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  • Usage scenario for svn branches

    - by Paul Knopf
    I have a product that I distribute to my clients. Each client needs some UI customization. I want each client to be able to get updated with new version easily. Can I create a project in svn that serves as a "base project", and then create branches for each client? With that said, will I then be able to commit changes in a branch to the branch, with the option of pushing that change to the core? Can I also perform and "update" command in a branch that will only update changes to the core?

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  • What do I have to do to get Firefox to display the add-on bar and XUL simultaneously?

    - by SmileAndNod
    On MDN, the phrase "Add-on Manager-enabled XUL" is introduced. By dragging a XPI file containing an add-on and dropping it onto a FireFox window, the addon's widgets will be installed in FireFox's add-on bar. By specifying the commandline option "-app application.ini" at the root of a chrome-structured directory, Firefox will display XUL using chrome:// protocol. Since MDN makes me think that the two are not mutually exclusive, my question is, "What do I have to do to get Firefox 8.0.1 to display the add-on bar and XUL simultaneously?"

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  • iPhone to Java EE remoting

    - by Justin Simonelis
    Hi there! I was looking for some opinions on the best remote method invocation practices when developing iPhone applications that communicate with Java (java EE) servers. Many iphone applications these days typically talk to a server back end. I typically prefer to write my servers in java using some Spring libraries. So far I have not found or stuck to a definitive practice for iphone-java server communication. What are some technical solutions and libraries that you have used to implement this kind of client-server communication? One thing I always keep in mind is that I want the communication protocols to be simple so that multiple platforms can be added for example, in future adding Android and possibly Blackberry clients, that can use the same protocol to talk to the server.

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  • In a shared .iml file, what should the jdkName be for an IntelliJ IDEA Plugin SDK?

    - by bolinfest
    I work on a team where we commit our .iml files in version control so that everyone can use them. We have an .iml file for a plugin module, which includes the following: <orderEntry type="jdk" jdkName="IDEA IC-117.798" jdkType="IDEA JDK" /> however, that only works for people who are using that version (IC-117.798) of IntelliJ (some are on 12, some are using the ultimate edition, etc.) Is there any sort of variable like $INTELLIJ_SDK that could be used for the value of jdkName so that the .iml file is valid regardless of which version of IntelliJ you are using?

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  • IIS7: How to bind SSL Certificate to Https Host Header?

    - by h3n
    I have the following Web Farm: 1. http: mydomain1.com port: 80 2. http: mydomain2.com port: 80 3. https: port: 443 SSL Certificate: myCertificate In II7 when you select https binding, the host name will be disabled. I used the appcmd to bind the host name "admin.mydomain2.com" to the website. appcmd set site /site.name:"admin" /+bindings.[protocol='https',bindingInformation='*:443:admin.mydomain2.com'] A new item was added to the bindings. 3. a. https: port: 443 SSL Certificate: myCertificate b. https: admin.mydomain2.com port:443 SSL Certificate: None If for example I want to remove the first item (a), is it possible to assign a certificate to the second binding (b)?

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  • what's the javascript "var _gaq = _gaq || []; " for ?

    - by parvas
    The Async Tracking in google analytics looks like this: var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); About The first line var _gaq = _gaq || []; I think it ensures that if _gaq is already defined we should use it otherwise we should an array. Can anybody explain what this is for ? Also, does it matter if _gaq gets renamed ? in other words does google analytics rely on a global object named _gaq ? Thanks Parvas

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  • hibernate pagination mechanism

    - by haicnpmk44
    I am trying to use Hibernate pagination for my query (PostgreSQL ) i set setFirstResult(0), setMaxResults(20) for my sql query. My code like below: Session session = getSessionFactory().getCurrentSession(); session.beginTransaction(); Query query = session.createQuery("select id , customer_name , address from tbl_customers "); query.setFirstResult(0); query.setMaxResults(20); List<T> entities = query.list(); session.getTransaction().commit(); but when viewing SQL hibernate log, i still see full sql query: Hibernate: select customer0_.id as id9_, customer0_.customer_name as dst2_9_, customer0_.addres as dst3_9_ from tbl_customers customer0_ Why there is no LIMIT OFFSET in query of Hibernate pagination SQL log? Does anyone know about Hibernate pagination mechanism? I guess that Hibernate will select all data, put data into Resultset, and then paging in Resultset, right?

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  • Obtaining frame pointer in C

    - by assketchum
    I'm trying to get the FP in my C program, I tried two different ways, but they both differ from what I get when I run GDB. The first way I tried, I made a protocol function in C for the Assembly function: int* getEbp(); and my code looks like this: int* ebp = getEbp(); printf("ebp: %08x\n", ebp); // value i get here is 0xbfe2db58 while( esp <= ebp ) esp -= 4; printf( "ebp: %08x, esp" ); //value i get here is 0xbfe2daec My assembly code getEbp: movl %ebp, %eax ret I tried making the prototype function to just return an int, but that also doesn't match up with my GDB output. We are using x86 assembly. EDIT: typos, and my getEsp function looks exactly like the other one: getEsp: movl %esp, %eax ret

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  • Rails: updating an item along with associated items

    - by shmichael
    Suppose I have a simple to-do list application. The application contains two models: lists (have an owner and description) items (have name and due-date) that belong to a specific list I would like to have a single edit screen for a list in which I update the list attributes (such as description) and also create/delete/modify associated items. There should be a single "save" button that will commit all changes. Unless save is pressed, any change to the list and the items should be forgotten. I wasn't able to find an elegant best practice for this. Would greatly appreciate any suggestions and/or references to existing implementations.

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  • Scripting with the Sun ZFS Storage 7000 Appliance

