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  • Anti-Forgery Request Recipes For ASP.NET MVC And AJAX

    - by Dixin
    Background To secure websites from cross-site request forgery (CSRF, or XSRF) attack, ASP.NET MVC provides an excellent mechanism: The server prints tokens to cookie and inside the form; When the form is submitted to server, token in cookie and token inside the form are sent in the HTTP request; Server validates the tokens. To print tokens to browser, just invoke HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken():<% using (Html.BeginForm()) { %> <%: this.Html.AntiForgeryToken(Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)%> <%-- Other fields. --%> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> <% } %> This invocation generates a token then writes inside the form:<form action="..." method="post"> <input name="__RequestVerificationToken" type="hidden" value="J56khgCvbE3bVcsCSZkNVuH9Cclm9SSIT/ywruFsXEgmV8CL2eW5C/gGsQUf/YuP" /> <!-- Other fields. --> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> </form> and also writes into the cookie: __RequestVerificationToken_Lw__= J56khgCvbE3bVcsCSZkNVuH9Cclm9SSIT/ywruFsXEgmV8CL2eW5C/gGsQUf/YuP When the above form is submitted, they are both sent to server. In the server side, [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute is used to specify the controllers or actions to validate them:[HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult Action(/* ... */) { // ... } This is very productive for form scenarios. But recently, when resolving security vulnerabilities for Web products, some problems are encountered. Specify validation on controller (not on each action) The server side problem is, It is expected to declare [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] on controller, but actually it has be to declared on each POST actions. Because POST actions are usually much more then controllers, the work would be a little crazy. Problem Usually a controller contains actions for HTTP GET and actions for HTTP POST requests, and usually validations are expected for HTTP POST requests. So, if the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] is declared on the controller, the HTTP GET requests become invalid:[ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public class SomeController : Controller // One [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute. { [HttpGet] public ActionResult Index() // Index() cannot work. { // ... } [HttpPost] public ActionResult PostAction1(/* ... */) { // ... } [HttpPost] public ActionResult PostAction2(/* ... */) { // ... } // ... } If browser sends an HTTP GET request by clicking a link: http://Site/Some/Index, validation definitely fails, because no token is provided. So the result is, [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute must be distributed to each POST action:public class SomeController : Controller // Many [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attributes. { [HttpGet] public ActionResult Index() // Works. { // ... } [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult PostAction1(/* ... */) { // ... } [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult PostAction2(/* ... */) { // ... } // ... } This is a little bit crazy, because one application can have a lot of POST actions. Solution To avoid a large number of [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attributes (one for each POST action), the following ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute wrapper class can be helpful, where HTTP verbs can be specified:[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)] public class ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute : FilterAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter { private readonly ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute _validator; private readonly AcceptVerbsAttribute _verbs; public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs) : this(verbs, null) { } public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs, string salt) { this._verbs = new AcceptVerbsAttribute(verbs); this._validator = new ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute() { Salt = salt }; } public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext) { string httpMethodOverride = filterContext.HttpContext.Request.GetHttpMethodOverride(); if (this._verbs.Verbs.Contains(httpMethodOverride, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { this._validator.OnAuthorization(filterContext); } } } When this attribute is declared on controller, only HTTP requests with the specified verbs are validated:[ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapper(HttpVerbs.Post, Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public class SomeController : Controller { // GET actions are not affected. // Only HTTP POST requests are validated. } Now one single attribute on controller turns on validation for all POST actions. Maybe it would be nice if HTTP verbs can be specified on the built-in [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute, which is easy to implemented. Specify Non-constant salt in runtime By default, the salt should be a compile time constant, so it can be used for the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] or [ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapper] attribute. Problem One Web product might be sold to many clients. If a constant salt is evaluated in compile time, after the product is built and deployed to many clients, they all have the same salt. Of course, clients do not like this. Even some clients might want to specify a custom salt in configuration. In these scenarios, salt is required to be a runtime value. Solution In the above [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] and [ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapper] attribute, the salt is passed through constructor. So one solution is to remove this parameter:public class ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute : FilterAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter { public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs) { this._verbs = new AcceptVerbsAttribute(verbs); this._validator = new ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute() { Salt = AntiForgeryToken.Value }; } // Other members. } But here the injected dependency becomes a hard dependency. So the other solution is moving validation code into controller to work around the limitation of attributes:public abstract class AntiForgeryControllerBase : Controller { private readonly ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute _validator; private readonly AcceptVerbsAttribute _verbs; protected AntiForgeryControllerBase(HttpVerbs verbs, string salt) { this._verbs = new AcceptVerbsAttribute(verbs); this._validator = new ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute() { Salt = salt }; } protected override void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext) { base.OnAuthorization(filterContext); string httpMethodOverride = filterContext.HttpContext.Request.GetHttpMethodOverride(); if (this._verbs.Verbs.Contains(httpMethodOverride, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { this._validator.OnAuthorization(filterContext); } } } Then make controller classes inheriting from this AntiForgeryControllerBase class. Now the salt is no long required to be a compile time constant. Submit token via AJAX For browser side, once server side turns on anti-forgery validation for HTTP POST, all AJAX POST requests will fail by default. Problem In AJAX scenarios, the HTTP POST request is not sent by form. Take jQuery as an example:$.post(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1 // Token is not posted. }, callback); This kind of AJAX POST requests will always be invalid, because server side code cannot see the token in the posted data. Solution Basically, the tokens must be printed to browser then sent back to server. So first of all, HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken() need to be called somewhere. Now the browser has token in both HTML and cookie. Then jQuery must find the printed token in the HTML, and append token to the data before sending:$.post(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1, __RequestVerificationToken: getToken() // Token is posted. }, callback); To be reusable, this can be encapsulated into a tiny jQuery plugin:/// <reference path="jquery-1.4.2.js" /> (function ($) { $.getAntiForgeryToken = function (tokenWindow, appPath) { // HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken() must be invoked to print the token. tokenWindow = tokenWindow && typeof tokenWindow === typeof window ? tokenWindow : window; appPath = appPath && typeof appPath === "string" ? "_" + appPath.toString() : ""; // The name attribute is either __RequestVerificationToken, // or __RequestVerificationToken_{appPath}. tokenName = "__RequestVerificationToken" + appPath; // Finds the <input type="hidden" name={tokenName} value="..." /> from the specified. // var inputElements = $("input[type='hidden'][name='__RequestVerificationToken" + appPath + "']"); var inputElements = tokenWindow.document.getElementsByTagName("input"); for (var i = 0; i < inputElements.length; i++) { var inputElement = inputElements[i]; if (inputElement.type === "hidden" && inputElement.name === tokenName) { return { name: tokenName, value: inputElement.value }; } } return null; }; $.appendAntiForgeryToken = function (data, token) { // Converts data if not already a string. if (data && typeof data !== "string") { data = $.param(data); } // Gets token from current window by default. token = token ? token : $.getAntiForgeryToken(); // $.getAntiForgeryToken(window). data = data ? data + "&" : ""; // If token exists, appends {token.name}={token.value} to data. return token ? data + encodeURIComponent(token.name) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(token.value) : data; }; // Wraps $.post(url, data, callback, type). $.postAntiForgery = function (url, data, callback, type) { return $.post(url, $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data), callback, type); }; // Wraps $.ajax(settings). $.ajaxAntiForgery = function (settings) { settings.data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(settings.data); return $.ajax(settings); }; })(jQuery); In most of the scenarios, it is Ok to just replace $.post() invocation with $.postAntiForgery(), and replace $.ajax() with $.ajaxAntiForgery():$.postAntiForgery(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1 }, callback); // Token is posted. There might be some scenarios of custom token, where $.appendAntiForgeryToken() is useful:data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data, token); // Token is already in data. No need to invoke $.postAntiForgery(). $.post(url, data, callback); And there are scenarios that the token is not in the current window. For example, an HTTP POST request can be sent by an iframe, while the token is in the parent window. Here, token's container window can be specified for $.getAntiForgeryToken():data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data, $.getAntiForgeryToken(window.parent)); // Token is already in data. No need to invoke $.postAntiForgery(). $.post(url, data, callback); If you have better solution, please do tell me.

