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  • C#/.NET Little Wonders: ConcurrentBag and BlockingCollection

    - by James Michael Hare
    In the first week of concurrent collections, began with a general introduction and discussed the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T>.  The last post discussed the ConcurrentDictionary<T> .  Finally this week, we shall close with a discussion of the ConcurrentBag<T> and BlockingCollection<T>. For more of the "Little Wonders" posts, see C#/.NET Little Wonders: A Redux. Recap As you'll recall from the previous posts, the original collections were object-based containers that accomplished synchronization through a Synchronized member.  With the advent of .NET 2.0, the original collections were succeeded by the generic collections which are fully type-safe, but eschew automatic synchronization.  With .NET 4.0, a new breed of collections was born in the System.Collections.Concurrent namespace.  Of these, the final concurrent collection we will examine is the ConcurrentBag and a very useful wrapper class called the BlockingCollection. For some excellent information on the performance of the concurrent collections and how they perform compared to a traditional brute-force locking strategy, see this informative whitepaper by the Microsoft Parallel Computing Platform team here. ConcurrentBag<T> – Thread-safe unordered collection. Unlike the other concurrent collections, the ConcurrentBag<T> has no non-concurrent counterpart in the .NET collections libraries.  Items can be added and removed from a bag just like any other collection, but unlike the other collections, the items are not maintained in any order.  This makes the bag handy for those cases when all you care about is that the data be consumed eventually, without regard for order of consumption or even fairness – that is, it’s possible new items could be consumed before older items given the right circumstances for a period of time. So why would you ever want a container that can be unfair?  Well, to look at it another way, you can use a ConcurrentQueue and get the fairness, but it comes at a cost in that the ordering rules and synchronization required to maintain that ordering can affect scalability a bit.  Thus sometimes the bag is great when you want the fastest way to get the next item to process, and don’t care what item it is or how long its been waiting. The way that the ConcurrentBag works is to take advantage of the new ThreadLocal<T> type (new in System.Threading for .NET 4.0) so that each thread using the bag has a list local to just that thread.  This means that adding or removing to a thread-local list requires very low synchronization.  The problem comes in where a thread goes to consume an item but it’s local list is empty.  In this case the bag performs “work-stealing” where it will rob an item from another thread that has items in its list.  This requires a higher level of synchronization which adds a bit of overhead to the take operation. So, as you can imagine, this makes the ConcurrentBag good for situations where each thread both produces and consumes items from the bag, but it would be less-than-idea in situations where some threads are dedicated producers and the other threads are dedicated consumers because the work-stealing synchronization would outweigh the thread-local optimization for a thread taking its own items. Like the other concurrent collections, there are some curiosities to keep in mind: IsEmpty(), Count, ToArray(), and GetEnumerator() lock collection Each of these needs to take a snapshot of whole bag to determine if empty, thus they tend to be more expensive and cause Add() and Take() operations to block. ToArray() and GetEnumerator() are static snapshots Because it is based on a snapshot, will not show subsequent updates after snapshot. Add() is lightweight Since adding to the thread-local list, there is very little overhead on Add. TryTake() is lightweight if items in thread-local list As long as items are in the thread-local list, TryTake() is very lightweight, much more so than ConcurrentStack() and ConcurrentQueue(), however if the local thread list is empty, it must steal work from another thread, which is more expensive. Remember, a bag is not ideal for all situations, it is mainly ideal for situations where a process consumes an item and either decomposes it into more items to be processed, or handles the item partially and places it back to be processed again until some point when it will complete.  The main point is that the bag works best when each thread both takes and adds items. For example, we could create a totally contrived example where perhaps we want to see the largest power of a number before it crosses a certain threshold.  Yes, obviously we could easily do this with a log function, but bare with me while I use this contrived example for simplicity. So let’s say we have a work function that will take a Tuple out of a bag, this Tuple will contain two ints.  The first int is the original number, and the second int is the last multiple of that number.  So we could load our bag with the initial values (let’s say we want to know the last multiple of each of 2, 3, 5, and 7 under 100. 1: var bag = new ConcurrentBag<Tuple<int, int>> 2: { 3: Tuple.Create(2, 1), 4: Tuple.Create(3, 1), 5: Tuple.Create(5, 1), 6: Tuple.Create(7, 1) 7: }; Then we can create a method that given the bag, will take out an item, apply the multiplier again, 1: public static void FindHighestPowerUnder(ConcurrentBag<Tuple<int,int>> bag, int threshold) 2: { 3: Tuple<int,int> pair; 4:  5: // while there are items to take, this will prefer local first, then steal if no local 6: while (bag.TryTake(out pair)) 7: { 8: // look at next power 9: var result = Math.Pow(pair.Item1, pair.Item2 + 1); 10:  11: if (result < threshold) 12: { 13: // if smaller than threshold bump power by 1 14: bag.Add(Tuple.Create(pair.Item1, pair.Item2 + 1)); 15: } 16: else 17: { 18: // otherwise, we're done 19: Console.WriteLine("Highest power of {0} under {3} is {0}^{1} = {2}.", 20: pair.Item1, pair.Item2, Math.Pow(pair.Item1, pair.Item2), threshold); 21: } 22: } 23: } Now that we have this, we can load up this method as an Action into our Tasks and run it: 1: // create array of tasks, start all, wait for all 2: var tasks = new[] 3: { 4: new Task(() => FindHighestPowerUnder(bag, 100)), 5: new Task(() => FindHighestPowerUnder(bag, 100)), 6: }; 7:  8: Array.ForEach(tasks, t => t.Start()); 9:  10: Task.WaitAll(tasks); Totally contrived, I know, but keep in mind the main point!  When you have a thread or task that operates on an item, and then puts it back for further consumption – or decomposes an item into further sub-items to be processed – you should consider a ConcurrentBag as the thread-local lists will allow for quick processing.  However, if you need ordering or if your processes are dedicated producers or consumers, this collection is not ideal.  As with anything, you should performance test as your mileage will vary depending on your situation! BlockingCollection<T> – A producers & consumers pattern collection The BlockingCollection<T> can be treated like a collection in its own right, but in reality it adds a producers and consumers paradigm to any collection that implements the interface IProducerConsumerCollection<T>.  If you don’t specify one at the time of construction, it will use a ConcurrentQueue<T> as its underlying store. If you don’t want to use the ConcurrentQueue, the ConcurrentStack and ConcurrentBag also implement the interface (though ConcurrentDictionary does not).  In addition, you are of course free to create your own implementation of the interface. So, for those who don’t remember the producers and consumers classical computer-science problem, the gist of it is that you have one (or more) processes that are creating items (producers) and one (or more) processes that are consuming these items (consumers).  Now, the crux of the problem is that there is a bin (queue) where the produced items are placed, and typically that bin has a limited size.  Thus if a producer creates an item, but there is no space to store it, it must wait until an item is consumed.  Also if a consumer goes to consume an item and none exists, it must wait until an item is produced. The BlockingCollection makes it trivial to implement any standard producers/consumers process set by providing that “bin” where the items can be produced into and consumed from with the appropriate blocking operations.  In addition, you can specify whether the bin should have a limited size or can be (theoretically) unbounded, and you can specify timeouts on the blocking operations. As far as your choice of “bin”, for the most part the ConcurrentQueue is the right choice because it is fairly light and maximizes fairness by ordering items so that they are consumed in the same order they are produced.  You can use the concurrent bag or stack, of course, but your ordering would be random-ish in the case of the former and LIFO in the case of the latter. So let’s look at some of the methods of note in BlockingCollection: BoundedCapacity returns capacity of the “bin” If the bin is unbounded, the capacity is int.MaxValue. Count returns an internally-kept count of items This makes it O(1), but if you modify underlying collection directly (not recommended) it is unreliable. CompleteAdding() is used to cut off further adds. This sets IsAddingCompleted and begins to wind down consumers once empty. IsAddingCompleted is true when producers are “done”. Once you are done producing, should complete the add process to alert consumers. IsCompleted is true when producers are “done” and “bin” is empty. Once you mark the producers done, and all items removed, this will be true. Add() is a blocking add to collection. If bin is full, will wait till space frees up Take() is a blocking remove from collection. If bin is empty, will wait until item is produced or adding is completed. GetConsumingEnumerable() is used to iterate and consume items. Unlike the standard enumerator, this one consumes the items instead of iteration. TryAdd() attempts add but does not block completely If adding would block, returns false instead, can specify TimeSpan to wait before stopping. TryTake() attempts to take but does not block completely Like TryAdd(), if taking would block, returns false instead, can specify TimeSpan to wait. Note the use of CompleteAdding() to signal the BlockingCollection that nothing else should be added.  This means that any attempts to TryAdd() or Add() after marked completed will throw an InvalidOperationException.  In addition, once adding is complete you can still continue to TryTake() and Take() until the bin is empty, and then Take() will throw the InvalidOperationException and TryTake() will return false. So let’s create a simple program to try this out.  Let’s say that you have one process that will be producing items, but a slower consumer process that handles them.  This gives us a chance to peek inside what happens when the bin is bounded (by default, the bin is NOT bounded). 1: var bin = new BlockingCollection<int>(5); Now, we create a method to produce items: 1: public static void ProduceItems(BlockingCollection<int> bin, int numToProduce) 2: { 3: for (int i = 0; i < numToProduce; i++) 4: { 5: // try for 10 ms to add an item 6: while (!bin.TryAdd(i, TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(10))) 7: { 8: Console.WriteLine("Bin is full, retrying..."); 9: } 10: } 11:  12: // once done producing, call CompleteAdding() 13: Console.WriteLine("Adding is completed."); 14: bin.CompleteAdding(); 15: } And one to consume them: 1: public static void ConsumeItems(BlockingCollection<int> bin) 2: { 3: // This will only be true if CompleteAdding() was called AND the bin is empty. 4: while (!bin.IsCompleted) 5: { 6: int item; 7:  8: if (!bin.TryTake(out item, TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(10))) 9: { 10: Console.WriteLine("Bin is empty, retrying..."); 11: } 12: else 13: { 14: Console.WriteLine("Consuming item {0}.", item); 15: Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(20)); 16: } 17: } 18: } Then we can fire them off: 1: // create one producer and two consumers 2: var tasks = new[] 3: { 4: new Task(() => ProduceItems(bin, 20)), 5: new Task(() => ConsumeItems(bin)), 6: new Task(() => ConsumeItems(bin)), 7: }; 8:  9: Array.ForEach(tasks, t => t.Start()); 10:  11: Task.WaitAll(tasks); Notice that the producer is faster than the consumer, thus it should be hitting a full bin often and displaying the message after it times out on TryAdd(). 1: Consuming item 0. 2: Consuming item 1. 3: Bin is full, retrying... 4: Bin is full, retrying... 5: Consuming item 3. 6: Consuming item 2. 7: Bin is full, retrying... 8: Consuming item 4. 9: Consuming item 5. 10: Bin is full, retrying... 11: Consuming item 6. 12: Consuming item 7. 13: Bin is full, retrying... 14: Consuming item 8. 15: Consuming item 9. 16: Bin is full, retrying... 17: Consuming item 10. 18: Consuming item 11. 19: Bin is full, retrying... 20: Consuming item 12. 21: Consuming item 13. 22: Bin is full, retrying... 23: Bin is full, retrying... 24: Consuming item 14. 25: Adding is completed. 26: Consuming item 15. 27: Consuming item 16. 28: Consuming item 17. 29: Consuming item 19. 30: Consuming item 18. Also notice that once CompleteAdding() is called and the bin is empty, the IsCompleted property returns true, and the consumers will exit. Summary The ConcurrentBag is an interesting collection that can be used to optimize concurrency scenarios where tasks or threads both produce and consume items.  In this way, it will choose to consume its own work if available, and then steal if not.  However, in situations where you want fair consumption or ordering, or in situations where the producers and consumers are distinct processes, the bag is not optimal. The BlockingCollection is a great wrapper around all of the concurrent queue, stack, and bag that allows you to add producer and consumer semantics easily including waiting when the bin is full or empty. That’s the end of my dive into the concurrent collections.  I’d also strongly recommend, once again, you read this excellent Microsoft white paper that goes into much greater detail on the efficiencies you can gain using these collections judiciously (here). Tweet Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Concurrent Collections,Little Wonders

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  • 64-bit Archives Needed

    - by user9154181
    A little over a year ago, we received a question from someone who was trying to build software on Solaris. He was getting errors from the ar command when creating an archive. At that time, the ar command on Solaris was a 32-bit command. There was more than 2GB of data, and the ar command was hitting the file size limit for a 32-bit process that doesn't use the largefile APIs. Even in 2011, 2GB is a very large amount of code, so we had not heard this one before. Most of our toolchain was extended to handle 64-bit sized data back in the 1990's, but archives were not changed, presumably because there was no perceived need for it. Since then of course, programs have continued to get larger, and in 2010, the time had finally come to investigate the issue and find a way to provide for larger archives. As part of that process, I had to do a deep dive into the archive format, and also do some Unix archeology. I'm going to record what I learned here, to document what Solaris does, and in the hope that it might help someone else trying to solve the same problem for their platform. Archive Format Details Archives are hardly cutting edge technology. They are still used of course, but their basic form hasn't changed in decades. Other than to fix a bug, which is rare, we don't tend to touch that code much. The archive file format is described in /usr/include/ar.h, and I won't repeat the details here. Instead, here is a rough overview of the archive file format, implemented by System V Release 4 (SVR4) Unix systems such as Solaris: Every archive starts with a "magic number". This is a sequence of 8 characters: "!<arch>\n". The magic number is followed by 1 or more members. A member starts with a fixed header, defined by the ar_hdr structure in/usr/include/ar.h. Immediately following the header comes the data for the member. Members must be padded at the end with newline characters so that they have even length. The requirement to pad members to an even length is a dead giveaway as to the age of the archive format. It tells you that this format dates from the 1970's, and more specifically from the era of 16-bit systems such as the PDP-11 that Unix was originally developed on. A 32-bit system would have required 4 bytes, and 64-bit systems such as we use today would probably have required 8 bytes. 2 byte alignment is a poor choice for ELF object archive members. 32-bit objects require 4 byte alignment, and 64-bit objects require 64-bit alignment. The link-editor uses mmap() to process archives, and if the members have the wrong alignment, we have to slide (copy) them to the correct alignment before we can access the ELF data structures inside. The archive format requires 2 byte padding, but it doesn't prohibit more. The Solaris ar command takes advantage of this, and pads ELF object members to 8 byte boundaries. Anything else is padded to 2 as required by the format. The archive header (ar_hdr) represents all numeric values using an ASCII text representation rather than as binary integers. This means that an archive that contains only text members can be viewed using tools such as cat, more, or a text editor. The original designers of this format clearly thought that archives would be used for many file types, and not just for objects. Things didn't turn out that way of course — nearly all archives contain relocatable objects for a single operating system and machine, and are used primarily as input to the link-editor (ld). Archives can have special members that are created by the ar command rather than being supplied by the user. These special members are all distinguished by having a name that starts with the slash (/) character. This is an unambiguous marker that says that the user could not have supplied it. The reason for this is that regular archive members are given the plain name of the file that was inserted to create them, and any path components are stripped off. Slash is the delimiter character used by Unix to separate path components, and as such cannot occur within a plain file name. The ar command hides the special members from you when you list the contents of an archive, so most users don't know that they exist. There are only two possible special members: A symbol table that maps ELF symbols to the object archive member that provides it, and a string table used to hold member names that exceed 15 characters. The '/' convention for tagging special members provides room for adding more such members should the need arise. As I will discuss below, we took advantage of this fact to add an alternate 64-bit symbol table special member which is used in archives that are larger than 4GB. When an archive contains ELF object members, the ar command builds a special archive member known as the symbol table that maps all ELF symbols in the object to the archive member that provides it. The link-editor uses this symbol table to determine which symbols are provided by the objects in that archive. If an archive has a symbol table, it will always be the first member in the archive, immediately following the magic number. Unlike member headers, symbol tables do use binary integers to represent offsets. These integers are always stored in big-endian format, even on a little endian host such as x86. The archive header (ar_hdr) provides 15 characters for representing the member name. If any member has a name that is longer than this, then the real name is written into a special archive member called the string table, and the member's name field instead contains a slash (/) character followed by a decimal representation of the offset of the real name within the string table. The string table is required to precede all normal archive members, so it will be the second member if the archive contains a symbol table, and the first member otherwise. The archive format is not designed to make finding a given member easy. Such operations move through the archive from front to back examining each member in turn, and run in O(n) time. This would be bad if archives were commonly used in that manner, but in general, they are not. Typically, the ar command is used to build an new archive from scratch, inserting all the objects in one operation, and then the link-editor accesses the members in the archive in constant time by using the offsets provided by the symbol table. Both of these operations are reasonably efficient. However, listing the contents of a large archive with the ar command can be rather slow. Factors That Limit Solaris Archive Size As is often the case, there was more than one limiting factor preventing Solaris archives from growing beyond the 32-bit limits of 2GB (32-bit signed) and 4GB (32-bit unsigned). These limits are listed in the order they are hit as archive size grows, so the earlier ones mask those that follow. The original Solaris archive file format can handle sizes up to 4GB without issue. However, the ar command was delivered as a 32-bit executable that did not use the largefile APIs. As such, the ar command itself could not create a file larger than 2GB. One can solve this by building ar with the largefile APIs which would allow it to reach 4GB, but a simpler and better answer is to deliver a 64-bit ar, which has the ability to scale well past 4GB. Symbol table offsets are stored as 32-bit big-endian binary integers, which limits the maximum archive size to 4GB. To get around this limit requires a different symbol table format, or an extension mechanism to the current one, similar in nature to the way member names longer than 15 characters are handled in member headers. The size field in the archive member header (ar_hdr) is an ASCII string capable of representing a 32-bit unsigned value. This places a 4GB size limit on the size of any individual member in an archive. In considering format extensions to get past these limits, it is important to remember that very few archives will require the ability to scale past 4GB for many years. The old format, while no beauty, continues to be sufficient for its purpose. This argues for a backward compatible fix that allows newer versions of Solaris to produce archives that are compatible with older versions of the system unless the size of the archive exceeds 4GB. Archive Format Differences Among Unix Variants While considering how to extend Solaris archives to scale to 64-bits, I wanted to know how similar archives from other Unix systems are to those produced by Solaris, and whether they had already solved the 64-bit issue. I've successfully moved archives between different Unix systems before with good luck, so I knew that there was some commonality. If it turned out that there was already a viable defacto standard for 64-bit archives, it would obviously be better to adopt that rather than invent something new. The archive file format is not formally standardized. However, the ar command and archive format were part of the original Unix from Bell Labs. Other systems started with that format, extending it in various often incompatible ways, but usually with the same common shared core. Most of these systems use the same magic number to identify their archives, despite the fact that their archives are not always fully compatible with each other. It is often true that archives can be copied between different Unix variants, and if the member names are short enough, the ar command from one system can often read archives produced on another. In practice, it is rare to find an archive containing anything other than objects for a single operating system and machine type. Such an archive is only of use on the type of system that created it, and is only used on that system. This is probably why cross platform compatibility of archives between Unix variants has never been an issue. Otherwise, the use of the same magic number in archives with incompatible formats would be a problem. I was able to find information for a number of Unix variants, described below. These can be divided roughly into three tribes, SVR4 Unix, BSD Unix, and IBM AIX. Solaris is a SVR4 Unix, and its archives are completely compatible with those from the other members of that group (GNU/Linux, HP-UX, and SGI IRIX). AIX AIX is an exception to rule that Unix archive formats are all based on the original Bell labs Unix format. It appears that AIX supports 2 formats (small and big), both of which differ in fundamental ways from other Unix systems: These formats use a different magic number than the standard one used by Solaris and other Unix variants. They include support for removing archive members from a file without reallocating the file, marking dead areas as unused, and reusing them when new archive items are inserted. They have a special table of contents member (File Member Header) which lets you find out everything that's in the archive without having to actually traverse the entire file. Their symbol table members are quite similar to those from other systems though. Their member headers are doubly linked, containing offsets to both the previous and next members. Of the Unix systems described here, AIX has the only format I saw that will have reasonable insert/delete performance for really large archives. Everyone else has O(n) performance, and are going to be slow to use with large archives. BSD BSD has gone through 4 versions of archive format, which are described in their manpage. They use the same member header as SVR4, but their symbol table format is different, and their scheme for long member names puts the name directly after the member header rather than into a string table. GNU/Linux The GNU toolchain uses the SVR4 format, and is compatible with Solaris. HP-UX HP-UX seems to follow the SVR4 model, and is compatible with Solaris. IRIX IRIX has 32 and 64-bit archives. The 32-bit format is the standard SVR4 format, and is compatible with Solaris. The 64-bit format is the same, except that the symbol table uses 64-bit integers. IRIX assumes that an archive contains objects of a single ELFCLASS/MACHINE, and any archive containing ELFCLASS64 objects receives a 64-bit symbol table. Although they only use it for 64-bit objects, nothing in the archive format limits it to ELFCLASS64. It would be perfectly valid to produce a 64-bit symbol table in an archive containing 32-bit objects, text files, or anything else. Tru64 Unix (Digital/Compaq/HP) Tru64 Unix uses a format much like ours, but their symbol table is a hash table, making specific symbol lookup much faster. The Solaris link-editor uses archives by examining the entire symbol table looking for unsatisfied symbols for the link, and not by looking up individual symbols, so there would be no benefit to Solaris from such a hash table. The Tru64 ld must use a different approach in which the hash table pays off for them. Widening the existing SVR4 archive symbol tables rather than inventing something new is the simplest path forward. There is ample precedent for this approach in the ELF world. When ELF was extended to support 64-bit objects, the approach was largely to take the existing data structures, and define 64-bit versions of them. We called the old set ELF32, and the new set ELF64. My guess is that there was no need to widen the archive format at that time, but had there been, it seems obvious that this is how it would have been done. The Implementation of 64-bit Solaris Archives As mentioned earlier, there was no desire to improve the fundamental nature of archives. They have always had O(n) insert/delete behavior, and for the most part it hasn't mattered. AIX made efforts to improve this, but those efforts did not find widespread adoption. For the purposes of link-editing, which is essentially the only thing that archives are used for, the existing format is adequate, and issues of backward compatibility trump the desire to do something technically better. Widening the existing symbol table format to 64-bits is therefore the obvious way to proceed. For Solaris 11, I implemented that, and I also updated the ar command so that a 64-bit version is run by default. This eliminates the 2 most significant limits to archive size, leaving only the limit on an individual archive member. We only generate a 64-bit symbol table if the archive exceeds 4GB, or when the new -S option to the ar command is used. This maximizes backward compatibility, as an archive produced by Solaris 11 is highly likely to be less than 4GB in size, and will therefore employ the same format understood by older versions of the system. The main reason for the existence of the -S option is to allow us to test the 64-bit format without having to construct huge archives to do so. I don't believe it will find much use outside of that. Other than the new ability to create and use extremely large archives, this change is largely invisible to the end user. When reading an archive, the ar command will transparently accept either form of symbol table. Similarly, the ELF library (libelf) has been updated to understand either format. Users of libelf (such as the link-editor ld) do not need to be modified to use the new format, because these changes are encapsulated behind the existing functions provided by libelf. As mentioned above, this work did not lift the limit on the maximum size of an individual archive member. That limit remains fixed at 4GB for now. This is not because we think objects will never get that large, for the history of computing says otherwise. Rather, this is based on an estimation that single relocatable objects of that size will not appear for a decade or two. A lot can change in that time, and it is better not to overengineer things by writing code that will sit and rot for years without being used. It is not too soon however to have a plan for that eventuality. When the time comes when this limit needs to be lifted, I believe that there is a simple solution that is consistent with the existing format. The archive member header size field is an ASCII string, like the name, and as such, the overflow scheme used for long names can also be used to handle the size. The size string would be placed into the archive string table, and its offset in the string table would then be written into the archive header size field using the same format "/ddd" used for overflowed names.

