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• General monitoring for SQL Server Analysis Services using Performance Monitor

  - by Testas

  A recent customer engagement required a setup of a monitoring solution for SSAS, due to the time restrictions placed upon this, native Windows Performance Monitor (Perfmon) and SQL Server Profiler Monitoring Tools was used as using a third party tool would have meant the customer providing an additional monitoring server that was not available.I wanted to outline the performance monitoring counters that was used to monitor the system on which SSAS was running. Due to the slow query performance that was occurring during certain scenarios, perfmon was used to establish if any pressure was being placed on the Disk, CPU or Memory subsystem when concurrent connections access the same query, and Profiler to pinpoint how the query was being managed within SSAS, profiler I will leave for another blogThis guide is not designed to provide a definitive list of what should be used when monitoring SSAS, different situations may require the addition or removal of counters as presented by the situation. However I hope that it serves as a good basis for starting your monitoring of SSAS. I would also like to acknowledge Chris Webb’s awesome chapters from “Expert Cube Development” that also helped shape my monitoring strategy:http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7B84B0F2C239489A!6657.entrySimulating ConnectionsTo simulate the additional connections to the SSAS server whilst monitoring, I used ascmd to simulate multiple connections to the typical and worse performing queries that were identified by the customer. A similar sript can be downloaded from codeplex at http://www.codeplex.com/SQLSrvAnalysisSrvcs.     File name: ASCMD_StressTestingScripts.zip. Performance MonitorWithin performance monitor,  a counter log was created that contained the list of counters below. The important point to note when running the counter log is that the RUN AS property within the counter log properties should be changed to an account that has rights to the SSAS instance when monitoring MSAS counters. Failure to do so means that the counter log runs under the system account, no errors or warning are given while running the counter log, and it is not until you need to view the MSAS counters that they will not be displayed if run under the default account that has no right to SSAS. If your connection simulation takes hours, this could prove quite frustrating if not done beforehand JThe counters used……  Object Counter Instance Justification System Processor Queue legnth N/A Indicates how many threads are waiting for execution against the processor. If this counter is consistently higher than around 5 when processor utilization approaches 100%, then this is a good indication that there is more work (active threads) available (ready for execution) than the machine's processors are able to handle. System Context Switches/sec N/A Measures how frequently the processor has to switch from user- to kernel-mode to handle a request from a thread running in user mode. The heavier the workload running on your machine, the higher this counter will generally be, but over long term the value of this counter should remain fairly constant. If this counter suddenly starts increasing however, it may be an indicating of a malfunctioning device, especially if the Processor\Interrupts/sec\(_Total) counter on your machine shows a similar unexplained increase Process % Processor Time sqlservr Definately should be used if Processor\% Processor Time\(_Total) is maxing at 100% to assess the effect of the SQL Server process on the processor Process % Processor Time msmdsrv Definately should be used if Processor\% Processor Time\(_Total) is maxing at 100% to assess the effect of the SQL Server process on the processor Process Working Set sqlservr If the Memory\Available bytes counter is decreaing this counter can be run to indicate if the process is consuming larger and larger amounts of RAM. Process(instance)\Working Set measures the size of the working set for each process, which indicates the number of allocated pages the process can address without generating a page fault. Process Working Set msmdsrv If the Memory\Available bytes counter is decreaing this counter can be run to indicate if the process is consuming larger and larger amounts of RAM. Process(instance)\Working Set measures the size of the working set for each process, which indicates the number of allocated pages the process can address without generating a page fault. Processor % Processor Time _Total and individual cores measures the total utilization of your processor by all running processes. If multi-proc then be mindful only an average is provided Processor % Privileged Time _Total To see how the OS is handling basic IO requests. If kernel mode utilization is high, your machine is likely underpowered as it's too busy handling basic OS housekeeping functions to be able to effectively run other applications. Processor % User Time _Total To see how the applications is interacting from a processor perspective, a high percentage utilisation determine that the server is dealing with too many apps and may require increasing thje hardware or scaling out Processor Interrupts/sec _Total  The average rate, in incidents per second, at which the processor received and serviced hardware interrupts. Shoulr be consistant over time but a sudden unexplained increase could indicate a device malfunction which can be confirmed using the System\Context Switches/sec counter Memory Pages/sec N/A Indicates the rate at which pages are read from or written to disk to resolve hard page faults. This counter is a primary indicator of the kinds of faults that cause system-wide delays, this is the primary counter to watch for indication of possible insufficient RAM to meet your server's needs. A good idea here is to configure a perfmon alert that triggers when the number of pages per second exceeds 50 per paging disk on your system. May also want to see the configuration of the page file on the Server Memory Available Mbytes N/A is the amount of physical memory, in bytes, available to processes running on the computer. if this counter is greater than 10% of the actual RAM in your machine then you probably have more than enough RAM. monitor it regularly to see if any downward trend develops, and set an alert to trigger if it drops below 2% of the installed RAM. Physical Disk Disk Transfers/sec for each physical disk If it goes above 10 disk I/Os per second then you've got poor response time for your disk. Physical Disk Idle Time _total If Disk Transfers/sec is above  25 disk I/Os per second use this counter. which measures the percent time that your hard disk is idle during the measurement interval, and if you see this counter fall below 20% then you've likely got read/write requests queuing up for your disk which is unable to service these requests in a timely fashion. Physical Disk Disk queue legnth For the OLAP and SQL physical disk A value that is consistently less than 2 means that the disk system is handling the IO requests against the physical disk Network Interface Bytes Total/sec For the NIC Should be monitored over a period of time to see if there is anb increase/decrease in network utilisation Network Interface Current Bandwidth For the NIC is an estimate of the current bandwidth of the network interface in bits per second (BPS). MSAS 2005: Memory Memory Limit High KB N/A Shows (as a percentage) the high memory limit configured for SSAS in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSAS10.MSSQLSERVER\OLAP\Config\msmdsrv.ini MSAS 2005: Memory Memory Limit Low KB N/A Shows (as a percentage) the low memory limit configured for SSAS in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSAS10.MSSQLSERVER\OLAP\Config\msmdsrv.ini MSAS 2005: Memory Memory Usage KB N/A Displays the memory usage of the server process. MSAS 2005: Memory File Store KB N/A Displays the amount of memory that is reserved for the Cache. Note if total memory limit in the msmdsrv.ini is set to 0, no memory is reserved for the cache MSAS 2005: Storage Engine Query Queries from Cache Direct / sec N/A Displays the rate of queries answered from the cache directly MSAS 2005: Storage Engine Query Queries from Cache Filtered / Sec N/A Displays the Rate of queries answered by filtering existing cache entry. MSAS 2005: Storage Engine Query Queries from File / Sec N/A Displays the Rate of queries answered from files. MSAS 2005: Storage Engine Query Average time /query N/A Displays the average time of a query MSAS 2005: Connection Current connections N/A Displays the number of connections against the SSAS instance MSAS 2005: Connection Requests / sec N/A Displays the rate of query requests per second MSAS 2005: Locks Current Lock Waits N/A Displays thhe number of connections waiting on a lock MSAS 2005: Threads Query Pool job queue Length N/A The number of queries in the job queue MSAS 2005:Proc Aggregations Temp file bytes written/sec N/A Shows the number of bytes of data processed in a temporary file MSAS 2005:Proc Aggregations Temp file rows written/sec N/A Shows the number of bytes of data processed in a temporary file 

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• What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

  - by jatin.thaker

  Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; John Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and John Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. John Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patanjali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardinian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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• Premature-Optimization and Performance Anxiety

  - by James Michael Hare

  While writing my post analyzing the new .NET 4 ConcurrentDictionary class (here), I fell into one of the classic blunders that I myself always love to warn about.  After analyzing the differences of time between a Dictionary with locking versus the new ConcurrentDictionary class, I noted that the ConcurrentDictionary was faster with read-heavy multi-threaded operations.  Then, I made the classic blunder of thinking that because the original Dictionary with locking was faster for those write-heavy uses, it was the best choice for those types of tasks.  In short, I fell into the premature-optimization anti-pattern. Basically, the premature-optimization anti-pattern is when a developer is coding very early for a perceived (whether rightly-or-wrongly) performance gain and sacrificing good design and maintainability in the process.  At best, the performance gains are usually negligible and at worst, can either negatively impact performance, or can degrade maintainability so much that time to market suffers or the code becomes very fragile due to the complexity. Keep in mind the distinction above.  I'm not talking about valid performance decisions.  There are decisions one should make when designing and writing an application that are valid performance decisions.  Examples of this are knowing the best data structures for a given situation (Dictionary versus List, for example) and choosing performance algorithms (linear search vs. binary search).  But these in my mind are macro optimizations.  The error is not in deciding to use a better data structure or algorithm, the anti-pattern as stated above is when you attempt to over-optimize early on in such a way that it sacrifices maintainability. In my case, I was actually considering trading the safety and maintainability gains of the ConcurrentDictionary (no locking required) for a slight performance gain by using the Dictionary with locking.  This would have been a mistake as I would be trading maintainability (ConcurrentDictionary requires no locking which helps readability) and safety (ConcurrentDictionary is safe for iteration even while being modified and you don't risk the developer locking incorrectly) -- and I fell for it even when I knew to watch out for it.  I think in my case, and it may be true for others as well, a large part of it was due to the time I was trained as a developer.  I began college in in the 90s when C and C++ was king and hardware speed and memory were still relatively priceless commodities and not to be squandered.  In those days, using a long instead of a short could waste precious resources, and as such, we were taught to try to minimize space and favor performance.  This is why in many cases such early code-bases were very hard to maintain.  I don't know how many times I heard back then to avoid too many function calls because of the overhead -- and in fact just last year I heard a new hire in the company where I work declare that she didn't want to refactor a long method because of function call overhead.  Now back then, that may have been a valid concern, but with today's modern hardware even if you're calling a trivial method in an extremely tight loop (which chances are the JIT compiler would optimize anyway) the results of removing method calls to speed up performance are negligible for the great majority of applications.  Now, obviously, there are those coding applications where speed is absolutely king (for example drivers, computer games, operating systems) where such sacrifices may be made.  But I would strongly advice against such optimization because of it's cost.  Many folks that are performing an optimization think it's always a win-win.  That they're simply adding speed to the application, what could possibly be wrong with that?  What they don't realize is the cost of their choice.  For every piece of straight-forward code that you obfuscate with performance enhancements, you risk the introduction of bugs in the long term technical debt of the application.  It will become so fragile over time that maintenance will become a nightmare.  I've seen such applications in places I have worked.  There are times I've seen applications where the designer was so obsessed with performance that they even designed their own memory management system for their application to try to squeeze out every ounce of performance.  Unfortunately, the application stability often suffers as a result and it is very difficult for anyone other than the original designer to maintain. I've even seen this recently where I heard a C++ developer bemoaning that in VS2010 the iterators are about twice as slow as they used to be because Microsoft added range checking (probably as part of the 0x standard implementation).  To me this was almost a joke.  Twice as slow sounds bad, but it almost never as bad as you think -- especially if you're gaining safety.  The only time twice is really that much slower is when once was too slow to begin with.  Think about it.  2 minutes is slow as a response time because 1 minute is slow.  But if an iterator takes 1 microsecond to move one position and a new, safer iterator takes 2 microseconds, this is trivial!  The only way you'd ever really notice this would be in iterating a collection just for the sake of iterating (i.e. no other operations).  To my mind, the added safety makes the extra time worth it. Always favor safety and maintainability when you can.  I know it can be a hard habit to break, especially if you started out your career early or in a language such as C where they are very performance conscious.  But in reality, these type of micro-optimizations only end up hurting you in the long run. Remember the two laws of optimization.  I'm not sure where I first heard these, but they are so true: For beginners: Do not optimize. For experts: Do not optimize yet. This is so true.  If you're a beginner, resist the urge to optimize at all costs.  And if you are an expert, delay that decision.  As long as you have chosen the right data structures and algorithms for your task, your performance will probably be more than sufficient.  Chances are it will be network, database, or disk hits that will be your slow-down, not your code.  As they say, 98% of your code's bottleneck is in 2% of your code so premature-optimization may add maintenance and safety debt that won't have any measurable impact.  Instead, code for maintainability and safety, and then, and only then, when you find a true bottleneck, then you should go back and optimize further.

