How do I tell if a process/application is running on headless server?

burgertime · 08 Oct 2017

I'll try to make this as un-convoluted as possible. I have multiple machines in my home. One of which, is a headless media server which runs Windows 10. This machine stays on 24/7 and runs various tasks, not the least of which is holding all of my media, and serving PLEX. What I want is for this machine to *always* be connected to a VPN. I have a VPN subscription, and on this machine, I have installed OpenVPN gui client. I can open the OpenVPN client and connect to the VPN just fine. Trouble is, I want this machine to *always* be connected.

OK, now that the scenario has been built... The best way I could figure on doing this, was to create a task using Task Scheduler. I've got the task all set up as follows:

GENERAL> "Run whether user is logged in or not" / "run with highest privileges"
TRIGGERS> "At system Startup"
ACTIONS> "start a program" - <path to .exe and arguments>

My problem is that when I manually click "run", nothing happens, or at least, the program does not start. However, if I change the general setting to use a user account instead of "run whether user is logged in or not", when I click run, the program launches.

Here's the conundrum I'm confronted with: If I have this task set to "start at login", how do I know the task is starting by itself? If I remote into the server machine(which is how I connect to it), then once the desktop loads, I would imagine OpenVPN is loaded, but I also just logged in! How can I tell if this process is running without my having to log in?

Wow, that was really convoluted. I hope someone can help!

Thanks in advance!

Samuria · 08 Oct 2017

Free Remote Task Manager Tool | Task Manager | Process Scanner | End Task Remotely

bro67 · 10 Oct 2017

You cannot unless you can get in with WinSCP or Putty.

Barman58 · 10 Oct 2017

Does this startup scheduled task create an entry in the Event log? either directly or indirectly - if so checking this log entry should give the assurance you are seeking. If it does not then adding a call to a batch file that creates a basic log file entry to the task should serve purpose

bro67 · 10 Oct 2017

Barman58, I was thinking of maybe setting something to do a trigger to send a request for a small smtp mail server that could send a message out. There are some free SMS services out there that could be used to send a text message if the server goes down or comes back online, or even switches to UPS. Only problem is that if you lose Internet, they would have to have a way to send a alert from the server through a SMS broadcast.