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• Strange ssh login

  - by Hikaru

  I am running debian server and i have received a strange email warning about ssh login It says, that user mail logged in using ssh from remote address: Environment info: USER=mail SSH_CLIENT=92.46.127.173 40814 22 MAIL=/var/mail/mail HOME=/var/mail SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/7 LOGNAME=mail TERM=xterm PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/sh KRB5CCNAME=FILE:/tmp/krb5cc_8 PWD=/var/mail SSH_CONNECTION=92.46.127.173 40814 my-ip-here 22 I looked in /etc/shadow and find out, that password for is not set mail:*:15316:0:99999:7::: I found this lines for login in auth.log n 3 02:57:09 gw sshd[2090]: pam_winbind(sshd:auth): getting password (0x00000388) Jun 3 02:57:09 gw sshd[2090]: pam_winbind(sshd:auth): pam_get_item returned a password Jun 3 02:57:09 gw sshd[2091]: pam_winbind(sshd:auth): user 'mail' granted access Jun 3 02:57:09 gw sshd[2091]: Accepted password for mail from 92.46.127.173 port 45194 ssh2 Jun 3 02:57:09 gw sshd[2091]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user mail by (uid=0) Jun 3 02:57:10 gw CRON[2051]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root and lots of auth failures for this user. There is no lines with COMMAND string for this user. Nothing was found with "rkhunter" and with "ps aux" process inspection, also there is no suspicious connections was found with "netstat" (as I can see) Can anyone tell me how it is possible and what else should be done? Thanks in advance.

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• hi, beginner issue with socat [closed]

  - by ams

  the main question is how to begin sending request to server with some data(send request with number) and get data from server?? and second question is how can i solve this simple question (author said) ? In this part, you should write a simple Shell script which receives URL of a website by sending your student number to a server and after creating and sending HTTP request for this URL, receives the desired content. Finally the content should be saved in an HTML file. Steps 1. Connect to port 4000 of the server and send the massage which includes your student number (e.g. 89207704) to the server. Receive the URL in the form of http://www.example.com. Create the HTTP request and send it to the website's server. Receive the content of the URL from the website. Save the content in the HTML file. what i can do? how i begin? thank u all the topology that exercise is speaking about is here Topology is here Is there any easy way to do this?

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• Windows 7 automatically logs out when logging in

  - by Luke

  A Windows 7 HP x64 computer is set to automatically log in (no password), but once it starts logging in, it starts to load the desktop after the welcome screen, but before icons or background images are loaded, it goes to the Welcome screen saying 'Logging Off'. I can log in with Safe Mode, and I ran a couple different virus scans, with no detections. I also tried checking the userinit.exe file in System32 (as suggested by MANY users for Windows XP), but it's the same version as a working system. I also checked the registry under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon for the SHELL and UserInit values, but they look normal. I tried to disable all startup items (through MSCONFIG) to select Diagnostic boot, but then I get a blue screen about the video driver not loading. Any other ideas? EDIT I created a new user, and it could log in no problems. I am thinking it's the NTUSER.DAT file. I just renamed it to NTUSER.DAT.old, then tried logging in as the problem user. I could log in, but as a TEMP profile. His profile folder is now C:\Users\TEMP, and his old folder is still accessible but in the wrong location. EDIT 2 I can't seem to turn off the TEMP profile, so I'm open to other suggestions. Copying the folders (i.e. Documents, Music, etc) does not work, as it creates an additional TEMP.000 then TEMP.001 folder each time the user logs in.

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• Does Xenapp require Windows Terminal Services (Remote Desktop) licenses?

  - by John Virgolino

  We have a Xenapp 5.x server running for over a year now. It does not have any purchased Terminal Services (Remote Desktop) licenses installed. It is running on a Windows 2008 Server box. I am aware that Terminal Services runs fine for about 3 months and then supposedly stops issuing licenses. On occasion, Xenapp stops working and we see lots of License errors in the event log, although not necessarily every time. In most cases, a reboot or 2 resolves the problem. We figured it was because of the lack of TS licenses. I spoke with Citrix and they said we had to have the licenses, but it begs the question that if we have to have the licenses, how does it work the majority of the time without them!!?? I have not received a straight answer yet and before I tell my client to shell out more money, I need to understand the technical reasoning for how this is actually working if we are breaking the rules here. We will buy the licenses if necessary, but there has to be an explanation for this. I am hoping the community can help where Citrix apparently cannot. Thanks much!

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• What Logs / Process Stats to monitor on a Ubuntu FTP server?

  - by Adam Salkin

  I am administering a server with Ubuntu Server which is running pureFTP. So far all is well, but I would like to know what I should be monitoring so that I can spot any potential stability and security issues. I'm not looking for sophisticated software, more an idea of what logs and process statistics are most useful for checking on the health of the system. I'm thinking that I can look at various parameters output from the "ps" command and compare to see if I have things like memory leaks. But I would like to know what experienced admins do. Also, how do I do a disk check so that when I reboot, I don't get a message saying something like "disk not checked for x days, forcing check" which delays the reboot? I assume there is command that I can run as a cron job late at night. How often should it be run? What things should I be looking at to spot intrusion attempts? The only shell access is SSH on a non-standard port through UFW firewall, and I regularly do a grep on auth.log for "Fail" or "Invalid". Is there anything else I should look at? I was logging the firewall (UFW) but I have very few open ports (FTP and SSH on a non standard port) so looking at lists of IP's that have been blocked did not seem useful. Many thanks

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• mysqldump isn't able to export a specific database, phpMyAdmin crashes

  - by Devils Child

  I'm experiencing problems with a database on my server (Note: All other databases work fine). Once I try to export it with mysqldump I get this error: # mysqldump -u root -pXXXXXXXXX databasename > /root/databasename.sql mysqldump: Couldn't execute 'show table status like 'apps'': Lost connection to MySQL server during query (2013) Also, phpMyAdmin throws an error when selecting this database and immediately logs out. However, the web site which uses this database works fine. I can also execute SELECT statements on the table named "apps" from the MySQL shell. I tried restarting the MySQL daemon as well as REPAIR DATABASE and REPAIR TABLE but the problem still persists. I had this problem before, then it disappeared somehow without me doing anything to resolve the issue. Now, the problem is back and I'm simply unable to create a backup of this database. Used software Debian 6.0.7 x64 MySQL 5.1.66-0 MySQL Version: mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE "%version%"; +-------------------------+-------------------+ | Variable_name | Value | +-------------------------+-------------------+ | protocol_version | 10 | | version | 5.1.66-0+squeeze1 | | version_comment | (Debian) | | version_compile_machine | x86_64 | | version_compile_os | debian-linux-gnu | +-------------------------+-------------------+

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• customer wont provide ssh access - ftp only

  - by Max

  Eh, here is my problem: I am working in a webdevelopment agency (thats a problem but not the real problem, read on). Most of the time I choose the live server myself when creating a new website project. But now the customer already has a "server" (10 GB on a cheapo host!) and the "admin" refuses to give me ssh access to it. But I need to access the server via shell because many files will be transported (need to be able to upload and extract a tar) and I need to insert or create mysql dumps via command line. He argues FTP and phpmyadmin should be enough... as far as I know the webspace was just ordered to host the website, so no security critical apps are running there. How can I either convince the admin to give me the ssh login or tell management that we need our own server? Anyone with similiar experiences? This is really annoying as this is a very small project that should be done fast and now one has to fight in order to just get the work done...

