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• Recommendations for IPC between parent and child processes in .NET?

  - by Jeremy

  My .NET program needs to run an algorithm that makes heavy use of 3rd party libraries (32-bit), most of which are unmanaged code. I want to drive the CPU as hard as I can, so the code runs several threads in parallel to divide up the work. I find that running all these threads simultaneously results in temporary memory spikes, causing the process' virtual memory size to approach the 2 GB limit. This memory is released back pretty quickly, but occasionally if enough threads enter the wrong sections of code at once, the process crosses the "red line" and either the unmanaged code or the .NET code encounters an out of memory error. I can throttle back the number of threads but then my CPU usage is not as high as I would like. I am thinking of creating worker processes rather than worker threads to help avoid the out of memory errors, since doing so would give each thread of execution its own 2 GB of virtual address space (my box has lots of RAM). I am wondering what are the best/easiest methods to communicate the input and output between the processes in .NET? The file system is an obvious choice. I am used to shared memory, named pipes, and such from my UNIX background. Is there a Windows or .NET specific mechanism I should use?

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• Execute a block of database querys

  - by Nightmare

  I have the following task to complete: In my program a have a block of database querys or questions. I want to execute these questions and wait for the result of all questions or catch an error if one question fails! My Question object looks like this (simplified): public class DbQuestion(String sql) { [...] } [...] //The answer is just a holder for custom data... public void SetAnswer(DbAnswer answer) { //Store the answer in the question and fire a event to the listeners this.OnAnswered(EventArgs.Empty); } [...] public void SetError() { //Signal an Error in this query! this.OnError(EventArgs.Empty); } So every question fired to the database has a listener that waits for the parsed result. Now I want to fire some questions asynchronous to the database (max. 5 or so) and fire an event with the data from all questions or an error if only one question throws one! Which is the best or a good way to accomplish this task? Can I really execute more then one question parallel and stop all my work when one question throws an error? I think I need some inspiration on this... Just a note: I´m working with .NET framework 2.0

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• What's the proper approach for writing multi-path "story" flows?

  - by Basiclife

  Hi, I wonder if you can help me. I'm writing a game (2d) which allows players to take multiple routes, some of which branch/merge - perhaps even loop. Each section of the game will decide which section is loaded next. I'm calling each section an IStoryElement - And I'm wondering how best to link these elements up in a way that is easily changed/configured and at the same time, graphable I'm going to have an engine/factory assembly which will load the appropriate StoryElement(s) based on various config options. I initially planned to give each StoryElement a NextElement() As IStoryElement property and a Completed() event. When the vent fires, the engine reads the NextElement property to find the next StoryElement. The downside to this is that if I ever wanted to graph all the routes through the game, I would be unable to - I couldn't determine all possible targets for each StoryElement. I considered a couple of other solutions but they all feel a little clunky - eg Do I need an additional layer of abstraction? ie StoryElementPlayers or similar - Each one would be responsible for stringing together multiple StoryElement perhaps a Series and a ChoicePlayer with each responsible for graphing its own StoryElement - But this will just move the problem up a layer. In short, I need some way of emulating a simple but dynamic workflow (but I'd rather not actually use WWF). Is there a pattern for something this simple? All the ones I've managed to find relate to more advanced control flow (parallel processing, etc.)

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• The correct usage of nested #pragma omp for directives

  - by GoldenLee

  The following code runs like a charm before OpenMP parallelization was applied. In fact, the following code was in a state of endless loop! I'm sure that's result from my incorrect use to the OpenMP directives. Would you please show me the correct way? Thank you very much. #pragma omp parallel for for (int nY = nYTop; nY <= nYBottom; nY++) { for (int nX = nXLeft; nX <= nXRight; nX++) { // Use look-up table for performance dLon = theApp.m_LonLatLUT.LonGrid()[nY][nX] + m_FavoriteSVISSRParams.m_dNadirLon; dLat = theApp.m_LonLatLUT.LatGrid()[nY][nX]; // If you don't want to use longitude/latitude look-up table, uncomment the following line //NOMGeoLocate.XYToGEO(dLon, dLat, nX, nY); if (dLon > 180 || dLat > 180) { continue; } if (Navigation.GeoToXY(dX, dY, dLon, dLat, 0) > 0) { continue; } // Skip void data scanline dY = dY - nScanlineOffset; // Compute coefficients as well as its four neighboring points' values nX1 = int(dX); nX2 = nX1 + 1; nY1 = int(dY); nY2 = nY1 + 1; dCx = dX - nX1; dCy = dY - nY1; dP1 = pIRChannelData->operator [](nY1)[nX1]; dP2 = pIRChannelData->operator [](nY1)[nX2]; dP3 = pIRChannelData->operator [](nY2)[nX1]; dP4 = pIRChannelData->operator [](nY2)[nX2]; // Bilinear interpolation usNomDataBlock[nY][nX] = (unsigned short)BilinearInterpolation(dCx, dCy, dP1, dP2, dP3, dP4); } }

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• How expensive is a context switch? Is it better to implement a manual task switch than to rely on OS

  - by Vilx-

  The title says it all. Imagine I have two (three, four, whatever) tasks that have to run in parallel. Now, the easy way to do this would be to create separate threads and forget about it. But on a plain old single-core CPU that would mean a lot of context switching - and we all know that context switching is big, bad, slow, and generally simply Evil. It should be avoided, right? On that note, if I'm writing the software from ground up anyway, I could go the extra mile and implement my own task-switching. Split each task in parts, save the state inbetween, and then switch among them within a single thread. Or, if I detect that there are multiple CPU cores, I could just give each task to a separate thread and all would be well. The second solution does have the advantage of adapting to the number of available CPU cores, but will the manual task-switch really be faster than the one in the OS core? Especially if I'm trying to make the whole thing generic with a TaskManager and an ITask, etc?

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• Releasing Autopool crashes on iOS 4.0 (and only on 4.0)

  - by samsam

  Hi there. I'm wondering what could cause this. I have several methods in my code that i call using performSelectorInBackground. Within each of these methods i have an Autoreleasepool that is being alloced/initialized at the beginning and released at the end of the method. this perfectly works on iOS 3.1.3 / 3.2 / 4.2 / 4.2.1 but it fataly crashes on iOS 4.0 with a EXC_BAD_ACCESS Exception that happens after calling [myPool release]. After I noticed this strange behaviour I was thinking about rewriting portions of my code and to make my app "less parallel" in case that the client os is 4.0. After I did that, the next point where the app crashed was within the ReachabilityCallback-Method from Apples Reachability "Framework". well, now I'm not quite sure what to do. The things i do within my threaded methods is pretty simple xml parsing (no cocoa calls or stuff that would affect the UI). After each method finishes it posts a notification which the coordinating-thread listens to and once all the parallelized methods have finished, the coordinating thread calls viewcontrollers etc... I have absolutely no clue what could cause this weird behaviour. Especially because Apples Code fails as well. any help is greatly appreciated! thanks, sam

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• Invoking different methods on threads

  - by Kraken

  I have a main process main. It creates 10 threads (say) and then what i want to do is the following: while(required){ Thread t= new Thread(new ClassImplementingRunnable()); t.start(); counter++; } Now i have the list of these threads, and for each thread i want to do a set of process, same for all, hence i put that implementation in the run method of ClassImplementingRunnable. Now after the threads have done their execution, i wan to wait for all of them to stop, and then evoke them again, but this time i want to do them serially not in parallel. for this I join each thread, to wait for them to finish execution but after that i am not sure how to evoke them again and run that piece of code serially. Can i do something like for(each thread){ t.reevoke(); //how can i do that. t.doThis(); // Also where does `dothis()` go, given that my ClassImplementingRunnable is an inner class. } Also, i want to use the same thread, i.e. i want the to continue from where they left off, but in a serial manner. I am not sure how to go about the last piece of pseudo code. Kindly help. Working with with java.

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• exit /B 0 does not work...

  - by murxx

  Hi, I have the following problem: I have created a batch script which calls itself in there (for being able to write a log in parallel). In the script I start another process (like start startServer.bat) which starts up a java process and keeps opened up all the time. In my original script I wait 30 seconds, check if the process is running and do an: exit /B 0 Unfortunately that does not work, the window shows that the exit /B 0 is being evaluated, but the window still keeps open. When I close the window with the other process (meaning the "child" processes started up in my .bat) my script continues its run. So: scriptA.bat - in there I call: start startServer.bat - wait 30 seconds - check is server is started - exit /B 0 Process hangs up! What's very odd, if I wrap another script around, like: scriptB.bat - call scriptA.bat ----- in there I call: start startServer.bat ----- wait 30 seconds ----- check is server is started ----- exit /B 0 - scriptA.bat continues without any hangup! I also tried the same with exit 0 (without /B) also, same result! In the first case it hangs up, in the second case my window closes as expected... Has anyone of you ever had such a problem before and knows what's wrong here? Process hangs up!