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  • Download and Share Visual Studio Color Schemes

    - by ScottGu
    As developers we often spend a large part of our day staring at code within Visual Studio.  If you are like me, after awhile the default VS text color scheme starts to get a little boring. The good news is that Visual Studio allows you to completely customize the editor background and text colors to whatever you want – allowing you to tweak them to create the experience that is “just right” for your eyes and personality.  You can then optionally export/import your color scheme preferences to an XML file via the Tools->Import and Export Settings menu command. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] New website that makes it easy to download and share VS color schemes Luke Sampson launched the http://studiostyles.info/ site a week ago (built using ASP.NET MVC 2, ASP.NET 4 and VS 2010). Studiostyles.info enables you to easily browse and download Visual Studio color schemes that others have already created.  The color schemes work for both VS 2008 and VS 2010 (all versions – including the free VS express editions): Color schemes are sorted by popularity and voting (you can vote on whether you find each “hot or not”).  You can click any of the schemes to see screen-shots of it in use for common coding scenarios.  You can then download the color settings for either VS 2010 or VS 2008: You can also optionally upload color schemes of your own if you have a good one you want to share with others.  If you haven’t visited it yet – check it out: http://studiostyles.info/  And thank you Luke Sampson for building it! Hope this helps, Scott

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  • Apache2 on Raspbian: Multiviews is enabled but not working

    - by Christian L
    I recently moved webserver, from a ubuntuserver set up by my brother (I have sudo) to a rasbianserver set up by my self. On the other server multiviews worked out of the box, but on the raspbian it does not seem to work althoug it seems to be enabled out of the box there as well. What I am trying to do is to get it to find my.doma.in/mobile.php when I enter my.doma.in/mobile in the adress field. I am using the same available-site-file as I did before, the file looks as this: <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName my.doma.in ServerAdmin [email protected] DocumentRoot /home/christian/www/do <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All </Directory> <Directory /home/christian/www/do> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin"> AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/" <Directory "/usr/share/doc/"> Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128 </Directory> From what I have read various places while googling this issue I found that the negotiation module had to be enabled so I tried to enable it. sudo a2enmod negotiation Giving me this result Module negotiation already enabled I have read through the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and I did not find anything in particular that seemed to be helping me there, but please do ask if you think I should post it. Any ideas on how to solve this through getting Multiviews to work?

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  • Learn Domain-Driven Design

    - by Ben Griswold
    I just wrote about how I like to present on unfamiliar topics. With this said, Domain-Driven Design (DDD) is no exception. This is yet another area I knew enough about to be dangerous but I certainly was no expert.  As it turns out, researching this topic wasn’t easy. I could be wrong, but it is as if DDD is a secret to which few are privy. If you search the Interwebs, you will likely find little information about DDD until you start rolling over rocks to find that one great write-up, a handful of podcasts and videos and the Readers’ Digest version of the Blue Book which apparently you must read if you really want to get the complete, unabridged skinny on DDD.  Even Wikipedia’s write-up is skimpy which I didn’t know was possible…   Here’s a list of valuable resources.  If you, too, are interested in DDD, this is a good starting place.  Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans Domain-Driven Design Quickly, by Abel Avram & Floyd Marinescu An Introduction to Domain-Driven Design by David Laribee Talking Domain-Driven Design with David Laribee Part 1, Deep Fried Bytes Talking Domain-Driven Design with David Laribee Part 2, Deep Fried Bytes Eric Evans on Domain Driven Design, .NET Rocks Domain-Driven Design Community Eric Evans on Domain Driven Design Jimmy Nilsson on Domain Driven Design Domain-Driven Design Wikipedia What I’ve Learned About DDD Since the Book, Eric Evans Domain Driven Design, Alt.Net Podcast Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET, Jimmy Nilsson Domain-Driven Design Discussion Group DDD: Putting the Model to Work by Eric Evans The Official DDD Site

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  • Twitter Feeds in Umbraco using XSLT

