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• Managing Database Clusters - A Whole Lot Simpler

  - by mat.keep(at)oracle.com

  Clustered computing brings with it many benefits: high performance, high availability, scalable infrastructure, etc.  But it also brings with it more complexity.Why ?  Well, by its very nature, there are more "moving parts" to monitor and manage (from physical, virtual and logical hosts) to fault detection and failover software to redundant networking components - the list goes on.  And a cluster that isn't effectively provisioned and managed will cause more downtime than the standalone systems it is designed to improve upon.  Not so great....When it comes to the database industry, analysts already estimate that 50% of a typical database's Total Cost of Ownership is attributable to staffing and downtime costs.  These costs will only increase if a database cluster is to hard to properly administer.Over the past 9 months, monitoring and management has been a major focus in the development of the MySQL Cluster database, and on Tuesday 12th January, the product team will be presenting the output of that development in a new webinar.Even if you can't make the date, it is still worth registering so you will receive automatic notification when the on-demand replay is availableIn the webinar, the team will cover:    * NDBINFO: released with MySQL Cluster 7.1, NDBINFO presents real-time status and usage statistics, providing developers and DBAs with a simple means of pro-actively monitoring and optimizing database performance and availability.    * MySQL Cluster Manager (MCM): available as part of the commercial MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition, MCM simplifies the creation and management of MySQL Cluster by automating common management tasks, delivering higher administration productivity and enhancing cluster agility. Tasks that used to take 46 commands can be reduced to just one!    * MySQL Cluster Advisors & Graphs: part of the MySQL Enterprise Monitor and available in the commercial MySQL Cluster Carrier Grade Edition, the Enterprise Advisor includes automated best practice rules that alert on key performance and availability metrics from MySQL Cluster data nodes.You'll also learn how you can get started evaluating and using all of these tools to simplify MySQL Cluster management.This session will last round an hour and will include interactive Q&A throughout. You can learn more about MySQL Cluster Manager from this whitepaper and on-line demonstration.  You can also download the packages from eDelivery (just select "MySQL Database" as the product pack, select your platform, click "Go" and then scroll down to get the software).While managing clusters will never be easy, the webinar will show hou how it just got a whole lot simpler !

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• Creating STA COM compatible ASP.NET Applications

  - by Rick Strahl

  When building ASP.NET applications that interface with old school COM objects like those created with VB6 or Visual FoxPro (MTDLL), it's extremely important that the threads that are serving requests use Single Threaded Apartment Threading. STA is a COM built-in technology that allows essentially single threaded components to operate reliably in a multi-threaded environment. STA's guarantee that COM objects instantiated on a specific thread stay on that specific thread and any access to a COM object from another thread automatically marshals that thread to the STA thread. The end effect is that you can have multiple threads, but a COM object instance lives on a fixed never changing thread. ASP.NET by default uses MTA (multi-threaded apartment) threads which are truly free spinning threads that pay no heed to COM object marshaling. This is vastly more efficient than STA threading which has a bit of overhead in determining whether it's OK to run code on a given thread or whether some sort of thread/COM marshaling needs to occur. MTA COM components can be very efficient, but STA COM components in a multi-threaded environment always tend to have a fair amount of overhead. It's amazing how much COM Interop I still see today so while it seems really old school to be talking about this topic, it's actually quite apropos for me as I have many customers using legacy COM systems that need to interface with other .NET applications. In this post I'm consolidating some of the hacks I've used to integrate with various ASP.NET technologies when using STA COM Components. STA in ASP.NET Support for STA threading in the ASP.NET framework is fairly limited. Specifically only the original ASP.NET WebForms technology supports STA threading directly via its STA Page Handler implementation or what you might know as ASPCOMPAT mode. For WebForms running STA components is as easy as specifying the ASPCOMPAT attribute in the @Page tag:<%@ Page Language="C#" AspCompat="true" %> which runs the page in STA mode. Removing it runs in MTA mode. Simple. Unfortunately all other ASP.NET technologies built on top of the core ASP.NET engine do not support STA natively. So if you want to use STA COM components in MVC or with class ASMX Web Services, there's no automatic way like the ASPCOMPAT keyword available. So what happens when you run an STA COM component in an MTA application? In low volume environments - nothing much will happen. The COM objects will appear to work just fine as there are no simultaneous thread interactions and the COM component will happily run on a single thread or multiple single threads one at a time. So for testing running components in MTA environments may appear to work just fine. However as load increases and threads get re-used by ASP.NET COM objects will end up getting created on multiple different threads. This can result in crashes or hangs, or data corruption in the STA components which store their state in thread local storage on the STA thread. If threads overlap this global store can easily get corrupted which in turn causes problems. STA ensures that any COM object instance loaded always stays on the same thread it was instantiated on. What about COM+? COM+ is supposed to address the problem of STA in MTA applications by providing an abstraction with it's own thread pool manager for COM objects. It steps in to the COM instantiation pipeline and hands out COM instances from its own internally maintained STA Thread pool. This guarantees that the COM instantiation threads are STA threads if using STA components. COM+ works, but in my experience the technology is very, very slow for STA components. It adds a ton of overhead and reduces COM performance noticably in load tests in IIS. COM+ can make sense in some situations but for Web apps with STA components it falls short. In addition there's also the need to ensure that COM+ is set up and configured on the target machine and the fact that components have to be registered in COM+. COM+ also keeps components up at all times, so if a component needs to be replaced the COM+ package needs to be unloaded (same is true for IIS hosted components but it's more common to manage that). COM+ is an option for well established components, but native STA support tends to provide better performance and more consistent usability, IMHO. STA for non supporting ASP.NET Technologies As mentioned above only WebForms supports STA natively. However, by utilizing the WebForms ASP.NET Page handler internally it's actually possible to trick various other ASP.NET technologies and let them work with STA components. This is ugly but I've used each of these in various applications and I've had minimal problems making them work with FoxPro STA COM components which is about as dififcult as it gets for COM Interop in .NET. In this post I summarize several STA workarounds that enable you to use STA threading with these ASP.NET Technologies: ASMX Web Services ASP.NET MVC WCF Web Services ASP.NET Web API ASMX Web Services I start with classic ASP.NET ASMX Web Services because it's the easiest mechanism that allows for STA modification. It also clearly demonstrates how the WebForms STA Page Handler is the key technology to enable the various other solutions to create STA components. Essentially the way this works is to override the WebForms Page class and hijack it's init functionality for processing requests. Here's what this looks like for Web Services:namespace FoxProAspNet { public class WebServiceStaHandler : System.Web.UI.Page, IHttpAsyncHandler { protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { IHttpHandler handler = new WebServiceHandlerFactory().GetHandler( this.Context, this.Context.Request.HttpMethod, this.Context.Request.FilePath, this.Context.Request.PhysicalPath); handler.ProcessRequest(this.Context); this.Context.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest(); } public IAsyncResult BeginProcessRequest( HttpContext context, AsyncCallback cb, object extraData) { return this.AspCompatBeginProcessRequest(context, cb, extraData); } public void EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result) { this.AspCompatEndProcessRequest(result); } } public class AspCompatWebServiceStaHandlerWithSessionState : WebServiceStaHandler, IRequiresSessionState { } } This class overrides the ASP.NET WebForms Page class which has a little known AspCompatBeginProcessRequest() and AspCompatEndProcessRequest() method that is responsible for providing the WebForms ASPCOMPAT functionality. These methods handle routing requests to STA threads. Note there are two classes - one that includes session state and one that does not. If you plan on using ASP.NET Session state use the latter class, otherwise stick to the former. This maps to the EnableSessionState page setting in WebForms. This class simply hooks into this functionality by overriding the BeginProcessRequest and EndProcessRequest methods and always forcing it into the AspCompat methods. The way this works is that BeginProcessRequest() fires first to set up the threads and starts intializing the handler. As part of that process the OnInit() method is fired which is now already running on an STA thread. The code then creates an instance of the actual WebService handler factory and calls its ProcessRequest method to start executing which generates the Web Service result. Immediately after ProcessRequest the request is stopped with Application.CompletRequest() which ensures that the rest of the Page handler logic doesn't fire. This means that even though the fairly heavy Page class is overridden here, it doesn't end up executing any of its internal processing which makes this code fairly efficient. In a nutshell, we're highjacking the Page HttpHandler and forcing it to process the WebService process handler in the context of the AspCompat handler behavior. Hooking up the Handler Because the above is an HttpHandler implementation you need to hook up the custom handler and replace the standard ASMX handler. To do this you need to modify the web.config file (here for IIS 7 and IIS Express): <configuration> <system.webServer> <handlers> <remove name="WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated-4.0" /> <add name="Asmx STA Web Service Handler" path="*.asmx" verb="*" type="FoxProAspNet.WebServiceStaHandler" precondition="integrated"/> </handlers> </system.webServer> </configuration> (Note: The name for the WebServiceHandlerFactory-Integrated-4.0 might be slightly different depending on your server version. Check the IIS Handler configuration in the IIS Management Console for the exact name or simply remove the handler from the list there which will propagate to your web.config). For IIS 5 & 6 (Windows XP/2003) or the Visual Studio Web Server use:<configuration> <system.web> <httpHandlers> <remove path="*.asmx" verb="*" /> <add path="*.asmx" verb="*" type="FoxProAspNet.WebServiceStaHandler" /> </httpHandlers> </system.web></configuration> To test, create a new ASMX Web Service and create a method like this: [WebService(Namespace = "http://foxaspnet.org/")] [WebServiceBinding(ConformsTo = WsiProfiles.BasicProfile1_1)] public class FoxWebService : System.Web.Services.WebService { [WebMethod] public string HelloWorld() { return "Hello World. Threading mode is: " + System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState(); } } Run this before you put in the web.config configuration changes and you should get: Hello World. Threading mode is: MTA Then put the handler mapping into Web.config and you should see: Hello World. Threading mode is: STA And you're on your way to using STA COM components. It's a hack but it works well! I've used this with several high volume Web Service installations with various customers and it's been fast and reliable. ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC has quickly become the most popular ASP.NET technology, replacing WebForms for creating HTML output. MVC is more complex to get started with, but once you understand the basic structure of how requests flow through the MVC pipeline it's easy to use and amazingly flexible in manipulating HTML requests. In addition, MVC has great support for non-HTML output sources like JSON and XML, making it an excellent choice for AJAX requests without any additional tools. Unlike WebForms ASP.NET MVC doesn't support STA threads natively and so some trickery is needed to make it work with STA threads as well. MVC gets its handler implementation through custom route handlers using ASP.NET's built in routing semantics. To work in an STA handler requires working in the Page Handler as part of the Route Handler implementation. As with the Web Service handler the first step is to create a custom HttpHandler that can instantiate an MVC request pipeline properly:public class MvcStaThreadHttpAsyncHandler : Page, IHttpAsyncHandler, IRequiresSessionState { private RequestContext _requestContext; public MvcStaThreadHttpAsyncHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { if (requestContext == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("requestContext"); _requestContext = requestContext; } public IAsyncResult BeginProcessRequest(HttpContext context, AsyncCallback cb, object extraData) { return this.AspCompatBeginProcessRequest(context, cb, extraData); } protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { var controllerName = _requestContext.RouteData.GetRequiredString("controller"); var controllerFactory = ControllerBuilder.Current.GetControllerFactory(); var controller = controllerFactory.CreateController(_requestContext, controllerName); if (controller == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("Could not find controller: " + controllerName); try { controller.Execute(_requestContext); } finally { controllerFactory.ReleaseController(controller); } this.Context.ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest(); } public void EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result) { this.AspCompatEndProcessRequest(result); } public override void ProcessRequest(HttpContext httpContext) { throw new NotSupportedException("STAThreadRouteHandler does not support ProcessRequest called (only BeginProcessRequest)"); } } This handler code figures out which controller to load and then executes the controller. MVC internally provides the information needed to route to the appropriate method and pass the right parameters. Like the Web Service handler the logic occurs in the OnInit() and performs all the processing in that part of the request. Next, we need a RouteHandler that can actually pick up this handler. Unlike the Web Service handler where we simply registered the handler, MVC requires a RouteHandler to pick up the handler. RouteHandlers look at the URL's path and based on that decide on what handler to invoke. The route handler is pretty simple - all it does is load our custom handler: public class MvcStaThreadRouteHandler : IRouteHandler { public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { if (requestContext == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("requestContext"); return new MvcStaThreadHttpAsyncHandler(requestContext); } } At this point you can instantiate this route handler and force STA requests to MVC by specifying a route. The following sets up the ASP.NET Default Route:Route mvcRoute = new Route("{controller}/{action}/{id}", new RouteValueDictionary( new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }), new MvcStaThreadRouteHandler()); RouteTable.Routes.Add(mvcRoute);   To make this code a little easier to work with and mimic the behavior of the routes.MapRoute() functionality extension method that MVC provides, here is an extension method for MapMvcStaRoute(): public static class RouteCollectionExtensions { public static void MapMvcStaRoute(this RouteCollection routeTable, string name, string url, object defaults = null) { Route mvcRoute = new Route(url, new RouteValueDictionary(defaults), new MvcStaThreadRouteHandler()); RouteTable.Routes.Add(mvcRoute); } } With this the syntax to add  route becomes a little easier and matches the MapRoute() method:RouteTable.Routes.MapMvcStaRoute( name: "Default", url: "{controller}/{action}/{id}", defaults: new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } ); The nice thing about this route handler, STA Handler and extension method is that it's fully self contained. You can put all three into a single class file and stick it into your Web app, and then simply call MapMvcStaRoute() and it just works. Easy! To see whether this works create an MVC controller like this: public class ThreadTestController : Controller { public string ThreadingMode() { return Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState().ToString(); } } Try this test both with only the MapRoute() hookup in the RouteConfiguration in which case you should get MTA as the value. Then change the MapRoute() call to MapMvcStaRoute() leaving all the parameters the same and re-run the request. You now should see STA as the result. You're on your way using STA COM components reliably in ASP.NET MVC. WCF Web Services running through IIS WCF Web Services provide a more robust and wider range of services for Web Services. You can use WCF over HTTP, TCP, and Pipes, and WCF services support WS* secure services. There are many features in WCF that go way beyond what ASMX can do. But it's also a bit more complex than ASMX. As a basic rule if you need to serve straight SOAP Services over HTTP I 'd recommend sticking with the simpler ASMX services especially if COM is involved. If you need WS* support or want to serve data over non-HTTP protocols then WCF makes more sense. WCF is not my forte but I found a solution from Scott Seely on his blog that describes the progress and that seems to work well. I'm copying his code below so this STA information is all in one place and quickly explain. Scott's code basically works by creating a custom OperationBehavior which can be specified via an [STAOperation] attribute on every method. Using his attribute you end up with a class (or Interface if you separate the contract and class) that looks like this: [ServiceContract] public class WcfService { [OperationContract] public string HelloWorldMta() { return Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState().ToString(); } // Make sure you use this custom STAOperationBehavior // attribute to force STA operation of service methods [STAOperationBehavior] [OperationContract] public string HelloWorldSta() { return Thread.CurrentThread.GetApartmentState().ToString(); } } Pretty straight forward. The latter method returns STA while the former returns MTA. To make STA work every method needs to be marked up. The implementation consists of the attribute and OperationInvoker implementation. Here are the two classes required to make this work from Scott's post:public class STAOperationBehaviorAttribute : Attribute, IOperationBehavior { public void AddBindingParameters(OperationDescription operationDescription, System.ServiceModel.Channels.BindingParameterCollection bindingParameters) { } public void ApplyClientBehavior(OperationDescription operationDescription, System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.ClientOperation clientOperation) { // If this is applied on the client, well, it just doesn’t make sense. // Don’t throw in case this attribute was applied on the contract // instead of the implementation. } public void ApplyDispatchBehavior(OperationDescription operationDescription, System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher.DispatchOperation dispatchOperation) { // Change the IOperationInvoker for this operation. dispatchOperation.Invoker = new STAOperationInvoker(dispatchOperation.Invoker); } public void Validate(OperationDescription operationDescription) { if (operationDescription.SyncMethod == null) { throw new InvalidOperationException("The STAOperationBehaviorAttribute " + "only works for synchronous method invocations."); } } } public class STAOperationInvoker : IOperationInvoker { IOperationInvoker _innerInvoker; public STAOperationInvoker(IOperationInvoker invoker) { _innerInvoker = invoker; } public object[] AllocateInputs() { return _innerInvoker.AllocateInputs(); } public object Invoke(object instance, object[] inputs, out object[] outputs) { // Create a new, STA thread object[] staOutputs = null; object retval = null; Thread thread = new Thread( delegate() { retval = _innerInvoker.Invoke(instance, inputs, out staOutputs); }); thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); thread.Start(); thread.Join(); outputs = staOutputs; return retval; } public IAsyncResult InvokeBegin(object instance, object[] inputs, AsyncCallback callback, object state) { // We don’t handle async… throw new NotImplementedException(); } public object InvokeEnd(object instance, out object[] outputs, IAsyncResult result) { // We don’t handle async… throw new NotImplementedException(); } public bool IsSynchronous { get { return true; } } } The key in this setup is the Invoker and the Invoke method which creates a new thread and then fires the request on this new thread. Because this approach creates a new thread for every request it's not super efficient. There's a bunch of overhead involved in creating the thread and throwing it away after each thread, but it'll work for low volume requests and insure each thread runs in STA mode. If better performance is required it would be useful to create a custom thread manager that can pool a number of STA threads and hand off threads as needed rather than creating new threads on every request. If your Web Service needs are simple and you need only to serve standard SOAP 1.x requests, I would recommend sticking with ASMX services. It's easier to set up and work with and for STA component use it'll be significantly better performing since ASP.NET manages the STA thread pool for you rather than firing new threads for each request. One nice thing about Scotts code is though that it works in any WCF environment including self hosting. It has no dependency on ASP.NET or WebForms for that matter. STA - If you must STA components are a  pain in the ass and thankfully there isn't too much stuff out there anymore that requires it. But when you need it and you need to access STA functionality from .NET at least there are a few options available to make it happen. Each of these solutions is a bit hacky, but they work - I've used all of them in production with good results with FoxPro components. I hope compiling all of these in one place here makes it STA consumption a little bit easier. I feel your pain :-) Resources Download STA Handler Code Examples Scott Seely's original STA WCF OperationBehavior Article© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in FoxPro   ASP.NET  .NET  COM   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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• error while running ruby application at system startup in ubuntu

