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  • How does Windows 7 DNS client work?

    - by Mark Allison
    I am using a local DHCP and DNS server on my home network on a linux machine. It is running CentOS 6.3 with dnsmasq 2.48. It's all working fine except for local DNS lookups for Windows machines only. I have a mix of Ubuntu, CentOS and Windows machines on the network, some virtual, some physical. I have a machine called boron and the domain is called localdomain If I ping boron from any linux machine, I get [root@lithium lists]# ping -c3 boron PING boron.localdomain (10.0.0.5) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from boron.localdomain (10.0.0.5): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.740 ms 64 bytes from boron.localdomain (10.0.0.5): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.478 ms 64 bytes from boron.localdomain (10.0.0.5): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.458 ms --- boron.localdomain ping statistics --- 3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2000ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.458/0.558/0.740/0.131 ms If I do it from my Windows 7 machine, I get: Ping request could not find host boron. Please check the name and try again. If I try ping boron.localdomain I get: Pinging boron.localdomain [67.215.65.132] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 67.215.65.132: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=57 Reply from 67.215.65.132: bytes=32 time=188ms TTL=57 Reply from 67.215.65.132: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=57 Reply from 67.215.65.132: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=57 Ping statistics for 67.215.65.132: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 188ms, Average = 58ms which is clearly wrong. Why is it going out to the internet? Why can't my windows machine resolve the boron hostname to a FQDN? My Windows machines and linux machines get their network config from DHCP. UPDATE If I do ipconfig /all in Windows, it looks as I would expect: Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : lanthanum Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : .localdomain Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : .localdomain Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 50-E5-49-38-FC-A2 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.57(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 23 August 2012 13:58:45 Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 24 August 2012 07:58:48 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.6 DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.6 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.6 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled When I do an nslookup I get: Server: carbon.localdomain Address: 10.0.0.6 *** carbon.localdomain can't find boron: Unspecified error However if I do ifconfig -a in Linux I get: [root@nitrogen ~]# ifconfig -a eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0C:29:AF:EC:2A inet addr:10.0.0.7 Bcast:10.0.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:187687 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:5857 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:23910700 (22.8 MiB) TX bytes:712964 (696.2 KiB) lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:329894 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:329894 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:67153143 (64.0 MiB) TX bytes:67153143 (64.0 MiB) and nslookup: [root@nitrogen ~]# nslookup boron Server: 10.0.0.6 Address: 10.0.0.6#53 Name: boron Address: 10.0.0.5 Both machines are on the same network using the same DHCP server. UPDATE 2 I thought the issue was resolved but I am getting intermittent DNS resolving issues but only on my Windows 7 machine. All my linux boxes are fine. This is what happens when I ping and nslookup from Windows to a Windows 2008 Server: C:\Users\mark>nslookup magnesium Server: carbon.localdomain Address: 10.0.0.6 Name: magnesium.localdomain Address: 10.0.0.12 C:\Users\mark>ping magnesium Pinging magnesium.localdomain [67.215.65.132] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 67.215.65.132: bytes=32 time=267ms TTL=57 Reply from 67.215.65.132: bytes=32 time=162ms TTL=57 Reply from 67.215.65.132: bytes=32 time=510ms TTL=57 Reply from 67.215.65.132: bytes=32 time=146ms TTL=57 Ping statistics for 67.215.65.132: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 146ms, Maximum = 510ms, Average = 271ms And from Linux: [root@beryllium ~]# ping -c4 magnesium PING magnesium.localdomain (10.0.0.12) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from magnesium.localdomain (10.0.0.12): icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=0.176 ms 64 bytes from magnesium.localdomain (10.0.0.12): icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.634 ms 64 bytes from magnesium.localdomain (10.0.0.12): icmp_seq=3 ttl=128 time=0.685 ms 64 bytes from magnesium.localdomain (10.0.0.12): icmp_seq=4 ttl=128 time=0.263 ms --- magnesium.localdomain ping statistics --- 4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3002ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.176/0.439/0.685/0.223 ms [root@beryllium ~]# nslookup magnesium Server: 10.0.0.6 Address: 10.0.0.6#53 Name: magnesium.localdomain Address: 10.0.0.12 UPDATE 3 I stopped the Windows DNS client on my Windows 7 machine with net stop dnscache and it is now working fine. It would be nice to get DNS working with the DNS client on, but I might be OK without it, what do you think?

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  • Unable to PPTP through NAT on Cisco 881

