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  • 26 Days: Countdown to Oracle OpenWorld 2012

    - by Michael Snow
    Welcome to our countdown to Oracle OpenWorld! Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is just around the corner. In less than 26 days, San Francisco will be invaded by an expected 50,000 people from all over the world. Here on the Oracle WebCenter team, we’ve all been working to help make the experience a great one for all our WebCenter customers. For a sneak peak  – we’ll be spending this week giving you a teaser of what to look forward to if you are joining us in San Francisco from September 30th through October 4th. We have Oracle WebCenter sessions covering all topics imaginable. Take a look and use the tools we provide to build out your schedule in advance and reserve your seats in your favorite sessions.  That gives you plenty of time to plan for your week with us in San Francisco. If unfortunately, your boss denied your request to attend - there are still some ways that you can join in the experience virtually On-Demand. This year - we are expanding even more up North of Market Street and will be taking over Union Square as well. Check out this map of San Francisco to get a sense of how much of a footprint Oracle OpenWorld has grown to this year. With so much to see and so many sessions to learn from - its no wonder that people get excited. Add to that a good mix of fun and all of the possible WebCenter sessions you could attend - you won't want to sleep at all to take full advantage of such an opportunity. We'll also have our annual WebCenter Customer Appreciation reception - stay tuned this week for some more info on registration to make sure you'll be able to join us. If you've been following the America's Cup at all and believe in EXTREME PERFORMANCE you'll definitely want to take a look at this video from last year's OpenWorld Keynote. 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Important OpenWorld Links:  Attendee / Presenters Toolkit Oracle Schedule Builder WebCenter Sessions (listed in the catalog under Fusion Middleware as "Portals, Sites, Content, and Collaboration" ) Oracle Music Festival - AMAZING Line up!!  Oracle Customer Appreciation Night -LOOK HERE!! Oracle OpenWorld LIVE On-Demand Here are all the WebCenter sessions broken down by day for your viewing pleasure. Monday, October 1st CON8885 - Simplify CRM Engagement with Contextual Collaboration Are your sales teams disconnected and disengaged? Do you want a tool for easily connecting expertise across your organization and providing visibility into the complete sales process? Do you want a way to enhance and retain organization knowledge? Oracle Social Network is the answer. Attend this session to learn how to make CRM easy, effective, and efficient for use across virtual sales teams. Also learn how Oracle Social Network can drive sales force collaboration with natural conversations throughout the sales cycle, promote sales team productivity through purposeful social networking without the noise, and build cross-team knowledge by integrating conversations with CRM and other business applications. CON8268 - Oracle WebCenter Strategy: Engaging Your Customers. Empowering Your Business Oracle WebCenter is a user engagement platform for social business, connecting people and information. Attend this session to learn about the Oracle WebCenter strategy, and understand where Oracle is taking the platform to help companies engage customers, empower employees, and enable partners. Business success starts with ensuring that everyone is engaged with the right people and the right information and can access what they need through the channel of their choice—Web, mobile, or social. Are you giving customers, employees, and partners the best-possible experience? Come learn how you can! ¶ HOL10208 - Add Social Capabilities to Your Enterprise Applications Oracle Social Network enables you to add real-time collaboration capabilities into your enterprise applications, so that conversations can happen directly within your business systems. In this hands-on lab, you will try out the Oracle Social Network product to collaborate with other attendees, using real-time conversations with document sharing capabilities. Next you will embed social capabilities into a sample Web-based enterprise application, using embedded UI components. Experts will also write simple REST-based integrations, using the Oracle Social Network API to programmatically create social interactions. ¶ CON8893 - Improve Employee Productivity with Intuitive and Social Work Environments Social technologies have already transformed the ways customers, employees, partners, and suppliers communicate and stay informed. Forward-thinking organizations today need technologies and infrastructures to help them advance to the next level and integrate social activities with business applications to deliver a user experience that simplifies business processes and enterprise application engagement. Attend this session to hear from an innovative Oracle Social Network customer and learn how you can improve productivity with intuitive and social work environments and empower your employees with innovative social tools to enable contextual access to content and dynamic personalization of solutions. ¶ CON8270 - Oracle WebCenter Content Strategy and Vision Oracle WebCenter provides a strategic content infrastructure for managing documents, images, e-mails, and rich media files. With a single repository, organizations can address any content use case, such as accounts payable, HR onboarding, document management, compliance, records management, digital asset management, or Website management. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter will address new use cases as well as new integrations with Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications, leveraging your investments by making your users more productive and error-free. ¶ CON8269 - Oracle WebCenter Sites Strategy and Vision Oracle’s Web experience management solution, Oracle WebCenter Sites, enables organizations to use the online channel to drive customer acquisition and brand loyalty. It helps marketers and business users easily create and manage contextually relevant, social, interactive online experiences across multiple channels on a global scale. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter Sites will provide you with the tools, capabilities, and integrations you need in order to continue to address your customers’ evolving requirements for engaging online experiences and keep moving your business forward. ¶ CON8896 - Living with SharePoint SharePoint is a popular platform, but it’s not always the best fit for Oracle customers. In this session, you’ll discover the technical and nontechnical limitations and pitfalls of SharePoint and learn about Oracle alternatives for collaboration, portals, enterprise and Web content management, social computing, and application integration. The presentation shows you how to integrate with SharePoint when business or IT requirements dictate and covers cloud-based (Office 365) and on-premises versions of SharePoint. Presented by a former Microsoft director of SharePoint product management and backed by independent customer research, this session will prepare you to answer the question “Why don’t we just use SharePoint for that?’ the next time it comes up in your organization. ¶ CON7843 - Content-Enabling Enterprise Processes with Oracle WebCenter Organizations today continually strive to automate business processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. Many business processes are content-intensive and unstructured, requiring ad hoc collaboration, and distributed in nature, requiring many approvals and generating huge volumes of paper. In this session, learn how Oracle and SYSTIME have partnered to help a customer content-enable its enterprise with Oracle WebCenter Content and Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g and integrate them with Oracle Applications. ¶ CON6114 - Tape Robotics’ Newest Superhero: Now Fueled by Oracle Software For small, midsize, and rapidly growing businesses that want the most energy-efficient, scalable storage infrastructure to meet their rapidly growing data demands, Oracle’s most recent addition to its award-winning tape portfolio leverages several pieces of Oracle software. With Oracle Linux, Oracle WebLogic, and Oracle Fusion Middleware tools, the library achieves a higher level of usability than previous products while offering customers a familiar interface for management, plus ease of use. This session examines the competitive advantages of the tape library and how Oracle software raises customer satisfaction. Learn how the combination of Oracle engineered systems, Oracle Secure Backup, and Oracle’s StorageTek tape libraries provide end-to-end coverage of your data. ¶ CON9437 - Mobile Access Management With more than five billion mobile devices on the planet and an increasing number of users using their own devices to access corporate data and applications, securely extending identity management to mobile devices has become a hot topic. This session focuses on how to extend your existing identity management infrastructure and policies to securely and seamlessly enable mobile user access. CON7815 - Customer Experience Online in Cloud: Oracle WebCenter Sites, Oracle ATG Apps, Oracle Exalogic Oracle WebCenter Sites and Oracle’s ATG product line together can provide a compelling marketing and e-commerce experience. When you couple them with the extreme performance of Oracle Exalogic, you’ll see unmatched scalability that provides you with a true cloud-based solution. In this session, you’ll learn how running Oracle WebCenter Sites and ATG applications on Oracle Exalogic delivers both a private and a public cloud experience. Find out what it takes to get these systems working together and delivering engaging Web experiences. Even if you aren’t considering Oracle Exalogic today, the rich Web experience of Oracle WebCenter, paired with the depth of the ATG product line, can provide your business full support, from merchandising through sale completion. ¶ CON8271 - Oracle WebCenter Portal Strategy and Vision To innovate and keep a competitive edge, organizations need to leverage the power of agile and responsive Web applications. Oracle WebCenter Portal enables you to do just that, by delivering intuitive user experiences for enterprise applications to drive innovation with composite applications and mashups. Attend this session to learn firsthand from customers how Oracle WebCenter Portal extends the value of existing enterprise applications, business processes, and content; delivers a superior business user experience; and maximizes limited IT resources. ¶ CON8880 - The Connected Customer Experience Begins with the Online Channel There’s a lot of talk these days about how to connect the customer journey across various touchpoints—from Websites and e-commerce to call centers and in-store—to provide experiences that are more relevant and engaging and ultimately gain competitive edge. Doing it all at once isn’t a realistic objective, so where do you start? Come to this session, and hear about three steps you can take that can help you begin your journey toward delivering the connected customer experience. You’ll hear how Oracle now has an integrated digital marketing platform for your corporate Website, your e-commerce site, your self-service portal, and your marketing and loyalty campaigns, and you’ll learn what you can do today to begin executing on your customer experience initiatives. ¶ GEN11451 - General Session: Building Mobile Applications with Oracle Cloud With the prevalence of smart mobile devices, companies are facing an increased demand to provide access to data and applications from new channels. However, developing applications for mobile devices poses some unique challenges. Come to this session to learn how Oracle addresses these challenges, offering a simpler way to develop and deploy cross-device mobile applications. See how Oracle Cloud enables you to access applications, data, and services from mobile channels in an easier way.  CON8272 - Oracle Social Network Strategy and Vision One key way of increasing employee productivity is by bringing people, processes, and information together—providing new social capabilities to enable business users to quickly correspond and collaborate on business activities. Oracle WebCenter provides a user engagement platform with social and collaborative technologies to empower business users to focus on their key business processes, applications, and content in the context of their role and process. Attend this session to hear how the latest social capabilities in Oracle Social Network are enabling organizations to transform themselves into social businesses.  --- Tuesday, October 2nd HOL10194 - Enterprise Content Management Simplified: Oracle WebCenter Content’s Next-Generation UI Regardless of the nature of your business, unstructured content underpins many of its daily functions. Whether you are working with traditional presentations, spreadsheets, or text documents—or even with digital assets such as images and multimedia files—your content needs to be accessible and manageable in convenient and intuitive ways to make working with the content easier. Additionally, you need the ability to easily share documents with coworkers to facilitate a collaborative working environment. Come to this session to see how Oracle WebCenter Content’s next-generation user interface helps modern knowledge workers easily manage personal and enterprise documents in a collaborative environment.¶ CON8877 - Develop a Mobile Strategy with Oracle WebCenter: Engage Customers, Employees, and Partners Mobile technology has gone from nice-to-have to a cornerstone of user engagement. Mobile access enables users to have information available at their fingertips, enabling them to take action the moment they make a decision, interact in the moment of convenience, and take advantage of new service offerings in their preferred channels. All your employees have your mobile applications in their pocket; now what are you going to do? It is a critical step for companies to think through what their employees, customers, and partners really need on their devices. Attend this session to see how Oracle WebCenter enables you to better engage your customers, employees, and partners by providing a unified experience across multiple channels. ¶ CON9447 - Enabling Access for Hundreds of Millions of Users How do you grow your business by identifying, authenticating, authorizing, and federating users on the Web, leveraging social identity and the open source OAuth protocol? How do you scale your access management solution to support hundreds of millions of users? With social identity support out of the box, Oracle’s access management solution is also benchmarked for 250-million-user deployment according to real-world customer scenarios. In this session, you will learn about the social identity capability and the 250-million-user benchmark testing of Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Adaptive Access Manager running on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata. ¶ HOL10207 - Build an Intranet Portal with Oracle WebCenter In this hands-on lab, you’ll work with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to build out an enterprise portal that maximizes the productivity of teams and individual contributors. Using browser-based tools, you’ll manage site resources such as page styles, templates, and navigation. You’ll edit content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content directly from your portal. You’ll also experience the latest features that promote collaboration, social networking, and personal productivity. ¶ CON2906 - Get Proactive: Best Practices for Maintaining Oracle Fusion Middleware You chose Oracle Fusion Middleware products to help your organization deliver superior business results. Now learn how to take full advantage of your software with all the great tools, resources, and product updates you’re entitled to through Oracle Support. In this session, Oracle product experts provide proven best practices to help you work more efficiently, plan and prepare for upgrades and patching more effectively, and manage risk. Topics include configuration management tools, remote diagnostics, My Oracle Support Community, and My Oracle Support Lifecycle Advisors. New users and Oracle Fusion Middleware experts alike are guaranteed to leave with fresh ideas and practical, easy-to-implement next steps. ¶ CON8878 - Oracle WebCenter’s Cloud Strategy: From Social and Platform Services to Mashups Cloud computing represents a paradigm shift in how we build applications, automate processes, collaborate, and share and in how we secure our enterprise. Additionally, as you adopt cloud-based services in your organization, it’s likely that you will still have many critical on-premises applications running. With these mixed environments, multiple user interfaces, different security, and multiple datasources and content sources, how do you start evolving your strategy to account for these challenges? Oracle WebCenter offers a complete array of technologies enabling you to solve these challenges and prepare you for the cloud. Attend this session to learn how you can use Oracle WebCenter in the cloud as well as create on-premises and cloud application mash-ups. ¶ CON8901 - Optimize Enterprise Business Processes with Oracle WebCenter and Oracle BPM Do you have business processes that span multiple applications? Are you grappling with how to have visibility across these business processes; how to manage content that is associated with these processes; and, most importantly, how to model and optimize these business processes? Attend this session to hear how Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Process Management provide a unique set of integrated solutions to provide a composite application dashboard across these business processes and offer a solution for content-centric business processes. ¶ CON8883 - Deliver Engaging Interfaces to Oracle Applications with Oracle WebCenter Critical business processes live within enterprise applications, and application users need to manage and execute these processes as effectively as possible. Oracle provides a comprehensive user engagement platform to increase user productivity and optimize overall processes within Oracle Applications—Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle’s Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards product families—and third-party applications. Attend this session to learn how you can integrate these applications with Oracle WebCenter to deliver composite application dashboards to your end users—whether they are your customers, partners, or employees—for enhanced usability and Web 2.0–enabled enterprise portals.¶ Wednesday, October 3rd CON8895 - Future-Ready Intranets: How Aramark Re-engineered the Application Landscape There are essential techniques and technologies you can use to deliver employee portals that garner higher productivity, improve business efficiency, and increase user engagement. Attend this session to learn how you can leverage Oracle WebCenter Portal as a user engagement platform for bringing together business process management, enterprise content management, and business intelligence into a highly relevant and integrated experience. Hear how Aramark has leveraged Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to deliver a unified workspace providing simpler navigation and processing, consolidation of tools, easy access to information, integrated search, and single sign-on. ¶ CON8886 - Content Consolidation: Save Money, Increase Efficiency, and Eliminate Silos Organizations are looking for ways to save money and be more efficient. With content in many different places, it’s difficult to know where to look for a document and whether the document is the most current version. With Oracle WebCenter, content can be consolidated into one best-of-breed repository that is secure, scalable, and integrated with your business processes and applications. Users can find the content they need, where they need it, and ensure that it is the right content. This session covers content challenges that affect your business; content consolidation that can lead to savings in storage and administration costs and can lower risks; and how companies are realizing savings. ¶ CON8911 - Improve Online Experiences for Customers and Partners with Self-Service Portals Are you able to provide your customers and partners an easy-to-use online self-service experience? Are you processing high-volume transactions and struggling with call center bottlenecks or back-end systems that won’t integrate, causing order delays and customer frustration? Are you looking to target content such as product and service offerings to your end users? This session shares approaches to providing targeted delivery as well as strategies and best practices for transforming your business by providing an intuitive user experience for your customers and partners. ¶ CON6156 - Top 10 Ways to Integrate Oracle WebCenter Content This session covers 10 common ways to integrate Oracle WebCenter Content with other enterprise applications and middleware. It discusses out-of-the-box modules that provide expanded features in Oracle WebCenter Content—such as enterprise search, SOA, and BPEL—as well as developer tools you can use to create custom integrations. The presentation also gives guidance on which integration option may work best in your environment. ¶ HOL10207 - Build an Intranet Portal with Oracle WebCenter In this hands-on lab, you’ll work with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to build out an enterprise portal that maximizes the productivity of teams and individual contributors. Using browser-based tools, you’ll manage site resources such as page styles, templates, and navigation. You’ll edit content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content directly from your portal. You’ll also experience the latest features that promote collaboration, social networking, and personal productivity. ¶ CON7817 - Migration to Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g Customers today continually strive to automate business processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. The accounts payable process—which is often distributed in nature, requires many approvals, and generates huge volumes of paper invoices—is automated by many customers. In this session, learn how Oracle and SYSTIME have partnered to help a customer migrate its existing Oracle Imaging and Process Management Release 7.6 to the latest Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g and integrate it with Oracle’s JD Edwards family of products. ¶ CON8910 - How to Engage Customers Across Web, Mobile, and Social Channels Whether on desktops at the office, on tablets at home, or on mobile phones when on the go, today’s customers are always connected. To engage today’s customers, you need to make the online customer experience connected and consistent across a host of devices and multiple channels, including Web, mobile, and social networks. Managing this multichannel environment can result in lots of headaches without the right tools. Attend this session to learn how Oracle WebCenter Sites solves the challenge of multichannel customer engagement. ¶ HOL10206 - Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g: Transforming the Content Contributor Experience Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g makes it easy for marketers and business users to contribute to and manage Websites with the new visual, contextual, and intuitive Web authoring interface. In this hands-on lab, you will create and manage content for a sports-themed Website, using many of the new and enhanced features of the 11g release. ¶ CON8900 - Building Next-Generation Portals: An Interactive Customer Panel Discussion Social and collaborative technologies have changed how people interact, learn, and collaborate, and providing a modern, social Web presence is imperative to remain competitive in today’s market. Can your business benefit from a more collaborative and interactive portal environment for employees, customers, and partners? Attend this session to hear from Oracle WebCenter Portal customers as they share their strategies and best practices for providing users with a modern experience that adapts to their needs and includes personalized access to content in context. The panel also addresses how customers have benefited from creating next-generation portals by migrating from older portal technologies to Oracle WebCenter Portal. ¶ CON9625 - Taking Control of Oracle WebCenter Security Organizations are increasingly looking to extend their Oracle WebCenter portal for social business, to serve external users and provide seamless access to the right information. In particular, many organizations are extending Oracle WebCenter in a business-to-business scenario requiring secure identification and authorization of business partners and their users. This session focuses on how customers are leveraging, securing, and providing access control to Oracle WebCenter portal and mobile solutions. You will learn best practices and hear real-world examples of how to provide flexible and granular access control for Oracle WebCenter deployments, using Oracle Platform Security Services and Oracle Access Management Suite product offerings. ¶ CON8891 - Extending Social into Enterprise Applications and Business Processes Oracle Social Network is an extensible social platform that enables contextual collaboration within enterprise applications and business processes, providing relevant data from across various enterprise systems in one place. Attend this session to see how an Oracle Social Network customer is integrating multiple applications—such as CRM, HCM, and business processes—into Oracle Social Network and Oracle WebCenter to enable individuals and teams to solve complex cross-organizational business problems more effectively by utilizing the social enterprise. ¶ Thursday, October 4th CON8899 - Becoming a Social Business: Stories from the Front Lines of Change What does it really mean to be a social business? How can you change our organization to embrace social approaches? What pitfalls do you need to avoid? In this lively panel discussion, customer and industry thought leaders in social business explore these topics and more as they share their stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly that can happen when embracing social methods and technologies to improve business success. Using moderated questions and open Q&A from the audience, the panel discusses vital topics such as the critical factors for success, the major issues to avoid, how to gain senior executive support for social efforts, how to handle undesired behavior, and how to measure business impact. It takes a thought-provoking look at becoming a social business from the inside. ¶ CON6851 - Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to Create Vendor Portals Large manufacturers of grocery items routinely find themselves depending on the inventory management expertise of their wholesalers and distributors. Inventory costs can be managed more efficiently by the manufacturers if they have better insight into the inventory levels of items carried by their distributors. This creates a unique opportunity for distributors and wholesalers to leverage this knowledge into a revenue-generating subscription service. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Oracle WebCenter Portal play a key part in enabling creation of business-managed business intelligence portals for vendors. This session discusses one customer that implemented this by leveraging Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. ¶ CON8879 - Provide a Personalized and Consistent Customer Experience in Your Websites and Portals Your customers engage with your company online in different ways throughout their journey—from prospecting by acquiring information on your corporate Website to transacting through self-service applications on your customer portal—and then the cycle begins again when they look for new products and services. Ensuring that the customer experience is consistent and personalized across online properties—from branding and content to interactions and transactions—can be a daunting task. Oracle WebCenter enables you to speak and interact with your customers with one voice across your Websites and portals by providing an integrated platform for delivery of self-service and engagement that unifies and personalizes the online experience. Learn more in this session. ¶ CON8898 - Land Mines, Potholes, and Dirt Roads: Navigating the Way to ECM Nirvana Ten years ago, people were predicting that by this time in history, we’d be some kind of utopian paperless society. As we all know, we’re not there yet, but are we getting closer? What is keeping companies from driving down the road to enterprise content management bliss? Most people understand that using ECM as a central platform enables organizations to expedite document-centric processes, but most business processes in organizations are still heavily paper-based. Many of these processes could be automated and improved with an ECM platform infrastructure. In this panel discussion, you’ll hear from Oracle WebCenter customers that have already solved some of these challenges as they share their strategies for success and roads to avoid along your journey. ¶ CON8908 - Oracle WebCenter Portal: Creating and Using Content Presenter Templates Oracle WebCenter Portal applications use task flows to display and integrate content stored in the Oracle WebCenter Content server. Among the most flexible task flows is Content Presenter, which renders various types of content on an Oracle WebCenter Portal page. Although Oracle WebCenter Portal comes with a set of predefined Content Presenter templates, developers can create their own templates for specific rendering needs. This session shows the lifecycle of developing Content Presenter task flows, including how to create, package, import, modify at runtime, and use such templates. In addition to simple examples with Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) UI elements to render the content, it shows how to use other UI technologies, CSS files, and JavaScript libraries. ¶ CON8897 - Using Web Experience Management to Drive Online Marketing Success Every year, the online channel becomes more imperative for driving organizational top-line revenue, but for many companies, mastering how to best market their products and services in a fast-evolving online world with high customer expectations for personalized experiences can be a complex proposition. Come to this panel discussion, and hear directly from online marketers how they are succeeding today by using Web experience management to drive marketing success, using capabilities such as targeting and optimization, user-generated content, mobile site publishing, and site visitor personalization to deliver engaging online experiences. ¶ CON8892 - Oracle’s Journey to Social Business Social business is a revolution, one that is causing rapidly accelerating change in how companies and customers engage with one another and how employees work together. Oracle’s goal in becoming a social business is to create a socially connected organization in which working collaboratively across geographical locations, lines of business, and management chains is second nature, enabling innovative solutions to business challenges. We can achieve this by connecting the right people, finding the right content, communicating with the right people, collaborating at the right time, and building the right communities in the right context—all ready in the CLOUD. Attend this session to see how Oracle is transforming itself into a social business. ¶  ------------ If you've read all the way to the end here - we are REALLY looking forward to seeing you in San Francisco.