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• How can I extract data from Toshiba Satellite with a dead Windows installation?

  - by msanford

  I've got a Toshiba Satellite (unknown model number but bought early 2010) running Windows Vista which throws a kernel error on boot. We don't have the restore/recovery CD any more to restore the Windows partition. I have managed to boot to a Live CD version of Ubuntu 10.10 and have mounted the internal hard drive (which takes nearly 8 minutes). I suspect that the hard drive is malfunctioning, however, because copy tasks of even 30 megs of data to an attached and mounted USB flash drive takes over an hour, and some files are mysteriously inaccessible (not a permissions issue). When browsing folders, it takes many minutes to populate the folder window even with a single tiny file. During the copy tasks, the hard disk sounds like it tries to sleep several times in rapid succession, then continues accessing, it sounds, at full throughput. I initially tried using scp (from the shell) to copy data but I encountered the same local problems. I don't know the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard disk, either. Is there a more effective way of going about recovering the data on the internal disk, assuming that I can't use a recovery CD and am too cheap to bring it in (for now, at least)?

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• Is there a simple context-menu add-in that could make-up for the Windows-7 status bar deficiency?

  - by DanO

  Edit: I initially asked about free disk space and selected item size. It has since been pointed out that the selected item size summary is still availiable natively in the details pane. I had read elsewhere (wikipedia) that this was removed along with disk free space, which is not the case. Only free disk space has been completely removed. Selection size is still availiable. Is there a context menu add-in out there that could show the free disk space of the relevant drive, when you right click? This would go a long way to compensating for one of the only steps backward I’ve discovered in Windows 7 so far. I doubt anyone had created one specifially for this need before windows 7 because this information was previously easily accessible in the status bar. I thought about creating one, but it has been a while since I have messed with the Shell API, and I know there are coders out there who could do it faster and better. If you’ve heard of one, or know of something else to make-up for this Microsoft misstep, I’d appreciate hearing about it. If MS were listing to the community they would already have a powertoy or add-in of some kind to un-break this. (they could release it unsupported even), as there seem to be many power users that are extremely annoyed by this feature removal decision. If anyone has seen something, please post it here. As it has been only 4 days since official Windows 7 release, I'll wait at least a week to chose an answer. Here's a picture of protoype screenshot: SU question 19232 is related.

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• Deployment and monitoring tools for java/tomcat/linux environment

  - by Ran

  I'm a developer for many years, but don't have tons of experience in ops, so apology if this is a newbe question. In my company we run a web service written in Java mainly based on a Tomcat web server. We have two datacenters with about 10 hosts each. Hosts are of several types: Dababase, Tomcats, some offline java processes, memcached servers. All hosts are Linux CentOS Up until now, when releasing a new version to production we've been using a set of inhouse shell script that copy jars/wars and restart the tomcats. The company has gotten bigger so it has become more and more difficult operating all this and taking code from development, through QA, staging and to production. A typical release many times involves human errors that cost us precious uptime. Sometimes we need to revert to last known good and this isn't easy to say the least... We're looking for a tool, a framework, a solution that would provide the following: Supports the given list of technology (java, tomcat, linux etc) Provides easy deployment through different stages, including QA and production Provides configuration management. E.g. setting server properties (what's the connection URL of each host etc), server.xml or context configuration etc Monitoring. If we can get monitoring in the same package, that'll be nice. If not, then yet another tool we can use to monitor our servers. Preferably, open source with tons of documentation ;) Can anyone share their experience? Suggest a few tools? Thanks!

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• mod_rewrite with AJAX applictions: possible?

  - by MrJackV

  I am trying to run Shell In a Box (link) through another server (the computer running shellinabox is not accessible from the internet) . Ideally I could use ProxyPass in the Apache config to have a reverse proxy. Problem is I can't access the conf file. So I tried using .htaccess and I discover that I cannot use ProxyPass in there. So I tried and used mod_rewrite to do the job. Currently I have the following on the .htaccess file RewriteEngine On RewriteRule ^$ http://10.1.13.236:4200/ [P] However while it displays the title correctly and if I open up the source code I can see there is something in the page, nothing is diplayed on the screen (it remains blank). My suspicion is that there are problems with AJAX and this kind of proxy. What I am trying to accomplish with the mod_rewrite as close as possible behaviour to ProxyPass (Mirorr a website in a subdirectory). Is this possible? Is there some other solution (I tried phproxy and khproxy but neither of them is able to display anything)? Thanks in advance

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• Reading log files from web application

  - by Egorinsk

  Hi! I want to write a small PHP application for monitoring logs on a Debian server, including syslog logs and Apache/PHP messages. The problem here is that Apache user (www-data) has no access to /var/log directory. What would be the best way to grant an access to logs for PHP application? Let's assume that log files can be really large, like hundreds of megabytes. I have some ideas: Write a shell script that would be run via sudo and tail last 512 Kb of log into a separate file that can be read by application - that's ineffective, because of forking a new process and having to read data twice Add www-data to adm group (that can read logs) - that's insecure Start a PHP process via cron every minute to read logs — that's not very good, because it doesn't allow real-time monitoring. Also, this script will be started even when I don't read logs, and consume CPU time (server is in the cloud, and I'll have to pay for it) Create a hardlink for all log files with lowered permissions - I guess, that won't work because logrotate could recreate log files and they'll change inode number. Start a separate nginx/Apache server under privileged user that may read logs. Maybe anyone got a better solution?

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• Explain why .bash_logout won't run commands?

  - by Droogans

  So I've been wondering how to run these two lines of code everytime I close an open instance of Terminal: history -c cat /dev/null > ~/.bash_history I export HISTFILE=5 on startup, but still want to flush that out when I'm done. I've tried looking around a bit in a couple of places, and haven't had much luck. I run Linux Mint, and would also note here that I ran into a similar issue with .bash_profile; eventually, I discovered I needed to place all start up code in .bashrc, so maybe that has something to do with it. Here's my .bash_logout file: #!/bin/bash # ~/.bash_logout: executed by bash(1) when login shell exits. # when leaving the console clear the screen to increase privacy if [ "$SHLVL" = 1 ]; then history -c cat /dev/null > ~/.bash_history [ -x /usr/bin/clear_console ] && /usr/bin/clear_console -q fi #this does nothing on exit... echo 'logout'; sleep 2s I've tried re-arranging this script many ways, I'm not sure if I don't understand how bash works, and if any of this is running in the first place. Does the fact that I run Xserver make bash consider Terminal something that isn't a log-out on exit?