    - by MasterRoot24
    I'm trying to connect to a PPTP server which is sat behind a Cisco 881 NAT router. The server is running Ubuntu Server 12.04 and is running Poptop pptpd as the PPTP daemon listening for connections. As discussed in my other question, I'm trying to setup a Cisco 881 router to replace my old Linksys WAG320N. This same server and WAN connection worked fine with the WAG320N with no special configuration, other than allowing 1723 in through the firewall. On the Cisco 881, I'm using the newer ip nat enable or NAT NVI to setup static routes in through the firewall for the services running behind the router. My reason being that I can't run another copy of my live DNS domains internally with local IP addresses in. For the purposes of this question, though, I have rebuilt the router with ip nat inside/outside style NAT'ing, but this issue is still apparent. HTTP/SMTP/IMAP etc. all work ok from both the WAN and LAN interfaces of the router. I'm only having issues with SIP (see other question) and PPTP. My issue is that the GRE doesn't appear to be passing through NAT correctly and one end of the connection is not receiving GRE traffic when it should be, so the server hangs up the connection. Here's an example of /var/log/syslog with debug enabled in /etc/pptpd.conf: Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: MGR: Launching /usr/sbin/pptpctrl to handle client Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: local address = 192.168.1.50 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: remote address = 192.168.1.51 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: pppd options file = /etc/ppp/pptpd-options Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Client 82.132.248.216 control connection started Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Received PPTP Control Message (type: 1) Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Made a START CTRL CONN RPLY packet Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: I wrote 156 bytes to the client. Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Sent packet to client Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Received PPTP Control Message (type: 7) Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Set parameters to 100000000 maxbps, 64 window size Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Made a OUT CALL RPLY packet Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Starting call (launching pppd, opening GRE) Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: pty_fd = 6 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: tty_fd = 7 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: I wrote 32 bytes to the client. Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Sent packet to client Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22627]: CTRL (PPPD Launcher): program binary = /usr/sbin/pppd Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22627]: CTRL (PPPD Launcher): local address = 192.168.1.50 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22627]: CTRL (PPPD Launcher): remote address = 192.168.1.51 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pppd[22627]: Plugin /usr/lib/pptpd/pptpd-logwtmp.so loaded. Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pppd[22627]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pppd[22627]: Using interface ppp0 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pppd[22627]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/3 Dec 11 21:06:30 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: GRE: Bad checksum from pppd. Dec 11 21:06:31 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Received PPTP Control Message (type: 15) Dec 11 21:06:31 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Got a SET LINK INFO packet with standard ACCMs Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pppd[22627]: LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pppd[22627]: Connection terminated. Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> avahi-daemon[1042]: Withdrawing workstation service for ppp0. Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pppd[22627]: Modem hangup Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pppd[22627]: Exit. Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: GRE: read(fd=6,buffer=6075a0,len=8196) from PTY failed: status = -1 error = Input/output error, usually caused by unexpected termination of pppd, check option syntax and pppd logs Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: PTY read or GRE write failed (pty,gre)=(6,7) Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Reaping child PPP[22627] Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Client 82.132.248.216 control connection finished Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[22626]: CTRL: Exiting now Dec 11 21:07:00 <HOSTNAME> pptpd[5803]: MGR: Reaped child 22626 As far as Cisco are concerned, all I need is ip nat source static tcp <SERVER LAN IP> 1723 interface FastEthernet4 1723 but of course this doesn't seem to the be helping the GRE traffic through as it should. Trying the connection to the LAN IP of the server from the same LAN as the server (behind the router), the PPTP connection works fine, so I'm confident that the server's config is ok. Furthermore, all I needed on my WAG320N was to open 1723 in the firewall. Here's my current router config: ! ! Last configuration change at 20:20:15 UTC Tue Dec 11 2012 by xxx version 15.2 no service pad service timestamps debug datetime msec service timestamps log datetime msec service password-encryption ! hostname xxx ! boot-start-marker boot-end-marker ! ! enable secret 4 xxxx ! aaa new-model ! ! aaa authentication login local_auth local ! ! ! ! ! aaa session-id common ! memory-size iomem 10 ! crypto pki trustpoint TP-self-signed-xxx enrollment selfsigned subject-name cn=IOS-Self-Signed-Certificate-xxx revocation-check none rsakeypair TP-self-signed-xxx ! ! crypto pki certificate chain TP-self-signed-xxx certificate self-signed 01 xxx quit ip gratuitous-arps ip auth-proxy max-login-attempts 5 ip admission max-login-attempts 5 ! ! ! ! ! ip domain list dmz.xxx.local ip domain list xxx.local ip domain name dmz.xxx.local ip name-server 192.168.1.x ip cef login block-for 3 attempts 3 within 3 no ipv6 cef ! ! multilink bundle-name authenticated license udi pid CISCO881-SEC-K9 sn xxx ! ! username admin privilege 15 secret 4 xxx username joe secret 4 xxx ! ! ! ! ! ip ssh time-out 60 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! interface FastEthernet0 no ip address ! interface FastEthernet1 no ip address ! interface FastEthernet2 no ip address ! interface FastEthernet3 switchport access vlan 2 no ip address ! interface FastEthernet4 ip address dhcp ip nat enable duplex auto speed auto ! interface Vlan1 ip address 192.168.1.x 255.255.255.0 no ip redirects no ip unreachables no ip proxy-arp ip nat enable ! interface Vlan2 ip address 192.168.0.x 255.255.255.0 ! ip forward-protocol nd ip http server ip http access-class 1 ip http authentication local ip http secure-server ! ! ip nat source list 1 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source list 2 interface FastEthernet4 overload ip nat source static tcp 192.168.1.x 1723 interface FastEthernet4 1723 ! ! access-list 1 permit 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.255 access-list 2 permit 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.255 ! ! ! ! control-plane ! ! banner motd Authorized Access only ! line con 0 exec-timeout 15 0 login authentication local_auth line aux 0 exec-timeout 15 0 login authentication local_auth line vty 0 4 access-class 2 in login authentication local_auth length 0 transport input all ! ! end UPDATE 16/12/2012: The only progress that I have been able to make on this issue is that I'm confident that the issue is caused by the GRE tunnels (which are required for the PPTP connection to complete) are being blocked. When attempting a connection, I can see in show ip nat nvi translations that both a TCP translation on 1723 is setup and also a GRE translation is setup also. I appear to be able to see GRE related packets on the LAN that the server is on, so I am lead to believe that the server is sending(?) GRE packets, however running Wireshark on a client PC when attempting a connection shows absolutely no GRE packets. Whilst there are no configuration directives in my config posted above (that I can pin point) which would specifically block them, it would appear that the GRE packets are not being allowed in/out of the router's firewall, even though a NAT translation entry is setup to the server's LAN address. Would anyone be able to provide me with some help to ensure that GRE packets are not blocked by the router's firewall, so that this can be ruled out as a possible issue please?

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  • Cannot open root device xvda1 or unknown-block(0,0)

