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  • Why does my simple Raid 1 backup storage perform really slow sometimes?

    - by randomguy
    I bought 2x Samsung F3 EcoGreen 2TB hard disks to make a backup storage. I put them in Raid 1 (mirror) mode. Made a single partition and formatted it to NTFS, running Windows 7. For some reason, accessing the drive's contents (simply by navigating folders) is sometimes really slow. Like opening D:/photos/ can sometimes take several seconds before it starts showing any of the folder's contents. Same applies for other folders. What could be causing this and what could I do to improve the performance? I remember that there was an option somewhere inside Windows to choose fast access but less reliable persistence operations (read/write). It was a tick inside some dialog. At the time, it felt like a good idea to take the tick away from the option and get more reliable persistence but slower access, but now I'm regretting. I'm unable to find this dialog.. I've looked hard. I don't know, if it would make any difference. Oh, and I've ran scan disk and defrag on the drive. No errors and speed isn't improved.

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  • How to restore Active Desktop if Themes is locked via GPO?

    - by pepoluan
    My company forces Active Desktop upon everybody so that it can display a (monthly-rotated) corporate wallpaper.jpg. Problem is, some computers (including my laptop) somehow experienced some errors resulting in the dreaded "Active Desktop Recovery" screen to show up... and clicking the "Restore My Active Desktop" button always resulted in "Internet Explorer Script Error". Various workarounds I found in the Internet either does not work or requires me to change the theme first to something else... and the latter I can't do because the Desktop Settings screen is locked via GPO. As it happens, due to the nature of the programs I use, I'm granted Administrator-level access on my computer. The question is: How do I fix my situation? Note: I don't need to put on my own wallpaper, but watching the "Active Desktop Recovery" screen (with its BLANK WHITE!!1! OH MY EYES!1!!one!eleven!! background) gets tiresome. I'm quite happy with the corporate wallpaper. I just need to somehow 'recover' my Active Desktop. More information: OS: Windows XP Professional SP3 (yeah, company's too afraid to even experiment with Windows 7) Antivirus: Symantec Endpoint Protection If you need any additional information, feel free to ask.

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  • Slower/cached Linux file system required

    - by Chopper3
    I know it sounds odd but I need a slower or cached filesystem. I have a lot of firewalls that are syslog'ing their data to a pair of Linux VMs which write these files to their 'local' (actually FC SAN attached) ext3-formatted disks and also forward the messages to our Splunk servers. The problem is that the syslog server is writing these syslog messages as hundreds, sometimes thousands, of tiny ~4k writes per second back to our FC SAN - which can handle this workload right now but our FW traffic's going to be growing by at least a factor of 5000% (really) in coming months and that'll be a pain for the SAN, I want to fix the root cause before it's a problem. So I need some help figuring out a way of getting these writes cached or held-off in some way from the 'physical' disks so that the VMs fire off larger, but less frequent, writes - there's no way of avoiding these writes but there's no need for it to do so many tiny ones. I've looked at the various ext3 options, setting noatime and nodiratime but that's not made much of a dent in the problem. Obviously I'm investigating other file systems but thought I'd throw this out in case others have the same problem in the future. Oh and I can't just forward these messages to Splunk, our firewall team insist they're in their original format for diag purposes.

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  • initrd problem and Kernel panics after openSUSE 11.2 upgrade.

    - by unixbhaskar
    Once I have done the upgrade form openSUSE11.1 to openSUSE11.2 by doing this: zypper dup Now I tried to boot the system and it failed sync with VFS and kernel panic, so clearly a initrd problem . if I'm not mistaken. Now a bit of explanation about the problem: while upgrading it shows me the error updating initramfs( I forgot the exact error or might be warning).Oh yeah it shows some grub warning too. I have had been doing that from a chroot environment.. with all the required file mounted in proper place in the chroot environment. Now .after bit googling and painfully looking the susegeek.com forum and opensuse.org forum I have decided to recreate the initrd ...but the fellow called "mkinitrd" is real real crap as I hev been pointed out by few forum members. I tried to make an initrd image by myself, failed to do so .as it shows error that device not found( if I boot into suse live cd and mount the partition ) then I tried from the chrooted env and it says "there is no space left on the device" A bit bemused :( yeah most of you pointed it right may lack of knowledge of mine. Kindly suggest me and show me steps to do it correctly and get opensuse11.2 up and running. TIA

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  • Why boost::recursive_mutex is not working as expected?

    - by Kjir
    I have a custom class that uses boost mutexes and locks like this (only relevant parts): template<class T> class FFTBuf { public: FFTBuf(); [...] void lock(); void unlock(); private: T *_dst; int _siglen; int _processed_sums; int _expected_sums; int _assigned_sources; bool _written; boost::recursive_mutex _mut; boost::unique_lock<boost::recursive_mutex> _lock; }; template<class T> FFTBuf<T>::FFTBuf() : _dst(NULL), _siglen(0), _expected_sums(1), _processed_sums(0), _assigned_sources(0), _written(false), _lock(_mut, boost::defer_lock_t()) { } template<class T> void FFTBuf<T>::lock() { std::cerr << "Locking" << std::endl; _lock.lock(); std::cerr << "Locked" << std::endl; } template<class T> void FFTBuf<T>::unlock() { std::cerr << "Unlocking" << std::endl; _lock.unlock(); } If I try to lock more than once the object from the same thread, I get an exception (lock_error): #include "fft_buf.hpp" int main( void ) { FFTBuf<int> b( 256 ); b.lock(); b.lock(); b.unlock(); b.unlock(); return 0; } This is the output: sb@dex $ ./src/test Locking Locked Locking terminate called after throwing an instance of 'boost::lock_error' what(): boost::lock_error zsh: abort ./src/test Why is this happening? Am I understanding some concept incorrectly?