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• Concatenating gziped Apache logs

  - by markdrayton

  We rotate and compress our Apache logs each day but it's become apparent that this isn't frequently enough. An uncompressed log is about 6G, which is getting close to filling our log partition (yep, we'll make it bigger in the future!) as well as taking a lot of time and CPU to compress each day. We have to produce a gziped log for each day for our stats processing. Obviously we could move our logs to a partition with more space but I also want to spread the compression overhead throughout the day. Using Apache's rotatelogs we can rotate and compress the log more often -- hourly, say -- but how can I concatenate all the hourly compressed logs into a running compressed log for the day, without decompressing the previous logs? I don't want to uncompress 24 hours' worth of data and recompress it because that has all the disadvantages of our current solution. Gzip doesn't seem to offer any append or concatenate option but perhaps I've missed something obvious. This question suggests straight shell concatenation "works" in that the archive can be decompressed but that gzip -l doesn't work seems a bit dodgy. Alternatively, perhaps this is still a bad way to do things. Other suggestions are welcome -- our only constraints are our relatively small log partitions and the need to provide a daily compressed log.

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• UEFI boot options gone

  - by user1797930

  I ran into some issues booting Windows after trying to make a complete backup of the disc. After searching for information about some of the error codes, I found advise to change some BIOS settings, but instead I thought I would just "restore defaults" to make sure all settings were set as originally intended. After doing so, all UEFI boot options except for "Windows Boot Manager" are gone. That means, including the CD/DVD drive, so I cannot even boot from a recovery DVD anymore - and as explained, Windows is not able to boot either. Do you have any advice? When I added a secondary drive originally, it was automatically added to the boot options menu. Even when removing and re-adding the drive physically, the option does not appear again. I have tried unplugging power, and hold down start button for 10 seconds, and boot afterwards - no change. It's a laptop so removing CMOS battery is not an option. I have read information that it is an issue with data removed from NVRAM, but I am unable to find a way to recover it. "Add new boot options" requires a path - but the CD/DVD was originally available without any CD's in the drive - so there is no path available to add the drive. I did try to open EFI shell, but it seems not to be embedded in the UEFI/BIOS. It just says "not found". I'm really lost here - any advice is appreciated.

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• Permissions for Multiple User VPS

  - by adnymarc

  I have a Linode VPS server that I have recently setup and am migrating to from Mediatemple, where I have a VPS managed by Plesk. I dislike the Plesk interface and the mess it makes of a lot of things, but appreciated its ability to allow multiple people access to different domains on a server. I have most everything setup the way I would like it, but am having issues with permissions for my domain directories. I am running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and Apache 2 as my web server. I have domains successfully located in /var/www/vhosts/domainname.com but have to modify files as root in order to add/change files for the domains. I would like to setup access with the following criteria: Each domain can have a user assigned to it (and allow for the same user to manage multiple domains - could even create symlinks in their home folder to their domains) Certain users will have shell access and may be chrooted to the domain directory they control FTP needs to be setup and able to correctly access the domains so that content editors for each domain can upload/download without permissions issues I am relatively new to linux sysadmin and have searched for a good guide to help solve these issues but haven't been able to find one yet. Thanks in advance for your help.

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• Convert Public Folder to Shared Mailbox

  - by Lilienthal

  Due to a change in company policy, all existing Public Folders (PF) have to be phased out in favour of shared mailboxes. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any procedures or guidelines for this migration and I can't find much online either. I've already migrated one of our public folders so far as a sort of test case. Because we still use Exchange 2003, we can't create real shared mailboxes as we would in 2007 or 2010 (With New-Mailbox -Shared ... in the Exchange Shell). Instead, I simply created a new account on the AD and assigned it a mailbox. I then set the PF's permissions to read-only to keep it in a consistent state and copied the entire folder to a local PST in Outlook 2010, from which the folder was in turn copied to the new mailbox. Permissions and Folder Visible were set for all users and the migration was successful. While this works, the whole procedure feels very hackish to me and not at all efficient. I'd welcome some input on automating or at least streamlining the process. Additionally, we are unsure of what to do with our mail-enabled Public Folders. Several of these are nested under other PFs, some of which are also mail-enabled. Preserving folder structure is a key requirement and this seems impossible at first glance. I've considered creating dummy accounts for all the email addresses from our mail-enabled PFs and then setting up automated rules to forward messages to a subfolder of the new shared mailboxes, but I am not familiar enough with Exchange to know if this is even possible. Further points of concern are the Calendars and Contact lists in our public folders. I suppose I'll be forced to create new mailboxes for every one of these we have as well, then set up share permissions for their Calendar and Contact items, but would be happy to be proven wrong.

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• How do I install gfortran (via cygwin and etexteditor) and enable ifort under Windows XP?

  - by bez

  I'm a newbie in the Unix world so all this is a little confusing to me. I'm having trouble compiling some Fortran files under Cygwin on Windows XP. Here's what I've done so far: Installed the e text editor. Installed Cygwin via the "automatic" option inside e text editor. I need to compile some Fortran files so via the "manage bundles" option I installed the Fortran bundle as well. However, when I select "compile single file" I get an error saying gfortran was missing, and then that I need to set the TM_FORTRAN variable to the full path of my compiler. I tried opening a Cygwin bash shell at the path mentioned (.../bin/gfortran), but the compiler was nowhere to be found. Can someone tell me how to install this from the Cygwin command line? Where do I need to update the TM_FORTRAN variable for the bundle to work? Also, how do I change the bundle "compile" option to work with ifort (my native compiler) on Windows? I've read the bundle file, but it is totally incomprehensible to me. Ifort is a Windows compiler, invoked simply by ifort filename.f90, since it is on the Windows path. I know this is a lot to ask of a first time user here, but I really would appreciate any time you can spare to help.

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• What Logs / Process Stats to monitor on a Ubuntu FTP server?

  - by Adam Salkin

  I am administering a server with Ubuntu Server which is running pureFTP. So far all is well, but I would like to know what I should be monitoring so that I can spot any potential stability and security issues. I'm not looking for sophisticated software, more an idea of what logs and process statistics are most useful for checking on the health of the system. I'm thinking that I can look at various parameters output from the "ps" command and compare to see if I have things like memory leaks. But I would like to know what experienced admins do. Also, how do I do a disk check so that when I reboot, I don't get a message saying something like "disk not checked for x days, forcing check" which delays the reboot? I assume there is command that I can run as a cron job late at night. How often should it be run? What things should I be looking at to spot intrusion attempts? The only shell access is SSH on a non-standard port through UFW firewall, and I regularly do a grep on auth.log for "Fail" or "Invalid". Is there anything else I should look at? I was logging the firewall (UFW) but I have very few open ports (FTP and SSH on a non standard port) so looking at lists of IP's that have been blocked did not seem useful. Many thanks

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• Unwanted blank lines when committing from SVN

  - by Alon_A

  I'm using CentOS Linux 5.8 as a web server and tortoise SVN for synchronizing version of our code. We write the code in Windows 7 professional 64BIT with NetBeans and NotePad++. I'm committing the code files (.php) from the Linux Shell by this command: svn co svnFolder serverFolder --username **** --password **** The problem is, after committing the files, when I'm opening them directly from the server (for debugging) by NotePad++ (I'm doing View/Edit from Filezilla) I have extra blank lines. A code that looks like this on the localhost (On NotePad++): private $producer; private $account; private $admin; private $producerEvents; private $accountProducers; private $adminAccounts; Will look like this after committing to the server (Again, on NotePad++): private $producer; private $account; private $admin; private $producerEvents; private $accountProducers; private $adminAccounts; If I upload files by FTP, No blank lines are being added. How can I solve it ? Thanks.