    - by svoop
    I'm putting together a Dom0 and three DomU (all Gentoo) with kernel 3.5.7 and Xen 4.1.1. Each Dom has it's own md (md0 for Dom0, md1 for Dom1 etc). Dom0 works fine so far, however, I'm stuck trying to create DomUs. It appears the xvda1 device on DomU is not created or accessible: Parsing config file dom1 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_allocate: cmdline="root=/dev/xvda1 console=hvc0 root=/dev/xvda1 ro 3", features="(null)" domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_kernel_mem: called domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_boot_xen_init: ver 4.1, caps xen-3.0-x86_64 xen-3.0-x86_32p hvm-3.0-x86_32 hvm-3.0-x86_32p hvm-3.0-x86_64 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_parse_image: called domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_find_loader: trying multiboot-binary loader ... domainbuilder: detail: loader probe failed domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_find_loader: trying Linux bzImage loader ... domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_malloc : 10530 kB domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_do_gunzip: unzip ok, 0x2f7a4f -> 0xa48888 domainbuilder: detail: loader probe OK xc: detail: elf_parse_binary: phdr: paddr=0x1000000 memsz=0x558000 xc: detail: elf_parse_binary: phdr: paddr=0x1558000 memsz=0x690e8 xc: detail: elf_parse_binary: phdr: paddr=0x15c2000 memsz=0x127c0 xc: detail: elf_parse_binary: phdr: paddr=0x15d5000 memsz=0x533000 xc: detail: elf_parse_binary: memory: 0x1000000 -> 0x1b08000 xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: GUEST_OS = "linux" xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: GUEST_VERSION = "2.6" xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: XEN_VERSION = "xen-3.0" xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: VIRT_BASE = 0xffffffff80000000 xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: ENTRY = 0xffffffff815d5210 xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: HYPERCALL_PAGE = 0xffffffff81001000 xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: FEATURES = "!writable_page_tables|pae_pgdir_above_4gb" xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: PAE_MODE = "yes" xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: LOADER = "generic" xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: unknown xen elf note (0xd) xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: SUSPEND_CANCEL = 0x1 xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: HV_START_LOW = 0xffff800000000000 xc: detail: elf_xen_parse_note: PADDR_OFFSET = 0x0 xc: detail: elf_xen_addr_calc_check: addresses: xc: detail: virt_base = 0xffffffff80000000 xc: detail: elf_paddr_offset = 0x0 xc: detail: virt_offset = 0xffffffff80000000 xc: detail: virt_kstart = 0xffffffff81000000 xc: detail: virt_kend = 0xffffffff81b08000 xc: detail: virt_entry = 0xffffffff815d5210 xc: detail: p2m_base = 0xffffffffffffffff domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_parse_elf_kernel: xen-3.0-x86_64: 0xffffffff81000000 -> 0xffffffff81b08000 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_mem_init: mem 5000 MB, pages 0x138800 pages, 4k each domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_mem_init: 0x138800 pages domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_boot_mem_init: called domainbuilder: detail: x86_compat: guest xen-3.0-x86_64, address size 64 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_malloc : 10000 kB domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_build_image: called domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_alloc_segment: kernel : 0xffffffff81000000 -> 0xffffffff81b08000 (pfn 0x1000 + 0xb08 pages) domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_pfn_to_ptr: domU mapping: pfn 0x1000+0xb08 at 0x7fdec9b85000 xc: detail: elf_load_binary: phdr 0 at 0x0x7fdec9b85000 -> 0x0x7fdeca0dd000 xc: detail: elf_load_binary: phdr 1 at 0x0x7fdeca0dd000 -> 0x0x7fdeca1460e8 xc: detail: elf_load_binary: phdr 2 at 0x0x7fdeca147000 -> 0x0x7fdeca1597c0 xc: detail: elf_load_binary: phdr 3 at 0x0x7fdeca15a000 -> 0x0x7fdeca1cd000 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_alloc_segment: phys2mach : 0xffffffff81b08000 -> 0xffffffff824cc000 (pfn 0x1b08 + 0x9c4 pages) domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_pfn_to_ptr: domU mapping: pfn 0x1b08+0x9c4 at 0x7fdec91c1000 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_alloc_page : start info : 0xffffffff824cc000 (pfn 0x24cc) domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_alloc_page : xenstore : 0xffffffff824cd000 (pfn 0x24cd) domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_alloc_page : console : 0xffffffff824ce000 (pfn 0x24ce) domainbuilder: detail: nr_page_tables: 0x0000ffffffffffff/48: 0xffff000000000000 -> 0xffffffffffffffff, 1 table(s) domainbuilder: detail: nr_page_tables: 0x0000007fffffffff/39: 0xffffff8000000000 -> 0xffffffffffffffff, 1 table(s) domainbuilder: detail: nr_page_tables: 0x000000003fffffff/30: 0xffffffff80000000 -> 0xffffffffbfffffff, 1 table(s) domainbuilder: detail: nr_page_tables: 0x00000000001fffff/21: 0xffffffff80000000 -> 0xffffffff827fffff, 20 table(s) domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_alloc_segment: page tables : 0xffffffff824cf000 -> 0xffffffff824e6000 (pfn 0x24cf + 0x17 pages) domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_pfn_to_ptr: domU mapping: pfn 0x24cf+0x17 at 0x7fdece676000 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_alloc_page : boot stack : 0xffffffff824e6000 (pfn 0x24e6) domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_build_image : virt_alloc_end : 0xffffffff824e7000 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_build_image : virt_pgtab_end : 0xffffffff82800000 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_boot_image: called domainbuilder: detail: arch_setup_bootearly: doing nothing domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_compat_check: supported guest type: xen-3.0-x86_64 <= matches domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_compat_check: supported guest type: xen-3.0-x86_32p domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_compat_check: supported guest type: hvm-3.0-x86_32 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_compat_check: supported guest