    - by Vizioz Limited
    There are currently two packages tagged on the Umbraco forum that can be used to add a twitter feed to your website. I was playing around with "Twitter for Umbraco" by Warren Buckley and noticed a bug in the way it converted twitter @names to links, so I thought I would try and solve this using XSLT.It may also be useful for those of you using Darren Ferguson's "Feed Cache" package as the demo on Darren's site does not add links to the tweets.To use this XSLT you simple call the XSLT Template passing in your Twitter message:<xsl:call-template name="formaturl"> <xsl:with-param name="url" select="text"/></xsl:call-template>Then add the XSLT template to your XSLT macro (outside of the main template)<xsl:template name="formaturl"> <xsl:param name="twitterfeed"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-http" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($twitterfeed, '(http\:\/\/\S+)',ig,'<a href="$1">$1</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-https" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-http, '(HTTps\:\/\/\S+)',ig,'<a href="$1">$1</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-AT" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-https, '(^|\s)@(\w+)',ig,' <a href="http://www.twitter.com/$2">@$2</a>')"/> <xsl:variable name="transform-HASH" select="Exslt.ExsltRegularExpressions:replace($transform-AT, '(^|\s)#(\w+)',ig,' <a href="http://www.twitter.com/search?q=$2">#$2</a>')"/> <xsl:value-of select="$transform-HASH" disable-output-escaping="yes"/> </xsl:template>You should find that this now replaces all the @names, #names and URL's with links!

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  • Cross domain javascript form filling, reverse proxy

    - by Michel van Engelen
    I need a javascript form filler that can bypass the 'same origin policy' most modern browsers implement. I made a script that opens the desired website/form in a new browser. With the handler, returned by the window.open method, I want to retrieve the inputs with theWindowHandler.document.getElementById('inputx') and fill them (access denied). Is it possible to solve this problem by using Isapi Rewrite (official site) in IIS 6 acting like a reverse proxy? If so, how would I configure the reverse proxy? This is how far I got: RewriteEngine on RewriteLogLevel 9 LogLevel debug RewriteRule CarChecker https://the.actualcarchecker.com/CheckCar.aspx$1 [NC,P] The rewrite works, http://ourcompany.com/ourapplication/CarChecker, as evident in the logging. From within our companysite I can run the carchecker as if it was in our own domain. Except, the 'same origin policy' is still in force. Regards, Michel

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  • Porblem with css on IIS7 (show diffrent css output)

    - by user1300543
    i developed a ASP.NET site in localhost it looks fine and everything looks great on the css http://i.stack.imgur.com/ve1NP.jpg first css good result for some reason when i upload the files to m server and config the IIS application i see this http://i.stack.imgur.com/qmy2A.jpg first bad css result I can't figrue why is it happening to me. the url for the css is <link href='/HerbalifeEMS/Style/Main.css' rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> in both computers i checked the IIS, he have the CSS MINE types configure. i tried to seach google but no luck.... can you help me?

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  • Unlimited and multi-computer online storage solutions with automatic backup

    - by JRL
    As the title says, what are the existing online storage solutions that provide: unlimited storage automatic backup and allow for an unlimited number of computers (use not tied to a single computer)? There are several existing questions on this site related to online storage solutions, but none that is specifically targeted to what I want, so I thought I'd ask the question. This wikipedia article lists some of them, are there others? How do they compare in terms of price, feature set and ease of use? Update: Kinda disappointed no one has any answers to this so far. JungleDisk looks promising, anyone have experience with it? Update 2: To answer the comments, what I'm looking for definitely DOES exist. These solutions all seem to fit the bill: BackMii CrashPlan DataPreserve Humyo JungleDisk KeepVault SpiderOak And some of them are quite cheap (CrashPlan is $100 a year). For unlimited space and computers, I'd say that's pretty good. Does anyone have experience with CrashPlan or any other of the above solutions?

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  • Developing web application with time zones support

    - by outcoldman
    When you develop web application you should know that client PCs can be located anywhere on earth. Even if you develop app just for your country users you should remember it (in Russia now we have 9 time zones, before 28 of March we had 11 time zones). On big sites with many members do it very easy – you can place field “time zone” in member profile, in Sharepoint I saw this solution, and many enterprise app do it like this. But if we have simple website with blog publications or website with news and we don’t have member profiles on server, how we can support user’s time zones? I thought about this question because I wanted to develop time zone support on my own site. My case is ASP.NET MVC app and MS SQL Server DB. First, I started from learning which params we have at HTTP headers, but it doesn’t have information about it. So we can’t use regional settings and methods DateTime.ToLocalTime and DateTime.ToUniversalTime until we get user time zone on server. If we used our app before without time zones support we need to change dates from local time zone to UTC time zone (something like Greenwich Mean Time). Read more...(Redirect to http://outcoldman.ru)

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  • Getting Started with Employee Info Starter Kit (v4.0.0)

    - by joycsharp
    The new release of Employee Info Starter Kit contains lots of exciting features available in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0. To get started with the new version, you will need less than 5 minutes. Minimum System Requirements Before getting started, please make sure you have installed Visual Studio 2010 RC (or higher) and Sql Server 2005 Express edition (or higher installed on your machine. Running the Starter Kit for First Time 1. Download the starter kit 4.0.0 version form here and extract it. 2. Go to <extraction folder>\Source\Eisk.Solution and click the solution file 3. From the solution explorer, right click the “Eisk.Web” web site project node and select “Set as Startup Project” and hit Ctrl + F5   4. You will be prompted to install database, just follow the instruction. That’s it! You are ready to use this starter kit. Running the Tests Employee Info Starter Kit contains a infrastructure for Integration and Unit Testing, by utilizing cool test tools in Visual Studio 2010. Once you complete the steps, mentioned above, take a minute to run the test cases on the fly. 1. From the solution explorer, to go “Solution Items\e-i-s-k-2010.vsmdi” and click it. You will see the available Tests in the Visual Studio Test Lists. Select all, except the “Load Tests” node (since Load Tests takes a bit time) 2. Click “Run Checked Tests” control from the upper left corner. You will see the tests running and finally the status of the tests, which indicates the current health of you application from different scenarios. Technorati Tags: asp.net,architecture,starter kit,employee info starter kit,visual studio 2010,.net 4.0,entity framework

