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  • Process not Listed by PS or in /proc/

    - by Hammer Bro.
    I'm trying to figure out how to operate a rather large Java program, 'prog'. If I go to its /bin/ dir and configure its setenv.sh and prog.sh to use local directories and my current user account. Then I try to run it via "./prog.sh start". Here are all the relevant bits of prog.sh: USER=(my current account) _CMD="/opt/jdk/bin/java -server -Xmx768m -classpath "${CLASSPATH}" -jar "${DIR}/prog.jar"" case "${ACTION}" in start) nohup su ${USER} -c "exec ${_CMD} >>${_LOGFILE} 2>&1" >/dev/null & echo $! >${_PID} echo "Prog running. PID="`cat ${_PID}` ;; stop) PID=`cat ${_PID} 2>/dev/null` echo "Shutting down prog: ${PID} kill -QUIT ${PID} 2>/dev/null kill ${PID} 2>/dev/null kill -KILL ${PID} 2>/dev/null rm -f ${_PID} echo "STOPPED `date`" >>${_LOGFILE} ;; When I actually do ./prog.sh start, it starts. But I can't find it at all on the process list. Nor can I kill it manually, using the same command the shell script uses. But I can tell it's running, because if I do ./prog.sh stop, it stops (and some temporary files elsewhere clean themselves out). ./prog.sh start Prog running. PID=1234 ps eaux | grep 1234 ps eaux | grep -i prog.jar ps eaux >> pslist.txt (It's not there either by PID or any clear name I can find: prog, java or jar.) cd /proc/1234/ -bash: cd: /proc/1234/: No such file or directory kill -QUIT 1234 kill 1234 kill -KILL 1234 -bash: kill: (1234) - No such process ./prog.sh stop Shutting down prog: 1234 As far as I can tell, the process is running yet not in any way listed by the system. I can't find it in ps or /proc/, nor can I kill it. But the shell script can still stop it properly. So my question is, how can something like this happen? Is the process supremely hidden, actually unlisted, or am I just missing it in some fashion? I'm trying to figure out what makes this program tick, and I can barely prove that it's ticking! Edit: ps eu | grep prog.sh (after having restarted; so random PID) 50038 19381 0.0 0.0 4412 632 pts/3 S+ 16:09 0:00 grep prog.sh HOSTNAME=machine.server.com TERM=vt100 SHELL=/bin/bash HISTSIZE=1000 SSH_CLIENT=::[STUFF] 1754 22 CVSROOT=:[DIR] SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/3 ANT_HOME=/opt/apache-ant-1.7.1 USER=[USER] LS_COLORS=[COLORS] SSH_AUTH_SOCK=[DIR] KDEDIR=/usr MAIL=[DIR] PATH=[DIRS] INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc PWD=[PWD] JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.6.0_21 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/libexec/openssh/gnome-ssh-askpass M2_HOME=/opt/apache-maven-2.2.1 SHLVL=1 HOME=[~] LOGNAME=[USER] SSH_CONNECTION=::[STUFF] LESSOPEN=|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s G_BROKEN_FILENAMES=1 _=/bin/grep OLDPWD=[DIR] I just realized that the stop) part of prog.sh isn't actually a guarantee that the process it claims to be stopping is running -- it just tries to kill the PID and suppresses all output then deletes the temporary file and manually inserts STOPPED into the log file. So I'm no longer so certain that the process is always running when I ps for it, although the code sample above indicates that it at least runs erratically. I'll continue looking into this undocumented behemoth when I return to work tomorrow.

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  • Installing Mod-wsgi 3.3 for apache 2.2 and python 3.2

    - by aaronasterling
    I am attempting to install Mod-wsgi 3.3 on an ubuntu 11.10 desktop edition with apache 2.2 and python 3.2 I downloaded the source tarball and extracted it. I configured it using the --with-python=/usr/bin/python3 option to configure. This is the only copy of python3 that I have installed. I then issued the commands make and sudo make install. I attempted to restart apache using sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart and get the following error message: apache2: Syntax error on line 203 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: Syntax error on line 1 of /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/wsgi.load: Cannot load /usr/lib/apache2/modules /mod_wsgi.so into server: /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_wsgi.so: undefined symbol: PyCObject_FromVoidPtr Action 'configtest' failed. The Apache error log may have more information. ...fail! The error logs only inform us that it's a segfault: ` I checked to make sure that it's linked against the right python library with ldd mod_wsgi.so and got the output linux-gate.so.1 => (0x00d66000) libpython3.2mu.so.1.0 => /usr/lib/libpython3.2mu.so.1.0 (0x0065b000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00a20000) libc.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00110000) libssl.so.1.0.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 (0x0028c000) libcrypto.so.1.0.0 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 (0x0044c000) libffi.so.6 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libffi.so.6 (0x002d9000) libz.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00eb3000) libexpat.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libexpat.so.1 (0x00abe000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x002e0000) libutil.so.1 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libutil.so.1 (0x00c47000) libm.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00e24000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x0042c000) It seems to be linking against the python3 library so I'm not sure what the issue is. I have read on another question that mod-python can present problems however it was never installed. I saw that the directive WSGIPythonHome can be used to point to the correct python version and created a directory /usr/bin/apache2-python/ with a link named python and python3(the name I passed to the configure script) to /usr/bin/python3 This results in the same error. So I'm pretty sure it's using the correct version of python. I am now at a loss. Thanks in advance for any help. update Using the version from the repository I get the following log when I attempt to request a page: [Wed Mar 21 13:21:11 2012] [notice] child pid 5567 exit signal Aborted (6) Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: Unable to get the locale encoding LookupError: no codec search functions registered: can't find encoding [Wed Mar 21 13:21:13 2012] [notice] child pid 5568 exit signal Aborted (6) Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: Unable to get the locale encoding LookupError: no codec search functions registered: can't find encoding [Wed Mar 21 13:21:14 2012] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down If I comment out the instruction to load mod-wsgi, the page serves normally.

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  • fatal error occured while trying to sysprep the machine windows 8.1

    - by Mick
    I try do sysprep in Windows 8.1 I have create unattend.xml <settings pass="oobeSystem"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale> <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale> <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage> <UILanguageFallback>en-US</UILanguageFallback> <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale> </component> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <OEMInformation> <Manufacturer>XYZ</Manufacturer> <SupportURL>http://www.XYZ.com</SupportURL> </OEMInformation> <OOBE> <HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage> <NetworkLocation>Work</NetworkLocation> <ProtectYourPC>1</ProtectYourPC> </OOBE> <UserAccounts> <AdministratorPassword> <Value>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</Value> <PlainText>false</PlainText> </AdministratorPassword> <LocalAccounts> <LocalAccount wcm:action="add"> <Password> <Value>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</Value> <PlainText>false</PlainText> </Password> <Description>Admin</Description> <DisplayName>Admin</DisplayName> <Group>Administrators</Group> <Name>Admin</Name> </LocalAccount> </LocalAccounts> </UserAccounts> <WindowsFeatures> <ShowWindowsMediaPlayer>false</ShowWindowsMediaPlayer> <ShowMediaCenter>false</ShowMediaCenter> </WindowsFeatures> <RegisteredOrganization>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</RegisteredOrganization> <RegisteredOwner>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</RegisteredOwner> <TimeZone>Central European Standard Time</TimeZone> <ShowWindowsLive>false</ShowWindowsLive> </component> </settings> <settings pass="specialize"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <RegisteredOrganization>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</RegisteredOrganization> <RegisteredOwner>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</RegisteredOwner> <ProductKey>XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX</ProductKey> </component> </settings> And then I run sysprep.exe /oobe /generalize /shutdown I see this error: fatal error occurred while trying to sysprep the machine

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  • hostapd running on Ubuntu Server 13.04 only allows single station to connect when using wpa

    - by user450688
    Problem Only a single station can connect to hostapd at a time. Any single station can connect (W8, OSX, iOS, Nexus) but when two or more hosts are connected at the same time the first client loses its connectivity. However there are no connectivity issues when WPA is not used. Setup Linux (Ubuntu server 13.04) wireless router (with separate networks for wired WAN, wired LAN, and Wireless LAN. iptables-save output: *nat :PREROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :POSTROUTING ACCEPT [0:0] -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.0.0/24 -o p4p1 -j MASQUERADE -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.1.0/24 -o p4p1 -j MASQUERADE COMMIT *mangle :PREROUTING ACCEPT [13:916] :INPUT ACCEPT [9:708] :FORWARD ACCEPT [4:208] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [9:3492] :POSTROUTING ACCEPT [13:3700] COMMIT *filter :INPUT DROP [0:0] :FORWARD DROP [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [9:3492] -A INPUT -i p4p1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i p4p1 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i eth0 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i wlan0 -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i p4p1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i eth0 -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i wlan0 -j ACCEPT -A FORWARD -i lo -j ACCEPT COMMIT /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf #Wireless Interface interface=wlan0 driver=nl80211 ssid=<removed> hw_mode=g channel=6 max_num_sta=15 auth_algs=3 ieee80211n=1 wmm_enabled=1 wme_enabled=1 #Configure Hardware Capabilities of Interface ht_capab=[HT40+][SMPS-STATIC][GF][SHORT-GI-20][SHORT-GI-40][RX-STBC12] #Accept all MAC address macaddr_acl=0 #Shared Key Authentication wpa=1 wpa_passphrase=<removed> wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK wpa_pairwise=CCMP rsn_pairwise=CCMP ###IPad Connectivevity Repair ieee8021x=0 eap_server=0 Wireless Card #lshw output product: RT2790 Wireless 802.11n 1T/2R PCIe vendor: Ralink corp. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: mon.wlan0 version: 00 serial: <removed> width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list logical wireless ethernet physical configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rt2800pci driverversion=3.8.0-25-generic firmware=0.34 ip=10.0.1.254 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn #iw list output Band 1: Capabilities: 0x272 HT20/HT40 Static SM Power Save RX Greenfield RX HT20 SGI RX HT40 SGI RX STBC 2-streams Max AMSDU length: 3839 bytes No DSSS/CCK HT40 Maximum RX AMPDU length 65535 bytes (exponent: 0x003) Minimum RX AMPDU time spacing: 2 usec (0x04) HT RX MCS rate indexes supported: 0-15, 32 TX unequal modulation not supported HT TX Max spatial streams: 1 HT TX MCS rate indexes supported may differ Frequencies: * 2412 MHz [1] (27.0 dBm) * 2417 MHz [2] (27.0 dBm) * 2422 MHz [3] (27.0 dBm) * 2427 MHz [4] (27.0 dBm) * 2432 MHz [5] (27.0 dBm) * 2437 MHz [6] (27.0 dBm) * 2442 MHz [7] (27.0 dBm) * 2447 MHz [8] (27.0 dBm) * 2452 MHz [9] (27.0 dBm) * 2457 MHz [10] (27.0 dBm) * 2462 MHz [11] (27.0 dBm) * 2467 MHz [12] (disabled) * 2472 MHz [13] (disabled) * 2484 MHz [14] (disabled) Bitrates (non-HT): * 1.0 Mbps * 2.0 Mbps (short preamble supported) * 5.5 Mbps (short preamble supported) * 11.0 Mbps (short preamble supported) * 6.0 Mbps * 9.0 Mbps * 12.0 Mbps * 18.0 Mbps * 24.0 Mbps * 36.0 Mbps * 48.0 Mbps * 54.0 Mbps max # scan SSIDs: 4 max scan IEs length: 2257 bytes Coverage class: 0 (up to 0m) Supported Ciphers: * WEP40 (00-0f-ac:1) * WEP104 (00-0f-ac:5) * TKIP (00-0f-ac:2) * CCMP (00-0f-ac:4) Available Antennas: TX 0 RX 0 Supported interface modes: * IBSS * managed * AP * AP/VLAN * WDS * monitor * mesh point software interface modes (can always be added): * AP/VLAN * monitor valid interface combinations: * #{ AP } <= 8, total <= 8, #channels <= 1 Supported commands: * new_interface * set_interface * new_key * new_beacon * new_station * new_mpath * set_mesh_params * set_bss * authenticate * associate * deauthenticate * disassociate * join_ibss * join_mesh * set_tx_bitrate_mask * set_tx_bitrate_mask * action * frame_wait_cancel * set_wiphy_netns * set_channel * set_wds_peer * Unknown command (84) * Unknown command (87) * Unknown command (85) * Unknown command (89) * Unknown command (92) * testmode * connect * disconnect Supported TX frame types: * IBSS: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * managed: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * AP: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * AP/VLAN: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * mesh point: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * P2P-client: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * P2P-GO: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 * Unknown mode (10): 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0 Supported RX frame types: * IBSS: 0x40 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * managed: 0x40 0xd0 * AP: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * AP/VLAN: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * mesh point: 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * P2P-client: 0x40 0xd0 * P2P-GO: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 * Unknown mode (10): 0x40 0xd0 Device supports RSN-IBSS. HT Capability overrides: * MCS: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff * maximum A-MSDU length * supported channel width * short GI for 40 MHz * max A-MPDU length exponent * min MPDU start spacing Device supports TX status socket option. Device supports HT-IBSS.