type: hvm-3.0-x86_32p domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_compat_check: supported guest type: hvm-3.0-x86_64 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_update_guest_p2m: dst 64bit, pages 0x138800 domainbuilder: detail: clear_page: pfn 0x24ce, mfn 0x37ddee domainbuilder: detail: clear_page: pfn 0x24cd, mfn 0x37ddef domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_pfn_to_ptr: domU mapping: pfn 0x24cc+0x1 at 0x7fdece675000 domainbuilder: detail: start_info_x86_64: called domainbuilder: detail: setup_hypercall_page: vaddr=0xffffffff81001000 pfn=0x1001 domainbuilder: detail: domain builder memory footprint domainbuilder: detail: allocated domainbuilder: detail: malloc : 20658 kB domainbuilder: detail: anon mmap : 0 bytes domainbuilder: detail: mapped domainbuilder: detail: file mmap : 0 bytes domainbuilder: detail: domU mmap : 21392 kB domainbuilder: detail: arch_setup_bootlate: shared_info: pfn 0x0, mfn 0xbaa6f domainbuilder: detail: shared_info_x86_64: called domainbuilder: detail: vcpu_x86_64: called domainbuilder: detail: vcpu_x86_64: cr3: pfn 0x24cf mfn 0x37dded domainbuilder: detail: launch_vm: called, ctxt=0x7fff224e4ea0 domainbuilder: detail: xc_dom_release: called Daemon running with PID 4639 [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu [ 0.000000] Linux version 3.5.7-gentoo (root@majordomo) (gcc version 4.5.4 (Gentoo 4.5.4 p1.0, pie-0.4.7) ) #1 SMP Tue Nov 20 10:49:51 CET 2012 [ 0.000000] Command line: root=/dev/xvda1 console=hvc0 root=/dev/xvda1 ro 3 [ 0.000000] ACPI in unprivileged domain disabled [ 0.000000] e820: BIOS-provided physical RAM map: [ 0.000000] Xen: [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x000000000009ffff] usable [ 0.000000] Xen: [mem 0x00000000000a0000-0x00000000000fffff] reserved [ 0.000000] Xen: [mem 0x0000000000100000-0x0000000138ffffff] usable [ 0.000000] NX (Execute Disable) protection: active [ 0.000000] MPS support code is not built-in. [ 0.000000] Using acpi=off or acpi=noirq or pci=noacpi may have problem [ 0.000000] DMI not present or invalid. [ 0.000000] No AGP bridge found [ 0.000000] e820: last_pfn = 0x139000 max_arch_pfn = 0x400000000 [ 0.000000] e820: last_pfn = 0x100000 max_arch_pfn = 0x400000000 [ 0.000000] init_memory_mapping: [mem 0x00000000-0xffffffff] [ 0.000000] init_memory_mapping: [mem 0x100000000-0x138ffffff] [ 0.000000] NUMA turned off [ 0.000000] Faking a node at [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x0000000138ffffff] [ 0.000000] Initmem setup node 0 [mem 0x00000000-0x138ffffff] [ 0.000000] NODE_DATA [mem 0x1387fc000-0x1387fffff] [ 0.000000] Zone ranges: [ 0.000000] DMA [mem 0x00010000-0x00ffffff] [ 0.000000] DMA32 [mem 0x01000000-0xffffffff] [ 0.000000] Normal [mem 0x100000000-0x138ffffff] [ 0.000000] Movable zone start for each node [ 0.000000] Early memory node ranges [ 0.000000] node 0: [mem 0x00010000-0x0009ffff] [ 0.000000] node 0: [mem 0x00100000-0x138ffffff] [ 0.000000] SMP: Allowing 1 CPUs, 0 hotplug CPUs [ 0.000000] No local APIC present [ 0.000000] APIC: disable apic facility [ 0.000000] APIC: switched to apic NOOP [ 0.000000] e820: cannot find a gap in the 32bit address range [ 0.000000] e820: PCI devices with unassigned 32bit BARs may break! [ 0.000000] e820: [mem 0x139100000-0x1394fffff] available for PCI devices [ 0.000000] Booting paravirtualized kernel on Xen [ 0.000000] Xen version: 4.1.1 (preserve-AD) [ 0.000000] setup_percpu: NR_CPUS:64 nr_cpumask_bits:64 nr_cpu_ids:1 nr_node_ids:1 [ 0.000000] PERCPU: Embedded 26 pages/cpu @ffff880138400000 s75712 r8192 d22592 u2097152 [ 0.000000] Built 1 zonelists in Node order, mobility grouping on. Total pages: 1259871 [ 0.000000] Policy zone: Normal [ 0.000000] Kernel command line: root=/dev/xvda1 console=hvc0 root=/dev/xvda1 ro 3 [ 0.000000] PID hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes) [ 0.000000] __ex_table already sorted, skipping sort [ 0.000000] Checking aperture... [ 0.000000] No AGP bridge found [ 0.000000] Memory: 4943980k/5128192k available (3937k kernel code, 448k absent, 183764k reserved, 1951k data, 524k init) [ 0.000000] SLUB: Genslabs=15, HWalign=64, Order=0-3, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1 [ 0.000000] Hierarchical RCU implementation. [ 0.000000] NR_IRQS:4352 nr_irqs:256 16 [ 0.000000] Console: colour dummy device 80x25 [ 0.000000] console [tty0] enabled [ 0.000000] console [hvc0] enabled [ 0.000000] installing Xen timer for CPU 0 [ 0.000000] Detected 3411.602 MHz processor. [ 0.000999] Calibrating delay loop (skipped), value calculated using timer frequency.. 6823.20 BogoMIPS (lpj=3411602) [ 0.000999] pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301 [ 0.000999] Security Framework initialized [ 0.001355] Dentry cache hash table entries: 1048576 (order: 11, 8388608 bytes) [ 0.002974] Inode-cache hash table entries: 524288 (order: 10, 4194304 bytes) [ 0.003441] Mount-cache hash table entries: 256 [ 0.003595] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct [ 0.003599] Initializing cgroup subsys freezer [ 0.003637] ENERGY_PERF_BIAS: Set to 'normal', was 'performance' [ 0.003637] ENERGY_PERF_BIAS: View and update with x86_energy_perf_policy(8) [ 0.003643] CPU: Physical Processor ID: 0 [ 0.003645] CPU: Processor Core ID: 0 [ 0.003702] SMP alternatives: switching to UP code [ 0.011791] Freeing SMP alternatives: 12k freed [ 0.011835] Performance Events: unsupported p6 CPU model 42 no PMU driver, software events only. [ 0.011886] Brought up 1 CPUs [ 0.011998] Grant tables using version 2 layout. [ 0.012009] Grant table initialized [ 0.012034] NET: Registered protocol family 16 [ 0.012328] PCI: setting up Xen PCI frontend stub [ 0.015089] bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0 [ 0.015158] ACPI: Interpreter disabled. [ 0.015180] xen/balloon: Initialising balloon driver. [ 0.015180] xen-balloon: Initialising balloon driver. [ 0.015180] vgaarb: loaded [ 0.016126] SCSI subsystem initialized [ 0.016314] PCI: System does not support PCI [ 0.016320] PCI: System does not support PCI [ 0.016435] NetLabel: Initializing [ 0.016438] NetLabel: domain hash size = 128 [ 0.016440] NetLabel: protocols = UNLABELED CIPSOv4 [ 0.016447] NetLabel: unlabeled traffic allowed by default [ 0.016475] Switching to clocksource xen [ 0.017434] pnp: PnP ACPI: disabled [ 0.017501] NET: Registered protocol family 2 [ 