Month: September 2023

Updating your Profiles in Cisco VPN Connect (MacOS)

Some years ago I worked with a client and had to install Cisco VPN Connect on my Mac. After the work was done, I uninstalled the client. Recently, I found myself needing the VPN with a different client. On reinstalling the software, all of the old settings from the previous client were still there and the VPN software refused to save the new connection URL. To get the client to work the way I needed, I had to update the profile manually.

One of the places where the Cisco Anytime Connect software saves information is /opt/cisco/anyconnect/profile. Navigating to that path in Terminal you will find a couple of files. The one of interest is Anyconnect-SAML.xml. This is an XML file that contains the connection settings. In addition to this file the software also remembers the last connection that it attempted to connect to. I don’t know where that information is stored, but that information won’t be needed for this change. The simplest way to address the connection problem is to rename this file. I say “rename” and not “delete” so that the information is available should you need it. Renaming has the same effect as deleting, but allows you to rollback. I changed the file to a name that had .backup on the end.

With the file effectively deleted, if you restart the Cisco Anytime VPN software, it will still show the last server that you connected to. Enter your new VPN URL and connect. After successfully connecting, the software will remember this URL and make it available the next time that you need to connect.

Setting a DLL Path at Runtime for P/Invoke

.Net applications can call functions from static DLLs using the [DllImport] attribute. This attribute has as its argument the name of the DLL in which the target is store. But what does one do if the location of the DLL is not in the paths that the system will search? First, let’s consider where the system looks for DLLs in the order that it searches for them.

  1. The Application Directory
  2. The System Directory
  3. The Windows Directory
  4. Current Directory
  5. Directorys in the PATH environment variable

If the target DLL isn’t in one of those folders, it won’t be found. There is a Win32 function that let’s an application set an additional folder in which the system will look for resolving a DLL location at runtime. The function has the signature HRESULT SetDllDirectory(LPWSTR pathname). When this method is called with a valid path the new search path is as follows.

  1. The Application Directory
  2. The Directory passed in SetDllDirectory()
  3. The System Directory
  4. The Windows Directory
  5. The Current Directory
  6. Directories in the PATH environment variable

The statement for adding a declaration for SetDllDirectory follows.

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool SetDllDirectory(string lpPathName);

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Customizing the Logitech/Saitek Flight Instrument Panel

Saitek (which was later acquired my Logitech) created flight instrument hardware that is primarily associated with Microsoft Flight Simulator. While there are various device types that they make, the one in which I had the most interest is the “Flight Instrument Panel.” It is a small LCD display that connects to the computer via a USB connector. It doesn’t appear that Logitech has made any changes to the hardware since it’s release; the device still uses a mini-USB connector.

I have some purposes for it beyond using it for Microsoft Flight Simulator. I wanted to perform some customization on the pane. After going through the setup, the panel begin to display information. By default it displays promotional information for other hardware until an application tells it to display something else. I’m not fond of advertisements on my idle devices and wanted to change these first. Thankfully this can be done without any programming. The default displays images are from jpg files that can be found in the file system after the device is setup. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Logitech\DirectOutput to see the files. Replace any one of them to alter what the screen displays.

Before purchasing a panel I searched for an SDK for it. I didn’t find an SDK, but I found that plenty of other people had software projects for it and figured I would be able to make it work. Only after getting the device setup did I find that the SDK was closer than I realized. Documentation for controlling the panel installs along side the panel. The group of APIs in the SDK are referred to as DirectOutput. No, that’s not one of Microsoft’s DirectX APIs (Like Direct3D, DirectInput, so on). That’s just the name Saitek selected for their SDK.

  1. The Application Directory
  2. The System Directory
  3. The Windows Directory
  4. Current Directory
  5. Directorys in the PATH environment variable

If the target DLL isn’t in one of those folders, it won’t be found. There is a Win32 function that let’s an application set an additional folder in which the system will look for resolving a DLL location at runtime. The function has the signature HRESULT SetDllDirectory(LPWSTR pathname). When this method is called with a valid path the new search path is as follows.

  1. The Application Directory
  2. The Directory passed in SetDllDirectory()
  3. The System Directory
  4. The Windows Directory
  5. The Current Directory
  6. Directories in the PATH environment variable

The statement for adding a declaration for SetDllDirectory follows.

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
static extern bool SetDllDirectory(string lpPathName);

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