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  • Cannot connect to MySQL on RDS (Amazon Web Services) from my laptop

    - by Bruno Reis
    I'm having some trouble connecting to a MySQL 5.1 server on an RDS instance on AWS from my laptop. The detailed description of the problem is here: https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=323397 In short: I have 2 MySQL servers, both with the same db configuration and firewall (security group) configuration. One of them works fine: I can connect to it from my EC2 instances (ie, from inside the AWS cloud) and from my laptop. The other one doesn't: I can connect from my EC2 instances but not from my laptop. The symptom: a connection attempt from my laptop just hangs, and then times out, as if there was a firewall blocking me (ie, silently dropping my SYN packets). I must say that everything has been working fine for a very long time, and this problem began suddenly, 3 days ago, without any modifications to DB parameters or the security groups. My current analysis of the situation: The firewall (ie, security group) cannot be the problem: both MySQL servers share the same firewall configuration -- I can connect to one of them but not to the other. Later on, I even added a rule to allow inbound connections from 0.0.0.0/0 (ie, I turned off the firewall), and nothing. Oh, I also created a new, fresh security group and changed this instance's SG to the new one (to which I first added my ip address, and then 0.0.0.0/0) but still nothing. The credentials cannot be the problem: I use the same from my laptop and from my EC2 instances -- and the user (which is what Amazon calls master user), in the database, has a host of '%'. MySQL is not blocking my IP due to, say, too many failed connection attemps: I've FLUSH HOSTS on the database, and also I tried to connect using many different source IP addresses, even from all around the world through a VPN proxy service. What could I be missing? I'm asking here because it's been about 36 hours since I've posted on AWS forums but got no answer at all over there... someone here might have a solution! Any input is really appreciated, I'm out of ideas. Thanks!

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  • 20 1TB drives vs. 10 2TB drives in RAID5/6 server

    - by Hunter
    Hi everyone, I will be setting up a server at work and I need some advice on some details. The setup will be one blade-type server (8-core, 16GB RAM) with two subsystems - one for the main storage the other to back it up. I'm shooting for a 20TB array (I know it'll be less after formatting and parity drives). So is there any advantage one way or the other with either 20 1TB drives or 10 2TB drives? I'm not sure right now how many controllers I should have either (in the quote I have is a dual-port controller). I would think two controllers for a server of this size would be a better choice than the dual-port controller (but I really don't know). And would an array of this size have any performance issues in RAID 5 or 6 (I know RAID 5 or 6 are "slower" because of all the parity calculations). Also, these will be either WD RE3 (1TB) or the RE4 (2TB). Oh, also, for the backup array would it be ok to use the WD 2TB green drives (also in RAID5 or 6)?

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  • RAIDs with a lot of spindles - how to safely put to use the "wasted" space

    - by kubanczyk
    I have a fairly large number of RAID arrays (server controllers as well as midrange SAN storage) that all suffer from the same problem: barely enough spindles to keep the peak I/O performance, and tons of unused disk space. I guess it's a universal issue since vendors offer the smallest drives of 300 GB capacity but the random I/O performance hasn't really grown much since the time when the smallest drives were 36 GB. One example is a database that has 300 GB and needs random performance of 3200 IOPS, so it gets 16 disks (4800 GB minus 300 GB and we have 4.5 TB wasted space). Another common example are redo logs for a OLTP database that is sensitive in terms of response time. The redo logs get their own 300 GB mirror, but take 30 GB: 270 GB wasted. What I would like to see is a systematic approach for both Linux and Windows environment. How to set up the space so sysadmin team would be reminded about the risk of hindering the performance of the main db/app? Or, even better, to be protected from that risk? The typical situation that comes to my mind is "oh, I have this very large zip file, where do I uncompress it? Umm let's see the df -h and we figure something out in no time..." I don't put emphasis on strictness of the security (sysadmins are trusted to act in good faith), but on overall simplicity of the approach. For Linux, it would be great to have a filesystem customized to cap I/O rate to a very low level - is this possible?

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  • Siege - running a stress test benchmark

    - by morgoth84
    I need to do a benchmark test of a HTTPS server using Siege, to see how it behaves under massive load. I'm initiating tests from another machine which is quite powerful and it is connected to the same physical switch the server is connected on. But when I initiate a test, I can't get it to make more than 170 requests per second. With this load the server's CPU usage is at 15-20% and the average response time for a request is approx. 0.03 seconds. Load of the client machine is approx. at 10%. So, I gradually increase the number of users in Siege (the number of worker threads) and request rate linearly increases up to 170 reqs/sec, but it never gets over it. No matter how many more worker threads I start, the load on the server is never more than 20% (and the client's load also doesn't increase any more). How can I overcome this? I've googled a bit and found out that after a request is completed, a socket associated with one ephermal port remains in WAIT_TIME state for some time during which it can't be reused. I tried to overcome this by doing these things: sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range="1024 65535" echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_tw_recycle Oh, and the client machine is a Linux (RedHat, I think, but I'm not sure). Any help would be appreciated.

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  • System Issues and Major Malfuctions after Failed hibernation Exit

    - by Sarah Seguin
    I have a HP G71-340US that went into hibernation mode for a while and when I tried coming out of it, I got an error message: You're computer cannot come out if hibernation . Status: 0xc000009a Info: A fatal error occurred processing the restoration data. File: \hiberfil.sys Any information that was not saved before the computer went into hybernation will be lost enter=continue So I hit continue and it ran soooo super slow it. It was seriously crawling. Finally I gave up and turned it off manually (IE press and hold the button). It's been a week or two since then and EVERY SINGLE TIME I have tried to to do ANYTHING it takes forever. When I say forever, I literally mean takes 5-7 minutes to load the internet, then the page itself, then to click a link, so on so forth. Eventually everything just goes not responding and I have to give up (4-6 HOURS later). I also cannot access my thumb/jump drives once I've managed to load windows. I was going to try runing malware bytes incase of a virus, but it's windows explorer developes errors and goes not responding on me. Currently I'm running scan disk or check disk and like every file is coming back unreadable. I let it run the last 2 hours straight in chkdesk and I'm only at 6 percent with around 500+ errors and still going. Yes, I've taken logs of the errors via cell phone camera and patience. A week or two prior to this happening I had to change our the hard drive due to blunt force trama next to the mouse. OH! Running on Windows 7: ) And I've tried loading the computer in safe mode and it makes absolutely no difference. Any and all help would be appreciated. I really don't know what to do from here and I'm kind of freaking out. I've googled different part of the error and things that I've done/seen and there are so many different answers/topics that I thought it best to just post the questions.

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  • How to upgrade iPhone 3G to iOS 5 now that iOS 6 is out? [closed]

    - by mmmshuddup
    My friend has an old iPhone 3G and I wanted to upgrade it to iOS 5 because I had read that the performance is actually better with iOS 5 on that phone in spite of the difference in processor power. The problem is that now that iOS 6 is out, iTunes only gives me the option to upgrade to that. I am a little more leery of iOS 6 knowing that it was launched mostly for the iPhone 5 and since that phone has a way faster processor, I would assume that performance would be an issue on the iPhone 3G. How can I, if possible, upgrade just to iOS 5? Note: I would like to avoid having to jailbreak the phone by all means possible. (It's not mine and I don't want to take the risk with a phone that doesn't belong to me.) EDIT: If anyone knows of a good site to get help on questions like this let me know. Apparently you're allowed to ask questions about iPhones here, just not this. Which is completely utter asinine, but oh well. Anyone with helpful ideas, post in the comments please.