0.017864] IP route cache hash table entries: 262144 (order: 9, 2097152 bytes) [ 0.019322] TCP established hash table entries: 524288 (order: 11, 8388608 bytes) [ 0.020376] TCP bind hash table entries: 65536 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes) [ 0.020497] TCP: Hash tables configured (established 524288 bind 65536) [ 0.020500] TCP: reno registered [ 0.020525] UDP hash table entries: 4096 (order: 5, 131072 bytes) [ 0.020564] UDP-Lite hash table entries: 4096 (order: 5, 131072 bytes) [ 0.020624] NET: Registered protocol family 1 [ 0.020658] PCI-DMA: Using software bounce buffering for IO (SWIOTLB) [ 0.020662] software IO TLB [mem 0xfb632000-0xff631fff] (64MB) mapped at [ffff8800fb632000-ffff8800ff631fff] [ 0.020750] platform rtc_cmos: registered platform RTC device (no PNP device found) [ 0.021378] HugeTLB registered 2 MB page size, pre-allocated 0 pages [ 0.023378] msgmni has been set to 9656 [ 0.023544] Block layer SCSI generic (bsg) driver version 0.4 loaded (major 253) [ 0.023549] io scheduler noop registered [ 0.023551] io scheduler deadline registered [ 0.023580] io scheduler cfq registered (default) [ 0.023650] pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5 [ 0.023845] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled [ 0.024082] Non-volatile memory driver v1.3 [ 0.024085] Linux agpgart interface v0.103 [ 0.024207] Event-channel device installed. [ 0.024265] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810 [ 0.024268] [drm:i915_init] *ERROR* drm/i915 can't work without intel_agp module! [ 0.025145] brd: module loaded [ 0.025565] loop: module loaded [ 0.045646] Initialising Xen virtual ethernet driver. [ 0.198264] i8042: PNP: No PS/2 controller found. Probing ports directly. [ 0.199096] i8042: No controller found [ 0.199139] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice [ 0.259303] rtc_cmos rtc_cmos: rtc core: registered rtc_cmos as rtc0 [ 0.259353] rtc_cmos: probe of rtc_cmos failed with error -38 [ 0.259440] md: raid1 personality registered for level 1 [ 0.259542] nf_conntrack version 0.5.0 (16384 buckets, 65536 max) [ 0.259732] ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team [ 0.259747] TCP: cubic registered [ 0.259886] NET: Registered protocol family 10 [ 0.260031] ip6_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team [ 0.260070] sit: IPv6 over IPv4 tunneling driver [ 0.260194] NET: Registered protocol family 17 [ 0.260213] Bridge firewalling registered [ 5.360075] XENBUS: Waiting for devices to initialise: 25s...20s...15s...10s...5s...0s...235s...230s...225s...220s...215s...210s...205s...200s...195s...190s...185s...180s...175s...170s...165s...160s...155s...150s...145s...140s...135s...130s...125s...120s...115s...110s...105s...100s...95s...90s...85s...80s...75s...70s...65s...60s...55s...50s...45s...40s...35s...30s...25s...20s...15s...10s...5s...0s... [ 270.360180] XENBUS: Timeout connecting to device: device/vbd/51713 (local state 3, remote state 1) [ 270.360273] md: Waiting for all devices to be available before autodetect [ 270.360277] md: If you don't use raid, use raid=noautodetect [ 270.360388] md: Autodetecting RAID arrays. [ 270.360392] md: Scanned 0 and added 0 devices. [ 270.360394] md: autorun ... [ 270.360395] md: ... autorun DONE. [ 270.360431] VFS: Cannot open root device "xvda1" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6 [ 270.360435] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions: [ 270.360440] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0) [ 270.360444] Pid: 1, comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 3.5.7-gentoo #1 [ 270.360446] Call Trace: [ 270.360454] [<ffffffff813d2205>] ? panic+0xbe/0x1c5 [ 270.360459] [<ffffffff813d2358>] ? printk+0x4c/0x51 [ 270.360464] [<ffffffff815d5fb7>] ? mount_block_root+0x24f/0x26d [ 270.360469] [<ffffffff815d62b6>] ? prepare_namespace+0x168/0x192 [ 270.360474] [<ffffffff815d5ca7>] ? kernel_init+0x1b0/0x1c2 [ 270.360477] [<ffffffff815d5500>] ? loglevel+0x34/0x34 [ 270.360482] [<ffffffff813d5a64>] ? kernel_thread_helper+0x4/0x10 [ 270.360486] [<ffffffff813d4038>] ? retint_restore_args+0x5/0x6 [ 270.360490] [<ffffffff813d5a60>] ? gs_change+0x13/0x13 The config: name = "dom1" bootloader = "/usr/bin/pygrub" root = "/dev/xvda1 ro" extra = "3" # runlevel memory = 5000 disk = [ 'phy:/dev/md1,xvda1,w' ] # vif = [ 'ip=..., vifname=veth1' ] # none for now Here are some details on the Dom0 kernel (grepping for "xen"): CONFIG_XEN=y CONFIG_XEN_DOM0=y CONFIG_XEN_PRIVILEGED_GUEST=y CONFIG_XEN_PVHVM=y CONFIG_XEN_MAX_DOMAIN_MEMORY=500 CONFIG_XEN_SAVE_RESTORE=y CONFIG_PCI_XEN=y CONFIG_XEN_PCIDEV_FRONTEND=y # CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_FRONTEND is not set CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_BACKEND=y # CONFIG_XEN_NETDEV_FRONTEND is not set CONFIG_XEN_NETDEV_BACKEND=y CONFIG_INPUT_XEN_KBDDEV_FRONTEND=y CONFIG_HVC_XEN=y CONFIG_HVC_XEN_FRONTEND=y # CONFIG_XEN_WDT is not set # CONFIG_XEN_FBDEV_FRONTEND is not set # Xen driver support CONFIG_XEN_BALLOON=y # CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING is not set CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES=y CONFIG_XEN_DEV_EVTCHN=y CONFIG_XEN_BACKEND=y CONFIG_XENFS=y CONFIG_XEN_COMPAT_XENFS=y CONFIG_XEN_SYS_HYPERVISOR=y CONFIG_XEN_XENBUS_FRONTEND=y CONFIG_XEN_GNTDEV=m CONFIG_XEN_GRANT_DEV_ALLOC=m CONFIG_SWIOTLB_XEN=y CONFIG_XEN_TMEM=y CONFIG_XEN_PCIDEV_BACKEND=m CONFIG_XEN_PRIVCMD=y CONFIG_XEN_ACPI_PROCESSOR=m And the DomU kernel (grepping for "xen"): CONFIG_XEN=y CONFIG_XEN_DOM0=y CONFIG_XEN_PRIVILEGED_GUEST=y CONFIG_XEN_PVHVM=y CONFIG_XEN_MAX_DOMAIN_MEMORY=500 CONFIG_XEN_SAVE_RESTORE=y CONFIG_PCI_XEN=y CONFIG_XEN_PCIDEV_FRONTEND=y CONFIG_XEN_BLKDEV_FRONTEND=y CONFIG_XEN_NETDEV_FRONTEND=y CONFIG_INPUT_XEN_KBDDEV_FRONTEND=y CONFIG_HVC_XEN=y CONFIG_HVC_XEN_FRONTEND=y # CONFIG_XEN_WDT is not set # CONFIG_XEN_FBDEV_FRONTEND is not set # Xen driver support CONFIG_XEN_BALLOON=y # CONFIG_XEN_SELFBALLOONING is not set CONFIG_XEN_SCRUB_PAGES=y CONFIG_XEN_DEV_EVTCHN=y # CONFIG_XEN_BACKEND is not set CONFIG_XENFS=y CONFIG_XEN_COMPAT_XENFS=y CONFIG_XEN_SYS_HYPERVISOR=y CONFIG_XEN_XENBUS_FRONTEND=y CONFIG_XEN_GNTDEV=m CONFIG_XEN_GRANT_DEV_ALLOC=m CONFIG_SWIOTLB_XEN=y CONFIG_XEN_TMEM=y CONFIG_XEN_PRIVCMD=y CONFIG_XEN_ACPI_PROCESSOR=m Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here? Thanks a lot!

