C# Service Watcher

We had an issue where certain Windows Services would intermittently crash and stop (root cause pending). However, we created a custom Windows Service in C# to watch these services and start them if they stopped or were not started. There is also a config file that this custom service is configured off of: the interval of how often it should monitor the problematic Windows Services, the location of where the logs should be, and what services to monitor.

Solution:

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 System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using System.IO;
using System.Timers;

namespace ServiceWatcher
{
public partial class ServiceWatcher : ServiceBase
{
private Timer timer;
private string pathToConfigFile = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None).FilePath; //path to app.Config

public ServiceWatcher()
{
InitializeComponent();
}

protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
this.WriteToFile(“Service Watcher started {0}”);
XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(pathToConfigFile);
int intervalNode = doc.Elements().Select(x => int.Parse(x.Element(“interval”).Value)).Sum();
this.StartServices();
this.timer = new System.Timers.Timer(intervalNode); // 5000D milliseconds = 5 seconds
this.timer.AutoReset = true;
this.timer.Elapsed += new System.Timers.ElapsedEventHandler(this.timer_Elapsed);
this.timer.Start();
}

private void timer_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
this.StartServices();
}

protected override void OnStop()
{
this.timer.Stop();
this.timer = null;
}

private void WriteToFile(string text)
{
XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(pathToConfigFile);
var logFilePath = doc.Descendants().Where(n => n.Name == “logFilePath”).FirstOrDefault();

using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(logFilePath.Value, true))
{
writer.WriteLine(string.Format(text, DateTime.Now.ToString(“MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss tt”)));
writer.Close();
}
}

private void StartServices()
{
XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(pathToConfigFile);
//Console.WriteLine(“Path: ” + pathToConfigFile); // \bin\Debug\ServiceWatcher.exe.Config
var servicesInConfigFile = doc.Descendants(“service”).Select(s => s.Value);

foreach (ServiceController sc in ServiceController.GetServices())
{
foreach (var serviceInConfigFile in servicesInConfigFile)
{
if (sc.ServiceName == serviceInConfigFile)
{
try
{
if (sc.Status != ServiceControllerStatus.Running || sc.Status != ServiceControllerStatus.StartPending)
{
sc.Start();
this.WriteToFile(“Service restarted: ” + serviceInConfigFile + ” at {0}”);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//WriteToFile(“Service Watcher Error on: {0} ” + ex.Message + ex.StackTrace);
}
}
}
}
}
}
}