  - by anjo

  I am on Ubuntu 12.04 machine. Have a script file which runs when entered manually in terminal gnome-terminal -e /home/precise/Desktop/cartodb/script.sh The content of script file is cd /home/ubuntupc/Desktop/cartodb20/ sh /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/scripts/rvm bundle exec foreman start -p 3000 So what i tried to do is to run this script at every system start up. So on Startup Applications command: gnome-terminal -e /home/precise/Desktop/cartodb/script.sh On terminal Edit - Profile Preferences - Title and Command Checked the "Run command as a login shell" But this seems to be not working. When restarted the machine found these error in terminal The child process exited normally with status 127. ERROR: RVM Ruby not used, run `rvm use ruby` first. Some info regarding the installed packages and system. $ which ruby /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p320/bin/ruby $ which rails /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p320/bin/rails $ which gem /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p320/bin/gem $ cat ~/.bash_profile [[ -s "$HOME/.profile" ]] && source "$HOME/.profile" # Load the default .profile [[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM into a shell session *as a function* $ which -a ruby /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p320/bin/ruby $ sudo update-alternatives --config ruby update-alternatives: error: no alternatives for ruby. $ sudo find / -name "rubygems" -print /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p320/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p320/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p320/lib/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p320/test/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p320/test/rubygems/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p320/doc/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/rubygems-2.2.1/lib/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/rubygems-2.2.1/test/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/rubygems-2.2.1/test/rubygems/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/rvm/scripts/functions/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/src/rvm/scripts/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/scripts/functions/rubygems /home/ubuntupc/.rvm/scripts/rubygems /usr/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p320/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p320/lib/ruby/1.9.1/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p320/lib/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p320/test/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p320/test/rubygems/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/ruby-1.9.2-p320/doc/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/rubygems-2.2.0/lib/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/rubygems-2.2.0/test/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/rubygems-2.2.0/test/rubygems/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/rvm/scripts/functions/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/src/rvm/scripts/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/scripts/functions/rubygems /usr/local/rvm/scripts/rubygems Please point out what i am missing as i am new to the ruby applications. Thanks in advance

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• Toorcon 15 (2013)