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  • How to boost playback volume in real time on media recorded with a very low volume.

    - by L Marksman
    I have never heard a satisfactory answer to this often misunderstood question, let me explain. Lets say I have a sound card and earphones/speakers that can play back audio loud enough in most cases. This is great but the problem is that you always find people who do not know how to record audio, from Youtube video's to music. So now you end up with a audio playback that only uses 10% or less of the capacity of your sound hardware, in vista/win 7 you will see this frequently in the mixer with the volume pushed up to max but the green sound level only goes up a millimeter or two. I am looking for (preferably free) software or a method to boost the sound level of any audio from any source in real time to use more of my hardware capacity similar to what VLC media player can do. Oh and please, do not tell me it is impossible. I am not trying to boost the volume past what my hardware is capable of, I am just trying to use my hardware's full capacity. Also please do not tell met to buy new hardware, I know I can use hardware amplification, I don't want to (like many others) spend money on a simple little problem like this. Thanks!

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  • Using sound forge 6.0 what will be the need to upgrade to latest version

    - by Jayapal Chandran
    I had been using sound forge 6.0 not recently but long back. I edit mp3 files for my purpose and some more filters like flange, pan, fade in out, recording, line in recording, extracting sound from video files (mpg, avi(divx), etc...), increasing the default volume, editing treble and bass effects, and etc... I am not going to use it professionally. I use it just like that. Now when i checked i could see Sound Forge Audio Studio 10 is the latest version for my purpose. Others are too high i think. Besides, i had been using Gold Wave version 4 very extensively just to edit sound files mostly mp3. and here is the reason for me to change to sound forge. It is when we edit mp3 files it deflashes(making it raw i think) before editing. after editing if i save it asks for the format to save and i will choose mp3. At this point it again applies the compression process which makes the sound file lossy. When i did the same with sound forge it did not deflash. It just edited the file as mp3. May be i dont know whether gold wave has the same option. So, please suggest. oh i had asked a question already like this... here it is goldwave vs sound forge in editing mp3 files

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  • can't save or create files in external hard disk

    - by Rodniko
    i formatted my computer and installed new win7. i connected my external hard disk (usb connector) and i have some kind of permission problem. i can't save files after opening them and right clicking and choosing "new" shows that i can only create folders. what is wrong ? why doesn't the external hd doesn't have permission and how do i cahnge it? in microsoft they probably thought: "hmmm.... how would i make it difficult for the user to use our product..." , "we will have to make the difficulty as soon as the windows is installed...." " but how would we guarantee 100% for the user to have problems? "oh yhe! block creating files and saving them, yes!" i'm so tired of those guys... my HD is half a Terra, changing ownership of all the files inside will take a couple of hours , i need other ideas... if any...

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  • Will Windows repair my multi-boot when I format the 1st physical partition with boot sector?

    - by user2353806
    Due to historical reasons I got a laptop with Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008R2 partitions. (boot from external wasn´t that viable) Nothing (Windows Repair, bootrec /whateveroption) worked when I restored only the Windows 7 and WS2k8 with Acronis TrueImage. Don´t ask me through what idiotic error messages I went during repair tries. (Wrong Windows version,...) So I grudgingly restored all three - with the little additional excursion that I thought changing the active partition to the Windows 7 partition would move the boot sector and let me format the Vista part... Oh no. Seems too logical for MS. (Dunno what I changed, but today it will let me format!) So the real question is: Will formatting the Vista part trash things again beyond comprehension or will Windows Repair bring back the boot rec and remove Vista from the boot options? Or should I just erase all the files to avoid trashing the boot? Where will the boot rec be (after repair) when I format the Vista? On 1st or 2nd partition? And if I get drunk and install Windows 8.1 on the 1st, will anything work? ;-) Thanks

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  • Moving an external hard drive while running

    - by user1108939
    I mean physically moving the drive around. I've never dealt with external hard drives before. Just plugged this wd mypassport to test the transfer rate. At one point I 'safely ejected' the drive. A minute later I decide to check the underside of the drive, not realizing the disk is still spinning. I lift the drive, rotating my writs about 70 degrees to the left... I hear a sequence of three high pitched sounds. I couldn't determine whether that was an indication beep by an internal security feature or the head scratching the plate (oh god...). Drive stops and usb power is disconnected. I reconnect it - it shows up fine - reads/writes. The drive was not reading/writing when i moved it. Did I damage my drive? Are these things that fragile? I thought them to be at least as durable as a standard 2.5" internal drive. Am I mistaken?

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  • Multi-petabyte scale out storage solution [closed]

    - by Alex Yuriev
    Let's say that I have a need to have a single-name space scale to multi-petabyte object store with a file system-like wrapper. What is currently out there that supports the following: Single name space that can take 1B files. Support for multiple entry points using NFS At least node level replication ( preferably node and file level replication ) Online software upgrades No "magic sauce" on the storage layer The following has been evaluated: Gluster & Lustre - just ick - fundamental lack of understanding of why online upgrades are mandatory. OneFS - we have it. It is smelling more and more like it hides a dead body under the hood. Other than MapR and zfs am I missing anything? P.S. Oh yes, I keep forgetting that the forums are for people to discuss if 2TB drive actually stores 2TB info. May bad. Seriously though - how the heck can "meets the following requirements" can be considered a "debate"? P.P.S. I did not throw an idiotic insult - i pointed out that this is actually an interesting question compared to a conversation about storage capacity of a 2TB hard drive. It is not a question of what works better - it is a question that asks did I miss any of the products that currently exist which fit the criteria where criteria is clearly outline. I got one answer below which included something that I have not looked at in a long time which looks quite a bit grown up compared to the time I briefly look at it before.

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  • How two completely unrelated software can affect each other in a very strange manner?

    - by user40602
    I installed an old game on my old PC and it doesn't work; its process/exe file was listed in task manager but nothing appeared on the screen. then some time later i discovered that when some specific program was running an my pc, that game could be executed without that problem! although i am myself a power user and also a programmer, i couldn't find the reason, and don't have any good guesses about it. i just know that when i want to run that game i should have another specific and unrelated program running. i ask if anyone has any idea/guess about the possible reasons for this rare phenomenon! oh and if u ask about the details/names of those programs, i am afraid of telling that, because others may think i am kidding, but i am not (please believe me!), that game is NFS2 and the other program is mysqld.exe (i said before that i am a programmer!). I don't know how mysqld.exe (yes it is the windows version of the famous MySQL DBMS server) can affect NFS2 in such an strange manner, and my curiosity and profession don't let me to forget seeking for the answer, so i decided to take the help of others to see if someone has had a similar experience or a reasonable idea about it.