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  • ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: How to Deploy Web Apps Using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part I

    - by mbridge
    First, you can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com. The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial. public class Category {     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } } Expense Class public class Expense {             public int ExpenseId { get; set; }            public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     public virtual Category Category { get; set; } }    Define Domain Model Let’s create domain model for our simple web application Category Class We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. In this post, we will be focusing on CRUD operations for the entity Category and will be working on the Expense entity with a View Model object in the later post. And the source code for this application will be refactored over time. The above entities are very simple POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) classes and the entity Category is decorated with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. Now we want to use these entities for defining model objects for the Entity Framework 4. Using the Code First approach of Entity Framework, we can first define the entities by simply writing POCO classes without any coupling with any API or database library. This approach lets you focus on domain model which will enable Domain-Driven Development for applications. EF code first support is currently enabled with a separate API that is runs on top of the Entity Framework 4. EF Code First is reached CTP 5 when I am writing this article. Creating Context Class for Entity Framework We have created our domain model and let’s create a class in order to working with Entity Framework Code First. For this, you have to download EF Code First CTP 5 and add reference to the assembly EntitFramework.dll. You can also use NuGet to download add reference to EEF Code First. public class MyFinanceContext : DbContext {     public MyFinanceContext() : base("MyFinance") { }     public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }     public DbSet<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }         }   The above class MyFinanceContext is derived from DbContext that can connect your model classes to a database. The MyFinanceContext class is mapping our Category and Expense class into database tables Categories and Expenses using DbSet<TEntity> where TEntity is any POCO class. When we are running the application at first time, it will automatically create the database. EF code-first look for a connection string in web.config or app.config that has the same name as the dbcontext class. If it is not find any connection string with the convention, it will automatically create database in local SQL Express database by default and the name of the database will be same name as the dbcontext class. You can also define the name of database in constructor of the the dbcontext class. Unlike NHibernate, we don’t have to use any XML based mapping files or Fluent interface for mapping between our model and database. The model classes of Code First are working on the basis of conventions and we can also use a fluent API to refine our model. The convention for primary key is ‘Id’ or ‘<class name>Id’.  If primary key properties are detected with type ‘int’, ‘long’ or ‘short’, they will automatically registered as identity columns in the database by default. Primary key detection is not case sensitive. We can define our model classes with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace and it automatically enforces validation rules when a model object is updated or saved. Generic Repository for EF Code First We have created model classes and dbcontext class. Now we have to create generic repository pattern for data persistence with EF code first. If you don’t know about the repository pattern, checkout Martin Fowler’s article on Repository Let’s create a generic repository to working with DbContext and DbSet generics. public interface IRepository<T> where T : class     {         void Add(T entity);         void Delete(T entity);         T GetById(long Id);         IEnumerable<T> All();     } RepositoryBasse – Generic Repository class protected MyFinanceContext Database {     get { return database ?? (database = DatabaseFactory.Get()); } } public virtual void Add(T entity) {     dbset.Add(entity);            }        public virtual void Delete(T entity) {     dbset.Remove(entity); }   public virtual T GetById(long id) {     return dbset.Find(id); }   public virtual IEnumerable<T> All() {     return dbset.ToList(); } } DatabaseFactory class public class DatabaseFactory : Disposable, IDatabaseFactory {     private MyFinanceContext database;     public MyFinanceContext Get()     {         return database ?? (database = new MyFinanceContext());     }     protected override void DisposeCore()     {         if (database != null)             database.Dispose();     } } Unit of Work If you are new to Unit of Work pattern, checkout Fowler’s article on Unit of Work . According to Martin Fowler, the Unit of Work pattern "maintains a list of objects affected by a business transaction and coordinates the writing out of changes and the resolution of concurrency problems." Let’s create a class for handling Unit of Work public interface IUnitOfWork {     void Commit(); } UniOfWork class public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork {     private readonly IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory;     private MyFinanceContext dataContext;       public UnitOfWork(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)     {         this.databaseFactory = databaseFactory;     }       protected MyFinanceContext DataContext     {         get { return dataContext ?? (dataContext = databaseFactory.Get()); }     }       public void Commit()     {         DataContext.Commit();     } } The Commit method of the UnitOfWork will call the commit method of MyFinanceContext class and it will execute the SaveChanges method of DbContext class.   Repository class for Category In this post, we will be focusing on the persistence against Category entity and will working on other entities in later post. Let’s create a repository for handling CRUD operations for Category using derive from a generic Repository RepositoryBase<T>. public class CategoryRepository: RepositoryBase<Category>, ICategoryRepository     {     public CategoryRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface ICategoryRepository : IRepository<Category> { } If we need additional methods than generic repository for the Category, we can define in the CategoryRepository. Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 If you are new to Inversion of Control/ Dependency Injection or Unity, please have a look on my articles at http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/tags/IoC/default.aspx. I want to create a custom lifetime manager for Unity to store container in the current HttpContext. public class HttpContextLifetimeManager<T> : LifetimeManager, IDisposable {     public override object GetValue()     {         return HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName];     }     public override void RemoveValue()     {         HttpContext.Current.Items.Remove(typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName);     }     public override void SetValue(object newValue)     {         HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName] = newValue;     }     public void Dispose()     {         RemoveValue();     } } Let’s create controller factory for Unity in the ASP.NET MVC 3 application.                 404, String.Format(                     "The controller for path '{0}' could not be found" +     "or it does not implement IController.",                 reqContext.HttpContext.Request.Path));       if (!typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(controllerType))         throw new ArgumentException(                 string.Format(                     "Type requested is not a controller: {0}",                     controllerType.Name),                     "controllerType");     try     {         controller= container.Resolve(controllerType) as IController;     }     catch (Exception ex)     {         throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(                                 "Error resolving controller {0}",                                 controllerType.Name), ex);     }     return controller; }   } Configure contract and concrete types in Unity Let’s configure our contract and concrete types in Unity for resolving our dependencies. private void ConfigureUnity() {     //Create UnityContainer               IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer()                 .RegisterType<IDatabaseFactory, DatabaseFactory>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IDatabaseFactory>())     .RegisterType<IUnitOfWork, UnitOfWork>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IUnitOfWork>())     .RegisterType<ICategoryRepository, CategoryRepository>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<ICategoryRepository>());                 //Set container for Controller Factory                ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(             new UnityControllerFactory(container)); } In the above ConfigureUnity method, we are registering our types onto Unity container with custom lifetime manager HttpContextLifetimeManager. Let’s call ConfigureUnity method in the Global.asax.cs for set controller factory for Unity and configuring the types with Unity. protected void Application_Start() {     AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();     RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);     RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);     ConfigureUnity(); } Developing web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 We have created our domain model for our web application and also have created repositories and configured dependencies with Unity container. Now we have to create controller classes and views for doing CRUD operations against the Category entity. Let’s create controller class for Category Category Controller public class CategoryController : Controller {     private readonly ICategoryRepository categoryRepository;     private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;           public CategoryController(ICategoryRepository categoryRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {         this.categoryRepository = categoryRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }       public ActionResult Index()     {         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return View(categories);     }     [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Edit(int id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         return View(category);     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection collection)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         if (TryUpdateModel(category))         {             unitOfWork.Commit();             return RedirectToAction("Index");         }         else return View(category);                 }       [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Create()     {         var category = new Category();         return View(category);     }           [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Create(Category category)     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             return View("Create", category);         }                     categoryRepository.Add(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         return RedirectToAction("Index");     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Delete(int  id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         categoryRepository.Delete(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return PartialView("CategoryList", categories);       }        } Creating Views in Razor Now we are going to create views in Razor for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application.  Let’s create a partial view CategoryList.cshtml for listing category information and providing link for Edit and Delete operations. CategoryList.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @using MyFinance.Domain; @model IEnumerable<Category>      <table>         <tr>         <th>Actions</th>         <th>Name</th>          <th>Description</th>         </tr>     @foreach (var item in Model) {             <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.CategoryId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.CategoryId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divCategoryList" })                           </td>             <td>                 @item.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Description             </td>         </tr>         }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create")     </p> The delete link is providing Ajax functionality using the Ajax.ActionLink. This will call an Ajax request for Delete action method in the CategoryCotroller class. In the Delete action method, it will return Partial View CategoryList after deleting the record. We are using CategoryList view for the Ajax functionality and also for Index view using for displaying list of category information. Let’s create Index view using partial view CategoryList  Index.chtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Category> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Category List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>    <div id="divCategoryList">               @Html.Partial("CategoryList", Model) </div> We can call the partial views using Html.Partial helper method. Now we are going to create View pages for insert and update functionality for the Category. Both view pages are sharing common user interface for entering the category information. So I want to create an EditorTemplate for the Category information. We have to create the EditorTemplate with the same name of entity object so that we can refer it on view pages using @Html.EditorFor(model => model) . So let’s create template with name Category. Category.cshtml @model MyFinance.Domain.Category <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Name) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Description) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Description) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Description) </div> Let’s create view page for insert Category information @model MyFinance.Domain.Category   @{     ViewBag.Title = "Save"; }   <h2>Create</h2>   <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>   @using (Html.BeginForm()) {     @Html.ValidationSummary(true)     <fieldset>         <legend>Category</legend>                @Html.EditorFor(model => model)               <p>             <input type="submit" value="Create" />         </p>     </fieldset> }   <div>     @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div> ViewStart file In Razor views, we can add a file named _viewstart.cshtml in the views directory  and this will be shared among the all views with in the Views directory. The below code in the _viewstart.cshtml, sets the Layout page for every Views in the Views folder.     @{     Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; } Tomorrow, we will cotinue the second part of this article. :)

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  • Stop Spinning Your Wheels&hellip; Sage Advice for Aspiring Developers

    - by Mark Rackley
    So… lately I’ve been tasked with helping bring some non-developers over the hump and become full-fledged, all around, SharePoint developers. Well, only time will tell if I’m successful or a complete failure. Good thing about failures though, you know what NOT to do next time! Anyway, I’ve been writing some sort of code since I was about 10 years old; so I sometimes take for granted the effort some people have to go through to learn a new technology. I guess if I had to say I was an “expert” in one thing it would be learning (and getting “stuff” done) in new technologies. Maybe that’s why I’ve embraced SharePoint and the SharePoint community. SharePoint is the first technology I haven’t been able to master or get everything done without help from other people. I KNOW I’ll never know it all and I learn something new every day.  It keeps it interesting, it keeps me motivated, and keeps me involved. So, what some people may consider a downside of SharePoint, I definitely consider a plus. Crap.. I’m rambling. Where was I? Oh yeah… me trying to be helpful. Like I said, I am able to quickly and effectively pick up new languages, technology, etc. and put it to good use. Am I just brilliant? Well, my mom thinks so.. but maybe not. Maybe I’ve just been doing it for a long time…. 25 years in some form or fashion… wow I’m old… Anyway, what I lack in depth I make up for in breadth and being the “go-to” guy wherever I work when someone needs to “get stuff done”.  Let’s see if I can take some of that experience and put it to practical use to help new people get up to speed faster, learn things more effectively, and become that go-to guy. First off…  make sure you… Know The Basics I don’t have the time to teach new developers the basics, but you gotta know them. I’ve only been “taught” two languages.. Fortran 77 and C… everything else I’ve picked up from “doing”. I HAD to know the basics though, and all new developers need to understand the very basics of development.  97.23% of all languages will have the following: Variables Functions Arrays If statements For loops / While loops If you think about it, most development is “if this, do this… or while this, do this…”.  “This” may be some unique method to your language or something you develop, but the basics are the basics. YES there are MANY other development topics you need to understand, but you shouldn’t be scratching your head trying to figure out what a ”for loop” is… (Also learn about classes and hashtables as quickly as possible). Once you have the basics down it makes it much easier to… Learn By Doing This may just apply to me and my warped brain.  I don’t learn a new technology by reading or hearing someone speak about it. I learn by doing. It does me no good to try and learn all of the intricacies of a new language or technology inside-and-out before getting my hands dirty. Just show me how to do one thing… let me get that working… then show me how to do the next thing.. let me get that working… Now, let’s see what I can figure out on my own. Okay.. now it starts to make sense. I see how the language works, I can step through the code, and before you know it.. I’m productive in a new technology. Be careful here though…. make sure you… Don’t Reinvent The Wheel People have been writing code for what… 50+ years now? So, why are you trying to tackle ANYTHING without first Googling it with Bing to see what others have done first? When I was first learning C# (I had come from a Java background) I had to call a web service.  Sure! No problem! I’d done this many times in Java. So, I proceeded to write an HTTP Handler, called the Web Service and it worked like a charm!!!  Probably about 2.3 seconds after I got it working completely someone says to me “Why didn’t you just add a Web Reference?” Really? You can do that?  oops… I just wasted a lot of time. Before undertaking the development of any sort of utility method in a new language, make sure it’s not already handled for you… Okay… you are starting to write some code and are curious about the possibilities? Well… don’t just sit there… Try It And See What Happens This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves. “So… ‘x++’ works in C#, but does it also work in JavaScript?”   Really? Did you just ask me that? In the time it spent for you to type that email, press the send button, me receive the email, get around to reading it, and replying with “yes” you could have tested it 47 times and know the answer! Just TRY it! See what happens! You aren’t doing brain surgery. You aren’t going to kill anyone, and you BETTER not be developing in production. So, you are not going to crash any production systems!! Seriously! Get off your butt and just try it yourself. The extra added benefit is that it doesn’t work, the absolute best way to learn is to… Learn From Your Failures I don’t know about you… but if I screw up and something doesn’t work, I learn A LOT more debugging my problem than if everything magically worked. It’s okay that you aren’t perfect! Not everyone can be me? In the same vein… don’t ask someone else to debug your problem until you have made a valiant attempt to do so yourself. There’s nothing quite like stepping through code line by line to see what it’s REALLY doing… and you’ll never feel more stupid sometimes than when you realize WHY it’s not working.. but you realize... you learn... and you remember. There is nothing wrong with failure as long as you learn from it. As you start writing more and more and more code make sure that you ALWAYS… Develop for Production You will soon learn that the “prototype” you wrote last week to show as a “proof of concept” is going to go directly into production no matter how much you beg and plead and try to explain it’s not ready to go into production… it’s going to go straight there.. and it’s like herpes.. it doesn’t go away and there’s no fixing it once it’s in there.  So, why not write ALL your code like it will be put in production? It MIGHT take a little longer, but in the long run it will be easier to maintain, get help on, and you won’t be embarrassed that it’s sitting on a production server for everyone to use and see. So, now that you are getting comfortable and writing code for production it is important to to remember the… KISS Principle… Learn It… Love It… Keep It Simple Stupid Seriously.. don’t try to show how smart you are by writing the most complicated code in history. Break your problem up into discrete steps and write each step. If it turns out you have some redundancy, you can always go back and tweak your code later.  How bad is it when you write code that LOOKS cocky? I’ve seen it before… some of the most abstract and complicated classes when a class wasn’t even needed! Or the most elaborate unreadable code jammed into one really long line when it could have been written in three lines, performed just as well, and been SOOO much easier to maintain. Keep it clear and simple.. baby steps people. This will help you learn the technology, debug problems, AND it will help others help you find your problems if they don’t have to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls just to figure out what you are trying to do…. Really.. don’t be that guy… try to curb your ego and… Keep an Open Mind No matter how smart you are… how fast you type… or how much you get paid, don’t let your ego get in the way. There is probably a better way to do everything you’ve ever done. Don’t become so cocky that you can’t think someone knows more than you. There’s a lot of brilliant, helpful people out there willing to show you tricks if you just give them a chance. A very super-awesome developer once told me “So what if you’ve been writing code for 10 years or more! Does your code look basically the same? Are you not growing as a developer?” Those 10 years become pretty meaningless if you just “know” that you are right and have not picked up new tips, tricks, methods, and patterns along the way. Learn from others and find out what’s new in development land (you know you don’t have to specifically use pointers anymore??). Along those same lines… If it’s not working, first assume you are doing something wrong. You have no idea how much it annoys people who are trying to help you when you first assume that the help they are trying to give you is wrong. Just MAYBE… you… the person learning is making some small mistake? Maybe you didn’t describe your problem correctly? Maybe you are using the wrong terminology? “I did exactly what you said and it didn’t work.”  Oh really? Are you SURE about that? “Your solution doesn’t work.”  Well… I’m pretty sure it works, I’ve used it 200 times… What are you doing differently? First try some humility and appreciation.. it will go much further, especially when it turns out YOU are the one that is wrong. When all else fails…. Try Professional Training Some people just don’t have the mindset to go and figure stuff out. It’s a gift and not everyone has it. If everyone could do it I wouldn’t have a job and there wouldn’t be professional training available.  So, if you’ve tried everything else and no light bulbs are coming on, contact the experts who specialize in training. Be careful though, there is bad training out there. Want to know the names of some good places? Just shoot me a message and I’ll let you know. I’m boycotting endorsing Andrew Connell anymore until I get that free course dangit!! So… that’s it.. that’s all I got right now. Maybe you thought all of this is common sense, maybe you think I’m smoking crack. If so, don’t just sit there, there’s a comments section for a reason. Finally, what about you? What tips do you have to help this aspiring to learn the dark arts??

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  • Credentials can not be delegated - Alfresco Share

    - by leftcase
    I've hit a brick wall configuring Alfresco 4.0.d on Redhat 6. I'm using Kerberos authentication, it seems to be working normally, and single sign on is working on the main alfresco app itself. I've been through the configuration steps to get the share app working, but try as I may, I keep getting this error in catalina.out each time a browser accesses http://server:8080/share along with a 'Windows Security' password box. WARN [site.servlet.KerberosSessionSetupPrivilegedAction] credentials can not be delegated! Here's what I've done so far: Using AD users and computers, selected the alfrescohttp account, and selected 'trust this user for delegation to any service (Kerberos only). Copied /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/web-extension/share-config-custom.xml.sample to share-config-custom.xml and edited like this: <config evaluator="string-compare" condition="Kerberos" replace="true"> <kerberos> <password>*****</password> <realm>MYDOMAIN.CO.UK</realm> <endpoint-spn>HTTP/[email protected]</endpoint-spn> <config-entry>ShareHTTP</config-entry> </kerberos> </config> <config evaluator="string-compare" condition="Remote"> <remote> <keystore> <path>alfresco/web-extension/alfresco-system.p12</path> <type>pkcs12</type> <password>alfresco-system</password> </keystore> <connector> <id>alfrescoCookie</id> <name>Alfresco Connector</name> <description>Connects to an Alfresco instance using cookie-based authentication</description> <class>org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.connector.AlfrescoConnector</class> </connector> <endpoint> <id>alfresco</id> <name>Alfresco - user access</name> <description>Access to Alfresco Repository WebScripts that require user authentication</description> <connector-id>alfrescoCookie</connector-id> <endpoint-url>http://localhost:8080/alfresco/wcs</endpoint-url> <identity>user</identity> <external-auth>true</external-auth> </endpoint> </remote> </config> Setup the /etc/krb5.conf file like this: [logging] default = FILE:/var/log/krb5libs.log kdc = FILE:/var/log/krb5kdc.log admin_server = FILE:/var/log/kadmind.log [libdefaults] default_realm = MYDOMAIN.CO.UK default_tkt_enctypes = rc4-hmac default_tgs_enctypes = rc4-hmac forwardable = true proxiable = true [realms] MYDOMAIN.CO.UK = { kdc = mydc.mydomain.co.uk admin_server = mydc.mydomain.co.uk } [domain_realm] .mydc.mydomain.co.uk = MYDOMAIN.CO.UK mydc.mydomain.co.uk = MYDOMAIN.CO.UK /opt/alfresco-4.0.d/java/jre/lib/security/java.login.config is configured like this: Alfresco { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule sufficient; }; AlfrescoCIFS { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required storeKey=true useKeyTab=true keyTab="/etc/alfrescocifs.keytab" principal="cifs/server.mydomain.co.uk"; }; AlfrescoHTTP { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required storeKey=true useKeyTab=true keyTab="/etc/alfrescohttp.keytab" principal="HTTP/server.mydomain.co.uk"; }; com.sun.net.ssl.client { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule sufficient; }; other { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule sufficient; }; ShareHTTP { com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required storeKey=true useKeyTab=true keyTab="/etc/alfrescohttp.keytab" principal="HTTP/server.mydomain.co.uk"; }; And finally, the following settings in alfresco-global.conf authentication.chain=kerberos1:kerberos,alfrescoNtlm1:alfrescoNtlm kerberos.authentication.real=MYDOMAIN.CO.UK kerberos.authentication.user.configEntryName=Alfresco kerberos.authentication.cifs.configEntryName=AlfrescoCIFS kerberos.authentication.http.configEntryName=AlfrescoHTTP kerberos.authentication.cifs.password=****** kerberos.authentication.http.password=***** kerberos.authentication.defaultAdministratorUserNames=administrator ntlm.authentication.sso.enabled=true As I say, I've hit a brick wall with this and I'd really appreciate any help you can give me! This question is also posted on the Alfresco forum, but I wondered if any folk here on serverfault have come across similar implementation challenges?

