What can services do?

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Hello, Everybody.

I'm writing a service which runs javascript file with cscript.

I have two apps - client.exe and service.exe. Client sends the service a request to run cscript.exe with parameters.

The javascript file is for installing software - wpkg.js
I tried to create service to run as each type of LocalService, LocalSystem and NetworkService.

Would anyone help me understand LocalSystem's privilleges and what it can do exactly?
I'm concerned about if LocalSystem service can read all of registry keys.

Thanks,
Paul.

Posted 18-Mar-13 1:57am

Paul Zheng

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Matthew Faithfull · Answer 1 · 2013-03-18T02:11:00

Solution 1

From what Microsoft say[^] it looks like LocalSystem will have all the privilleges and access you will ever need.
However if you can run successfully as LocalService[^] then that may be considered a lower security risk and you may not need to audit every line of your code depending on your customer requirements.

Posted 18-Mar-13 2:11am

Matthew Faithfull

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Paul Zheng 18-Mar-13 8:28am

Hi Matthew, I appreciate your first reply.

But when I tried to read registry key from service, it failed, while reading registry key from ordinary application succeeds. Have you got any idea what could be the cause of this problem?

Thanks,
Paul.

Matthew Faithfull 18-Mar-13 8:39am

From the look of things this is going to be a specific issue with a particular Registry Key right not just a total failure to read any Registry Key?
If so then you'll need to examine the error you get back from the access attempt that fails, and you might want to try and retrieve and examine the ACL applicable to the key from the application that can access it. This should at least allow you to work out any privillege you need and don't have.
If you then add the details you've found to your question it will help others to help you.

Paul Zheng 20-Mar-13 8:51am

Thanks for your recommendation. Here is another question.

If I get environment variable from the service I'm running as LocalSystem account, which varible will be fetched, User Variable or System Variable?

Matthew Faithfull 20-Mar-13 9:05am

That's a good question and one I don't know the answer to. It should be straight forward enough to find out by experiment. I would expect you'll get the System Variable as LocalSystem isn't a real account but I wouldn't gaurantee it.