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  • Getting Started with Employee Info Starter Kit (v4.0.0)

    - by Mohammad Ashraful Alam
    The new release of Employee Info Starter Kit contains lots of exciting features available in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0. To get started with the new version, you will need less than 5 minutes. Minimum System Requirements Before getting started, please make sure you have installed Visual Studio 2010 RC (or higher) and Sql Server 2005 Express edition (or higher installed on your machine. Running the Starter Kit for First Time 1. Download the starter kit 4.0.0 version form here and extract it. 2. Go to <extraction folder>\Source\Eisk.Solution and click the solution file 3. From the solution explorer, right click the “Eisk.Web” web site project node and select “Set as Startup Project” and hit Ctrl + F5   4. You will be prompted to install database, just follow the instruction. That’s it! You are ready to use this starter kit. Running the Tests Employee Info Starter Kit contains a infrastructure for Integration and Unit Testing, by utilizing cool test tools in Visual Studio 2010. Once you complete the steps, mentioned above, take a minute to run the test cases on the fly. 1. From the solution explorer, to go “Solution Items\e-i-s-k-2010.vsmdi” and click it. You will see the available Tests in the Visual Studio Test Lists. Select all, except the “Load Tests” node (since Load Tests takes a bit time) 2. Click “Run Checked Tests” control from the upper left corner. You will see the tests running and finally the status of the tests, which indicates the current health of you application from different scenarios. Technorati Tags: asp.net,architecture,starter kit,employee info starter kit,visual studio 2010,.net 4.0,entity framework

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  • How to Reuse Your Old Wi-Fi Router as a Network Switch

