start batch job from IIS

Question

What is the right approach when users (authenticated domain admins) should be able to start batch jobs (usually exe files) from an IIS (7.x) aspx (c#) page? This is an intranet site. The batch jobs have to run on the web server as Domain Admins. The website pool is executed by network service or some similar restricted account in AD.

Approaches I can think of (and their disadvantages): 1. Start exe file with System.Diagnostics.Process.Start with another account. This feature is disabled in IIS 7.x, how do I allow it? 2. Create a sheduled task and call scheduled task-api. This unmanaged dll is giving VS compiler warnings because it's unsafe to call from managed code. 3. I suppose there's a better approach, because the previous suggestions doesn't appear safe or robust.

Answer 1

I would suggest that you have either a Scheduled Task or Windows Service that polls a common storage repository to see if a batch job should be run - as batch jobs are typically used for long running process.

Your could persist the deatils of which batch file and arguments you want to run from your ASP.NET website into a database (MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, etc) and then have your Windows Service / Scheduled Task poll against this database at regular intervals.