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• What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

  - by Applications User Experience

  Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; Jonathan Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and Jonathan Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. Jonathan Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patnajali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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• SQL SERVER – SSIS Look Up Component – Cache Mode – Notes from the Field #028

  - by Pinal Dave

  [Notes from Pinal]: Lots of people think that SSIS is all about arranging various operations together in one logical flow. Well, the understanding is absolutely correct, but the implementation of the same is not as easy as it seems. Similarly most of the people think lookup component is just component which does look up for additional information and does not pay much attention to it. Due to the same reason they do not pay attention to the same and eventually get very bad performance. Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. In this 28th episode of the Notes from the Fields series database expert Tim Mitchell (partner at Linchpin People) shares very interesting conversation related to how to write a good lookup component with Cache Mode. In SQL Server Integration Services, the lookup component is one of the most frequently used tools for data validation and completion.  The lookup component is provided as a means to virtually join one set of data to another to validate and/or retrieve missing values.  Properly configured, it is reliable and reasonably fast. Among the many settings available on the lookup component, one of the most critical is the cache mode.  This selection will determine whether and how the distinct lookup values are cached during package execution.  It is critical to know how cache modes affect the result of the lookup and the performance of the package, as choosing the wrong setting can lead to poorly performing packages, and in some cases, incorrect results. Full Cache The full cache mode setting is the default cache mode selection in the SSIS lookup transformation.  Like the name implies, full cache mode will cause the lookup transformation to retrieve and store in SSIS cache the entire set of data from the specified lookup location.  As a result, the data flow in which the lookup transformation resides will not start processing any data buffers until all of the rows from the lookup query have been cached in SSIS. The most commonly used cache mode is the full cache setting, and for good reason.  The full cache setting has the most practical applications, and should be considered the go-to cache setting when dealing with an untested set of data. With a moderately sized set of reference data, a lookup transformation using full cache mode usually performs well.  Full cache mode does not require multiple round trips to the database, since the entire reference result set is cached prior to data flow execution. There are a few potential gotchas to be aware of when using full cache mode.  First, you can see some performance issues – memory pressure in particular – when using full cache mode against large sets of reference data.  If the table you use for the lookup is very large (either deep or wide, or perhaps both), there’s going to be a performance cost associated with retrieving and caching all of that data.  Also, keep in mind that when doing a lookup on character data, full cache mode will always do a case-sensitive (and in some cases, space-sensitive) string comparison even if your database is set to a case-insensitive collation.  This is because the in-memory lookup uses a .NET string comparison (which is case- and space-sensitive) as opposed to a database string comparison (which may be case sensitive, depending on collation).  There’s a relatively easy workaround in which you can use the UPPER() or LOWER() function in the pipeline data and the reference data to ensure that case differences do not impact the success of your lookup operation.  Again, neither of these present a reason to avoid full cache mode, but should be used to determine whether full cache mode should be used in a given situation. Full cache mode is ideally useful when one or all of the following conditions exist: The size of the reference data set is small to moderately sized The size of the pipeline data set (the data you are comparing to the lookup table) is large, is unknown at design time, or is unpredictable Each distinct key value(s) in the pipeline data set is expected to be found multiple times in that set of data Partial Cache When using the partial cache setting, lookup values will still be cached, but only as each distinct value is encountered in the data flow.  Initially, each distinct value will be retrieved individually from the specified source, and then cached.  To be clear, this is a row-by-row lookup for each distinct key value(s). This is a less frequently used cache setting because it addresses a narrower set of scenarios.  Because each distinct key value(s) combination requires a relational round trip to the lookup source, performance can be an issue, especially with a large pipeline data set to be compared to the lookup data set.  If you have, for example, a million records from your pipeline data source, you have the potential for doing a million lookup queries against your lookup data source (depending on the number of distinct values in the key column(s)).  Therefore, one has to be keenly aware of the expected row count and value distribution of the pipeline data to safely use partial cache mode. Using partial cache mode is ideally suited for the conditions below: The size of the data in the pipeline (more specifically, the number of distinct key column) is relatively small The size of the lookup data is too large to effectively store in cache The lookup source is well indexed to allow for fast retrieval of row-by-row values No Cache As you might guess, selecting no cache mode will not add any values to the lookup cache in SSIS.  As a result, every single row in the pipeline data set will require a query against the lookup source.  Since no data is cached, it is possible to save a small amount of overhead in SSIS memory in cases where key values are not reused.  In the real world, I don’t see a lot of use of the no cache setting, but I can imagine some edge cases where it might be useful. As such, it’s critical to know your data before choosing this option.  Obviously, performance will be an issue with anything other than small sets of data, as the no cache setting requires row-by-row processing of all of the data in the pipeline. I would recommend considering the no cache mode only when all of the below conditions are true: The reference data set is too large to reasonably be loaded into SSIS memory The pipeline data set is small and is not expected to grow There are expected to be very few or no duplicates of the key values(s) in the pipeline data set (i.e., there would be no benefit from caching these values) Conclusion The cache mode, an often-overlooked setting on the SSIS lookup component, represents an important design decision in your SSIS data flow.  Choosing the right lookup cache mode directly impacts the fidelity of your results and the performance of package execution.  Know how this selection impacts your ETL loads, and you’ll end up with more reliable, faster packages. If you want me to take a look at your server and its settings, or if your server is facing any issue we can Fix Your SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: SSIS

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• Summit Time!

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  Boy, how time flies!  I can hardly believe that the 2011 PASS Summit is just one week away.  Maybe it snuck up on me because it’s a few weeks earlier than last year.  Whatever the cause, I am really looking forward to next week.  The PASS Summit is the largest SQL Server conference in the world and a fantastic networking opportunity thrown in for no additional charge.  Here are a few thoughts to help you maximize the week. Networking As Karen Lopez (blog | @DataChick) mentioned in her presentation for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter just a couple of weeks ago, “Don’t wait until you need a new job to start networking.”  You should always be working on your professional network.  Some people, especially technical-minded people, get confused by the term networking.  The first image that used to pop into my head was the image of some guy standing, awkwardly, off to the side of a cocktail party, trying to shmooze those around him.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  If you’re good at that sort of thing, and you can strike up a conversation with some stranger and learn all about them in 5 minutes, and walk away with your next business deal all but approved by the lawyers, then congratulations.  But if you’re not, and most of us are not, I have two suggestions for you.  First, register for Don Gabor’s 2-hour session on Tuesday at the Summit called Networking to Build Business Contacts.  Don is a master at small talk, and at teaching others, and in just those two short hours will help you with important tips about breaking the ice, remembering names, and smooth transitions into and out of conversations.  Then go put that great training to work right away at the Tuesday night Welcome Reception and meet some new people; which is really my second suggestion…just meet a few new people.  You see, “networking” is about meeting new people and being friendly without trying to “work it” to get something out of the relationship at this point.  In fact, Don will tell you that a better way to build the connection with someone is to look for some way that you can help them, not how they can help you. There are a ton of opportunities as long as you follow this one key point: Don’t stay in your hotel!  At the least, get out and go to the free events such as the Tuesday night Welcome Reception, the Wednesday night Exhibitor Reception, and the Thursday night Community Appreciation Party.  All three of these are perfect opportunities to meet other professionals with a similar job or interest as you, and you never know how that may help you out in the future.  Maybe you just meet someone to say HI to at breakfast the next day instead of eating alone.  Or maybe you cross paths several times throughout the Summit and compare notes on different sessions you attended.  And you just might make new friends that you look forward to seeing year after year at the Summit.  Who knows, it might even turn out that you have some specific experience that will help out that other person a few months’ from now when they run into the same challenge that you just overcame, or vice-versa.  But the point is, if you don’t get out and meet people, you’ll never have the chance for anything else to happen in the future. One more tip for shy attendees of the Summit…if you can’t bring yourself to strike up conversation with strangers at these events, then at the least, after you sit through a good session that helps you out, go up to the speaker and introduce yourself and thank them for taking the time and effort to put together their presentation.  Ideally, when you do this, tell them WHY it was beneficial to you (e.g. “Now I have a new idea of how to tackle a problem back at the office.”)  I know you think the speakers are all full of confidence and are always receiving a ton of accolades and applause, but you’re wrong.  Most of them will be very happy to hear first-hand that all the work they put into getting ready for their presentation is paying off for somebody. Training With over 170 technical sessions at the Summit, training is what it’s all about, and the training is fantastic!  Of course there are the big-name trainers like Paul Randall, Kimberly Tripp, Kalen Delaney, Itzik Ben-Gan and several others, but I am always impressed by the quality of the training put on by so many other “regular” members of the SQL Server community.  It is amazing how you don’t have to be a published author or otherwise recognized as an “expert” in an area in order to make a big impact on others just by sharing your personal experience and lessons learned.  I would rather hear the story of, and lessons learned from, “some guy or gal” who has actually been through an issue and came out the other side, than I would a trained professor who is speaking just from theory or an intellectual understanding of a topic. In addition to the three full days of regular sessions, there are also two days of pre-conference intensive training available.  There is an extra cost to this, but it is a fantastic opportunity.  Think about it…you’re already coming to this area for training, so why not extend your stay a little bit and get some in-depth training on a particular topic or two?  I did this for the first time last year.  I attended one day of extra training and it was well worth the time and money.  One of the best reasons for it is that I am extremely busy at home with my regular job and family, that it was hard to carve out the time to learn about the topic on my own.  It worked out so well last year that I am doubling up and doing two days or “pre-cons” this year. And then there are the DVDs.  I think these are another great option.  I used the online schedule builder to get ready and have an idea of which sessions I want to attend and when they are (much better than trying to figure this out at the last minute every day).  But the problem that I have run into (seems this happens every year) is that nearly every session block has two different sessions that I would like to attend.  And some of them have three!  ACK!  That won’t work!  What is a guy supposed to do?  Well, one option is to purchase the DVDs which are recordings of the audio and projected images from each session so you can continue to attend sessions long after the Summit is officially over.  Yes, many (possibly all) of these also get posted online and attendees can access those for no extra charge, but those are not necessarily all available as quickly as the DVD recording are, and the DVDs are often more convenient than downloading, especially if you want to share the training with someone who was not able to attend in person. Remember, I don’t make any money or get any other benefit if you buy the DVDs or from anything else that I have recommended here.  These are just my own thoughts, trying to help out based on my experiences from the 8 or so Summits I have attended.  There is nothing like the Summit.  It is an awesome experience, fantastic training, and a whole lot of fun which is just compounded if you’ll take advantage of the first part of this article and make some new friends along the way.

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• 5 Best Practices - Laying the Foundation for WebCenter Projects