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  • Testing Entity Framework applications, pt. 3: NDbUnit

    - by Thomas Weller
    This is the third of a three part series that deals with the issue of faking test data in the context of a legacy app that was built with Microsoft's Entity Framework (EF) on top of an MS SQL Server database – a scenario that can be found very often. Please read the first part for a description of the sample application, a discussion of some general aspects of unit testing in a database context, and of some more specific aspects of the here discussed EF/MSSQL combination. Lately, I wondered how you would ‘mock’ the data layer of a legacy application, when this data layer is made up of an MS Entity Framework (EF) model in combination with a MS SQL Server database. Originally, this question came up in the context of how you could enable higher-level integration tests (automated UI tests, to be exact) for a legacy application that uses this EF/MSSQL combo as its data store mechanism – a not so uncommon scenario. The question sparked my interest, and I decided to dive into it somewhat deeper. What I've found out is, in short, that it's not very easy and straightforward to do it – but it can be done. The two strategies that are best suited to fit the bill involve using either the (commercial) Typemock Isolator tool or the (free) NDbUnit framework. The use of Typemock was discussed in the previous post, this post now will present the NDbUnit approach... NDbUnit is an Apache 2.0-licensed open-source project, and like so many other Nxxx tools and frameworks, it is basically a C#/.NET port of the corresponding Java version (DbUnit namely). In short, it helps you in flexibly managing the state of a database in that it lets you easily perform basic operations (like e.g. Insert, Delete, Refresh, DeleteAll)  against your database and, most notably, lets you feed it with data from external xml files. Let's have a look at how things can be done with the help of this framework. Preparing the test data Compared to Typemock, using NDbUnit implies a totally different approach to meet our testing needs.  So the here described testing scenario requires an instance of an SQL Server database in operation, and it also means that the Entity Framework model that sits on top of this database is completely unaffected. First things first: For its interactions with the database, NDbUnit relies on a .NET Dataset xsd file. See Step 1 of their Quick Start Guide for a description of how to create one. With this prerequisite in place then, the test fixture's setup code could look something like this: [TestFixture, TestsOn(typeof(PersonRepository))] [Metadata("NDbUnit Quickstart URL",           "http://code.google.com/p/ndbunit/wiki/QuickStartGuide")] [Description("Uses the NDbUnit library to provide test data to a local database.")] public class PersonRepositoryFixture {     #region Constants     private const string XmlSchema = @"..\..\TestData\School.xsd";     #endregion // Constants     #region Fields     private SchoolEntities _schoolContext;     private PersonRepository _personRepository;     private INDbUnitTest _database;     #endregion // Fields     #region Setup/TearDown     [FixtureSetUp]     public void FixtureSetUp()     {         var connectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["School_Test"].ConnectionString;         _database = new SqlDbUnitTest(connectionString);         _database.ReadXmlSchema(XmlSchema);         var entityConnectionStringBuilder = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder         {             Metadata = "res://*/School.csdl|res://*/School.ssdl|res://*/School.msl",             Provider = "System.Data.SqlClient",             ProviderConnectionString = connectionString         };         _schoolContext = new SchoolEntities(entityConnectionStringBuilder.ConnectionString);         _personRepository = new PersonRepository(this._schoolContext);     }     [FixtureTearDown]     public void FixtureTearDown()     {         _database.PerformDbOperation(DbOperationFlag.DeleteAll);         _schoolContext.Dispose();     }     ...  As you can see, there is slightly more fixture setup code involved if your tests are using NDbUnit to provide the test data: Because we're dealing with a physical database instance here, we first need to pick up the test-specific connection string from the test assemblies' App.config, then initialize an NDbUnit helper object with this connection along with the provided xsd file, and also set up the SchoolEntities and the PersonRepository instances accordingly. The _database field (an instance of the INdUnitTest interface) will be our single access point to the underlying database: We use it to perform all the required operations against the data store. To have a flexible mechanism to easily insert data into the database, we can write a helper method like this: private void InsertTestData(params string[] dataFileNames) {     _database.PerformDbOperation(DbOperationFlag.DeleteAll);     if (dataFileNames == null)     {         return;     }     try     {         foreach (string fileName in dataFileNames)         {             if (!File.Exists(fileName))             {                 throw new FileNotFoundException(Path.GetFullPath(fileName));             }             _database.ReadXml(fileName);             _database.PerformDbOperation(DbOperationFlag.InsertIdentity);         }     }     catch     {         _database.PerformDbOperation(DbOperationFlag.DeleteAll);         throw;     } } This lets us easily insert test data from xml files, in any number and in a  controlled order (which is important because we eventually must fulfill referential constraints, or we must account for some other stuff that imposes a specific ordering on data insertion). Again, as with Typemock, I won't go into API details here. - Unfortunately, there isn't too much documentation for NDbUnit anyway, other than the already mentioned Quick Start Guide (and the source code itself, of course) - a not so uncommon problem with smaller Open Source Projects. Last not least, we need to provide the required test data in xml form. A snippet for data from the People table might look like this, for example: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <School xmlns="http://tempuri.org/School.xsd">   <Person>     <PersonID>1</PersonID>     <LastName>Abercrombie</LastName>     <FirstName>Kim</FirstName>     <HireDate>1995-03-11T00:00:00</HireDate>   </Person>   <Person>     <PersonID>2</PersonID>     <LastName>Barzdukas</LastName>     <FirstName>Gytis</FirstName>     <EnrollmentDate>2005-09-01T00:00:00</EnrollmentDate>   </Person>   <Person>     ... You can also have data from various tables in one single xml file, if that's appropriate for you (but beware of the already mentioned ordering issues). It's true that your test assembly may end up with dozens of such xml files, each containing quite a big amount of text data. But because the files are of very low complexity, and with the help of a little bit of Copy/Paste and Excel magic, this appears to be well manageable. Executing some basic tests Here are some of the possible tests that can be written with the above preparations in place: private const string People = @"..\..\TestData\School.People.xml"; ... [Test, MultipleAsserts, TestsOn("PersonRepository.GetNameList")] public void GetNameList_ListOrdering_ReturnsTheExpectedFullNames() {     InsertTestData(People);     List<string> names =         _personRepository.GetNameList(NameOrdering.List);     Assert.Count(34, names);     Assert.AreEqual("Abercrombie, Kim", names.First());     Assert.AreEqual("Zheng, Roger", names.Last()); } [Test, MultipleAsserts, TestsOn("PersonRepository.GetNameList")] [DependsOn("RemovePerson_CalledOnce_DecreasesCountByOne")] public void GetNameList_NormalOrdering_ReturnsTheExpectedFullNames() {     InsertTestData(People);     List<string> names =         _personRepository.GetNameList(NameOrdering.Normal);     Assert.Count(34, names);     Assert.AreEqual("Alexandra Walker", names.First());     Assert.AreEqual("Yan Li", names.Last()); } [Test, TestsOn("PersonRepository.AddPerson")] public void AddPerson_CalledOnce_IncreasesCountByOne() {     InsertTestData(People);     int count = _personRepository.Count;     _personRepository.AddPerson(new Person { FirstName = "Thomas", LastName = "Weller" });     Assert.AreEqual(count + 1, _personRepository.Count); } [Test, TestsOn("PersonRepository.RemovePerson")] public void RemovePerson_CalledOnce_DecreasesCountByOne() {     InsertTestData(People);     int count = _personRepository.Count;     _personRepository.RemovePerson(new Person { PersonID = 33 });     Assert.AreEqual(count - 1, _personRepository.Count); } Not much difference here compared to the corresponding Typemock versions, except that we had to do a bit more preparational work (and also it was harder to get the required knowledge). But this picture changes quite dramatically if we look at some more demanding test cases: Ok, and what if things are becoming somewhat more complex? Tests like the above ones represent the 'easy' scenarios. They may account for the biggest portion of real-world use cases of the application, and they are important to make sure that it is generally sound. But usually, all these nasty little bugs originate from the more complex parts of our code, or they occur when something goes wrong. So, for a testing strategy to be of real practical use, it is especially important to see how easy or difficult it is to mimick a scenario which represents a more complex or exceptional case. The following test, for example, deals with the case that there is some sort of invalid input from the caller: [Test, MultipleAsserts, TestsOn("PersonRepository.GetCourseMembers")] [Row(null, typeof(ArgumentNullException))] [Row("", typeof(ArgumentException))] [Row("NotExistingCourse", typeof(ArgumentException))] public void GetCourseMembers_WithGivenVariousInvalidValues_Throws(string courseTitle, Type expectedInnerExceptionType) {     var exception = Assert.Throws<RepositoryException>(() =>                                 _personRepository.GetCourseMembers(courseTitle));     Assert.IsInstanceOfType(expectedInnerExceptionType, exception.InnerException); } Apparently, this test doesn't need an 'Arrange' part at all (see here for the same test with the Typemock tool). It acts just like any other client code, and all the required business logic comes from the database itself. This doesn't always necessarily mean that there is less complexity, but only that the complexity happens in a different part of your test resources (in the xml files namely, where you sometimes have to spend a lot of effort for carefully preparing the required test data). Another example, which relies on an underlying 1-n relationship, might be this: [Test, MultipleAsserts, TestsOn("PersonRepository.GetCourseMembers")] public void GetCourseMembers_WhenGivenAnExistingCourse_ReturnsListOfStudents() {     InsertTestData(People, Course, Department, StudentGrade);     List<Person> persons = _personRepository.GetCourseMembers("Macroeconomics");     Assert.Count(4, persons);     Assert.ForAll(         persons,         @p => new[] { 10, 11, 12, 14 }.Contains(@p.PersonID),         "Person has none of the expected IDs."); } If you compare this test to its corresponding Typemock version, you immediately see that the test itself is much simpler, easier to read, and thus much more intention-revealing. The complexity here lies hidden behind the call to the InsertTestData() helper method and the content of the used xml files with the test data. And also note that you might have to provide additional data which are not even directly relevant to your test, but are required only to fulfill some integrity needs of the underlying database. Conclusion The first thing to notice when comparing the NDbUnit approach to its Typemock counterpart obviously deals with performance: Of course, NDbUnit is much slower than Typemock. Technically,  it doesn't even make sense to compare the two tools. But practically, it may well play a role and could or could not be an issue, depending on how much tests you have of this kind, how often you run them, and what role they play in your development cycle. Also, because the dataset from the required xsd file must fully match the database schema (even in parts that otherwise wouldn't be relevant to you), it can be quite cumbersome to be in a team where different people are working with the database in parallel. My personal experience is – as already said in the first part – that Typemock gives you a better development experience in a 'dynamic' scenario (when you're working in some kind of TDD-style, you're oftentimes executing the tests from your dev box, and your database schema changes frequently), whereas the NDbUnit approach is a good and solid solution in more 'static' development scenarios (when you need to execute the tests less frequently or only on a separate build server, and/or the underlying database schema can be kept relatively stable), for example some variations of higher-level integration or User-Acceptance tests. But in any case, opening Entity Framework based applications for testing requires a fair amount of resources, planning, and preparational work – it's definitely not the kind of stuff that you would call 'easy to test'. Hopefully, future versions of EF will take testing concerns into account. Otherwise, I don't see too much of a future for the framework in the long run, even though it's quite popular at the moment... The sample solution A sample solution (VS 2010) with the code from this article series is available via my Bitbucket account from here (Bitbucket is a hosting site for Mercurial repositories. The repositories may also be accessed with the Git and Subversion SCMs - consult the documentation for details. In addition, it is possible to download the solution simply as a zipped archive – via the 'get source' button on the very right.). The solution contains some more tests against the PersonRepository class, which are not shown here. Also, it contains database scripts to create and fill the School sample database. To compile and run, the solution expects the Gallio/MbUnit framework to be installed (which is free and can be downloaded from here), the NDbUnit framework (which is also free and can be downloaded from here), and the Typemock Isolator tool (a fully functional 30day-trial is available here). Moreover, you will need an instance of the Microsoft SQL Server DBMS, and you will have to adapt the connection strings in the test projects App.config files accordingly.

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  • Arduino - AdHoc Network Setup

    - by methodMan
    I`m currently working with an arduino trying to build an adhoc network to which a device can connect to and send web request to. The problem I am currently having is that I can only set up one connection and then when that connection is terminated (client.stop()) all subsequent connections are not picked up by the server, even a curl command just sits there spinning. The first connection I start when I reset the server works fine and I am able to talk to the server; but after that, the arduino can no longer find new clients (even though it's trying with the library given). I`m using the sparkfun library for the wifly shield cloned from github, along with an Arduino Uno. My current code is based off their default example 'WiFly_AdHoc_Example' but I had to remove a few things to get the network to start up which might be the cause of this problem. Here is the .ino file that I am running. #include <SPI.h> #include <WiFly.h> //#include <SoftwareSerial.h> //SoftwareSerial mySerial( 5, 4); //Part from example not used(see below) WiFlyServer server(80); void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); //The code below is from the example but when I run it the WiFly will hang // on Wifly.begin(). Without it the WiFly starts up fine but only works for // one request. //mySerial.begin(9600); //WiFly.setUart(&mySerial); // Tell the WiFly library that we are not //using the SPIUart Serial.println("**************Starting WiFly**************"); // Enable Adhoc mod WiFly.begin(true); Serial.println("WiFly started, creating network."); if (!WiFly.createAdHocNetwork("wifly")) { Serial.print("Failed to create ad hoc network."); while (1) { // Hang on failure. } } Serial.println("Network created"); Serial.print("IP: "); Serial.println(WiFly.ip()); Serial.println("Starting Server..."); server.begin(); Serial.print("Server started, waiting for client."); } void loop() { delay(200); WiFlyClient client = server.available(); if (client) { Serial.println("Client Found."); // a string to store received commands String current_command = ""; while (client.connected()) { if (client.available()) { //Gets a character from the sent request. char c = client.read(); if (c=='#' || c=='\n') //End of extraneous output { current_command = ""; } else if(c!= '\n') { current_command+=c; } if (current_command== "get") { // output the value of each analog input pin for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) { client.print("analog input "); client.print(i); client.print(" is "); client.print(analogRead(i)); client.println("<br />"); } } else if(current_command== "hello") { client.println("Hello there, I'm still here."); } else if (current_command== "quit") { client.println("Goodbye..."); client.stop(); current_command == ""; break; } else if (current_command == "*OPEN*") { current_command == ""; } } } // give the web browser time to receive the data delay(200); // close the connection client.stop(); } } If anyone understands this better then I (I`m new to arduino) please leave some helpful comments. Or just help me out on getting this little web server up and running so that I can hit it with more then one request. If there is any other helpful information I can provide please let me know. Thanks for reading and hope you can help. EDIT: Using telnet I can successfully connect (the first time) and send commands to the arduino including one to terminate the connection (calls the client.stop() method). But when I try to reconnect though telnet, it says the connection was successful but on the arduino it's still looping thinking the client is still false. WHAT??? I know right, I'm getting mixed messages from telnet vs arduino. None of the commands work obviously since the ardunio is still looping waiting for a client that evaluates to true. I'm gonna take a look at WiFlyServer from the library I imported and see if I can dig up the problem because somehow that server.available() method isn't finding new clients. Noticing a lot of TODO's in the library code.... EDIT: So I found the reason for the problem, it was in WiFlyServer.cpp file from the sparkfun library. The code that was causing the reconnect issue was infact in the server.availible() method. Right at the top of the method, there is a check: // TODO: Ensure no active non-server client connection. if (!WiFly.serverConnectionActive) { activeClient._port = 0; } For some reason when I comment this out, I can reconnect fine and everything works as it should. I will now dive into the library and see if I can fix this, I'm not exactly sure what this is doing but it gets called when the server connection is not active and is somehow blocking subsequent connections. Does anyone have any ideas how I might get to the root of this problem without using this commenting hack? Please help, no-one has commented or answered yet! Don't you want to join in on the fun???

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  • Down Tools Week Cometh: Kissing Goodbye to CVs/Resumes and Cover Letters

    - by Bart Read
    I haven't blogged about what I'm doing in my (not so new) temporary role as Red Gate's technical recruiter, mostly because it's been routine, business as usual stuff, and because I've been trying to understand the role by doing it. I think now though the time has come to get a little more radical, so I'm going to tell you why I want to largely eliminate CVs/resumes and cover letters from the application process for some of our technical roles, and why I think that might be a good thing for candidates (and for us). I have a terrible confession to make, or at least it's a terrible confession for a recruiter: I don't really like CV sifting, or reading cover letters, and, unless I've misread the mood around here, neither does anybody else. It's dull, it's time-consuming, and it's somewhat soul destroying because, when all is said and done, you're being paid to be incredibly judgemental about people based on relatively little information. I feel like I've dirtied myself by saying that - I mean, after all, it's a core part of my job - but it sucks, it really does. (And, of course, the truth is I'm still a software engineer at heart, and I'm always looking for ways to do things better.) On the flip side, I've never met anyone who likes writing their CV. It takes hours and hours of faffing around and massaging it into shape, and the whole process is beset by a gnawing anxiety, frustration, and insecurity. All you really want is a chance to demonstrate your skills - not just talk about them - and how do you do that in a CV or cover letter? Often the best candidates will include samples of their work (a portfolio, screenshots, links to websites, product downloads, etc.), but sometimes this isn't possible, or may not be appropriate, or you just don't think you're allowed because of what your school/university careers service has told you (more commonly an issue with grads, obviously). And what are we actually trying to find out about people with all of this? I think the common criteria are actually pretty basic: Smart Gets things done (thanks for these two Joel) Not an a55hole* (sorry, have to get around Simple Talk's swear filter - and thanks to Professor Robert I. Sutton for this one) *Of course, everyone has off days, and I don't honestly think we're too worried about somebody being a bit grumpy every now and again. We can do a bit better than this in the context of the roles I'm talking about: we can be more specific about what "gets things done" means, at least in part. For software engineers and interns, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Excellent coder For test engineers, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Good at finding problems in software Competent coder Team player, etc., to me, are covered by "not an a55hole". I don't expect people to be the life and soul of the party, or a wild extrovert - that's not what team player means, and it's not what "not an a55hole" means. Some of our best technical staff are quiet, introverted types, but they're still pleasant to work with. My problem is that I don't think the initial sift really helps us find out whether people are smart and get things done with any great efficacy. It's better than nothing, for sure, but it's not as good as it could be. It's also contentious, and potentially unfair/inequitable - if you want to get an idea of what I mean by this, check out the background information section at the bottom. Before I go any further, let's look at the Red Gate recruitment process for technical staff* as it stands now: (LOTS of) People apply for jobs. All these applications go through a brutal process of manual sifting, which eliminates between 75 and 90% of them, depending upon the role, and the time of year**. Depending upon the role, those who pass the sift will be sent an assessment or telescreened. For the purposes of this blog post I'm only interested in those that are sent some sort of programming assessment, or bug hunt. This means software engineers, test engineers, and software interns, which are the roles for which I receive the most applications. The telescreen tends to be reserved for project or product managers. Those that pass the assessment are invited in for first interview. This interview is mostly about assessing their technical skills***, although we're obviously on the look out for cultural fit red flags as well. If the first interview goes well we'll invite candidates back for a second interview. This is where team/cultural fit is really scoped out. We also use this interview to dive more deeply into certain areas of their skillset, and explore any concerns that may have come out of the first interview (these obviously won't have been serious or obvious enough to cause a rejection at that point, but are things we do need to look into before we'd consider making an offer). We might subsequently invite them in for lunch before we make them an offer. This tends to happen when we're recruiting somebody for a specific team and we'd like them to meet all the people they'll be working with directly. It's not an interview per se, but can prove pivotal if they don't gel with the team. Anyone who's made it this far will receive an offer from us. *We have a slightly quirky definition of "technical staff" as it relates to the technical recruiter role here. It includes software engineers, test engineers, software interns, user experience specialists, technical authors, project managers, product managers, and development managers, but does not include product support or information systems roles. **For example, the quality of graduate applicants overall noticeably drops as the academic year wears on, which is not to say that by now there aren't still stars in there, just that they're fewer and further between. ***Some organisations prefer to assess for team fit first, but I think assessing technical skills is a more effective initial filter - if they're the nicest person in the world, but can't cut a line of code they're not going to work out. Now, as I suggested in the title, Red Gate's Down Tools Week is upon us once again - next week in fact - and I had proposed as a project that we refactor and automate the first stage of marking our programming assessments. Marking assessments, and in fact organising the marking of them, is a somewhat time-consuming process, and we receive many assessment solutions that just don't make the cut, for whatever reason. Whilst I don't think it's possible to fully automate marking, I do think it ought to be possible to run a suite of automated tests over each candidate's solution to see whether or not it behaves correctly and, if it does, move on to a manual stage where we examine the code for structure, decomposition, style, readability, maintainability, etc. Obviously it's possible to use tools to generate potentially helpful metrics for some of these indices as well. This would obviously reduce the marking workload, and would provide candidates with quicker feedback about whether they've been successful - though I do wonder if waiting a tactful interval before sending a (nicely written) rejection might be wise. I duly scrawled out a picture of my ideal process, which looked like this: The problem is, as soon as I'd roughed it out, I realised that fundamentally it wasn't an ideal process at all, which explained the gnawing feeling of cognitive dissonance I'd been wrestling with all week, whilst I'd been trying to find time to do this. Here's what I mean. Automated assessment marking, and the associated infrastructure around that, makes it much easier for us to deal with large numbers of assessments. This means we can be much more permissive about who we send assessments out to or, in other words, we can give more candidates the opportunity to really demonstrate their skills to us. And this leads to a question: why not give everyone the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, to show that they're smart and can get things done? (Two or three of us even discussed this in the down tools week hustings earlier this week.) And isn't this a lot simpler than the alternative we'd been considering? (FYI, this was automated CV/cover letter sifting by some form of textual analysis to ideally eliminate the worst 50% or so of applications based on an analysis of the 20,000 or so historical applications we've received since 2007 - definitely not the basic keyword analysis beloved of recruitment agencies, since this would eliminate hardly anyone who was awful, but definitely would eliminate stellar Oxbridge candidates - #fail - or some nightmarishly complex Google-like system where we profile all our currently employees, only to realise that we're never going to get representative results because we don't have a statistically significant sample size in any given role - also #fail.) No, I think the new way is better. We let people self-select. We make them the masters (or mistresses) of their own destiny. We give applicants the power - we put their fate in their hands - by giving them the chance to demonstrate their skills, which is what they really want anyway, instead of requiring that they spend hours and hours creating a CV and cover letter that I'm going to evaluate for suitability, and make a value judgement about, in approximately 1 minute (give or take). It doesn't matter what university you attended, it doesn't matter if you had a bad year when you took your A-levels - here's your chance to shine, so take it and run with it. (As a side benefit, we cut the number of applications we have to sift by something like two thirds.) WIN! OK, yeah, sounds good, but will it actually work? That's an excellent question. My gut feeling is yes, and I'll justify why below (and hopefully have gone some way towards doing that above as well), but what I'm proposing here is really that we run an experiment for a period of time - probably a couple of months or so - and measure the outcomes we see: How many people apply? (Wouldn't be surprised or alarmed to see this cut by a factor of ten.) How many of them submit a good assessment? (More/less than at present?) How much overhead is there for us in dealing with these assessments compared to now? What are the success and failure rates at each interview stage compared to now? How many people are we hiring at the end of it compared to now? I think it'll work because I hypothesize that, amongst other things: It self-selects for people who really want to work at Red Gate which, at the moment, is something I have to try and assess based on their CV and cover letter - but if you're not that bothered about working here, why would you complete the assessment? Candidates who would submit a shoddy application probably won't feel motivated to do the assessment. Candidates who would demonstrate good attention to detail in their CV/cover letter will demonstrate good attention to detail in the assessment. In general, only the better candidates will complete and submit the assessment. Marking assessments is much less work so we'll be able to deal with any increase that we see (hopefully we will see). There are obviously other questions as well: Is plagiarism going to be a problem? Is there any way we can detect/discourage potential plagiarism? How do we assess candidates' education and experience? What about their ability to communicate in writing? Do we still want them to submit a CV afterwards if they pass assessment? Do we want to offer them the opportunity to tell us a bit about why they'd like the job when they submit their assessment? How does this affect our relationship with recruitment agencies we might use to hire for these roles? So, what's the objective for next week's Down Tools Week? Pretty simple really - we want to implement this process for the Graduate Software Engineer and Software Engineer positions that you can find on our website. I will be joined by a crack team of our best developers (Kevin Boyle, and new Red-Gater, Sam Blackburn), and recruiting hostess with the mostest Laura McQuillen, and hopefully a couple of others as well - if I can successfully twist more arms before Monday.* Hopefully by next Friday our experiment will be up and running, and we may have changed the way Red Gate recruits software engineers for good! Stay tuned and we'll let you know how it goes! *I'm going to play dirty by offering them beer and chocolate during meetings. Some background information: how agonising over the initial CV/cover letter sift helped lead us to bin it off entirely The other day I was agonising about the new university/good degree grade versus poor A-level results issue, and decided to canvas for other opinions to see if there was something I could do that was fairer than my current approach, which is almost always to reject. This generated quite an involved discussion on our Yammer site: I'm sure you can glean a pretty good impression of my own educational prejudices from that discussion as well, although I'm very open to changing my opinion - hopefully you've already figured that out from reading the rest of this post. Hopefully you can also trace a logical path from agonising about sifting to, "Uh, hang on, why on earth are we doing this anyway?!?" Technorati Tags: recruitment,hr,developers,testers,red gate,cv,resume,cover letter,assessment,sea change

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  • Complex sound handling (I.E. pitch change while looping)

    - by Matthew
    Hi everyone I've been meaning to learn Java for a while now (I usually keep myself in languages like C and Lua) but buying an android phone seems like an excellent time to start. now after going through the lovely set of tutorials and a while spent buried in source code I'm beginning to get the feel for it so what's my next step? well to dive in with a fully featured application with graphics, sound, sensor use, touch response and a full menu. hmm now there's a slight conundrum since i can continue to use cryptic references to my project or risk telling you what the application is but at the same time its going to make me look like a raving sci-fi nerd so bare with me for the brief... A semi-working sonic screwdriver (oh yes!) my grand idea was to make an animated screwdriver where sliding the controls up and down modulate the frequency and that frequency dictates the sensor data it returns. now I have a semi-working sound system but its pretty poor for what its designed to represent and I just wouldn't be happy producing a sub-par end product whether its my first or not. the problem : sound must begin looping when the user presses down on the control the sound must stop when the user releases the control when moving the control up or down the sound effect must change pitch accordingly if the user doesn't remove there finger before backing out of the application it must plate the casing of there device with gold (Easter egg ;P) now I'm aware of how monolithic the first 3 look and that's why I would really appreciate any help I can get. sorry for how bad this code looks but my general plan is to create the functional components then refine the code later, no good painting the walls if the roofs not finished. here's my user input, he set slide stuff is used in the graphics for the control @Override public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) { //motion event for the screwdriver view if(event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) { //make sure the users at least trying to touch the slider if (event.getY() > SonicSlideYTop && event.getY() < SonicSlideYBottom) { //power setup, im using 1.5 to help out the rate on soundpool since it likes 0.5 to 1.5 SonicPower = 1.5f - ((event.getY() - SonicSlideYTop) / SonicSlideLength); //just goes into a method which sets a private variable in my sound pool class thing mSonicAudio.setPower(1, SonicPower); //this handles the slides graphics setSlideY ( (int) event.getY() ); @Override public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) { //motion event for the screwdriver view if(event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN) { //make sure the users at least trying to touch the slider if (event.getY() > SonicSlideYTop && event.getY() < SonicSlideYBottom) { //power setup, im using 1.5 to help out the rate on soundpool since it likes 0.5 to 1.5 SonicPower = 1.5f - ((event.getY() - SonicSlideYTop) / SonicSlideLength); //just goes into a method which sets a private variable in my sound pool class thing mSonicAudio.setPower(1, SonicPower); //this handles the slides graphics setSlideY ( (int) event.getY() ); //this is from my latest attempt at loop pitch change, look for this in my soundPool class mSonicAudio.startLoopedSound(); } } if(event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE) { if (event.getY() > SonicSlideYTop && event.getY() < SonicSlideYBottom) { SonicPower = 1.5f - ((event.getY() - SonicSlideYTop) / SonicSlideLength); mSonicAudio.setPower(1, SonicPower); setSlideY ( (int) event.getY() ); } } if(event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP) { mSonicAudio.stopLoopedSound(); SonicPower = 1.5f - ((event.getY() - SonicSlideYTop) / SonicSlideLength); mSonicAudio.setPower(1, SonicPower); } return true; } and here's where those methods end up in my sound pool class its horribly messy but that's because I've been trying a ton of variants to get this to work, you will also notice that I begin to hard code the index, again I was trying to get the methods to work before making them work well. package com.mattster.sonicscrewdriver; import java.util.HashMap; import android.content.Context; import android.media.AudioManager; import android.media.SoundPool; public class SoundManager { private float mPowerLvl = 1f; private SoundPool mSoundPool; private HashMap mSoundPoolMap; private AudioManager mAudioManager; private Context mContext; private int streamVolume; private int LoopState; private long mLastTime; public SoundManager() { } public void initSounds(Context theContext) { mContext = theContext; mSoundPool = new SoundPool(2, AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, 0); mSoundPoolMap = new HashMap<Integer, Integer>(); mAudioManager = (AudioManager)mContext.getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE); streamVolume = mAudioManager.getStreamVolume(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC); } public void addSound(int index,int SoundID) { mSoundPoolMap.put(1, mSoundPool.load(mContext, SoundID, 1)); } public void playUpdate(int index) { if( LoopState == 1) { long now = System.currentTimeMillis(); if (now > mLastTime) { mSoundPool.play(mSoundPoolMap.get(1), streamVolume, streamVolume, 1, 0, mPowerLvl); mLastTime = System.currentTimeMillis() + 250; } } } public void stopLoopedSound() { LoopState = 0; mSoundPool.setVolume(mSoundPoolMap.get(1), 0, 0); mSoundPool.stop(mSoundPoolMap.get(1)); } public void startLoopedSound() { LoopState = 1; } public void setPower(int index, float mPower) { mPowerLvl = mPower; mSoundPool.setRate(mSoundPoolMap.get(1), mPowerLvl); } } ah ha! I almost forgot, that looks pretty ineffective but I omitted my thread which actuality updates it, nothing fancy it just calls : mSonicAudio.playUpdate(1); thanks in advance, Matthew

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  • Watching setTimeout loops so that only one is running at a time.

