How to Start/Stop a Windows Service from an ASP.NET app - Security issues

Question

Hey guys, here's the setup (bear in mind I'm really struggling with the Windows/.NET security stack i.e. I don't get it):

• A Windows Service running as LocalSystem on a Windows Server 2003 box.
• A .NET 3.5 Website running on the same box, under "default" production server IIS settings (so probably as NETWORKSERVICE user?)

On my default VS2008 DEV environment I have this one method, which gets called from the ASP.NET app, which works fine:

private static void StopStartReminderService() {

            ServiceController svcController = new ServiceController("eTimeSheetReminderService");

            if (svcController != null) {
                try {
                    svcController.Stop();
                    svcController.WaitForStatus(ServiceControllerStatus.Stopped, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10));
                    svcController.Start();
                } catch (Exception ex) {
                    General.ErrorHandling.LogError(ex);
                }
            }
        }

When I run this on the production server, I get the following error from the ServiceController:

Source: System.ServiceProcess -> System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController -> IntPtr GetServiceHandle(Int32) -> System.InvalidOperationException Message: Cannot open eTimeSheetReminderService service on computer '.'.

So my question is, why is this happening, and how do I fix it?

EDIT:

The answer is below, mostly in comments, but to clarify:

1. The issue was Security related, and occurred because the NETWORKSERVICE account did not have sufficient rights to Start/Stop a service
2. I created a Local User Account, and added it to the PowerUsers Group (this group has almost admin rights)
3. I don't want my whole Web App to impersonate that user all the time, so I impersonate only in the method where I manipulate the service. I do this by using the following resources to help me do it in code:

MS KB article and this, just to get a better understanding

NOTE: I don't impersonate via the web.config, I do it in code. See the MS KB Article above.

Answer 1

Just a hunch, but it does not appear to me the error is necessarily related to security. Did you give the service the same name on the production server?

Answer 2

Try adding this to your Web.Config.

<identity impersonate="true"/>