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Today’s guest post comes from Oracle WebCenter expert John Brunswick. John specializes in enterprise portal and content management solutions and actively contributes to the enterprise software business community and has authored a series of articles about optimal business involvement in portal, business process management and SOA development, examining ways of helping organizations move away from monolithic application development. We’re happy to have John join us today! Maximizing success with Oracle WebCenter portal requires a strategic understanding of Oracle WebCenter capabilities.  The following best practices enable the creation of portal solutions with minimal resource overhead, while offering the greatest flexibility for progressive elaboration. They are inherently project agnostic, enabling a strong foundation for future growth and an expedient return on your investment in the platform.  If you are able to embrace even only a few of these practices, you will materially improve your deployment capability with WebCenter. 1. Segment Duties Around 3Cs - Content, Collaboration and Contextual Data "Agility" is one of the most common business benefits touted by modern web platforms.  It sounds good - who doesn't want to be Agile, right?  How exactly IT organizations go about supplying agility to their business counterparts often lacks definition - hamstrung by ambiguity. Ultimately, businesses want to benefit from reduced development time to deliver a solution to a particular constituent, which is augmented by as much self-service as possible to develop and manage the solution directly. All done in the absence of direct IT involvement. With Oracle WebCenter's depth in the areas of content management, pallet of native collaborative services, enterprise mashup capability and delegated administration, it is very possible to execute on this business vision at a technical level. To realize the benefits of the platform depth we can think of Oracle WebCenter's segmentation of duties along the lines of the 3 Cs - Content, Collaboration and Contextual Data.  All three of which can have their foundations developed by IT, then provisioned to the business on a per role basis. Content – Oracle WebCenter benefits from an extremely mature content repository.  Work flow, audit, notification, office integration and conversion capabilities for documents (HTML & PDF) make this a haven for business users to take control of content within external and internal portals, custom applications and web sites.  When deploying WebCenter portal take time to think of areas in which IT can provide the "harness" for content to reside, then allow the business to manage any content items within the site, using the content foundation to ensure compliance with business rules and process.  This frees IT to work on more mission critical challenges and allows the business to respond in short order to emerging market needs. Collaboration – Native collaborative services and WebCenter spaces are a perfect match for business users who are looking to enable document sharing, discussions and social networking.  The ability to deploy the services is granular and on the basis of roles scoped to given areas of the system - much like the first C “content”.  This enables business analysts to design the roles required and IT to provision with peace of mind that users leveraging the collaborative services are only able to do so in explicitly designated areas of a site. Bottom line - business will not need to wait for IT, but cannot go outside of the scope that has been defined based on their roles. Contextual Data – Collaborative capabilities are most powerful when included within the context of business data.  The ability to supply business users with decision shaping data that they can include in various parts of a portal or portals, just as they would with content items, is one of the most powerful aspects of Oracle WebCenter.  Imagine a discussion about new store selection for a retail chain that re-purposes existing information from business intelligence services about various potential locations and or custom backend systems - presenting it directly in the context of the discussion.  If there are some data sources that are preexisting in your enterprise take a look at how they can be made into discrete offerings within the portal, then scoped to given business user roles for inclusion within collaborative activities. 2. Think Generically, Execute Specifically Constructs.  Anyone who has spent much time around me knows that I am obsessed with this word.  Why? Because Constructs offer immense power - more than APIs, Web Services or other technical capability. Constructs offer organizations the ability to leverage a platform's native characteristics to offer substantial business functionality - without writing code.  This concept becomes more powerful with the additional understanding of the concepts from the platform that an organization learns over time.  Let's take a look at an example of where an Oracle WebCenter construct can substantially reduce the time to get a subscription-based site out the door and into the hands of the end consumer. Imagine a site that allows members to subscribe to specific disciplines to access information and application data around that various discipline.  A space is a collection of secured pages within Oracle WebCenter.  Spaces are not only secured, but also default content stored within it to be scoped automatically to that space. Taking this a step further, Oracle WebCenter’s Activity Stream surfaces events, discussions and other activities that are scoped to the given user on the basis of their space affiliations.  In order to have a portal that would allow users to "subscribe" to information around various disciplines - spaces could be used out of the box to achieve this capability and without using any APIs or low level technical work to achieve this. 3. Make Governance Work for You Imagine driving down the street without the painted lines on the road.  The rules of the road are so ingrained in our minds, we often do not think about the process, but seemingly mundane lane markers are critical enablers. Lane markers allow us to travel at speeds that would be impossible if not for the agreed upon direction of flow. Additionally and more importantly, it allows people to act autonomously - going where they please at any given time. The return on the investment for mobility is high enough for people to buy into globally agreed up governance processes. In Oracle WebCenter we can use similar enablers to lane markers.  Our goal should be to enable the flow of information and provide end users with the ability to arrive at business solutions as needed, not on the basis of cumbersome processes that cannot meet the business needs in a timely fashion. How do we do this? Just as with "Segmentation of Duties" Oracle WebCenter technologies offer the opportunity to compartmentalize various business initiatives from each other within the system due to constructs and security that are available to use within the platform. For instance, when a WebCenter space is created, any content added within that space by default will be secured to that particular space and inherits meta data that is associated with a folder created for the space. Oracle WebCenter content uses meta data to support a broad range of rich ECM functionality and can automatically impart retention, workflow and other policies automatically on the basis of what has been defaulted for that space. Depending on your business needs, this paradigm will also extend to sub sections of a space, offering some interesting possibilities to enable automated management around content. An example may be press releases within a particular area of an extranet that require a five year retention period and need to the reviewed by marketing and legal before release.  The underlying content system will transparently take care of this process on the basis of the above rules, enabling peace of mind over unstructured data - which could otherwise become overwhelming. 4. Make Your First Project Your Second Imagine if Michael Phelps was competing in a swimming championship, but told right before his race that he had to use a brand new stroke.  There is no doubt that Michael is an outstanding swimmer, but chances are that he would like to have some time to get acquainted with the new stroke. New technologies should not be treated any differently.  Before jumping into the deep end it helps to take time to get to know the new approach - even though you may have been swimming thousands of times before. To quickly get a handle on Oracle WebCenter capabilities it can be helpful to deploy a sandbox for the team to use to share project documents, discussions and announcements in an effort to help the actual deployment get under way, while increasing everyone’s knowledge of the platform and its functionality that may be helpful down the road. Oracle Technology Network has made a pre-configured virtual machine available for download that can be a great starting point for this exercise. 5. Get to Know the Community If you are reading this blog post you have most certainly faced a software decision or challenge that was solved on the basis of a small piece of missing critical information - which took substantial research to discover.  Chances were also good that somewhere, someone had already come across this information and would have been excited to share it. There is no denying the power of passionate, connected users, sharing key tips around technology.  The Oracle WebCenter brand has a rich heritage that includes industry-leading technology and practitioners.  With the new Oracle WebCenter brand, opportunities to connect with these experts has become easier. Oracle WebCenter Blog Oracle Social Enterprise LinkedIn WebCenter Group Oracle WebCenter Twitter Oracle WebCenter Facebook Oracle User Groups Additionally, there are various Oracle WebCenter related blogs by an excellent grouping of services partners.

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• Retrieving a list of eBay categories using the .NET SDK and GetCategoriesCall

  - by Bill Osuch

  eBay offers a .Net SDK for its Trading API - this post will show you the basics of making an API call and retrieving a list of current categories. You'll need the category ID(s) for any apps that post or search eBay. To start, download the latest SDK from https://www.x.com/developers/ebay/documentation-tools/sdks/dotnet and create a new console app project. Add a reference to the eBay.Service DLL, and a few using statements: using eBay.Service.Call; using eBay.Service.Core.Sdk; using eBay.Service.Core.Soap; I'm assuming at this point you've already joined the eBay Developer Network and gotten your app IDs and user tokens. If not: Join the developer program Generate tokens Next, add an app.config file that looks like this: <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration>   <appSettings>     <add key="Environment.ApiServerUrl" value="https://api.ebay.com/wsapi"/>     <add key="UserAccount.ApiToken" value="YourBigLongToken"/>   </appSettings> </configuration> And then add the code to get the xml list of categories: ApiContext apiContext = GetApiContext(); GetCategoriesCall apiCall = new GetCategoriesCall(apiContext); apiCall.CategorySiteID = "0"; //Leave this commented out to retrieve all category levels (all the way down): //apiCall.LevelLimit = 4; //Uncomment this to begin at a specific parent category: //StringCollection parentCategories = new StringCollection(); //parentCategories.Add("63"); //apiCall.CategoryParent = parentCategories; apiCall.DetailLevelList.Add(DetailLevelCodeType.ReturnAll); CategoryTypeCollection cats = apiCall.GetCategories(); using (StreamWriter outfile = new StreamWriter(@"C:\Temp\EbayCategories.xml")) {    outfile.Write(apiCall.SoapResponse); } GetApiContext() (provided in the sample apps in the SDK) is required for any call:         static ApiContext GetApiContext()         {             //apiContext is a singleton,             //to avoid duplicate configuration reading             if (apiContext != null)             {                 return apiContext;             }             else             {                 apiContext = new ApiContext();                 //set Api Server Url                 apiContext.SoapApiServerUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Environment.ApiServerUrl"];                 //set Api Token to access eBay Api Server                 ApiCredential apiCredential = new ApiCredential();                 apiCredential.eBayToken = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["UserAccount.ApiToken"];                 apiContext.ApiCredential = apiCredential;                 //set eBay Site target to US                 apiContext.Site = SiteCodeType.US;                 return apiContext;             }         } Running this will give you a large (4 or 5 megs) XML file that looks something like this: <soapenv:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">    <soapenv:Body>       <GetCategoriesResponse >          <Timestamp>2012-06-06T16:03:46.158Z</Timestamp>          <Ack>Success</Ack>          <CorrelationID>d02dd9e3-295a-4268-9ea5-554eeb2e0e18</CorrelationID>          <Version>775</Version>          <Build>E775_CORE_BUNDLED_14891042_R1</Build> -          <CategoryArray>             <Category>                <BestOfferEnabled>true</BestOfferEnabled>                <AutoPayEnabled>true</AutoPayEnabled>                <CategoryID>20081</CategoryID>                <CategoryLevel>1</CategoryLevel>                <CategoryName>Antiques</CategoryName>                <CategoryParentID>20081</CategoryParentID>             </Category>             <Category>                <BestOfferEnabled>true</BestOfferEnabled>                <AutoPayEnabled>true</AutoPayEnabled>                <CategoryID>37903</CategoryID>                <CategoryLevel>2</CategoryLevel>                <CategoryName>Antiquities</CategoryName>                <CategoryParentID>20081</CategoryParentID>             </Category> (etc.) You could work with this, but I wanted a nicely nested view, like this: <CategoryArray>    <Category Name='Antiques' ID='20081' Level='1'>       <Category Name='Antiquities' ID='37903' Level='2'/> </CategoryArray> ...so I transformed the xml: private void TransformXML(CategoryTypeCollection cats)         {             XmlElement topLevelElement = null;             XmlElement childLevelElement = null;             XmlNode parentNode = null;             string categoryString = "";             XmlDocument returnDoc = new XmlDocument();             XmlElement root = returnDoc.CreateElement("CategoryArray");             returnDoc.AppendChild(root);             XmlNode rootNode = returnDoc.SelectSingleNode("/CategoryArray");             //Loop through CategoryTypeCollection             foreach (CategoryType category in cats)             {                 if (category.CategoryLevel == 1)                 {                     //Top-level category, so we know we can just add it                     topLevelElement = returnDoc.CreateElement("Category");                     topLevelElement.SetAttribute("Name", category.CategoryName);                     topLevelElement.SetAttribute("ID", category.CategoryID);                     rootNode.AppendChild(topLevelElement);                 }                 else                 {                     // Level number will determine how many Category nodes we are deep                     categoryString = "";                     for (int x = 1; x < category.CategoryLevel; x++)                     {                         categoryString += "/Category";                     }                     parentNode = returnDoc.SelectSingleNode("/CategoryArray" + categoryString + "[@ID='" + category.CategoryParentID[0] + "']");                     childLevelElement = returnDoc.CreateElement("Category");                     childLevelElement.SetAttribute("Name", category.CategoryName);                     childLevelElement.SetAttribute("ID", category.CategoryID);                     parentNode.AppendChild(childLevelElement);                 }             }             returnDoc.Save(@"C:\Temp\EbayCategories-Modified.xml");         } Yes, there are probably much cleaner ways of dealing with it, but I'm not an xml expert… Keep in mind, eBay categories do not change on a regular basis, so you should be able to cache this data (either in a file or database) for some time. The xml returns a CategoryVersion node that you can use to determine if the category list has changed. Technorati Tags: Csharp, eBay

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• Conducting Effective Web Meetings

  - by BuckWoody

  There are several forms of corporate communication. From immediate, rich communications like phones and IM messaging to historical transactions like e-mail, there are a lot of ways to get information to one or more people. From time to time, it's even useful to have a meeting. (This is where a witty picture of a guy sleeping in a meeting goes. I won't bother actually putting one here; you're already envisioning it in your mind) Most meetings are pointless, and a complete waste of time. This is the fault, completely and solely, of the organizer. It's because he or she hasn't thought things through enough to think about alternate forms of information passing. Here's the criteria for a good meeting - whether in-person or over the web: 100% of the content of a meeting should require the participation of 100% of the attendees for 100% of the time It doesn't get any simpler than that. If it doesn't meet that criteria, then don't invite that person to that meeting. If you're just conveying information and no one has the need for immediate interaction with that information (like telling you something that modifies the message), then send an e-mail. If you're a manager, and you need to get status from lots of people, pick up the phone.If you need a quick answer, use IM. I once had a high-level manager that called frequent meetings. His real need was status updates on various processes, so 50 of us would sit in a room while he asked each one of us questions. He believed this larger meeting helped us "cross pollinate ideas". In fact, it was a complete waste of time for most everyone, except in the one or two moments that they interacted with him. So I wrote some code for a Palm Pilot (which was a kind of SmartPhone but with no phone and no real graphics, but this was in the days when we had just discovered fire and the wheel, although the order of those things is still in debate) that took an average of the salaries of the people in the room (I guessed at it) and ran a timer which multiplied the number of people against the salaries. I left that running in plain sight for him, and when he asked about it, I explained how much the meetings were really costing the company. We had far fewer meetings after. Meetings are now web-enabled. I believe that's largely a good thing, since it saves on travel time and allows more people to participate, but I think the rule above still holds. And in fact, there are some other rules that you should follow to have a great meeting - and fewer of them. Be Clear About the Goal This is important in any meeting, but all of us have probably gotten an invite with a web link and an ambiguous title. Then you get to the meeting, and it's a 500-level deep-dive on something everyone expects you to know. This is unfair to the "expert" and to the participants. I always tell people that invite me to a meeting that I will be as detailed as I can - but the more detail they can tell me about the questions, the more detailed I can be in my responses. Granted, there are times when you don't know what you don't know, but the more you can say about the topic the better. There's another point here - and it's that you should have a clearly defined "win" for the meeting. When the meeting is over, and everyone goes back to work, what were you expecting them to do with the information? Have that clearly defined in your head, and in the meeting invite. Understand the Technology There are several web-meeting clients out there. I use them all, since I meet with clients all over the world. They all work differently - so I take a few moments and read up on the different clients and find out how I can use the tools properly. I do this with the technology I use for everything else, and it's important to understand it if the meeting is to be a success. If you're running the meeting, know the tools. I don't care if you like the tools or not, learn them anyway. Don't waste everyone else's time just because you're too bitter/snarky/lazy to spend a few minutes reading. Check your phone or mic. Check your video size. Install (and learn to use)  ZoomIT (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx). Format your slides or screen or output correctly. Learn to use the voting features of the meeting software, and especially it's whiteboard features. Figure out how multiple monitors work. Try a quick meeting with someone to test all this. Do this *before* you invite lots of other people to your meeting.   Use a WebCam I'm not a pretty man. I have a face fit for radio. But after attending a meeting with clients where one Microsoft person used a webcam and another did not, I'm convinced that people pay more attention when a face is involved. There are tons of studies around this, or you can take my word for it, but toss a shirt on over those pajamas and turn the webcam on. Set Up Early Whether you're attending or leading the meeting, don't wait to sign on to the meeting at the time when it starts. I can almost plan that a 10:00 meeting will actually start at 10:10 because the participants/leader is just now installing the web client for the meeting at 10:00. Sign on early, go on mute, and then wait for everyone to arrive. Mute When Not Talking No one wants to hear your screaming offspring / yappy dog / other cubicle conversations / car wind noise (are you driving in a desert storm or something?) while the person leading the meeting is trying to talk. I use the Lync software from Microsoft for my meetings, and I mute everyone by default, and then tell them to un-mute to talk to the group. Share Collateral If you have a PowerPoint deck, mail it out in case you have a tech failure. If you have a document, share it as an attachment to the meeting. Don't make people ask you for the information - that's why you're there to begin with. Even better, send it out early. "But", you say, "then no one will come to the meeting if they have the deck first!" Uhm, then don't have a meeting. Send out the deck and a quick e-mail and let everyone get on with their productive day. Set Actions At the Meeting A meeting should have some sort of outcome (see point one). That means there are actions to take, a follow up, or some deliverable. Otherwise, it's an e-mail. At the meeting, decide who will do what, when things are needed, and so on. And avoid, if at all possible, setting up another meeting, unless absolutely necessary. So there you have it. Whether it's on-premises or on the web, meetings are a necessary evil, and should be treated that way. Like politicians, you should have as few of them as are necessary to keep the roads paved and public libraries open.

