ">" & tmpValue & "</" & Replace(tmpName,Chr(32),"") & ">"
End Function

When the batch file and vbscript are run, they will create a file named "dirquota.xml" which will resemble the following example XML:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Quotas>
  <Quota>
    <QuotaPath>C:\inetpub\ftproot</QuotaPath>
    <SourceTemplate>100 MB Limit (Matches template)</SourceTemplate>
    <QuotaStatus>Enabled</QuotaStatus>
    <Limit>100.00 MB (Hard)</Limit>
    <Used>1.00 KB (0%)</Used>
    <Available>100.00 MB</Available>
    <PeakUsage>1.00 KB (10/25/2007 2:15 PM)</PeakUsage>
    <Thresholds>
      <Warning>(85%) E-mail</Warning>
      <Warning>(95%) E-mail, Event Log</Warning>
      <Limit>(100%) E-mail, Event Log</Limit>
    </Thresholds>
  </Quota>
</Quotas>

I found the above XML much easier to use than the XML that came from the storrept.exe report, but I'm probably comparing apples to oranges. In any event, I hope this helps someone with questions about FSRM reporting.

Have fun!

Note: This blog was originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/robert_mcmurray/

Viewing current FTP7 sessions using C#

06 July 2007 • by Bob • FTP, Scripting

A few weeks ago my friend Jaroslav posted a blog entry about viewing the current FTP7 sessions using Javascript, and I followed that up with a blog post about viewing the current FTP7 sessions using VBScript.

This blog entry follows up on those postings by showing you how to view the current FTP7 sessions using C#. To do so, start a new Windows Console Application project using C# in Visual Studio 2005 on a computer running Windows Server 2008 with the new FTP7 server installed. You will need to add a reference to the AppHostAdminLibrary by manually browsing to the nativerd.dll file that's located in the %WinDir%\System32\InetSrv folder. After you've added the reference, replace all of the C# code from the project template with the following C# code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using AppHostAdminLibrary;

namespace FtpDumpSessions
{
  class FtpDumpSessions
  {
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
      AppHostWritableAdminManager objAdminManager =
        new AppHostWritableAdminManager();

      // get the collection of sites
      IAppHostElement objSitesElement =
        objAdminManager.GetAdminSection(
        "system.applicationHost/sites",
        "MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST");
      uint intSiteCount =
        objSitesElement.Collection.Count;
      Console.WriteLine(
        "Site count: {0}",
        intSiteCount);

      try
      {
        // loop through the sites collection
        for (int intSite = 0;
          intSite < intSiteCount;
          ++intSite)
        {
          // get a site
          IAppHostElement objFtpSite =
            objSitesElement.Collection[intSite];

          // get the FTP section
          IAppHostElement objFtpSiteElement =
            objFtpSite.ChildElements["ftpServer"];

          // get the sessions collection
          IAppHostElement objFtpSessions =
            objFtpSiteElement.ChildElements["sessions"];
          uint intSessionCount =
            objFtpSessions.Collection.Count;
          Console.WriteLine(
            "\tFTP sessions for {0}: {1}",
            objFtpSite.Properties["name"].Value, intSessionCount);

          // loop through the sessions
          for (int intSession = 0;
            intSession < intSessionCount;
            ++intSession)
          {
            IAppHostElement objFtpSession =
              objFtpSessions.Collection[intSession];
            // loop through each session's properties
            for (int intProperty = 0;
              intProperty < objFtpSession.Properties.Count;
              ++intProperty)
            {
              Console.WriteLine(
                "\t\t{0}: {1}",
                objFtpSession.Properties[intProperty].Name,
                objFtpSession.Properties[intProperty].Value);
            }
          }
        }
      }
      catch (System.Exception ex)
      {
        Console.WriteLine(
          "\r\nError: {0}",
          ex.Message);
      }
    }
  }
}

When you compile and run the project, you should see a listing of all users connected to your FTP7 sites.

That's about it for this post - have fun!

Viewing current FTP7 sessions using VBScript

06 July 2007 • by Bob • FTP, Scripting

A few weeks ago my friend Jaroslav posted a blog entry about viewing the current FTP7 sessions using Javascript, and I followed that up with a blog post about viewing the current FTP7 sessions using C#.