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• Small openmp programm freezes sometimes (gcc, c, linux)

  - by osgx

  Hello Just write a small omp test, and it does not work correctly all the times: #include <omp.h> int main() { int i,j=0; #pragma omp parallel for(i=0;i<1000;i++) { #pragma omp barrier j+= j^i; } return j; } The usage of j for writing from all threads is incorrect in this example, BUT there must be only nondeterministic value of j I have a freeze. Compiled with gcc-4.3.1 -fopenmp a.c -o gcc -static Run on 4-core x86_Core2 Linux server: $ ./gcc and got freeze (sometimes; like 1 freeze for 4-5 fast runs). Strace: [pid 13118] <... futex resumed> ) = 0 [pid 13118] futex(0x80d3014, FUTEX_WAIT, 2, NULL <unfinished ...> [pid 13120] <... futex resumed> ) = 0 [pid 13119] futex(0x80d3014, FUTEX_WAIT, 2, NULL <unfinished ...> [pid 13120] futex(0x80d3014, FUTEX_WAKE, 1) = 1 [pid 13120] futex(0x80cd798, FUTEX_WAIT, 1, NULL <unfinished ...> [pid 13109] <... futex resumed> ) = 0 [pid 13109] futex(0x80d3014, FUTEX_WAKE, 1) = 1 [pid 13109] futex(0x80d3020, FUTEX_WAIT, 251, NULL <unfinished ...> [pid 13118] <... futex resumed> ) = 0 [pid 13118] futex(0x80d3014, FUTEX_WAKE, 1) = 1 [pid 13119] <... futex resumed> ) = 0 [pid 13118] futex(0x80d3020, FUTEX_WAIT, 251, NULL <unfinished ...> [pid 13119] futex(0x80d3014, FUTEX_WAKE, 1) = 0 [pid 13119] futex(0x80d3020, FUTEX_WAIT, 251, NULL <freeze> Why do I have a freeze (deadlock)?

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• std::vector elements initializing

  - by Chameleon

  std::vector<int> v1(1000); std::vector<std::vector<int>> v2(1000); std::vector<std::vector<int>::const_iterator> v3(1000); How elements of these 3 vectors initialized? About int, I test it and I saw that all elements become 0. Is this standard? I believed that primitives remain undefined. I create a vector with 300000000 elements, give non-zero values, delete it and recreate it, to avoid OS memory clear for data safety. Elements of recreated vector were 0 too. What about iterator? Is there a initial value (0) for default constructor or initial value remains undefined? When I check this, iterators point to 0, but this can be OS When I create a special object to track constructors, I saw that for first object, vector run the default constructor and for all others it run the copy constructor. Is this standard? Is there a way to completely avoid initialization of elements? Or I must create my own vector? (Oh my God, I always say NOT ANOTHER VECTOR IMPLEMENTATION) I ask because I use ultra huge sparse matrices with parallel processing, so I cannot use push_back() and of course I don't want useless initialization, when later I will change the value.

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• GNU Makefile: multiple outputs from single rule + preventing intermediate files from being deleted

  - by makesaurus

  This is sort of a continuation of question from link text. The problem is that there is a rule generating multiple outputs from a single input, and the command is time-consuming so we would prefer to avoid recomputation. Now there is an additional twist, that we want to keep files from being deleted as intermediate files, and rules involve wildcards to allow for parameters. The solution suggested was that we set up the following rule: file-a.out: program file.in ./program file.in file-a.out file-b.out file-c.out file-b.out: file-a.out @ file-c.out: file-b.out @ Then, calling make file-c.out creates both and we avoid issues with running make in parallel with -j switch. All fine so far. The problem is the following. Because the above solution sets up a chain in the DAG, make considers it differently; the files file-a.out and file-b.out are treated as intermediate files, and they by default get deleted as unnecessary as soon as file-c.out is ready. A way of avoiding that was mentioned somewhere here, and consists of adding file-a.out and file-b.out as dependencies of a target .SECONDARY, which keeps them from being deleted. Unfortunately, this does not solve my case because my rules use wildcard patters; specifically, my rules look more like this: file-a-%.out: program file.in ./program $* file.in file-a-$*.out file-b-$*.out file-c-$*.out file-b-%.out: file-a-%.out @ file-c-%.out: file-b-%.out @ so that one can pass a parameter that gets included in the file name, for example by running make file-c-12.out The solution that make documentation suggests is to add these as implicit rules to the list of dependencies of .PRECIOUS, thus keeping these files from being deleted. The solution with .PRECIOUS works, but it also prevents these files from being deleted when a rule fails and files are incomplete. Is there any other way to make this work?

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• How do I efficiently parse a CSV file in Perl?

  - by Mike

  I'm working on a project that involves parsing a large csv formatted file in Perl and am looking to make things more efficient. My approach has been to split() the file by lines first, and then split() each line again by commas to get the fields. But this suboptimal since at least two passes on the data are required. (once to split by lines, then once again for each line). This is a very large file, so cutting processing in half would be a significant improvement to the entire application. My question is, what is the most time efficient means of parsing a large CSV file using only built in tools? note: Each line has a varying number of tokens, so we can't just ignore lines and split by commas only. Also we can assume fields will contain only alphanumeric ascii data (no special characters or other tricks). Also, i don't want to get into parallel processing, although it might work effectively. edit It can only involve built-in tools that ship with Perl 5.8. For bureaucratic reasons, I cannot use any third party modules (even if hosted on cpan) another edit Let's assume that our solution is only allowed to deal with the file data once it is entirely loaded into memory. yet another edit I just grasped how stupid this question is. Sorry for wasting your time. Voting to close.

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• Elegant way to import XHTML nodes from xhr.responseXML into HTML document in IE?

  - by Weston Ruter

  While navigating through a site, I'm dynamically loading pages via Ajax and then only updating the elements of the page that are changed, such as the navigation state and main content area. This is similar to Lala. I am serving the site as XHTML in order to be able to have access to xhr.responseXML which I then traverse in parallel with the current document and copy the nodes over. This works very well in browsers other than IE. For IE, I have to iterate over all of the properties of each XML element I want to import into the HTML document to create it from scratch (using a function convertXMLElementToHTML()). Here's the code I'm currently using: try { nodeB = document.importNode(nodeB, true); } catch(e){ nodeB = nodeB.cloneNode(true); if(document.adoptNode) document.adoptNode(nodeB); } try { //This works in all browsers other than IE nodeA.parentNode.replaceChild(nodeB, nodeA); } //Manually clone the nodes into HTML; required for IE catch(e){ nodeA.parentNode.replaceChild(convertXMLElementToHTML(nodeB), nodeA); } Is there a more elegant solution to mirror-translating XML nodes into HTML?

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• What is the best way of doing this? (WCF 4)

  - by Jason Porter

  I have a multith-threaded, continusly running application that connects with multiple devices via TCP/IP sockets and exposes a set of WCF API's for controlling, monitoring and reporting on these devices. I would like to host this on IIS for the ususal reasons of not having to worry about re-starting the app in case of errors. So the issue I have is the main application running in parallel with the WCF Servies. To accomplish this I use the static AppInitialize class to start a thread which has the main applicaiton loop. The WCF services mostly report or control the shared objects with this thread. There are two problems that I see with this approach. One is that if the thread dies, IIS has no clue to re-start it so I have to play some tricks with some WCF calls. The other is that the backrgound thread deals with potentially thousands of devices that are connected permanently (typically a thread per socket connection). So I am not sure if IIS is buying me anything in this case. Another approach that I am thinking is to use WF for the main application that deals with the sockets and host both the WF and my WCF services in IIS using AppFabric. Since I have not use WF or AppFabric I am reaching out to see if this would be good approach or there are better alternative.

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• Low Throughput on Windows Named Pipe Over WAN

  - by MichaelB76

  I'm having problems with low performance using a Windows named pipe. The throughput drops off rapidly as the network latency increases. There is a roughly linear relationship between messages sent per second and round trip time. It seems that the client must ack each message before the server will send the next one. This leads to very poor performance, I can only send 5 (~100 byte) messages per second over a link with an RTT of 200 ms. The pipe is asynchronous, using multiple overlapped write operations (and multiple overlapped reads at the client end), but this is not improving throughput. Is it possible to send messages in parallel over a named pipe? The pipe is created using PIPE_TYPE_MESSAGE, would PIPE_READMODE_BYTE work better? Is there any other way I can improve performance? This is a deployed solution, so I can't simply replace the pipe with a socket connection (I've read that Windows named pipe aren't recommended for use over a WAN, and I'm wondering if this is why). I'd be grateful for any help with this matter.

