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• how to mount partitions from USB drives in Windows using Delphi?

  - by user569556

  Hi. I'm a Delphi programmer. I want to mount all partitions from USB drives in Windows (XP). The OS is doing this automatically but there are situations when such a program is useful. I know how to find if a drive is on USB or not. My code so far is: type STORAGE_QUERY_TYPE = (PropertyStandardQuery = 0, PropertyExistsQuery, PropertyMaskQuery, PropertyQueryMaxDefined); TStorageQueryType = STORAGE_QUERY_TYPE; STORAGE_PROPERTY_ID = (StorageDeviceProperty = 0, StorageAdapterProperty); TStoragePropertyID = STORAGE_PROPERTY_ID; STORAGE_PROPERTY_QUERY = packed record PropertyId: STORAGE_PROPERTY_ID; QueryType: STORAGE_QUERY_TYPE; AdditionalParameters: array[0..9] of AnsiChar; end; TStoragePropertyQuery = STORAGE_PROPERTY_QUERY; STORAGE_BUS_TYPE = (BusTypeUnknown = 0, BusTypeScsi, BusTypeAtapi, BusTypeAta, BusType1394, BusTypeSsa, BusTypeFibre, BusTypeUsb, BusTypeRAID, BusTypeiScsi, BusTypeSas, BusTypeSata, BusTypeMaxReserved = $7F); TStorageBusType = STORAGE_BUS_TYPE; STORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR = packed record Version: DWORD; Size: DWORD; DeviceType: Byte; DeviceTypeModifier: Byte; RemovableMedia: Boolean; CommandQueueing: Boolean; VendorIdOffset: DWORD; ProductIdOffset: DWORD; ProductRevisionOffset: DWORD; SerialNumberOffset: DWORD; BusType: STORAGE_BUS_TYPE; RawPropertiesLength: DWORD; RawDeviceProperties: array[0..0] of AnsiChar; end; TStorageDeviceDescriptor = STORAGE_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR; const IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY = $002D1400; var i: Integer; H: THandle; USBDrives: array of Byte; Query: TStoragePropertyQuery; dwBytesReturned: DWORD; Buffer: array[0..1023] of Byte; sdd: TStorageDeviceDescriptor absolute Buffer; begin SetLength(UsbDrives, 0); SetErrorMode(SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS); for i := 0 to 99 do begin H := CreateFile(PChar('\\.\PhysicalDrive' + IntToStr(i)), 0, FILE_SHARE_READ or FILE_SHARE_WRITE, nil, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, 0); if H <> INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE then begin try dwBytesReturned := 0; FillChar(Query, SizeOf(Query), 0); FillChar(Buffer, SizeOf(Buffer), 0); sdd.Size := SizeOf(Buffer); Query.PropertyId := StorageDeviceProperty; Query.QueryType := PropertyStandardQuery; if DeviceIoControl(H, IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY, @Query, SizeOf(Query), @Buffer, SizeOf(Buffer), dwBytesReturned, nil) then if sdd.BusType = BusTypeUsb then begin SetLength(USBDrives, Length(USBDrives) + 1); UsbDrives[High(USBDrives)] := Byte(i); end; finally CloseHandle(H); end; end; end; for i := 0 to High(USBDrives) do begin // end; end. But I don't know how to access partitions on each drive and mounts them. Can you please help me? I searched before I asked and I couldn't find a working code. But if I did not properly then I'm sorry and please show me that topic. Best regards, John

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• Alternatives to requiring users to register for an account?

  - by jamieb

  I'm working on a side project to build a new web app idea of mine. For the sake of discussion, let's say this app displays a random photograph of a famous work of art. On a scale of 1 to 5, users are asked to rate how well they like each piece of art, and then are shown the next photo. Eventually, the app is able to get an sense of the person's style and is able to recommend artwork that he/she may find pleasing. The whole concept is similar to Netflix. I understand how to do all the preference matching logic (although not as sophisticated as Netflix). But I'd like to find a way to do this without requiring that users create an account first. This is a novelty website that a typical user might use only a handful of times. Requiring registration is overkill and will likely drastically reduce it's utility. I'd like to allow people to begin rating artwork within five seconds of their initial pageview, yet maintain the integrity of the voting (since recommendations are predicated on how other people have rated the various pieces of artwork). Can it be done? Some ideas: OpenID. The perfect solution except for the fact that it's not wildly used and my target audience isn't the most technically adept demographic. Text message. User inputs phone number and is texted a four digit code to key into the web app. Quick, easy, and great way to limit abuse. However, privacy concerns abound... people are probably even less likely to give me their phone number than their email address. Facebook login. I personally don't have a Facebook account due to privacy concerns. And I'd really hate to support such a proprietary platform. Hash code/Bookmark. Vistor's initial pageview generates a 5 or 6 digit alphanumeric code that is embedded in each subsequent URL. They can bookmark any page to save their state. Good: Very simple system that doesn't require any user action. Bad: Very easy to stuff the ballot box, might be difficult to account for users sharing the link containing their ID code via email or social networking sites.

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• Composite Views and View Controllers

  - by BillyK

  Hi, I'm somewhat new to Android and am in the process of designing an application with a couple fairly complex views. One of the views is intended to involve a complex view displaying information associated with model objects and segregated into several different views; the navigation of which is meant to be achieved using sliding effects (i.e. sliding one's finger across the screen to traverse from one screen to the next, etc). The view itself will be used to host multiple sets of views for varying types of model objects, but with a general structure that is reused between them all. As a rough example, the view might come up to display information about a person (the model object), displaying several details views: a view for general information, a view displaying a list of hobbies, and a view displaying a list of other individuals associated with their social network. The same general view, when given a model object representing a particular car would give several different views: A general view with details, A view containing photo images for that vehicle, a view representing locations which it could be purchased from, and a view providing a list of related cars. (NOTE: This is not the real data involved, but is representative of the general intent for the view). The subviews will NOT cover the entire screen real-estate and other features within the view should be both visible and able to be interacted with by the user. The idea here is that there is a general view structure that is reusable and which will manage a set of subviews dynamically generated based upon the type of model object handed to the view. I'm trying to determine the appropriate way to leverage the Android framework in order to best achieve this without violating the integrity of the framework. Basically, I'm trying to determine how to componentize this larger view into reusable units (i.e. general view, model-specific sub-view controllers, and individual detail views). To be more specific, I'm trying to determine if this view is best designed as a composite of several custom View classes or a composite of several Activity classes. I've seen several examples of custom composite views, but they typically are used to compose simple views without complex controllers and without attention to the general Activity lifecycle (i.e. storing and retrieving data related to the model objects, as appropriate). On the other hand, the only real example I've seen regarding a view comprised of a composite of Activities is the TabActivity itself, and that isn't customizable in the fashion that would be necessary for this. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the appropriate way to structure my view to achieve the application framework I'm looking for? Views? Activities? Something else? Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

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• Is Delete cascade possible in ravendb

  - by user1811801

  Still just a starter in ravendb. I have a doubt whether raven db supports some kind of referential integrity. Here is my doubt and work.. I have document type screens as below public class Screens { public String Id { get; set; } public String ScreenName { get; set; } } And Another document named RightsDeclaration as below public class RightsDeclaration { public RightsDeclaration() { _screenrights = new List<ScreenRight>(); } public String Id { get; set; }// Role Name List<ScreenRight> _screenrights; public List<ScreenRight> ScreenRights { get { return _screenrights; } set { _screenrights = value; } } } Now the screen rights class looks like below with the screen name field as below public class ScreenRight : { public String ScreenName { get; set; } public Boolean Create { get; set; } public Boolean Read { get; set; } public Boolean Update { get; set; } public Boolean Delete { get; set; } public Boolean Approve { get; set; } public Boolean Access { get; set; } public Boolean Print { get; set; } public Boolean Email { get; set; } } Now first i will create some list of screens and then i assign rights for each role with mentioning what is the screen name and list of rights. up to this point everything goes fine. Now in a scenario where if i would delete the screen name in screens class but then the screen rights for that screen still exists in the rights declaration. is it possible to delete the corresponding screen rights from userrights document too? if so please mention the query or idea to do the above.. Thanks in advance..

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• Rails send mail with GMail

  - by Danny McClelland

  Hi Everyone, I am on rails 2.3.5 and have the latest Ruby installed and my application is running well, except, GMail emails. I am trying to setup my gmail imap connection which has worked previously but now doesnt want to know. This is my code: # Be sure to restart your server when you modify this file # Uncomment below to force Rails into production mode when # you don't control web/app server and can't set it the proper way # ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'production' # Specifies gem version of Rails to use when vendor/rails is not present RAILS_GEM_VERSION = '2.3.5' unless defined? RAILS_GEM_VERSION # Bootstrap the Rails environment, frameworks, and default configuration require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'boot') Rails::Initializer.run do |config| # Gems config.gem "capistrano-ext", :lib => "capistrano" config.gem "configatron" # Make Time.zone default to the specified zone, and make Active Record store time values # in the database in UTC, and return them converted to the specified local zone. config.time_zone = "London" # The internationalization framework can be changed to have another default locale (standard is :en) or more load paths. # All files from config/locales/*.rb,yml are added automatically. # config.i18n.load_path << Dir[File.join(RAILS_ROOT, 'my', 'locales', '*.{rb,yml}')] #config.i18n.default_locale = :de # Your secret key for verifying cookie session data integrity. # If you change this key, all old sessions will become invalid! # Make sure the secret is at least 30 characters and all random, # no regular words or you'll be exposed to dictionary attacks. config.action_controller.session = { :session_key => '_base_session', :secret => '7389ea9180b15f1495a5e73a69a893311f859ccff1ffd0fa2d7ea25fdf1fa324f280e6ba06e3e5ba612e71298d8fbe7f15fd7da2929c45a9c87fe226d2f77347' } config.active_record.observers = :user_observer end ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Date::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(:default => '%d/%m/%Y') ActiveSupport::CoreExtensions::Time::Conversions::DATE_FORMATS.merge!(:default => '%d/%m/%Y') require "will_paginate" ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = { :enable_starttls_auto => true, :address => "smtp.gmail.com", :port => 587, :domain => "XXXXXXXX.XXX", :authentication => :plain, :user_name => "XXXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXX.XXX", :password => "XXXXX" } But the above just results in an SMTP auth error in the production log. I have read varied reports of this not working in Rails 2.2.2 but nothing for 2.3.5, anyone got any ideas? Thanks, Danny

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• Java - is this an idiom or pattern, behavior classes with no state

  - by Berlin Brown

  I am trying to incorporate more functional programming idioms into my java development. One pattern that I like the most and avoids side effects is building classes that have behavior but they don't necessarily have any state. The behavior is locked into the methods but they only act on the parameters passed in. The code below is code I am trying to avoid: public class BadObject { private Map<String, String> data = new HashMap<String, String>(); public BadObject() { data.put("data", "data"); } /** * Act on the data class. But this is bad because we can't * rely on the integrity of the object's state. */ public void execute() { data.get("data").toString(); } } The code below is nothing special but I am acting on the parameters and state is contained within that class. We still may run into issues with this class but that is an issue with the method and the state of the data, we can address issues in the routine as opposed to not trusting the entire object. Is this some form of idiom? Is this similar to any pattern that you use? public class SemiStatefulOOP { /** * Private class implies that I can access the members of the <code>Data</code> class * within the <code>SemiStatefulOOP</code> class and I can also access * the getData method from some other class. * * @see Test1 * */ class Data { protected int counter = 0; public int getData() { return counter; } public String toString() { return Integer.toString(counter); } } /** * Act on the data class. */ public void execute(final Data data) { data.counter++; } /** * Act on the data class. */ public void updateStateWithCallToService(final Data data) { data.counter++; } /** * Similar to CLOS (Common Lisp Object System) make instance. */ public Data makeInstance() { return new Data(); } } // End of Class // Issues with the code above: I wanted to declare the Data class private, but then I can't really reference it outside of the class: I can't override the SemiStateful class and access the private members. Usage: final SemiStatefulOOP someObject = new SemiStatefulOOP(); final SemiStatefulOOP.Data data = someObject.makeInstance(); someObject.execute(data); someObject.updateStateWithCallToService(data);

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• SQL Server architecture guidance

  - by Liam

  Hi, We are designing a new version of our existing product on a new schema. Its an internal web application with possibly 100 concurrent users (max)This will run on a SQL Server 2008 database. On of the discussion items recently is whether we should have a single database of split the database for performance reasons across 2 separate databases. The database could grow anywhere from 50-100GB over 5 years. We are Developers and not DBAs so it would be nice to get some general guidance. [I know the answer is not simple as it depends on the schema, archiving policy, amount of data etc. ] Option 1 Single Main Database [This is my preferred option]. The plan would be to have all the tables in a single database and possibly to use file groups and partitioning to separate the data if required across multiple disks. [Use schema if appropriate]. This should deal with the performance concerns One of the comments wrt this was that the a single server instance would still be processing this data so there would still be a processing bottle neck. For reporting we could have a separate reporting DB but this is still being discussed. Option 2 Split the database into 2 separate databases DB1 - Customers, Accounts, Customer resources etc DB2 - This would contain the bulk of the data [i.e. Vehicle tracking data, financial transaction tables etc]. These tables would typically contain a lot of data. [It could reside on a separate server if required] This plan would involve keeping the main data in a smaller database [DB1] and retaining the [mainly] read only transaction type data in a separate DB [DB2]. The UI would mainly read from DB1 and thus be more responsive. [I'm aware that this option makes it harder for Referential Integrity to be enforced.] Points for consideration As we are at the design stage we can at least make proper use of indexes to deal performance issues so thats why option 1 to me is attractive and its more of a standard approach. For both options we are considering implementing an archiving database. Apologies for the long Question. In summary the question is 1 DB or 2? Thanks in advance, Liam

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• are C functions declared in <c____> headers guaranteed to be in the global namespace as well as std?

  - by Evan Teran

  So this is something that I've always wondered but was never quite sure about. So it is strictly a matter of curiosity, not a real problem. As far as I understand, what you do something like #include <cstdlib> everything (except macros of course) are declared in the std:: namespace. Every implementation that I've ever seen does this by doing something like the following: #include <stdlib.h> namespace std { using ::abort; // etc.... } Which of course has the effect of things being in both the global namespace and std. Is this behavior guaranteed? Or is it possible that an implementation could put these things in std but not in the global namespace? The only way I can think of to do that would be to have your libstdc++ implement every c function itself placing them in std directly instead of just including the existing libc headers (because there is no mechanism to remove something from a namespace). Which is of course a lot of effort with little to no benefit. The essence of my question is, is the following program strictly conforming and guaranteed to work? #include <cstdio> int main() { ::printf("hello world\n"); } EDIT: The closest I've found is this (17.4.1.2p4): Except as noted in clauses 18 through 27, the contents of each header cname shall be the same as that of the corresponding header name.h, as specified in ISO/IEC 9899:1990 Programming Languages C (Clause 7), or ISO/IEC:1990 Programming Languages—C AMENDMENT 1: C Integrity, (Clause 7), as appropriate, as if by inclusion. In the C + + Standard Library, however, the declarations and definitions (except for names which are defined as macros in C) are within namespace scope (3.3.5) of the namespace std. which to be honest I could interpret either way. "the contents of each header cname shall be the same as that of the corresponding header name.h, as specified in ISO/IEC 9899:1990 Programming Languages C" tells me that they may be required in the global namespace, but "In the C + + Standard Library, however, the declarations and definitions (except for names which are defined as macros in C) are within namespace scope (3.3.5) of the namespace std." says they are in std (but doesn't specify any other scoped they are in).