    - by Geoff Ongley
    The Sun ZFS Storage 7000 appliance has a user friendly and easy to understand graphical web based interface we call the "BUI" or "Browser User Interface".This interface is very useful for many tasks, but in some cases a script (or workflow) may be more appropriate, such as:Repetitive tasksTasks which work on (or obtain information about) a large number of shares or usersTasks which are triggered by an alert threshold (workflows)Tasks where you want a only very basic input, but a consistent output (workflows)The appliance scripting language is based on ECMAscript 3 (close to javascript). I'm not going to cover ECMAscript 3 in great depth (I'm far from an expert here), but I would like to show you some neat things you can do with the appliance, to get you started based on what I have found from my own playing around.I'm making the assumption you have some sort of programming background, and understand variables, arrays, functions to some extent - but of course if something is not clear, please let me know so I can fix it up or clarify it.Variable Declarations and ArraysVariablesECMAScript is a dynamically and weakly typed language. If you don't know what that means, google is your friend - but at a high level it means we can just declare variables with no specific type and on the fly.For example, I can declare a variable and use it straight away in the middle of my code, for example:projects=list();Which makes projects an array of values that are returned from the list(); function (which is usable in most contexts). With this kind of variable, I can do things like:projects.length (this property on array tells you how many objects are in it, good for for loops etc). Alternatively, I could say:projects=3;and now projects is just a simple number.Should we declare variables like this so loosely? In my opinion, the answer is no - I feel it is a better practice to declare variables you are going to use, before you use them - and given them an initial value. You can do so as follows:var myVariable=0;To demonstrate the ability to just randomly assign and change the type of variables, you can create a simple script at the cli as follows (bold for input):fishy10:> script("." to run)> run("cd /");("." to run)> run ("shares");("." to run)> var projects;("." to run)> projects=list();("." to run)> printf("Number of projects is: %d\n",projects.length);("." to run)> projects=152;("." to run)> printf("Value of the projects variable as an integer is now: %d\n",projects);("." to run)> .Number of projects is: 7Value of the projects variable as an integer is now: 152You can also confirm this behaviour by checking the typeof variable we are dealing with:fishy10:> script("." to run)> run("cd /");("." to run)> run ("shares");("." to run)> var projects;("." to run)> projects=list();("." to run)> printf("var projects is of type %s\n",typeof(projects));("." to run)> projects=152;("." to run)> printf("var projects is of type %s\n",typeof(projects));("." to run)> .var projects is of type objectvar projects is of type numberArraysSo you likely noticed that we have already touched on arrays, as the list(); (in the shares context) stored an array into the 'projects' variable.But what if you want to declare your own array? Easy! This is very similar to Java and other languages, we just instantiate a brand new "Array" object using the keyword new:var myArray = new Array();will create an array called "myArray".A quick example:fishy10:> script("." to run)> testArray = new Array();("." to run)> testArray[0]="This";("." to run)> testArray[1]="is";("." to run)> testArray[2]="just";("." to run)> testArray[3]="a";("." to run)> testArray[4]="test";("." to run)> for (i=0; i < testArray.length; i++)("." to run)> {("." to run)>    printf("Array element %d is %s\n",i,testArray[i]);("." to run)> }("." to run)> .Array element 0 is ThisArray element 1 is isArray element 2 is justArray element 3 is aArray element 4 is testWorking With LoopsFor LoopFor loops are very similar to those you will see in C, java and several other languages. One of the key differences here is, as you were made aware earlier, we can be a bit more sloppy with our variable declarations.The general way you would likely use a for loop is as follows:for (variable; test-case; modifier for variable){}For example, you may wish to declare a variable i as 0; and a MAX_ITERATIONS variable to determine how many times this loop should repeat:var i=0;var MAX_ITERATIONS=10;And then, use this variable to be tested against some case existing (has i reached MAX_ITERATIONS? - if not, increment i using i++);for (i=0; i < MAX_ITERATIONS; i++){ // some work to do}So lets run something like this on the appliance:fishy10:> script("." to run)> var i=0;("." to run)> var MAX_ITERATIONS=10;("." to run)> for (i=0; i < MAX_ITERATIONS; i++)("." to run)> {("." to run)>    printf("The number is %d\n",i);("." to run)> }("." to run)> .The number is 0The number is 1The number is 2The number is 3The number is 4The number is 5The number is 6The number is 7The number is 8The number is 9While LoopWhile loops again are very similar to other languages, we loop "while" a condition is met. For example:fishy10:> script("." to run)> var isTen=false;("." to run)> var counter=0;("." to run)> while(isTen==false)("." to run)> {("." to run)>    if (counter==10) ("." to run)>    { ("." to run)>            isTen=true;   ("." to run)>    } ("." to run)>    printf("Counter is %d\n",counter);("." to run)>    counter++;    ("." to run)> }("." to run)> printf("Loop has ended and Counter is %d\n",counter);("." to run)> .Counter is 0Counter is 1Counter is 2Counter is 3Counter is 4Counter is 5Counter is 6Counter is 7Counter is 8Counter is 9Counter is 10Loop has ended and Counter is 11So what do we notice here? Something has actually gone wrong - counter will technically be 11 once the loop completes... Why is this?Well, if we have a loop like this, where the 'while' condition that will end the loop may be set based on some other condition(s) existing (such as the counter has reached 10) - we must ensure that we  terminate this iteration of the loop when the condition is met - otherwise the rest of the code will be followed which may not be desirable. In other words, like in other languages, we will only ever check the loop condition once we are ready to perform the next iteration, so any other code after we set "isTen" to be true, will still be executed as we can see it was above.We can avoid this by adding a break into our loop once we know we have set the condition - this will stop the rest of the logic being processed in this iteration (and as such, counter will not be incremented). So lets try that again:fishy10:> script("." to run)> var isTen=false;("." to run)> var counter=0;("." to run)> while(isTen==false)("." to run)> {("." to run)>    if (counter==10) ("." to run)>    { ("." to run)>            isTen=true;   ("." to run)>            break;("." to run)>    } ("." to run)>    printf("Counter is %d\n",counter);("." to run)>    counter++;    ("." to run)> }("." to run)> printf("Loop has ended and Counter is %d\n", counter);("." to run)> .Counter is 0Counter is 1Counter is 2Counter is 3Counter is 4Counter is 5Counter is 6Counter is 7Counter is 8Counter is 9Loop has ended and Counter is 10Much better!Methods to Obtain and Manipulate DataGet MethodThe get method allows you to get simple properties from an object, for example a quota from a user. The syntax is fairly simple:var myVariable=get('property');An example of where you may wish to use this, is when you are getting a bunch of information about a user (such as quota information when in a shares context):var users=list();for(k=0; k < users.length; k++){     user=users[k];     run('select ' + user);     var username=get('name');     var usage=get('usage');     var quota=get('quota');...Which you can then use to your advantage - to print or manipulate infomation (you could change a user's information with a set method, based on the information returned from the get method). The set method is explained next.Set MethodThe set method can be used in a simple manner, similar to get. The syntax for set is:set('property','value'); // where value is a string, if it was a number, you don't need quotesFor example, we could set the quota on a share as follows (first observing the initial value):fishy10:shares default/test-geoff> script("." to run)> var currentQuota=get('quota');("." to run)> printf("Current Quota is: %s\n",currentQuota);("." to run)> set('quota','30G');("." to run)> run('commit');("." to run)> currentQuota=get('quota');("." to run)> printf("Current Quota is: %s\n",currentQuota);("." to run)> .Current Quota is: 0Current Quota is: 32212254720This shows us using both the get and set methods as can be used in scripts, of course when only setting an individual share, the above is overkill - it would be much easier to set it manually at the cli using 'set quota=3G' and then 'commit'.List MethodThe list method can be very powerful, especially in more complex scripts which iterate over large amounts of data and manipulate it if so desired. The general way you will use list is as follows:var myVar=list();Which will make "myVar" an array, containing all the objects in the relevant context (this could be a list of users, shares, projects, etc). You can then gather or manipulate data very easily.We could list all the shares and mountpoints in a given project for example:fishy10:shares another-project> script("." to run)> var shares=list();("." to run)> for (i=0; i < shares.length; i++)("." to run)> {("." to run)>    run('select ' + shares[i]);("." to run)>    var mountpoint=get('mountpoint');("." to run)>    printf("Share %s discovered, has mountpoint %s\n",shares[i],mountpoint);("." to run)>    run('done');("." to run)> }("." to run)> .Share and-another discovered, has mountpoint /export/another-project/and-anotherShare another-share discovered, has mountpoint /export/another-project/another-shareShare bob discovered, has mountpoint /export/another-projectShare more-shares-for-all discovered, has mountpoint /export/another-project/more-shares-for-allShare yep discovered, has mountpoint /export/another-project/yepWriting More Complex and Re-Usable CodeFunctionsThe best way to be able to write more complex code is to use functions to split up repeatable or reusable sections of your code. This also makes your more complex code easier to read and understand for other programmers.We write functions as follows:function functionName(variable1,variable2,...,variableN){}For example, we could have a function that takes a project name as input, and lists shares for that project (assuming we're already in the 'project' context - context is important!):function getShares(proj){        run('select ' + proj);        shares=list();        printf("Project: %s\n", proj);        for(j=0; j < shares.length; j++)        {                printf("Discovered share: %s\n",shares[i]);        }        run('done'); // exit selected project}Commenting your CodeLike any other language, a large part of making it readable and understandable is to comment it. You can use the same comment style as in C and Java amongst other languages.In other words, sngle line comments use://at the beginning of the comment.Multi line comments use:/*at the beginning, and:*/ at the end.For example, here we will use both:fishy10:> script("." to run)> // This is a test comment("." to run)> printf("doing some work...\n");("." to run)> /* This is a multi-line("." to run)> comment which I will span across("." to run)> three lines in total */("." to run)> printf("doing some more work...\n");("." to run)> .doing some work...doing some more work...Your comments do not have to be on their own, they can begin (particularly with single line comments this is handy) at the end of a statement, for examplevar projects=list(); // The variable projects is an array containing all projects on the system.Try and Catch StatementsYou may be used to using try and catch statements in other languages, and they can (and should) be utilised in your code to catch expected or unexpected error conditions, that you do NOT wish to stop your code from executing (if you do not catch these errors, your script will exit!):try{  // do some work}catch(err) // Catch any error that could occur{ // do something here under the error condition}For example, you may wish to only execute some code if a context can be reached. If you can't perform certain actions under certain circumstances, that may be perfectly acceptable.For example if you want to test a condition that only makes sense when looking at a SMB/NFS share, but does not make sense when you hit an iscsi or FC LUN, you don't want to stop all processing of other shares you may not have covered yet.For example we may wish to obtain quota information on all shares for all users on a share (but this makes no sense for a LUN):function getShareQuota(shar) // Get quota for each user of this share{        run('select ' + shar);        printf("  SHARE: %s\n", shar);        try        {                run('users');                printf("    %20s        %11s    %11s    %3s\n","Username","Usage(G)","Quota(G)","Quota(%)");                printf("    %20s        %11s    %11s    %4s\n","--------","--------","--------","----");                                users=list();                for(k=0; k < users.length; k++)                {                        user=users[k];                        getUserQuota(user);                }                run('done'); // exit user context        }        catch(err)        {                printf("    SKIPPING %s - This is NOT a NFS or CIFs share, not looking for users\n", shar);        }        run('done'); // done with this share}Running Scripts Remotely over SSHAs you have likely noticed, writing and running scripts for all but the simplest jobs directly on the appliance is not going to be a lot of fun.There's a couple of choices on what you can do here:Create scripts on a remote system and run them over sshCreate scripts, wrapping them in workflow code, so they are stored on the appliance and can be triggered under certain circumstances (like a threshold being reached)We'll cover the first one here, and then cover workflows later on (as these are for the most part just scripts with some wrapper information around them).Creating a SSH Public/Private SSH Key PairLog on to your handy Solaris box (You wouldn't be using any other OS, right? :P) and use ssh-keygen to create a pair of ssh keys. I'm storing this separate to my normal key:[geoff@lightning ~] ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 1024Generating public/private rsa key pair.Enter file in which to save the key (/export/home/geoff/.ssh/id_rsa): /export/home/geoff/.ssh/nas_key_rsaEnter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in /export/home/geoff/.ssh/nas_key_rsa.Your public key has been saved in /export/home/geoff/.ssh/nas_key_rsa.pub.The key fingerprint is:7f:3d:53:f0:2a:5e:8b:2d:94:2a:55:77:66:5c:9b:14 geoff@lightningInstalling the Public Key on the ApplianceOn your Solaris host, observe the public key:[geoff@lightning ~] cat .ssh/nas_key_rsa.pub ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAIEAvYfK3RIaAYmMHBOvyhKM41NaSmcgUMC3igPN5gUKJQvSnYmjuWG6CBr1CkF5UcDji7v19jG3qAD5lAMFn+L0CxgRr8TNaAU+hA4/tpAGkjm+dKYSyJgEdMIURweyyfUFXoerweR8AWW5xlovGKEWZTAfvJX9Zqvh8oMQ5UJLUUc= geoff@lightningNow, copy and paste everything after "ssh-rsa" and before "user@hostname" - in this case, geoff@lightning. That is, this bit:AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAIEAvYfK3RIaAYmMHBOvyhKM41NaSmcgUMC3igPN5gUKJQvSnYmjuWG6CBr1CkF5UcDji7v19jG3qAD5lAMFn+L0CxgRr8TNaAU+hA4/tpAGkjm+dKYSyJgEdMIURweyyfUFXoerweR8AWW5xlovGKEWZTAfvJX9Zqvh8oMQ5UJLUUc=Logon to your appliance and get into the preferences -> keys area for this user (root):[geoff@lightning ~] ssh [email protected]: Last login: Mon Dec  6 17:13:28 2010 from 192.168.0.2fishy10:> configuration usersfishy10:configuration users> select rootfishy10:configuration users root> preferences fishy10:configuration users root preferences> keysOR do it all in one hit:fishy10:> configuration users select root preferences keysNow, we create a new public key that will be accepted for this user and set the type to RSA:fishy10:configuration users root preferences keys> createfishy10:configuration users root preferences key (uncommitted)> set type=RSASet the key itself using the string copied previously (between ssh-rsa and user@host), and set the key ensuring you put double quotes around it (eg. set key="<key>"):fishy10:configuration users root preferences key (uncommitted)> set key="AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAIEAvYfK3RIaAYmMHBOvyhKM41NaSmcgUMC3igPN5gUKJQvSnYmjuWG6CBr1CkF5UcDji7v19jG3qAD5lAMFn+L0CxgRr8TNaAU+hA4/tpAGkjm+dKYSyJgEdMIURweyyfUFXoerweR8AWW5xlovGKEWZTAfvJX9Zqvh8oMQ5UJLUUc="Now set the comment for this key (do not use spaces):fishy10:configuration users root preferences key (uncommitted)> set comment="LightningRSAKey" Commit the new key:fishy10:configuration users root preferences key (uncommitted)> commitVerify the key is there:fishy10:configuration users root preferences keys> lsKeys:NAME     MODIFIED              TYPE   COMMENT                                  key-000  2010-10-25 20:56:42   RSA    cycloneRSAKey                           key-001  2010-12-6 17:44:53    RSA    LightningRSAKey                         As you can see, we now have my new key, and a previous key I have created on this appliance.Running your Script over SSH from a Remote SystemHere I have created a basic test script, and saved it as test.ecma3:[geoff@lightning ~] cat test.ecma3 script// This is a test script, By Geoff Ongley 2010.printf("Testing script remotely over ssh\n");.Now, we can run this script remotely with our keyless login:[geoff@lightning ~] ssh -i .ssh/nas_key_rsa root@fishy10 < test.ecma3Pseudo-terminal will not be allocated because stdin is not a terminal.Testing script remotely over sshPutting it Together - An Example Completed Quota Gathering ScriptSo now we have a lot of the basics to creating a script, let us do something useful, like, find out how much every user is using, on every share on the system (you will recognise some of the code from my previous examples): script/************************************** Quick and Dirty Quota Check script ** Written By Geoff Ongley            ** 25 October 2010                    **************************************/function getUserQuota(usr){        run('select ' + usr);        var username=get('name');        var usage=get('usage');        var quota=get('quota');        var usage_g=usage / 1073741824; // convert bytes to gigabytes        var quota_g=quota / 1073741824; // as above        var quota_percent=0        if (quota > 0)        {                quota_percent=(usage / quota)*(100/1);        }        printf("    %20s        %8.2f           %8.2f           %d%%\n",username,usage_g,quota_g,quota_percent);        run('done'); // done with this selected user}function getShareQuota(shar){        //printf("DEBUG: selecting share %s\n", shar);        run('select ' + shar);        printf("  SHARE: %s\n", shar);        try        {                run('users');                printf("    %20s        %11s    %11s    %3s\n","Username","Usage(G)","Quota(G)","Quota(%)");                printf("    %20s        %11s    %11s    %4s\n","--------","--------","--------","--------");                                users=list();                for(k=0; k < users.length; k++)                {                        user=users[k];                        getUserQuota(user);                }                run('done'); // exit user context        }        catch(err)        {                printf("    SKIPPING %s - This is NOT a NFS or CIFs share, not looking for users\n", shar);        }        run('done'); // done with this share}function getShares(proj){        //printf("DEBUG: selecting project %s\n",proj);        run('select ' + proj);        shares=list();        printf("Project: %s\n", proj);        for(j=0; j < shares.length; j++)        {                share=shares[j];                getShareQuota(share);        }        run('done'); // exit selected project}function getProjects(){        run('cd /');        run('shares');        projects=list();                for (i=0; i < projects.length; i++)        {                var project=projects[i];                getShares(project);        }        run('done'); // exit context for all projects}getProjects();.Which can be run as follows, and will print information like this:[geoff@lightning ~/FISHWORKS_SCRIPTS] ssh -i ~/.ssh/nas_key_rsa root@fishy10 < get_quota_utilisation.ecma3Pseudo-terminal will not be allocated because stdin is not a terminal.Project: another-project  SHARE: and-another                Username           Usage(G)       Quota(G)    Quota(%)                --------           --------       --------    --------                  nobody            0.00            0.00        0%                 geoffro            0.05            0.00        0%                   Billy            0.10            0.00        0%                    root            0.00            0.00        0%            testing-user            0.05            0.00        0%  SHARE: another-share                Username           Usage(G)       Quota(G)    Quota(%)                --------           --------       --------    --------                    root            0.00            0.00        0%                  nobody            0.00            0.00        0%                 geoffro            0.05            0.49        9%            testing-user            0.05            0.02        249%                   Billy            0.10            0.29        33%  SHARE: bob                Username           Usage(G)       Quota(G)    Quota(%)                --------           --------       --------    --------                  nobody            0.00            0.00        0%                    root            0.00            0.00        0%  SHARE: more-shares-for-all                Username           Usage(G)       Quota(G)    Quota(%)                --------           --------       --------    --------                   Billy            0.10            0.00        0%            testing-user            0.05            0.00        0%                  nobody            0.00            0.00        0%                    root            0.00            0.00        0%                 geoffro            0.05            0.00        0%  SHARE: yep                Username           Usage(G)       Quota(G)    Quota(%)                --------           --------       --------    --------                    root            0.00            0.00        0%                  nobody            0.00            0.00        0%                   Billy            0.10            0.01        999%            testing-user            0.05            0.49        9%                 geoffro            0.05            0.00        0%Project: default  SHARE: Test-LUN    SKIPPING Test-LUN - This is NOT a NFS or CIFs share, not looking for users  SHARE: test-geoff                Username           Usage(G)       Quota(G)    Quota(%)                --------           --------       --------    --------                 geoffro            0.05            0.00        0%                    root            3.18           10.00        31%                    uucp            0.00            0.00        0%                  nobody            0.59            0.49        119%^CKilled by signal 2.Creating a WorkflowWorkflows are scripts that we store on the appliance, and can have the script execute either on request (even from the BUI), or on an event such as a threshold being met.Workflow BasicsA workflow allows you to create a simple process that can be executed either via the BUI interface interactively, or by an alert being raised (for some threshold being reached, for example).The basics parameters you will have to set for your "workflow object" (notice you're creating a variable, that embodies ECMAScript) are as follows (parameters is optional):name: A name for this workflowdescription: A Description for the workflowparameters: A set of input parameters (useful when you need user input to execute the workflow)execute: The code, the script itself to execute, which will be function (parameters)With parameters, you can specify things like this (slightly modified sample taken from the System Administration Guide):          ...parameters:        variableParam1:         {                             label: 'Name of Share',                             type: 'String'                  },                  variableParam2                  {                             label: 'Share Size',                             type: 'size'                  },execute: ....};  Note the commas separating the sections of name, parameters, execute, and so on. This is important!Also - there is plenty of properties you can set on the parameters for your workflow, these are described in the Sun ZFS Storage System Administration Guide.Creating a Basic Workflow from a Basic ScriptTo make a basic script into a basic workflow, you need to wrap the following around your script to create a 'workflow' object:var workflow = {name: 'Get User Quotas',description: 'Displays Quota Utilisation for each user on each share',execute: function() {// (basic script goes here, minus the "script" at the beginning, and "." at the end)}};However, it appears (at least in my experience to date) that the workflow object may only be happy with one function in the execute parameter - either that or I'm doing something wrong. As far as I can tell, after execute: you should only have a basic one function context like so:execute: function(){}To deal with this, and to give an example similar to our script earlier, I have created another simple quota check, to show the same basic functionality, but in a workflow format:var workflow = {name: 'Get User Quotas',description: 'Displays Quota Utilisation for each user on each share',execute: function () {        run('cd /');        run('shares');        projects=list();                for (i=0; i < projects.length; i++)        {                run('select ' + projects[i]);                shares=list('filesystem');                printf("Project: %s\n", projects[i]);                for(j=0; j < shares.length; j++)                {                        run('select ' +shares[j]);                        try                        {                                run('users');                                printf("  SHARE: %s\n", shares[j]);                                printf("    %20s        %11s    %11s    %3s\n","Username","Usage(G)","Quota(G)","Quota(%)");                                printf("    %20s        %11s    %11s    %4s\n","--------","--------","--------","-------");                                users=list();                                for(k=0; k < users.length; k++)                                {                                        run('select ' + users[k]);                                        username=get('name');                                        usage=get('usage');                                        quota=get('quota');                                        usage_g=usage / 1073741824; // convert bytes to gigabytes                                        quota_g=quota / 1073741824; // as above                                        quota_percent=0                                        if (quota > 0)                                        {                                                quota_percent=(usage / quota)*(100/1);                                        }                                        printf("    %20s        %8.2f   %8.2f   %d%%\n",username,usage_g,quota_g,quota_percent);                                        run('done');                                }                                run('done'); // exit user context                        }                        catch(err)                        {                        //      printf("    %s is a LUN, Not looking for users\n", shares[j]);                        }                        run('done'); // exit selected share context                }                run('done'); // exit project context        }        }};SummaryThe Sun ZFS Storage 7000 Appliance offers lots of different and interesting features to Sun/Oracle customers, including the world renowned Analytics. Hopefully the above will help you to think of new creative things you could be doing by taking advantage of one of the other neat features, the internal scripting engine!Some references are below to help you continue learning more, I'll update this post as I do the same! Enjoy...More information on ECMAScript 3A complete reference to ECMAScript 3 which will help you learn more of the details you may be interested in, can be found here:http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST-ARCH/ECMA-262,%203rd%20edition,%20December%201999.pdfMore Information on Administering the Sun ZFS Storage 7000The Sun ZFS Storage 7000 System Administration guide can be a useful reference point, and can be found here:http://wikis.sun.com/download/attachments/186238602/2010_Q3_2_ADMIN.pdf