  - by danx

  The Toorcon gang (senior staff): h1kari (founder), nfiltr8, and Geo Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Making Attacks Go Backwards Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) Toorcon 15 is the 15th annual security conference held in San Diego. I've attended about a third of them and blogged about previous conferences I attended here starting in 2003. As always, I've only summarized the talks I attended and interested me enough to write about them. Be aware that I may have misrepresented the speaker's remarks and that they are not my remarks or opinion, or those of my employer, so don't quote me or them. Those seeking further details may contact the speakers directly or use The Google. For some talks, I have a URL for further information. A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Andrew Furtak and Oleksandr Bazhaniuk Yuri Bulygin, Oleksandr ("Alex") Bazhaniuk, and (not present) Andrew Furtak Yuri and Alex talked about UEFI and Bootkits and bypassing MS Windows 8 Secure Boot, with vendor recommendations. They previously gave this talk at the BlackHat 2013 conference. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Overview UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is interface between hardware and OS. UEFI is processor and architecture independent. Malware can replace bootloader (bootx64.efi, bootmgfw.efi). Once replaced can modify kernel. Trivial to replace bootloader. Today many legacy bootkits—UEFI replaces them most of them. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot verifies everything you load, either through signatures or hashes. UEFI firmware relies on secure update (with signed update). You would think Secure Boot would rely on ROM (such as used for phones0, but you can't do that for PCs—PCs use writable memory with signatures DXE core verifies the UEFI boat loader(s) OS Loader (winload.efi, winresume.efi) verifies the OS kernel A chain of trust is established with a root key (Platform Key, PK), which is a cert belonging to the platform vendor. Key Exchange Keys (KEKs) verify an "authorized" database (db), and "forbidden" database (dbx). X.509 certs with SHA-1/SHA-256 hashes. Keys are stored in non-volatile (NV) flash-based NVRAM. Boot Services (BS) allow adding/deleting keys (can't be accessed once OS starts—which uses Run-Time (RT)). Root cert uses RSA-2048 public keys and PKCS#7 format signatures. SecureBoot — enable disable image signature checks SetupMode — update keys, self-signed keys, and secure boot variables CustomMode — allows updating keys Secure Boot policy settings are: always execute, never execute, allow execute on security violation, defer execute on security violation, deny execute on security violation, query user on security violation Attacking MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Secure Boot does NOT protect from physical access. Can disable from console. Each BIOS vendor implements Secure Boot differently. There are several platform and BIOS vendors. It becomes a "zoo" of implementations—which can be taken advantage of. Secure Boot is secure only when all vendors implement it correctly. Allow only UEFI firmware signed updates protect UEFI firmware from direct modification in flash memory protect FW update components program SPI controller securely protect secure boot policy settings in nvram protect runtime api disable compatibility support module which allows unsigned legacy Can corrupt the Platform Key (PK) EFI root certificate variable in SPI flash. If PK is not found, FW enters setup mode wich secure boot turned off. Can also exploit TPM in a similar manner. One is not supposed to be able to directly modify the PK in SPI flash from the OS though. But they found a bug that they can exploit from User Mode (undisclosed) and demoed the exploit. It loaded and ran their own bootkit. The exploit requires a reboot. Multiple vendors are vulnerable. They will disclose this exploit to vendors in the future. Recommendations: allow only signed updates protect UEFI fw in ROM protect EFI variable store in ROM Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Yoel Gluck and Angelo Prado Angelo Prado and Yoel Gluck, Salesforce.com CRIME is software that performs a "compression oracle attack." This is possible because the SSL protocol doesn't hide length, and because SSL compresses the header. CRIME requests with every possible character and measures the ciphertext length. Look for the plaintext which compresses the most and looks for the cookie one byte-at-a-time. SSL Compression uses LZ77 to reduce redundancy. Huffman coding replaces common byte sequences with shorter codes. US CERT thinks the SSL compression problem is fixed, but it isn't. They convinced CERT that it wasn't fixed and they issued a CVE. BREACH, breachattrack.com BREACH exploits the SSL response body (Accept-Encoding response, Content-Encoding). It takes advantage of the fact that the response is not compressed. BREACH uses gzip and needs fairly "stable" pages that are static for ~30 seconds. It needs attacker-supplied content (say from a web form or added to a URL parameter). BREACH listens to a session's requests and responses, then inserts extra requests and responses. Eventually, BREACH guesses a session's secret key. Can use compression to guess contents one byte at-a-time. For example, "Supersecret SupersecreX" (a wrong guess) compresses 10 bytes, and "Supersecret Supersecret" (a correct guess) compresses 11 bytes, so it can find each character by guessing every character. To start the guess, BREACH needs at least three known initial characters in the response sequence. Compression length then "leaks" information. Some roadblocks include no winners (all guesses wrong) or too many winners (multiple possibilities that compress the same). The solutions include: lookahead (guess 2 or 3 characters at-a-time instead of 1 character). Expensive rollback to last known conflict check compression ratio can brute-force first 3 "bootstrap" characters, if needed (expensive) block ciphers hide exact plain text length. Solution is to align response in advance to block size Mitigations length: use variable padding secrets: dynamic CSRF tokens per request secret: change over time separate secret to input-less servlets Future work eiter understand DEFLATE/GZIP HTTPS extensions Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Ryan Huber Ryan Huber, Risk I/O Ryan first discussed various ways to do a denial of service (DoS) attack against web services. One usual method is to find a slow web page and do several wgets. Or download large files. Apache is not well suited at handling a large number of connections, but one can put something in front of it Can use Apache alternatives, such as nginx How to identify malicious hosts short, sudden web requests user-agent is obvious (curl, python) same url requested repeatedly no web page referer (not normal) hidden links. hide a link and see if a bot gets it restricted access if not your geo IP (unless the website is global) missing common headers in request regular timing first seen IP at beginning of attack count requests per hosts (usually a very large number) Use of captcha can mitigate attacks, but you'll lose a lot of genuine users. Bouncer, goo.gl/c2vyEc and www.github.com/rawdigits/Bouncer Bouncer is software written by Ryan in netflow. Bouncer has a small, unobtrusive footprint and detects DoS attempts. It closes blacklisted sockets immediately (not nice about it, no proper close connection). Aggregator collects requests and controls your web proxies. Need NTP on the front end web servers for clean data for use by bouncer. Bouncer is also useful for a popularity storm ("Slashdotting") and scraper storms. Future features: gzip collection data, documentation, consumer library, multitask, logging destroyed connections. Takeaways: DoS mitigation is easier with a complete picture Bouncer designed to make it easier to detect and defend DoS—not a complete cure Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman, Adobe ASSET, blogs.adobe.com/asset/ Peleus and Karthik talked about response to mass-customized exploits. Attackers behave much like a business. "Mass customization" refers to concept discussed in the book Future Perfect by Stan Davis of Harvard Business School. Mass customization is differentiating a product for an individual customer, but at a mass production price. For example, the same individual with a debit card receives basically the same customized ATM experience around the world. Or designing your own PC from commodity parts. Exploit kits are another example of mass customization. The kits support multiple browsers and plugins, allows new modules. Exploit kits are cheap and customizable. Organized gangs use exploit kits. A group at Berkeley looked at 77,000 malicious websites (Grier et al., "Manufacturing Compromise: The Emergence of Exploit-as-a-Service", 2012). They found 10,000 distinct binaries among them, but derived from only a dozen or so exploit kits. Characteristics of Mass Malware: potent, resilient, relatively low cost Technical characteristics: multiple OS, multipe payloads, multiple scenarios, multiple languages, obfuscation Response time for 0-day exploits has gone down from ~40 days 5 years ago to about ~10 days now. So the drive with malware is towards mass customized exploits, to avoid detection There's plenty of evicence that exploit development has Project Manager bureaucracy. They infer from the malware edicts to: support all versions of reader support all versions of windows support all versions of flash support all browsers write large complex, difficult to main code (8750 lines of JavaScript for example Exploits have "loose coupling" of multipe versions of software (adobe), OS, and browser. This allows specific attacks against specific versions of multiple pieces of software. Also allows exploits of more obscure software/OS/browsers and obscure versions. Gave examples of exploits that exploited 2, 3, 6, or 14 separate bugs. However, these complete exploits are more likely to be buggy or fragile in themselves and easier to defeat. Future research includes normalizing malware and Javascript. Conclusion: The coming trend is that mass-malware with mass zero-day attacks will result in mass customization of attacks. x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Richard Wartell Richard Wartell The attack vector we are addressing here is: First some malware causes a buffer overflow. The malware has no program access, but input access and buffer overflow code onto stack Later the stack became non-executable. The workaround malware used was to write a bogus return address to the stack jumping to malware Later came ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) to randomize memory layout and make addresses non-deterministic. The workaround malware used was to jump t existing code segments in the program that can be used in bad ways "RoP" is Return-oriented Programming attacks. RoP attacks use your own code and write return address on stack to (existing) expoitable code found in program ("gadgets"). Pinkie Pie was paid $60K last year for a RoP attack. One solution is using anti-RoP compilers that compile source code with NO return instructions. ASLR does not randomize address space, just "gadgets". IPR/ILR ("Instruction Location Randomization") randomizes each instruction with a virtual machine. Richard's goal was to randomize a binary with no source code access. He created "STIR" (Self-Transofrming Instruction Relocation). STIR disassembles binary and operates on "basic blocks" of code. The STIR disassembler is conservative in what to disassemble. Each basic block is moved to a random location in memory. Next, STIR writes new code sections with copies of "basic blocks" of code in randomized locations. The old code is copied and rewritten with jumps to new code. the original code sections in the file is marked non-executible. STIR has better entropy than ASLR in location of code. Makes brute force attacks much harder. STIR runs on MS Windows (PEM) and Linux (ELF). It eliminated 99.96% or more "gadgets" (i.e., moved the address). Overhead usually 5-10% on MS Windows, about 1.5-4% on Linux (but some code actually runs faster!). The unique thing about STIR is it requires no source access and the modified binary fully works! Current work is to rewrite code to enforce security policies. For example, don't create a *.{exe,msi,bat} file. Or don't connect to the network after reading from the disk. Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Collin Greene Collin Greene, Facebook Collin talked about Facebook's bug bounty program. Background at FB: FB has good security frameworks, such as security teams, external audits, and cc'ing on diffs. But there's lots of "deep, dark, forgotten" parts of legacy FB code. Collin gave several examples of bountied bugs. Some bounty submissions were on software purchased from a third-party (but bounty claimers don't know and don't care). We use security questions, as does everyone else, but they are basically insecure (often easily discoverable). Collin didn't expect many bugs from the bounty program, but they ended getting 20+ good bugs in first 24 hours and good submissions continue to come in. Bug bounties bring people in with different perspectives, and are paid only for success. Bug bounty is a better use of a fixed amount of time and money versus just code review or static code analysis. The Bounty program started July 2011 and paid out $1.5 million to date. 14% of the submissions have been high priority problems that needed to be fixed immediately. The best bugs come from a small % of submitters (as with everything else)—the top paid submitters are paid 6 figures a year. Spammers like to backstab competitors. The youngest sumitter was 13. Some submitters have been hired. Bug bounties also allows to see bugs that were missed by tools or reviews, allowing improvement in the process. Bug bounties might not work for traditional software companies where the product has release cycle or is not on Internet. Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Anna Shubina Anna Shubina, Dartmouth Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (I missed the start of her talk because another track went overtime. But I have the DVD of the talk, so I'll expand later) IPsec leaves fingerprints. Using netcat, one can easily visually distinguish various crypto chaining modes just from packet timing on a chart (example, DES-CBC versus AES-CBC) One can tell a lot about VPNs just from ping roundtrips (such as what router is used) Delayed packets are not informative about a network, especially if far away from the network More needed to explore about how TCP works in real life with respect to timing Making Attacks Go Backwards Fuzzynop FuzzyNop, Mandiant This talk is not about threat attribution (finding who), product solutions, politics, or sales pitches. But who are making these malware threats? It's not a single person or group—they have diverse skill levels. There's a lot of fat-fingered fumblers out there. Always look for low-hanging fruit first: "hiding" malware in the temp, recycle, or root directories creation of unnamed scheduled tasks obvious names of files and syscalls ("ClearEventLog") uncleared event logs. Clearing event log in itself, and time of clearing, is a red flag and good first clue to look for on a suspect system Reverse engineering is hard. Disassembler use takes practice and skill. A popular tool is IDA Pro, but it takes multiple interactive iterations to get a clean disassembly. Key loggers are used a lot in targeted attacks. They are typically custom code or built in a backdoor. A big tip-off is that non-printable characters need to be printed out (such as "[Ctrl]" "[RightShift]") or time stamp printf strings. Look for these in files. Presence is not proof they are used. Absence is not proof they are not used. Java exploits. Can parse jar file with idxparser.py and decomile Java file. Java typially used to target tech companies. Backdoors are the main persistence mechanism (provided externally) for malware. Also malware typically needs command and control. Application of Artificial Intelligence in Ad-Hoc Static Code Analysis John Ashaman John Ashaman, Security Innovation Initially John tried to analyze open source files with open source static analysis tools, but these showed thousands of false positives. Also tried using grep, but tis fails to find anything even mildly complex. So next John decided to write his own tool. His approach was to first generate a call graph then analyze the graph. However, the problem is that making a call graph is really hard. For example, one problem is "evil" coding techniques, such as passing function pointer. First the tool generated an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) with the nodes created from method declarations and edges created from method use. Then the tool generated a control flow graph with the goal to find a path through the AST (a maze) from source to sink. The algorithm is to look at adjacent nodes to see if any are "scary" (a vulnerability), using heuristics for search order. The tool, called "Scat" (Static Code Analysis Tool), currently looks for C# vulnerabilities and some simple PHP. Later, he plans to add more PHP, then JSP and Java. For more information see his posts in Security Innovation blog and NRefactory on GitHub. Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Sometimes in emailing or posting TCP/IP packets to analyze problems, you may want to mask the IP address. But to do this correctly, you need to mask the checksum too, or you'll leak information about the IP. Problem reports found in stackoverflow.com, sans.org, and pastebin.org are usually not masked, but a few companies do care. If only the IP is masked, the IP may be guessed from checksum (that is, it leaks data). Other parts of packet may leak more data about the IP. TCP and IP checksums both refer to the same data, so can get more bits of information out of using both checksums than just using one checksum. Also, one can usually determine the OS from the TTL field and ports in a packet header. If we get hundreds of possible results (16x each masked nibble that is unknown), one can do other things to narrow the results, such as look at packet contents for domain or geo information. With hundreds of results, can import as CSV format into a spreadsheet. Can corelate with geo data and see where each possibility is located. Eric then demoed a real email report with a masked IP packet attached. Was able to find the exact IP address, given the geo and university of the sender. Point is if you're going to mask a packet, do it right. Eric wouldn't usually bother, but do it correctly if at all, to not create a false impression of security. Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Sergey Bratus Sergey Bratus, Dartmouth College (and Julian Bangert and Rebecca Shapiro, not present) "Reflections on Trusting Trust" refers to Ken Thompson's classic 1984 paper. "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself." There's invisible links in the chain-of-trust, such as "well-installed microcode bugs" or in the compiler, and other planted bugs. Thompson showed how a compiler can introduce and propagate bugs in unmodified source. But suppose if there's no bugs and you trust the author, can you trust the code? Hell No! There's too many factors—it's Babylonian in nature. Why not? Well, Input is not well-defined/recognized (code's assumptions about "checked" input will be violated (bug/vunerabiliy). For example, HTML is recursive, but Regex checking is not recursive. Input well-formed but so complex there's no telling what it does For example, ELF file parsing is complex and has multiple ways of parsing. Input is seen differently by different pieces of program or toolchain Any Input is a program input executes on input handlers (drives state changes & transitions) only a well-defined execution model can be trusted (regex/DFA, PDA, CFG) Input handler either is a "recognizer" for the inputs as a well-defined language (see langsec.org) or it's a "virtual machine" for inputs to drive into pwn-age ELF ABI (UNIX/Linux executible file format) case study. Problems can arise from these steps (without planting bugs): compiler linker loader ld.so/rtld relocator DWARF (debugger info) exceptions The problem is you can't really automatically analyze code (it's the "halting problem" and undecidable). Only solution is to freeze code and sign it. But you can't freeze everything! Can't freeze ASLR or loading—must have tables and metadata. Any sufficiently complex input data is the same as VM byte code Example, ELF relocation entries + dynamic symbols == a Turing Complete Machine (TM). @bxsays created a Turing machine in Linux from relocation data (not code) in an ELF file. For more information, see Rebecca "bx" Shapiro's presentation from last year's Toorcon, "Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata" @bxsays did same thing with Mach-O bytecode Or a DWARF exception handling data .eh_frame + glibc == Turning Machine X86 MMU (IDT, GDT, TSS): used address translation to create a Turning Machine. Page handler reads and writes (on page fault) memory. Uses a page table, which can be used as Turning Machine byte code. Example on Github using this TM that will fly a glider across the screen Next Sergey talked about "Parser Differentials". That having one input format, but two parsers, will create confusion and opportunity for exploitation. For example, CSRs are parsed during creation by cert requestor and again by another parser at the CA. Another example is ELF—several parsers in OS tool chain, which are all different. Can have two different Program Headers (PHDRs) because ld.so parses multiple PHDRs. The second PHDR can completely transform the executable. This is described in paper in the first issue of International Journal of PoC. Conclusions trusting computers not only about bugs! Bugs are part of a problem, but no by far all of it complex data formats means bugs no "chain of trust" in Babylon! (that is, with parser differentials) we need to squeeze complexity out of data until data stops being "code equivalent" Further information See and langsec.org. USENIX WOOT 2013 (Workshop on Offensive Technologies) for "weird machines" papers and videos.

