Programmatically sharing a windows directory in C#

Sometime you are in a situation where you want to programmatically share a path and unshared it after use. This was a challenge I was faced with while working on an application that accepted user input, and then it would trigger a different process on another terminal.  The second application would then process and save the output on a path selected by the user. After going through the MSDN and a few google searches, here is what I developed

This article demonstrates how to share a directory and set NTFS permissions on it. start by importing the following library and namespaces.

using System.Security.Permissions;

using System.Security;

using System.Security.AccessControl;

using System.Security.Principal;

Create an instance of the group or user you want to share to, in my case here I want to share to everyone.

NTAccount ntAccount = new NTAccount("Everyone");

Get the group’s Security Identifier (SID).

SecurityIdentifier oGrpSID = (SecurityIdentifier)ntAccount.Translate(typeof(SecurityIdentifier));

byte[] utenteSIDArray = new byte[oGrpSID.BinaryLength];

oGrpSID.GetBinaryForm(utenteSIDArray, 0);

Create a trustee instance from the group SID above

ManagementObject oGrpTrustee = new ManagementClass(new ManagementPath("Win32_Trustee"), null);

oGrpTrustee["Name"] = "Everyone";

oGrpTrustee["SID"] = utenteSIDArray;

Create an Access Control Entry object. Give full access to the folder and allow sub folder to inherit

ManagementObject oGrpACE = new ManagementClass(new ManagementPath("Win32_Ace"), null);

oGrpACE["AccessMask"] = 2032127;//Full access

oGrpACE ["AceFlags"] = AceFlags.ObjectInherit | AceFlags.ContainerInherit; //propagate the AccessMask to the subfolders

oGrpACE["AceType"] = AceType.AccessAllowed;

oGrpACE["Trustee"] = oGrpTrustee;

Create a security descriptor; this will contain the security information for the group

ManagementObject oGrpSecurityDescriptor= new ManagementClass(new ManagementPath("Win32_SecurityDescriptor"), null);

oGrpSecurityDescriptor["ControlFlags"] = 4; //SE_DACL_PRESENT

oGrpSecurityDescriptor["DACL"] = new object[] { oGrpACE };

Lastly Share the directory in question and upgrade the security permissions. In my case is C:\testShare\, the Share Name is Test Share

string FolderPath=”c:\testshare\”;

string ShareName=”Test Share”;

string Description=”This save output”;

ManagementClass mc = new ManagementClass("win32_share");

ManagementBaseObject inParams = mc.GetMethodParameters("Create");

inParams["Description"] = Description;

inParams["Name"] = ShareName;

inParams["Path"] = FolderPath;

inParams["Type"] = 0x0; //Disk Drive

inParams["MaximumAllowed"] = null;

inParams["Password"] = null;

inParams["Access"] = oGrpSecurityDescriptor; 

ManagementBaseObject outParams = mc.InvokeMethod("Create", inParams, null);

Unshare the Directory

Create an Object to query the WMI Win32_Share API for shared files

ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from win32_share");

ManagementBaseObject outParams;

ManagementClass mc = new ManagementClass("Win32_Share"); //for local shares

Loop through all the local shares,

foreach (ManagementObject share in searcher.Get())

{

string type = share["Type"].ToString();

if (type == "0") // Check if it’s a DiskDrive                 {

string path = share["Name"].ToString(); //getting share path name

if (path == "testshare"){ //if it’s the testshare folder

outParams = share.InvokeMethod("delete", null, null); //Delete the shares

if ((uint)(outParams.Properties["ReturnValue"].Value) != 0)

   {

      // unsuccessful do something

   }

else

   {

     // unsharing successful do something

   }

  }

 }

}