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  • SSH problems (ssh_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset by peer)

    - by kSiR
    I was running 11.10 and decided to do the full upgrade and come up to 12.04 after the update SSH (not SSHD) is now misbehaving when attempting to connect to other OpenSSH instances. I say OpenSSH as I am running a DropBear sshd on my router and I am able to connect to it. When attempting to connect to an OpenSSH server risk@skynet:~/.ssh$ ssh -vvv risk@someserver OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5ubuntu1, OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012 debug1: Reading configuration data /home/risk/.ssh/config debug3: key names ok: [[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,ssh-rsa,ssh-dss] debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 19: Applying options for * debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0 debug1: Connecting to someserver [someserver] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1 debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1 debug3: Incorrect RSA1 identifier debug3: Could not load "/home/risk/.ssh/id_ecdsa" as a RSA1 public key debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_ecdsa type 3 debug1: Checking blacklist file /usr/share/ssh/blacklist.ECDSA-521 debug1: Checking blacklist file /etc/ssh/blacklist.ECDSA-521 debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1 ssh_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset by peer risk@skynet:~/.ssh$ DropBear instance risk@skynet:~/.ssh$ ssh -vvv root@darkness OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5ubuntu1, OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012 debug1: Reading configuration data /home/risk/.ssh/config debug3: key names ok: [[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,ssh-rsa,ssh-dss] debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 19: Applying options for * debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0 debug1: Connecting to darkness [192.168.1.1] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1 debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1 debug3: Incorrect RSA1 identifier debug3: Could not load "/home/risk/.ssh/id_ecdsa" as a RSA1 public key debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_ecdsa type 3 debug1: Checking blacklist file /usr/share/ssh/blacklist.ECDSA-521 debug1: Checking blacklist file /etc/ssh/blacklist.ECDSA-521 debug1: identity file /home/risk/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version dropbear_0.52 debug1: no match: dropbear_0.52 ... I have googled and ran most ALL fixes recommend both from the Debian and Arch sides and none of them seem to resolve my issue. Any ideas?

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  • Pass a single boolean from an Android App to a libgdx game

    - by Doug Henning
    I'm writing an Android application that needs to pass a single boolean into an Android game that I am also writing. The idea is that the user does something in the App which will affect how the game operates. This is tricky with LIBGDX since I need to get the bool value into the Java files of the game, but of course, you can't call Android specific things from within LIBGDX's main Java files. I tried using an intent but of course the same problem persists. I can get the boolean into the MainActivity.Java of the android output of the game, but can't pass it along any further since the android output and the main java files don't know about each other. I have seen a few tutorials that explain how to use set up an interface in the LIBGDX java files that can call android things. This seems like wild overkill for what I want to do. I've been trying to use Android's Shared Preferences with LIBGDX's Gdx.app.getPreferences, but I can't make it work. Anyhelp would be MUCH appreciated. I've set up two hello world applications. One is a standard Android app, with a single button that is supposed to write "true" into the shared preferences. The other is a standard LIBGDX hello world that is supposed to do nothing but check that bool when launched and if true display one image to the screen, if false, display a different one. Here's the relevant bit of the Android code: import android.preference.PreferenceManager; public void onClick(View view) { if (view == this.boolButton){ final String PREF_FILE_NAME = "myBool"; SharedPreferences preferences = getSharedPreferences(PREF_FILE_NAME, MODE_WORLD_WRITEABLE); SharedPreferences.Editor editor = preferences.edit(); editor.putBoolean("myBool", true); editor.commit(); } } And here's the relevant bit of the code from the LIBGDX main file: Preferences prefs = Gdx.app.getPreferences("myBool"); boolean switcher = prefs.getBoolean("myBool"); if(switcher == true){ texture = new Texture(Gdx.files.internal("data/worked512.png")); prefs.putBoolean("myBool", false); } else { texture = new Texture(Gdx.files.internal("data/libgdx.png")); } Everything compiles fine, it just doesn't work. I've spent HOURS googling trying to find a way to pass this single boolean from android into a LIBGDX main and I'm totally stumped. Thanks for your help.

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  • Pass a single boolean from an Android App to a LIBGDK game

    - by Doug Henning
    I'm writing an Android application that needs to pass a single boolean into an Android game that I am also writing. The idea is that the user does something in the App which will affect how the game operates. This is tricky with LIBGDX since I need to get the bool value into the Java files of the game, but of course, you can't call Android specific things from within LIBGDX's main Java files. I tried using an intent but of course the same problem persists. I can get the boolean into the MainActivity.Java of the android output of the game, but can't pass it along any further since the android output and the main java files don't know about each other. I have seen a few tutorials that explain how to use set up an interface in the LIBGDX java files that can call android things. This seems like wild overkill for what I want to do. I've been trying to use Android's Shared Preferences with LIBGDX's Gdx.app.getPreferences, but I can't make it work. Anyhelp would be MUCH appreciated. I've set up two hello world applications. One is a standard Android app, with a single button that is supposed to write "true" into the shared preferences. The other is a standard LIBGDX hello world that is supposed to do nothing but check that bool when launched and if true display one image to the screen, if false, display a different one. Here's the relevant bit of the Android code: import android.preference.PreferenceManager; public void onClick(View view) { if (view == this.boolButton){ final String PREF_FILE_NAME = "myBool"; SharedPreferences preferences = getSharedPreferences(PREF_FILE_NAME, MODE_WORLD_WRITEABLE); SharedPreferences.Editor editor = preferences.edit(); editor.putBoolean("myBool", true); editor.commit(); } } And here's the relevant bit of the code from the LIBGDX main file: Preferences prefs = Gdx.app.getPreferences("myBool"); boolean switcher = prefs.getBoolean("myBool"); if(switcher == true){ texture = new Texture(Gdx.files.internal("data/worked512.png")); prefs.putBoolean("myBool", false); } else { texture = new Texture(Gdx.files.internal("data/libgdx.png")); } Everything compiles fine, it just doesn't work. I've spent HOURS googling trying to find a way to pass this single boolean from android into a LIBGDX main and I'm totally stumped. Thanks for your help.