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• SQL Design Question regarding schema and if Name value pair is the best solution

  - by Aur

  I am having a small problem trying to decide on database schema for a current project. I am by no means a DBA. The application parses through a file based on user input and enters that data in the database. The number of fields that can be parsed is between 1 and 42 at the current moment. The current design of the database is entirely flat with there being 42 columns; some have repeated columns such as address1, address2, address3, etc... This says that I should normalize the data. However, data integrity is not needed at this moment and the way the data is shaped I'm looking at several joins. Not a bad thing but the data is still in a 1 to 1 relationship and I still see a lot of empty fields per row. So my concerns are that this does not allow the database or the application to be very extendable. If they want to add more fields to be parsed (which they do) than I'd need to create another table and add another foreign key to the linking table. The third option is I have a table where the fields are defined and a table for each record. So what I was thinking is to make a table that stores the value and then links to those two tables. The problem is I can picture the size of that table growing large depending on the input size. If someone gives me a file with 300,000 records than 300,000 x 40 = 12 million so I have some reservations. However I think if I get to that point than I should be happy it is being used. This option also allows for more custom displaying of information albeit a bit more work but little rework even if you add more fields. So the problem boils down to: 1. Current design is a flat file which makes extending it hard and it is not normalized. 2. Normalize the tables although no real benefits for the moment but requirements change. 3. Normalize it down into the name value pair and hope size doesn't hurt. There are a large number of inserts, updates, and selects against that table. So performance is a worry but I believe the saying is design now, performance testing later? I'm probably just missing something practical so any comments would be appreciated even if it’s a quick sanity check. Thank you for your time.

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• Apache SSO through Kerberos using Machine Account

  - by watkipet

  I'm attempting to get Apache on Ubuntu 12.04 to authenticate users via Kerberos SSO to a Windows 2008 Active Directory server. Here are a few things that make my situation different: I don't have administrative access to the Windows Server (nor will I ever have access). I also cannot have any changes to the server made on my behalf. I've joined Ubuntu server to the Active Directory using PBIS open. Users can log into the Ubuntu server using their AD credentials. kinit also works fine for each user. Since I can't change AD (except for adding new machines and SPNs), I cannot add a service account for Apache on Ubuntu. Since I can't add I service account, I have to use the machine keytab (/etc/krb5.keytab), or at least use the machine password in another keytab. Right now I'm using the machine keytab and giving Apache readonly access (bad idea, I know). I've already added the SPN using net ads keytab add HTTP -U Since I'm using Ubuntu 12.04, the only encoding types that get added during "net ads keytab add" are arcfour-hmac, des-cbc-crc, and des-cbc-md5. PBIS adds the AES encoding types to the host and cifs principals when it joins the domain, but I have yet to get "net ads keytab add" to do this. ktpass and setspn are out of the question because of #1 above. I've configured (for Kerberos SSO) and tested both IE 8 Firefox. I'm using the following configuration in my Apache site config: <Location /secured> AuthType Kerberos AuthName "Kerberos Login" KrbMethodNegotiate On KrbMethodK5Passwd On KrbAuthRealms DOMAIN.COM Krb5KeyTab /etc/krb5.keytab KrbLocalUserMapping On require valid-user </Location> When Firefox tries to connect get the following in Apache's error.log (LogLevel debug): [Wed Oct 23 13:48:31 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1628): [client 192.168.0.2] kerb_authenticate_user entered with user (NULL) and auth_type Kerberos [Wed Oct 23 13:48:31 2013] [debug] mod_deflate.c(615): [client 192.168.0.2] Zlib: Compressed 477 to 322 : URL /secured [Wed Oct 23 13:48:37 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1628): [client 192.168.0.2] kerb_authenticate_user entered with user (NULL) and auth_type Kerberos [Wed Oct 23 13:48:37 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(994): [client 192.168.0.2] Using HTTP/[email protected] as server principal for password verification [Wed Oct 23 13:48:37 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(698): [client 192.168.0.2] Trying to get TGT for user [email protected] [Wed Oct 23 13:48:37 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(609): [client 192.168.0.2] Trying to verify authenticity of KDC using principal HTTP/[email protected] [Wed Oct 23 13:48:37 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(652): [client 192.168.0.2] krb5_rd_req() failed when verifying KDC [Wed Oct 23 13:48:37 2013] [error] [client 192.168.0.2] failed to verify krb5 credentials: Decrypt integrity check failed [Wed Oct 23 13:48:37 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1073): [client 192.168.0.2] kerb_authenticate_user_krb5pwd ret=401 user=(NULL) authtype=(NULL) [Wed Oct 23 13:48:37 2013] [debug] mod_deflate.c(615): [client 192.168.0.2] Zlib: Compressed 477 to 322 : URL /secured When IE 8 tries to connect I get: [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1628): [client 192.168.0.2] kerb_authenticate_user entered with user (NULL) and auth_type Kerberos [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] mod_deflate.c(615): [client 192.168.0.2] Zlib: Compressed 477 to 322 : URL /secured [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1628): [client 192.168.0.2] kerb_authenticate_user entered with user (NULL) and auth_type Kerberos [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1240): [client 192.168.0.2] Acquiring creds for HTTP@apache_server [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1385): [client 192.168.0.2] Verifying client data using KRB5 GSS-API [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1401): [client 192.168.0.2] Client didn't delegate us their credential [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1420): [client 192.168.0.2] GSS-API token of length 9 bytes will be sent back [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] src/mod_auth_kerb.c(1101): [client 192.168.0.2] GSS-API major_status:000d0000, minor_status:000186a5 [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [error] [client 192.168.0.2] gss_accept_sec_context() failed: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information (, ) [Wed Oct 23 14:03:30 2013] [debug] mod_deflate.c(615): [client 192.168.0.2] Zlib: Compressed 477 to 322 : URL /secured Let me know if you'd like additional log and config files--the initial question is getting long enough.

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• Windows 7 .NET 3.5.1 - 2.0 Slightly Corrupted, How to Repair?

  - by Quinxy von Besiex

  My Windows 7 included .NET installation (3.5 to 2.0) appears very slightly and particularly corrupted and I am trying to fix it without reinstalling Windows or trying to revert to backups. Everything was working and then my hard drive started corrupting a few files and checkdisk found bad clusters so I imaged the drive to a new one. As soon as I booted on the new drive everything worked except programs which call the System.Net.NetworkInformation methods within .NET 3.5 to 2.0 (like Ping() and IsNetworkAvailable()), which immediately crash the app in which the calls are (those calls in .NET 4.0 works fine). Those methods are found inside System.dll, and I assume call native methods which I believe are inside winnsi.dll or iphlpapi.dll or something else (I've not found this yet); I assume it calls native methods because the exception which causes the crash is Fatal Execution Engine Error which people mention is usually related to calling native methods and marshaling data between them. A huge clue about the culprit is likely found in the fact that when I launch the exact same crashing application through a code profiler (which executes the exe and captures stats on which methods took the longest) the app works fine, no crash at all! How could running it within the profiler work and running it outside not work? That seems the key to the mystery. I've used procmon to catch all the registry, filesystem, and network events from the crashing execution and the profiler-run successful execution and compared the two outputs but didn't learn much (I see the moment at which the non-profiled app crashes, but up until then they behave the same, loaded the same modules, ). The only big difference seems to be that at the moment before the app crash the profiler-executed code creates 4-6 new threads and the directly executed code only creates 1-2. I have diffed the files/directories which seemed most relevant (the .NET stuff under Windows and Program Files) pre- and post- disk trouble and seen no changes where I didn't expect any (no obvious file corruption). I have diffed the software and system registry hives pre- and post- disk trouble and seen no changes which seemed relevant. I have created a new user account and cleaned up any environment variables in case environment was related. No change. I did "sfc /scannow" and it found no integrity problems. I tried "ngen update" to regenerate pre-compiled code in case I missed something that might be damaged and nothing changed. I assume I need to repair my .NET installation but because Windows 7 included .NET 3.5 - 2.0 you can't just re-run a .NET installer to redo it. I do not have access to the Windows disks to try to re-install Windows over itself (the computer has a recovery partition but it is unusable); also the drive uses a whole-disk encryption solution and re-installing would be difficult. I absolutely do not want to start from scratch here and install a fresh Windows, reinstall dozens of software packages, try and remember dozens of development-related customizations/etc. Given all that... does anyone have any helpful advice? I need .NET 3.5 - 2.0 working as I am a developer and need to build and test against it. Thanks! Quinxy

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• A faulty Caviar Blue hard drive?

  - by Glister

  We have a small "homemade" server running fully updated Debian Wheezy (amd64). One hard drive installed: WDC WD6400AAKS. The motherboard is ASUS M4N68T V2. The usual load: CPU: an average of 20% Each week about 50GB of additional space is occupied. About 47GB of uploaded files and 3GB of MySQL data. I'm afraid that the hard drive may be about to fail. I saw Pre-fail on few places when I ran: root@SERVER:/tmp# smartctl -a /dev/sda smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [x86_64-linux-3.2.0-4-amd64] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Western Digital Caviar Blue Serial ATA Device Model: WDC WD6400AAKS-XXXXXXX Serial Number: WD-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee XXXXXXXXXXXXX Firmware Version: 01.03B01 User Capacity: 640,135,028,736 bytes [640 GB] Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 8 ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated Local Time is: Mon Oct 28 18:55:27 2013 UTC SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED General SMART Values: Offline data collection status: (0x85) Offline data collection activity was aborted by an interrupting command from host. Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled. Self-test execution status: ( 247) Self-test routine in progress... 70% of test remaining. Total time to complete Offline data collection: (11580) seconds. Offline data collection capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate. Auto Offline data collection on/off support. Suspend Offline collection upon new command. Offline surface scan supported. Self-test supported. Conveyance Self-test supported. Selective Self-test supported. SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering power-saving mode. Supports SMART auto save timer. Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported. General Purpose Logging supported. Short self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes. Extended self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 136) minutes. Conveyance self-test routine recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes. SCT capabilities: (0x303f) SCT Status supported. SCT Error Recovery Control supported. SCT Feature Control supported. SCT Data Table supported. SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 157 146 021 Pre-fail Always - 5108 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2968 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 051 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 079 079 000 Old_age Always - 15445 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 051 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 051 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2950 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 426 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 2968 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 111 095 000 Old_age Always - 36 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 160 000 Old_age Always - 21716 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 051 Old_age Offline - 0 SMART Error Log Version: 1 No Errors Logged SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Short offline Completed without error 00% 15444 - Error SMART Read Selective Self-Test Log failed: scsi error aborted command Smartctl: SMART Selective Self Test Log Read Failed root@SERVER:/tmp# In one tutorial I read that the pre-fail is a an indication of coming failure, in another tutorial I read that it is not true. Can you guys help me decode the output of smartctl? It would be also nice to share suggestions what should I do if I want to ensure data integrity (about 50GB of new data each week, up to 2TB for the whole period I'm interested in). Maybe I will go with 2x2TB Caviar Black in RAID4?

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• Kernel panic when bringing up DRBD resource

  - by sc.

  I'm trying to set up two machines synchonizing with DRBD. The storage is setup as follows: PV - LVM - DRBD - CLVM - GFS2. DRBD is set up in dual primary mode. The first server is set up and running fine in primary mode. The drives on the first server have data on them. I've set up the second server and I'm trying to bring up the DRBD resources. I created all the base LVM's to match the first server. After initializing the resources with `` drbdadm create-md storage I'm bringing up the resources by issuing drbdadm up storage After issuing that command, I get a kernel panic and the server reboots in 30 seconds. Here's a screen capture. My configuration is as follows: OS: CentOS 6 uname -a Linux host.structuralcomponents.net 2.6.32-279.5.2.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Aug 24 01:07:11 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux rpm -qa | grep drbd kmod-drbd84-8.4.1-2.el6.elrepo.x86_64 drbd84-utils-8.4.1-2.el6.elrepo.x86_64 cat /etc/drbd.d/global_common.conf global { usage-count yes; # minor-count dialog-refresh disable-ip-verification } common { handlers { pri-on-incon-degr "/usr/lib/drbd/notify-pri-on-incon-degr.sh; /usr/lib/drbd/notify-emergency-reboot.sh; echo b /proc/sysrq-trigger ; reboot -f"; pri-lost-after-sb "/usr/lib/drbd/notify-pri-lost-after-sb.sh; /usr/lib/drbd/notify-emergency-reboot.sh; echo b /proc/sysrq-trigger ; reboot -f"; local-io-error "/usr/lib/drbd/notify-io-error.sh; /usr/lib/drbd/notify-emergency-shutdown.sh; echo o /proc/sysrq-trigger ; halt -f"; # fence-peer "/usr/lib/drbd/crm-fence-peer.sh"; # split-brain "/usr/lib/drbd/notify-split-brain.sh root"; # out-of-sync "/usr/lib/drbd/notify-out-of-sync.sh root"; # before-resync-target "/usr/lib/drbd/snapshot-resync-target-lvm.sh -p 15 -- -c 16k"; # after-resync-target /usr/lib/drbd/unsnapshot-resync-target-lvm.sh; } startup { # wfc-timeout degr-wfc-timeout outdated-wfc-timeout wait-after-sb become-primary-on both; wfc-timeout 30; degr-wfc-timeout 10; outdated-wfc-timeout 10; } options { # cpu-mask on-no-data-accessible } disk { # size max-bio-bvecs on-io-error fencing disk-barrier disk-flushes # disk-drain md-flushes resync-rate resync-after al-extents # c-plan-ahead c-delay-target c-fill-target c-max-rate # c-min-rate disk-timeout } net { # protocol timeout max-epoch-size max-buffers unplug-watermark # connect-int ping-int sndbuf-size rcvbuf-size ko-count # allow-two-primaries cram-hmac-alg shared-secret after-sb-0pri # after-sb-1pri after-sb-2pri always-asbp rr-conflict # ping-timeout data-integrity-alg tcp-cork on-congestion # congestion-fill congestion-extents csums-alg verify-alg # use-rle protocol C; allow-two-primaries yes; after-sb-0pri discard-zero-changes; after-sb-1pri discard-secondary; after-sb-2pri disconnect; } } cat /etc/drbd.d/storage.res resource storage { device /dev/drbd0; meta-disk internal; on host.structuralcomponents.net { address 10.10.1.120:7788; disk /dev/vg_storage/lv_storage; } on host2.structuralcomponents.net { address 10.10.1.121:7788; disk /dev/vg_storage/lv_storage; } /var/log/messages is not logging anything about the crash. I've been trying to find a cause of this but I've come up with nothing. Can anyone help me out? Thanks.

