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External Task Run As User

DavidMusser

Is it possible to have an external task run as a specific user in a workflow? I am setting the metadata on the files in an external task, and it now shows that the file was last modified by system.

-D

David R Musser
Eye Street Software
540-542-5257
dmusser@eyestreet.com
Win2k, TS 6.5 SP1, OD 6.01

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iwovGraduate

If you can figure it out I'll buy you a drink Smiley Happy

You are on Windows right ?

Theres runas command on windows - but that won't work without supplying credentials.

DavidMusser

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Ok I've got that out of the way... so let me see if I have this right... if I want to use metadata to store who the last person to approve a file is, there's really no way to do it that won't change who the person that modified the file is... oh man... bummer... bummer... Yes it's on windows 2000... anyone else have any ideas..

I tried the ideas on the other thread to set the metadata, but I could not get the values I needed, so i had to go the external script part.. bummer...

David R Musser
Eye Street Software
540-542-5257
dmusser@eyestreet.com
Win2k, TS 6.5 SP1, OD 6.01

iwovGraduate

This post by Greg implies that you can change ownership of a file in Windows using secedit. I haven't tried it (yet).

Edited by iwovGraduate on 04/06/05 01:24 PM (server time).

DavidMusser

Cool I will check it out. I did not see in the RTM Smiley Happy

On UNIX, the program will be run as the owner of the external task. On Windows, it runs
as the user SYSTEM.

Bummer... I'll try the scedit that you mentioned.

David R Musser
Eye Street Software
540-542-5257
dmusser@eyestreet.com
Win2k, TS 6.5 SP1, OD 6.01

iwovGraduate

On second thought..

Is modified by a filesystem attribute or something specific to TS file attributes ? Its definately not one of the extended attributes.

I don't see modified by as a windows file system attribute. So its probably a TS specific attribute stored in the backing store.

DavidMusser

I am looking as well, and I don't think it's a Windows attribute either. The closest I see is Owner, and that stays as the user who modified the file, and not as the SYSTEM account... so I may look to see if I can change it that way.

David R Musser
Eye Street Software
540-542-5257
dmusser@eyestreet.com
Win2k, TS 6.5 SP1, OD 6.01

Adam Stoller

Are you talking about iwattrib /vpath/to/file lastuer ?

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

iwovGraduate

iwattrib /vpath/to/file lastuser gets the modified by user.
Is there any CLT / API / hack that allows to change/set this attribute ? (for TS on Windows)

Just to summarize why we are looking for a way to to do this -
Problem statement
TS on Windows.
Files modified by a workflow externaltask script shows Modified By attribute as "SYSTEM".
e.g. externaltask is used to generate a page.

Explanation
The reason why this happens is because external tasks run as user SYSTEM on windows. There is no supported (or unsupported) way to change this as far as I know.

Possible solution or workarounds
If it is possible to change the lastuser (which shows as Modified By in the UI) attribute, we can make the externaltask change this to the owner of the task. (and ofcourse we set the owner of externaltask accordingly). Another way would be to use a job/task variable to get the user who should show up as modified by.

DavidMusser

Samir,

That sums it up nicely. What I may have to do is to set the comments on the file instead of the metadata. It will be a work around, and my client would rather have had it as metadata, but alas no luck... Some days I just hate windows...

David R Musser
Eye Street Software
540-542-5257
dmusser@eyestreet.com
Win2k, TS 6.5 SP1, OD 6.01

DavidMusser

I have opened a support case on this. I have sent them some sample code to demomstrate what happens etc. I ended up in my system switching to set the last approver of the file in a comment. We wanted it as metadata, but we can do that later if Iwov fixes this issue.

David R Musser
Eye Street Software
540-542-5257
dmusser@eyestreet.com
Win2k, TS 6.5 SP1, OD 6.01