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• Sharing code between two or more rails apps... alternatives to git submodules?

  - by jtgameover

  We have two separate rails_app, foo/ and bar/ (separate for good reason). They both depend on some models, etc. in a common/ folder, currently parallel to foo and bar. Our current svn setup uses svn:externals to share common/. This weekend we wanted to try out git. After much research, it appears that the "kosher" way to solve this is using git submodule. We got that working after separating foo,bar,common into separate repositories, but then realized all the strings attached: Always commit the submodule before committing the parent. Always push the submodule before pushing the parent. Make sure that the submodule's HEAD points to a branch before committing to it. (If you're a bash user, I recommend using git-completion to put the current branch name in your prompt.) Always run 'git submodule update' after switching branches or pulling changes. All these gotchas complicate things further than add,commit,push. We're looking for simpler ways to share common in git. This guy seems to have success using the git subtree extension, but that deviates from standard gitand still doesn't look that simple. Is this the best we can do given our project structure? I don't know enough about rails plugins/engines, but that seems like a possible RoR-ish way to share libraries. Thanks in advance.

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• What are your suggestions for best practises for regular data updates in a website database?

  - by bboyle1234

  My shared-hosting asp.net website must automatically run data update routines at regular times of day. Once it has finished running certain update routines, it can run update routines that are dependent on the previous updates. I have done this type of work before, using quite complicated setups. Some features of the framework I created are: A cron job from another server makes a request which starts a data update routine on the main server Each updater is loaded from web.config Each updater overrides a "canRunUpdate" method that determines whether its dependencies have finished updating Each updater overrides a "hasFinishedUpdate" method Each updater overrides a "runUpdate" method Updaters start and run in parallel threads The initial request from the cron job server started each updater in its own thread and then ended. As a result, the threads containing the updaters would be terminated before the updaters were finished. Therefore I had to give the updaters the ability to save partial results and continue the update job next time they are started up. As a result, the cron server had to call the updater many times to ensure the job is done. Sometimes the cron server would continue making update requests long after all the updates were completed. Sometimes the cron server would finish calling the update requests and leave some updates uncompleted. It's not the best system. I'm looking for inspiration. Any ideas please? Thank you :)

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• Infile incomplete type error

  - by kd7vdb

  I am building a program that takes a input file in this format: title author title author etc and outputs to screen title (author) title (author) etc The Problem I am currently getting is a error "ifstream infile has incomplee type and cannot be defined" #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <ifstream> using namespace std; string bookTitle [14]; string bookAuthor [14]; int loadData (string pathname); void showall (int counter); int main () { int counter; string pathname; cout<<"Input the name of the file to be accessed: "; cin>>pathname; loadData (pathname); showall (counter); } int loadData (string pathname) // Loads data from infile into arrays { ifstream infile; int counter = 0; infile.open(pathname); //Opens file from user input in main if( infile.fail() ) { cout << "File failed to open"; return 0; } while (!infile.eof()) { infile >> bookTitle [14]; //takes input and puts into parallel arrays infile >> bookAuthor [14]; counter++; } infile.close; } void showall (int counter) // shows input in title(author) format { cout<<bookTitle<<"("<<bookAuthor<<")"; } Thanks ahead of time, kd7vdb

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• How to multi-thread this?

  - by WilliamKF

  I wish to have two threads. The first thread1 occasionally calls the following pseudo function: void waitForThread2() { if (thread2 is not idle) { return; } notifyThread2IamReady(); while (thread2IsExclusive) { } } The second thread2 is forever in the following pseudo loop: for (;;) { Notify thread1 I am idle. while (!thread1IsReady()) { } Notify thread1 I am exclusive. Do some work while thread1 is blocked. Notify thread1 I am busy. Do some work in parallel with thread1. } What is the best way to write this such that both thread1 and thread2 are kept as busy as possible on a machine with multiple cores. I would like to avoid long delays between notification in one thread and detection by the other. I tried using pthread condition variables but found the delay between thread2 doing 'notify thread1 I am busy' and the loop in waitForThread2() on thear2IsExclusive() can be up to almost one second delay. I then tried using a volatile sig_atomic_t shared variable to control the same, but something is going wrong, so I must not be doing it correctly.

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• Migrate from Oracle to MySQL

  - by Cassy

  Hi together. We ran into serious performance problems with our Oracle database and we would like to try to migrate to a MySQL-based database (either MySQL directly or, more preferrable, Infobright). The thing is, we need to let the old and the new system overlap for at least some weeks if not months, before we actually know, if all features of the new database match our needs. So, here is our situation: The Oracle database consists of multiple tables with each millions of rows. During the day, there are literally thousands of statements, which we cannot stop for migration. Every morning, new data is imported into the Oracle database, replacing some thousands of rows. Copying this process is not a problem, so we could, in theory, import in both databases in parallel. But, and here lies the challenge, for this to work, we need to have an export from the Oracle database with a consistent state from one day. (We cannot export some tables on Monday and some others on Tuesday, etc.) This means, that at least the export should be finished in less than one day. Our first thought was to dump the schema, but I wasn't able to find a tool to import an Oracle dump file into mysql. Exporting tables in CSV files might work, but I'm afraid it could take too long. So my question now is: What should I do? Is there any tool to import Oracle dump files into MySQL? Does anybody have any experience with such a large-scale migration? Thanks in advance, Cassy PS: Please, don't suggest performance optimization techniques for Oracle, we already tried a lot :-)

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• How do I pause main() until all other threads have died?

  - by thechiman

  In my program, I am creating several threads in the main() method. The last line in the main method is a call to System.out.println(), which I don't want to call until all the threads have died. I have tried calling Thread.join() on each thread however that blocks each thread so that they execute sequentially instead of in parallel. Is there a way to block the main() thread until all other threads have finished executing? Here is the relevant part of my code: public static void main(String[] args) { //some other initialization code //Make array of Thread objects Thread[] racecars = new Thread[numberOfRaceCars]; //Fill array with RaceCar objects for(int i=0; i<numberOfRaceCars; i++) { racecars[i] = new RaceCar(laps, args[i]); } //Call start() on each Thread for(int i=0; i<numberOfRaceCars; i++) { racecars[i].start(); try { racecars[i].join(); //This is where I tried to using join() //It just blocks all other threads until the current //thread finishes. } catch(InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } //This is the line I want to execute after all other Threads have finished System.out.println("It's Over!"); } Thanks for the help guys! Eric

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• Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g: Configuring SSL