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• How can I document and automate a system's configuration?

  - by Diomidis Spinellis

  Having a system's configuration represented by its current state is risky, inefficient, and opaque. At some point you may be left with an unsupported system and no upgrade path. Then configuring a new system compatible with the old is a process or trial and error. Furthermore, if at some point the system is damaged the only option is to go back to the most recent full backup, and try to remember what changes followed from that point. Also, the only way to create a system compatible with the original is through a complete dump/restore. Finally, in such a setup there's no way to know how you solved a particular problem; the only thing you can do is to look at the corresponding configuration files and try to guess what you changed to achieve the desired effect. Currently for each system I maintain, I keep a log file where I record all system administration activity, starting from the installation: installation options, added packages, changes in configuration files, updates, problem fixes etc. In theory this allows me to (manually) replay all changes to arrive at the current state, or to unroll an erroneous change by executing the reverse commands. However, this process is also inefficient, error-prone, and relies on human judgment. Another thing I've tried is to put /etc configuration files under version control with git. This helps me document the changes automatically and also apply them on a clean setup. But it's not without problems: git has to run under sudo, passwords and private keys may be stored in the repository, installed packages can't be meaningfully tracked, and git will have a fit if I try to extend this approach to all the system's directories. I've also thought about performing all changes through shell scripts or makefiles, but I think this process will require a lot of effort and will be fragile. Are there some better methods or tools that I'm missing?

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• How to diagnose computer freezing problem

  - by reinierpost

  I have a laptop (a Medion from Aldi) that tends to hang quite often - so often, in fact, that several attempts to install Windows XP or Ubuntu on it have all failed. However, I am able to boot and run Ubuntu as found on the standard Ubuntu 10.10 installation image. I have done this two times thus far. The first time everything was running smoothly, until at some point the GUI (i.e. X) became unresponsive. The cursor kept moving with the mouse, but menus would no longer show and clicking things no longer produced any response. So I switched to the consoles (Ctrl-F1, Ctrl-F2, etc., which in this setup automatically run shells. The shells were still responsive, and the cd command would still work, but any command that invoked an executable (e.g. /bin/ls or cd /bin; ./find caused the shell to hang up uninterruptibly. My hypothesis was that all attempts at disk access were hanging up, but I didn't actually try a command like echo /proc/$$ or while read line; do echo $line; done < /var/log/syslog to verify this. Another possibility is that an essential system library is cached in memory and somehow failing to function properly. The second time I left the system running overnight and it didn't hang itself spontaneously. I'm not sure I have the patience to just twiddle with the running system until the condition reappears, and I'm, not sure what to do once it does. Clearly we can rule out a software cause. It seems disk access related, but clearly it's not permanent hard disk failure because the system will reboot just fine. What kind of hardware problem might produce these symptoms? Can it be a memory problem?

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• Part 2&ndash;Load Testing In The Cloud

