Wait for certain website to be accessed - c++

My objective is to have an event that is triggered when a website is accessed.
Now, maybe through the window title, or the text in the window. Or maybe even reading a URL.
As of now I am aware of FindWindow (class,title);
However all attempts to put this line of code into a loop and it's exit condition being when the window appears have been fruitless.
Any assistance would be very helpful.

That's not possible. At least if I understood you correctly.
You want to register a callback when ANY software on your machine accesses a specific website?
Just imagine a browser uses SSL, there is no way to detect this by listening to the traffic or something similar.
However, if you want to be notified about all connections to a specific IP, then you could use sniffing mechanisms of your kernel or even redirect all traffic to this IP to a proxy you have set up with iptables or similar.
Windows has a sniffing library called WinPCap, on linux you could use tcpdump.
Though, more information about your problem would be nice.

Looking for window titles can be a bit problematic. I don't know how much control you have over the desktop, but you might consider building an addon for Firefox (or the equivalent in IE) to look for this particular site.
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Extensions/Firefox
You might also consider building a simple local proxy server (depending on what you are doing) that looks for this site and performs some action. You would have to make sure all the browsers on the machine point to this local proxy to get it working correctly. See the link below for some discussion on a custom proxy server:
How to create a simple proxy in C#?

Related

DLL injection for browser alone

I want to be able to type www.mydomain.com into my web browser but have the actual traffic go to something.mydomain.com. I thought to, maybe inject a dll into the process browser(firefox.exe). I tried to use some methods like hooking, dll injection using create remote thread etc. But, since I'm a newbie, especially when it comes to C++ or Assembly level languages, I coudn't understand much about it. The one's I could understand are no longer compatible with Win 7 or higherCould someone help me by directing me in the right path.
All I want is know how to intercept/manipulate an outgoing URL request from the browser. I found that TCP/IP first creates some socket using socket() function and then connect() function. I sthere a way to intercept that?
I want this to be easy, simple and compatible with windows XP to 10. If it's not easy I'm okay with building different codes for different versions. If the script is cross platform, it would be even more awesome.
I don't think what you want to do (or more precisely the way you want to do it) is possible without being the owner of the domain and setting a HTTP redirect on the server.
Modifying the hosts file or setting up your own DNS server and having the machine or its router use that to resolve DNS queries is really the only way but...
Dependant on the browser this may not be possible. Current versions of firefox and chrome implement dns prefetching which essentially means that they come preloaded with a bunch of popular dns entries for faster page loading times.

Remotely control application settings

I have a solution that acts as client service and does some background work. This application requires some settings (that are read from an xml file) to be done at installation time and which are periodically revised. For convenience (as this service is installed on multiple machines) I wanted to control these settings remotely from a central server application. This works fine if the server and client are inside the LAN but I would like to control these settings even if the client is outside the network or the server is behind a firewall. What could be the solutions to do this?
Clearly, the solution depends on exactly what you want to achieve. But if I understand it right, the reason you have "problems" with a firewall is that you simply access the file that contains the XML over the network using standard network file access. Which is typically (for good reason) blocked by the firewall.
So, the solution then would be to use a standard protocol and a "non-standard service". For example, if the machine is allowed incomming HTTP requests, you could use HTTP-based post messages to update the XML content, either send the entire file as a file upload, or make up your own remote access protocol. If HTTP is not allowed, then you have to look at what other "holes" there are in the firewall, and do something similar with another of the "holes".
The other, less obscure solution, is of course to simply use a remote-desktop or secure shell connection to remotely access the machine. Of course, again, assuming this sort of connection is allowed.
There is no magical "bypass firewall" solution - you have to work within the rules of the firewall in some way.

Is is possile to Hook file-download event of a program?

Please tell me is it possile to know when a program is trying to download a file ( like in Internet Download Manager ). I want to catch that event (hook it), get the download url, and then destroy the event.
Thanks in advance..
#Jerry Coffin:Sr, I forgot to tell you that this feature of IDM is not active by default. It is only turned on when you enable the "Use advance browser integration" option at "Download/Options" of IDM menu.
Like here :
http://files.myopera.com/UenX/files/Detect.jpg
+ Check the (1) options, OK, then reboot.
+ After reboot, the (2) option will appear, check it, OK, and now run your software. You should see some thing likes (3)
( this appear when I run the msgr9us.exe ( Yahoo! Messenger setup file) )
Give it a try..
For a specific program such as Internet Explorer, doing this is quite reasonable (IE includes hooks to invoke your code under the right circumstances). For most programs it's not possible though -- they simply don't generate any "event" for you to hook and "destroy".
To make a long story short, to get anywhere with this, you'll almost certainly need to handle the situation on a case-by-base basis, writing code specific to each application you want to deal with -- and know that any other application and even newer versions of the applications you've dealt with will probably break what you're trying to do.
Not really. Consider how a browser typically downloads a file: it opens a TCP socket connection to a remote server, either on port 23 or 80, and using the FTP protocol or HTTP protocol on that connection. These things you can detect, intercept and modify with high reliability. But there are other programs that use other mthods. for instance, P2P filesharing programs such as BitTorrent do not use HTTP or FTP, nor do they download a file from a single server.
So, while you don't need to understand every program, you must be able to detect and understand every file download protocol instead.
you could hook the network stream and filter for http download requests.
you'll need some library to capture network traffic (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pcap).
Then you'll have to parse the network packets for the appropriate HTTP messages (sorry, I can't give them to you, I don't know them). I don't know if you can actually prevent packets from being sent though.
Another (easier) way would be to implement a proxy server (or modify an existing one) to do what you want. Then you just have to connect the IE to your proxy using the proxy server settings. Check for example Privoxy, which already does some kind of filtering.

