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• Gamification = -10#/3mo

  - by erikanollwebb

  One of the purposes of gamification of anything is to see if you can modify the behavior of the user. In the enterprise, that might mean getting sales people to enter more information into a CRM system, encouraging employees to update their HR records, motivating people to participate in forums and discussions, or process invoices more quickly.  Wikipedia defines behavior modification as "the traditional term for the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of behavior through its extinction, punishment and/or satiation."  Gamification is just a way to modify someone's behavior using game mechanics. And the magic question is always whether it works. So I thought I would present my own little experiment from the last few months.  This spring, I upgraded to a Samsung Galaxy 4.  It's a pretty sweet phone in many ways, but one of the little extras I discovered was a built in app called S Health. S Health is an app that you can use to track calories, weight, exercise and it has a built in pedometer. I looked at it when I got the phone, but assumed you had to turn it on to use it so I didn't look at it much.  But sometime in July, I realized that in fact, it just ran in the background and was quietly tracking my steps, with a goal of 10,000 per day.  10,000 steps per day is this magic number recommended by the Surgeon General and the American Heart Association.  Dr. Oz pushes it as the goal for daily exercise.  It's about 5 miles of walking. I'm generally not the kind of person who always has my phone with me.  I leave it in my purse and pull it out when I need it.  But then I realized that meant I wasn't getting a good measure of my steps.  I decided to do a little experiment, and carry it with me as much as possible for a week.  That's when I discovered the gamification that changed my life over the last 3 months.  When I hit 10,000 steps, the app jingled out a little "success!" tune and I got a badge.  I was hooked.  I started carrying my phone.  I started making sure I had shoes I could walk in with me.  I started walking at lunch time, because I realized how often I sat at my desk for 8-10 hours every day without moving.  I started pestering my husband to walk with me after work because I hadn't hit my 10,000 yet, leading him at one point to say "I'm not as much a slave to that badge as you are!"  I started looking at parking lots differently.  Can't get a space up close?  No worries, just that many steps toward my 10,000.  I even tried to see if there was a second power user level at 15,000 or 20,000 (*sadly, no).  If I was close at the end of the day, I have done laps around my house until I got my badge.  I have walked around the block one more time to get my badge.  I have mentally chastised myself when I forgot to put my phone in my pocket because I don't know how many steps I got.  The badge below I got when my boss and I were in New York City and we walked around the block of our hotel just to watch the badge pop up. There are a bunch of tools out on the market now that have similar ideas for helping you to track your exercise, make it social.  There are apps (my favorite is still Zombies, Run!).  You could buy a FitBit or UP by Jawbone.   Interactive fitness makes the Expresso stationary bike with built in video games.  All designed to help you be more aware of your activity and keep you engaged and motivated.  And the idea is to help you change your behavior. I know someone who would spend extra time and work hard on the Expresso because he had built up strategies for how to kill the most dragons while he was riding to get more points.  When the machine broke down, he didn't ride a different bike because it just wasn't that interesting. But for me, just the simple jingle and badge have been all I needed.  I admit, I still giggle gleefully when I hear the tune sing out from my pocket. After a few weeks, I noticed I had dropped a few pounds.  Not a lot, just 2-3.  But then I was really hooked.  I started making a point both to eat a little less and hit 10,000 steps as much as I could.  I bemoaned that during the floods in Boulder, I wasn't hitting my 10,000 steps.  And now, a few months later, I'm almost 10 lbs lighter. All for 1 badge a day. So yes, simple gamification can increase motivation and engagement.  And that can lead to changes in behavior.  Now the job is to apply that to the enterprise space in a meaningful and engaging way. 

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• Profiling Startup Of VS2012 &ndash; YourKit Profiler

  - by Alois Kraus

  The YourKit (v7.0.5) profiler is interesting in terms of price (79€ single place license, 409€ + 1 year support and upgrades) and feature set. You do get a performance and memory profiler in one package for which you normally need also to pay extra from the other vendors. As an interesting side note the profiler UI is written in Java because they do also sell Java profilers with the same feature set. To get all methods of a VS startup you need first to configure it to include System* in the profiled methods and you need to configure * to measure wall clock time. By default it does record only CPU times which allows you to optimize CPU hungry operations. But you will never see a Thread.Sleep(10000) in the profiler blocking the UI in this mode. It can profile as all others processes started from within the profiler but it can also profile the next or all started processes. As usual it can profile in sampling and tracing mode. But since it is a memory profiler as well it does by default also record all object allocations > 1MB. With allocation recording enabled VS2012 did crash but without allocation recording there were no problems. The CPU tab contains the time line of the application and when you click in the graph you the call stacks of all threads at this time. This is really a nice feature. When you select a time region you the CPU Usage estimation for this time window. I have seen many applications consuming 100% CPU only because they did create garbage like crazy. For this is the Garbage Collection tab interesting in conjunction with a time range. This view is like the CPU table only that the CPU graph (green) is missing. All relevant information except for GCs/s is already visible in the CPU tab. Very handy to pinpoint excessive GC or CPU bound issues. The Threads tab does show the thread names and their lifetime. This is useful to see thread interactions or which thread is hottest in terms of CPU consumption. On the CPU tab the call tree does exist in a merged and thread specific view. When you click on a method you get below a list of all called methods. There you can sort for methods with a high own time which are worth optimizing. In the Method List you can select which scope you want to see. Back Traces are the methods which did call you. Callees ist the list of methods called directly or indirectly by your method as a flat list. This is not a call stack but still very useful to see which methods were slow so you can see the “root” cause quite quickly without the need to click trough long call stacks. The last view Merged Calles is a call stacked view of the previous view. This does help a lot to understand did call each method at run time. You would get the same view with a debugger for one call invocation but here you get the full statistics (invocation count) as well. Since YourKit is also a memory profiler you can directly see which objects you have on your managed heap and which objects do hold most of your precious memory. You can in in the Object Explorer view also examine the contents of your objects (strings or whatsoever) to get a better understanding which objects where potentially allocating this stuff.   YourKit is a very easy to use combined memory and performance profiler in one product. The unbeatable single license price makes it very attractive to straightly buy it. Although it is a Java UI it is very responsive and the memory consumption is considerably lower compared to dotTrace and ANTS profiler. What I do really like is to start the YourKit ui and then start the processes I want to profile as usual. There is no need to alter your own application code to be able to inject a profiler into your new started processes. For performance and memory profiling you can simply select the process you want to investigate from the list of started processes. That's the way I like to use profilers. Just get out of the way and let the application run without any special preparations.   Next: Telerik JustTrace

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• High Availability for IaaS, PaaS and SaaS in the Cloud

  - by BuckWoody

  Outages, natural disasters and unforeseen events have proved that even in a distributed architecture, you need to plan for High Availability (HA). In this entry I'll explain a few considerations for HA within Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). In a separate post I'll talk more about Disaster Recovery (DR), since each paradigm has a different way to handle that. Planning for HA in IaaS IaaS involves Virtual Machines - so in effect, an HA strategy here takes on many of the same characteristics as it would on-premises. The primary difference is that the vendor controls the hardware, so you need to verify what they do for things like local redundancy and so on from the hardware perspective. As far as what you can control and plan for, the primary factors fall into three areas: multiple instances, geographical dispersion and task-switching. In almost every cloud vendor I've studied, to ensure your application will be protected by any level of HA, you need to have at least two of the Instances (VM's) running. This makes sense, but you might assume that the vendor just takes care of that for you - they don't. If a single VM goes down (for whatever reason) then the access to it is lost. Depending on multiple factors, you might be able to recover the data, but you should assume that you can't. You should keep a sync to another location (perhaps the vendor's storage system in another geographic datacenter or to a local location) to ensure you can continue to serve your clients. You'll also need to host the same VM's in another geographical location. Everything from a vendor outage to a network path problem could prevent your users from reaching the system, so you need to have multiple locations to handle this. This means that you'll have to figure out how to manage state between the geo's. If the system goes down in the middle of a transaction, you need to figure out what part of the process the system was in, and then re-create or transfer that state to the second set of systems. If you didn't write the software yourself, this is non-trivial. You'll also need a manual or automatic process to detect the failure and re-route the traffic to your secondary location. You could flip a DNS entry (if your application can tolerate that) or invoke another process to alias the first system to the second, such as load-balancing and so on. There are many options, but all of them involve coding the state into the application layer. If you've simply moved a state-ful application to VM's, you may not be able to easily implement an HA solution. Planning for HA in PaaS Implementing HA in PaaS is a bit simpler, since it's built on the concept of stateless applications deployment. Once again, you need at least two copies of each element in the solution (web roles, worker roles, etc.) to remain available in a single datacenter. Also, you need to deploy the application again in a separate geo, but the advantage here is that you could work out a "shared storage" model such that state is auto-balanced across the world. In fact, you don't have to maintain a "DR" site, the alternate location can be live and serving clients, and only take on extra load if the other site is not available. In Windows Azure, you can use the Traffic Manager service top route the requests as a type of auto balancer. Even with these benefits, I recommend a second backup of storage in another geographic location. Storage is inexpensive; and that second copy can be used for not only HA but DR. Planning for HA in SaaS In Software-as-a-Service (such as Office 365, or Hadoop in Windows Azure) You have far less control over the HA solution, although you still maintain the responsibility to ensure you have it. Since each SaaS is different, check with the vendor on the solution for HA - and make sure you understand what they do and what you are responsible for. They may have no HA for that solution, or pin it to a particular geo, or perhaps they have a massive HA built in with automatic load balancing (which is often the case).   All of these options (with the exception of SaaS) involve higher costs for the design. Do not sacrifice reliability for cost - that will always cost you more in the end. Build in the redundancy and HA at the very outset of the project - if you try to tack it on later in the process the business will push back and potentially not implement HA. References: http://www.bing.com/search?q=windows+azure+High+Availability  (each type of implementation is different, so I'm routing you to a search on the topic - look for the "Patterns and Practices" results for the area in Azure you're interested in)

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• Speakers, Please Check Your Time

  - by AjarnMark

  Woodrow Wilson was once asked how long it would take him to prepare for a 10 minute speech. He replied "Two weeks". He was then asked how long it would take for a 1 hour speech. "One week", he replied. 2 hour speech? "I'm ready right now," he replied.  Whether that is a true story or an urban legend, I don’t really know, but either way, it is a poignant reminder for all speakers, and particularly apropos this week leading up to the PASS Community Summit. (Cross-posted to the PASS Professional Development Virtual Chapter blog #PASSProfDev.) What’s the point of that story?  Simply this…if you have plenty of time to do your presentation, you don’t need to prepare much because it is easy to throw in more and more material to stretch out to your allotted time.  But if you are on a tight time constraint, then it will take significant preparation to distill your talk down to only the essential points. I have attended seven of the last eight North American Summit events, and every one of them has been fantastic.  The speakers are great, the material is timely and relevant, and the networking opportunities are awesome.  And every year, there is one little thing that just bugs me…speakers going over their allotted time.  Why does it bother me so?  Well, if you look at a typical schedule for a Summit, you’ll see that there are six or more sessions going on at the same time, and only 15 minutes to move from one to another.  If you’re trying to maximize your training dollar by attending something during every session time slot, and you don’t want to be the last guy trying to squeeze into the middle of the row, then those 15 minutes can be critical.  All the more so if you need to stop and use the bathroom or if you have to hike to the opposite end of the convention center.  It is really a bad position to find yourself having to choose between learning the last key points of Speaker A who is going over time, and getting over to Speaker B on time so you don’t miss her key opening remarks. And frankly, I think it is just rude.  Yes, the speakers are the function, after all they are bringing the content that the rest of us are paying to learn.  But it is also an honor to be given the opportunity to speak at a conference like this, and no one speaker is so important that the conference would be a disaster without him.  Speakers know when they submit their abstract, long before the conference, how much time they will have.  It has been the same pattern at the Summit for at least the last eight years.  Program Sessions are 75 minutes long.  Some speakers who have a good track record, and meet other qualifying criteria, are extended an invitation to present a Spotlight Session which is 90 minutes (a 20% increase).  So there really is no excuse.  It’s not like you were promised a 2-hour segment and then discovered when you got here that it was only 75 minutes.  In fact, it’s not like PASS advertised 90-minute sessions for everyone and then a select few were cut back to only 75.  As a speaker, you know well before you get here which type of session you are doing and how long it is, so as a professional, you should plan accordingly. Now you might think that this only happens to rookies, but I’ll tell you that some of the worst offenders are big-name veterans who draw huge attendance numbers for their sessions.  Some attendees blow this off as, “Hey, it’s so-and-so, and I’d stay here for hours and listen to him/her talk.”  To which I would reply, “Then they should have submitted for a pre- or post-conference day-long seminar instead, but don’t try to squeeze your day-long talk into a 90-minute session.”  Now I don’t really believe that these speakers are being malicious or just selfishly trying to extend their time in the spotlight.  I think that most of them are merely being undisciplined and did not trim their presentation sufficiently, or allowed themselves to get off-track (often in a generous attempt to help someone in the audience with a question or problem that really should have been noted for further discussion after the session). So here is my recommendation…my plea, even.  TRIM THE FAT!  Now.  Before it’s too late.  Before you even get on the airplane, take a long, hard look at your presentation and eliminate some of the points that you originally thought you had to make, but in reality are not truly crucial to your main topic.  Delete a few slides.  Test your demos and have them already scripted rather than typing them during your talk.  It is better to cut out too much and end up with plenty of time at the end for Questions & Answers.  And you can always keep some notes on the stuff that you cut out so that you could fill it back in at the end as bonus material if you really do end up with a whole bunch of time on your hands.  But I don’t think you will.  And if you do, that will look even better to the audience as it will look like you’re giving them something extra that not every audience gets.  And they will thank you for that.

