CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rubylinuxwindowscross-platform
Vips
Vips

Reputation: 61

How to execute console applications on windows operating system from ruby installed on linux?

I am trying to run console application (say win_a.exe; which is having few command line parameters) from ruby script(say lin_r.rb) on linux. win_a.exe is interacting with windows services on windows server 2008. I want to run win_a.exe at particular point via lin_r.rb (reason is that, at this time; I am having few parameters those need to be passed to win_a.exe and get some result)

Goal

I searched online but I did not get any useful links. One solution in my mind is:

  1. create the NFS share on windows and map that to linux.

  2. Linux: write parameter/command in a new file(should be created on NFS share) from lin_r.rb

  3. Window: watchdog program(need to write this) looking for a new file. If found execute win_a.exe with parameters and write result to new out file.

  4. Linux: Yey! Got result

Is this good approach? What do you think?

Thanks, Vipul

Upvotes: 0

Views: 173

Answers (1)

user1102568
user1102568

Reputation: 26

Your approach could be made to work, however If I were implementing this, I would use HTTP instead of NFS. Likely both computers involved already are capable of making and receiving HTTP requests, so the setup should be less than NFS.

The basic approach would be to have the linux based script make an HTTP request to the windows machine, with the parameters to the .exe specified as query parameters (if you use a GET request). On the windows side, your "watchdog" program would be a small web service that would respond to the request from the linux machine, execute the program with the specified options, and return the result.

The web service on the windows machine can use whatever technology you prefer. I would likely use Sinatra+Thin, but the choice is up to you.

Whichever approach you take, NFS based, HTTP based, or something else, you should make sure you give thought to security. That means that you should not blindly pass the arguments you receive from lin_r.rb to the win_a.exe program. You should only accept specific arguments, and you should make some effort to verify that the person making the request (or writing the file if you use NFS) is someone who you have authorized to have access.

Upvotes: 1

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