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Just because your old Wi-Fi router has been replaced by a newer model doesn’t mean it needs to gather dust in the closet. Read on as we show you how to take an old and underpowered Wi-Fi router and turn it into a respectable network switch (saving your $20 in the process). Image by mmgallan. Why Do I Want To Do This? Wi-Fi technology has changed significantly in the last ten years but Ethernet-based networking has changed very little. As such, a Wi-Fi router with 2006-era guts is lagging significantly behind current Wi-Fi router technology, but the Ethernet networking component of the device is just as useful as ever; aside from potentially being only 100Mbs instead of 1000Mbs capable (which for 99% of home applications is irrelevant) Ethernet is Ethernet. What does this matter to you, the consumer? It means that even though your old router doesn’t hack it for your Wi-Fi needs any longer the device is still a perfectly serviceable (and high quality) network switch. When do you need a network switch? Any time you want to share an Ethernet cable among multiple devices, you need a switch. For example, let’s say you have a single Ethernet wall jack behind your entertainment center. Unfortunately you have four devices that you want to link to your local network via hardline including your smart HDTV, DVR, Xbox, and a little Raspberry Pi running XBMC. Instead of spending $20-30 to purchase a brand new switch of comparable build quality to your old Wi-Fi router it makes financial sense (and is environmentally friendly) to invest five minutes of your time tweaking the settings on the old router to turn it from a Wi-Fi access point and routing tool into a network switch–perfect for dropping behind your entertainment center so that your DVR, Xbox, and media center computer can all share an Ethernet connection. What Do I Need? For this tutorial you’ll need a few things, all of which you likely have readily on hand or are free for download. To follow the basic portion of the tutorial, you’ll need the following: 1 Wi-Fi router with Ethernet ports 1 Computer with Ethernet jack 1 Ethernet cable For the advanced tutorial you’ll need all of those things, plus: 1 copy of DD-WRT firmware for your Wi-Fi router We’re conducting the experiment with a Linksys WRT54GL Wi-Fi router. The WRT54 series is one of the best selling Wi-Fi router series of all time and there’s a good chance a significant number of readers have one (or more) of them stuffed in an office closet. Even if you don’t have one of the WRT54 series routers, however, the principles we’re outlining here apply to all Wi-Fi routers; as long as your router administration panel allows the necessary changes you can follow right along with us. A quick note on the difference between the basic and advanced versions of this tutorial before we proceed. Your typical Wi-Fi router has 5 Ethernet ports on the back: 1 labeled “Internet”, “WAN”, or a variation thereof and intended to be connected to your DSL/Cable modem, and 4 labeled 1-4 intended to connect Ethernet devices like computers, printers, and game consoles directly to the Wi-Fi router. When you convert a Wi-Fi router to a switch, in most situations, you’ll lose two port as the “Internet” port cannot be used as a normal switch port and one of the switch ports becomes the input port for the Ethernet cable linking the switch to the main network. This means, referencing the diagram above, you’d lose the WAN port and LAN port 1, but retain LAN ports 2, 3, and 4 for use. If you only need to switch for 2-3 devices this may be satisfactory. However, for those of you that would prefer a more traditional switch setup where there is a dedicated WAN port and the rest of the ports are accessible, you’ll need to flash a third-party router firmware like the powerful DD-WRT onto your device. Doing so opens up the router to a greater degree of modification and allows you to assign the previously reserved WAN port to the switch, thus opening up LAN ports 1-4. Even if you don’t intend to use that extra port, DD-WRT offers you so many more options that it’s worth the extra few steps. Preparing Your Router for Life as a Switch Before we jump right in to shutting down the Wi-Fi functionality and repurposing your device as a network switch, there are a few important prep steps to attend to. First, you want to reset the router (if you just flashed a new firmware to your router, skip this step). Following the reset procedures for your particular router or go with what is known as the “Peacock Method” wherein you hold down the reset button for thirty seconds, unplug the router and wait (while still holding the reset button) for thirty seconds, and then plug it in while, again, continuing to hold down the rest button. Over the life of a router there are a variety of changes made, big and small, so it’s best to wipe them all back to the factory default before repurposing the router as a switch. Second, after resetting, we need to change the IP address of the device on the local network to an address which does not directly conflict with the new router. The typical default IP address for a home router is 192.168.1.1; if you ever need to get back into the administration panel of the router-turned-switch to check on things or make changes it will be a real hassle if the IP address of the device conflicts with the new home router. The simplest way to deal with this is to assign an address close to the actual router address but outside the range of addresses that your router will assign via the DHCP client; a good pick then is 192.168.1.2. Once the router is reset (or re-flashed) and has been assigned a new IP address, it’s time to configure it as a switch. Basic Router to Switch Configuration If you don’t want to (or need to) flash new firmware onto your device to open up that extra port, this is the section of the tutorial for you: we’ll cover how to take a stock router, our previously mentioned WRT54 series Linksys, and convert it to a switch. Hook the Wi-Fi router up to the network via one of the LAN ports (consider the WAN port as good as dead from this point forward, unless you start using the router in its traditional function again or later flash a more advanced firmware to the device, the port is officially retired at this point). Open the administration control panel via  web browser on a connected computer. Before we get started two things: first,  anything we don’t explicitly instruct you to change should be left in the default factory-reset setting as you find it, and two, change the settings in the order we list them as some settings can’t be changed after certain features are disabled. To start, let’s navigate to Setup ->Basic Setup. Here you need to change the following things: Local IP Address: [different than the primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.2] Subnet Mask: [same as the primary router, e.g. 255.255.255.0] DHCP Server: Disable Save with the “Save Settings” button and then navigate to Setup -> Advanced Routing: Operating Mode: Router This particular setting is very counterintuitive. The “Operating Mode” toggle tells the device whether or not it should enable the Network Address Translation (NAT)  feature. Because we’re turning a smart piece of networking hardware into a relatively dumb one, we don’t need this feature so we switch from Gateway mode (NAT on) to Router mode (NAT off). Our next stop is Wireless -> Basic Wireless Settings: Wireless SSID Broadcast: Disable Wireless Network Mode: Disabled After disabling the wireless we’re going to, again, do something counterintuitive. Navigate to Wireless -> Wireless Security and set the following parameters: Security Mode: WPA2 Personal WPA Algorithms: TKIP+AES WPA Shared Key: [select some random string of letters, numbers, and symbols like JF#d$di!Hdgio890] Now you may be asking yourself, why on Earth are we setting a rather secure Wi-Fi configuration on a Wi-Fi router we’re not going to use as a Wi-Fi node? On the off chance that something strange happens after, say, a power outage when your router-turned-switch cycles on and off a bunch of times and the Wi-Fi functionality is activated we don’t want to be running the Wi-Fi node wide open and granting unfettered access to your network. While the chances of this are next-to-nonexistent, it takes only a few seconds to apply the security measure so there’s little reason not to. Save your changes and navigate to Security ->Firewall. Uncheck everything but Filter Multicast Firewall Protect: Disable At this point you can save your changes again, review the changes you’ve made to ensure they all stuck, and then deploy your “new” switch wherever it is needed. Advanced Router to Switch Configuration For the advanced configuration, you’ll need a copy of DD-WRT installed on your router. Although doing so is an extra few steps, it gives you a lot more control over the process and liberates an extra port on the device. Hook the Wi-Fi router up to the network via one of the LAN ports (later you can switch the cable to the WAN port). Open the administration control panel via web browser on the connected computer. Navigate to the Setup -> Basic Setup tab to get started. In the Basic Setup tab, ensure the following settings are adjusted. The setting changes are not optional and are required to turn the Wi-Fi router into a switch. WAN Connection Type: Disabled Local IP Address: [different than the primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.2] Subnet Mask: [same as the primary router, e.g. 255.255.255.0] DHCP Server: Disable In addition to disabling the DHCP server, also uncheck all the DNSMasq boxes as the bottom of the DHCP sub-menu. If you want to activate the extra port (and why wouldn’t you), in the WAN port section: Assign WAN Port to Switch [X] At this point the router has become a switch and you have access to the WAN port so the LAN ports are all free. Since we’re already in the control panel, however, we might as well flip a few optional toggles that further lock down the switch and prevent something odd from happening. The optional settings are arranged via the menu you find them in. Remember to save your settings with the save button before moving onto a new tab. While still in the Setup -> Basic Setup menu, change the following: Gateway/Local DNS : [IP address of primary router, e.g. 192.168.1.1] NTP Client : Disable The next step is to turn off the radio completely (which not only kills the Wi-Fi but actually powers the physical radio chip off). Navigate to Wireless -> Advanced Settings -> Radio Time Restrictions: Radio Scheduling: Enable Select “Always Off” There’s no need to create a potential security problem by leaving the Wi-Fi radio on, the above toggle turns it completely off. Under Services -> Services: DNSMasq : Disable ttraff Daemon : Disable Under the Security -> Firewall tab, uncheck every box except “Filter Multicast”, as seen in the screenshot above, and then disable SPI Firewall. Once you’re done here save and move on to the Administration tab. Under Administration -> Management:  Info Site Password Protection : Enable Info Site MAC Masking : Disable CRON : Disable 802.1x : Disable Routing : Disable After this final round of tweaks, save and then apply your settings. Your router has now been, strategically, dumbed down enough to plod along as a very dependable little switch. Time to stuff it behind your desk or entertainment center and streamline your cabling.     

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  • Downloading a file over HTTP the SSIS way

