In this article

Administrators use this page to understand how the Windows Roaming Client Service Manager maintains service stability, applies configuration, and manages updates for the DNSFilter Windows agent.

The Windows Roaming Client installs two Windows services:

• Filtering service (the agent)
• Service Manager

The Service Manager monitors agent health, manages configuration, and coordinates updates across all Windows Roaming Client components. This design improves reliability and ensures the agent remains online to enforce DNS filtering.

Key functions of the Service Manager

Automated monitoring and restarts

• Checks the filtering service status every 5 seconds
• Restarts the service if it stops unexpectedly
• Allows a 30-second grace period to accommodate intentional restarts
• Uses a 300-second boot grace period to avoid interfering with normal system startup

Restart timing values can be adjusted in the Service Manager’s appsettings.json.

Configuration management (introduced in version 3.0)

Version 3.0 and higher use a new JSON-based configuration system stored in %ProgramData%. The Service Manager is responsible for keeping configuration current across all agent components.

The Service Manager:

• Retrieves configuration updates from the DNSFilter API
• Writes updates into the shared configuration structure
• Applies environment-specific configuration files
• Loads administrator overrides from appsettings.Overrides.json

This ensures consistent behavior across filtering, diagnostics, and auxiliary agent services.

Update management

Beginning in version 3.0, the Service Manager also handles agent updates:

• Downloads new agent builds when available
• Installs or updates Windows agent components
• Updates diagnostic tooling used by the tray application

This provides automatic lifecycle management without user intervention.

Health and registration tasks

The Service Manager also:

• Performs registration tasks for new installations
• Collects system information needed for agent operation
• Coordinates communication between the filtering service and associated applications (Tray, CyberSight, diagnostics)

These tasks improve stability and reduce installation-related issues.

Logging behavior

Version 3.0 introduces a unified logging framework using Serilog and Microsoft.Extensions.Logging. Logs are written to the agent’s ProgramData directory and include:

• Filtering service logs
• DNS query logs
• Service Manager logs

Log levels are controlled through the Log option group in JSON configuration. The total log folder size can reach up to 300 MB.

Stopping the agent and Service Manager

To stop the Windows Roaming Client for more than 30 seconds:

1. Stop the Service Manager
2. Stop the filtering service

If only the filtering service is stopped, the Service Manager restarts it after the grace period.

Restart behavior applies to all service-managed components.