Getting a Service to Run Inside of an Azure Worker Role

Question

I have a windows service that I need to migrate to onto Azure as a Worker Role. Everything builds fine in my Azure solution. However, when I upload everything only the web role starts. The worker role instance gets stuck cycling between the following two statuses without ever starting.

• Waiting for the role to start...
• Stabilizing role...

Since the instance is failing to start I suspect my problem lies somewhere in my WorkerRole.cs code. Below you'll find that code. I've also included the code for the service in case it's relevant to the question. What did I do wrong?

This is my WorkerRole.cs file:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Threading;
using Microsoft.WindowsAzure;
using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Diagnostics;
using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime;
using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.StorageClient;
using System.ServiceProcess;

namespace SBMWorker
{
public class WorkerRole : RoleEntryPoint
{

    public override void Run()
    {
        ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun;
        ServicesToRun = new ServiceBase[] 
        { 
            new Service1() 
        };
        ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);

        //Thread.Sleep(Timeout.Infinite);
    }

}
}

This is my Service1.cs code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.ServiceProcess;
using System.Text;
using Lesnikowski.Mail;

namespace SBMWorker

{
public partial class Service1 : ServiceBase
{
    private System.Timers.Timer mainTimer;

    public Service1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
    {
        try
        {
            // config the timer interval
            mainTimer = new System.Timers.Timer(foo.Framework.Configuration.SecondsToWaitBeforeCheckingForEmailsToProcess * 1000);
            // handling
            mainTimer.Elapsed += new System.Timers.ElapsedEventHandler(mainTimer_Elapsed);
            // startup the timer.  
            mainTimer.Start();
            // log that we started
            foo.Framework.Log.Add(foo.Framework.Log.Types.info, "SERVICE STARTED");
       }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            try
            {
                foo.Framework.Log.Add(ex, true);
            }
            catch{throw;}

            // make sure the throw this so the service show as stopped ... we dont want this service just hanging here like
            // its running, but really just doing nothing at all
            throw;
        }
    }

    protected override void OnStop()
    {
        if (mainTimer != null)
        {
            mainTimer.Stop();
            mainTimer = null;
        }
        // log that we stopped
        foo.Framework.Log.Add(foo.Framework.Log.Types.info, "SERVICE STOPPED"); 
    }

    void mainTimer_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {
        mainTimer.Stop();

        bool runCode = true;

        if (runCode)
        {
            try
            {
                // call processing
                foo.Framework.EmailPackageUpdating.ProcessEmails();
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                try
                {
                    // handle error 
                    foo.Framework.Log.Add(ex, false);
                }
                catch { throw; }
            }
        }

        mainTimer.Start();
    }
}
}

Answer 1

I think the root of your problem is that you basically can't install a service programmatically in Azure roles. You need to use a .cmd startup script and the InstallUtil to properly install the service then you can start it from the script or from your code (think from the script is often preferred for order-of-execution reasons).

Here's a blog post on how to do it: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/golive/archive/2011/02/11/installing-a-windows-service-in-a-worker-role.aspx

Here's another blog post that takes a little different approach (creating a .Net app that executes the installation, but again as part of the startup script): http://www.bondigeek.com/blog/2011/03/25/runninginstalling-a-windows-service-in-an-azure-web-role/

Hope that helps