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  • RHCS: GFS2 in A/A cluster with common storage. Configuring GFS with rgmanager

    - by Pavel A
    I'm configuring a two node A/A cluster with a common storage attached via iSCSI, which uses GFS2 on top of clustered LVM. So far I have prepared a simple configuration, but am not sure which is the right way to configure gfs resource. Here is the rm section of /etc/cluster/cluster.conf: <rm> <failoverdomains> <failoverdomain name="node1" nofailback="0" ordered="0" restricted="1"> <failoverdomainnode name="rhc-n1"/> </failoverdomain> <failoverdomain name="node2" nofailback="0" ordered="0" restricted="1"> <failoverdomainnode name="rhc-n2"/> </failoverdomain> </failoverdomains> <resources> <script file="/etc/init.d/clvm" name="clvmd"/> <clusterfs name="gfs" fstype="gfs2" mountpoint="/mnt/gfs" device="/dev/vg-cs/lv-gfs"/> </resources> <service name="shared-storage-inst1" autostart="0" domain="node1" exclusive="0" recovery="restart"> <script ref="clvmd"> <clusterfs ref="gfs"/> </script> </service> <service name="shared-storage-inst2" autostart="0" domain="node2" exclusive="0" recovery="restart"> <script ref="clvmd"> <clusterfs ref="gfs"/> </script> </service> </rm> This is what I mean: when using clusterfs resource agent to handle GFS partition, it is not unmounted by default (unless force_unmount option is given). This way when I issue clusvcadm -s shared-storage-inst1 clvm is stopped, but GFS is not unmounted, so a node cannot alter LVM structure on shared storage anymore, but can still access data. And even though a node can do it quite safely (dlm is still running), this seems to be rather inappropriate to me, since clustat reports that the service on a particular node is stopped. Moreover if I later try to stop cman on that node, it will find a dlm locking, produced by GFS, and fail to stop. I could have simply added force_unmount="1", but I would like to know what is the reason behind the default behavior. Why is it not unmounted? Most of the examples out there silently use force_unmount="0", some don't, but none of them give any clue on how the decision was made. Apart from that I have found sample configurations, where people manage GFS partitions with gfs2 init script - https://alteeve.ca/w/2-Node_Red_Hat_KVM_Cluster_Tutorial#Defining_The_Resources or even as simply as just enabling services such as clvm and gfs2 to start automatically at boot (http://pbraun.nethence.com/doc/filesystems/gfs2.html), like: chkconfig gfs2 on If I understand the latest approach correctly, such cluster only controls whether nodes are still alive and can fence errant ones, but such cluster has no control over the status of its resources. I have some experience with Pacemaker and I'm used to that all resources are controlled by a cluster and an action can be taken when not only there are connectivity issues, but any of the resources misbehave. So, which is the right way for me to go: leave GFS partition mounted (any reasons to do so?) set force_unmount="1". Won't this break anything? Why this is not the default? use script resource <script file="/etc/init.d/gfs2" name="gfs"/> to manage GFS partition. start it at boot and don't include in cluster.conf (any reasons to do so?) This may be a sort of question that cannot be answered unambiguously, so it would be also of much value for me if you shared your experience or expressed your thoughts on the issue. How does for example /etc/cluster/cluster.conf look like when configuring gfs with Conga or ccs (they are not available to me since for now I have to use Ubuntu for the cluster)? Thanks you very much!

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  • How to get ISA 2006 Web Proxy to work with the Single Network Adapter template

    - by tronda
    I need to test an issue with running our application behind a proxy server with different type of configurations, so I installed ISA 2006 Enterprise on a desktop computer. Since this computer only has a single network card and I want to start out easy, I chose the "Single Network Adapter" template. We have a internal NAT'ed network which is in the 10 range. I have defined the internal network on the ISA server to be 10.XXX.YY.1 - 10.XXX.YY.255 I also have the Default rule which denies all traffic, but I've added the following Rule: Policy - Protocols - From - To Accept HTTP Internal External HTTPS Local Host Internal HTTS Server Localhost Then I configured Internet Explorer on a virutal machine running XP within virtualbox with Brigded network (gets same network address range as regular computers on our network) similar to this Instead of the server name I used the IP address. When I try to access a web page, this doesn't go through and I get the following log messages on the proxy server: Original Client IP Client Agent Authenticated Client Service Referring Server Destination Host Name Transport HTTP Method MIME Type Object Source Source Proxy Destination Proxy Bidirectional Client Host Name Filter Information Network Interface Raw IP Header Raw Payload GMT Log Time Source Port Processing Time Bytes Sent Bytes Received Cache Information Error Information Authentication Server Log Time Client IP Destination IP Destination Port Protocol Action Rule Result Code HTTP Status Code Client Username Source Network Destination Network URL Server Name Log Record Type 10.XXX.YY.174 - TCP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:24 1080 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:24 10.XXX.YY.174 10.XXX.YY.175 80 HTTP Initiated Connection MyHTTPAccess 0x0 ERROR_SUCCESS Internal Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall 10.XXX.YY.175 - TCP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:24 2275 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:24 10.XXX.YY.175 10.XXX.YY.175 80 HTTP Initiated Connection 0x0 ERROR_SUCCESS Local Host Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall 10.XXX.YY.175 - TCP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:25 2275 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:25 10.XXX.YY.175 10.XXX.YY.175 80 HTTP Closed Connection 0x80074e20 FWX_E_GRACEFUL_SHUTDOWN Local Host Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall 10.XXX.YY.175 - TCP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:25 2276 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:25 10.XXX.YY.175 10.XXX.YY.175 80 HTTP Initiated Connection 0x0 ERROR_SUCCESS Local Host Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall 10.XXX.YY.175 - TCP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:26 2276 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:26 10.XXX.YY.175 10.XXX.YY.175 80 HTTP Closed Connection 0x80074e20 FWX_E_GRACEFUL_SHUTDOWN Local Host Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall 10.XXX.YY.175 - TCP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:26 2277 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:26 10.XXX.YY.175 10.XXX.YY.175 80 HTTP Initiated Connection 0x0 ERROR_SUCCESS Local Host Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall 10.XXX.YY.159 - UDP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:26 68 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:26 10.XXX.YY.159 255.255.255.255 67 DHCP (request) Denied Connection [Enterprise] Default rule 0xc004000d FWX_E_POLICY_RULES_DENIED Internal Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall 10.XXX.YY.166 - UDP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:26 68 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:26 10.XXX.YY.166 255.255.255.255 67 DHCP (request) Denied Connection [Enterprise] Default rule 0xc004000d FWX_E_POLICY_RULES_DENIED Internal Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall 0.0.0.0 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729) Yes Proxy 10.XXX.YY.175 TCP GET Internet - - - Req ID: 096c76ae; Compression: client=No, server=No, compress rate=0% decompress rate=0% - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:27 0 2945 2581 446 0x0 0x40 24.08.2010 06:25:27 10.XXX.YY.174 10.XXX.YY.175 80 http Failed Connection Attempt MyHTTPAccess 10061 anonymous Internal Local Host http://www.vg.no/ PROXYTEST Web Proxy Filter 10.XXX.YY.175 - TCP - - - 24.08.2010 13:25:27 2277 0 0 0 0x0 0x0 - 24.08.2010 06:25:27 10.XXX.YY.175 10.XXX.YY.175 80 HTTP Closed Connection 0x80074e20 FWX_E_GRACEFUL_SHUTDOWN Local Host Local Host - PROXYTEST Firewall

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  • My computer freezes irregurarly

    - by Manhim
    My computer started to freeze at irregular times for 3 weeks now. What happens My computer freezes, the video stops. (No graphic glitches, it just stops) Sound keeps playing up to some time (Usually 10-30 seconds) then stops playing. Sometimes, randomly, the screen on my G-15 keyboard flickers and I see caracters not at the right places. Usually happens for about 1-2 seconds and a bit before my computer freezes. I have to keep the power button pressed for 4 seconds to shut my computer down. I still hear my hard drives and fans working. Sometimes it works with no problems for a full day, some other times it just keeps freezing each time I restart my computer and I have to leave it for the rest of the day. Sometimes my mouse freezes for a fraction of a second (Like 0.01 to 0.2 seconds) quite randomly, usually before it freezes. No errors spotted by the "Action center" unlike when I had problems with my last video card on this system (Driver errors). My G-15 LCD screen also freezes. What I did so far I have had similar problems in the past and I had changed my hard drive (It was faulty), so I tested my software RAID-0 array and it was faulty so I changed it. (I reinstalled Windows 7 with this part). I also tested with unplugging my secondary hard drive. My CPU was running at about 100 degree Celsius, I removed the dust between the fans and the heatsink and it's now between 50-60. I ran a CPU stress-test and it didn't freeze during the tests (using Prime95 on all cores) Ran a memory test (using memtest86+) for a single pass and there were no errors. Ran a GPU stress test with ati-tools and furmark and it didn't freeze during the tests. (No artefacts either) I had troubles with my graphic card when I got it, but I think that it got fixed with a driver update. I checked the voltages in my BIOS setup and they all seemed ok (±0.2 I think). I have ran on the computer without problems with Fedora 15 on an external hard drive (Appart that it couldn't load Gnome 3 and was reverting to Gnome 2, didn't want to install drivers since I use it on multiple computers) I used it to backup my files from the raid array to my 1TB hard drive for the reinstallation of Windows. (So the crashes only happenned on Windows) [The external hard drive is plugged directly on a SATA port] I contacted EVGA (My graphic card vendor) and pointed them on this question, I'm looking for an answer. Ran sensors on Fedora 15 and got this output: http://pastebin.com/0BHJnAvu When it happens When I play video games (Mostly) When I play flash games (Second most) When I'm looking at my desktop background (It rarely happens when I have a window open, but it does, sometimes) Specs Windows Seven x64 Home Premium Motherboard: M2N-SLI Deluxe CPU: AMD Phenom 9950 x2 @ 2.6GHz Memory: Kingston 4x2GB Dual Channel (Pretty basic memory sticks) Hard drives: Was 2x250GB (Western digital caviar) in raid-0 + 1TB (WD caviar black), I replaced the raid array with a 750GB (WD caviar black) [Yes I removed the array from the raid configurations] 750W Power supply No overcloking. Ever. There have been some power-downs like 4-5 weeks ago, but the problem didn't start immediately after. (I wasn't home, so my computer got shut-down) My current to-try list Change the thermal paste on my CPU. Change my graphic card with a temporary one and stress the computer. Change my power supply. In this situation, how can I successfully pin-point the current hardware problem? (If it's a hardware problem) Because I don't really have the budget to just forget and replace everything. I also don't really have hardware to test-replace current hardware.

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  • TCP stops sending weirdly.