This blog entry follows up on those postings by showing you how to view the current FTP7 sessions using VBScript. To do so, copy the following VBScript code to Windows Notepad and save the file as "ftp_sessions.vbs" on a computer running Windows Server 2008 with the new FTP7 server installed:

Option Explicit

Dim objAdminManager, objSiteCollection, objFtpSiteElement
Dim objSite, objFtpSession, objFtpSessions, objFtpProperty
Dim intSite, intFtpSession, intFtpProperty
Dim intSiteCount, intFtpSessionCount, intFtpPropertyCount

Set objAdminManager = WScript.CreateObject("Microsoft.ApplicationHost.AdminManager")

' get the collection of sites
Set objSiteCollection = objAdminManager.GetAdminSection( _
  "system.applicationHost/sites", "MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST" )

intSiteCount = CInt(objSiteCollection.Collection.Count)

WScript.Echo String(40,"*")
WScript.Echo "Site count: " & intSiteCount
WScript.Echo String(40,"*")

' loop through the sites collection
For intSite = 0 To intSiteCount-1

  ' get a site
  Set objSite = objSiteCollection.Collection.Item(intSite)
  
  ' get the FTP section
  Set objFtpSiteElement = objSite.ChildElements.Item("ftpServer")
  
  ' get the sessions collection
  Set objFtpSessions = objFtpSiteElement.ChildElements.Item("sessions")
  intFtpSessionCount = CInt(objFtpSessions.Collection.Count)

  WScript.Echo String(40,"=")
  WScript.Echo "FTP sessions for " & _
    objSite.Properties.Item("name").Value & _
    ": " & intFtpSessionCount
  WScript.Echo String(40,"=")

  ' loop through the sessions
  For intFtpSession = 0 To intFtpSessionCount - 1
    Set objFtpSession = objFtpSessions.Collection.Item(intFtpSession)
    intFtpPropertyCount = CInt(objFtpSession.Properties.Count)
    ' loop through each session's properties
    For intFtpProperty = 0 To intFtpPropertyCount - 1
      Set objFtpProperty = objFtpSession.Properties.Item(intFtpProperty)
      WScript.Echo CStr(objFtpProperty.Name) & ": " & CStr(objFtpProperty.Value)
    Next
    WScript.Echo String(40,"-")
  Next
Next

To make sure that you don't see any message box pop-ups, run the script from the command-line using the following syntax:

cscript.exe ftp_sessions.vbs

That's about it for this post - have fun!

Scripting MIDI Events in Sibelius

11 May 2007 • by Bob • Scripting, MIDI

OK - I have to admit, when you realize that you are making software choices based on scripting language support you start to get the feeling that there are times when you just have to accept the fact that you are a geek.

Here's a case in point: I write music as a hobby, and when shopping for a program to write sheet music with, I chose Sibelius because I discovered that they have a really cool scripting language called "ManuScript". OK - so the name is kind of silly, but it's pretty cool to write code with.

The way it works is that you create what Sibelius calls a "plug-in", and you assign it to a category that will be used as the menu under which your plug-in will be displayed. Once you've done all that, you can start writing code.

For example, I needed to add sustain pedal MIDI events to an entire piano score, and doing so manually would have been a tedious exercise. So I made my life easier and created a quick plug-in that adds the MIDI events to apply the sustain pedal at full level to the beginning of every measure, and then adds the MIDI events to lift the sustain pedal at the end of every measure:

// Verify that a score is open.
if (Sibelius.ScoreCount=0)
{
   Sibelius.MessageBox("Please open a score.");
   return false;
}

// Retrieve a score object for the active score.
score = Sibelius.ActiveScore;
// Retrieve an object for the current selection.
selection = score.Selection;

if (selection.IsPassage)
{
   // Loop through the highlighted measures.
   for each Bar b in selection
   {
      // Add MIDI sustain pedal events.
      b.AddText(1,"~C64,127",TechniqueTextStyle);
      b.AddText(b.Length,"~C64,0",TechniqueTextStyle);
   }

   // Return a status message.
   Sibelius.MessageBox("Finished.");
}

I should point out, however, that this is meant to be a brief example of what you can do. Running this same plug-in on the same selection will re-add the sustain pedal events to your score; I didn't add any advanced logic to check for the existence of any prior sustain pedal events. If anyone wants to take on that challenge, have fun and don't forget to share your results!

Using WSH to create an off-line backup of a FrontPage-enabled Web Site

02 January 2007 • by Bob • FrontPage, Scripting

As the old adage says, "Necessity is the mother of invention." With that in mind, I had a friend drop by my office the other day and ask me a question that started me on another quest for code.

What he asked me was whether there was a way where he could create an off-line backup of his web site. Of course, there are whole sections of the industry these days that are devoted to such things, but he wanted a simple way to create a backup on his home or work computer of his web site that is hosted at an ISP. Some time ago I wrote a FrontPage VBA macro for another friend that could be used to automate publishing, but only from within the FrontPage application itself. Since the FrontPage application exists as a COM object, I theorized that I could rewrite the code from the macro into a Windows Script Host (WSH) application that should do the trick. The code that you see below is the results of my little 'experiment'.