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  • Raspberry Pi how to format HDD

    - by Speed
    Hi I am very new to Raspberry Pi environment, so looking for a bit of help to format a usb hard disk drive. I ran lsblk and got sda 8:0 0 37.3G 0 disk sda1 8:1 0 37.3G 0 part looking on web, if tried the following "sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1 -L USB40gb" it did something but when I tried to mount the drive again, it still showed the files that were there before and I can not create new file/folder "Error creating directory: Permission denied" I am writing this from my windows 8.1 pc so can not cut and paste from the pi. trying to format its output is a bit hard. Oh, there is Nothing written after the word "part" above. There use to be /media/USB40gb so I have done something because this has disappeared. I am using PCManFM 0.9.10 It does not have a format option, which would make life a lot easier, but then its not windows. I think I am running the basic linux os for the pi. It boots to a graphic environment, but I do not know how to advise what it is. I think its OpenBox 2.0.4 Thanks in advance Speed PS: I reran the format string above but this time I changed the label to read USB37gb. I did this to confirm that I was in fact formatting the right drive. Low and behold, it actually formatted the drive, wiping everything from it. Great ... testing it by creating a new folder on the drive and get error msg Permission Denied! So I have fixed the formatting issue by trial and error but still can't use the drive... Suggestions anyone?

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  • Upload File to Windows Azure Blob in Chunks through ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript and HTML5