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• XFS disk becomes unavailable after a while

  - by Guard

  Ubuntu 12.04 (but the same was on 11.10 before upgrading) WD MyBook, 2TB, no RAID (or RAID0, not completely sure, anyway no mirroring, both 1TB disks are in use, mounted as a single device). Formatted to XFS, normally used for big movie files. Connected to Firewire 800. At some point the LED started going up and down as when constantly reading/writing. The device gives access error. When unplugged (cable, then holding the power button for a while, then unplugging the power) and re-connected becomes available. xfs_check with no results. xfs_repair did something, but looks like didn't fix any error. Then after a massive read (checking 1.5GB torrent file for integrity) becomes unavailable again. Any ideas what's wrong? Drives? Cables? Motherboard? OS? UPD: not sure how relevant this is, but here are dmesg output [14380.632816] SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, large block/inode numbers, no debug enabled [14380.633356] SGI XFS Quota Management subsystem [14421.812220] firewire_core: phy config: card 0, new root=ffc1, gap_count=5 [14441.890596] firewire_core: phy config: card 0, new root=ffc1, gap_count=5 [14441.896858] firewire_core: phy config: card 0, new root=ffc1, gap_count=5 [14453.895347] firewire_core: created device fw1: GUID 0090a99500a35518, S400, 9 config ROM retries [14453.904818] scsi6 : SBP-2 IEEE-1394 [14453.905014] scsi7 : SBP-2 IEEE-1394 [14454.139993] firewire_sbp2: fw1.0: logged in to LUN 0000 (0 retries) [14454.158769] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD My Book 1015 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4 [14454.159251] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0 [14454.162391] firewire_sbp2: fw1.1: logged in to LUN 0001 (0 retries) [14454.167453] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] 3907017568 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 TB/1.81 TiB) [14454.178822] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off [14454.178826] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 10 00 00 00 [14454.186830] scsi 7:0:0:1: Enclosure WD My Book Device 1015 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4 [14454.186995] scsi 7:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 13 [14454.190078] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Cache data unavailable [14454.190087] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through [14454.202176] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Cache data unavailable [14454.202185] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through [14454.239940] sdc: [mac] sdc1 sdc2 sdc3 sdc4 [14454.271262] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Cache data unavailable [14454.271270] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through [14454.271354] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk [14454.272149] ses 7:0:0:1: Attached Enclosure device [14606.090024] XFS (sdc3): Mounting Filesystem [14612.048343] XFS (sdc3): Starting recovery (logdev: internal) [14620.697636] XFS (sdc3): Ending recovery (logdev: internal) [14748.120957] e1000e: eth0 NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: Rx/Tx [14748.120963] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: 10/100 speed: disabling TSO [14752.568382] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1a.0: PCI INT A disabled [14752.568579] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1a.1: PCI INT B disabled [14752.568738] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: PCI INT C disabled [14752.568779] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: PME# enabled [14752.584526] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: PCI INT B disabled [14752.584689] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: PCI INT C disabled [14752.680079] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: BAR 0: set to [mem 0xe4641000-0xe46413ff] (PCI address [0xe4641000-0xe46413ff]) [14752.680104] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: restoring config space at offset 0xf (was 0x300, writing 0x30b) [14752.680136] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: restoring config space at offset 0x1 (was 0x2900000, writing 0x2900002) [14752.680170] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: PME# disabled [14752.680182] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: PCI INT C -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18 [14752.680190] ehci_hcd 0000:00:1a.7: setting latency timer to 64 [14752.710334] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1a.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16 [14752.710342] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1a.0: setting latency timer to 64 [14752.749186] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1a.1: PCI INT B -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17 [14752.749194] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1a.1: setting latency timer to 64 [14752.790231] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: PCI INT B -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22 [14752.790239] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: setting latency timer to 64 [14752.829170] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: PCI INT C -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18 [14752.829178] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: setting latency timer to 64

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• Why would VMWare to go defunct? How to recover from/prevent it?

  - by Josh

  I am running VMWare Server 2.0.2 (Build 203138) on a dual core Intel i5 with Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS system (kernel 2.6.32-22-server #33-Ubuntu SMP). Disk Subsystem is a software RAID5 array. The system has been set up for a little over a week. For the past 5 days I have been running at leat 3 VMs (Linux and a variety of Windows OSes) with no issues whatsoever. But while I was installing Linux onto a new VM, suddenly all VMs became unresponsive, including the one I was installing to. I could not log in to the VMWare Management Interface, and the system was somewhat unresponsive via SSH. When I looked at top, I saw: top - 16:14:51 up 6 days, 1:49, 8 users, load average: 24.29, 24.33 17.54 Tasks: 203 total, 7 running, 195 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie Cpu(s): 0.2%us, 25.6%sy, 0.0%ni, 74.3%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 8056656k total, 5927580k used, 2129076k free, 20320k buffers Swap: 7811064k total, 240216k used, 7570848k free, 5045884k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 21549 root 39 19 0 0 0 Z 100 0.0 15:02.44 [vmware-vmx] <defunct> 2115 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 1 0.0 170:32.08 [vmware-rtc] 2231 root 21 1 1494m 126m 100m S 1 1.6 892:58.05 /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx -# product=2; 2280 jnet 20 0 19320 1164 800 R 0 0.0 30:04.55 top 12236 root 20 0 833m 41m 34m S 0 0.5 88:34.24 /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx -# product=2; 1 root 20 0 23704 1476 920 S 0 0.0 0:00.80 /sbin/init 2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 [kthreadd] 3 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 [migration/0] 4 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.84 [ksoftirqd/0] 5 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 [watchdog/0] 6 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 [migration/1] The VMWare process for the virtual machine I was installing into became a zombie. Yet, it was still consuming 100% of the CPU time on one of the cores, and I couldn't reach it or any other virtual machines. (I was logged in to one virtual machine over SSH, another via X11, and a third via VNC. All three connections died). When I ran ps -ef and similar commands, I found that the defunct vmware-vmx process had it's parent PID set to init (1). I also used lsof -p 21549 and found that the defunct process had no open files. Yet it was using 100% of CPU time... I was unable to kill any vmware-vmx processes, including the defunct one, even with kill -9. As a last resort to resolve the situation I tried to reboot the box, however shutdown, halt, reboot, and init 6 all failed to reboot/shutdown, even when given appropriate --force settings. ControlAltDel produced a message about rebooting on the console, but the system would not reboot. I had to hard power-cycle the box to resolve the situation. (See my other question, Should I worry about the integrity of my linux software RAID5 after a crash or kernel panic?) What would cause a scenario like this? What else could I have done to resolve it besides a hard reboot? What can I do to prevent such a situation in the future?

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• An error occured synchronizing windows with time.windows.com

  - by Killrawr

  Okay so I've tried stopping/registering the win32tm service on this Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Computer. C:\Users\Administrator>net stop w32time The Windows Time service is stopping. The Windows Time service was stopped successfully. C:\Users\Administrator>w32tm /unregister The following error occurred: Access is denied. (0x80070005) C:\Users\Administrator>w32tm /unregister W32Time successfully unregistered. C:\Users\Administrator>w32tm /register W32Time successfully registered. C:\Users\Administrator>net start w32time The Windows Time service is starting. The Windows Time service was started successfully. (Source : http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverDS/thread/9bdfc2cc-4775-4435-8868-57d214e1e3ba/) And I get this error from the Date and Time, Internet Time tab (After also following the steps here). I've even tried the Atomic Time Clock Worldtimeserver and I get the error The following error occurred: The specified module could not be found. (0x8007007E). I've also disabled the Windows Firewall, that might of been blocking the synchronization. I've done a file scan with sfc /scannow that came back with no errors. C:\Users\Administrator>sfc /scannow Beginning system scan. This process will take some time. Beginning verification phase of system scan. Verification 100% complete. Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations. C:\Users\Administrator> But I'm not having much luck. Is there anyway lo possibly solve this? or is the time.windows.com servers unsupported? because the software is from 2008? (I really don't know :/), My ping result to time.windows.com C:\Users\Administrator>ping time.windows.com Pinging time.microsoft.akadns.net [65.55.21.22] with 32 bytes of data: Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Ping statistics for 65.55.21.22: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss), And tracert result C:\Users\Administratortracert time.windows.com Tracing route to time.microsoft.akadns.net [65.55.21.24] over a maximum of 30 hops: 1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1 2 32 ms 31 ms 32 ms be2-100.bras1wtc.wlg.vf.net.nz [203.109.129.113] 3 31 ms 32 ms 31 ms be5-100.ppnzwtc01.wlg.vf.net.nz.129.109.203.in-a ddr.arpa [203.109.129.114] 4 31 ms 31 ms 31 ms gi0-2-0-3.ppnzwtc01.wlg.vf.net.nz.180.109.203.in -addr.arpa [203.109.180.210] 5 31 ms 31 ms 30 ms gi0-2-0-3.ppnzwtc02.wlg.vf.net.nz [203.109.180.2 09] 6 167 ms 166 ms 166 ms ip-141.199.31.114.VOCUS.net.au [114.31.199.141] 7 175 ms 175 ms 175 ms microsoft.com.any2ix.coresite.com [206.223.143.1 43] 8 177 ms 180 ms 176 ms xe-7-0-2-0.by2-96c-1a.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.42.17 6] 9 205 ms 205 ms 204 ms xe-10-0-2-0.co1-96c-1b.ntwk.msn.net [207.46.45.3 1] 10 * * * Request timed out. 11 * * * Request timed out. 12 * * * Request timed out. 13 * * * Request timed out. 14 * * * Request timed out. 15 * * * Request timed out. 16 ^C And nslookup C:\Users\Administrator>nslookup time.windows.com Server: UnKnown Address: 192.168.1.1 Non-authoritative answer: Name: time.microsoft.akadns.net Address: 65.55.21.22 Aliases: time.windows.com

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• How to export SQL Server data from corrupted database (with disk write error)

  - by damitamit

  IT realised there was a disk write error on our production SQL Server 2005 and hence was causing the backups to fail. By the time they had realised this the nightly backup was old, so were not able to just restore the backup on another server. The database is still running and being used constantly. However DBCC CheckDB fails. Also the SQL Server backup task fails, Copy Database fails, Export Data Wizard fails. However it seems all the data can be read from the tables (i.e using bcp etc) Another observation I have made is that the Transaction Log is nearly double the size of the Database. (Does that mean all the changes arent being written to the MDF?) What would be the best plan of attack to get the database to a state where backups are working and the data is safe? Take the database offline and use the MDF/LDF to somehow create the database on another sql server? Export the data from the database using bcp. Create the database (use the Generate Scripts function on the corrupt db to create the schema on the new db) on another sql server and use bcp again to import the data. Some other option that is the right course of action in this situation? The IT manager says the data is safe as if the server fails, the data can be restored from the mdf/ldf. I'm not sure so insisted that we start exporting the data each night as a failsafe (using bcp for example). IT are also having issues on the hardware side of things as supposedly the disk error in on a virtualized disk and can't be rebuilt like a normal raid array (or something like that). Please excuse my use of incorrect terminology and incorrect assumptions on how Sql Server operates. I'm the application developer and have been called to help (as it seems IT know less about SQL Server than I do). Many Thanks, Amit Results of DBBC CheckDB: Msg 1823, Level 16, State 2, Line 1 A database snapshot cannot be created because it failed to start. Msg 7928, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The database snapshot for online checks could not be created. Either the reason is given in a previous error or one of the underlying volumes does not support sparse files or alternate streams. Attempting to get exclusive access to run checks offline. Msg 5030, Level 16, State 12, Line 1 The database could not be exclusively locked to perform the operation. Msg 7926, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Check statement aborted. The database could not be checked as a database snapshot could not be created and the database or table could not be locked. See Books Online for details of when this behavior is expected and what workarounds exist. Also see previous errors for more details. Msg 823, Level 24, State 3, Line 1 The operating system returned error 1(error not found) to SQL Server during a write at offset 0x00000674706000 in file 'G:\AX40_Dynamics_Live.mdf'. Additional messages in the SQL Server error log and system event log may provide more detail. This is a severe system-level error condition that threatens database integrity and must be corrected immediately. Complete a full database consistency check (DBCC CHECKDB). This error can be caused by many factors; for more information, see SQL Server Books Online.

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• Using JSON.NET for dynamic JSON parsing