  - by Simon Thorpe

  Quick guide to Oracle IRM 11g index So far in this guide we have an IRM Server up and running, however I skipped over SSL configuration in the previous article because I wanted to focus in more detail now. You can, if you wish, not bother with setting up SSL, but considering this is a security technology it is worthwhile doing. Contents Setting up a one way, self signed SSL certificate in WebLogic Setting up an official SSL certificate in Apache 2.x Configuring Apache to proxy traffic to the IRM server There are two common scenarios in which an Oracle IRM server is configured. For a development or evaluation system, people usually communicate directly to the WebLogic Server running the IRM service. However in a production environment and for some proof of concept evaluations that require a setup reflecting a production system, the traffic to the IRM server travels via a web server proxy, commonly Apache. In this guide we are building an Oracle Enterprise Linux based IRM service and this article will go over the configuration of SSL in WebLogic and also in Apache. Like in the past articles, we are going to use two host names in the configuration below,irm.company.com will refer to the public Apache server irm.company.internal will refer to the internal WebLogic IRM server Setting up a one way, self signed SSL certificate in WebLogic First lets look at creating just a simple self signed SSL certificate to be used in WebLogic. This is a quick and easy way to get SSL working in your environment, however the downside is that no browsers are going to trust this certificate you create and you'll need to manually install the certificate onto any machine's communicating with the server. This is fine for development or when you have only a few users evaluating the system, but for any significant use it's usually better to have a fully trusted certificate in use and I explain that in the next section. But for now lets go through creating, installing and testing a self signed certificate. We use a library in Java to create the certificates, open a console and running the following commands. Note you should choose your own secure passwords whenever you see password below. [oracle@irm /] source /oracle/middleware/wlserver_10.3/server/bin/setWLSEnv.sh [oracle@irm /] cd /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/ [oracle@irm /] java utils.CertGen -selfsigned -certfile MyOwnSelfCA.cer -keyfile MyOwnSelfKey.key -keyfilepass password -cn "irm.oracle.demo" [oracle@irm /] java utils.ImportPrivateKey -keystore MyOwnIdentityStore.jks -storepass password -keypass password -alias trustself -certfile MyOwnSelfCA.cer.pem -keyfile MyOwnSelfKey.key.pem -keyfilepass password [oracle@irm /] keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias trustself -keystore TrustMyOwnSelf.jks -file MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der -keyalg RSA We now have two Java Key Stores, MyOwnIdentityStore.jks and TrustMyOwnSelf.jks. These contain keys and certificates which we will use in WebLogic Server. Now we need to tell the IRM server to use these stores when setting up SSL connections for incoming requests. Make sure the Admin server is running and login into the WebLogic Console at http://irm.company.intranet:7001/console and do the following; In the menu on the left, select the + next to Environment to expose the submenu, then click on Servers. You will see two servers in the list, AdminServer(admin) and IRM_server1. If the IRM server is running, shut it down either by hitting CONTROL + C in the console window it was started from, or you can switch to the CONTROL tab, select IRM_server1 and then select the Shutdown menu and then Force Shutdown Now. In the Configuration tab select IRM_server1 and switch to the Keystores tab. By default WebLogic Server uses it's own demo identity and trust. We are now going to switch to the self signed one's we've just created. So select the Change button and switch to Custom Identity and Custom Trust and hit save. Now we have to complete the resulting fields, the setting's i've used in my evaluation server are below. IdentityCustom Identity Keystore: /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/MyOwnIdentityStore.jks Custom Identity Keystore Type: JKS Custom Identity Keystore Passphrase: password Confirm Custom Identity Keystore Passphrase: password TrustCustom Trust Keystore: /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/config/fmwconfig/TrustMyOwnSelf.jks Custom Trust Keystore Type: JKS Custom Trust Keystore Passphrase: password Confirm Custom Trust Keystore Passphrase: password Now click on the SSL tab for the IRM_server1 and enter in the alias and passphrase, in my demo here the details are; IdentityPrivate Key Alias: trustself Private Key Passphrase: password Confirm Private Key Passphrase: password And hit save. Now lets test a connection to the IRM server over HTTPS using SSL. Go back to a console window and start the IRM server, a quick reminder on how to do this is... [oracle@irm /] cd /oracle/middleware/user_projects/domains/irm_domain/bin [oracle@irm /] ./startManagedWeblogic IRM_server1 Once running, open a browser and head to the SSL port of the server. By default the IRM server will be listening on the URL https://irm.company.intranet:16101/irm_rights. Note in the example image on the right the port is 7002 because it's a system that has the IRM services installed on the Admin server, this isn't typical (or advisable). Your system is going to have a separate managed server which will be listening on port 16101. Once you open this address you will notice that your browser is going to complain that the server certificate is untrusted. The images on the right show how Firefox displays this error. You are going to be prompted every time you create a new SSL session with the server, both from the browser and more annoyingly from the IRM Desktop. If you plan on always using a self signed certificate, it is worth adding it to the Windows certificate store so that when you are accessing sealed content you do not keep being informed this certificate is not trusted. Follow these instructions (which are for Internet Explorer 8, they may vary for your version of IE.) Start Internet Explorer and open the URL to your IRM server over SSL, e.g. https://irm.company.intranet:16101/irm_rights. IE will complain that about the certificate, click on Continue to this website (not recommended). From the IE Tools menu select Internet Options and from the resulting dialog select Security and then click on Trusted Sites and then the Sites button. Add to the list of trusted sites a URL which mates the server you are accessing, e.g. https://irm.company.intranet/ and select OK. Now refresh the page you were accessing and next to the URL you should see a red cross and the words Certificate Error. Click on this button and select View Certificates. You will now see a dialog with the details of the self signed certificate and the Install Certificate... button should be enabled. Click on this to start the wizard. Click next and you'll be asked where you should install the certificate. Change the option to Place all certificates in the following store. Select browse and choose the Trusted Root Certification Authorities location and hit OK. You'll then be prompted to install the certificate and answer yes. You also need to import the root signed certificate into the same location, so once again select the red Certificate Error option and this time when viewing the certificate, switch to the Certification Path tab and you should see a CertGenCAB certificate. Select this and then click on View Certificate and go through the same process as above to import the certificate into the store. Finally close all instances of the IE browser and re-access the IRM server URL again, this time you should not receive any errors. Setting up an official SSL certificate in Apache 2.x At this point we now have an IRM server that you can communicate with over SSL. However this certificate isn't trusted by any browser because it's path of trust doesn't end in a recognized certificate authority (CA). Also you are communicating directly to the WebLogic Server over a non standard SSL port, 16101. In a production environment it is common to have another device handle the initial public internet traffic and then proxy this to the WebLogic server. The diagram below shows a very simplified view of this type of deployment. What i'm going to walk through next is configuring Apache to proxy traffic to a WebLogic server and also to use a real SSL certificate from an official CA. First step is to configure Apache to handle incoming requests over SSL. In this guide I am configuring the IRM service in Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 update 3 and Apache 2.2.3 which came with OpenSSL and mod_ssl components. Before I purchase an SSL certificate, I need to generate a certificate request from the server. Oracle.com uses Verisign and for my own personal needs I use cheaper certificates from GoDaddy. The following instructions are specific to Apache, but there are many references out there for other web servers. For Apache I have OpenSSL and the commands are; [oracle@irm /] cd /usr/bin [oracle@irm bin] openssl genrsa -des3 -out irm-apache-server.key 2048 Generating RSA private key, 2048 bit long modulus ............................