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  • Can't connect to STunnel when it's running as a service

    - by John Francis
    I've got STunnel configured to proxy non SSL POP3 requests to GMail on port 111. This is working fine when STunnel is running as a desktop app, but when I run the STunnel service, I can't connect to port 111 on the machine (using Outlook Express for example). The Stunnel log file shows the port binding is succeeding, but it never sees a connection. There's something preventing the connection to that port when STunnel is running as a service? Here's stunnel.conf cert = stunnel.pem ; Some performance tunings socket = l:TCP_NODELAY=1 socket = r:TCP_NODELAY=1 ; Some debugging stuff useful for troubleshooting debug = 7 output = stunnel.log ; Use it for client mode client = yes ; Service-level configuration [gmail] accept = 127.0.0.1:111 connect = pop.gmail.com:995 stunnel.log from service 2010.10.07 12:14:22 LOG5[80444:72984]: Reading configuration from file stunnel.conf 2010.10.07 12:14:22 LOG7[80444:72984]: Snagged 64 random bytes from C:/.rnd 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Wrote 1024 new random bytes to C:/.rnd 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: PRNG seeded successfully 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Certificate: stunnel.pem 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Certificate loaded 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Key file: stunnel.pem 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Private key loaded 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: SSL context initialized for service gmail 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG5[80444:72984]: Configuration successful 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG5[80444:72984]: No limit detected for the number of clients 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: FD=156 in non-blocking mode 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Option SO_REUSEADDR set on accept socket 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Service gmail bound to 0.0.0.0:111 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Service gmail opened FD=156 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG5[80444:72984]: stunnel 4.34 on x86-pc-mingw32-gnu with OpenSSL 1.0.0a 1 Jun 2010 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG5[80444:72984]: Threading:WIN32 SSL:ENGINE Sockets:SELECT,IPv6 stunnel.log from desktop (working) process 2010.10.07 12:10:31 LOG5[80824:81200]: Reading configuration from file stunnel.conf 2010.10.07 12:10:31 LOG7[80824:81200]: Snagged 64 random bytes from C:/.rnd 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Wrote 1024 new random bytes to C:/.rnd 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: PRNG seeded successfully 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Certificate: stunnel.pem 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Certificate loaded 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Key file: stunnel.pem 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Private key loaded 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: SSL context initialized for service gmail 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG5[80824:81200]: Configuration successful 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG5[80824:81200]: No limit detected for the number of clients 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: FD=156 in non-blocking mode 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Option SO_REUSEADDR set on accept socket 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Service gmail bound to 0.0.0.0:111 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Service gmail opened FD=156 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:81200]: stunnel 4.34 on x86-pc-mingw32-gnu with OpenSSL 1.0.0a 1 Jun 2010 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:81200]: Threading:WIN32 SSL:ENGINE Sockets:SELECT,IPv6 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:81844]: Service gmail accepted FD=188 from 127.0.0.1:24813 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:81844]: Creating a new thread 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:81844]: New thread created 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: Service gmail started 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: FD=188 in non-blocking mode 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: Option TCP_NODELAY set on local socket 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:25144]: Service gmail accepted connection from 127.0.0.1:24813 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: FD=212 in non-blocking mode 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG6[80824:25144]: connect_blocking: connecting 209.85.227.109:995 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: connect_blocking: s_poll_wait 209.85.227.109:995: waiting 10 seconds 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:25144]: connect_blocking: connected 209.85.227.109:995 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:25144]: Service gmail connected remote server from 192.168.1.9:24814 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: Remote FD=212 initialized 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: Option TCP_NODELAY set on remote socket 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): before/connect initialization 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 write client hello A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 read server hello A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 read server certificate A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 read server done A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 write client key exchange A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 write change cipher spec A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 write finished A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 flush data 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 read finished A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 1 items in the session cache 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 1 client connects (SSL_connect()) 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 1 client connects that finished 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 client renegotiations requested 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 server connects (SSL_accept()) 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 server connects that finished 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 server renegotiations requested 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 session cache hits 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 external session cache hits 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 session cache misses 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 session cache timeouts 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG6[80824:25144]: SSL connected: new session negotiated 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG6[80824:25144]: Negotiated ciphers: RC4-MD5 SSLv3 Kx=RSA Au=RSA Enc=RC4(128) Mac=MD5 2010.10.07 12:10:34 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL socket closed on SSL_read 2010.10.07 12:10:34 LOG7[80824:25144]: Sending socket write shutdown 2010.10.07 12:10:34 LOG5[80824:25144]: Connection closed: 53 bytes sent to SSL, 118 bytes sent to socket 2010.10.07 12:10:34 LOG7[80824:25144]: Service gmail finished (0 left)

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  • Can't connect to STunnel when it's running as a service

    - by John Francis
    I've got STunnel configured to proxy non SSL POP3 requests to GMail on port 111. This is working fine when STunnel is running as a desktop app, but when I run the STunnel service, I can't connect to port 111 on the machine (using Outlook Express for example). The Stunnel log file shows the port binding is succeeding, but it never sees a connection. There's something preventing the connection to that port when STunnel is running as a service? Here's stunnel.conf cert = stunnel.pem ; Some performance tunings socket = l:TCP_NODELAY=1 socket = r:TCP_NODELAY=1 ; Some debugging stuff useful for troubleshooting debug = 7 output = stunnel.log ; Use it for client mode client = yes ; Service-level configuration [gmail] accept = 127.0.0.1:111 connect = pop.gmail.com:995 stunnel.log from service 2010.10.07 12:14:22 LOG5[80444:72984]: Reading configuration from file stunnel.conf 2010.10.07 12:14:22 LOG7[80444:72984]: Snagged 64 random bytes from C:/.rnd 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Wrote 1024 new random bytes to C:/.rnd 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: PRNG seeded successfully 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Certificate: stunnel.pem 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Certificate loaded 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Key file: stunnel.pem 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Private key loaded 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: SSL context initialized for service gmail 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG5[80444:72984]: Configuration successful 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG5[80444:72984]: No limit detected for the number of clients 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: FD=156 in non-blocking mode 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Option SO_REUSEADDR set on accept socket 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Service gmail bound to 0.0.0.0:111 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG7[80444:72984]: Service gmail opened FD=156 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG5[80444:72984]: stunnel 4.34 on x86-pc-mingw32-gnu with OpenSSL 1.0.0a 1 Jun 2010 2010.10.07 12:14:23 LOG5[80444:72984]: Threading:WIN32 SSL:ENGINE Sockets:SELECT,IPv6 stunnel.log from desktop (working) process 2010.10.07 12:10:31 LOG5[80824:81200]: Reading configuration from file stunnel.conf 2010.10.07 12:10:31 LOG7[80824:81200]: Snagged 64 random bytes from C:/.rnd 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Wrote 1024 new random bytes to C:/.rnd 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: PRNG seeded successfully 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Certificate: stunnel.pem 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Certificate loaded 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Key file: stunnel.pem 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Private key loaded 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: SSL context initialized for service gmail 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG5[80824:81200]: Configuration successful 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG5[80824:81200]: No limit detected for the number of clients 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: FD=156 in non-blocking mode 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Option SO_REUSEADDR set on accept socket 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Service gmail bound to 0.0.0.0:111 2010.10.07 12:10:32 LOG7[80824:81200]: Service gmail opened FD=156 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:81200]: stunnel 4.34 on x86-pc-mingw32-gnu with OpenSSL 1.0.0a 1 Jun 2010 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:81200]: Threading:WIN32 SSL:ENGINE Sockets:SELECT,IPv6 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:81844]: Service gmail accepted FD=188 from 127.0.0.1:24813 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:81844]: Creating a new thread 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:81844]: New thread created 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: Service gmail started 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: FD=188 in non-blocking mode 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: Option TCP_NODELAY set on local socket 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:25144]: Service gmail accepted connection from 127.0.0.1:24813 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: FD=212 in non-blocking mode 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG6[80824:25144]: connect_blocking: connecting 209.85.227.109:995 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: connect_blocking: s_poll_wait 209.85.227.109:995: waiting 10 seconds 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:25144]: connect_blocking: connected 209.85.227.109:995 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG5[80824:25144]: Service gmail connected remote server from 192.168.1.9:24814 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: Remote FD=212 initialized 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: Option TCP_NODELAY set on remote socket 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): before/connect initialization 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 write client hello A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 read server hello A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 read server certificate A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 read server done A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 write client key exchange A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 write change cipher spec A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 write finished A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 flush data 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL state (connect): SSLv3 read finished A 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 1 items in the session cache 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 1 client connects (SSL_connect()) 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 1 client connects that finished 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 client renegotiations requested 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 server connects (SSL_accept()) 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 server connects that finished 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 server renegotiations requested 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 session cache hits 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 external session cache hits 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 session cache misses 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG7[80824:25144]: 0 session cache timeouts 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG6[80824:25144]: SSL connected: new session negotiated 2010.10.07 12:10:33 LOG6[80824:25144]: Negotiated ciphers: RC4-MD5 SSLv3 Kx=RSA Au=RSA Enc=RC4(128) Mac=MD5 2010.10.07 12:10:34 LOG7[80824:25144]: SSL socket closed on SSL_read 2010.10.07 12:10:34 LOG7[80824:25144]: Sending socket write shutdown 2010.10.07 12:10:34 LOG5[80824:25144]: Connection closed: 53 bytes sent to SSL, 118 bytes sent to socket 2010.10.07 12:10:34 LOG7[80824:25144]: Service gmail finished (0 left)

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  • Can't log in via SSH to any accounts set to use /bin/bash as a default shell

    - by Gui Ambros
    I'm trying to install bash as the default shell on a ARM Linux running on an embedded device (Synology DS212+ NAS). But there's something really wrong, and I can't figure out what it is. Symptoms: 1) Root has /bin/bash as default shell, and can log in normally via SSH: $ grep root /etc/passwd root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash $ ssh root@NAS root@NAS's password: Last login: Sun Dec 16 14:06:56 2012 from desktop # 2) joeuser has /bin/bash as default shell, and receives "Permission denied" when trying to log in via SSH: $ grep joeuser /etc/passwd joeuser:x:1029:100:Joe User:/home/joeuser:/bin/bash $ ssh joeuser@localhost joeuser@NAS's password: Last login: Sun Dec 16 14:07:22 2012 from desktop Permission denied, please try again. Connection to localhost closed. 3) changing joeuser's shell back to /bin/sh: $ grep joeuser /etc/passwd joeuser:x:1029:100:Joe User:/home/joeuser:/bin/sh $ ssh joeuser@localhost Last login: Sun Dec 16 15:50:52 2012 from localhost $ To make things even more strange, I can log in as joeuser using /bin/bash using the serial console (!). Also a su - joeuser as root works fine, so the bash binary itself is working fine. In an act of despair, I changed joeuser's uid to 0 on /etc/passwd, but also didn't work, so it doesn't seem to be anything permission related. Seems that bash is doing some extra checking that sshd didn't like, and blocking the connections for non-root users. Maybe some sort of sanity checking - or terminal emulation - that is triggering the SIGCHLD, but only when called via ssh. I already went through every single item on sshd_config, and also put SSHD in debug mode, but didn't find anything strange. Here's my /etc/ssh/sshd_config: LogLevel DEBUG LoginGraceTime 2m PermitRootLogin yes RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys ChallengeResponseAuthentication no UsePAM yes AllowTcpForwarding no ChrootDirectory none Subsystem sftp internal-sftp -f DAEMON -u 000 And here's the output from /usr/syno/sbin/sshd -d, showing the failed attempt of joeuser trying to log in, with /bin/bash as the shell: debug1: Config token is loglevel debug1: Config token is logingracetime debug1: Config token is permitrootlogin debug1: Config token is rsaauthentication debug1: Config token is pubkeyauthentication debug1: Config token is authorizedkeysfile debug1: Config token is challengeresponseauthentication debug1: Config token is usepam debug1: Config token is allowtcpforwarding debug1: Config token is chrootdirectory debug1: Config token is subsystem debug1: HPN Buffer Size: 87380 debug1: sshd version OpenSSH_5.8p1-hpn13v11 debug1: read PEM private key done: type RSA debug1: private host key: #0 type 1 RSA debug1: read PEM private key done: type DSA debug1: private host key: #1 type 2 DSA debug1: read PEM private key done: type ECDSA debug1: private host key: #2 type 3 ECDSA debug1: rexec_argv[0]='/usr/syno/sbin/sshd' debug1: rexec_argv[1]='-d' Set /proc/self/oom_adj from 0 to -17 debug1: Bind to port 22 on ::. debug1: Server TCP RWIN socket size: 87380 debug1: HPN Buffer Size: 87380 Server listening on :: port 22. debug1: Bind to port 22 on 0.0.0.0. debug1: Server TCP RWIN socket size: 87380 debug1: HPN Buffer Size: 87380 Server listening on 0.0.0.0 port 22. debug1: Server will not fork when running in debugging mode. debug1: rexec start in 6 out 6 newsock 6 pipe -1 sock 9 debug1: inetd sockets after dupping: 4, 4 Connection from 127.0.0.1 port 52212 debug1: HPN Disabled: 0, HPN Buffer Size: 87380 debug1: Client protocol version 2.0; client software version OpenSSH_5.8p1-hpn13v11 SSH: Server;Ltype: Version;Remote: 127.0.0.1-52212;Protocol: 2.0;Client: OpenSSH_5.8p1-hpn13v11 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.8p1-hpn13v11 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.8p1-hpn13v11 debug1: permanently_set_uid: 1024/100 debug1: MYFLAG IS 1 debug1: list_hostkey_types: ssh-rsa,ssh-dss,ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: AUTH STATE IS 0 debug1: REQUESTED ENC.NAME is 'aes128-ctr' debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none SSH: Server;Ltype: Kex;Remote: 127.0.0.1-52212;Enc: aes128-ctr;MAC: hmac-md5;Comp: none debug1: REQUESTED ENC.NAME is 'aes128-ctr' debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_ECDH_INIT debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: KEX done debug1: userauth-request for user joeuser service ssh-connection method none SSH: Server;Ltype: Authname;Remote: 127.0.0.1-52212;Name: joeuser debug1: attempt 0 failures 0 debug1: Config token is loglevel debug1: Config token is logingracetime debug1: Config token is permitrootlogin debug1: Config token is rsaauthentication debug1: Config token is pubkeyauthentication debug1: Config token is authorizedkeysfile debug1: Config token is challengeresponseauthentication debug1: Config token is usepam debug1: Config token is allowtcpforwarding debug1: Config token is chrootdirectory debug1: Config token is subsystem debug1: PAM: initializing for "joeuser" debug1: PAM: setting PAM_RHOST to "localhost" debug1: PAM: setting PAM_TTY to "ssh" debug1: userauth-request for user joeuser service ssh-connection method password debug1: attempt 1 failures 0 debug1: do_pam_account: called Accepted password for joeuser from 127.0.0.1 port 52212 ssh2 debug1: monitor_child_preauth: joeuser has been authenticated by privileged process debug1: PAM: establishing credentials User child is on pid 9129 debug1: Entering interactive session for SSH2. debug1: server_init_dispatch_20 debug1: server_input_channel_open: ctype session rchan 0 win 65536 max 16384 debug1: input_session_request debug1: channel 0: new [server-session] debug1: session_new: session 0 debug1: session_open: channel 0 debug1: session_open: session 0: link with channel 0 debug1: server_input_channel_open: confirm session debug1: server_input_global_request: rtype [email protected] want_reply 0 debug1: server_input_channel_req: channel 0 request pty-req reply 1 debug1: session_by_channel: session 0 channel 0 debug1: session_input_channel_req: session 0 req pty-req debug1: Allocating pty. debug1: session_new: session 0 debug1: session_pty_req: session 0 alloc /dev/pts/1 debug1: server_input_channel_req: channel 0 request shell reply 1 debug1: session_by_channel: session 0 channel 0 debug1: session_input_channel_req: session 0 req shell debug1: Setting controlling tty using TIOCSCTTY. debug1: Received SIGCHLD. debug1: session_by_pid: pid 9130 debug1: session_exit_message: session 0 channel 0 pid 9130 debug1: session_exit_message: release channel 0 debug1: session_by_tty: session 0 tty /dev/pts/1 debug1: session_pty_cleanup: session 0 release /dev/pts/1 Received disconnect from 127.0.0.1: 11: disconnected by user debug1: do_cleanup debug1: do_cleanup debug1: PAM: cleanup debug1: PAM: closing session debug1: PAM: deleting credentials Here you have the full output of sshd -dd, together with ssh -vv. Bash: # bash --version GNU bash, version 3.2.49(1)-release (arm-none-linux-gnueabi) Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. The bash binary was cross compiled from source. I also tried using a pre-compiled binary from the Optware distribution, but had the exact same problem. I checked for missing shared libraries using objdump -x, but they're all there. Any ideas what could be causing this "Permission denied, please try again."? I'm almost diving in the bash source code to investigate, but trying to avoid hours chasing something that may be silly.

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  • Issues with Verizon's "Network Extender" device talking on my home network.

    - by Logan
    I recently switched my phone service to Verizon from ATT, and I get somewhat spotty service in my house. I called them and they sent me a "network extender" device for free. Its a femtocell that connects to my home network. The directions that come with it are very dumbed down, basically just say to connect it to your router and put it near a window (so it can get a GPS signal, it has to make sure its within the correct area before operating). The problem I'm having is the network light on it stays red. The troubleshooting information that came with it tells me this means there is a bad network connection. Its connected through an ASUS router running DD-WRT. No other devices on my network have a problem with it, including a Western Digital WDLIVE device, mine and my wife's cell phones (via wifi), a Wii, and an Xbox. If I connect the device directly to my cable modem, the light goes blue (which means good) and it starts working. So this tells me that its definately a configuration issue with my router. Verizon basically washed their hands of me when I connected it to my cable modem, and told me that its a router issue and to try a different router. Because normal people just have extra routers laying around their houses... When I connect it to the router, I can watch the DHCP Clients list on the status page, and the MAC of the network extender quickly fills up the clients list, grabbing every available DHCP address. Its like it grabs an address, can't connect to the internet, releases it, grabs another, then another, then another. So in the DHCP server settings I assigned a static IP to its MAC. This made it quit doing what it was doing before, but its still not working. I found the ports I needed to open on verizon's website, and opened them in the port forwarding config on my router. This still didn't help. So, I tried setting the network extender device's IP as the DMZ IP on the router. This still did no good. I called Verizon back and got the tech to write up a report which he passed on to a "senior network tech" who I got a call back from a few hours ago. This guy told me that while an ASUS router isn't listed as a supported device, he's not really sure why its not working. He suggested restoring the firmware to stock ASUS firmware and trying again. I have a very hard time believing its DD-WRT doing this, since every other device is working just fine with it. But its also not the Network Extender, since it works just fine when connected directly to the modem. At this point I'm out of ideas, and the next step is to restore the stock firmware on my router, and then going to walmart and getting a linksys WRT-54G to try. Is there anything else I could try before going that drastic? Cliffs- -Network extender won't work behind router, works when connected directly to cable modem. -Extender goes nuts when allowed to pick its own DHCP address, I had to assign it a static IP. -Won't work when correct ports are forwarded to it -Won't work with a DMZ address.

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  • Accessing resources on localhost using domain credentials

    - by jas
    I'm trying to set up Team Foundation Server 2010, Sharepoint Server 2010 and Report Server 2008R2. I apologize for how long my question/problem is but I'm really lost on where to even look so am being as descriptive as possible in hopes that I'm making sense. The goal: Since developers can be inside or outside the firewall there needs to be a single http point of entry to TFS that works regardless of which side of the firewall you are and needs to work with external access to SharePoint and Report Server. Meaning we have it set up in DNS so buildserver.mydomain.com: points to the build service box which contains all of the services listed at the top of this post and specific services are defined/located by the port number. This is working great on every machine inside and out except for from the build server itself. All services must be able to work using external URLs. If I use http:// buildserver.mydomain.com:4800/tfs (the external URL) from my notebook which is behind the firewall I'm able to login with my domain credentials as expected. If the other developer points to the same URL from their home which isn't on the domain they are also able to login using their domain credentials. However if I am directly on buildserver and call SharePoint, TFS or Reporting Server from (i.e. http:// buildserver.mydomain.com:4800) itself using the external URL, I am prompted for a username and password. Entering my domain credentials results in another prompt to enter my credentials again. It will prompt three times regardless of which credentials are used (I have rights as a domain admin) and then after the third prompt directs me to a blank white page as though access was denied. There are no errors displayed on the page and nothing ends up in the event viewer. From buildserver if i use just the host name (the internal URL), then I'm prompted a single time for credentials and it works. i.e. http:// buildserver:4800/tfs works from the server itself. The behavior is identical for any service requiring authentication. Meaning from the box itself Sharepoint Central Admin, SharePoint WebApp, TFS, TFS Web Access, Report Server and Report Manager all fail using the external URL but will succeed if called using the interal URL. So the problem comes into play when configuring all of the services to work together. The only way to configure TFS is locally from the server which means I must point to the internal reporting server url (http:// buildserver:4800/reports and reportServer respectively instead of http:// buildserver.domainname.com:4800 like they need to be) since external URLs aren't working from itself. If I configure TFS to use the internal URL for Report Server then creating team projects or working in the SharePoint site for the team project fails for anyone not inside the domain since their machines have no idea who http:// buildserver:/reports even is or how to resolve them. I have configured Sharepoint with Alternate Access Mappings as well as set up Report Server to listen for external URLs. The external URLs simply aren't working when called from the server itself. I hope this makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to read this rather verbose plea for help.

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  • Ubuntu 10.04 recognizing USB 2.0 external HD as USB 1.1

    - by btucker
    When I connect the USB 2.0 drive I see this: usb 1-4.3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 5 so I know it's getting seen as USB 1.1. usb-devices shows that it really is USB 2.0 and connected to a USB 2.0 hub: T: Bus=01 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=03 Cnt=01 Dev#= 2 Spd=12 MxCh= 4 D: Ver= 2.00 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1 P: Vendor=05e3 ProdID=0608 Rev=77.61 S: Product=USB2.0 Hub C: #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=100mA I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub T: Bus=01 Lev=02 Prnt=02 Port=01 Cnt=01 Dev#= 4 Spd=12 MxCh= 0 D: Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1 P: Vendor=13fd ProdID=1340 Rev=02.10 S: Manufacturer=Generic S: Product=External C: #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=c0 MxPwr=2mA I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=08(stor.) Sub=06 Prot=50 Driver=usb-storage It seems the problem is that root hub is: T: Bus=01 Lev=00 Prnt=00 Port=00 Cnt=00 Dev#= 1 Spd=12 MxCh=10 D: Ver= 1.10 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1 P: Vendor=1d6b ProdID=0001 Rev=02.06 S: Manufacturer=Linux 2.6.32-25-server ohci_hcd S: Product=OHCI Host Controller S: SerialNumber=0000:00:02.0 C: #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=0mA I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=09(hub ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=hub And there's no mention of ehci_hcd. lsusb -t gives me: /: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ohci_hcd/10p, 12M |__ Port 4: Dev 2, If 0, Class=hub, Driver=hub/4p, 12M |__ Port 2: Dev 4, If 0, Class=stor., Driver=usb-storage, 12M |__ Port 3: Dev 5, If 0, Class=stor., Driver=usb-storage, 12M |__ Port 6: Dev 3, If 0, Class=stor., Driver=usb-storage, 12M It seems like I'm missing something which would allow the OS to see USB 2.0 devices. Can anyone point me in the right direction? EDIT Full lsusb -v output: Bus 001 Device 005: ID 13fd:1340 Initio Corporation Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x13fd Initio Corporation idProduct 0x1340 bcdDevice 2.10 iManufacturer 1 Generic iProduct 2 External iSerial 3 57442D574341595930323337 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 32 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xc0 Self Powered MaxPower 2mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk (Zip) iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x02 EP 2 OUT bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes bInterval 0 Device Qualifier (for other device speed): bLength 10 bDescriptorType 6 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 bNumConfigurations 1 Device Status: 0x0001 Self Powered Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05e3:0608 Genesys Logic, Inc. USB-2.0 4-Port HUB Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 9 Hub bDeviceSubClass 0 Unused bDeviceProtocol 0 Full speed (or root) hub bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x05e3 Genesys Logic, Inc. idProduct 0x0608 USB-2.0 4-Port HUB bcdDevice 77.61 iManufacturer 0 iProduct 1 USB2.0 Hub iSerial 0 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 25 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xe0 Self Powered Remote Wakeup MaxPower 100mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 1 bInterfaceClass 9 Hub bInterfaceSubClass 0 Unused bInterfaceProtocol 0 Full speed (or root) hub iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0001 1x 1 bytes bInterval 255 Hub Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 41 nNbrPorts 4 wHubCharacteristic 0x00e0 Ganged power switching Ganged overcurrent protection Port indicators bPwrOn2PwrGood 50 * 2 milli seconds bHubContrCurrent 100 milli Ampere DeviceRemovable 0x00 PortPwrCtrlMask 0xff Hub Port Status: Port 1: 0000.0100 power Port 2: 0000.0103 power enable connect Port 3: 0000.0103 power enable connect Port 4: 0000.0100 power Device Qualifier (for other device speed): bLength 10 bDescriptorType 6 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 9 Hub bDeviceSubClass 0 Unused bDeviceProtocol 1 Single TT bMaxPacketSize0 64 bNumConfigurations 1 Device Status: 0x0001 Self Powered Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 1.10 bDeviceClass 9 Hub bDeviceSubClass 0 Unused bDeviceProtocol 0 Full speed (or root) hub bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x1d6b Linux Foundation idProduct 0x0001 1.1 root hub bcdDevice 2.06 iManufacturer 3 Linux 2.6.32-25-server ohci_hcd iProduct 2 OHCI Host Controller iSerial 1 0000:00:02.0 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 25 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0xe0 Self Powered Remote Wakeup MaxPower 0mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 1 bInterfaceClass 9 Hub bInterfaceSubClass 0 Unused bInterfaceProtocol 0 Full speed (or root) hub iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0002 1x 2 bytes bInterval 255 Hub Descriptor: bLength 11 bDescriptorType 41 nNbrPorts 10 wHubCharacteristic 0x0002 No power switching (usb 1.0) Ganged overcurrent protection bPwrOn2PwrGood 1 * 2 milli seconds bHubContrCurrent 0 milli Ampere DeviceRemovable 0x00 0x00 PortPwrCtrlMask 0xff 0xff Hub Port Status: Port 1: 0000.0100 power Port 2: 0000.0100 power Port 3: 0000.0100 power Port 4: 0000.0103 power enable connect Port 5: 0000.0100 power Port 6: 0000.0103 power enable connect Port 7: 0000.0100 power Port 8: 0000.0100 power Port 9: 0000.0100 power Port 10: 0000.0100 power Device Status: 0x0003 Self Powered Remote Wakeup Enabled