  - by Rick Strahl

  With the release of ASP.NET Web API as part of .NET 4.5 and MVC 4.0, JSON.NET has effectively pushed out the .NET native serializers to become the default serializer for Web API. JSON.NET is vastly more flexible than the built in DataContractJsonSerializer or the older JavaScript serializer. The DataContractSerializer in particular has been very problematic in the past because it can't deal with untyped objects for serialization - like values of type object, or anonymous types which are quite common these days. The JavaScript Serializer that came before it actually does support non-typed objects for serialization but it can't do anything with untyped data coming in from JavaScript and it's overall model of extensibility was pretty limited (JavaScript Serializer is what MVC uses for JSON responses). JSON.NET provides a robust JSON serializer that has both high level and low level components, supports binary JSON, JSON contracts, Xml to JSON conversion, LINQ to JSON and many, many more features than either of the built in serializers. ASP.NET Web API now uses JSON.NET as its default serializer and is now pulled in as a NuGet dependency into Web API projects, which is great. Dynamic JSON Parsing One of the features that I think is getting ever more important is the ability to serialize and deserialize arbitrary JSON content dynamically - that is without mapping the JSON captured directly into a .NET type as DataContractSerializer or the JavaScript Serializers do. Sometimes it isn't possible to map types due to the differences in languages (think collections, dictionaries etc), and other times you simply don't have the structures in place or don't want to create them to actually import the data. If this topic sounds familiar - you're right! I wrote about dynamic JSON parsing a few months back before JSON.NET was added to Web API and when Web API and the System.Net HttpClient libraries included the System.Json classes like JsonObject and JsonArray. With the inclusion of JSON.NET in Web API these classes are now obsolete and didn't ship with Web API or the client libraries. I re-linked my original post to this one. In this post I'll discus JToken, JObject and JArray which are the dynamic JSON objects that make it very easy to create and retrieve JSON content on the fly without underlying types. Why Dynamic JSON? So, why Dynamic JSON parsing rather than strongly typed parsing? Since applications are interacting more and more with third party services it becomes ever more important to have easy access to those services with easy JSON parsing. Sometimes it just makes lot of sense to pull just a small amount of data out of large JSON document received from a service, because the third party service isn't directly related to your application's logic most of the time - and it makes little sense to map the entire service structure in your application. For example, recently I worked with the Google Maps Places API to return information about businesses close to me (or rather the app's) location. The Google API returns a ton of information that my application had no interest in - all I needed was few values out of the data. Dynamic JSON parsing makes it possible to map this data, without having to map the entire API to a C# data structure. Instead I could pull out the three or four values I needed from the API and directly store it on my business entities that needed to receive the data - no need to map the entire Maps API structure. Getting JSON.NET The easiest way to use JSON.NET is to grab it via NuGet and add it as a reference to your project. You can add it to your project with: PM> Install-Package Newtonsoft.Json From the Package Manager Console or by using Manage NuGet Packages in your project References. As mentioned if you're using ASP.NET Web API or MVC 4 JSON.NET will be automatically added to your project. Alternately you can also go to the CodePlex site and download the latest version including source code: http://json.codeplex.com/ Creating JSON on the fly with JObject and JArray Let's start with creating some JSON on the fly. It's super easy to create a dynamic object structure with any of the JToken derived JSON.NET objects. The most common JToken derived classes you are likely to use are JObject and JArray. JToken implements IDynamicMetaProvider and so uses the dynamic  keyword extensively to make it intuitive to create object structures and turn them into JSON via dynamic object syntax. Here's an example of creating a music album structure with child songs using JObject for the base object and songs and JArray for the actual collection of songs:[TestMethod] public void JObjectOutputTest() { // strong typed instance var jsonObject = new JObject(); // you can explicitly add values here using class interface jsonObject.Add("Entered", DateTime.Now); // or cast to dynamic to dynamically add/read properties dynamic album = jsonObject; album.AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; album.Artist = "AC/DC"; album.YearReleased = 1976; album.Songs = new JArray() as dynamic; dynamic song = new JObject(); song.SongName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; song.SongLength = "4:11"; album.Songs.Add(song); song = new JObject(); song.SongName = "Love at First Feel"; song.SongLength = "3:10"; album.Songs.Add(song); Console.WriteLine(album.ToString()); } This produces a complete JSON structure: { "Entered": "2012-08-18T13:26:37.7137482-10:00", "AlbumName": "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "Artist": "AC/DC", "YearReleased": 1976, "Songs": [ { "SongName": "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "SongLength": "4:11" }, { "SongName": "Love at First Feel", "SongLength": "3:10" } ] } Notice that JSON.NET does a nice job formatting the JSON, so it's easy to read and paste into blog posts :-). JSON.NET includes a bunch of configuration options that control how JSON is generated. Typically the defaults are just fine, but you can override with the JsonSettings object for most operations. The important thing about this code is that there's no explicit type used for holding the values to serialize to JSON. Rather the JSON.NET objects are the containers that receive the data as I build up my JSON structure dynamically, simply by adding properties. This means this code can be entirely driven at runtime without compile time restraints of structure for the JSON output. Here I use JObject to create a album 'object' and immediately cast it to dynamic. JObject() is kind of similar in behavior to ExpandoObject in that it allows you to add properties by simply assigning to them. Internally, JObject values are stored in pseudo collections of key value pairs that are exposed as properties through the IDynamicMetaObject interface exposed in JSON.NET's JToken base class. For objects the syntax is very clean - you add simple typed values as properties. For objects and arrays you have to explicitly create new JObject or JArray, cast them to dynamic and then add properties and items to them. Always remember though these values are dynamic - which means no Intellisense and no compiler type checking. It's up to you to ensure that the names and values you create are accessed consistently and without typos in your code. Note that you can also access the JObject instance directly (not as dynamic) and get access to the underlying JObject type. This means you can assign properties by string, which can be useful for fully data driven JSON generation from other structures. Below you can see both styles of access next to each other:// strong type instance var jsonObject = new JObject(); // you can explicitly add values here jsonObject.Add("Entered", DateTime.Now); // expando style instance you can just 'use' properties dynamic album = jsonObject; album.AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; JContainer (the base class for JObject and JArray) is a collection so you can also iterate over the properties at runtime easily:foreach (var item in jsonObject) { Console.WriteLine(item.Key + " " + item.Value.ToString()); } The functionality of the JSON objects are very similar to .NET's ExpandObject and if you used it before, you're already familiar with how the dynamic interfaces to the JSON objects works. Importing JSON with JObject.Parse() and JArray.Parse() The JValue structure supports importing JSON via the Parse() and Load() methods which can read JSON data from a string or various streams respectively. Essentially JValue includes the core JSON parsing to turn a JSON string into a collection of JsonValue objects that can be then referenced using familiar dynamic object syntax. Here's a simple example:public void JValueParsingTest() { var jsonString = @"{""Name"":""Rick"",""Company"":""West Wind"", ""Entered"":""2012-03-16T00:03:33.245-10:00""}"; dynamic json = JValue.Parse(jsonString); // values require casting string name = json.Name; string company = json.Company; DateTime entered = json.Entered; Assert.AreEqual(name, "Rick"); Assert.AreEqual(company, "West Wind"); } The JSON string represents an object with three properties which is parsed into a JObject class and cast to dynamic. Once cast to dynamic I can then go ahead and access the object using familiar object syntax. Note that the actual values - json.Name, json.Company, json.Entered - are actually of type JToken and I have to cast them to their appropriate types first before I can do type comparisons as in the Asserts at the end of the test method. This is required because of the way that dynamic types work which can't determine the type based on the method signature of the Assert.AreEqual(object,object) method. I have to either assign the dynamic value to a variable as I did above, or explicitly cast ( (string) json.Name) in the actual method call. The JSON structure can be much more complex than this simple example. Here's another example of an array of albums serialized to JSON and then parsed through with JsonValue():[TestMethod] public void JsonArrayParsingTest() { var jsonString = @"[ { ""Id"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""AlbumName"": ""Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"", ""Artist"": ""AC/DC"", ""YearReleased"": 1976, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2810521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61kTaH-uZBL._AA115_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/…ASIN=B00008BXJ4"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"", ""SongLength"": ""4:11"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Love at First Feel"", ""SongLength"": ""3:10"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Big Balls"", ""SongLength"": ""2:38"" } ] }, { ""Id"": ""7b919432"", ""AlbumName"": ""End of the Silence"", ""Artist"": ""Henry Rollins Band"", ""YearReleased"": 1992, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2800521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FO3rb1tuL._SL160_AA160_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/End-Silence-Rollins-Band/dp/B0000040OX/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1302232195&sr=8-5"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""7b919432"", ""SongName"": ""Low Self Opinion"", ""SongLength"": ""5:24"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""7b919432"", ""SongName"": ""Grip"", ""SongLength"": ""4:51"" } ] } ]"; JArray jsonVal = JArray.Parse(jsonString) as JArray; dynamic albums = jsonVal; foreach (dynamic album in albums) { Console.WriteLine(album.AlbumName + " (" + album.YearReleased.ToString() + ")"); foreach (dynamic song in album.Songs) { Console.WriteLine("\t" + song.SongName); } } Console.WriteLine(albums[0].AlbumName); Console.WriteLine(albums[0].Songs[1].SongName); } JObject and JArray in ASP.NET Web API Of course these types also work in ASP.NET Web API controller methods. If you want you can accept parameters using these object or return them back to the server. The following contrived example receives dynamic JSON input, and then creates a new dynamic JSON object and returns it based on data from the first:[HttpPost] public JObject PostAlbumJObject(JObject jAlbum) { // dynamic input from inbound JSON dynamic album = jAlbum; // create a new JSON object to write out dynamic newAlbum = new JObject(); // Create properties on the new instance // with values from the first newAlbum.AlbumName = album.AlbumName + " New"; newAlbum.NewProperty = "something new"; newAlbum.Songs = new JArray(); foreach (dynamic song in album.Songs) { song.SongName = song.SongName + " New"; newAlbum.Songs.Add(song); } return newAlbum; } The raw POST request to the server looks something like this: POST http://localhost/aspnetwebapi/samples/PostAlbumJObject HTTP/1.1User-Agent: FiddlerContent-type: application/jsonHost: localhostContent-Length: 88 {AlbumName: "Dirty Deeds",Songs:[ { SongName: "Problem Child"},{ SongName: "Squealer"}]} and the output that comes back looks like this: {  "AlbumName": "Dirty Deeds New",  "NewProperty": "something new",  "Songs": [    {      "SongName": "Problem Child New"    },    {      "SongName": "Squealer New"    }  ]} The original values are echoed back with something extra appended to demonstrate that we're working with a new object. When you receive or return a JObject, JValue, JToken or JArray instance in a Web API method, Web API ignores normal content negotiation and assumes your content is going to be received and returned as JSON, so effectively the parameter and result type explicitly determines the input and output format which is nice. Dynamic to Strong Type Mapping You can also map JObject and JArray instances to a strongly typed object, so you can mix dynamic and static typing in the same piece of code. Using the 2 Album jsonString shown earlier, the code below takes an array of albums and picks out only a single album and casts that album to a static Album instance.[TestMethod] public void JsonParseToStrongTypeTest() { JArray albums = JArray.Parse(jsonString) as JArray; // pick out one album JObject jalbum = albums[0] as JObject; // Copy to a static Album instance Album album = jalbum.ToObject<Album>(); Assert.IsNotNull(album); Assert.AreEqual(album.AlbumName,jalbum.Value<string>("AlbumName")); Assert.IsTrue(album.Songs.Count > 0); } This is pretty damn useful for the scenario I mentioned earlier - you can read a large chunk of JSON and dynamically walk the property hierarchy down to the item you want to access, and then either access the specific item dynamically (as shown earlier) or map a part of the JSON to a strongly typed object. That's very powerful if you think about it - it leaves you in total control to decide what's dynamic and what's static. Strongly typed JSON Parsing With all this talk of dynamic let's not forget that JSON.NET of course also does strongly typed serialization which is drop dead easy. Here's a simple example on how to serialize and deserialize an object with JSON.NET:[TestMethod] public void StronglyTypedSerializationTest() { // Demonstrate deserialization from a raw string var album = new Album() { AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", Artist = "AC/DC", Entered = DateTime.Now, YearReleased = 1976, Songs = new List<Song>() { new Song() { SongName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", SongLength = "4:11" }, new Song() { SongName = "Love at First Feel", SongLength = "3:10" } } }; // serialize to string string json2 = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(album,Formatting.Indented); Console.WriteLine(json2); // make sure we can serialize back var album2 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Album>(json2); Assert.IsNotNull(album2); Assert.IsTrue(album2.AlbumName == "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"); Assert.IsTrue(album2.Songs.Count == 2); } JsonConvert is a high level static class that wraps lower level functionality, but you can also use the JsonSerializer class, which allows you to serialize/parse to and from streams. It's a little more work, but gives you a bit more control. The functionality available is easy to discover with Intellisense, and that's good because there's not a lot in the way of documentation that's actually useful. Summary JSON.NET is a pretty complete JSON implementation with lots of different choices for JSON parsing from dynamic parsing to static serialization, to complex querying of JSON objects using LINQ. It's good to see this open source library getting integrated into .NET, and pushing out the old and tired stock .NET parsers so that we finally have a bit more flexibility - and extensibility - in our JSON parsing. Good to go! Resources Sample Test Project http://json.codeplex.com/© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in .NET  Web Api  AJAX   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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• Where does ASP.NET Web API Fit?