  - by Tarun Arora

  Welcome to Part 2, In Part 1 we discussed the advantages of creating a Test Rig in the cloud, the Azure edge and the Test Rig Topology we want to get to. In Part 2, Let’s start by understanding the components of Azure we’ll be making use of followed by manually putting them together to create the test rig, so… let’s get down dirty start setting up the Test Rig.  What Components of Azure will I be using for building the Test Rig in the Cloud? To run the Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Compute and to enable communication between Test Controller and Test Agents we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect.  Azure Connect The Test Controller is on premise and the Test Agents are in the cloud (How will they talk?). To enable communication between the two, we’ll make use of Windows Azure Connect. With Windows Azure Connect, you can use a simple user interface to configure IPsec protected connections between computers or virtual machines (VMs) in your organization’s network, and roles running in Windows Azure. With this you can now join Windows Azure role instances to your domain, so that you can use your existing methods for domain authentication, name resolution, or other domain-wide maintenance actions. For more details refer to an overview of Windows Azure connect. A very useful video explaining everything you wanted to know about Windows Azure connect.  Azure Compute Windows Azure compute provides developers a platform to host and manage applications in Microsoft’s data centres across the globe. A Windows Azure application is built from one or more components called ‘roles.’ Roles come in three different types: Web role, Worker role, and Virtual Machine (VM) role, we’ll be using the Worker role to set up the Test Agents. A very nice blog post discussing the difference between the 3 role types. Developers are free to use the .NET framework or other software that runs on Windows with the Worker role or Web role. Developers can also create applications using languages such as PHP and Java. More on Windows Azure Compute. Each Windows Azure compute instance represents a virtual server... Virtual Machine Size CPU Cores Memory Cost Per Hour Extra Small Shared 768 MB $0.04 Small 1 1.75 GB $0.12 Medium 2 3.50 GB $0.24 Large 4 7.00 GB $0.48 Extra Large 8 14.00 GB $0.96   You might want to review the Windows Azure Pricing FAQ. Let’s Get Started building the Test Rig… Configuration Machine Role Comments VM – 1 Domain Controller for Playpit.com On Premise VM – 2 TFS, Test Controller On Premise VM – 3 Test Agent Cloud   In this blog post I would assume that you have the domain, Team Foundation Server and Test Controller Installed and set up already. If not, please refer to the TFS 2010 Installation Guide and this walkthrough on MSDN to set up your Test Controller. You can also download a preconfigured TFS 2010 VM from Brian Keller's blog, Brian also has some great hands on Labs on TFS 2010 that you may want to explore. I. Lets start building VM – 3: The Test Agent Download the Windows Azure SDK and Tools Open Visual Studio and create a new Windows Azure Project using the Cloud Template                   Choose the Worker Role for reasons explained in the earlier post         The WorkerRole.cs implements the Run() and OnStart() methods, no code changes required. You should be able to compile the project and run it in the compute emulator (The compute emulator should have been installed as part of the Windows Azure Toolkit) on your local machine.                   We will only be making changes to WindowsAzureProject, open ServiceDefinition.csdef. Ensure that the vmsize is small (remember the cost chart above). Import the “Connect” module. I am importing the Connect module because I need to join the Worker role VM to the Playpit domain. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect"/> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg and note that settings with key ‘Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.%%%%’ have been added to the configuration file. This is because you decided to import the connect module. See the config below. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="1" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>             Let’s go step by step and understand all the highlighted parameters and where you can find the values for them.       osFamily – By default this is set to 1 (Windows Server 2008 SP2). Change this to 2 if you want the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system. The Advantage of using osFamily = “2” is that you get Powershell 2.0 rather than Powershell 1.0. In Powershell 2.0 you could simply use “powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted ./myscript.ps1” and it will work while in Powershell 1.0 you will have to change the registry key by including the following in your command file “reg add HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell /v ExecutionPolicy /d Unrestricted /f” before you can execute any power shell. The other reason you might want to move to os2 is if you wanted IIS 7.5.       Activation Token – To enable communication between the on premise machine and the Windows Azure Worker role VM both need to have the same token. Log on to Windows Azure Management Portal, click on Connect, click on Get Activation Token, this should give you the activation token, copy the activation token to the clipboard and paste it in the configuration file. Note – Later in the blog I’ll be showing you how to install connect on the on premise machine.                       EnableDomainJoin – Set the value to true, ofcourse we want to join the on windows azure worker role VM to the domain.       DomainFQDN, DomainControllerFQDN, DomainAccountName, DomainPassword, DomainOU, Administrators – This information is specific to your domain. I have extracted this information from the ‘service manager’ and ‘Active Directory Users and Computers’. Also, i created a new Domain-OU namely ‘CloudInstances’ so all my cloud instances joined to my domain show up here, this is optional. You can encrypt the DomainPassword – refer to the instructions here. Or hold fire, I’ll be covering that when i come to certificates and encryption in the coming section.       Now once you have filled all this information up, the configuration file should look something like below, <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> Next we will be enabling the Remote Desktop module in to the ServiceDefinition.csdef, we could make changes manually or allow a beautiful wizard to help us make changes. I prefer the second option. So right click on the Windows Azure project and choose Publish       Now once you get the publish wizard, if you haven’t already you would be asked to import your Windows Azure subscription, this is simply the Msdn subscription activation key xml. Once you have done click Next to go to the Settings page and check ‘Enable Remote Desktop for all roles’.       As soon as you do that you get another pop up asking you the details for the user that you would be logging in with (make sure you enter a reasonable expiry date, you do not want the user account to expire today). Notice the more information tag at the bottom, click that to get access to the certificate section. See screen shot below.       From the drop down select the option to create a new certificate        In the pop up window enter the friendly name for your certificate. In my case I entered ‘WAC – Test Rig’ and click ok. This will create a new certificate for you. Click on the view button to see the certificate details. Do you see the Thumbprint, this is the value that will go in the config file (very important). Now click on the Copy to File button to copy the certificate, we will need to import the certificate to the windows Azure Management portal later. So, make sure you save it a safe location.                                Click Finish and enter details of the user you would like to create with permissions for remote desktop access, once you have entered the details on the ‘Remote desktop configuration’ screen click on Ok. From the Publish Windows Azure Wizard screen press Cancel. Cancel because we don’t want to publish the role just yet and Yes because we want to save all the changes in the config file.       Now if you go to the ServiceDefinition.csdef file you will see that the RemoteAccess and RemoteForwarder roles have been imported for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WorkerRole name="WorkerRole1" vmsize="Small"> <Imports> <Import moduleName="Diagnostics" /> <Import moduleName="Connect" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteAccess" /> <Import moduleName="RemoteForwarder" /> </Imports> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Now go to the ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg file and you see a whole bunch for setting “Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.%%%” values added for you. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="WindowsAzureProject2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="2" osVersion="*"> <Role name="WorkerRole1"> <Instances count="1" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Diagnostics.ConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.ActivationToken" value="45f55fea-f194-4fbc-b36e-25604faac784" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Refresh" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.WaitForConnectivity" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Upgrade" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.EnableDomainJoin" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainFQDN" value="play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainControllerFQDN" value="WIN-KUDQMQFGQOL.play.pit.com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainAccountName" value="playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainPassword" value="************************" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainOU" value="OU=CloudInstances, DC=Play, DC=Pit, DC=com" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.Administrators" value="Playpit\Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.Connect.DomainSiteName" value="" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.Enabled" value="true" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountUsername" value="Administrator" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountEncryptedPassword" value="MIIBnQYJKoZIhvcNAQcDoIIBjjCCAYoCAQAxggFOMIIBSgIBADAyMB4xHDAaBgNVBAMME1dpbmRvd 3MgQXp1cmUgVG9vbHMCEGa+B46voeO5T305N7TSG9QwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQAEggEABg4ol5Xol66Ip6QKLbAPWdmD4ae ADZ7aKj6fg4D+ATr0DXBllZHG5Umwf+84Sj2nsPeCyrg3ZDQuxrfhSbdnJwuChKV6ukXdGjX0hlowJu/4dfH4jTJC7sBWS AKaEFU7CxvqYEAL1Hf9VPL5fW6HZVmq1z+qmm4ecGKSTOJ20Fptb463wcXgR8CWGa+1w9xqJ7UmmfGeGeCHQ4QGW0IDSBU6ccg vzF2ug8/FY60K1vrWaCYOhKkxD3YBs8U9X/kOB0yQm2Git0d5tFlIPCBT2AC57bgsAYncXfHvPesI0qs7VZyghk8LVa9g5IqaM Cp6cQ7rmY/dLsKBMkDcdBHuCTAzBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwFAYIKoZIhvcNAwcECDRVifSXbA43gBApNrp40L1VTVZ1iGag+3O1" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.AccountExpiration" value="2012-11-27T23:59:59.0000000+00:00" /> <Setting name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteForwarder.Enabled" value="true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> <Certificates> <Certificate name="Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Plugins.RemoteAccess.PasswordEncryption" thumbprint="AA23016CF0BDFC344400B5B82706B608B92E4217" thumbprintAlgorithm="sha1" /> </Certificates> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>          Okay let’s look at them one at a time,       Enabled - Yes, we would like to enable Remote Access.       AccountUserName – This is the user name you entered while you were on the publish windows azure role screen, as detailed above.       