C# service as a daemon in debian with mono-service

Question

I can't seem to find a way to get a C# service run as a "service" in debian. What Am I doing wrong?

I followed this post from msdn to create a sample windows service : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zt39148a(v=vs.80).aspx

I can run the service at my windows machine, Start and stop the service and see that it writes to MyNewLog.

Then I copy it (.exe file) to my debian machine and tries to run it with (as root) mono-service MyNewService.exe

The Syslog tell's me that the service have started!

I have no errors and I can't see any newly created logfiles in the system. What Am I doing wrong?

If it helps, here is the code: Program.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.ServiceProcess;
using System.Text;

namespace MyNewService
{
static class Program
{
    /// <summary>
    /// The main entry point for the application.
    /// </summary>
    static void Main()
    {
        System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun;
        ServicesToRun = new System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase[]
        { 
            new MyNewService() 
        };
        System.ServiceProcess.ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);
    }
}
}

Service.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.ServiceProcess;
using System.Text;

namespace MyNewService
{
public partial class MyNewService : ServiceBase
{
    public MyNewService()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        if (!System.Diagnostics.EventLog.SourceExists("MySource"))
        {
            System.Diagnostics.EventLog.CreateEventSource(
                "MySource", "MyNewLog");
        }
        myEventLog.Source = "MySource";
        myEventLog.Log = "MyNewLog";
    }

    protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
    {
        myEventLog.WriteEntry("Service Started: OnStart");
    }

    protected override void OnStop()
    {
        myEventLog.WriteEntry("Service Halted: OnStop.");
    }
}
}

/Cheers

Answer 1

Try logging somewhere else than with System.Diagnostics.EventLog, perhaps to a text file or similar.

I can't find anything recent, but this post suggests that the EventLog is simply discarded when running on Linux; which would make sense.

EDIT:

Investigating the Mono source seems to bear this out. There are three possible options for event logging: win32, local and null. If the MONO_EVENTLOG_TYPE environment variable is set to local, then on Linux the logs should be written to /var/lib/mono/eventlog by default.

You really need to isolate your logging code from your expectations - it seems that your service works fine, but the logging is the problem.

Answer 2

set environment MONO_EVENTLOG_TYPE https://man.cx/mono(1)

/lib/systemd/system/order-log-writer.service

[Service]
Environment=MONO_EVENTLOG_TYPE=local:/var/lib/mono/eventlog
User=root
Group=root
Type=forking
PIDFile=/run/order-log-writer.pid
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mono-service -l:/run/order-log-writer.pid /usr/bin/rmq-bot/order-log-writer.exe
ExecStop=/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID

C#

try
{    }
catch (Exception e)
{
    EventLog.WriteEntry(this.GetType().FullName, " error[.] " + e.Message);
}

Linux

user@host:/var/lib/mono/eventlog/Application$ ls
1.log  2.log  3.log  Application  EDAClasses.OrderLogWriterClass
user@host:/var/lib/mono/eventlog/Application$ cat 1.log
InstanceID: 0
EntryType: 4
Source: EDAClasses.OrderLogWriterClass
Category: 0
TimeGenerated: 20170926140803456
ReplacementStrings: 1
 error[.] Error converting value 1 to type 'OrderLog'. Path '', line 1, position 1.