    - by Utoah
    In case to find out the cause of TCP retransmits on my Linux (RHEL, kernel 2.6.18) servers connecting to the same switch. I had a client-server pair send "Hello" to each other every 200us and captured the packets with tcpdump on the client machine. The command I used to mimic client and server are: while [ 0 ]; do echo "Hello"; usleep 200; done | nc server 18510 while [ 0 ]; do echo "Hello"; usleep 200; done | nc -l 18510 When the server machine was busy serving some other requests, the client suffered from abrupt retransmits occasionally. But the output of tcpdump seemed irrational. 16:04:58.898970 IP server.18510 > client.34533: P 4531:4537(6) ack 3204 win 123 <nop,nop,timestamp 1923778643 3452833828> 16:04:58.901797 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3204:3210(6) ack 4537 win 33 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452833831 1923778643> 16:04:58.901855 IP server.18510 > client.34533: P 4537:4549(12) ack 3210 win 123 <nop,nop,timestamp 1923778646 3452833831> 16:04:58.903871 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3210:3216(6) ack 4549 win 33 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452833833 1923778646> 16:04:58.903950 IP server.18510 > client.34533: P 4549:4555(6) ack 3216 win 123 <nop,nop,timestamp 1923778648 3452833833> 16:04:58.905796 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3216:3222(6) ack 4555 win 33 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452833835 1923778648> 16:04:58.905860 IP server.18510 > client.34533: P 4555:4561(6) ack 3222 win 123 <nop,nop,timestamp 1923778650 3452833835> 16:04:58.908903 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3222:3228(6) ack 4561 win 33 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452833838 1923778650> 16:04:58.908966 IP server.18510 > client.34533: P 4561:4567(6) ack 3228 win 123 <nop,nop,timestamp 1923778653 3452833838> 16:04:58.911855 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3228:3234(6) ack 4567 win 33 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452833841 1923778653> 16:04:59.112573 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3228:3234(6) ack 4567 win 33 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452834042 1923778653> 16:04:59.112648 IP server.18510 > client.34533: P 4567:5161(594) ack 3234 win 123 <nop,nop,timestamp 1923778857 3452834042> 16:04:59.112659 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3234:3672(438) ack 5161 win 35 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452834042 1923778857> 16:04:59.114427 IP server.18510 > client.34533: P 5161:5167(6) ack 3672 win 126 <nop,nop,timestamp 1923778858 3452834042> 16:04:59.114439 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3672:3678(6) ack 5167 win 35 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452834044 1923778858> 16:04:59.116435 IP server.18510 > client.34533: P 5167:5173(6) ack 3678 win 126 <nop,nop,timestamp 1923778860 3452834044> 16:04:59.116444 IP client.34533 > server.18510: P 3678:3684(6) ack 5173 win 35 <nop,nop,timestamp 3452834046 1923778860> Packet 3228:3234(6) from client was retransmitted due to ack timeout. What I could not understand was that the client machine did not send out any packets after the first 3228:3234(6) packets was sent. The server machine had advertised a window (scaled) large enough. The data transfer up to the retransmit was fine which meant no slow start should be in action. What can cause the client machine to stop sending until the packet timed out? BTW, I am unable to run tcpdump on the server machine.

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  • Reinstall Postfix

    - by Kevin
    I tried to reinstall Postfix, but I get this bunch of errors: root@***:/etc/init.d# sudo apt-get install -f postfix Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Suggested packages: procmail postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre resolvconf postfix-cdb mail-reader The following NEW packages will be installed: postfix 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/1,389kB of archives. After this operation, 3,531kB of additional disk space will be used. Preconfiguring packages ... Selecting previously deselected package postfix. (Reading database ... 56122 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking postfix (from .../postfix_2.7.1-1ubuntu0.1_amd64.deb) ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... Processing triggers for ufw ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Setting up postfix (2.7.1-1ubuntu0.1) ... Configuration file `/etc/init.d/postfix' ==> File on system created by you or by a script. ==> File also in package provided by package maintainer. What would you like to do about it ? Your options are: Y or I : install the package maintainer's version N or O : keep your currently-installed version D : show the differences between the versions Z : start a shell to examine the situation The default action is to keep your current version. *** postfix (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? Y Installing new version of config file /etc/init.d/postfix ... Adding group `postfix' (GID 109) ... Done. Adding system user `postfix' (UID 106) ... Adding new user `postfix' (UID 106) with group `postfix' ... Not creating home directory `/var/spool/postfix'. Creating /etc/postfix/dynamicmaps.cf Adding tcp map entry to /etc/postfix/dynamicmaps.cf Adding group `postdrop' (GID 115) ... Done. setting myhostname: ***.net setting alias maps setting alias database setting myorigin setting destinations: ***.net, localhost.***.net, , localhost setting relayhost: setting mynetworks: 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128 setting mailbox_size_limit: 0 setting recipient_delimiter: + setting inet_interfaces: all Postfix is now set up with a default configuration. If you need to make changes, edit /etc/postfix/main.cf (and others) as needed. To view Postfix configuration values, see postconf(1). After modifying main.cf, be sure to run '/etc/init.d/postfix reload'. Running newaliases postalias: fatal: /etc/mailname: cannot open file: Permission denied dpkg: error processing postfix (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Processing triggers for libc-bin ... ldconfig deferred processing now taking place Errors were encountered while processing: postfix E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) I tried aptitude purge, remove, autoclean and all of dpkg options (configure, remove, purge) but nothing did the trick. /etc/mailname exists (0644 root:root) with as content *.net (fetched from hostname). What am I doing wrong?

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  • Can I make my drives visible and change their partition type without losing my data?

    - by user165408
    I have made a lot of mistakes and now I cannot see my hard disk nor I can start my operating system on my laptop. All my passwords and important files on my hdd without any backup. I followed this course of action Changed my hard disk partitions to dynamic just for getting 5th partition. (1st mistake) Decreased partitions to 4 again. Backed up operating system from 4th to 3rd partition with Norton Ghost. Booted from a live CD for Windows XP. Formatted 4th partition and moved my all important data from 1st and 2nd partitions to the 4th partition. Deleted 1st and 2nd partitions and got 1 partition from half of empty space. So I have just 3 partitions and empty space between 1st and 2nd partitions. Tried to install Windows 8 to the first partition but it did not allow because it is dynamic. Also it did not allow to install to other partitions. Tried to install Windows XP to the 1st partition but it said if I continue I cannot use other drivers. Therefore I escaped from installing it. Booted from the Windows XP live CD then increased 1st partiton to less than 400mb of empty space. Therefore I thought it will be adjacent but it was shown as 2 partitions. In my computer I see just 3 drivers. Using Norton Ghost I recovered my OS to the 1st partition. (2nd mistake it was on 4th partition originally) Booted from a Windows XP live CD I tried to install bcdedit to the Windows XP live CD but it did not work. Then I tried to install EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition. It was installed with errors then I start it and it showed me an error like there is no hard disk. I looked to my PC and my drivers were not there. Booted from the Norton Ghost CD and it did not show me my drivers either, but before I was able to see them. I checked numbers of partition shown by the Norton Ghost utility and they are still have same numbers so I have to see my drivers but I cannot see them now. My hard disk is shown as extarnal dynamic now so I cannot see any drive in my PC in the live Windows XP. There are two options; first one is import extarnal disk and second one is convert disk to basic. Will they delete my data? I fear booting from CDs like Windows XP live CD, Norton Ghost CD, and the operating system CD/DVD, because they may overwrite a few MB their data to my data. These recover tools are already exist in Windows XP live CD by The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. Can any of them help me? CompuAppa SwissKnife V3 DBXtract Disk Investigator Fab's AutoBackup 2.0 FileRecovery Floppy Repair Free Undelete Handy Recovery Recovery Manager Restorastion Restorastion Help File by UBCD4Win UnChk Unstoppable Copier Finally How can I make it so that my drives are visible again without losing my data? How can I convert my dynamic partitions to basic without losing my data?

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  • Postfix not sending/allowing receiving of messages after server (hardware) changed

    - by 537mfb
    We had na old notebook runing Ubuntu 12.04 working as a web/ftp/mail server and it worked but since the notebook was a notebook and pretty old and unreliable, a desktop was bought to replace it before it stopped working all together. Due to issues with the new desktop's vídeo card, we couldn't use Ubuntu 12.04 so we installed Ubuntu 13.10 and wen't about configuring it. Since we removed the notebook from the network, we kept the same Computer Name and local IP address to make things as close to the old server as possible configuration-wise. However, something has gone wrong since Postfix is throwing error 451 4.3.0 lookup faillure on every attempt to send a mail, and no email can be received either. Our main.cf file is a copy of the one we were using (and working) on the old server (notice we use EHCP) # See /usr/share/postfix/main.cf.dist for a commented, more complete version # Debian specific: Specifying a file name will cause the first # line of that file to be used as the name. The Debian default # is /etc/mailname. #myorigin = /etc/mailname smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name powered by Easy Hosting Control Panel (ehcp) on Ubuntu, www.ehcp.net biff = no # appending .domain is the MUA's job. append_dot_mydomain = no # Uncomment the next line to generate "delayed mail" warnings #delay_warning_time = 4h readme_directory = no myhostname = m21-traducoes.com.pt relayhost = mydestination = localhost, 89.152.248.139 mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8, 192.168.0.0/16, 172.16.0.0/16, 10.0.0.0/8, 89.152.248.0/24 virtual_alias_domains = virtual_alias_maps = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_forwardings.cf, proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_email2email.cf transport_maps = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_transports.cf virtual_mailbox_domains = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_domains.cf virtual_mailbox_maps = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_mailboxes.cf virtual_mailbox_base = /home/vmail virtual_uid_maps = static:5000 virtual_gid_maps = static:5000 smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks,permit_sasl_authenticated,check_client_access hash:/var/lib/pop-before-smtp/hosts,reject_unauth_destination smtp_use_tls = yes smtpd_use_tls = yes smtpd_tls_auth_only = no smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/cacert.pem smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/postfix/smtpd.cert smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/postfix/smtpd.key smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1 smtpd_tls_received_header = yes smtpd_tls_session_cache_timeout = 3600s tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom virtual_create_maildirsize = yes virtual_mailbox_extended = yes virtual_mailbox_limit_maps = proxy:mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql-virtual_mailbox_limit_maps.cf virtual_mailbox_limit_override = yes virtual_maildir_limit_message = "The user you are trying to reach is over quota." virtual_overquota_bounce = yes debug_peer_list = sender_canonical_maps = debug_peer_level = 1 proxy_read_maps = $local_recipient_maps $mydestination $virtual_alias_maps $virtual_alias_domains $virtual_mailbox_maps $virtual_mailbox_domains $relay_recipient_maps $canonical_maps $sender_canonical_maps $recipient_canonical_maps $relocated_maps $mynetworks $virtual_mailbox_limit_maps $transport_maps alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases smtpd_relay_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated,check_client_access hash:/var/lib/pop-before-smtp/hosts,reject_unauth_destination smtpd_destination_concurrency_limit = 2 smtpd_destination_rate_delay = 1s smtpd_extra_recipient_limit = 10 disable_vrfy_command = yes smtpd_delay_reject = yes smtpd_helo_required = yes smtpd_error_sleep_time = 1s smtpd_soft_error_limit = 10 smtpd_hard_error_limit = 20 This configuration was working before but now everytime i try to send a mail in squirrelmail it reports: Message not sent. Server replied: Requested action aborted: error in processing 451 4.3.0 <[email protected]>: Temporary lookup failure And i can't send mail to it from outsider either. Any ideas? EDIT: Here are some issues MXToolBox reports to my domain, answering hopefully to @Teun Vink: BlackList Mail Server Web Server DNS Error 4 0 2 0 Warnings 0 0 0 3 Passed 0 6 3 12 So the domain is on some blacklist, but that doesn't explain the error at all No mail server issues found (except it's not working) Those two web server errors it's because i don't have HTTPS workin (No SSL Certificate) so the test fails Those 3 DNS warnings we're already there when it was working with the other machine and are related to stuff i can't control: SOA Refresh Value is outside of the recommended range SOA Expire Value out of recommended range SOA NXDOMAIN Value too high I've searched and as far as i can tell only the guys who sold the retail can change those values and they won't. Edit2: I half solved the issue.on the new machine postfix was installed but postfix-mysql waasn't so he couldn't connect to the database (rookie mistake). After fixing that, i can now send mails to the outsider without any issues, however i am still not able to receive mails from utside. The sender doesn't get any message warning about the non-delivery but the message doesn't fall in the inbox and the log shows: Nov 13 15:11:57 m21-traducoes postfix/smtpd[5872]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from re lay4.ptmail.sapo.pt[212.55.154.24]: 451 4.3.5 <relay4.ptmail.sapo.pt[212.55.154. 24]>: Client host rejected: Server configuration error; from=<[email protected]> to=<[email protected]> proto=SMTP helo=<sapo.pt> Nov 13 15:11:57 m21-traducoes postfix/smtpd[5872]: disconnect from relay4.ptmail .sapo.pt[212.55.154.24]

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  • RAID controller dropping the wrong drive

    - by bramp
    I've been having an issue with 3ware 9500S-8 RAID 10, and I have contracted their tech support, but I wanted to hear the serverfault community's recommendations. Firstly, all my data is backuped and secure, so I don't mind blowing my RAID away if I have to. But let me describe the problem I've been seeing. A month ago, disk 6 dropped out of the RAID. It is mirrored with disk 7, so I wasn't that bothered. I went to the data centre and replaced it. When I got back to the office, I noticed that disk 6 will still not in the RAID, and in fact the controller was show the name of the old drive still. A week later I went back and replace the drive again, thinking I might have swapped in a bad drive. Still the same problem. I decided to reboot the machine, to see if that would "force" the controller into seeing the new drive. It did, and a rebuild started to happen (from disk 7). Eventually both drives were showing as good. A week later, the MySQL database has flagged the database is corrupt, and is unable to repair it. I don't know what has gone wrong, but I suspected this 6-7 pair. At this point I noticed that the RAID had constantly been verifying itself, over and over. Regardless of this I began to rebuild the database, which took about 19 hours. It's a big database. Near the end of the repair, the RAID controller told me it had dropped disk 7, and that some data was most likely corrupted. I contacted LSI tech support, and they very promptly started to help me. I mentioned that drive 7 had been dropped. They suspect that drive 7 was always at fault, and drive 6 had always been good. I want to know how often a RAID controller would drop the wrong drive (in this case dropping drive 6 a month ago, instead of 7). I foolishly didn't run smartctl on the drives before I started swapping them out. I just assumed the RAID controller knew what it was talking about. I think my plan of action is to replace drive 7, rebuild the array from scratch, double check smartctl on ALL the disks, and then start restoring my data again. I would appreciate anyone's input on what the correct procedure for swapping drives is, and how often failures like this happen. If anyone would like more information then I'd be happy to provide it. thanks in advance. Oh some more information. I'm running CentOS 5.3, with two RAID arrays, a simple RAID 1 for the OS, and RAID 10 for the database. Both arrays are on different controllers. The RAID 10 is made of 10 identical ST3640323AS drives, until I swapped in a SAMSUNG HD103SJ last month.