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  • Using PHP to connect to RADIUS works on one server but not another

    - by JDS
    I have a fleet of webservers that server a LAMP webapp broken into multiple customer apps by virtualhost/domain. The platform is Ubuntu 10.04 VM + PHP 5.3 + Apache 2.2.14, on top of VMware ESX (v4 I think). This stuff's not too important, though -- I'm just setting up the background. I have one customer that connects to a RADIUS server for authentication. We've found that the app responds as if some number of web servers are configured correctly and some are not. i.e. Apparently random authentication failures or successes, with no rhyme or reason. I did a lot of analysis of our fleet, and resolved it down to the differences between two specific web servers. I'll call them "A" and "B". "A" works. "B" does not. "Works" means "connects to and gets authentication data successfully from the RADIUS server". Ultimately, I'm looking for one thing that is different, and I've exhausted everything that I can come up with, so, looking for something else. Here are things I've looked at PHP package versions (all from Ubuntu repos). These are exactly the same across servers. PECL package. There are no PECL packages that aren't installed by apt. Other libraries or packages. Nothing that was network-related or RADIUS-related was different among servers. (There were some minor package differences, though.) Network or hosting environment. I found that some of the working servers were on the same physical environment as some not-working ones (i.e. same ESX containers). So, probably, the physical network layer is not the problem. Test case. I created a test case as follows. It works on the working servers, and fails on the not-working servers, very consistently. <?php $radius = radius_auth_open(); $username = 'theusername'; $password = 'thepassword'; $hostname = '12.34.56.78'; $radius_secret = '39wmmvxghg'; if (! radius_add_server($radius,$hostname,0,$radius_secret,5,3)) { die('Radius Error 1: ' . radius_strerror($radius) . "\n"); } if (! radius_create_request($radius,RADIUS_ACCESS_REQUEST)) { die('Radius Error 2: ' . radius_strerror($radius) . "\n"); } radius_put_attr($radius,RADIUS_USER_NAME,$username); radius_put_attr($radius,RADIUS_USER_PASSWORD,$password); switch (radius_send_request($radius)) { case RADIUS_ACCESS_ACCEPT: echo 'GOOD LOGIN'; break; case RADIUS_ACCESS_REJECT: echo 'BAD LOGIN'; break; case RADIUS_ACCESS_CHALLENGE: echo 'CHALLENGE REQUESTED'; break; default: die('Radius Error 3: ' . radius_strerror($radius) . "\n"); } ?>

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  • USB connection is unstable with Nexus S 2.3.4 on AMD 64 running 64-bit Windows 7, but works with 32-bit Windows Vista

    - by Mike
    The USB connection is unstable with Nexus S (Android 2.3.4) on AMD 64 running 64-bit Windows 7, but it works with 32-bit Windows Vista. Problem Description: On the 64-bit Windows 7 machine my Nexus S appears to connect, but then it disconnects moments later. Neither accessing USB storage or loading an Android application package file (APK) using the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) work. On 32-bit Windows Vista using the same USB cable, USB storage works. I haven't tried the ADB on 32-bit Windows Vista. Reproduction steps for USB storage: (I have provided the reproduction steps for USB storage and not ADB, because if one isn't working, then the other isn't working either and the USB storage reproduction steps are shorter to document.) Connect the USB cable to the Nexus S and my Windows 7 machine. Effect: The "USB Mass Storage, USB Connected" dialog appears with the button "Turn on USB storage." Click "Turn on USB Storage" Effect: The "working circle" appears. A dialog briefly appears saying "USB storage in use," then it either returns me to Step 1 (now that I am running 2.3.4) or is replaced with the Nexus S's application homepage (while I was running 2.3.3). I'm not sure if the version matters, but I mention it for completeness. On the 32-bit Windows Vista machine the connection is stable. I am able to navigate through the Nexus S file system create, read, update, and delete files, etc. I haven't tried connecting with the ADB. Troubleshooting summary: Tried and failed: Uninstalling and reinstalling the Android USB drivers including removing the files. Uninstalling my custom software Pulling the Nexus S's battery Restarting the Nexus S Restarting 64-bit Windows 7 Changing USB ports on the 64-bit Windows 7 box Compared the dates and file size on the DLLs in my google-usb_driver\amd64 directory and the windows\System32 directory. They match. The sizes for the google-usb_driver\i386 directory do not match (expected). Turning off Debugging mode on the Nexus S does not resolve the problem. Searching Google. Tried and succeeded: Connecting to another machine (Windows Vista) using the same USB cable and Nexus S phone. Troubleshooting observations: I notice that uninstalling the device drivers and deleting the files, then reinstalling the drivers, then rebooting 64-bit Windows 7 then unplugging the Nexus S, then plugging it back in occasionally helps for a short amount of time (minutes to hours, not days). When it is working, I can both access the Nexus S's drive and load/test applications using the ADB. I have observed some wonky behavior in the Device Manager that I haven't tracked down. Sometimes the black Nexus S image appears in the list of devices. Sometimes the image displays as a computer with a green ISA card. Sometimes it neither appears on the top level of devices nor under “other devices,” but it does appear under "disk drives" as "Android UMS Composite USB Device." System configuration: The Nexus S is running Android OS 2.3.4's "Settings\about phone\System updates" indicates that it is up to date as of May 21st 2011. Both 32-bit Windows Vista and 64-bit Windows 7 are up to date. The Windows Vista system is running on an Intel 32-bit processor. Windows 7 is running on an AMD 64-bit processor. I have done Android development on both systems, but I usually develop on the 64-bit Windows 7 machine.

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  • email-spec destroys my rake cucumber:all

    - by Leonardo Dario Perna
    This works fine: $ rake cucumber:all Then $ script/plugin install git://github.com/bmabey/email-spec.git remote: Counting objects: 162, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (130/130), done. remote: Total 162 (delta 18), reused 79 (delta 13) Receiving objects: 100% (162/162), 127.65 KiB | 15 KiB/s, done. Resolving deltas: 100% (18/18), done. From git://github.com/bmabey/email-spec * branch HEAD - FETCH_HEAD And $ script/generate email_spec exists features/step_definitions create features/step_definitions/email_steps.rb And I add 'require 'email_spec/cucumber' in /feature/support/env.rb so it looks somethinng like: require File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../config/environment') require 'cucumber/rails/world' require 'cucumber/formatter/unicode' # Comment out this line if you don't want Cucumber Unicode support require 'email_spec/cucumber' and now: rake cucumber:all gives me this error: $ rake cucumber:all --trace (in /Users/leonardodarioperna/Projects/frestyl/frestyl) ** Invoke cucumber:all (first_time) ** Invoke cucumber:ok (first_time) ** Invoke db:test:prepare (first_time) ** Invoke db:abort_if_pending_migrations (first_time) ** Invoke environment (first_time) ** Execute environment ** Execute db:abort_if_pending_migrations ** Execute db:test:prepare ** Invoke db:test:load (first_time) ** Invoke db:test:purge (first_time) ** Invoke environment ** Execute db:test:purge ** Execute db:test:load ** Invoke db:schema:load (first_time) ** Invoke environment ** Execute db:schema:load ** Execute cucumber:ok /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby -I "/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.4.4/lib:lib" "/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.4.4/bin/cucumber" --profile default cucumber.yml was not found. Please refer to cucumber's documentation on defining profiles in cucumber.yml. You must define a 'default' profile to use the cucumber command without any arguments. Type 'cucumber --help' for usage. rake aborted! Command failed with status (1): [/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/...] /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:995:in `sh' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1010:in `call' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1010:in `sh' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1094:in `sh' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1029:in `ruby' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1094:in `ruby' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.4.4/lib/cucumber/rake/task.rb:68:in `run' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.4.4/lib/cucumber/rake/task.rb:138:in `define_task' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:636:in `call' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:636:in `execute' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:631:in `each' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:631:in `execute' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:597:in `invoke_with_call_chain' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in `synchronize' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:590:in `invoke_with_call_chain' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:607:in `invoke_prerequisites' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:604:in `each' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:604:in `invoke_prerequisites' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:596:in `invoke_with_call_chain' /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in `synchronize' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:590:in `invoke_with_call_chain' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:583:in `invoke' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2051:in `invoke_task' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `top_level' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `each' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `top_level' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in `standard_exception_handling' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2023:in `top_level' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2001:in `run' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in `standard_exception_handling' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1998:in `run' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/bin/rake:31 /usr/bin/rake:19:in `load' /usr/bin/rake:19 WHY? but the command: $ cucumber still works Any idea?

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  • openfire cannot subscribe gmail user

    - by cometta
    i trying to add gmail user with my local openfire, but get error below. I think something wrong with dns srv. can anyone suggest how to troubleshoot? </error> </presence> at org.jivesoftware.openfire.spi.RoutingTableImpl.routePacket(RoutingTableImpl.java:217) at org.jivesoftware.openfire.server.OutgoingSessionPromise$PacketsProcessor.returnErrorToSender(OutgoingSessionPromise.java:285) at org.jivesoftware.openfire.server.OutgoingSessionPromise$PacketsProcessor.run(OutgoingSessionPromise.java:204) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:651) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:676) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:613) 2010.04.25 23:30:57 Error returning error to sender. Original packet: <presence id="lBI4K-24" to="[email protected]" type="subscribe" from="[email protected]"/> org.jivesoftware.openfire.PacketException: Cannot route packet of type IQ or Presence to bare JID: <presence id="lBI4K-24" to="[email protected]" from="[email protected]" type="error"> <error code="404" type="cancel"> <remote-server-not-found xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-stanzas"/> </error> </presence> at org.jivesoftware.openfire.spi.RoutingTableImpl.routePacket(RoutingTableImpl.java:217) at org.jivesoftware.openfire.server.OutgoingSessionPromise$PacketsProcessor.returnErrorToSender(OutgoingSessionPromise.java:285) at org.jivesoftware.openfire.server.OutgoingSessionPromise$PacketsProcessor.run(OutgoingSessionPromise.java:219) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:651) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:676) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:613) 2010.04.25 23:31:56 Error returning error to sender. Original packet: <presence id="gmEsS-26" to="[email protected]" type="subscribe" from="[email protected]"/> org.jivesoftware.openfire.PacketException: Cannot route packet of type IQ or Presence to bare JID: <presence id="gmEsS-26" to="[email protected]" from="[email protected]" type="error"> <error code="404" type="cancel"> <remote-server-not-found xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-stanzas"/> </error> </presence> at org.jivesoftware.openfire.spi.RoutingTableImpl.routePacket(RoutingTableImpl.java:217) at org.jivesoftware.openfire.server.OutgoingSessionPromise$PacketsProcessor.returnErrorToSender(OutgoingSessionPromise.java:285) at org.jivesoftware.openfire.server.OutgoingSessionPromise$PacketsProcessor.run(OutgoingSessionPromise.java:219) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:651) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:676) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:613) 2010.04.25 23:31:56 Error returning error to sender. Original packet: <presence id="gmEsS-27" to="[email protected]" type="subscribe" from="[email protected]"/> org.jivesoftware.openfire.PacketException: Cannot route packet of type IQ or Presence to bare JID: <presence id="gmEsS-27" to="[email protected]" from="[email protected]" type="error"> <error code="404" type="cancel"> <remote-server-not-found xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-stanzas"/> </error> </presence> at org.jivesoftware.openfire.spi.RoutingTableImpl.routePacket(RoutingTableImpl.java:217) at org.jivesoftware.openfire.server.OutgoingSessionPromise$PacketsProcessor.returnErrorToSender(OutgoingSessionPromise.java:285) at org.jivesoftware.openfire.server.OutgoingSessionPromise$PacketsProcessor.run(OutgoingSessionPromise.java:204) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:651) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:676) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:613)

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  • ssh permission denied

    - by Gitmo
    I am trying to ssh into a remote machine and I get the following debug messages: debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Applying options for * debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0 debug1: Connecting to xxx.xxx.x.xx [xxx.xxx.xx.x] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug3: Not a RSA1 key file /home/hadoop/.ssh/id_rsa. debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----BEGIN' debug3: key_read: missing keytype debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----END' debug3: key_read: missing keytype debug1: identity file /home/hadoop/.ssh/id_rsa type 1 debug1: Checking blacklist file /usr/share/ssh/blacklist.RSA-2048 debug1: Checking blacklist file /etc/ssh/blacklist.RSA-2048 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-6ubuntu2 debug2: fd 3 setting O_NONBLOCK debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: ssh-rsa,ssh-dss debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour128,arcfour256,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,[email protected],aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour128,arcfour256,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,[email protected],aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected],zlib debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected],zlib debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: first_kex_follows 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: reserved 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: ssh-rsa,ssh-dss debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour128,arcfour256,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,[email protected],aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour128,arcfour256,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,[email protected],aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: first_kex_follows 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: reserved 0 debug2: mac_setup: found hmac-md5 debug1: kex: server->client aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none debug2: mac_setup: found hmac-md5 debug1: kex: client->server aes128-cbc hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug2: dh_gen_key: priv key bits set: 128/256 debug2: bits set: 511/1024 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug3: check_host_in_hostfile: filename /home/hadoop/.ssh/known_hosts debug3: check_host_in_hostfile: match line 20 debug1: Host '192.168.1.63' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /home/hadoop/.ssh/known_hosts:20 debug2: bits set: 511/1024 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug2: kex_derive_keys debug2: set_newkeys: mode 1 debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug2: set_newkeys: mode 0 debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug2: service_accept: ssh-userauth debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug2: key: /home/hadoop/.ssh/id_rsa (0x241c110) debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password debug3: start over, passed a different list publickey,password debug3: preferred gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic,gssapi,publickey,keyboard-interactive debug3: authmethod_lookup publickey debug3: remaining preferred: keyboard-interactive debug3: authmethod_is_enabled publickey debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Offering public key: /home/hadoop/.ssh/id_rsa debug3: send_pubkey_test debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password debug2: we did not send a packet, disable method debug1: No more authentication methods to try. Permission denied (publickey,password). What seems to be the problem?? I have tried everything, this is driving me nuts.

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  • Strange intermittent SQL connection error, fixes on reboot, comes back after 3-5 days (ASP.NET)

    - by Ryan
    For some reason every 3-5 days our web app loses the ability to open a connection to the db with the following error, the strange thing is that all we have to do is reboot the container (it is a VPS) and it is restored to normal functionality. Then a few days later or so it happens again. Has anyone ever had such a problem? I have noticed a lot of ANONYMOUS LOGONs in the security log in the middle of the night from our AD server which is strange, and also some from an IP in Amsterdam. I am not sure how to tell what exactly they mean or if it is related or not. Server Error in '/ntsb' Application. A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server) Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server) Source Error: Line 11: Line 12: Line 13: dbConnection.Open() Line 14: Line 15: Source File: C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\includes\connection.ascx Line: 13 Stack Trace: [SqlException (0x80131904): A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server)] System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection) +248 System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj) +245 System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Connect(ServerInfo serverInfo, SqlInternalConnectionTds connHandler, Boolean ignoreSniOpenTimeout, Int64 timerExpire, Boolean encrypt, Boolean trustServerCert, Boolean integratedSecurity, SqlConnection owningObject) +475 System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.AttemptOneLogin(ServerInfo serverInfo, String newPassword, Boolean ignoreSniOpenTimeout, Int64 timerExpire, SqlConnection owningObject) +260 System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.LoginNoFailover(String host, String newPassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance, SqlConnection owningObject, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, Int64 timerStart) +2445449 System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.OpenLoginEnlist(SqlConnection owningObject, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, String newPassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance) +2445144 System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds..ctor(DbConnectionPoolIdentity identity, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, Object providerInfo, String newPassword, SqlConnection owningObject, Boolean redirectedUserInstance) +354 System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionFactory.CreateConnection(DbConnectionOptions options, Object poolGroupProviderInfo, DbConnectionPool pool, DbConnection owningConnection) +703 System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.CreatePooledConnection(DbConnection owningConnection, DbConnectionPool pool, DbConnectionOptions options) +54 System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.CreateObject(DbConnection owningObject) +2414696 System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.UserCreateRequest(DbConnection owningObject) +92 System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.GetConnection(DbConnection owningObject) +1657 System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.GetConnection(DbConnection owningConnection) +84 System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionClosed.OpenConnection(DbConnection outerConnection, DbConnectionFactory connectionFactory) +1645687 System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.Open() +258 ASP.includes_connection_ascx.getConnection() in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\includes\connection.ascx:13 ASP.default_aspx.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) in C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Default.aspx:16 System.Web.Util.CalliHelper.EventArgFunctionCaller(IntPtr fp, Object o, Object t, EventArgs e) +25 System.Web.Util.CalliEventHandlerDelegateProxy.Callback(Object sender, EventArgs e) +42 System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +132 System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +66 System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +2428 Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.3053; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.3053

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  • New project created with Flex Mojo's archetype throws Cannot Find Parent Project-Maven Exception

    - by ignorant
    This is probably a silly question but I just cant seem to figure out. I'm completely new to flex and maven. Maven 2.2.1: Maven 2.2.1 unzipped,M2_HOME set and repository altered to point to different drive location in settings.xml Flex 4.0: Installed Created a multi-modular webapp project using flexmojo: mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeRepository=http://repository.sonatype.org/content/groups/flexgroup -DarchetypeGroupId=org.sonatype.flexmojos -DarchetypeArtifactId=flexmojos-archetypes-modular-webapp -DarchetypeVersion=RELEASE with following options groupId=com.test artifactId=test version=1.0-snapshot package=com.tests * Creates * test |-- pom.xml |--swc -pom.xml |--swf -pom.xml `--war -pom.xml Parent pom has swc, swf, war as modules. Dependency is war-swf-swc. With parent artifactId of swf, swc, war set to swf, swc, test respectively. On executing mvn on test folder(for that matter clean or anything) I get this following error. G:\Projects\testmvn -e + Error stacktraces are turned on. [INFO] Scanning for projects... Downloading: http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/test/swc/1.0-snapshot/swc-1.0-snapshot.pom [INFO] Unable to find resource 'com.test:swc:pom:1.0-snapshot' in repository central (http://repo1.maven.org/maven2) [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ERROR] FATAL ERROR [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Failed to resolve artifact. GroupId: com.test ArtifactId: swc Version: 1.0-snapshot Reason: Unable to download the artifact from any repository com.test:swc:pom:1.0-snapshot from the specified remote repositories: central (http://repo1.maven.org/maven2) [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Trace org.apache.maven.reactor.MavenExecutionException: Cannot find parent: com.test:swc for project: com.test:swc-swc:swc:1.0-snapshot for project com.test:swc-swc:swc:1.0-snapshot at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProjects(DefaultMaven.java:404) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:272) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:138) at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:362) at org.apache.maven.cli.compat.CompatibleMain.main(CompatibleMain.java:60) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585) at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315) at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255) at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430) at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375) Caused by: org.apache.maven.project.ProjectBuildingException: Cannot find parent: com.test:swc for project: com.test:swc-swc:swc:1.0-snapshot for project com.test:swc-swc:swc:1.0-snapshot at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.assembleLineage(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:1396) at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.buildInternal(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:823) at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.buildFromSourceFileInternal(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:508) at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.build(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:200) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProject(DefaultMaven.java:604) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.collectProjects(DefaultMaven.java:487) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.collectProjects(DefaultMaven.java:560) at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.getProjects(DefaultMaven.java:391) ... 12 more Caused by: org.apache.maven.project.ProjectBuildingException: POM 'com.test:swc' not found in repository: Unable to download the artifact from any repository com.test:swc:pom:1.0-snapshot from the specified remote repositories: central (http://repo1.maven.org/maven2) for project com.test:swc at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.findModelFromRepository(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:605) at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.assembleLineage(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:1392) ... 19 more Caused by: org.apache.maven.artifact.resolver.ArtifactNotFoundException: Unable to download the artifact from any repository com.test:swc:pom:1.0-snapshot from the specified remote repositories: central (http://repo1.maven.org/maven2) at org.apache.maven.artifact.resolver.DefaultArtifactResolver.resolve(DefaultArtifactResolver.java:228) at org.apache.maven.artifact.resolver.DefaultArtifactResolver.resolve(DefaultArtifactResolver.java:90) at org.apache.maven.project.DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.findModelFromRepository(DefaultMavenProjectBuilder.java:558) ... 20 more Caused by: org.apache.maven.wagon.ResourceDoesNotExistException: Unable to download the artifact from any repository at org.apache.maven.artifact.manager.DefaultWagonManager.getArtifact(DefaultWagonManager.java:404) at org.apache.maven.artifact.resolver.DefaultArtifactResolver.resolve(DefaultArtifactResolver.java:216) ... 22 more [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] Total time: 1 second [INFO] Finished at: Tue Jun 15 19:22:15 GMT+02:00 2010 [INFO] Final Memory: 1M/2M [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Looks like its trying to download the project from maven's central repository instead of building it. What am I missing?

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  • My server app works strangely. What could be the reason(s)?

    - by Poni
    Hi! I've written a server app (two parts actually; proxy server and a game server) using C++ (board game). It uses IOCP as the sockets interface. For that app I've also written a "client simulator" (hereafter "client") app that spawns many client connections, where each of them plays, in very high speed, getting the CPU to be 100% utilized. So, that's how it goes in terms of topology: Game server - holds the game state. Real players do not connect it directly but through the proxy server. When a player joins a game, the proxy actually asks for it on behalf of that player, and the game server spawns a "player instance" for that player, and from now on, every notification between the game server and the player is being passed through the proxy. Proxy server - holds TCP connections with the real players. Players communicate with the game server through it only. Client simulator - connects to the proxy only. When running the server (again, it's actually two server apps) & client locally it all works just fine. I'm talking about 40k+ player instances in which all of them are active in a game. On the other hand, when running the server remotely with, say, 1000 clients who play things getting strange. For example, I run it as said above. Then with Task Manager I kill the client simulator app ("End Process Tree"). Then it seems like the buffer of the remote server got modified by another thread, or in other words, a memory corruption has been occurred. The server crashes because it got an unknown message id (it's a custom protocol where each message has it's own unique number). To make things clear, here is how I run the apps: PC1 - game server and clients simulator (because the clients will connect the proxy). PC2 - proxy server. The strangest thing is this: Only the remote side gets "corrupted". Remote in terms that it's not the PC I use to code the app (VC++ 2008). Let's call the PC I use to code the apps "PC1". Now for example, if this time I ran the game server on PC1 (it means that proxy server on PC2 and clients simulator on PC1), then the proxy server crashes with an "unknown message id" error. Another variation is when I run the proxy server on PC1 (again, the dev machine), the game server and the clients simulator on PC2, then the game server on PC2 gets crashed. As for the IOCP config: The servers' internal connections use the default receive/send buffer sizes. Tried even with setting them to 1MB, but no luck. I have three PCs in total; 2 x Vista 64bit <<-- one of those is the dev machine. The other is connected through WiFi. 1 x WinXP 32bit They're all connected in a "full duplex" manner. What could be the reason? Tried about everything; Stack tracing, recording some actions (like read/write logging).. I want to stress that only the PC I'm not using to code the apps crashes (actually the server app "role" which is running on it - sometimes the game server and sometimes the proxy server). At first I thought that maybe the wireless PC has problems (it's wireless..) but: TCP has it's own mechanisms to make sure the packet is delivered properly. Also, a crash also happens when trying it with the two PCs that are physically connected (Vista vs. XP). Another option is that the Windows DLLs versions might have problems, but then again, one of the tests is Vista vs. Vista, and the other is Vista vs. XP. Any idea?

