remote-task-manager

A small Express web UI that lists running processes (via systeminformation) and lets you stop them, sorted by total memory usage.

Running in DEMO_MODE — the process list above is simulated, "Stop" is a no-op. See "Deploying a live demo" below to run it live somewhere instead of just viewing this screenshot.

Running locally (real mode)

npm install
npm start

Open http://localhost:5000/task-manager. This mode lists and can stop real processes on the machine it runs on — only run it on your own machine, never expose it to the public internet in this mode.

Running in demo mode

Set DEMO_MODE=true to serve a simulated, fixed process list where "Stop" is a no-op. This is the mode used for any publicly-hosted deployment:

DEMO_MODE=true npm start

(On Windows PowerShell: $env:DEMO_MODE="true"; npm start)

Deploying a live demo (Render)

In DEMO_MODE, this app never touches real processes or calls the Windows-only taskkill command, so it can run on any platform (including Render's Linux containers) even though the underlying tool is Windows-specific.

1. Push this repo to GitHub, then create a free account at render.com.
2. New → Web Service → connect this GitHub repo.
3. Build command: npm install. Start command: node TaskManager.js.
4. Add an environment variable DEMO_MODE = true. Render sets PORT automatically, which the app already reads.
5. Deploy, then visit https://<your-service>.onrender.com/task-manager.

Security notes

• processName values are now validated against ^[A-Za-z0-9_\-. ]+$ before use, and process termination uses execFile('taskkill', [...]) instead of a shell-interpolated exec() string — the previous version was vulnerable to command injection via the /stop-processes request body.
• There is no authentication on either route. Only run "real mode" on a trusted local machine/network — never deploy real mode to a public server. Public deployments should always use DEMO_MODE=true.
• The listen port now respects process.env.PORT (falls back to 5000), since most hosting platforms assign the port dynamically.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.