NSSM: The Non-Sucking Service Manager\r
-Version 2.0, 2006-09-09\r
+Version 2.16, 2012-12-01\r
\r
NSSM is a service helper program similar to srvany and cygrunsrv. It can \r
start any application as an NT service and will restart the service if it \r
\r
NSSM also has a graphical service installer and remover.\r
\r
+Full documentation can be found online at\r
+\r
+ http://nssm.cc/\r
+\r
Since version 2.0, the GUI can be bypassed by entering all appropriate \r
options on the command line.\r
\r
+Since version 2.1, NSSM can be compiled for x64 platforms.\r
+Thanks Benjamin Mayrargue.\r
+\r
+Since version 2.2, NSSM can be configured to take different actions\r
+based on the exit code of the managed application.\r
+\r
+Since version 2.3, NSSM logs to the Windows event log more elegantly.\r
+\r
+Since version 2.5, NSSM respects environment variables in its parameters.\r
+\r
+Since version 2.8, NSSM tries harder to shut down the managed application\r
+gracefully and throttles restart attempts if the application doesn't run\r
+for a minimum amount of time.\r
+\r
+Since version 2.11, NSSM respects srvany's AppEnvironment parameter.\r
+\r
+Since version 2.13, NSSM is translated into French.\r
+Thanks François-Régis Tardy.\r
+\r
+Since version 2.15, NSSM is translated into Italian.\r
+Thanks Riccardo Gusmeroli.\r
+\r
+Since version 2.17, NSSM can try to shut down console applications by\r
+simulating a Control-C keypress. If they have installed a handler routine\r
+they can clean up and shut down gracefully on receipt of the event.\r
\r
Usage\r
-----\r
--------------------\r
NSSM will launch the application listed in the registry when you send it a \r
start signal and will terminate it when you send a stop signal. So far, so \r
-much like srvany. But NSSM is the Non-Sucking service manager and will take \r
+much like srvany. But NSSM is the Non-Sucking service manager and can take \r
action if/when the application dies.\r
\r
-NSSM will try to restart itself if it notices that the application died but \r
-you didn't send it a stop signal. NSSM will keep trying, pausing 30 seconds \r
-between each attempt, until the service is successfully started or you send \r
-it a stop signal.\r
+With no configuration from you, NSSM will try to restart itself if it notices\r
+that the application died but you didn't send it a stop signal. NSSM will\r
+keep trying, pausing between each attempt, until the service is successfully\r
+started or you send it a stop signal.\r
+\r
+NSSM will pause an increasingly longer time between subsequent restart attempts\r
+if the service fails to start in a timely manner, up to a maximum of four\r
+minutes. This is so it does not consume an excessive amount of CPU time trying\r
+to start a failed application over and over again. If you identify the cause\r
+of the failure and don't want to wait you can use the Windows service console\r
+(where the service will be shown in Paused state) to send a continue signal to\r
+NSSM and it will retry within a few seconds.\r
+\r
+By default, NSSM defines "a timely manner" to be within 1500 milliseconds.\r
+You can change the threshold for the service by setting the number of\r
+milliseconds as a REG_DWORD value in the registry at\r
+HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\<service>\Parameters\AppThrottle.\r
+\r
+NSSM will look in the registry under\r
+HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\<service>\Parameters\AppExit for\r
+string (REG_EXPAND_SZ) values corresponding to the exit code of the application.\r
+If the application exited with code 1, for instance, NSSM will look for a\r
+string value under AppExit called "1" or, if it does not find it, will\r
+fall back to the AppExit (Default) value. You can find out the exit code\r
+for the application by consulting the system event log. NSSM will log the\r
+exit code when the application exits.\r
+\r
+Based on the data found in the registry, NSSM will take one of three actions:\r
+\r
+If the value data is "Restart" NSSM will try to restart the application as\r
+described above. This is its default behaviour.\r
+\r
+If the value data is "Ignore" NSSM will not try to restart the application\r
+but will continue running itself. This emulates the (usually undesirable)\r
+behaviour of srvany. The Windows Services console would show the service\r
+as still running even though the application has exited.\r
+\r
+If the value data is "Exit" NSSM will exit gracefully. The Windows Services\r
+console would show the service as stopped. If you wish to provide\r
+finer-grained control over service recovery you should use this code and\r
+edit the failure action manually. Please note that Windows versions prior\r
+to Vista will not consider such an exit to be a failure. On older versions\r
+of Windows you should use "Suicide" instead.\r
+\r
+If the value data is "Suicide" NSSM will simulate a crash and exit without\r
+informing the service manager. This option should only be used for\r
+pre-Vista systems where you wish to apply a service recovery action. Note\r
+that if the monitored application exits with code 0, NSSM will only honour a\r
+request to suicide if you explicitly configure a registry key for exit code 0.\r
+If only the default action is set to Suicide NSSM will instead exit gracefully.\r
\r
\r
Removing services using the GUI\r
Try not to remove essential system services...\r
\r
\r
+Logging\r
+-------\r
+NSSM logs to the Windows event log. It registers itself as an event log source\r
+and uses unique event IDs for each type of message it logs. New versions may\r
+add event types but existing event IDs will never be changed.\r
+\r
+Because of the way NSSM registers itself you should be aware that you may not\r
+be able to replace the NSSM binary if you have the event viewer open and that\r
+running multiple instances of NSSM from different locations may be confusing if\r
+they are not all the same version.\r
+\r
+\r
Example usage\r
-------------\r
To install an Unreal Tournament server:\r
\r
Building NSSM from source\r
-------------------------\r
-NSSM is known to compile with Visual Studio 6 and Visual Studio 2005.\r
+NSSM is known to compile with Visual Studio 6, Visual Studio 2005 and Visual\r
+Studio 2008.\r
+\r
+NSSM will also compile with Visual Studio 2010 but the resulting executable\r
+will not run on versions of Windows older than XP SP2.\r
\r
\r
+Credits\r
+-------\r
+Thanks to Bernard Loh for finding a bug with service recovery.\r
+Thanks to Benjamin Mayrargue (www.softlion.com) for adding 64-bit support.\r
+Thanks to Joel Reingold for spotting a command line truncation bug.\r
+Thanks to Arve Knudsen for spotting that child processes of the monitored\r
+application could be left running on service shutdown, and that a missing\r
+registry value for AppDirectory confused NSSM.\r
+Thanks to Peter Wagemans and Laszlo Keresztfalvi for suggesting throttling restarts.\r
+Thanks to Eugene Lifshitz for finding an edge case in CreateProcess() and for\r
+advising how to build messages.mc correctly in paths containing spaces.\r
+Thanks to Rob Sharp for pointing out that NSSM did not respect the\r
+AppEnvironment registry value used by srvany.\r
+Thanks to Szymon Nowak for help with Windows 2000 compatibility.\r
+Thanks to François-Régis Tardy for French translation.\r
+Thanks to Emilio Frini for spotting that French was inadvertently set as\r
+the default language when the user's display language was not translated.\r
+Thanks to Riccardo Gusmeroli for Italian translation.\r
+Thanks to Eric Cheldelin for the inspiration to generate a Control-C event\r
+on shutdown.\r
+\r
Licence\r
-------\r
NSSM is public domain. You may unconditionally use it and/or its source code \r