Capturing network status change event

I am trying to get events when the internet connection is reestablished after it is lost. It is for a data transfer software that I am developing. If I lose the network during data transfer, I would like to be notified when it is back and continue the transfer automatically.
I can of course create a separate thread and check the network once in a while with a timer, but maybe there is a better option out there.
I am developing for windows mainly, in C++ (not .net).
I can also use wxwidgets (I use it for GUI) but I doubt it offers any related functionality.
You might want to check out the System Event Notification Server (SENS) API http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc185680(VS.85).aspx
I have not actually used it, but it seems like it supplies the events your looking for.
EDIT:
WMI appears to have all the information you need about various network connectivity and state changes. It also has an asynchronous event model that can be used to get notifications. The trick is, i suppose, generating the proper WMI query to get the information you want. This blog looks like the right type of query, and this MSDN explains how to handle the events asynchronously.
I don't know which protocol you use and whether you can control the destination, but in that case, the destination can poll for a retry. The destination knows best what it has received, so it can give the received number of bytes as offset for the retransmission.
This MSDN link gives a very detailed example of how to capture events on WMI with COM. The example doesn't actually capture network events - but I believe that if you plug the right query in, it would work.
(lots of code here, so I'm not copying it into the answer)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa390425%28v=vs.85%29.aspx
this Codeproject link gives detail on
How to use the Windows NLM API to get notified of new network
connectivity
And maybe helpful to any challenge related to this one.
An application often needs to know if the machine has internet
connectivity and take actions depending on that. In this sample, we
are looking at the usage of the Windows NLM API in managed code so
that an application can choose to respond to internet connectivity
changes. There are many other specific NLM APIs for checking domain
connectivity, network adapter interfaces etc., that haven't been
mentioned in this article; you can refer to this link for further
details. The downloadable zip file has the source code.
more reading here
https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/34650/How-to-use-the-Windows-NLM-API-to-get-notified-of

How do you block selected applications from accessing the internet (C++, Win32)

I want to have an application or service that is running that, on some schedule, can disable access to the internet for all applications except for specific ones.
I'm trying to create a filter that can be turned on or off under programmatic control. Not just IP addresses and ports, but I want to be able to block specific applications as well, much like Zone Alarm and other software firewalls let you block.
For example, iexplore.exe, skype.exe, firefox.exe, aim.exe. But still need to allow other applications to connect as needed.
It has to work on Vista as well as XP, but I kind of expect that the method will be different on each of those platforms.
Basically, the filter has to tie the network communication back to the executable that is making the request and then allow or deny it.
Update:
On Vista at least, it looks like I want to use filters in the ALE layers of the WFP.
On XP, I'm still looking for the best way to do it. Do I really need to be writing device drivers and dealing with kernel stuff? I'm just a lowly application developer. Kill me now.
Update 2:
Currently looking at the PfCreateInterface and related Pf* API's for pre-Vista systems.
You can change both Vista and XP's firewall policies dynamically using the INetFwAuthorizedApplications interface from the Windows Firewall API.
Also see this question.
You'll have to write a device driver that filters traffic based on the executable requesting the traffic.
by limiting its access to internet using firewall. go to firewall setting advanced tab (win 7)
and do that
I'm not sure, but I think you'd need to do it by getting the program to run as a user that has limited permissions, the question is, can you make a user account that stops such things?
You'll need to redirect all (or at least many) calls to the WinSock API functions of any running program to your own replacement functions. That means getting into the memory of each running program and hijacking those functions, which is an... interesting... exercise. :-)
That might be enough of a pointer to get you started, or at least to suggest some more specific questions to ask.
Could you move aside (ie rename) the system's winsock DLL and replace it with your own ?
Yours should provide the same API, but check the the process name of incoming requests... return an error code to blocked applications and forward the calls from allowed apps onto the real DLL.