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• Unable to boot Windows 7 after installing Ubuntu

  - by Devendra

  I have Windows 7 on my machine and then installed Ubuntu 12.04 using a live CD. I can see both Windows 7 and Ubuntu in the grub menu, but when I select Windows 7 it shows a black screen for about 2 seconds and the returns to the Grub menu. But if I select Ubuntu it's working fine. This is the contents of the boot-repair log: Boot Info Script 0.61.full + Boot-Repair extra info [Boot-Info November 20th 2012] ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== => Grub2 (v2.00) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 1 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks in partition 1 for (,msdos6)/boot/grub. sda1: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Grub2 (v1.99-2.00) Boot sector info: Grub2 (v2.00) is installed in the boot sector of sda1 and looks at sector 388911128 of the same hard drive for core.img. core.img is at this location and looks in partition 1 for (,msdos6)/boot/grub. No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Windows 7 Boot files: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD /Windows/System32/winload.exe sda2: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7: NTFS Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: sda3: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7: NTFS Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: sda4: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: Extended Partition Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: sda5: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7: NTFS Boot sector info: According to the info in the boot sector, sda5 starts at sector 2048. Operating System: Boot files: sda6: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Ubuntu 12.10 Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/i386-pc/core.img sda7: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: ============================ Drive/Partition Info: ============================= Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sda1 * 206,848 146,802,687 146,595,840 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda2 147,007,488 293,623,807 146,616,320 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda3 293,623,808 332,820,613 39,196,806 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda4 332,822,526 1,465,145,343 1,132,322,818 f W95 Extended (LBA) /dev/sda5 461,342,720 1,465,145,343 1,003,802,624 7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS /dev/sda6 332,822,528 453,171,199 120,348,672 83 Linux /dev/sda7 453,173,248 461,338,623 8,165,376 82 Linux swap / Solaris "blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________ Device UUID TYPE LABEL /dev/sda1 F6AE2C13AE2BCB47 ntfs /dev/sda2 DC2273012272DFC6 ntfs /dev/sda3 1E76E43376E40D79 ntfs New Volume /dev/sda5 5ED60ACDD60AA57D ntfs /dev/sda6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ext4 /dev/sda7 52f3dd94-6be7-4a7b-a3ae-f43eb8810483 swap ================================ Mount points: ================================= Device Mount_Point Type Options /dev/sda6 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) =========================== sda6/boot/grub/grub.cfg: =========================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # 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 $prefix/grubenv ]; then set have_grubenv=true load_env fi set default="0" if [ x"${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_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi font="/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2" fi if loadfont $font ; then set gfxmode=auto load_video insmod gfxterm set locale_dir=$prefix/locale set lang=en_IN insmod gettext fi terminal_output gfxterm if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then set timeout=10 else set timeout=10 fi ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray if background_color 44,0,30; then clear fi ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### function gfxmode { set gfxpayload="${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 [ ${match} = 0 ]; then set linux_gfx_mode=keep else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=keep fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi export linux_gfx_mode if [ "${linux_gfx_mode}" != "text" ]; then load_video; fi menuentry 'Ubuntu' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124' { recordfail gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic root=UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ro quiet splash $vt_handoff initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic } submenu 'Advanced options for Ubuntu' $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-advanced-9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124' { menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.5.0-17-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.5.0-17-generic-advanced-9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124' { recordfail gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.5.0-17-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic root=UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ro quiet splash $vt_handoff echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.5.0-17-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.5.0-17-generic-recovery-9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124' { recordfail insmod gzio insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi echo 'Loading Linux 3.5.0-17-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic root=UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ro recovery nomodeset echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-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_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin } menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" { insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 set root='hd0,msdos6' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos6 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos6 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos6 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 fi linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### menuentry 'Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda1)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-chain-F6AE2C13AE2BCB47' { insmod part_msdos insmod ntfs set root='hd0,msdos1' if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos1 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos1 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos1 F6AE2C13AE2BCB47 else search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root F6AE2C13AE2BCB47 fi chainloader +1 } ### 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 ### -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================== sda6/etc/fstab: ================================ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> # / was on /dev/sda6 during installation UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # swap was on /dev/sda7 during installation UUID=52f3dd94-6be7-4a7b-a3ae-f43eb8810483 none swap sw 0 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =================== sda6: Location of files loaded by Grub: ==================== GiB - GB File Fragment(s) 162.831275940 = 174.838751232 boot/grub/grub.cfg 1 163.036647797 = 175.059267584 boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic 1 206.871749878 = 222.126850048 boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic 1 163.036647797 = 175.059267584 initrd.img 1 163.036647797 = 175.059267584 initrd.img.old 1 206.871749878 = 222.126850048 vmlinuz 1 =============================== StdErr Messages: =============================== cat: write error: Broken pipe cat: write error: Broken pipe ADDITIONAL INFORMATION : =================== log of boot-repair 2012-12-11__00h59 =================== boot-repair version : 3.195~ppa28~quantal boot-sav version : 3.195~ppa28~quantal glade2script version : 3.2.2~ppa45~quantal boot-sav-extra version : 3.195~ppa28~quantal boot-repair is executed in installed-session (Ubuntu 12.10, quantal, Ubuntu, x86_64) CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic root=UUID=9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7 =================== os-prober: /dev/sda6:The OS now in use - Ubuntu 12.10 CurrentSession:linux /dev/sda1:Windows 7 (loader):Windows:chain =================== blkid: /dev/sda1: UUID="F6AE2C13AE2BCB47" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda2: UUID="DC2273012272DFC6" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda3: LABEL="New Volume" UUID="1E76E43376E40D79" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda5: UUID="5ED60ACDD60AA57D" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda6: UUID="9e70fd16-b48b-4f88-adcf-e443aef83124" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda7: UUID="52f3dd94-6be7-4a7b-a3ae-f43eb8810483" TYPE="swap" 1 disks with OS, 2 OS : 1 Linux, 0 MacOS, 1 Windows, 0 unknown type OS. Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary. DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently. =================== /etc/default/grub : # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef" # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true" # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" =================== /etc/grub.d/ : drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 17 20:29 grub.d total 72 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7541 Oct 14 23:06 00_header -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5488 Oct 4 15:00 05_debian_theme -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10891 Oct 14 23:06 10_linux -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10258 Oct 14 23:06 20_linux_xen -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1688 Oct 11 19:40 20_memtest86+ -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10976 Oct 14 23:06 30_os-prober -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1426 Oct 14 23:06 30_uefi-firmware -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 214 Oct 14 23:06 40_custom -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 216 Oct 14 23:06 41_custom -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 483 Oct 14 23:06 README =================== UEFI/Legacy mode: This installed-session is not in EFI-mode. EFI in dmesg. Please report this message to [email protected] [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000bafe7000 0003E (v01 DELL QA09 00000002 PTL 00000002) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000bafe6000 00042 (v01 PTL COMBUF 00000001 PTL 00000001) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000bafe3000 00256 (v01 DELL QA09 00000002 PTL 00000002) SecureBoot disabled. =================== PARTITIONS & DISKS: sda6 : sda, not-sepboot, grubenv-ok grub2, grub-pc , update-grub, 64, with-boot, is-os, not--efi--part, fstab-without-boot, fstab-without-efi, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, notwinboot, apt-get, grub-install, with--usr, fstab-without-usr, not-sep-usr, standard, farbios, . sda1 : sda, not-sepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, is-os, not--efi--part, part-has-no-fstab, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, haswinload, no-recov-nor-hid, bootmgr, is-winboot, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, no---usr, part-has-no-fstab, not-sep-usr, standard, not-far, /mnt/boot-sav/sda1. sda2 : sda, not-sepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, not--efi--part, part-has-no-fstab, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, notwinboot, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, no---usr, part-has-no-fstab, not-sep-usr, standard, farbios, /mnt/boot-sav/sda2. sda3 : sda, not-sepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, not--efi--part, part-has-no-fstab, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, notwinboot, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, no---usr, part-has-no-fstab, not-sep-usr, standard, farbios, /mnt/boot-sav/sda3. sda5 : sda, not-sepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, not--efi--part, part-has-no-fstab, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, notwinboot, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, no---usr, part-has-no-fstab, not-sep-usr, standard, farbios, /mnt/boot-sav/sda5. sda : not-GPT, BIOSboot-not-needed, has-no-EFIpart, not-usb, has-os, 2048 sectors * 512 bytes =================== parted -l: Model: ATA WDC WD7500BPKT-7 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 750GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B Partition Table: msdos Number Start End Size Type File system Flags 1 106MB 75.2GB 75.1GB primary ntfs boot 2 75.3GB 150GB 75.1GB primary ntfs 3 150GB 170GB 20.1GB primary ntfs 4 170GB 750GB 580GB extended lba 6 170GB 232GB 61.6GB logical ext4 7 232GB 236GB 4181MB logical linux-swap(v1) 5 236GB 750GB 514GB logical ntfs =================== parted -lm: BYT; /dev/sda:750GB:scsi:512:4096:msdos:ATA WDC WD7500BPKT-7; 1:106MB:75.2GB:75.1GB:ntfs::boot; 2:75.3GB:150GB:75.1GB:ntfs::; 3:150GB:170GB:20.1GB:ntfs::; 4:170GB:750GB:580GB:::lba; 6:170GB:232GB:61.6GB:ext4::; 7:232GB:236GB:4181MB:linux-swap(v1)::; 5:236GB:750GB:514GB:ntfs::; =================== mount: /dev/sda6 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw) udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620) tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755) none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880) none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755) gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/dev/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=dev) /dev/sda1 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda1 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) /dev/sda2 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda2 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) /dev/sda3 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda3 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) /dev/sda5 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda5 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) =================== ls: /sys/block/sda (filtered): alignment_offset bdi capability dev device discard_alignment events events_async events_poll_msecs ext_range holders inflight power queue range removable ro sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6 sda7 size slaves stat subsystem trace uevent /sys/block/sr0 (filtered): alignment_offset bdi capability dev device discard_alignment events events_async events_poll_msecs ext_range holders inflight power queue range removable ro size slaves stat subsystem trace uevent /dev (filtered): alarm ashmem autofs binder block bsg btrfs-control bus cdrom cdrw char console core cpu cpu_dma_latency disk dri dvd dvdrw ecryptfs fb0 fb1 fd full fuse hpet input kmsg kvm log mapper mcelog mei mem net network_latency network_throughput null oldmem port ppp psaux ptmx pts random rfkill rtc rtc0 sda sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6 sda7 sg0 sg1 shm snapshot snd sr0 stderr stdin stdout uinput urandom v4l vga_arbiter vhost-net video0 zero ls /dev/mapper: control =================== df -Th: Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda6 ext4 57G 2.7G 51G 6% / udev devtmpfs 1.9G 12K 1.9G 1% /dev tmpfs tmpfs 770M 892K 769M 1% /run none tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none tmpfs 1.9G 260K 1.9G 1% /run/shm none tmpfs 100M 44K 100M 1% /run/user /dev/sda1 fuseblk 70G 36G 35G 51% /mnt/boot-sav/sda1 /dev/sda2 fuseblk 70G 66G 4.8G 94% /mnt/boot-sav/sda2 /dev/sda3 fuseblk 19G 87M 19G 1% /mnt/boot-sav/sda3 /dev/sda5 fuseblk 479G 436G 44G 92% /mnt/boot-sav/sda5 =================== fdisk -l: Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 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: 0x1dc69d0b Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 206848 146802687 73297920 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 147007488 293623807 73308160 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda3 293623808 332820613 19598403 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda4 332822526 1465145343 566161409 f W95 Ext'd (LBA) Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary. /dev/sda5 461342720 1465145343 501901312 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda6 332822528 453171199 60174336 83 Linux /dev/sda7 453173248 461338623 4082688 82 Linux swap / Solaris Partition table entries are not in disk order =================== Recommended repair Recommended-Repair This setting will reinstall the grub2 of sda6 into the MBR of sda. Additional repair will be performed: unhide-bootmenu-10s grub-install (GRUB) 2.00-7ubuntu11,grub-install (GRUB) 2. Reinstall the GRUB of sda6 into the MBR of sda Installation finished. No error reported. grub-install /dev/sda: exit code of grub-install /dev/sda:0 update-grub Generating grub.cfg ... Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-17-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.5.0-17-generic Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin Found Windows 7 (loader) on /dev/sda1 Unhide GRUB boot menu in sda6/boot/grub/grub.cfg Boot successfully repaired. You can now reboot your computer. The boot files of [The OS now in use - Ubuntu 12.10] are far from the start of the disk. Your BIOS may not detect them. You may want to retry after creating a /boot partition (EXT4, >200MB, start of the disk). This can be performed via tools such as gParted. Then select this partition via the [Separate /boot partition:] option of [Boot Repair]. (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootPartition)