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  • Silverlight Cream for March 22, 2010 -- #817

    - by Dave Campbell
    In this Issue: Bart Czernicki, Tim Greenfield, Andrea Boschin(-2-), AfricanGeek, Fredrik Normén, Ian Griffiths, Christian Schormann, Pete Brown, Jeff Handley, Brad Abrams, and Tim Heuer. Shoutout: At the beginning of MIX10, Brad Abrams reported Silverlight 4 and RIA Services Release Candidate Available NOW From SilverlightCream.com: Using the Bing Maps Silverlight control on the Windows Phone 7 Bart Czernicki has a very cool BingMaps and WP7 tutorial up... you're going to want to bookmark this one for sure! Code included and external links... thanks Bart! Silverlight Rx DataClient within MVVM Tim Greenfield has a great post up about Rx and MVVM with Silverlight 3. Lots of good insight into Rx and interesting code bits. SilverVNC - a VNC Viewer with Silverlight 4.0 RC Andrea Boschin digs into Silverlight 4 RC and it's full-trust on sockets and builds an implementation of RFB protocol... give it a try and give Andrea some feedback. Chromeless Window for OOB applications in Silverlight 4.0 RC Andrea Boschin also has a post up on investigating the OOB no-chrome features in SL4RC. Windows Phone 7 and WCF AfricanGeek has his latest video tutorial up and it's on WCF and WP7... I've got a feeling we're all going to have to get our arms around this. Some steps for moving WCF RIA Services Preveiw to the RC version Fredrik Normén details his steps in transitioning to the RC version of RIA Services. Silverlight Business Apps: Module 8.5 - The Value of MEF with Silverlight Ian Griffiths has a video tutorial up at Channel 9 on MEF and Silverlight, posted by John Papa Introducing Blend 4 – For Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone Christian Schormann has an early MIX10 post up about te new features in Expression Blend with regard to Silverlight, WPF, and WP7. Building your first Silverlight for Windows Phone Application Pete Brown has his first post up on building a WP7 app with the MIX10 bits. Lookups in DataGrid and DataForm with RIA Services Jeff Handley elaborates on a post by someone else about using lookup data in the DataGrid and DataForm with RIA Services Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Starting a New Project with the Business Application Template Brad Abrams is starting a series highlighting the key features of Silverlight 4 and RIA with the new releases. He has a post up Silverlight 4 + RIA Services - Ready for Business: Index, including links and source. Then in this first post of the series, he introduces the Business Application Template. Custom Window Chrome and Events Watch a tutorial video by Tim Heuer on creating custom chrome for OOB apps. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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  • ESB Toolkit 2.0 EndPointConfig (HTTPS with WCF-BasicHttp and the ESB Toolkit 2.0)

    - by Andy Morrison
    Earlier this week I had an ESB endpoint (Off-Ramp in ESB parlance) that I was sending to over http using WCF-BasicHttp.  I needed to switch the protocol to https: which I did by changing my UDDI Binding over to https:  No problem from a management perspective; however, when I tried to run the process I saw this exception: Event Type:                     Error Event Source:                BizTalk Server 2009 Event Category:            BizTalk Server 2009 Event ID:   5754 Date:                                    3/10/2010 Time:                                   2:58:23 PM User:                                    N/A Computer:                       XXXXXXXXX Description: A message sent to adapter "WCF-BasicHttp" on send port "SPDynamic.XXX.SR" with URI "https://XXXXXXXXX.com/XXXXXXX/whatever.asmx" is suspended.  Error details: System.ArgumentException: The provided URI scheme 'https' is invalid; expected 'http'. Parameter name: via    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.TransportChannelFactory`1.ValidateScheme(Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory.ValidateCreateChannelParameters(EndpointAddress remoteAddress, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory.OnCreateChannel(EndpointAddress remoteAddress, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ChannelFactoryBase`1.InternalCreateChannel(EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ChannelFactoryBase`1.CreateChannel(EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelFactory.ServiceChannelFactoryOverRequest.CreateInnerChannelBinder(EndpointAddress to, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelFactory.CreateServiceChannel(EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelFactory.CreateChannel(Type channelType, EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactory`1.CreateChannel(EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactory`1.CreateChannel()    at Microsoft.BizTalk.Adapter.Wcf.Runtime.WcfClient`2.GetChannel[TChannel](IBaseMessage bizTalkMessage, ChannelFactory`1& cachedFactory)    at Microsoft.BizTalk.Adapter.Wcf.Runtime.WcfClient`2.SendMessage(IBaseMessage bizTalkMessage)  MessageId:  {1170F4ED-550F-4F7E-B0E0-1EE92A25AB10}  InstanceID: {1640C6C6-CA9C-4746-AEB0-584FDF7BB61E} I knew from a previous experience that I likely needed to set the SecurityMode setting for my Send Port.  But how do you do this for a Dynamic port (which I was using since this is an ESB solution)? Within the UDDI portal you have to add an additional Instance Info to your Binding named: EndPointConfig  Then you have to set its value to:  SecurityMode=Transport Like this:    The EndPointConfig is how the ESB Toolkit 2.0 provides extensibility for the various transports.  To see what the key-value pair options are for a given transport, open up an itinerary and change one of your resolvers to a “static” resolver by setting the “Resolver Implementation” to Static.  Then select a “Transport Name” ”, for instance to WCF-BasicHttp.  At this point you can then click on the “EndPoint Configuration” property for to see an adapter/ramp specific properties dialog (key-value pairs.)    Here’s the dialog that popped up for WCF-BasicHttp:   I simply set the SecurityMode to Transport.  Please note that you will get different properties within the window depending on the Transport Name you select for the resolver. When you are done with your settings, export the itinerary to disk and find that xml; then find that resolver’s xml within that file.  It will look like endpointConfig=SecurityMode=Transport in this case.  Note that if you set additional properties you will have additional key-value pairs after endpointConfig= Copy that string and paste it into the UDDI portal for you Binding’s EndPointConfig Instance Info value.

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  • Integrating Twitter Into An ASP.NET Website Using OAuth

    Earlier this year I wrote an article about Twitterizer, an open-source .NET library that can be used to integrate your application with Twitter. Using Twitterizer you can allow your visitors to post tweets, view their timeline, and much more, all without leaving your website. The original article, Integrating Twitter Into An ASP.NET Website, showed how to post tweets and view a timeline to a particular Twitter account using Twitterizer 1.0. To post a tweet to a specific account, Twitterizer 1.0 uses basic authentication. Basic authentication is a very simple authentication scheme. For an application to post a tweet to JohnDoe's Twitter account, it would submit JohnDoe's username and password (along with the tweet text) to Twitter's servers. Basic authentication, while easy to implement, is not an ideal authentication scheme as it requires that the integrating application know the username(s) and password(s) of the accounts that it is connected to. Consequently, a user must share her password in order to connect her Twitter account with the application. Such password sharing is not only insecure, but it can also cause difficulties down the line if the user changes her password or decides that she no longer wants to connect her account to certain applications (but wants to remain connected to others). To remedy these issues, Twitter introduced support for OAuth, which is a simple, secure protocol for granting API access. In a nutshell, OAuth allows a user to connect an application to their Twitter account without having to share their password. Instead, the user is sent to Twitter's website where they confirm whether they want to connect to the application. Upon confirmation, Twitter generates an token that is then sent back to the application. The application then submits this token when integrating with the user's account. The token serves as proof that the user has allowed this application access to their account. (Twitter users can view what application's they're connected to and may revoke these tokens on an application-by-application basis.) In late 2009, Twitter announced that it was ending its support for basic authentication in June 2010. As a result, the code examined in Integrating Twitter Into An ASP.NET Website, which uses basic authentication, will no longer work once the cut off date is reached. The good news is that the Twitterizer version 2.0 supports OAuth. This article examines how to use Twitterizer 2.0 and OAuth from a website. Specifically, we'll see how to retrieve and display a user's latest tweets and how to post a tweet from an ASP.NET page. Read on to learn more! Read More >Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • Integrating Twitter Into An ASP.NET Website Using OAuth

    Earlier this year I wrote an article about Twitterizer, an open-source .NET library that can be used to integrate your application with Twitter. Using Twitterizer you can allow your visitors to post tweets, view their timeline, and much more, all without leaving your website. The original article, Integrating Twitter Into An ASP.NET Website, showed how to post tweets and view a timeline to a particular Twitter account using Twitterizer 1.0. To post a tweet to a specific account, Twitterizer 1.0 uses basic authentication. Basic authentication is a very simple authentication scheme. For an application to post a tweet to JohnDoe's Twitter account, it would submit JohnDoe's username and password (along with the tweet text) to Twitter's servers. Basic authentication, while easy to implement, is not an ideal authentication scheme as it requires that the integrating application know the username(s) and password(s) of the accounts that it is connected to. Consequently, a user must share her password in order to connect her Twitter account with the application. Such password sharing is not only insecure, but it can also cause difficulties down the line if the user changes her password or decides that she no longer wants to connect her account to certain applications (but wants to remain connected to others). To remedy these issues, Twitter introduced support for OAuth, which is a simple, secure protocol for granting API access. In a nutshell, OAuth allows a user to connect an application to their Twitter account without having to share their password. Instead, the user is sent to Twitter's website where they confirm whether they want to connect to the application. Upon confirmation, Twitter generates an token that is then sent back to the application. The application then submits this token when integrating with the user's account. The token serves as proof that the user has allowed this application access to their account. (Twitter users can view what application's they're connected to and may revoke these tokens on an application-by-application basis.) In late 2009, Twitter announced that it was ending its support for basic authentication in June 2010. As a result, the code examined in Integrating Twitter Into An ASP.NET Website, which uses basic authentication, will no longer work once the cut off date is reached. The good news is that the Twitterizer version 2.0 supports OAuth. This article examines how to use Twitterizer 2.0 and OAuth from a website. Specifically, we'll see how to retrieve and display a user's latest tweets and how to post a tweet from an ASP.NET page. Read on to learn more! Read More >

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  • AuthnRequest Settings in OIF / SP