AccountEncrytedPassword – Try and decode that, the certificate is used to encrypt the password you specified for the user account. Remember earlier i said, either use the instructions or wait and i’ll be showing you encryption, now the user account i am using for rdp has the same password as my domain password, so i can simply copy the value of the AccountEncryptedPassword to the DomainPassword as well.       AccountExpiration – This is the expiration as you specified in the wizard earlier, make sure your account does not expire today.       Remote Forwarder – Check out the documentation, below is how I understand it, -- One role in an application that implements a remote desktop connection must import the RemoteForwarder module. The two modules work together to enable the remote desktop connections to role instances. -- If you have multiple roles defined in the service model, it does not matter which role you add the RemoteForwarder module to, but you must add it to only one of the role definitions.       Certificate – Remember the certificate thumbprint from the wizard, the on premise machine and windows azure role machine that need to speak to each other must have the same thumbprint. More on that when we install Windows Azure connect Endpoints on the on premise machine. As i said earlier, in this blog post, I’ll be showing you the manual process so i won’t be scripting any star up tasks to install the test agent or register the test agent with the TFS Server. I’ll be showing you all this cool stuff in the next blog post, that’s because it’s important to understand the manual side of it, it becomes easier for you to troubleshoot in case something fails. Having said that, the changes we have made are sufficient to spin up the Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent VM, have it connected with the play.pit.com domain and have remote access enabled on it. Before we deploy the Test Agent VM we need to set up Windows Azure Connect on the TFS Server. II. Windows Azure Connect: Setting up Connect on VM – 2 i.e. TFS & Test Controller Glad you made it so far, now to enable communication between the on premise TFS/Test Controller and Azure-ed Test Agent we need to enable communication. We have set up the Azure connect module in the Test Agent configuration, now the connect end points need to be enabled on the on premise machines, let’s have a look at how we can do this. Log on to VM – 2 running the TFS Server and Test Controller Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network Click on Virtual Network, if you already have a subscription you should see the below screen shot, if not, you would be asked to complete the subscription first        Click on Install Local Endpoints from the top left on the panel and you get a url appended with a token id in it, remember the token i showed you earlier, in theory the token you get here should match the token you added to the Test Agent config file.        Copy the url to the clip board and paste it in IE explorer (important, the installation at present only works out of IE and you need to have cookies enabled in order to complete the installation). As stated in the pop up, you can NOT download and run the software later, you need to run it as is, since it contains a token. Once the installation completes you should see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray.                         Right click the Azure Connect icon, choose Diagnostics and refer to this link for diagnostic detail terminology. NOTE – Unfortunately I could not see the Windows Azure connect icon in the system tray, a bit of binging with Google revealed that the azure connect icon is only shown when the ‘Windows Azure Connect Endpoint’ Service is started. So go to services.msc and make sure that the service is started, if not start it, unfortunately again, the service did not start for me on a manual start and i realised that one of the dependant services was disabled, you can look at the service dependencies and start them and then start windows azure connect. Bottom line, you need to start Windows Azure connect service before you can proceed. Please refer here on MSDN for more on Troubleshooting Windows Azure connect. (Follow the next step as well)   Now go back to the Windows Azure Management Portal and from Groups and Roles create a new group, lets call it ‘Test Rig’. Make sure you add the VM – 2 (the TFS Server VM where you just installed the endpoint).       Now if you go back to the Azure Connect icon in the system tray and click ‘Refresh Policy’ you will notice that the disconnected status of the icon should change to ready for connection. III. Importing Certificate in to Windows Azure Management Portal But before that you need to import the certificate you created in Step I in to the Windows Azure Management Portal. Log on to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on ‘Hosted Services, Storage Accounts & CDN’ and then ‘Management Certificates’ followed by Add Certificates as shown in the screen shot below        Browse to the location where you saved the certificate earlier, remember… Refer to Step I in case you forgot.        Now you should be able to see the imported certificate here, make sure the thumbprint of the certificate matches the one you inserted in the config files        IV. Publish Windows Azure Worker Role aka Test Agent Having completed I, II and III, you are ready to publish the Test Agent VM – 3 to the cloud. Go to Visual Studio and right click the Windows Azure project and select Publish. Verify the infomration in the wizard, from the advanced settings tab, you can also enabled capture of intellitrace or profiling information.         Click Next and Click Publish! From the view menu bar select the Windows Azure Activity Log window.       Now you should be able to see the deployment progress in real time.             In the Windows Azure Management Portal, you should also be able to see the progress of creation of a new Worker Role.       Once the deployment is complete you should be able to RDP (go to run prompt type mstsc and in the pop up the machine name) in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM from the Playpit network using the domain admin user account. In case you are unable to log in to the Test Agent using the domain admin user account it means the process of joining the Test Agent to the domain has failed! But the good news is, because you imported the connect module, you can connect to the Test Agent machine using Windows Azure Management Portal and troubleshoot the reason for failure, you will be able to log in with the user name and password you specified in the config file for the keys ‘RemoteAccess.AccountUsername, RemoteAccess.EncryptedPassword (just that enter the password unencrypted)’, fix it or manually join the machine to the domain. Once you have managed to Join the Test Agent VM to the Domain move to the next step.      So, log in to the Test Agent Worker Role VM with the Playpit Domain Administrator and verify that you can log in, the machine is connected to the domain and the connect service is successfully running. If yes, give your self a pat on the back, you are 80% mission accomplished!         Go to the Windows Azure Management Portal and click on Virtual Network, click on Groups and Roles and click on Test Rig, click Edit Group, the edit the Test Rig group you created earlier. In the Connect to section, click on Add to select the worker role you have just deployed. Also, check the ‘Allow connections between endpoints in the group’ with this you will enable to communication between test controller and test agents and test agents/test agents. Click Save.      Now, you are ready to deploy the Test Agent software on the Worker Role Test Agent VM and configure it to work with the Test Controller. V. Configuring VM – 3: Installing Test Agent and Associating Test Agent to Controller Log in to the Worker Role Test Agent VM that you have just successfully deployed, make sure you log in with the domain administrator account. Download the All Agents software from MSDN, ‘en_visual_studio_agents_2010_x86_x64_dvd_509679.iso’, extract the iso and navigate to where you have extracted the iso. In my case, i have extracted the iso to “C:\Resources\Temp\VsAgentSetup”. Open the Test Agent folder and double click on setup.exe. Once you have installed the Test Agent you should reach the configuration window. If you face any issues installing TFS Test Agent on the VM, refer to the walkthrough on MSDN.       Once you have successfully installed the Test Agent software you will need to configure the test agent. Right click the test agent configuration tool and run as a different user. i.e. an Administrator. This is really to run the configuration wizard with elevated privileges (you might have UAC block something's otherwise).        In the run options, you can select ‘service’ you do not need to run the agent as interactive un less you are running coded UI tests. I have specified the domain administrator to connect to the TFS Test Controller. In real life, i would never do that, i would create a separate test user service account for this purpose. But for the blog post, we are using the most powerful user so that any policies or restrictions don’t block you.        Click the Apply Settings button and you should be all green! If not, the summary usually gives helpful error messages that you can resolve and proceed. As per my experience, you may run in to either a permission or a firewall blocking communication issue.        And now the moment of truth! Go to VM –2 open up Visual Studio and from the Test Menu select Manage Test Controller       Mission Accomplished! You should be able to see the Test Agent that you have just configured here,         VI. Creating and Running Load Tests on your brand new Azure-ed Test Rig I have various blog posts on Performance Testing with Visual Studio Ultimate, you can follow the links and videos below, Blog Posts: - Part 1 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 2 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - Part 3 – Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Videos: - Test Tools Configuration & Settings in Visual Studio - Why & How to Record Web Performance Tests in Visual Studio Ultimate - Goal Driven Load Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate Now that you have created your load tests, there is one last change you need to make before you can run the tests on your Azure Test Rig, create a new Test settings file, and change the Test Execution method to ‘Remote Execution’ and select the test controller you have configured the Worker Role Test Agent against in our case VM – 2 So, go on, fire off a test run and see the results of the test being executed on the Azur-ed Test Rig. Review and What’s next? A quick recap of the benefits of running the Test Rig in the cloud and what i will be covering in the next blog post AND I would love to hear your feedback! Advantages Utilizing the power of Azure compute to run a heavy virtual user load. Benefiting from the Azure flexibility, destroy Test Agents when not in use, takes < 25 minutes to spin up a new Test Agent. Most important test Network Latency, (network latency and speed of connection are two different things – usually network latency is very hard to test), by placing the Test Agents in Microsoft Data centres around the globe, one can actually test the lag in transferring the bytes not because of a slow connection but because the page has been requested from the other side of the globe. Next Steps The process of spinning up the Test Agents in windows Azure is not 100% automated. I am working on the Worker process and power shell scripts to make the role deployment, unattended install of test agent software and registration of the test agent to the test controller automated. In the next blog post I will show you how to make the complete process unattended and automated. Remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Hope you enjoyed this post, I would love to hear your feedback! If you have any recommendations on things that I should consider or any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment. See you in Part III.   Share this post : CodeProject