    This post shows you how to download files from a web site whilst really making the most of the SSIS objects that are available. There is no task to do this, so we have to use the Script Task and some simple VB.NET or C# (if you have SQL Server 2008) code. Very often I see suggestions about how to use the .NET class System.Net.WebClient and of course this works, you can code pretty much anything you like in .NET. Here I’d just like to raise the profile of an alternative. This approach uses the HTTP Connection Manager, one of the stock connection managers, so you can use configurations and property expressions in the same way you would for all other connections. Settings like the security details that you would want to make configurable already are, but if you take the .NET route you have to write quite a lot of code to manage those values via package variables. Using the connection manager we get all of that flexibility for free. The screenshot below illustrate some of the options we have. Using the HttpClientConnection class makes for much simpler code as well. I have demonstrated two methods, DownloadFile which just downloads a file to disk, and DownloadData which downloads the file and retains it in memory. In each case we show a message box to note the completion of the download. You can download a sample package below, but first the code: Imports System Imports System.IO Imports System.Text Imports System.Windows.Forms Imports Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime Public Class ScriptMain Public Sub Main() ' Get the unmanaged connection object, from the connection manager called "HTTP Connection Manager" Dim nativeObject As Object = Dts.Connections("HTTP Connection Manager").AcquireConnection(Nothing) ' Create a new HTTP client connection Dim connection As New HttpClientConnection(nativeObject) ' Download the file #1 ' Save the file from the connection manager to the local path specified Dim filename As String = "C:\Temp\Sample.txt" connection.DownloadFile(filename, True) ' Confirm file is there If File.Exists(filename) Then MessageBox.Show(String.Format("File {0} has been downloaded.", filename)) End If ' Download the file #2 ' Read the text file straight into memory Dim buffer As Byte() = connection.DownloadData() Dim data As String = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer) ' Display the file contents MessageBox.Show(data) Dts.TaskResult = Dts.Results.Success End Sub End Class Sample Package HTTPDownload.dtsx (74KB)

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  • Visual Studio RTM, Silverlight 4 RTM and WCF RIA Services download links

    - by Harish Ranganathan
    Its been a long time since I blogged.  Primarily due to Tech Ed India, the ongoing Great Indian Developer Summit (GIDS 2010) and the related travels.  However, here is a quick post with a few updates.  Visual Studio 2010 RTMed in India during Tech Ed.  We had the privilege of having Soma our Senior VP launch VS 2010 RTM in Bangalore, India, during Tech Ed India 2010.   With that we also had Silverlight 4 getting RTMed during the same week. Earlier I had written posts around using the VS 2010 Beta, RC and the corresponding Silverlight, WCF RIA bits etc., and getting them all to work together.  Now that, both VS 2010 and Silverlight have RTMed, I wanted to post a quick update on the necessary downloads. Visual Studio 2010 RTM can be downloaded from MSDN Visual Studio site  If you are doing Silverlight 4 development with Visual studio, then you can download the Silverlight 4 Tools RC2 for Visual Studio  Then, if you are developing with WCF RIA Services, you can download the WCF RIA Services RC 2 for SL4 and VS 2010 And finally, if you want to use WCF RIA Services in ASP.NET you would require the Domain DataSource control.  Also, to use some of the additional Service Utility tools, you would require the WCF RIA Services Toolkit.  You can download the same from WCF RIA Services Toolkit April 2010 Once you have installed all the above, you should be able to see the following in your add-remove programs WCF RIA Services v1.0 for Visual Studio 2010 (Version 4.0.50401.0) WCF RIA Services Toolkit (Version 4.0.50401.0) Microsoft Silverlight (Version 4.0.50401.0) Microsoft Silverlight 4 SDK (Version 4.0.50401.0) Also, you would need the Expression Blend 4 for designing the apps for Silverlight 4.  You can download the release candidate from here Thats it.  You are all set for development with Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4, WCF RIA Services. Cheers !!!

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  • Access FTPS from behind Forefront TMG

    - by Maxim V. Pavlov
    I have a web server on which IIS 7 host an SSL-enabled site. The client in am trying to connect with is behind the corporate Forefront TMG. The app is Total Commander - a file manager shell, that has the ability to connect to SSL FTP by putting a checkmark over SSL/TLS in the FTP connection settings. When FTP Access Filter in FF is enabled, my connection attempt fails on Negociating TLS step of FTP connection. The same happens even if I enable Allow Active FTP in the filter's settings. But when I disable the FTP Access Filter on FF completely, I am able to connect fine. How to configure FF TMG to allow FTPS?

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  • Directory structure for a website (js/css/img folders)

    - by nightcoder
    For years I've been using the following directory structure for my websites: <root> ->js ->jquery.js ->tooltip.js ->someplugin.js ->css ->styles.css ->someplugin.css ->images -> all website images... it seemed perfectly fine to me until I began to use different 3rd-party components. For example, today I've downloaded a datetime picker javascript component that looks for its images in the same directory where its css file is located (css file contains urls like "url('calendar.png')"). So now I have 3 options: 1) put datepicker.css into my css directory and put its images along. I don't really like this option because I will have both css and image files inside the css directory and it is weird. Also I might meet files from different components with the same name, such as 2 different components, which link to background.png from their css files. I will have to fix those name collisions (by renaming one of the files and editing the corresponding file that contains the link). 2) put datepicker.css into my css directory, put its images into the images directory and edit datepicker.css to look for the images in the images directory. This option is ok but I have to spend some time to edit 3rd-party components to fit them to my site structure. Again, name collisions may occur here (as described in the previous option) and I will have to fix them. 3) put datepicker.js, datepicker.css and its images into a separate directory, let's say /3rdParty/datepicker/ and place the files as it was intended by the author (i.e., for example, /3rdParty/datepicker/css/datepicker.css, /3rdParty/datepicker/css/something.png, etc.). Now I begin to think that this option is the most correct. Experienced web developers, what do you recommend?

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  • Advantages to Server Scripting languages over Client Side Scripting languages

    There are numerous advantages to server scripting languages over client side scripting languages in regards to creating web sites that are more compelling compared to a standard static site. Server side scripts are executed on a web server during the compilation of data to return to a client. These scripts allow developers to modify the content that is being sent to the user prior to the return of the data to the user as well as store information about the user. In addition, server side scripts allow for a controllable environment in which they can be executed. This cannot be said for client side languages because the developer cannot control the users’ environment compared to a web server. Some users may turn off client scripts, some may be only allow limited access on the system and others may be able to gain full control of the environment.  I have been developing web applications for over 9+ years, and I have used server side languages for most of the applications I have built.  Here is a list of common things I have developed with server side scripts. List of Common Generic Functionality: Send Email FTP Files Security/ Access Control Encryption URL rewriting Data Access Data Creation I/O Access The one important feature server side languages will help me with on my website is Data Access because my component will be backed with a SQL server database. I believe that form validation is one instance where I might see server side and client side scripts used interchangeably because it does not matter how or where the data is validated as long as the data that gets inserted is valid.