    - by Damien Carru
    In this article, I will list the various OIF/SP settings that affect how an AuthnRequest message is created in OIF in a Federation SSO flow. The AuthnRequest message is used by an SP to start a Federation SSO operation and to indicate to the IdP how the operation should be executed: How the user should be challenged at the IdP Whether or not the user should be challenged at the IdP, even if a session already exists at the IdP for this user Which NameID format should be requested in the SAML Assertion Which binding (Artifact or HTTP-POST) should be requested from the IdP to send the Assertion Which profile should be used by OIF/SP to send the AuthnRequest message Enjoy the reading! Protocols The SAML 2.0, SAML 1.1 and OpenID 2.0 protocols define different message elements and rules that allow an administrator to influence the Federation SSO flows in different manners, when the SP triggers an SSO operation: SAML 2.0 allows extensive customization via the AuthnRequest message SAML 1.1 does not allow any customization, since the specifications do not define an authentication request message OpenID 2.0 allows for some customization, mainly via the OpenID 2.0 extensions such as PAPE or UI SAML 2.0 OIF/SP allows the customization of the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest message for the following elements: ForceAuthn: Boolean indicating whether or not the IdP should force the user for re-authentication, even if the user has still a valid session By default set to false IsPassive Boolean indicating whether or not the IdP is allowed to interact with the user as part of the Federation SSO operation. If false, the Federation SSO operation might result in a failure with the NoPassive error code, because the IdP will not have been able to identify the user By default set to false RequestedAuthnContext Element indicating how the user should be challenged at the IdP If the SP requests a Federation Authentication Method unknown to the IdP or for which the IdP is not configured, then the Federation SSO flow will result in a failure with the NoAuthnContext error code By default missing NameIDPolicy Element indicating which NameID format the IdP should include in the SAML Assertion If the SP requests a NameID format unknown to the IdP or for which the IdP is not configured, then the Federation SSO flow will result in a failure with the InvalidNameIDPolicy error code If missing, the IdP will generally use the default NameID format configured for this SP partner at the IdP By default missing ProtocolBinding Element indicating which SAML binding should be used by the IdP to redirect the user to the SP with the SAML Assertion Set to Artifact or HTTP-POST By default set to HTTP-POST OIF/SP also allows the administrator to configure the server to: Set which binding should be used by OIF/SP to redirect the user to the IdP with the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest message: Redirect or HTTP-POST By default set to Redirect Set which binding should be used by OIF/SP to redirect the user to the IdP during logout with SAML 2.0 Logout messages: Redirect or HTTP-POST By default set to Redirect SAML 1.1 The SAML 1.1 specifications do not define a message for the SP to send to the IdP when a Federation SSO operation is started. As such, there is no capability to configure OIF/SP on how to affect the start of the Federation SSO flow. OpenID 2.0 OpenID 2.0 defines several extensions that can be used by the SP/RP to affect how the Federation SSO operation will take place: OpenID request: mode: String indicating if the IdP/OP can visually interact with the user checkid_immediate does not allow the IdP/OP to interact with the user checkid_setup allows user interaction By default set to checkid_setup PAPE Extension: max_auth_age : Integer indicating in seconds the maximum amount of time since when the user authenticated at the IdP. If MaxAuthnAge is bigger that the time since when the user last authenticated at the IdP, then the user must be re-challenged. OIF/SP will set this attribute to 0 if the administrator configured ForceAuthn to true, otherwise this attribute won't be set Default missing preferred_auth_policies Contains a Federation Authentication Method Element indicating how the user should be challenged at the IdP By default missing Only specified in the OpenID request if the IdP/OP supports PAPE in XRDS, if OpenID discovery is used. UI Extension Popup mode Boolean indicating the popup mode is enabled for the Federation SSO By default missing Language Preference String containing the preferred language, set based on the browser's language preferences. By default missing Icon: Boolean indicating if the icon feature is enabled. In that case, the IdP/OP would look at the SP/RP XRDS to determine how to retrieve the icon By default missing Only specified in the OpenID request if the IdP/OP supports UI Extenstion in XRDS, if OpenID discovery is used. ForceAuthn and IsPassive WLST Command OIF/SP provides the WLST configureIdPAuthnRequest() command to set: ForceAuthn as a boolean: In a SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest, the ForceAuthn field will be set to true or false In an OpenID 2.0 request, if ForceAuthn in the configuration was set to true, then the max_auth_age field of the PAPE request will be set to 0, otherwise, max_auth_age won't be set IsPassive as a boolean: In a SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest, the IsPassive field will be set to true or false In an OpenID 2.0 request, if IsPassive in the configuration was set to true, then the mode field of the OpenID request will be set to checkid_immediate, otherwise set to checkid_setup Test In this test, OIF/SP is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 IdP Partner, with the OOTB configuration. Based on this setup, when OIF/SP starts a Federation SSO flow, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> Let's configure OIF/SP for that IdP Partner, so that the SP will require the IdP to re-challenge the user, even if the user is already authenticated: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the configureIdPAuthnRequest() command:configureIdPAuthnRequest(partner="AcmeIdP", forceAuthn="true") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After the changes, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ForceAuthn="true" ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> To display or delete the ForceAuthn/IsPassive settings, perform the following operatons: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the configureIdPAuthnRequest() command: To display the ForceAuthn/IsPassive settings on the partnerconfigureIdPAuthnRequest(partner="AcmeIdP", displayOnly="true") To delete the ForceAuthn/IsPassive settings from the partnerconfigureIdPAuthnRequest(partner="AcmeIdP", delete="true") Exit the WLST environment:exit() Requested Fed Authn Method In my earlier "Fed Authentication Method Requests in OIF / SP" article, I discussed how OIF/SP could be configured to request a specific Federation Authentication Method from the IdP when starting a Federation SSO operation, by setting elements in the SSO request message. WLST Command The OIF WLST commands that can be used are: setIdPPartnerProfileRequestAuthnMethod() which will configure the requested Federation Authentication Method in a specific IdP Partner Profile, and accepts the following parameters: partnerProfile: name of the IdP Partner Profile authnMethod: the Federation Authentication Method to request displayOnly: an optional parameter indicating if the method should display the current requested Federation Authentication Method instead of setting it delete: an optional parameter indicating if the method should delete the current requested Federation Authentication Method instead of setting it setIdPPartnerRequestAuthnMethod() which will configure the specified IdP Partner entry with the requested Federation Authentication Method, and accepts the following parameters: partner: name of the IdP Partner authnMethod: the Federation Authentication Method to request displayOnly: an optional parameter indicating if the method should display the current requested Federation Authentication Method instead of setting it delete: an optional parameter indicating if the method should delete the current requested Federation Authentication Method instead of setting it This applies to SAML 2.0 and OpenID 2.0 protocols. See the "Fed Authentication Method Requests in OIF / SP" article for more information. Test In this test, OIF/SP is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 IdP Partner, with the OOTB configuration. Based on this setup, when OIF/SP starts a Federation SSO flow, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> Let's configure OIF/SP for that IdP Partner, so that the SP will request the IdP to use a mechanism mapped to the urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:X509 Federation Authentication Method to authenticate the user: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setIdPPartnerRequestAuthnMethod() command:setIdPPartnerRequestAuthnMethod("AcmeIdP", "urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:X509") Exit the WLST environment:exit() After the changes, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/>   <samlp:RequestedAuthnContext Comparison="minimum">      <saml:AuthnContextClassRef xmlns:saml="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:assertion">         urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:ac:classes:X509      </saml:AuthnContextClassRef>   </samlp:RequestedAuthnContext></samlp:AuthnRequest> NameID Format The SAML 2.0 protocol allows for the SP to request from the IdP a specific NameID format to be used when the Assertion is issued by the IdP. Note: SAML 1.1 and OpenID 2.0 do not provide such a mechanism Configuring OIF The administrator can configure OIF/SP to request a NameID format in the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest via: The OAM Administration Console, in the IdP Partner entry The OIF WLST setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat() command that will modify the IdP Partner configuration OAM Administration Console To configure the requested NameID format via the OAM Administration Console, perform the following steps: Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole Navigate to Identity Federation -> Service Provider Administration Open the IdP Partner you wish to modify In the Authentication Request NameID Format dropdown box with one of the values None The NameID format will be set Default Email Address The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress X.509 Subject The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:X509SubjectName Windows Name Qualifier The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:WindowsDomainQualifiedName Kerberos The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:kerberos Transient The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:transient Unspecified The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:unspecified Custom In this case, a field would appear allowing the administrator to indicate the custom NameID format to use The NameID format will be set to the specified format Persistent The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:persistent I selected Email Address in this example Save WLST Command To configure the requested NameID format via the OIF WLST setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat() command, perform the following steps: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat() command:setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat("PARTNER", "FORMAT", customFormat="CUSTOM") Replace PARTNER with the IdP Partner name Replace FORMAT with one of the following: orafed-none The NameID format will be set Default orafed-emailaddress The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress orafed-x509 The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:X509SubjectName orafed-windowsnamequalifier The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:WindowsDomainQualifiedName orafed-kerberos The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:kerberos orafed-transient The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:transient orafed-unspecified The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:unspecified orafed-custom In this case, a field would appear allowing the administrator to indicate the custom NameID format to use The NameID format will be set to the specified format orafed-persistent The NameID format will be set urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:persistent customFormat will need to be set if the FORMAT is set to orafed-custom An example would be:setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat("AcmeIdP", "orafed-emailaddress") Exit the WLST environment:exit() Test In this test, OIF/SP is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 IdP Partner, with the OOTB configuration. Based on this setup, when OIF/SP starts a Federation SSO flow, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> After the changes performed either via the OAM Administration Console or via the OIF WLST setIdPPartnerNameIDFormat() command where Email Address would be requested as the NameID Format, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ForceAuthn="false" IsPassive="false" ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer> <samlp:NameIDPolicy Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:1.1:nameid-format:emailAddress" AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> Protocol Binding The SAML 2.0 specifications define a way for the SP to request which binding should be used by the IdP to redirect the user to the SP with the SAML 2.0 Assertion: the ProtocolBinding attribute indicates the binding the IdP should use. It is set to: Either urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST for HTTP-POST Or urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:Artifact for Artifact The SAML 2.0 specifications also define different ways to redirect the user from the SP to the IdP with the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest message, as the SP can send the message: Either via HTTP Redirect Or HTTP POST (Other bindings can theoretically be used such as Artifact, but these are not used in practice) Configuring OIF OIF can be configured: Via the OAM Administration Console or the OIF WLST configureSAMLBinding() command to set the Assertion Response binding to be used Via the OIF WLST configureSAMLBinding() command to indicate how the SAML AuthnRequest message should be sent Note: the binding for sending the SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest message will also be used to send the SAML 2.0 LogoutRequest and LogoutResponse messages. OAM Administration Console To configure the SSO Response/Assertion Binding via the OAM Administration Console, perform the following steps: Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole Navigate to Identity Federation -> Service Provider Administration Open the IdP Partner you wish to modify Check the "HTTP POST SSO Response Binding" box to request the IdP to return the SSO Response via HTTP POST, otherwise uncheck it to request artifact Save WLST Command To configure the SSO Response/Assertion Binding as well as the AuthnRequest Binding via the OIF WLST configureSAMLBinding() command, perform the following steps: Enter the WLST environment by executing:$IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh Connect to the WLS Admin server:connect() Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:domainRuntime() Execute the configureSAMLBinding() command:configureSAMLBinding("PARTNER", "PARTNER_TYPE", binding, ssoResponseBinding="httppost") Replace PARTNER with the Partner name Replace PARTNER_TYPE with the Partner type (idp or sp) Replace binding with the binding to be used to send the AuthnRequest and LogoutRequest/LogoutResponse messages (should be httpredirect in most case; default) httppost for HTTP-POST binding httpredirect for HTTP-Redirect binding Specify optionally ssoResponseBinding to indicate how the SSO Assertion should be sent back httppost for HTTP-POST binding artifactfor for Artifact binding An example would be:configureSAMLBinding("AcmeIdP", "idp", "httpredirect", ssoResponseBinding="httppost") Exit the WLST environment:exit() Test In this test, OIF/SP is integrated with a remote SAML 2.0 IdP Partner, with the OOTB configuration which requests HTTP-POST from the IdP to send the SSO Assertion. Based on this setup, when OIF/SP starts a Federation SSO flow, the following SAML 2.0 AuthnRequest would be generated: <samlp:AuthnRequest ProtocolBinding="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:bindings:HTTP-POST" ID="id-E4BOT7lwbYK56lO57dBaqGUFq01WJSjAHiSR60Q4" Version="2.0" IssueInstant="2014-04-01T21:39:14Z" Destination="https://acme.com/saml20/sso">   <saml:Issuer Format="urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:nameid-format:entity">https://sp.com/oam/fed</saml:Issuer>   <samlp:NameIDPolicy AllowCreate="true"/></samlp:AuthnRequest> In the next article, I will cover the various crypto configuration properties in OIF that are used to affect the Federation SSO exchanges.Cheers,Damien Carru

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  • Introducing AutoVue Document Print Service