Usage Notes:

• To use this script, you need to have a copy of FrontPage installed on the computer where you run the script.
• In the script code you will need to update the source web site's URL and destination folder, as well as the user name and password to use when opening the source web site.
• The WSH script will create a folder under "c:\backups" that will contain a folder named for your web site, and then it will create folders underneath the web site folder that are a concatenation of the current date and time. (This allows automating or manually re-running the script several times.)

Once you have taken the above items into account, copy & paste the script code into Notepad and save it to your computer with a "*.vbs" file extension. To execute the code, just double-click the script. The script will pop-up a message box when it has finished publishing a copy of the web site to your computer.

Option Explicit

' --------------------------------------------------
'
' Declare our constants.
'
' --------------------------------------------------

Const fpPublishAddToExistingWeb = 2
Const fpPublishCopySubwebs = 4
Const fpPublishLogInTempDir = 8
Const fpPublishCopyAllFiles = 64

' --------------------------------------------------
'
' This section defines the publishing variables.
'
' --------------------------------------------------

Dim strSourceUrl, strDestinationFolder
Dim strUsername, strPassword
Dim strBackupDate, strBackupTime

strBackupDate = Cstr(Year(Date())) & _
    Right("00" & Cstr(Month(Date())),2) & _
    Right("00" & Cstr(Day(Date())),2)
strBackupTime = Right("00" & Cstr(Hour(Time())),2) & _
    Right("00" & Cstr(Minute(Time())),2) & _
    Right("00" & Cstr(Second(Time())),2)

strSourceUrl = "https://www.example.com/"
strDestinationFolder = "c:\Backups\www.example.com\" & _
    strBackupDate & "_" & strBackupTime

strUsername = "server\administrator"
strPassword = "Password1"

' --------------------------------------------------
'
' This section checks to see if FrontPage is
' installed, and exits if it is not installed.
'
' --------------------------------------------------

' wait 10 seconds to "debounce" the server
WScript.Sleep 10000

' get a FrontPage Application object
Dim objFP: Set objFP = WScript.CreateObject("FrontPage.Application")

' exit if the object does not exist
If Err.Number = -2147352567 Then WScript.Quit

' --------------------------------------------------
'
' This section publishes the webs.
'
' --------------------------------------------------

' sanitize the publishing path
strDestinationFolder = CleanPath(strDestinationFolder)

' only continue the path can actually be created
If MakePath(strDestinationFolder) = True Then

    ' open the root web on the source
    objFP.Webs.Open strSourceUrl, strUsername, strPassword

    ' publish the root web to the destination
    objFP.ActiveWeb.Publish strDestinationFolder, _
        fpPublishAddToExistingWeb + fpPublishCopySubwebs + fpPublishCopyAllFiles + fpPublishLogInTempDir

    ' close the root web
    objFP.ActiveWeb.Close

End If

' --------------------------------------------------
'
' This section cleans up and exits.
'
' --------------------------------------------------

Set objFP = Nothing
WScript.Quit

' ----------------------------------------
'
' This function builds a path
'
' PASS: File path to construct
' RETURN: TRUE/FALSE for success/failure
'
' ----------------------------------------

Function MakePath(tmpText)
    On Error Resume Next
    Dim tx,ty,tz
    Dim tmpFSO
    Dim blnTempStatus
    Set tmpFSO = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    blnTempStatus = True
    ty = Split(tmpText,"\")
    For tx = 0 To UBound(ty)
        tz = tz & ty(tx) & "\"
        If tmpFSO.FolderExists(tz) = False Then
            tmpFSO.CreateFolder(tz)
            If Err.Number <> 0 Then blnTempStatus = False
        End If
    Next
    MakePath = blnTempStatus
End Function

' ----------------------------------------
'
' This function sanitizes a path for valid characters
'
' PASS: File path to construct
' RETURN: New path
'
' ----------------------------------------

Function CleanPath(tmpText)
    On Error Resume Next
    Const tmpValid = "\.-1234567890ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
    Dim tx,ty,tz
    For tx = 1 To Len(tmpText)
        ty = Mid(tmpText,tx,1)
        If (InStr(tmpValid,ty)>0) Or (tx=2 and ty=":") Then
            tz = tz & ty
        Else
            tz = tz & "_"
        End If
    Next
    CleanPath = tz
End Function

Happy coding!

Note: This blog was originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/robert_mcmurray/

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