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• Core Data error when assigning variable with one-to-one relationship

  - by Hoang Pham

  I tried to assign a managed object (C) with its property another managed object (B) (a one-to-one relationship) in which this other managed object (B) has a to-many relationship with one other managed object (A). There is an error from this assignment in which I copied as follows: #0 0x020e53a7 in ___forwarding___ #1 0x020c16c2 in __forwarding_prep_0___ #2 0x02078988 in CFRetain #3 0x0207a728 in CFSetAddValue #4 0x020c2fb2 in CFSetCreate #5 0x01e51ce8 in -[_NSFaultingMutableSet copyWithZone:] #6 0x020afcca in -[NSObject copy] #7 0x01e50d22 in -[NSManagedObject(_NSInternalMethods) _newPropertiesForRetainedTypes:andCopiedTypes:preserveFaults:] #8 0x01e51aa0 in -[NSManagedObject(_NSInternalMethods) _newAllPropertiesWithRelationshipFaultsIntact__] #9 0x01e519b4 in -[NSManagedObjectContext(_NSInternalChangeProcessing) _establishEventSnapshotsForObject:] #10 0x01e51866 in _PFFastMOCObjectWillChange #11 0x01e516c5 in _PF_ManagedObject_WillChangeValueForKeyIndex #12 0x01e51525 in _sharedIMPL_setvfk_core #13 0x01e51483 in _PF_Handler_Public_SetProperty #14 0x01e546d1 in -[NSManagedObject(_NSInternalMethods) _didChangeValue:forRelationship:named:withInverse:] #15 0x0030ec1e in NSKVONotify #16 0x002aae2a in -[NSObject(NSKeyValueObserverNotification) didChangeValueForKey:] #17 0x01e5212f in _PF_ManagedObject_DidChangeValueForKeyIndex #18 0x01e515b1 in _sharedIMPL_setvfk_core #19 0x01e55827 in _svfk_5 I don't understand very well what the exact description of this error is. Can someone explain to me what it is and how to solve this one. Note that all other assignments in which the managed object B does not have any A items do not raise this error. ObjectC *objectC = [NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName:@"ObjectC" inManagedObjectContext:managedObjectContext]; objectC.objectB = objectB; Thank you in advance. I added some more NSZombieEnabled/MallocStackLogging generated log: 2010-05-18 17:28:05.327 Foo[2069:207] *** -[CFSet retain]: message sent to deallocated instance 0x800c880 (gdb) shell malloc_history 207 0x800c880 malloc_history cannot examine process 207 because the process does not exist. (gdb) shell malloc_history 2069 0x800c880 ALLOC 0x800c880-0x800c884 [size=5]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlIOParseDTD | _endElementNs | -[Parser parser:didEndElement:namespaceURI:qualifiedName:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asl_set_query | strdup | malloc | malloc_zone_malloc ---- FREE 0x800c880-0x800c884 [size=5]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlIOParseDTD | _endElementNs | -[Parser parser:didEndElement:namespaceURI:qualifiedName:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asl_free | free ALLOC 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asl_set_query | asprintf | malloc | malloc_zone_malloc ---- FREE 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asl_set_query | free ALLOC 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asprintf | malloc | malloc_zone_malloc ---- FREE 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | free ALLOC 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asprintf | malloc | malloc_zone_malloc ---- FREE 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | free ALLOC 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asprintf | malloc | malloc_zone_malloc ---- FREE 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | free ALLOC 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asprintf | malloc | malloc_zone_malloc ---- FREE 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | free ALLOC 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | asprintf | malloc | malloc_zone_malloc ---- FREE 0x800c860-0x800c8df [size=128]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlParseCharData | _characters | -[Parser parser:foundCharacters:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | asl_send | _asl_send_level_message | free ALLOC 0x800c700-0x800c893 [size=404]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlIOParseDTD | _startElementNs | -[Parser parser:didStartElement:namespaceURI:qualifiedName:attributes:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | CFCalendarDecomposeAbsoluteTime | _CFCalendarDecomposeAbsoluteTimeV | __CFCalendarSetupCal | __CFCalendarCreateUCalendar | ucal_open | icu::Calendar::createInstance(icu::TimeZone*, icu::Locale const&, UErrorCode&) | malloc | malloc_zone_malloc ---- FREE 0x800c700-0x800c893 [size=404]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlIOParseDTD | _startElementNs | -[Parser parser:didStartElement:namespaceURI:qualifiedName:attributes:] | NSLog | NSLogv | _CFLogvEx | __CFLogCString | _CFRelease | free ALLOC 0x800c880-0x800c8c7 [size=72]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __NSFireDelayedPerform | -[Step2ViewController downloadData] | -[Parser downloadVariantsWithPin:forTerminal:] | -[Parser parseByNSXMLParser:] | -[NSXMLParser parse] | xmlParseChunk | xmlIOParseDTD | _startElementNs | -[Parser parser:didStartElement:namespaceURI:qualifiedName:attributes:] | +[NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName:inManagedObjectContext:] | +[NSManagedObject(_PFDynamicAccessorsAndPropertySupport) allocWithEntity:] | _PFAllocateObject | malloc_zone_calloc ---- FREE 0x800c880-0x800c8c7 [size=72]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __CFRunLoopDoObservers | _performRunLoopAction | -[_PFManagedObjectReferenceQueue _processReferenceQueue:] | _PFDeallocateObject | malloc_zone_free ALLOC 0x800c880-0x800c8a7 [size=40]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __CFRunLoopDoObservers | CA::Transaction::observer_callback(__CFRunLoopObserver*, unsigned long, void*) | CA::Transaction::commit() | CA::Context::commit_transaction(CA::Transaction*) | CALayerDisplayIfNeeded | -[TileLayer display] | -[CALayer _display] | CABackingStoreUpdate | backing_callback(CGContext*, void*) | WebCore::TiledSurface::drawLayer(CALayer*, CGContext*) | WKWindowDrawRect | WKViewDisplayRect | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | -[WebHTMLView drawSingleRect:] | -[WebFrame(WebInternal) _drawRect:contentsOnly:] | WebCore::FrameView::paintContents(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::IntRect const&) | WebCore::RenderLayer::paint(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::IntRect const&, WebCore::PaintRestriction, WebCore::RenderObject*) | WebCore::RenderLayer::paintLayer(WebCore::RenderLayer*, WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::IntRect const&, bool, WebCore::PaintRestriction, WebCore::RenderObject*, bool, bool) | WebCore::RenderLayer::paintLayer(WebCore::RenderLayer*, WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::IntRect const&, bool, WebCore::PaintRestriction, WebCore::RenderObject*, bool, bool) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintObject(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintChildren(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintObject(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintChildren(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintObject(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintChildren(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintObject(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderFlow::paintLines(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RootInlineBox::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::InlineFlowBox::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::InlineTextBox::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::paintTextWithShadows(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::Font const&, WebCore::TextRun const&, int, int, WebCore::IntPoint const&, int, int, int, int, WebCore::ShadowData*, bool) | WebCore::GraphicsContext::drawText(WebCore::Font const&, WebCore::TextRun const&, WebCore::IntPoint const&, int, int) | WebCore::Font::drawSimpleText(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::TextRun const&, WebCore::FloatPoint const&, int, int) const | WebCore::Font::drawGlyphBuffer(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::GlyphBuffer const&, WebCore::TextRun const&, WebCore::FloatPoint&) const | WebCore::Font::drawGlyphs(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::SimpleFontData const*, WebCore::GlyphBuffer const&, int, int, WebCore::FloatPoint const&, bool) const | CGGStateSetFont | maybeCopyTextState | calloc | malloc_zone_calloc ---- FREE 0x800c880-0x800c8a7 [size=40]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | __CFRunLoopDoObservers | CA::Transaction::observer_callback(__CFRunLoopObserver*, unsigned long, void*) | CA::Transaction::commit() | CA::Context::commit_transaction(CA::Transaction*) | CALayerDisplayIfNeeded | -[TileLayer display] | -[CALayer _display] | CABackingStoreUpdate | backing_callback(CGContext*, void*) | WebCore::TiledSurface::drawLayer(CALayer*, CGContext*) | WKWindowDrawRect | WKViewDisplayRect | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | _WKViewDraw(CGContext*, WKView*, CGRect) | -[WebHTMLView drawSingleRect:] | -[WebFrame(WebInternal) _drawRect:contentsOnly:] | WebCore::FrameView::paintContents(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::IntRect const&) | WebCore::RenderLayer::paint(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::IntRect const&, WebCore::PaintRestriction, WebCore::RenderObject*) | WebCore::RenderLayer::paintLayer(WebCore::RenderLayer*, WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::IntRect const&, bool, WebCore::PaintRestriction, WebCore::RenderObject*, bool, bool) | WebCore::RenderLayer::paintLayer(WebCore::RenderLayer*, WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::IntRect const&, bool, WebCore::PaintRestriction, WebCore::RenderObject*, bool, bool) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintObject(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintChildren(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintObject(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintChildren(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintObject(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintChildren(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderBlock::paintObject(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RenderFlow::paintLines(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::RootInlineBox::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::InlineFlowBox::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::InlineTextBox::paint(WebCore::RenderObject::PaintInfo&, int, int) | WebCore::paintTextWithShadows(WebCore::GraphicsContext*, WebCore::Font const&, WebCore::TextRun const&, int, int, WebCore::IntPoint const&, int, int, int, int, WebCore::ShadowData*, bool) | WebCore::GraphicsContext::restorePlatformState() | CGContextRestoreGState | CGGStackRestore | CGGStateRelease | textStateRelease | free ALLOC 0x800c880-0x800c8bf [size=64]: thread_a0a8c4e0 |start | main | UIApplicationMain | GSEventRun | GSEventRunModal | CFRunLoopRunInMode | CFRunLoopRunSpecific | CA::timer_callback(__CFRunLoopTimer*, void*) | run_animation_callbacks(double, void*) | -[UIViewAnimationState animationDidStop:finished:] | -[UIViewAnimationState sendDelegateAnimationDidStop:finished:] | -[UINavigationTransitionView _navigationTransitionDidStop] | -[UIView(Hierarchy) removeFromSuperview] | -[UITextField resignFirstResponder] | -[UIFieldEditor resignFirstResponder] | -[UIKeyboardImpl setDelegate:] | -[UIKeyboardImpl setDelegate:force:] | -[UITextInteractionAssistant setGestureRecognizers] | -[UITextInteractionAssistant addTwoFingerRangedSelectRecognizer] | -[UILongPressGestureRecognizer initWithTarget:action:] | -[__NSPlaceholderSet init] | -[__NSPlaceholderSet initWithCapacity:] | __CFSetInit | _CFRuntimeCreateInstance | malloc_zone_malloc