  - by Rick Strahl

  With the pending release of ASP.NET MVC 4 and the new ASP.NET Web API, there has been a lot of discussion of where the new Web API technology fits in the ASP.NET Web stack. There are a lot of choices to build HTTP based applications available now on the stack - we've come a long way from when WebForms and Http Handlers/Modules where the only real options. Today we have WebForms, MVC, ASP.NET Web Pages, ASP.NET AJAX, WCF REST and now Web API as well as the core ASP.NET runtime to choose to build HTTP content with. Web API definitely squarely addresses the 'API' aspect - building consumable services - rather than HTML content, but even to that end there are a lot of choices you have today. So where does Web API fit, and when doesn't it? But before we get into that discussion, let's talk about what a Web API is and why we should care. What's a Web API? HTTP 'APIs' (Microsoft's new terminology for a service I guess)  are becoming increasingly more important with the rise of the many devices in use today. Most mobile devices like phones and tablets run Apps that are using data retrieved from the Web over HTTP. Desktop applications are also moving in this direction with more and more online content and synching moving into even traditional desktop applications. The pending Windows 8 release promises an app like platform for both the desktop and other devices, that also emphasizes consuming data from the Cloud. Likewise many Web browser hosted applications these days are relying on rich client functionality to create and manipulate the browser user interface, using AJAX rather than server generated HTML data to load up the user interface with data. These mobile or rich Web applications use their HTTP connection to return data rather than HTML markup in the form of JSON or XML typically. But an API can also serve other kinds of data, like images or other binary files, or even text data and HTML (although that's less common). A Web API is what feeds rich applications with data. ASP.NET Web API aims to service this particular segment of Web development by providing easy semantics to route and handle incoming requests and an easy to use platform to serve HTTP data in just about any content format you choose to create and serve from the server. But .NET already has various HTTP Platforms The .NET stack already includes a number of technologies that provide the ability to create HTTP service back ends, and it has done so since the very beginnings of the .NET platform. From raw HTTP Handlers and Modules in the core ASP.NET runtime, to high level platforms like ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, ASP.NET AJAX and the WCF REST engine (which technically is not ASP.NET, but can integrate with it), you've always been able to handle just about any kind of HTTP request and response with ASP.NET. The beauty of the raw ASP.NET platform is that it provides you everything you need to build just about any type of HTTP application you can dream up from low level APIs/custom engines to high level HTML generation engine. ASP.NET as a core platform clearly has stood the test of time 10+ years later and all other frameworks like Web API are built on top of this ASP.NET core. However, although it's possible to create Web APIs / Services using any of the existing out of box .NET technologies, none of them have been a really nice fit for building arbitrary HTTP based APIs. Sure, you can use an HttpHandler to create just about anything, but you have to build a lot of plumbing to build something more complex like a comprehensive API that serves a variety of requests, handles multiple output formats and can easily pass data up to the server in a variety of ways. Likewise you can use ASP.NET MVC to handle routing and creating content in various formats fairly easily, but it doesn't provide a great way to automatically negotiate content types and serve various content formats directly (it's possible to do with some plumbing code of your own but not built in). Prior to Web API, Microsoft's main push for HTTP services has been WCF REST, which was always an awkward technology that had a severe personality conflict, not being clear on whether it wanted to be part of WCF or purely a separate technology. In the end it didn't do either WCF compatibility or WCF agnostic pure HTTP operation very well, which made for a very developer-unfriendly environment. Personally I didn't like any of the implementations at the time, so much so that I ended up building my own HTTP service engine (as part of the West Wind Web Toolkit), as have a few other third party tools that provided much better integration and ease of use. With the release of Web API for the first time I feel that I can finally use the tools in the box and not have to worry about creating and maintaining my own toolkit as Web API addresses just about all the features I implemented on my own and much more. ASP.NET Web API provides a better HTTP Experience ASP.NET Web API differentiates itself from the previous Microsoft in-box HTTP service solutions in that it was built from the ground up around the HTTP protocol and its messaging semantics. Unlike WCF REST or ASP.NET AJAX with ASMX, it’s a brand new platform rather than bolted on technology that is supposed to work in the context of an existing framework. The strength of the new ASP.NET Web API is that it combines the best features of the platforms that came before it, to provide a comprehensive and very usable HTTP platform. Because it's based on ASP.NET and borrows a lot of concepts from ASP.NET MVC, Web API should be immediately familiar and comfortable to most ASP.NET developers. Here are some of the features that Web API provides that I like: Strong Support for URL Routing to produce clean URLs using familiar MVC style routing semantics Content Negotiation based on Accept headers for request and response serialization Support for a host of supported output formats including JSON, XML, ATOM Strong default support for REST semantics but they are optional Easily extensible Formatter support to add new input/output types Deep support for more advanced HTTP features via HttpResponseMessage and HttpRequestMessage classes and strongly typed Enums to describe many HTTP operations Convention based design that drives you into doing the right thing for HTTP Services Very extensible, based on MVC like extensibility model of Formatters and Filters Self-hostable in non-Web applications  Testable using testing concepts similar to MVC Web API is meant to handle any kind of HTTP input and produce output and status codes using the full spectrum of HTTP functionality available in a straight forward and flexible manner. Looking at the list above you can see that a lot of functionality is very similar to ASP.NET MVC, so many ASP.NET developers should feel quite comfortable with the concepts of Web API. The Routing and core infrastructure of Web API are very similar to how MVC works providing many of the benefits of MVC, but with focus on HTTP access and manipulation in Controller methods rather than HTML generation in MVC. There’s much improved support for content negotiation based on HTTP Accept headers with the framework capable of detecting automatically what content the client is sending and requesting and serving the appropriate data format in return. This seems like such a little and obvious thing, but it's really important. Today's service backends often are used by multiple clients/applications and being able to choose the right data format for what fits best for the client is very important. While previous solutions were able to accomplish this using a variety of mixed features of WCF and ASP.NET, Web API combines all this functionality into a single robust server side HTTP framework that intrinsically understands the HTTP semantics and subtly drives you in the right direction for most operations. And when you need to customize or do something that is not built in, there are lots of hooks and overrides for most behaviors, and even many low level hook points that allow you to plug in custom functionality with relatively little effort. No Brainers for Web API There are a few scenarios that are a slam dunk for Web API. If your primary focus of an application or even a part of an application is some sort of API then Web API makes great sense. HTTP ServicesIf you're building a comprehensive HTTP API that is to be consumed over the Web, Web API is a perfect fit. You can isolate the logic in Web API and build your application as a service breaking out the logic into controllers as needed. Because the primary interface is the service there's no confusion of what should go where (MVC or API). Perfect fit. Primary AJAX BackendsIf you're building rich client Web applications that are relying heavily on AJAX callbacks to serve its data, Web API is also a slam dunk. Again because much if not most of the business logic will probably end up in your Web API service logic, there's no confusion over where logic should go and there's no duplication. In Single Page Applications (SPA), typically there's very little HTML based logic served other than bringing up a shell UI and then filling the data from the server with AJAX which means the business logic required for data retrieval and data acceptance and validation too lives in the Web API. Perfect fit. Generic HTTP EndpointsAnother good fit are generic HTTP endpoints that to serve data or handle 'utility' type functionality in typical Web applications. If you need to implement an image server, or an upload handler in the past I'd implement that as an HTTP handler. With Web API you now have a well defined place where you can implement these types of generic 'services' in a location that can easily add endpoints (via Controller methods) or separated out as more full featured APIs. Granted this could be done with MVC as well, but Web API seems a clearer and more well defined place to store generic application services. This is one thing I used to do a lot of in my own libraries and Web API addresses this nicely. Great fit. Mixed HTML and AJAX Applications: Not a clear Choice  For all the commonality that Web API and MVC share they are fundamentally different platforms that are independent of each other. A lot of people have asked when does it make sense to use MVC vs. Web API when you're dealing with typical Web application that creates HTML and also uses AJAX functionality for rich functionality. While it's easy to say that all 'service'/AJAX logic should go into a Web API and all HTML related generation into MVC, that can often result in a lot of code duplication. Also MVC supports JSON and XML result data fairly easily as well so there's some confusion where that 'trigger point' is of when you should switch to Web API vs. just implementing functionality as part of MVC controllers. Ultimately there's a tradeoff between isolation of functionality and duplication. A good rule of thumb I think works is that if a large chunk of the application's functionality serves data Web API is a good choice, but if you have a couple of small AJAX requests to serve data to a grid or autocomplete box it'd be overkill to separate out that logic into a separate Web API controller. Web API does add overhead to your application (it's yet another framework that sits on top of core ASP.NET) so it should be worth it .Keep in mind that MVC can generate HTML and JSON/XML and just about any other content easily and that functionality is not going away, so just because you Web API is there it doesn't mean you have to use it. Web API is not a full replacement for MVC obviously either since there's not the same level of support to feed HTML from Web API controllers (although you can host a RazorEngine easily enough if you really want to go that route) so if you're HTML is part of your API or application in general MVC is still a better choice either alone or in combination with Web API. I suspect (and hope) that in the future Web API's functionality will merge even closer with MVC so that you might even be able to mix functionality of both into single Controllers so that you don't have to make any trade offs, but at the moment that's not the case. Some Issues To think about Web API is similar to MVC but not the Same Although Web API looks a lot like MVC it's not the same and some common functionality of MVC behaves differently in Web API. For example, the way single POST variables are handled is different than MVC and doesn't lend itself particularly well to some AJAX scenarios with POST data. Code Duplication I already touched on this in the Mixed HTML and Web API section, but if you build an MVC application that also exposes a Web API it's quite likely that you end up duplicating a bunch of code and - potentially - infrastructure. You may have to create authentication logic both for an HTML application and for the Web API which might need something different altogether. More often than not though the same logic is used, and there's no easy way to share. If you implement an MVC ActionFilter and you want that same functionality in your Web API you'll end up creating the filter twice. AJAX Data or AJAX HTML On a recent post's comments, David made some really good points regarding the commonality of MVC and Web API's and its place. One comment that caught my eye was a little more generic, regarding data services vs. HTML services. David says: I see a lot of merit in the combination of Knockout.js, client side templates and view models, calling Web API for a responsive UI, but sometimes late at night that still leaves me wondering why I would no longer be using some of the nice tooling and features that have evolved in MVC ;-) You know what - I can totally relate to that. On the last Web based mobile app I worked on, we decided to serve HTML partials to the client via AJAX for many (but not all!) things, rather than sending down raw data to inject into the DOM on the client via templating or direct manipulation. While there are definitely more bytes on the wire, with this, the overhead ended up being actually fairly small if you keep the 'data' requests small and atomic. Performance was often made up by the lack of client side rendering of HTML. Server rendered HTML for AJAX templating gives so much better infrastructure support without having to screw around with 20 mismatched client libraries. Especially with MVC and partials it's pretty easy to break out your HTML logic into very small, atomic chunks, so it's actually easy to create small rendering islands that can be used via composition on the server, or via AJAX calls to small, tight partials that return HTML to the client. Although this is often frowned upon as to 'heavy', it worked really well in terms of developer effort as well as providing surprisingly good performance on devices. There's still plenty of jQuery and AJAX logic happening on the client but it's more manageable in small doses rather than trying to do the entire UI composition with JavaScript and/or 'not-quite-there-yet' template engines that are very difficult to debug. This is not an issue directly related to Web API of course, but something to think about especially for AJAX or SPA style applications. Summary Web API is a great new addition to the ASP.NET platform and it addresses a serious need for consolidation of a lot of half-baked HTTP service API technologies that came before it. Web API feels 'right', and hits the right combination of usability and flexibility at least for me and it's a good fit for true API scenarios. However, just because a new platform is available it doesn't meant that other tools or tech that came before it should be discarded or even upgraded to the new platform. There's nothing wrong with continuing to use MVC controller methods to handle API tasks if that's what your app is running now - there's very little to be gained by upgrading to Web API just because. But going forward Web API clearly is the way to go, when building HTTP data interfaces and it's good to see that Microsoft got this one right - it was sorely needed! Resources ASP.NET Web API AspConf Ask the Experts Session (first 5 minutes) © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api   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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• LINQ to SQL and missing Many to Many EntityRefs

  - by Rick Strahl

  Ran into an odd behavior today with a many to many mapping of one of my tables in LINQ to SQL. Many to many mappings aren’t transparent in LINQ to SQL and it maps the link table the same way the SQL schema has it when creating one. In other words LINQ to SQL isn’t smart about many to many mappings and just treats it like the 3 underlying tables that make up the many to many relationship. Iain Galloway has a nice blog entry about Many to Many relationships in LINQ to SQL. I can live with that – it’s not really difficult to deal with this arrangement once mapped, especially when reading data back. Writing is a little more difficult as you do have to insert into two entities for new records, but nothing that can’t be handled in a small business object method with a few lines of code. When I created a database I’ve been using to experiment around with various different OR/Ms recently I found that for some reason LINQ to SQL was completely failing to map even to the linking table. As it turns out there’s a good reason why it fails, can you spot it below? (read on :-}) Here is the original database layout: There’s an items table, a category table and a link table that holds only the foreign keys to the Items and Category tables for a typical M->M relationship. When these three tables are imported into the model the *look* correct – I do get the relationships added (after modifying the entity names to strip the prefix): The relationship looks perfectly fine, both in the designer as well as in the XML document: <Table Name="dbo.wws_Item_Categories" Member="ItemCategories"> <Type Name="ItemCategory"> <Column Name="ItemId" Type="System.Guid" DbType="uniqueidentifier NOT NULL" CanBeNull="false" /> <Column Name="CategoryId" Type="System.Guid" DbType="uniqueidentifier NOT NULL" CanBeNull="false" /> <Association Name="ItemCategory_Category" Member="Categories" ThisKey="CategoryId" OtherKey="Id" Type="Category" /> <Association Name="Item_ItemCategory" Member="Item" ThisKey="ItemId" OtherKey="Id" Type="Item" IsForeignKey="true" /> </Type> </Table> <Table Name="dbo.wws_Categories" Member="Categories"> <Type Name="Category"> <Column Name="Id" Type="System.Guid" DbType="UniqueIdentifier NOT NULL" IsPrimaryKey="true" IsDbGenerated="true" CanBeNull="false" /> <Column Name="ParentId" Type="System.Guid" DbType="UniqueIdentifier" CanBeNull="true" /> <Column Name="CategoryName" Type="System.String" DbType="NVarChar(150)" CanBeNull="true" /> <Column Name="CategoryDescription" Type="System.String" DbType="NVarChar(MAX)" CanBeNull="true" /> <Column Name="tstamp" AccessModifier="Internal" Type="System.Data.Linq.Binary" DbType="rowversion" CanBeNull="true" IsVersion="true" /> <Association Name="ItemCategory_Category" Member="ItemCategory" ThisKey="Id" OtherKey="CategoryId" Type="ItemCategory" IsForeignKey="true" /> </Type> </Table> However when looking at the code generated these navigation properties (also on Item) are completely missing: [global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.TableAttribute(Name="dbo.wws_Item_Categories")] [global::System.Runtime.Serialization.DataContractAttribute()] public partial class ItemCategory : Westwind.BusinessFramework.EntityBase { private System.Guid _ItemId; private System.Guid _CategoryId; public ItemCategory() { } [global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.ColumnAttribute(Storage="_ItemId", DbType="uniqueidentifier NOT NULL")] [global::System.Runtime.Serialization.DataMemberAttribute(Order=1)] public System.Guid ItemId { get { return this._ItemId; } set { if ((this._ItemId != value)) { this._ItemId = value; } } } [global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.ColumnAttribute(Storage="_CategoryId", DbType="uniqueidentifier NOT NULL")] [global::System.Runtime.Serialization.DataMemberAttribute(Order=2)] public System.Guid CategoryId { get { return this._CategoryId; } set { if ((this._CategoryId != value)) { this._CategoryId = value; } } } } Notice that the Item and Category association properties which should be EntityRef properties are completely missing. They’re there in the model, but the generated code – not so much. So what’s the problem here? The problem – it appears – is that LINQ to SQL requires primary keys on all entities it tracks. In order to support tracking – even of the link table entity – the link table requires a primary key. Real obvious ain’t it, especially since the designer happily lets you import the table and even shows the relationship and implicitly the related properties. Adding an Id field as a Pk to the database and then importing results in this model layout: which properly generates the Item and Category properties into the link entity. It’s ironic that LINQ to SQL *requires* the PK in the middle – the Entity Framework requires that a link table have *only* the two foreign key fields in a table in order to recognize a many to many relation. EF actually handles the M->M relation directly without the intermediate link entity unlike LINQ to SQL. [updated from comments – 12/24/2009] Another approach is to set up both ItemId and CategoryId in the database which shows up in LINQ to SQL like this: This also work in creating the Category and Item fields in the ItemCategory entity. Ultimately this is probably the best approach as it also guarantees uniqueness of the keys and so helps in database integrity. It took me a while to figure out WTF was going on here – lulled by the designer to think that the properties should be when they were not. It’s actually a well documented feature of L2S that each entity in the model requires a Pk but of course that’s easy to miss when the model viewer shows it to you and even the underlying XML model shows the Associations properly. This is one of the issue with L2S of course – you have to play by its rules and once you hit one of those rules there’s no way around them – you’re stuck with what it requires which in this case meant changing the database.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ADO.NET  LINQ  

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• error about ACPI _OSC request failed (AE_NOT_FOUND)