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• SQL SERVER – WRITELOG – Wait Type – Day 17 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  WRITELOG is one of the most interesting wait types. So far we have seen a lot of different wait types, but this log type is associated with log file which makes it interesting to deal with. From Book On-Line: WRITELOG Occurs while waiting for a log flush to complete. Common operations that cause log flushes are checkpoints and transaction commits. WRITELOG Explanation: This wait type is usually seen in the heavy transactional database. When data is modified, it is written both on the log cache and buffer cache. This wait type occurs when data in the log cache is flushing to the disk. During this time, the session has to wait due to WRITELOG. I have recently seen this wait type’s persistence at my client’s place, where one of the long-running transactions was stopped by the user causing it to roll back. In the future, I will see if I could re-create this situation once again on my machine to validate the relation. Reducing WRITELOG wait: There are several suggestions to reduce this wait stats: Move Transaction Log to Separate Disk from mdf and other files. Avoid cursor-like coding methodology and frequent committing of statements. Find the most active file based on IO stall time based on the script written over here. You can also use fn_virtualfilestats to find IO-related issues using the script mentioned over here. Check the IO-related counters (PhysicalDisk:Avg.Disk Queue Length, PhysicalDisk:Disk Read Bytes/sec and PhysicalDisk :Disk Write Bytes/sec) for additional details. Read about them over here. There are two excellent resources by Paul Randal, I suggest you understand the subject from those videos. The links to videos are here and here. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Print SSRS Report / PDF automatically from SQL Server agent or Windows Service

  - by Jeremy Ramos

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/JeremyRamos/archive/2013/10/22/print-ssrs-report--pdf-from-sql-server-agent-or.aspxI have turned the Web upside-down to find a solution to this considering the least components and least maintenance as possible to achieve automated printing of an SSRS report. This is for the reason that we do not have a full software development team to maintain an app and we have to minimize the support overhead for the support team.Here is my setup:SQL Server 2008 R2 in Windows Server 2008 R2PDF format reports generated by SSRS Reports subscriptions to a Windows File ShareNetwork printerColoured reports with logo and brandingI have found and tested the following solutions to no avail:ProsConsCalling Adobe Acrobat Reader exe: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 11.0\Reader\acroRd32.exe" /n /s /o /h /t "C:\temp\print.pdf" \\printserver\printername"Very simple optionAdobe Acrobat reader requires to launch the GUI to send a job to a printer. Hence, this option cannot be used when printing from a service.Calling Adobe Acrobat Reader exe as a process from a .NET console appA bit harder than above, but still a simple solutionSame as cons abovePowershell script(Start-Process -FilePath "C:\temp\print.pdf" -Verb Print)Very simple optionUses default PDF client in quiet mode to Print, but also requires an active session.    Foxit ReaderVery simple optionRequires GUI same as Adobe Acrobat Reader Using the Reporting Services Web service to run and stream the report to an image object and then passed to the printerQuite complexThis is what we're trying to avoid  After pulling my hair out for two days, testing and evaluating the above solutions, I ended up learning more about printers (more than ever in my entire life) and how printer drivers work with PostScripts. I then bumped on to a PostScript interpreter called GhostScript (http://www.ghostscript.com/) and then the solution starts to get clearer and clearer.I managed to achieve a solution (maybe not be the simplest but efficient enough to achieve the least-maintenance-least-components goal) in 3-simple steps:Install GhostScript (http://www.ghostscript.com/download/) - this is an open-source PostScript and PDF interpreter. Printing directly using GhostScript only produces grayscale prints using the laserjet generic driver unless you save as BMP image and then interpret the colours using the imageInstall GSView (http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/)- this is a GhostScript add-on to make it easier to directly print to a Windows printer. GSPrint automates the above  PDF -> BMP -> Printer Driver.Run the GSPrint command from SQL Server agent or Windows Service:"C:\Program Files\Ghostgum\gsview\gsprint.exe" -color -landscape -all -printer "printername" "C:\temp\print.pdf"Command line options are here: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/gsprint.htmAnother lesson learned is, since you are calling the script from the Service Account, it will not necessarily have the Printer mapped in its Windows profile (if it even has one). The workaround to this is by adding a local printer as you normally would and then map this printer to the network printer. Note that you may need to install the Printer Driver locally in the server.So, that's it! There are many ways to achieve a solution. The key thing is how you provide the smartest solution!

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• AuthnRequest Settings in OIF / SP

  - by Damien Carru

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

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• Oracle Enterprise Manager users present today at Oracle Users Forum

  - by Anand Akela

  Oracle Users Forum starts in a few minutes at Moscone West, Levels 2 & 3. There are more than hundreds of Oracle user sessions during the day. Many Oracle Oracle Enterprise Manager users are presenting today as well.  In addition, we will have a Twitter Chat today from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM with IOUG leaders, Enterprise Manager SIG contributors and many speakers. You can participate in the chat using hash tag #em12c on Twitter.com or by going to  tweetchat.com/room/em12c      (Needs Twitter credential for participating).  Feel free to join IOUG and Enterprise team members at the User Group Pavilion on 2nd Floor, Moscone West. RSVP by going http://tweetvite.com/event/IOUG  . Don't miss the Oracle Open World welcome keynote by Larry Ellison this evening at 5 PM . Here is the complete list of Oracle Enterprise Manager sessions during the Oracle Users Forum : Time Session Title Speakers Location 8:00AM - 8:45AM UGF4569 - Oracle RAC Migration with Oracle Automatic Storage Management and Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c VINOD Emmanuel -Database Engineering, Dell, Inc. Wendy Chen - Sr. Systems Engineer, Dell, Inc. Moscone West - 2011 8:00AM - 8:45AM UGF10389 -  Monitoring Storage Systems for Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Anand Ranganathan - Product Manager, NetApp Moscone West - 2016 9:00AM - 10:00AM UGF2571 - Make Oracle Enterprise Manager Sing and Dance with the Command-Line Interface Ray Smith - Senior Database Administrator, Portland General Electric Moscone West - 2011 10:30AM - 11:30AM UGF2850 - Optimal Support: Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control, My Oracle Support, and More April Sims - DBA, Southern Utah University Moscone West - 2011 12:30PM-2:00PM UGF5131 - Migrating from Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control to 12c Cloud Control    Leighton Nelson - Database Administrator, Mercy Moscone West - 2011 2:15PM-3:15PM UGF6511 -  Database Performance Tuning: Get the Best out of Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Control Mike Ault - Oracle Guru, TEXAS MEMORY SYSTEMS INC Tariq Farooq - CEO/Founder, BrainSurface Moscone West - 2011 3:30PM-4:30PM UGF4556 - Will It Blend? Verifying Capacity in Server and Database Consolidations Jeremiah Wilton - Database Technology, Blue Gecko / DatAvail Moscone West - 2018 3:30PM-4:30PM UGF10400 - Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c: Monitoring, Metric Extensions, and Configuration Best Practices Kellyn Pot'Vin - Sr. Technical Consultant, Enkitec Moscone West - 2011 Stay Connected: Twitter |  Face book |  You Tube |  Linked in |  Newsletter

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• Ubuntu Software Center starts, then crashes before fully loaded [closed]

  - by Nathan Weisser

  Possible Duplicate: Software center not opening I am brand new to Linux and Ubuntu, and I couldn't install GIMP without the software center. I looked up earlier how to fix it, and it said to fix my sources list, and I did, but now i get a new error in the terminal. 2012-08-14 15:29:08,941 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'None' 2012-08-14 15:29:08,954 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True 2012-08-14 15:29:09,407 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - building local database 2012-08-14 15:29:09,408 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open() 2012-08-14 15:29:17,308 - softwarecenter.db.update - WARNING - Problem creating rebuild path '/var/cache/software-center/xapian_rb'. 2012-08-14 15:29:17,309 - softwarecenter.db.update - WARNING - Please check you have the relevant permissions. 2012-08-14 15:29:17,309 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True 2012-08-14 15:29:18,039 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file 2012-08-14 15:29:18,431 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - show_available_packages: search_text is '', app is None. 2012-08-14 15:29:19,153 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open() Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/software-center", line 176, in <module> app.run(args) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1422, in run self.show_available_packages(args) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1352, in show_available_packages self.view_manager.set_active_view(ViewPages.AVAILABLE) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/session/viewmanager.py", line 154, in set_active_view view_widget.init_view() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/panes/availablepane.py", line 136, in init_view SoftwarePane.init_view(self) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/panes/softwarepane.py", line 215, in init_view self.icons, self.show_ratings) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/appview.py", line 69, in __init__ self.helper = AppPropertiesHelper(db, cache, icons) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/models/appstore2.py", line 109, in __init__ softwarecenter.paths.APP_INSTALL_PATH) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/categories.py", line 255, in parse_applications_menu category = self._parse_menu_tag(child) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/categories.py", line 444, in _parse_menu_tag query = self._parse_include_tag(element) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/categories.py", line 402, in _parse_include_tag xapian.Query.OP_AND) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/categories.py", line 341, in _parse_and_or_not_tag operator_elem, xapian.Query(), xapian.Query.OP_OR) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/categories.py", line 385, in _parse_and_or_not_tag q = self.db.xapian_parser.parse_query(s, File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py", line 174, in xapian_parser xapian_parser = self._get_new_xapian_parser() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py", line 200, in _get_new_xapian_parser xapian_parser.set_database(self.xapiandb) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py", line 166, in xapiandb self._db_per_thread[thread_name] = self._get_new_xapiandb() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py", line 179, in _get_new_xapiandb xapiandb = xapian.Database(self._db_pathname) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xapian/__init__.py", line 3666, in __init__ _xapian.Database_swiginit(self,_xapian.new_Database(*args)) xapian.DatabaseOpeningError: Couldn't detect type of database I'm not sure how to fix the errors, and I couldn't find a topic on them anywhere. Be nice, because I am a two-day old Linux user :/ Tell me if you need my Sources list