    - by Shaun
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2013/07/01/upload-file-to-windows-azure-blob-in-chunks-through-asp.net.aspxMany people are using Windows Azure Blob Storage to store their data in the cloud. Blob storage provides 99.9% availability with easy-to-use API through .NET SDK and HTTP REST. For example, we can store JavaScript files, images, documents in blob storage when we are building an ASP.NET web application on a Web Role in Windows Azure. Or we can store our VHD files in blob and mount it as a hard drive in our cloud service. If you are familiar with Windows Azure, you should know that there are two kinds of blob: page blob and block blob. The page blob is optimized for random read and write, which is very useful when you need to store VHD files. The block blob is optimized for sequential/chunk read and write, which has more common usage. Since we can upload block blob in blocks through BlockBlob.PutBlock, and them commit them as a whole blob with invoking the BlockBlob.PutBlockList, it is very powerful to upload large files, as we can upload blocks in parallel, and provide pause-resume feature. There are many documents, articles and blog posts described on how to upload a block blob. Most of them are focus on the server side, which means when you had received a big file, stream or binaries, how to upload them into blob storage in blocks through .NET SDK.  But the problem is, how can we upload these large files from client side, for example, a browser. This questioned to me when I was working with a Chinese customer to help them build a network disk production on top of azure. The end users upload their files from the web portal, and then the files will be stored in blob storage from the Web Role. My goal is to find the best way to transform the file from client (end user’s machine) to the server (Web Role) through browser. In this post I will demonstrate and describe what I had done, to upload large file in chunks with high speed, and save them as blocks into Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Traditional Upload, Works with Limitation The simplest way to implement this requirement is to create a web page with a form that contains a file input element and a submit button. 1: @using (Html.BeginForm("About", "Index", FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" })) 2: { 3: <input type="file" name="file" /> 4: <input type="submit" value="upload" /> 5: } And then in the backend controller, we retrieve the whole content of this file and upload it in to the blob storage through .NET SDK. We can split the file in blocks and upload them in parallel and commit. The code had been well blogged in the community. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public ActionResult About(HttpPostedFileBase file) 3: { 4: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 5: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 6: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(file.FileName); 7: var blockDataList = new Dictionary<string, byte[]>(); 8: using (var stream = file.InputStream) 9: { 10: var blockSizeInKB = 1024; 11: var offset = 0; 12: var index = 0; 13: while (offset < stream.Length) 14: { 15: var readLength = Math.Min(1024 * blockSizeInKB, (int)stream.Length - offset); 16: var blockData = new byte[readLength]; 17: offset += stream.Read(blockData, 0, readLength); 18: blockDataList.Add(Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)), blockData); 19:  20: index++; 21: } 22: } 23:  24: Parallel.ForEach(blockDataList, (bi) => 25: { 26: blob.PutBlock(bi.Key, new MemoryStream(bi.Value), null); 27: }); 28: blob.PutBlockList(blockDataList.Select(b => b.Key).ToArray()); 29:  30: return RedirectToAction("About"); 31: } This works perfect if we selected an image, a music or a small video to upload. But if I selected a large file, let’s say a 6GB HD-movie, after upload for about few minutes the page will be shown as below and the upload will be terminated. In ASP.NET there is a limitation of request length and the maximized request length is defined in the web.config file. It’s a number which less than about 4GB. So if we want to upload a really big file, we cannot simply implement in this way. Also, in Windows Azure, a cloud service network load balancer will terminate the connection if exceed the timeout period. From my test the timeout looks like 2 - 3 minutes. Hence, when we need to upload a large file we cannot just use the basic HTML elements. Besides the limitation mentioned above, the simple HTML file upload cannot provide rich upload experience such as chunk upload, pause and pause-resume. So we need to find a better way to upload large file from the client to the server.   Upload in Chunks through HTML5 and JavaScript In order to break those limitation mentioned above we will try to upload the large file in chunks. This takes some benefit to us such as - No request size limitation: Since we upload in chunks, we can define the request size for each chunks regardless how big the entire file is. - No timeout problem: The size of chunks are controlled by us, which means we should be able to make sure request for each chunk upload will not exceed the timeout period of both ASP.NET and Windows Azure load balancer. It was a big challenge to upload big file in chunks until we have HTML5. There are some new features and improvements introduced in HTML5 and we will use them to implement our solution.   In HTML5, the File interface had been improved with a new method called “slice”. It can be used to read part of the file by specifying the start byte index and the end byte index. For example if the entire file was 1024 bytes, file.slice(512, 768) will read the part of this file from the 512nd byte to 768th byte, and return a new object of interface called "Blob”, which you can treat as an array of bytes. In fact,  a Blob object represents a file-like object of immutable, raw data. The File interface is based on Blob, inheriting blob functionality and expanding it to support files on the user's system. For more information about the Blob please refer here. File and Blob is very useful to implement the chunk upload. We will use File interface to represent the file the user selected from the browser and then use File.slice to read the file in chunks in the size we wanted. For example, if we wanted to upload a 10MB file with 512KB chunks, then we can read it in 512KB blobs by using File.slice in a loop.   Assuming we have a web page as below. User can select a file, an input box to specify the block size in KB and a button to start upload. 1: <div> 2: <input type="file" id="upload_files" name="files[]" /><br /> 3: Block Size: <input type="number" id="block_size" value="512" name="block_size" />KB<br /> 4: <input type="button" id="upload_button_blob" name="upload" value="upload (blob)" /> 5: </div> Then we can have the JavaScript function to upload the file in chunks when user clicked the button. 1: <script type="text/javascript"> 1: 2: $(function () { 3: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 4: }); 5: });</script> Firstly we need to ensure the client browser supports the interfaces we are going to use. Just try to invoke the File, Blob and FormData from the “window” object. If any of them is “undefined” the condition result will be “false” which means your browser doesn’t support these premium feature and it’s time for you to get your browser updated. FormData is another new feature we are going to use in the future. It could generate a temporary form for us. We will use this interface to create a form with chunk and associated metadata when invoked the service through ajax. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 4: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 5: } 6: else { 7: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 8: return; 9: } 10: }); Each browser supports these interfaces by their own implementation and currently the Blob, File and File.slice are supported by Chrome 21, FireFox 13, IE 10, Opera 12 and Safari 5.1 or higher. After that we worked on the files the user selected one by one since in HTML5, user can select multiple files in one file input box. 1: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 2: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 3: var file = files[i]; 4: var fileSize = file.size; 5: var fileName = file.name; 6: } Next, we calculated the start index and end index for each chunks based on the size the user specified from the browser. We put them into an array with the file name and the index, which will be used when we upload chunks into Windows Azure Blob Storage as blocks since we need to specify the target blob name and the block index. At the same time we will store the list of all indexes into another variant which will be used to commit blocks into blob in Azure Storage once all chunks had been uploaded successfully. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10:  11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 14: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 15: var blocks = []; 16: var offset = 0; 17: var index = 0; 18: var list = ""; 19: while (offset < fileSize) { 20: var start = offset; 21: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 22:  23: blocks.push({ 24: name: fileName, 25: index: index, 26: start: start, 27: end: end 28: }); 29: list += index + ","; 30:  31: offset = end; 32: index++; 33: } 34: } 35: }); Now we have all chunks’ information ready. The next step should be upload them one by one to the server side, and at the server side when received a chunk it will upload as a block into Blob Storage, and finally commit them with the index list through BlockBlobClient.PutBlockList. But since all these invokes are ajax calling, which means not synchronized call. So we need to introduce a new JavaScript library to help us coordinate the asynchronize operation, which named “async.js”. You can download this JavaScript library here, and you can find the document here. I will not explain this library too much in this post. We will put all procedures we want to execute as a function array, and pass into the proper function defined in async.js to let it help us to control the execution sequence, in series or in parallel. Hence we will define an array and put the function for chunk upload into this array. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4:  5: // start to upload each files in chunks 6: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 7: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 8: var file = files[i]; 9: var fileSize = file.size; 10: var fileName = file.name; 11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: ... ... 14:  15: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 16: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 17: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 18: }); 19: }); 20: } 21: }); 22: }); As you can see, I used File.slice method to read each chunks based on the start and end byte index we calculated previously, and constructed a temporary HTML form with the file name, chunk index and chunk data through another new feature in HTML5 named FormData. Then post this form to the backend server through jQuery.ajax. This is the key part of our solution. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 15: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 16: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 17: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 18: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 19: var fd = new FormData(); 20: fd.append("name", block.name); 21: fd.append("index", block.index); 22: fd.append("file", blob); 23: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 24: $.ajax({ 25: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 26: data: fd, 27: processData: false, 28: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 29: type: "POST", 30: success: function (result) { 31: if (!result.success) { 32: alert(result.error); 33: } 34: callback(null, block.index); 35: } 36: }); 37: }); 38: }); 39: } 40: }); Then we will invoke these functions one by one by using the async.js. And once all functions had been executed successfully I invoked another ajax call to the backend service to commit all these chunks (blocks) as the blob in Windows Azure Storage. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); That’s all in the client side. The outline of our logic would be - Calculate the start and end byte index for each chunks based on the block size. - Defined the functions of reading the chunk form file and upload the content to the backend service through ajax. - Execute the functions defined in previous step with “async.js”. - Commit the chunks by invoking the backend service in Windows Azure Storage finally.   Save Chunks as Blocks into Blob Storage In above we finished the client size JavaScript code. It uploaded the file in chunks to the backend service which we are going to implement in this step. We will use ASP.NET MVC as our backend service, and it will receive the chunks, upload into Windows Azure Bob Storage in blocks, then finally commit as one blob. As in the client side we uploaded chunks by invoking the ajax call to the URL "/Home/UploadInFormData", I created a new action under the Index controller and it only accepts HTTP POST request. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: } 8: catch (Exception e) 9: { 10: error = e.ToString(); 11: } 12:  13: return new JsonResult() 14: { 15: Data = new 16: { 17: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 18: error = error 19: } 20: }; 21: } Then I retrieved the file name, index and the chunk content from the Request.Form object, which was passed from our client side. And then, used the Windows Azure SDK to create a blob container (in this case we will use the container named “test”.) and create a blob reference with the blob name (same as the file name). Then uploaded the chunk as a block of this blob with the index, since in Blob Storage each block must have an index (ID) associated with so that finally we can put all blocks as one blob by specifying their block ID list. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 9: var file = Request.Files[0]; 10: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 11:  12: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 13: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 14: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 15: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 16: } 17: catch (Exception e) 18: { 19: error = e.ToString(); 20: } 21:  22: return new JsonResult() 23: { 24: Data = new 25: { 26: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 27: error = error 28: } 29: }; 30: } Next, I created another action to commit the blocks into blob once all chunks had been uploaded. Similarly, I retrieved the blob name from the Request.Form. I also retrieved the chunks ID list, which is the block ID list from the Request.Form in a string format, split them as a list, then invoked the BlockBlob.PutBlockList method. After that our blob will be shown in the container and ready to be download. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult Commit() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 9: var ids = list 10: .Split(',') 11: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 12: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 13: .ToArray(); 14:  15: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 16: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 17: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 18: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 19: } 20: catch (Exception e) 21: { 22: error = e.ToString(); 23: } 24:  25: return new JsonResult() 26: { 27: Data = new 28: { 29: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 30: error = error 31: } 32: }; 33: } Now we finished all code we need. The whole process of uploading would be like this below. Below is the full client side JavaScript code. 1: <script type="text/javascript" src="~/Scripts/async.js"></script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: $(function () { 4: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 5: // assert the browser support html5 6: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 7: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 8: } 9: else { 10: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 11: return; 12: } 13:  14: // start to upload each files in chunks 15: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 16: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 17: var file = files[i]; 18: var fileSize = file.size; 19: var fileName = file.name; 20:  21: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 22: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 23: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 24: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 25: var blocks = []; 26: var offset = 0; 27: var index = 0; 28: var list = ""; 29: while (offset < fileSize) { 30: var start = offset; 31: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 32:  33: blocks.push({ 34: name: fileName, 35: index: index, 36: start: start, 37: end: end 38: }); 39: list += index + ","; 40:  41: offset = end; 42: index++; 43: } 44:  45: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 46: var putBlocks = []; 47: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 48: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 49: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 50: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 51: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 52: var fd = new FormData(); 53: fd.append("name", block.name); 54: fd.append("index", block.index); 55: fd.append("file", blob); 56: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 57: $.ajax({ 58: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 59: data: fd, 60: processData: false, 61: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 62: type: "POST", 63: success: function (result) { 64: if (!result.success) { 65: alert(result.error); 66: } 67: callback(null, block.index); 68: } 69: }); 70: }); 71: }); 72:  73: // invoke the functions one by one 74: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 75: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 76: var data = { 77: name: fileName, 78: list: list 79: }; 80: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 81: if (!result.success) { 82: alert(result.error); 83: } 84: else { 85: alert("done!"); 86: } 87: }); 88: }); 89: } 90: }); 91: }); 92: </script> And below is the full ASP.NET MVC controller code. 1: public class HomeController : Controller 2: { 3: private CloudStorageAccount _account; 4: private CloudBlobClient _client; 5:  6: public HomeController() 7: : base() 8: { 9: _account = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(CloudConfigurationManager.GetSetting("DataConnectionString")); 10: _client = _account.CreateCloudBlobClient(); 11: } 12:  13: public ActionResult Index() 14: { 15: ViewBag.Message = "Modify this template to jump-start your ASP.NET MVC application."; 16:  17: return View(); 18: } 19:  20: [HttpPost] 21: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 22: { 23: var error = string.Empty; 24: try 25: { 26: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 27: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 28: var file = Request.Files[0]; 29: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 30:  31: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 32: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 33: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 34: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 35: } 36: catch (Exception e) 37: { 38: error = e.ToString(); 39: } 40:  41: return new JsonResult() 42: { 43: Data = new 44: { 45: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 46: error = error 47: } 48: }; 49: } 50:  51: [HttpPost] 52: public JsonResult Commit() 53: { 54: var error = string.Empty; 55: try 56: { 57: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 58: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 59: var ids = list 60: .Split(',') 61: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 62: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 63: .ToArray(); 64:  65: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 66: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 67: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 68: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 69: } 70: catch (Exception e) 71: { 72: error = e.ToString(); 73: } 74:  75: return new JsonResult() 76: { 77: Data = new 78: { 79: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 80: error = error 81: } 82: }; 83: } 84: } And if we selected a file from the browser we will see our application will upload chunks in the size we specified to the server through ajax call in background, and then commit all chunks in one blob. Then we can find the blob in our Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Optimized by Parallel Upload In previous example we just uploaded our file in chunks. This solved the problem that ASP.NET MVC request content size limitation as well as the Windows Azure load balancer timeout. But it might introduce the performance problem since we uploaded chunks in sequence. In order to improve the upload performance we could modify our client side code a bit to make the upload operation invoked in parallel. The good news is that, “async.js” library provides the parallel execution function. If you remembered the code we invoke the service to upload chunks, it utilized “async.series” which means all functions will be executed in sequence. Now we will change this code to “async.parallel”. This will invoke all functions in parallel. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallel(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); In this way all chunks will be uploaded to the server side at the same time to maximize the bandwidth usage. This should work if the file was not very large and the chunk size was not very small. But for large file this might introduce another problem that too many ajax calls are sent to the server at the same time. So the best solution should be, upload the chunks in parallel with maximum concurrency limitation. The code below specified the concurrency limitation to 4, which means at the most only 4 ajax calls could be invoked at the same time. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallelLimit(putBlocks, 4, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: });   Summary In this post we discussed how to upload files in chunks to the backend service and then upload them into Windows Azure Blob Storage in blocks. We focused on the frontend side and leverage three new feature introduced in HTML 5 which are - File.slice: Read part of the file by specifying the start and end byte index. - Blob: File-like interface which contains the part of the file content. - FormData: Temporary form element that we can pass the chunk alone with some metadata to the backend service. Then we discussed the performance consideration of chunk uploading. Sequence upload cannot provide maximized upload speed, but the unlimited parallel upload might crash the browser and server if too many chunks. So we finally came up with the solution to upload chunks in parallel with the concurrency limitation. We also demonstrated how to utilize “async.js” JavaScript library to help us control the asynchronize call and the parallel limitation.   Regarding the chunk size and the parallel limitation value there is no “best” value. You need to test vary composition and find out the best one for your particular scenario. It depends on the local bandwidth, client machine cores and the server side (Windows Azure Cloud Service Virtual Machine) cores, memory and bandwidth. Below is one of my performance test result. The client machine was Windows 8 IE 10 with 4 cores. I was using Microsoft Cooperation Network. The web site was hosted on Windows Azure China North data center (in Beijing) with one small web role (1.7GB 1 core CPU, 1.75GB memory with 100Mbps bandwidth). The test cases were - Chunk size: 512KB, 1MB, 2MB, 4MB. - Upload Mode: Sequence, parallel (unlimited), parallel with limit (4 threads, 8 threads). - Chunk Format: base64 string, binaries. - Target file: 100MB. - Each case was tested 3 times. Below is the test result chart. Some thoughts, but not guidance or best practice: - Parallel gets better performance than series. - No significant performance improvement between parallel 4 threads and 8 threads. - Transform with binaries provides better performance than base64. - In all cases, chunk size in 1MB - 2MB gets better performance.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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  • Screen -X exec commands not working until manually attached

