Calpendo Activity Recorder Release Notes

Table Of Contents

• CAR Description
• Updates
  • CAR 1.0 - April 13, 2018
  • CAR 1.1 - April 17, 2018
  • CAR 1.2 - April 14, 2018
  • CAR 1.3 - May 18, 2018
  • CAR 1.4 - May 21, 2018
  • CAR 1.5 - May 25, 2018
  • CAR 1.6 - June 13, 2018
  • CAR 1.7 - August 13, 2018
  • CAR 1.8 - September 11, 2018
  • CAR 1.9 - January 24, 2019
  • CAR 2.0 - May 19, 2020
  • CAR 2.1 - January 5, 2021

CAR Description

The Calpendo Activity Recorder (CAR) is a Windows native program that runs on Windows XP through to Windows 10. It keeps track of users and the programs they are running (if desired) and sends the information to Calpendo so that Calpendo can know who is using the PC and for how long.

In order for this to work, Calpendo must be able to identify the user. This can be done by choosing how CAR will authenticate the user. Your options are:

• Use the Windows regular login procedure, so that the user's Windows login name and domain are sent to Calpendo, and Calpendo would then have to match that to information it has stored in its database.

• Use Calpendo to do the authentication, by having CAR show its own login prompt (after the user has logged on to Windows) and send the login name and password to Calpendo to validate.

• Use LDAP/ActiveDirectory to authenticate the user, which would again mean CAR would show a login prompt after the user has logged on to the PC. This time though, the login crdentials would be sent to the LDAP/ActiveDirectory server instead of Calpendo.

Regardless of the means of identifying the user for a particular PC, once CAR knows who the user is, that information is then sent to Calpendo to be authorised to use the PC. If authorisation is denied, then the user will be told.

Further, if CAR is configured to watch particular processes on the PC, then when the user is unauthorisation, should any of those configured processes be found to be running, CAR will kill or close them, or warn the user about their use.

Calpendo will also be notified with regular pings about which of the configured processes are running.

There's a final notification sent to Calpendo when a user logs out.

In this way, Calpendo can work out who was using an instrument connected to a PC, and for how long. If the regular pings stop coming, then it means Calpendo can notice the lack of messages and send a warning that the PC is potentially down. If the PC does die for some reason, then Calpendo will still have all the data from those regular pings so that it knows who was using the instrument and for how long, up to the time when the PC died.

Updates

CAR 1.0 - April 13, 2018

First release

CAR 1.1 - April 17, 2018

Changes

• Add PC IP addresses in body of messages sent to Calpendo server
  • This enables Calpendo to identify the particular instrument by IP address even when the Calpendo server is outside the network of the instrument. That is, when there's some NAT (network address translation) going on that hides actual IP addresses from the outside world.

CAR 1.2 - April 14, 2018

Changes

• Replace name MyApplication with CalpendoActivityRecorder in app.manifest
• Add Version to json object sent to Calpendo server

Bug Fixes

• BUGFIX: log file set to wrong directory (hard-coded specific user home directory)

CAR 1.3 - May 18, 2018

Changes

• Display CAR version number in CAR pop-up headers
• Send reason for not authorising user back from Calpendo server to CAR
• Display reason for failing authorisation in CAR's "Status" pop-up

Bug Fixes

• BUGFIX: Local Authentication ask for authorization twice

CAR 1.4 - May 21, 2018

Changes

• no longer overwrites the settings file when you install over the top of an existing installation.
  • This means you should avoid uninstalling when installing a new version.
• shows the reason why the user has been denied authorisation in the status pop-up
  • It doesn't pro-actively show the reason yet - you have to ask for the pop-up.
  • This will change in a future version)

• Shows the CAR version number in the pop-up window titles

• Allow monitored process names to include a .exe or not and work either way

Bug Fixes

• Fixes a problem whereby the URL you provide didn't work without a final /
• Fixes a problem with secure connections failing (ie https)
• Fixed a problem whereby authorisation requests get sent twice to Calpendo

CAR 1.5 - May 25, 2018

Changes

• Display a pop-up after login with local authentiation to indicate authorisation status
  • Non-local authentication methods already gave feedback about authorisation.
  • This change now means you get the same when using local authentication.

• Provide a proper message when authorisation fails because the server is not responding.