    - by DA
    I'm creating a content rotator in jQuery. 5 items total. Item 1 fades in, pauses 10 seconds, fades out, then item 2 fades in. Repeat. Simple enough. Using setTimeout I can call a set of functions that create a loop and will repeat the process indefinitely. I now want to add the ability to interrupt this rotator at any time by clicking on a navigation element to jump directly to one of the content items. I originally started going down the path of pinging a variable constantly (say every half second) that would check to see if a navigation element was clicked and, if so, abandon the loop, then restart the loop based on the item that was clicked. The challenge I ran into was how to actually ping a variable via a timer. The solution is to dive into JavaScript closures...which are a little over my head but definitely something I need to delve into more. However, in the process of that, I came up with an alternative option that actually seems to be better performance-wise (theoretically, at least). I have a sample running here: http://jsbin.com/uxupi/14 (It's using console.log so have fireBug running) Sample script: $(document).ready(function(){ var loopCount = 0; $('p#hello').click(function(){ loopCount++; doThatThing(loopCount); }) function doThatOtherThing(currentLoopCount) { console.log('doThatOtherThing-'+currentLoopCount); if(currentLoopCount==loopCount){ setTimeout(function(){doThatThing(currentLoopCount)},5000) } } function doThatThing(currentLoopCount) { console.log('doThatThing-'+currentLoopCount); if(currentLoopCount==loopCount){ setTimeout(function(){doThatOtherThing(currentLoopCount)},5000); } } }) The logic being that every click of the trigger element will kick off the loop passing into itself a variable equal to the current value of the global variable. That variable gets passed back and forth between the functions in the loop. Each click of the trigger also increments the global variable so that subsequent calls of the loop have a unique local variable. Then, within the loop, before the next step of each loop is called, it checks to see if the variable it has still matches the global variable. If not, it knows that a new loop has already been activated so it just ends the existing loop. Thoughts on this? Valid solution? Better options? Caveats? Dangers? UPDATE: I'm using John's suggestion below via the clearTimeout option. However, I can't quite get it to work. The logic is as such: var slideNumber = 0; var timeout = null; function startLoop(slideNumber) { ...do stuff here to set up the slide based on slideNumber... slideFadeIn() } function continueCheck(){ if (timeout != null) { // cancel the scheduled task. clearTimeout(timeout); timeout = null; return false; }else{ return true; } }; function slideFadeIn() { if (continueCheck){ // a new loop hasn't been called yet so proceed... // fade in the LI $currentListItem.fadeIn(fade, function() { if(multipleFeatures){ timeout = setTimeout(slideFadeOut,display); } }); }; function slideFadeOut() { if (continueLoop){ // a new loop hasn't been called yet so proceed... slideNumber=slideNumber+1; if(slideNumber==features.length) { slideNumber = 0; }; timeout = setTimeout(function(){startLoop(slideNumber)},100); }; startLoop(slideNumber); The above kicks of the looping. I then have navigation items that, when clicked, I want the above loop to stop, then restart with a new beginning slide: $(myNav).click(function(){ clearTimeout(timeout); timeout = null; startLoop(thisItem); }) If I comment out 'startLoop...' from the click event, it, indeed, stops the initial loop. However, if I leave that last line in, it doesn't actually stop the initial loop. Why? What happens is that both loops seem to run in parallel for a period. So, when I click my navigation, clearTimeout is called, which clears it.

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  • E-Business Suite Technology Sessions at OpenWorld 2012

    - by Max Arderius
    Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is almost here! We're looking forward to updating you on our products, strategy, and roadmaps. This year, the E-Business Suite Applications Technology Group (ATG) will participate in 25 speaker sessions, two Meet the Experts round-table discussions, five demoground booths and seven Special Interest Group meetings as guest speakers. We hope to see you at our sessions.  Please join us to hear the latest news and connect with senior ATG development staff. Here's a downloadable listing of all Applications Technology Group-related sessions with times and locations: FOCUS ON Oracle E-Business Suite - Applications Tools and Technology (PDF) General Sessions GEN8474 - Oracle E-Business Suite - Strategy, Update, and RoadmapCliff Godwin, SVP, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM - Moscone West 2002/2004 In this session, hear Oracle E-Business Suite General Manager Cliff Godwin deliver an update on the Oracle E-Business Suite product line. This session covers the value delivered by the current release of Oracle E-Business Suite, the momentum, and how Oracle E-Business Suite applications integrate into Oracle’s overall applications strategy. You’ll come away with an understanding of the value Oracle E-Business Suite applications deliver now and will deliver in the future. GEN9173 - Optimize and Extend Oracle Applications - The Path to Oracle Fusion ApplicationsNadia Bendjedou, Oracle; Corre Curtice, Bhavish Madurai (CSC) Tuesday, Oct 2, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3002/3004 One of the main objectives of this session is to help organizations build their IT roadmap for the next five years and be aligned with the Oracle Applications strategy in general and the Oracle Fusion Applications strategy in particular. Come hear about some of the common sense, practical steps you can take to optimize the performance of your Oracle Applications today and prepare your path to Oracle Fusion Applications for when your organization is ready to embrace them. Each step you take in adopting Oracle Fusion technology gets you partway to Oracle Fusion Applications. Conference Sessions CON9024 - Oracle E-Business Suite Technology: Latest Features and Roadmap Lisa Parekh, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session provides a comprehensive overview of Oracle’s product strategy for Oracle E-Business Suite technology, the capabilities and associated business benefits of recent releases, and a review of capabilities on the product roadmap. This is the cornerstone session for the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack. Come hear about the latest new usability enhancements of the user interface; systems administration and configuration management tools; security-related updates; and tools and options for extending, customizing, and integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with other applications. CON9021 - Oracle E-Business Suite Future Directions: Deployment and System AdministrationMax Arderius, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone West 2016  What’s coming in the next major version of Oracle E-Business Suite 12? This Oracle Development session covers the latest technology stack, including the use of Oracle WebLogic Server (Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g) and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2). Topics include an architectural overview of the latest updates, installation and upgrade options, new configuration options, and new tools for hot cloning and automated “lights-out” cloning. Come learn how online patching (based on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature) will reduce your database patching downtimes to however long it takes to bounce your database server. CON9017 - Desktop Integration in Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Padmaprabodh Ambale, Gustavo Jimenez, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 4:45 PM - 5:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 This presentation covers the latest functional enhancements in Oracle Web Applications Desktop Integrator and Oracle Report Manager, enhanced Microsoft Office support, and greater support for building custom desktop integration solutions. The session also presents tips and tricks for upgrading from Oracle Applications Desktop Integrator to Oracle Web Applications Desktop Integrator and Oracle Report Manager. CON9023 - Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Certification Primer and Roadmap Steven Chan, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2016  Is your Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack up to date? Are you taking advantage of all the latest options and capabilities? This Oracle development session summarizes the latest certifications and roadmap for the Oracle E-Business Suite technology stack, including elements such as database releases and options, Java, Oracle Forms, Oracle Containers for J2EE, desktop operating systems, browsers, JRE releases, development and Web authoring tools, user authentication and management, business intelligence, Oracle Application Management Packs, security options, clouds, Oracle VM, and virtualization. The session also covers the most commonly asked questions about tech stack component support dates and upgrade implications. CON9028 - Minimizing Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance DowntimesSantiago Bastidas, Elke Phelps, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session features a survey of the best techniques sysadmins can use to minimize patching downtimes. It starts with an architectural-level review of Oracle E-Business Suite fundamentals and then moves to a practical view of the various tools and approaches for downtimes. Topics include patching shortcuts, merging patches, distributing worker processes across multiple servers, running ADPatch in noninteractive mode, staged APPL_TOPs, shared file systems, deferring systemwide database tasks, avoiding resource bottlenecks, and more. An added bonus: hear about the upcoming Oracle E-Business Suite 12 online patching capabilities based on the groundbreaking Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature. CON9116 - Extending the Use of Oracle E-Business Suite with the Oracle Endeca PlatformOsama Elkady, Muhannad Obeidat, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2018 The Oracle Endeca platform includes a leading unstructured data correlation and analytics engine, together with a best-in class catalog search and guided navigation solution, to improve the productivity of all types of users in your enterprise. This development session focuses on the details behind the Oracle Endeca platform’s integration into Oracle E-Business Suite. It demonstrates how easily you can extend the use of the Oracle Endeca platform into other areas of Oracle E-Business Suite and how you can bring in your own data and build new Oracle Endeca applications for Oracle E-Business Suite. CON9005 - Oracle E-Business Suite Integration Best PracticesVeshaal Singh, Oracle, Jeffrey Hand, Zebra Technologies Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Oracle is investing across applications and technologies to make the application integration experience easier for customers. Today Oracle has certified Oracle E-Business Suite on Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and provides a comprehensive set of integration technologies. Learn about Oracle’s integration offering across data- and process-centric integrations. These technologies can be used to address various application integration challenges and styles. In this session, you will get an understanding of how, when, and where you can leverage Oracle’s integration technologies to connect end-to-end business processes across your enterprise, including your Oracle Applications portfolio.  CON9026 - Latest Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 User Interface and Usability EnhancementsPadmaprabodh Ambale, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session details the latest UI enhancements to Oracle Application Framework in Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. Developers will get a detailed look at new features to enhance usability, offer more capabilities for personalization and extensions, and support the development and use of dashboards and Web services. Topics include new rich UI capabilities such as new home page features, Navigator and Favorites pull-down menus, REST interface, embedded widgets for analytics content, Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) task flows, third-party widgets, a look-ahead list of values, inline attachments, pop-ups, personalization and extensibility enhancements, business layer extensions, Oracle ADF integration, and mobile devices. CON8805 - Planning Your Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade from 11i to Release 12.1 and BeyondAnne Carlson, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 3002/3004 Attend this session to hear the latest Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 upgrade planning tips from Oracle’s support, consulting, development, and IT organizations. You’ll get specific cross-product advice on how to understand the factors that affect your project’s duration, decide on your project’s scope, develop a robust testing strategy, leverage Oracle Support resources, and more. In a nutshell, this session tells you things you need to know before embarking upon your Release 12.1 upgrade project. CON9053 - Advanced Management of Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Enterprise ManagerAngelo Rosado, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 2016 The task of managing and monitoring Oracle E-Business Suite environments can be very challenging. Oracle Enterprise Manager is the only product on the market that is designed to monitor and manage all the different technologies that constitute Oracle E-Business Suite applications, including end user, midtier, configuration, host, and database management—to name just a few. Customers that have implemented Oracle Enterprise Manager have experienced dramatic improvements in system visibility and diagnostic capability as well as administrator productivity. The purpose of this session is to highlight the key features and benefits of Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite. CON8809 - Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Upgrade Best Practices: Technical InsightIsam Alyousfi, Udayan Parvate, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3011 This session is ideal for organizations thinking about upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1. It covers the fundamentals of upgrading to Release 12.1, including the technology stack components and supported upgrade paths. Hear from Oracle Development about the set of best practices for patching in general and executing the Release 12.1 technical upgrade, with special considerations for minimizing your downtime. Also get to know about relatively recent upgrade resources. CON9032 - Upgrading Your Customizations of Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1Sara Woodhull, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2016 Have you personalized Oracle Forms or Oracle Application Framework screens in Oracle E-Business Suite? Have you used mod_plsql in Release 11i? Have you extended or customized your Release 11i environment with other tools? The technical options for upgrading these customizations as part of your Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 upgrade can be bewildering. Come to this Oracle development session to learn about selecting the best upgrade approach for your existing customizations. The session will help you understand customization scenarios and use cases, tools, and technologies to ensure that your Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1 environment fits your users’ needs closely and that any future customizations will be easy to upgrade. CON9259 - Oracle E-Business Suite Internationalization and Multilingual FeaturesMaher Al-Nubani, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 2018 Oracle E-Business Suite supports more countries, languages, and regions than ever. Come to this Oracle development session to get an overview of internationalization features and capabilities and see new Release 12 features such as calendar support for Hijra and Thai, new group separators, lightweight multilingual support (MLS) setup, new character sets such as AL32UTF, newly supported languages, Mac certifications, Oracle iSetup support for moving MLS setups, new file export options for Unicode, new MLS number spelling options, and more. CON7188 - Mobile Apps for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle ADF Mobile and Oracle SOA SuiteSrikant Subramaniam, Joe Huang, Veshaal Singh, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM - Moscone West 3001 Follow your mobile customers, employees, and partners with Oracle Fusion Middleware. See how native iPhone and iPad applications can easily be built for Oracle E-Business Suite with the new Oracle ADF Mobile and Oracle SOA Suite. Using Oracle ADF Mobile, developers can quickly develop native applications for Apple iOS and other mobile platforms. The Oracle SOA Suite/Oracle ADF Mobile combination can execute business transactions on Oracle E-Business Suite. This session includes a demo in which a mobile user approves a business transaction in Oracle E-Business Suite and a demo of the tools used to build a native on-device solution. These concepts for mobile applications also apply to other Oracle applications.CON9029 - Oracle E-Business Suite Directions: Slashing Downtimes with Online PatchingKevin Hudson, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 Oracle E-Business Suite will soon include online patching (based on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Edition-Based Redefinition feature), which will reduce your database patching downtimes to however long it takes to bounce your database server. This Oracle development session details how online patching works, with special attention to what’s happening at a database object level when database patches are applied to an Oracle E-Business Suite environment that’s still running. Come learn about the operational and system management implications for minimizing maintenance downtimes when applying database patches with this new technology and the related impact on customizations you might have built on top of Oracle E-Business Suite. CON8806 - Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1: Technical and Functional PanelAndrew Katz, Komori America Corporation; Sandra Vucinic, VLAD Group, Inc. ;Srini Chavali, Cummins Inc.; Amrita Mehrok, Nadia Bendjedou, Anne Carlson Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 In this panel discussion, Oracle experts, customers, and partners share their experiences in upgrading to the latest release of Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12.1. The panelists cover aspects of a typical Release 12 upgrade, technical (upgrading the technical infrastructure) as well as functional (upgrading to the new financial infrastructure). Hear directly from the experts who either develop the product or support, implement, or upgrade it, and find out how to apply their lessons learned to your organization. CON9027 - Personalize and Extend Oracle E-Business Suite Applications with Rich MashupsGustavo Jimenez, Padmaprabodh Ambale, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session covers the use of several Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies to personalize and extend your existing Oracle E-Business Suite applications. The Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies covered include Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF), Oracle WebCenter, Oracle Endeca applications, and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition with Oracle E-Business Suite Oracle Application Framework applications. CON9036 - Advanced Oracle E-Business Suite Architectures: Maximum Availability, Security, and MoreElke Phelps, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session includes architecture diagrams and configuration instructions for building a maximum availability architecture (MAA) that will help you design a disaster recovery solution that fits the needs of your business. Database and application high-availability features it describes include Oracle Data Guard, Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC), Oracle Active Data Guard, load-balancing Web and forms services, parallel concurrent processing, and the use of Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata to provide a highly available environment. The session also covers the latest updates to systems management tools, AutoConfig, cloud computing, virtualization, and Oracle WebLogic Server and provides sneak previews of upcoming functionality. CON9047 - Efficiently Scaling Oracle E-Business Suite on Oracle Exadata and Oracle ExalogicIsam Alyousfi, Nishit Rao, Oracle Wednesday, Oct 3, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West 2016 Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic are designed from the ground up with optimizations in software and hardware to deliver superfast performance for mission-critical applications such as Oracle E-Business Suite. Oracle E-Business Suite applications run three to eight times as fast on the Oracle Exadata/Oracle Exalogic platform in standard benchmark tests. Besides performance, customers benefit from simplified support, enhanced manageability, and the ability to consolidate multiple Oracle E-Business Suite instances. Attend this session to understand best practices for Oracle E-Business Suite deployment on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata through customer case studies. Learn how adopting the Exa* platform increases efficiency, simplifies scaling, and boosts performance for peak loads. CON8716 - Web Services and SOA Integration Options for Oracle E-Business SuiteRekha Ayothi, Veshaal Singh, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This Oracle development session provides a deep dive into a subset of the Web services and SOA-related integration options available to Oracle E-Business Suite systems integrators. It offers a technical look at Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle Application Adapters for Data Integration for Oracle E-Business Suite, and other Web services options for integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with other applications. Systems integrators and developers will get an overview of the latest integration capabilities and technologies available out of the box with Oracle E-Business Suite and possibly a sneak preview of upcoming functionality and features. CON9030 - Recommendations for Oracle E-Business Suite Performance TuningIsam Alyousfi, Samer Barakat, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Need to squeeze more performance out of your existing servers? This packed Oracle development session summarizes practical tips and lessons learned from performance-tuning and benchmarking the world’s largest Oracle E-Business Suite environments. Apps sysadmins will learn concrete tips and techniques for identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks on all layers, with special attention to application- and database-tier servers. Learn about tuning Oracle Forms, Oracle Concurrent Manager, Apache, and Oracle Discoverer. Track down memory leaks and other issues at the Java and JVM layers. The session also covers Oracle E-Business Suite product-level tuning, including Oracle Workflow, Oracle Order Management, Oracle Payroll, and other modules. CON3429 - Using Oracle ADF with Oracle E-Business Suite: The Full Integration ViewSiva Puthurkattil, Lake County; Juan Camilo Ruiz, Sara Woodhull, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM - Moscone West 3003 Oracle E-Business Suite delivers functionality for handling the core business of your organization. However, user requirements and new technologies are driving an emerging need to implement new types of user interfaces for these applications. This session provides an overview of how to use Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) to deliver cutting-edge Web 2.0 and mobile rich user interfaces that front existing Oracle E-Business Suite processes, and it also explores all the existing types of integration between the two worlds. CON9020 - Integrating Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle Identity Management SolutionsSunil Ghosh, Elke Phelps, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 12:45 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 2016 Need to integrate Oracle E-Business Suite with Microsoft Windows Kerberos, Active Directory, CA Netegrity SiteMinder, or other third-party authentication systems? Want to understand your options when Oracle Premier Support for Oracle Single Sign-On ends in December 2011? This Oracle Development session covers the latest certified integrations with Oracle Access Manager 11g and Oracle Internet Directory 11g, which can be used individually or as bridges for integrating with third-party authentication solutions. The session presents an architectural overview of how Oracle Access Manager, its WebGate and AccessGate components, and Oracle Internet Directory work together, with implications for Oracle Discoverer, Oracle Portal, and other Oracle Fusion identity management products. CON9019 - Troubleshooting, Diagnosing, and Optimizing Oracle E-Business Suite TechnologyGustavo Jimenez, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 2016 This session covers how you can proactively diagnose Oracle E-Business Suite applications, including extensions built with Oracle Fusion Middleware technologies such as Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) and Oracle WebCenter to catch potential issues in the middle tier before they become more serious. Topics include debugging, logging infrastructure, warning signs, performance tuning, information required when logging service requests, general JVM optimization, and an overall picture of all the moving parts that make it possible for Oracle E-Business Suite to isolate and fix problems. Also learn how Oracle Diagnostics Framework will help prevent downtime caused by failures. CON9031 - The Top 10 Things You Can Do to Secure Your Oracle E-Business Suite InstanceEric Bing, Erik Graversen, Oracle Thursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 2018 Learn the top 10 things you can do to secure your applications and your sensitive data. This Oracle development session for system administrators and security professionals explores some of the most important and overlooked things you can do to secure your Oracle E-Business Suite instance. It also covers data masking and other mechanisms for protecting sensitive data. Special Interest Groups (SIG) Some of our most senior staff have been invited to participate on the following SIG meetings as guest speakers: SIG10525 - OAUG - Archive & Purge SIGBrian Bent - Pre-Sales Engineer, TierData, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3011 The Archive and Purge SIG is an organization in which users can share their experiences and solicit functional and technical advice on archiving and purging data in Oracle E-Business Suite. This session provides an opportunity for users to network and share best practices, tips, and tricks. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Database Performance, Archive & Purging - Q&A SessionIsam Alyousfi, Senior Director, Applications Performance, Oracle SIG10547 - OAUG - Oracle E-Business (EBS) Applications Technology SIGSrini Chavali - IT Director, Cummins Inc Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3018 The general purpose of the EBS Applications Technology SIG is to inform and educate its members about current and future components of the tech stack as they relate to Oracle E-Business Suite. Attend this meeting for networking and education and to share best practices. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Technology Certification Roadmap - Presentation and Q&ASteven Chan, Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10559 - OAUG - User Management SIGSusan Behn - VP of Oracle Delivery, Infosemantics, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Moscone West 3024 The E-Business Suite User Management SIG focuses on the components of user management that enable Oracle E-Business Suite users to define administrative functions and manage users’ access to functions and data based on roles within an organization—rather than the user’s individual identity—which is referred to as role-based access control (RBAC). This meeting includes an introduction to Oracle User Management that covers the Oracle User Management building blocks and presents an example of creating a security policy.Guest: Security and User Management - Q&A SessionEric Bing, Sr. Director, EBS Security, OracleSara Woodhull, Principal Product Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10515 - OAUG – Upgrade SIGBarbara Matthews - Consultant, On Call DBASandra Vucinic, VLAD Group, Inc. Sunday, Sep 30, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM - Moscone West 3009 This Upgrade SIG session starts with a business meeting and then features a Q&A panel discussion on Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade topics. The session• Reviews Upgrade SIG goals and objectives• Provides answers, during the Q&A session, to questions related to Oracle E-Business Suite upgrades• Shares “real world” experiences, tips, and techniques for Oracle E-Business Suite upgrades to Release 12.1. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade - Q&A SessionAnne Carlson - Sr. Director, Oracle E-Business Suite Product Strategy, OracleUdayan Parvate - Director, EBS Release Engineering, OracleSuzana Ferrari, Sr. Principal Consultant, OracleIsam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle SIG10552 - OAUG - Oracle E-Business Suite SIGDonna Rosentrater - Manager, Global Sourcing & Procurement Systems, TJX Sunday, Sep 30, 12:15 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 3020 The E-Business Suite SIG, affiliated with OAUG, supports Oracle E-Business Suite users through networking, education, and sharing of best practices. This SIG meeting will feature a general discussion of Oracle E-Business Suite product strategies in Release 12 and migration to Oracle Fusion Applications. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite - Q&A SessionJeanne Lowell, Vice President, EBS Product Strategy, OracleNadia Bendjedou, Sr. Director, Product Strategy, Oracle SIG10556 - OAUG - SysAdmin SIGRandy Giefer - Sr Systems and Security Architect, Solution Beacon, LLC Sunday, Sep 30, 12:15 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West 3022 The SysAdmin SIG provides a forum in which OAUG members and participants can share updates, tips, and successful practices relating to system administration in an Oracle applications environment. The SysAdmin SIG strives to enable system administrators to become more effective and efficient in their jobs by providing them with access to people and information that can increase their system administration knowledge and experience. Attend this meeting to network, share best practices, and benefit from educational content. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2 Online Patching- Presentation and Q&AKevin Hudson, Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle SIG10553 - OAUG - Database SIGMichael Brown - Senior DBA, COLIBRI LTD LC Sunday, Sep 30, 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West 3020 The OAUG Database SIG provides an opportunity for applications database administrators to learn from and share their experiences with supporting the various Oracle applications environments. This session will include a brief business meeting followed by a short presentation. It will end with an open discussion among the attendees about items of interest to those present. Guest: Oracle E-Business Suite Database Performance - Presentation and Q&AIsam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle Meet the Experts We're planning two round-table discussions where you can review your questions with senior E-Business Suite ATG staff: MTE9648 - Meet the Experts for Oracle E-Business Suite: Planning Your Upgrade Jeanne Lowell - VP, EBS Product Strategy, Oracle John Abraham - Sr. Principal Product Manager, Oracle Nadia Bendjedou - Sr. Director - Product Strategy, Oracle Anne Carlson - Sr. Director, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Udayan Parvate - Director, EBS Release Engineering, Oracle Isam Alyousfi, Sr. Director, Applications Performance, Oracle Monday, Oct 1, 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone West 2001A Don’t miss this Oracle Applications Meet the Experts session with experts who specialize in Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade best practices. This is the place where attendees can have informal and semistructured but open one-on-one discussions with Strategy and Development regarding Oracle Applications strategy and your specific business and IT strategy. The experts will be available to discuss the value of the latest releases and share insights into the best path for your enterprise, so come ready with your questions. Space is limited, so make sure you register. MTE9649 - Meet the Oracle E-Business Suite Tools and Technology Experts Lisa Parekh - Vice President, Technology Integration, Oracle Steven Chan - Sr. Director, Oracle Elke Phelps - Sr. Principal Product Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Max Arderius - Manager, Applications Technology Group, Oracle Tuesday, Oct 2, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Moscone West 2001A Don’t miss this Oracle Applications Meet the Experts session with experts who specialize in Oracle E-Business Suite technology. This is the place where attendees can have informal and semistructured but open one-on-one discussions with Strategy and Development regarding Oracle Applications strategy and your specific business and IT strategy. The experts will be available to discuss the value of the latest releases and share insights into the best path for your enterprise, so come ready with your questions. Space is limited, so make sure you register. Demos We have five booths in the exhibition demogrounds this year, where you can try ATG technologies firsthand and get your questions answered. Please stop by and meet our staff at the following locations: Advanced Architecture and Technology Stack for Oracle E-Business Suite (W-067) New User Productivity Capabilities in Oracle E-Business Suite (W-065) End-to-End Management of Oracle E-Business Suite (W-063) Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1 Technical Upgrade Best Practices (W-066) SOA-Based Integration for Oracle E-Business Suite (W-064)

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  • ANTS CLR and Memory Profiler In Depth Review (Part 1 of 2 &ndash; CLR Profiler)