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• Application Composer Series: Where and When to use Groovy

  - by Richard Bingham

  This brief post is really intended as more of a reference than an article. The table below highlights two things, firstly where you can add you own custom logic via groovy code (end column), and secondly (middle column) when you might use each particular feature. Obviously this applies only where Application Composer exists, namely Fusion CRM and Oracle Sales Cloud, and is based on current (release 8) functionality. Feature Most Common Use Case Groovy Field Triggers React to run-time data changes. Only fired when the field is changed and upon submit. Y Object Triggers To extend the standard processing logic for an object, based on record creation, updates and deletes. There is a split between these firing events, with some related to UI/ADF actions and others originating in the database. UI Trigger Points: After Create - fires when a new object record is created. Commonly used to set default values for fields. Before Modify - Fires when the end-user tries to modify a field value. Could be used for generic warnings or extra security logic. Before Invalidate - Fires on the parent object when one of its child object records is created, updated, or deleted. For building in relationship logic. Before Remove - Fires when an attempt is made to delete an object record. Can be used to create conditions that prevent deletes. Database Trigger Points: Before Insert in Database - Fires before a new object is inserted into the database. Can be used to ensure a dependent record exists or check for duplicates. After Insert in Database - Fires after a new object is inserted into the database. Could be used to create a complementary record. Before Update in Database -Fires before an existing object is modified in the database. Could be used to check dependent record values. After Update in Database - Fires after an existing object is modified in the database. Could be used to update a complementary record. Before Delete in Database - Fires before an existing object is deleted from the database. Could be used to check dependent record values. After Delete in Database - Fires after an existing object is deleted from the database. Could be used to remove dependent records. After Commit in Database - Fires after the change pending for the current object (insert, update, delete) is made permanent in the current transaction. Could be used when committed data that has passed all validation is required. After Changes Posted to Database - Fires after all changes have been posted to the database, but before they are permanently committed. Could be used to make additional changes that will be saved as part of the current transaction. Y Field Validation Displays a user entered error message based groovy logic validating the field value. The message is shown only when the validation logic returns false, and the logic is triggered only when tabbing out of the field on the user interface. Y Object Validation Commonly used where validation is needed across multiple related fields on the object. Triggered on the submit UI action. Y Object Workflows All Object Workflows are fired upon either record creation or update, along with the option of adding a custom groovy firing condition. Y Field Updates - change another field when a specified one changes. Intended as an easy way to set different run-time values (e.g. pick values for LOV's) plus the value field permits groovy logic entry. Y E-Mail Notification - sends an email notification to specified users/roles. Templates support using run-time value tokens and rich text. N Task Creation - for adding standard tasks for use in the worklist functionality. N Outbound Message - will create and send an XML payload of the related object SDO to a specified endpoint. N Business Process Flow - intended for approval using the seeded process, however can also trigger custom BPMN flows. N Global Functions Utility functions that can be called from any groovy code in Application Composer (across applications). Y Object Functions Utility functions that are local to the parent object. Usually triggered from within 'Buttons and Actions' definitions in Application Composer, although can be called from other code for that object (e.g. from a trigger). Y Add Custom Fields When adding custom fields there are a few places you can include groovy logic. Y Default Value - to add logic within setting the default value when new records are entered. Y Conditionally Updateable - to add logic to set the field to read-only or not. Y Conditionally Required - to add logic to set the field to required or not. Y Formula Field - Used to provide a new aggregate field that is entirely based on groovy logic and other field values. Y Simplified UI Layouts - Advanced Expressions Used for creating dynamic layouts for simplified UI pages where fields and regions show/hide based on run-time context values and logic. Also includes support for the depends-on feature as a trigger. Y Related References This Blog: Application Composer Series Extending Sales Guide: Using Groovy Scripts Groovy Scripting Reference Guide

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• How to add another OS entry in Wubi grub

  - by Amey Jah

  I am trying to install another linux distro besides ubuntu. However, I want to retain my existing windows based loader. Currently, as per my knowledge, MsDos loads grub which then loads Ubuntu (with loop back trick). Now, I have a new linux distro installed on /dev/sda8 (/boot for new distro) where as /root for that OS is installed on /dev/sda9. I tried following steps 1. Add entry into 40_custom of ubuntu grub 2. update grub But upon booting via that entry, it is not able to load the new OS and shows me blank screen. What could be the problem? Additional data: grub.cfg file of ubuntu menuentry 'Ubuntu' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-fc296be2-8c59-4f21-a3f8-47c38cd0d537' { gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod ntfs set root='hd0,msdos5' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos5 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos5 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos5 01CD7BB998DB0870 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 01CD7BB998DB0870 fi loopback loop0 /ubuntu/disks/root.disk set root=(loop0) linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-19-generic root=UUID=01CD7BB998DB0870 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro quiet splash $vt_handoff initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-19-generic } submenu 'Advanced options for Ubuntu' $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-advanced-fc296be2-8c59-4f21-a3f8-47c38cd0d537' { menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.5.0-19-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.5.0-19-generic-advanced-fc296be2-8c59-4f21-a3f8-47c38cd0d537' { gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod ntfs set root='hd0,msdos5' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos5 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos5 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos5 01CD7BB998DB0870 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 01CD7BB998DB0870 fi loopback loop0 /ubuntu/disks/root.disk set root=(loop0) echo 'Loading Linux 3.5.0-19-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-19-generic root=UUID=01CD7BB998DB0870 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro quiet splash $vt_handoff echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-19-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.5.0-19-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.5.0-19-generic-recovery-fc296be2-8c59-4f21-a3f8-47c38cd0d537' { insmod gzio insmod ntfs set root='hd0,msdos5' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos5 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos5 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos5 01CD7BB998DB0870 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 01CD7BB998DB0870 fi loopback loop0 /ubuntu/disks/root.disk set root=(loop0) echo 'Loading Linux 3.5.0-19-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-19-generic root=UUID=01CD7BB998DB0870 loop=/ubuntu/disks/root.disk ro recovery nomodeset echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-19-generic } } ### END /etc/grub.d/10_lupin ### menuentry 'Linux, with Linux core repo kernel' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-core repo kernel-true-0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641'{ load_video set gfxpayload=keep insmod gzio insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos8' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos8 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos8 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos8 0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641 fi echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641 ro quiet echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.img } menuentry 'Linux, with Linux core repo kernel (Fallback initramfs)' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-core repo kernel-fallback-0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641' { load_video set gfxpayload=keep insmod gzio insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos8' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos8 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos8 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos8 0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641 fi echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641 ro quiet echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img } lsblk NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk +-sda1 8:1 0 39.2M 0 part +-sda2 8:2 0 19.8G 0 part +-sda3 8:3 0 205.1G 0 part +-sda4 8:4 0 1K 0 part +-sda5 8:5 0 333.7G 0 part /host +-sda6 8:6 0 233.4G 0 part +-sda7 8:7 0 100.4G 0 part +-sda8 8:8 0 100M 0 part +-sda9 8:9 0 14.7G 0 part +-sda10 8:10 0 21.4G 0 part +-sda11 8:11 0 3G 0 part sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom loop0 7:0 0 29G 0 loop / blkid /dev/loop0: UUID="fc296be2-8c59-4f21-a3f8-47c38cd0d537" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="DellUtility" UUID="5450-4444" TYPE="vfat" /dev/sda2: LABEL="RECOVERY" UUID="78C4FAC1C4FA80A4" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda3: LABEL="OS" UUID="DACEFCF1CEFCC6B3" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda5: UUID="01CD7BB998DB0870" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda6: UUID="01CD7BB99CA3F750" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda7: LABEL="Windows 8" UUID="01CDBFB52F925F40" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda8: UUID="cdbb5770-d29c-401d-850d-ee30a048ca5e" TYPE="ext2" /dev/sda9: UUID="0f490b6c-e92d-42f0-88e1-0bd3c0d27641" TYPE="ext2" /dev/sda10: UUID="2e7682e5-8917-4edc-9bf9-044fea2ad738" TYPE="ext2" /dev/sda11: UUID="6081da70-d622-42b9-b489-309f922b284e" TYPE="swap Any help is appreciated. Please let me know if you need any extra data.

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• The sign of a true manager is delegation (C# style)

  - by MarkPearl

  Today I thought I would write a bit about delegates in C#. Up till recently I have managed to side step any real understanding of what delegates do and why they are useful – I mean, I know roughly what they do and have used them a lot, but I have never really got down dirty with them and mucked about. Recently however with my renewed interest in Silverlight delegates came up again as a possible solution to a particular problem, and suddenly I found myself opening a bland little console application to just see exactly how far I could take delegates with my limited knowledge. So, let’s first look at the MSDN definition of delegates… A delegate declaration defines a reference type that can be used to encapsulate a method with a specific signature. A delegate instance encapsulates a static or an instance method. Delegates are roughly similar to function pointers in C++; however, delegates are type-safe and secure. Well, don’t you love MSDN for such a useful definition. I must give it credit though… later on it really explains it a bit better by saying “A delegate lets you pass a function as a parameter. The type safety of delegates requires the function you pass as a delegate to have the same signature as the delegate declaration.” A little more reading up on delegates mentions that delegates are similar to interfaces in that they enable the separation of specification and implementation. A delegate declares a single method, while an interface declares a group of methods. So enough reading - lets look at some code and see a basic example of a delegate… Let’s assume we have a console application with a simple delegate declared called AdjustValue like below… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); static void Main(string[] args) { } } In a sense, all we have said is that we will be creating one or more methods that follow the same pattern as AdjustValue – i.e. they will take one input value of type int and return an integer. We could then expand our code to have various methods that match the structure of our delegate AdjustValue (remember the structure is int xxx (int xxx)) class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); private static int Dbl(int val) { return val * 2; } private static int AlwaysOne(int val) { return 1; } static void Main(string[] args) { } }  Above I have expanded my project to have two methods, one called Dbl and the other AlwaysOne. Dbl always returns double the input val and AlwaysOne always returns 1. I could now declare a variable and assign it to be one of those functions, like the following… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(int val); private static int Dbl(int val) { return val * 2; } private static int AlwaysOne(int val) { return 1; } static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } } In this instance I have declared an instance of the AdjustValue delegate called myDelegate; I have then told myDelegate to point to the method Dbl, and then called myDelegate(1). What would the result be? Yes, in this instance it would be exactly the same as me calling the following code… static void Main(string[] args) { Console.WriteLine(Dbl(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); }   So why all the extra work for delegates when we could just do what we did above and call the method directly? Well… that separation of specification to implementation comes to mind. So, this all seems pretty simple. Let’s take a slightly more complicated variation to the console application. Assume that my project is the same as the one previously except that my main method is adjusted as follows… static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; myDelegate = AlwaysOne; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(1).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } What would happen in this scenario? Quite simply “1” would be written to the console, the reason being that myDelegate was last pointing to the AlwaysOne method before it was called. Make sense? In a way, the myDelegate is a variable method that can be swapped and changed when needed. Let’s make the code a little more confusing by using a delegate in the declaration of another delegate as shown below… class Program { private delegate int AdjustValue(InputValue val); private delegate int InputValue(); private static int Dbl(InputValue val) { return val()*2; } private static int GetInputVal() { Console.WriteLine("Enter a whole number : "); return Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine()); } static void Main(string[] args) { AdjustValue myDelegate; myDelegate = Dbl; Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(GetInputVal).ToString()); Console.ReadLine(); } }   Now it gets really interesting because it looks like we have passed a method into a function in the main method by declaring… Console.WriteLine(myDelegate(GetInputVal).ToString()); So, what it the output? Well, try take a guess on what will happen – then copy the code and see if you got it right. Well that brings me to the end of this short explanation of Delegates. Hopefully it made sense!