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  • ISP 5 Device Limit ... again

    - by Tommo
    Sorry for the delay in responding to the suggestions that were posted in my first question (ISP 5 Device Limit - double NAT the solution?). I've been travelling and have not been able to try anything. Below is what I've tried and where I have not been successful. Any more help gratefully appreciated. I figure I need to give a more comprehensive overview of what I've got and how it's set up. First of all - I am using all Apple products here. I am iMac, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, Airport Express and Time Capsule. I used to like the way that it 'just worked'. Now I find that it requires a bit of encouragement before it 'just works'. So, as I stated in my original question; my ISP has a router in my building that is limiting me to 5 devices. I am hard wired into this router and I can neither access it physically nor logically (they won't let me access it). Also, I only appear to be able to connect to it through the LAN ports on my Time Capsule. Any device I connect appears to be on a rolling IP list with the following settings: Router 91.72.80.1 Devices then get assigned IPv4 addresses in the range (as far as I can see) from 91.72.80.2 onwards. SubNet Mask 255.255.255.0 DNS Servers 213.132.63.25, 80.227.2.4 I have my Time Capsule / Router in Bridge-Mode which means I am limited to the 5 devices and cannot use Guest Networks etc. What I've tried today. Static IPs: On all devices, I went from DHCP to Static and put in the same information when they had connected using DHCP. Somewhat surprisingly this did not work. None of the devices enjoyed any connection to the router and certainly no internet connection. Intentional Double-NAT - Time Capsule to 'DHCP and NAT': By selecting DHCP and NAT on my Router I was able to connect devices to my Time Capsule in the range 10.0.1.2 to 10.0.1.200. This offered no internet connectivity and didn't really help the situation. In this mode, however, I was able to force the devices - individually and laboriously - to look for the Router and previously listed DNSs by inputting the numbers from 'Bridge-mode' into the STATIC settings and then resetting the connection. The Router then appeared to assign a distinct IP address to the device and it worked on the network. I had this working for more than 5 devices. However, this is not a great solution because as soon as one of the mobile devices left the building it needed repointing to the Router. The connections were also not very stable. Especially when trying to hold onto a VPN. Spoofing a few MAC addresses: I'm afraid I don't really know what this would achieve, nor how to do it on an Apple device… So … I'm almost back at Square One. I have had to withdraw to the Bridge-Mode position again with the 5 device limit to see if there's a better course of action to follow. ANY help would be much appreciated. I am positive that I cannot be the only one suffering under this 5 device limit!

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

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

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  • Why am I unable to telnet to a local port that has a listening service?

    - by Skip Huffman
    I suspect this is either a very simple question, or a very complex one. I have a headless server running ubuntu 10.04 that I can ssh into. I have full root access to the system. I am trying to set up an ssh tunnel to allow me to vnc to the system (but that isn't my question. I have vnc running on port 5903, here is the netstat output for that: Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:5903 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 7173/Xtightvnc tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 465/sshd But when I try to telnet to that port, from within the same system and login, I get unable to connect errors # telnet localhost 5903 Trying ::1... Trying 127.0.0.1... telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out I am able to telnet to port 22 (as a verification) ~# telnet localhost 22 Trying ::1... Connected to localhost. Escape character is '^]'. SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.3p1 Debian-3ubuntu7 I have tried to open up any possible ports using ufw (probably clumsy fashion) # ufw status numbered Status: active To Action From -- ------ ---- [ 1] 5903 ALLOW IN Anywhere [ 2] 22 ALLOW IN Anywhere What else might be blocking this connection locally? Thank you, Edit: The only reference to port 5903 in iptable -L -n is this: Chain ufw-user-input (1 references) target prot opt source destination ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp dpt:5903 ACCEPT udp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 udp dpt:5903 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp dpt:22 ACCEPT udp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 udp dpt:22 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp dpt:8080 ACCEPT udp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 udp dpt:8080 I can post the whole output if that will be useful. hosts.allow and hosts.deny both contain only comments. Re-Edit: Some other questions pointed me to nmap, so I ran a portscan through that utility: # nmap -v -sT localhost -p1-65535 Starting Nmap 5.00 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2011-11-09 09:58 PST NSE: Loaded 0 scripts for scanning. Warning: Hostname localhost resolves to 2 IPs. Using 127.0.0.1. Initiating Connect Scan at 09:58 Scanning localhost (127.0.0.1) [65535 ports] Discovered open port 22/tcp on 127.0.0.1 Connect Scan Timing: About 18.56% done; ETC: 10:01 (0:02:16 remaining) Connect Scan Timing: About 44.35% done; ETC: 10:00 (0:01:17 remaining) Completed Connect Scan at 10:00, 112.36s elapsed (65535 total ports) Host localhost (127.0.0.1) is up (0.00s latency). Interesting ports on localhost (127.0.0.1): Not shown: 65533 filtered ports PORT STATE SERVICE 22/tcp open ssh 80/tcp closed http Read data files from: /usr/share/nmap Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 112.43 seconds Raw packets sent: 0 (0B) | Rcvd: 0 (0B) I think this shows that 5903 is blocked somehow. Which I pretty much knew. The question remains what is blocking it and how to modify. Re-re-edit: To check Paul Lathrop's suggested answer, I first verified my ip address with ifconfig: eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 02:16:3e:42:28:8f inet addr:10.0.10.3 Bcast:10.0.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 Then tried to telnet to 5903 from that address: # telnet 10.0.10.3 5903 Trying 10.0.10.3... telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out No luck. Re-re-re-re-edit: Ok, I think I have isolated it a bit to vncserver, not the firewall, darn it. I shut off vncserver and had netcat listen on port 5903. My vnc client then was able to establish a connnection and sit and wait for a response. Looks like I should be chasing a vnc problem. At least that is progress Thanks for the help

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  • Week in Geek: LastPass Rescues Xmarks Edition

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to breathe new life into an aging Windows Mobile 6.x device, use filters in Photoshop, backup and move VirtualBox machines, use the BitDefender Rescue CD to clean an infected PC, and had fun setting up a pirates theme on our computers. Photo by _nash. Weekly Feature Do you love using the Faenza icon set on your Ubuntu system but feel that there are a few much needed icons missing (or you desire a different version of a particular icon)? Then you may want to take a look at the Faenza Variants icon pack. The icons are available in the following sizes: 16px, 22px, 32px, 48px and scalable sizes. Photo by Asian Angel. Faenza Variants Random Geek Links Another week with extra link goodness to help keep you on top of the news. Photo by Asian Angel. LastPass acquires Xmarks, premium service announced Xmarks announced that it has been acquired by LastPass, a cross-platform password management service. This also means that Xmarks is now in transition from a “free” to a “freemium” business model. WikiLeaks reappears on European Net domains WikiLeaks has re-emerged on a Swiss Internet domain followed by domains in Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands, sidestepping a move that had in effect taken the controversial site off the Internet. Iran: Yes, Stuxnet hurt our nuclear program The Stuxnet worm got some big play from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who acknowledged that the malware dinged his nuclear program. More Windows Rogues than Just AV – Fake Defragmenter Check Disk Don’t think for a second that rogues are limited to scareware, because as so-called products such as “System Defragmenter”, “Scan Disk” “Check Disk” prove, they’re not. Internet Explorer’s Protected Mode can be bypassed Researchers from Verizon Business have now described a way of bypassing Protected Mode in IE 7 and 8 in order to gain access to user accounts. Can you really see who viewed your Facebook profile? Rogue application spreads virally Once again, a rogue application is spreading virally between Facebook users pretending to offer you a way of seeing who has viewed your profile. More holes in Palm’s WebOS Researchers Orlando Barrera and Daniel Herrera, who both work for security firm SecTheory, have discovered a gaping security hole in Palm’s WebOS smartphone operating system. Next-gen banking Trojans hit APAC With the proliferation of banking Trojans, Web and smartphone users of online banking services have to be on constant alert to avoid falling prey to fraud schemes, warned Etay Maor, project manager for RSA Fraud Action. AVG update cripples 64-bit computers A signature update automatically deployed by the AVG virus scanner Thursday has crippled numerous computers. Article includes link to forums to fix computers affected after a restart. Congress moves to outlaw ‘mystery charges’ for Web shoppers Legislation that makes it illegal for Web merchants and so-called post-transaction marketers to charge credit cards without the card owners’ say-so came closer to becoming law this week. Ballmer Set to “Look Into” Windows Home Server Drive Extender Fiasco Tuesday’s announcement from Microsoft regarding the removal of Drive Extender from Windows Home Server has sent shock waves across the web. Google tweaks search recipe to ding scam artists Google has changed its search algorithm to penalize sites deemed to provide an “extremely poor user experience” following a New York Times story on a merchant who justified abusive behavior towards customers as a search-engine optimization tactic. Geek Video of the Week Watch as our two friends debate back and forth about the early adoption of new technology through multiple time periods (Stone Age to the far future). Will our reluctant friend finally succumb to the temptation? Photo by CollegeHumor. Early Adopters Through History Random TinyHacker Links Fix Issues in Windows 7 Using Reliability Monitor Learn how to analyze Windows 7 errors and then fix them using the built-in reliability monitor. Learn About IE Tab Groups Tab groups is a useful feature in IE 8. Here’s a detailed guide to what it is all about. Google’s Book Helps You Learn About Browsers and Web A cool new online book by the Google Chrome team on browsers and the web. TrustPort Internet Security 2011 – Good Security from a Less Known Provider TrustPort is not exactly a well-known provider of security solutions. At least not in the consumer space. This review tests in detail their latest offering. How the World is Using Cell phones An infographic showing the shocking demographics of cell phone use. Super User Questions See the great answers to these questions from Super User. I am unable to access my C drive. It says it is unable to display current owner. List of Windows special directories/shortcuts like ‘%TEMP%’ Is using multiple passes for wiping a disk really necessary? How can I view two files side by side in Notepad++ Is there any tool that automatically puts screenshots to my Dropbox? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Look through our hottest articles from this past week at How-To Geek. How to Create a Software RAID Array in Windows 7 9 Alternatives for Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder? Ask the Readers: How Much Do You Customize Your Operating System? How to Upload Really Large Files to SkyDrive, Dropbox, or Email One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through these awesome articles from one year ago. How To Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium Edition How To Fix No Aero Transparency in Windows 7 Troubleshoot Startup Problems with Startup Repair Tool in Windows 7 & Vista Rename the Guest Account in Windows 7 for Enhanced Security Disable Error Reporting in XP, Vista, and Windows 7 The Geek Note That wraps things up here for this week. Regardless of the weather wherever you may be, we hope that you have an opportunity to get outside and have some fun! Remember to keep sending those great tips in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Tony the Misfit. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Get the Complete Android Guide eBook for Only 99 Cents [Update: Expired] Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography How to Choose What to Back Up on Your Linux Home Server How To Harmonize Your Dual-Boot Setup for Windows and Ubuntu Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper How Do You Know When You’ve Passed Geek and Headed to Nerd? On The Tip – A Lamborghini Theme for Chrome and Iron What if Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were Human? [Video] Peaceful Winter Cabin Wallpaper Store Tabs for Later Viewing in Opera with Tab Vault