    - by James Watt
    I have a batch script that starts a java server application inside of a screen. The command looks like this: cd /dir/ && screen -A -m -d -S javascreen java -Xms640M -Xmx1024M -jar javaserverapp.jar nogui After I run the batch script, it starts the server and puts it inside the correct screen. If I list my screens after, I see something like this: user@gtwy /dir $ screen -list There is a screen on: 16180.javascreen (Detached) 1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-user. However, I have a second batch script that sends automated commands to this server and runs on a different crontab interval. Because of the way the application works, I send commands to it like this (this command tells it to alert connected users "testing 123"): screen -X exec .\!\! echo say testing 123 I've also tried: screen -R -X exec .\!\! echo say testing 123 screen -S javascreen -X exec .\!\! echo say testing 123 Unfortunately, these commands DO NOT WORK. They don't even give me an error message, they just do nothing. HOWEVER - If I manually attach to the screen first (with the below command) and then detach, now I can run any of the above commands flawlessly. I can demonstrate this with a video, if I wasn't clear enough here. screen -r -d Thanks in advance. Update: here is the important parts of /etc/screenrc. It should be totally vanilla, I've never edited this file. # VARIABLES # =============================================================== # No annoying audible bell, using "visual bell" # vbell on # default: off # vbell_msg " -- Bell,Bell!! -- " # default: "Wuff,Wuff!!" # Automatically detach on hangup. autodetach on # default: on # Don't display the copyright page startup_message off # default: on # Uses nethack-style messages # nethack on # default: off # Affects the copying of text regions crlf off # default: off # Enable/disable multiuser mode. Standard screen operation is singleuser. # In multiuser mode the commands acladd, aclchg, aclgrp and acldel can be used # to enable (and disable) other user accessing this screen session. # Requires suid-root. multiuser off # Change default scrollback value for new windows defscrollback 1000 # default: 100 # Define the time that all windows monitored for silence should # wait before displaying a message. Default 30 seconds. silencewait 15 # default: 30 # bufferfile: The file to use for commands # "readbuf" ('<') and "writebuf" ('>'): bufferfile $HOME/.screen_exchange # # hardcopydir: The directory which contains all hardcopies. # hardcopydir ~/.hardcopy # hardcopydir ~/.screen # # shell: Default process started in screen's windows. # Makes it possible to use a different shell inside screen # than is set as the default login shell. # If begins with a '-' character, the shell will be started as a login shell. # shell zsh # shell bash # shell ksh shell -$SHELL # shellaka '> |tcsh' # shelltitle '$ |bash' # emulate .logout message pow_detach_msg "Screen session of \$LOGNAME \$:cr:\$:nl:ended." # caption always " %w --- %c:%s" # caption always "%3n %t%? @%u%?%? [%h]%?%=%c" # advertise hardstatus support to $TERMCAP # termcapinfo * '' 'hs:ts=\E_:fs=\E\\:ds=\E_\E\\' # set every new windows hardstatus line to somenthing descriptive # defhstatus "screen: ^En (^Et)" # don't kill window after the process died # zombie "^["