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• First PC Build (Part 1)

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2014/08/05/157959.aspxA couple of months ago I made the decision to build myself a new computer. The intended use is gaming and for using the last real version of Photoshop. I was motivated by the poor state of console gaming and a simple desire to do something I haven’t done before – build a PC from the ground up. I’ve been using PCs for more than two decades. I’ve replaced a component hear and there, but for the last 10 years or so I’ve only used laptops. Therefore, this article will be written from the perspective of someone familiar with PCs, but completely new at building. I’m not an expert and this is not a definitive guide for building a PC, but I do hope that it encourages you to try it yourself. Component List Research There was a lot of research necessary, because building a PC is completely new to me, and I haven’t kept up with what’s out there. The first thing you want to do is nail down what your goals are. Your goals are going to be driven by what you want to do with your computer and personal choice. Don’t neglect the second one, because if you’re doing this for fun you want to get what you want. In my case, I focused on three things: performance, longevity, and aesthetics. The performance aspect is important for gaming and Photoshop. This will drive what components you get. For example, heavy gaming use is going to drive your choice of graphics card. Longevity is relevant to me, because I don’t want to be changing things out anytime soon for the next hot game. The consequence of performance and longevity is cost. Finally, aesthetics was my next consideration. I could have just built a box, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun for me. Aesthetics might not be important to you. They are for me. I also like gadgets and that played into at least one purchase for this build. I used PC Part Picker to put together my component list. I found it invaluable during the process and I’d recommend it to everyone. One caveat is that I wouldn’t trust the compatibility aspects. It does a pretty good job of not steering you wrong, but do your own research. The rest of it isn’t really sexy. I started out with what appealed to me and then I made changes and additions as I dived deep into researching each component and interaction I could find. The resources I used are innumerable. I used reviews, product descriptions, forum posts (praises and problems), et al. to assist me. I also asked friends into gaming what they thought about my component list. And when I got near the end I posted my list to the Reddit /r/buildapc forum. I cannot stress the value of extra sets of eyeballs and first hand experiences. Some of the resources I used: PC Part Picker Tom’s Hardware bit-tech Reddit Purchase PC Part Picker favors certain vendors. You should look at others too. In my case I found their favorites to be the best. My priorities were out-the-door price and shipping time. I knew that once I started getting parts I’d want to start building. Luckily, I timed it well and everything arrived within the span of a few days. Here are my opinions on the vendors I ended up using in alphabetical order. Amazon.com is a good, reliable choice. They have excellent customer service in my experience, and I knew I wouldn’t have trouble with them. However, shipping time is often a problem when you use their free shipping unless you order expensive items (I’ve found items over $100 ship quickly). Ultimately though, price wasn’t always the best and their collection of sales tax in my state turned me off them. I did purchase my case from them. I ordered the mouse as well, but I cancelled after it was stuck four days in a “shipping soon” state. I purchased the mouse locally. Best Buy is not my favorite place to do business. There’s a lot of history with poor, uninterested sales representatives and they used to have a lot of bad anti-consumer policies. That’s a lot better now, but the bad taste is still in my mouth. I ended up purchasing the accessories from them including mouse (locally) and headphones. NCIX is a company that I’ve never heard of before. It popped up as a recommendation for my CPU cooler on PC Part Picker. I didn’t do a lot of research on the company, because their policy on you buying insurance for your orders turned me off. That policy makes it clear to me that the company finds me responsible for the shipment once it leaves their dock. That’s not right, and may run afoul of state laws. Regardless they shipped my CPU cooler quickly and I didn’t have a problem. NewEgg.com is a well known company. I had never done business with them, but I’m glad I did. They shipped quickly and provided good visibility over everything. The prices were also the best in most cases. My main complaint is that they have a lot of exchange only return policies on components. To their credit those policies are listed in the cart underneath each item. The visibility tells me that they’re not playing any shenanigans and made me comfortable dealing with that risk. The vast majority of what I ordered came from them. Coming Next In the next part I’ll tackle my build experience.

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• At times, you need to hire a professional.

  - by Phil Factor

  After months of increasingly demanding toil, the development team I belonged to was told that the project was to be canned and the whole team would be fired.  I’d been brought into the team as an expert in the data implications of a business re-engineering of a major financial institution. Nowadays, you’d call me a data architect, I suppose.  I’d spent a happy year being paid consultancy fees solving a succession of interesting problems until the point when the company lost is nerve, and closed the entire initiative. The IT industry was in one of its characteristic mood-swings downwards.  After the announcement, we met in the canteen. A few developers had scented the smell of death around the project already hand had been applying unsuccessfully for jobs. There was a sense of doom in the mass of dishevelled and bleary-eyed developers. After giving vent to anger and despair, talk turned to getting new employment. It was then that I perked up. I’m not an obvious choice to give advice on getting, or passing,  IT interviews. I reckon I’ve failed most of the job interviews I’ve ever attended. I once even failed an interview for a job I’d already been doing perfectly well for a year. The jobs I’ve got have mostly been from personal recommendation. Paradoxically though, from years as a manager trying to recruit good staff, I know a lot about what IT managers are looking for.  I gave an impassioned speech outlining the important factors in getting to an interview.  The most important thing, certainly in my time at work is the quality of the résumé or CV. I can’t even guess the huge number of CVs (résumés) I’ve read through, scanning for candidates worth interviewing.  Many IT Developers find it impossible to describe their  career succinctly on two sides of paper.  They leave chunks of their life out (were they in prison?), get immersed in detail, put in irrelevancies, describe what was going on at work rather than what they themselves did, exaggerate their importance, criticize their previous employers, aren’t  aware of the important aspects of a role to a potential employer, suffer from shyness and modesty,  and lack any sort of organized perspective of their work. There are many ways of failing to write a decent CV. Many developers suffer from the delusion that their worth can be recognized purely from the code that they write, and shy away from anything that seems like self-aggrandizement. No.  A resume must make a good impression, which means presenting the facts about yourself in a clear and positive way. You can’t do it yourself. Why not have your resume professionally written? A good professional CV Writer will know the qualities being looked for in a CV and interrogate you to winkle them out. Their job is to make order and sense out of a confused career, to summarize in one page a mass of detail that presents to any recruiter the information that’s wanted. To stand back and describe an accurate summary of your skills, and work-experiences dispassionately, without rancor, pity or modesty. You are no more capable of producing an objective documentation of your career than you are of taking your own appendix out.  My next recommendation was more controversial. This is to have a professional image overhaul, or makeover, followed by a professionally-taken photo portrait. I discovered this by accident. It is normal for IT professionals to face impossible deadlines and long working hours by looking more and more like something that had recently blocked a sink. Whilst working in IT, and in a state of personal dishevelment, I’d been offered the role in a high-powered amateur production of an old ex- Broadway show, purely for my singing voice. I was supposed to be the presentable star. When the production team saw me, the air was thick with tension and despair. I was dragged kicking and protesting through a succession of desperate grooming, scrubbing, dressing, dieting. I emerged feeling like “That jewelled mass of millinery, That oiled and curled Assyrian bull, Smelling of musk and of insolence.” (Tennyson Maud; A Monodrama (1855) Section v1 stanza 6) I was then photographed by a professional stage photographer.  When the photographs were delivered, I was amazed. It wasn’t me, but it looked somehow respectable, confident, trustworthy.   A while later, when the show had ended, I took the photos, and used them for work. They went with the CV to job applications. It did the trick better than I could ever imagine.  My views went down big with the developers. Old rivalries were put immediately to one side. We voted, with a show of hands, to devote our energies for the entire notice period to getting employable. We had a team sourcing the CV Writer,  a team organising the make-overs and photographer, and a third team arranging  mock interviews. A fourth team determined the best websites and agencies for recruitment, with the help of friends in the trade.  Because there were around thirty developers, we were in a good negotiating position.  Of the three CV Writers we found who lived locally, one proved exceptional. She was an ex-journalist with an eye to detail, and years of experience in manipulating language. We tried her skills out on a developer who seemed a hopeless case, and he was called to interview within a week.  I was surprised, too, how many companies were experts at image makeovers. Within the month, we all looked like those weird slick  people in the ‘Office-tagged’ stock photographs who stare keenly and interestedly at PowerPoint slides in sleek chromium-plated high-rise offices. The portraits we used still adorn the entries of many of my ex-colleagues in LinkedIn. After a months’ worth of mock interviews, and technical Q&A, our stutters, hesitations, evasions and periphrastic circumlocutions were all gone.  There is little more to relate. With the résumés or CVs, mugshots, and schooling in how to pass interviews, we’d all got new and better-paid jobs well  before our month’s notice was ended. Whilst normally, an IT team under the axe is a sad and depressed place to belong to, this wonderful group of people had proved the power of organized group action in turning the experience to advantage. It left us feeling slightly guilty that we were somehow cheating, but I guess we were merely leveling the playing-field.

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• JPA 2.1 Schema Generation (TOTD #187)

  - by arungupta

  This blog explained some of the key features of JPA 2.1 earlier. Since then Schema Generation has been added to JPA 2.1. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will provide more details about this new feature in JPA 2.1. Schema Generation refers to generation of database artifacts like tables, indexes, and constraints in a database schema. It may or may not involve generation of a proper database schema depending upon the credentials and authorization of the user. This helps in prototyping of your application where the required artifacts are generated either prior to application deployment or as part of EntityManagerFactory creation. This is also useful in environments that require provisioning database on demand, e.g. in a cloud. This feature will allow your JPA domain object model to be directly generated in a database. The generated schema may need to be tuned for actual production environment. This usecase is supported by allowing the schema generation to occur into DDL scripts which can then be further tuned by a DBA. The following set of properties in persistence.xml or specified during EntityManagerFactory creation controls the behaviour of schema generation. Property Name Purpose Values javax.persistence.schema-generation-action Controls action to be taken by persistence provider "none", "create", "drop-and-create", "drop" javax.persistence.schema-generation-target Controls whehter schema to be created in database, whether DDL scripts are to be created, or both "database", "scripts", "database-and-scripts" javax.persistence.ddl-create-script-target, javax.persistence.ddl-drop-script-target Controls target locations for writing of scripts. Writers are pre-configured for the persistence provider. Need to be specified only if scripts are to be generated. java.io.Writer (e.g. MyWriter.class) or URL strings javax.persistence.ddl-create-script-source, javax.persistence.ddl-drop-script-source Specifies locations from which DDL scripts are to be read. Readers are pre-configured for the persistence provider. java.io.Reader (e.g. MyReader.class) or URL strings javax.persistence.sql-load-script-source Specifies location of SQL bulk load script. java.io.Reader (e.g. MyReader.class) or URL string javax.persistence.schema-generation-connection JDBC connection to be used for schema generation javax.persistence.database-product-name, javax.persistence.database-major-version, javax.persistence.database-minor-version Needed if scripts are to be generated and no connection to target database. Values are those obtained from JDBC DatabaseMetaData. javax.persistence.create-database-schemas Whether Persistence Provider need to create schema in addition to creating database objects such as tables, sequences, constraints, etc. "true", "false" Section 11.2 in the JPA 2.1 specification defines the annotations used for schema generation process. For example, @Table, @Column, @CollectionTable, @JoinTable, @JoinColumn, are used to define the generated schema. Several layers of defaulting may be involved. For example, the table name is defaulted from entity name and entity name (which can be specified explicitly as well) is defaulted from the class name. However annotations may be used to override or customize the values. The following entity class: @Entity public class Employee {    @Id private int id;    private String name;     . . .     @ManyToOne     private Department dept; } is generated in the database with the following attributes: Maps to EMPLOYEE table in default schema "id" field is mapped to ID column as primary key "name" is mapped to NAME column with a default VARCHAR(255). The length of this field can be easily tuned using @Column. @ManyToOne is mapped to DEPT_ID foreign key column. Can be customized using JOIN_COLUMN. In addition to these properties, couple of new annotations are added to JPA 2.1: @Index - An index for the primary key is generated by default in a database. This new annotation will allow to define additional indexes, over a single or multiple columns, for a better performance. This is specified as part of @Table, @SecondaryTable, @CollectionTable, @JoinTable, and @TableGenerator. For example: @Table(indexes = {@Index(columnList="NAME"), @Index(columnList="DEPT_ID DESC")})@Entity public class Employee {    . . .} The generated table will have a default index on the primary key. In addition, two new indexes are defined on the NAME column (default ascending) and the foreign key that maps to the department in descending order. @ForeignKey - It is used to define foreign key constraint or to otherwise override or disable the persistence provider's default foreign key definition. Can be specified as part of JoinColumn(s), MapKeyJoinColumn(s), PrimaryKeyJoinColumn(s). For example: @Entity public class Employee {    @Id private int id;    private String name;    @ManyToOne    @JoinColumn(foreignKey=@ForeignKey(foreignKeyDefinition="FOREIGN KEY (MANAGER_ID) REFERENCES MANAGER"))    private Manager manager;     . . . } In this entity, the employee's manager is mapped by MANAGER_ID column in the MANAGER table. The value of foreignKeyDefinition would be a database specific string. A complete replay of Linda's talk at JavaOne 2012 can be seen here (click on CON4212_mp4_4212_001 in Media). These features will be available in GlassFish 4 promoted builds in the near future. JPA 2.1 will be delivered as part of Java EE 7. The different components in the Java EE 7 platform are tracked here. JPA 2.1 Expert Group has released Early Draft 2 of the specification. Section 9.4 and 11.2 provide all details about Schema Generation. The latest javadocs can be obtained from here. And the JPA EG would appreciate feedback.