+++ .........+++ e is 65537 (0x10001) Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: Verifying - Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: [oracle@irm bin] openssl req -new -key irm-apache-server.key -out irm-apache-server.csr Enter pass phrase for irm-apache-server.key: You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated into your certificate request. What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN. There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank For some fields there will be a default value, If you enter '.', the field will be left blank. ----- Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:US State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:CA Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]:San Francisco Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:Oracle Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Security Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:irm.company.com Email Address []:[email protected] Please enter the following 'extra' attributes to be sent with your certificate request A challenge password []:testing An optional company name []: You must make sure to remember the pass phrase you used in the initial key generation, you will need this when later configuring Apache. In the /usr/bin directory there are now two new files. The irm-apache-server.csr contains our certificate request and is what you cut and paste, or upload, to your certificate authority when you purchase and validate your SSL certificate. In response you will typically get two files. Your server certificate and another certificate file that will likely contain a set of certificates from your CA which validate your certificate's trust. Next we need to configure Apache to use these files. Typically there is an ssl.conf file which is where all the SSL configuration is done. On my Oracle Enterprise Linux server this file is located in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf and i've added the following lines. <VirtualHost irm.company.com> # Setup SSL for irm.company.com ServerName irm.company.com SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile /oracle/secure/irm.company.com.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /oracle/secure/irm.company.com.key SSLCertificateChainFile /oracle/secure/gd_bundle.crt </VirtualHost> Restarting Apache (apachectl restart) and I can now attempt to connect to the Apache server in a web browser, https://irm.company.com/. If all is configured correctly I should now see an Apache test page delivered to me over HTTPS. Configuring Apache to proxy traffic to the IRM server Final piece in setting up SSL is to have Apache proxy requests for the IRM server but do so securely. So the requests to Apache will be over HTTPS using a legitimate certificate, but we can also configure Apache to proxy these requests internally across to the IRM server using SSL with the self signed certificate we generated at the start of this article. To do this proxying we use the WebLogic Web Server plugin for Apache which you can download here from Oracle. Download the zip file and extract onto the server. The file extraction reveals a set of zip files, each one specific to a supported web server. In my instance I am using Apache 2.2 32bit on an Oracle Enterprise Linux, 64 bit server. If you are not sure what version your Apache server is, run the command /usr/sbin/httpd -V and you'll see version and it its 32 or 64 bit. Mine is a 32bit server so I need to extract the file WLSPlugin1.1-Apache2.2-linux32-x86.zip. The from the resulting lib folder copy the file mod_wl.so into /usr/lib/httpd/modules/. First we want to test that the plug in will work for regular HTTP traffic. Edit the httpd.conf for Apache and add the following section at the bottom. LoadModule weblogic_module modules/mod_wl.so <IfModule mod_weblogic.c>    WebLogicHost irm.company.internal    WebLogicPort 16100    WLLogFile /tmp/wl-proxy.log </IfModule> <Location /irm_rights>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_desktop>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_sealing>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> <Location /irm_services>    SetHandler weblogic-handler </Location> Now restart Apache again (apachectl restart) and now open a browser to http://irm.company.com/irm_rights. Apache will proxy the HTTP traffic from the port 80 of your Apache server to the IRM service listening on port 16100 of the WebLogic Managed server. Note above I have included all four of the Locations you might wish to proxy. http://irm.company.internalirm_rights is the URL to the management website, /irm_desktop is the URL used for the IRM Desktop to communicate. irm_sealing is for web services based document sealing and irm_services is for IRM server web services. The last two are typically only used when you have the IRM server integrated with another application and it is unlikely you'd be accessing these resources from the public facing Apache server. However, just in case, i've mentioned them above. Now let's enable SSL communication from Apache to WebLogic. In the ZIP file we extracted were some more modules we need to copy into the Apache folder. Looking back in the lib that we extracted, there are some more files. Copy the following into the /usr/lib/httpd/modules/ folder. libwlssl.so libnnz11.so libclntsh.so.11.1 Now the documentation states that should only need to do this, but I found that I also needed to create an environment variable called LD_LIBRARY_PATH and point this to the folder /usr/lib/httpd/modules/. If I didn't do this, starting Apache with the WebLogic module configured to SSL would throw the error. [crit] (20014)Internal error: WL SSL Init failed for server: (null) on 0 So I had to edit the file /etc/profile and add the following lines at the bottom. You may already have the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable defined, therefore simply add this path to it. LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/httpd/modules/ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH Now the WebLogic plug in uses an Oracle Wallet to store the required certificates.You'll need to copy the self signed certificate from the IRM server over to the Apache server. Copy over the MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der into the same folder where you are storing your public certificates, in my example this is /oracle/secure. It's worth mentioning these files should ONLY be readable by root (the user Apache runs as). Now lets create an Oracle Wallet and import the self signed certificate from the IRM server. The file orapki was included in the bin folder of the Apache 1.1 plugin zip you extracted. orapki wallet create -wallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet -auto_login_only orapki wallet add -wallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet -trusted_cert -cert MyOwnSelfCA.cer.der -auto_login_only Finally change the httpd.conf to reflect that we want the WebLogic Apache plug-in to use HTTPS/SSL and not just plain HTTP. <IfModule mod_weblogic.c>    WebLogicHost irm.company.internal    WebLogicPort 16101    SecureProxy ON    WLSSLWallet /oracle/secure/my-wallet    WLLogFile /tmp/wl-proxy.log </IfModule> Then restart Apache once more and you can go back to the browser to test the communication. Opening the URL https://irm.company.com/irm_rights will proxy your request to the WebLogic server at https://irm.company.internal:16101/irm_rights. At this point you have a fully functional Oracle IRM service, the next step is to create a sealed document and test the entire system.