    - by ToStringTheory
    One of the things that people might not know about me, is my obsession to make my code as efficient as possible.  Many people might not realize how much of a task or undertaking that this might be, but it is surely a task as monumental as climbing Mount Everest, except this time it is a challenge for the mind…  In trying to make code efficient, there are many different factors that play a part – size of project or solution, tiers, language used, experience and training of the programmer, technologies used, maintainability of the code – the list can go on for quite some time. I spend quite a bit of time when developing trying to determine what is the best way to implement a feature to accomplish the efficiency that I look to achieve.  One program that I have recently come to learn about – Red Gate ANTS Performance (CLR) and Memory profiler gives me tools to accomplish that job more efficiently as well.  In this review, I am going to cover some of the features of the ANTS profiler set by compiling some hideous example code to test against. Notice As a member of the Geeks With Blogs Influencers program, one of the perks is the ability to review products, in exchange for a free license to the program.  I have not let this affect my opinions of the product in any way, and Red Gate nor Geeks With Blogs has tried to influence my opinion regarding this product in any way. Introduction The ANTS Profiler pack provided by Red Gate was something that I had not heard of before receiving an email regarding an offer to review it for a license.  Since I look to make my code efficient, it was a no brainer for me to try it out!  One thing that I have to say took me by surprise is that upon downloading the program and installing it you fill out a form for your usual contact information.  Sure enough within 2 hours, I received an email from a sales representative at Red Gate asking if she could help me to achieve the most out of my trial time so it wouldn’t go to waste.  After replying to her and explaining that I was looking to review its feature set, she put me in contact with someone that setup a demo session to give me a quick rundown of its features via an online meeting.  After having dealt with a massive ordeal with one of my utility companies and their complete lack of customer service, Red Gates friendly and helpful representatives were a breath of fresh air, and something I was thankful for. ANTS CLR Profiler The ANTS CLR profiler is the thing I want to focus on the most in this post, so I am going to dive right in now. Install was simple and took no time at all.  It installed both the profiler for the CLR and Memory, but also visual studio extensions to facilitate the usage of the profilers (click any images for full size images): The Visual Studio menu options (under ANTS menu) Starting the CLR Performance Profiler from the start menu yields this window If you follow the instructions after launching the program from the start menu (Click File > New Profiling Session to start a new project), you are given a dialog with plenty of options for profiling: The New Session dialog.  Lots of options.  One thing I noticed is that the buttons in the lower right were half-covered by the panel of the application.  If I had to guess, I would imagine that this is caused by my DPI settings being set to 125%.  This is a problem I have seen in other applications as well that don’t scale well to different dpi scales. The profiler options give you the ability to profile: .NET Executable ASP.NET web application (hosted in IIS) ASP.NET web application (hosted in IIS express) ASP.NET web application (hosted in Cassini Web Development Server) SharePoint web application (hosted in IIS) Silverlight 4+ application Windows Service COM+ server XBAP (local XAML browser application) Attach to an already running .NET 4 process Choosing each option provides a varying set of other variables/options that one can set including options such as application arguments, operating path, record I/O performance performance counters to record (43 counters in all!), etc…  All in all, they give you the ability to profile many different .Net project types, and make it simple to do so.  In most cases of my using this application, I would be using the built in Visual Studio extensions, as they automatically start a new profiling project in ANTS with the options setup, and start your program, however RedGate has made it easy enough to profile outside of Visual Studio as well. On the flip side of this, as someone who lives most of their work life in Visual Studio, one thing I do wish is that instead of opening an entirely separate application/gui to perform profiling after launching, that instead they would provide a Visual Studio panel with the information, and integrate more of the profiling project information into Visual Studio.  So, now that we have an idea of what options that the profiler gives us, its time to test its abilities and features. Horrendous Example Code – Prime Number Generator One of my interests besides development, is Physics and Math – what I went to college for.  I have especially always been interested in prime numbers, as they are something of a mystery…  So, I decided that I would go ahead and to test the abilities of the profiler, I would write a small program, website, and library to generate prime numbers in the quantity that you ask for.  I am going to start off with some terrible code, and show how I would see the profiler being used as a development tool. First off, the IPrimes interface (all code is downloadable at the end of the post): interface IPrimes { IEnumerable<int> GetPrimes(int retrieve); } Simple enough, right?  Anything that implements the interface will (hopefully) provide an IEnumerable of int, with the quantity specified in the parameter argument.  Next, I am going to implement this interface in the most basic way: public class DumbPrimes : IPrimes { public IEnumerable<int> GetPrimes(int retrieve) { //store a list of primes already found var _foundPrimes = new List<int>() { 2, 3 }; //if i ask for 1 or two primes, return what asked for if (retrieve <= _foundPrimes.Count()) return _foundPrimes.Take(retrieve); //the next number to look at int _analyzing = 4; //since I already determined I don't have enough //execute at least once, and until quantity is sufficed do { //assume prime until otherwise determined bool isPrime = true; //start dividing at 2 //divide until number is reached, or determined not prime for (int i = 2; i < _analyzing && isPrime; i++) { //if (i) goes into _analyzing without a remainder, //_analyzing is NOT prime if (_analyzing % i == 0) isPrime = false; } //if it is prime, add to found list if (isPrime) _foundPrimes.Add(_analyzing); //increment number to analyze next _analyzing++; } while (_foundPrimes.Count() < retrieve); return _foundPrimes; } } This is the simplest way to get primes in my opinion.  Checking each number by the straight definition of a prime – is it divisible by anything besides 1 and itself. I have included this code in a base class library for my solution, as I am going to use it to demonstrate a couple of features of ANTS.  This class library is consumed by a simple non-MVVM WPF application, and a simple MVC4 website.  I will not post the WPF code here inline, as it is simply an ObservableCollection<int>, a label, two textbox’s, and a button. Starting a new Profiling Session So, in Visual Studio, I have just completed my first stint developing the GUI and DumbPrimes IPrimes class, so now I want to check my codes efficiency by profiling it.  All I have to do is build the solution (surprised initiating a profiling session doesn’t do this, but I suppose I can understand it), and then click the ANTS menu, followed by Profile Performance.  I am then greeted by the profiler starting up and already monitoring my program live: You are provided with a realtime graph at the top, and a pane at the bottom giving you information on how to proceed.  I am going to start by asking my program to show me the first 15000 primes: After the program finally began responding again (I did all the work on the main UI thread – how bad!), I stopped the profiler, which did kill the process of my program too.  One important thing to note, is that the profiler by default wants to give you a lot of detail about the operation – line hit counts, time per line, percent time per line, etc…  The important thing to remember is that this itself takes a lot of time.  When running my program without the profiler attached, it can generate the 15000 primes in 5.18 seconds, compared to 74.5 seconds – almost a 1500 percent increase.  While this may seem like a lot, remember that there is a trade off.  It may be WAY more inefficient, however, I am able to drill down and make improvements to specific problem areas, and then decrease execution time all around. Analyzing the Profiling Session After clicking ‘Stop Profiling’, the process running my application stopped, and the entire execution time was automatically selected by ANTS, and the results shown below: Now there are a number of interesting things going on here, I am going to cover each in a section of its own: Real Time Performance Counter Bar (top of screen) At the top of the screen, is the real time performance bar.  As your application is running, this will constantly update with the currently selected performance counters status.  A couple of cool things to note are the fact that you can drag a selection around specific time periods to drill down the detail views in the lower 2 panels to information pertaining to only that period. After selecting a time period, you can bookmark a section and name it, so that it is easy to find later, or after reloaded at a later time.  You can also zoom in, out, or fit the graph to the space provided – useful for drilling down. It may be hard to see, but at the top of the processor time graph below the time ticks, but above the red usage graph, there is a green bar. This bar shows at what times a method that is selected in the ‘Call tree’ panel is called. Very cool to be able to click on a method and see at what times it made an impact. As I said before, ANTS provides 43 different performance counters you can hook into.  Click the arrow next to the Performance tab at the top will allow you to change between different counters if you have them selected: Method Call Tree, ADO.Net Database Calls, File IO – Detail Panel Red Gate really hit the mark here I think. When you select a section of the run with the graph, the call tree populates to fill a hierarchical tree of method calls, with information regarding each of the methods.   By default, methods are hidden where the source is not provided (framework type code), however, Red Gate has integrated Reflector into ANTS, so even if you don’t have source for something, you can select a method and get the source if you want.  Methods are also hidden where the impact is seen as insignificant – methods that are only executed for 1% of the time of the overall calling methods time; in other words, working on making them better is not where your efforts should be focused. – Smart! Source Panel – Detail Panel The source panel is where you can see line level information on your code, showing the code for the currently selected method from the Method Call Tree.  If the code is not available, Reflector takes care of it and shows the code anyways! As you can notice, there does seem to be a problem with how ANTS determines what line is the actual line that a call is completed on.  I have suspicions that this may be due to some of the inline code optimizations that the CLR applies upon compilation of the assembly.  In a method with comments, the problem is much more severe: As you can see here, apparently the most offending code in my base library was a comment – *gasp*!  Removing the comments does help quite a bit, however I hope that Red Gate works on their counter algorithm soon to improve the logic on positioning for statistics: I did a small test just to demonstrate the lines are correct without comments. For me, it isn’t a deal breaker, as I can usually determine the correct placements by looking at the application code in the region and determining what makes sense, but it is something that would probably build up some irritation with time. Feature – Suggest Method for Optimization A neat feature to really help those in need of a pointer, is the menu option under tools to automatically suggest methods to optimize/improve: Nice feature – clicking it filters the call tree and stars methods that it thinks are good candidates for optimization.  I do wish that they would have made it more visible for those of use who aren’t great on sight: Process Integration I do think that this could have a place in my process.  After experimenting with the profiler, I do think it would be a great benefit to do some development, testing, and then after all the bugs are worked out, use the profiler to check on things to make sure nothing seems like it is hogging more than its fair share.  For example, with this program, I would have developed it, ran it, tested it – it works, but slowly. After looking at the profiler, and seeing the massive amount of time spent in 1 method, I might go ahead and try to re-implement IPrimes (I actually would probably rewrite the offending code, but so that I can distribute both sets of code easily, I’m just going to make another implementation of IPrimes).  Using two pieces of knowledge about prime numbers can make this method MUCH more efficient – prime numbers fall into two buckets 6k+/-1 , and a number is prime if it is not divisible by any other primes before it: public class SmartPrimes : IPrimes { public IEnumerable<int> GetPrimes(int retrieve) { //store a list of primes already found var _foundPrimes = new List<int>() { 2, 3 }; //if i ask for 1 or two primes, return what asked for if (retrieve <= _foundPrimes.Count()) return _foundPrimes.Take(retrieve); //the next number to look at int _k = 1; //since I already determined I don't have enough //execute at least once, and until quantity is sufficed do { //assume prime until otherwise determined bool isPrime = true; int potentialPrime; //analyze 6k-1 //assign the value to potential potentialPrime = 6 * _k - 1; //if there are any primes that divise this, it is NOT a prime number //using PLINQ for quick boost isPrime = !_foundPrimes.AsParallel() .Any(prime => potentialPrime % prime == 0); //if it is prime, add to found list if (isPrime) _foundPrimes.Add(potentialPrime); if (_foundPrimes.Count() == retrieve) break; //analyze 6k+1 //assign the value to potential potentialPrime = 6 * _k + 1; //if there are any primes that divise this, it is NOT a prime number //using PLINQ for quick boost isPrime = !_foundPrimes.AsParallel() .Any(prime => potentialPrime % prime == 0); //if it is prime, add to found list if (isPrime) _foundPrimes.Add(potentialPrime); //increment k to analyze next _k++; } while (_foundPrimes.Count() < retrieve); return _foundPrimes; } } Now there are definitely more things I can do to help make this more efficient, but for the scope of this example, I think this is fine (but still hideous)! Profiling this now yields a happy surprise 27 seconds to generate the 15000 primes with the profiler attached, and only 1.43 seconds without.  One important thing I wanted to call out though was the performance graph now: Notice anything odd?  The %Processor time is above 100%.  This is because there is now more than 1 core in the operation.  A better label for the chart in my mind would have been %Core time, but to each their own. Another odd thing I noticed was that the profiler seemed to be spot on this time in my DumbPrimes class with line details in source, even with comments..  Odd. Profiling Web Applications The last thing that I wanted to cover, that means a lot to me as a web developer, is the great amount of work that Red Gate put into the profiler when profiling web applications.  In my solution, I have a simple MVC4 application setup with 1 page, a single input form, that will output prime values as my WPF app did.  Launching the profiler from Visual Studio as before, nothing is really different in the profiler window, however I did receive a UAC prompt for a Red Gate helper app to integrate with the web server without notification. After requesting 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000 primes, and looking at the profiler session, things are slightly different from before: As you can see, there are 4 spikes of activity in the processor time graph, but there is also something new in the call tree: That’s right – ANTS will actually group method calls by get/post operations, so it is easier to find out what action/page is giving the largest problems…  Pretty cool in my mind! Overview Overall, I think that Red Gate ANTS CLR Profiler has a lot to offer, however I think it also has a long ways to go.  3 Biggest Pros: Ability to easily drill down from time graph, to method calls, to source code Wide variety of counters to choose from when profiling your application Excellent integration/grouping of methods being called from web applications by request – BRILLIANT! 3 Biggest Cons: Issue regarding line details in source view Nit pick – Processor time vs. Core time Nit pick – Lack of full integration with Visual Studio Ratings Ease of Use (7/10) – I marked down here because of the problems with the line level details and the extra work that that entails, and the lack of better integration with Visual Studio. Effectiveness (10/10) – I believe that the profiler does EXACTLY what it purports to do.  Especially with its large variety of performance counters, a definite plus! Features (9/10) – Besides the real time performance monitoring, and the drill downs that I’ve shown here, ANTS also has great integration with ADO.Net, with the ability to show database queries run by your application in the profiler.  This, with the line level details, the web request grouping, reflector integration, and various options to customize your profiling session I think create a great set of features! Customer Service (10/10) – My entire experience with Red Gate personnel has been nothing but good.  their people are friendly, helpful, and happy! UI / UX (8/10) – The interface is very easy to get around, and all of the options are easy to find.  With a little bit of poking around, you’ll be optimizing Hello World in no time flat! Overall (8/10) – Overall, I am happy with the Performance Profiler and its features, as well as with the service I received when working with the Red Gate personnel.  I WOULD recommend you trying the application and seeing if it would fit into your process, BUT, remember there are still some kinks in it to hopefully be worked out. My next post will definitely be shorter (hopefully), but thank you for reading up to here, or skipping ahead!  Please, if you do try the product, drop me a message and let me know what you think!  I would love to hear any opinions you may have on the product. Code Feel free to download the code I used above – download via DropBox

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  • Security Issues with Single Page Apps

    - by Stephen.Walther
    Last week, I was asked to do a code review of a Single Page App built using the ASP.NET Web API, Durandal, and Knockout (good stuff!). In particular, I was asked to investigate whether there any special security issues associated with building a Single Page App which are not present in the case of a traditional server-side ASP.NET application. In this blog entry, I discuss two areas in which you need to exercise extra caution when building a Single Page App. I discuss how Single Page Apps are extra vulnerable to both Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. This goal of this blog post is NOT to persuade you to avoid writing Single Page Apps. I’m a big fan of Single Page Apps. Instead, the goal is to ensure that you are fully aware of some of the security issues related to Single Page Apps and ensure that you know how to guard against them. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks According to WhiteHat Security, over 65% of public websites are open to XSS attacks. That’s bad. By taking advantage of XSS holes in a website, a hacker can steal your credit cards, passwords, or bank account information. Any website that redisplays untrusted information is open to XSS attacks. Let me give you a simple example. Imagine that you want to display the name of the current user on a page. To do this, you create the following server-side ASP.NET page located at http://MajorBank.com/SomePage.aspx: <%@Page Language="C#" %> <html> <head> <title>Some Page</title> </head> <body> Welcome <%= Request["username"] %> </body> </html> Nothing fancy here. Notice that the page displays the current username by using Request[“username”]. Using Request[“username”] displays the username regardless of whether the username is present in a cookie, a form field, or a query string variable. Unfortunately, by using Request[“username”] to redisplay untrusted information, you have now opened your website to XSS attacks. Here’s how. Imagine that an evil hacker creates the following link on another website (hackers.com): <a href="/SomePage.aspx?username=<script src=Evil.js></script>">Visit MajorBank</a> Notice that the link includes a query string variable named username and the value of the username variable is an HTML <SCRIPT> tag which points to a JavaScript file named Evil.js. When anyone clicks on the link, the <SCRIPT> tag will be injected into SomePage.aspx and the Evil.js script will be loaded and executed. What can a hacker do in the Evil.js script? Anything the hacker wants. For example, the hacker could display a popup dialog on the MajorBank.com site which asks the user to enter their password. The script could then post the password back to hackers.com and now the evil hacker has your secret password. ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC have two automatic safeguards against this type of attack: Request Validation and Automatic HTML Encoding. Protecting Coming In (Request Validation) In a server-side ASP.NET app, you are protected against the XSS attack described above by a feature named Request Validation. If you attempt to submit “potentially dangerous” content — such as a JavaScript <SCRIPT> tag — in a form field or query string variable then you get an exception. Unfortunately, Request Validation only applies to server-side apps. Request Validation does not help in the case of a Single Page App. In particular, the ASP.NET Web API does not pay attention to Request Validation. You can post any content you want – including <SCRIPT> tags – to an ASP.NET Web API action. For example, the following HTML page contains a form. When you submit the form, the form data is submitted to an ASP.NET Web API controller on the server using an Ajax request: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <form data-bind="submit:submit"> <div> <label> User Name: <input data-bind="value:user.userName" /> </label> </div> <div> <label> Email: <input data-bind="value:user.email" /> </label> </div> <div> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> </div> </form> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { user: { userName: ko.observable(), email: ko.observable() }, submit: function () { $.post("/api/users", ko.toJS(this.user)); } }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script> </body> </html> The form above is using Knockout to bind the form fields to a view model. When you submit the form, the view model is submitted to an ASP.NET Web API action on the server. Here’s the server-side ASP.NET Web API controller and model class: public class UsersController : ApiController { public HttpResponseMessage Post(UserViewModel user) { var userName = user.UserName; return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK); } } public class UserViewModel { public string UserName { get; set; } public string Email { get; set; } } If you submit the HTML form, you don’t get an error. The “potentially dangerous” content is passed to the server without any exception being thrown. In the screenshot below, you can see that I was able to post a username form field with the value “<script>alert(‘boo’)</script”. So what this means is that you do not get automatic Request Validation in the case of a Single Page App. You need to be extra careful in a Single Page App about ensuring that you do not display untrusted content because you don’t have the Request Validation safety net which you have in a traditional server-side ASP.NET app. Protecting Going Out (Automatic HTML Encoding) Server-side ASP.NET also protects you from XSS attacks when you render content. By default, all content rendered by the razor view engine is HTML encoded. For example, the following razor view displays the text “<b>Hello!</b>” instead of the text “Hello!” in bold: @{ var message = "<b>Hello!</b>"; } @message   If you don’t want to render content as HTML encoded in razor then you need to take the extra step of using the @Html.Raw() helper. In a Web Form page, if you use <%: %> instead of <%= %> then you get automatic HTML Encoding: <%@ Page Language="C#" %> <% var message = "<b>Hello!</b>"; %> <%: message %> This automatic HTML Encoding will prevent many types of XSS attacks. It prevents <script> tags from being rendered and only allows &lt;script&gt; tags to be rendered which are useless for executing JavaScript. (This automatic HTML encoding does not protect you from all forms of XSS attacks. For example, you can assign the value “javascript:alert(‘evil’)” to the Hyperlink control’s NavigateUrl property and execute the JavaScript). The situation with Knockout is more complicated. If you use the Knockout TEXT binding then you get HTML encoded content. On the other hand, if you use the HTML binding then you do not: <!-- This JavaScript DOES NOT execute --> <div data-bind="text:someProp"></div> <!-- This Javacript DOES execute --> <div data-bind="html:someProp"></div> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { someProp : "<script>alert('Evil!')<" + "/script>" }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script>   So, in the page above, the DIV element which uses the TEXT binding is safe from XSS attacks. According to the Knockout documentation: “Since this binding sets your text value using a text node, it’s safe to set any string value without risking HTML or script injection.” Just like server-side HTML encoding, Knockout does not protect you from all types of XSS attacks. For example, there is nothing in Knockout which prevents you from binding JavaScript to a hyperlink like this: <a data-bind="attr:{href:homePageUrl}">Go</a> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { homePageUrl: "javascript:alert('evil!')" }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script> In the page above, the value “javascript:alert(‘evil’)” is bound to the HREF attribute using Knockout. When you click the link, the JavaScript executes. Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Attacks Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks rely on the fact that a session cookie does not expire until you close your browser. In particular, if you visit and login to MajorBank.com and then you navigate to Hackers.com then you will still be authenticated against MajorBank.com even after you navigate to Hackers.com. Because MajorBank.com cannot tell whether a request is coming from MajorBank.com or Hackers.com, Hackers.com can submit requests to MajorBank.com pretending to be you. For example, Hackers.com can post an HTML form from Hackers.com to MajorBank.com and change your email address at MajorBank.com. Hackers.com can post a form to MajorBank.com using your authentication cookie. After your email address has been changed, by using a password reset page at MajorBank.com, a hacker can access your bank account. To prevent CSRF attacks, you need some mechanism for detecting whether a request is coming from a page loaded from your website or whether the request is coming from some other website. The recommended way of preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks is to use the “Synchronizer Token Pattern” as described here: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-Site_Request_Forgery_%28CSRF%29_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet When using the Synchronizer Token Pattern, you include a hidden input field which contains a random token whenever you display an HTML form. When the user opens the form, you add a cookie to the user’s browser with the same random token. When the user posts the form, you verify that the hidden form token and the cookie token match. Preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery Attacks with ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET gives you a helper and an action filter which you can use to thwart Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. For example, the following razor form for creating a product shows how you use the @Html.AntiForgeryToken() helper: @model MvcApplication2.Models.Product <h2>Create Product</h2> @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.AntiForgeryToken(); <div> @Html.LabelFor( p => p.Name, "Product Name:") @Html.TextBoxFor( p => p.Name) </div> <div> @Html.LabelFor( p => p.Price, "Product Price:") @Html.TextBoxFor( p => p.Price) </div> <input type="submit" /> } The @Html.AntiForgeryToken() helper generates a random token and assigns a serialized version of the same random token to both a cookie and a hidden form field. (Actually, if you dive into the source code, the AntiForgeryToken() does something a little more complex because it takes advantage of a user’s identity when generating the token). Here’s what the hidden form field looks like: <input name=”__RequestVerificationToken” type=”hidden” value=”NqqZGAmlDHh6fPTNR_mti3nYGUDgpIkCiJHnEEL59S7FNToyyeSo7v4AfzF2i67Cv0qTB1TgmZcqiVtgdkW2NnXgEcBc-iBts0x6WAIShtM1″ /> And here’s what the cookie looks like using the Google Chrome developer toolbar: You use the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] action filter on the controller action which is the recipient of the form post to validate that the token in the hidden form field matches the token in the cookie. If the tokens don’t match then validation fails and you can’t post the form: public ActionResult Create() { return View(); } [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(Product productToCreate) { if (ModelState.IsValid) { // save product to db return RedirectToAction("Index"); } return View(); } How does this all work? Let’s imagine that a hacker has copied the Create Product page from MajorBank.com to Hackers.com – the hacker grabs the HTML source and places it at Hackers.com. Now, imagine that the hacker trick you into submitting the Create Product form from Hackers.com to MajorBank.com. You’ll get the following exception: The Cross-Site Request Forgery attack is blocked because the anti-forgery token included in the Create Product form at Hackers.com won’t match the anti-forgery token stored in the cookie in your browser. The tokens were generated at different times for different users so the attack fails. Preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery Attacks with a Single Page App In a Single Page App, you can’t prevent Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks using the same method as a server-side ASP.NET MVC app. In a Single Page App, HTML forms are not generated on the server. Instead, in a Single Page App, forms are loaded dynamically in the browser. Phil Haack has a blog post on this topic where he discusses passing the anti-forgery token in an Ajax header instead of a hidden form field. He also describes how you can create a custom anti-forgery token attribute to compare the token in the Ajax header and the token in the cookie. See: http://haacked.com/archive/2011/10/10/preventing-csrf-with-ajax.aspx Also, take a look at Johan’s update to Phil Haack’s original post: http://johan.driessen.se/posts/Updated-Anti-XSRF-Validation-for-ASP.NET-MVC-4-RC (Other server frameworks such as Rails and Django do something similar. For example, Rails uses an X-CSRF-Token to prevent CSRF attacks which you generate on the server – see http://excid3.com/blog/rails-tip-2-include-csrf-token-with-every-ajax-request/#.UTFtgDDkvL8 ). For example, if you are creating a Durandal app, then you can use the following razor view for your one and only server-side page: @{ Layout = null; } <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Index</title> </head> <body> @Html.AntiForgeryToken() <div id="applicationHost"> Loading app.... </div> @Scripts.Render("~/scripts/vendor") <script type="text/javascript" src="~/App/durandal/amd/require.js" data-main="/App/main"></script> </body> </html> Notice that this page includes a call to @Html.AntiForgeryToken() to generate the anti-forgery token. Then, whenever you make an Ajax request in the Durandal app, you can retrieve the anti-forgery token from the razor view and pass the token as a header: var csrfToken = $("input[name='__RequestVerificationToken']").val(); $.ajax({ headers: { __RequestVerificationToken: csrfToken }, type: "POST", dataType: "json", contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8', url: "/api/products", data: JSON.stringify({ name: "Milk", price: 2.33 }), statusCode: { 200: function () { alert("Success!"); } } }); Use the following code to create an action filter which you can use to match the header and cookie tokens: using System.Linq; using System.Net.Http; using System.Web.Helpers; using System.Web.Http.Controllers; namespace MvcApplication2.Infrastructure { public class ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken : System.Web.Http.AuthorizeAttribute { protected override bool IsAuthorized(HttpActionContext actionContext) { var headerToken = actionContext .Request .Headers .GetValues("__RequestVerificationToken") .FirstOrDefault(); ; var cookieToken = actionContext .Request .Headers .GetCookies() .Select(c => c[AntiForgeryConfig.CookieName]) .FirstOrDefault(); // check for missing cookie or header if (cookieToken == null || headerToken == null) { return false; } // ensure that the cookie matches the header try { AntiForgery.Validate(cookieToken.Value, headerToken); } catch { return false; } return base.IsAuthorized(actionContext); } } } Notice that the action filter derives from the base AuthorizeAttribute. The ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken only works when the user is authenticated and it will not work for anonymous requests. Add the action filter to your ASP.NET Web API controller actions like this: [ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken] public HttpResponseMessage PostProduct(Product productToCreate) { // add product to db return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK); } After you complete these steps, it won’t be possible for a hacker to pretend to be you at Hackers.com and submit a form to MajorBank.com. The header token used in the Ajax request won’t travel to Hackers.com. This approach works, but I am not entirely happy with it. The one thing that I don’t like about this approach is that it creates a hard dependency on using razor. Your single page in your Single Page App must be generated from a server-side razor view. A better solution would be to generate the anti-forgery token in JavaScript. Unfortunately, until all browsers support a way to generate cryptographically strong random numbers – for example, by supporting the window.crypto.getRandomValues() method — there is no good way to generate anti-forgery tokens in JavaScript. So, at least right now, the best solution for generating the tokens is the server-side solution with the (regrettable) dependency on razor. Conclusion The goal of this blog entry was to explore some ways in which you need to handle security differently in the case of a Single Page App than in the case of a traditional server app. In particular, I focused on how to prevent Cross-Site Scripting and Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks in the case of a Single Page App. I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting that Single Page Apps are inherently less secure than server-side apps. Whatever type of web application you build – regardless of whether it is a Single Page App, an ASP.NET MVC app, an ASP.NET Web Forms app, or a Rails app – you must constantly guard against security vulnerabilities.