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• PHP crashing (seg-fault) under mod_fcgi, apache

  - by Andras Gyomrey

  I've been programming a site using: Zend Framework 1.11.5 (complete MVC) PHP 5.3.6 Apache 2.2.19 CentOS 5.6 i686 virtuozzo on vps cPanel WHM 11.30.1 (build 4) Mysql 5.1.56-log Mysqli API 5.1.56 The issue started here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6769515/php-programming-seg-fault. In brief, php is giving me random segmentation-faults. [Wed Jul 20 17:45:34 2011] [error] mod_fcgid: process /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/php5(11562) exit(communication error), get unexpected signal 11 [Wed Jul 20 17:45:34 2011] [warn] [client 190.78.208.30] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: error reading data from FastCGI server [Wed Jul 20 17:45:34 2011] [error] [client 190.78.208.30] Premature end of script headers: index.php About extensions. When i compile php with "--enable-debug" flag, i have to disable this line: zend_extension="/usr/local/IonCube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.3.so" Otherwise, the server doesn't accept requests and i get a "The connection with the server was reset". It is possible that i have to disable eaccelerator too because of the same reason. I still don't get why apache gets running it some times and some others not: extension="eaccelerator.so" Anyway, after i get httpd running, seg-faults can occurr randomly. If i don't compile php with "--enable-debug" flag, i can get DETERMINISTICALLY a php crash: <?php class Admin_DbController extends Controller_BaseController { public function updateSqlDefinitionsAction() { $db = Zend_Registry::get('db'); $row = $db->fetchRow("SHOW CREATE TABLE 222AFI"); } } ?> BUT if i compile php with "--enable-debug" flag, it's really hard to get this error. I must add some complexity to make it crash. I have to be doing many paralell requests for a few seconds to get a crash: <?php class Admin_DbController extends Controller_BaseController { public function updateSqlDefinitionsAction() { $db = Zend_Registry::get('db'); $tableList = $db->listTables(); foreach ($tableList as $tableName){ $row = $db->fetchRow("SHOW CREATE TABLE " . $db->quoteIdentifier($tableName)); file_put_contents( DB_DEFINITIONS_PATH . '/' . $tableName . '.sql', $row['Create Table'] . ';' ); } } } ?> Please notice this is the same script, but creating DDL for all tables in database rather than for one. It seems that if php is heavy loaded (with extensions and me doing many paralell requests) it's when i get php to crash. About starting httpd with "-X": i've tried. The thing is, it is already hard to make php crash with --enable-debug. With "-X" option (which only enables one child process) i can't do parallel requests. So i haven't been able to create to proper debug backtrace: https://bugs.php.net/bugs-generating-backtrace.php My concrete question is, what do i do to get a coredump? root@GWT4 [~]# httpd -V Server version: Apache/2.2.19 (Unix) Server built: Jul 20 2011 19:18:58 Cpanel::Easy::Apache v3.4.2 rev9999 Server's Module Magic Number: 20051115:28 Server loaded: APR 1.4.5, APR-Util 1.3.12 Compiled using: APR 1.4.5, APR-Util 1.3.12 Architecture: 32-bit Server MPM: Prefork threaded: no forked: yes (variable process count) Server compiled with.... -D APACHE_MPM_DIR="server/mpm/prefork" -D APR_HAS_SENDFILE -D APR_HAS_MMAP -D APR_HAVE_IPV6 (IPv4-mapped addresses enabled) -D APR_USE_SYSVSEM_SERIALIZE -D APR_USE_PTHREAD_SERIALIZE -D SINGLE_LISTEN_UNSERIALIZED_ACCEPT -D APR_HAS_OTHER_CHILD -D AP_HAVE_RELIABLE_PIPED_LOGS -D DYNAMIC_MODULE_LIMIT=128 -D HTTPD_ROOT="/usr/local/apache" -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/local/apache/bin/suexec" -D DEFAULT_PIDLOG="logs/httpd.pid" -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/apache_runtime_status" -D DEFAULT_LOCKFILE="logs/accept.lock" -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log" -D AP_TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="conf/mime.types" -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="conf/httpd.conf"

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• Predicting Likelihood of Click with Multiple Presentations

  - by Michel Adar

  When using predictive models to predict the likelihood of an ad or a banner to be clicked on it is common to ignore the fact that the same content may have been presented in the past to the same visitor. While the error may be small if the visitors do not often see repeated content, it may be very significant for sites where visitors come repeatedly. This is a well recognized problem that usually gets handled with presentation thresholds – do not present the same content more than 6 times. Observations and measurements of visitor behavior provide evidence that something better is needed. Observations For a specific visitor, during a single session, for a banner in a not too prominent space, the second presentation of the same content is more likely to be clicked on than the first presentation. The difference can be 30% to 100% higher likelihood for the second presentation when compared to the first. That is, for example, if the first presentation has an average click rate of 1%, the second presentation may have an average CTR of between 1.3% and 2%. After the second presentation the CTR stays more or less the same for a few more presentations. The number of presentations in this plateau seems to vary by the location of the content in the page and by the visual attraction of the content. After these few presentations the CTR starts decaying with a curve that is very well approximated by an exponential decay. For example, the 13th presentation may have 90% the likelihood of the 12th, and the 14th has 90% the likelihood of the 13th. The decay constant seems also to depend on the visibility of the content. Modeling Options Now that we know the empirical data, we can propose modeling techniques that will correctly predict the likelihood of a click. Use presentation number as an input to the predictive model Probably the most straight forward approach is to add the presentation number as an input to the predictive model. While this is certainly a simple solution, it carries with it several problems, among them: If the model learns on each case, repeated non-clicks for the same content will reinforce the belief of the model on the non-clicker disproportionately. That is, the weight of a person that does not click for 200 presentations of an offer may be the same as 100 other people that on average click on the second presentation. The effect of the presentation number is not a customer characteristic or a piece of contextual data about the interaction with the customer, but it is contextual data about the content presented. Models tend to underestimate the effect of the presentation number. For these reasons it is not advisable to use this approach when the average number of presentations of the same content to the same person is above 3, or when there are cases of having the presentation number be very large, in the tens or hundreds. Use presentation number as a partitioning attribute to the predictive model In this approach we essentially build a separate predictive model for each presentation number. This approach overcomes all of the problems in the previous approach, nevertheless, it can be applied only when the volume of data is large enough to have these very specific sub-models converge.

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• How To Personalize the Windows Command Prompt

  - by Matthew Guay

  Command line interfaces can be downright boring, and always seem to miss out on the fresh coats of paint liberally applied to the rest of Windows.  Here’s how to add a splash of color to Command Prompt and make it unique. By default, Windows Command Prompt is white text on a black background. It get’s the job done, but maybe you want to add some color to it.   To get an overview of what we can do with the color command, let’s enter: color /? So, to get the color you want, enter color then the option for the background color followed by the font color.  For example, let’s make an old-fashioned green on black look by entering: color 02   There are a bunch of different combinations you can do, like this black background with red text. color 04 You can’t mess it up too much.  The color command won’t let you set both the font and the background to the same color, which would make it unreadable.  Also, if you want to get back to the default settings, just enter: color Now we’re back to plain-old black and white. Personalize Command Prompt Without Commands If you’d prefer to change the color without entering commands, just click on the Command Prompt icon in the top left corner of the window and select Properties. Select the Colors tab, and then choose the color you want for the screen text and background.  You can also enter your own RGB color combination if you want.   Here we entered the RGB values to get a purple background color like Ubuntu 10.04. Back in the Properties dialog, you can also change your Command Prompt font from the font tab.  Choose any font you want, as long as the one you want is one of the three listed here. Customizations you make via the Properties dialog are saved and will be used any time you open Command Prompt, but any customizations you make with the Color command are only for that session. Conclusion Whether you want to make your command prompt bright enough to cause a sunburn or old-style enough to scare a mainframe operator, with these settings, you can make Command Prompt a bit more unique.   Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use "Command Prompt Here" in Windows VistaVerify the Integrity of Windows Vista System FilesKeyboard Ninja: Scrolling the Windows Command Prompt With Only the KeyboardRun a Command as Administrator from the Windows 7 / Vista Run boxStart an Application Assigned to a Specific CPU in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app

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• Returning Identity Value in SQL Server: @@IDENTITY Vs SCOPE_IDENTITY Vs IDENT_CURRENT

  - by Arefin Ali

  We have some common misconceptions on returning the last inserted identity value from tables. To return the last inserted identity value we have options to use @@IDENTITY or SCOPE_IDENTITY or IDENT_CURRENT function depending on the requirement but it will be a real mess if anybody uses anyone of these functions without knowing exact purpose. So here I want to share my thoughts on this. @@IDENTITY, SCOPE_IDENTITY and IDENT_CURRENT are almost similar functions in terms of returning identity value. They all return values that are inserted into an identity column. Earlier in SQL Server 7 we used to use @@IDENTITY to return the last inserted identity value because those days we don’t have functions like SCOPE_IDENTITY or IDENT_CURRENT but now we have these three functions. So let’s check out which one responsible for what. IDENT_CURRENT returns the last inserted identity value in a particular table. It never depends on a connection or the scope of the insert statement. IDENT_CURRENT function takes a table name as parameter. Here is the syntax to get the last inserted identity value in a particular table using IDENT_CURRENT function. SELECT IDENT_CURRENT('Employee') Both the @@IDENTITY and SCOPE_IDENTITY return the last inserted identity value created in any table in the current session. But there is little difference between these two i.e. SCOPE_IDENTITY returns value inserted only within the current scope whereas @@IDENTITY is not limited to any particular scope. Here are the syntaxes to get the last inserted identity value using these functions SELECT @@IDENTITY SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY() Now let’s have a look at the following example. Suppose I have two tables called Employee and EmployeeLog. CREATE TABLE Employee ( EmpId NUMERIC(18, 0) IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, EmpName VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, EmpSal FLOAT NOT NULL, DateOfJoining DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT(GETDATE()) ) CREATE TABLE EmployeeLog ( EmpId NUMERIC(18, 0) IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, EmpName VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, EmpSal FLOAT NOT NULL, DateOfJoining DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT(GETDATE()) ) I have an insert trigger defined on the table Employee which inserts a new record in the EmployeeLog whenever a record insert in the Employee table. So Suppose I insert a new record in the Employee table using following statement: INSERT INTO Employee (EmpName,EmpSal) VALUES ('Arefin','1') The trigger will be fired automatically and insert a record in EmployeeLog. Here the scope of the insert statement and the trigger are different. In this situation if I retrieve last inserted identity value using @@IDENTITY, it will simply return the identity value from the EmployeeLog because it’s not limited to a particular scope. Now if I want to get the Employee table’s identity value then I need to use SCOPE_IDENTITY in this scenario. So the moral is always use SCOPE_IDENTITY to return the identity value of a recently created record in a sql statement or stored procedure. It’s safe and ensures bug free code.

