How to Run odrive Sync Agent as a Windows Service with AlwaysUp

odrive offers remote workers easy access to their file repositories.

odrive Sync Agent is the headless, back-end component serving the client interface. We'll use AlwaysUp to run it as a persistent daemon.

To install odrive Sync Agent as a Windows Service with AlwaysUp:

1. Download, and extract the odrive Sync Agent, if necessary. Ensure that it works when run from a command prompt.

2. Download and install AlwaysUp, if necessary.

3. Start AlwaysUp.

4. Select Application > Add to open the Add Application window:

   

5. On the General tab:

   • In the Application field, enter the full path to the odrive executable, odriveagent.exe.

     Since we expanded the Sync Agent to "C:\odrive", the path is "C:\odrive\odriveagent.exe" on our machine.

   • In the Start the application field, choose Automatically, but shortly after the computer boots. This setting ensures that critical supporting services (like networking) will be up and running before AlwaysUp launches odrive.

   • And in the Name field, enter the name that you will call the application in AlwaysUp. We went with odrive Sync Agent but you can put in almost any value you like:

   

6. Move to the Logon tab and enter the username and password of the account in which you installed and use odrive. odrive must run in this account so that it can find its settings:

   

7. Switch to the Startup tab and check the Ensure that the Windows Networking components have started box. This informs AlwaysUp that odrive needs TCP/IP, the language of the Internet, to do its work.

   We also recommend checking Stop all copies of the application running on this computer and the boxes below. These options will ensure that another copy of odriveagent.exe won't prevent the instance launched by AlwaysUp from starting properly:

   

8. Click the Save button. In a couple of seconds, an application called odrive Sync Agent will show up in the AlwaysUp window. It's not yet active though and the state will be "Stopped":

   

9. To start odrive, choose Application > Start "odrive Sync Agent". After a few seconds, the state will transition to "Running" and the agent will be working in the background:

   

10. That's it! Next time your computer boots, odrive Sync Agent will start up immediately, before anyone logs on.

    We encourage you to edit the entry in AlwaysUp and check out the many other settings that may be appropriate for your environment.

    For example, setup email notifications, add a "sanity check" to detect network failures, or periodically restart odriveagent.exe to cure memory leaks.

odrive Sync Agent not working properly as a Windows Service?

• Consult the AlwaysUp Troubleshooter — our online tool that can help you resolve the most common problems encountered when running an application as a Windows Service.

• From AlwaysUp, select Application > Report Activity > Today to bring up an HTML report detailing the interaction between AlwaysUp and odrive. The AlwaysUp Event Log Messages page explains what each message means.

• Browse the AlwaysUp FAQ for answers to commonly asked questions and troubleshooting tips.

• Contact us and we will be happy to help!