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  • ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 Review

    - by Michael B. McLaughlin
    (This is my first review as a part of the GeeksWithBlogs.net Influencers program. It’s a program in which I (and the others who have been selected for it) get the opportunity to check out new products and services and write reviews about them. We don’t get paid for this, but we do generally get to keep a copy of the software or retain an account for some period of time on the service that we review. In this case I received a copy of Red Gate Software’s ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0, which was released in January. I don’t have any upgrade rights nor is my review guided, restrained, influenced, or otherwise controlled by Red Gate or anyone else. But I do get to keep the software license. I will always be clear about what I received whenever I do a review – I leave it up to you to decide whether you believe I can be objective. I believe I can be. If I used something and really didn’t like it, keeping a copy of it wouldn’t be worth anything to me. In that case though, I would simply uninstall/deactivate/whatever the software or service and tell the company what I didn’t like about it so they could (hopefully) make it better in the future. I don’t think it’d be polite to write up a terrible review, nor do I think it would be a particularly good use of my time. There are people who get paid for a living to review things, so I leave it to them to tell you what they think is bad and why. I’ll only spend my time telling you about things I think are good.) Overview of Common .NET Memory Problems When coming to land of managed memory from the wilds of unmanaged code, it’s easy to say to one’s self, “Wow! Now I never have to worry about memory problems again!” But this simply isn’t true. Managed code environments, such as .NET, make many, many things easier. You will never have to worry about memory corruption due to a bad pointer, for example (unless you’re working with unsafe code, of course). But managed code has its own set of memory concerns. For example, failing to unsubscribe from events when you are done with them leaves the publisher of an event with a reference to the subscriber. If you eliminate all your own references to the subscriber, then that memory is effectively lost since the GC won’t delete it because of the publishing object’s reference. When the publishing object itself becomes subject to garbage collection then you’ll get that memory back finally, but that could take a very long time depending of the life of the publisher. Another common source of resource leaks is failing to properly release unmanaged resources. When writing a class that contains members that hold unmanaged resources (e.g. any of the Stream-derived classes, IsolatedStorageFile, most classes ending in “Reader” or “Writer”), you should always implement IDisposable, making sure to use a properly written Dispose method. And when you are using an instance of a class that implements IDisposable, you should always make sure to use a 'using' statement in order to ensure that the object’s unmanaged resources are disposed of properly. (A ‘using’ statement is a nicer, cleaner looking, and easier to use version of a try-finally block. The compiler actually translates it as though it were a try-finally block. Note that Code Analysis warning 2202 (CA2202) will often be triggered by nested using blocks. A properly written dispose method ensures that it only runs once such that calling dispose multiple times should not be a problem. Nonetheless, CA2202 exists and if you want to avoid triggering it then you should write your code such that only the innermost IDisposable object uses a ‘using’ statement, with any outer code making use of appropriate try-finally blocks instead). Then, of course, there are situations where you are operating in a memory-constrained environment or else you want to limit or even eliminate allocations within a certain part of your program (e.g. within the main game loop of an XNA game) in order to avoid having the GC run. On the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7, for example, for every 1 MB of heap allocations you make, the GC runs; the added time of a GC collection can cause a game to drop frames or run slowly thereby making it look bad. Eliminating allocations (or else minimizing them and calling an explicit Collect at an appropriate time) is a common way of avoiding this (the other way is to simplify your heap so that the GC’s latency is low enough not to cause performance issues). ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 When the opportunity to review Red Gate’s recently released ANTS Memory Profiler 7.0 arose, I jumped at it. In order to review it, I was given a free copy (which does not include upgrade rights for future versions) which I am allowed to keep. For those of you who are familiar with ANTS Memory Profiler, you can find a list of new features and enhancements here. If you are an experienced .NET developer who is familiar with .NET memory management issues, ANTS Memory Profiler is great. More importantly still, if you are new to .NET development or you have no experience or limited experience with memory profiling, ANTS Memory Profiler is awesome. From the very beginning, it guides you through the process of memory profiling. If you’re experienced and just want dive in however, it doesn’t get in your way. The help items GAHSFLASHDAJLDJA are well designed and located right next to the UI controls so that they are easy to find without being intrusive. When you first launch it, it presents you with a “Getting Started” screen that contains links to “Memory profiling video tutorials”, “Strategies for memory profiling”, and the “ANTS Memory Profiler forum”. I’m normally the kind of person who looks at a screen like that only to find the “Don’t show this again” checkbox. Since I was doing a review, though, I decided I should examine them. I was pleasantly surprised. The overview video clocks in at three minutes and fifty seconds. It begins by showing you how to get started profiling an application. It explains that profiling is done by taking memory snapshots periodically while your program is running and then comparing them. ANTS Memory Profiler (I’m just going to call it “ANTS MP” from here) analyzes these snapshots in the background while your application is running. It briefly mentions a new feature in Version 7, a new API that give you the ability to trigger snapshots from within your application’s source code (more about this below). You can also, and this is the more common way you would do it, take a memory snapshot at any time from within the ANTS MP window by clicking the “Take Memory Snapshot” button in the upper right corner. The overview video goes on to demonstrate a basic profiling session on an application that pulls information from a database and displays it. It shows how to switch which snapshots you are comparing, explains the different sections of the Summary view and what they are showing, and proceeds to show you how to investigate memory problems using the “Instance Categorizer” to track the path from an object (or set of objects) to the GC’s root in order to find what things along the path are holding a reference to it/them. For a set of objects, you can then click on it and get the “Instance List” view. This displays all of the individual objects (including their individual sizes, values, etc.) of that type which share the same path to the GC root. You can then click on one of the objects to generate an “Instance Retention Graph” view. This lets you track directly up to see the reference chain for that individual object. In the overview video, it turned out that there was an event handler which was holding on to a reference, thereby keeping a large number of strings that should have been freed in memory. Lastly the video shows the “Class List” view, which lets you dig in deeply to find problems that might not have been clear when following the previous workflow. Once you have at least one memory snapshot you can begin analyzing. The main interface is in the “Analysis” tab. You can also switch to the “Session Overview” tab, which gives you several bar charts highlighting basic memory data about the snapshots you’ve taken. If you hover over the individual bars (and the individual colors in bars that have more than one), you will see a detailed text description of what the bar is representing visually. The Session Overview is good for a quick summary of memory usage and information about the different heaps. You are going to spend most of your time in the Analysis tab, but it’s good to remember that the Session Overview is there to give you some quick feedback on basic memory usage stats. As described above in the summary of the overview video, there is a certain natural workflow to the Analysis tab. You’ll spin up your application and take some snapshots at various times such as before and after clicking a button to open a window or before and after closing a window. Taking these snapshots lets you examine what is happening with memory. You would normally expect that a lot of memory would be freed up when closing a window or exiting a document. By taking snapshots before and after performing an action like that you can see whether or not the memory is really being freed. If you already know an area that’s giving you trouble, you can run your application just like normal until just before getting to that part and then you can take a few strategic snapshots that should help you pin down the problem. Something the overview didn’t go into is how to use the “Filters” section at the bottom of ANTS MP together with the Class List view in order to narrow things down. The video tutorials page has a nice 3 minute intro video called “How to use the filters”. It’s a nice introduction and covers some of the basics. I’m going to cover a bit more because I think they’re a really neat, really helpful feature. Large programs can bring up thousands of classes. Even simple programs can instantiate far more classes than you might realize. In a basic .NET 4 WPF application for example (and when I say basic, I mean just MainWindow.xaml with a button added to it), the unfiltered Class List view will have in excess of 1000 classes (my simple test app had anywhere from 1066 to 1148 classes depending on which snapshot I was using as the “Current” snapshot). This is amazing in some ways as it shows you how in stark detail just how immensely powerful the WPF framework is. But hunting through 1100 classes isn’t productive, no matter how cool it is that there are that many classes instantiated and doing all sorts of awesome things. Let’s say you wanted to examine just the classes your application contains source code for (in my simple example, that would be the MainWindow and App). Under “Basic Filters”, click on “Classes with source” under “Show only…”. Voilà. Down from 1070 classes in the snapshot I was using as “Current” to 2 classes. If you then click on a class’s name, it will show you (to the right of the class name) two little icon buttons. Hover over them and you will see that you can click one to view the Instance Categorizer for the class and another to view the Instance List for the class. You can also show classes based on which heap they live on. If you chose both a Baseline snapshot and a Current snapshot then you can use the “Comparing snapshots” filters to show only: “New objects”; “Surviving objects”; “Survivors in growing classes”; or “Zombie objects” (if you aren’t sure what one of these means, you can click the helpful “?” in a green circle icon to bring up a popup that explains them and provides context). Remember that your selection(s) under the “Show only…” heading will still apply, so you should update those selections to make sure you are seeing the view you want. There are also links under the “What is my memory problem?” heading that can help you diagnose the problems you are seeing including one for “I don’t know which kind I have” for situations where you know generally that your application has some problems but aren’t sure what the behavior you have been seeing (OutOfMemoryExceptions, continually growing memory usage, larger memory use than expected at certain points in the program). The Basic Filters are not the only filters there are. “Filter by Object Type” gives you the ability to filter by: “Objects that are disposable”; “Objects that are/are not disposed”; “Objects that are/are not GC roots” (GC roots are things like static variables); and “Objects that implement _______”. “Objects that implement” is particularly neat. Once you check the box, you can then add one or more classes and interfaces that an object must implement in order to survive the filtering. Lastly there is “Filter by Reference”, which gives you the option to pare down the list based on whether an object is “Kept in memory exclusively by” a particular item, a class/interface, or a namespace; whether an object is “Referenced by” one or more of those choices; and whether an object is “Never referenced by” one or more of those choices. Remember that filtering is cumulative, so anything you had set in one of the filter sections still remains in effect unless and until you go back and change it. There’s quite a bit more to ANTS MP – it’s a very full featured product – but I think I touched on all of the most significant pieces. You can use it to debug: a .NET executable; an ASP.NET web application (running on IIS); an ASP.NET web application (running on Visual Studio’s built-in web development server); a Silverlight 4 browser application; a Windows service; a COM+ server; and even something called an XBAP (local XAML browser application). You can also attach to a .NET 4 process to profile an application that’s already running. The startup screen also has a large number of “Charting Options” that let you adjust which statistics ANTS MP should collect. The default selection is a good, minimal set. It’s worth your time to browse through the charting options to examine other statistics that may also help you diagnose a particular problem. The more statistics ANTS MP collects, the longer it will take to collect statistics. So just turning everything on is probably a bad idea. But the option to selectively add in additional performance counters from the extensive list could be a very helpful thing for your memory profiling as it lets you see additional data that might provide clues about a particular problem that has been bothering you. ANTS MP integrates very nicely with all versions of Visual Studio that support plugins (i.e. all of the non-Express versions). Just note that if you choose “Profile Memory” from the “ANTS” menu that it will launch profiling for whichever project you have set as the Startup project. One quick tip from my experience so far using ANTS MP: if you want to properly understand your memory usage in an application you’ve written, first create an “empty” version of the type of project you are going to profile (a WPF application, an XNA game, etc.) and do a quick profiling session on that so that you know the baseline memory usage of the framework itself. By “empty” I mean just create a new project of that type in Visual Studio then compile it and run it with profiling – don’t do anything special or add in anything (except perhaps for any external libraries you’re planning to use). The first thing I tried ANTS MP out on was a demo XNA project of an editor that I’ve been working on for quite some time that involves a custom extension to XNA’s content pipeline. The first time I ran it and saw the unmanaged memory usage I was convinced I had some horrible bug that was creating extra copies of texture data (the demo project didn’t have a lot of texture data so when I saw a lot of unmanaged memory I instantly figured I was doing something wrong). Then I thought to run an empty project through and when I saw that the amount of unmanaged memory was virtually identical, it dawned on me that the CLR itself sits in unmanaged memory and that (thankfully) there was nothing wrong with my code! Quite a relief. Earlier, when discussing the overview video, I mentioned the API that lets you take snapshots from within your application. I gave it a quick trial and it’s very easy to integrate and make use of and is a really nice addition (especially for projects where you want to know what, if any, allocations there are in a specific, complicated section of code). The only concern I had was that if I hadn’t watched the overview video I might never have known it existed. Even then it took me five minutes of hunting around Red Gate’s website before I found the “Taking snapshots from your code" article that explains what DLL you need to add as a reference and what method of what class you should call in order to take an automatic snapshot (including the helpful warning to wrap it in a try-catch block since, under certain circumstances, it can raise an exception, such as trying to call it more than 5 times in 30 seconds. The difficulty in discovering and then finding information about the automatic snapshots API was one thing I thought could use improvement. Another thing I think would make it even better would be local copies of the webpages it links to. Although I’m generally always connected to the internet, I imagine there are more than a few developers who aren’t or who are behind very restrictive firewalls. For them (and for me, too, if my internet connection happens to be down), it would be nice to have those documents installed locally or to have the option to download an additional “documentation” package that would add local copies. Another thing that I wish could be easier to manage is the Filters area. Finding and setting individual filters is very easy as is understanding what those filter do. And breaking it up into three sections (basic, by object, and by reference) makes sense. But I could easily see myself running a long profiling session and forgetting that I had set some filter a long while earlier in a different filter section and then spending quite a bit of time trying to figure out why some problem that was clearly visible in the data wasn’t showing up in, e.g. the instance list before remembering to check all the filters for that one setting that was only culling a few things from view. Some sort of indicator icon next to the filter section names that appears you have at least one filter set in that area would be a nice visual clue to remind me that “oh yeah, I told it to only show objects on the Gen 2 heap! That’s why I’m not seeing those instances of the SuperMagic class!” Something that would be nice (but that Red Gate cannot really do anything about) would be if this could be used in Windows Phone 7 development. If Microsoft and Red Gate could work together to make this happen (even if just on the WP7 emulator), that would be amazing. Especially given the memory constraints that apps and games running on mobile devices need to work within, a good memory profiler would be a phenomenally helpful tool. If anyone at Microsoft reads this, it’d be really great if you could make something like that happen. Perhaps even a (subsidized) custom version just for WP7 development. (For XNA games, of course, you can create a Windows version of the game and use ANTS MP on the Windows version in order to get a better picture of your memory situation. For Silverlight on WP7, though, there’s quite a bit of educated guess work and WeakReference creation followed by forced collections in order to find the source of a memory problem.) The only other thing I found myself wanting was a “Back” button. Between my Windows Phone 7, Zune, and other things, I’ve grown very used to having a “back stack” that lets me just navigate back to where I came from. The ANTS MP interface is surprisingly easy to use given how much it lets you do, and once you start using it for any amount of time, you learn all of the different areas such that you know where to go. And it does remember the state of the areas you were previously in, of course. So if you go to, e.g., the Instance Retention Graph from the Class List and then return back to the Class List, it will remember which class you had selected and all that other state information. Still, a “Back” button would be a welcome addition to a future release. Bottom Line ANTS Memory Profiler is not an inexpensive tool. But my time is valuable. I can easily see ANTS MP saving me enough time tracking down memory problems to justify it on a cost basis. More importantly to me, knowing what is happening memory-wise in my programs and having the confidence that my code doesn’t have any hidden time bombs in it that will cause it to OOM if I leave it running for longer than I do when I spin it up real quickly for debugging or just to see how a new feature looks and feels is a good feeling. It’s a feeling that I like having and want to continue to have. I got the current version for free in order to review it. Having done so, I’ve now added it to my must-have tools and will gladly lay out the money for the next version when it comes out. It has a 14 day free trial, so if you aren’t sure if it’s right for you or if you think it seems interesting but aren’t really sure if it’s worth shelling out the money for it, give it a try.

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  • Installed Ubuntu 14.04LTS

    - by user291729
    On my laptop which came pre-installed with Windows 8.1. Felt I needed to see the competition for myself to establish which was a better OS. So I followed the channels to dual boot. All seemed fine and I accessed Ubuntu with no issues after selecting this from the menu to select the OS. I should add that the boot method was changed to legacy. However, since using Ubuntu, I no longer have the ability to select the OS. The laptop simply logs straight into Ubuntu. I therefore attempted to access the recovery options, only it appears the Windows 8 bootloader has somehow been corrupted as I am now told to use the Windows 8 recovery disc (which, as this was pre-installed - I do not have). Left with no other alternative, I have scoured these forums without success, and so I am hoping someone in the know (or who has experienced similar) can help. I have tried boot repair again without success. On rebooting I am only presented with a basic splash screen asking me to select Ubuntu, Memtest, Windows 8 Recovery or Windows 8 Bootloader (The bootloaders again require I insert the disc). I have tried Code: cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg df -h sudo fdisk -l cat /proc/partitions # # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE # # It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub # ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ### if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then set have_grubenv=true load_env fi if [ "${next_entry}" ] ; then set default="${next_entry}" set next_entry= save_env next_entry set boot_once=true else set default="0" fi if [ x"${feature_menuentry_id}" = xy ]; then menuentry_id_option="--id" else menuentry_id_option="" fi export menuentry_id_option if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}" save_env saved_entry set prev_saved_entry= save_env prev_saved_entry set boot_once=true fi function savedefault { if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then saved_entry="${chosen}" save_env saved_entry fi } function recordfail { set recordfail=1 if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi } function load_video { if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then insmod all_video else insmod efi_gop insmod efi_uga insmod ieee1275_fb insmod vbe insmod vga insmod video_bochs insmod video_cirrus fi } if [ x$feature_default_font_path = xy ] ; then font=unicode else insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi font="/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2" fi if loadfont $font ; then set gfxmode=800x600 load_video insmod gfxterm set locale_dir=$prefix/locale set lang=en_GB insmod gettext fi terminal_output gfxterm if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ] ; then set timeout=-1 else if [ x$feature_timeout_style = xy ] ; then set timeout_style=menu set timeout=20 # Fallback normal timeout code in case the timeout_style feature is # unavailable. else set timeout=20 fi fi ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray if background_color 44,0,30; then clear fi ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### function gfxmode { set gfxpayload="${1}" if [ "${1}" = "keep" ]; then set vt_handoff=vt.handoff=7 else set vt_handoff= fi } if [ "${recordfail}" != 1 ]; then if [ -e ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt ]; then if hwmatch ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt 3; then if [ ${match} = 0 ]; then set linux_gfx_mode=keep else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=keep fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi export linux_gfx_mode menuentry 'Ubuntu' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro vga=789 quiet quiet splash $vt_handoff initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic } submenu 'Advanced options for Ubuntu' $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-advanced-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-29-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.13.0-29-generic-advanced-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.13.0-29-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro vga=789 quiet quiet splash $vt_handoff echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-29-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.13.0-29-generic-recovery-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.13.0-29-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro recovery nomodeset vga=789 quiet echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-24-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.13.0-24-generic-advanced-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.13.0-24-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro vga=789 quiet quiet splash $vt_handoff echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-24-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.13.0-24-generic-recovery-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.13.0-24-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro recovery nomodeset vga=789 quiet echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic } } ### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### menuentry 'Memory test (memtest86+)' { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi knetbsd /boot/memtest86+.elf } menuentry 'Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)' { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### menuentry 'Windows Recovery Environment (loader) (on /dev/sda2)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-7A6A69D66A698FA5' { insmod part_gpt insmod ntfs set root='hd0,gpt2' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 7A6A69D66A698FA5 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7A6A69D66A698FA5 fi drivemap -s (hd0) ${root} chainloader +1 } menuentry 'Windows 8 (loader) (on /dev/sda3)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-8C88-80F7' { insmod part_gpt insmod fat set root='hd0,gpt3' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt3 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt3 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt3 8C88-80F7 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 8C88-80F7 fi drivemap -s (hd0) ${root} chainloader +1 } set timeout_style=menu if [ "${timeout}" = 0 ]; then set timeout=10 fi ### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ### ### END /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the # menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change # the 'exec tail' line above. ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### if [ -f ${config_directory}/custom.cfg ]; then source ${config_directory}/custom.cfg elif [ -z "${config_directory}" -a -f $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then source $prefix/custom.cfg; fi ### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### # # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE # # It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub # ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ### if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then set have_grubenv=true load_env fi if [ "${next_entry}" ] ; then set default="${next_entry}" set next_entry= save_env next_entry set boot_once=true else set default="0" fi if [ x"${feature_menuentry_id}" = xy ]; then menuentry_id_option="--id" else menuentry_id_option="" fi export menuentry_id_option if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}" save_env saved_entry set prev_saved_entry= save_env prev_saved_entry set boot_once=true fi function savedefault { if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then saved_entry="${chosen}" save_env saved_entry fi } function recordfail { set recordfail=1 if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi } function load_video { if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then insmod all_video else insmod efi_gop insmod efi_uga insmod ieee1275_fb insmod vbe insmod vga insmod video_bochs insmod video_cirrus fi } if [ x$feature_default_font_path = xy ] ; then font=unicode else insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi font="/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2" fi if loadfont $font ; then set gfxmode=800x600 load_video insmod gfxterm set locale_dir=$prefix/locale set lang=en_GB insmod gettext fi terminal_output gfxterm if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ] ; then set timeout=-1 else if [ x$feature_timeout_style = xy ] ; then set timeout_style=menu set timeout=20 # Fallback normal timeout code in case the timeout_style feature is # unavailable. else set timeout=20 fi fi ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray if background_color 44,0,30; then clear fi ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### function gfxmode { set gfxpayload="${1}" if [ "${1}" = "keep" ]; then set vt_handoff=vt.handoff=7 else set vt_handoff= fi } if [ "${recordfail}" != 1 ]; then if [ -e ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt ]; then if hwmatch ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt 3; then if [ ${match} = 0 ]; then set linux_gfx_mode=keep else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=keep fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi export linux_gfx_mode menuentry 'Ubuntu' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro vga=789 quiet quiet splash $vt_handoff initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic } submenu 'Advanced options for Ubuntu' $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-advanced-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-29-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.13.0-29-generic-advanced-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.13.0-29-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro vga=789 quiet quiet splash $vt_handoff echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-29-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.13.0-29-generic-recovery-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.13.0-29-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro recovery nomodeset vga=789 quiet echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-29-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-24-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.13.0-24-generic-advanced-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.13.0-24-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro vga=789 quiet quiet splash $vt_handoff echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.13.0-24-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.13.0-24-generic-recovery-d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad' { recordfail load_video insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.13.0-24-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad ro recovery nomodeset vga=789 quiet echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-24-generic } } ### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### menuentry 'Memory test (memtest86+)' { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi knetbsd /boot/memtest86+.elf } menuentry 'Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)' { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='hd0,gpt9' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt9 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt9 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt9 d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root d2f10f36-e3bb-4d83-a9b8-5d456fc454ad fi linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### menuentry 'Windows Recovery Environment (loader) (on /dev/sda2)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-7A6A69D66A698FA5' { insmod part_gpt insmod ntfs set root='hd0,gpt2' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 7A6A69D66A698FA5 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7A6A69D66A698FA5 fi drivemap -s (hd0) ${root} chainloader +1 } menuentry 'Windows 8 (loader) (on /dev/sda3)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-8C88-80F7' { insmod part_gpt insmod fat set root='hd0,gpt3' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt3 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt3 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt3 8C88-80F7 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 8C88-80F7 fi drivemap -s (hd0) ${root} chainloader +1 } set timeout_style=menu if [ "${timeout}" = 0 ]; then set timeout=10 fi ### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ### ### END /etc/grub.d/30_uefi-firmware ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the # menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change # the 'exec tail' line above. ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### if [ -f ${config_directory}/custom.cfg ]; then source ${config_directory}/custom.cfg elif [ -z "${config_directory}" -a -f $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then source $prefix/custom.cfg; fi ### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### john@john-SVE1713Y1EB:~$ ^C john@john-SVE1713Y1EB:~$ ^C john@john-SVE1713Y1EB:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda9 84G 7.1G 73G 9% / none 4.0K 0 4.0K 0% /sys/fs/cgroup udev 3.9G 4.0K 3.9G 1% /dev tmpfs 794M 1.4M 793M 1% /run none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none 3.9G 80K 3.9G 1% /run/shm none 100M 52K 100M 1% /run/user /dev/sdc1 7.5G 2.2G 5.4G 29% /media/john/DYLANMUSIC /dev/sr0 964M 964M 0 100% /media/john/Ubuntu 14.04 LTS amd64 /dev/sdb1 1.9T 892G 972G 48% /media/john/Storage Main WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x4e2ccf75 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 1953525167 976762583+ ee GPT Partition 1 does not start on physical sector boundary. Disk /dev/sdc: 8011 MB, 8011120640 bytes 41 heads, 41 sectors/track, 9307 cylinders, total 15646720 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 8064 15646719 7819328 b W95 FAT32 Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xc7d968ff Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 64 3907029119 1953514528 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT major minor #blocks name 8 0 976762584 sda 8 1 266240 sda1 8 2 1509376 sda2 8 3 266240 sda3 8 4 131072 sda4 8 5 841012780 sda5 8 6 358400 sda6 8 7 35376128 sda7 8 8 1024 sda8 8 9 89501696 sda9 8 10 8337408 sda10 11 0 987136 sr0 8 32 7823360 sdc 8 33 7819328 sdc1 8 16 1953514584 sdb 8 17 1953514528 sdb1 I am no expert on this and I'm at a loss as how to correct this without having to re-format everything and reinstall Windows 8. However, if I'm to try using Ubuntu again then there is the risk this problem may come back. Again, I did not do anything manually - the installer did everything (with the exception of changing the boot to Legacy to allow the booting of another bootloader). LiveCD works but doesn't give me the options that I've seen here and as mentioned earlier, only boot recovery only gives me the options as mentioned earlier. Also this fails to load via USB (possibly because HDD comes before USB in the boot order?). Being used to a Windows environment, the Ubuntu (and Linux) environment is a dive at a less than comfortable depth at present (but one I fully intend to get to grips with - especially the commands being more common via Terminal). I very much appreciate the help with this guys.

