Running a Windows NT Task that Requires an Active Connection to NDS

Articles and Tips: tip

Dave Lupo
Albion College
dlupo@albion.edu

01 Feb 2002

I've recently had to run a vbs script on one of my servers nightly. This normally wouldn't be a problem, but since I don't like to leave myself logged in to the console on a Windows 2000 workstation when I'm not in front of it, I found that any time the script wanted to touch data on a Novell volume, it wouldn't be connected to the tree and it would then "bomb out."

So I wrote a little utility that would check to see if there was a valid connection to the tree. If there was not, the utility would make a connection, then it would run a task that you specify in a "todo.cmd" file. Once that was completed, the utility would clear the connection and exit.

I could then have the task scheduler run this application and have it access the NetWare volumes without being logged in. I found this to be kind of nice, so I thought I would share the code for anyone in a similar tight spot. (If you use or borrow any piece of the code though, I wouldn't mind hearing from you--use the e-mail address above.)

'autoLogin by Dave Lupo
'12-13-01
'dlupo@albion.edu
Option Explicit

Public varDone As Variant
Public varTmp As Variant

Private Sub Form_Load()
'inits the form caption and the task completion status
frmMain.Caption = "Waiting to connect"
varDone = "no"
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)
varTmp =NWSess1.Logout("NDS:\\Tree\OrgName\OUName\OUsers\UserName")
'put your info here or use an ini file if you like to set this stuff
End Sub

Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
'Timer should be set to 10,000 milliseconds
Dim II As Integer
Dim blnOn As Boolean
Dim msg As Variant

On Error GoTo errH:

Timer1.Enabled = False
errH:
blnOn = False
For II = 0 To NWSess1.ConnectedTrees.Count - 1
    If NWSess1.ConnectedTrees.Item(II).FullName = "NDS:\\Tree" Then blnOn =
True
Next II

If blnOn = False Then
    frmMain.Caption = "Attempting to connect"
     NWSess1.RunScripts = True
    varTmp = NWSess1.Login("NDS:\\Tree", ".UserName.OUsers.OUName.OrgName",
            "password", False)
    If Not varTmp Then 'failed
        DoEvents
        GoTo errH:
        frmMain.Caption = "Not connected"
    Else 'connected
        frmMain.Caption = "Connected"
    End If
Else
    msg = ""
    For II = 0 To NWSess1.ConnectedTrees.Count - 1
        msg = msg & " " & NWSess1.ConnectedTrees.Item(II).ShortName
    Next II
    msg = Trim(msg)
    frmMain.Caption = "Connected to " & msg
     If varDone = "no" Then 'this section just tells us whether the task has
        been Timer2.Enabled = True 'run or not so we can either run it or disconnect
    Else
        varTmp =     NWSess1.Logout("("NDS:\\Tree\OrgName\OUName\OUsers\UserName")
        End
    End If
End If
Timer1.Enabled = True
End Sub

Public Function todo() As Variant
'Requires a todo.cmd file in the same directory as the application
'cmd files work a lot like batch files and can be made inside of notepad
Dim filefinder As String
filefinder = ""
filefinder = Dir(App.Path & "\todo.cmd")
If Len(Trim(filefinder)) > 1 Then
    todo = Shell(App.Path & "\todo.cmd")
End If
End Function

Private Sub Timer2_Timer()
'Timer should be set to 15,000 milliseconds
'I found having the second timer improves the pace at which the app runs
Timer2.Enabled = False
varDone = todo
End Sub

* Originally published in Novell AppNotes

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