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DanHil
#1 Posted : Tuesday, September 22, 2015 1:52:03 PM(UTC)
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Hi Remco,

long time no talk, I hope you are doing fine! :-)

I have joined henning in maintaining the NCrunch packages on Chocolatey and have converted them to automatic packages.
This means that my server is checking your server once a day to see if there is a new version. If so, it automatically creates a new package version and pushes it to Chocolatey.

Currently, we have automatic packages for NCrunch for VS 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2015 as well as for the Grid Node Server.

Regarding the License Server I wanted to ask you if you are planning on providing an installer anytime soon. If yes, I will wait with creating a package for the it. If not, I will try to create a package that performs the steps listed in the documentation, basically building the installer for you :p

Additionally, I wanted to ask you what the best way would be to allow the packages to automatically apply a license and initial settings. Does the installer support this? Or is there a file or registry key I can set?

Finally, here are the links to these packages:

https://chocolatey.org/packages/ncrunch-vs2008
https://chocolatey.org/packages/ncrunch-vs2010
https://chocolatey.org/packages/ncrunch-vs2012
https://chocolatey.org/packages/ncrunch-vs2013
https://chocolatey.org/packages/ncrunch-vs2015
https://chocolatey.org/p.../ncrunch-gridnodeserver

They are currently in moderation. I am working on getting them approved as trusted packages so new versions are being approved automatically.
Your official consent to these packages might help in speeding up this process a little bit :-)
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Remco
#2 Posted : Tuesday, September 22, 2015 9:06:53 PM(UTC)
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Hi Daniel,

Great to hear from you! I hope you've been keeping well :)

Thanks so much for your help in maintaining these installers. I'd be happy to offer my official consent - do let me know how to go about doing that!

At the moment there are no plans to introduce an installer for the license server. I weighed this up very carefully and eventually concluded that there was just too much customisation and too many variables involved in the server for me to easily implement an automated installer. All .NET developers these days have a working understanding of IIS, so I assumed that people would have no trouble setting it up themselves. So far this has proven to be true.

The upcoming v2.17 release will introduce a feature to make it easier for people to specify a default address for a license server the first time the product is used. This will simply involve placing a text file inside the product's installation directory. The idea behind this to make things easier for organisations using a license server and wanting to simplify their rollouts. I don't see any reason why you couldn't make use of this. I'll disclose more details on how this feature works in the release notes for 2.17.
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DanHil
#3 Posted : Tuesday, September 22, 2015 9:13:02 PM(UTC)
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I am doing quite fine, thanks :)

Just stating that you are officially approving those packages is what I need. And you already did that.

OK, so there is a text file for the license server. I can obviously use that. However. is there also a way to register a version during installation, without the involvement of a license server?

Also, could you please point out two or three of the involved variables that you feel are problematic when setting up the license server?
The point of a Chocolatey package is that you install something and afterwards it works. Providing a Chocolatey package that just extracts the ZIP file to some place is not in line with this philosophy.
So either there will be no Chocolatey package for the license server or I can find a way to create a package that performs an actual installation in IIS - maybe just for common scenarios in the first iteration.
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Remco
#4 Posted : Tuesday, September 22, 2015 10:24:53 PM(UTC)
Rank: NCrunch Developer

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DanHil;7756 wrote:

OK, so there is a text file for the license server. I can obviously use that. However. is there also a way to register a version during installation, without the involvement of a license server?


I'm not entirely certain what you mean by this question - if you're asking whether it's possible to automatically apply a license key to the NCrunch client during installation without the use of a license server, I'm sorry to say that this isn't possible.

DanHil;7756 wrote:

Also, could you please point out two or three of the involved variables that you feel are problematic when setting up the license server?
The point of a Chocolatey package is that you install something and afterwards it works. Providing a Chocolatey package that just extracts the ZIP file to some place is not in line with this philosophy.
So either there will be no Chocolatey package for the license server or I can find a way to create a package that performs an actual installation in IIS - maybe just for common scenarios in the first iteration.


A few off the top of my head:
- The user would likely need to specify a suitable hostname that would resolve to the license server (I doubt many systems will work using an IP address). IIS usually needs to be configured for this
- The user may wish to use SSL for the license server. This would involve installing a certificate into IIS, etc.
- The user may be using any version of IIS. The license server could theoretically even be used with IIS6. With new versions of IIS likely in future, any streamlined install method would need to be tested for all versions and maintained for the new ones
- The user may need extra security configuration, such as blacklist/whitelist permissions, firewall settings, etc. Since it's a server, it's usually wise to assume that there are layers of security already in place

There's probably more, but the reasons above were enough to convince me that it would be better to leave all power with the user in setting up and configuring the server. The license server itself is a very simple web application, but the infrastructure it runs on could be almost infinitely complex.
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DanHil
#5 Posted : Tuesday, September 22, 2015 10:30:34 PM(UTC)
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Remco;7757 wrote:

A few off the top of my head:
- The user would likely need to specify a suitable hostname that would resolve to the license server (I doubt many systems will work using an IP address). IIS usually needs to be configured for this
- The user may wish to use SSL for the license server. This would involve installing a certificate into IIS, etc.
- The user may be using any version of IIS. The license server could theoretically even be used with IIS6. With new versions of IIS likely in future, any streamlined install method would need to be tested for all versions and maintained for the new ones
- The user may need extra security configuration, such as blacklist/whitelist permissions, firewall settings, etc. Since it's a server, it's usually wise to assume that there are layers of security already in place

There's probably more, but the reasons above were enough to convince me that it would be better to leave all power with the user in setting up and configuring the server. The license server itself is a very simple web application, but the infrastructure it runs on could be almost infinitely complex.


I see. I would propose a package that is mainly for individual developers or small teams, i.e. it will make use of some simplifications:
1. It will not use SSL
2. It will not use a hostname
3. it will work only with "current" IIS (8?)
4. No security permissions in addition to those that are already in place

The package description will explicitly state these simplifications and will reference the official documentation for folks for which these simplifications are not applicable.

What do you think?
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Remco
#6 Posted : Wednesday, September 23, 2015 12:33:37 AM(UTC)
Rank: NCrunch Developer

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Joined: 4/16/2011(UTC)
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DanHil;7758 wrote:

I see. I would propose a package that is mainly for individual developers or small teams, i.e. it will make use of some simplifications:
1. It will not use SSL
2. It will not use a hostname
3. it will work only with "current" IIS (8?)
4. No security permissions in addition to those that are already in place

The package description will explicitly state these simplifications and will reference the official documentation for folks for which these simplifications are not applicable.

What do you think?


Seems fine to me :)
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