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  • Redirecting or routing all traffic to OpenVPN on a Mac OS X client

    - by sdr56p
    I have configured an OpenVPN (2.2.1) server on an Ubuntu virtual machine in the Amazon elastic compute cloud. The server is up and running. I have installed OpenVPN (2.2.1) on a Mac OS X (10.8.2) client and I am using the openvpn2 binary to connect (in opposition to other clients like Tunnelblick or Viscosity). I can connect with the client and successfully ping or ssh the server through the tunnel. However, I can't redirect all internet traffic through the VPN even if I use the push "redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp" option in the server.conf configurations. When I connect to the server with these configurations, I get a successful connection, but then an infinite series of error messages: "write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65)". Traffic routing seems to be compromised because I am not able to access anything anymore, not even the OpenVPN server (by pinging 10.8.0.1 for instance). This is beyond me. I am finding little help on the web and don't know what to try next. I don't think it is a problem of forwarding the traffic on the server since, first, I have also took care of that and, second, I can't even ping the VPN server locally through the tunnel (or ping anything at all for that matter). Thank you for your help. Here is the server.conf. file: port 1194 proto udp dev tun ca ca.crt cert ec2-server.crt key ec2-server.key # This file should be kept secret dh dh1024.pem server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0 ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt push "redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp" client-to-client keepalive 10 120 comp-lzo persist-key persist-tun status openvpn-status.log verb 3 And the client.conf file: client dev tun proto udp remote servername.com 1194 resolv-retry infinite nobind persist-key persist-tun ca ca.crt cert Toto5.crt key Toto5.key ns-cert-type server comp-lzo verb 3 Here is the connection log with the error messages: $ sudo openvpn2 --config client.conf Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 OpenVPN 2.2.1 x86_64-apple-darwin12.2.0 [SSL] [LZO2] [eurephia] built on Mar 4 2013 Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 NOTE: OpenVPN 2.1 requires '--script-security 2' or higher to call user-defined scripts or executables Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 LZO compression initialized Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 Control Channel MTU parms [ L:1542 D:138 EF:38 EB:0 ET:0 EL:0 ] Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 Socket Buffers: R=[196724->65536] S=[9216->65536] Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 Data Channel MTU parms [ L:1542 D:1450 EF:42 EB:135 ET:0 EL:0 AF:3/1 ] Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 Local Options hash (VER=V4): '41690919' Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 Expected Remote Options hash (VER=V4): '530fdded' Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 UDPv4 link local: [undef] Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 UDPv4 link remote: 54.234.43.171:1194 Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 TLS: Initial packet from 54.234.43.171:1194, sid=ffbaf343 d0c1a266 Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 VERIFY OK: depth=1, /C=US/ST=CA/L=SanFrancisco/O=Fort-Funst ... ost.domain Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 VERIFY OK: nsCertType=SERVER Wed Mar 13 22:58:22 2013 VERIFY OK: depth=0, /C=US/ST=CA/L=SanFrancisco/O=Fort-Funst ... ost.domain Wed Mar 13 22:58:23 2013 Data Channel Encrypt: Cipher 'BF-CBC' initialized with 128 bit key Wed Mar 13 22:58:23 2013 Data Channel Encrypt: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication Wed Mar 13 22:58:23 2013 Data Channel Decrypt: Cipher 'BF-CBC' initialized with 128 bit key Wed Mar 13 22:58:23 2013 Data Channel Decrypt: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication Wed Mar 13 22:58:23 2013 Control Channel: TLSv1, cipher TLSv1/SSLv3 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA, 1024 bit RSA Wed Mar 13 22:58:23 2013 [ec2-server] Peer Connection Initiated with 54.234.43.171:1194 Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 SENT CONTROL [ec2-server]: 'PUSH_REQUEST' (status=1) Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 PUSH: Received control message: 'PUSH_REPLY,route 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0,topology net30,ping 10,ping-restart 120,ifconfig 10.8.0.6 10.8.0.5' Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 OPTIONS IMPORT: timers and/or timeouts modified Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 OPTIONS IMPORT: --ifconfig/up options modified Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 OPTIONS IMPORT: route options modified Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 ROUTE default_gateway=0.0.0.0 Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 TUN/TAP device /dev/tun0 opened Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 /sbin/ifconfig tun0 delete ifconfig: ioctl (SIOCDIFADDR): Can't assign requested address Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 NOTE: Tried to delete pre-existing tun/tap instance -- No Problem if failure Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 /sbin/ifconfig tun0 10.8.0.6 10.8.0.5 mtu 1500 netmask 255.255.255.255 up Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 /sbin/route add -net 10.8.0.0 10.8.0.5 255.255.255.0 add net 10.8.0.0: gateway 10.8.0.5 Wed Mar 13 22:58:25 2013 Initialization Sequence Completed ^CWed Mar 13 22:58:30 2013 event_wait : Interrupted system call (code=4) Wed Mar 13 22:58:30 2013 TCP/UDP: Closing socket Wed Mar 13 22:58:30 2013 /sbin/route delete -net 10.8.0.0 10.8.0.5 255.255.255.0 delete net 10.8.0.0: gateway 10.8.0.5 Wed Mar 13 22:58:30 2013 Closing TUN/TAP interface Wed Mar 13 22:58:30 2013 SIGINT[hard,] received, process exiting toto5:ttntec2 Dominic$ sudo openvpn2 --config client.conf --remote ec2-54-234-43-171.compute-1.amazonaws.com Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 OpenVPN 2.2.1 x86_64-apple-darwin12.2.0 [SSL] [LZO2] [eurephia] built on Mar 4 2013 Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 NOTE: OpenVPN 2.1 requires '--script-security 2' or higher to call user-defined scripts or executables Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 LZO compression initialized Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 Control Channel MTU parms [ L:1542 D:138 EF:38 EB:0 ET:0 EL:0 ] Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 Socket Buffers: R=[196724->65536] S=[9216->65536] Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 Data Channel MTU parms [ L:1542 D:1450 EF:42 EB:135 ET:0 EL:0 AF:3/1 ] Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 Local Options hash (VER=V4): '41690919' Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 Expected Remote Options hash (VER=V4): '530fdded' Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 UDPv4 link local: [undef] Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 UDPv4 link remote: 54.234.43.171:1194 Wed Mar 13 22:58:57 2013 TLS: Initial packet from 54.234.43.171:1194, sid=a0d75468 ec26de14 Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 VERIFY OK: depth=1, /C=US/ST=CA/L=SanFrancisco/O=Fort-Funst ... ost.domain Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 VERIFY OK: nsCertType=SERVER Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 VERIFY OK: depth=0, /C=US/ST=CA/L=SanFrancisco/O=Fort-Funst ... ost.domain Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 Data Channel Encrypt: Cipher 'BF-CBC' initialized with 128 bit key Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 Data Channel Encrypt: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 Data Channel Decrypt: Cipher 'BF-CBC' initialized with 128 bit key Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 Data Channel Decrypt: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 Control Channel: TLSv1, cipher TLSv1/SSLv3 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA, 1024 bit RSA Wed Mar 13 22:58:58 2013 [ec2-server] Peer Connection Initiated with 54.234.43.171:1194 Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 SENT CONTROL [ec2-server]: 'PUSH_REQUEST' (status=1) Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 PUSH: Received control message: 'PUSH_REPLY,redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp,route 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0,topology net30,ping 10,ping-restart 120,ifconfig 10.8.0.6 10.8.0.5' Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 OPTIONS IMPORT: timers and/or timeouts modified Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 OPTIONS IMPORT: --ifconfig/up options modified Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 OPTIONS IMPORT: route options modified Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 ROUTE default_gateway=0.0.0.0 Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 TUN/TAP device /dev/tun0 opened Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 /sbin/ifconfig tun0 delete ifconfig: ioctl (SIOCDIFADDR): Can't assign requested address Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 NOTE: Tried to delete pre-existing tun/tap instance -- No Problem if failure Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 /sbin/ifconfig tun0 10.8.0.6 10.8.0.5 mtu 1500 netmask 255.255.255.255 up Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 /sbin/route add -net 54.234.43.171 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 add net 54.234.43.171: gateway 0.0.0.0 Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 /sbin/route add -net 0.0.0.0 10.8.0.5 128.0.0.0 add net 0.0.0.0: gateway 10.8.0.5 Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 /sbin/route add -net 128.0.0.0 10.8.0.5 128.0.0.0 add net 128.0.0.0: gateway 10.8.0.5 Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 /sbin/route add -net 10.8.0.0 10.8.0.5 255.255.255.0 add net 10.8.0.0: gateway 10.8.0.5 Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 Initialization Sequence Completed Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:00 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:01 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:01 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:01 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:02 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:02 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:02 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:02 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) Wed Mar 13 22:59:02 2013 write UDPv4: No route to host (code=65) ... The routing table after a connection WITHOUT the push redirect-gateway (all traffic is not redirected to the VPN and everything is working fine, I can ping or ssh the OpenVPN server and access all other Internet resources through my default gateway): Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire default user148-1.wireless UGSc 50 0 en1 10.8/24 10.8.0.5 UGSc 2 7 tun0 10.8.0.5 10.8.0.6 UH 3 2 tun0 127 localhost UCS 0 0 lo0 localhost localhost UH 6 6692 lo0 client.openvpn.net client.openvpn.net UH 3 18 lo0 142.1.148/22 link#5 UCS 2 0 en1 user148-1.wireless 0:90:b:27:10:71 UHLWIir 50 0 en1 76 user150-173.wirele localhost UHS 0 0 lo0 142.1.151.255 ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff UHLWbI 0 2 en1 169.254 link#5 UCS 1 0 en1 169.254.255.255 0:90:b:27:10:71 UHLSWi 0 0 en1 71 The routing table after a connection with the push redirect-gateway option enable as in the server.conf file above (all internet traffic should be redirected to the VPN tunnel, but nothing is working, I can't access any Internet ressources at all): Destination Gateway Flags Refs Use Netif Expire 0/1 10.8.0.5 UGSc 1 0 tun0 default user148-1.wireless UGSc 7 0 en1 10.8/24 10.8.0.5 UGSc 0 0 tun0 10.8.0.5 10.8.0.6 UHr 6 0 tun0 54.234.43.171/32 0.0.0.0 UGSc 1 0 en1 127 localhost UCS 0 0 lo0 localhost localhost UH 3 6698 lo0 client.openvpn.net client.openvpn.net UH 0 27 lo0 128.0/1 10.8.0.5 UGSc 2 0 tun0 142.1.148/22 link#5 UCS 1 0 en1 user148-1.wireless 0:90:b:27:10:71 UHLWIir 1 0 en1 833 user150-173.wirele localhost UHS 0 0 lo0 169.254 link#5 UCS 1 0 en1 169.254.255.255 0:90:b:27:10:71 UHLSW 0 0 en1