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  • Zen and the Art of File and Folder Organization

    - by Mark Virtue
    Is your desk a paragon of neatness, or does it look like a paper-bomb has gone off? If you’ve been putting off getting organized because the task is too huge or daunting, or you don’t know where to start, we’ve got 40 tips to get you on the path to zen mastery of your filing system. For all those readers who would like to get their files and folders organized, or, if they’re already organized, better organized—we have compiled a complete guide to getting organized and staying organized, a comprehensive article that will hopefully cover every possible tip you could want. Signs that Your Computer is Poorly Organized If your computer is a mess, you’re probably already aware of it.  But just in case you’re not, here are some tell-tale signs: Your Desktop has over 40 icons on it “My Documents” contains over 300 files and 60 folders, including MP3s and digital photos You use the Windows’ built-in search facility whenever you need to find a file You can’t find programs in the out-of-control list of programs in your Start Menu You save all your Word documents in one folder, all your spreadsheets in a second folder, etc Any given file that you’re looking for may be in any one of four different sets of folders But before we start, here are some quick notes: We’re going to assume you know what files and folders are, and how to create, save, rename, copy and delete them The organization principles described in this article apply equally to all computer systems.  However, the screenshots here will reflect how things look on Windows (usually Windows 7).  We will also mention some useful features of Windows that can help you get organized. Everyone has their own favorite methodology of organizing and filing, and it’s all too easy to get into “My Way is Better than Your Way” arguments.  The reality is that there is no perfect way of getting things organized.  When I wrote this article, I tried to keep a generalist and objective viewpoint.  I consider myself to be unusually well organized (to the point of obsession, truth be told), and I’ve had 25 years experience in collecting and organizing files on computers.  So I’ve got a lot to say on the subject.  But the tips I have described here are only one way of doing it.  Hopefully some of these tips will work for you too, but please don’t read this as any sort of “right” way to do it. At the end of the article we’ll be asking you, the reader, for your own organization tips. Why Bother Organizing At All? For some, the answer to this question is self-evident. And yet, in this era of powerful desktop search software (the search capabilities built into the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Start Menus, and third-party programs like Google Desktop Search), the question does need to be asked, and answered. I have a friend who puts every file he ever creates, receives or downloads into his My Documents folder and doesn’t bother filing them into subfolders at all.  He relies on the search functionality built into his Windows operating system to help him find whatever he’s looking for.  And he always finds it.  He’s a Search Samurai.  For him, filing is a waste of valuable time that could be spent enjoying life! It’s tempting to follow suit.  On the face of it, why would anyone bother to take the time to organize their hard disk when such excellent search software is available?  Well, if all you ever want to do with the files you own is to locate and open them individually (for listening, editing, etc), then there’s no reason to ever bother doing one scrap of organization.  But consider these common tasks that are not achievable with desktop search software: Find files manually.  Often it’s not convenient, speedy or even possible to utilize your desktop search software to find what you want.  It doesn’t work 100% of the time, or you may not even have it installed.  Sometimes its just plain faster to go straight to the file you want, if you know it’s in a particular sub-folder, rather than trawling through hundreds of search results. Find groups of similar files (e.g. all your “work” files, all the photos of your Europe holiday in 2008, all your music videos, all the MP3s from Dark Side of the Moon, all your letters you wrote to your wife, all your tax returns).  Clever naming of the files will only get you so far.  Sometimes it’s the date the file was created that’s important, other times it’s the file format, and other times it’s the purpose of the file.  How do you name a collection of files so that they’re easy to isolate based on any of the above criteria?  Short answer, you can’t. Move files to a new computer.  It’s time to upgrade your computer.  How do you quickly grab all the files that are important to you?  Or you decide to have two computers now – one for home and one for work.  How do you quickly isolate only the work-related files to move them to the work computer? Synchronize files to other computers.  If you have more than one computer, and you need to mirror some of your files onto the other computer (e.g. your music collection), then you need a way to quickly determine which files are to be synced and which are not.  Surely you don’t want to synchronize everything? Choose which files to back up.  If your backup regime calls for multiple backups, or requires speedy backups, then you’ll need to be able to specify which files are to be backed up, and which are not.  This is not possible if they’re all in the same folder. Finally, if you’re simply someone who takes pleasure in being organized, tidy and ordered (me! me!), then you don’t even need a reason.  Being disorganized is simply unthinkable. Tips on Getting Organized Here we present our 40 best tips on how to get organized.  Or, if you’re already organized, to get better organized. Tip #1.  Choose Your Organization System Carefully The reason that most people are not organized is that it takes time.  And the first thing that takes time is deciding upon a system of organization.  This is always a matter of personal preference, and is not something that a geek on a website can tell you.  You should always choose your own system, based on how your own brain is organized (which makes the assumption that your brain is, in fact, organized). We can’t instruct you, but we can make suggestions: You may want to start off with a system based on the users of the computer.  i.e. “My Files”, “My Wife’s Files”, My Son’s Files”, etc.  Inside “My Files”, you might then break it down into “Personal” and “Business”.  You may then realize that there are overlaps.  For example, everyone may want to share access to the music library, or the photos from the school play.  So you may create another folder called “Family”, for the “common” files. You may decide that the highest-level breakdown of your files is based on the “source” of each file.  In other words, who created the files.  You could have “Files created by ME (business or personal)”, “Files created by people I know (family, friends, etc)”, and finally “Files created by the rest of the world (MP3 music files, downloaded or ripped movies or TV shows, software installation files, gorgeous desktop wallpaper images you’ve collected, etc).”  This system happens to be the one I use myself.  See below:  Mark is for files created by meVC is for files created by my company (Virtual Creations)Others is for files created by my friends and familyData is the rest of the worldAlso, Settings is where I store the configuration files and other program data files for my installed software (more on this in tip #34, below). Each folder will present its own particular set of requirements for further sub-organization.  For example, you may decide to organize your music collection into sub-folders based on the artist’s name, while your digital photos might get organized based on the date they were taken.  It can be different for every sub-folder! Another strategy would be based on “currentness”.  Files you have yet to open and look at live in one folder.  Ones that have been looked at but not yet filed live in another place.  Current, active projects live in yet another place.  All other files (your “archive”, if you like) would live in a fourth folder. (And of course, within that last folder you’d need to create a further sub-system based on one of the previous bullet points). Put some thought into this – changing it when it proves incomplete can be a big hassle!  Before you go to the trouble of implementing any system you come up with, examine a wide cross-section of the files you own and see if they will all be able to find a nice logical place to sit within your system. Tip #2.  When You Decide on Your System, Stick to It! There’s nothing more pointless than going to all the trouble of creating a system and filing all your files, and then whenever you create, receive or download a new file, you simply dump it onto your Desktop.  You need to be disciplined – forever!  Every new file you get, spend those extra few seconds to file it where it belongs!  Otherwise, in just a month or two, you’ll be worse off than before – half your files will be organized and half will be disorganized – and you won’t know which is which! Tip #3.  Choose the Root Folder of Your Structure Carefully Every data file (document, photo, music file, etc) that you create, own or is important to you, no matter where it came from, should be found within one single folder, and that one single folder should be located at the root of your C: drive (as a sub-folder of C:\).  In other words, do not base your folder structure in standard folders like “My Documents”.  If you do, then you’re leaving it up to the operating system engineers to decide what folder structure is best for you.  And every operating system has a different system!  In Windows 7 your files are found in C:\Users\YourName, whilst on Windows XP it was C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\My Documents.  In UNIX systems it’s often /home/YourName. These standard default folders tend to fill up with junk files and folders that are not at all important to you.  “My Documents” is the worst offender.  Every second piece of software you install, it seems, likes to create its own folder in the “My Documents” folder.  These folders usually don’t fit within your organizational structure, so don’t use them!  In fact, don’t even use the “My Documents” folder at all.  Allow it to fill up with junk, and then simply ignore it.  It sounds heretical, but: Don’t ever visit your “My Documents” folder!  Remove your icons/links to “My Documents” and replace them with links to the folders you created and you care about! Create your own file system from scratch!  Probably the best place to put it would be on your D: drive – if you have one.  This way, all your files live on one drive, while all the operating system and software component files live on the C: drive – simply and elegantly separated.  The benefits of that are profound.  Not only are there obvious organizational benefits (see tip #10, below), but when it comes to migrate your data to a new computer, you can (sometimes) simply unplug your D: drive and plug it in as the D: drive of your new computer (this implies that the D: drive is actually a separate physical disk, and not a partition on the same disk as C:).  You also get a slight speed improvement (again, only if your C: and D: drives are on separate physical disks). Warning:  From tip #12, below, you will see that it’s actually a good idea to have exactly the same file system structure – including the drive it’s filed on – on all of the computers you own.  So if you decide to use the D: drive as the storage system for your own files, make sure you are able to use the D: drive on all the computers you own.  If you can’t ensure that, then you can still use a clever geeky trick to store your files on the D: drive, but still access them all via the C: drive (see tip #17, below). If you only have one hard disk (C:), then create a dedicated folder that will contain all your files – something like C:\Files.  The name of the folder is not important, but make it a single, brief word. There are several reasons for this: When creating a backup regime, it’s easy to decide what files should be backed up – they’re all in the one folder! If you ever decide to trade in your computer for a new one, you know exactly which files to migrate You will always know where to begin a search for any file If you synchronize files with other computers, it makes your synchronization routines very simple.   It also causes all your shortcuts to continue to work on the other machines (more about this in tip #24, below). Once you’ve decided where your files should go, then put all your files in there – Everything!  Completely disregard the standard, default folders that are created for you by the operating system (“My Music”, “My Pictures”, etc).  In fact, you can actually relocate many of those folders into your own structure (more about that below, in tip #6). The more completely you get all your data files (documents, photos, music, etc) and all your configuration settings into that one folder, then the easier it will be to perform all of the above tasks. Once this has been done, and all your files live in one folder, all the other folders in C:\ can be thought of as “operating system” folders, and therefore of little day-to-day interest for us. Here’s a screenshot of a nicely organized C: drive, where all user files are located within the \Files folder:   Tip #4.  Use Sub-Folders This would be our simplest and most obvious tip.  It almost goes without saying.  Any organizational system you decide upon (see tip #1) will require that you create sub-folders for your files.  Get used to creating folders on a regular basis. Tip #5.  Don’t be Shy About Depth Create as many levels of sub-folders as you need.  Don’t be scared to do so.  Every time you notice an opportunity to group a set of related files into a sub-folder, do so.  Examples might include:  All the MP3s from one music CD, all the photos from one holiday, or all the documents from one client. It’s perfectly okay to put files into a folder called C:\Files\Me\From Others\Services\WestCo Bank\Statements\2009.  That’s only seven levels deep.  Ten levels is not uncommon.  Of course, it’s possible to take this too far.  If you notice yourself creating a sub-folder to hold only one file, then you’ve probably become a little over-zealous.  On the other hand, if you simply create a structure with only two levels (for example C:\Files\Work) then you really haven’t achieved any level of organization at all (unless you own only six files!).  Your “Work” folder will have become a dumping ground, just like your Desktop was, with most likely hundreds of files in it. Tip #6.  Move the Standard User Folders into Your Own Folder Structure Most operating systems, including Windows, create a set of standard folders for each of its users.  These folders then become the default location for files such as documents, music files, digital photos and downloaded Internet files.  In Windows 7, the full list is shown below: Some of these folders you may never use nor care about (for example, the Favorites folder, if you’re not using Internet Explorer as your browser).  Those ones you can leave where they are.  But you may be using some of the other folders to store files that are important to you.  Even if you’re not using them, Windows will still often treat them as the default storage location for many types of files.  When you go to save a standard file type, it can become annoying to be automatically prompted to save it in a folder that’s not part of your own file structure. But there’s a simple solution:  Move the folders you care about into your own folder structure!  If you do, then the next time you go to save a file of the corresponding type, Windows will prompt you to save it in the new, moved location. Moving the folders is easy.  Simply drag-and-drop them to the new location.  Here’s a screenshot of the default My Music folder being moved to my custom personal folder (Mark): Tip #7.  Name Files and Folders Intelligently This is another one that almost goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway:  Do not allow files to be created that have meaningless names like Document1.doc, or folders called New Folder (2).  Take that extra 20 seconds and come up with a meaningful name for the file/folder – one that accurately divulges its contents without repeating the entire contents in the name. Tip #8.  Watch Out for Long Filenames Another way to tell if you have not yet created enough depth to your folder hierarchy is that your files often require really long names.  If you need to call a file Johnson Sales Figures March 2009.xls (which might happen to live in the same folder as Abercrombie Budget Report 2008.xls), then you might want to create some sub-folders so that the first file could be simply called March.xls, and living in the Clients\Johnson\Sales Figures\2009 folder. A well-placed file needs only a brief filename! Tip #9.  Use Shortcuts!  Everywhere! This is probably the single most useful and important tip we can offer.  A shortcut allows a file to be in two places at once. Why would you want that?  Well, the file and folder structure of every popular operating system on the market today is hierarchical.  This means that all objects (files and folders) always live within exactly one parent folder.  It’s a bit like a tree.  A tree has branches (folders) and leaves (files).  Each leaf, and each branch, is supported by exactly one parent branch, all the way back to the root of the tree (which, incidentally, is exactly why C:\ is called the “root folder” of the C: drive). That hard disks are structured this way may seem obvious and even necessary, but it’s only one way of organizing data.  There are others:  Relational databases, for example, organize structured data entirely differently.  The main limitation of hierarchical filing structures is that a file can only ever be in one branch of the tree – in only one folder – at a time.  Why is this a problem?  Well, there are two main reasons why this limitation is a problem for computer users: The “correct” place for a file, according to our organizational rationale, is very often a very inconvenient place for that file to be located.  Just because it’s correctly filed doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to.  Your file may be “correctly” buried six levels deep in your sub-folder structure, but you may need regular and speedy access to this file every day.  You could always move it to a more convenient location, but that would mean that you would need to re-file back to its “correct” location it every time you’d finished working on it.  Most unsatisfactory. A file may simply “belong” in two or more different locations within your file structure.  For example, say you’re an accountant and you have just completed the 2009 tax return for John Smith.  It might make sense to you to call this file 2009 Tax Return.doc and file it under Clients\John Smith.  But it may also be important to you to have the 2009 tax returns from all your clients together in the one place.  So you might also want to call the file John Smith.doc and file it under Tax Returns\2009.  The problem is, in a purely hierarchical filing system, you can’t put it in both places.  Grrrrr! Fortunately, Windows (and most other operating systems) offers a way for you to do exactly that:  It’s called a “shortcut” (also known as an “alias” on Macs and a “symbolic link” on UNIX systems).  Shortcuts allow a file to exist in one place, and an icon that represents the file to be created and put anywhere else you please.  In fact, you can create a dozen such icons and scatter them all over your hard disk.  Double-clicking on one of these icons/shortcuts opens up the original file, just as if you had double-clicked on the original file itself. Consider the following two icons: The one on the left is the actual Word document, while the one on the right is a shortcut that represents the Word document.  Double-clicking on either icon will open the same file.  There are two main visual differences between the icons: The shortcut will have a small arrow in the lower-left-hand corner (on Windows, anyway) The shortcut is allowed to have a name that does not include the file extension (the “.docx” part, in this case) You can delete the shortcut at any time without losing any actual data.  The original is still intact.  All you lose is the ability to get to that data from wherever the shortcut was. So why are shortcuts so great?  Because they allow us to easily overcome the main limitation of hierarchical file systems, and put a file in two (or more) places at the same time.  You will always have files that don’t play nice with your organizational rationale, and can’t be filed in only one place.  They demand to exist in two places.  Shortcuts allow this!  Furthermore, they allow you to collect your most often-opened files and folders together in one spot for convenient access.  The cool part is that the original files stay where they are, safe forever in their perfectly organized location. So your collection of most often-opened files can – and should – become a collection of shortcuts! If you’re still not convinced of the utility of shortcuts, consider the following well-known areas of a typical Windows computer: The Start Menu (and all the programs that live within it) The Quick Launch bar (or the Superbar in Windows 7) The “Favorite folders” area in the top-left corner of the Windows Explorer window (in Windows Vista or Windows 7) Your Internet Explorer Favorites or Firefox Bookmarks Each item in each of these areas is a shortcut!  Each of those areas exist for one purpose only:  For convenience – to provide you with a collection of the files and folders you access most often. It should be easy to see by now that shortcuts are designed for one single purpose:  To make accessing your files more convenient.  Each time you double-click on a shortcut, you are saved the hassle of locating the file (or folder, or program, or drive, or control panel icon) that it represents. Shortcuts allow us to invent a golden rule of file and folder organization: “Only ever have one copy of a file – never have two copies of the same file.  Use a shortcut instead” (this rule doesn’t apply to copies created for backup purposes, of course!) There are also lesser rules, like “don’t move a file into your work area – create a shortcut there instead”, and “any time you find yourself frustrated with how long it takes to locate a file, create a shortcut to it and place that shortcut in a convenient location.” So how to we create these massively useful shortcuts?  There are two main ways: “Copy” the original file or folder (click on it and type Ctrl-C, or right-click on it and select Copy):  Then right-click in an empty area of the destination folder (the place where you want the shortcut to go) and select Paste shortcut: Right-drag (drag with the right mouse button) the file from the source folder to the destination folder.  When you let go of the mouse button at the destination folder, a menu pops up: Select Create shortcuts here. Note that when shortcuts are created, they are often named something like Shortcut to Budget Detail.doc (windows XP) or Budget Detail – Shortcut.doc (Windows 7).   If you don’t like those extra words, you can easily rename the shortcuts after they’re created, or you can configure Windows to never insert the extra words in the first place (see our article on how to do this). And of course, you can create shortcuts to folders too, not just to files! Bottom line: Whenever you have a file that you’d like to access from somewhere else (whether it’s convenience you’re after, or because the file simply belongs in two places), create a shortcut to the original file in the new location. Tip #10.  Separate Application Files from Data Files Any digital organization guru will drum this rule into you.  Application files are the components of the software you’ve installed (e.g. Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop or Internet Explorer).  Data files are the files that you’ve created for yourself using that software (e.g. Word Documents, digital photos, emails or playlists). Software gets installed, uninstalled and upgraded all the time.  Hopefully you always have the original installation media (or downloaded set-up file) kept somewhere safe, and can thus reinstall your software at any time.  This means that the software component files are of little importance.  Whereas the files you have created with that software is, by definition, important.  It’s a good rule to always separate unimportant files from important files. So when your software prompts you to save a file you’ve just created, take a moment and check out where it’s suggesting that you save the file.  If it’s suggesting that you save the file into the same folder as the software itself, then definitely don’t follow that suggestion.  File it in your own folder!  In fact, see if you can find the program’s configuration option that determines where files are saved by default (if it has one), and change it. Tip #11.  Organize Files Based on Purpose, Not on File Type If you have, for example a folder called Work\Clients\Johnson, and within that folder you have two sub-folders, Word Documents and Spreadsheets (in other words, you’re separating “.doc” files from “.xls” files), then chances are that you’re not optimally organized.  It makes little sense to organize your files based on the program that created them.  Instead, create your sub-folders based on the purpose of the file.  For example, it would make more sense to create sub-folders called Correspondence and Financials.  It may well be that all the files in a given sub-folder are of the same file-type, but this should be more of a coincidence and less of a design feature of your organization system. Tip #12.  Maintain the Same Folder Structure on All Your Computers In other words, whatever organizational system you create, apply it to every computer that you can.  There are several benefits to this: There’s less to remember.  No matter where you are, you always know where to look for your files If you copy or synchronize files from one computer to another, then setting up the synchronization job becomes very simple Shortcuts can be copied or moved from one computer to another with ease (assuming the original files are also copied/moved).  There’s no need to find the target of the shortcut all over again on the second computer Ditto for linked files (e.g Word documents that link to data in a separate Excel file), playlists, and any files that reference the exact file locations of other files. This applies even to the drive that your files are stored on.  If your files are stored on C: on one computer, make sure they’re stored on C: on all your computers.  Otherwise all your shortcuts, playlists and linked files will stop working! Tip #13.  Create an “Inbox” Folder Create yourself a folder where you store all files that you’re currently working on, or that you haven’t gotten around to filing yet.  You can think of this folder as your “to-do” list.  You can call it “Inbox” (making it the same metaphor as your email system), or “Work”, or “To-Do”, or “Scratch”, or whatever name makes sense to you.  It doesn’t matter what you call it – just make sure you have one! Once you have finished working on a file, you then move it from the “Inbox” to its correct location within your organizational structure. You may want to use your Desktop as this “Inbox” folder.  Rightly or wrongly, most people do.  It’s not a bad place to put such files, but be careful:  If you do decide that your Desktop represents your “to-do” list, then make sure that no other files find their way there.  In other words, make sure that your “Inbox”, wherever it is, Desktop or otherwise, is kept free of junk – stray files that don’t belong there. So where should you put this folder, which, almost by definition, lives outside the structure of the rest of your filing system?  Well, first and foremost, it has to be somewhere handy.  This will be one of your most-visited folders, so convenience is key.  Putting it on the Desktop is a great option – especially if you don’t have any other folders on your Desktop:  the folder then becomes supremely easy to find in Windows Explorer: You would then create shortcuts to this folder in convenient spots all over your computer (“Favorite Links”, “Quick Launch”, etc). Tip #14.  Ensure You have Only One “Inbox” Folder Once you’ve created your “Inbox” folder, don’t use any other folder location as your “to-do list”.  Throw every incoming or created file into the Inbox folder as you create/receive it.  This keeps the rest of your computer pristine and free of randomly created or downloaded junk.  The last thing you want to be doing is checking multiple folders to see all your current tasks and projects.  Gather them all together into one folder. Here are some tips to help ensure you only have one Inbox: Set the default “save” location of all your programs to this folder. Set the default “download” location for your browser to this folder. If this folder is not your desktop (recommended) then also see if you can make a point of not putting “to-do” files on your desktop.  This keeps your desktop uncluttered and Zen-like: (the Inbox folder is in the bottom-right corner) Tip #15.  Be Vigilant about Clearing Your “Inbox” Folder This is one of the keys to staying organized.  If you let your “Inbox” overflow (i.e. allow there to be more than, say, 30 files or folders in there), then you’re probably going to start feeling like you’re overwhelmed:  You’re not keeping up with your to-do list.  Once your Inbox gets beyond a certain point (around 30 files, studies have shown), then you’ll simply start to avoid it.  You may continue to put files in there, but you’ll be scared to look at it, fearing the “out of control” feeling that all overworked, chaotic or just plain disorganized people regularly feel. So, here’s what you can do: Visit your Inbox/to-do folder regularly (at least five times per day). Scan the folder regularly for files that you have completed working on and are ready for filing.  File them immediately. Make it a source of pride to keep the number of files in this folder as small as possible.  If you value peace of mind, then make the emptiness of this folder one of your highest (computer) priorities If you know that a particular file has been in the folder for more than, say, six weeks, then admit that you’re not actually going to get around to processing it, and move it to its final resting place. Tip #16.  File Everything Immediately, and Use Shortcuts for Your Active Projects As soon as you create, receive or download a new file, store it away in its “correct” folder immediately.  Then, whenever you need to work on it (possibly straight away), create a shortcut to it in your “Inbox” (“to-do”) folder or your desktop.  That way, all your files are always in their “correct” locations, yet you still have immediate, convenient access to your current, active files.  When you finish working on a file, simply delete the shortcut. Ideally, your “Inbox” folder – and your Desktop – should contain no actual files or folders.  