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  • How to study for 70-573 Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Application Development

    - by ybbest
    I just passed my 70-573 exam today and would like to Share my experience on learning SharePoint 2010 as a beginner. 1. Book Microsoft SharePoint 2010: Building Solutions for SharePoint 2010 by Sahil Malik http://apress.com/book/view/1430228652 Sahil is an expert and MVP in SharePoint 2010.He certainly know his field and the book is well written. More importantly Sahil has got very good sense of humor in delivering the knowledge. 2.A development machine It is of great importance to have a dev machine , you cannot learn a new technology by just reading a book nor by watching some training videos. You need get your hands dirty with SharePoint a lot. 3.Training videos Since I have one year subscription with learndev , I use them as my learning resources. It is quite cheap , only cost US $99 for a year subscription and you will get not only the SharePoint training but the whole training library .The videos are from Appdev . Appdev training is of high quality. http://www.appdev.com/ http://www.learndevnow.com/ You can also get the videos from Microsoft SharePoint site. They are pretty good too. But bear in mind , by just watching these videos you will not learn much , you need to build a SharePoint 2010 machine and play with it .Try to write the sample code yourself and not just copy and paste. 4. Write blogs about your learning. This will motive you in your long journey with SharePoint learning. 5. Do check out the patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance on codeplex. http://spg.codeplex.com/ 6.Thanks for Becky Bertram,who kindly put up all the exam requirements with links to MSDN http://blog.beckybertram.com/Lists/Exam%2070573%20Study%20Guide/AllItems.aspx

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  • Google chrome asking for username and password for OWA

    - by Grant
    Hi, i have a question about the google chrome browser. When i navigate to my work's Outlook Web Access site to read my emails, the chrome browser is prompting me for a username and password to the server saying "Authentication Required - the server XXXXXX.XXX:443 requires a username and password. After i put them in i then have to enter in the normal OWA username and password to access my emails as per normal. The funny thing is.. 1] If i click CANCEL on the first dialog it takes me to the OWA screen and i can log in normal anyway. However - subqeuent page clicks will keep prompting me each time for the server credentials. 2] I am NOT prompted for server UN and PW if i use IE or fireFox. Does anyone know how to stop chrome from asking me each time? or is it a server setting - i do know that a friend who uses the same browser (chrome) and also OWA does not have the same problem (NB: they work at a different company) Thanks!

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  • Forward local port or socket file to remote socket file

    - by Ninefingers
    Hi All, Quick question - I run two linux boxes, one my own desktop and the other my VPS. For security reasons on the VPS end I opted for socket connections to MySQL (/var/run/mysqld/mysql.sock). I know I can tunnel like this: ssh -L 3307:127.0.0.1:3306 [email protected] if I set up the remote sql server to listen on some port, but what I want to know is can I do something like: ssh -L /path/to/myremotesqlserver.sock:/var/run/mysqld/mysql.sock thereby tunnelling two sockets, as opposed to two ports? A perfectly acceptable solution would also be to forward a local port to the remote socket file, but where possible I'm trying not to have tcp servers running on the remote box. (and yes, I know tcp would be easier). Thanks all, Nf.

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  • Mcafee Auto-update from UNC path problem

    - by Vicky
    I have a network with 50 computers with no internet access. So instead of updating in each of them using dat file individually I tried to create a shared folder in server, and created a UNC in site repository. I downloaded the file DAT Package For Use with Mcafee AutoUpdate Architect & ePO 3.0 from http://www.mcafee.com/apps/downloads/security-updates/security-updates.aspx. When I try to update it is giving an error Error occurred while downloading file SiteStat.xml. So how fix it?

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  • What Gets Measured Gets Managed

    - by steve.diamond
    OK, so if I were to claim credit for inventing that expression, I guess I could share the mantle with Al Gore, creator of the Internet. But here's the point: How many of us acquire CRM systems without specifically benchmarking several key performance indicators across sales, marketing and service BEFORE and AFTER deployment of said system? Yes, this may sound obvious and it might provoke the, "Well of course, Diamond!" response, but is YOUR company doing this? Can you define in quantitative terms the delta across multiple parameters? I just trolled the Web site of one of my favorite sales consultancy firms, The Alexander Group. Right on their home page is a brief appeal citing the importance of benchmarking. The corresponding landing page states, "The fact that hundreds of sales executives now track how their sales forces spend time means they attach great value to understanding how much time sellers actually devote to selling." The opportunity is to extend this conversation to benchmarking the success that companies derive from the investment they make in CRM systems, i.e., to the automation side of the equation. To a certain extent, the 'game' is analogous to achieving optimal physical fitness. One may never quite get there, but beyond the 95% threshold of "excellence," she/he may be entering the realm of splitting infinitives. But at the very start, and to quote verbiage from the aforementioned Alexander Group Web page, what gets measured gets managed. And getting to that 95% level along several key indicators would be a high quality problem indeed, don't you think? Yes, this could be a "That's so 90's" conversation, but is it really?

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  • Creating a user account on a mac you don't have admin access to [migrated]

    - by mouse
    I am trying to create a user account on a school computer so I can run processes (like compiling large libraries) with admin permissions settings. This way I can walk away and let other people user the computer, and come back after class to retrieve the binaries. Usually some smart person decides to shut the machine down, but if I had higher permissions they wouldn't be able to terminate my processes. Right now I use the guest account, which everyone has access to. If you think this is in some way unethical or a bad idea, please criticize. tl,dr I tried using the dscl series of commands in single user mode as root, as recommended by this site. It returns this error: Cannot open remote host, error: DSOpenDirServiceErr How can I create a local user on this machine to compile my code with higher permissions?

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  • How best to troubleshoot a WIA issue through an IIS7 reverse proxy.

    - by CptSkippy
    I've got an Intranet site that uses Windows Authentication and is accessed through an IIS 7 Reverse Proxy. Using FireFox, Safari or Chrome it works fine. I'm prompted for credentials, I supply them and away I go. In IE 7/8 I get prompted for credentials but they're rejected and I eventually get a 401 not authorized error. The application server is configured for Windows Auth only and rejects basic authentication. I would be surprised if the front end proxy would accept Basic Auth so my suspicion is that it's a trust issue with my browser and IE isn't relaying the credentials however our IS Team has IE so locked down I'm unable to alter trust levels or even view the settings. How should I go about troubleshooting this problem? I'm at a loss and they've yet to respond to my support ticket.