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• mdadm raid5 recover double disk failure - with a twist (drive order)

  - by Peter Bos

  Let me acknowledge first off that I have made mistakes, and that I have a backup for most but not all of the data on this RAID. I still have hope of recovering the rest of the data. I don't have the kind of money to take the drives to a recovery expert company. Mistake #0, not having a 100% backup. I know. I have a mdadm RAID5 system of 4x3TB. Drives /dev/sd[b-e], all with one partition /dev/sd[b-e]1. I'm aware that RAID5 on very large drives is risky, yet I did it anyway. Recent events The RAID become degraded after a two drive failure. One drive [/dev/sdc] is really gone, the other [/dev/sde] came back up after a power cycle, but was not automatically re-added to the RAID. So I was left with a 4 device RAID with only 2 active drives [/dev/sdb and /dev/sdd]. Mistake #1, not using dd copies of the drives for restoring the RAID. I did not have the drives or the time. Mistake #2, not making a backup of the superblock and mdadm -E of the remaining drives. Recovery attempt I reassembled the RAID in degraded mode with mdadm --assemble --force /dev/md0, using /dev/sd[bde]1. I could then access my data. I replaced /dev/sdc with a spare; empty; identical drive. I removed the old /dev/sdc1 from the RAID mdadm --fail /dev/md0 /dev/sdc1 Mistake #3, not doing this before replacing the drive I then partitioned the new /dev/sdc and added it to the RAID. mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sdc1 It then began to restore the RAID. ETA 300 mins. I followed the process via /proc/mdstat to 2% and then went to do other stuff. Checking the result Several hours (but less then 300 mins) later, I checked the process. It had stopped due to a read error on /dev/sde1. Here is where the trouble really starts I then removed /dev/sde1 from the RAID and re-added it. I can't remember why I did this; it was late. mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --remove /dev/sde1 mdadm --manage /dev/md0 --add /dev/sde1 However, /dev/sde1 was now marked as spare. So I decided to recreate the whole array using --assume-clean using what I thought was the right order, and with /dev/sdc1 missing. mdadm --create /dev/md0 --assume-clean -l5 -n4 /dev/sdb1 missing /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1 That worked, but the filesystem was not recognized while trying to mount. (It should have been EXT4). Device order I then checked a recent backup I had of /proc/mdstat, and I found the drive order. md0 : active raid5 sdb1[0] sde1[4] sdd1[2] sdc1[1] 8790402048 blocks super 1.2 level 5, 512k chunk, algorithm 2 [4/4] [UUUU] I then remembered this RAID had suffered a drive loss about a year ago, and recovered from it by replacing the faulty drive with a spare one. That may have scrambled the device order a bit...so there was no drive [3] but only [0],[1],[2], and [4]. I tried to find the drive order with the Permute_array script: https://raid.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Permute_array.pl but that did not find the right order. Questions I now have two main questions: I screwed up all the superblocks on the drives, but only gave: mdadm --create --assume-clean commands (so I should not have overwritten the data itself on /dev/sd[bde]1. Am I right that in theory the RAID can be restored [assuming for a moment that /dev/sde1 is ok] if I just find the right device order? Is it important that /dev/sde1 be given the device number [4] in the RAID? When I create it with mdadm --create /dev/md0 --assume-clean -l5 -n4 \ /dev/sdb1 missing /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1 it is assigned the number [3]. I wonder if that is relevant to the calculation of the parity blocks. If it turns out to be important, how can I recreate the array with /dev/sdb1[0] missing[1] /dev/sdd1[2] /dev/sde1[4]? If I could get that to work I could start it in degraded mode and add the new drive /dev/sdc1 and let it resync again. It's OK if you would like to point out to me that this may not have been the best course of action, but you'll find that I realized this. It would be great if anyone has any suggestions.

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• MySQL port 3306 blocked in csf yet can still telnet to port 3306 from external host

  - by Neek

  We have a Centos 6 VPS that was recently migrated to a new machine within the same web hosting company. It's running WHM/cPanel and has csf/lfd installed. csf is set up with mostly vanilla config. I'm no iptables expert, csf has not let me down before. If a port isn't in the TCP_IN list, it should be blocked on the firewall by iptables. My problem is that I can telnet to port 3306 from an external host, yet I think iptables ought to be blocking 3306 because of csf's rules. We are now failing a security check because of this open port. (this output is obfuscated to protect the innocent: www.ourhost.com is the host with the firewall problem) [root@nickfenwick log]# telnet www.ourhost.com 3306 Trying 158.255.45.107... Connected to www.ourhost.com. Escape character is '^]'. HHost 'nickfenwick.com' is not allowed to connect to this MySQL serverConnection closed by foreign host. So the connection is established, and MySQL refuses the connection due to its configuration. I need the network connection to be refused at the firewall level, before it reaches MySQL. Using WHM's csf web UI I can see 'Firewall Configuration' includes a fairly sensible TCP_IN line: TCP_IN: 20,21,22,25,53,80,110,143,222,443,465,587,993,995,2077,2078,2082,2083,2086,2087,2095,2096,8080 (lets ignore that I could trim that a little for now, my concern is that 3306 is not listed in that list) When csf is restarted it logs the usual slew of output as it sets up iptables rules, for example what looks like it blocking all traffic and then allowing specific ports like SSH on 22: [cut] DROP all opt -- in * out * 0.0.0.0/0 -> 0.0.0.0/0 [cut] ACCEPT tcp opt -- in !lo out * 0.0.0.0/0 -> 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:22 [cut] I can see that iptables is running, service iptables status returns a long list of firewall rules. Here is my Chain INPUT section from service iptables status, hopefully that's enough to show how the firewall is configured. Table: filter Chain INPUT (policy DROP) num target prot opt source destination 1 acctboth all -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 2 ACCEPT tcp -- 217.112.88.10 0.0.0.0/0 tcp dpt:53 3 ACCEPT udp -- 217.112.88.10 0.0.0.0/0 udp dpt:53 4 ACCEPT tcp -- 217.112.88.10 0.0.0.0/0 tcp spt:53 5 ACCEPT udp -- 217.112.88.10 0.0.0.0/0 udp spt:53 6 ACCEPT tcp -- 8.8.4.4 0.0.0.0/0 tcp dpt:53 7 ACCEPT udp -- 8.8.4.4 0.0.0.0/0 udp dpt:53 8 ACCEPT tcp -- 8.8.4.4 0.0.0.0/0 tcp spt:53 9 ACCEPT udp -- 8.8.4.4 0.0.0.0/0 udp spt:53 10 ACCEPT tcp -- 8.8.8.8 0.0.0.0/0 tcp dpt:53 11 ACCEPT udp -- 8.8.8.8 0.0.0.0/0 udp dpt:53 12 ACCEPT tcp -- 8.8.8.8 0.0.0.0/0 tcp spt:53 13 ACCEPT udp -- 8.8.8.8 0.0.0.0/0 udp spt:53 14 LOCALINPUT all -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 15 ACCEPT all -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 16 INVALID tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 17 ACCEPT all -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state RELATED,ESTABLISHED 18 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:20 19 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:21 20 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:22 21 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:25 22 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:53 23 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:80 24 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:110 25 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:143 26 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:222 27 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:443 28 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:465 29 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:587 30 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:993 31 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:995 32 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:2077 33 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:2078 34 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:2082 35 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:2083 36 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:2086 37 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:2087 38 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:2095 39 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:2096 40 ACCEPT tcp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:8080 41 ACCEPT udp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW udp dpt:20 42 ACCEPT udp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW udp dpt:21 43 ACCEPT udp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW udp dpt:53 44 ACCEPT udp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW udp dpt:222 45 ACCEPT udp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW udp dpt:8080 46 ACCEPT icmp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 icmp type 8 47 ACCEPT icmp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 icmp type 0 48 ACCEPT icmp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 icmp type 11 49 ACCEPT icmp -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 icmp type 3 50 LOGDROPIN all -- 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 What's the next thing to check?

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• Cisco PIX 515 doesn't seem to be passing traffic through according to static route

  - by Liquidkristal

  Ok, so I am having a spot of bother with a Cisco PIX515, I have posted the current running config below, now I am no cisco expert by any means although I can do basic stuff with them, now I am having trouble with traffic sent from the outside to address: 10.75.32.25 it just doesn't appear to be going anywhere. Now this firewall is deep inside a private network, with an upstream firewall that we don't manage. I have spoken to the people that look after that firewall and they say they they have traffic routing to 10.75.32.21 and 10.75.32.25 and thats it (although there is a website that runs from the server 172.16.102.5 which (if my understanding is correct) gets traffic via 10.75.32.23. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated as to me it should all just work, but its not (obviously if the config is all correct then there could be a problem with the web server that we are trying to access on 10.75.32.25, although the users say that they can get to it internally (172.16.102.8) which is even more confusing) PIX Version 6.3(3) interface ethernet0 auto interface ethernet1 auto interface ethernet2 auto nameif ethernet0 outside security0 nameif ethernet1 inside security100 nameif ethernet2 academic security50 fixup protocol dns maximum-length 512 fixup protocol ftp 21 fixup protocol h323 h225 1720 fixup protocol h323 ras 1718-1719 fixup protocol http 80 fixup protocol rsh 514 fixup protocol rtsp 554 fixup protocol sip 5060 fixup protocol sip udp 5060 fixup protocol skinny 2000 fixup protocol smtp 25 fixup protocol sqlnet 1521 fixup protocol tftp 69 names name 195.157.180.168 outsideNET name 195.157.180.170 globalNAT name 195.157.180.174 gateway name 195.157.180.173 Mail-Global name 172.30.31.240 Mail-Local name 10.75.32.20 outsideIF name 82.219.210.17 frogman1 name 212.69.230.79 frogman2 name 78.105.118.9 frogman3 name 172.16.0.0 acadNET name 172.16.100.254 acadIF access-list acl_outside permit icmp any any echo-reply access-list acl_outside permit icmp any any unreachable access-list acl_outside permit icmp any any time-exceeded access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.22 eq smtp access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.22 eq 8383 access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.22 eq 8385 access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.22 eq 8484 access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.22 eq 8485 access-list acl_outside permit ip any host 10.75.32.30 access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.25 eq https access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.25 eq www access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.23 eq www access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.23 eq https access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman1 host 10.75.32.23 eq ssh access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman2 host 10.75.32.23 eq ssh access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman3 host 10.75.32.23 eq ssh access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.23 eq 2001 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman1 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8441 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman2 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8441 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman3 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8441 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman1 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8442 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman2 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8442 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman3 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8442 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman1 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8443 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman2 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8443 access-list acl_outside permit tcp host frogman3 host 10.75.32.24 eq 8443 access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.23 eq smtp access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.23 eq ssh access-list acl_outside permit tcp any host 10.75.32.24 eq ssh access-list acl_acad permit icmp any any echo-reply access-list acl_acad permit icmp any any unreachable access-list acl_acad permit icmp any any time-exceeded access-list acl_acad permit tcp any 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 eq www access-list acl_acad deny tcp any any eq www access-list acl_acad permit tcp any 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 eq https access-list acl_acad permit tcp any 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 eq 8080 access-list acl_acad permit tcp host 172.16.102.5 host 10.64.1.115 eq smtp pager lines 24 logging console debugging mtu outside 1500 mtu inside 1500 mtu academic 1500 ip address outside outsideIF 255.255.252.0 no ip address inside ip address academic acadIF 255.255.0.0 ip audit info action alarm ip audit attack action alarm pdm history enable arp timeout 14400 global (outside) 1 10.75.32.21 nat (academic) 1 acadNET 255.255.0.0 0 0 static (academic,outside) 10.75.32.22 Mail-Local netmask 255.255.255.255 0 0 static (academic,outside) 10.75.32.30 172.30.30.36 netmask 255.255.255.255 0 0 static (academic,outside) 10.75.32.23 172.16.102.5 netmask 255.255.255.255 0 0 static (academic,outside) 10.75.32.24 172.16.102.6 netmask 255.255.255.255 0 0 static (academic,outside) 10.75.32.25 172.16.102.8 netmask 255.255.255.255 0 0 access-group acl_outside in interface outside access-group acl_acad in interface academic route outside 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.75.32.1 1 timeout xlate 3:00:00 timeout conn 1:00:00 half-closed 0:10:00 udp 0:02:00 rpc 0:10:00 h225 1:00:00 timeout h323 0:05:00 mgcp 0:05:00 sip 0:30:00 sip_media 0:02:00 timeout uauth 0:05:00 absolute aaa-server TACACS+ protocol tacacs+ aaa-server RADIUS protocol radius aaa-server LOCAL protocol local snmp-server host outside 172.31.10.153 snmp-server host outside 172.31.10.154 snmp-server host outside 172.31.10.155 no snmp-server location no snmp-server contact snmp-server community CPQ_HHS no snmp-server enable traps floodguard enable telnet 172.30.31.0 255.255.255.0 academic telnet timeout 5 ssh timeout 5 console timeout 0 terminal width 120 Cryptochecksum:hi2u : end PIX515#