    - by celine.beck
    We recently announced the availability of our new AutoVue Document Print Service products. For more information, please read the article entitled Print Any Document Type with AutoVue Document Print Services that was posted on our blog. The AutoVue Document Print Service products help address a trivial, yet very common challenge: printing and batch printing documents. The AutoVue Document Print Service is a Web-Services based interface, which allows developers to complement their print server solutions by leveraging AutoVue's printing capabilities within broader enterprise applications like Asset Lifecycle Management, Product Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Content Management solutions, etc. This means that you can leverage the AutoVue Document Print Service products as part of your printing solution to automate the printing of virtually any document type required in any business process. Clients that consume AutoVue's Document Print Service can be written in any language (for example Java or .NET) as long as they understand Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and communicate using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The print solution consists of three main components, as described in the diagram below: a print server (not included in the AutoVue Document Print Service offering) that will interact with your application to identify the files that need to be printed, the printer to send each file, as well as the print options needed for each file (paper size, page orientation, etc), and collate the print job requests. The print server will also take care of calling the AutoVue Document Print Service to perform the actual printing. The AutoVue Document Print Services send files to a printer for printing. The AutoVue Document Print Service products leverage AutoVue's format- and platform agnostic technology to let you print/batch virtually any type of files, without requiring the authoring application installed on your machine. and Printers As shown above, you can trigger printing from your application either programmatically through automated business processes or manually through human interaction. If documents that need to be printed from your application are stored inside a content repository/Document Management System (DMS) such as Oracle Universal Content Management System (UCM), then the Print Server will need to identify the list of documents and pass the ID of each document to the AutoVue DPS to print. In this case, AutoVue DPS leverages the AutoVue VueLink integration (note: AutoVue VueLink integrations are pre-packaged AutoVue integrations with most common enterprise systems. Check our Website for more information on the subject) to fetch documents out of the document management system for printing. In lieu of the AutoVue VueLink integration, you can also leverage the AutoVue Integration Software Development Kit (iSDK) to build your own connector. If the documents you need to print from your application are not stored in a content management system, the Print Server will need to ensure that files are made available to the AutoVue Document Print Service. The Print Server could for example fetch the files out of your application or an extension to the application could be developed to fetch the files and make them available to the AutoVue DPS. More information on methods to pass on file information to the AutoVue Document Print Service products can be found in the AutoVue Document Print Service Overview documentation available on the Oracle Technology Network. Related article: Any Document Type with AutoVue Document Print Services

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  • Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET

    - by user647124
    This year I embarked on a journey to migrate a group of ASP.NET web applications developed to integrate with WebLogic Portal 9.2 via the AquaLogic® Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.0 to instead use the Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET and integrated with WebLogic Portal 10.3.4. It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings. Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there. For the Curious From the perspective of necessity, this section would be better at the end. If it were there, though, it would probably be read by far fewer people, including those that are actually interested in these types of sections. Those in a hurry may skip past and be none the worst for it in dealing with the hands-on bits of performing a migration from .NET Accelerator to WSRP Producer. For others who want to talk about why they did what they did after they did it, or just want to know for themselves, enjoy. A Brief (and edited) History of the WSRP for .NET Technologies (as Relevant to the this Post) Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration path is not as simple as many other Oracle technologies. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The currently deployed architecture that was to be migrated and upgraded achieved initial integration between .NET and J2EE over the WSRP protocol through the use of The AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator. The .NET Accelerator allowed the applications that were written in ASP.NET and deployed on a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) to interact with a WebLogic Portal application deployed on a WebLogic (J2EE application) Server (both version 9.2, the state of the art at the time of its creation). At the time this architectural decision for the application was made, both the AquaLogic and WebLogic brands were owned by BEA Systems. The AquaLogic brand included products acquired by BEA through the acquisition of Plumtree, whose flagship product was a portal platform available in both J2EE and .NET versions. As part of this dual technology support an adaptor was created to facilitate the use of WSRP as a communication protocol where customers wished to integrate components from both versions of the Plumtree portal. The adapter evolved over several product generations to include a broad array of both standard and proprietary WSRP integration capabilities. Later, BEA Systems was acquired by Oracle. Over the course of several years Oracle has acquired a large number of portal applications and has taken the strategic direction to migrate users of these myriad (and formerly competitive) products to the Oracle WebCenter technology stack. As part of Oracle’s strategic technology roadmap, older portal products are being schedule for end of life, including the portal products that were part of the BEA acquisition. The .NET Accelerator has been modified over a very long period of time with features driven by users of that product and developed under three different vendors (each a direct competitor in the same solution space prior to merger). The Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET was introduced much more recently with the key objective to specifically address the needs of the WebCenter customers developing solutions accessible through both J2EE and .NET platforms utilizing the WSRP specifications. The Oracle Product Development Team also provides these insights on the drivers for developing the WSRP Producer: ***************************************** Support for ASP.NET AJAX. Controls using the ASP.NET AJAX script manager do not function properly in the Application Accelerator for .NET. Support 2 way SSL in WLP. This was not possible with the proxy/bridge set up in the existing Application Accelerator for .NET. Allow developers to code portlets (Web Parts) using the .NET framework rather than a proprietary framework. Developers had to use the Application Accelerator for .NET plug-ins to Visual Studio to manage preferences and profile data. This is now replaced with the .NET Framework Personalization (for preferences) and Profile providers. The WSRP Producer for .NET was created as a new way of developing .NET portlets. It was never designed to be an upgrade path for the Application Accelerator for .NET. .NET developers would create new .NET portlets with the WSRP Producer for .NET and leave any existing .NET portlets running in the Application Accelerator for .NET. ***************************************** The advantage to creating a new solution for WSRP is a product that is far easier for Oracle to maintain and support which in turn improves quality, reliability and maintainability for their customers. No changes to J2EE applications consuming the WSRP portlets previously rendered by the.NET Accelerator is required to migrate from the Aqualogic WSRP solution. For some customers using the .NET Accelerator the challenge is adapting their current .NET applications to work with the WSRP Producer (or any other WSRP adapter as they are proprietary by nature). Part of this adaptation is the need to deploy the .NET applications as a child to the WSRP producer web application as root. Differences between .NET Accelerator and WSRP Producer Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration is not as pluggable as something such as changing security providers in WebLogic Server. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The basic terminology used to describe the participating applications in a WSRP environment are the same when applied to either the .NET Accelerator or the WSRP Producer: Producer and Consumer. In both cases the .NET application serves as what is referred to as a WSRP environment as the Producer. The difference lies in how the two adapters create the WSRP translation of the .NET application. The .NET Accelerator, as the name implies, is meant to serve as a quick way of adding WSRP capability to a .NET application. As such, at a high level, the .NET Accelerator behaves as a proxy for requests between the .NET application and the WSRP Consumer. A WSRP request is sent from the consumer to the .NET Accelerator, the.NET Accelerator transforms this request into an ASP.NET request, receives the response, then transforms the response into a WSRP response. The .NET Accelerator is deployed as a stand-alone application on IIS. The WSRP Producer is deployed as a parent application on IIS and all ASP.NET modules that will be made available over WSRP are deployed as children of the WSRP Producer application. In this manner, the WSRP Producer acts more as a Request Filter than a proxy in the WSRP transactions between Producer and Consumer. Highly Recommended Enabling Logging Note: You can skip this section now, but you will most likely want to come back to it later, so why not just read it now? Logging is very helpful in tracking down the causes of any anomalies during testing of migrated portlets. To enable the WSRP Producer logging, update the Application_Start method in the Global.asax.cs for your .NET application by adding log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(); IIS logs will usually (in a standard configuration) be in a sub folder under C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC. WSRP Producer logs will be found at C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\Logs\WSRPProducer.log InputTrace.webinfo and OutputTrace.webinfo are located under C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault and can be useful in debugging issues related to markup transformations. Things You Must Do Merge Web.Config Note: If you have been skipping all the sections that you can, now is the time to stop and pay attention J Because the existing .NET application will become a sub-application to the WSRP Producer, you will want to merge required settings from the existing Web.Config to the one in the WSRP Producer. Use the WSRP Producer Master Page The Master Page installed for the WSRP Producer provides common, hiddenform fields and JavaScripts to facilitate portlet instance management and display configuration when the child page is being rendered over WSRP. You add the Master Page by including it in the <@ Page declaration with MasterPageFile="~/portlets/Resources/MasterPages/WSRP.Master" . You then replace: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" > <HTML> <HEAD> With <asp:Content ID="ContentHead1" ContentPlaceHolderID="wsrphead" Runat="Server"> And </HEAD> <body> <form id="theForm" method="post" runat="server"> With </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="ContentBody1" ContentPlaceHolderID="Main" Runat="Server"> And finally </form> </body> </HTML> With </asp:Content> In the event you already use Master Pages, adapt your existing Master Pages to be sub masters. See Nested ASP.NET Master Pages for a detailed reference of how to do this. It Happened to Me, It Might Happen to You…Or Not Watch for Use of Session or Request in OnInit In the event the .NET application being modified has pages developed to assume the user has been authenticated in an earlier page request there may be direct or indirect references in the OnInit method to request or session objects that may not have been created yet. This will vary from application to application, so the recommended approach is to test first. If there is an issue with a page running as a WSRP portlet then check for potential references in the OnInit method (including references by methods called within OnInit) to session or request objects. If there are, the simplest solution is to create a new method and then call that method once the necessary object(s) is fully available. I find doing this at the start of the Page_Load method to be the simplest solution. Case Sensitivity .NET languages are not case sensitive, but Java is. This means it is possible to have many variations of SRC= and src= or .JPG and .jpg. The preferred solution is to make these mark up instances all lower case in your .NET application. This will allow the default Rewriter rules in wsrp-producer.xml to work as is. If this is not practical, then make duplicates of any rules where an issue is occurring due to upper or mixed case usage in the .NET application markup and match the case in use with the duplicate rule. For example: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(href=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> May need to be duplicated as: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(HREF=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> While it is possible to write a regular expression that will handle mixed case usage, it would be long and strenous to test and maintain, so the recommendation is to use duplicate rules. Is it Still Relative? Some .NET applications base relative paths with a fixed root location. With the introduction of the WSRP Producer, the root has moved up one level. References to ~/ will need to be updated to ~/portlets and many ../ paths will need another ../ in front. I Can See You But I Can’t Find You This issue was first discovered while debugging modules with code that referenced the form on a page from the code-behind by name and/or id. The initial error presented itself as run-time error that was difficult to interpret over WSRP but seemed clear when run as straight ASP.NET as it indicated that the object with the form name did not exist. Since the form name was no longer valid after implementing the WSRP Master Page, the likely fix seemed to simply update the references in the code. However, as the WSRP Master Page is external to the code, a compile time error resulted: Error      155         The name 'form1' does not exist in the current context                C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\portlets\legacywebsite\module\Screens \Reporting.aspx.cs                51           52           legacywebsite.module Much hair-pulling research later it was discovered that it was the use of the FindControl method causing the issue. FindControl doesn’t work quite as expected once a Master Page has been introduced as the controls become embedded in controls, require a recursion to find them that is not part of the FindControl method. In code where the page form is referenced by name, there are two steps to the solution. First, the form needs to be referenced in code generically with Page.Form. For example, this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(frmManualEntry, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Becomes this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(Page.Form, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Generally the form id is referenced in most ASP.NET applications as a path to a control on the form. To reach the control once a MasterPage has been added requires an additional method to recurse through the controls collections within the form and find the control ID. The following method (found at Rick Strahl's Web Log) corrects this very nicely: public static Control FindControlRecursive(Control Root, string Id) { if (Root.ID == Id) return Root; foreach (Control Ctl in Root.Controls) { Control FoundCtl = FindControlRecursive(Ctl, Id); if (FoundCtl != null) return FoundCtl; } return null; } Where the form name is not referenced, simply using the FindControlRecursive method in place of FindControl will be all that is necessary. Following the second part of the example referenced earlier, the method called with Page.Form changes its value extraction code block from this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label)frmRef.FindControl("lblBRMsg" To this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label) FunctionLibrary.FindControlRecursive(frmRef, "lblBRMsg" The Master That Won’t Step Aside In most migrations it is preferable to make as few changes as possible. In one case I ran across an existing Master Page that would not function as a sub-Master Page. While it would probably have been educational to trace down why, the expedient process of updating it to take the place of the WSRP Master Page is the route I took. The changes are highlighted below: … <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="wsrphead" runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> <body leftMargin="0" topMargin="0"> <form id="TheForm" runat="server"> <input type="hidden" name="key" id="key" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="formactionurl" id="formactionurl" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="handle" id="handle" value="" /> <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" EnablePartialRendering="true" > </asp:ScriptManager> This approach did not work for all existing Master Pages, but fortunately all of the other existing Master Pages I have run across worked fine as a sub-Master to the WSRP Master Page. Moving On In Enterprise Portals, even after you get everything working, the work is not finished. Next you need to get it where everyone will work with it. Migration Planning Providing that the server where IIS is running is adequately sized, it is possible to run both the .NET Accelerator and the WSRP Producer on the same server during the upgrade process. The upgrade can be performed incrementally, i.e., one portlet at a time, if server administration processes support it. Those processes would include the ability to manage a second producer in the consuming portal and to change over individual portlet instances from one provider to the other. If processes or requirements demand that all portlets be cut over at the same time, it needs to be determined if this cut over should include a new producer, updating all of the portlets in the consumer, or if the WSRP Producer portlet configuration must maintain the naming conventions used by the .NET Accelerator and simply change the WSRP end point configured in the consumer. In some enterprises it may even be necessary to maintain the same WSDL end point, at which point the IIS configuration will be where the updates occur. The downside to such a requirement is that it makes rolling back very difficult, should the need arise. Location, Location, Location Not everyone wants the web application to have the descriptively obvious wsrpdefault location, or needs to create a second WSRP site on the same server. The instructions below are from the product team and, while targeted towards making a second site, will work for creating a site with a different name and then remove the old site. You can also change just the name in IIS. Manually Creating a WSRP Producer Site Instructions (NOTE: all executables used are the same ones used by the installer and “wsrpdev” will be the name of the new instance): 1. Copy C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault to C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev. 2. Bring up a command window as an administrator 3. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\IISAppAccelSiteCreator.exe install WSRPProducers wsrpdev "C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev" 8678 2.0.50727 4. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev "NETWORK SERVICE" 3 1 5. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev EVERYONE 1 1 6. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev 7. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\2.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev Tests: 1. Bring up a browser on the host itself and go to http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/wsdl/1.0/WSRPService.wsdl and make sure that the URLs in the XML returned include the wsrpdev changes you made in step 6. 2. Bring up a browser on the host itself and see if the default sample comes up: http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/portlets/ASPNET_AJAX_sample/default.aspx 3. Register the producer in WLP and test the portlet. Changing the Port used by WSRP Producer The pre-configured port for the WSRP Producer is 8678. You can change this port by updating both the IIS configuration and C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\[WSRP_APP_NAME]\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl. Do You Need to Migrate? Oracle Premier Support ended in November of 2010 for AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.x and Extended Support ends in November 2012 (see http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/lifetime-support-software-342730.html for other related dates). This means that integration with products released after November of 2010 is not supported. If having such support is the policy within your enterprise, you do indeed need to migrate. If changes in your enterprise cause your current solution with the .NET Accelerator to no longer function properly, you may need to migrate. Migration is a choice, and if the goals of your enterprise are to take full advantage of newer technologies then migration is certainly one activity you should be planning for.

