Remote Debug security permissions for registry

[tlhintoq]

I pride myself on being able to Google just about anything but...

I have fought, tried, searched and fought some more on this one.

I am using VMware, and am able to debug from Visual Studio to the VMware virtual machine...

Right up until the application being debugged tries to write to the registry. Then it fails due to lack of security permissions.

It writes to the Host PC registry just fine. This is only happening when remote debugging to the VMware guest.

I just can't seem to find how/where I grant permission for remote debugging to write to the registry.

Firewalls on both host PC and VM guest are OFF.
I can use RegEdit on the host PC to do Remote Registry access (so I know Remote Registry Services are enabled) though only HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_USERS is visible and I'd like HKEY_CURRENT_USER. But for now I can test in H_L_M if I can make it work

Can anyone help me out?

Error is "SecurityException was unhandled"
Request for the permission of type 'System.Security.Permissions.RegistryPermission, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' failed.

[tlhintoq]

Well... 15 hours into the day (about the 8 day in the last couple months I've tried to make this work)... I finally got it going.

The VMware guest PC needs to have the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK version on it. It can't just have the redistributable as you would on a real client machine.
From there you can run the 2.0 configuration tool.
Then assign new policies.
The closest help I could find on the net was for "normal" remote debugging (one PC to another), not VS on the host OS with VMware being the remote PC.
Under normal remoting you can specifiy the address of the machine to allow FULL TRUST to. I could find no way to do it in VMware.

But.. If you just grant permission to " * " it will work. I know people will scream about security, but since the only machine that can talk to it, is the host operating system... I'm taking it as safe until something better comes along.

For a more graphical idea of what had to be done:

[Plater]

I think the config tool ONLY comes with the SDK? I know the config tools differ greatly between 1.1 and 2.0 (One was usefull, one was garbage, cannot remember which).
I'm not sure how to apply it in your case, but have you looked at the clickonce security settings on the project properties? That's what I ended up going with to deal with securityexceptions

[tlhintoq]

Nope. Never played with the "ClickOnce" features. I thought that was only for web deployment of an application. Am I wrong about that?

[Plater]

Depends on your thinking. Microsoft's is that "everything is web" now.

For example: I maintain a program that a number of people use at my company.
Instead of having a distributable, I keep it on a network share (UNC path) on a central server. Using ClickOnce with the setting of "application is only available online", it creates .application files. I make a shortcut to those .application files on the users desktops. When they run the shortcut, it makes sure they have the newest version and then opens the program.
All I need to do is publish to that UNC path and the ClickOnce overhead handles everything else.

It also makes a .<version#>.application file for every version i publish, so I can keep older revs, "just in case"

[tlhintoq]

Thanks for the info. Everything my company does is sold/installed on a per PC basis. Everything locally installed and protected with hardware dongle. So if the site buys 5 sales stations, that's what they get.

The previous code monkey never considered such a true client/server architecture with the server handling our own licensing scheme. But that is what I would like to move to when I have time to re-write those applications.

I'll have to look into the stuff you outlined. I guess the 5 machines in my house could make a good testing ground for it. Might be fun to surprise the boss with that. When you say...

I make a shortcut to those .application files on the users desktops. When they run the shortcut, it makes sure they have the newest version and then opens the program.

are you saying that the application is actually running across the network, hosted on the server? Sounds like a lot of network overhead.

[Plater]

@tlhintoq
Ehhh no not exactly, they sit in the Application Data folder in the user's directory.

The link on my desktop is to a UNC path (\\someServer\SomeShare\SomeProgram.applcation)
When its run (pretty sure its just an XML document), it checks to see what version it is, then looks to see if that version exists on my pc. It will automatically "update" my local copy (check that SomeShare\ directory for the correct version of the files and copy to my pc)
Then it runs the application.
If its the first time, you will get the "do you trust this software?" type prompt.

There is also .NET API (ApplicationDeployment namespace) that can check for updates while the software is RUNNING, and ask if they want to update, perform the update, and then restart.

Its great for our in-house applications, makes sure everyone is always using the correct version.