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  • Building applications with WPF, MVVM and Prism(aka CAG)

    - by skjagini
    In this article I am going to walk through an application using WPF and Prism (aka composite application guidance, CAG) which simulates engaging a taxi (cab).  The rules are simple, the app would have3 screens A login screen to authenticate the user An information screen. A screen to engage the cab and roam around and calculating the total fare Metered Rate of Fare The meter is required to be engaged when a cab is occupied by anyone $3.00 upon entry $0.35 for each additional unit The unit fare is: one-fifth of a mile, when the cab is traveling at 6 miles an hour or more; or 60 seconds when not in motion or traveling at less than 12 miles per hour. Night surcharge of $.50 after 8:00 PM & before 6:00 AM Peak hour Weekday Surcharge of $1.00 Monday - Friday after 4:00 PM & before 8:00 PM New York State Tax Surcharge of $.50 per ride. Example: Friday (2010-10-08) 5:30pm Start at Lexington Ave & E 57th St End at Irving Pl & E 15th St Start = $3.00 Travels 2 miles at less than 6 mph for 15 minutes = $3.50 Travels at more than 12 mph for 5 minutes = $1.75 Peak hour Weekday Surcharge = $1.00 (ride started at 5:30 pm) New York State Tax Surcharge = $0.50 Before we dive into the app, I would like to give brief description about the framework.  If you want to jump on to the source code, scroll all the way to the end of the post. MVVM MVVM pattern is in no way related to the usage of PRISM in your application and should be considered if you are using WPF irrespective of PRISM or not. Lets say you are not familiar with MVVM, your typical UI would involve adding some UI controls like text boxes, a button, double clicking on the button,  generating event handler, calling a method from business layer and updating the user interface, it works most of the time for developing small scale applications. The problem with this approach is that there is some amount of code specific to business logic wrapped in UI specific code which is hard to unit test it, mock it and MVVM helps to solve the exact problem. MVVM stands for Model(M) – View(V) – ViewModel(VM),  based on the interactions with in the three parties it should be called VVMM,  MVVM sounds more like MVC (Model-View-Controller) so the name. Why it should be called VVMM: View – View Model - Model WPF allows to create user interfaces using XAML and MVVM takes it to the next level by allowing complete separation of user interface and business logic. In WPF each view will have a property, DataContext when set to an instance of a class (which happens to be your view model) provides the data the view is interested in, i.e., view interacts with view model and at the same time view model interacts with view through DataContext. Sujith, if view and view model are interacting directly with each other how does MVVM is helping me separation of concerns? Well, the catch is DataContext is of type Object, since it is of type object view doesn’t know exact type of view model allowing views and views models to be loosely coupled. View models aggregate data from models (data access layer, services, etc) and make it available for views through properties, methods etc, i.e., View Models interact with Models. PRISM Prism is provided by Microsoft Patterns and Practices team and it can be downloaded from codeplex for source code,  samples and documentation on msdn.  The name composite implies, to compose user interface from different modules (views) without direct dependencies on each other, again allowing  loosely coupled development. Well Sujith, I can already do that with user controls, why shall I learn another framework?  That’s correct, you can decouple using user controls, but you still have to manage some amount of coupling, like how to do you communicate between the controls, how do you subscribe/unsubscribe, loading/unloading views dynamically. Prism is not a replacement for user controls, provides the following features which greatly help in designing the composite applications. Dependency Injection (DI)/ Inversion of Control (IoC) Modules Regions Event Aggregator  Commands Simply put, MVVM helps building a single view and Prism helps building an application using the views There are other open source alternatives to Prism, like MVVMLight, Cinch, take a look at them as well. Lets dig into the source code.  1. Solution The solution is made of the following projects Framework: Holds the common functionality in building applications using WPF and Prism TaxiClient: Start up project, boot strapping and app styling TaxiCommon: Helps with the business logic TaxiModules: Holds the meat of the application with views and view models TaxiTests: To test the application 2. DI / IoC Dependency Injection (DI) as the name implies refers to injecting dependencies and Inversion of Control (IoC) means the calling code has no direct control on the dependencies, opposite of normal way of programming where dependencies are passed by caller, i.e inversion; aside from some differences in terminology the concept is same in both the cases. The idea behind DI/IoC pattern is to reduce the amount of direct coupling between different components of the application, the higher the dependency the more tightly coupled the application resulting in code which is hard to modify, unit test and mock.  Initializing Dependency Injection through BootStrapper TaxiClient is the starting project of the solution and App (App.xaml)  is the starting class that gets called when you run the application. From the App’s OnStartup method we will invoke BootStrapper.   namespace TaxiClient { /// <summary> /// Interaction logic for App.xaml /// </summary> public partial class App : Application { protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e) { base.OnStartup(e);   (new BootStrapper()).Run(); } } } BootStrapper is your contact point for initializing the application including dependency injection, creating Shell and other frameworks. We are going to use Unity for DI and there are lot of open source DI frameworks like Spring.Net, StructureMap etc with different feature set  and you can choose a framework based on your preferences. Note that Prism comes with in built support for Unity, for example we are deriving from UnityBootStrapper in our case and for any other DI framework you have to extend the Prism appropriately   namespace TaxiClient { public class BootStrapper: UnityBootstrapper { protected override IModuleCatalog CreateModuleCatalog() { return new ConfigurationModuleCatalog(); } protected override DependencyObject CreateShell() { Framework.FrameworkBootStrapper.Run(Container, Application.Current.Dispatcher);   Shell shell = new Shell(); shell.ResizeMode = ResizeMode.NoResize; shell.Show();   return shell; } } } Lets take a look into  FrameworkBootStrapper to check out how to register with unity container. namespace Framework { public class FrameworkBootStrapper { public static void Run(IUnityContainer container, Dispatcher dispatcher) { UIDispatcher uiDispatcher = new UIDispatcher(dispatcher); container.RegisterInstance<IDispatcherService>(uiDispatcher);   container.RegisterType<IInjectSingleViewService, InjectSingleViewService>( new ContainerControlledLifetimeManager());   . . . } } } In the above code we are registering two components with unity container. You shall observe that we are following two different approaches, RegisterInstance and RegisterType.  With RegisterInstance we are registering an existing instance and the same instance will be returned for every request made for IDispatcherService   and with RegisterType we are requesting unity container to create an instance for us when required, i.e., when I request for an instance for IInjectSingleViewService, unity will create/return an instance of InjectSingleViewService class and with RegisterType we can configure the life time of the instance being created. With ContaienrControllerLifetimeManager, the unity container caches the instance and reuses for any subsequent requests, without recreating a new instance. Lets take a look into FareViewModel.cs and it’s constructor. The constructor takes one parameter IEventAggregator and if you try to find all references in your solution for IEventAggregator, you will not find a single location where an instance of EventAggregator is passed directly to the constructor. The compiler still finds an instance and works fine because Prism is already configured when used with Unity container to return an instance of EventAggregator when requested for IEventAggregator and in this particular case it is called constructor injection. public class FareViewModel:ObservableBase, IDataErrorInfo { ... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public FareViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator; InitializePropertyNames(); InitializeModel(); PropertyChanged += OnPropertyChanged; } ... 3. Shell Shells are very similar in operation to Master Pages in asp.net or MDI in Windows Forms. And shells contain regions which display the views, you can have as many regions as you wish in a given view. You can also nest regions. i.e, one region can load a view which in itself may contain other regions. We have to create a shell at the start of the application and are doing it by overriding CreateShell method from BootStrapper From the following Shell.xaml you shall notice that we have two content controls with Region names as ‘MenuRegion’ and ‘MainRegion’.  The idea here is that you can inject any user controls into the regions dynamically, i.e., a Menu User Control for MenuRegion and based on the user action you can load appropriate view into MainRegion.    <Window x:Class="TaxiClient.Shell" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Regions="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Regions;assembly=Microsoft.Practices.Prism" Title="Taxi" Height="370" Width="800"> <Grid Margin="2"> <ContentControl Regions:RegionManager.RegionName="MenuRegion" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" />   <ContentControl Grid.Row="1" Regions:RegionManager.RegionName="MainRegion" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" /> <!--<Border Grid.ColumnSpan="2" BorderThickness="2" CornerRadius="3" BorderBrush="LightBlue" />-->   </Grid> </Window> 4. Modules Prism provides the ability to build composite applications and modules play an important role in it. For example if you are building a Mortgage Loan Processor application with 3 components, i.e. customer’s credit history,  existing mortgages, new home/loan information; and consider that the customer’s credit history component involves gathering data about his/her address, background information, job details etc. The idea here using Prism modules is to separate the implementation of these 3 components into their own visual studio projects allowing to build components with no dependency on each other and independently. If we need to add another component to the application, the component can be developed by in house team or some other team in the organization by starting with a new Visual Studio project and adding to the solution at the run time with very little knowledge about the application. Prism modules are defined by implementing the IModule interface and each visual studio project to be considered as a module should implement the IModule interface.  From the BootStrapper.cs you shall observe that we are overriding the method by returning a ConfiguratingModuleCatalog which returns the modules that are registered for the application using the app.config file  and you can also add module using code. Lets take a look into configuration file.   <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <configSections> <section name="modules" type="Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Modularity.ModulesConfigurationSection, Microsoft.Practices.Prism"/> </configSections> <modules> <module assemblyFile="TaxiModules.dll" moduleType="TaxiModules.ModuleInitializer, TaxiModules" moduleName="TaxiModules"/> </modules> </configuration> Here we are adding TaxiModules project to our solution and TaxiModules.ModuleInitializer implements IModule interface   5. Module Mapper With Prism modules you can dynamically add or remove modules from the regions, apart from that Prism also provides API to control adding/removing the views from a region within the same module. Taxi Information Screen: Engage the Taxi Screen: The sample application has two screens, ‘Taxi Information’ and ‘Engage the Taxi’ and they both reside in same module, TaxiModules. ‘Engage the Taxi’ is again made of two user controls, FareView on the left and TotalView on the right. We have created a Shell with two regions, MenuRegion and MainRegion with menu loaded into MenuRegion. We can create a wrapper user control called EngageTheTaxi made of FareView and TotalView and load either TaxiInfo or EngageTheTaxi into MainRegion based on the user action. Though it will work it tightly binds the user controls and for every combination of user controls, we need to create a dummy wrapper control to contain them. Instead we can apply the principles we learned so far from Shell/regions and introduce another template (LeftAndRightRegionView.xaml) made of two regions Region1 (left) and Region2 (right) and load  FareView and TotalView dynamically.  To help with loading of the views dynamically I have introduce an helper an interface, IInjectSingleViewService,  idea suggested by Mike Taulty, a must read blog for .Net developers. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel;   namespace Framework.PresentationUtility.Navigation {   public interface IInjectSingleViewService : INotifyPropertyChanged { IEnumerable<CommandViewDefinition> Commands { get; } IEnumerable<ModuleViewDefinition> Modules { get; }   void RegisterViewForRegion(string commandName, string viewName, string regionName, Type viewType); void ClearViewFromRegion(string viewName, string regionName); void RegisterModule(string moduleName, IList<ModuleMapper> moduleMappers); } } The Interface declares three methods to work with views: RegisterViewForRegion: Registers a view with a particular region. You can register multiple views and their regions under one command.  When this particular command is invoked all the views registered under it will be loaded into their regions. ClearViewFromRegion: To unload a specific view from a region. RegisterModule: The idea is when a command is invoked you can load the UI with set of controls in their default position and based on the user interaction, you can load different contols in to different regions on the fly.  And it is supported ModuleViewDefinition and ModuleMappers as shown below. namespace Framework.PresentationUtility.Navigation { public class ModuleViewDefinition { public string ModuleName { get; set; } public IList<ModuleMapper> ModuleMappers; public ICommand Command { get; set; } }   public class ModuleMapper { public string ViewName { get; set; } public string RegionName { get; set; } public Type ViewType { get; set; } } } 6. Event Aggregator Prism event aggregator enables messaging between components as in Observable pattern, Notifier notifies the Observer which receives notification it is interested in. When it comes to Observable pattern, Observer has to unsubscribes for notifications when it no longer interested in notifications, which allows the Notifier to remove the Observer’s reference from it’s local cache. Though .Net has managed garbage collection it cannot remove inactive the instances referenced by an active instance resulting in memory leak, keeping the Observers in memory as long as Notifier stays in memory.  Developers have to be very careful to unsubscribe when necessary and it often gets overlooked, to overcome these problems Prism Event Aggregator uses weak references to cache the reference (Observer in this case)  and releases the reference (memory) once the instance goes out of scope. Using event aggregator is very simple, declare a generic type of CompositePresenationEvent by inheriting from it. using Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Events; using TaxiCommon.BAO;   namespace TaxiCommon.CompositeEvents { public class TaxiOnMoveEvent:CompositePresentationEvent<TaxiOnMove> { } }   TaxiOnMove.cs includes the properties which we want to exchange between the parties, FareView and TotalView. using System;   namespace TaxiCommon.BAO { public class TaxiOnMove { public TimeSpan MinutesAtTweleveMPH { get; set; } public double MilesAtSixMPH { get; set; } } }   Lets take a look into FareViewodel (Notifier) and how it raises the event.  Here we are raising the event by getting the event through GetEvent<..>() and publishing it with the payload private void OnAddMinutes(object obj) { TaxiOnMove payload = new TaxiOnMove(); if(MilesAtSixMPH != null) payload.MilesAtSixMPH = MilesAtSixMPH.Value; if(MinutesAtTweleveMPH != null) payload.MinutesAtTweleveMPH = new TimeSpan(0,0,MinutesAtTweleveMPH.Value,0);   _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>().Publish(payload); ResetMinutesAndMiles(); } And TotalViewModel(Observer) subscribes to notifications by getting the event through GetEvent<..>() namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class TotalViewModel:ObservableBase { .... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public TotalViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator; ... }   private void SubscribeToEvents() { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiStarted, ThreadOption.UIThread,false,(filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiMove, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiResetEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiReset, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); }   ... private void OnTaxiMove(TaxiOnMove taxiOnMove) { OnMoveFare fare = new OnMoveFare(taxiOnMove); Fares.Add(fare); SetTotalFare(new []{fare}); }   .... 7. MVVM through example In this section we are going to look into MVVM implementation through example.  I have all the modules declared in a single project, TaxiModules, again it is not necessary to have them into one project. Once the user logs into the application, will be greeted with the ‘Engage the Taxi’ screen which is made of two user controls, FareView.xaml and TotalView.Xaml. As you can see from the solution explorer, each of them have their own code behind files and  ViewModel classes, FareViewMode.cs, TotalViewModel.cs Lets take a look in to the FareView and how it interacts with FareViewModel using MVVM implementation. FareView.xaml acts as a view and FareViewMode.cs is it’s view model. The FareView code behind class   namespace TaxiModules.Views { /// <summary> /// Interaction logic for FareView.xaml /// </summary> public partial class FareView : UserControl { public FareView(FareViewModel viewModel) { InitializeComponent(); this.Loaded += (s, e) => { this.DataContext = viewModel; }; } } } The FareView is bound to FareViewModel through the data context  and you shall observe that DataContext is of type Object, i.e. the FareView doesn’t really know the type of ViewModel (FareViewModel). This helps separation of View and ViewModel as View and ViewModel are independent of each other, you can bind FareView to FareViewModel2 as well and the application compiles just fine. Lets take a look into FareView xaml file  <UserControl x:Class="TaxiModules.Views.FareView" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Windows.Controls;assembly=WPFToolkit" xmlns:Commands="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Commands;assembly=Microsoft.Practices.Prism"> <Grid Margin="10" > ....   <Border Style="{DynamicResource innerBorder}" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Grid.RowSpan="11" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Panel.ZIndex="1"/>   <Label Grid.Row="0" Content="Engage the Taxi" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Label Grid.Row="1" Content="Select the State"/> <ComboBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" ItemsSource="{Binding States}" Height="auto"> <ComboBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}"/> </DataTemplate> </ComboBox.ItemTemplate> <ComboBox.SelectedItem> <Binding Path="SelectedState" Mode="TwoWay"/> </ComboBox.SelectedItem> </ComboBox> <Label Grid.Row="2" Content="Select the Date of Entry"/> <Toolkit:DatePicker Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" SelectedDate="{Binding DateOfEntry, ValidatesOnDataErrors=true}" /> <Label Grid.Row="3" Content="Enter time 24hr format"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding TimeOfEntry, TargetNullValue=''}"/> <Button Grid.Row="4" Grid.Column="1" Content="Start the Meter" Commands:Click.Command="{Binding StartMeterCommand}" />   <Label Grid.Row="5" Content="Run the Taxi" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Label Grid.Row="6" Content="Number of Miles &lt;@6mph"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="6" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MilesAtSixMPH, TargetNullValue='', ValidatesOnDataErrors=true}"/> <Label Grid.Row="7" Content="Number of Minutes @12mph"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="7" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MinutesAtTweleveMPH, TargetNullValue=''}"/> <Button Grid.Row="8" Grid.Column="1" Content="Add Minutes and Miles " Commands:Click.Command="{Binding AddMinutesCommand}"/> <Label Grid.Row="9" Content="Other Operations" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Button Grid.Row="10" Grid.Column="1" Content="Reset the Meter" Commands:Click.Command="{Binding ResetCommand}"/>   </Grid> </UserControl> The highlighted code from the above code shows data binding, for example ComboBox which displays list of states has it’s ItemsSource bound to States property, with DataTemplate bound to Name and SelectedItem  to SelectedState. You might be wondering what are all these properties and how it is able to bind to them.  The answer lies in data context, i.e., when you bound a control, WPF looks for data context on the root object (Grid in this case) and if it can’t find data context it will look into root’s root, i.e. FareView UserControl and it is bound to FareViewModel.  Each of those properties have be declared on the ViewModel for the View to bind correctly. To put simply, View is bound to ViewModel through data context of type object and every control that is bound on the View actually binds to the public property on the ViewModel. Lets look into the ViewModel code (the following code is not an exact copy of FareViewMode.cs, pasted relevant code for this section)   namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class FareViewModel:ObservableBase, IDataErrorInfo { public List<USState> States { get { return USStates.StateList; } }   public USState SelectedState { get { return _selectedState; } set { _selectedState = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_selectedStatePropertyName); } }   public DateTime? DateOfEntry { get { return _dateOfEntry; } set { _dateOfEntry = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_dateOfEntryPropertyName); } }   public TimeSpan? TimeOfEntry { get { return _timeOfEntry; } set { _timeOfEntry = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_timeOfEntryPropertyName); } }   public double? MilesAtSixMPH { get { return _milesAtSixMPH; } set { _milesAtSixMPH = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_distanceAtSixMPHPropertyName); } }   public int? MinutesAtTweleveMPH { get { return _minutesAtTweleveMPH; } set { _minutesAtTweleveMPH = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_minutesAtTweleveMPHPropertyName); } }   public ICommand StartMeterCommand { get { if(_startMeterCommand == null) { _startMeterCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnStartMeter, CanStartMeter); } return _startMeterCommand; } }   public ICommand AddMinutesCommand { get { if(_addMinutesCommand == null) { _addMinutesCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnAddMinutes, CanAddMinutes); } return _addMinutesCommand; } }   public ICommand ResetCommand { get { if(_resetCommand == null) { _resetCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnResetCommand); } return _resetCommand; } }   } private void OnStartMeter(object obj) { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>().Publish( new TaxiStarted() { EngagedOn = DateOfEntry.Value.Date + TimeOfEntry.Value, EngagedState = SelectedState.Value });   _isMeterStarted = true; OnPropertyChanged(this,null); } And views communicate user actions like button clicks, tree view item selections, etc using commands. When user clicks on ‘Start the Meter’ button it invokes the method StartMeterCommand, which calls the method OnStartMeter which publishes the event to TotalViewModel using event aggregator  and TaxiStartedEvent. namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class TotalViewModel:ObservableBase { ... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public TotalViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator;   InitializePropertyNames(); InitializeModel(); SubscribeToEvents(); }   public decimal? TotalFare { get { return _totalFare; } set { _totalFare = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_totalFarePropertyName); } } .... private void SubscribeToEvents() { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiStarted, ThreadOption.UIThread,false,(filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiMove, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiResetEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiReset, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); }   private void OnTaxiStarted(TaxiStarted taxiStarted) { Fares.Add(new EntryFare()); Fares.Add(new StateTaxFare(taxiStarted)); Fares.Add(new NightSurchargeFare(taxiStarted)); Fares.Add(new PeakHourWeekdayFare(taxiStarted));   SetTotalFare(Fares); }   private void SetTotalFare(IEnumerable<IFare> fares) { TotalFare = (_totalFare ?? 0) + TaxiFareHelper.GetTotalFare(fares); } ....   } }   TotalViewModel subscribes to events, TaxiStartedEvent and rest. When TaxiStartedEvent gets invoked it calls the OnTaxiStarted method which sets the total fare which includes entry fee, state tax, nightly surcharge, peak hour weekday fare.   Note that TotalViewModel derives from ObservableBase which implements the method RaisePropertyChanged which we are invoking in Set of TotalFare property, i.e, once we update the TotalFare property it raises an the event that  allows the TotalFare text box to fetch the new value through the data context. ViewModel is communicating with View through data context and it has no knowledge about View, helping in loose coupling of ViewModel and View.   I have attached the source code (.Net 4.0, Prism 4.0, VS 2010) , download and play with it and don’t forget to leave your comments.  

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  • SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

    - by pinaldave
    TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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  • SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

    - by pinaldave
    TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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  • Diving into OpenStack Network Architecture - Part 2 - Basic Use Cases

    - by Ronen Kofman
      rkofman Normal rkofman 4 138 2014-06-05T03:38:00Z 2014-06-05T05:04:00Z 3 2735 15596 Oracle Corporation 129 36 18295 12.00 Clean Clean false false false false EN-US X-NONE HE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-bidi-language:AR-SA;} In the previous post we reviewed several network components including Open vSwitch, Network Namespaces, Linux Bridges and veth pairs. In this post we will take three simple use cases and see how those basic components come together to create a complete SDN solution in OpenStack. With those three use cases we will review almost the entire network setup and see how all the pieces work together. The use cases we will use are: 1.       Create network – what happens when we create network and how can we create multiple isolated networks 2.       Launch a VM – once we have networks we can launch VMs and connect them to networks. 3.       DHCP request from a VM – OpenStack can automatically assign IP addresses to VMs. This is done through local DHCP service controlled by OpenStack Neutron. We will see how this service runs and how does a DHCP request and response look like. In this post we will show connectivity, we will see how packets get from point A to point B. We first focus on how a configured deployment looks like and only later we will discuss how and when the configuration is created. Personally I found it very valuable to see the actual interfaces and how they connect to each other through examples and hands on experiments. After the end game is clear and we know how the connectivity works, in a later post, we will take a step back and explain how Neutron configures the components to be able to provide such connectivity.  We are going to get pretty technical shortly and I recommend trying these examples on your own deployment or using the Oracle OpenStack Tech Preview. Understanding these three use cases thoroughly and how to look at them will be very helpful when trying to debug a deployment in case something does not work. Use case #1: Create Network Create network is a simple operation it can be performed from the GUI or command line. When we create a network in OpenStack the network is only available to the tenant who created it or it could be defined as “shared” and then it can be used by all tenants. A network can have multiple subnets but for this demonstration purpose and for simplicity we will assume that each network has exactly one subnet. Creating a network from the command line will look like this: # neutron net-create net1 Created a new network: +---------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | Field                     | Value                                | +---------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | admin_state_up            | True                                 | | id                        | 5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c | | name                      | net1                                 | | provider:network_type     | vlan                                 | | provider:physical_network | default                              | | provider:segmentation_id  | 1000                                 | | shared                    | False                                | | status                    | ACTIVE                               | | subnets                   |                                      | | tenant_id                 | 9796e5145ee546508939cd49ad59d51f     | +---------------------------+--------------------------------------+ Creating a subnet for this network will look like this: # neutron subnet-create net1 10.10.10.0/24 Created a new subnet: +------------------+------------------------------------------------+ | Field            | Value                                          | +------------------+------------------------------------------------+ | allocation_pools | {"start": "10.10.10.2", "end": "10.10.10.254"} | | cidr             | 10.10.10.0/24                                  | | dns_nameservers  |                                                | | enable_dhcp      | True                                           | | gateway_ip       | 10.10.10.1                                     | | host_routes      |                                                | | id               | 2d7a0a58-0674-439a-ad23-d6471aaae9bc           | | ip_version       | 4                                              | | name             |                                                | | network_id       | 5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c           | | tenant_id        | 9796e5145ee546508939cd49ad59d51f               | +------------------+------------------------------------------------+ We now have a network and a subnet, on the network topology view this looks like this: Now let’s dive in and see what happened under the hood. Looking at the control node we will discover that a new namespace was created: # ip netns list qdhcp-5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c   The name of the namespace is qdhcp-<network id> (see above), let’s look into the namespace and see what’s in it: # ip netns exec qdhcp-5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c ip addr 1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN     link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00     inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo     inet6 ::1/128 scope host        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever 12: tap26c9b807-7c: <BROADCAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN     link/ether fa:16:3e:1d:5c:81 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff     inet 10.10.10.3/24 brd 10.10.10.255 scope global tap26c9b807-7c     inet6 fe80::f816:3eff:fe1d:5c81/64 scope link        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever   We see two interfaces in the namespace, one is the loopback and the other one is an interface called “tap26c9b807-7c”. This interface has the IP address of 10.10.10.3 and it will also serve dhcp requests in a way we will see later. Let’s trace the connectivity of the “tap26c9b807-7c” interface from the namespace.  First stop is OVS, we see that the interface connects to bridge  “br-int” on OVS: # ovs-vsctl show 8a069c7c-ea05-4375-93e2-b9fc9e4b3ca1     Bridge "br-eth2"         Port "br-eth2"             Interface "br-eth2"                 type: internal         Port "eth2"             Interface "eth2"         Port "phy-br-eth2"             Interface "phy-br-eth2"     Bridge br-ex         Port br-ex             Interface br-ex                 type: internal     Bridge br-int         Port "int-br-eth2"             Interface "int-br-eth2"         Port "tap26c9b807-7c"             tag: 1             Interface "tap26c9b807-7c"                 type: internal         Port br-int             Interface br-int                 type: internal     ovs_version: "1.11.0"   In the picture above we have a veth pair which has two ends called “int-br-eth2” and "phy-br-eth2", this veth pair is used to connect two bridge in OVS "br-eth2" and "br-int". In the previous post we explained how to check the veth connectivity using the ethtool command. It shows that the two are indeed a pair: # ethtool -S int-br-eth2 NIC statistics:      peer_ifindex: 10 . .   #ip link . . 10: phy-br-eth2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000 . . Note that “phy-br-eth2” is connected to a bridge called "br-eth2" and one of this bridge's interfaces is the physical link eth2. This means that the network which we have just created has created a namespace which is connected to the physical interface eth2. eth2 is the “VM network” the physical interface where all the virtual machines connect to where all the VMs are connected. About network isolation: OpenStack supports creation of multiple isolated networks and can use several mechanisms to isolate the networks from one another. The isolation mechanism can be VLANs, VxLANs or GRE tunnels, this is configured as part of the initial setup in our deployment we use VLANs. When using VLAN tagging as an isolation mechanism a VLAN tag is allocated by Neutron from a pre-defined VLAN tags pool and assigned to the newly created network. By provisioning VLAN tags to the networks Neutron allows creation of multiple isolated networks on the same physical link.  The big difference between this and other platforms is that the user does not have to deal with allocating and managing VLANs to networks. The VLAN allocation and provisioning is handled by Neutron which keeps track of the VLAN tags, and responsible for allocating and reclaiming VLAN tags. In the example above net1 has the VLAN tag 1000, this means that whenever a VM is created and connected to this network the packets from that VM will have to be tagged with VLAN tag 1000 to go on this particular network. This is true for namespace as well, if we would like to connect a namespace to a particular network we have to make sure that the packets to and from the namespace are correctly tagged when they reach the VM network. In the example above we see that the namespace interface “tap26c9b807-7c” has vlan tag 1 assigned to it, if we examine OVS we see that it has flows which modify VLAN tag 1 to VLAN tag 1000 when a packet goes to the VM network on eth2 and vice versa. We can see this using the dump-flows command on OVS for packets going to the VM network we see the modification done on br-eth2: #  ovs-ofctl dump-flows br-eth2 NXST_FLOW reply (xid=0x4):  cookie=0x0, duration=18669.401s, table=0, n_packets=857, n_bytes=163350, idle_age=25, priority=4,in_port=2,dl_vlan=1 actions=mod_vlan_vid:1000,NORMAL  cookie=0x0, duration=165108.226s, table=0, n_packets=14, n_bytes=1000, idle_age=5343, hard_age=65534, priority=2,in_port=2 actions=drop  cookie=0x0, duration=165109.813s, table=0, n_packets=1671, n_bytes=213304, idle_age=25, hard_age=65534, priority=1 actions=NORMAL   For packets coming from the interface to the namespace we see the following modification: #  ovs-ofctl dump-flows br-int NXST_FLOW reply (xid=0x4):  cookie=0x0, duration=18690.876s, table=0, n_packets=1610, n_bytes=210752, idle_age=1, priority=3,in_port=1,dl_vlan=1000 actions=mod_vlan_vid:1,NORMAL  cookie=0x0, duration=165130.01s, table=0, n_packets=75, n_bytes=3686, idle_age=4212, hard_age=65534, priority=2,in_port=1 actions=drop  cookie=0x0, duration=165131.96s, table=0, n_packets=863, n_bytes=160727, idle_age=1, hard_age=65534, priority=1 actions=NORMAL   To summarize we can see that when a user creates a network Neutron creates a namespace and this namespace is connected through OVS to the “VM network”. OVS also takes care of tagging the packets from the namespace to the VM network with the correct VLAN tag and knows to modify the VLAN for packets coming from VM network to the namespace. Now let’s see what happens when a VM is launched and how it is connected to the “VM network”. Use case #2: Launch a VM Launching a VM can be done from Horizon or from the command line this is how we do it from Horizon: Attach the network: And Launch Once the virtual machine is up and running we can see the associated IP using the nova list command : # nova list +--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------+-------------+-----------------+ | ID                                   | Name         | Status | Task State | Power State | Networks        | +--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------+-------------+-----------------+ | 3707ac87-4f5d-4349-b7ed-3a673f55e5e1 | Oracle Linux | ACTIVE | None       | Running     | net1=10.10.10.2 | +--------------------------------------+--------------+--------+------------+-------------+-----------------+ The nova list command shows us that the VM is running and that the IP 10.10.10.2 is assigned to this VM. Let’s trace the connectivity from the VM to VM network on eth2 starting with the VM definition file. The configuration files of the VM including the virtual disk(s), in case of ephemeral storage, are stored on the compute node at/var/lib/nova/instances/<instance-id>/. Looking into the VM definition file ,libvirt.xml,  we see that the VM is connected to an interface called “tap53903a95-82” which is connected to a Linux bridge called “qbr53903a95-82”: <interface type="bridge">       <mac address="fa:16:3e:fe:c7:87"/>       <source bridge="qbr53903a95-82"/>       <target dev="tap53903a95-82"/>     </interface>   Looking at the bridge using the brctl show command we see this: # brctl show bridge name     bridge id               STP enabled     interfaces qbr53903a95-82          8000.7e7f3282b836       no              qvb53903a95-82                                                         tap53903a95-82    The bridge has two interfaces, one connected to the VM (“tap53903a95-82 “) and another one ( “qvb53903a95-82”) connected to “br-int” bridge on OVS: # ovs-vsctl show 83c42f80-77e9-46c8-8560-7697d76de51c     Bridge "br-eth2"         Port "br-eth2"             Interface "br-eth2"                 type: internal         Port "eth2"             Interface "eth2"         Port "phy-br-eth2"             Interface "phy-br-eth2"     Bridge br-int         Port br-int             Interface br-int                 type: internal         Port "int-br-eth2"             Interface "int-br-eth2"         Port "qvo53903a95-82"             tag: 3             Interface "qvo53903a95-82"     ovs_version: "1.11.0"   As we showed earlier “br-int” is connected to “br-eth2” on OVS using the veth pair int-br-eth2,phy-br-eth2 and br-eth2 is connected to the physical interface eth2. The whole flow end to end looks like this: VM è tap53903a95-82 (virtual interface)è qbr53903a95-82 (Linux bridge) è qvb53903a95-82 (interface connected from Linux bridge to OVS bridge br-int) è int-br-eth2 (veth one end) è phy-br-eth2 (veth the other end) è eth2 physical interface. The purpose of the Linux Bridge connecting to the VM is to allow security group enforcement with iptables. Security groups are enforced at the edge point which are the interface of the VM, since iptables nnot be applied to OVS bridges we use Linux bridge to apply them. In the future we hope to see this Linux Bridge going away rules.  VLAN tags: As we discussed in the first use case net1 is using VLAN tag 1000, looking at OVS above we see that qvo41f1ebcf-7c is tagged with VLAN tag 3. The modification from VLAN tag 3 to 1000 as we go to the physical network is done by OVS  as part of the packet flow of br-eth2 in the same way we showed before. To summarize, when a VM is launched it is connected to the VM network through a chain of elements as described here. During the packet from VM to the network and back the VLAN tag is modified. Use case #3: Serving a DHCP request coming from the virtual machine In the previous use cases we have shown that both the namespace called dhcp-<some id> and the VM end up connecting to the physical interface eth2  on their respective nodes, both will tag their packets with VLAN tag 1000.We saw that the namespace has an interface with IP of 10.10.10.3. Since the VM and the namespace are connected to each other and have interfaces on the same subnet they can ping each other, in this picture we see a ping from the VM which was assigned 10.10.10.2 to the namespace: The fact that they are connected and can ping each other can become very handy when something doesn’t work right and we need to isolate the problem. In such case knowing that we should be able to ping from the VM to the namespace and back can be used to trace the disconnect using tcpdump or other monitoring tools. To serve DHCP requests coming from VMs on the network Neutron uses a Linux tool called “dnsmasq”,this is a lightweight DNS and DHCP service you can read more about it here. If we look at the dnsmasq on the control node with the ps command we see this: dnsmasq --no-hosts --no-resolv --strict-order --bind-interfaces --interface=tap26c9b807-7c --except-interface=lo --pid-file=/var/lib/neutron/dhcp/5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c/pid --dhcp-hostsfile=/var/lib/neutron/dhcp/5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c/host --dhcp-optsfile=/var/lib/neutron/dhcp/5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c/opts --leasefile-ro --dhcp-range=tag0,10.10.10.0,static,120s --dhcp-lease-max=256 --conf-file= --domain=openstacklocal The service connects to the tap interface in the namespace (“--interface=tap26c9b807-7c”), If we look at the hosts file we see this: # cat  /var/lib/neutron/dhcp/5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c/host fa:16:3e:fe:c7:87,host-10-10-10-2.openstacklocal,10.10.10.2   If you look at the console output above you can see the MAC address fa:16:3e:fe:c7:87 which is the VM MAC. This MAC address is mapped to IP 10.10.10.2 and so when a DHCP request comes with this MAC dnsmasq will return the 10.10.10.2.If we look into the namespace at the time we initiate a DHCP request from the VM (this can be done by simply restarting the network service in the VM) we see the following: # ip netns exec qdhcp-5f833617-6179-4797-b7c0-7d420d84040c tcpdump -n 19:27:12.191280 IP 0.0.0.0.bootpc > 255.255.255.255.bootps: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from fa:16:3e:fe:c7:87, length 310 19:27:12.191666 IP 10.10.10.3.bootps > 10.10.10.2.bootpc: BOOTP/DHCP, Reply, length 325   To summarize, the DHCP service is handled by dnsmasq which is configured by Neutron to listen to the interface in the DHCP namespace. Neutron also configures dnsmasq with the combination of MAC and IP so when a DHCP request comes along it will receive the assigned IP. Summary In this post we relied on the components described in the previous post and saw how network connectivity is achieved using three simple use cases. These use cases gave a good view of the entire network stack and helped understand how an end to end connection is being made between a VM on a compute node and the DHCP namespace on the control node. One conclusion we can draw from what we saw here is that if we launch a VM and it is able to perform a DHCP request and receive a correct IP then there is reason to believe that the network is working as expected. We saw that a packet has to travel through a long list of components before reaching its destination and if it has done so successfully this means that many components are functioning properly. In the next post we will look at some more sophisticated services Neutron supports and see how they work. We will see that while there are some more components involved for the most part the concepts are the same. @RonenKofman