  - by Yavuz Maslak

  I have ubuntu server 11.10 64 bit I see an error in kernel.log. This error comes out when the server reboot. some port of grep APCI in kernel.log; Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588605] pci0000:00: Requesting ACPI _OSC control (0x1d) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588667] pci0000:00: ACPI _OSC request failed (AE_NOT_FOUND), returned control mask: 0x1d Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588746] ACPI _OSC control for PCIe not granted, disabling ASPM Which hardware may be cause this error ? root@www:# grep -r ACPI /var/log/kern.log Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000bf780000 - 00000000bf798000 (ACPI data) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000bf798000 - 00000000bf7dc000 (ACPI NVS) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDP 00000000000fb1a0 00014 (v00 ACPIAM) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDT 00000000bf780000 00040 (v01 022410 RSDT1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: FACP 00000000bf780200 00084 (v01 022410 FACP1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: DSDT 00000000bf7804b0 0C359 (v01 A1279 A1279001 00000001 INTL 20060113) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: FACS 00000000bf798000 00040 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: APIC 00000000bf780390 000D8 (v01 022410 APIC1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: MCFG 00000000bf780470 0003C (v01 022410 OEMMCFG 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: OEMB 00000000bf798040 00072 (v01 022410 OEMB1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: HPET 00000000bf78f4b0 00038 (v01 022410 OEMHPET 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: OSFR 00000000bf78f4f0 000B0 (v01 022410 OEMOSFR 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: SSDT 00000000bf798fe0 00363 (v01 DpgPmm CpuPm 00000012 INTL 20060113) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x02] enabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x04] enabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x04] lapic_id[0x06] enabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x05] lapic_id[0x84] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x06] lapic_id[0x85] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x07] lapic_id[0x86] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x08] lapic_id[0x87] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x09] lapic_id[0x88] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0a] lapic_id[0x89] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0b] lapic_id[0x8a] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0c] lapic_id[0x8b] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0d] lapic_id[0x8c] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0e] lapic_id[0x8d] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0f] lapic_id[0x8e] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x10] lapic_id[0x8f] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x01] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0]) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x03] address[0xfec8a000] gsi_base[24]) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 high level) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ0 used by override. Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ2 used by override. Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ9 used by override. Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: HPET id: 0x8086a301 base: 0xfed00000 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.009507] ACPI: Core revision 20110413 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.499129] PM: Registering ACPI NVS region at bf798000 (278528 bytes) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.500749] ACPI: bus type pci registered Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.502747] ACPI: EC: Look up EC in DSDT Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.503788] ACPI: Executed 1 blocks of module-level executable AML code Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.520435] ACPI: SSDT 00000000bf7980c0 00F20 (v01 DpgPmm P001Ist 00000011 INTL 20060113) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.520863] ACPI: Dynamic OEM Table Load: Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.520990] ACPI: SSDT (null) 00F20 (v01 DpgPmm P001Ist 00000011 INTL 20060113) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.521308] ACPI: Interpreter enabled Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.521366] ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.521611] ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.522622] PCI: MMCONFIG at [mem 0xe0000000-0xefffffff] reserved in ACPI motherboard resources Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.554150] ACPI: No dock devices found. Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.554267] PCI: Using host bridge windows from ACPI; if necessary, use "pci=nocrs" and report a bug Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.555231] ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (domain 0000 [bus 00-ff]) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588224] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588398] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P1._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588451] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P4._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588473] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P6._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588492] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P7._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588512] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P8._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588540] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE1._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588559] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE3._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588579] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE7._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588605] pci0000:00: Requesting ACPI _OSC control (0x1d) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588667] pci0000:00: ACPI _OSC request failed (AE_NOT_FOUND), returned control mask: 0x1d Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588746] ACPI _OSC control for PCIe not granted, disabling ASPM Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.597666] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12 14 *15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.598142] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs *5) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.598336] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 *11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.598810] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 *10 11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.599284] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12 *14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.599762] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs *3 4 6 7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.600236] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 3 4 6 *7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.600709] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 3 *4 6 7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.601931] PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628146] pnp: PnP ACPI init Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628211] ACPI: bus type pnp registered Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628417] pnp 00:00: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0a08 PNP0a03 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628859] system 00:01: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628915] pnp 00:02: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0200 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628951] pnp 00:03: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0b00 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628975] pnp 00:04: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0800 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629004] pnp 00:05: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c04 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629229] system 00:06: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629779] system 00:07: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629849] pnp 00:08: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0103 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629901] pnp 00:09: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs INT0800 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630030] system 00:0a: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630254] system 00:0b: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630304] pnp 00:0c: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0303 PNP030b (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630359] pnp 00:0d: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0f03 PNP0f13 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630492] system 00:0e: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630986] system 00:0f: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.631078] pnp: PnP ACPI: found 16 devices Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.631135] ACPI: ACPI bus type pnp unregistered Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.726291] ACPI: Power Button [PWRB] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.726452] ACPI: Power Button [PWRF] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.726527] ACPI: acpi_idle yielding to intel_idle Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000bf780000 - 00000000bf798000 (ACPI data) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000bf798000 - 00000000bf7dc000 (ACPI NVS) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDP 00000000000fb1a0 00014 (v00 ACPIAM) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDT 00000000bf780000 00040 (v01 022410 RSDT1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: FACP 00000000bf780200 00084 (v01 022410 FACP1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: DSDT 00000000bf7804b0 0C359 (v01 A1279 A1279001 00000001 INTL 20060113) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: FACS 00000000bf798000 00040 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: APIC 00000000bf780390 000D8 (v01 022410 APIC1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: MCFG 00000000bf780470 0003C (v01 022410 OEMMCFG 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: OEMB 00000000bf798040 00072 (v01 022410 OEMB1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: HPET 00000000bf78f4b0 00038 (v01 022410 OEMHPET 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: OSFR 00000000bf78f4f0 000B0 (v01 022410 OEMOSFR 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: SSDT 00000000bf798fe0 00363 (v01 DpgPmm CpuPm 00000012 INTL 20060113) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x02] enabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x04] enabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x04] lapic_id[0x06] enabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x05] lapic_id[0x84] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x06] lapic_id[0x85] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x07] lapic_id[0x86] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x08] lapic_id[0x87] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x09] lapic_id[0x88] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0a] lapic_id[0x89] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0b] lapic_id[0x8a] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0c] lapic_id[0x8b] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0d] lapic_id[0x8c] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0e] lapic_id[0x8d] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0f] lapic_id[0x8e] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x10] lapic_id[0x8f] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x01] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0]) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x03] address[0xfec8a000] gsi_base[24]) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 high level) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ0 used by override. Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ2 used by override. Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ9 used by override. Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: HPET id: 0x8086a301 base: 0xfed00000 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.009505] ACPI: Core revision 20110413 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.499203] PM: Registering ACPI NVS region at bf798000 (278528 bytes) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.500819] ACPI: bus type pci registered Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.503121] ACPI: EC: Look up EC in DSDT Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.504162] ACPI: Executed 1 blocks of module-level executable AML code Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.520821] ACPI: SSDT 00000000bf7980c0 00F20 (v01 DpgPmm P001Ist 00000011 INTL 20060113) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521247] ACPI: Dynamic OEM Table Load: Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521374] ACPI: SSDT (null) 00F20 (v01 DpgPmm P001Ist 00000011 INTL 20060113) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521691] ACPI: Interpreter enabled Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521748] ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521993] ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.523002] PCI: MMCONFIG at [mem 0xe0000000-0xefffffff] reserved in ACPI motherboard resources Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.554533] ACPI: No dock devices found. Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.554649] PCI: Using host bridge windows from ACPI; if necessary, use "pci=nocrs" and report a bug Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.555620] ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (domain 0000 [bus 00-ff]) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588224] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588398] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P1._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588451] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P4._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588473] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P6._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588492] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P7._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588512] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P8._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588540] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE1._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588559] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE3._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588579] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE7._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588606] pci0000:00: Requesting ACPI _OSC control (0x1d) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588667] pci0000:00: ACPI _OSC request failed (AE_NOT_FOUND), returned control mask: 0x1d Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588746] ACPI _OSC control for PCIe not granted, disabling ASPM Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.597661] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12 14 *15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.598137] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs *5) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.598331] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 *11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.598804] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 *10 11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.599278] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12 *14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.599756] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs *3 4 6 7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.600230] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 3 4 6 *7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.600704] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 3 *4 6 7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.601926] PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624115] pnp: PnP ACPI init Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624179] ACPI: bus type pnp registered Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624382] pnp 00:00: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0a08 PNP0a03 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624821] system 00:01: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624875] pnp 00:02: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0200 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624911] pnp 00:03: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0b00 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624933] pnp 00:04: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0800 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624962] pnp 00:05: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c04 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625186] system 00:06: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625733] system 00:07: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625803] pnp 00:08: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0103 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625856] pnp 00:09: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs INT0800 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625984] system 00:0a: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626206] system 00:0b: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626256] pnp 00:0c: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0303 PNP030b (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626312] pnp 00:0d: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0f03 PNP0f13 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626445] system 00:0e: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626936] system 00:0f: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.627027] pnp: PnP ACPI: found 16 devices Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.627084] ACPI: ACPI bus type pnp unregistered Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.722086] ACPI: Power Button [PWRB] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.722246] ACPI: Power Button [PWRF] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.722320] ACPI: acpi_idle yielding to intel_idle

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• Jolicloud is a Nifty New OS for Your Netbook

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to breathe new life into your netbook?  Here’s a quick look at Jolicloud, a unique new Linux based OS that lets you use your netbook in a whole new way. Netbooks have been an interesting category of computers.  When they were first released, most netbooks came with a stripped down Linux based operating system designed to let you easily access the internet first and foremost.  Consumers wanted more from their netbooks, so full OSes such as Windows XP and Ubuntu became the standard on netbooks.  Microsoft worked hard to get Windows 7 working great on netbooks, and today most netbooks run Windows 7 great.  But the Linux community hasn’t stood still either, and Jolicloud is proof of that.  Jolicloud is a unique OS designed to bring the best of both webapps and standard programs to your netbook.   Keep reading to see if this is the perfect netbook OS for you. Getting Started Installing Jolicloud on your netbook is easy thanks to a the Jolicloud Express installer for Windows.  Since many netbooks run Windows by default, this makes it easy to install Jolicloud.  Plus, your Windows install is left untouched, so you can still easily access all your Windows files and programs. Download and run the roughly 700Mb installer (link below) just as a normal installer in Windows. This will first extract the needed files. Click Get started to install Jolicloud on your netbook. Enter a username, password, and nickname for your computer.  Please note that the username must be all lowercase, and the nickname should not contain spaces or special characters.   Now you can review the default installation settings.  By default it will take up 39Gb and install on your C:\ drive in English.  If you wish to change this, click Change. We chose to install it on the D: drive on this netbook, as its harddrive was already partitioned into two parts.  Click Save when your settings are all correct, and then click Next in the previous window. Jolicloud will prepare for the installation.  This took about 5 minutes in our test.  Click Next when this is finished. Click Restart now to install and run Jolicloud. When your netbook reboots, it will initialize the Jolicloud setup. It will then automatically finish the installation.  Just sit back and wait; there’s nothing for you to do right now.  The installation took about 20 minutes in our test. Jolicloud will automatically reboot when the setup is finished. Once it’s rebooted, you’re ready to go!  Enter the username, then the password, that you chose earlier when you were installing Jolicloud from Windows. Welcome to your Jolicloud desktop! Hardware Support We installed Jolicloud on a Samsung N150 netbook with an Atom N450 processor, 1Gb Ram, 250Gb harddrive, and WiFi b/g/n with Bluetooth.  Amazingly, once Jolicloud was installed, everything was ready to use.  No drivers to install, no settings to hassle with, it was all installed and set up perfectly.  Power settings worked great, and closing the netbook put it to sleep just like in Windows. WiFi drivers have typically been difficult to find and install on Linux, but Jolicloud had our netbook’s wifi working immediately.  To get online, simply click the Wireless icon on the top right, and select the wireless network you want to connect to. Jolicloud will let you know when it is signed on. Wired Lan networking was also seamless; simply connect your cable and you’re ready to go.  The webcam and touchpad also worked perfectly directly.  The only thing missing was multitouch; this touchpad has two finger scroll, pinch zoom, and other nice multitouch features in Windows, but in Julicloud it only functioned as a standard touchpad.  It did have tap to click activated by default, as well as right-side scrolling, which is nice. Jolicloud also supported our video card without any extra work.  The native resolution was already selected, and the only problem we had with the screen was that there was no apparent way to change the brightness.  This is not a major problem, but would be nice to have.  The Samsung N150 has Intel GMA3150 integrated graphics, and Jolicloud promises 1080p HD video on it.  It did playback 720p H.264 video flawlessly without installing anything extra, but it stuttered on full 1080p HD (which is the exact same as this netbook’s video playback in Windows 7 – 720p works great, but it stutters on 1080p).  We would be excited to see full HD on this netbook, but 720p is definitely fine for most stuff.   Jolicloud supports a wide range of netbooks, and based on our experience we would expect it to work as good on any supported hardware.  Check out the list of supported netbooks to see if your netbook is supported; if not, it still may work but you may have to install special drivers. Jolicloud’s performance was very similar to Windows 7 on our netbook.  It boots in about 30 seconds, and apps load fairly quickly.  In general, we couldn’t tell much difference in performance between Jolicloud and Windows 7, though this isn’t a problem since Windows 7 runs great on the current generation of netbooks. Using Jolicloud Ready to start putting Jolicloud to use?  Your fresh Jolicloud install you can run several built-in apps, such as Firefox, a calculator, and the chat client Pidgin.  It also has a media player and file viewer installed, so you can play MP3s or MPG videos, or read PDF ebooks without installing anything extra.  It also has Flash player installed so you can watch videos online easily. You can also directly access all of your files from the right side of your home screen.  You can even access your Windows files; in our test, the 116.9 GB Media was C: from Windows.  Select it to browse and open any file you had saved in Windows. You may need to enter your password to access it. Once you’re authenticated it, you’ll see all of your Windows files and folders.  Your User files (Documents, Music, Videos, etc.) will be in the Users folder. And, you can easily add files from removable media such as USB flash drives and memory cards.  Jolicloud recognized a flash drive we tested with no trouble at all. Add new apps But, the best part about Jolicloud is that it makes it very easy to install new apps.  Click the Get Started button on your homescreen. You’ll first need to create an account.  You can then use this same account on another netbook if you wish, and your settings will automatically be synced between the two. You can either signup using your Facebook account, …or you can sign up the traditional way with your email address, name, and password.  If you sign up this way, you will need to confirm your email address before your account will be finished. Now, choose your netbook model from the list, and enter a name for your computer. And that’s it!  You’ll now see the Jolicloud dashboard, which will show you updates and notifications from friends who also use Jolicloud. Click the App directory to find new apps for your netbook.  Here you will find a variety of webapps, such as Gmail, along with native applications, such as Skype, that you can install on your netbook.  Simply click the Install button on the right to add the app to your netbook. You will be prompted to enter your system password, and then the app will install without any further input.   Once an app is installed, a check mark will appear beside its name.  You can remove it by clicking the Remove button, and it will uninstall seamlessly. Webapps, such as Gmail, actually run in in a Chrome-powered window that lets the webapp run full screen.  This gives the webapps a native feel, but actually they’re just running the same as they would in a standard web browser.   The Jolicloud Interface Most apps run maximized, and there is no way to run them smaller.  This in general works good, since with small screens most apps need to run full-screen anyhow. Smaller apps, such as a calculator or the Pidgin chat client, run in a window just like they do on other operating systems. You can switch to another app that’s running by selecting it’s icon on the top left, or you can go back to the home screen by clicking the home screen.  If you’re finished with an program, simply click the red X button on the top right of the window when you’re running it. Or, you can switch between programs using standard keyboard shortcuts such as Alt-tab. The default page on the home screen is the favorites page, and all of your other programs are orginized in their own sections on the left hand side.  But, if you want to add one of these to your favorites page, simply right-click on it and select Add to Favorites. When you’re done for the day, you can simply close your netbook to put it to sleep.  Or, if you want to shut down, just press the Quit button on the bottom right of the home screen and then select Shut Down. Booting Jolicloud When you install Jolicloud, it will set itself as the default operating system.  Now, when you boot your netbook, it will show you a list of installed operating systems.  You can select either Windows or Jolicloud, but if you don’t make a selection it will boot into Jolicloud after waiting 10 seconds. If you’d perfer to boot into Windows by default, you can easily change this.  First, boot your netbook in to Windows.  Open the start menu, right-click on the Computer button, and select Properties.   Click the “Advanced system settings” link on the left side. Click the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery section. Now, select Windows as the default operating system, and click Ok.  Your netbook will now boot into Windows by default, but will give you 10 seconds to choose to boot into Jolicloud when you start your computer. Or, if you decided you don’t want Jolicloud, you can easily uninstall it from within Windows. Please note that this will also remove any files you may have saved in Jolicloud, so be sure to copy them to your Windows drive before uninstalling. To uninstall Jolicloud from within Windows, open Control Panel, and select Uninstall a Program. Scroll down to select Jolicloud, and click Uninstall/Change. Click Yes to confirm that you want to uninstall Jolicloud. After a few moments, it will let you know that Jolicloud has been uninstalled.  You’re netbook is now back the same as it was before you installed Jolicloud, with only Windows installed. Closing Whether you’re wanting to replace your current OS on your netbook or would simply like to try out a fresh new Linux version on your netbook, Jolicloud is a great option for you.  We were very impressed by it’s solid hardware support and the ease of installing new apps in Jolicloud.  Rather than simply giving us a standard OS, Jolicloud offers a unique way to use your netbook with native programs and webapps.  And whether you’re an IT pro or are a new computer user, Jolicloud was easy enough to use that anyone can do it.  Give it a try, and let us know what your favorite netbook OS is! Link Download Jolicloud for your netbook Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Change XSplash Themes in Ubuntu 9.10Verify the Integrity of Windows Vista System FilesMonitor Multiple Logs in a Single Shell with MultiTail for LinuxHide Some or All of the GUI Bars in FirefoxAsk the Readers: Do You Use a Laptop, Desktop, or Both? 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 Stop In The Name Of Love (Firefox addon) Chitika iPad Labs Gives Live iPad Sale Stats Heaven & Hell Finder Icon Using TrueCrypt to Secure Your Data Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically