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• Use IIS Application Initialization for keeping ASP.NET Apps alive

  - by Rick Strahl

  I've been working quite a bit with Windows Services in the recent months, and well, it turns out that Windows Services are quite a bear to debug, deploy, update and maintain. The process of getting services set up,  debugged and updated is a major chore that has to be extensively documented and or automated specifically. On most projects when a service is built, people end up scrambling for the right 'process' to use for administration. Web app deployment and maintenance on the other hand are common and well understood today, as we are constantly dealing with Web apps. There's plenty of infrastructure and tooling built into Web Tools like Visual Studio to facilitate the process. By comparison Windows Services or anything self-hosted for that matter seems convoluted.In fact, in a recent blog post I mentioned that on a recent project I'd been using self-hosting for SignalR inside of a Windows service, because the application is in fact a 'service' that also needs to send out lots of messages via SignalR. But the reality is that it could just as well be an IIS application with a service component that runs in the background. Either way you look at it, it's either a Windows Service with a built in Web Server, or an IIS application running a Service application, neither of which follows the standard Service or Web App template.Personally I much prefer Web applications. Running inside of IIS I get all the benefits of the IIS platform including service lifetime management (crash and restart), controlled shutdowns, the whole security infrastructure including easy certificate support, hot-swapping of code and the the ability to publish directly to IIS from within Visual Studio with ease.Because of these benefits we set out to move from the self hosted service into an ASP.NET Web app instead.The Missing Link for ASP.NET as a Service: Auto-LoadingI've had moments in the past where I wanted to run a 'service like' application in ASP.NET because when you think about it, it's so much easier to control a Web application remotely. Services are locked into start/stop operations, but if you host inside of a Web app you can write your own ticket and control it from anywhere. In fact nearly 10 years ago I built a background scheduling application that ran inside of ASP.NET and it worked great and it's still running doing its job today.The tricky part for running an app as a service inside of IIS then and now, is how to get IIS and ASP.NET launched so your 'service' stays alive even after an Application Pool reset. 7 years ago I faked it by using a web monitor (my own West Wind Web Monitor app) I was running anyway to monitor my various web sites for uptime, and having the monitor ping my 'service' every 20 seconds to effectively keep ASP.NET alive or fire it back up after a reload. I used a simple scheduler class that also includes some logic for 'self-reloading'. Hacky for sure, but it worked reliably.Luckily today it's much easier and more integrated to get IIS to launch ASP.NET as soon as an Application Pool is started by using the Application Initialization Module. The Application Initialization Module basically allows you to turn on Preloading on the Application Pool and the Site/IIS App, which essentially fires a request through the IIS pipeline as soon as the Application Pool has been launched. This means that effectively your ASP.NET app becomes active immediately, Application_Start is fired making sure your app stays up and running at all times. All the other features like Application Pool recycling and auto-shutdown after idle time still work, but IIS will then always immediately re-launch the application.Getting started with Application InitializationAs of IIS 8 Application Initialization is part of the IIS feature set. For IIS 7 and 7.5 there's a separate download available via Web Platform Installer. Using IIS 8 Application Initialization is an optional install component in Windows or the Windows Server Role Manager: This is an optional component so make sure you explicitly select it.IIS Configuration for Application InitializationInitialization needs to be applied on the Application Pool as well as the IIS Application level. As of IIS 8 these settings can be made through the IIS Administration console.Start with the Application Pool:Here you need to set both the Start Automatically which is always set, and the StartMode which should be set to AlwaysRunning. Both have to be set - the Start Automatically flag is set true by default and controls the starting of the application pool itself while Always Running flag is required in order to launch the application. Without the latter flag set the site settings have no effect.Now on the Site/Application level you can specify whether the site should pre load: Set the Preload Enabled flag to true.At this point ASP.NET apps should auto-load. This is all that's needed to pre-load the site if all you want is to get your site launched automatically.If you want a little more control over the load process you can add a few more settings to your web.config file that allow you to show a static page while the App is starting up. This can be useful if startup is really slow, so rather than displaying blank screen while the user is fiddling their thumbs you can display a static HTML page instead: <system.webServer> <applicationInitialization remapManagedRequestsTo="Startup.htm" skipManagedModules="true"> <add initializationPage="ping.ashx" /> </applicationInitialization> </system.webServer>This allows you to specify a page to execute in a dry run. IIS basically fakes request and pushes it directly into the IIS pipeline without hitting the network. You specify a page and IIS will fake a request to that page in this case ping.ashx which just returns a simple OK string - ie. a fast pipeline request. This request is run immediately after Application Pool restart, and while this request is running and your app is warming up, IIS can display an alternate static page - Startup.htm above. So instead of showing users an empty loading page when clicking a link on your site you can optionally show some sort of static status page that says, "we'll be right back".  I'm not sure if that's such a brilliant idea since this can be pretty disruptive in some cases. Personally I think I prefer letting people wait, but at least get the response they were supposed to get back rather than a random page. But it's there if you need it.Note that the web.config stuff is optional. If you don't provide it IIS hits the default site link (/) and even if there's no matching request at the end of that request it'll still fire the request through the IIS pipeline. Ideally though you want to make sure that an ASP.NET endpoint is hit either with your default page, or by specify the initializationPage to ensure ASP.NET actually gets hit since it's possible for IIS fire unmanaged requests only for static pages (depending how your pipeline is configured).What about AppDomain Restarts?In addition to full Worker Process recycles at the IIS level, ASP.NET also has to deal with AppDomain shutdowns which can occur for a variety of reasons:Files are updated in the BIN folderWeb Deploy to your siteweb.config is changedHard application crashThese operations don't cause the worker process to restart, but they do cause ASP.NET to unload the current AppDomain and start up a new one. Because the features above only apply to Application Pool restarts, AppDomain restarts could also cause your 'ASP.NET service' to stop processing in the background.In order to keep the app running on AppDomain recycles, you can resort to a simple ping in the Application_End event:protected void Application_End() { var client = new WebClient(); var url = App.AdminConfiguration.MonitorHostUrl + "ping.aspx"; client.DownloadString(url); Trace.WriteLine("Application Shut Down Ping: " + url); }which fires any ASP.NET url to the current site at the very end of the pipeline shutdown which in turn ensures that the site immediately starts back up.Manual Configuration in ApplicationHost.configThe above UI corresponds to the following ApplicationHost.config settings. If you're using IIS 7, there's no UI for these flags so you'll have to manually edit them.When you install the Application Initialization component into IIS it should auto-configure the module into ApplicationHost.config. Unfortunately for me, with Mr. Murphy in his best form for me, the module registration did not occur and I had to manually add it.<globalModules> <add name="ApplicationInitializationModule" image="%windir%\System32\inetsrv\warmup.dll" /> </globalModules>Most likely you won't need ever need to add this, but if things are not working it's worth to check if the module is actually registered.Next you need to configure the ApplicationPool and the Web site. The following are the two relevant entries in ApplicationHost.config.<system.applicationHost> <applicationPools> <add name="West Wind West Wind Web Connection" autoStart="true" startMode="AlwaysRunning" managedRuntimeVersion="v4.0" managedPipelineMode="Integrated"> <processModel identityType="LocalSystem" setProfileEnvironment="true" /> </add> </applicationPools> <sites> <site name="Default Web Site" id="1"> <application path="/MPress.Workflow.WebQueueMessageManager" applicationPool="West Wind West Wind Web Connection" preloadEnabled="true"> <virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Clients\…" /> </application> </site> </sites> </system.applicationHost>On the Application Pool make sure to set the autoStart and startMode flags to true and AlwaysRunning respectively. On the site make sure to set the preloadEnabled flag to true.And that's all you should need. You can still set the web.config settings described above as well.ASP.NET as a Service?In the particular application I'm working on currently, we have a queue manager that runs as standalone service that polls a database queue and picks out jobs and processes them on several threads. The service can spin up any number of threads and keep these threads alive in the background while IIS is running doing its own thing. These threads are newly created threads, so they sit completely outside of the IIS thread pool. In order for this service to work all it needs is a long running reference that keeps it alive for the life time of the application.In this particular app there are two components that run in the background on their own threads: A scheduler that runs various scheduled tasks and handles things like picking up emails to send out outside of IIS's scope and the QueueManager. Here's what this looks like in global.asax:public class Global : System.Web.HttpApplication { private static ApplicationScheduler scheduler; private static ServiceLauncher launcher; protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Pings the service and ensures it stays alive scheduler = new ApplicationScheduler() { CheckFrequency = 600000 }; scheduler.Start(); launcher = new ServiceLauncher(); launcher.Start(); // register so shutdown is controlled HostingEnvironment.RegisterObject(launcher); }}By keeping these objects around as static instances that are set only once on startup, they survive the lifetime of the application. The code in these classes is essentially unchanged from the Windows Service code except that I could remove the various overrides required for the Windows Service interface (OnStart,OnStop,OnResume etc.). Otherwise the behavior and operation is very similar.In this application ASP.NET serves two purposes: It acts as the host for SignalR and provides the administration interface which allows remote management of the 'service'. I can start and stop the service remotely by shutting down the ApplicationScheduler very easily. I can also very easily feed stats from the queue out directly via a couple of Web requests or (as we do now) through the SignalR service.Registering a Background Object with ASP.NETNotice also the use of the HostingEnvironment.RegisterObject(). This function registers an object with ASP.NET to let it know that it's a background task that should be notified if the AppDomain shuts down. RegisterObject() requires an interface with a Stop() method that's fired and allows your code to respond to a shutdown request. Here's what the IRegisteredObject::Stop() method looks like on the launcher:public void Stop(bool immediate = false) { LogManager.Current.LogInfo("QueueManager Controller Stopped."); Controller.StopProcessing(); Controller.Dispose(); Thread.Sleep(1500); // give background threads some time HostingEnvironment.UnregisterObject(this); }Implementing IRegisterObject should help with reliability on AppDomain shutdowns. Thanks to Justin Van Patten for pointing this out to me on Twitter.RegisterObject() is not required but I would highly recommend implementing it on whatever object controls your background processing to all clean shutdowns when the AppDomain shuts down.Testing it outI'm still in the testing phase with this particular service to see if there are any side effects. But so far it doesn't look like it. With about 50 lines of code I was able to replace the Windows service startup to Web start up - everything else just worked as is. An honorable mention goes to SignalR 2.0's oWin hosting, because with the new oWin based hosting no code changes at all were required, merely a couple of configuration file settings and an assembly directive needed, to point at the SignalR startup class. Sweet!It also seems like SignalR is noticeably faster running inside of IIS compared to self-host. Startup feels faster because of the preload.Starting and Stopping the 'Service'Because the application is running as a Web Server, it's easy to have a Web interface for starting and stopping the services running inside of the service. For our queue manager the SignalR service and front monitoring app has a play and stop button for toggling the queue.If you want more administrative control and have it work more like a Windows Service you can also stop the application pool explicitly from the command line which would be equivalent to stopping and restarting a service.To start and stop from the command line you can use the IIS appCmd tool. To stop:> %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd stop apppool /apppool.name:"Weblog"and to start> %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd start apppool /apppool.name:"Weblog"Note that when you explicitly force the AppPool to stop running either in the UI (on the ApplicationPools page use Start/Stop) or via command line tools, the application pool will not auto-restart immediately. You have to manually start it back up.What's not to like?There are certainly a lot of benefits to running a background service in IIS, but… ASP.NET applications do have more overhead in terms of memory footprint and startup time is a little slower, but generally for server applications this is not a big deal. If the application is stable the service should fire up and stay running indefinitely. A lot of times this kind of service interface can simply be attached to an existing Web application, or if scalability requires be offloaded to its own Web server.Easier to work withBut the ultimate benefit here is that it's much easier to work with a Web app as opposed to a service. While developing I can simply turn off the auto-launch features and launch the service on demand through IIS simply by hitting a page on the site. If I want to shut down an IISRESET -stop will shut down the service easily enough. I can then attach a debugger anywhere I want and this works like any other ASP.NET application. Yes you end up on a background thread for debugging but Visual Studio handles that just fine and if you stay on a single thread this is no different than debugging any other code.SummaryUsing ASP.NET to run background service operations is probably not a super common scenario, but it probably should be something that is considered carefully when building services. Many applications have service like features and with the auto-start functionality of the Application Initialization module, it's easy to build this functionality into ASP.NET. Especially when combined with the notification features of SignalR it becomes very, very easy to create rich services that can also communicate their status easily to the outside world.Whether it's existing applications that need some background processing for scheduling related tasks, or whether you just create a separate site altogether just to host your service it's easy to do and you can leverage the same tool chain you're already using for other Web projects. If you have lots of service projects it's worth considering… give it some thought…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2013Posted in ASP.NET  SignalR  IIS   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Creating a dynamic proxy generator – Part 1 – Creating the Assembly builder, Module builder and cach