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  • Windows Server 2003 VPN and Local network

    - by depo
    I have some problems reaching local network , where VPN Windows 2003 server stands. I have a network, which has a VPN server (LAN ip 10.0.0.201). I created a VPN server on that server with different subnet for VPN users (10.0.5.0). After VPN connection is initiated , i am able to acces only 10.0.0.201, but not other PC, which belongs to that network ( all i need to access 10.0.0.203 and 10.0.0.208). I think i need to add somethink to static route table, or not? C:\Documents and Settings\Administratorroute PRINT IPv4 Route Table Active Routes: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.0.0.254 10.0.0.201 10 10.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 10.0.0.201 10.0.0.201 10 10.0.0.201 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 10 10.0.5.1 255.255.255.255 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 50 10.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 10.0.0.201 10.0.0.201 10 127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 1 224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 10.0.0.201 10.0.0.201 10 255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 10.0.0.201 10.0.0.201 1 Default Gateway: 10.0.0.254 Persistent Routes: None C:\Documents and Settings\Administratoripconfig /all PPP adapter RAS Server (Dial In) Interface: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : WAN (PPP/SLIP) Interface Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-53-45-00-00-00 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.5.1 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Network Connection Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0E-0C-3D-C9-51 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.201 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.0.0.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.254 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 127.0.0.1 Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.201 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled VPN Client PPP adapter VPN Connection 2: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : VPN Connection 2 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.5.4(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.201 Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 10.0.0.201 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

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  • 26 Days: Countdown to Oracle OpenWorld 2012

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

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

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

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  • wxWidgets in Code::Blocks