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• Solaris 11.1 changes building of code past the point of __NORETURN

  - by alanc

  While Solaris 11.1 was under development, we started seeing some errors in the builds of the upstream X.Org git master sources, such as: "Display.c", line 65: Function has no return statement : x_io_error_handler "hostx.c", line 341: Function has no return statement : x_io_error_handler from functions that were defined to match a specific callback definition that declared them as returning an int if they did return, but these were calling exit() instead of returning so hadn't listed a return value. These had been generating warnings for years which we'd been ignoring, but X.Org has made enough progress in cleaning up code for compiler warnings and static analysis issues lately, that the community turned up the default error levels, including the gcc flag -Werror=return-type and the equivalent Solaris Studio cc flags -v -errwarn=E_FUNC_HAS_NO_RETURN_STMT, so now these became errors that stopped the build. Yet on Solaris, gcc built this code fine, while Studio errored out. Investigation showed this was due to the Solaris headers, which during Solaris 10 development added a number of annotations to the headers when gcc was being used for the amd64 kernel bringup before the Studio amd64 port was ready. Since Studio did not support the inline form of these annotations at the time, but instead used #pragma for them, the definitions were only present for gcc. To resolve this, I fixed both sides of the problem, so that it would work for building new X.Org sources on older Solaris releases or with older Studio compilers, as well as fixing the general problem before it broke more software building on Solaris. To the X.Org sources, I added the traditional Studio #pragma does_not_return to recognize that functions like exit() don't ever return, in patches such as this Xserver patch. Adding a dummy return statement was ruled out as that introduced unreachable code errors from compilers and analyzers that correctly realized you couldn't reach that code after a return statement. And on the Solaris 11.1 side, I updated the annotation definitions in <sys/ccompile.h> to enable for Studio 12.0 and later compilers the annotations already existing in a number of system headers for functions like exit() and abort(). If you look in that file you'll see the annotations we currently use, though the forms there haven't gone through review to become a Committed interface, so may change in the future. Actually getting this integrated into Solaris though took a bit more work than just editing one header file. Our ELF binary build comparison tool, wsdiff, actually showed a large number of differences in the resulting binaries due to the compiler using this information for branch prediction, code path analysis, and other possible optimizations, so after comparing enough of the disassembly output to be comfortable with the changes, we also made sure to get this in early enough in the release cycle so that it would get plenty of test exposure before the release. It also required updating quite a bit of code to avoid introducing new lint or compiler warnings or errors, and people building applications on top of Solaris 11.1 and later may need to make similar changes if they want to keep their build logs similarly clean. Previously, if you had a function that was declared with a non-void return type, lint and cc would warn if you didn't return a value, even if you called a function like exit() or panic() that ended execution. For instance: #include <stdlib.h> int callback(int status) { if (status == 0) return status; exit(status); } would previously require a never executed return 0; after the exit() to avoid lint warning "function falls off bottom without returning value". Now the compiler & lint will both issue "statement not reached" warnings for a return 0; after the final exit(), allowing (or in some cases, requiring) it to be removed. However, if there is no return statement anywhere in the function, lint will warn that you've declared a function returning a value that never does so, suggesting you can declare it as void. Unfortunately, if your function signature is required to match a certain form, such as in a callback, you not be able to do so, and will need to add a /* LINTED */ to the end of the function. If you need your code to build on both a newer and an older release, then you will either need to #ifdef these unreachable statements, or, to keep your sources common across releases, add to your sources the corresponding #pragma recognized by both current and older compiler versions, such as: #pragma does_not_return(exit) #pragma does_not_return(panic) Hopefully this little extra work is paid for by the compilers & code analyzers being able to better understand your code paths, giving you better optimizations and more accurate errors & warning messages.

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• How can I estimate the entropy of a password?

  - by Wug

  Having read various resources about password strength I'm trying to create an algorithm that will provide a rough estimation of how much entropy a password has. I'm trying to create an algorithm that's as comprehensive as possible. At this point I only have pseudocode, but the algorithm covers the following: password length repeated characters patterns (logical) different character spaces (LC, UC, Numeric, Special, Extended) dictionary attacks It does NOT cover the following, and SHOULD cover it WELL (though not perfectly): ordering (passwords can be strictly ordered by output of this algorithm) patterns (spatial) Can anyone provide some insight on what this algorithm might be weak to? Specifically, can anyone think of situations where feeding a password to the algorithm would OVERESTIMATE its strength? Underestimations are less of an issue. The algorithm: // the password to test password = ? length = length(password) // unique character counts from password (duplicates discarded) uqlca = number of unique lowercase alphabetic characters in password uquca = number of uppercase alphabetic characters uqd = number of unique digits uqsp = number of unique special characters (anything with a key on the keyboard) uqxc = number of unique special special characters (alt codes, extended-ascii stuff) // algorithm parameters, total sizes of alphabet spaces Nlca = total possible number of lowercase letters (26) Nuca = total uppercase letters (26) Nd = total digits (10) Nsp = total special characters (32 or something) Nxc = total extended ascii characters that dont fit into other categorys (idk, 50?) // algorithm parameters, pw strength growth rates as percentages (per character) flca = entropy growth factor for lowercase letters (.25 is probably a good value) fuca = EGF for uppercase letters (.4 is probably good) fd = EGF for digits (.4 is probably good) fsp = EGF for special chars (.5 is probably good) fxc = EGF for extended ascii chars (.75 is probably good) // repetition factors. few unique letters == low factor, many unique == high rflca = (1 - (1 - flca) ^ uqlca) rfuca = (1 - (1 - fuca) ^ uquca) rfd = (1 - (1 - fd ) ^ uqd ) rfsp = (1 - (1 - fsp ) ^ uqsp ) rfxc = (1 - (1 - fxc ) ^ uqxc ) // digit strengths strength = ( rflca * Nlca + rfuca * Nuca + rfd * Nd + rfsp * Nsp + rfxc * Nxc ) ^ length entropybits = log_base_2(strength) A few inputs and their desired and actual entropy_bits outputs: INPUT DESIRED ACTUAL aaa very pathetic 8.1 aaaaaaaaa pathetic 24.7 abcdefghi weak 31.2 H0ley$Mol3y_ strong 72.2 s^fU¬5ü;y34G< wtf 88.9 [a^36]* pathetic 97.2 [a^20]A[a^15]* strong 146.8 xkcd1** medium 79.3 xkcd2** wtf 160.5 * these 2 passwords use shortened notation, where [a^N] expands to N a's. ** xkcd1 = "Tr0ub4dor&3", xkcd2 = "correct horse battery staple" The algorithm does realize (correctly) that increasing the alphabet size (even by one digit) vastly strengthens long passwords, as shown by the difference in entropy_bits for the 6th and 7th passwords, which both consist of 36 a's, but the second's 21st a is capitalized. However, they do not account for the fact that having a password of 36 a's is not a good idea, it's easily broken with a weak password cracker (and anyone who watches you type it will see it) and the algorithm doesn't reflect that. It does, however, reflect the fact that xkcd1 is a weak password compared to xkcd2, despite having greater complexity density (is this even a thing?). How can I improve this algorithm? Addendum 1 Dictionary attacks and pattern based attacks seem to be the big thing, so I'll take a stab at addressing those. I could perform a comprehensive search through the password for words from a word list and replace words with tokens unique to the words they represent. Word-tokens would then be treated as characters and have their own weight system, and would add their own weights to the password. I'd need a few new algorithm parameters (I'll call them lw, Nw ~= 2^11, fw ~= .5, and rfw) and I'd factor the weight into the password as I would any of the other weights. This word search could be specially modified to match both lowercase and uppercase letters as well as common character substitutions, like that of E with 3. If I didn't add extra weight to such matched words, the algorithm would underestimate their strength by a bit or two per word, which is OK. Otherwise, a general rule would be, for each non-perfect character match, give the word a bonus bit. I could then perform simple pattern checks, such as searches for runs of repeated characters and derivative tests (take the difference between each character), which would identify patterns such as 'aaaaa' and '12345', and replace each detected pattern with a pattern token, unique to the pattern and length. The algorithmic parameters (specifically, entropy per pattern) could be generated on the fly based on the pattern. At this point, I'd take the length of the password. Each word token and pattern token would count as one character; each token would replace the characters they symbolically represented. I made up some sort of pattern notation, but it includes the pattern length l, the pattern order o, and the base element b. This information could be used to compute some arbitrary weight for each pattern. I'd do something better in actual code. Modified Example: Password: 1234kitty$$$$$herpderp Tokenized: 1 2 3 4 k i t t y $ $ $ $ $ h e r p d e r p Words Filtered: 1 2 3 4 @W5783 $ $ $ $ $ @W9001 @W9002 Patterns Filtered: @P[l=4,o=1,b='1'] @W5783 @P[l=5,o=0,b='$'] @W9001 @W9002 Breakdown: 3 small, unique words and 2 patterns Entropy: about 45 bits, as per modified algorithm Password: correcthorsebatterystaple Tokenized: c o r r e c t h o r s e b a t t e r y s t a p l e Words Filtered: @W6783 @W7923 @W1535 @W2285 Breakdown: 4 small, unique words and no patterns Entropy: 43 bits, as per modified algorithm The exact semantics of how entropy is calculated from patterns is up for discussion. I was thinking something like: entropy(b) * l * (o + 1) // o will be either zero or one The modified algorithm would find flaws with and reduce the strength of each password in the original table, with the exception of s^fU¬5ü;y34G<, which contains no words or patterns.

