Setting A Stop Time For A Process?

[astral]

I want to be able to fire off an ftp process manually and have it shutdown automatically as a predetermined time.

Is there any way to do this in Windows 7

I download files at night when there is no cap on my service.

The cap starts at 7am and I do not want to have wake up early just to stop the ftp.

So any suggestions are welcome.

Best would be an ftp programme with a scheduler feature.

At the moment I use Filezilla

Thanks in advance.

Happy New Year

[Lannig]

What do you want to do, specifically? If your downloads have completed before the end of your "no caps" period, what's the point of stopping the FTP client? unless it's configured to auto-refresh the remote directory contents or send NOOPs to avoid being disconnected, it won't generate traffic. Even so, it would be little traffic.

If you really want to abort the transfer in progress when reaching some specific hour, I can understand what you want. In such a case, a bare-bones way would be to configure a Windows scheduled task to run:

TASKKILL /F /IM <name of your FTP client program>.exe

At a specific hour.

You can find the actual name of your FTP client program using the Task Manager.

Are you serious with the cancer-free thing? If so I'm in the same boat.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Lannig

[astral]

Thanks for that pointer to Taskkill, I will give it a try.

I queue files as they come up, but want to stop the ftp at 7am even if the transfers have not completed.

There is always another night.

I have PM'ed you on the other matter.

[Darrel]

FTPRush has a built-in task manager.

It is a much better programme than Filezilla.

[urandom]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Schedule-a-task ?

[astral]

Taskkill is the best so far, but unfortunately killing the process

it does not save the current state and outstanding ftps........

FTPRush allows a start time, but not a finish.................

Still looking at Windows Schedule a Task

Any other suggestions?

I feel sure I had a simple way to stop and start a process

but did not document it.................

[urandom]

edit: sorry i should have read the thread

what you want is built in right in your operating system...

open notepad, type this:

taskkill /F /IM filezilla.exe

save it as killFTPclient.bat

be careful about the extension, it should not be .txt but .bat

what it does:

taskkill is the vista/7 way to... kill a task (you need a different command with xp)

F forces to terminate the process

IM specifies the name of the process

you can test it now, open filezilla then run killFTPclient.bat (double-click the file), filezilla should be killed.

now that it works (hopefully), we need to schedule this task:

control panel > system and maintenance > administrative tools > schedule tasks

then chose "create basic task"

follow the wizard:

name/decription

trigger -> daily at 7:00 am

action -> start a program, click browse and chose your script (killFTPclient.bat)

finish

that's it.

Edited January 3, 2012 by urandom

[Darrel]

You could block your ftp port at certain hours in your router/firewall. Then your ftp programme will just time out gracefully.

[Lannig]

You could block your ftp port at certain hours in your router/firewall. Then your ftp programme will just time out gracefully.

Not sure this will work. Many firewalls only enforce TCP rules on SYN packets (the ones used to establish a TCP connection) therefore there's a chance that changing the rule won't affect the already established connections.

@Astral: have you tried TASKKILL without the /F? This could make a difference, giving a chance to Filezilla to catch the termination signal (or whatever it's called on Windows - I'm a Unix guy) and exit gracefully. On the other hand it might not terminate at all without the /F. Better try a simulation first.

[Darrel]

Many firewalls only enforce TCP rules on SYN packets (the ones used to establish a TCP connection) therefore there's a chance that changing the rule won't affect the already established connections.

Worth a try though, I think.

[Lannig]

Many firewalls only enforce TCP rules on SYN packets (the ones used to establish a TCP connection) therefore there's a chance that changing the rule won't affect the already established connections.

Worth a try though, I think.

Certainly. However configuring one's router remotely from a program/script can be tricky. I would know how to do this from a Unix box using Perl or TCL/Expect but from Windows?

I wouldn't how to to alter rules in Windows' firewall programatically either. At least not off the top of my head.

[Darrel]

Why remotely? Just log in to the router control panel and alter the settings, assuming that the router supports scheduled port blocking.

If done on the PC then some third party firewall would be needed; the Windows firewall is very basic. I suspect that some of the "net nanny" type programmes could be configured to do this.

[urandom]

Why remotely? Just log in to the router control panel and alter the settings, assuming that the router supports scheduled port blocking.

If done on the PC then some third party firewall would be needed; the Windows firewall is very basic. I suspect that some of the "net nanny" type programmes could be configured to do this.

the CLI version is slightly more flexible: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd734783(WS.10).aspx

[Lannig]

Why remotely? Just log in to the router control panel and alter the settings, assuming that the router supports scheduled port blocking.

If done on the PC then some third party firewall would be needed; the Windows firewall is very basic. I suspect that some of the "net nanny" type programmes could be configured to do this.

the CLI version is slightly more flexible: http://technet.micro.../dd734783(WS.10).aspx

Ah... netsh. The swiss knife of command-line networking in Windows. Didn't realize it could be used to control the firewall too. Thanks for the hint. Obscure syntax, though. For real nerds :-)

[Darrel]

There are Windows traffic-shaping programmes that could be used for this also. The pay version of Netlimiter will do it, and there are probably free tools around that will do scheduled shaping also. These will block all the network traffic on a particular programme so the ftp client should time-out gracefully.

[astral]

Thanks for all these exotic ideas

I will have to try some of them

[astral]

Thank you one and all

KillFTP.bat

Taskkill /im Filezilla.exe

Without the /F gives a graceful shutdown, thanks Lannig

Then schedule a Windows basic task as Urandom suggested, for 7am

A test with a schedule time a few minutes ahead seemed to work

The proof will be at 7am tomorrow

I did check out the other suggestions.

My Router does not offer any time control

My Firewall, ZoneAlarm, does offer timing facilities in the Parental Control

but only a blanket control at the User level, making it too awkward for what I want