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  • Will these optimizations to my Ruby implementation of diff improve performance in a Rails app?

    - by grg-n-sox
    <tl;dr> In source version control diff patch generation, would it be worth it to use the optimizations listed at the very bottom of this writing (see <optimizations>) in my Ruby implementation of diff for making diff patches? </tl;dr> <introduction> I am programming something I have never done before and there might already be tools out there to do the exact thing I am programming but at this point I am having too much fun to care so I am still going to do it from scratch, even if there is a tool for this. So anyways, I am working on a Ruby on Rails app and need a certain feature. Basically I want each entry in a table of mine, let's say for example a table of video games, to have a stored chunk of text that represents a review or something of the sort for that table entry. However, I want this text to be both editable by any registered user and also keep track of different submissions in a version control system. The simplest solution I could think of is just implement a solution that keeps track of the text body and the diff patch history of different versions of the text body as objects in Ruby and then serialize it, preferably in human readable form (so I'll most likely use YAML for this) for editing if needed due to corruption by a software bug or a mistake is made by an admin doing some version editing. So at first I just tried to dive in head first into this feature to find that the problem of generating a diff patch is more difficult that I thought to do efficiently. So I did some research and came across some ideas. Some I have implemented already and some I have not. However, it all pretty much revolves around the longest common subsequence problem, as you would already know if you have already done anything with diff or diff-like features, and optimization the function that solves it. Currently I have it so it truncates the compared versions of the text body from the beginning and end until non-matching lines are found. Then it solves the problem using a comparison matrix, but instead of incrementing the value stored in a cell when it finds a matching line like in most longest common subsequence algorithms I have seen examples of, I increment when I have a non-matching line so as to calculate edit distance instead of longest common subsequence. Although as far as I can tell between the two approaches, they are essentially two sides of the same coin so either could be used to derive an answer. It then back-traces through the comparison matrix and notes when there was an incrementation and in which adjacent cell (West, Northwest, or North) to determine that line's diff entry and assumes all other lines to be unchanged. Normally I would leave it at that, but since this is going into a Rails environment and not just some stand-alone Ruby script, I started getting worried about needing to optimize at least enough so if a spammer that somehow knew how I implemented the version control system and knew my worst case scenario entry still wouldn't be able to hit the server that bad. After some searching and reading of research papers and articles through the internet, I've come across several that seem decent but all seem to have pros and cons and I am having a hard time deciding how well in this situation that the pros and cons balance out. So are the ones listed here worth it? I have listed them with known pros and cons. </introduction> <optimizations> Chop the compared sequences into multiple chucks of subsequences by splitting where lines are unchanged, and then truncating each section of unchanged lines at the beginning and end of each section. Then solve the edit distance of each subsequence. Pro: Changes the time increase as the changed area gets bigger from a quadratic increase to something more similar to a linear increase. Con: Figuring out where to split already seems like you have to solve edit distance except now you don't care how it is changed. Would be fine if this was solvable by a process closer to solving hamming distance but a single insertion would throw this off. Use a cryptographic hash function to both convert all sequence elements into integers and ensure uniqueness. Then solve the edit distance comparing the hash integers instead of the sequence elements themselves. Pro: The operation of comparing two integers is faster than the operation of comparing two strings, so a slight performance gain is received after every comparison, which can be a lot overall. Con: Using a cryptographic hash function takes time to convert all the sequence elements and may end up costing more time to do the conversion that you gain back from the integer comparisons. You could use the built in hash function for a string but that will not guarantee uniqueness. Use lazy evaluation to only calculate the three center-most diagonals of the comparison matrix and then only calculate additional diagonals as needed. And then also use this approach to possibly remove the need on some comparisons to compare all three adjacent cells as desribed here. Pro: Can turn an algorithm that always takes O(n * m) time and make it so only worst case scenario is that time, best case becomes practically linear, and average case is somewhere between the two. Con: It is an algorithm I've only seen implemented in functional programming languages and I am having a difficult time comprehending how to convert this into Ruby based on how it is described at the site linked to above. Make a C module and do the hard work at the native level in C and just make a Ruby wrapper for it so Ruby can make all the calls to it that it needs. Pro: I have to imagine that evaluating something like this in could be a LOT faster. Con: I have no idea how Rails handles apps with ruby code that has C extensions and it hurts the portability of the app. This is an optimization for after the solving of edit distance, but idea is to store additional combined diffs with the ones produced by each version to make a delta-tree data structure with the most recently made diff as the root node of the tree so getting to any version takes worst case time of O(log n) instead of O(n). Pro: Would make going back to an old version a lot faster. Con: It would mean every new commit, the delta-tree would get a new root node that will cost time to reorganize the delta-tree for an operation that will be carried out a lot more often than going back a version, not to mention the unlikelihood it will be an old version. </optimizations> So are these things worth the effort?

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  • JavaMail not sending Subject or From under jetty:run-war

    - by Jason Thrasher
    Has anyone seen JavaMail not sending proper MimeMessages to an SMTP server, depending on how the JVM in started? At the end of the day, I can't send JavaMail SMTP messages with Subject: or From: fields, and it appears other headers are missing, only when running the app as a war. The web project is built with Maven and I'm testing sending JavaMail using a browser and a simple mail.jsp to debug and see different behavior when launching the app with: 1) mvn jetty:run (mail sends fine, with proper Subject and From fields) 2) mvn jetty:run-war (mail sends fine, but missing Subject, From, and other fields) I've meticulously run diff on the (verbose) Maven debug output (-X), and there are zero differences in the runtime dependencies between the two. I've also compared System properties, and they are identical. Something else is happening the jetty:run-war case that changes the way JavaMail behaves. What other stones need turning? Curiously, I've tried a debugger in both situations and found that the javax.mail.internet.MimeMessage instance is getting created differently. The webapp is using Spring to send email picked off of an Apache ActiveMQ queue. When running the app as mvn jetty:run the MimeMessage.contentStream variable is used for message content. When running as mvn jetty:run-war, the MimeMessage.content variable is used for the message contents, and the content = ASCIIUtility.getBytes(is); call removes all of the header data from the parsed content. Since this seemed very odd, and debugging Spring/ActiveMQ is a deep dive, I created a simplified test without any of that infrastructure: just a JSP using mail-1.4.2.jar, yet the same headers are missing. Also of note, these headers are missing when running the WAR file under Tomcat 5.5.27. Tomcat behaves just like Jetty when running the WAR, with the same missing headers. With JavaMail debugging turned on, I clearly see different output. GOOD CASE: In the jetty:run (non-WAR) the log output is: DEBUG: JavaMail version 1.4.2 DEBUG: successfully loaded resource: /META-INF/javamail.default.providers DEBUG: Tables of loaded providers DEBUG: Providers Listed By Class Name: {com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPSSLTransport=javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtps,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPSSLTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc], com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport=javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtp,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc], com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPSSLStore=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,imaps,com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPSSLStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc], com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3SSLStore=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,pop3s,com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3SSLStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc], com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,imap,com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc], com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3Store=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,pop3,com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3Store,Sun Microsystems, Inc]} DEBUG: Providers Listed By Protocol: {imaps=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,imaps,com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPSSLStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc], imap=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,imap,com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc], smtps=javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtps,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPSSLTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc], pop3=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,pop3,com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3Store,Sun Microsystems, Inc], pop3s=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,pop3s,com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3SSLStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc], smtp=javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtp,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc]} DEBUG: successfully loaded resource: /META-INF/javamail.default.address.map DEBUG: getProvider() returning javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtp,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc] DEBUG SMTP: useEhlo true, useAuth true DEBUG SMTP: trying to connect to host "mail.authsmtp.com", port 465, isSSL false 220 mail.authsmtp.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.14.2/8.14.2/Kp; Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:35:24 +0100 (BST) DEBUG SMTP: connected to host "mail.authsmtp.com", port: 465 EHLO jmac.local 250-mail.authsmtp.com Hello sul-pubs-3a.Stanford.EDU [171.66.201.2], pleased to meet you 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES 250-PIPELINING 250-8BITMIME 250-SIZE 52428800 250-AUTH CRAM-MD5 DIGEST-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN 250-DELIVERBY 250 HELP DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "PIPELINING", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "8BITMIME", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "SIZE", arg "52428800" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "AUTH", arg "CRAM-MD5 DIGEST-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "DELIVERBY", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "HELP", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Attempt to authenticate DEBUG SMTP: check mechanisms: LOGIN PLAIN DIGEST-MD5 AUTH LOGIN 334 VXNlcm5hjbt7 YWM0MDkwhi== 334 UGFzc3dvjbt7 YXV0aHNtdHAydog3 235 2.0.0 OK Authenticated DEBUG SMTP: use8bit false MAIL FROM:<[email protected]> 250 2.1.0 <[email protected]>... Sender ok RCPT TO:<[email protected]> 250 2.1.5 <[email protected]>... Recipient ok DEBUG SMTP: Verified Addresses DEBUG SMTP: Jason Thrasher <[email protected]> DATA 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself From: Webmaster <[email protected]> To: Jason Thrasher <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Subject: non-Spring: Hello World MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello World: message body here . 250 2.0.0 n5I0ZOkD085654 Message accepted for delivery QUIT 221 2.0.0 mail.authsmtp.com closing connection BAD CASE: The log output when running as a WAR, with missing headers, is quite different: Loading javamail.default.providers from jar:file:/Users/jason/.m2/repository/javax/mail/mail/1.4.2/mail-1.4.2.jar!/META-INF/javamail.default.providers DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=imap, className=com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=imaps, className=com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPSSLStore, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=smtp, className=com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=smtps, className=com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPSSLTransport, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=pop3, className=com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3Store, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=pop3s, className=com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3SSLStore, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null Loading javamail.default.providers from jar:file:/Users/jason/Documents/dev/subscribeatron/software/trunk/web/struts/target/work/webapp/WEB-INF/lib/mail-1.4.2.jar!/META-INF/javamail.default.providers DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=imap, className=com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=imaps, className=com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPSSLStore, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=smtp, className=com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=smtps, className=com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPSSLTransport, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=pop3, className=com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3Store, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: loading new provider protocol=pop3s, className=com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3SSLStore, vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc, version=null DEBUG: getProvider() returning provider protocol=smtp; type=javax.mail.Provider$Type@98203f; class=com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport; vendor=Sun Microsystems, Inc DEBUG SMTP: useEhlo true, useAuth false DEBUG SMTP: trying to connect to host "mail.authsmtp.com", port 465, isSSL false 220 mail.authsmtp.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.14.2/8.14.2/Kp; Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:51:46 +0100 (BST) DEBUG SMTP: connected to host "mail.authsmtp.com", port: 465 EHLO jmac.local 250-mail.authsmtp.com Hello sul-pubs-3a.Stanford.EDU [171.66.201.2], pleased to meet you 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES 250-PIPELINING 250-8BITMIME 250-SIZE 52428800 250-AUTH CRAM-MD5 DIGEST-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN 250-DELIVERBY 250 HELP DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "PIPELINING", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "8BITMIME", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "SIZE", arg "52428800" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "AUTH", arg "CRAM-MD5 DIGEST-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "DELIVERBY", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Found extension "HELP", arg "" DEBUG SMTP: Attempt to authenticate DEBUG SMTP: check mechanisms: LOGIN PLAIN DIGEST-MD5 AUTH LOGIN 334 VXNlcm5hjbt7 YWM0MDkwhi== 334 UGFzc3dvjbt7 YXV0aHNtdHAydog3 235 2.0.0 OK Authenticated DEBUG SMTP: use8bit false MAIL FROM:<[email protected]> 250 2.1.0 <[email protected]>... Sender ok RCPT TO:<[email protected]> 250 2.1.5 <[email protected]>... Recipient ok DEBUG SMTP: Verified Addresses DEBUG SMTP: Jason Thrasher <[email protected]> DATA 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself Hello World: message body here . 250 2.0.0 n5I0pkSc090137 Message accepted for delivery QUIT 221 2.0.0 mail.authsmtp.com closing connection Here's the actual mail.jsp that I'm testing war/non-war with. <%@page import="java.util.*"%> <%@page import="javax.mail.internet.*"%> <%@page import="javax.mail.*"%> <% InternetAddress from = new InternetAddress("[email protected]", "Webmaster"); InternetAddress to = new InternetAddress("[email protected]", "Jason Thrasher"); String subject = "non-Spring: Hello World"; String content = "Hello World: message body here"; final Properties props = new Properties(); props.setProperty("mail.transport.protocol", "smtp"); props.setProperty("mail.host", "mail.authsmtp.com"); props.setProperty("mail.port", "465"); props.setProperty("mail.username", "myusername"); props.setProperty("mail.password", "secret"); props.setProperty("mail.debug", "true"); props.setProperty("mail.smtp.auth", "true"); props.setProperty("mail.smtp.socketFactory.class", "javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory"); props.setProperty("mail.smtp.socketFactory.fallback", "false"); Session mailSession = Session.getDefaultInstance(props); Message message = new MimeMessage(mailSession); message.setFrom(from); message.setRecipient(Message.RecipientType.TO, to); message.setSubject(subject); message.setContent(content, "text/plain;charset=UTF-8"); Transport trans = mailSession.getTransport(); trans.connect(props.getProperty("mail.host"), Integer .parseInt(props.getProperty("mail.port")), props .getProperty("mail.username"), props .getProperty("mail.password")); trans.sendMessage(message, message .getRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO)); trans.close(); %> email was sent SOLUTION: Yes, the problem was transitive dependencies of Apache CXF 2. I had to exclude geronimo-javamail_1.4_spec from the build, and just rely on javax's mail-1.4.jar. <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId> <artifactId>cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws</artifactId> <version>2.2.6</version> <exclusions> <exclusion> <groupId>org.apache.geronimo.specs</groupId> <artifactId>geronimo-javamail_1.4_spec</artifactId> </exclusion> </exclusions> </dependency> Thanks for all of the answers.

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  • Can't add client machine to windows server 2008 domain controller

    - by Patrick J Collins
    A bit of background before I dive into the gritty details: I have a single server running Windows 2003 Server where I host my ASP.net website and SQL Server + Reports. I've been creating ordinary windows user accounts to authenticate my users, and I enabled integrated windows authentication with impersonation. I've set up a bunch of user groups which correspond to certain roles (admin, power user, normal user, etc) and I test membership to enable or disable certain features. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the solution, it was quick to setup and I don't have to worry about messing around storing passwords and whatnot. Well, what I'm trying to do now is set up a new environment with 3 servers (Web, SQL, Reports) and I'd like these three servers to share common user accounts. I understand that I could add these three machines to a domain, which means installing Active Directory on one of the machines. I am barking up the wrong tree here? Would you suggest an alternative configuration? Assuming that I stick with AD, I have a couple of questions regarding DNS. To be honest, I'd rather not fiddle around with the DNS settings because my ISP already has their own DNS server which works just fine. It would appear however that DNS and AD are intertwined. Firstly, if I am to create a new domain in called mycompany.net, do I actually need to be the registered owner of that domain name and ensure the DNS entry points to the IP address of the machine hosting AD? Secondly, for the two other machines that I am trying to add to the domain, do I need to fiddle with their DNS settings? I've tried setting the preferred DNS Server IP address to that of my newly installed AD, but no luck. At this point, I can't add the two other machines to the domain. Here are some diagnostics that I have run based on a few suggestions I read on forums (sorry they're in French, although I could translate if needed). I ran nltest, which seems to indicate that the client can discover the domain controller. When I run dcdiag, the call to DsGetDcName fails with error 1722, not really sure what that means. Any suggestions? Thanks! C:\Users\Administrator>nltest /dsgetdc:mycompany.net Contrôleur de domaine : \\REPORTS.mycompany.net Adresse : \\111.111.111.111 GUID dom : 3333a4ec-ca56-4f02-bb9e-76c29c6c3832 Nom dom : mycompany.net Nom de la forêt : mycompany.net Nom de site du contrôleur de domaine : Default-First-Site-Name Nom de notre site : Default-First-Site-Name Indicateurs : PDC GC DS LDAP KDC TIMESERV WRITABLE DNS_DC DNS_DOMAIN DNS _FOREST CLOSE_SITE FULL_SECRET La commande a été correctement exécutée C:\Users\Administrator>dcdiag /s:mycompany.net /u: mycompany.net \pcollins /p:somepass Diagnostic du serveur d'annuaire Exécution de l'installation initiale : * Forêt AD identifiée. Collecte des informations initiales terminée. Exécution des tests initiaux nécessaires Test du serveur : Default-First-Site-Name\REPORTS Démarrage du test : Connectivity ......................... Le test Connectivity de REPORTS a réussi Exécution des tests principaux Test du serveur : Default-First-Site-Name\REPORTS Démarrage du test : Advertising Erreur irrécupérable : l'appel DsGetDcName (REPORTS) a échoué ; erreur 1722 Le localisateur n'a pas pu trouver le serveur. ......................... Le test Advertising de REPORTS a échoué Démarrage du test : FrsEvent Impossible d'interroger le journal des événements File Replication Service sur le serveur REPORTS.mycompany.net. Erreur 0x6ba « Le serveur RPC n'est pas disponible. » ......................... Le test FrsEvent de REPORTS a échoué Démarrage du test : DFSREvent Impossible d'interroger le journal des événements DFS Replication sur le serveur REPORTS.mycompany.net. Erreur 0x6ba « Le serveur RPC n'est pas disponible. » ......................... Le test DFSREvent de REPORTS a échoué Démarrage du test : SysVolCheck [REPORTS] Une opération net use ou LsaPolicy a échoué avec l'erreur 53, Le chemin réseau n'a pas été trouvé.. ......................... Le test SysVolCheck de REPORTS a échoué Démarrage du test : KccEvent Impossible d'interroger le journal des événements Directory Service sur le serveur REPORTS.mycompany.net. Erreur 0x6ba « Le serveur RPC n'est pas disponible. » ......................... Le test KccEvent de REPORTS a échoué Démarrage du test : KnowsOfRoleHolders ......................... Le test KnowsOfRoleHolders de REPORTS a réussi Démarrage du test : MachineAccount Impossible d'ouvrir le canal avec [REPORTS] : échec avec l'erreur 53 : Le chemin réseau n'a pas été trouvé. Impossible d'obtenir le nom de domaine NetBIOS Échec : impossible de tester le nom principal de service (SPN) HOST Échec : impossible de tester le nom principal de service (SPN) HOST ......................... Le test MachineAccount de REPORTS a réussi Démarrage du test : NCSecDesc ......................... Le test NCSecDesc de REPORTS a réussi Démarrage du test : NetLogons [REPORTS] Une opération net use ou LsaPolicy a échoué avec l'erreur 53, Le chemin réseau n'a pas été trouvé.. ......................... Le test NetLogons de REPORTS a échoué Démarrage du test : ObjectsReplicated ......................... Le test ObjectsReplicated de REPORTS a réussi Démarrage du test : Replications ......................... Le test Replications de REPORTS a réussi Démarrage du test : RidManager ......................... Le test RidManager de REPORTS a réussi Démarrage du test : Services Impossible d'ouvrir IPC distant à [REPORTS.mycompany.net] : erreur 0x35 « Le chemin réseau n'a pas été trouvé. » ......................... Le test Services de REPORTS a échoué Démarrage du test : SystemLog Impossible d'interroger le journal des événements System sur le serveur REPORTS.mycompany.net. Erreur 0x6ba « Le serveur RPC n'est pas disponible. » ......................... Le test SystemLog de REPORTS a échoué Démarrage du test : VerifyReferences ......................... Le test VerifyReferences de REPORTS a réussi Exécution de tests de partitions sur ForestDnsZones Démarrage du test : CheckSDRefDom ......................... Le test CheckSDRefDom de ForestDnsZones a réussi Démarrage du test : CrossRefValidation ......................... Le test CrossRefValidation de ForestDnsZones a réussi Exécution de tests de partitions sur DomainDnsZones Démarrage du test : CheckSDRefDom ......................... Le test CheckSDRefDom de DomainDnsZones a réussi Démarrage du test : CrossRefValidation ......................... Le test CrossRefValidation de DomainDnsZones a réussi Exécution de tests de partitions sur Schema Démarrage du test : CheckSDRefDom ......................... Le test CheckSDRefDom de Schema a réussi Démarrage du test : CrossRefValidation ......................... Le test CrossRefValidation de Schema a réussi Exécution de tests de partitions sur Configuration Démarrage du test : CheckSDRefDom ......................... Le test CheckSDRefDom de Configuration a réussi Démarrage du test : CrossRefValidation ......................... Le test CrossRefValidation de Configuration a réussi Exécution de tests de partitions sur mycompany Démarrage du test : CheckSDRefDom ......................... Le test CheckSDRefDom de mycompany a réussi Démarrage du test : CrossRefValidation ......................... Le test CrossRefValidation de mycompany a réussi Exécution de tests d'entreprise sur mycompany.net Démarrage du test : LocatorCheck Avertissement : l'appel DcGetDcName(GC_SERVER_REQUIRED) a échoué ; erreur 1722 Serveur de catalogue global introuvable - Les catalogues globaux ne fonctionnent pas. Avertissement : l'appel DcGetDcName(PDC_REQUIRED) a échoué ; erreur 1722 Contrôleur principal de domaine introuvable. Le serveur contenant le rôle PDC ne fonctionne pas. Avertissement : l'appel DcGetDcName(TIME_SERVER) a échoué ; erreur 1722 Serveur de temps introuvable. Le serveur contenant le rôle PDC ne fonctionne pas. Avertissement : l'appel DcGetDcName(GOOD_TIME_SERVER_PREFERRED) a échoué ; erreur 1722 Serveur de temps introuvable. Avertissement : l'appel DcGetDcName(KDC_REQUIRED) a échoué ; erreur 1722 Centre de distribution de clés introuvable : les centres de distribution de clés ne fonctionnent pas. ......................... Le test LocatorCheck de mycompany.net a échoué Démarrage du test : Intersite ......................... Le test Intersite de mycompany.net a réussi Update 1 : I am under the distinct impression that the problem is caused by some security settings. I have read elsewhere that the client needs to be able to access the fileshare sysvol. I had to enable Client for Microsoft Windows and File and Printer Sharing which were previously disabled. When I now run dcdiag the Advertising test works, which I suppose is forward progress. It currently chokes on the Services step (unable to open remote IPC). Démarrage du test : Services Impossible d'ouvrir IPC distant à [REPORTS.locbus.net] : erreur 0x35 « Le chemin réseau n'a pas été trouvé. » ......................... Le test Services de REPORTS a échoué The original English version of that error message : Could not open Remote ipc to [server] Update 2 : I attach some more diagnostics : Netsetup.log (client): 09/24/2009 13:27:09:773 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 09/24/2009 13:27:09:773 NetpValidateName: checking to see if 'WEB' is valid as type 1 name 09/24/2009 13:27:12:773 NetpCheckNetBiosNameNotInUse for 'WEB' [MACHINE] returned 0x0 09/24/2009 13:27:12:773 NetpValidateName: name 'WEB' is valid for type 1 09/24/2009 13:27:12:805 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 09/24/2009 13:27:12:805 NetpValidateName: checking to see if 'WEB' is valid as type 5 name 09/24/2009 13:27:12:805 NetpValidateName: name 'WEB' is valid for type 5 09/24/2009 13:27:12:852 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 09/24/2009 13:27:12:852 NetpValidateName: checking to see if 'MYCOMPANY.NET' is valid as type 3 name 09/24/2009 13:27:12:992 NetpCheckDomainNameIsValid [ Exists ] for 'MYCOMPANY.NET' returned 0x0 09/24/2009 13:27:12:992 NetpValidateName: name 'MYCOMPANY.NET' is valid for type 3 09/24/2009 13:27:21:320 ----------------------------------------------------------------- 09/24/2009 13:27:21:320 NetpDoDomainJoin 09/24/2009 13:27:21:320 NetpMachineValidToJoin: 'WEB' 09/24/2009 13:27:21:320 OS Version: 6.0 09/24/2009 13:27:21:320 Build number: 6002 09/24/2009 13:27:21:320 ServicePack: Service Pack 2 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 SKU: Windows Server® 2008 Standard 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 NetpDomainJoinLicensingCheck: ulLicenseValue=1, Status: 0x0 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 NetpGetLsaPrimaryDomain: status: 0x0 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 NetpMachineValidToJoin: status: 0x0 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 NetpJoinDomain 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 Machine: WEB 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 Domain: MYCOMPANY.NET 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 MachineAccountOU: (NULL) 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 Account: MYCOMPANY.NET\pcollins 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 Options: 0x25 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 NetpLoadParameters: loading registry parameters... 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 NetpLoadParameters: DNSNameResolutionRequired not found, defaulting to '1' 0x2 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 NetpLoadParameters: status: 0x2 09/24/2009 13:27:21:414 NetpValidateName: checking to see if 'MYCOMPANY.NET' is valid as type 3 name 09/24/2009 13:27:21:523 NetpCheckDomainNameIsValid [ Exists ] for 'MYCOMPANY.NET' returned 0x0 09/24/2009 13:27:21:523 NetpValidateName: name 'MYCOMPANY.NET' is valid for type 3 09/24/2009 13:27:21:523 NetpDsGetDcName: trying to find DC in domain 'MYCOMPANY.NET', flags: 0x40001010 09/24/2009 13:27:22:039 NetpDsGetDcName: failed to find a DC having account 'WEB$': 0x525, last error is 0x79 09/24/2009 13:27:22:039 NetpDsGetDcName: status of verifying DNS A record name resolution for 'KING.MYCOMPANY.NET': 0x0 09/24/2009 13:27:22:039 NetpDsGetDcName: found DC '\\KING.MYCOMPANY.NET' in the specified domain 09/24/2009 13:27:30:039 NetUseAdd to \\KING.MYCOMPANY.NET\IPC$ returned 53 09/24/2009 13:27:30:039 NetpJoinDomain: status of connecting to dc '\\KING.MYCOMPANY.NET': 0x35 09/24/2009 13:27:30:039 NetpDoDomainJoin: status: 0x35 09/24/2009 13:27:30:148 ----------------------------------------------------------------- ipconfig /all (on client): Configuration IP de Windows Nom de l'hôte . . . . . . . . . . : WEB Suffixe DNS principal . . . . . . : Type de noeud. . . . . . . . . . : Hybride Routage IP activé . . . . . . . . : Non Proxy WINS activé . . . . . . . . : Non Carte Ethernet Connexion au réseau local : Suffixe DNS propre à la connexion. . . : Description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel 21140-Based PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (Emulated) Adresse physique . . . . . . . . . . . : **-15-5D-A1-17-** DHCP activé. . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Non Configuration automatique activée. . . : Oui Adresse IPv4. . . . . . . . . . . : **.***.163.122(préféré) Masque de sous-réseau. . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Passerelle par défaut. . . . . . . . . : **.***.163.2 Serveurs DNS. . . . . . . . . . . . . : **.***.163.123 NetBIOS sur Tcpip. . . . . . . . . . . : Activé ipconfig /all (on server): Configuration IP de Windows Nom de l'hôte . . . . . . . . . . : KING Suffixe DNS principal . . . . . . : mycompany.net Type de noeud. . . . . . . . . . : Hybride Routage IP activé . . . . . . . . : Non Proxy WINS activé . . . . . . . . : Non Liste de recherche du suffixe DNS.: locbus.net Carte Ethernet Connexion au réseau local : Suffixe DNS propre à la connexion. . . : Description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel 21140-Based PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (Emulated) Adresse physique . . . . . . . . . . . : **-15-5D-A1-1E-** DHCP activé. . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Non Configuration automatique activée. . . : Oui Adresse IPv4. . . . . . . . . . . : **.***.163.123(préféré) Masque de sous-réseau. . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Passerelle par défaut. . . . . . . . . : **.***.163.2 Serveurs DNS. . . . . . . . . . . . . : 127.0.0.1 NetBIOS sur Tcpip. . . . . . . . . . . : Activé nslookup (on client): Serveur : *******.***.com Address: **.***.163.123 Nom : mycompany.net Addresses: ****:****:a37b::****:a37b **.****.163.123