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• How do I dig myself out of this DEEP hole? [closed]

  - by user74847

  I may be a bit bias in the way i word this but any opinions and suggestions are welcome. I should start by saying i have a MSc in CS and a degree in new media +6 years expereince and im probably around a middleweight developer. I started a web development company with my friend from uni a year ago, there was a 4 month gap in the middle where i went miles away work on a big project. Ive since returned and picked up where we left off. A year on though i find im still staying up til 5am and getting up at 9 sometimes 2-3 days without sleep. While i was away i was working 9-5 and struggling to keep up with doing stuff for my clients 8 hours ahead, after work, so things stagnated. We currently have about 12 active projects, with one other part time developer and a full time freelancer who is dealing with one of our major projects. I am solely responsible for concurrently developing 2 big sites similar to gumtree in functionality, at the same time as about 5-6+ small WordPress based 5-10page sites. a lot of the content isnt in yet or the client is delaying so i chop and change project every other day which does my head in. Is it reasonable to expect myself to remember the intricate details of each project when i come back to it a week later? and remember the details of a task which hasnt been written down? my business partner seems to think so. or am i just forgetful? Im particularly bad at estimating timescales which doesnt help, added to that a lot of the technologies im am using are new to me (a magento site took weeks to theme rather than days and was full of bugs, even after 1000's of google searches and hours reading forums) im still trying to learn and find the best CMS for us to use and getting my head around the likes of Bootstrap and jquery, Cpanel / Linux (we just got a blank vps for me to set up with no experience) even installing an SSL certificate caused everyone's mail clients to go down which was more stress for me to sort out. I find the pressure of the workload and timescales and trying to learn this stuff so fast is beginning to turn me against my career path. The fact that i never seem to get anything done really winds up my business partner and iv come to associate him with the stress and pain of the whole situation especially when I get berated or a look that says "oh you retard" when I forget something. Even today i spent hours learning how a particular themeforest theme worked with wordpress and how i could twist it to work for our partiuclar needs, on the surface had done no work, that triggered a 30 minute tirade of anger and stress and questioning what i had done from my business partner. had i taken too long to work on that? shoudl i have done it in 2 hours instead of 6? i told him i would take 2 hours. i was wrong. I feel like im running myself into the ground. My sleeping pattern has got so bad that when im working im half asleep and making mistakes, my eyes are constantly purple underneath, i literally fall asleep at my desk, its affecting my social life too, ive not slept more than lightly for the last year and grind through impossible code puzzles in my half sleep wich keeps me awake, when im already exhausted. plus the work is rushed and buggy when it does get done so drags on into the next project. I also procrastinate quite badly, pacing the livingroom, looking out the window when Im alone for three days straight in the flat and start to get cabin fever which means i do even less work and the negative feedback loop continues. I get told im the only one with the problem when i say that i cant work from home any more, and examples of other freelancers get brought up. an office wouldnt bring any extra cash in to the company but im convinced having that moving more than 2 meters away from my bed to go to "work" would get me working, at the moment i feel guilty like i should be working 24-7. It is important that we do all this work to raise enough cash to get our business to the next level but every month still feels like a struggle to pay the rent (there is about £20K coming in by Jan) and i have to borrow money from friends often to buy food or get a taxi to a meeting, so it is vital the money keeps coming in. (im also 20 mins late for nearly all meetings but thats a different issue) have you experienced anything similar? how can i deal with the issues ive raised? is it realistic to develop 10 sites at once? how can i improve my relationship with my business partner? do you struggle to work at home? how do you deal with that? i think if i dont get my life on track by feb i will seriously consider giving it all up, but that seems like such a waste. any ideas!!? i need help! Thanks.

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• Answers to Conference Revenue Tweet Questions

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2014/05/27/156612.aspxI tweeted this the other day… …and I had some people tweet back questioning/asking about the profit number. So here’s how I came to that figure. Total Revenue Let’s talk total revenue first. This conference has a huge list of companies/organizations paying some amount for sponsorship. Platinum ($1500) x 5 = $7500 Gold ($1000) x 3 = $3000 Silver ($500) x 9 = $4500 Bronze ($250) x 13 = $3250 There’s also a title sponsor level but there’s no mention of how much that is…more than $1500 though, so let’s just say $2500. Total Sponsorship Revenue: $20750.00 For registrations, this conference is claiming over 300 attendees. We’ll just calculate at 300 and the discounted “member rate” – $249. Total Registration Revenue: $74700.00 Booth space is also sold for a vendor area, but let’s just leave that out of the calculation. Total Event Revenue: $95450.00 Now that we know how much money we’re playing with, let’s knock out the costs for the event. Total Costs Hard Costs Audio/Visual Services $2000 Conference Rooms (4 Breakouts + Plenary) $2500 Insurance $700 Printing/Signage $1500 Travel/Hotel Rooms $2000 Keynotes $2000 So let’s talk about these hard costs first. First you may be asking about the Audio Visual. Yes those services can be that high, actually higher. But since there’s an A/V company touted as the official A/V provider, I gotta think there’s some discount for being branded as such. Conference rooms are actually an inflated amount of $500 per. Venues make money on the food they sell at events, not on room rentals. The more food, the cheaper the rooms tend to be offered at. Still, for the sake of argument, let’s set the rooms at $500 each knowing that they could be lower. For travel and hotel rooms…it appears that most of the speakers at this conference are local, meaning there’s no travel or hotel cost. But a few of them I wasn’t too sure…so let’s factor in enough to cover two outside speakers (airfare and hotel). There are two keynotes for this event and depending on the event those may be paid gigs. I’m not sure if they are or not, but considering the closing one is a comedian I’m going to add some funds here for that just in case. Total Hard Costs: $10700 Now that the hard costs are out of the way, let’s talk about the food costs. Food Costs The conference is providing a continental breakfast (YEEEESH!), some level of luncheon, and I have to assume coffee breaks in between. Let’s look at those costs. Continental Breakfast $12 per person Lunch Buffet $18 per person Coffee Breaks (2) $6 per person (or $3 a cup) Snacks (2) $10 per person (or $5 each) Note that the lunch buffet assumes a *good* lunch buffet – two entrees, starch, vegetable, salads, and bread. Not sure if there’ll be snacks during coffee breaks but let’s assume so. Total Food Cost Per Person: $46 Food Cost: $14950 Gratuity: $2691 Total Food Cost: $17641 Total food cost is based on the $46 per person cost x 325. 300 for attendance, 12 for speakers, extra 13 for volunteers/organizers. Gratuity is 18%. Grand Totals So let’s sum things up here. Total Costs Hard Costs: $10700.00 Food Costs: $17641.00 Total:          $28341.00 Taxes:         $3685.00 Grand Total  $32026.00 Total Revenue Sponsorship  $20750 Registration   $74700 Grand Total   $95450.00 Total Profit $63424.00 Now what if the registration numbers were lower and they only got 100 people to show up. In that scenario there’d still be a profit of just under $26000. Closing Comments A couple of things to note: - I haven’t factored in anything for prizes. Not sure if any will be given out - We didn’t add in the booth space revenue - We’re assuming speakers aren’t getting paid, but even if they were at the high end its $12000 ($1000 per session), which is probably an inflated number for local speakers. - Note that all registrations were set to the “member” discounted price. The non-member registration price is higher. There is also an option for those that just want to show up for the opening keynote. There you have it! Let me know if you have any questions. D

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• Deduping your redundancies

  - by nospam(at)example.com (Joerg Moellenkamp)

  Robin Harris of Storagemojo pointed to an interesting article about about deduplication and it's impact to the resiliency of your data against data corruption on ACM Queue. The problem in short: A considerable number of filesystems store important metadata at multiple locations. For example the ZFS rootblock is copied to three locations. Other filesystems have similar provisions to protect their metadata. However you can easily proof, that the rootblock pointer in the uberblock of ZFS for example is pointing to blocks with absolutely equal content in all three locatition (with zdb -uu and zdb -r). It has to be that way, because they are protected by the same checksum. A number of devices offer block level dedup, either as an option or as part of their inner workings. However when you store three identical blocks on them and the devices does block level dedup internally, the device may just deduplicated your redundant metadata to a block stored just once that is stored on the non-voilatile storage. When this block is corrupted, you have essentially three corrupted copies. Three hit with one bullet. This is indeed an interesting problem: A device doing deduplication doesn't know if a block is important or just a datablock. This is the reason why I like deduplication like it's done in ZFS. It's an integrated part and so important parts don't get deduplicated away. A disk accessed by a block level interface doesn't know anything about the importance of a block. A metadata block is nothing different to it's inner mechanism than a normal data block because there is no way to tell that this is important and that those redundancies aren't allowed to fall prey to some clever deduplication mechanism. Robin talks about this in regard of the Sandforce disk controllers who use a kind of dedup to reduce some of the nasty effects of writing data to flash, but the problem is much broader. However this is relevant whenever you are using a device with block level deduplication. It's just the point that you have to activate it for most implementation by command, whereas certain devices do this by default or by design and you don't know about it. However I'm not perfectly sure about that ? given that storage administration and server administration are often different groups with different business objectives I would ask your storage guys if they have activated dedup without telling somebody elase on their boxes in order to speak less often with the storage sales rep. The problem is even more interesting with ZFS. You may use ditto blocks to protect important data to store multiple copies of data in the pool to increase redundancy, even when your pool just consists out of one disk or just a striped set of disk. However when your device is doing dedup internally it may remove your redundancy before it hits the nonvolatile storage. You've won nothing. Just spend your disk quota on the the LUNs in the SAN and you make your disk admin happy because of the good dedup ratio However you can just fall in this specific "deduped ditto block"trap when your pool just consists out of a single device, because ZFS writes ditto blocks on different disks, when there is more than just one disk. Yet another reason why you should spend some extra-thought when putting your zpool on a single LUN, especially when the LUN is sliced and dices out of a large heap of storage devices by a storage controller. However I have one problem with the articles and their specific mention of ZFS: You can just hit by this problem when you are using the deduplicating device for the pool. However in the specifically mentioned case of SSD this isn't the usecase. Most implementations of SSD in conjunction with ZFS are hybrid storage pools and so rotating rust disk is used as pool and SSD are used as L2ARC/sZIL. And there it simply doesn't matter: When you really have to resort to the sZIL (your system went down, it doesn't matter of one block or several blocks are corrupt, you have to fail back to the last known good transaction group the device. On the other side, when a block in L2ARC is corrupt, you simply read it from the pool and in HSP implementations this is the already mentioned rust. In conjunction with ZFS this is more interesting when using a storage array, that is capable to do dedup and where you use LUNs for your pool. However as mentioned before, on those devices it's a user made decision to do so, and so it's less probable that you deduplicating your redundancies. Other filesystems lacking acapability similar to hybrid storage pools are more "haunted" by this problem of SSD using dedup-like mechanisms internally, because those filesystem really store the data on the the SSD instead of using it just as accelerating devices. However at the end Robin is correct: It's jet another point why protecting your data by creating redundancies by dispersing it several disks (by mirror or parity RAIDs) is really important. No dedup mechanism inside a device can dedup away your redundancy when you write it to a totally different and indepenent device.