  - by SeanMcAlinden

  I’ve recently started a project with a few mates to learn the ins and outs of Dependency Injection, AOP and a number of other pretty crucial patterns of development as we’ve all been using these patterns for a while but have relied totally on third part solutions to do the magic. We thought it would be interesting to really get into the details by rolling our own IoC container and hopefully learn a lot on the way, and you never know, we might even create an excellent framework. The open source project is called Rapid IoC and is hosted at http://rapidioc.codeplex.com/ One of the most interesting tasks for me is creating the dynamic proxy generator for enabling Aspect Orientated Programming (AOP). In this series of articles, I’m going to track each step I take for creating the dynamic proxy generator and I’ll try my best to explain what everything means - mainly as I’ll be using Reflection.Emit to emit a fair amount of intermediate language code (IL) to create the proxy types at runtime which can be a little taxing to read. It’s worth noting that building the proxy is without a doubt going to be slightly painful so I imagine there will be plenty of areas I’ll need to change along the way. Anyway lets get started…   Part 1 - Creating the Assembly builder, Module builder and caching mechanism Part 1 is going to be a really nice simple start, I’m just going to start by creating the assembly, module and type caches. The reason we need to create caches for the assembly, module and types is simply to save the overhead of recreating proxy types that have already been generated, this will be one of the important steps to ensure that the framework is fast… kind of important as we’re calling the IoC container ‘Rapid’ – will be a little bit embarrassing if we manage to create the slowest framework. The Assembly builder The assembly builder is what is used to create an assembly at runtime, we’re going to have two overloads, one will be for the actual use of the proxy generator, the other will be mainly for testing purposes as it will also save the assembly so we can use Reflector to examine the code that has been created. Here’s the code: DynamicAssemblyBuilder using System; using System.Reflection; using System.Reflection.Emit; namespace Rapid.DynamicProxy.Assembly {     /// <summary>     /// Class for creating an assembly builder.     /// </summary>     internal static class DynamicAssemblyBuilder     {         #region Create           /// <summary>         /// Creates an assembly builder.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="assemblyName">Name of the assembly.</param>         public static AssemblyBuilder Create(string assemblyName)         {             AssemblyName name = new AssemblyName(assemblyName);               AssemblyBuilder assembly = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.DefineDynamicAssembly(                     name, AssemblyBuilderAccess.Run);               DynamicAssemblyCache.Add(assembly);               return assembly;         }           /// <summary>         /// Creates an assembly builder and saves the assembly to the passed in location.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="assemblyName">Name of the assembly.</param>         /// <param name="filePath">The file path.</param>         public static AssemblyBuilder Create(string assemblyName, string filePath)         {             AssemblyName name = new AssemblyName(assemblyName);               AssemblyBuilder assembly = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.DefineDynamicAssembly(                     name, AssemblyBuilderAccess.RunAndSave, filePath);               DynamicAssemblyCache.Add(assembly);               return assembly;         }           #endregion     } }   So hopefully the above class is fairly explanatory, an AssemblyName is created using the passed in string for the actual name of the assembly. An AssemblyBuilder is then constructed with the current AppDomain and depending on the overload used, it is either just run in the current context or it is set up ready for saving. It is then added to the cache.   DynamicAssemblyCache using System.Reflection.Emit; using Rapid.DynamicProxy.Exceptions; using Rapid.DynamicProxy.Resources.Exceptions;   namespace Rapid.DynamicProxy.Assembly {     /// <summary>     /// Cache for storing the dynamic assembly builder.     /// </summary>     internal static class DynamicAssemblyCache     {         #region Declarations           private static object syncRoot = new object();         internal static AssemblyBuilder Cache = null;           #endregion           #region Adds a dynamic assembly to the cache.           /// <summary>         /// Adds a dynamic assembly builder to the cache.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="assemblyBuilder">The assembly builder.</param>         public static void Add(AssemblyBuilder assemblyBuilder)         {             lock (syncRoot)             {                 Cache = assemblyBuilder;             }         }           #endregion           #region Gets the cached assembly                  /// <summary>         /// Gets the cached assembly builder.         /// </summary>         /// <returns></returns>         public static AssemblyBuilder Get         {             get             {                 lock (syncRoot)                 {                     if (Cache != null)                     {                         return Cache;                     }                 }                   throw new RapidDynamicProxyAssertionException(AssertionResources.NoAssemblyInCache);             }         }           #endregion     } } The cache is simply a static property that will store the AssemblyBuilder (I know it’s a little weird that I’ve made it public, this is for testing purposes, I know that’s a bad excuse but hey…) There are two methods for using the cache – Add and Get, these just provide thread safe access to the cache.   The Module Builder The module builder is required as the create proxy classes will need to live inside a module within the assembly. Here’s the code: DynamicModuleBuilder using System.Reflection.Emit; using Rapid.DynamicProxy.Assembly; namespace Rapid.DynamicProxy.Module {     /// <summary>     /// Class for creating a module builder.     /// </summary>     internal static class DynamicModuleBuilder     {         /// <summary>         /// Creates a module builder using the cached assembly.         /// </summary>         public static ModuleBuilder Create()         {             string assemblyName = DynamicAssemblyCache.Get.GetName().Name;               ModuleBuilder moduleBuilder = DynamicAssemblyCache.Get.DefineDynamicModule                 (assemblyName, string.Format("{0}.dll", assemblyName));               DynamicModuleCache.Add(moduleBuilder);               return moduleBuilder;         }     } } As you can see, the module builder is created on the assembly that lives in the DynamicAssemblyCache, the module is given the assembly name and also a string representing the filename if the assembly is to be saved. It is then added to the DynamicModuleCache. DynamicModuleCache using System.Reflection.Emit; using Rapid.DynamicProxy.Exceptions; using Rapid.DynamicProxy.Resources.Exceptions; namespace Rapid.DynamicProxy.Module {     /// <summary>     /// Class for storing the module builder.     /// </summary>     internal static class DynamicModuleCache     {         #region Declarations           private static object syncRoot = new object();         internal static ModuleBuilder Cache = null;           #endregion           #region Add           /// <summary>         /// Adds a dynamic module builder to the cache.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="moduleBuilder">The module builder.</param>         public static void Add(ModuleBuilder moduleBuilder)         {             lock (syncRoot)             {                 Cache = moduleBuilder;             }         }           #endregion           #region Get           /// <summary>         /// Gets the cached module builder.         /// </summary>         /// <returns></returns>         public static ModuleBuilder Get         {             get             {                 lock (syncRoot)                 {                     if (Cache != null)                     {                         return Cache;                     }                 }                   throw new RapidDynamicProxyAssertionException(AssertionResources.NoModuleInCache);             }         }           #endregion     } }   The DynamicModuleCache is very similar to the assembly cache, it is simply a statically stored module with thread safe Add and Get methods.   The DynamicTypeCache To end off this post, I’m going to create the cache for storing the generated proxy classes. I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about the type of collection I should use to store the types and have finally decided that for the time being I’m going to use a generic dictionary. This may change when I can actually performance test the proxy generator but the time being I think it makes good sense in theory, mainly as it pretty much maintains it’s performance with varying numbers of items – almost constant (0)1. Plus I won’t ever need to loop through the items which is not the dictionaries strong point. Here’s the code as it currently stands: DynamicTypeCache using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Security.Cryptography; using System.Text; namespace Rapid.DynamicProxy.Types {     /// <summary>     /// Cache for storing proxy types.     /// </summary>     internal static class DynamicTypeCache     {         #region Declarations           static object syncRoot = new object();         public static Dictionary<string, Type> Cache = new Dictionary<string, Type>();           #endregion           /// <summary>         /// Adds a proxy to the type cache.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="type">The type.</param>         /// <param name="proxy">The proxy.</param>         public static void AddProxyForType(Type type, Type proxy)         {             lock (syncRoot)             {                 Cache.Add(GetHashCode(type.AssemblyQualifiedName), proxy);             }         }           /// <summary>         /// Tries the type of the get proxy for.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="type">The type.</param>         /// <returns></returns>         public static Type TryGetProxyForType(Type type)         {             lock (syncRoot)             {                 Type proxyType;                 Cache.TryGetValue(GetHashCode(type.AssemblyQualifiedName), out proxyType);                 return proxyType;             }         }           #region Private Methods           private static string GetHashCode(string fullName)         {             SHA1CryptoServiceProvider provider = new SHA1CryptoServiceProvider();             Byte[] buffer = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(fullName);             Byte[] hash = provider.ComputeHash(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);             return Convert.ToBase64String(hash);         }           #endregion     } } As you can see, there are two public methods, one for adding to the cache and one for getting from the cache. Hopefully they should be clear enough, the Get is a TryGet as I do not want the dictionary to throw an exception if a proxy doesn’t exist within the cache. Other than that I’ve decided to create a key using the SHA1CryptoServiceProvider, this may change but my initial though is the SHA1 algorithm is pretty fast to put together using the provider and it is also very unlikely to have any hashing collisions. (there are some maths behind how unlikely this is – here’s the wiki if you’re interested http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA_hash_functions)   Anyway, that’s the end of part 1 – although I haven’t started any of the fun stuff (by fun I mean hairpulling, teeth grating Relfection.Emit style fun), I’ve got the basis of the DynamicProxy in place so all we have to worry about now is creating the types, interceptor classes, method invocation information classes and finally a really nice fluent interface that will abstract all of the hard-core craziness away and leave us with a lightning fast, easy to use AOP framework. Hope you find the series interesting. All of the source code can be viewed and/or downloaded at our codeplex site - http://rapidioc.codeplex.com/ Kind Regards, Sean.