They should simply contain shortcuts. Tip #17.  Use Directory Symbolic Links (or Junctions) to Maintain One Unified Folder Structure Using this tip, we can get around a potential hiccup that we can run into when creating our organizational structure – the issue of having more than one drive on our computer (C:, D:, etc).  We might have files we need to store on the D: drive for space reasons, and yet want to base our organized folder structure on the C: drive (or vice-versa). Your chosen organizational structure may dictate that all your files must be accessed from the C: drive (for example, the root folder of all your files may be something like C:\Files).  And yet you may still have a D: drive and wish to take advantage of the hundreds of spare Gigabytes that it offers.  Did you know that it’s actually possible to store your files on the D: drive and yet access them as if they were on the C: drive?  And no, we’re not talking about shortcuts here (although the concept is very similar). By using the shell command mklink, you can essentially take a folder that lives on one drive and create an alias for it on a different drive (you can do lots more than that with mklink – for a full rundown on this programs capabilities, see our dedicated article).  These aliases are called directory symbolic links (and used to be known as junctions).  You can think of them as “virtual” folders.  They function exactly like regular folders, except they’re physically located somewhere else. For example, you may decide that your entire D: drive contains your complete organizational file structure, but that you need to reference all those files as if they were on the C: drive, under C:\Files.  If that was the case you could create C:\Files as a directory symbolic link – a link to D:, as follows: mklink /d c:\files d:\ Or it may be that the only files you wish to store on the D: drive are your movie collection.  You could locate all your movie files in the root of your D: drive, and then link it to C:\Files\Media\Movies, as follows: mklink /d c:\files\media\movies d:\ (Needless to say, you must run these commands from a command prompt – click the Start button, type cmd and press Enter) Tip #18. Customize Your Folder Icons This is not strictly speaking an organizational tip, but having unique icons for each folder does allow you to more quickly visually identify which folder is which, and thus saves you time when you’re finding files.  An example is below (from my folder that contains all files downloaded from the Internet): To learn how to change your folder icons, please refer to our dedicated article on the subject. Tip #19.  Tidy Your Start Menu The Windows Start Menu is usually one of the messiest parts of any Windows computer.  Every program you install seems to adopt a completely different approach to placing icons in this menu.  Some simply put a single program icon.  Others create a folder based on the name of the software.  And others create a folder based on the name of the software manufacturer.  It’s chaos, and can make it hard to find the software you want to run. Thankfully we can avoid this chaos with useful operating system features like Quick Launch, the Superbar or pinned start menu items. Even so, it would make a lot of sense to get into the guts of the Start Menu itself and give it a good once-over.  All you really need to decide is how you’re going to organize your applications.  A structure based on the purpose of the application is an obvious candidate.  Below is an example of one such structure: In this structure, Utilities means software whose job it is to keep the computer itself running smoothly (configuration tools, backup software, Zip programs, etc).  Applications refers to any productivity software that doesn’t fit under the headings Multimedia, Graphics, Internet, etc. In case you’re not aware, every icon in your Start Menu is a shortcut and can be manipulated like any other shortcut (copied, moved, deleted, etc). With the Windows Start Menu (all version of Windows), Microsoft has decided that there be two parallel folder structures to store your Start Menu shortcuts.  One for you (the logged-in user of the computer) and one for all users of the computer.  Having two parallel structures can often be redundant:  If you are the only user of the computer, then having two parallel structures is totally redundant.  Even if you have several users that regularly log into the computer, most of your installed software will need to be made available to all users, and should thus be moved out of the “just you” version of the Start Menu and into the “all users” area. To take control of your Start Menu, so you can start organizing it, you’ll need to know how to access the actual folders and shortcut files that make up the Start Menu (both versions of it).  To find these folders and files, click the Start button and then right-click on the All Programs text (Windows XP users should right-click on the Start button itself): The Open option refers to the “just you” version of the Start Menu, while the Open All Users option refers to the “all users” version.  Click on the one you want to organize. A Windows Explorer window then opens with your chosen version of the Start Menu selected.  From there it’s easy.  Double-click on the Programs folder and you’ll see all your folders and shortcuts.  Now you can delete/rename/move until it’s just the way you want it. Note:  When you’re reorganizing your Start Menu, you may want to have two Explorer windows open at the same time – one showing the “just you” version and one showing the “all users” version.  You can drag-and-drop between the windows. Tip #20.  Keep Your Start Menu Tidy Once you have a perfectly organized Start Menu, try to be a little vigilant about keeping it that way.  Every time you install a new piece of software, the icons that get created will almost certainly violate your organizational structure. So to keep your Start Menu pristine and organized, make sure you do the following whenever you install a new piece of software: Check whether the software was installed into the “just you” area of the Start Menu, or the “all users” area, and then move it to the correct area. Remove all the unnecessary icons (like the “Read me” icon, the “Help” icon (you can always open the help from within the software itself when it’s running), the “Uninstall” icon, the link(s)to the manufacturer’s website, etc) Rename the main icon(s) of the software to something brief that makes sense to you.  For example, you might like to rename Microsoft Office Word 2010 to simply Word Move the icon(s) into the correct folder based on your Start Menu organizational structure And don’t forget:  when you uninstall a piece of software, the software’s uninstall routine is no longer going to be able to remove the software’s icon from the Start Menu (because you moved and/or renamed it), so you’ll need to remove that icon manually. Tip #21.  Tidy C:\ The root of your C: drive (C:\) is a common dumping ground for files and folders – both by the users of your computer and by the software that you install on your computer.  It can become a mess. There’s almost no software these days that requires itself to be installed in C:\.  99% of the time it can and should be installed into C:\Program Files.  And as for your own files, well, it’s clear that they can (and almost always should) be stored somewhere else. In an ideal world, your C:\ folder should look like this (on Windows 7): Note that there are some system files and folders in C:\ that are usually and deliberately “hidden” (such as the Windows virtual memory file pagefile.sys, the boot loader file bootmgr, and the System Volume Information folder).  Hiding these files and folders is a good idea, as they need to stay where they are and are almost never needed to be opened or even seen by you, the user.  Hiding them prevents you from accidentally messing with them, and enhances your sense of order and well-being when you look at your C: drive folder. Tip #22.  Tidy Your Desktop The Desktop is probably the most abused part of a Windows computer (from an organization point of view).  It usually serves as a dumping ground for all incoming files, as well as holding icons to oft-used applications, plus some regularly opened files and folders.  It often ends up becoming an uncontrolled mess.  See if you can avoid this.  Here’s why… Application icons (Word, Internet Explorer, etc) are often found on the Desktop, but it’s unlikely that this is the optimum place for them.  The “Quick Launch” bar (or the Superbar in Windows 7) is always visible and so represents a perfect location to put your icons.  You’ll only be able to see the icons on your Desktop when all your programs are minimized.  It might be time to get your application icons off your desktop… You may have decided that the Inbox/To-do folder on your computer (see tip #13, above) should be your Desktop.  If so, then enough said.  Simply be vigilant about clearing it and preventing it from being polluted by junk files (see tip #15, above).  On the other hand, if your Desktop is not acting as your “Inbox” folder, then there’s no reason for it to have any data files or folders on it at all, except perhaps a couple of shortcuts to often-opened files and folders (either ongoing or current projects).  Everything else should be moved to your “Inbox” folder. In an ideal world, it might look like this: Tip #23.  Move Permanent Items on Your Desktop Away from the Top-Left Corner When files/folders are dragged onto your desktop in a Windows Explorer window, or when shortcuts are created on your Desktop from Internet Explorer, those icons are always placed in the top-left corner – or as close as they can get.  If you have other files, folders or shortcuts that you keep on the Desktop permanently, then it’s a good idea to separate these permanent icons from the transient ones, so that you can quickly identify which ones the transients are.  An easy way to do this is to move all your permanent icons to the right-hand side of your Desktop.  That should keep them separated from incoming items. Tip #24.  Synchronize If you have more than one computer, you’ll almost certainly want to share files between them.  If the computers are permanently attached to the same local network, then there’s no need to store multiple copies of any one file or folder – shortcuts will suffice.  However, if the computers are not always on the same network, then you will at some point need to copy files between them.  For files that need to permanently live on both computers, the ideal way to do this is to synchronize the files, as opposed to simply copying them. We only have room here to write a brief summary of synchronization, not a full article.  In short, there are several different types of synchronization: Where the contents of one folder are accessible anywhere, such as with Dropbox Where the contents of any number of folders are accessible anywhere, such as with Windows Live Mesh Where any files or folders from anywhere on your computer are synchronized with exactly one other computer, such as with the Windows “Briefcase”, Microsoft SyncToy, or (much more powerful, yet still free) SyncBack from 2BrightSparks.  This only works when both computers are on the same local network, at least temporarily. A great advantage of synchronization solutions is that once you’ve got it configured the way you want it, then the sync process happens automatically, every time.  Click a button (or schedule it to happen automatically) and all your files are automagically put where they’re supposed to be. If you maintain the same file and folder structure on both computers, then you can also sync files depend upon the correct location of other files, like shortcuts, playlists and office documents that link to other office documents, and the synchronized files still work on the other computer! Tip #25.  Hide Files You Never Need to See If you have your files well organized, you will often be able to tell if a file is out of place just by glancing at the contents of a folder (for example, it should be pretty obvious if you look in a folder that contains all the MP3s from one music CD and see a Word document in there).  This is a good thing – it allows you to determine if there are files out of place with a quick glance.  Yet sometimes there are files in a folder that seem out of place but actually need to be there, such as the “folder art” JPEGs in music folders, and various files in the root of the C: drive.  If such files never need to be opened by you, then a good idea is to simply hide them.  Then, the next time you glance at the folder, you won’t have to remember whether that file was supposed to be there or not, because you won’t see it at all! To hide a file, simply right-click on it and choose Properties: Then simply tick the Hidden tick-box:   Tip #26.  Keep Every Setup File These days most software is downloaded from the Internet.  Whenever you download a piece of software, keep it.  You’ll never know when you need to reinstall the software. Further, keep with it an Internet shortcut that links back to the website where you originally downloaded it, in case you ever need to check for updates. See tip #33 below for a full description of the excellence of organizing your setup files. Tip #27.  Try to Minimize the Number of Folders that Contain Both Files and Sub-folders Some of the folders in your organizational structure will contain only files.  Others will contain only sub-folders.  And you will also have some folders that contain both files and sub-folders.  You will notice slight improvements in how long it takes you to locate a file if you try to avoid this third type of folder.  It’s not always possible, of course – you’ll always have some of these folders, but see if you can avoid it. One way of doing this is to take all the leftover files that didn’t end up getting stored in a sub-folder and create a special “Miscellaneous” or “Other” folder for them. Tip #28.  Starting a Filename with an Underscore Brings it to the Top of a List Further to the previous tip, if you name that “Miscellaneous” or “Other” folder in such a way that its name begins with an underscore “_”, then it will appear at the top of the list of files/folders. The screenshot below is an example of this.  Each folder in the list contains a set of digital photos.  The folder at the top of the list, _Misc, contains random photos that didn’t deserve their own dedicated folder: Tip #29.  Clean Up those CD-ROMs and (shudder!) Floppy Disks Have you got a pile of CD-ROMs stacked on a shelf of your office?  Old photos, or files you archived off onto CD-ROM (or even worse, floppy disks!) because you didn’t have enough disk space at the time?  In the meantime have you upgraded your computer and now have 500 Gigabytes of space you don’t know what to do with?  If so, isn’t it time you tidied up that stack of disks and filed them into your gorgeous new folder structure? So what are you waiting for?  Bite the bullet, copy them all back onto your computer, file them in their appropriate folders, and then back the whole lot up onto a shiny new 1000Gig external hard drive! Useful Folders to Create This next section suggests some useful folders that you might want to create within your folder structure.  I’ve personally found them to be indispensable. The first three are all about convenience – handy folders to create and then put somewhere that you can always access instantly.  For each one, it’s not so important where the actual folder is located, but it’s very important where you put the shortcut(s) to the folder.  You might want to locate the shortcuts: On your Desktop In your “Quick Launch” area (or pinned to your Windows 7 Superbar) In your Windows Explorer “Favorite Links” area Tip #30.  Create an “Inbox” (“To-Do”) Folder This has already been mentioned in depth (see tip #13), but we wanted to reiterate its importance here.  This folder contains all the recently created, received or downloaded files that you have not yet had a chance to file away properly, and it also may contain files that you have yet to process.  In effect, it becomes a sort of “to-do list”.  It doesn’t have to be called “Inbox” – you can call it whatever you want. Tip #31.  Create a Folder where Your Current Projects are Collected Rather than going hunting for them all the time, or dumping them all on your desktop, create a special folder where you put links (or work folders) for each of the projects you’re currently working on. You can locate this folder in your “Inbox” folder, on your desktop, or anywhere at all – just so long as there’s a way of getting to it quickly, such as putting a link to it in Windows Explorer’s “Favorite Links” area: Tip #32.  Create a Folder for Files and Folders that You Regularly Open You will always have a few files that you open regularly, whether it be a spreadsheet of your current accounts, or a favorite playlist.  These are not necessarily “current projects”, rather they’re simply files that you always find yourself opening.  Typically such files would be located on your desktop (or even better, shortcuts to those files).  Why not collect all such shortcuts together and put them in their own special folder? As with the “Current Projects” folder (above), you would want to locate that folder somewhere convenient.  Below is an example of a folder called “Quick links”, with about seven files (shortcuts) in it, that is accessible through the Windows Quick Launch bar: See tip #37 below for a full explanation of the power of the Quick Launch bar. Tip #33.  Create a “Set-ups” Folder A typical computer has dozens of applications installed on it.  For each piece of software, there are often many different pieces of information you need to keep track of, including: The original installation setup file(s).  This can be anything from a simple 100Kb setup.exe file you downloaded from a website, all the way up to a 4Gig ISO file that you copied from a DVD-ROM that you purchased. The home page of the software manufacturer (in case you need to look up something on their support pages, their forum or their online help) The page containing the download link for your actual file (in case you need to re-download it, or download an upgraded version) The serial number Your proof-of-purchase documentation Any other template files, plug-ins, themes, etc that also need to get installed For each piece of software, it’s a great idea to gather all of these files together and put them in a single folder.  The folder can be the name of the software (plus possibly a very brief description of what it’s for – in case you can’t remember what the software does based in its name).  Then you would gather all of these folders together into one place, and call it something like “Software” or “Setups”. If you have enough of these folders (I have several hundred, being a geek, collected over 20 years), then you may want to further categorize them.  My own categorization structure is based on “platform” (operating system): The last seven folders each represents one platform/operating system, while _Operating Systems contains set-up files for installing the operating systems themselves.  _Hardware contains ROMs for hardware I own, such as routers. Within the Windows folder (above), you can see the beginnings of the vast library of software I’ve compiled over the years: An example of a typical application folder looks like this: Tip #34.  Have a “Settings” Folder We all know that our documents are important.  So are our photos and music files.  We save all of these files into folders, and then locate them afterwards and double-click on them to open them.  But there are many files that are important to us that can’t be saved into folders, and then searched for and double-clicked later on.  These files certainly contain important information that we need, but are often created internally by an application, and saved wherever that application feels is appropriate. A good example of this is the “PST” file that Outlook creates for us and uses to store all our emails, contacts, appointments and so forth.  Another example would be the collection of Bookmarks that Firefox stores on your behalf. And yet another example would be the customized settings and configuration files of our all our software.  Granted, most Windows programs store their configuration in the Registry, but there are still many programs that use configuration files to store their settings. Imagine if you lost all of the above files!  And yet, when people are backing up their computers, they typically only back up the files they know about – those that are stored in the “My Documents” folder, etc.  If they had a hard disk failure or their computer was lost or stolen, their backup files would not include some of the most vital files they owned.  Also, when migrating to a new computer, it’s vital to ensure that these files make the journey. It can be a very useful idea to create yourself a folder to store all your “settings” – files that are important to you but which you never actually search for by name and double-click on to open them.  Otherwise, next time you go to set up a new computer just the way you want it, you’ll need to spend hours recreating the configuration of your previous computer! So how to we get our important files into this folder?  Well, we have a few options: Some programs (such as Outlook and its PST files) allow you to place these files wherever you want.  If you delve into the program’s options, you will find a setting somewhere that controls the location of the important settings files (or “personal storage” – PST – when it comes to Outlook) Some programs do not allow you to change such locations in any easy way, but if you get into the Registry, you can sometimes find a registry key that refers to the location of the file(s).  Simply move the file into your Settings folder and adjust the registry key to refer to the new location. Some programs stubbornly refuse to allow their settings files to be placed anywhere other then where they stipulate.  When faced with programs like these, you have three choices:  (1) You can ignore those files, (2) You can copy the files into your Settings folder (let’s face it – settings don’t change very often), or (3) you can use synchronization software, such as the Windows Briefcase, to make synchronized copies of all your files in your Settings folder.  All you then have to do is to remember to run your sync software periodically (perhaps just before you run your backup software!). There are some other things you may decide to locate inside this new “Settings” folder: Exports of registry keys (from the many applications that store their configurations in the Registry).  This is useful for backup purposes or for migrating to a new computer Notes you’ve made about all the specific customizations you have made to a particular piece of software (so that you’ll know how to do it all again on your next computer) Shortcuts to webpages that detail how to tweak certain aspects of your operating system or applications so they are just the way you like them (such as how to remove the words “Shortcut to” from the beginning of newly created shortcuts).  In other words, you’d want to create shortcuts to half the pages on the How-To Geek website! Here’s an example of a “Settings” folder: Windows Features that Help with Organization This section details some of the features of Microsoft Windows that are a boon to anyone hoping to stay optimally organized. Tip #35.  Use the “Favorite Links” Area to Access Oft-Used Folders Once you’ve created your great new filing system, work out which folders you access most regularly, or which serve as great starting points for locating the rest of the files in your folder structure, and then put links to those folders in your “Favorite Links” area of the left-hand side of the Windows Explorer window (simply called “Favorites” in Windows 7):   Some ideas for folders you might want to add there include: Your “Inbox” folder (or whatever you’ve called it) – most important! The base of your filing structure (e.g. C:\Files) A folder containing shortcuts to often-accessed folders on other computers around the network (shown above as Network Folders) A folder containing shortcuts to your current projects (unless that folder is in your “Inbox” folder) Getting folders into this area is very simple – just locate the folder you’re interested in and drag it there! Tip #36.  Customize the Places Bar in the File/Open and File/Save Boxes Consider the screenshot below: The highlighted icons (collectively known as the “Places Bar”) can be customized to refer to any folder location you want, allowing instant access to any part of your organizational structure. Note:  These File/Open and File/Save boxes have been superseded by new versions that use the Windows Vista/Windows 7 “Favorite Links”, but the older versions (shown above) are still used by a surprisingly large number of applications. The easiest way to customize these icons is to use the Group Policy Editor, but not everyone has access to this program.  If you do, open it up and navigate to: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer > Common Open File Dialog If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, then you’ll need to get into the Registry.  Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft  \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ comdlg32 \ Placesbar It should then be easy to make the desired changes.  Log off and log on again to allow the changes to take effect. Tip #37.  Use the Quick Launch Bar as a Application and File Launcher That Quick Launch bar (to the right of the Start button) is a lot more useful than people give it credit for.  Most people simply have half a dozen icons in it, and use it to start just those programs.  But it can actually be used to instantly access just about anything in your filing system: For complete instructions on how to set this up, visit our dedicated article on this topic. Tip #38.  Put a Shortcut to Windows Explorer into Your Quick Launch Bar This is only necessary in Windows Vista and Windows XP.  The Microsoft boffins finally got wise and added it to the Windows 7 Superbar by default. Windows Explorer – the program used for managing your files and folders – is one of the most useful programs in Windows.  Anyone who considers themselves serious about being organized needs instant access to this program at any time.  A great place to create a shortcut to this program is in the Windows XP and Windows Vista “Quick Launch” bar: To get it there, locate it in your Start Menu (usually under “Accessories”) and then right-drag it down into your Quick Launch bar (and create a copy). Tip #39.  Customize the Starting Folder for Your Windows 7 Explorer Superbar Icon If you’re on Windows 7, your Superbar will include a Windows Explorer icon.  Clicking on the icon will launch Windows Explorer (of course), and will start you off in your “Libraries” folder.  Libraries may be fine as a starting point, but if you have created yourself an “Inbox” folder, then it would probably make more sense to start off in this folder every time you launch Windows Explorer. To change this default/starting folder location, then first right-click the Explorer icon in the Superbar, and then right-click Properties:Then, in Target field of the Windows Explorer Properties box that appears, type %windir%\explorer.exe followed by the path of the folder you wish to start in.  For example: %windir%\explorer.exe C:\Files If that folder happened to be on the Desktop (and called, say, “Inbox”), then you would use the following cleverness: %windir%\explorer.exe shell:desktop\Inbox Then click OK and test it out. Tip #40.  Ummmmm…. No, that’s it.  I can’t think of another one.  That’s all of the tips I can come up with.  I only created this one because 40 is such a nice round number… Case Study – An Organized PC To finish off the article, I have included a few screenshots of my (main) computer (running Vista).  The aim here is twofold: To give you a sense of what it looks like when the above, sometimes abstract, tips are applied to a real-life computer, and To offer some ideas about folders and structure that you may want to steal to use on your own PC. Let’s start with the C: drive itself.  Very minimal.  All my files are contained within C:\Files.  I’ll confine the rest of the case study to this folder: That folder contains the following: Mark: My personal files VC: My business (Virtual Creations, Australia) Others contains files created by friends and family Data contains files from the rest of the world (can be thought of as “public” files, usually downloaded from the Net) Settings is described above in tip #34 The Data folder contains the following sub-folders: Audio:  Radio plays, audio books, podcasts, etc Development:  Programmer and developer resources, sample source code, etc (see below) Humour:  Jokes, funnies (those emails that we all receive) Movies:  Downloaded and ripped movies (all legal, of course!), their scripts, DVD covers, etc. Music:  (see below) Setups:  Installation files for software (explained in full in tip #33) System:  (see below) TV:  Downloaded TV shows Writings:  Books, instruction manuals, etc (see below) The Music folder contains the following sub-folders: Album covers:  JPEG scans Guitar tabs:  Text files of guitar sheet music Lists:  e.g. “Top 1000 songs of all time” Lyrics:  Text files MIDI:  Electronic music files MP3 (representing 99% of the Music folder):  MP3s, either ripped from CDs or downloaded, sorted by artist/album name Music Video:  Video clips Sheet Music:  usually PDFs The Data\Writings folder contains the following sub-folders: (all pretty self-explanatory) The Data\Development folder contains the following sub-folders: Again, all pretty self-explanatory (if you’re a geek) The Data\System folder contains the following sub-folders: These are usually themes, plug-ins and other downloadable program-specific resources. The Mark folder contains the following sub-folders: From Others:  Usually letters that other people (friends, family, etc) have written to me For Others:  Letters and other things I have created for other people Green Book:  None of your business Playlists:  M3U files that I have compiled of my favorite songs (plus one M3U playlist file for every album I own) Writing:  Fiction, philosophy and other musings of mine Mark Docs:  Shortcut to C:\Users\Mark Settings:  Shortcut to C:\Files\Settings\Mark The Others folder contains the following sub-folders: The VC (Virtual Creations, my business – I develop websites) folder contains the following sub-folders: And again, all of those are pretty self-explanatory. Conclusion These tips have saved my sanity and helped keep me a productive geek, but what about you? What tips and tricks do you have to keep your files organized?  Please share them with us in the comments.  Come on, don’t be shy… Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fix For When Windows Explorer in Vista Stops Showing File NamesWhy Did Windows Vista’s Music Folder Icon Turn Yellow?Print or Create a Text File List of the Contents in a Directory the Easy WayCustomize the Windows 7 or Vista Send To MenuAdd Copy To / Move To on Windows 7 or Vista Right-Click Menu 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 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics