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  • Week in Geek: 4chan Falls Victim to DDoS Attack Edition

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to tweak the low battery action on a Windows 7 laptop, access an eBook collection anywhere in the world, “extend iPad battery life, batch resize photos, & sync massive music collections”, went on a reign of destruction with Snow Crusher, and had fun decorating our desktops with abstract icon collections. Photo by pasukaru76. Random Geek Links We have included extra news article goodness to help you catch up on any developments that you may have missed during the holiday break this past week. Note: The three 27C3 articles listed here represent three different presentations at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress hacker conference. 4chan victim of DDoS as FBI investigates role in PayPal attack Users of 4chan may have gotten a taste of their own medicine after the site was knocked offline by a DDoS attack from an unknown origin early Thursday morning. Report: FBI seizes server in probe of WikiLeaks attacks The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others. Mozilla exposes older user-account database Mozilla has disabled 44,000 older user accounts for its Firefox add-ons site after a security researcher found part of a database of the account information on a publicly available server. Data breach affects 4.9 million Honda customers Japanese automaker Honda has put some 2.2 million customers in the United States on a security breach alert after a database containing information on the owners and their cars was hacked. Chinese Trojan discovered in Android games An Android-based Trojan called “Geinimi” has been discovered in the wild and the Trojan is capable of sending personal information to remote servers and exhibits botnet-like behavior. 27C3 presentation claims many mobiles vulnerable to SMS attacks According to security experts, an ‘SMS of death’ threatens to disable many current Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Micromax and LG mobiles. 27C3: GSM cell phones even easier to tap Security researchers have demonstrated how open source software on a number of revamped, entry-level cell phones can decrypt and record mobile phone calls in the GSM network. 27C3: danger lurks in PDF documents Security researcher Julia Wolf has pointed out numerous, previously hardly known, security problems in connection with Adobe’s PDF standard. Critical update for WordPress A critical update has been made available for WordPress in the form of version 3.0.4. The update fixes a security bug in WordPress’s KSES library. McAfee Labs Predicts Geolocation, Mobile Devices and Apple Will Top the List of Targets for Emerging Threats in 2011 The list comprises 2010’s most buzzed about platforms and services, including Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone, foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform, which are all expected to become major targets for cybercriminals. McAfee Labs also predicts that politically motivated attacks will be on the rise. Windows Phone 7 piracy materializes with FreeMarketplace A proof-of-concept application, FreeMarketplace, that allows any Windows Phone 7 application to be downloaded and installed free of charge has been developed. Empty email accounts, and some bad buzz for Hotmail In the past few days, a number of Hotmail users have been complaining about a rather disconcerting issue: their Hotmail accounts, some up to 10 years old, appear completely empty.  No emails, no folders, nothing, just what appears to be a new account. Reports: Nintendo warns of 3DS risk for kids Nintendo has reportedly issued a warning that the 3DS, its eagerly awaited glasses-free 3D portable gaming device, should not be used by children under 6 when the gadget is in 3D-viewing mode. Google eyes ‘cloaking’ as next antispam target Google plans to take a closer look at the practice of “cloaking,” or presenting one look to a Googlebot crawling one’s site while presenting another look to users. Facebook, Twitter stock trading drawing SEC eye? The high degree of investor interest in shares of hot Silicon Valley companies that aren’t yet publicly traded–like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Zynga–may be leading to scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Random TinyHacker Links Photo by jcraveiro. Exciting Software Set for Release in 2011 A few bloggers from great websites such as How-To Geek, Guiding Tech and 7 Tutorials took the time to sit down and talk about their software wishes for 2011. Take the time to read it and share… Wikileaks Infopr0n An infographic detailing the quest to plug WikiLeaks. The New York Times Guide to Mobile Apps A growing collection of all mobile app coverage by the New York Times as well as lists of favorite apps from Times writers. 7,000,000,000 (Video) A fascinating look at the world’s population via National Geographic Magazine. Super User Questions Check out the great answers to these hot questions from Super User. How to use a Personal computer as a Linux web server for development purposes? How to link processing power of old computers together? Free virtualization tool for testing suspicious files? Why do some actions not work with Remote Desktop? What is the simplest way to send a large batch of pictures to a distant friend or colleague? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Had a busy week and need to get caught up on your HTG reading? Then sit back and relax while enjoying these hot posts full of how-to roundup goodness. The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 How to Search Just the Site You’re Viewing Using Google Search Ask the Readers: Backing Your Files Up – Local Storage versus the Cloud One Year Ago on How-To Geek Need more how-to geekiness for your weekend? Then look through this great batch of articles from one year ago that focus on dual-booting and O.S. installation goodness. Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Vista Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with XP How To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7 Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Ubuntu Easily Install Ubuntu Linux with Windows Using the Wubi Installer The Geek Note We hope that you and your families have had a terrific holiday break as everyone prepares to return to work and school this week. Remember to keep those great tips coming in to us at [email protected]! Photo by pjbeardsley. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Tune Pop Enhances Android Music Notifications Another Busy Night in Gotham City Wallpaper Classic Super Mario Brothers Theme for Chrome and Iron Experimental Firefox Builds Put Tabs on the Title Bar (Available for Download) Android Trojan Found in the Wild Chaos, Panic, and Disorder Wallpaper

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  • Week in Geek: US Govt E-card Scam Siphons Confidential Data Edition

    - by Asian Angel
    This week we learned how to “back up photos to Flickr, automate repetitive tasks, & normalize MP3 volume”, enable “stereo mix” in Windows 7 to record audio, create custom papercraft toys, read up on three alternatives to Apple’s flaky iOS alarm clock, decorated our desktops & app docks with Google icon packs, and more. Photo by alexschlegel. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week on the security & malware fronts and we have a roundup of the latest news to help keep you updated. Photo by TopTechWriter.US. US govt e-card scam hits confidential data A fake U.S. government Christmas e-card has managed to siphon off gigabytes of sensitive data from a number of law enforcement and military staff who work on cybersecurity matters, many of whom are involved in computer crime investigations. Security tool uncovers multiple bugs in every browser Michal Zalewski reports that he discovered the vulnerability in Internet Explorer a while ago using his cross_fuzz fuzzing tool and reported it to Microsoft in July 2010. Zalewski also used cross_fuzz to discover bugs in other browsers, which he also reported to the relevant organisations. Microsoft to fix Windows holes, but not ones in IE Microsoft said that it will release two security bulletins next week fixing three holes in Windows, but it is still investigating or working on fixing holes in Internet Explorer that have been reportedly exploited in attacks. Microsoft warns of Windows flaw affecting image rendering Microsoft has warned of a Windows vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer if the user is logged on with administrative rights. Windows 7 Not Affected by Critical 0-Day in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine While confirming that details on a Critical zero-day vulnerability have made their way into the wild, Microsoft noted that customers running the latest iteration of Windows client and server platforms are not exposed to any risks. Microsoft warns of Office-related malware Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center issued a warning this week that it has spotted malicious code on the Internet that can take advantage of a flaw in Word and infect computers after a user does nothing more than read an e-mail. *Refers to a flaw that was addressed in the November security patch releases. Make sure you have all of the latest security updates installed. Unpatched hole in ImgBurn disk burning application According to security specialist Secunia, a highly critical vulnerability in ImgBurn, a lightweight disk burning application, can be used to remotely compromise a user’s system. Hole in VLC Media Player Virtual Security Research (VSR) has identified a vulnerability in VLC Media Player. In versions up to and including 1.1.5 of the VLC Media Player. Flash Player sandbox can be bypassed Flash applications run locally can read local files and send them to an online server – something which the sandbox is supposed to prevent. Chinese auction site touts hacked iTunes accounts Tens of thousands of reportedly hacked iTunes accounts have been found on Chinese auction site Taobao, but the company claims it is unable to take action unless there are direct complaints. What happened in the recent Hotmail outage Mike Schackwitz explains the cause of the recent Hotmail outage. DOJ sends order to Twitter for Wikileaks-related account info The U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order directing Twitter to turn over information about the accounts of activists with ties to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic politician, a legendary Dutch hacker, and a U.S. computer programmer. Google gets court to block Microsoft Interior Department e-mail win The U.S. Federal Claims Court has temporarily blocked Microsoft from proceeding with the $49.3 million, five-year DOI contract that it won this past November. Google Apps customers get email lockdown Companies and organisations using Google Apps are now able to restrict the email access of selected users. LibreOffice Is the Default Office Suite for Ubuntu 11.04 Matthias Klose has announced some details regarding the replacement of the old OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 packages with the new LibreOffice 3.3 ones, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Alpha 2 release. Sysadmin Geek Tips Photo by Filomena Scalise. How to Setup Software RAID for a Simple File Server on Ubuntu Do you need a file server that is cheap and easy to setup, “rock solid” reliable, and has Email Alerting? This tutorial shows you how to use Ubuntu, software RAID, and SaMBa to accomplish just that. How to Control the Order of Startup Programs in Windows While you can specify the applications you want to launch when Windows starts, the ability to control the order in which they start is not available. However, there are a couple of ways you can easily overcome this limitation and control the startup order of applications. Random TinyHacker Links Using Opera Unite to Send Large Files A tutorial on using Opera Unite to easily send huge files from your computer. WorkFlowy is a Useful To-do List Tool A cool to-do list tool that lets you integrate multiple tasks in one single list easily. Playing Flash Videos on iOS Devices Yes, you can play flash videos on jailbroken iPhones. Here’s a tutorial. Clear Safari History and Cookies On iPhone A tutorial on clearing your browser history on iPhone and other iOS devices. Monitor Your Internet Usage Here’s a cool, cross-platform tool to monitor your internet bandwidth. Super User Questions See what the community had to say on these popular questions from Super User this week. Why is my upload speed much less than my download speed? Where should I find drivers for my laptop if it didn’t come with a driver disk? OEM Office 2010 without media – how to reinstall? Is there a point to using theft tracking software like Prey on my laptop, if you have login security? Moving an “all-in-one” PC when turned on/off How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles from this past week. How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy looking through our latest gathering of retro article goodness. Learning Windows 7: Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It How To Disconnect a Machine from a Homegroup Use Remote Desktop To Access Other Computers On a Small Office or Home Network How To Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Allow Users To Run Only Specified Programs in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week and we hope your first week back at work or school has gone very well now that the holidays are over. Know a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Pamela Machado. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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  • C# 4: The Curious ConcurrentDictionary