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  • SQLAuthority News – SQL Server Technology Evangelists and Evangelism

    - by pinaldave
    This is the exact conversation that I had with three people during the recent SQL Server Public Training. Person 1: “Are you an SQL Server Evangelist?” Pinal : “No, but Vinod Kumar is.” Person 1: “Who are you?” Person 2: “He is Pinal, haha!” Person 1: “I know that, but don’t you evangelize SQL Server Technology?” Pinal : “Hmm… I do that…” Person 1: “In that case, why don’t you call yourself an Evangelist?” Pinal : “…! …” Person 2: “Good Question! Who are you Pinal?” Pinal : “I think you are asking my title, is that correct?” Person 1: “Maybe.” Pinal : “I am a Mentor, and I work for Solid Quality Mentors.” Person 2: “I have seen you listing yourself as the Founder of SQLAuthority.com… so…” Pinal : “Yeah that’s true.” Person 3: “Let me summarize what these people are asking. What they are asking is that you can have multiple titles, so is being an evangelist one of your titles or not?” Pinal : “Well, I am an SQL Server MVP and lots of people say that we are also evangelists of technology. In fact,  we are all evangelists of technology, aren’t we?” Person 1: “So let me come back to my original topic: If you are an SQL Server Evangelist, then what is this evangelism?” Person 2: “And who is Vinod Kumar – I have heard about him a lot.” Pinal : “Oh okay. Now I got it. Let me explain …” The answer was quite long but since this conversation, I have been thinking about the words “evangelist” and “evangelism.” I think being an evangelist is one of the most respected jobs in the world and to do this job one must bear lots of responsibilities. There were two questions asked to me, so let me answer both one by one. Who is Vinod Kumar? Vinod Kumar is a Technology Evangelist for Microsoft and one of the most respected persons in the SQL Server Community in India. Let me copy-paste my note from the previous TechEd India 2010 article. “I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller so there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod was the best speaker in the event. He did not have a single time that disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL.” Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar What is Technology Evangelism? Here I am listing three posts written by Vinod Kumar, wherein he talks about Technology Evangelism and Technology Evangelist in an in-depth manner. They are highly-regarded articles in the Community. Evangelism beyond boundaries with an Evangelists !!! Technology Evangelism Demystified New face of Online Technology Evangelism I strongly recommend reading them all. These are wonderful blog posts. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • Using SQL Developer to Debug your Anonymous PL/SQL Blocks

    - by JeffS
    Everyone knows that SQL Developer has a PL/SQL debugger – check! Everyone also knows that it’s only setup for debugging standalone PL/SQL objects like Functions, Procedures, and Packages, right? – NO! SQL Developer can also debug your Stored Java Procedures AND it can debug your standalone PLSQL blocks. These bits of PLSQL which do not live in the database are also known as ‘Anonymous Blocks.’ Anonymous PL/SQL blocks can be submitted to interactive tools such as SQL*Plus and Enterprise Manager, or embedded in an Oracle Precompiler or OCI program. At run time, the program sends these blocks to the Oracle database, where they are compiled and executed. Here’s an example of something you might want help debugging: Declare x number := 0; Begin Dbms_Output.Put(Sysdate || ' ' || Systimestamp); For Stuff In 1..100 Loop Dbms_Output.Put_Line('Stuff is equal to ' || Stuff || '.'); x := Stuff; End Loop; End; / With the power of remote debugging and unshared worksheets, we are going to be able to debug this ANON block! The trick – we need to create a dummy stored procedure and call it in our ANON block. Then we’re going to create an unshared worksheet and execute the script from there while the SQL Developer session is listening for remote debug connections. We step through the dummy procedure, and this takes OUT to our calling ANON block. Then we can use watches, breakpoints, and all that fancy debugger stuff! First things first, create this dummy procedure - create or replace procedure do_nothing is begin null; end; Then mouse-right-click on your Connection and select ‘Remote Debug.’ For an in-depth post on how to use the remote debugger, check out Barry’s excellent post on the subject. Open an unshared worksheet using Ctrl+Shift+N. This gives us a dedicated connection for our worksheet and any scripts or commands executed in it. Paste in your ANON block you want to debug. Add in a call to the dummy procedure above to the first line of your BEGIN block like so Begin do_nothing(); ... Then we need to setup the machine for remote debug for the session we have listening – basically we connect to SQL Developer. You can do that via a Environment Variable, or you can just add this line to your script - CALL DBMS_DEBUG_JDWP.CONNECT_TCP( 'localhost', '4000' ); Where ‘localhost’ is the machine where SQL Developer is running and ’4000′ is the port you started the debug listener on. Ok, with that all set, now just RUN the script. Once the PL/SQL call is made, the debugger will be invoked. You’ll end up in the DO_NOTHING() object. Debugging an ANON block from SQL Developer is possible! If you step out to the ANON block, we’ll end up in the script that’s used to call the procedure – which is the script you want to debug. The Anonymous Block is opened in a new SQL Dev page You can now step through the block, using watches and breakpoints as expected. I’m guessing your scripts are going to be a bit more complicated than mine, but this serves as a decent example to get you started. Here’s a screenshot of a watch and breakpoint defined in the anon block being debugged: Breakpoints, watches, and callstacks - oh my! For giggles, I created a breakpoint with a passcount of 90 for the FOR LOOP to see if it works. And of course it does You Might Also EnjoyUsing Pass Counts to Turbo Charge Your PL/SQL BreakpointsSQL Developer Tip: Viewing REFCURSOR OutputThe PL/SQL Debugger Strikes Back: Episode VDebugging PL/SQL with SQL Developer: Episode IVHow to find dependent objects in your PL/SQL Programs using SQL Developer