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• Couldn't drop privileges: User is missing UID (see mail_uid setting)

  - by drecute

  I'm hoping I can use some help. I'm configuring dovecot_ldap, but I can't seem to be able to get dovecot to authenticate the ldap user. Below is my config and log info: hosts = 192.168.128.45:3268 dn = cn=Administrator,cn=Users,dc=company,dc=example,dc=com dnpass = "passwd" auth_bind = yes ldap_version = 3 base = dc=company, dc=example, dc=com user_attrs = sAMAccountName=home=/var/vmail/example.com/%$,uid=1001,gid=1001 user_filter = (&(sAMAccountName=%Ln)) pass_filter = (&(ObjectClass=person)(sAMAccountName=%u)) dovecot.conf # 2.0.19: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf # OS: Linux 3.2.0-33-generic x86_64 Ubuntu 12.04 LTS auth_mechanisms = plain login auth_realms = example.com auth_verbose = yes disable_plaintext_auth = no mail_access_groups = mail mail_location = mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u mail_privileged_group = mail passdb { driver = pam } passdb { driver = passwd } passdb { args = /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext driver = ldap } passdb { args = scheme=CRYPT username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users driver = passwd-file } protocols = " imap pop3" service auth { unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth { group = postfix mode = 0660 user = postfix } } service imap-login { inet_listener imap { port = 143 } inet_listener imaps { port = 993 ssl = yes } } ssl_cert = </etc/ssl/certs/dovecot.pem ssl_key = </etc/ssl/private/dovecot.pem userdb { driver = passwd } userdb { args = /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext driver = ldap } userdb { args = username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users driver = passwd-file } protocol imap { imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep imap_logout_format = bytes=%i/%o mail_plugins = } mail.log Nov 29 10:51:44 mail dovecot: auth-worker: pam(charyorde,10.10.1.28): pam_authenticate() failed: Authentication failure (password mismatch?) Nov 29 10:51:44 mail dovecot: auth-worker: passwd(charyorde,10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:44 mail dovecot: auth: passwd(charyorde,10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:44 mail dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<charyorde>, method=PLAIN, rip=10.10.1.28, lip=10.10.1.30, mpid=1892, TLS Nov 29 10:51:44 mail dovecot: imap(charyorde): Error: user charyorde: Couldn't drop privileges: User is missing UID (see mail_uid setting) Nov 29 10:51:44 mail dovecot: imap(charyorde): Error: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information. Nov 29 10:51:46 mail dovecot: auth-worker: pam(charyorde,10.10.1.28): pam_authenticate() failed: Authentication failure (password mismatch?) Nov 29 10:51:46 mail dovecot: auth-worker: passwd(charyorde,10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:46 mail dovecot: auth: passwd(charyorde,10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:46 mail dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<charyorde>, method=PLAIN, rip=10.10.1.28, lip=10.10.1.30, mpid=1894, TLS Nov 29 10:51:46 mail dovecot: imap(charyorde): Error: user charyorde: Couldn't drop privileges: User is missing UID (see mail_uid setting) Nov 29 10:51:46 mail dovecot: imap(charyorde): Error: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information. Nov 29 10:51:48 mail dovecot: auth-worker: pam([email protected],10.10.1.28): pam_authenticate() failed: Authentication failure (password mismatch?) Nov 29 10:51:48 mail dovecot: auth-worker: passwd([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:48 mail dovecot: auth: ldap([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:48 mail dovecot: auth: passwd-file([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:54 mail postfix/smtpd[1880]: idle timeout -- exiting Nov 29 10:51:54 mail postfix/smtpd[1879]: idle timeout -- exiting Nov 29 10:51:54 mail postfix/smtpd[1886]: proxymap stream disconnect Nov 29 10:51:54 mail postfix/smtpd[1887]: proxymap stream disconnect Nov 29 10:51:54 mail postfix/smtpd[1886]: auto_clnt_close: disconnect private/tlsmgr stream Nov 29 10:51:54 mail postfix/smtpd[1887]: auto_clnt_close: disconnect private/tlsmgr stream Nov 29 10:51:54 mail postfix/smtpd[1887]: idle timeout -- exiting Nov 29 10:51:54 mail postfix/smtpd[1886]: idle timeout -- exiting Nov 29 10:51:56 mail dovecot: auth-worker: pam([email protected],10.10.1.28): pam_authenticate() failed: Authentication failure (password mismatch?) Nov 29 10:51:56 mail dovecot: auth-worker: passwd([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:56 mail dovecot: auth: ldap([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:51:56 mail dovecot: auth: passwd-file([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:52:04 mail dovecot: auth-worker: pam([email protected],10.10.1.28): pam_authenticate() failed: Authentication failure (password mismatch?) Nov 29 10:52:04 mail dovecot: auth-worker: passwd([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:52:04 mail dovecot: auth: ldap([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:52:04 mail dovecot: auth: passwd-file([email protected],10.10.1.28): unknown user Nov 29 10:52:06 mail dovecot: imap-login: Disconnected (auth failed, 3 attempts): user=<[email protected]>, method=PLAIN, rip=10.10.1.28, lip=10.10.1.30, TLS Thank you for looking into this.

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• Can't get MySQL to install

  - by James Marthenal

  I'd like to think I know what I'm doing in a Unix shell but maybe not. I made a mistake in a configuration file for MySQL, so I decided to just uninstall it and then reinstall it, so I did: sudo apt-get --purge remove mysql-server mysql-server-5.0 mysql-client The files were deleted, so I then tried to install it, but it didn't ask me for a root password or anything else, so I uninstalled it using the above command again and then did sudo rm -rf /etc/mysql sudo rm /etc/init.d/mysql sudo rm -rf /var/lib/mysql* I then restarted the computer then installed it again: sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client It asked for a root password, and everything looked like it would work, until I saw this: $ sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following extra packages will be installed: mysql-server-5.0 Suggested packages: tinyca The following NEW packages will be installed: mysql-client mysql-server mysql-server-5.0 0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/27.4MB of archives. After this operation, 86.7MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated! mysql-server-5.0 mysql-client mysql-server Authentication warning overridden. Preconfiguring packages ... Can't exec "/tmp/mysql-server-5.0.config.28101": Permission denied at /usr/share/perl/5.10/IPC/Open3.pm line 168. open2: exec of /tmp/mysql-server-5.0.config.28101 configure failed at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/ConfModule.pm line 59 mysql-server-5.0 failed to preconfigure, with exit status 255 Selecting previously deselected package mysql-server-5.0. (Reading database ... 160284 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking mysql-server-5.0 (from .../mysql-server-5.0_5.0.51a-24+lenny5_amd64.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package mysql-client. Unpacking mysql-client (from .../mysql-client_5.0.51a-24+lenny5_all.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package mysql-server. Unpacking mysql-server (from .../mysql-server_5.0.51a-24+lenny5_all.deb) ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up mysql-server-5.0 (5.0.51a-24+lenny5) ... Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld. /var/lib/dpkg/info/mysql-server-5.0.postinst: line 144: /etc/mysql/conf.d/old_passwords.cnf: No such file or directory dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.0 (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Setting up mysql-client (5.0.51a-24+lenny5) ... dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server: mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.0; however: Package mysql-server-5.0 is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Errors were encountered while processing: mysql-server-5.0 mysql-server E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) Now I can't seem to figure out what to do. I just want to get a clean MySQL installation at this point. I'm running the latest stable release of Debian. All help is appreciated—thanks! Edit: I looked at this similar question, which suggests that I uninstall mysql-common, but when I try to do so I see: The following packages will be REMOVED: apache2 apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils apache2.2-common git-svn libapache2-mod-php5 libapache2-mod-python libapache2-svn libaprutil1 libdbd-mysql-perl libdbd-mysql-rubygem libmysql-ruby libmysql-ruby1.8 libmysql-rubygem libmysqlclient15-dev libmysqlclient15off librdf-perl librdf0 libserf-0-0 libsvn-perl libsvn1 mysql-client-5.0 mysql-common mytop ndn-apache22-php5 ndn-apache22-svn ndn-interpreters ndn-lighttpd ndn-netsaint-plugins ndn-perl-modules ndn-php5-cgi ndn-php5-xcache ndn-php53 ndn-php53-suhosin ndn-rubygems php5 php5-mcrypt php5-mysql proftpd proftpd-mod-mysql python-django python-mysqldb python-subversion python-svn subversion subversion-tools trac zendoptimizer 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 48 to remove and 1 not upgraded. Eeek! Any suggestions?

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• Apache 2.2 and FastCGI stops responding, warnings, crashes

  - by Brett

  I've seen this question posted a few times using a Google search, with no real answers. I have a multi-threaded FastCGI application running with Apache 2.2 on FreeBSD 7.2. There are a few issues with it, and I am unable to really figure out the source of the problem even after poking through a bunch of the mod_fastcgi source code. My FastCGI application gets anywhere from 2 to 15 or so hits per second, and mostly services a back-end API (the majority of web server usage is for this, and not actually serving content). Everything seems to work ok under normal conditions, but recently this problem has been becoming worse. It starts out with the FastCGI process manager apparently trying to close unneeded processes, sending them a SIGTERM signal. I catch the signal, clean up some stuff, and exit (by calling exit()) with status code 0. This process seems to result in three log messages in my httpd error log: [Tue Jun 01 14:03:31 2010] [warn] FastCGI: (dynamic) server "/home/program/wwwroot/domains/www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/program.cgi" (pid 98182) termination signaled [Tue Jun 01 14:03:31 2010] [warn] FastCGI: (dynamic) server "/home/program/wwwroot/domains/www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/program.cgi" (pid 98182) terminated by calling exit with status '0' [Tue Jun 01 14:03:31 2010] [warn] FastCGI: (dynamic) server "/home/program/wwwroot/domains/www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/program.cgi" restarted (pid 98294) I am not sure why it says it is restarting the process, but in any case no core dump is ever generated so I do believe it is the FastCGI process manager doing it's thing. This makes sense because it begins to happen after the initial load increase from restarting Apache. Since it's down for a few seconds, it gets hit with a couple of hundred requests over the first few seconds it's running again (sometimes even hitting the upper limit of MAXCLIENTS in Apache), and this seems to be the process manager doing the work of spawning more processes to handle the increased load. So this all seems fine, but here is where things get weird. There are really two problems that I see. First, my multithreaded FastCGI process spawns 25 worker threads, and all seem to be used according to my internal log files (multiple processes are clearly using multiple threads to do work). However it seems that 3 or 4 FastCGI processes is not enough to handle the 5 to 15 hit per second load, even though the requests take about .02s or so to process internally. In order to be at all responsive, it seems I need 50 or more FastCGI processes, leading me to believe that FastCGI does not realize that my program is multithreaded. I've read the documentation at http://www.fastcgi.com/mod_fastcgi/docs/mod_fastcgi.html and do not see any option pertaining to multithreaded-ness, and my internal code is more or less set up just like the examples provided by the FastCGI library. The second problem I am having is that once process termination has happened a bunch of times as above (and seemingly at random), I begin getting a lot of these messages in my error log: [Tue Jun 01 14:06:22 2010] [warn] (32)Broken pipe: FastCGI: write() to PM failed (ignore if a restart or shutdown is pending) The messages occur for about half the hits I get to the server, and it completely kills the responsiveness of my application - it seems FastCGI will look for a working "pipe" until it finds one, and fail to realize that whatever application it is trying to contact is dead. It does still work though, it's just incredibly unresponsive - sometimes taking up to 40 or so seconds to process a request. I recompiled mod_fastcgi with some extra debugging around the point of the error message, and it appears that the error happens when it tries to write() to the application. The call to write() fails with a -1 return code, and sets errno to EPIPE. I am noticing that the issue happens mostly when either a crash occurs in one of the FastCGI processes, or a bunch of them are seemingly terminated by the process manager. I haven't had any core dumps though, except for one, where the backtrace outputted by gdb is just a single call to free() at address 0x0000000000000000 with nothing else in the stack trace, so I don't really know what to make of that. I'm thinking it happens sometime after the SIGTERM signal is caught, maybe some global variable not being cleaned up properly or something.

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• Can't install MySQL

  - by James Marthenal

  I have a Debian machine that I have previously installed MySQL on. In an attempt to delete it, I stupidly deleted the directories/files /etc/mysql/, /etc/init.d/mysql, /usr/lib/mysql/, /var/lib/mysql/. I then later did sudo apt-get purge mysql-server mysql-server-5.0. Now, when I try to install mysql-server, I get: $ sudo apt-get install mysql-server Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following extra packages will be installed: mysql-server-5.0 The following NEW packages will be installed: mysql-server mysql-server-5.0 0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/27.4MB of archives. After this operation, 86.6MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated! mysql-server-5.0 mysql-server Authentication warning overridden. Preconfiguring packages ... Can't exec "/tmp/mysql-server-5.0.config.122781": Permission denied at /usr/share/perl/5.10/IPC/Open3.pm line 168. open2: exec of /tmp/mysql-server-5.0.config.122781 configure failed at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/ConfModule.pm line 59 mysql-server-5.0 failed to preconfigure, with exit status 255 Selecting previously deselected package mysql-server-5.0. (Reading database ... 158138 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking mysql-server-5.0 (from .../mysql-server-5.0_5.0.51a-24+lenny5_amd64.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package mysql-server. Unpacking mysql-server (from .../mysql-server_5.0.51a-24+lenny5_all.deb) ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up mysql-server-5.0 (5.0.51a-24+lenny5) ... Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld. 110206 19:31:13 [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Can't find file: './mysql/user.frm' (errno: 13) 110206 19:31:13 [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Can't find file: './mysql/user.frm' (errno: 13) ERROR: 1017 Can't find file: './mysql/user.frm' (errno: 13) 110206 19:31:13 [ERROR] Aborting 110206 19:31:13 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete /etc/init.d/mysql: WARNING: /etc/mysql/my.cnf cannot be read. See README.Debian.gz (warning). Starting MySQL database server: mysqld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . failed! invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed. dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.0 (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server: mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.0; however: Package mysql-server-5.0 is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Errors were encountered while processing: mysql-server-5.0 mysql-server E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) I have tried to search for a solution via Google and have found lots of suggestions for this problem, but ultimately it seems like the problem is that by deleting the files manually, I messed up the mysql-common package. I have tried to do sudo apt-get install --reinstall mysql-common followed by installing mysql-server, but it does the exact same thing. I previously had MySQL working great, I just want to get it back to that state. Thanks so much for your help.