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• Returning Identity Value in SQL Server: @@IDENTITY Vs SCOPE_IDENTITY Vs IDENT_CURRENT

  - by Arefin Ali

  We have some common misconceptions on returning the last inserted identity value from tables. To return the last inserted identity value we have options to use @@IDENTITY or SCOPE_IDENTITY or IDENT_CURRENT function depending on the requirement but it will be a real mess if anybody uses anyone of these functions without knowing exact purpose. So here I want to share my thoughts on this. @@IDENTITY, SCOPE_IDENTITY and IDENT_CURRENT are almost similar functions in terms of returning identity value. They all return values that are inserted into an identity column. Earlier in SQL Server 7 we used to use @@IDENTITY to return the last inserted identity value because those days we don’t have functions like SCOPE_IDENTITY or IDENT_CURRENT but now we have these three functions. So let’s check out which one responsible for what. IDENT_CURRENT returns the last inserted identity value in a particular table. It never depends on a connection or the scope of the insert statement. IDENT_CURRENT function takes a table name as parameter. Here is the syntax to get the last inserted identity value in a particular table using IDENT_CURRENT function. SELECT IDENT_CURRENT('Employee') Both the @@IDENTITY and SCOPE_IDENTITY return the last inserted identity value created in any table in the current session. But there is little difference between these two i.e. SCOPE_IDENTITY returns value inserted only within the current scope whereas @@IDENTITY is not limited to any particular scope. Here are the syntaxes to get the last inserted identity value using these functions SELECT @@IDENTITYSELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY() Now let’s have a look at the following example. Suppose I have two tables called Employee and EmployeeLog. CREATE TABLE Employee( EmpId NUMERIC(18, 0) IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, EmpName VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, EmpSal FLOAT NOT NULL, DateOfJoining DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT(GETDATE()))CREATE TABLE EmployeeLog( EmpId NUMERIC(18, 0) IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, EmpName VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, EmpSal FLOAT NOT NULL, DateOfJoining DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT(GETDATE())) I have an insert trigger defined on the table Employee which inserts a new record in the EmployeeLog whenever a record insert in the Employee table. So Suppose I insert a new record in the Employee table using following statement: INSERT INTO Employee (EmpName,EmpSal) VALUES ('Arefin','1') The trigger will be fired automatically and insert a record in EmployeeLog. Here the scope of the insert statement and the trigger are different. In this situation if I retrieve last inserted identity value using @@IDENTITY, it will simply return the identity value from the EmployeeLog because it’s not limited to a particular scope. Now if I want to get the Employee table’s identity value then I need to use SCOPE_IDENTITY in this scenario. So the moral is always use SCOPE_IDENTITY to return the identity value of a recently created record in a sql statement or stored procedure. It’s safe and ensures bug free code.

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• Unable to run Ubuntu Software center in 12.04

  - by Noye

  I think I've tried everything found. It is on just for a second. I can't even send an error report. What should I do? thanks in advance. so this is what I get after typing software-center in terminal (sorry, not as a code): 2012-06-16 22:54:17,610 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'None' 2012-06-16 22:54:17,617 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True 2012-06-16 22:54:18,142 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file 2012-06-16 22:54:18,697 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open() Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 243, in open self._cache = apt.Cache(GtkMainIterationProgress()) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 102, in __init__ self.open(progress) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 149, in open self._list.read_main_list() SystemError: E:Typ „ain“ je neznámy na riadku 2 v zozname zdrojov /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yannubuntu-boot-repair-precise.list 2012-06-16 22:54:21,916 - softwarecenter.db.enquire - ERROR - _get_estimate_nr_apps_and_nr_pkgs failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 115, in _get_estimate_nr_apps_and_nr_pkgs tmp_matches = enquire.get_mset(0, len(self.db), None, xfilter) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/appfilter.py", line 89, in __call__ if (not pkgname in self.cache and File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 263, in __contains__ return self._cache.__contains__(k) AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__contains__' Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/software-center", line 176, in app.run(args) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1358, in run self.show_available_packages(args) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1288, in show_available_packages self.view_manager.set_active_view(ViewPages.AVAILABLE) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/session/viewmanager.py", line 149, in set_active_view view_widget.init_view() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/panes/availablepane.py", line 168, in init_view self.apps_filter) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 240, in __init__ self.build(desktopdir) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 491, in build self._build_homepage_view() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 266, in _build_homepage_view self._append_whats_new() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 430, in _append_whats_new whats_new_cat = self._update_whats_new_content() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 419, in _update_whats_new_content docs = whats_new_cat.get_documents(self.db) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/categories.py", line 124, in get_documents nonblocking_load=False) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 317, in set_query self._blocking_perform_search() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 212, in _blocking_perform_search matches = enquire.get_mset(0, self.limit, None, xfilter) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/appfilter.py", line 89, in __call__ if (not pkgname in self.cache and File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 263, in __contains__ return self._cache.__contains__(k) AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__contains__'

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• How Can I Test My Computer’s Power Supply?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  You’re concerned your computer troubles stem from a failing (or outright fried) power supply unit. How can you test the unit to be sure that it’s the source of your hardware headaches? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Sam Hoice has some PSU concerns: My computer powered off the other day on its own, and now when I push the power button, nothing happens. My assumption would naturally be that the power supply is done (possibly well done) but is there any good way to test this before I buy a new one? How can Sam test things without damaging his current computer or other hardware?   The Answer SuperUser contributor Grant writes: Unplug the power supply from any of the components inside the computer (or just remove it from the computer completely). USE CAUTION HERE (Though you’d only be shocked with a max of 24 volts) Plug the power supply into the wall. Find the big 24-ish pin connector that connects to the motherboard. Connect the GREEN wire with the adjacent BLACK wire. The power supply’s fan should start up. If it doesn’t then it’s dead. If the fan starts up, then it could be the motherboard that’s dead. You can use a multimeter to check if there is power output from the power supply. Adrien offers a solution for readers who may not be comfortable jamming wires into their power supply unit’s MOBO connector: Most well-stocked geek-stores sell a “power-supply tester” that has all the appropriate connectors to plug each part of your PSU into, with spiffy LEDs indicating status of the various rails, connectors for IDE/SATA/floppy power cables, etc. They run ~$20 US. With a little careful shopping you can even find a highly-rated PSU tester for a measly $6. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

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• Silverlight Cream for March 27, 2010 -- #822

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: MSDN, Bill Reiss, Charlie Kindel(-2-), SilverLaw, Scott Marlowe, Kenny Young, Andrea Boschin, Mike Taulty, Damon Payne, and Jeff Handley(-2-). Shoutouts: Scott Morrison has his material up for his talk at MIX 10: Silverlight 4 Business Applications Matthias Shapiro posted his MIX10 “Information Visualization in Silverlight” Slides and Code for MIX10 Information Visualization Talk Demos Dan Wahlin has his MIX10 material all posted as well: Syncing Audio, Video and Animations in Silverlight Timmy Kokke has an interesting MEF post up: Building extensions for Expression Blend 4 using MEF From SilverlightCream.com: How to: Add an Application Bar to Your Application In case you missed this MSDN post on adding an Application Bar to your WP7 app Simulating accelerometer data in the Windows Phone 7 emulator Got a Wii? How about a Wii remote? Bill Reiss shows how to use the Wii remote to simulate accelerometer data on the WP7 emulator ... really! Windows Phone 7 Series Icon Pack Charlie Kindel announced the release of a WP7 Icon pack ... great external MSDN link on using them as well. Windows Phone Developer Documentation Charlie Kindel also posted WP7 Documentation, and a quick overview of what you'll find ... samples, references, all good stuff to check out and download. GlossyTextblock Custom Control - Silverlight 3 SilverLaw has his GlossyTextblock rebuilt as a Custom Control and in the Expresseion Gallery. Check the blog for a screenshot. A Windows Phone 7 Silverlight TagList Scott Marlowe has a great post up for WP7 accessing his blog tag list via WCF and displaying the data on the emulator... wow! Dynamic Layout and Transitions in Expression Blend 4 Kenny Young has a great companion blog post to a demo app on Expression Gallery. There's also a link on the page to Kenny's MIX10 session Using XmlDefinition and XmlPrefix to better organize namespaces Andrea Boschin comes to our rescue about the maze of namespaces in XAML by using a solution from the RC: XmlDefinition and XmlPrefix Silverlight 4 RC – Socket Security Changes Mike Taulty is discussing changes in the RC with regard to sockets that have come about since he did his series of posts. Lots of good code. Cascading ItemsSource Bindings in Silverlight Damon Payne addresses an issue he came acros with multiple DataGrids on the same screen. He demonstrates the problem, and then demonstrates his solution. ContosoSales Application for RIA Services RC Jeff Handley posted about the refresh to the ContosoSales application shown in the PDC keynote, and details the changes. Lots of good code and links. DomainDataSource Filters and Parameters Jeff Handley has another post up about RIA Services and the fact that ControlParameter is gone... and he shows how to use ElementName binding instead. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Silverlight Cream for December 18, 2010 - 2 -- #1013

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Michael Washington, Pete Brown, Robby Ingebretsen, Bill Reiss, Jordan Knight, Mike Taulty, Justin Angel, Jeff Blankenburg. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Creating the Silverlight View Model (MVVM) Control: Calendar Icon" Michael Washington WP7: "United Nations News for Windows Phone 7" Justin Angel Silverlight, WP7/WPF: "CameraPanel: A Parallax Panel for Silverlight, WP7 or WPF" Robby Ingebretsen Shoutouts: Michael Scherotter produced a Silverlight Webcam photo app that he's providing as a free install: A Free Webcam Photo Application in Silverlight From SilverlightCream.com: Creating the Silverlight View Model (MVVM) Control: Calendar Icon Michael Washington has a stunning Calendar Control/Icon up on his blog... walking through how he built it and how you can easily use it in your Silverlight or WP7 app. Strategies for Improving INotifyPropertyChanged in WPF and Silverlight Pete Brown takes a look at INPC and some of the ways this is dealt with to avoid some of the tedius code-reuse errors we all make. CameraPanel: A Parallax Panel for Silverlight, WP7 or WPF Robby Ingebretsen gives up the code for that cool panel he's got on his homepage where the small panels move about seemingly in space. Writing a Windows Phone 7 game? Have a fallback plan Bill Reiss, who has a great WP7 game up - Popper 2 - has a very well-thought-out post up about WP7 'indie' games and the future thereof... great comments from reader/authors as well Automatic template selection – marrying a view to a view model Jordan Knight has the 2nd post of his series on MVVM up... he's talking about it in context of their XamlingCore, but concepts are all good. Rebuilding the PDC 2010 Silverlight Application (Part 5) Mike Taulty's next episode in describing the development of the PDC10 app he wrote is up ... again lots of Blend goodness in this one where he's adding buttons to let the user (us) download whatever is available for the chosen session. United Nations News for Windows Phone 7 In a munificent gesture, Justin Angel not only made his United Nation News app free on the marketplace, but he's posted the source to CodePlex! Justin had sent me a XAP a couple weeks ago, but for some reason, I can no longer sideload so wasn't able to try it until now... too cool, Justin! What I Learned In WP7 – Issue #6 Jeff Blankenburg has his latest "What I learned in WP7" tip up ... and this is one about the marketplace written by someone that's been there and back a few times... Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Upcoming UPK Events

  - by kathryn.lustenberger(at)oracle.com

  February 15th: UPK: Follow Panduit's Lead and Leverage Oracle's User Productivity Kit To Achieve Your Goals - Join us for a live webcast to learn how Oracle's User Productivity Kit can help you meet and exceed your goals. The webcast will feature Jim Boss, from the Panduit Corporation, who will share how Oracle's User Productivity Kit was used with both Oracle and Non-Oracle applications to helped Panduit to meet their goals. Date: February 15th, 2011 at 12:00 PST / 3:00 EST Evite: http://www.oracle.com/us/dm/65630-naod10046029mpp005c010-se-300908.html March 2nd: Synaptis teams with Oracle to deliver a UPK customer success story - Webinar Offering The Value of UPK (Customer Success Story): How to leverage the value of UPK to streamline processes and maximize end user adoption for a global implementation Join us to learn how the power of UPK can be leveraged to train end users globally in a successful and cost effective manner. A valued Oracle UPK customer will share experiences, successes, challenges, and strategies. The webinar will also include a question and answer session to give the attendees an opportunity to interact directly with the Oracle UPK customer, Synaptis, and the Oracle UPK Team. Date: March 2, 2011 Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm EST Register for this webinar March 27 - 30th: The Alliance 2011 conference is an annual event for all higher education, government, and public sector users of Oracle applications. The Alliance conference is organized and managed by the Higher Education User Group (www.heug.org). This is the 14th annual event for the HEUG. This is your opportunity to join with over 3200 other Higher Education, Federal, State and Local Government users to network, learn and share in our amazing combined experiences. The Alliance conference team is hard at work, putting together the best conference ever for 2011 - so don't delay, make your plans now to be part of Alliance 2011! When: Sunday, March 27th, 2011 - Wednesday, March 30, 2011 Where: The Colorado Convention Center (Denver, Colorado) Registration for Alliance 2011 is Now Open! UPK will be represented at this event offering: Pre-Conference Training Learn the Basics of Oracle User Productivity Kit (UPK) Taking Your UPKs to a Whole New Level, Advanced Use of UPK Demo Pod Staff Sessions: Oracle User Productivity Kit: Creating Value throughout the Project Lifecycle Beyond Basic UPK -- User Tracking and SmartHelp Leveraging Oracle and User Productivity Kit (UPK) to Develop a Comprehensive Training Program Oracle User Productivity Kit Strategy and Roadmap -- Key to User Adoption April 10 - 14th: Registration for COLLABORATE 11 has begun - Don't miss the most comprehensive, user-driven conference devoted to Oracle applications and technology. Collaborate with a global network of more than 5,000 peers and experts to share real-world experiences, solve your challenges and gain insights to validate your technology plans. Read below to discover which group to register with for the best value. UPK will be represented at this event offering: Demo Pod Staff Sessions: Oracle User Productivity Kit: Creating Value throughout the Project Lifecycle Centralize all Project Team assets, AND, Deploy Fully Measurable Training with UPK Pro Oracle User Productivity Kit Strategy and Roadmap - Key to User Adoption Registration is Now Open!

