msgen is a cross-platform CLI tool written in Go that scaffolds a standalone, persistent “server” binary. The generated server:
- Runs as a background service/daemon on Windows & Linux
- Auto-starts at boot (Windows Service / systemd unit)
- Automatically restarts on crash or stop (service recovery policy)
- Periodically collects machine info (IP, MAC, hostname, OS, CPU, memory, disk, users)
- Sends templated email reports via SMTP (STARTTLS/SMTPS)
- Is fully self-contained: configuration is embedded or loaded from
config.yaml
- Single executable (
server.exeon Windows,serveron Linux) - Embedded or external YAML configuration
- Cron-style scheduling (
@every 30m,0 8 * * *, etc.) - System metrics via [gopsutil]
- Email delivery via [gomail] with TLS & retry
- Windows Service integration (register/unregister)
- systemd unit file support for Linux
- Structured console logging (zerolog)
- Dockerfile for containerized deployment
- GitHub Actions CI workflow
- Go 1.21+ toolchain
- Git
- On Windows: Administrative privileges to register a Service
- On Linux:
systemdenvironment andsudofor unit deployment
- Clone the repository and install
msgen:git clone https://github.com/bocaletto-luca/msgen.git cd msgen go install ./cmd/msgen - Verify
msgenis in your$GOPATH/binor$GOBIN:msgen --help
Create or edit a YAML config file (config.yaml). You can either keep it alongside your server binary or let it fall back to the embedded default.
# config.yaml
schedule: "@every 30m"
smtp:
host: "smtp.example.com"
port: 587
username: "alerts@example.com"
password: "supersecret"
from: "alerts@example.com"
to:
- "admin1@example.com"
- "admin2@example.com"
modules:
- ip
- mac
- os
- cpu
- mem
- disk
- usersEnvironment variable overrides
You may replace any field with ${ENV_VAR} syntax and export the corresponding environment variables before generating or running the server.
Run msgen pointing at your config:
msgen --config path/to/config.yaml --out ./distThis will create:
dist/config.yaml(copied)dist/server.go(templated Go source)
GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 go build -o dist/server.exe dist/server.goGOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o dist/server dist/server.go
chmod +x dist/server- Open PowerShell as Administrator.
- Register the service:
sc.exe create ms-server ` binPath= "C:\path\to\server.exe --config C:\path\to\config.yaml" ` start= auto sc.exe failure ms-server reset= 0 actions= restart/5000
- Start the service:
sc.exe start ms-server
- To stop & remove:
sc.exe stop ms-server sc.exe delete ms-server
- Copy binary and config to
/opt/ms-server/:sudo mkdir -p /opt/ms-server sudo cp dist/server /opt/ms-server/ sudo cp dist/config.yaml /opt/ms-server/
- Create
/etc/systemd/system/ms-server.service:[Unit] Description=msgen Server Daemon After=network.target [Service] ExecStart=/opt/ms-server/server --config /opt/ms-server/config.yaml Restart=always RestartSec=5 User=root LimitNOFILE=4096 [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target
- Enable & start:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable ms-server sudo systemctl start ms-server - Check status & logs:
sudo systemctl status ms-server journalctl -u ms-server -f
Build and run in a container:
docker build -t bocaletto-luca/ms-server .
docker run -d \
-v $(pwd)/config.yaml:/app/config.yaml:ro \
-e SMTP_PASSWORD \
--name ms-server \
bocaletto-luca/ms-serverThe server binary exposes a basic HTTP health endpoint at http://localhost:8000/healthz. You can integrate this with load balancers or monitoring systems.
- Unit tests and linters:
go test ./... go vet ./... - CI workflow on GitHub Actions builds & tests for multiple Go versions.
This project is licensed under the GPL License. See LICENSE for details.
Author: Bocaletto Luca (@bocaletto-luca)