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  • OWB 11gR2 &ndash; Flexible and extensible

    - by David Allan
    The Oracle data integration extensibility capabilities are something I love, nothing more frustrating than a tool or platform that is very constraining. I think extensibility and flexibility are invaluable capabilities in the data integration arena. I liked Uli Bethke's posting on some extensibility capabilities with ODI (see Nesting ODI Substitution Method Calls here), he has some useful guidance on making customizations to existing KMs, nice to learn by example. I thought I'd illustrate the same capabilities with ODI's partner OWB for the OWB community. There is a whole new world of potential. The LKM/IKM/CKM/JKMs are the primary templates that are supported (plus the Oracle Target code template), so there is a lot of potential for customizing and extending the product in this release. Enough waffle... Diving in at the deep end from Uli's post, in OWB the table operator has a number of additional properties in OWB 11gR2 that let you annotate the column usage with ODI-like properties such as the slowly changing usage or for your own user-defined purpose as in Uli's post, below you see for the target table SALES_TARGET we can use the UD5 property which when assigned the code template (knowledge module) which has been modified with Uli's change we can do custom things such as creating indices - provides The code template used by the mapping has the additional step which is basically the code illustrated from Uli's posting just used directly, the ODI 10g substitution references also supported from within OWB's runtime. Now to see whether this does what we expect before we execute it, we can check out the generated code similar to how the traditional mapping generation and preview works, you do this by clicking on the 'Inspect Code' button on the execution units code template assignment. This then  creates another tab with prefix 'Code - <mapping name>' where the generated code is put, scrolling down we find the last step with the indices being created, looks good, so we are ready to deploy and execute. After executing the mapping we can then use the 'Audit Information' panel (select the mapping in the designer tree and click on View/Audit Information), this gives us a view of the execution where we can drill into the tasks that were executed and inspect both the template and the generated code that was executed and any potential errors. Reflecting back on earlier versions of OWB, these were the kinds of features that were always highly desirable, getting under the hood of the code generation and tweaking bit and pieces - fun and powerful stuff! We can step it up a bit here and explore some further ideas. The example below is a daisy-chained set of execution units where the intermediate table is a target of one unit and the source for another. We want that table to be a global temporary table, so can tweak the templates. Back to the copy of SQL Control Append (for demo purposes) we modify the create target table step to make the table a global temporary table, with the option of on commit preserve rows. You can get a feel for some of the customizations and changes possible, providing some great flexibility and extensibility for the data integration tools.

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  • The Sitemap Paradox

    - by Jeff Atwood
    We use a sitemap on Stack Overflow, but I have mixed feelings about it. Web crawlers usually discover pages from links within the site and from other sites. Sitemaps supplement this data to allow crawlers that support Sitemaps to pick up all URLs in the Sitemap and learn about those URLs using the associated metadata. Using the Sitemap protocol does not guarantee that web pages are included in search engines, but provides hints for web crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site. Based on our two years' experience with sitemaps, there's something fundamentally paradoxical about the sitemap: Sitemaps are intended for sites that are hard to crawl properly. If Google can't successfully crawl your site to find a link, but is able to find it in the sitemap it gives the sitemap link no weight and will not index it! That's the sitemap paradox -- if your site isn't being properly crawled (for whatever reason), using a sitemap will not help you! Google goes out of their way to make no sitemap guarantees: "We cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if your URLs will be crawled or added to our index" citation "We don't guarantee that we'll crawl or index all of your URLs. For example, we won't crawl or index image URLs contained in your Sitemap." citation "submitting a Sitemap doesn't guarantee that all pages of your site will be crawled or included in our search results" citation Given that links found in sitemaps are merely recommendations, whereas links found on your own website proper are considered canonical ... it seems the only logical thing to do is avoid having a sitemap and make damn sure that Google and any other search engine can properly spider your site using the plain old standard web pages everyone else sees. By the time you have done that, and are getting spidered nice and thoroughly so Google can see that your own site links to these pages, and would be willing to crawl the links -- uh, why do we need a sitemap, again? The sitemap can be actively harmful, because it distracts you from ensuring that search engine spiders are able to successfully crawl your whole site. "Oh, it doesn't matter if the crawler can see it, we'll just slap those links in the sitemap!" Reality is quite the opposite in our experience. That seems more than a little ironic considering sitemaps were intended for sites that have a very deep collection of links or complex UI that may be hard to spider. In our experience, the sitemap does not help, because if Google can't find the link on your site proper, it won't index it from the sitemap anyway. We've seen this proven time and time again with Stack Overflow questions. Am I wrong? Do sitemaps make sense, and we're somehow just using them incorrectly?

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  • BIWA Wednesday TechCast Series - Opposition to Data Warehouse Initiatives

    - by jenny.gelhausen
    BIWA Wednesday TechCast Series - 19th Event! Opposition to Data Warehouse Initiatives Please join us for this webcast on Wednesday, March 24, 12 noon Eastern or check your local area's time Webcast is open to clients, prospects and partners. No matter how good your technology and technical skills, organizational issues can derail a data warehousing or BI project. Therefore BIWA presents a vital topic that crosses product boundaries: organizational resistance to data warehouse initiatives - how to recognize it and what to do about it. Many a DW/BI professional has been surprised by organizational resistance to DW/BI initiatives. Yet real organizational imperatives may be behind this apparently irrational behavior. Based on in-depth interviews with IT professionals, industry consultants, and power users, our speaker Bruce Jenks will present his research findings about what drives organizational resistance to data warehouse initiatives. The talk will cover specific behaviors that can signal organizational resistance to a data warehouse program and what organizations have done to address such resistance. Presenter: Bruce Jenks of Dun and Bradstreet Bruce Jenks has over 20 years experience in data warehousing and business intelligence, much of it as a consultant to large organizations spanning the US. Bruce's data warehousing clients have included firms such as Sprint, Gallo Wines, Southern California Edison, The Gap, and Safeway. He started his data warehousing career at Metaphor Computers, a pioneering DW/BI firm from which a number of industry luminaries sprang including Ralph Kimball (author of The Data Warehouse Toolkit ). Bruce continued his data warehousing career at HP, Stanford University and other firms. Bruce is currently completing his doctorate in business administration at Golden Gate University, and today's material arises from his doctoral research. He is also a principal consultant for Dun and Bradstreet. Audio Dial-In: 866 682 4770 Audio Meeting ID: 1683901 Audio Meeting Passcode: 334451 Web Conference: Please register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/807185273 After you register you will be provided with a link to the TechCast. Invitation to Speakers: All BIWA members and Oracle professionals (experts, end users, managers, DBAs, developers, data analysts, ISVs, partners, etc.) may submit abstracts for 45 minute technical webcasts to our Oracle BIWA (IOUG SIG) Community. Submit your BIWA TechCast abstract today! BIWA is a worldwide forum with over 2000 members who are business intelligence, warehousing and analytics professionals. BIWA presents information, experiences and best practices in successfully deploying Oracle Database-centric BI, Data Warehousing, and Analytics products, features and Options--the Oracle Database "BIWA" platform. Attendance Information & Replays at the BIWA website: oraclebiwa.org var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-13185312-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

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  • Large File Upload in SharePoint 2010

    - by Sahil Malik
    Ad:: SharePoint 2007 Training in .NET 3.5 technologies (more information). Okay this is a big BIG B-I-G problem. And with SP2010 it’s going to be more prominent, because atleast at the server side, SharePoint can support large files much much better than SharePoint 2007 ever did. The issue with very large files being uploaded through any browser based API are - Reliably transferring gigabyte or bigger files without breakages over a protocol like HTTP, which is better suited for tiny transfers like images and text. Not killing your browser because it has to load all that in memory Not killing your web server because All that you upload through HTTP post, first gets streamed into IIS Memory, w3wp.exe memory before the ENTIRE FILE finishes uploading .. before it is stored. Which means, You cannot show an accurate and live progress bar of the upload, IIS gives you no such accurate metric of an upload. All the counters it gives you are approximate. Your w3wp.exe eats up all server memory – 4GB of it, for a 4GB upload. A thread is kept busy for the entire duration of the upload, thereby greatly limiting your web server’s capability to serve newer requests. Kills effective load balancing. Not killing your content database because, As you are uploading a very large file, that large file gets written sequentially into the DB, and therefore for a very large file very severely impacts the database performance. I had put together another video showing RBS usage in SharePoint 2010. I talked about many practical ramifications of using RBS in SharePoint in that video. Note that enabling large file support will never ever be a point and click job, simply because there are too many questions one needs to ask, and too many things one needs to plan for. However, one part that will remain common across all large file upload scenarios, in SharePoint or outside of SharePoint is to do it efficiently while not killing the web server. In this video, I describe using the Telerik Silverlight Upload control with SharePoint 2010 to enable efficient large file uploads in SharePoint. Presenting .. The video Comment on the article ....