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  • ASP.NET MVC 3 - New Features

    - by imran_ku07
    Introduction:          ASP.NET MVC 3 just released by ASP.NET MVC team which includes some new features, some changes, some improvements and bug fixes. In this article, I will show you the new features of ASP.NET MVC 3. This will help you to get started using the new features of ASP.NET MVC 3. Full details of this announcement is available at Announcing release of ASP.NET MVC 3, IIS Express, SQL CE 4, Web Farm Framework, Orchard, WebMatrix.   Description:       New Razor View Engine:              Razor view engine is one of the most coolest new feature in ASP.NET MVC 3. Razor is speeding things up just a little bit more. It is much smaller and lighter in size. Also it is very easy to learn. You can say ' write less, do more '. You can get start and learn more about Razor at Introducing “Razor” – a new view engine for ASP.NET.         Granular Request Validation:             Another biggest new feature in ASP.NET MVC 3 is Granular Request Validation. Default request validator will throw an exception when he see < followed by an exclamation(like <!) or < followed by the letters a through z(like <s) or & followed by a pound sign(like &#123) as a part of querystring, posted form, headers and cookie collection. In previous versions of ASP.NET MVC, you can control request validation using ValidateInputAttriubte. In ASP.NET MVC 3 you can control request validation at Model level by annotating your model properties with a new attribute called AllowHtmlAttribute. For details see Granular Request Validation in ASP.NET MVC 3.       Sessionless Controller Support:             Sessionless Controller is another great new feature in ASP.NET MVC 3. With Sessionless Controller you can easily control your session behavior for controllers. For example, you can make your HomeController's Session as Disabled or ReadOnly, allowing concurrent request execution for single user. For details see Concurrent Requests In ASP.NET MVC and HowTo: Sessionless Controller in MVC3 – what & and why?.       Unobtrusive Ajax and  Unobtrusive Client Side Validation is Supported:             Another cool new feature in ASP.NET MVC 3 is support for Unobtrusive Ajax and Unobtrusive Client Side Validation.  This feature allows separation of responsibilities within your web application by separating your html with your script. For details see Unobtrusive Ajax in ASP.NET MVC 3 and Unobtrusive Client Validation in ASP.NET MVC 3.       Dependency Resolver:             Dependency Resolver is another great feature of ASP.NET MVC 3. It allows you to register a dependency resolver that will be used by the framework. With this approach your application will not become tightly coupled and the dependency will be injected at run time. For details see ASP.NET MVC 3 Service Location.       New Helper Methods:             ASP.NET MVC 3 includes some helper methods of ASP.NET Web Pages technology that are used for common functionality. These helper methods includes: Chart, Crypto, WebGrid, WebImage and WebMail. For details of these helper methods, please see ASP.NET MVC 3 Release Notes. For using other helper methods of ASP.NET Web Pages see Using ASP.NET Web Pages Helpers in ASP.NET MVC.       Child Action Output Caching:             ASP.NET MVC 3 also includes another feature called Child Action Output Caching. This allows you to cache only a portion of the response when you are using Html.RenderAction or Html.Action. This cache can be varied by action name, action method signature and action method parameter values. For details see this.       RemoteAttribute:             ASP.NET MVC 3 allows you to validate a form field by making a remote server call through Ajax. This makes it very easy to perform remote validation at client side and quickly give the feedback to the user. For details see How to: Implement Remote Validation in ASP.NET MVC.       CompareAttribute:             ASP.NET MVC 3 includes a new validation attribute called CompareAttribute. CompareAttribute allows you to compare the values of two different properties of a model. For details see CompareAttribute in ASP.NET MVC 3.       Miscellaneous New Features:                    ASP.NET MVC 2 includes FormValueProvider, QueryStringValueProvider, RouteDataValueProvider and HttpFileCollectionValueProvider. ASP.NET MVC 3 adds two additional value providers, ChildActionValueProvider and JsonValueProvider(JsonValueProvider is not physically exist).  ChildActionValueProvider is used when you issue a child request using Html.Action and/or Html.RenderAction methods, so that your explicit parameter values in Html.Action and/or Html.RenderAction will always take precedence over other value providers. JsonValueProvider is used to model bind JSON data. For details see Sending JSON to an ASP.NET MVC Action Method Argument.           In ASP.NET MVC 3, a new property named FileExtensions added to the VirtualPathProviderViewEngine class. This property is used when looking up a view by path (and not by name), so that only views with a file extension contained in the list specified by this new property is considered. For details see VirtualPathProviderViewEngine.FileExtensions Property .           ASP.NET MVC 3 installation package also includes the NuGet Package Manager which will be automatically installed when you install ASP.NET MVC 3. NuGet makes it easy to install and update open source libraries and tools in Visual Studio. See this for details.           In ASP.NET MVC 2, client side validation will not trigger for overridden model properties. For example, if have you a Model that contains some overridden properties then client side validation will not trigger for overridden properties in ASP.NET MVC 2 but client side validation will work for overridden properties in ASP.NET MVC 3.           Client side validation is not supported for StringLengthAttribute.MinimumLength property in ASP.NET MVC 2. In ASP.NET MVC 3 client side validation will work for StringLengthAttribute.MinimumLength property.           ASP.NET MVC 3 includes new action results like HttpUnauthorizedResult, HttpNotFoundResult and HttpStatusCodeResult.           ASP.NET MVC 3 includes some new overloads of LabelFor and LabelForModel methods. For details see LabelExtensions.LabelForModel and LabelExtensions.LabelFor.           In ASP.NET MVC 3, IControllerFactory includes a new method GetControllerSessionBehavior. This method is used to get controller's session behavior. For details see IControllerFactory.GetControllerSessionBehavior Method.           In ASP.NET MVC 3, Controller class includes a new property ViewBag which is of type dynamic. This property allows you to access ViewData Dictionary using C # 4.0 dynamic features. For details see ControllerBase.ViewBag Property.           ModelMetadata includes a property AdditionalValues which is of type Dictionary. In ASP.NET MVC 3 you can populate this property using AdditionalMetadataAttribute. For details see AdditionalMetadataAttribute Class.           In ASP.NET MVC 3 you can also use MvcScaffolding to scaffold your Views and Controller. For details see Scaffold your ASP.NET MVC 3 project with the MvcScaffolding package.           If you want to convert your application from ASP.NET MVC 2 to ASP.NET MVC 3 then there is an excellent tool that automatically converts ASP.NET MVC 2 application to ASP.NET MVC 3 application. For details see MVC 3 Project Upgrade Tool.           In ASP.NET MVC 2 DisplayAttribute is not supported but in ASP.NET MVC 3 DisplayAttribute will work properly.           ASP.NET MVC 3 also support model level validation via the new IValidatableObject interface.           ASP.NET MVC 3 includes a new helper method Html.Raw. This helper method allows you to display unencoded HTML.     Summary:          In this article I showed you the new features of ASP.NET MVC 3. This will help you a lot when you start using ASP MVC 3. I also provide you the links where you can find further details. Hopefully you will enjoy this article too.  

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  • Upgrading from TFS 2010 RC to TFS 2010 RTM done

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Today is the big day, with the Launch of Visual Studio 2010 already done in Asia, and rolling around the world towards us, we are getting ready for the RTM (Released). We have had TFS 2010 in Production for nearly 6 months and have had only minimal problems. Update 12th April 2010  – Added Scott Hanselman’s tweet about the MSDN download release time. SSW was the first company in the world outside of Microsoft to deploy Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server to production, not once, but twice. I am hoping to make it 3 in a row, but with all the hype around the new version, and with it being a production release and not just a go-live, I think there will be a lot of competition. Developers: MSDN will be updated with #vs2010 downloads and details at 10am PST *today*! @shanselman - Scott Hanselman Same as before, we need to Uninstall 2010 RC and install 2010 RTM. The installer will take care of all the complexity of actually upgrading any schema changes. If you are upgrading from TFS 2008 to TFS2010 you can follow our Rules To Better TFS 2010 Migration and read my post on our successes.   We run TFS 2010 in a Hyper-V virtual environment, so we have the advantage of running a snapshot as well as taking a DB backup. Done - Snapshot the hyper-v server Microsoft does not support taking a snapshot of a running server, for very good reason, and Brian Harry wrote a post after my last upgrade with the reason why you should never snapshot a running server. Done - Uninstall Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010 RC You will need to uninstall all of the Visual Studio 2010 RC client bits that you have on the server. Done - Uninstall TFS 2010 RC Done - Install TFS 2010 RTM Done - Configure TFS 2010 RTM Pick the Upgrade option and point it at your existing “tfs_Configuration” database to load all of the existing settings Done - Upgrade the SharePoint Extensions Upgrade Build Servers (Pending) Test the server The back out plan, and you should always have one, is to restore the snapshot. Upgrading to Team Foundation Server 2010 – Done The first thing you need to do is off the TFS server and then log into the Hyper-v server and create a snapshot. Figure: Make sure you turn the server off and delete all old snapshots before you take a new one I noticed that the snapshot that was taken before the Beta 2 to RC upgrade was still there. You should really delete old snapshots before you create a new one, but in this case the SysAdmin (who is currently tucked up in bed) asked me not to. I guess he is worried about a developer messing up his server Turn your server on and wait for it to boot in anticipation of all the nice shiny RTM’ness that is coming next. The upgrade procedure for TFS2010 is to uninstal the old version and install the new one. Figure: Remove Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server RC from the system.   Figure: Most of the heavy lifting is done by the Uninstaller, but make sure you have removed any of the client bits first. Specifically Visual Studio 2010 or Team Explorer 2010.  Once the uninstall is complete, this took around 5 minutes for me, you can begin the install of the RTM. Running the 64 bit OS will allow the application to use more than 2GB RAM, which while not common may be of use in heavy load situations. Figure: It is always recommended to install the 64bit version of a server application where possible. I do not think it is likely, with SharePoint 2010 and Exchange 2010  and even Windows Server 2008 R2 being 64 bit only, I do not think there will be another release of a server app that is 32bit. You then need to choose what it is you want to install. This depends on how you are running TFS and on how many servers. In our case we run TFS and the Team Foundation Build Service (controller only) on out TFS server along with Analysis services and Reporting Services. But our SharePoint server lives elsewhere. Figure: This always confuses people, but in reality it makes sense. Don’t install what you do not need. Every extra you install has an impact of performance. If you are integrating with SharePoint you will need to run this install on every Front end server in your farm and don’t forget to upgrade your Build servers and proxy servers later. Figure: Selecting only Team Foundation Server (TFS) and Team Foundation Build Services (TFBS)   It is worth noting that if you have a lot of builds kicking off, and hence a lot of get operations against your TFS server, you can use a proxy server to cache the source control on another server in between your TFS server and your build servers. Figure: Installing Microsoft .NET Framework 4 takes the most time. Figure: Now run Windows Update, and SSW Diagnostic to make sure all your bits and bobs are up to date. Note: SSW Diagnostic will check your Power Tools, Add-on’s, Check in Policies and other bits as well. Configure Team Foundation Server 2010 – Done Now you can configure the server. If you have no key you will need to pick “Install a Trial Licence”, but it is only £500, or free with a MSDN subscription. Anyway, if you pick Trial you get 90 days to get your key. Figure: You can pick trial and add your key later using the TFS Server Admin. Here is where the real choices happen. We are doing an Upgrade from a previous version, so I will pick Upgrade the same as all you folks that are using the RC or TFS 2008. Figure: The upgrade wizard takes your existing 2010 or 2008 databases and upgraded them to the release.   Once you have entered your database server name you can click “List available databases” and it will show what it can upgrade. Figure: Select your database from the list and at this point, make sure you have a valid backup. At this point you have not made ANY changes to the databases. At this point the configuration wizard will load configuration from your existing database if you have one. If you are upgrading TFS 2008 refer to Rules To Better TFS 2010 Migration. Mostly during the wizard the default values will suffice, but depending on the configuration you want you can pick different options. Figure: Set the application tier account and Authentication method to use. We use NTLM to keep things simple as we host our TFS server externally for our remote developers.  Figure: Setting your TFS server URL’s to be the remote URL’s allows the reports to be accessed without using VPN. Very handy for those remote developers. Figure: Detected the existing Warehouse no problem. Figure: Again we love green ticks. It gives us a warm fuzzy feeling. Figure: The username for connecting to Reporting services should be a domain account (if you are on a domain that is). Figure: Setup the SharePoint integration to connect to your external SharePoint server. You can take the option to connect later.   You then need to run all of your readiness checks. These check can save your life! it will check all of the settings that you have entered as well as checking all the external services are configures and running properly. There are two reasons that TFS 2010 is so easy and painless to install where previous version were not. Microsoft changes the install to two steps, Install and configuration. The second reason is that they have pulled out all of the stops in making the install run all the checks necessary to make sure that once you start the install that it will complete. if you find any errors I recommend that you report them on http://connect.microsoft.com so everyone can benefit from your misery.   Figure: Now we have everything setup the configuration wizard can do its work.  Figure: Took a while on the “Web site” stage for some point, but zipped though after that.  Figure: last wee bit. TFS Needs to do a little tinkering with the data to complete the upgrade. Figure: All upgraded. I am not worried about the yellow triangle as SharePoint was being a little silly Exception Message: TF254021: The account name or password that you specified is not valid. (type TfsAdminException) Exception Stack Trace:    at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Management.Controls.WizardCommon.AccountSelectionControl.TestLogon(String connectionString)    at System.ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker.WorkerThreadStart(Object argument) [Info   @16:10:16.307] Benign exception caught as part of verify: Exception Message: TF255329: The following site could not be accessed: http://projects.ssw.com.au/. The server that you specified did not return the expected response. Either you have not installed the Team Foundation Server Extensions for SharePoint Products on this server, or a firewall is blocking access to the specified site or the SharePoint Central Administration site. For more information, see the Microsoft Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=161206). (type TeamFoundationServerException) Exception Stack Trace:    at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.SharePoint.WssUtilities.VerifyTeamFoundationSharePointExtensions(ICredentials credentials, Uri url)    at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Admin.VerifySharePointSitesUrl.Verify() Inner Exception Details: Exception Message: TF249064: The following Web service returned an response that is not valid: http://projects.ssw.com.au/_vti_bin/TeamFoundationIntegrationService.asmx. This Web service is used for the Team Foundation Server Extensions for SharePoint Products. Either the extensions are not installed, the request resulted in HTML being returned, or there is a problem with the URL. Verify that the following URL points to a valid SharePoint Web application and that the application is available: http://projects.ssw.com.au. If the URL is correct and the Web application is operating normally, verify that a firewall is not blocking access to the Web application. (type TeamFoundationServerInvalidResponseException) Exception Data Dictionary: ResponseStatusCode = InternalServerError I’ll look at SharePoint after, probably the SharePoint box just needs a restart or a kick If there is a problem with SharePoint it will come out in testing, But I will definatly be passing this on to Microsoft.   Upgrading the SharePoint connector to TFS 2010 You will need to upgrade the Extensions for SharePoint Products and Technologies on all of your SharePoint farm front end servers. To do this uninstall  the TFS 2010 RC from it in the same way as the server, and then install just the RTM Extensions. Figure: Only install the SharePoint Extensions on your SharePoint front end servers. TFS 2010 supports both SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.   Figure: When you configure SharePoint it uploads all of the solutions and templates. Figure: Everything is uploaded Successfully. Figure: TFS even remembered the settings from the previous installation, fantastic.   Upgrading the Team Foundation Build Servers to TFS 2010 Just like on the SharePoint servers you will need to upgrade the Build Server to the RTM. Just uninstall TFS 2010 RC and then install only the Team Foundation Build Services component. Unlike on the SharePoint server you will probably have some version of Visual Studio installed. You will need to remove this as well. (Coming Soon) Connecting Visual Studio 2010 / 2008 / 2005 and Eclipse to TFS2010 If you have developers still on Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 you will need do download the respective compatibility pack: Visual Studio Team System 2005 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 Visual Studio Team System 2008 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 If you are using Eclipse you can download the new Team Explorer Everywhere install for connecting to TFS. Get your developers to check that you have the latest version of your applications with SSW Diagnostic which will check for Service Packs and hot fixes to Visual Studio as well.   Technorati Tags: TFS,TFS2010,TFS 2010,Upgrade

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  • Communication Between Your PC and Azure VM via Windows Azure Connect

    - by Shaun
    With the new release of the Windows Azure platform there are a lot of new features available. In my previous post I introduced a little bit about one of them, the remote desktop access to azure virtual machine. Now I would like to talk about another cool stuff – Windows Azure Connect.   What’s Windows Azure Connect I would like to quote the definition of the Windows Azure Connect in MSDN With Windows Azure Connect, you can use a simple user interface to configure IP-sec protected connections between computers or virtual machines (VMs) in your organization’s network, and roles running in Windows Azure. IP-sec protects communications over Internet Protocol (IP) networks through the use of cryptographic security services. There’s an image available at the MSDN as well that I would like to forward here As we can see, using the Windows Azure Connect the Worker Role 1 and Web Role 1 are connected with the development machines and database servers which some of them are inside the organization some are not. With the Windows Azure Connect, the roles deployed on the cloud could consume the resource which located inside our Intranet or anywhere in the world. That means the roles can connect to the local database, access the local shared resource such as share files, folders and printers, etc.   Difference between Windows Azure Connect and AppFabric It seems that the Windows Azure Connect are duplicated with the Windows Azure AppFabric. Both of them are aiming to solve the problem on how to communication between the resource in the cloud and inside the local network. The table below lists the differences in my understanding. Category Windows Azure Connect Windows Azure AppFabric Purpose An IP-sec connection between the local machines and azure roles. An application service running on the cloud. Connectivity IP-sec, Domain-joint Net Tcp, Http, Https Components Windows Azure Connect Driver Service Bus, Access Control, Caching Usage Azure roles connect to local database server Azure roles use local shared files,  folders and printers, etc. Azure roles join the local AD. Expose the local service to Internet. Move the authorization process to the cloud. Integrate with existing identities such as Live ID, Google ID, etc. with existing local services. Utilize the distributed cache.   And also some scenarios on which of them should be used. Scenario Connect AppFabric I have a service deployed in the Intranet and I want the people can use it from the Internet.   Y I have a website deployed on Azure and need to use a database which deployed inside the company. And I don’t want to expose the database to the Internet. Y   I have a service deployed in the Intranet and is using AD authorization. I have a website deployed on Azure which needs to use this service. Y   I have a service deployed in the Intranet and some people on the Internet can use it but need to be authorized and authenticated.   Y I have a service in Intranet, and a website deployed on Azure. This service can be used from Internet and that website should be able to use it as well by AD authorization for more functionalities. Y Y   How to Enable Windows Azure Connect OK we talked a lot information about the Windows Azure Connect and differences with the Windows Azure AppFabric. Now let’s see how to enable and use the Windows Azure Connect. First of all, since this feature is in CTP stage we should apply before use it. On the Windows Azure Portal we can see our CTP features status under Home, Beta Program page. You can send the apply to join the Beta Programs to Microsoft in this page. After a few days the Microsoft will send an email to you (the email of your Live ID) when it’s available. In my case we can see that the Windows Azure Connect had been activated by Microsoft and then we can click the Connect button on top, or we can click the Virtual Network item from the left navigation bar.   The first thing we need, if it’s our first time to enter the Connect page, is to enable the Windows Azure Connect. After that we can see our Windows Azure Connect information in this page.   Add a Local Machine to Azure Connect As we explained below the Windows Azure Connect can make an IP-sec connection between the local machines and azure role instances. So that we firstly add a local machine into our Azure Connect. To do this we will click the Install Local Endpoint button on top and then the portal will give us an URL. Copy this URL to the machine we want to add and it will download the software to us. This software will be installed in the local machines which we want to join the Connect. After installed there will be a tray-icon appeared to indicate this machine had been joint our Connect. The local application will be refreshed to the Windows Azure Platform every 5 minutes but we can click the Refresh button to let it retrieve the latest status at once. Currently my local machine is ready for connect and we can see my machine in the Windows Azure Portal if we switched back to the portal and selected back Activated Endpoints node.   Add a Windows Azure Role to Azure Connect Let’s create a very simple azure project with a basic ASP.NET web role inside. To make it available on Windows Azure Connect we will open the azure project property of this role from the solution explorer in the Visual Studio, and select the Virtual Network tab, check the Activate Windows Azure Connect. The next step is to get the activation token from the Windows Azure Portal. In the same page there is a button named Get Activation Token. Click this button then the portal will display the token to me. We copied this token and pasted to the box in the Visual Studio tab. Then we deployed this application to azure. After completed the deployment we can see the role instance was listed in the Windows Azure Portal - Virtual Connect section.   Establish the Connect Group The final task is to create a connect group which contains the machines and role instances need to be connected each other. This can be done in the portal very easy. The machines and instances will NOT be connected until we created the group for them. The machines and instances can be used in one or more groups. In the Virtual Connect section click the Groups and Roles node from the left side navigation bar and clicked the Create Group button on top. This will bring up a dialog to us. What we need to do is to specify a group name, description; and then we need to select the local computers and azure role instances into this group. After the Azure Fabric updated the group setting we can see the groups and the endpoints in the page. And if we switch back to the local machine we can see that the tray-icon have been changed and the status turned connected. The Windows Azure Connect will update the group information every 5 minutes. If you find the status was still in Disconnected please right-click the tray-icon and select the Refresh menu to retrieve the latest group policy to make it connected.   Test the Azure Connect between the Local Machine and the Azure Role Instance Now our local machine and azure role instance had been connected. This means each of them can communication to others in IP level. For example we can open the SQL Server port so that our azure role can connect to it by using the machine name or the IP address. The Windows Azure Connect uses IPv6 to connect between the local machines and role instances. You can get the IP address from the Windows Azure Portal Virtual Network section when select an endpoint. I don’t want to take a full example for how to use the Connect but would like to have two very simple tests. The first one would be PING.   When a local machine and role instance are connected through the Windows Azure Connect we can PING any of them if we opened the ICMP protocol in the Filewall setting. To do this we need to run a command line before test. Open the command window on the local machine and the role instance, execute the command as following netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="ICMPv6" dir=in action=allow enable=yes protocol=icmpv6 Thanks to Jason Chen, Patriek van Dorp, Anton Staykov and Steve Marx, they helped me to enable  the ICMPv6 setting. For the full discussion we made please visit here. You can use the Remote Desktop Access feature to logon the azure role instance. Please refer my previous blog post to get to know how to use the Remote Desktop Access in Windows Azure. Then we can PING the machine or the role instance by specifying its name. Below is the screen I PING my local machine from my azure instance. We can use the IPv6 address to PING each other as well. Like the image following I PING to my role instance from my local machine thought the IPv6 address.   Another example I would like to demonstrate here is folder sharing. I shared a folder in my local machine and then if we logged on the role instance we can see the folder content from the file explorer window.   Summary In this blog post I introduced about another new feature – Windows Azure Connect. With this feature our local resources and role instances (virtual machines) can be connected to each other. In this way we can make our azure application using our local stuff such as database servers, printers, etc. without expose them to Internet.   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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  • Windows Azure Evolution &ndash; Preview Developer Portal