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• Innovation, Adaptability and Agility Emerge As Common Themes at ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum

  - by [email protected]

  Helen Pitts, senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance is blogging from the show floor of the ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum this week. Sessions at the ACORD LOMA Insurance Forum this week highlighted the need for insurance companies to think creatively and be innovative with their technology in order to adapt to continuously shifting market dynamics and drive business efficiency and agility.  LOMA President & CEO Robert Kerzner kicked off the day on Tuesday, citing how the recent downtown and recovery has impacted the insurance industry and the ways that companies are doing business.  He encouraged carriers to look for new ways to deliver solutions and offer a better service experience for consumers.  ACORD President & CEO Gregory Maciag reinforced Kerzner's remarks, noting how the industry's approach to technology and development of industry standards has evolved over the association's 40-year history and cited how the continued rise of mobile computing will change the way many carriers are doing business today and in the future. Drawing from his own experiences, popular keynote speaker and Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak continued this theme, delving into ways that insurers can unite business with technology.  "iWoz" encouraged insurers to foster an entrepreneurial mindset in a corporate environment to create a culture of creativity and innovation.  He noted that true innovation in business comes from those who have a passion for what they do.  Innovation was also a common theme in several sessions throughout the day with topics ranging from modernization of core systems, automated underwriting, distribution management, CRM and customer communications management.  It was evident that insurers have begun to move past the "old school" processes and systems that constrain agility, implementing new process models and modern technology to become nimble and more adaptive to the market.   Oracle Insurance executives shared a few examples of how insurers are achieving innovation during our Platinum Sponsor session, "Adaptive System Transformation:  Making Agility More Than a Buzzword." Oracle Insurance Senior Vice President and General Manager Don Russo was joined by Chuck Johnston, vice president, global strategy and alliances, and Srini Venkatasantham, vice president of product strategy.  The three shared how Oracle's adaptive solutions for insurance, with a focus on how the key pillars of an adaptive systems - configurable applications, accessible information, extensible content and flexible process - have helped insurers respond rapidly, perform effectively and win more business. Insurers looking to innovate their business with adaptive insurance solutions including policy administration, business intelligence, enterprise document automation, rating and underwriting, claims, CRM and more stopped by the Oracle Insurance booth on the exhibit floor.  It was a premiere destination for many participating in the exhibit hall tours conducted throughout the day. Finally, red was definitely the color of the evening at the Oracle Insurance "Red Hot" customer celebration at the House of Blues. The event provided a great opportunity for our customers to come together and network with the Oracle Insurance team and their peers in the industry.  We look forward to visiting more with of our customers and making new connections today. Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance. 

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• Oracle Linux Events in December

  - by Zeynep Koch

  December will be a busy month for Oracle Linux team. We will be showcasing Oracle Linux and Oracle VM in conferences all around the world. Here's a list of December events we will showcase Oracle Linux: Gartner Data Center – North America Oracle will have a session and booth - Register today Dec 3-6, Las Vegas, USA 0 0 1 66 377 Oracle Corporation 3 1 442 14.0 96 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} Oracle Open World Latin America Oracle OpenWorld Latin America December 4–6, Sao Paulo, Brazil 0 0 1 25 145 Oracle Corporation 1 1 169 14.0 96 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} HP Discover EMEA HP Discover – EMEA December 4 – 6, Messe Frankfurt, Germany (Oracle Platinum sponsor) 0 0 1 41 239 Oracle Corporation 1 1 279 14.0 96 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} Oracle Superior Solutions and Cost Savings with Oracle Linux and Oracle VM See Location Details and register Dec 4 Kansas City and Tampa Dec 6 Milwaukee and Miami Dec 11 Washington, DC Dec 13 Raleigh Visit our booth and you can grab an Oracle Linux/Oracle VM DVD Kit and talk to Oracle Linux experts.

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• Fidelity Investments Life Insurance Executive Weighs in on Policy Administration Modernization

  - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com

  James Klauer, vice president of Client Services Technology at Fidelity Investment Life Insurance, weighs in on the rationale and challenges associated with policy administration system replacement in this month's digital issue of Insurance Networking News.    In "The Policy Administration Replacement Quandary"  Klauer shared the primary business benefit that can be realized by adopting a modern policy administration system--a timely topic given that recent industry analyst surveys indicate policy administration replacement and modernization will continue to be a top priority for insurers this year.    "Modern policy administration systems are more flexible than systems of the past," Klauer says in the article. " This has allowed us to shorten our delivery time for new products and product changes.  We have also had a greater ability to integrate with other systems and to deliver process efficiencies."   Klauer goes on to advise that insurers ensure they have a solid understanding of the requirements when replacing their legacy policy administration system. "If you can afford the time, take the opportunity to re-engineer your business processes.  We were able to drastically change our death processes, introducing automation and error-proofing." Click here to read more of Klauer's insights and recommendations for best practices in the publication's "Ask & Answered" column.   You also can learn more the benefits of an adaptive, rules-driven approach to policy administration and how to mitigate risks associated with system replacement by attending the free Oracle Insurance Virtual Summit:  Fueling the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise, 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. EST, Wednesday, January 26.      Insurance Networking News and Oracle Insurance have teamed up to bring you this first-of-its-kind event. This year's theme, "Fueling the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise," will focus on bringing you information about exciting new technology concepts, which can help your company react more quickly to new market opportunities and, ultimately, grow the business.    Visit virtual booths and chat online with Oracle product specialists, network with other insurers, learn about exciting new product announcements, win prizes, and much more--all without leaving your office.  Be sure and attend the on-demand session, "Adapt, Transform and Grow: Accelerate Speed to Market with Adaptive Insurance Policy Administration," hosted by Kate Fowler, product strategy director for Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity.   Register Now!   Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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• links for 2010-04-14

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Why business needs should shape IT architecture - McKinsey Quarterly - Business Technology - Organization "Too often, efforts to fix architecture issues remain rooted in a company’s IT practices, culture, and leadership. The reason, in part, is that the chief architect—the overall IT-architecture program leader—is frequently selected from within the technical ranks, bringing deep IT know-how but little direct experience or influence in leading a business-wide change program. A weak linkage to the business creates a void that limits the quality of the resulting IT architecture and the organization’s ability to enforce and sustain the benefits of implementation over time." -- Helge Buckow and Stéphane Rey (tags: architecture it technology enterprise mckinsey) Eric Maurice: April 2010 Critical Patch Update Released Eric Maurice offers the details on April 2010 Critical Patch Update (CPUApr2010), "the first one to include security fixes for Oracle Solaris" (tags: oracle otn database fusionmiddleware peoplesoft security) @shivmohan: Oracle – OAF – Oracle Application Framework – OA Framework "For all the PL/SQL and Oracle Forms developers out there, start planning your evolution. Sure PL/SQL and Forms will be around for some time, but you need to add more skills to your stack if you want to stay current (employable)." -- Shivmohan Purohit (tags: oracle otn application framework) @ORACLENERD: APEX Architecture Oracle ACE Chet Justice offer a "short list of potential architectures" for Oracle APEX, based on his experience with a client. (tags: oracle otn oracleace apex architecture) Luis Moreno Campos: Why is Exadata so fast? "You could find a lot of tech doc around oracle.com, but the bottom line is that the vision to even build a V2 and place it as an OLTP and DW (general purpose) machine is just pure genius." -- Luis Moreno Campos (tags: oracle otn exadata database) Edwin Biemond: Resetting Weblogic datasources with ANT Oracle ACE and Whitehorses architect Edwin Biemond shares an ANT script "to fire some WLST and Python commandos" to correct invalid database session states. (tags: oracle otn oracleace database ANT Python) @deltalounge: The future of MySQL with Oracle Peter Paul van de Beek has compiled an informative collection of Edward Scriven quotes, from various publications, on Oracle's plans for MySQL. (tags: oracle otn database mysql) Cristobal Soto: Coherence Special Interest Group: First Meeting in Toronto, Upcoming Events in New York and California Cameron Purdy, Patrick Peralta, and others are speaking at upcoming Coherence SIG events. Cristobal Soto shares the details. (tags: oracle otn coherence sig grid appserver)

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• Ubuntu software center not opening [closed]

  - by I'll sudeepdino008

  Ubuntu software center is not opening, when I type: software-center in the command line, the following errors are generated: (software-center:8570): Gtk-WARNING **: Theme parsing error: gtk.css:227:31: Failed to import: Error opening file: No such file or directory 2012-09-30 17:00:58,068 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'http://10.3.100.212:8080/' 2012-09-30 17:00:58,071 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True 2012-09-30 17:00:58,327 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file 2012-09-30 17:00:58,428 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - show_available_packages: search_text is '', app is None. 2012-09-30 17:00:58,433 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open() Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 243, in open self._cache = apt.Cache(GtkMainIterationProgress()) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 102, in __init__ self.open(progress) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 145, in open self._cache = apt_pkg.Cache(progress) SystemError: E:Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_webupd8team_themes_ubuntu_dists_precise_main_binary-i386_Packages, E:The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened. 2012-09-30 17:01:00,130 - softwarecenter.db.enquire - ERROR - _get_estimate_nr_apps_and_nr_pkgs failed Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 115, in _get_estimate_nr_apps_and_nr_pkgs tmp_matches = enquire.get_mset(0, len(self.db), None, xfilter) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/appfilter.py", line 89, in __call__ if (not pkgname in self.cache and File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 263, in __contains__ return self._cache.__contains__(k) AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__contains__' Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/software-center", line 176, in <module> app.run(args) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1422, in run self.show_available_packages(args) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/app.py", line 1352, in show_available_packages self.view_manager.set_active_view(ViewPages.AVAILABLE) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/session/viewmanager.py", line 154, in set_active_view view_widget.init_view() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/panes/availablepane.py", line 171, in init_view self.apps_filter) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 238, in __init__ self.build(desktopdir) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 511, in build self._build_homepage_view() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 271, in _build_homepage_view self._append_whats_new() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 450, in _append_whats_new whats_new_cat = self._update_whats_new_content() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/views/catview_gtk.py", line 439, in _update_whats_new_content docs = whats_new_cat.get_documents(self.db) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/categories.py", line 124, in get_documents nonblocking_load=False) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 317, in set_query self._blocking_perform_search() File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/enquire.py", line 212, in _blocking_perform_search matches = enquire.get_mset(0, self.limit, None, xfilter) File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/appfilter.py", line 89, in __call__ if (not pkgname in self.cache and File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/pkginfo_impl/aptcache.py", line 263, in __contains__ return self._cache.__contains__(k) AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__contains__'

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