    - by James Michael Hare
    In my previous post (here) I did a comparison of the new ConcurrentQueue versus the old standard of a System.Collections.Generic Queue with simple locking.  The results were exactly what I would have hoped, that the ConcurrentQueue was faster with multi-threading for most all situations.  In addition, concurrent collections have the added benefit that you can enumerate them even if they're being modified. So I set out to see what the improvements would be for the ConcurrentDictionary, would it have the same performance benefits as the ConcurrentQueue did?  Well, after running some tests and multiple tweaks and tunes, I have good and bad news. But first, let's look at the tests.  Obviously there's many things we can do with a dictionary.  One of the most notable uses, of course, in a multi-threaded environment is for a small, local in-memory cache.  So I set about to do a very simple simulation of a cache where I would create a test class that I'll just call an Accessor.  This accessor will attempt to look up a key in the dictionary, and if the key exists, it stops (i.e. a cache "hit").  However, if the lookup fails, it will then try to add the key and value to the dictionary (i.e. a cache "miss").  So here's the Accessor that will run the tests: 1: internal class Accessor 2: { 3: public int Hits { get; set; } 4: public int Misses { get; set; } 5: public Func<int, string> GetDelegate { get; set; } 6: public Action<int, string> AddDelegate { get; set; } 7: public int Iterations { get; set; } 8: public int MaxRange { get; set; } 9: public int Seed { get; set; } 10:  11: public void Access() 12: { 13: var randomGenerator = new Random(Seed); 14:  15: for (int i=0; i<Iterations; i++) 16: { 17: // give a wide spread so will have some duplicates and some unique 18: var target = randomGenerator.Next(1, MaxRange); 19:  20: // attempt to grab the item from the cache 21: var result = GetDelegate(target); 22:  23: // if the item doesn't exist, add it 24: if(result == null) 25: { 26: AddDelegate(target, target.ToString()); 27: Misses++; 28: } 29: else 30: { 31: Hits++; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: } Note that so I could test different implementations, I defined a GetDelegate and AddDelegate that will call the appropriate dictionary methods to add or retrieve items in the cache using various techniques. So let's examine the three techniques I decided to test: Dictionary with mutex - Just your standard generic Dictionary with a simple lock construct on an internal object. Dictionary with ReaderWriterLockSlim - Same Dictionary, but now using a lock designed to let multiple readers access simultaneously and then locked when a writer needs access. ConcurrentDictionary - The new ConcurrentDictionary from System.Collections.Concurrent that is supposed to be optimized to allow multiple threads to access safely. So the approach to each of these is also fairly straight-forward.  Let's look at the GetDelegate and AddDelegate implementations for the Dictionary with mutex lock: 1: var addDelegate = (key,val) => 2: { 3: lock (_mutex) 4: { 5: _dictionary[key] = val; 6: } 7: }; 8: var getDelegate = (key) => 9: { 10: lock (_mutex) 11: { 12: string val; 13: return _dictionary.TryGetValue(key, out val) ? val : null; 14: } 15: }; Nothing new or fancy here, just your basic lock on a private object and then query/insert into the Dictionary. Now, for the Dictionary with ReadWriteLockSlim it's a little more complex: 1: var addDelegate = (key,val) => 2: { 3: _readerWriterLock.EnterWriteLock(); 4: _dictionary[key] = val; 5: _readerWriterLock.ExitWriteLock(); 6: }; 7: var getDelegate = (key) => 8: { 9: string val; 10: _readerWriterLock.EnterReadLock(); 11: if(!_dictionary.TryGetValue(key, out val)) 12: { 13: val = null; 14: } 15: _readerWriterLock.ExitReadLock(); 16: return val; 17: }; And finally, the ConcurrentDictionary, which since it does all it's own concurrency control, is remarkably elegant and simple: 1: var addDelegate = (key,val) => 2: { 3: _concurrentDictionary[key] = val; 4: }; 5: var getDelegate = (key) => 6: { 7: string s; 8: return _concurrentDictionary.TryGetValue(key, out s) ? s : null; 9: };                    Then, I set up a test harness that would simply ask the user for the number of concurrent Accessors to attempt to Access the cache (as specified in Accessor.Access() above) and then let them fly and see how long it took them all to complete.  Each of these tests was run with 10,000,000 cache accesses divided among the available Accessor instances.  All times are in milliseconds. 1: Dictionary with Mutex Locking 2: --------------------------------------------------- 3: Accessors Mostly Misses Mostly Hits 4: 1 7916 3285 5: 10 8293 3481 6: 100 8799 3532 7: 1000 8815 3584 8:  9:  10: Dictionary with ReaderWriterLockSlim Locking 11: --------------------------------------------------- 12: Accessors Mostly Misses Mostly Hits 13: 1 8445 3624 14: 10 11002 4119 15: 100 11076 3992 16: 1000 14794 4861 17:  18:  19: Concurrent Dictionary 20: --------------------------------------------------- 21: Accessors Mostly Misses Mostly Hits 22: 1 17443 3726 23: 10 14181 1897 24: 100 15141 1994 25: 1000 17209 2128 The first test I did across the board is the Mostly Misses category.  The mostly misses (more adds because data requested was not in the dictionary) shows an interesting trend.  In both cases the Dictionary with the simple mutex lock is much faster, and the ConcurrentDictionary is the slowest solution.  But this got me thinking, and a little research seemed to confirm it, maybe the ConcurrentDictionary is more optimized to concurrent "gets" than "adds".  So since the ratio of misses to hits were 2 to 1, I decided to reverse that and see the results. So I tweaked the data so that the number of keys were much smaller than the number of iterations to give me about a 2 to 1 ration of hits to misses (twice as likely to already find the item in the cache than to need to add it).  And yes, indeed here we see that the ConcurrentDictionary is indeed faster than the standard Dictionary here.  I have a strong feeling that as the ration of hits-to-misses gets higher and higher these number gets even better as well.  This makes sense since the ConcurrentDictionary is read-optimized. Also note that I tried the tests with capacity and concurrency hints on the ConcurrentDictionary but saw very little improvement, I think this is largely because on the 10,000,000 hit test it quickly ramped up to the correct capacity and concurrency and thus the impact was limited to the first few milliseconds of the run. So what does this tell us?  Well, as in all things, ConcurrentDictionary is not a panacea.  It won't solve all your woes and it shouldn't be the only Dictionary you ever use.  So when should we use each? Use System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary when: You need a single-threaded Dictionary (no locking needed). You need a multi-threaded Dictionary that is loaded only once at creation and never modified (no locking needed). You need a multi-threaded Dictionary to store items where writes are far more prevalent than reads (locking needed). And use System.Collections.Concurrent.ConcurrentDictionary when: You need a multi-threaded Dictionary where the writes are far more prevalent than reads. You need to be able to iterate over the collection without locking it even if its being modified. Both Dictionaries have their strong suits, I have a feeling this is just one where you need to know from design what you hope to use it for and make your decision based on that criteria.

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  • Parallelism in .NET – Part 15, Making Tasks Run: The TaskScheduler

    - by Reed
    In my introduction to the Task class, I specifically made mention that the Task class does not directly provide it’s own execution.  In addition, I made a strong point that the Task class itself is not directly related to threads or multithreading.  Rather, the Task class is used to implement our decomposition of tasks.  Once we’ve implemented our tasks, we need to execute them.  In the Task Parallel Library, the execution of Tasks is handled via an instance of the TaskScheduler class. The TaskScheduler class is an abstract class which provides a single function: it schedules the tasks and executes them within an appropriate context.  This class is the class which actually runs individual Task instances.  The .NET Framework provides two (internal) implementations of the TaskScheduler class. Since a Task, based on our decomposition, should be a self-contained piece of code, parallel execution makes sense when executing tasks.  The default implementation of the TaskScheduler class, and the one most often used, is based on the ThreadPool.  This can be retrieved via the TaskScheduler.Default property, and is, by default, what is used when we just start a Task instance with Task.Start(). Normally, when a Task is started by the default TaskScheduler, the task will be treated as a single work item, and run on a ThreadPool thread.  This pools tasks, and provides Task instances all of the advantages of the ThreadPool, including thread pooling for reduced resource usage, and an upper cap on the number of work items.  In addition, .NET 4 brings us a much improved thread pool, providing work stealing and reduced locking within the thread pool queues.  By using the default TaskScheduler, our Tasks are run asynchronously on the ThreadPool. There is one notable exception to my above statements when using the default TaskScheduler.  If a Task is created with the TaskCreationOptions set to TaskCreationOptions.LongRunning, the default TaskScheduler will generate a new thread for that Task, at least in the current implementation.  This is useful for Tasks which will persist for most of the lifetime of your application, since it prevents your Task from starving the ThreadPool of one of it’s work threads. The Task Parallel Library provides one other implementation of the TaskScheduler class.  In addition to providing a way to schedule tasks on the ThreadPool, the framework allows you to create a TaskScheduler which works within a specified SynchronizationContext.  This scheduler can be retrieved within a thread that provides a valid SynchronizationContext by calling the TaskScheduler.FromCurrentSynchronizationContext() method. This implementation of TaskScheduler is intended for use with user interface development.  Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation both require any access to user interface controls to occur on the same thread that created the control.  For example, if you want to set the text within a Windows Forms TextBox, and you’re working on a background thread, that UI call must be marshaled back onto the UI thread.  The most common way this is handled depends on the framework being used.  In Windows Forms, Control.Invoke or Control.BeginInvoke is most often used.  In WPF, the equivelent calls are Dispatcher.Invoke or Dispatcher.BeginInvoke. As an example, say we’re working on a background thread, and we want to update a TextBlock in our user interface with a status label.  The code would typically look something like: // Within background thread work... string status = GetUpdatedStatus(); Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(DispatcherPriority.Normal, new Action( () => { statusLabel.Text = status; })); // Continue on in background method .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This works fine, but forces your method to take a dependency on WPF or Windows Forms.  There is an alternative option, however.  Both Windows Forms and WPF, when initialized, setup a SynchronizationContext in their thread, which is available on the UI thread via the SynchronizationContext.Current property.  This context is used by classes such as BackgroundWorker to marshal calls back onto the UI thread in a framework-agnostic manner. The Task Parallel Library provides the same functionality via the TaskScheduler.FromCurrentSynchronizationContext() method.  When setting up our Tasks, as long as we’re working on the UI thread, we can construct a TaskScheduler via: TaskScheduler uiScheduler = TaskScheduler.FromCurrentSynchronizationContext(); We then can use this scheduler on any thread to marshal data back onto the UI thread.  For example, our code above can then be rewritten as: string status = GetUpdatedStatus(); (new Task(() => { statusLabel.Text = status; })) .Start(uiScheduler); // Continue on in background method This is nice since it allows us to write code that isn’t tied to Windows Forms or WPF, but is still fully functional with those technologies.  I’ll discuss even more uses for the SynchronizationContext based TaskScheduler when I demonstrate task continuations, but even without continuations, this is a very useful construct. In addition to the two implementations provided by the Task Parallel Library, it is possible to implement your own TaskScheduler.  The ParallelExtensionsExtras project within the Samples for Parallel Programming provides nine sample TaskScheduler implementations.  These include schedulers which restrict the maximum number of concurrent tasks, run tasks on a single threaded apartment thread, use a new thread per task, and more.

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  • Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC today

    - by Matthew Guay
    Anticipation has been building for the new Windows Phone 7 Series ever since Microsoft unveiled it at the Mobile World Congress in February.  Now, thanks to free developer tools, you can get a first-hand experience of the basic Windows Phone 7 Series devices on your PC. Windows Phone 7 Series represents a huge change in the mobile field for Microsoft, bringing the acclaimed Zune HD UI to an innovative phone platform.  Windows Mobile has often been criticized for being behind other Smartphone platforms, but Microsoft seeks to regain the lead with this new upcoming release.  A platform must have developers behind it to be useful, so they have released a full set of free development tools so anyone can make apps for it today.  Or, if you simply want to play with Windows Phone 7, you can use the included emulator to try out the new Metro UI.  Here’s how to do this today on your Vista or 7 computer. Please note: These tools are a Customer Technology Preview release, so only install them if you’re comfortable using pre-release software. Getting Started First, download the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (link below), and run the installer.  This will install the Customer Technology Preview (CTP) versions of Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone, Windows Phone Emulator, Silverlight for Windows Phone, and XNA 4.0 Game Studio on your computer, all of which are required and cannot be installed individually. Accept the license agreement when prompted. Click “Install Now” to install the tools you need.  The only setup customization option is where to save the files, so choose Customize if you need to do so. Setup will now automatically download and install the components you need, and will additionally download either 32 or 64 bit programs depending on your operating system. About halfway thorough the installation, you’ll be prompted to reboot your system.  Once your computer is rebooted, setup will automatically resume without further input.   When setup is finished, click “Run the Product Now” to get started. Running Windows Phone 7 on your PC Now that you’ve got the Windows Phone Developer tools installed, it’s time to get the Windows Phone emulator running.  If you clicked “Run the Product Now” when the setup finished, Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone should have already started.   If not, simply enter “visual studio” in your start menu search and select “Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone”. Now, to run the Windows Phone 7 emulator, we have to test an application.  So, even if you don’t know how to program, we can open a phone application template, and then test it to run the emulator.  First, click New Project on the left hand side of the front page. Any of the application templates would work for this, but here let’s select “Windows Phone Application”, and then click Ok. Here’s your new application template, which already contains the basic phone application framework.  This is where you’d start if you want to develop a Windows Phone app, but for now we just want to see Windows Phone 7 in action. So, to run the emulator, click Debug in the menu and then select Start Debugging. Your new application will launch inside the Windows Phone 7 Series emulator.  The default template doesn’t give us much, but it does show an example application running in Windows Phone 7.   Exploring Windows Phone 7 Click the Windows button on the emulator to go to the home screen.  Notice the Zune HD-like transition animation.  The emulator only includes Internet Explorer, your test application, and a few settings. Click the arrow on the right to see the available applications in a list. Settings lets you change the theme, regional settings, and the date and time in your emulator.  It also has an applications settings pane, but this currently isn’t populated. The Time settings shows a unique Windows Phone UI. You can return to the home screen by pressing the Windows button.  Here’s the Internet Explorer app running, with the virtual keyboard open to enter an address.  Please note that this emulator can also accept input from your keyboard, so you can enter addresses without clicking on the virtual keyboard. And here’s Google running in Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7. Windows Phone 7 supports accelerometers, and you can simulate this in the emulator.  Click one of the rotate buttons to rotate the screen in that direction. Here’s our favorite website in Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7 in landscape mode. All this, running right inside your Windows 7 desktop… Developer tools for Windows Phone 7 Although it may be fun to play with the Windows Phone 7 emulator, developers will be more excited to actually be able to create new and exciting apps for it.  The Windows Phone Developer Tools download includes Visual Studio Express and XNA Game Studio 4.0 which lets you create enticing games and apps for Windows Phones.  All development for Windows Phones will be in C#, Silverlight, and the XNA game framework.  Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone includes templates for these, and additionally has code samples to help you get started with development. Conclusion Many features are still not functional in this preview version, such as the search button and most of the included applications.  However, this still gives you a great way to experience firsthand the future of the Windows Phone platform.  And, for developers, this is your chance to set your mark on the Windows Phone 7 Series even before it is released to the public.  Happy playing and developing! Links Download Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP Windows Phone Developer Site Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Keep Track of Homework Assignments with SoshikuWeekend Fun: Watch Television On Your PC With TVUPlayerEasily Manage Your Downloads with Download StatusbarCreate a Shortcut or Hotkey to Mute the System Volume in WindowsHow-To Geek on Lifehacker: How to Make Windows Vista Less Annoying 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Convert the Quick Launch Bar into a Super Application Launcher Automate Tasks in Linux with Crontab Discover New Bundled Feeds in Google Reader Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family