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• Bridging LXC containers to host eth0 so they can have a public IP

  - by Vianney Stroebel

  UPDATE: I found the solution there: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/networking/bridge#No_traffic_gets_trough_.28except_ARP_and_STP.29 # cd /proc/sys/net/bridge # ls bridge-nf-call-arptables bridge-nf-call-iptables bridge-nf-call-ip6tables bridge-nf-filter-vlan-tagged # for f in bridge-nf-*; do echo 0 $f; done But I'd like to have expert opinions on this: is it safe to disable all bridge-nf-*? What are they here for? END OF UPDATE I need to bridge LXC containers to the physical interface (eth0) of my host, reading numerous tutorials, documents and blog posts on the subject. I need the containers to have their own public IP (which I've previously done KVM/libvirt). After two days of searching and trying, I still can't make it work with LXC containers. The host runs a freshly installed Ubuntu Server Quantal (12.10) with only libvirt (which I'm not using here) and lxc installed. I created the containers with : lxc-create -t ubuntu -n mycontainer So they also run Ubuntu 12.10. Content of /var/lib/lxc/mycontainer/config is: lxc.utsname = mycontainer lxc.mount = /var/lib/lxc/test/fstab lxc.rootfs = /var/lib/lxc/test/rootfs lxc.network.type = veth lxc.network.flags = up lxc.network.link = br0 lxc.network.name = eth0 lxc.network.veth.pair = vethmycontainer lxc.network.ipv4 = 179.43.46.233 lxc.network.hwaddr= 02:00:00:86:5b:11 lxc.devttydir = lxc lxc.tty = 4 lxc.pts = 1024 lxc.arch = amd64 lxc.cap.drop = sys_module mac_admin mac_override lxc.pivotdir = lxc_putold # uncomment the next line to run the container unconfined: #lxc.aa_profile = unconfined lxc.cgroup.devices.deny = a # Allow any mknod (but not using the node) lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c *:* m lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = b *:* m # /dev/null and zero lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 1:3 rwm lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 1:5 rwm # consoles lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 5:1 rwm lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 5:0 rwm #lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 4:0 rwm #lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 4:1 rwm # /dev/{,u}random lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 1:9 rwm lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 1:8 rwm lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 136:* rwm lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 5:2 rwm # rtc lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 254:0 rwm #fuse lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 10:229 rwm #tun lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 10:200 rwm #full lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 1:7 rwm #hpet lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 10:228 rwm #kvm lxc.cgroup.devices.allow = c 10:232 rwm Then I changed my host /etc/network/interfaces to: auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto br0 iface br0 inet static bridge_ports eth0 bridge_fd 0 address 92.281.86.226 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 92.281.86.0 broadcast 92.281.86.255 gateway 92.281.86.254 dns-nameservers 213.186.33.99 dns-search ovh.net When I try command line configuration ("brctl addif", "ifconfig eth0", etc.) my remote host becomes inaccessible and I have to hard reboot it. I changed the content of /var/lib/lxc/mycontainer/rootfs/etc/network/interfaces to: auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 179.43.46.233 netmask 255.255.255.255 broadcast 178.33.40.233 gateway 92.281.86.254 It takes several minutes for mycontainer to start (lxc-start -n mycontainer). I tried replacing gateway 92.281.86.254 by : post-up route add 92.281.86.254 dev eth0 post-up route add default gw 92.281.86.254 post-down route del 92.281.86.254 dev eth0 post-down route del default gw 92.281.86.254 My container then starts instantly. But whatever configuration I set in /var/lib/lxc/mycontainer/rootfs/etc/network/interfaces, I cannot ping from mycontainer to any IP (including the host's) : ubuntu@mycontainer:~$ ping 92.281.86.226 PING 92.281.86.226 (92.281.86.226) 56(84) bytes of data. ^C --- 92.281.86.226 ping statistics --- 6 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 5031ms And my host cannot ping the container: root@host:~# ping 179.43.46.233 PING 179.43.46.233 (179.43.46.233) 56(84) bytes of data. ^C --- 179.43.46.233 ping statistics --- 5 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 4000ms My container's ifconfig: ubuntu@mycontainer:~$ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 02:00:00:86:5b:11 inet addr:179.43.46.233 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:0.0.0.0 inet6 addr: fe80::ff:fe79:5a31/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:64 errors:0 dropped:6 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:54 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:4070 (4.0 KB) TX bytes:4168 (4.1 KB) lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:2496 (2.4 KB) TX bytes:2496 (2.4 KB) My host's ifconfig: root@host:~# ifconfig br0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 4c:72:b9:43:65:2b inet addr:92.281.86.226 Bcast:91.121.67.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::4e72:b9ff:fe43:652b/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1453 errors:0 dropped:18 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1630 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:145125 (145.1 KB) TX bytes:299943 (299.9 KB) eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 4c:72:b9:43:65:2b UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:3178 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:1637 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:298263 (298.2 KB) TX bytes:309167 (309.1 KB) Interrupt:20 Memory:fe500000-fe520000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:300 (300.0 B) TX bytes:300 (300.0 B) vethtest Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr fe:0d:7f:3e:70:88 inet6 addr: fe80::fc0d:7fff:fe3e:7088/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:54 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:67 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:4168 (4.1 KB) TX bytes:4250 (4.2 KB) virbr0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr de:49:c5:66:cf:84 inet addr:192.168.122.1 Bcast:192.168.122.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) I have disabled lxcbr0 (USE_LXC_BRIDGE="false" in /etc/default/lxc). root@host:~# brctl show bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces br0 8000.4c72b943652b no eth0 vethtest I have configured the IP 179.43.46.233 to point to 02:00:00:86:5b:11 in my hosting provider (OVH) config panel. (The IPs in this post are not the real ones.) Thanks for reading this long question! :-) Vianney

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• Nginx no static files after update

  - by SomeoneS

  First, i must say that i am not expert in server administration, my site was setup by hosting admins (that i cannot contact anymore). Few days ago, i updated Nginx to latest version (admin told me that it is safe to do). But after that, my site serves only html content, no CSS, images, JS. If i try to open some image i get message "Wellcome to Nginx" (same thin if i try to open static.mysitedomain.com). More details: Site has static. subdomain, but static files are in same directory as they used to be before setting up static files. I was googling for some solutions, i tried to change something in /etc/nginx/, but no luck. I feel that this is some minor configuration problem, any ideas? EDIT: Here is /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file content: user www-data; worker_processes 4; pid /var/run/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 768; # multi_accept on; } http { ## # Basic Settings ## sendfile on; tcp_nopush on; tcp_nodelay on; keepalive_timeout 65; types_hash_max_size 2048; # server_tokens off; # server_names_hash_bucket_size 64; # server_name_in_redirect off; include /etc/nginx/mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; ## # Logging Settings ## access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log; ## # Gzip Settings ## gzip on; gzip_disable "msie6"; # gzip_vary on; # gzip_proxied any; # gzip_comp_level 6; # gzip_buffers 16 8k; # gzip_http_version 1.1; # gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript; ## # nginx-naxsi config ## # Uncomment it if you installed nginx-naxsi ## #include /etc/nginx/naxsi_core.rules; ## # nginx-passenger config ## # Uncomment it if you installed nginx-passenger ## #passenger_root /usr; #passenger_ruby /usr/bin/ruby; ## # Virtual Host Configs ## include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf; include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*; } Here is /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default file content: server { #listen 80; ## listen for ipv4; this line is default and implied #listen [::]:80 default ipv6only=on; ## listen for ipv6 root /usr/share/nginx/www; index index.html index.htm; # Make site accessible from http://localhost/ server_name localhost; location / { # First attempt to serve request as file, then # as directory, then fall back to index.html try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; # Uncomment to enable naxsi on this location # include /etc/nginx/naxsi.rules } location /doc/ { alias /usr/share/doc/; autoindex on; allow 127.0.0.1; deny all; } # Only for nginx-naxsi : process denied requests #location /RequestDenied { # For example, return an error code #return 418; #} #error_page 404 /404.html; # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html # #error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html; #location = /50x.html { # root /usr/share/nginx/www; #} # pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000 # #location ~ \.php$ { # fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$; # # NOTE: You should have "cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0;" in php.ini # # # With php5-cgi alone: # fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000; # # With php5-fpm: # fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock; # fastcgi_index index.php; # include fastcgi_params; #} # deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root # concurs with nginx's one # #location ~ /\.ht { # deny all; #} } # another virtual host using mix of IP-, name-, and port-based configuration # #server { # listen 8000; # listen somename:8080; # server_name somename alias another.alias; # root html; # index index.html index.htm; # # location / { # try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; # } #} # HTTPS server # #server { # listen 443; # server_name localhost; # # root html; # index index.html index.htm; # # ssl on; # ssl_certificate cert.pem; # ssl_certificate_key cert.key; # # ssl_session_timeout 5m; # # ssl_protocols SSLv3 TLSv1; # ssl_ciphers ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv3:+EXP; # ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on; # # location / { # try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html; # } #}

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• Can't ping other machines at Linux VPN PPTP server's local lan from outside

  - by Marco Sanchez

  Before anything else, hello guys, this is the first time I ask for something here so I hope someone can give me a hand, please look at the following network diagram: --------------------------------------------------------------- VPN Server Webserver (SuSE SLES11) | | | ------- VPN LAN -------- | Router with Unique IP (With Port Forwarding rules set and VPN through enabled) | PPTP connection over Internet | Workstation (PC or Laptop with Windows) --------------------------------------------------------------- So the idea is for the workstation to connect to the PPTP Server and then be able to access a Web Application on the Webserver, right now I have the PPTP server configured and the VPN works, I can connect to the SLES11 server with no problems from the workstation and I can ping it and everything works fine but if I try to ping the Webserver from the workstation, I can't reach it, I'm making a mistake somewhere but I don't see where, please note that I'm not a network expert and thus I'd greatly appreciate some specific guidance. Here is some info related to the IPs --------------------------------------------------------------- *** SLES11 VPN Server has 2 Network cards: -- eth0 (Internal Network) IP: 192.168.210.5 MASK: 255.55.255.0 -- eth1 (External Network) IP: 192.168.1.105 MASK: 255.55.255.0 *** Webserver has 1 network card -- eth0 (Internal Network) IP: 192.168.210.221 MASK: 255.55.255.0 *** Workstation -- IP info once connection has been established to the VPN PPP adapter Test VPN Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Test VPN Connection Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.210.110(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 189.209.208.181 (Defined as part of the PPTP Server options config script) 189.209.127.244 Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 192.168.210.220 (Defined as part of the PPTP Server options config script) NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled --------------------------------------------------------------- I also defined the following within IP tables: ------------------------------------------------------------- iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 1723 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p gre -j ACCEPT ------------------------------------------------------------- If you need any piece of information from the PPTP server scripts please let me know, the thing is that I can actually connect to the VPN server and access its services and everything but after that I can't reach any other computer on that LAN. Any help would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance

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• DNS problems on CentOS fresh install

