You need a client-server architecture program for windows OS (minimum support: Win 7),. the agent program will run as a background process and perform certain tasks every X time, and send results to a web server (PHP API).
- The client agent program which will run on Windows must be stable and secure. it must be lightweight, and dose not use too much memory.
- The client agent program must be written in C++ the server side script which will accept the request from client program must be in PHP.
- The client agent program must be a single file (just .EXE), and it's size must be small.
- The client agent program must start automatically when windows start, basically the The client agent program is like a service background process.
- The client agent program must detect if there's a proxy is set in Internet explorer and use that proxy configuration
- most computers on the network are set to use a local proxy, the allowed ports are 80 and 443
- The server side PHP script will store the received data into organised folders. the folders will be created dynamically based on PC name for the PC on which the program agent runs.
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Details:
The main task of the agent program is to keep track on documents files [doc, docx, pdf]. All files with this types will be processed by the program agent.
Task 1, First run
1. On first run of the agent: Agent will search for all doc, docx, pdf files, based on timestamp, ignore any file that is not modified or opened since 30 Day
2. Search locations includes current PC HDD, don't scan system folders. Start by scanning user folder (My documents, Desktop..etc} then move to HDD Partitions {D, E, F..} Including any connected external devices such as USB Flash drives.
3. Calculate a hash for each file (md5)
4. Encrypt each file
5. Add files to queue to be uploaded to the server
6. Upload Files to the server one by one using POST request and include pc name, local & remote ip and file last modified/opened date
7. wait before upload next file: 45 second.
8. when the above process finishes, there's no need to repeat. Start Task 2
Task 2, lifecycle
- After files on Computer has been scanned and processed. Now, the agent will sleep until a specific events occurs.
1. When user creates a document {Doc, docx, PDF}, then copy that document to the queue to be processed and sent to the server.
2. When user insert a USB or any external storage, then the agent will perform Task 1 but only scan the inserted Device.
3. to keep track on files that is already scanned (check if the files modified), the agent must compare the stored hash with the files, if the file hash dose not match the stored hash, that's mean the file has been modified, in this case, add the file to the queue to be uploaded to the server.
Important info:
1. There will no be a GUI, the agent will work in background.
2. There will be two server URLs one as primary and second one as backup.
3. the primary server url is https:// , the backup server is a different url but without ssl.
4. If the agent is unable to reach the server for some reason, then try to upload the data to backup server.
5. if agent is unable to connect to backup server, then try connect to primary server but without https, use http instead.
6. If file upload failed due a timeout (ex; slow internet connection), then try again after 1 hour.
7. if agent are unable to access to both primary and back server then try to connect to server using IP instead of domain, if this fail too, then schedule the files to be uploaded later. the agent must keep try to connect to one of the servers every 1 minute.
8. The agent must able to re-execute itself if it crashed or the process has been terminated for some reason.
9. The agent MUST not require an administrator privileges (This is a must). the agent will run on a windows user which is on a low privileges.
10. the agent must run even if the user logged in with a different windows account.
11. POST Request data must be encoded or encrypted.
Server Side
1. When the PHP script Receive a request, it must analyse it's data and add the file to the correct folder based on PC name
2. create a text file inside each folder that contain the info of the sender PC (local, remote ip, username)
3. create a text file named with same received file name but add this at the end of file name "-info" this will contain last open,modify and create date