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• How do I stop and repair a RAID 5 array that has failed and has I/O pending?

  - by Ben Hymers

  The short version: I have a failed RAID 5 array which has a bunch of processes hung waiting on I/O operations on it; how can I recover from this? The long version: Yesterday I noticed Samba access was being very sporadic; accessing the server's shares from Windows would randomly lock up explorer completely after clicking on one or two directories. I assumed it was Windows being a pain and left it. Today the problem is the same, so I did a little digging; the first thing I noticed was that running ps aux | grep smbd gives a lot of lines like this: ben 969 0.0 0.2 96088 4128 ? D 18:21 0:00 smbd -F root 1708 0.0 0.2 93468 4748 ? Ss 18:44 0:00 smbd -F root 1711 0.0 0.0 93468 1364 ? S 18:44 0:00 smbd -F ben 3148 0.0 0.2 96052 4160 ? D Mar07 0:00 smbd -F ... There are a lot of processes stuck in the "D" state. Running ps aux | grep " D" shows up some other processes including my nightly backup script, all of which need to access the volume mounted on my RAID array at some point. After some googling, I found that it might be down to the RAID array failing, so I checked /proc/mdstat, which shows this: ben@jack:~$ cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md0 : active raid5 sdb1[3](F) sdc1[1] sdd1[2] 2930271872 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/2] [_UU] unused devices: <none> And running mdadm --detail /dev/md0 gives this: ben@jack:~$ sudo mdadm --detail /dev/md0 /dev/md0: Version : 00.90 Creation Time : Sat Oct 31 20:53:10 2009 Raid Level : raid5 Array Size : 2930271872 (2794.53 GiB 3000.60 GB) Used Dev Size : 1465135936 (1397.26 GiB 1500.30 GB) Raid Devices : 3 Total Devices : 3 Preferred Minor : 0 Persistence : Superblock is persistent Update Time : Mon Mar 7 03:06:35 2011 State : active, degraded Active Devices : 2 Working Devices : 2 Failed Devices : 1 Spare Devices : 0 Layout : left-symmetric Chunk Size : 64K UUID : f114711a:c770de54:c8276759:b34deaa0 Events : 0.208245 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 3 8 17 0 faulty spare rebuilding /dev/sdb1 1 8 33 1 active sync /dev/sdc1 2 8 49 2 active sync /dev/sdd1 I believe this says that sdb1 has failed, and so the array is running with two drives out of three 'up'. Some advice I found said to check /var/log/messages for notices of failures, and sure enough there are plenty: ben@jack:~$ grep sdb /var/log/messages ... Mar 7 03:06:35 jack kernel: [4525155.384937] md/raid:md0: read error NOT corrected!! (sector 400644912 on sdb1). Mar 7 03:06:35 jack kernel: [4525155.389686] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 400644920 on sdb1). Mar 7 03:06:35 jack kernel: [4525155.389686] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 400644928 on sdb1). Mar 7 03:06:35 jack kernel: [4525155.389688] md/raid:md0: read error not correctable (sector 400644936 on sdb1). Mar 7 03:06:56 jack kernel: [4525176.231603] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Unhandled sense code Mar 7 03:06:56 jack kernel: [4525176.231605] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE Mar 7 03:06:56 jack kernel: [4525176.231608] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Sense Key : Medium Error [current] [descriptor] Mar 7 03:06:56 jack kernel: [4525176.231623] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error - auto reallocate failed Mar 7 03:06:56 jack kernel: [4525176.231627] sd 0:0:1:0: [sdb] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 17 e1 5f bf 00 01 00 00 To me it is clear that device sdb has failed, and I need to stop the array, shutdown, replace it, reboot, then repair the array, bring it back up and mount the filesystem. I cannot hot-swap a replacement drive in, and don't want to leave the array running in a degraded state. I believe I am supposed to unmount the filesystem before stopping the array, but that is failing, and that is where I'm stuck now: ben@jack:~$ sudo umount /storage umount: /storage: device is busy. (In some cases useful info about processes that use the device is found by lsof(8) or fuser(1)) It is indeed busy; there are some 30 or 40 processes waiting on I/O. What should I do? Should I kill all these processes and try again? Is that a wise move when they are 'uninterruptable'? What would happen if I tried to reboot? Please let me know what you think I should do. And please ask if you need any extra information to diagnose the problem or to help!

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• Strange DNS issue with internal Windows DNS

  - by Brady

  I've encountered a strange issue with our internal Windows DNS infrastructure. We have a website hosted on Amazon EC2 with the DNS running on Amazon Route 53. In the publicly facing DNS we have the wildcard record setup as an A record Alias pointing to an AWS Elastic Load Balancer sitting in front of our EC2 instances. For those who are not aware, the A record Alias behaves like a CNAME record, however no extra lookup is required on the client side (See http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/CreatingAliasRRSets.html for more information). We have a secondary domain that has the www subdomain as a CNAME pointing to a subdomain on the primary domain, which resolves against the wildcard entry. For example the subdomain www.secondary.com is a CNAME to sub1.primary.com, but there is no explicit entry for sub1.primary.com, so it resolves to wildcard record. This setup work without issue publicly. The issue comes in our internal DNS at our corporate office where we use the same primary domain for some internal only facing sites. In this setup we have two Active Directory DNS servers with one Server 2003 and one Server 2008 R2 instance. The zone is an AD integrated zone, but it is not the AD domain. In the internal DNS we have the wildcard record pointing to a third external domain, that is also hosted on Route 53 with an A record Alias pointing to the same ELB instance. For example, *.primary.com is a CNAME to tertiary.com, so in effect you have www.secondary.com as a CNAME to *.primary.com, which is a CNAME to tertiary.com. In this setup, attempting to resolve www.secondary.com will fail. Clearing the cache on the Server 2003 instance will allow it to resolve once, but subsequent attempts will fail. It fails even with a clean cache against the 2008 R2 server. It seems that only Windows clients are affected. A Mac running OSX Mountain Lion does not experience this issue. I'm even able to replicate the issue using nslookup. Against the 2003 server, with a freshly cleaned cache, I recieve the appropriate response from www.secondary.com: Non-authoritative answer: Name: subdomain.primary.com Address: x.x.x.x (Public IP) Aliases: www.secondary.com Subsequent checks simply return: Non-authoritative answer: Name: www.secondary.com If you set the type to CNAME you get the appropriate responses all the time. www.secondary.com gives you: Non-authoritative answer: www.secondary.com canonical name = subdomain.primary.com And subdomain.primary.com gives you: subdomain.primary.com canonical name = tertiary.com And setting type back to A gives you the appropriate response for tertiary.com: Non-authoritative answer: Name: tertiary.com Address: x.x.x.x (Public IP) Against the 2008 R2 server things are a little different. Even with a clean cache, www.secondary.com returns just: Non-authoritative answer: Name: www.secondary.com The CNAME records are returned appropriately. www.secondary.com returns: Non-authoritative answer: www.secondary.com canonical name = subdomain.primary.com And subdomain.primary.com gives you: subdomain.primary.com canonical name = tertiary.com tertiary.com internet address = x.x.x.x (Public IP) tertiary.com AAAA IPv6 address = x::x (Public IPv6) And setting type back to A gives you the appropriate response for tertiary.com: Non-authoritative answer: Name: tertiary.com Address: x.x.x.x (Public IP) Requests directly against subdomain.primary.com work correctly.

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• Persistent static routes fail on MacOS 10.6.5 startup!

  - by verbalicious

  I'm unable to get static routes to persist a reboot on Mac OS 10.6.5. I've tried all of the methods prescribed in Google search results, and previous posts on this site. I've tried manually creating a launchd daemon, and used RouteSplit's launchd daemon to no avail. It's clear that the interface is not ready when these methods attempt to apply the route. This workstation in question is getting its IP from DHCP and probably hasn't gotten its DHCP lease when the command runs. We're able to apply the route by hand when logged in, but not through startup methods. Is there another way to apply this route by sneaking the command into something later, but before the login window appears to the user? Here is some relevant log info from system.log. You can see the "route: writing to routing socket: Network is unreachable" errors where my launchd script fires off. I've tried adding extra "sleep" and "ipconfig waitall" statements later in the script but this doesn't fly. Dec 15 19:30:41 localhost com.apple.launchd[1]: *** launchd[1] has started up. *** Dec 15 19:30:45 localhost mDNSResponder[18]: mDNSResponder mDNSResponder-258.13 (Oct 8 2010 17:10:30) starting Dec 15 19:30:47 localhost configd[15]: bootp_session_transmit: bpf_write(en1) failed: Network is down (50) Dec 15 19:30:47 localhost configd[15]: DHCP en1: INIT transmit failed Dec 15 19:30:47 localhost configd[15]: network configuration changed. Dec 15 19:30:47 Administrators-MacBook-Pro configd[15]: setting hostname to "Administrators-MacBook-Pro.local" Dec 15 19:30:47 Administrators-MacBook-Pro blued[16]: Apple Bluetooth daemon started Dec 15 19:30:52 Administrators-MacBook-Pro syslog[67]: routes.sh: Starting RouteSplit Dec 15 19:30:53 Administrators-MacBook-Pro com.apple.usbmuxd[41]: usbmuxd-207 built for iTunesTenOne on Oct 19 2010 at 13:50:35, running 64 bit Dec 15 19:30:54 Administrators-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow[50]: Login Window Application Started Dec 15 19:30:55 Administrators-MacBook-Pro bootlog[61]: BOOT_TIME: 1292459441 0 Dec 15 19:30:55 Administrators-MacBook-Pro syslog[86]: routes.sh: static route 192.168.0.0/23 192.168.2.2 Dec 15 19:30:55 Administrators-MacBook-Pro net.routes.static[65]: route: writing to routing socket: Network is unreachable Dec 15 19:30:55 Administrators-MacBook-Pro net.routes.static[65]: add net 192.168.0.0: gateway 192.168.2.2: Network is unreachable Dec 15 19:30:57 Administrators-MacBook-Pro org.apache.httpd[38]: httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using Administrators-MacBook-Pro.local for ServerName Dec 15 19:30:58 Administrators-MacBook-Pro loginwindow[50]: Login Window Started Security Agent Dec 15 19:30:58 Administrators-MacBook-Pro WindowServer[89]: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged. Dec 15 19:30:58 Administrators-MacBook-Pro com.apple.WindowServer[89]: Wed Dec 15 19:30:58 Administrators-MacBook-Pro.local WindowServer[89] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged. Dec 15 19:31:18 Administrators-MacBook-Pro configd[15]: network configuration changed. Dec 15 19:31:19 administrators-macbook-pro configd[15]: setting hostname to "administrators-macbook-pro.local" Dec 15 19:31:25 administrators-macbook-pro _mdnsresponder[121]: /usr/libexec/ntpd-wrapper: scutil key State:/Network/Global/DNS not present after 30 seconds Dec 15 19:31:25 administrators-macbook-pro _mdnsresponder[124]: sntp options: a=2 v=1 e=0.100 E=5.000 P=2147483647.000 Dec 15 19:31:25 administrators-macbook-pro _mdnsresponder[124]: d=15 c=5 x=0 op=1 l=/var/run/sntp.pid f= time.apple.com Dec 15 19:31:25 administrators-macbook-pro _mdnsresponder[124]: sntp: getaddrinfo(hostname, ntp) failed with nodename nor servname provided, or not known Dec 15 19:31:27 administrators-macbook-pro configd[15]: network configuration changed. Dec 15 19:31:27 Administrators-MacBook-Pro configd[15]: setting hostname to "Administrators-MacBook-Pro.local" Dec 15 19:31:27 Administrators-MacBook-Pro ntpd[37]: Cannot find existing interface for address 17.151.16.20 Dec 15 19:31:27 Administrators-MacBook-Pro ntpd_initres[125]: ntpd indicates no data available! Dec 15 19:31:31 Administrators-MacBook-Pro sshd[128]: USER_PROCESS: 133 ttys000 Dec 15 19:31:37 Administrators-MacBook-Pro sudo[138]: administrator : TTY=ttys000 ; PWD=/Users/administrator ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/less /var/log/system.log ``You can see the following line in /var/log/kernel.log that shows the en0 interface coming up: Dec 15 19:30:51 Administrators-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: Ethernet [AppleBCM5701Ethernet]: Link up on en0, 1-Gigabit, Full-duplex, No flow-control, Debug [796d,0f01,0de1,0300,c1e1,3800]

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• Persistent static routes fail on MacOS 10.6.5 startup!