  - by Rick Koshi

  I'm having some DNS issues on a new box I'm installing with CentOS 6.2. I am able to look up names using nslookup, dig, or host. I am able to ping machines by name or by IP address. However, when I try other tools, such as ssh, wget, or yum, they are unable to resolve names. For example: # wget http://www.google.com --2012-03-08 14:48:06-- http://www.google.com/ Resolving www.google.com... failed: Name or service not known. wget: unable to resolve host address `www.google.com' # ssh www.google.com ssh: Could not resolve hostname www.google.com: Name or service not known # ping -c 1 www.google.com PING www.l.google.com (74.125.113.106) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from vw-in-f106.1e100.net (74.125.113.106): icmp_seq=1 ttl=46 time=43.6 ms --- www.l.google.com ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 59ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 43.665/43.665/43.665/0.000 ms # host www.google.com www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com. www.l.google.com has address 74.125.113.99 www.l.google.com has address 74.125.113.103 www.l.google.com has address 74.125.113.104 www.l.google.com has address 74.125.113.105 www.l.google.com has address 74.125.113.106 www.l.google.com has address 74.125.113.147 My /etc/nsswitch.conf file is the default, including this (standard) line: hosts: files dns /etc/resolv.conf is as set up by DHCP: ; generated by /sbin/dhclient-script nameserver 192.168.1.254 192.168.1.254 is a working DNS server (my DSL modem, working for years with other machines) Anyone know why ping would work, but ssh/wget would fail? Per NcA's suggestion, I tried changing /etc/resolv.conf to point to 8.8.8.8. Oddly enough, this does make it work. Obviously, my DSL modem is responding to DNS requests in some way that some parts of Linux's resolution system don't like. Looking at the tcpdump, I am unable to see what the difference is. Certainly, both servers are sending the same addresses. Here's the output from tcpdump -nn -X with the server set to the DNS server on the DSL modem. It's clearly replying with the correct addresses, but ssh/wget don't seem happy with it for some reason: 15:53:52.133580 IP 192.168.1.254.53 > 192.168.1.2.54836: 33157 7/0/0 CNAME www.l.google.com., A 74.125.115.105, A 74.125.115.106, A 74.125.115.147, A 74.125.115.99, A 74.125.115.103, A 74.125.115.104 (148) 0x0000: 4500 00b0 e33a 0000 ff11 53b1 c0a8 01fe E....:....S..... 0x0010: c0a8 0102 0035 d634 009c 7528 8185 8180 .....5.4..u(.... 0x0020: 0001 0007 0000 0000 0377 7777 0667 6f6f .........www.goo 0x0030: 676c 6503 636f 6d00 0001 0001 c00c 0005 gle.com......... 0x0040: 0001 0007 acd0 0008 0377 7777 016c c010 .........www.l.. 0x0050: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0001 0004 4a7d 7369 .,..........J}si 0x0060: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0001 0004 4a7d 736a .,..........J}sj 0x0070: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0001 0004 4a7d 7393 .,..........J}s. 0x0080: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0001 0004 4a7d 7363 .,..........J}sc 0x0090: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0001 0004 4a7d 7367 .,..........J}sg 0x00a0: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0001 0004 4a7d 7368 .,..........J}sh 15:53:52.135669 IP 192.168.1.254.53 > 192.168.1.2.54836: 65062- 0/0/0 (32) 0x0000: 4500 003c e33b 0000 ff11 5424 c0a8 01fe E..<.;....T$.... 0x0010: c0a8 0102 0035 d634 0028 98f9 fe26 8000 .....5.4.(...&.. 0x0020: 0001 0000 0000 0000 0377 7777 0667 6f6f .........www.goo 0x0030: 676c 6503 636f 6d00 001c 0001 gle.com..... I'm not enough of an expert to know if this is malformed in some way, but ping seems to do the right thing with it. For comparison, here's the same thing when querying 8.8.8.8: 15:57:27.990270 IP 8.8.8.8.53 > 192.168.1.2.49028: 59114 7/0/0 CNAME www.l.google.com., A 74.125.113.105, A 74.125.113.103, A 74.125.113.106, A 74.125.113.147, A 74.125.113.104, A 74.125.113.99 (148) 0x0000: 4500 00b0 5530 0000 2f11 6453 0808 0808 E...U0../.dS.... 0x0010: c0a8 0102 0035 bf84 009c 39f8 e6ea 8180 .....5....9..... 0x0020: 0001 0007 0000 0000 0377 7777 0667 6f6f .........www.goo 0x0030: 676c 6503 636f 6d00 0001 0001 c00c 0005 gle.com......... 0x0040: 0001 0001 516a 0008 0377 7777 016c c010 ....Qj...www.l.. 0x0050: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0116 0004 4a7d 7169 .,..........J}qi 0x0060: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0116 0004 4a7d 7167 .,..........J}qg 0x0070: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0116 0004 4a7d 716a .,..........J}qj 0x0080: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0116 0004 4a7d 7193 .,..........J}q. 0x0090: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0116 0004 4a7d 7168 .,..........J}qh 0x00a0: c02c 0001 0001 0000 0116 0004 4a7d 7163 .,..........J}qc 15:57:28.018909 IP 8.8.8.8.53 > 192.168.1.2.49028: 31984 1/1/0 CNAME www.l.google.com. (102) 0x0000: 4500 0082 7b1b 0000 2f11 3e96 0808 0808 E...{.../.>..... 0x0010: c0a8 0102 0035 bf84 006e c67e 7cf0 8180 .....5...n.~|... 0x0020: 0001 0001 0001 0000 0377 7777 0667 6f6f .........www.goo 0x0030: 676c 6503 636f 6d00 001c 0001 c00c 0005 gle.com......... 0x0040: 0001 0001 517f 0008 0377 7777 016c c010 ....Q....www.l.. 0x0050: c030 0006 0001 0000 0258 0026 036e 7334 .0.......X.&.ns4 0x0060: c010 0964 6e73 2d61 646d 696e c010 0016 ...dns-admin.... 0x0070: 91f3 0000 0384 0000 0384 0000 0708 0000 ................ 0x0080: 003c .< I still don't know why the server's reply is adequate for ping but not for ssh/wget. If anyone has ideas, I'd be happy to hear them. For now, though, I can either refer to an outside DNS server or set up my own server on the new box. It's a workaround that seems like it should be unnecessary, but will allow me to proceed.

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• Accessing mySQL from two ports: Problems with iptables

  - by marekventur

  Hi! I'm trying to make my mySQL-server (running on Ubuntu) listen on port 3306 and 110, because I would like to access it from a network with very few open ports. So far I've found this answer telling me to do iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 110 -j REDIRECT --to-port 3306 but all I got is: # mysql -h mydomain.com -P 3306 -u username --password=xyz Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 68863 Server version: 5.0.75-0ubuntu10.5 (Ubuntu) Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer. mysql> exit Bye # mysql -h mydomain.com -P 110 -u username --password=xyz ERROR 2003 (HY000): Can't connect to MySQL server on 'mydomain.com' (111) I'm not an expert with iptables, so I not sure where to look for the problem. I'm googling around for quite some time, but haven't found anything to help me yet. This is what iptable tells me: # iptables -t nat -L -n -v Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT 32M packets, 1674M bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination 0 0 REDIRECT tcp -- eth0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp dpt:110 redir ports 3306 Chain POSTROUTING (policy ACCEPT 855K packets, 55M bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT 837K packets, 54M bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination # iptables -L -n -v Chain INPUT (policy DROP 7 packets, 340 bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination 107K 5390K LOG all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state INVALID limit: avg 2/sec burst 5 LOG flags 0 level 4 prefix `INPUT INVALID ' 131K 6614K DROP all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state INVALID 0 0 MY_DROP tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp flags:0x3F/0x00 0 0 MY_DROP tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp flags:0x03/0x03 0 0 MY_DROP tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp flags:0x06/0x06 0 0 MY_DROP tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp flags:0x05/0x05 0 0 MY_DROP tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp flags:0x11/0x01 0 0 MY_DROP tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp flags:0x18/0x08 0 0 MY_DROP tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 tcp flags:0x30/0x20 6948K 12G ACCEPT all -- lo * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 151M 34G ACCEPT all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state RELATED,ESTABLISHED 32M 1666M ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:80 1833 106K ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:443 603 29392 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:25 1 60 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:465 24 1180 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:110 1 60 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:995 7919 400K ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:143 1 60 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:993 0 0 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:119 1 60 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:53 7 517 ACCEPT udp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW udp dpt:53 1110 65364 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:21 139K 8313K ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:22 10176 499K ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:3306 2 80 ACCEPT udp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW udp dpt:123 0 0 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:6060 4 176 ACCEPT tcp -- venet0 * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW tcp dpt:6667 20987 1179K MY_REJECT all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 Chain FORWARD (policy DROP 0 packets, 0 bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination Chain OUTPUT (policy DROP 0 packets, 0 bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination 2159 284K LOG all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state INVALID limit: avg 2/sec burst 5 LOG flags 0 level 4 prefix `OUTPUT INVALID ' 2630 304K DROP all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state INVALID 6948K 12G ACCEPT all -- * lo 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 181M 34G ACCEPT all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 state NEW,RELATED,ESTABLISHED 0 0 MY_REJECT all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 Chain MY_DROP (7 references) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination 0 0 LOG all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 limit: avg 2/sec burst 5 LOG flags 0 level 4 prefix `PORTSCAN DROP ' 0 0 DROP all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 Chain MY_REJECT (2 references) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination 13806 652K LOG tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 limit: avg 2/sec burst 5 LOG flags 0 level 4 prefix `REJECT TCP ' 18171 830K REJECT tcp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 reject-with tcp-reset 912 242K LOG udp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 limit: avg 2/sec burst 5 LOG flags 0 level 4 prefix `REJECT UDP ' 912 242K REJECT udp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 reject-with icmp-port-unreachable 1904 107K LOG icmp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 limit: avg 2/sec burst 5 LOG flags 0 level 4 prefix `DROP ICMP ' 1904 107K DROP icmp -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 0 0 LOG all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 limit: avg 2/sec burst 5 LOG flags 0 level 4 prefix `REJECT OTHER ' 0 0 REJECT all -- * * 0.0.0.0/0 0.0.0.0/0 reject-with icmp-proto-unreachable Is there anyone who can give ma a hint where to look for the problem? Thank you!

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• using Silverlight 3's HtmlPage.Window.Navigate method to reuse an already open browser window

  - by Phil

  Hi, I want to use an external browser window to implement a preview functionality in a silverlight application. There is a list of items and whenever the user clicks one of these items, it's opened in a separate browser window (the content is a pdf document, which is why it is handled ouside of the SL app). Now, to achieve this, I simply use HtmlPage.Window.Navigate(new Uri("http://www.bing.com")); which works fine. Now my client doesn't like the fact that every click opens up a new browser window. He would like to see the browser window reused every time an item is clicked. So I went out and tried implementing this: Option 1 - Use the overload of the Navigate method, like so: HtmlPage.Window.Navigate(new Uri("http://www.bing.com"), "foo"); I was assuming that the window would be reused when the same target parameter value (foo) would be used in subsequent calls. This does not work. I get a new window every time. Option 2 - Use the PopupWindow method on the HtmlPage HtmlPage.PopupWindow(new Uri("http://www.bing.com"), "blah", new HtmlPopupWindowOptions()); This does not work. I get a new window every time. Option 3 - Get a handle to the opened window and reuse that in subsequent calls private HtmlWindow window; private void navigationButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { if (window == null) window = HtmlPage.Window.Navigate(new Uri("http://www.bing.com"), "blah"); else window.Navigate(new Uri("http://www.bing.com"), "blah"); if (window == null) MessageBox.Show("it's null"); } This does not work. I tried the same for the PopupWindow() method and the window is null every time, so a new window is opened on every click. I have checked both the EnableHtmlAccess and the IsPopupWindowAllowed properties, and they return true, as they should. Option 4 - Use Eval method to execute some custom javascript private const string javascript = @"var popup = window.open('', 'blah') ; if(popup.location != 'http://www.bing.com' ){ popup.location = 'http://www.bing.com'; } popup.focus();"; private void navigationButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { HtmlPage.Window.Eval(javascript); } This does not work. I get a new window every time. option 5 - Use CreateInstance to run some custom javascript on the page private void navigationButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { HtmlPage.Window.CreateInstance("thisIsPlainHell"); } and in my aspx I have function thisIsPlainHell() { var popup = window.open('http://www.bing.com', 'blah'); popup.focus(); } Guess what? This does work. The only thing is that the window behaves a little strange and I'm not sure why: I'm behind a proxy and in all other scenarios I'm being prompted for my password. In this case however I am not (and am thus not able to reach the external site - bing in this case). This is not really a huge issue atm, but I just don't understand what's goign on here. Whenever I type another url in the address bar of the popup window (eg www.google.com) and press enter, it opens up another window and prompts me for my proxy password. As a temporary solution option 5 could do, but I don't like the fact that Silverlight is not able to manage this. One of the main reasons my client has opted for Silverlight is to be protected against all the browser specific hacking that comes with javascript. Am I doing something wrong? I'm definitely no javascript expert, so I'm hoping it's something obvious I'm missing here. Cheers, Phil

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• Delphi: how to create Firebird database programmatically