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• SQLAuthority News – Guest Post – Performance Counters Gathering using Powershell

  - by pinaldave

  Laerte Junior Laerte Junior has previously helped me personally to resolve the issue with Powershell installation on my computer. He did awesome job to help. He has send this another wonderful article regarding performance counter for readers of this blog. I really liked it and I expect all of you who are Powershell geeks, you will like the same as well. As a good DBA, you know that our social life is restricted to a few movies over the year and, when possible, a pizza in a restaurant next to your company’s place, of course. So what we have to do is to create methods through which we can facilitate our daily processes to go home early, and eventually have a nice time with our family (and not sleeping on the couch). As a consultant or fixed employee, one of our daily tasks is to monitor performance counters using Perfmom. To be honest, IDE is getting more complicated. To deal with this, I thought a solution using Powershell. Yes, with some lines of Powershell, you can configure which counters to use. And with one more line, you can already start collecting data. Let’s see one scenario: You are a consultant who has several clients and has just closed another project in troubleshooting an SQL Server environment. You are to use Perfmom to collect data from the server and you already have its XML configuration files made with the counters that you will be using- a file for memory bottleneck f, one for CPU, etc. With one Powershell command line for each XML file, you start collecting. The output of such a TXT file collection is set to up in an SQL Server. With two lines of command for each XML, you make the whole process of data collection. Creating an XML configuration File to Memory Counters: Get-PerfCounterCategory -CategoryName "Memory" | Get-PerfCounterInstance  | Get-PerfCounterCounters |Save-ConfigPerfCounter -PathConfigFile "c:\temp\ConfigfileMemory.xml" -newfile Creating an XML Configuration File to Buffer Manager, counters Page lookups/sec, Page reads/sec, Page writes/sec, Page life expectancy: Get-PerfCounterCategory -CategoryName "SQLServer:Buffer Manager" | Get-PerfCounterInstance | Get-PerfCounterCounters -CounterName "Page*" | Save-ConfigPerfCounter -PathConfigFile "c:\temp\BufferManager.xml" –NewFile Then you start the collection: Set-CollectPerfCounter -DateTimeStart "05/24/2010 08:00:00" -DateTimeEnd "05/24/2010 22:00:00" -Interval 10 -PathConfigFile c:\temp\ConfigfileMemory.xml -PathOutputFile c:\temp\ConfigfileMemory.txt To let the Buffer Manager collect, you need one more counters, including the Buffer cache hit ratio. Just add a new counter to BufferManager.xml, omitting the new file parameter Get-PerfCounterCategory -CategoryName "SQLServer:Buffer Manager" | Get-PerfCounterInstance | Get-PerfCounterCounters -CounterName "Buffer cache hit ratio" | Save-ConfigPerfCounter -PathConfigFile "c:\temp\BufferManager.xml" And start the collection: Set-CollectPerfCounter -DateTimeStart "05/24/2010 08:00:00" -DateTimeEnd "05/24/2010 22:00:00" -Interval 10 -PathConfigFile c:\temp\BufferManager.xml -PathOutputFile c:\temp\BufferManager.txt You do not know which counters are in the Category Buffer Manager? Simple! Get-PerfCounterCategory -CategoryName "SQLServer:Buffer Manager" | Get-PerfCounterInstance | Get-PerfCounterCounters Let’s see one output file as shown below. It is ready to bulk insert into the SQL Server. As you can see, Powershell makes this process incredibly easy and fast. Do you want to see more examples? Visit my blog at Shell Your Experience You can find more about Laerte Junior over here: www.laertejuniordba.spaces.live.com www.simple-talk.com/author/laerte-junior www.twitter.com/laertejuniordba SQL Server Powershell Extension Team: http://sqlpsx.codeplex.com/ Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Add-On, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Powershell

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