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• Ops Center 12c - Provisioning Solaris Using a Card-Based NIC

  - by scottdickson

  It's been a long time since last I added something here, but having some conversations this last week, I got inspired to update things. I've been spending a lot of time with Ops Center for managing and installing systems these days.  So, I suspect a number of my upcoming posts will be in that area. Today, I want to look at how to provision Solaris using Ops Center when your network is not connected to one of the built-in NICs.  We'll talk about how this can work for both Solaris 10 and Solaris 11, since they are pretty similar.  In both cases, WANboot is a key piece of the story. Here's what I want to do:  I have a Sun Fire T2000 server with a Quad-GbE nxge card installed.  The only network is connected to port 2 on that card rather than the built-in network interfaces.  I want to install Solaris on it across the network, either Solaris 10 or Solaris 11.  I have met with a lot of customers lately who have a similar architecture.  Usually, they have T4-4 servers with the network connected via 10GbE connections. Add to this mix the fact that I use Ops Center to manage the systems in my lab, so I really would like to add this to Ops Center.  If possible, I would like this to be completely hands free.  I can't quite do that yet. Close, but not quite. WANBoot or Old-Style NetBoot? When a system is installed from the network, it needs some help getting the process rolling.  It has to figure out what its network configuration (IP address, gateway, etc.) ought to be.  It needs to figure out what server is going to help it boot and install, and it needs the instructions for the installation.  There are two different ways to bootstrap an installation of Solaris on SPARC across the network.   The old way uses a broadcast of RARP or more recently DHCP to obtain the IP configuration and the rest of the information needed.  The second is to explicitly configure this information in the OBP and use WANBoot for installation WANBoot has a number of benefits over broadcast-based installation: it is not restricted to a single subnet; it does not require special DHCP configuration or DHCP helpers; it uses standard HTTP and HTTPS protocols which traverse firewalls much more easily than NFS-based package installation.  But, WANBoot is not available on really old hardware and WANBoot requires the use o Flash Archives in Solaris 10.  Still, for many people, this is a great approach. As it turns out, WANBoot is necessary if you plan to install using a NIC on a card rather than a built-in NIC. Identifying Which Network Interface to Use One of the trickiest aspects to this process, and the one that actually requires manual intervention to set up, is identifying how the OBP and Solaris refer to the NIC that we want to use to boot.  The OBP already has device aliases configured for the built-in NICs called net, net0, net1, net2, net3.  The device alias net typically points to net0 so that when you issue the command  "boot net -v install", it uses net0 for the boot.  Our task is to figure out the network instance for the NIC we want to use.  We will need to get to the OBP console of the system we want to install in order to figure out what the network should be called.  I will presume you know how to get to the ok prompt.  Once there, we have to see what networks the OBP sees and identify which one is associated with our NIC using the OBP command show-nets. SunOS Release 5.11 Version 11.0 64-bit Copyright (c) 1983, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. {4} ok banner Sun Fire T200, No Keyboard Copyright (c) 1998, 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. OpenBoot 4.30.4.b, 32640 MB memory available, Serial #69057548. Ethernet address 0:14:4f:1d:bc:c, Host ID: 841dbc0c. {4} ok show-nets a) /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@2/network@0,1 b) /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@2/network@0 c) /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,3 d) /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2 e) /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,1 f) /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0 g) /pci@780/pci@0/pci@1/network@0,1 h) /pci@780/pci@0/pci@1/network@0 q) NO SELECTION Enter Selection, q to quit: d /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2 has been selected. Type ^Y ( Control-Y ) to insert it in the command line. e.g. ok nvalias mydev ^Y for creating devalias mydev for /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2 {4} ok devalias ... net3 /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@2/network@0,1 net2 /pci@7c0/pci@0/pci@2/network@0 net1 /pci@780/pci@0/pci@1/network@0,1 net0 /pci@780/pci@0/pci@1/network@0 net /pci@780/pci@0/pci@1/network@0 ... name aliases By looking at the devalias and the show-nets output, we can see that our Quad-GbE card must be the device nodes starting with  /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0.  The cable for our network is plugged into the 3rd slot, so the device address for our network must be /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2. With that, we can create a device alias for our network interface.  Naming the device alias may take a little bit of trial and error, especially in Solaris 11 where the device alias seems to matter more with the new virtualized network stack. So far in my testing, since this is the "next" network interface to be used, I have found success in naming it net4, even though it's a NIC in the middle of a card that might, by rights, be called net6 (assuming the 0th interface on the card is the next interface identified by Solaris and this is the 3rd interface on the card).  So, we will call it net4.  We need to assign a device alias to it: {4} ok nvalias net4 /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2 {4} ok devalias net4 /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2 ... We also may need to have the MAC for this particular interface, so let's get it, too.  To do this, we go to the device and interrogate its properties. {4} ok cd /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2 {4} ok .properties assigned-addresses 82060210 00000000 03000000 00000000 01000000 82060218 00000000 00320000 00000000 00008000 82060220 00000000 00328000 00000000 00008000 82060230 00000000 00600000 00000000 00100000 local-mac-address 00 21 28 20 42 92 phy-type mif ... From this, we can see that the MAC for this interface is  00:21:28:20:42:92.  We will need this later. This is all we need to do at the OBP.  Now, we can configure Ops Center to use this interface. Network Boot in Solaris 10 Solaris 10 turns out to be a little simpler than Solaris 11 for this sort of a network boot.  Since WANBoot in Solaris 10 fetches a specified In order to install the system using Ops Center, it is necessary to create a OS Provisioning profile and its corresponding plan.  I am going to presume that you already know how to do this within Ops Center 12c and I will just cover the differences between a regular profile and a profile that can use an alternate interface. Create a OS Provisioning profile for Solaris 10 as usual.  However, when you specify the network resources for the primary network, click on the name of the NIC, probably GB_0, and rename it to GB_N/netN, where N is the instance number you used previously in creating the device alias.  This is where the trial and error may come into play.  You may need to try a few instance numbers before you, the OBP, and Solaris all agree on the instance number.  Mark this as the boot network. For Solaris 10, you ought to be able to then apply the OS Provisioning profile to the server and it should install using that interface.  And if you put your cards in the same slots and plug the networks into the same NICs, this profile is reusable across multiple servers. Why This Works If you watch the console as Solaris boots during the OSP process, Ops Center is going to look for the device alias netN.  Since WANBoot requires a device alias called just net, Ops Center uses the value of your netN device alias and assigns that device to the net alias.  That means that boot net will automatically use this device.  Very cool!  Here's a trace from the console as Ops Center provisions a server: Sun Sun Fire T200, No KeyboardCopyright (c) 1998, 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.OpenBoot 4.30.4.b, 32640 MB memory available, Serial #69057548.Ethernet address 0:14:4f:1d:bc:c, Host ID: 841dbc0c.auto-boot? =            false{0} ok  {0} ok printenv network-boot-argumentsnetwork-boot-arguments =  host-ip=10.140.204.234,router-ip=10.140.204.1,subnet-mask=255.255.254.0,hostname=atl-sewr-52,client-id=0100144F1DBC0C,file=http://10.140.204.22:5555/cgi-bin/wanboot-cgi{0} ok {0} ok devalias net net                      /pci@780/pci@0/pci@1/network@0{0} ok devalias net4 net4                     /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2{0} ok devalias net /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2{0} ok setenv network-boot-arguments host-ip=10.140.204.234,router-ip=10.140.204.1,subnet-mask=255.255.254.0,hostname=atl-sewr-52,client-id=0100144F1DBC0C,file=http://10.140.204.22:8004/cgi-bin/wanboot-cginetwork-boot-arguments =  host-ip=10.140.204.234,router-ip=10.140.204.1,subnet-mask=255.255.254.0,hostname=atl-sewr-52,client-id=0100144F1DBC0C,file=http://10.140.204.22:8004/cgi-bin/wanboot-cgi{0} ok {0} ok boot net - installBoot device: /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2  File and args: - install/pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2: 1000 Mbps link up<time unavailable> wanboot info: WAN boot messages->console<time unavailable> wanboot info: configuring /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2 See what happened?  Ops Center looked for the network device alias called net4 that we specified in the profile, took the value from it, and made it the net device alias for the boot.  Pretty cool! WANBoot and Solaris 11 Solaris 11 requires an additional step since the Automated Installer in Solaris 11 uses the MAC address of the network to figure out which manifest to use for system installation.  In order to make sure this is available, we have to take an extra step to associate the MAC of the NIC on the card with the host.  So, in addition to creating the device alias like we did above, we also have to declare to Ops Center that the host has this new MAC. Declaring the NIC Start out by discovering the hardware as usual.  Once you have discovered it, take a look under the Connectivity tab to see what networks it has discovered.  In the case of this system, it shows the 4 built-in networks, but not the networks on the additional cards.  These are not directly visible to the system controller.  In order to add the additional network interface to the hardware asset, it is necessary to Declare it.  We will declare that we have a server with this additional NIC, but we will also  specify the existing GB_0 network so that Ops Center can associate the right resources together.  The GB_0 acts as sort of a key to tie our new declaration to the old system already discovered.  Go to the Assets tab, select All Assets, and then in the Actions tab, select Add Asset.  Rather than going through a discovery this time, we will manually declare a new asset. When we declare it, we will give the hostname, IP address, system model that match those that have already been discovered.  Then, we will declare both GB_0 with its existing MAC and the new GB_4 with its MAC.  Remember that we collected the MAC for GB_4 when we created its device alias. After you declare the asset, you will see the new NIC in the connectivity tab for the asset.  You will notice that only the NICs you listed when you declared it are seen now.  If you want Ops Center to see all of the existing NICs as well as the additional one, declare them as well.  Add the other GB_1, GB_2, GB_3 links and their MACs just as you did GB_0 and GB_4.  Installing the OS  Once you have declared the asset, you can create an OS Provisioning profile for Solaris 11 in the same way that you did for Solaris 10.  The only difference from any other provisioning profile you might have created already is the network to use for installation.  Again, use GB_N/netN where N is the interface number you used for your device alias and in your declaration.  And away you go.  When the system boots from the network, the automated installer (AI) is able to see which system manifest to use, based on the new MAC that was associated, and the system gets installed. {0} ok {0} ok printenv network-boot-argumentsnetwork-boot-arguments =  host-ip=10.140.204.234,router-ip=10.140.204.1,subnet-mask=255.255.254.0,hostname=atl-sewr-52,client-id=01002128204292,file=http://10.140.204.22:5555/cgi-bin/wanboot-cgi{0} ok {0} ok devalias net net                      /pci@780/pci@0/pci@1/network@0{0} ok devalias net4 net4                     /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2{0} ok devalias net /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2{0} ok setenv network-boot-arguments host-ip=10.140.204.234,router-ip=10.140.204.1,subnet-mask=255.255.254.0,hostname=atl-sewr-52,client-id=01002128204292,file=http://10.140.204.22:5555/cgi-bin/wanboot-cginetwork-boot-arguments =  host-ip=10.140.204.234,router-ip=10.140.204.1,subnet-mask=255.255.254.0,hostname=atl-sewr-52,client-id=01002128204292,file=http://10.140.204.22:5555/cgi-bin/wanboot-cgi{0} ok {0} ok boot net - installBoot device: /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2  File and args: - install/pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2: 1000 Mbps link up<time unavailable> wanboot info: WAN boot messages->console<time unavailable> wanboot info: configuring /pci@780/pci@0/pci@8/network@0,2...SunOS Release 5.11 Version 11.0 64-bitCopyright (c) 1983, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.Remounting root read/writeProbing for device nodes ...Preparing network image for useDownloading solaris.zlib--2012-02-17 15:10:17--  http://10.140.204.22:5555/var/js/AI/sparc//solaris.zlibConnecting to 10.140.204.22:5555... connected.HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OKLength: 126752256 (121M) [text/plain]Saving to: `/tmp/solaris.zlib'100%[======================================>] 126,752,256 28.6M/s   in 4.4s    2012-02-17 15:10:21 (27.3 MB/s) - `/tmp/solaris.zlib' saved [126752256/126752256] Conclusion So, why go to all of this trouble?  More and more, I find that customers are wiring their data center to only use higher speed networks - 10GbE only to the hosts.  Some customers are moving aggressively toward consolidated networks combining storage and network on CNA NICs.  All of this means that network-based provisioning cannot rely exclusively on the built-in network interfaces.  So, it's important to be able to provision a system using other than the built-in networks.  Turns out, that this is pretty straight-forward for both Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 and fits into the Ops Center deployment process quite nicely. Hopefully, you will be able to use this as you build out your own private cloud solutions with Ops Center.