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  • Sendmail Failing to Forward Locally Addressed Mail to Exchange Server

    - by DomainSoil
    I've recently gained employment as a web developer with a small company. What they neglected to tell me upon hire was that I would be administrating the server along with my other daily duties. Now, truth be told, I'm not clueless when it comes to these things, but this is my first rodeo working with a rack server/console.. However, I'm confident that I will be able to work through any solutions you provide. Short Description: When a customer places an order via our (Magento CE 1.8.1.0) website, a copy of said order is supposed to be BCC'd to our sales manager. I say supposed because this was a working feature before the old administrator left. Long Description: Shortly after I started, we had a server crash which required a server restart. After restart, we noticed a few features on our site weren't working, but all those have been cleaned up except this one. I had to create an account on our server for root access. When a customer places an order, our sites software (Magento CE 1.8.1.0) is configured to BCC the customers order email to our sales manager. We use a Microsoft Exchange 2007 Server for our mail, which is hosted on a different machine (in-house) that I don't have access to ATM, but I'm sure I could if needed. As far as I can tell, all other external emails work.. Only INTERNAL email addresses fail to deliver. I know this because I've also tested my own internal address via our website. I set up an account with an internal email, made a test order, and never received the email. I changed my email for the account to an external GMail account, and received emails as expected. Let's dive into the logs and config's. For privacy/security reasons, names have been changed to the following: domain.com = Our Top Level Domain. email.local = Our Exchange Server. example.com = ANY other TLD. OLDadmin = Our previous Server Administrator. NEWadmin = Me. SALES@ = Our Sales Manager. Customer# = A Customer. Here's a list of the programs and config files used that hold relevant for this issue: Server: > [root@www ~]# cat /etc/centos-release CentOS release 6.3 (final) Sendmail: > [root@www ~]# sendmail -d0.1 -bt < /dev/null Version 8.14.4 ========SYSTEM IDENTITY (after readcf)======== (short domain name) $w = domain (canonical domain name) $j = domain.com (subdomain name) $m = com (node name) $k = www.domain.com > [root@www ~]# rpm -qa | grep -i sendmail sendmail-cf-8.14.4-8.e16.noarch sendmail-8.14-4-8.e16.x86_64 nslookup: > [root@www ~]# nslookup email.local Name: email.local Address: 192.168.1.50 hostname: > [root@www ~]# hostname www.domain.com /etc/mail/access: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/mail/access Connect:localhost.localdomain RELAY Connect:localhost RELAY Connect:127.0.0.1 RELAY /etc/mail/domaintable: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/mail/domaintable # /etc/mail/local-host-names: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/mail/local-host-names # /etc/mail/mailertable: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/mail/mailertable # /etc/mail/sendmail.cf: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/mail/sendmail.cf ###################################################################### ##### ##### DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE! Only edit the source .mc file. ##### ###################################################################### ###################################################################### ##### $Id: cfhead.m4,v 8.120 2009/01/23 22:39:21 ca Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: cf.m4,v 8.32 1999/02/07 07:26:14 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### setup for linux ##### ##### $Id: linux.m4,v 8.13 2000/09/17 17:30:00 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: local_procmail.m4,v 8.22 2002/11/17 04:24:19 ca Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: no_default_msa.m4,v 8.2 2001/02/14 05:03:22 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: smrsh.m4,v 8.14 1999/11/18 05:06:23 ca Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: mailertable.m4,v 8.25 2002/06/27 23:23:57 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: virtusertable.m4,v 8.23 2002/06/27 23:23:57 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: redirect.m4,v 8.15 1999/08/06 01:47:36 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: always_add_domain.m4,v 8.11 2000/09/12 22:00:53 ca Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: use_cw_file.m4,v 8.11 2001/08/26 20:58:57 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: use_ct_file.m4,v 8.11 2001/08/26 20:58:57 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: local_procmail.m4,v 8.22 2002/11/17 04:24:19 ca Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: access_db.m4,v 8.27 2006/07/06 21:10:10 ca Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: blacklist_recipients.m4,v 8.13 1999/04/02 02:25:13 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: accept_unresolvable_domains.m4,v 8.10 1999/02/07 07:26:07 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: masquerade_envelope.m4,v 8.9 1999/02/07 07:26:10 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: masquerade_entire_domain.m4,v 8.9 1999/02/07 07:26:10 gshapiro Exp $ ##### ##### $Id: proto.m4,v 8.741 2009/12/11 00:04:53 ca Exp $ ##### # level 10 config file format V10/Berkeley # override file safeties - setting this option compromises system security, # addressing the actual file configuration problem is preferred # need to set this before any file actions are encountered in the cf file #O DontBlameSendmail=safe # default LDAP map specification # need to set this now before any LDAP maps are defined #O LDAPDefaultSpec=-h localhost ################## # local info # ################## # my LDAP cluster # need to set this before any LDAP lookups are done (including classes) #D{sendmailMTACluster}$m Cwlocalhost # file containing names of hosts for which we receive email Fw/etc/mail/local-host-names # my official domain name # ... define this only if sendmail cannot automatically determine your domain #Dj$w.Foo.COM # host/domain names ending with a token in class P are canonical CP. # "Smart" relay host (may be null) DSemail.local # operators that cannot be in local usernames (i.e., network indicators) CO @ % ! # a class with just dot (for identifying canonical names) C.. # a class with just a left bracket (for identifying domain literals) C[[ # access_db acceptance class C{Accept}OK RELAY C{ResOk}OKR # Hosts for which relaying is permitted ($=R) FR-o /etc/mail/relay-domains # arithmetic map Karith arith # macro storage map Kmacro macro # possible values for TLS_connection in access map C{Tls}VERIFY ENCR # who I send unqualified names to if FEATURE(stickyhost) is used # (null means deliver locally) DRemail.local. # who gets all local email traffic # ($R has precedence for unqualified names if FEATURE(stickyhost) is used) DHemail.local. # dequoting map Kdequote dequote # class E: names that should be exposed as from this host, even if we masquerade # class L: names that should be delivered locally, even if we have a relay # class M: domains that should be converted to $M # class N: domains that should not be converted to $M #CL root C{E}root C{w}localhost.localdomain C{M}domain.com # who I masquerade as (null for no masquerading) (see also $=M) DMdomain.com # my name for error messages DnMAILER-DAEMON # Mailer table (overriding domains) Kmailertable hash -o /etc/mail/mailertable.db # Virtual user table (maps incoming users) Kvirtuser hash -o /etc/mail/virtusertable.db CPREDIRECT # Access list database (for spam stomping) Kaccess hash -T<TMPF> -o /etc/mail/access.db # Configuration version number DZ8.14.4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/mail/sendmail.mc divert(-1)dnl dnl # dnl # This is the sendmail macro config file for m4. If you make changes to dnl # /etc/mail/sendmail.mc, you will need to regenerate the dnl # /etc/mail/sendmail.cf file by confirming that the sendmail-cf package is dnl # installed and then performing a dnl # dnl # /etc/mail/make dnl # include(`/usr/share/sendmail-cf/m4/cf.m4')dnl VERSIONID(`setup for linux')dnl OSTYPE(`linux')dnl dnl # dnl # Do not advertize sendmail version. dnl # dnl define(`confSMTP_LOGIN_MSG', `$j Sendmail; $b')dnl dnl # dnl # default logging level is 9, you might want to set it higher to dnl # debug the configuration dnl # dnl define(`confLOG_LEVEL', `9')dnl dnl # dnl # Uncomment and edit the following line if your outgoing mail needs to dnl # be sent out through an external mail server: dnl # define(`SMART_HOST', `email.local')dnl dnl # define(`confDEF_USER_ID', ``8:12'')dnl dnl define(`confAUTO_REBUILD')dnl define(`confTO_CONNECT', `1m')dnl define(`confTRY_NULL_MX_LIST', `True')dnl define(`confDONT_PROBE_INTERFACES', `True')dnl define(`PROCMAIL_MAILER_PATH', `/usr/bin/procmail')dnl define(`ALIAS_FILE', `/etc/aliases')dnl define(`STATUS_FILE', `/var/log/mail/statistics')dnl define(`UUCP_MAILER_MAX', `2000000')dnl define(`confUSERDB_SPEC', `/etc/mail/userdb.db')dnl define(`confPRIVACY_FLAGS', `authwarnings,novrfy,noexpn,restrictqrun')dnl define(`confAUTH_OPTIONS', `A')dnl dnl # dnl # The following allows relaying if the user authenticates, and disallows dnl # plaintext authentication (PLAIN/LOGIN) on non-TLS links dnl # dnl define(`confAUTH_OPTIONS', `A p')dnl dnl # dnl # PLAIN is the preferred plaintext authentication method and used by dnl # Mozilla Mail and Evolution, though Outlook Express and other MUAs do dnl # use LOGIN. Other mechanisms should be used if the connection is not dnl # guaranteed secure. dnl # Please remember that saslauthd needs to be running for AUTH. dnl # dnl TRUST_AUTH_MECH(`EXTERNAL DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl dnl define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl dnl # dnl # Rudimentary information on creating certificates for sendmail TLS: dnl # cd /etc/pki/tls/certs; make sendmail.pem dnl # Complete usage: dnl # make -C /etc/pki/tls/certs usage dnl # dnl define(`confCACERT_PATH', `/etc/pki/tls/certs')dnl dnl define(`confCACERT', `/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt')dnl dnl define(`confSERVER_CERT', `/etc/pki/tls/certs/sendmail.pem')dnl dnl define(`confSERVER_KEY', `/etc/pki/tls/certs/sendmail.pem')dnl dnl # dnl # This allows sendmail to use a keyfile that is shared with OpenLDAP's dnl # slapd, which requires the file to be readble by group ldap dnl # dnl define(`confDONT_BLAME_SENDMAIL', `groupreadablekeyfile')dnl dnl # dnl define(`confTO_QUEUEWARN', `4h')dnl dnl define(`confTO_QUEUERETURN', `5d')dnl dnl define(`confQUEUE_LA', `12')dnl dnl define(`confREFUSE_LA', `18')dnl define(`confTO_IDENT', `0')dnl dnl FEATURE(delay_checks)dnl FEATURE(`no_default_msa', `dnl')dnl FEATURE(`smrsh', `/usr/sbin/smrsh')dnl FEATURE(`mailertable', `hash -o /etc/mail/mailertable.db')dnl FEATURE(`virtusertable', `hash -o /etc/mail/virtusertable.db')dnl FEATURE(redirect)dnl FEATURE(always_add_domain)dnl FEATURE(use_cw_file)dnl FEATURE(use_ct_file)dnl dnl # dnl # The following limits the number of processes sendmail can fork to accept dnl # incoming messages or process its message queues to 20.) sendmail refuses dnl # to accept connections once it has reached its quota of child processes. dnl # dnl define(`confMAX_DAEMON_CHILDREN', `20')dnl dnl # dnl # Limits the number of new connections per second. This caps the overhead dnl # incurred due to forking new sendmail processes. May be useful against dnl # DoS attacks or barrages of spam. (As mentioned below, a per-IP address dnl # limit would be useful but is not available as an option at this writing.) dnl # dnl define(`confCONNECTION_RATE_THROTTLE', `3')dnl dnl # dnl # The -t option will retry delivery if e.g. the user runs over his quota. dnl # FEATURE(local_procmail, `', `procmail -t -Y -a $h -d $u')dnl FEATURE(`access_db', `hash -T<TMPF> -o /etc/mail/access.db')dnl FEATURE(`blacklist_recipients')dnl EXPOSED_USER(`root')dnl dnl # dnl # For using Cyrus-IMAPd as POP3/IMAP server through LMTP delivery uncomment dnl # the following 2 definitions and activate below in the MAILER section the dnl # cyrusv2 mailer. dnl # dnl define(`confLOCAL_MAILER', `cyrusv2')dnl dnl define(`CYRUSV2_MAILER_ARGS', `FILE /var/lib/imap/socket/lmtp')dnl dnl # dnl # The following causes sendmail to only listen on the IPv4 loopback address dnl # 127.0.0.1 and not on any other network devices. Remove the loopback dnl # address restriction to accept email from the internet or intranet. dnl # DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp,Addr=127.0.0.1, Name=MTA')dnl dnl # dnl # The following causes sendmail to additionally listen to port 587 for dnl # mail from MUAs that authenticate. Roaming users who can't reach their dnl # preferred sendmail daemon due to port 25 being blocked or redirected find dnl # this useful. dnl # dnl DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=submission, Name=MSA, M=Ea')dnl dnl # dnl # The following causes sendmail to additionally listen to port 465, but dnl # starting immediately in TLS mode upon connecting. Port 25 or 587 followed dnl # by STARTTLS is preferred, but roaming clients using Outlook Express can't dnl # do STARTTLS on ports other than 25. Mozilla Mail can ONLY use STARTTLS dnl # and doesn't support the deprecated smtps; Evolution <1.1.1 uses smtps dnl # when SSL is enabled-- STARTTLS support is available in version 1.1.1. dnl # dnl # For this to work your OpenSSL certificates must be configured. dnl # dnl DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtps, Name=TLSMTA, M=s')dnl dnl # dnl # The following causes sendmail to additionally listen on the IPv6 loopback dnl # device. Remove the loopback address restriction listen to the network. dnl # dnl DAEMON_OPTIONS(`port=smtp,Addr=::1, Name=MTA-v6, Family=inet6')dnl dnl # dnl # enable both ipv6 and ipv4 in sendmail: dnl # dnl DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Name=MTA-v4, Family=inet, Name=MTA-v6, Family=inet6') dnl # dnl # We strongly recommend not accepting unresolvable domains if you want to dnl # protect yourself from spam. However, the laptop and users on computers dnl # that do not have 24x7 DNS do need this. dnl # FEATURE(`accept_unresolvable_domains')dnl dnl # dnl FEATURE(`relay_based_on_MX')dnl dnl # dnl # Also accept email sent to "localhost.localdomain" as local email. dnl # LOCAL_DOMAIN(`localhost.localdomain')dnl dnl # dnl # The following example makes mail from this host and any additional dnl # specified domains appear to be sent from mydomain.com dnl # MASQUERADE_AS(`domain.com')dnl dnl # dnl # masquerade not just the headers, but the envelope as well dnl FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl dnl # dnl # masquerade not just @mydomainalias.com, but @*.mydomainalias.com as well dnl # FEATURE(masquerade_entire_domain)dnl dnl # MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(domain.com)dnl dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(localhost.localdomain)dnl dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(mydomainalias.com)dnl dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(mydomain.lan)dnl MAILER(smtp)dnl MAILER(procmail)dnl dnl MAILER(cyrusv2)dnl /etc/mail/trusted-users: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/mail/trusted-users # /etc/mail/virtusertable: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/mail/virtusertable [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] /etc/hosts: > [root@www ~]# vi /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost ::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6 192.168.1.50 email.local I've only included the "local info" part of sendmail.cf, to save space. If there are any files that I've missed, please advise so I may produce them. Now that that's out of the way, lets look at some entries from /var/log/maillog. The first entry is from an order BEFORE the crash, when the site was working as expected. ##Order 200005374 Aug 5, 2014 7:06:38 AM## Aug 5 07:06:39 www sendmail[26149]: s75C6dqB026149: from=OLDadmin, size=11091, class=0, nrcpts=2, msgid=<[email protected]>, relay=OLDadmin@localhost Aug 5 07:06:39 www sendmail[26150]: s75C6dXe026150: from=<[email protected]>, size=11257, class=0, nrcpts=2, msgid=<[email protected]>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1] Aug 5 07:06:39 www sendmail[26149]: s75C6dqB026149: [email protected],=?utf-8?B?dGhvbWFzICBHaWxsZXNwaWU=?= <[email protected]>, ctladdr=OLDadmin (501/501), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=71091, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (s75C6dXe026150 Message accepted for delivery) Aug 5 07:06:40 www sendmail[26152]: s75C6dXe026150: to=<[email protected]>,<[email protected]>, delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=relay, pri=161257, relay=email.local. [192.168.1.50], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent ( <[email protected]> Queued mail for delivery) This next entry from maillog is from an order AFTER the crash. ##Order 200005375 Aug 5, 2014 9:45:25 AM## Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30021]: s75EjQ4O030021: from=OLDadmin, size=11344, class=0, nrcpts=2, msgid=<[email protected]>, relay=OLDadmin@localhost Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30022]: s75EjQm1030022: <[email protected]>... User unknown Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30021]: s75EjQ4O030021: [email protected], ctladdr=OLDadmin (501/501), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=71344, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=5.1.1, stat=User unknown Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30022]: s75EjQm1030022: from=<[email protected]>, size=11500, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<[email protected]>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1] Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30021]: s75EjQ4O030021: to==?utf-8?B?S2VubmV0aCBCaWViZXI=?= <[email protected]>, ctladdr=OLDadmin (501/501), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=71344, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (s75EjQm1030022 Message accepted for delivery) Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30021]: s75EjQ4O030021: s75EjQ4P030021: DSN: User unknown Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30022]: s75EjQm3030022: <[email protected]>... User unknown Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30021]: s75EjQ4P030021: to=OLDadmin, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=42368, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=5.1.1, stat=User unknown Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30022]: s75EjQm3030022: from=<>, size=12368, class=0, nrcpts=0, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1] Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30021]: s75EjQ4P030021: s75EjQ4Q030021: return to sender: User unknown Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30022]: s75EjQm5030022: from=<>, size=14845, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<[email protected]>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1] Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30021]: s75EjQ4Q030021: to=postmaster, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=43392, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (s75EjQm5030022 Message accepted for delivery) Aug 5 09:45:26 www sendmail[30025]: s75EjQm5030022: to=root, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=45053, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent Aug 5 09:45:27 www sendmail[30024]: s75EjQm1030022: to=<[email protected]>, delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:01, mailer=relay, pri=131500, relay=email.local. [192.168.1.50], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent ( <[email protected]> Queued mail for delivery) To add a little more, I think I've pinpointed the actual crash event. ##THE CRASH## Aug 5 09:39:46 www sendmail[3251]: restarting /usr/sbin/sendmail due to signal Aug 5 09:39:46 www sm-msp-queue[3260]: restarting /usr/sbin/sendmail due to signal Aug 5 09:39:46 www sm-msp-queue[29370]: starting daemon (8.14.4): queueing@01:00:00 Aug 5 09:39:47 www sendmail[29372]: starting daemon (8.14.4): SMTP+queueing@01:00:00 Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29465]: s75Ee2vT029465: Authentication-Warning: www.domain.com: OLDadmin set sender to root using -f Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29464]: s75Ee2IF029464: Authentication-Warning: www.domain.com: OLDadmin set sender to root using -f Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29465]: s75Ee2vT029465: from=root, size=1426, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<[email protected]>, relay=OLDadmin@localhost Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29464]: s75Ee2IF029464: from=root, size=1426, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<[email protected]>, relay=OLDadmin@localhost Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29466]: s75Ee23t029466: from=<[email protected]>, size=1784, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<[email protected]>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1] Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29466]: s75Ee23t029466: to=<[email protected]>, delay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=31784, dsn=4.4.3, stat=queued Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29467]: s75Ee2wh029467: from=<[email protected]>, size=1784, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<[email protected]>, proto=ESMTP, daemon=MTA, relay=localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1] Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29467]: s75Ee2wh029467: to=<[email protected]>, delay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=31784, dsn=4.4.3, stat=queued Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29464]: s75Ee2IF029464: to=OLDadmin, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=31426, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (s75Ee23t029466 Message accepted for delivery) Aug 5 09:40:02 www sendmail[29465]: s75Ee2vT029465: to=OLDadmin, ctladdr=root (0/0), delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=31426, relay=[127.0.0.1] [127.0.0.1], dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent (s75Ee2wh029467 Message accepted for delivery) Aug 5 09:40:06 www sm-msp-queue[29370]: restarting /usr/sbin/sendmail due to signal Aug 5 09:40:06 www sendmail[29372]: restarting /usr/sbin/sendmail due to signal Aug 5 09:40:06 www sm-msp-queue[29888]: starting daemon (8.14.4): queueing@01:00:00 Aug 5 09:40:06 www sendmail[29890]: starting daemon (8.14.4): SMTP+queueing@01:00:00 Aug 5 09:40:06 www sendmail[29891]: s75Ee23t029466: to=<[email protected]>, delay=00:00:04, mailer=local, pri=121784, dsn=5.1.1, stat=User unknown Aug 5 09:40:06 www sendmail[29891]: s75Ee23t029466: s75Ee6xY029891: DSN: User unknown Aug 5 09:40:06 www sendmail[29891]: s75Ee6xY029891: to=<[email protected]>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=33035, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent Aug 5 09:40:06 www sendmail[29891]: s75Ee2wh029467: to=<[email protected]>, delay=00:00:04, mailer=local, pri=121784, dsn=5.1.1, stat=User unknown Aug 5 09:40:06 www sendmail[29891]: s75Ee2wh029467: s75Ee6xZ029891: DSN: User unknown Aug 5 09:40:06 www sendmail[29891]: s75Ee6xZ029891: to=<[email protected]>, delay=00:00:00, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=local, pri=33035, dsn=2.0.0, stat=Sent Something to note about the maillog's: Before the crash, the msgid included localhost.localdomain; after the crash it's been domain.com. Thanks to all who take the time to read and look into this issue. I appreciate it and look forward to tackling this issue together.

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