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  • Advantages of SQL Backup Pro

    - by Grant Fritchey
    Getting backups of your databases in place is a fundamental issue for protection of the business. Yes, I said business, not data, not databases, but business. Because of a lack of good, tested, backups, companies have gone completely out of business or suffered traumatic financial loss. That’s just a simple fact (outlined with a few examples here). So you want to get backups right. That’s a big part of why we make Red Gate SQL Backup Pro work the way it does. Yes, you could just use native backups, but you’ll be missing a few advantages that we provide over and above what you get out of the box from Microsoft. Let’s talk about them. Guidance If you’re a hard-core DBA with 20+ years of experience on every version of SQL Server and several other data platforms besides, you may already know what you need in order to get a set of tested backups in place. But, if you’re not, maybe a little help would be a good thing. To set up backups for your servers, we supply a wizard that will step you through the entire process. It will also act to guide you down good paths. For example, if your databases are in Full Recovery, you should set up transaction log backups to run on a regular basis. When you choose a transaction log backup from the Backup Type you’ll see that only those databases that are in Full Recovery will be listed: This makes it very easy to be sure you have a log backup set up for all the databases you should and none of the databases where you won’t be able to. There are other examples of guidance throughout the product. If you have the responsibility of managing backups but very little knowledge or time, we can help you out. Throughout the software you’ll notice little green question marks. You can see two in the screen above and more in each of the screens in other topics below this one. Clicking on these will open a window with additional information about the topic in question which should help to guide you through some of the tougher decisions you may have to make while setting up your backup jobs. Here’s an example: Backup Copies As a part of the wizard you can choose to make a copy of your backup on your network. This process runs as part of the Red Gate SQL Backup engine. It will copy your backup, after completing the backup so it doesn’t cause any additional blocking or resource use within the backup process, to the network location you define. Creating a copy acts as a mechanism of protection for your backups. You can then backup that copy or do other things with it, all without affecting the original backup file. This requires either an additional backup or additional scripting to get it done within the native Microsoft backup engine. Offsite Storage Red Gate offers you the ability to immediately copy your backup to the cloud as a further, off-site, protection of your backups. It’s a service we provide and expose through the Backup wizard. Your backup will complete first, just like with the network backup copy, then an asynchronous process will copy that backup to cloud storage. Again, this is built right into the wizard or even the command line calls to SQL Backup, so it’s part a single process within your system. With native backup you would need to write additional scripts, possibly outside of T-SQL, to make this happen. Before you can use this with your backups you’ll need to do a little setup, but it’s built right into the product to get this done. You’ll be directed to the web site for our hosted storage where you can set up an account. Compression If you have SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, or you’re on SQL Server 2008R2 or greater and you have a Standard or Enterprise license, then you have backup compression. It’s built right in and works well. But, if you need even more compression then you might want to consider Red Gate SQL Backup Pro. We offer four levels of compression within the product. This means you can get a little compression faster, or you can just sacrifice some CPU time and get even more compression. You decide. For just a simple example I backed up AdventureWorks2012 using both methods of compression. The resulting file from native was 53mb. Our file was 33mb. That’s a file that is smaller by 38%, not a small number when we start talking gigabytes. We even provide guidance here to help you determine which level of compression would be right for you and your system: So for this test, if you wanted maximum compression with minimum CPU use you’d probably want to go with Level 2 which gets you almost as much compression as Level 3 but will use fewer resources. And that compression is still better than the native one by 10%. Restore Testing Backups are vital. But, a backup is just a file until you restore it. How do you know that you can restore that backup? Of course, you’ll use CHECKSUM to validate that what was read from disk during the backup process is what gets written to the backup file. You’ll also use VERIFYONLY to check that the backup header and the checksums on the backup file are valid. But, this doesn’t do a complete test of the backup. The only complete test is a restore. So, what you really need is a process that tests your backups. This is something you’ll have to schedule separately from your backups, but we provide a couple of mechanisms to help you out here. First, when you create a backup schedule, all done through our wizard which gives you as much guidance as you get when running backups, you get the option of creating a reminder to create a job to test your restores. You can enable this or disable it as you choose when creating your scheduled backups. Once you’re ready to schedule test restores for your databases, we have a wizard for this as well. After you choose the databases and restores you want to test, all configurable for automation, you get to decide if you’re going to restore to a specified copy or to the original database: If you’re doing your tests on a new server (probably the best choice) you can just overwrite the original database if it’s there. If not, you may want to create a new database each time you test your restores. Another part of validating your backups is ensuring that they can pass consistency checks. So we have DBCC built right into the process. You can even decide how you want DBCC run, which error messages to include, limit or add to the checks being run. With this you could offload some DBCC checks from your production system so that you only run the physical checks on your production box, but run the full check on this backup. That makes backup testing not just a general safety process, but a performance enhancer as well: Finally, assuming the tests pass, you can delete the database, leave it in place, or delete it regardless of the tests passing. All this is automated and scheduled through the SQL Agent job on your servers. Running your databases through this process will ensure that you don’t just have backups, but that you have tested backups. Single Point of Management If you have more than one server to maintain, getting backups setup could be a tedious process. But, with Red Gate SQL Backup Pro you can connect to multiple servers and then manage all your databases and all your servers backups from a single location. You’ll be able to see what is scheduled, what has run successfully and what has failed, all from a single interface without having to connect to different servers. Log Shipping Wizard If you want to set up log shipping as part of a disaster recovery process, it can frequently be a pain to get configured correctly. We supply a wizard that will walk you through every step of the process including setting up alerts so you’ll know should your log shipping fail. Summary You want to get your backups right. As outlined above, Red Gate SQL Backup Pro will absolutely help you there. We supply a number of processes and functionalities above and beyond what you get with SQL Server native. Plus, with our guidance, hints and reminders, you will get your backups set up in a way that protects your business.

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