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  • JustMock and Moles – A short overview for TDD alpha geeks

    - by RoyOsherove
    People have been lurking near my house, asking me to write something about Moles and JustMock, so I’ll try to be as objective as possible, taking in the fact that I work at Typemock. If I were NOT working at Typemock I’d write: JustMock JustMock tries to be Typemock at so many levels it’s not even funny. Technically they work the same and the API almost looks like it’s a search and replace work based on the Isolator API (awesome compliment!), but JustMock still has too many growing pains and bugs to be usable. Also, JustMock is missing alot of the legacy abilities such as Non public faking, faking all types and various other things that are really needed in real legacy code. Biggest thing (in terms of isolation integration) is that it does not integrate with other profilers such as coverage, NCover etc.) When JustMock comes out of beta, I feel that it should cost about half as Isolator costs, as it currently provides about half the abilities. Moles Moles is an addon of Pex and was originally only intended to work within the Pex environment. It started as a research project and now it’s a power-tool for VS (so it’s a separate install) Now it’s it’s own little stubbing framework. It’s not really an Isolation framework in the classic sense, because it does not provide any kind of API built in to verify object interactions. You have to use manual flags all on your own to do that. It generates two types of classes per assembly: Manual Stubs(just like you’d hand code them) and Mole classes. Each Mole class is a special API to change and break the behavior that the corresponding type. so MDateTime is how you change behavior for DateTime. In that sense the API is al over the place, and it can become highly unreadable and unmentionable over time in your test. Also, the Moles API isn’t really designed to deal with real Legacy code. It only deals with public types and methods. anything internal or private is ignored and you can’t change its behavior. You also can’t control static constructors. That takes about 95% of legacy scenarios out of the picture if that’s what you’re trying to use it for. Personally, I found it hard to get used to the idea of two parallel APIs for different abilities, and when to choose which. and I know this stuff. I would expect more usability from the API to make it more widely used. I don’t think that Moles in planning to go that route. Publishing it as an Isolation framework is really an afterthought of a tool that was design with a specific task in mind, and generic Isolation isn’t it. it’s only hope is DEQ – a simple code example that shows a simple Isolation API built on the Moles generic engine. Moles can and should be used for very simple cases of detouring functionality such a simple static methods or interfaces and virtual functions (like rhinomock and MOQ do).   Oh, Wait. Ah, good thing I work at Typemock. I won’t write all that. I’ll just write: JustMock and Moles are great tools that enlarge the market space for isolation related technologies, and they prove that the idea of productivity and unit testing can go hand in hand and get people hooked. I look forward to compete with them at this growing market.

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  • SQLAuthority News – The Best Quotes of “Who Wrote This?” Contest

    - by pinaldave
    I am a frequent reader of Brent Ozar PLF, it is one of my favorite blogs. A recent post announced a “Who Wrote This?” contest to see if readers could tell their three contributors apart based on some writing samples. Here are my favorite lines from the sample paragraphs, from each of the three “mystery authors.” Topic 1: Working with Bad Managers Mystery Author A – “Working with bad managers means working against my own happiness, and I’ve come to learn that there’s no changing bad managers.” I love this line because, as anyone who has had a bad manager knows, often a lot of self-doubt rises up. We all have to remember that sometimes the problem is out of our control. Mystery Author B – “Mentor your manager just like you would mentor a junior DBA.” Having a bad manager can be extremely depressing, and we often feel out of control. But we all need to remember that our work is a two-way street, and that sometimes we can subtly influence those above us. Mystery Author C – “The trick to working for all bad managers is to remember that they aren’t your parent. Take charge of your career.” We all also need to learn not to play the blame game. Would you rather stay in a place where you are unhappy, or would you rather take charge of your life? I hope most people would pick the latter. Topic 2: Working with Remote Teams Mystery Author A – “Like almost anything else the key is to make sure that everyone on the team has an understanding of how and when communication will occur.” Communication is so important. I cannot over emphasize how much. And this one line captures how I feel and even communicates the idea clearly! Mystery Author B – “The key to remote team success is verifiable trust: feeling confident that invisible team members are doing the right amount of the right thing at the right time.” I think this line not only captures the key aspects of remote work – verifiable work and trust – but there were so many lines that followed that I loved and could not fit here. The whole paragraph is a list for successful remote work. Everyone could benefit from reading it. Mystery Author C – “What seems clear, precise, and specific in one time zone comes across as vague, soupy, and just plain weird in another.” You know what? I just love this description. The author is right – sometimes vague e-mails really do seem soupy and weird! Topic 3: Working with Your Nemesis Mystery Author A – “Every job is temporary, but your reputation stays with you.” Everyone needs to remember this. The workplace is meant to be a professional arena, and many people have the opinion that work is temporary and disposable. No one wants to work with co-worker like that. Mystery Author B – “Unhealthy conflict is going to lead to leaving three week old tuna fish sandwiches in someone’s desk drawer.” Sometimes humor really is the best policy! Mystery Author C – “Oh no, it’s that guy.” This might seem like a weird phrase to choose as my favorite from an entire paragraph. But the whole piece was written in the form of a story of co-workers getting drunk and plotting against a nemesis. It was too funny to overlook, but too long to post here. A must read! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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