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  • WatiN screenshot saver

    - by Brian Schroer
    In addition to my automated unit, system and integration tests for ASP.NET projects, I like to give my customers something pretty that they can look at and visually see that the web site is behaving properly. I use the Gallio test runner to produce a pretty HTML report, and WatiN (Web Application Testing In .NET) to test the UI and create screenshots. I have a couple of issues with WatiN’s “CaptureWebPageToFile” method, though: It blew up the first (and only) time I tried it, possibly because… It scrolls down to capture the entire web page (I tried it on a very long page), and I usually don’t need that Also, sometimes I don’t need a picture of the whole browser window - I just want a picture of the element that I'm testing (for example, proving that a button has the correct caption). I wrote a WatiN screenshot saver helper class with these methods: SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(Watin.Core.IE ie)  / SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(Watin.Core.Element element) saves a screenshot of the browser window SaveBrowserWindowScreenshotWithHighlight(Watin.Core.Element element) saves a screenshot of the browser window, with the specified element scrolled into view and highlighted SaveElementScreenshot(Watin.Core.Element element) saves a picture of only the specified element The element highlighting improves on the built-in WatiN method (which just gives the element a yellow background, and makes the element pretty much unreadable when you have a light foreground color) by adding the ability to specify a HighlightCssClassName that points to a style in your site’s stylesheet. This code is specifically for testing with Internet Explorer (‘cause that’s what I have to test with at work), but you’re welcome to take it and do with it what you want… using System; using System.Drawing; using System.Drawing.Imaging; using System.IO; using System.Reflection; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Text; using System.Threading; using SHDocVw; using WatiN.Core; using mshtml; namespace BrianSchroer.TestHelpers { public static class WatinScreenshotSaver { public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshotWithHighlight (Element element, string screenshotName) { HighlightElement(element, true); SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(element, screenshotName); HighlightElement(element, false); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshotWithHighlight(Element element) { HighlightElement(element, true); SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(element); HighlightElement(element, false); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(Element element, string screenshotName) { SaveScreenshot(GetIe(element), screenshotName, SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(Element element) { SaveScreenshot(GetIe(element), null, SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(IE ie, string screenshotName) { SaveScreenshot(ie, screenshotName, SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(IE ie) { SaveScreenshot(ie, null, SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs); } public static void SaveElementScreenshot(Element element, string screenshotName) { // TODO: Figure out how to get browser window "chrome" size and not have to go to full screen: var iex = (InternetExplorerClass) GetIe(element).InternetExplorer; bool fullScreen = iex.FullScreen; if (!fullScreen) iex.FullScreen = true; ScrollIntoView(element); SaveScreenshot(GetIe(element), screenshotName, args => SaveElementBitmapForCallbackArgs(element, args)); iex.FullScreen = fullScreen; } public static void SaveElementScreenshot(Element element) { SaveElementScreenshot(element, null); } private static void SaveScreenshot(IE browser, string screenshotName, Action<ScreenshotCallbackArgs> screenshotCallback) { string fileName = string.Format("{0:000}{1}{2}.jpg", ++_screenshotCount, (string.IsNullOrEmpty(screenshotName)) ? "" : " ", screenshotName); string path = Path.Combine(ScreenshotDirectoryName, fileName); Console.WriteLine(); // Gallio HTML-encodes the following display, but I have a utility program to // remove the "HTML===" and "===HTML" and un-encode the rest to show images in the Gallio report: Console.WriteLine("HTML===<div><b>{0}:</br></b><img src=\"{1}\" /></div>===HTML", screenshotName, new Uri(path).AbsoluteUri); MakeBrowserWindowTopmost(browser); try { var args = new ScreenshotCallbackArgs { InternetExplorerClass = (InternetExplorerClass)browser.InternetExplorer, ScreenshotPath = path }; Thread.Sleep(100); screenshotCallback(args); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); } } public static void HighlightElement(Element element, bool doHighlight) { if (!element.Exists) return; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(HighlightCssClassName)) { element.Highlight(doHighlight); return; } string jsRef = element.GetJavascriptElementReference(); if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(jsRef)) return; var sb = new StringBuilder("try { "); sb.AppendFormat(" {0}.scrollIntoView(false);", jsRef); string format = (doHighlight) ? "{0}.className += ' {1}'" : "{0}.className = {0}.className.replace(' {1}', '')"; sb.AppendFormat(" " + format + ";", jsRef, HighlightCssClassName); sb.Append("} catch(e) {}"); string script = sb.ToString(); GetIe(element).RunScript(script); } public static void ScrollIntoView(Element element) { string jsRef = element.GetJavascriptElementReference(); if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(jsRef)) return; var sb = new StringBuilder("try { "); sb.AppendFormat(" {0}.scrollIntoView(false);", jsRef); sb.Append("} catch(e) {}"); string script = sb.ToString(); GetIe(element).RunScript(script); } public static void MakeBrowserWindowTopmost(IE ie) { ie.BringToFront(); SetWindowPos(ie.hWnd, HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, TOPMOST_FLAGS); } public static string HighlightCssClassName { get; set; } private static int _screenshotCount; private static string _screenshotDirectoryName; public static string ScreenshotDirectoryName { get { if (_screenshotDirectoryName == null) { var asm = Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(WatinScreenshotSaver)); var uri = new Uri(asm.CodeBase); var fileInfo = new FileInfo(uri.LocalPath); string directoryName = fileInfo.DirectoryName; _screenshotDirectoryName = Path.Combine( directoryName, string.Format("Screenshots_{0:yyyyMMddHHmm}", DateTime.Now)); Console.WriteLine("Screenshot folder: {0}", _screenshotDirectoryName); Directory.CreateDirectory(_screenshotDirectoryName); } return _screenshotDirectoryName; } set { _screenshotDirectoryName = value; _screenshotCount = 0; } } [DllImport("user32.dll")] [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] private static extern bool SetWindowPos(IntPtr hWnd, IntPtr hWndInsertAfter, int X, int Y, int cx, int cy, uint uFlags); private static readonly IntPtr HWND_TOPMOST = new IntPtr(-1); private const UInt32 SWP_NOSIZE = 0x0001; private const UInt32 SWP_NOMOVE = 0x0002; private const UInt32 TOPMOST_FLAGS = SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NOSIZE; private static IE GetIe(Element element) { if (element == null) return null; var container = element.DomContainer; while (container as IE == null) container = container.DomContainer; return (IE)container; } private static void SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs(ScreenshotCallbackArgs args) { InternetExplorerClass iex = args.InternetExplorerClass; SaveBitmap(args.ScreenshotPath, iex.Left, iex.Top, iex.Width, iex.Height); } private static void SaveElementBitmapForCallbackArgs(Element element, ScreenshotCallbackArgs args) { InternetExplorerClass iex = args.InternetExplorerClass; Rectangle bounds = GetElementBounds(element); SaveBitmap(args.ScreenshotPath, iex.Left + bounds.Left, iex.Top + bounds.Top, bounds.Width, bounds.Height); } /// <summary> /// This method is used instead of element.NativeElement.GetElementBounds because that /// method has a bug (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2994660&group_id=167632&atid=843727). /// </summary> private static Rectangle GetElementBounds(Element element) { var ieElem = element.NativeElement as WatiN.Core.Native.InternetExplorer.IEElement; IHTMLElement elem = ieElem.AsHtmlElement; int left = elem.offsetLeft; int top = elem.offsetTop; for (IHTMLElement parent = elem.offsetParent; parent != null; parent = parent.offsetParent) { left += parent.offsetLeft; top += parent.offsetTop; } return new Rectangle(left, top, elem.offsetWidth, elem.offsetHeight); } private static void SaveBitmap(string path, int left, int top, int width, int height) { using (var bitmap = new Bitmap(width, height)) { using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(bitmap)) { g.CopyFromScreen( new Point(left, top), Point.Empty, new Size(width, height) ); } bitmap.Save(path, ImageFormat.Jpeg); } } private class ScreenshotCallbackArgs { public InternetExplorerClass InternetExplorerClass { get; set; } public string ScreenshotPath { get; set; } } } }

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  • Displaying an image on a LED matrix with a Netduino