  - by verbalicious

  I'm unable to get static routes to persist a reboot on Mac OS 10.6.5. I've tried all of the methods prescribed in Google search results, and previous posts on this site. I've tried manually creating a launchd daemon, and used RouteSplit's launchd daemon to no avail. It's clear that the interface is not ready when these methods attempt to apply the route. This workstation in question is getting its IP from DHCP and probably hasn't gotten its DHCP lease when the command runs. We're able to apply the route by hand when logged in, but not through startup methods. Is there another way to apply this route by sneaking the command into something later, but before the login window appears to the user? Here is some relevant log info from system.log. You can see the "route: writing to routing socket: Network is unreachable" errors where my launchd script fires off. I've tried adding extra "sleep" and "ipconfig waitall" statements later in the script but this doesn't fly. Dec 15 19:30:41 localhost com.apple.launchd[1]: *** launchd[1] has started up. *** Dec 15 19:30:45 localhost mDNSResponder[18]: mDNSResponder mDNSResponder-258.13 (Oct 8 2010 17:10:30) starting Dec 15 19:30:47 localhost configd[15]: bootp_session_transmit: bpf_write(en1) failed: Network is down (50) Dec 15 19:30:47 localhost configd[15]: DHCP en1: INIT transmit failed Dec 15 19:30:47 localhost configd[15]: network configuration changed. Dec 15 19:30:47 Administrators-MacBook-Pro configd[15]: setting hostname to "Administrators-MacBook-Pro.local" Dec 15 19:30:47 Administrators-MacBook-Pro blued[16]: Apple Bluetooth daemon started Dec 15 19:30:52 Administrators-MacBook-Pro syslog[67]: routes.sh: Starting RouteSplit Dec 15 19:30:53 Administrators-MacBook-Pro com.apple.usbmuxd[41]: usbmuxd-207 built for iTunesTenOne on Oct 19 2010 at 13:50:35, running 64 bit Dec 15 19:30:54 Administrators-MacBook-Pro /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow[50]: Login Window Application Started Dec 15 19:30:55 Administrators-MacBook-Pro bootlog[61]: BOOT_TIME: 1292459441 0 Dec 15 19:30:55 Administrators-MacBook-Pro syslog[86]: routes.sh: static route 192.168.0.0/23 192.168.2.2 Dec 15 19:30:55 Administrators-MacBook-Pro net.routes.static[65]: route: writing to routing socket: Network is unreachable Dec 15 19:30:55 Administrators-MacBook-Pro net.routes.static[65]: add net 192.168.0.0: gateway 192.168.2.2: Network is unreachable Dec 15 19:30:57 Administrators-MacBook-Pro org.apache.httpd[38]: httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using Administrators-MacBook-Pro.local for ServerName Dec 15 19:30:58 Administrators-MacBook-Pro loginwindow[50]: Login Window Started Security Agent Dec 15 19:30:58 Administrators-MacBook-Pro WindowServer[89]: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged. Dec 15 19:30:58 Administrators-MacBook-Pro com.apple.WindowServer[89]: Wed Dec 15 19:30:58 Administrators-MacBook-Pro.local WindowServer[89] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged. Dec 15 19:31:18 Administrators-MacBook-Pro configd[15]: network configuration changed. Dec 15 19:31:19 administrators-macbook-pro configd[15]: setting hostname to "administrators-macbook-pro.local" Dec 15 19:31:25 administrators-macbook-pro _mdnsresponder[121]: /usr/libexec/ntpd-wrapper: scutil key State:/Network/Global/DNS not present after 30 seconds Dec 15 19:31:25 administrators-macbook-pro _mdnsresponder[124]: sntp options: a=2 v=1 e=0.100 E=5.000 P=2147483647.000 Dec 15 19:31:25 administrators-macbook-pro _mdnsresponder[124]: d=15 c=5 x=0 op=1 l=/var/run/sntp.pid f= time.apple.com Dec 15 19:31:25 administrators-macbook-pro _mdnsresponder[124]: sntp: getaddrinfo(hostname, ntp) failed with nodename nor servname provided, or not known Dec 15 19:31:27 administrators-macbook-pro configd[15]: network configuration changed. Dec 15 19:31:27 Administrators-MacBook-Pro configd[15]: setting hostname to "Administrators-MacBook-Pro.local" Dec 15 19:31:27 Administrators-MacBook-Pro ntpd[37]: Cannot find existing interface for address 17.151.16.20 Dec 15 19:31:27 Administrators-MacBook-Pro ntpd_initres[125]: ntpd indicates no data available! Dec 15 19:31:31 Administrators-MacBook-Pro sshd[128]: USER_PROCESS: 133 ttys000 Dec 15 19:31:37 Administrators-MacBook-Pro sudo[138]: administrator : TTY=ttys000 ; PWD=/Users/administrator ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/less /var/log/system.log ``You can see the following line in /var/log/kernel.log that shows the en0 interface coming up: Dec 15 19:30:51 Administrators-MacBook-Pro kernel[0]: Ethernet [AppleBCM5701Ethernet]: Link up on en0, 1-Gigabit, Full-duplex, No flow-control, Debug [796d,0f01,0de1,0300,c1e1,3800]

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• Squid refresh_pattern won't cache "Expires: ..."

  - by Marcelo Cantos

  Background I frequent the OpenGL ES documentation site at http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/. Even though the content is completely static, it seems to force a reload on every single page I visit, which is very annoying. I have a squid 3.0 proxy set up (apt-get install squid3 on Ubuntu 10.04), and I added a refresh_pattern to force the pages to cache: refresh_pattern ^http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1\.1/docs/man/ … 1440 20% 10080 … override-expire ignore-reload ignore-no-cache ignore-private ignore-no-store This is all on one line, of course. While this appears to work for the XHTML documents (e.g., glBindTexture), it fails to cache the linked content, such as the DTD, some .ent files (?) and some XSL files. The delay in fetching these extra files delays rendering of the main document, so my principal annoyance isn't fixed. The only difference I can glean with these ancillary files is that they come with an Expires: header set to the current time, whereas the XHTML document has none. But I would have expected the override-expire option to fix this. I have confirmed that documents have the same base URL. I have also truncated the pattern to varying degrees, with no effect. My questions Why does the override-expire option not seem to work? Is there a simple way to tell squid to unconditionally cache a document, no matter what it finds in the response headers? (Hopefully) relevant output cache.log Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| Processing Configuration File: /etc/squid3/squid.conf (depth 0) Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| WARNING: use of 'override-expire' in 'refresh_pattern' violates HTTP Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| WARNING: use of 'ignore-reload' in 'refresh_pattern' violates HTTP Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| WARNING: use of 'ignore-no-cache' in 'refresh_pattern' violates HTTP Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| WARNING: use of 'ignore-no-store' in 'refresh_pattern' violates HTTP Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| WARNING: use of 'ignore-private' in 'refresh_pattern' violates HTTP Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| DNS Socket created at 0.0.0.0, port 37082, FD 10 Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| Adding nameserver 192.168.1.1 from /etc/resolv.conf Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| Accepting HTTP connections at 0.0.0.0, port 3128, FD 11. Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| Accepting ICP messages at 0.0.0.0, port 3130, FD 13. Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| HTCP Disabled. Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| Loaded Icons. Jan 01 10:33:30 1970/06/25 21:18:27| Ready to serve requests. access.log Jun 25 21:19:35 2010.710 0 192.168.1.50 TCP_MEM_HIT/200 2452 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/glBindTexture.xml - NONE/- text/xml Jun 25 21:19:36 2010.263 543 192.168.1.50 TCP_MISS/304 322 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/xhtml1-transitional.dtd - DIRECT/74.54.224.215 - Jun 25 21:19:36 2010.276 556 192.168.1.50 TCP_MISS/304 370 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/mathml.xsl - DIRECT/74.54.224.215 - Jun 25 21:19:36 2010.666 278 192.168.1.50 TCP_MISS/304 322 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/xhtml-lat1.ent - DIRECT/74.54.224.215 - Jun 25 21:19:36 2010.958 279 192.168.1.50 TCP_MISS/304 322 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/xhtml-symbol.ent - DIRECT/74.54.224.215 - Jun 25 21:19:37 2010.251 276 192.168.1.50 TCP_MISS/304 322 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/xhtml-special.ent - DIRECT/74.54.224.215 - Jun 25 21:19:37 2010.332 0 192.168.1.50 TCP_IMS_HIT/304 316 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/ctop.xsl - NONE/- text/xml Jun 25 21:19:37 2010.332 0 192.168.1.50 TCP_IMS_HIT/304 316 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/pmathml.xsl - NONE/- text/xml store.log Jun 25 21:19:36 2010.263 RELEASE -1 FFFFFFFF D3056C09B42659631A65A08F97794E45 304 1277464776 -1 1277464776 unknown -1/0 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/xhtml1-transitional.dtd Jun 25 21:19:36 2010.276 RELEASE -1 FFFFFFFF 9BF7F37442FD84DD0AC0479E38329E3C 304 1277464776 -1 1277464776 unknown -1/0 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/mathml.xsl Jun 25 21:19:36 2010.666 RELEASE -1 FFFFFFFF 7BCFCE88EC91578C8E2589CB6310B3A1 304 1277464776 -1 1277464776 unknown -1/0 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/xhtml-lat1.ent Jun 25 21:19:36 2010.958 RELEASE -1 FFFFFFFF ECF1B24E437CFAA08A2785AA31A042A0 304 1277464777 -1 1277464777 unknown -1/0 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/xhtml-symbol.ent Jun 25 21:19:37 2010.251 RELEASE -1 FFFFFFFF 36FE3D76C80F0106E6E9F3B7DCE924FA 304 1277464777 -1 1277464777 unknown -1/0 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/xhtml-special.ent Jun 25 21:19:37 2010.332 RELEASE -1 FFFFFFFF A33E5A5CCA2BFA059C0FA25163485192 304 1277462871 1221139523 1277462871 text/xml -1/0 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/ctop.xsl Jun 25 21:19:37 2010.332 RELEASE -1 FFFFFFFF E2CF8854443275755915346052ACE14E 304 1277462872 1221139523 1277462872 text/xml -1/0 GET http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sdk/1.1/docs/man/pmathml.xsl