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  • The Incremental Architect&acute;s Napkin &ndash; #3 &ndash; Make Evolvability inevitable

    - by Ralf Westphal
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/06/04/the-incremental-architectacutes-napkin-ndash-3-ndash-make-evolvability-inevitable.aspxThe easier something to measure the more likely it will be produced. Deviations between what is and what should be can be readily detected. That´s what automated acceptance tests are for. That´s what sprint reviews in Scrum are for. It´s no small wonder our software looks like it looks. It has all the traits whose conformance with requirements can easily be measured. And it´s lacking traits which cannot easily be measured. Evolvability (or Changeability) is such a trait. If an operation is correct, if an operation if fast enough, that can be checked very easily. But whether Evolvability is high or low, that cannot be checked by taking a measure or two. Evolvability might correlate with certain traits, e.g. number of lines of code (LOC) per function or Cyclomatic Complexity or test coverage. But there is no threshold value signalling “evolvability too low”; also Evolvability is hardly tangible for the customer. Nevertheless Evolvability is of great importance - at least in the long run. You can get away without much of it for a short time. Eventually, though, it´s needed like any other requirement. Or even more. Because without Evolvability no other requirement can be implemented. Evolvability is the foundation on which all else is build. Such fundamental importance is in stark contrast with its immeasurability. To compensate this, Evolvability must be put at the very center of software development. It must become the hub around everything else revolves. Since we cannot measure Evolvability, though, we cannot start watching it more. Instead we need to establish practices to keep it high (enough) at all times. Chefs have known that for long. That´s why everybody in a restaurant kitchen is constantly seeing after cleanliness. Hygiene is important as is to have clean tools at standardized locations. Only then the health of the patrons can be guaranteed and production efficiency is constantly high. Still a kitchen´s level of cleanliness is easier to measure than software Evolvability. That´s why important practices like reviews, pair programming, or TDD are not enough, I guess. What we need to keep Evolvability in focus and high is… to continually evolve. Change must not be something to avoid but too embrace. To me that means the whole change cycle from requirement analysis to delivery needs to be gone through more often. Scrum´s sprints of 4, 2 even 1 week are too long. Kanban´s flow of user stories across is too unreliable; it takes as long as it takes. Instead we should fix the cycle time at 2 days max. I call that Spinning. No increment must take longer than from this morning until tomorrow evening to finish. Then it should be acceptance checked by the customer (or his/her representative, e.g. a Product Owner). For me there are several resasons for such a fixed and short cycle time for each increment: Clear expectations Absolute estimates (“This will take X days to complete.”) are near impossible in software development as explained previously. Too much unplanned research and engineering work lurk in every feature. And then pervasive interruptions of work by peers and management. However, the smaller the scope the better our absolute estimates become. That´s because we understand better what really are the requirements and what the solution should look like. But maybe more importantly the shorter the timespan the more we can control how we use our time. So much can happen over the course of a week and longer timespans. But if push comes to shove I can block out all distractions and interruptions for a day or possibly two. That´s why I believe we can give rough absolute estimates on 3 levels: Noon Tonight Tomorrow Think of a meeting with a Product Owner at 8:30 in the morning. If she asks you, how long it will take you to implement a user story or bug fix, you can say, “It´ll be fixed by noon.”, or you can say, “I can manage to implement it until tonight before I leave.”, or you can say, “You´ll get it by tomorrow night at latest.” Yes, I believe all else would be naive. If you´re not confident to get something done by tomorrow night (some 34h from now) you just cannot reliably commit to any timeframe. That means you should not promise anything, you should not even start working on the issue. So when estimating use these four categories: Noon, Tonight, Tomorrow, NoClue - with NoClue meaning the requirement needs to be broken down further so each aspect can be assigned to one of the first three categories. If you like absolute estimates, here you go. But don´t do deep estimates. Don´t estimate dozens of issues; don´t think ahead (“Issue A is a Tonight, then B will be a Tomorrow, after that it´s C as a Noon, finally D is a Tonight - that´s what I´ll do this week.”). Just estimate so Work-in-Progress (WIP) is 1 for everybody - plus a small number of buffer issues. To be blunt: Yes, this makes promises impossible as to what a team will deliver in terms of scope at a certain date in the future. But it will give a Product Owner a clear picture of what to pull for acceptance feedback tonight and tomorrow. Trust through reliability Our trade is lacking trust. Customers don´t trust software companies/departments much. Managers don´t trust developers much. I find that perfectly understandable in the light of what we´re trying to accomplish: delivering software in the face of uncertainty by means of material good production. Customers as well as managers still expect software development to be close to production of houses or cars. But that´s a fundamental misunderstanding. Software development ist development. It´s basically research. As software developers we´re constantly executing experiments to find out what really provides value to users. We don´t know what they need, we just have mediated hypothesises. That´s why we cannot reliably deliver on preposterous demands. So trust is out of the window in no time. If we switch to delivering in short cycles, though, we can regain trust. Because estimates - explicit or implicit - up to 32 hours at most can be satisfied. I´d say: reliability over scope. It´s more important to reliably deliver what was promised then to cover a lot of requirement area. So when in doubt promise less - but deliver without delay. Deliver on scope (Functionality and Quality); but also deliver on Evolvability, i.e. on inner quality according to accepted principles. Always. Trust will be the reward. Less complexity of communication will follow. More goodwill buffer will follow. So don´t wait for some Kanban board to show you, that flow can be improved by scheduling smaller stories. You don´t need to learn that the hard way. Just start with small batch sizes of three different sizes. Fast feedback What has been finished can be checked for acceptance. Why wait for a sprint of several weeks to end? Why let the mental model of the issue and its solution dissipate? If you get final feedback after one or two weeks, you hardly remember what you did and why you did it. Resoning becomes hard. But more importantly youo probably are not in the mood anymore to go back to something you deemed done a long time ago. It´s boring, it´s frustrating to open up that mental box again. Learning is harder the longer it takes from event to feedback. Effort can be wasted between event (finishing an issue) and feedback, because other work might go in the wrong direction based on false premises. Checking finished issues for acceptance is the most important task of a Product Owner. It´s even more important than planning new issues. Because as long as work started is not released (accepted) it´s potential waste. So before starting new work better make sure work already done has value. By putting the emphasis on acceptance rather than planning true pull is established. As long as planning and starting work is more important, it´s a push process. Accept a Noon issue on the same day before leaving. Accept a Tonight issue before leaving today or first thing tomorrow morning. Accept a Tomorrow issue tomorrow night before leaving or early the day after tomorrow. After acceptance the developer(s) can start working on the next issue. Flexibility As if reliability/trust and fast feedback for less waste weren´t enough economic incentive, there is flexibility. After each issue the Product Owner can change course. If on Monday morning feature slices A, B, C, D, E were important and A, B, C were scheduled for acceptance by Monday evening and Tuesday evening, the Product Owner can change her mind at any time. Maybe after A got accepted she asks for continuation with D. But maybe, just maybe, she has gotten a completely different idea by then. Maybe she wants work to continue on F. And after B it´s neither D nor E, but G. And after G it´s D. With Spinning every 32 hours at latest priorities can be changed. And nothing is lost. Because what got accepted is of value. It provides an incremental value to the customer/user. Or it provides internal value to the Product Owner as increased knowledge/decreased uncertainty. I find such reactivity over commitment economically very benefical. Why commit a team to some workload for several weeks? It´s unnecessary at beast, and inflexible and wasteful at worst. If we cannot promise delivery of a certain scope on a certain date - which is what customers/management usually want -, we can at least provide them with unpredecented flexibility in the face of high uncertainty. Where the path is not clear, cannot be clear, make small steps so you´re able to change your course at any time. Premature completion Customers/management are used to premeditating budgets. They want to know exactly how much to pay for a certain amount of requirements. That´s understandable. But it does not match with the nature of software development. We should know that by now. Maybe there´s somewhere in the world some team who can consistently deliver on scope, quality, and time, and budget. Great! Congratulations! I, however, haven´t seen such a team yet. Which does not mean it´s impossible, but I think it´s nothing I can recommend to strive for. Rather I´d say: Don´t try this at home. It might hurt you one way or the other. However, what we can do, is allow customers/management stop work on features at any moment. With spinning every 32 hours a feature can be declared as finished - even though it might not be completed according to initial definition. I think, progress over completion is an important offer software development can make. Why think in terms of completion beyond a promise for the next 32 hours? Isn´t it more important to constantly move forward? Step by step. We´re not running sprints, we´re not running marathons, not even ultra-marathons. We´re in the sport of running forever. That makes it futile to stare at the finishing line. The very concept of a burn-down chart is misleading (in most cases). Whoever can only think in terms of completed requirements shuts out the chance for saving money. The requirements for a features mostly are uncertain. So how does a Product Owner know in the first place, how much is needed. Maybe more than specified is needed - which gets uncovered step by step with each finished increment. Maybe less than specified is needed. After each 4–32 hour increment the Product Owner can do an experient (or invite users to an experiment) if a particular trait of the software system is already good enough. And if so, she can switch the attention to a different aspect. In the end, requirements A, B, C then could be finished just 70%, 80%, and 50%. What the heck? It´s good enough - for now. 33% money saved. Wouldn´t that be splendid? Isn´t that a stunning argument for any budget-sensitive customer? You can save money and still get what you need? Pull on practices So far, in addition to more trust, more flexibility, less money spent, Spinning led to “doing less” which also means less code which of course means higher Evolvability per se. Last but not least, though, I think Spinning´s short acceptance cycles have one more effect. They excert pull-power on all sorts of practices known for increasing Evolvability. If, for example, you believe high automated test coverage helps Evolvability by lowering the fear of inadverted damage to a code base, why isn´t 90% of the developer community practicing automated tests consistently? I think, the answer is simple: Because they can do without. Somehow they manage to do enough manual checks before their rare releases/acceptance checks to ensure good enough correctness - at least in the short term. The same goes for other practices like component orientation, continuous build/integration, code reviews etc. None of that is compelling, urgent, imperative. Something else always seems more important. So Evolvability principles and practices fall through the cracks most of the time - until a project hits a wall. Then everybody becomes desperate; but by then (re)gaining Evolvability has become as very, very difficult and tedious undertaking. Sometimes up to the point where the existence of a project/company is in danger. With Spinning that´s different. If you´re practicing Spinning you cannot avoid all those practices. With Spinning you very quickly realize you cannot deliver reliably even on your 32 hour promises. Spinning thus is pulling on developers to adopt principles and practices for Evolvability. They will start actively looking for ways to keep their delivery rate high. And if not, management will soon tell them to do that. Because first the Product Owner then management will notice an increasing difficulty to deliver value within 32 hours. There, finally there emerges a way to measure Evolvability: The more frequent developers tell the Product Owner there is no way to deliver anything worth of feedback until tomorrow night, the poorer Evolvability is. Don´t count the “WTF!”, count the “No way!” utterances. In closing For sustainable software development we need to put Evolvability first. Functionality and Quality must not rule software development but be implemented within a framework ensuring (enough) Evolvability. Since Evolvability cannot be measured easily, I think we need to put software development “under pressure”. Software needs to be changed more often, in smaller increments. Each increment being relevant to the customer/user in some way. That does not mean each increment is worthy of shipment. It´s sufficient to gain further insight from it. Increments primarily serve the reduction of uncertainty, not sales. Sales even needs to be decoupled from this incremental progress. No more promises to sales. No more delivery au point. Rather sales should look at a stream of accepted increments (or incremental releases) and scoup from that whatever they find valuable. Sales and marketing need to realize they should work on what´s there, not what might be possible in the future. But I digress… In my view a Spinning cycle - which is not easy to reach, which requires practice - is the core practice to compensate the immeasurability of Evolvability. From start to finish of each issue in 32 hours max - that´s the challenge we need to accept if we´re serious increasing Evolvability. Fortunately higher Evolvability is not the only outcome of Spinning. Customer/management will like the increased flexibility and “getting more bang for the buck”.

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