    - by Bertrand Le Roy
    In the previous post, we’ve been flipping bits manually on three ports of the Netduino to simulate the data, clock and latch pins that a shift register expected. We did all that in order to control one line of a LED matrix and create a simple Knight Rider effect. It was rightly pointed out in the comments that the Netduino has built-in knowledge of the sort of serial protocol that this shift register understands through a feature called SPI. That will of course make our code a whole lot simpler, but it will also make it a whole lot faster: writing to the Netduino ports is actually not that fast, whereas SPI is very, very fast. Unfortunately, the Netduino documentation for SPI is severely lacking. Instead, we’ve been reliably using the documentation for the Fez, another .NET microcontroller. To send data through SPI, we’ll just need  to move a few wires around and update the code. SPI uses pin D11 for writing, pin D12 for reading (which we won’t do) and pin D13 for the clock. The latch pin is a parameter that can be set by the user. This is very close to the wiring we had before (data on D11, clock on D12 and latch on D13). We just have to move the latch from D13 to D10, and the clock from D12 to D13. The code that controls the shift register has slimmed down considerably with that change. Here is the new version, which I invite you to compare with what we had before: public class ShiftRegister74HC595 { protected SPI Spi; public ShiftRegister74HC595(Cpu.Pin latchPin) : this(latchPin, SPI.SPI_module.SPI1) { } public ShiftRegister74HC595(Cpu.Pin latchPin, SPI.SPI_module spiModule) { var spiConfig = new SPI.Configuration( SPI_mod: spiModule, ChipSelect_Port: latchPin, ChipSelect_ActiveState: false, ChipSelect_SetupTime: 0, ChipSelect_HoldTime: 0, Clock_IdleState: false, Clock_Edge: true, Clock_RateKHz: 1000 ); Spi = new SPI(spiConfig); } public void Write(byte buffer) { Spi.Write(new[] {buffer}); } } All we have to do here is configure SPI. The write method couldn’t be any simpler. Everything is now handled in hardware by the Netduino. We set the frequency to 1MHz, which is largely sufficient for what we’ll be doing, but it could potentially go much higher. The shift register addresses the columns of the matrix. The rows are directly wired to ports D0 to D7 of the Netduino. The code writes to only one of those eight lines at a time, which will make it fast enough. The way an image is displayed is that we light the lines one after the other so fast that persistence of vision will give the illusion of a stable image: foreach (var bitmap in matrix.MatrixBitmap) { matrix.OnRow(row, bitmap, true); matrix.OnRow(row, bitmap, false); row++; } Now there is a twist here: we need to run this code as fast as possible in order to display the image with as little flicker as possible, but we’ll eventually have other things to do. In other words, we need the code driving the display to run in the background, except when we want to change what’s being displayed. Fortunately, the .NET Micro Framework supports multithreading. In our implementation, we’ve added an Initialize method that spins a new thread that is tied to the specific instance of the matrix it’s being called on. public LedMatrix Initialize() { DisplayThread = new Thread(() => DoDisplay(this)); DisplayThread.Start(); return this; } I quite like this way to spin a thread. As you may know, there is another, built-in way to contextualize a thread by passing an object into the Start method. For the method to work, the thread must have been constructed with a ParameterizedThreadStart delegate, which takes one parameter of type object. I like to use object as little as possible, so instead I’m constructing a closure with a Lambda, currying it with the current instance. This way, everything remains strongly-typed and there’s no casting to do. Note that this method would extend perfectly to several parameters. Of note as well is the return value of Initialize, a common technique to add some fluency to the API and enabling the matrix to be instantiated and initialized in a single line: using (var matrix = new LedMS88SR74HC595().Initialize()) The “using” in the previous line is because we have implemented IDisposable so that the matrix kills the thread and clears the display when the user code is done with it: public void Dispose() { Clear(); DisplayThread.Abort(); } Thanks to the multi-threaded version of the matrix driver class, we can treat the display as a simple bitmap with a very synchronous programming model: matrix.Set(someimage); while (button.Read()) { Thread.Sleep(10); } Here, the call into Set returns immediately and from the moment the bitmap is set, the background display thread will constantly continue refreshing no matter what happens in the main thread. That enables us to wait or read a button’s port on the main thread knowing that the current image will continue displaying unperturbed and without requiring manual refreshing. We’ve effectively hidden the implementation of the display behind a convenient, synchronous-looking API. Pretty neat, eh? Before I wrap up this post, I want to talk about one small caveat of using SPI rather than driving the shift register directly: when we got to the point where we could actually display images, we noticed that they were a mirror image of what we were sending in. Oh noes! Well, the reason for it is that SPI is sending the bits in a big-endian fashion, in other words backwards. Now sure you could fix that in software by writing some bit-level code to reverse the bits we’re sending in, but there is a far more efficient solution than that. We are doing hardware here, so we can simply reverse the order in which the outputs of the shift register are connected to the columns of the matrix. That’s switching 8 wires around once, as compared to doing bit operations every time we send a line to display. All right, so bringing it all together, here is the code we need to write to display two images in succession, separated by a press on the board’s button: var button = new InputPort(Pins.ONBOARD_SW1, false, Port.ResistorMode.Disabled); using (var matrix = new LedMS88SR74HC595().Initialize()) { // Oh, prototype is so sad! var sad = new byte[] { 0x66, 0x24, 0x00, 0x18, 0x00, 0x3C, 0x42, 0x81 }; DisplayAndWait(sad, matrix, button); // Let's make it smile! var smile = new byte[] { 0x42, 0x18, 0x18, 0x81, 0x7E, 0x3C, 0x18, 0x00 }; DisplayAndWait(smile, matrix, button); } And here is a video of the prototype running: The prototype in action I’ve added an artificial delay between the display of each row of the matrix to clearly show what’s otherwise happening very fast. This way, you can clearly see each of the two images being displayed line by line. Next time, we’ll do no hardware changes, focusing instead on building a nice programming model for the matrix, with sprites, text and hardware scrolling. Fun stuff. By the way, can any of my reader guess where we’re going with all that? The code for this prototype can be downloaded here: http://weblogs.asp.net/blogs/bleroy/Samples/NetduinoLedMatrixDriver.zip

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  • Parallelism in .NET – Part 6, Declarative Data Parallelism

    - by Reed
    When working with a problem that can be decomposed by data, we have a collection, and some operation being performed upon the collection.  I’ve demonstrated how this can be parallelized using the Task Parallel Library and imperative programming using imperative data parallelism via the Parallel class.  While this provides a huge step forward in terms of power and capabilities, in many cases, special care must still be given for relative common scenarios. C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9.0 introduced a new, declarative programming model to .NET via the LINQ Project.  When working with collections, we can now write software that describes what we want to occur without having to explicitly state how the program should accomplish the task.  By taking advantage of LINQ, many operations become much shorter, more elegant, and easier to understand and maintain.  Version 4.0 of the .NET framework extends this concept into the parallel computation space by introducing Parallel LINQ. Before we delve into PLINQ, let’s begin with a short discussion of LINQ.  LINQ, the extensions to the .NET Framework which implement language integrated query, set, and transform operations, is implemented in many flavors.  For our purposes, we are interested in LINQ to Objects.  When dealing with parallelizing a routine, we typically are dealing with in-memory data storage.  More data-access oriented LINQ variants, such as LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities in the Entity Framework fall outside of our concern, since the parallelism there is the concern of the data base engine processing the query itself. LINQ (LINQ to Objects in particular) works by implementing a series of extension methods, most of which work on IEnumerable<T>.  The language enhancements use these extension methods to create a very concise, readable alternative to using traditional foreach statement.  For example, let’s revisit our minimum aggregation routine we wrote in Part 4: double min = double.MaxValue; foreach(var item in collection) { double value = item.PerformComputation(); min = System.Math.Min(min, value); } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Here, we’re doing a very simple computation, but writing this in an imperative style.  This can be loosely translated to English as: Create a very large number, and save it in min Loop through each item in the collection. For every item: Perform some computation, and save the result If the computation is less than min, set min to the computation Although this is fairly easy to follow, it’s quite a few lines of code, and it requires us to read through the code, step by step, line by line, in order to understand the intention of the developer. We can rework this same statement, using LINQ: double min = collection.Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); Here, we’re after the same information.  However, this is written using a declarative programming style.  When we see this code, we’d naturally translate this to English as: Save the Min value of collection, determined via calling item.PerformComputation() That’s it – instead of multiple logical steps, we have one single, declarative request.  This makes the developer’s intentions very clear, and very easy to follow.  The system is free to implement this using whatever method required. Parallel LINQ (PLINQ) extends LINQ to Objects to support parallel operations.  This is a perfect fit in many cases when you have a problem that can be decomposed by data.  To show this, let’s again refer to our minimum aggregation routine from Part 4, but this time, let’s review our final, parallelized version: // Safe, and fast! double min = double.MaxValue; // Make a "lock" object object syncObject = new object(); Parallel.ForEach( collection, // First, we provide a local state initialization delegate. () => double.MaxValue, // Next, we supply the body, which takes the original item, loop state, // and local state, and returns a new local state (item, loopState, localState) => { double value = item.PerformComputation(); return System.Math.Min(localState, value); }, // Finally, we provide an Action<TLocal>, to "merge" results together localState => { // This requires locking, but it's only once per used thread lock(syncObj) min = System.Math.Min(min, localState); } ); Here, we’re doing the same computation as above, but fully parallelized.  Describing this in English becomes quite a feat: Create a very large number, and save it in min Create a temporary object we can use for locking Call Parallel.ForEach, specifying three delegates For the first delegate: Initialize a local variable to hold the local state to a very large number For the second delegate: For each item in the collection, perform some computation, save the result If the result is less than our local state, save the result in local state For the final delegate: Take a lock on our temporary object to protect our min variable Save the min of our min and local state variables Although this solves our problem, and does it in a very efficient way, we’ve created a set of code that is quite a bit more difficult to understand and maintain. PLINQ provides us with a very nice alternative.  In order to use PLINQ, we need to learn one new extension method that works on IEnumerable<T> – ParallelEnumerable.AsParallel(). That’s all we need to learn in order to use PLINQ: one single method.  We can write our minimum aggregation in PLINQ very simply: double min = collection.AsParallel().Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); By simply adding “.AsParallel()” to our LINQ to Objects query, we converted this to using PLINQ and running this computation in parallel!  This can be loosely translated into English easily, as well: Process the collection in parallel Get the Minimum value, determined by calling PerformComputation on each item Here, our intention is very clear and easy to understand.  We just want to perform the same operation we did in serial, but run it “as parallel”.  PLINQ completely extends LINQ to Objects: the entire functionality of LINQ to Objects is available.  By simply adding a call to AsParallel(), we can specify that a collection should be processed in parallel.  This is simple, safe, and incredibly useful.

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  • Top 10 Reasons SQL Developer is Perfect for Oracle Beginners

    - by thatjeffsmith
    Learning new technologies can be daunting. If you’ve never used a Mac before, you’ll probably be a bit baffled at first. But, you’re probably at least coming from a desktop computing background (Windows), so you common frame of reference. But what if you’re just now learning to use a relational database? Yes, you’ve played with Access a bit, but now your employer or college instructor has charged you with becoming proficient with Oracle database. Here’s 10 reasons why I think Oracle SQL Developer is the perfect vehicle to help get you started. 1. It’s free No need to break into one of these… No start-up costs, no need to wrangle budget dollars from your company. Students don’t have any money after books and lab fees anyway. And most employees don’t like having to ask for ‘special’ software anyway. So avoid all of that and make sure the free stuff doesn’t suit your needs first. Upgrades are available on a regular base, also at no cost, and support is freely available via our public forums. 2. It will run pretty much anywhere Windows – check. OSX (Apple) – check. Unix – check. Linux – check. No need to start up a windows VM to run your Windows-only software in your lab machine. 3. Anyone can install it There’s no installer, no registry to be updated, no admin privs to be obtained. If you can download and extract files to your machine or USB storage device, you can run it. You can be up and running with SQL Developer in under 5 minutes. Here’s a video tutorial to see how to get started. 4. It’s ubiquitous I admit it, I learned a new word yesterday and I wanted an excuse to use it. SQL Developer’s everywhere. It’s had over 2,500,000 downloads in the past year, and is the one of the most downloaded items from OTN. This means if you need help, there’s someone sitting nearby you that can assist, and since they’re in the same tool as you, they’ll be speaking the same language. 5. Simple User Interface Up-up-down-down-Left-right-left-right-A-B-A-B-START will get you 30 lives, but you already knew that, right? You connect, you see your objects, you click on your objects. Or, you can use the worksheet to write your queries and programs in. There’s only one toolbar, and just a few buttons. If you’re like me, video games became less fun when each button had 6 action items mapped to it. I just want the good ole ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘SELECT’, and ‘START’ controls. If you’re new to Oracle, you shouldn’t have the double-workload of learning a new complicated tool as well. 6. It’s not a ‘black box’ Click through your objects, but also get the SQL that drives the GUI As you use the wizards to accomplish tasks for you, you can view the SQL statement being generated on your behalf. Just because you have a GUI, doesn’t mean you’re ceding your responsibility to learn the underlying code that makes the database work. 7. It’s four tools in one It’s not just a query tool. Maybe you need to design a data model first? Or maybe you need to migrate your Sybase ASE database to Oracle for a new project? Or maybe you need to create some reports? SQL Developer does all of that. So once you get comfortable with one part of the tool, the others will be much easier to pick up as your needs change. 8. Great learning resources available Videos, blogs, hands-on learning labs – you name it, we got it. Why wait for someone to train you, when you can train yourself at your own pace? 9. You can use it to teach yourself SQL Instead of being faced with the white-screen-of-panic, you can visually build your queries by dragging and dropping tables and views into the Query Builder. Yes, ‘just like Access’ – only better. And as you build your query, toggle to the Worksheet panel and see the SQL statement. Again, SQL Developer is not a black box. If you prefer to learn by trial and error, the worksheet will attempt to suggest the next bit of your SQL statement with it’s completion insight feature. And if you have syntax errors, those will be highlighted – just like your misspelled words in your favorite word processor. 10. It scales to match your experience level You won’t be a n00b forever. In 6-8 months, when you’re ready to tackle something a bit more complicated, like XML DB or Oracle Spatial, the tool is already there waiting on you. No need to go out and find the ‘advanced’ tool. 11. Wait, you said this was a ‘Top 10′ list? Yes. Yes, I did. I’m using this ‘trick’ to get you to continue reading because I’m going to say something you might not want to hear. Are you ready? Tools won’t replace experience, failure, hard work, and training. Just because you have the keys to the car, doesn’t mean you’re ready to head out on the race track. While SQL Developer reduces the barriers to entry, it does not completely remove them. Many experienced folks simply do not like tools. Rather, they don’t like the people that pick up tools without the know-how to properly use them. If you don’t understand what ‘TRUNCATE’ means, don’t try it out. Try picking up a book first. Of course, it’s very nice to have your own sandbox to play in, so you don’t upset the other children. That’s why I really like our Dev Days Database Virtual Box image. It’s your own database to learn and experiment with.

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