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• Trying to use Digest Authentication for Folder Protection

  - by Jon Hazlett

  StackOverflow users suggested I try my question here. I'm using Server 2008 EE and IIS 7. I've got a site that I've migrated over from XP Pro using IIS 5. On the old system, I was using IIS Password to use simple .htaccess files to control a couple of folders that I didn't want to be publicly viewable. Now that I'm running a full-blown DC with a more powerful version of IIS, I decided it'd be a good idea to start using something slightly more sophisticated. After doing my research and trying to keep things as cheap as possible with a touch of extra security, I decided that Digest Authentication would be the best way to go. My issue is this: With Anon access disabled and Digest enabled, I am never prompted for credentials. when on the server, viewing domain[dot]com/example will simply show my 401.htm page without prompting me for credentials. when on a different network/computer, viewing domain[dot]com/example again shows my 401.htm without prompting for credentials. At the site level I only have Anon enabled. Every subfolder, unless I want it protected, has just Anon enabled. Only the folders I want protected have Anon disabled and Digest enabled. I have tried editing the bindings to see if that would spark any kind of change... www.domain.com, domain.com, and localhost have all been tried. There was never a change in behavior at any permutation (aside from the page not being found when I un-bound localhost to the site). I might have screwed up when I deleted the default site from IIS. I didn't think I'd actually need it for anything, but some of what I have read online is telling me otherwise now. As for Digest settings, I have it pointed to local.domain.com, which is the name assigned to my AD Domain. I'm guessing that's right, but honestly have no clue about what a realm actually is. Would it matter that I have an A record for local.domain.com pointing to my IP address? I had problems initially with an absolute link for 401.htm pages, but have since resolved that. Instead of D:\HTTP\401.htm I've used /401.htm and all is well. I used to get error 500's because it couldn't find the custom 401.htm file, but now it loads just fine. As for some data, I was getting entries like this from access logs: 2009-07-10 17:34:12 10.0.0.10 GET /example/ - 80 - [workip] Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+5.1;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+InfoPath.2) 401 2 5 132 But after correcting my 401.htm links now get logs like this: 2009-07-10 18:56:25 10.0.0.10 GET /example - 80 - [workip] Mozilla/5.0+(Windows;+U;+Windows+NT+5.1;+en-US;+rv:1.9.0.11)+Gecko/2009060215+Firefox/3.0.11 200 0 0 146 I don't know if that means anything or not. I still don't get any credential challenges, regardless of where I try to sign in from ( my workstation, my server, my cellphone even ). The only thing that's seemed to work is viewing localhost and I donno what could be preventing authentication from finding it's way out of the server. Thanks for any help! Jon

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• disk-to-disk backup without costly backup redundancy?

  - by AaronLS

  A good backup strategy involves a combination of 1) disconnected backups/snapshots that will not be affected by bugs, viruses, and/or security breaches 2) geographically distributed backups to protect against local disasters 3) testing backups to ensure that they can be restored as needed Generally I take an onsite backup daily, and an offsite backup weekly, and do test restores periodically. In the rare circumstance that I need to restore files, I do some from the local backup. Should a catastrophic event destroy the servers and local backups, then the offsite weekly tape backup would be used to restore the files. I don't need multiple offsite backups with redundancy. I ALREADY HAVE REDUNDANCY THROUGH THE USE OF BOTH LOCAL AND REMOTE BACKUPS. I have recovery blocks and par files with the backups, so I already have protection against a small percentage of corrupt bits. I perform test restores to ensure the backups function properly. Should the remote backups experience a dataloss, I can replace them with one of the local backups. There are historical offsite backups as well, so if a dataloss was not noticed for a few weeks(such as a bug/security breach/virus), the data could be restored from an older backup. By doing this, the only scenario that poses a risk to complete data loss would be one where both the local, remote, and servers all experienced a data loss in the same time period. I'm willing to risk that happening since the odds of that trifecta negligibly small, and the data isn't THAT valuable to me. So I hope I have emphasized that I don't need redundancy in my offsite backups because I have covered all the bases. I know this exact technique is employed by numerous businesses. Of course there are some that take multiple offsite backups, because the data is so incredibly valuable that they don't even want to risk that trifecta disaster, but in the majority of cases the trifecta disaster is an accepted risk. I HAD TO COVER ALL THIS BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE DON'T READ!!! I think I have justified my backup strategy and the majority of businesses who use offsite tape backups do not have any additional redundancy beyond what is mentioned above(recovery blocks, par files, historical snapshots). Now I would like to eliminate the use of tapes for offsite backups, and instead use a backup service. Most however are extremely costly for $/gb/month storage. I don't mind paying for transfer bandwidth, but the cost of storage is way to high. All of them advertise that they maintain backups of the data, and I imagine they use RAID as well. Obviously if you were using them to host servers this would all be necessary, but for my scenario, I am simply replacing my offsite backups with such a service. So there is no need for RAID, and absolutely no value in another layer of backups of backups. My one and only question: "Are there online data-storage/backup services that do not use redundancy or offer backups(backups of my backups) as part of their packages, and thus are more reasonably priced?" NOT my question: "Is this a flawed strategy?" I don't care if you think this is a good strategy or not. I know it pretty standard. Very few people make an extra copy of their offsite backups. They already have local backups that they can use to replace the remote backups if something catastrophic happens at the remote site. Please limit your responses to the question posed. Sorry if I seem a little abrasive, but I had some trolls in my last post who didn't read my requirements nor my question, and were trying to go off answering a totally different question. I made it pretty clear, but didn't try to justify my strategy, because I didn't ask about whether my strategy was justifyable. So I apologize if this was lengthy, as it really didn't need to be, but since there are so many trolls here who try to sidetrack questions by responding without addressing the question at hand.

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• How do I achieve lossless JPEG joining without truncation of partial MCUs?

  - by Karan

  I am working on a project for which I need to join thousands of JPEG images losslessly (I'm not talking about the Lossless JPEG/JPEG 2000/JPEG-LS formats here). Aforementioned images have varying levels of chroma subsampling (1x1, 1x2, 2x1, 2x2), resulting in varying MCU sizes (8x8, 8x16, 16x8, 16x16 px). However, in any given set of images to be joined together, each image has identical characteristics. For now, let's assume I only have 2 images. Image #1 (I1) is 256x256px in size and #2 (I2) is 239x256px in size. 2x2 subsampling is used such that MCU size is 16x16px. I2 thus obviously has partial MCUs at the right edge, since its width is not evenly divisible by 16. (I've read that so-called 'partial' MCUs actually contain the data for a complete MCU, but the image dimensions instruct the renderer to only display the relevant pixels and ignore/hide the extra ones.) Looking around for tools that could help me accomplish this, I came across a modified version of JpegTran, that contains an experimental lossless crop 'n' drop (cut & paste) feature. All the other apps I encountered that support lossless JPEG editing seem to utilise IJG's (JpegTran) code, so this seemed to be the logical choice. Also, given the sheer number of images, I wanted something that could preferably be run from the command-line so that I could automate the process with a script. Unfortunately, while everything else worked fine, it seems JpegTran truncates the partial MCUs instead of retaining them. Thus in the example above, the final joined image contains all of I1, but only 224x256px of I2. Why 224? because 239 = 14x16+15, which means there are 14 full MCUs along the width, and 1 partial MCU (just 1px short of the complete 16px). The last 15px is what is getting blanked, leading to a 495x256px image with 15px of blank (grey) pixels at the right edge. See images below (shame that imgur re-compresses them): (left )+ (right) = As you can clearly see, the red portion (15px) of I2 has been truncated by JpegTran. If the MCUs were 8px in width, the lost portion would have been the right-most 7px of I2. Similarly, joining I3 (256x239px) *below * I1 would cause the loss of 7 or 15px, depending on the MCU height of course: (top) + (bottom) = If this is better suited to some other StackExchange (or even non-SE) site/forum where JPEG/image encoding experts hang out, do let me know. Can what I am attempting even be done, or is the so-called 'lossless' JPEG crop 'n' drop only valid for images with no partial MCUs? (Maybe that is why the feature is still in an "experimental state" more than a decade after being introduced...) Until I know for sure that it is impossible, I am not interested in suggestions for lossy joining. Avoiding any generational loss whatsoever is the sole reason why I'm breaking my head over this, else I'd have had this done and dusted ages ago. Also, I am not interested in suggestions related to switching image formats. I do not control the source of the images. If it can be done, how? Please keep in mind that any alternate apps suggested must ideally be capable of automation, given the requirements stated above. (But given how it's unlikely I'm even going to receive a useful answer given the constraints, I would be happy with any app suggestion just as long as it actually works. I can always look into an AutoIT/AHK script or something later to automate it.) I understand that an odd-sized final image might cause issues, so I am fully prepared to accept any solution, even if it results in blank (preferably black) padding pixels to the right/bottom. What I mean is, I don't care if I1 + I2 is 496x256px (1px padding) or even 512x256px (17px padding) in size, as long as the final image contains all the actual image data from both source images, and the entire process is lossless. Obviously the lesser the padding (if any), the better, but at this point any solution will do. A Windows-based solution would be perfect, but a Linux-based one would be entirely acceptable.

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• Having problems with high CPU usage and apparent memory leak of Exim

  - by Dancrumb

  I'm having problems with my server and am hoping you can help. The culprit appears to be exim. The CPU usage is consistently high and the memory usage trends up and up and up for no apparent reason (this is not a heavily used server). To demonstrate the issue, I ran the following: root@server [/var/log]# service exim restart; for iter in `seq 0 9`; do date; top -n1 | grep exim; sleep 10; done Shutting down exim: [ OK ] Shutting down spamd: [ OK ] Starting exim: [ OK ] Sun Jun 6 18:12:07 CDT 2010 62592 root 25 0 11400 6572 2356 R 51.5 1.3 0:00.92 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:12:18 CDT 2010 62592 root 25 0 28768 23m 2356 R 57.4 4.6 0:06.75 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:12:28 CDT 2010 62592 root 25 0 36408 30m 2356 R 55.5 6.0 0:12.59 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:12:39 CDT 2010 62592 root 25 0 41396 35m 2356 R 53.5 7.0 0:18.35 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:12:49 CDT 2010 62592 root 25 0 45868 40m 2356 R 47.5 7.8 0:24.06 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:13:00 CDT 2010 62592 root 25 0 50056 44m 2356 R 55.3 8.6 0:29.84 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:13:10 CDT 2010 62592 root 25 0 53888 47m 2356 R 55.2 9.4 0:35.63 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:13:21 CDT 2010 62592 root 20 0 56920 50m 2356 R 55.3 9.9 0:41.15 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:13:31 CDT 2010 62592 root 25 0 60380 54m 2356 R 53.4 10.6 0:46.98 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim Sun Jun 6 18:13:42 CDT 2010 62592 root 22 0 63400 57m 2356 R 49.5 11.2 0:52.74 exim 62587 mailnull 18 0 7548 1212 792 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 exim 62588 root 18 0 7536 2052 1648 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.00 exim After some time, it gets to a rate of picking up an extra MB every 10s. I've checked the exim logs and there are no messages coming in there. exim -bV shows: Exim version 4.69 #1 built 16-Mar-2009 14:44:43 Copyright (c) University of Cambridge 2006 Berkeley DB: Sleepycat Software: Berkeley DB 4.2.52: (February 22, 2005) Support for: crypteq iconv() IPv6 PAM Perl OpenSSL Content_Scanning Old_Demime Experimental_SPF Experimental_SRS Experimental_DomainKeys Lookups: lsearch wildlsearch nwildlsearch iplsearch dbm dbmnz passwd Authenticators: cram_md5 dovecot plaintext spa Routers: accept dnslookup ipliteral manualroute queryprogram redirect Transports: appendfile/maildir autoreply pipe smtp Size of off_t: 8 Configuration file is /etc/exim.conf I'm at something of a loss as to how to proceed. Any recommendations would be well received!

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