• Automatically produce a warning if an application close request fails
  • Some applications do not provide a "Close" option.
  • If CAR is configured to send a close request to an application that doesn't support being closed, then we now degreade automatically to provide a warning instead.
• Add support for trusting LDAP connections over TLS with self-signed significants
  • This is represented by an option in LDAP authentication to blindly trust the server's certificate.
  • Only turn this on if you have to.

• Add tooltips to display when you hover mouse over LDAP authentication options

Bug Fixes

• If the settings file is missing, it causes an exception

• Monitoring a process name with a period in it would go wrong if the part after the period was not "exe".

• Ping messages are sometimes sent twice

• Warnings about unauthorised processes notified twice

CAR 1.6 - June 13, 2018

Changes

• Do not send ping information to Calpendo more often than every 10 minutes if nothing has changed since the last ping.
• Add hostname and version information to data sent to Calpendo
• Remove Logout Notification checkbox. Logout will be always sent to Calpendo
• Remove Event Monitoring checkbox. Monitoring will be always active.
• Do not try to send ping to server if server URL is empty

Bug Fixes

• BUGFIX: CARService doesn't restart its timer after reloading setting file
• BUGFIX: Information sent to OSDomainName was actually the hostname

CAR 1.7 - August 13, 2018

Changes

• Add support for enabling or disabling CAR
  • This includes:
    • Add checkbox in Options
    • Add CarEnabled in Setting (default is True)
    • Add Warning msg when CAR is saved in disabled mode
  • When CAR is disabled:
    • Disabled Login popup when method is not Local
    • Disabled Monitoring Process (not Setting file check)
    • Disabled all notifications to Calpendo (httpRequest)

• Add missing tooltips where appropriate

CAR 1.8 - September 11, 2018

Changes

• Add support for handling US format date time

CAR 1.9 - January 24, 2019

Changes

• Add a specific version for Windows XP (.NET 40).
  • From now on, we will support 2 version of CAR:
    • CalpendoActivityRecorder_XP (.NET40)
    • CalpendoActivityRecorder (.NET45 and later)

• Renew Exprodo Certificate for signing CAR

• Update NewtonSoft Library from 10.0.3 to 12.0.1

Bug Fixes

• BUGFIX: CAR Status does not always reflect real user status

CAR 2.0 - May 19, 2020

Changes

• Add support for local saving data when connection is temporarily off (data will be sent as soon as connection is restored).
  • This includes:
    • Add "Authorization options on network unavailability" in Authentication tab in Option.
    • This will allow the administrators to choose if they want CAR always authorize or always deny users in case connection is temporarily off.
• Change LDAP authentication to be consistent
  • LDAP was already supported, but didn't work very well.
  • It now fully supports the "Bind as User" method.
  • This means that a user's login details are checked by using those details to connect directly to the LDAP server to see if they are good.
  • This is different from the as-yet unsupported "Bind as Admin" method in which an admin account connects to the LDAP server, searches for the user and only then authenticates the user.
• Rename "Active Directory" authentication method with "Azure AD"
  • The support within CAR that has been labelled "Active Directory" is really "Azure Active Directory".
  • It has been renamed to reflect the reality of what it is.
• External libraries upgraded.
  • Newtonsoft.Json upgraded from 12.0.1 to 12.0.3
  • Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory upgraded from 3.19.1 to 5.2.7.0
• Adds new external library:
  • System.Net.Http for .Net45 Only (version 4.3.4)
  • This is required by the upgrade of Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory.Microsoft
• Add support for hiding authorisation feedback to the user when Local Authentication is selected.
  • A new selection box appears in the "Authentication Tab" and is visible only when you select "Local".
  • The options are: "Always provided", "Never Provided" and "Provided on failure authentication only".
  • This choose what feedback CAR gives to a user when they log in to the computer regarding their authorisation status.

Bug Fixes

• BUGFIX: CAR menu is not updated when the application is disabled
  • Issue 2553

CAR 2.1 - January 5, 2021

Bug Fixes

• BUGFIX: Network problems can result in CAR sending large amounts of data to Calpendo
  • The support for handling temporary network errors that prevent CAR from connecting to Calpendo generates a problem when the user that was logged in when the problem started is different from the user logged in when the network issue was fixed.