  - by Brad

  I'm using D2K9, Zeos 7Alpha, and Firebird 2.1 I had this working before I added the autoinc field. Although I'm not sure I was doing it 100% correctly. I don' know what order to do the SQL code, with the triggers, Generators, etc.. I've tried several combinations, I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong other than just that for this not to work. SQL File From IB Expert : /********************************************/ /* Generated by IBExpert 5/4/2010 3:59:48 PM / /*********************************************/ /********************************************/ /* Following SET SQL DIALECT is just for the Database Comparer / /*********************************************/ SET SQL DIALECT 3; /********************************************/ /* Tables / /*********************************************/ CREATE GENERATOR GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID; CREATE TABLE EMAIL_ACCOUNTS ( ID INTEGER NOT NULL, FNAME VARCHAR(35), LNAME VARCHAR(35), ADDRESS VARCHAR(100), CITY VARCHAR(35), STATE VARCHAR(35), ZIPCODE VARCHAR(20), BDAY DATE, PHONE VARCHAR(20), UNAME VARCHAR(255), PASS VARCHAR(20), EMAIL VARCHAR(255), CREATEDDATE DATE, "ACTIVE" BOOLEAN DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL /* BOOLEAN = SMALLINT CHECK (value is null or value in (0, 1)) /, BANNED BOOLEAN DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL / BOOLEAN = SMALLINT CHECK (value is null or value in (0, 1)) /, "PUBLIC" BOOLEAN DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL / BOOLEAN = SMALLINT CHECK (value is null or value in (0, 1)) */, NOTES BLOB SUB_TYPE 0 SEGMENT SIZE 1024 ); /********************************************/ /* Primary Keys / /*********************************************/ ALTER TABLE EMAIL_ACCOUNTS ADD PRIMARY KEY (ID); /********************************************/ /* Triggers / /*********************************************/ SET TERM ^ ; /********************************************/ /* Triggers for tables / /*********************************************/ /* Trigger: EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_BI */ CREATE OR ALTER TRIGGER EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_BI FOR EMAIL_ACCOUNTS ACTIVE BEFORE INSERT POSITION 0 AS BEGIN IF (NEW.ID IS NULL) THEN NEW.ID = GEN_ID(GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID,1); END ^ SET TERM ; ^ /********************************************/ /* Privileges / /*********************************************/ Triggers: /********************************************/ /* Following SET SQL DIALECT is just for the Database Comparer / /*********************************************/ SET SQL DIALECT 3; CREATE GENERATOR GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID; SET TERM ^ ; CREATE OR ALTER TRIGGER EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_BI FOR EMAIL_ACCOUNTS ACTIVE BEFORE INSERT POSITION 0 AS BEGIN IF (NEW.ID IS NULL) THEN NEW.ID = GEN_ID(GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID,1); END ^ SET TERM ; ^ Generators: CREATE SEQUENCE GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID; ALTER SEQUENCE GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID RESTART WITH 2; /* Old syntax is: CREATE GENERATOR GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID; SET GENERATOR GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID TO 2; */ My Code: procedure TForm2.New1Click(Sender: TObject); var query:string; begin if JvOpenDialog1.Execute then begin ZConnection1.Disconnect; ZConnection1.Database:= jvOpenDialog1.FileName; if not FileExists(ZConnection1.database) then begin ZConnection1.Properties.Add('createnewdatabase=create database '''+ZConnection1.Database+''' user ''sysdba'' password ''masterkey'' page_size 4096 default character set iso8859_2;'); try ZConnection1.Connect; except ShowMessage('Error Connection To Database File'); application.Terminate; end; end else begin ShowMessage('Database File Already Exists.'); exit; end; end; query := 'CREATE DOMAIN BOOLEAN AS SMALLINT CHECK (value is null or value in (0, 1))'; Zconnection1.ExecuteDirect(query); query:='CREATE TABLE EMAIL_ACCOUNTS (ID INTEGER NOT NULL,FNAME VARCHAR(35),LNAME VARCHAR(35),'+ 'ADDRESS VARCHAR(100), CITY VARCHAR(35), STATE VARCHAR(35), ZIPCODE VARCHAR(20),' + 'BDAY DATE, PHONE VARCHAR(20), UNAME VARCHAR(255), PASS VARCHAR(20),' + 'EMAIL VARCHAR(255),CREATEDDATE DATE , '+ '"ACTIVE" BOOLEAN DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL,'+ 'BANNED BOOLEAN DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL,'+ '"PUBLIC" BOOLEAN DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL,' + 'NOTES BLOB SUB_TYPE 0 SEGMENT SIZE 1024)'; //ZConnection.ExecuteDirect('CREATE TABLE NOTES (noteTitle TEXT PRIMARY KEY,noteDate DATE,noteNote TEXT)'); Zconnection1.ExecuteDirect(query); { } query := 'CREATE SEQUENCE GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID;'+ 'ALTER SEQUENCE GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID RESTART WITH 1'; Zconnection1.ExecuteDirect(query); query := 'ALTER TABLE EMAIL_ACCOUNTS ADD PRIMARY KEY (ID)'; Zconnection1.ExecuteDirect(query); query := 'SET TERM ^'; Zconnection1.ExecuteDirect(query); query := 'CREATE OR ALTER TRIGGER EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_BI FOR EMAIL_ACCOUNTS'+ 'ACTIVE BEFORE INSERT POSITION 0'+ 'AS'+ 'BEGIN'+ 'IF (NEW.ID IS NULL) THEN'+ 'NEW.ID = GEN_ID(GEN_EMAIL_ACCOUNTS_ID,1);'+ 'END'+ '^'+ 'SET TERM ; ^'; Zconnection1.ExecuteDirect(query); ZTable1.Active:=true; end;

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• Question about how to use strong typed dataset in N-tier application for .NET

  - by sb

  Hello All, I need some expert advice on strong typed data sets in ADO.NET that are generated by the Visual Studio. Here are the details. Thank you in advance. I want to write a N-tier application where Presentation layer is in C#/windows forms, Business Layer is a Web service and Data Access Layer is SQL db. So, I used Visual Studio 2005 for this and created 3 projects in a solution. project 1 is the Data access layer. In this I have used visual studio data set generator to create a strong typed data set and table adapter (to test I created this on the customers table in northwind). The data set is called NorthWindDataSet and the table inside is CustomersTable. project 2 has the web service which exposes only 1 method which is GetCustomersDataSet. This uses the project1 library's table adapter to fill the data set and return it to the caller. To be able to use the NorthWindDataSet and table adapter, I added a reference to the project 1. project 3 is a win forms app and this uses the web service as a reference and calls that service to get the data set. In the process of building this application, in the PL, I added a reference to the DataSet generated above in the project 1 and in form's load I call the web service and assign the received DataSet from the web service to this dataset. But I get the error: "Cannot implicitly convert type 'PL.WebServiceLayerReference.NorthwindDataSet' to 'BL.NorthwindDataSet' e:\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\DataSetWebServiceExample\PL\Form1.cs". Both the data sets are same but because I added references from different locations, I am getting the above error I think. So, what I did was I added a reference to project 1 (which defines the data set) to project 3 (the UI) and used the web service to get the DataSet and assing to the right type, now when the project 3 (which has the web form) runs, I get the below runtime exception. "System.InvalidOperationException: There is an error in XML document (1, 5058). --- System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaException: Multiple definition of element 'http://tempuri.org/NorthwindDataSet.xsd:Customers' causes the content model to become ambiguous. A content model must be formed such that during validation of an element information item sequence, the particle contained directly, indirectly or implicitly therein with which to attempt to validate each item in the sequence in turn can be uniquely determined without examining the content or attributes of that item, and without any information about the items in the remainder of the sequence." I think this might be because of some cross referenceing errors. My question is, is there a way to use the visual studio generated DataSets in such a way that I can use the same DataSet in all layers (for reuse) but separate the Table Adapter logic to the Data Access Layer so that the front end is abstracted from all this by the web service? If I have hand write the code I loose the goodness the data set generator gives and also if there are columns added later I need to add it by hand etc so I want to use the visual studio wizard as much as possible. thanks for any help on this. sb

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• Modern Java alternatives

  - by Ralph

  I'm not sure if stackoverflow is the best forum for this discussion. I have been a Java developer for 14 years and have written an enterprise-level (~500,000 line) Swing application that uses most of the standard library APIs. Recently, I have become disappointed with the progress that the language has made to "modernize" itself, and am looking for an alternative for ongoing development. I have considered moving to the .NET platform, but I have issues with using something the only runs well in Windows (I know about Mono, but that is still far behind Microsoft). I also plan on buying a new Macbook Pro as soon as Apple releases their new rumored Arrandale-based machines and want to develop in an environment that will feel "at home" in Unix/Linux. I have considered using Python or Ruby, but the standard Java library is arguably the largest of any modern language. In JVM-based languages, I looked at Groovy, but am disappointed with its performance. Rumor has it that with the soon-to-be released JDK7, with its InvokeDynamic instruction, this will improve, but I don't know how much. Groovy is also not truly a functional language, although it provides closures and some of the "functional" features on collections. It does not embrace immutability. I have narrowed my search down to two JVM-based alternatives: Scala and Clojure. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. I am looking for the stackoverflow readerships' opinions. I am not an expert at either of these languages; I have read 2 1/2 books on Scala and am currently reading Stu Halloway's book on Clojure. Scala is strongly statically typed. I know the dynamic language folks claim that static typing is a crutch for not doing unit testing, but it does provide a mechanism for compile-time location of a whole class of errors. Scala is more concise than Java, but not as much as Clojure. Scala's inter-operation with Java seems to be better than Clojure's, in that most Java operations are easier to do in Scala than in Clojure. For example, I can find no way in Clojure to create a non-static initialization block in a class derived from a Java superclass. For example, I like the Apache commons CLI library for command line argument parsing. In Java and Scala, I can create a new Options object and add Option items to it in an initialization block as follows (Java code): final Options options = new Options() { { addOption(new Option("?", "help", false, "Show this usage information"); // other options } }; I can't figure out how to the same thing in Clojure (except by using (doit...)), although that may reflect my lack of knowledge of the language. Clojure's collections are optimized for immutability. They rarely require copy-on-write semantics. I don't know if Scala's immutable collections are implemented using similar algorithms, but Rich Hickey (Clojure's inventor) goes out of his way to explain how that language's data structures are efficient. Clojure was designed from the beginning for concurrency (as was Scala) and with modern multi-core processors, concurrency takes on more importance, but I occasionally need to write simple non-concurrent utilities, and Scala code probably runs a little faster for these applications since it discourages, but does not prohibit, "simple" mutability. One could argue that one-off utilities do not have to be super-fast, but sometimes they do tasks that take hours or days to complete. I know that there is no right answer to this "question", but I thought I would open it up for discussion. If anyone has a suggestion for another JVM-based language that can be used for enterprise level development, please list it. Also, it is not my intent to start a flame war. Thanks, Ralph

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• Java Fx Data bind not working with File Read

  - by rjha94

  Hi I am using a very simple JavaFx client to upload files. I read the file in chunks of 1 MB (using Byte Buffer) and upload using multi part POST to a PHP script. I want to update the progress bar of my client to show progress after each chunk is uploaded. The calculations for upload progress look correct but the progress bar is not updated. I am using bind keyword. I am no JavaFx expert and I am hoping some one can point out my mistake. I am writing this client to fix the issues posted here (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2447837/upload-1gb-files-using-chunking-in-php) /* * Main.fx * * Created on Mar 16, 2010, 1:58:32 PM */ package webgloo; import javafx.stage.Stage; import javafx.scene.Scene; import javafx.scene.layout.VBox; import javafx.geometry.VPos; import javafx.scene.control.Button; import javafx.scene.control.Label; import javafx.scene.layout.HBox; import javafx.scene.layout.LayoutInfo; import javafx.scene.text.Font; import javafx.scene.control.ProgressBar; import java.io.FileInputStream; /** * @author rajeev jha */ var totalBytes:Float = 1; var bytesWritten:Float = 0; var progressUpload:Float; var uploadURI = "http://www.test1.com/test/receiver.php"; var postMax = 1024000 ; function uploadFile(inputFile: java.io.File) { totalBytes = inputFile.length(); bytesWritten = 1; println("To-Upload - {totalBytes}"); var is = new FileInputStream(inputFile); var fc = is.getChannel(); //1 MB byte buffer var chunkCount = 0; var bb = java.nio.ByteBuffer.allocate(postMax); while(fc.read(bb) >= 0){ println("loop:start"); bb.flip(); var limit = bb.limit(); var bytes = GigaFileUploader.getBufferBytes(bb.array(), limit); var content = GigaFileUploader.createPostContent(inputFile.getName(), bytes); GigaFileUploader.upload(uploadURI, content); bytesWritten = bytesWritten + limit ; progressUpload = 1.0 * bytesWritten / totalBytes ; println("Progress is - {progressUpload}"); chunkCount++; bb.clear(); println("loop:end"); } } var label = Label { font: Font { size: 12 } text: bind "Uploaded - {bytesWritten * 100 / (totalBytes)}%" layoutInfo: LayoutInfo { vpos: VPos.CENTER maxWidth: 120 minWidth: 120 width: 120 height: 30 } } def jFileChooser = new javax.swing.JFileChooser(); jFileChooser.setApproveButtonText("Upload"); var button = Button { text: "Upload" layoutInfo: LayoutInfo { width: 100 height: 30 } action: function () { var outputFile = jFileChooser.showOpenDialog(null); if (outputFile == javax.swing.JFileChooser.APPROVE_OPTION) { uploadFile(jFileChooser.getSelectedFile()); } } } var hBox = HBox { spacing: 10 content: [label, button] } var progressBar = ProgressBar { progress: bind progressUpload layoutInfo: LayoutInfo { width: 240 height: 30 } } var vBox = VBox { spacing: 10 content: [hBox, progressBar] layoutX: 10 layoutY: 10 } Stage { title: "Upload File" width: 270 height: 120 scene: Scene { content: [vBox] } resizable: false }

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