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• Macbook Pro Wireless Reconnecting

  - by A Student at a University

  I'm using a WPA2 EAP network. I'm sitting next to the access point. The connection keeps dropping and taking ~10 seconds to reconnect. My other devices are staying online. What's causing it? syslog: 01:21:10 dhclient: DHCPREQUEST of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX on eth1 to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX port 67 01:21:10 dhclient: DHCPACK of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 01:21:10 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): DHCPv4 state changed reboot -> renew 01:21:10 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 01:21:10 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> prefix 20 (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX) 01:21:10 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> gateway XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 01:21:10 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> nameserver 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' 01:21:10 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> nameserver 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' 01:21:10 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> nameserver 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' 01:21:10 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> domain name 'server.domain.tld' 01:21:10 dhclient: bound to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX -- renewal in XXX seconds. 01:33:30 dhclient: DHCPREQUEST of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX on eth1 to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX port 67 01:33:30 dhclient: DHCPACK of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 01:33:30 dhclient: bound to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX -- renewal in XXX seconds. 01:35:13 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-EAP-STARTED EAP authentication started 01:35:13 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-EAP-METHOD EAP vendor 0 method 25 (PEAP) selected 01:35:14 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: EAP-MSCHAPV2: Authentication succeeded 01:35:14 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: EAP-TLV: TLV Result - Success - EAP-TLV/Phase2 Completed 01:35:14 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-EAP-SUCCESS EAP authentication completed successfully 01:35:14 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: completed -> 4-way handshake 01:35:14 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: WPA: Key negotiation completed with XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX [PTK=CCMP GTK=TKIP] 01:35:14 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: 4-way handshake -> group handshake 01:35:14 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: group handshake -> completed 01:35:17 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys 01:35:17 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: completed -> disconnected 01:35:17 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning 01:35:26 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys 01:35:26 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: scanning -> disconnected 01:35:29 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): device state change: 8 -> 3 (reason 11) 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): deactivating device (reason: 11). 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): canceled DHCP transaction, DHCP client pid XX27 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) starting connection 'Auto XXXXXXXXXX' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): device state change: 3 -> 4 (reason 0) 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled... 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: scanning -> disconnected 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started... 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) scheduled... 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete. 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) starting... 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): device state change: 4 -> 5 (reason 0) 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1/wireless): access point 'Auto XXXXXXXXXX' has security, but secrets are required. 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): device state change: 5 -> 6 (reason 0) 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) complete. 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled... 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started... 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): device state change: 6 -> 4 (reason 0) 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) scheduled... 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete. 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) starting... 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): device state change: 4 -> 5 (reason 0) 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1/wireless): connection 'Auto XXXXXXXXXX' has security, and secrets exist. No new secrets needed. 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'ssid' value 'XXXXXXXXXX' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'scan_ssid' value '1' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'key_mgmt' value 'WPA-EAP' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'password' value '<omitted>' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'eap' value 'PEAP' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'fragment_size' value 'XXX0' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'phase2' value 'auth=MSCHAPV2' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'ca_cert' value '/etc/ssl/certs/Equifax_Secure_CA.pem' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: added 'identity' value 'XXXXXXX' 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) complete. 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Config: set interface ap_scan to 1 01:35:32 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: Associated with XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: scanning -> associated 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-EAP-STARTED EAP authentication started 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-EAP-METHOD EAP vendor 0 method 25 (PEAP) selected 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: EAP-MSCHAPV2: Authentication succeeded 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: EAP-TLV: TLV Result - Success - EAP-TLV/Phase2 Completed 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-EAP-SUCCESS EAP authentication completed successfully 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: associated -> 4-way handshake 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: WPA: Could not find AP from the scan results 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: WPA: Key negotiation completed with XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX [PTK=CCMP GTK=TKIP] 01:35:36 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX completed (reauth) [id=0 id_str=] 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: 4-way handshake -> group handshake 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: group handshake -> completed 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1/wireless) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) successful. Connected to wireless network 'XXXXXXXXXX'. 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) scheduled. 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) started... 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): device state change: 5 -> 7 (reason 0) 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Beginning DHCPv4 transaction (timeout in 45 seconds) 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> dhclient started with pid XX87 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 3 of 5 (IP Configure Start) complete. 01:35:36 dhclient: Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client VXXX.XXX.XXX 01:35:36 dhclient: Copyright 2004-2009 Internet Systems Consortium. 01:35:36 dhclient: All rights reserved. 01:35:36 dhclient: For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/ 01:35:36 dhclient: 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): DHCPv4 state changed nbi -> preinit 01:35:36 dhclient: Listening on LPF/eth1/XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX 01:35:36 dhclient: Sending on LPF/eth1/XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX 01:35:36 dhclient: Sending on Socket/fallback 01:35:36 dhclient: DHCPREQUEST of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX on eth1 to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX port 67 01:35:36 dhclient: DHCPACK of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 01:35:36 dhclient: bound to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX -- renewal in XXX seconds. 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): DHCPv4 state changed preinit -> reboot 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 4 of 5 (IP4 Configure Get) scheduled... 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 4 of 5 (IP4 Configure Get) started... 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> address XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> prefix 20 (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX) 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> gateway XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> nameserver 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> nameserver 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> nameserver 'XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX' 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> domain name 'server.domain.tld' 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 5 of 5 (IP Configure Commit) scheduled... 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 4 of 5 (IP4 Configure Get) complete. 01:35:36 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 5 of 5 (IP Configure Commit) started... 01:35:37 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): device state change: 7 -> 8 (reason 0) 01:35:37 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): roamed from BSSID XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (XXXXXXXXXX) to XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (XXXXXXXXX) 01:35:37 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Policy set 'Auto XXXXXXXXXX' (eth1) as default for IPv4 routing and DNS. 01:35:37 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) successful, device activated. 01:35:37 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> Activation (eth1) Stage 5 of 5 (IP Configure Commit) complete. 01:35:43 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: Trying to associate with XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX (SSID='XXXXXXXXXX' freq=2412 MHz) 01:35:43 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: completed -> associating 01:35:43 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: Association request to the driver failed 01:35:46 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: Associated with XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX 01:35:46 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: associating -> associated 01:35:46 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: associated -> 4-way handshake 01:35:46 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: WPA: Key negotiation completed with XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX [PTK=CCMP GTK=TKIP] 01:35:46 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX completed (reauth) [id=0 id_str=] 01:35:46 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: 4-way handshake -> group handshake 01:35:46 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: group handshake -> completed 01:40:47 wpa_supplicant[XX60]: WPA: Group rekeying completed with XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX [GTK=TKIP] 01:40:47 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: completed -> group handshake 01:40:47 NetworkManager[XX40]: <info> (eth1): supplicant connection state: group handshake -> completed 01:50:19 dhclient: DHCPREQUEST of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX on eth1 to XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX port 67 01:50:19 dhclient: DHCPACK of XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

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• You should NOT be writing jQuery in SharePoint if&hellip;

  - by Mark Rackley

  Yes… another one of these posts. What can I say? I’m a pot stirrer.. a rabble rouser *rabble rabble* jQuery in SharePoint seems to be a fairly polarizing issue with one side thinking it is the most awesome thing since Princess Leia as the slave girl in Return of the Jedi and the other half thinking it is the worst idea since Mannequin 2: On the Move. The correct answer is OF COURSE “it depends”. But what are those deciding factors that make jQuery an awesome fit or leave a bad taste in your mouth? Let’s see if I can drive the discussion here with some polarizing comments of my own… I know some of you are getting ready to leave your comments even now before reading the rest of the blog, which is great! Iron sharpens iron… These discussions hopefully open us up to understanding the entire process better and think about things in a different way. You should not be writing jQuery in SharePoint if you are not a developer… Let’s start off with my most polarizing and rant filled portion of the blog post. If you don’t know what you are doing or you don’t have a background that helps you understand the implications of what you are writing then you should not be writing jQuery in SharePoint! I truly believe that one of the biggest reasons for the jQuery haters is because of all the bad jQuery out there. If you don’t know what you are doing you can do some NASTY things! One of the best stories I’ve heard about this is from my good friend John Ferringer (@ferringer). John tells this story during our Mythbusters session we do together. One of his clients was undergoing a Denial of Service attack and they couldn’t figure out what was going on! After much searching they found that some genius jQuery developer wrote some code for an image rotator, but did not take into account what happens when there are no images to load! The code just kept hitting the servers over and over and over again which prevented anything else from getting done! Now, I’m NOT saying that I have not done the same sort of thing in the past or am immune from such mistakes. My point is that if you don’t know what you are doing, there are very REAL consequences that can have a major impact on your organization AND they will be hard to track down.  Think how happy your boss will be after you copy and pasted some jQuery from a blog without understanding what it does, it brings down the farm, AND it takes them 3 days to track it back to you.  :/ Good times will not be had. Like it or not JavaScript/jQuery is a programming language. While you .NET people sit on your high horses because your code is compiled and “runs faster” (also debatable), the rest of us will be actually getting work done and delivering solutions while you are trying to figure out why your widget won’t deploy. I can pick at that scab because I write .NET code too and speak from experience. I can do both, and do both well. So, I am not speaking from ignorance here. In JavaScript/jQuery you have variables, loops, conditionals, functions, arrays, events, and built in methods. If you are not a developer you just aren’t going to take advantage of all of that and use it correctly. Ahhh.. but there is hope! There is a lot of jQuery resources out there to help you learn and learn well! There are many experts on the subject that will gladly tell you when you are smoking crack. I just this minute saw a tweet from @cquick with a link to: “jQuery Fundamentals”. I just glanced through it and this may be a great primer for you aspiring jQuery devs. Take advantage of all the resources and become a developer! Hey, it will look awesome on your resume right? You should not be writing jQuery in SharePoint if it depends too much on client resources for a good user experience I’ve said it once and I’ll say it over and over until you understand. jQuery is executed on the client’s computer. Got it? If you are looping through hundreds of rows of data, searching through an enormous DOM, or performing many calculations it is going to take some time! AND if your user happens to be sitting on some old PC somewhere that they picked up at a garage sale their experience will be that much worse! If you can’t give the user a good experience they will not use the site. So, if jQuery is causing the user to have a bad experience, don’t use it. I sometimes go as far to say that you should NOT go to jQuery as a first option for external facing web sites because you have ZERO control over what the end user’s computer will be. You just can’t guarantee an awesome user experience all of the time. Ahhh… but you have no choice? (where have I heard that before?). Well… if you really have no choice, here are some tips to help improve the experience: Avoid screen scraping This is not 1999 and SharePoint is not an old green screen from a mainframe… so why are you treating it like it is? Screen scraping is time consuming and client intensive. Take advantage of tools like SPServices to do your data retrieval when possible. Fine tune your DOM searches A lot of time can be eaten up just searching the DOM and ignoring table rows that you don’t need. Write better jQuery to only loop through tables rows that you need, or only access specific elements you need. Take advantage of Element ID’s to return the one element you are looking for instead of looping through all the DOM over and over again. Write better jQuery Remember this is development. Think about how you can write cleaner, faster jQuery. This directly relates to the previous point of improving your DOM searches, but also when using arrays, variables and loops. Do you REALLY need to loop through that array 3 times? How can you knock it down to 2 times or even 1? When you have lots of calculations and data that you are manipulating every operation adds up. Think about how you can streamline it. Back in the old days before RAM was abundant, Cores were plentiful and dinosaurs roamed the earth, us developers had to take performance into account in everything we did. It’s a lost art that really needs to be used here. You should not be writing jQuery in SharePoint if you are sending a lot of data over the wire… Developer:  “Awesome… you can easily call SharePoint’s web services to retrieve and write data using SPServices!” Administrator: “Crap! you can easily call SharePoint’s web services to retrieve and write data using SPServices!” SPServices may indeed be the best thing that happened to SharePoint since the invention of SharePoint Saturdays by Godfather Lotter… BUT you HAVE to use it wisely! (I REFUSE to make the Spiderman reference). If you do not know what you are doing your code will bring back EVERY field and EVERY row from a list and push that over the internet with all that lovely XML wrapped around it. That can be a HUGE amount of data and will GREATLY impact performance! Calling several web service methods at the same time can cause the same problem and can negatively impact your SharePoint servers. These problems, thankfully, are not difficult to rectify if you are careful: Limit list data retrieved Use CAML to reduce the number of rows returned and limit the fields returned using ViewFields.  You should definitely be doing this regardless. If you aren’t I hope your admin thumps you upside the head. Batch large list updates You may or may not have noticed that if you try to do large updates (hundreds of rows) that the performance is either completely abysmal or it fails over half the time. You can greatly improve performance and avoid timeouts by breaking up your updates into several smaller updates. I don’t know if there is a magic number for best performance, it really depends on how much data you are sending back more than the number of rows. However, I have found that 200 rows generally works well.  Play around and find the right number for your situation. Delay Web Service calls when possible One of the cool things about jQuery and SPServices is that you can delay queries to the server until they are actually needed instead of doing them all at once. This can lead to performance improvements over DataViewWebParts and even .NET code in the right situations. So, don’t load the data until it’s needed. In some instances you may not need to retrieve the data at all, so why retrieve it ALL the time? You should not be writing jQuery in SharePoint if there is a better solution… jQuery is NOT the silver bullet in SharePoint, it is not the answer to every question, it is just another tool in the developers toolkit. I urge all developers to know what options exist out there and choose the right one! Sometimes it will be jQuery, sometimes it will be .NET,  sometimes it will be XSL, and sometimes it will be some other choice… So, when is there a better solution to jQuery? When you can’t get away from performance problems Sometimes jQuery will just give you horrible performance regardless of what you do because of unavoidable obstacles. In these situations you are going to have to figure out an alternative. Can I do it with a DVWP or do I have to crack open Visual Studio? When you need to do something that jQuery can’t do There are lots of things you can’t do in jQuery like elevate privileges, event handlers, workflows, or interact with back end systems that have no web service interface. It just can’t do everything. When it can be done faster and more efficiently another way Why are you spending time to write jQuery to do a DataViewWebPart that would take 5 minutes? Or why are you trying to implement complicated logic that would be simple to do in .NET? If your answer is that you don’t have the option, okay. BUT if you do have the option don’t reinvent the wheel! Take advantage of the other tools. The answer is not always jQuery… sorry… the kool-aid tastes good, but sweet tea is pretty awesome too. You should not be using jQuery in SharePoint if you are a moron… Let’s finish up the blog on a high note… Yes.. it’s true, I sometimes type things just to get a reaction… guess this section title might be a good example, but it feels good sometimes just to type the words that a lot of us think… So.. don’t be that guy! Another good buddy of mine that works for Microsoft told me. “I loved jQuery in SharePoint…. until I had to support it.”. He went on to explain that some user was making several web service calls on a page using jQuery and then was calling Microsoft and COMPLAINING because the page took so long to load… DUH! What do you expect to happen when you are pushing that much data over the wire and are making that many web service calls at once!! It’s one thing to write that kind of code and accept it’s just going to take a while, it’s COMPLETELY another issue to do that and then complain when it’s not lightning fast!  Someone’s gene pool needs some chlorine. So, I think this is a nice summary of the blog… DON’T be that guy… don’t be a moron. How can you stop yourself from being a moron? Ah.. glad you asked, here are some tips: Think Is jQuery the right solution to my problem? Is there a better approach? What are the implications and pitfalls of using jQuery in this situation? Search What are others doing? Does someone have a better solution? Is there a third party library that does the same thing I need? Plan Write good jQuery. Limit calculations and data sent over the wire and don’t reinvent the wheel when possible. Test Okay, it works well on your machine. Try it on others ESPECIALLY if this is for an external site. Test with empty data. Test with hundreds of rows of data. Test as many scenarios as possible. Monitor those server resources to see the impact there as well. Ask the experts As smart as you are, there are people smarter than you. Even the experts talk to each other to make sure they aren't doing something stupid. And for the MOST part they are pretty nice guys. Marc Anderson and Christophe Humbert are two guys who regularly keep me in line. Make sure you aren’t doing something stupid. Repeat So, when you think you have the best solution possible, repeat the steps above just to be safe.  Conclusion jQuery is an awesome tool and has come in handy on many occasions. I’m even teaching a 1/2 day SharePoint & jQuery workshop at the upcoming SPTechCon in Boston if you want to berate me in person. However, it’s only as awesome as the developer behind the keyboard. It IS development and has its pitfalls. Knowledge and experience are invaluable to giving the user the best experience possible.  Let’s face it, in the end, no matter our opinions, prejudices, or ego providing our clients, customers, and users with the best solution possible is what counts. Period… end of sentence…

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