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, January 01, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, January 01, 2011Popular ReleasesBloodSim: BloodSim - 1.3.0.0: - Added tally for number of boss swings and swing avoids - Removed a large number of options that were carried over from Beta and are no longer relevant - Changed stat entry to use Rating format for Dodge, Parry, Haste and Mastery - Rearranged Settings interface - BloodSim will now check for updates on startup and notify the user if a new version is available - Added option to Show/Hide the Simulation Log to increase speed during large simulationsEnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.8 ALPHA: 2.2.8 ALPHAThis release supports WoW patch 4.03a at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 Rebuilt Feral Spir...CBM-Command: Version 2.0 Beta 2 - 2010-12-31: This version fixes three major bugs in Version 2.0 Beta 1 Changes(64, 128, Plus/4) Changed the timing code back to version 1.7 because the clock() function in cc65 does not reflect accurate timing. (VIC, PET) The time(NULL) function is not available on these targets and thus had to be removed. Help Hot-Key Fixed - Now when you press either F1 or H you get the help file (if the CBM-Command disk is in the drive you started CBM-Command from). Updated Help File - the new help file by popmi...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts v3.6.6 Released: Hi, Today we are releasing final version of Visifire, v3.6.6 with the following new feature: * TextDecorations property is implemented in Title for Chart. * TitleTextDecorations property is implemented in Axis. * MinPointHeight property is now applicable for Column and Bar Charts. Also this release includes few bug fixes: * ToolTipText property of DataSeries was not getting applied from Style. * Chart threw exception if IndicatorEnabled property was set to true and Too...StyleCop Compliant Visual Studio Code Snippets: Visual Studio Code Snippets - January 2011: StyleCop Compliant Visual Studio Code Snippets Visual Studio 2010 provides C# developers with 38 code snippets, enhancing developer productivty and increasing the consistency of the code. Within this project the original code snippets have been refactored to provide StyleCop compliant versions of the original code snippets while also adding many new code snippets. Within the January 2011 release you'll find 82 code snippets to make you more productive and the code you write more consistent!...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.2: Version: 2.0.0.2 (Milestone 2): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...eCompany: eCompany v0.2.0 Build 63: Version 0.2.0 Build 63: Added Splash screen & about box Added downloading of currencies when eCompany launched for the first time (must close any bug caused by no currency rate existing) Added corp creation when eCompany launched for the first time (for now, you didn't need to edit the company.xml file manually) You just need to decompress file "eCompany v0.2.0.63.zip" into your current eCompany install directory.SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQL Monitor 3.0 alpha 8: 1. added truncate table/defrag index/check db functions 2. improved alert 3. fixed problem with alert causing config file corrupted(hopefully)Temporary Data Storage Folder: TDS Folder version 0.2 Beta: In this release following bugs are fixed: 'Send to' entry bug fixed Preferences bug fixedSilverlight File Upload and Download with Interlink: HSS Interlink v.2.1.300: Latest Release 2.1.300 - December 29th 2010 Change Log DownloadFileDialog Modified to support an absolute uri for the DownloadUri property, which is required for OOB support UploadFileDialog Modified to support an absolute uri for the UploadUri property, which is required for OOB support For existing users be sure to uninstall the older version prior to installing this version Note: The demo application is NOT included with the installer but can be reviewed here Stable release and ready...RDPAddins .NET: RDPAddins Alpha 2 (0.2.0.0): Second alpha release... Breaking changes (now this project has 0.2 version): now addin should implement RDPAddins.Common.IAddin and should me exported with RDPAddins.Common.AddinMetadataAtrribute !!!most of all old Addin base class method you can fide in IChannel or IUI interfeces see FileTransferAddin Now RDPAddins.Common.dll just provide interfaces for addin, channel, ui, and export metadata Whole implementation is in RDPAddins.exe RDPAddins.Common.dll has some documentation :) why all this...DocX: DocX v1.0.0.11: Building Examples projectTo build the Examples project, download DocX.dll and add it as a reference to the project. OverviewThis version of DocX contains many bug fixes, it is a serious step towards a stable release. Added1) Unit testing project, 2) Examples project, 3) To many bug fixes to list here, see the source code change list history.Cosmos (C# Open Source Managed Operating System): 71406: This is the second release supporting the full line of Visual Studio 2010 editions. Changes since release 71246 include: Debug info is now stored in a single .cpdb file (which is a Firebird database) Keyboard input works now (using Console.ReadLine) Console colors work (using Console.ForegroundColor and .BackgroundColor)AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.0: Added the all new Masteries Browser which replaces the Quick Open combobox AutoLoL will now attemt to create file associations for mastery (*.lolm) files Each Mastery Build can now contain keywords that the Masteries Browser will use for filtering Changed the way AutoLoL detects if another instance is already running Changed the format of the mastery files to allow more information stored in* Dialogs will now focus the Ok or Cancel button which allows the user to press Return to clo...Paint.NET PSD Plugin: 1.6.0: Handling of layer masks has been greatly improved. Improved reliability. Many PSD files that previously loaded in as garbage will now load in correctly. Parallelized loading. PSD files containing layer masks will load in a bit quicker thanks to the removal of the sequential bottleneck. Hidden layers are no longer made visible on save. Many thanks to the users who helped expose the layer masks problem: Rob Horowitz, M_Lyons10. Please keep sending in those bug reports and PSD repro files!Facebook C# SDK: 4.1.1: From 4.1.1 Release: Authentication bug fix caused by facebook change (error with redirects in Safari) Authenticator fix, always returning true From 4.1.0 Release Lots of bug fixes Removed Dynamic Runtime Language dependencies from non-dynamic platforms. Samples included in release for ASP.NET, MVC, Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, WPF, WinForms, and one Visual Basic Sample Changed internal serialization to use Json.net BREAKING CHANGE: Canvas Session is no longer supported. Use Signed...Catel - WPF and Silverlight MVVM library: 1.0.0: And there it is, the final release of Catel, and it is no longer a beta version!Euro for Windows XP: ChangeRegionalSettings 1..0: *Rocket Framework (.Net 4.0): Rocket Framework for Windows V 1.0.0: Architecture is reviewed and adjusted in a way so that I can introduce the Web version and WPF version of this framework next. - Rocket.Core is introduced - Controller button functions revisited and updated - DB is renewed to suite the implemented features - Create New button functionality is changed - Add Question Handling featuresFlickr Wallpaper Rotator (for Windows desktop): Wallpaper Flickr 1.1: Some minor bugfixes (mostly covering when network connection is flakey, so I discovered them all while at my parents' house for Christmas).New Projects7-Up: PowerShell Scripts for Upgrading SharePoint 2007 to 2010: PowerShell scripts to automate the upgrade of SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 using a content database or hybrid upgrade approach.Apple Wireless Keyboard: Helper that Allows people use the Apple Wireless (or Wired possibly) Keyboard under Windows 7 without loosing the mac functionalityckTest: testtesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttestCrude - .Net Dependency Management: Crude is light dependency management for .net, there was no dependency management solution for .net as Maven or Ivy until now. DeepTime: Event tacking, management and plotting site.Dev/Test Cloud Platform: Dev/Test Cloud Platform is implemented by Beyondsoft and Microsoft. The platform is dedicated to software development and test scenarios. With Dev/Test Cloud you can save your cost, improve work efficiency, and improve product quality.Image Viewer (wpf version): Image viewer helps windows users to review images on their computer. It is written i Csharp and wpf.LNOne: All common code, framework code, utility code in one.LOGL::GLib: LOGL::GLib is an OpenGL game library written in C++ that allows new C++/OpenGL programmers to focus more on the game and less on the details.MAPI.GUI: Graphical program uses function from mcopyapi.codeplex.com and mdeleteapi.codeplex.com console programs. Program support longPath (above 259 chars and less 32000 chars)Movie Collection Manager: Gerenciador que ajuda a manusear coleção de filmes. Possui uma interface super atraente e simples de usar. Ferramentas e tecnologias usadas: - Visual C# 2010 Express - SQL Server 2008 R2 Express - Windows Forms - Entity Framework OBS: Projeto concorrente do Desafio .NETMyStudioServer.com: Source code for the DotNetNuke http://MyStudioServer.com websiteNusya Tester: A software to create and use various tests with right answers explanations to help one in self-education. It's developed in C#Project Zylaphon: Project Zylaphon is a C# GPL Open Source Computer Aided Music Composition System. Its design goals include highly interactive composition, music computation, and analysis; system control to be provided by an A.I. goal based agenda and quasi Blackboard for maximum flexibility.Remember The Task: RememberTheTask makes it easier to remember what you have been doing the last hour. It's developed in Visual Basic.Rent Payments Scheduling: Register rent schedules and keep track of them.Simple MVVM Toolkit for Silverlight: Simple MVVM Toolkit makes it easier to develop Silverlight applications using the Model-View-ViewModel design pattern.Sparrow.NET HtmlTemplate: Its a template engine for generating web pages.(?????HTML?????，??????html Tag???????html????。)SQLDiagUI: SQLDiagUI provides a GUI for Microsoft SQlDiag Utility which allows users to create a configuration file and start/stop/schedule SQLDiag against a SQL Server.Test Control: testing frameworkTwicko: Simple twitter client.Unity3D Utilities: Unity3D Utilities provides additional functionality to Unity3D (3.0+) via extensions, utilities, mini-frameworks, etc.VBA Composite Controls Object Model: VBA Composite Controls encapsulate complex event-driven interactions between ActiveX controls and other objects in Microsoft Office. It's uses are limited only by the imagination, from binding controls together for updating, to creating unique user interfaces!World of Warcraft Backit up(wow backit up): a project that helps you backup and restore your settings in wow easilyYamma: Yet Another Money Management Application. Build in .NET 4, SQLCE, LINQ and the Entity Framework.

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