    - by Shaun
    With the MEET Windows Azure event on 7th June, there are many new features and updates in windows azure platform. In the coming several posts I will try to cover some of them. And in the first post here I would like to just have a quick walkthrough of the new preview developer portal.   History of the Developer Portal If you have been working with windows azure since 2009 or 2010, you should remember the first version of the developer portal. It was built in HTML with very limited features. I have the impression when I was using is old one. The layout is not that attractive and you have very limited features. On November, 2010 alone with the SDK 1.3 release, the developer portal was getting a big jump. In order to give more usability and features this it turned to be built on Silverlight. Hence it runs like a desktop application with many windows, lists, commands and context menus. From 2010 till now many features were involved into this portal, such as the remote desktop, co-admin, virtual connect, VM role, etc.. And the portal itself became more and more complicated. But it brought some problems by using the Silverlight. The first one is the browser capability. As you know in most mobile and tablet device the browser doesn’t allow the rich content plugin, such as Flash and Silverlight. This means people cannot open and configure their azure services from their iPad, iPhone and Windows Phone, etc., even though what they need may just be restart a hosted service, or view the status of their databases. Another problem is the performance. Silverlight provides rich experience to the users, but also needs more bandwidth. So in this upgrade the preview developer portal will be back to use HTML, with JavaScript, as a mobile friendly, cross browser, interactively web site.   Preview Portal vs. Silverlight Portal Before I started to talk about the new preview portal I’d better highlight that, this preview portal is a PREVIEW version, which means even though you can do almost all features that already in the old one, as long as some cool new features I will mention in the coming several posts, there are something still under developed and migrated. So sometimes you need to switch back to the old one. For example, in preview portal there is no co-admin manage function, no remote desktop function and the SQL database manage function will take you back to the old SQL Azure Manage Portal. But as Microsoft said these missing features will be moved in the preview portal in the couple of next few months. Since the public URL of the developer portal, https://windows.azure.com/, had been changed to point to this preview one, you need to click to preview button on top of the page and click the “Take me to the previous portal” link.   Overview There are four parts in the preview portal. On the top is the header which shows the account you are currently logging in. If you click on the header it will show the top menu of windows azure, where you can navigate to the windows azure home page, the price information page, community and account, etc.. The navigation bar is on the left hand side, with the categories listed below. ALL ITEMS All items in your windows azure account, includes the web sites, services, databases, etc.. WEB SITES The web sites in your windows azure account. It will only show the web sites you have. The linked resources will be shown if you drill down into a web site. VIRTUAL MACHINES The virtual machines that you had been deployed to azure. CLOUD SERVICES All windows azure hosted services in your account. SQL DATABASES All SQL databases (SQL Azure) in your account. STORAGE All windows azure storage services in your account. NETWORKS The virtual network (Windows Azure Connect) you had been created. The available items will be listed in the main part of the page based on which category your currently selected. If there’s no item it will show the link to you to quick create. At the bottom of the page there will be the command and information bar. Based on what is selected and what is performed by the user, it will show the related information and commands. For example, in the image below when I was creating a new web site, the information bar told me that my web site is being provisioned; and there are two commands in the command bar. And once it ready the command bar will show some commands that I can do to my new web site. The “Web Sites” is a new feature introduced alone with this upgrade. It gives us an easier and quicker way to establish a website from the scratch or from some existing library. I will introduce it more details in the coming next post. Also in the command bar you can create a service by clicking the NEW button. It will slide the creation panel up to you.   Where’s My Hosted Services The Windows Azure Hosted Services had been renamed to the Cloud Services. Create a new service would be very easy. Just click the NEW button at the bottom of the page, and select the CLOUD SERVICE and QIUICK CREATE. This will create a blank hosted service without deployment and certificate. It just needs you to specify the service URL and the affinity/region. Then the service will be shown in the list. If you clicked the item all information will be shown in the main part. Since there’s no package deployed to this service so currently we cannot see any information about it. But we can upload the package by using the command at the bottom. And as you can see, we could manage the configuration, instances, certificates and we can scale up and down (change the VM size), in and out (increase and decrease the instance count) to our service. Assuming I had created an ASP.NET MVC 3 web role project in Visual Studio and completed the package. Then I can click the UPLOAD button in this page to deploy my package. In the popping up window I just specify my deployment name, package file and configure file. Also I can check the box below so that it will NOT warn me if only one instance of this deployment. Once we clicked the OK button our package will be uploaded and provisioned by the platform. After a while we can see the service was ready from the information bar. We can have the basic information about this service and deployment if we to the dashboard page. For example the usage overview diagram, status, URL, public IP address, etc.. In the configure page we can view and change the CSCFG content such as the monitor setting, connection strings, OS family. In scale page we can increase and decrease the count of the instances. And in the instances page we can view all instances status. And, if your services is using some SQL databases and storages they will be shown as the linked resources under the linked resources page. And you can manage the certificates of this service as well under the certificates page.   How About My Storage Services The storage service can be managed by clicking into the STORAGES link in the navigation bar. And we can create a new storage service from the NEW button. After specify the storage name and region it will be previsioned by the platform. If you want to copy or manage the storage key you can just click the Manage Keys button at the bottom, which is very easy. What I want to highlight here is that, you can monitor your storage service by enabling the monitor configuration. Click the storage item in the list and navigate to the configure page. As you can see in the page you can enable the monitoring for blob, table and queue. And you can also enable the logging when any requests come to the storage. But as the tooltip shown in the page, enabling the monitoring and logging will increase the usage of the storage, which means increase the bill of them. So make sure you enable them properly.   And My SQL Databases (SQL Azure) The last thing I want to quick introduce is the SQL databases, which was formally named SQL Azure. You can create a new SQL Database Server and a new database by clicking the ADD button under the SQL Database navigation item. In the popping up windows just specify the database name, the edition, size, collation and the server. You can select an existing SQL Database Server if you have, or cerate a new one. If you selected to create a new server, there will be another step you need to do, which is specify the server login, password and the region. Once it ready you can mange your databases as well as the servers in the portal. In a particular server you can update the firewall settings in its Configure page. So, What Else There are some other area on the preview portal I didn’t cover, such as the virtual machines, virtual network and web sites. Regarding the virtual machines and web sites I will talk about them in the future separated post. Regarding the virtual network, it the Windows Azure Connect we are familiar with. But as I mention in the beginning of this post, the preview portal is still under developed. Some features are not available here. For example, you cannot manage the co-admin of your subscriptions, you cannot open the remote desktop on your hosted services, and you cannot navigate to the Windows Azure Service Bus, Access Control and Caching, which formally named Windows Azure AppFabric directly. In these cases you need to navigate back to the old portal. So in the coming several months we might need to use both these two sites.   Summary In this post I quick introduced the new windows azure developer portal. Since it had been rearranged and renamed I demonstrated some features that existing in the old portal, such as how to create and deploy a hosted service, how to provision a storage service and SQL database. All features in the old portal had been, is being and will be migrated into this new portal, but some of them were in a different category and page we need to figure out.   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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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 15, 2013

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 15, 2013Popular ReleasesFFXIV Crafting Simulator: Crafting Simulator 2.4.1: -Fixed the offset for the new patch (Auto Loading function)iBoxDB.EX - Fast Transactional NoSQL Database Resources: iBoxDB.net fast transactional nosql database 1.5.2: Easily process objects and documents, zero configuration. fast embeddable transactional nosql document database, includes CURD, QueryLanguage, Master-Master-Slave Replication, MVCC, etc. supports .net2, .net4, windows phone, mono, unity3d, node.js , copy and run. http://download-codeplex.sec.s-msft.com/Download?ProjectName=iboxdb&DownloadId=737783 Benchmark with MongoDB Compatibility more platforms for java versionneurogoody: slicebox: this is the slice box jsEvent-Based Components AppBuilder: AB3.AppDesigner.55: Iteration 55 (Feature): Moving of TargetEdge (simple wires only) by mouse.Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.8.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This new release contains bug fixes and feature enhancements. There are some potential breaking changes in this release as some features of the Help File Builder have been moved into...SharpConfig: SharpConfig 1.2: Implemented comment parsing. Comments are now part of settings and setting categories. New properties: Setting: Comment PreComments SettingCategory: Comment PreCommentsC++ REST SDK (codename "Casablanca"): C++ REST SDK 1.3.0: This release fixes multiple customer reported issues as well as the following: Full support for Dev12 binaries and project files Full support for Windows XP New sample highlighting the Client and Server APIs : BlackJack Expose underlying native handle to set custom options on http_client Improvements to Listener Library Note: Dev10 binaries have been dropped as of this release, however the Dev10 project files are still available in the Source CodeAD ACL Scanner: 1.3.2: Minor bug fixed: Powershell 4.0 will report: Select—Object: Parameter cannot be processed because the parameter name p is ambiguous.Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 7: New feature - Added support for Immutable Collections New feature - Added WriteData and ReadData settings to DataExtensionAttribute New feature - Added reference and type name handling support to extension data New feature - Added default value and required support to constructor deserialization Change - Extension data is now written when serializing Fix - Added missing casts to JToken Fix - Fixed parsing large floating point numbers Fix - Fixed not parsing some ISO date ...RESX Manager: ResxManager 0.2.1: FIXED: Many critical bugs have been fixed. New Features Error logging for improved exception handling New toolbar Improvements of user interfaceFast YouTube Downloader: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0VidCoder: 1.5.8 Beta: Added hardware acceleration options: Bicubic OpenCL scaling algorithm, QSV decoding/encoding and DXVA decoding. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5834. Updated VidCoder setup icon. Fixed crash when choosing the mp4v2 container on x86 and opening on x64. Warning: the hardware acceleration features require specific hardware or file types to work correctly: QSV: Need an Intel processor that supports Quick Sync Video encoding, with a monitor hooked up to the Intel HD Graphics output and the lat...ASP.net MVC Awesome - jQuery Ajax Helpers: 3.5.2: version 3.5.2 - fix for setting single value to multivalue controls - datepicker min max date offset fix - html encoding for keys fix - enable Column.ClientFormatFunc to be a function call that will return a function version 3.5.1 - fixed html attributes rendering - fixed loading animation rendering - css improvements version 3.5 ========================== - autosize for all popups ( can be turned off by calling in js awe.autoSize = false ) - added Parent, Paremeter extensions ...Wsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1310.12: Allow the Update Creation Wizard to be set in full screen mode. Fix a bug which prevent WPP to Reset Remote Sus Client ID. Change the behavior of links in the Update Detail Viewer. Left-Click to open, Right-Click to copy to the Clipboard.TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: This is a complete overhaul but has the same core style. I hope you enjoy it. This version is compatible with 1.2.0.3 Please send issues to my Twitter or https://github.com/TJChap2840WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.6.maint: I think this covers all of the issues. new additions: fixed the thumbnail problem for backgrounds. general clean up and error checking. need to get this put through the wringer and all feedback is welcome.BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6.4: This BIDS Helper release brings the following new features and fixes: New Features: A new Bus Matrix style report option when you run the Printer Friendly Dimension Usage report for an SSAS cube. The Biml engine is now fully in sync with the supported subset of Varigence Mist 3.4. This includes a large number of language enhancements, bugfixes, and project deployment support. Fixed Issues: Fixed Biml execution for project connections fixing a bug with Tabular Translations Editor not a...MoreTerra (Terraria World Viewer): MoreTerra 1.11.3: =========== =New Features= =========== New Markers added for Plantera's Bulb, Heart Fruits and Gold Cache. Markers now correctly display for the gems found in rock debris on the floor. =========== =Compatibility= =========== Fixed header changes found in Terraria 1.0.3.1Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.581b: Fix in place for TVDB xml issue. New* Movie - General Preferences, allow saving of ignored 'The' or 'A' to end of movie title, stored in sorttitle field. * Movie - New Way for Cropping Posters. Fixed* Movie - Rename of folders/filename. caught error message. * Movie - Fixed Bug in Save Cropped image, only saving in Pre-Frodo format if Both model selected. * Movie - Fixed Cropped image didn't take zoomed ratio into effect. * Movie - Separated Folder Renaming and File Renaming fuctions durin...SmartStore.NET - Free ASP.NET MVC Ecommerce Shopping Cart Solution: SmartStore.NET 1.2.0: HighlightsMulti-store support "Trusted Shops" plugins Highly improved SmartStore.biz Importer plugin Add custom HTML content to pages Performance optimization New FeaturesMulti-store-support: now multiple stores can be managed within a single application instance (e.g. for building different catalogs, brands, landing pages etc.) Added 3 new Trusted Shops plugins: Seal, Buyer Protection, Store Reviews Added Display as HTML Widget to CMS Topics (store owner now can add arbitrary HT...New ProjectsArtezio SharePoint 2013 Workflow Activities: SharePoint Workflow 2013 doesn’t provide activities to work with permissions, we've fixed it using HttpSend activity that makes REST API calls.Dependency.Injection: An attempt to write a really simple dependency injection framework. Does property-based and recursive dependency injection. Handles singletons. Yay!DHGMS SUO Killer: SUO Killer is a Visual Studio extension to deal with the removal of SUO file to mitigate SUO related issues in Visual Studio. This project is written in C#.dynamicsheet: dynamicsheetExcel Comparator: Excel Comparator is an add-in for Microsoft Excel that allows the user to compare a range between two sheets. FetchAIP: FetchAIP is a utility to download the various sections of the Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) for New Zealand.Fluent Method and Type Builder: Still working on the summary.getboost: NuGet package for Boost framework.Goldstone Forum: WebForms Forum - TelerikAcademy Team ProjectGroupMe Software Development Kit: .NET Software Development Kit for http://groupme.com/ chat service.GSLMS: ----Import Excel Files Into SQL Server: Load Excel files into SQL Database without schema changes.Inaction: ?????????? jBegin: Learning ASP.net MVC from beginning, then here will be the source code for jbegin.comKDG's Statistical Quality Control Solver: This tool will include methods that can solve sample standard deviation, sample variance, median, mode, moving average, percentiles, margin of error, etc.kpi: Key Performance Indicator (KPI)????; visual studio 2010 with .NET 4.0 runtimeLECO Remote Control Client Application: Sample code and binaries are provided to demonstrate the remote control capability of a LECO Cornerstone instrument.LinkPad: My first Windows Store app intended for student to sketch up thoughts and concepts in quick diagrams.Modler.NET - Automating Graphical Data Model Co-Evolution: Modler.NET was the tool created for a Master's thesis project, which automates the co-evolution of graphical data models and the database that they represent.MyFileManager1: SummaryNever Lotto: Korean 465 Lotto Analyzer and Simulator. The real purpose of this project is to show that this kind of lotto things are just shit.NHibernate: The purpose of this project is to demo CRUD operations using NHibernate with Mono in Visual Studio 2012 using C# language. OAuth2 Authorizer: OAuth2 Authorizer helps you get the access code for a standard OAuth2 REST service that implements 3-legged authentication.Regular Expression for Excel: Regular Expression For Excel is an Excel Plugin. It provides a regular expressions EXCEL support. We can use it in the EXCEL function.Service Tester: Service Tester is an Azure Cloud based load testing application targeted at Soap Web Services which allows you to invoke your Web Service by random parameters.Simple TypeScript and C# Class Generator: Simple GUI application to generate compatible class source code for C# and TypeScript for communications between C# and TypeScript. Soccer team management: ---Spanner: No more stringly-typed web development! Build statically typed single page web applications in C#, automatically generating all HTML, JavaScript, and Knockout.

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  • Get Started using Build-Deploy-Test Workflow with TFS 2012

    - by Jakob Ehn
    TFS 2012 introduces a new type of Lab environment called Standard Environment. This allows you to setup a full Build Deploy Test (BDT) workflow that will build your application, deploy it to your target machine(s) and then run a set of tests on that server to verify the deployment. In TFS 2010, you had to use System Center Virtual Machine Manager and involve half of your IT department to get going. Now all you need is a server (virtual or physical) where you want to deploy and test your application. You don’t even have to install a test agent on the machine, TFS 2012 will do this for you! Although each step is rather simple, the entire process of setting it up consists of a bunch of steps. So I thought that it could be useful to run through a typical setup.I will also link to some good guidance from MSDN on each topic. High Level Steps Install and configure Visual Studio 2012 Test Controller on Target Server Create Standard Environment Create Test Plan with Test Case Run Test Case Create Coded UI Test from Test Case Associate Coded UI Test with Test Case Create Build Definition using LabDefaultTemplate 1. Install and Configure Visual Studio 2012 Test Controller on Target Server First of all, note that you do not have to have the Test Controller running on the target server. It can be running on another server, as long as the Test Agent can communicate with the test controller and the test controller can communicate with the TFS server. If you have several machines in your environment (web server, database server etc..), the test controller can be installed either on one of those machines or on a dedicated machine. To install the test controller, simply mount the Visual Studio Agents media on the server and browse to the vstf_controller.exe file located in the TestController folder. Run through the installation, you might need to reboot the server since it installs .NET 4.5. When the test controller is installed, the Test Controller configuration tool will launch automatically (if it doesn’t, you can start it from the Start menu). Here you will supply the credentials of the account running the test controller service. Note that this account will be given the necessary permissions in TFS during the configuration. Make sure that you have entered a valid account by pressing the Test link. Also, you have to register the test controller with the TFS collection where your test plan is located (and usually the code base of course) When you press Apply Settings, all the configuration will be done. You might get some warnings at the end, that might or might not cause a problem later. Be sure to read them carefully.   For more information about configuring your test controllers, see Setting Up Test Controllers and Test Agents to Manage Tests with Visual Studio 2. Create Standard Environment Now you need to create a Lab environment in Microsoft Test Manager. Since we are using an existing physical or virtual machine we will create a Standard Environment. Open MTM and go to Lab Center. Click New to create a new environment Enter a name for the environment. Since this environment will only contain one machine, we will use the machine name for the environment (TargetServer in this case) On the next page, click Add to add a machine to the environment. Enter the name of the machine (TargetServer.Domain.Com), and give it the Web Server role. The name must be reachable both from your machine during configuration and from the TFS app tier server. You also need to supply an account that is a local administration on the target server. This is needed in order to automatically install a test agent later on the machine. On the next page, you can add tags to the machine. This is not needed in this scenario so go to the next page. Here you will specify which test controller to use and that you want to run UI tests on this environment. This will in result in a Test Agent being automatically installed and configured on the target server. The name of the machine where you installed the test controller should be available on the drop down list (TargetServer in this sample). If you can’t see it, you might have selected a different TFS project collection. Press Next twice and then Verify to verify all the settings: Press finish. This will now create and prepare the environment, which means that it will remote install a test agent on the machine. As part of this installation, the remote server will be restarted. 3-5. Create Test Plan, Run Test Case, Create Coded UI Test I will not cover step 3-5 here, there are plenty of information on how you create test plans and test cases and automate them using Coded UI Tests. In this example I have a test plan called My Application and it contains among other things a test suite called Automated Tests where I plan to put test cases that should be automated and executed as part of the BDT workflow. For more information about Coded UI Tests, see Verifying Code by Using Coded User Interface Tests   6. Associate Coded UI Test with Test Case OK, so now we want to automate our Coded UI Test and have it run as part of the BDT workflow. You might think that you coded UI test already is automated, but the meaning of the term here is that you link your coded UI Test to an existing Test Case, thereby making the Test Case automated. And the test case should be part of the test suite that we will run during the BDT. Open the solution that contains the coded UI test method. Open the Test Case work item that you want to automate. Go to the Associated Automation tab and click on the “…” button. Select the coded UI test that you corresponds to the test case: Press OK and the save the test case For more information about associating an automated test case with a test case, see How to: Associate an Automated Test with a Test Case 7. Create Build Definition using LabDefaultTemplate Now we are ready to create a build definition that will implement the full BDT workflow. For this purpose we will use the LabDefaultTemplate.11.xaml that comes out of the box in TFS 2012. This build process template lets you take the output of another build and deploy it to each target machine. Since the deployment process will be running on the target server, you will have less problem with permissions and firewalls than if you were to remote deploy your solution. So, before creating a BDT workflow build definition, make sure that you have an existing build definition that produces a release build of your application. Go to the Builds hub in Team Explorer and select New Build Definition Give the build definition a meaningful name, here I called it MyApplication.Deploy Set the trigger to Manual Define a workspace for the build definition. Note that a BDT build doesn’t really need a workspace, since all it does is to launch another build definition and deploy the output of that build. But TFS doesn’t allow you to save a build definition without adding at least one mapping. On Build Defaults, select the build controller. Since this build actually won’t produce any output, you can select the “This build does not copy output files to a drop folder” option. On the process tab, select the LabDefaultTemplate.11.xaml. This is usually located at $/TeamProject/BuildProcessTemplates/LabDefaultTemplate.11.xaml. To configure it, press the … button on the Lab Process Settings property First, select the environment that you created before: Select which build that you want to deploy and test. The “Select an existing build” option is very useful when developing the BDT workflow, because you do not have to run through the target build every time, instead it will basically just run through the deployment and test steps which speeds up the process. Here I have selected to queue a new build of the MyApplication.Test build definition On the deploy tab, you need to specify how the application should be installed on the target server. You can supply a list of deployment scripts with arguments that will be executed on the target server. In this example I execute the generated web deploy command file to deploy the solution. If you for example have databases you can use sqlpackage.exe to deploy the database. If you are producing MSI installers in your build, you can run them using msiexec.exe and so on. A good practice is to create a batch file that contain the entire deployment that you can run both locally and on the target server. Then you would just execute the deployment batch file here in one single step. The workflow defines some variables that are useful when running the deployments. These variables are: $(BuildLocation) The full path to where your build files are located $(InternalComputerName_<VM Name>) The computer name for a virtual machine in a SCVMM environment $(ComputerName_<VM Name>) The fully qualified domain name of the virtual machine As you can see, I specify the path to the myapplication.deploy.cmd file using the $(BuildLocation) variable, which is the drop folder of the MyApplication.Test build. Note: The test agent account must have read permission in this drop location. You can find more information here on Building your Deployment Scripts On the last tab, we specify which tests to run after deployment. Here I select the test plan and the Automated Tests test suite that we saw before: Note that I also selected the automated test settings (called TargetServer in this case) that I have defined for my test plan. In here I define what data that should be collected as part of the test run. For more information about test settings, see Specifying Test Settings for Microsoft Test Manager Tests We are done! Queue your BDT build and wait for it to finish. If the build succeeds, your build summary should look something like this:

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