    - by Vlad
    Hello all, I'm trying to compile the minimal sample from the "Cross-Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets" book but the following compile errors: ||=== minimal, Debug ===| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_frame.o):frame.cpp:(.text+0x918)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume' | C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_frame.o):frame.cpp:(.text+0x931)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_frame.o):frame.cpp:(.text+0xa96)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_frame.o):frame.cpp:(.text+0xada)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_frame.o):frame.cpp:(.text+0xb1e)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_frame.o):frame.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x12)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_datacmn.o):datacmn.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x11)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdicmn.o):gdicmn.cpp:(.text+0x63a)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdicmn.o):gdicmn.cpp:(.text+0x696)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdicmn.o):gdicmn.cpp:(.text+0x6f2)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdicmn.o):gdicmn.cpp:(.text+0x74a)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdicmn.o):gdicmn.cpp:(.text+0x7a2)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdicmn.o):gdicmn.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x12)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menu.o):menu.cpp:(.text+0x88f)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menu.o):menu.cpp:(.text+0x927)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume' | C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menu.o):menu.cpp:(.text+0x9bf)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menu.o):menu.cpp:(.text+0xb8b)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menu.o):menu.cpp:(.text+0xc87)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menu.o):menu.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x12)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menucmn.o):menucmn.cpp:(.text+0xbc0)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menucmn.o):menucmn.cpp:(.text+0xc59)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menucmn.o):menucmn.cpp:(.text+0xcf5)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menucmn.o):menucmn.cpp:(.text+0xda6)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menucmn.o):menucmn.cpp:(.text+0xdce)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_menucmn.o):menucmn.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x12)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_icon.o):icon.cpp:(.text+0x1ff)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_icon.o):icon.cpp:(.text+0x257)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_icon.o):icon.cpp:(.text+0x2af)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_icon.o):icon.cpp:(.text+0x2fc)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_icon.o):icon.cpp:(.text+0x36d)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_icon.o):icon.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x12)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdiimage.o):gdiimage.cpp:(.text+0x4a8)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdiimage.o):gdiimage.cpp:(.text+0x73a)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdiimage.o):gdiimage.cpp:(.text+0x813)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdiimage.o):gdiimage.cpp:(.text+0xc06)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdiimage.o):gdiimage.cpp:(.text+0xd3e)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_gdiimage.o):gdiimage.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x12)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_event.o):event.cpp:(.text+0x970)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_event.o):event.cpp:(.text+0xa80)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_event.o):event.cpp:(.text+0xb8c)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_event.o):event.cpp:(.text+0xc78)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_event.o):event.cpp:(.text+0xd4f)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_event.o):event.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x12)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_appcmn.o):appcmn.cpp:(.text+0x2ef)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_appcmn.o):appcmn.cpp:(.text+0x32b)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_appcmn.o):appcmn.cpp:(.text+0x43d)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_appcmn.o):appcmn.cpp:(.text+0x586)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_appcmn.o):appcmn.cpp:(.text+0x601)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_appcmn.o):appcmn.cpp:(.eh_frame+0x12)||undefined reference to `___gxx_personality_v0'| C:\SourceCode\Libraries\wxWidgets2.8\lib\gcc_lib\libwxmsw28u_core.a(corelib_app.o):app.cpp:(.text+0x1da)||undefined reference to `__Unwind_Resume'| ||More errors follow but not being shown.| ||Edit the max errors limit in compiler options...| ||=== Build finished: 50 errors, 0 warnings ===| Here's the code sample from the book: #include "wx/wx.h" #include "mondrian.xpm" // Declare the application class class MyApp : public wxApp { public: // Called on application startup virtual bool OnInit(); }; // Declare our main frame class class MyFrame : public wxFrame { public: // Constructor MyFrame(const wxString& title); // Event handlers void OnQuit(wxCommandEvent& event); void OnAbout(wxCommandEvent& event); private: // This class handles events DECLARE_EVENT_TABLE() }; // Implements MyApp& GetApp() DECLARE_APP(MyApp) // Give wxWidgets the means to create a MyApp object IMPLEMENT_APP(MyApp) // Initialize the application bool MyApp::OnInit() { // Create the main application window MyFrame *frame = new MyFrame(wxT("Minimal wxWidgets App")); // Show it frame->Show(true); // Start the event loop return true; } // Event table for MyFrame BEGIN_EVENT_TABLE(MyFrame, wxFrame) EVT_MENU(wxID_ABOUT, MyFrame::OnAbout) EVT_MENU(wxID_EXIT, MyFrame::OnQuit) END_EVENT_TABLE() void MyFrame::OnAbout(wxCommandEvent& event) { wxString msg; msg.Printf(wxT("Hello and welcome to %s"), wxVERSION_STRING); wxMessageBox(msg, wxT("About Minimal"), wxOK | wxICON_INFORMATION, this); } void MyFrame::OnQuit(wxCommandEvent& event) { // Destroy the frame Close(); } MyFrame::MyFrame(const wxString& title) : wxFrame(NULL, wxID_ANY, title) { // Set the frame icon SetIcon(wxIcon(mondrian_xpm)); // Create a menu bar wxMenu *fileMenu = new wxMenu; // The “About” item should be in the help menu wxMenu *helpMenu = new wxMenu; helpMenu->Append(wxID_ABOUT, wxT("&About...\tF1"), wxT("Show about dialog")); fileMenu->Append(wxID_EXIT, wxT("E&xit\tAlt-X"), wxT("Quit this program")); // Now append the freshly created menu to the menu bar... wxMenuBar *menuBar = new wxMenuBar(); menuBar->Append(fileMenu, wxT("&File")); menuBar->Append(helpMenu, wxT("&Help")); // ... and attach this menu bar to the frame SetMenuBar(menuBar); // Create a status bar just for fun CreateStatusBar(2); SetStatusText(wxT("Welcome to wxWidgets!")); } So what's happenning? Thanks! P.S.: I installed wxWidgets through wxPack wich afaik comes with everything precomplied and i also added the wxWidgets directory to Global variables-base in Code::Blocks so everything should be correctly set, right?

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  • New features of C# 4.0

    This article covers New features of C# 4.0. Article has been divided into below sections. Introduction. Dynamic Lookup. Named and Optional Arguments. Features for COM interop. Variance. Relationship with Visual Basic. Resources. Other interested readings… 22 New Features of Visual Studio 2008 for .NET Professionals 50 New Features of SQL Server 2008 IIS 7.0 New features Introduction It is now close to a year since Microsoft Visual C# 3.0 shipped as part of Visual Studio 2008. In the VS Managed Languages team we are hard at work on creating the next version of the language (with the unsurprising working title of C# 4.0), and this document is a first public description of the planned language features as we currently see them. Please be advised that all this is in early stages of production and is subject to change. Part of the reason for sharing our plans in public so early is precisely to get the kind of feedback that will cause us to improve the final product before it rolls out. Simultaneously with the publication of this whitepaper, a first public CTP (community technology preview) of Visual Studio 2010 is going out as a Virtual PC image for everyone to try. Please use it to play and experiment with the features, and let us know of any thoughts you have. We ask for your understanding and patience working with very early bits, where especially new or newly implemented features do not have the quality or stability of a final product. The aim of the CTP is not to give you a productive work environment but to give you the best possible impression of what we are working on for the next release. The CTP contains a number of walkthroughs, some of which highlight the new language features of C# 4.0. Those are excellent for getting a hands-on guided tour through the details of some common scenarios for the features. You may consider this whitepaper a companion document to these walkthroughs, complementing them with a focus on the overall language features and how they work, as opposed to the specifics of the concrete scenarios. C# 4.0 The major theme for C# 4.0 is dynamic programming. Increasingly, objects are “dynamic” in the sense that their structure and behavior is not captured by a static type, or at least not one that the compiler knows about when compiling your program. Some examples include a. objects from dynamic programming languages, such as Python or Ruby b. COM objects accessed through IDispatch c. ordinary .NET types accessed through reflection d. objects with changing structure, such as HTML DOM objects While C# remains a statically typed language, we aim to vastly improve the interaction with such objects. A secondary theme is co-evolution with Visual Basic. Going forward we will aim to maintain the individual character of each language, but at the same time important new features should be introduced in both languages at the same time. They should be differentiated more by style and feel than by feature set. The new features in C# 4.0 fall into four groups: Dynamic lookup Dynamic lookup allows you to write method, operator and indexer calls, property and field accesses, and even object invocations which bypass the C# static type checking and instead gets resolved at runtime. Named and optional parameters Parameters in C# can now be specified as optional by providing a default value for them in a member declaration. When the member is invoked, optional arguments can be omitted. Furthermore, any argument can be passed by parameter name instead of position. COM specific interop features Dynamic lookup as well as named and optional parameters both help making programming against COM less painful than today. On top of that, however, we are adding a number of other small features that further improve the interop experience. Variance It used to be that an IEnumerable<string> wasn’t an IEnumerable<object>. Now it is – C# embraces type safe “co-and contravariance” and common BCL types are updated to take advantage of that. Dynamic Lookup Dynamic lookup allows you a unified approach to invoking things dynamically. With dynamic lookup, when you have an object in your hand you do not need to worry about whether it comes from COM, IronPython, the HTML DOM or reflection; you just apply operations to it and leave it to the runtime to figure out what exactly those operations mean for that particular object. This affords you enormous flexibility, and can greatly simplify your code, but it does come with a significant drawback: Static typing is not maintained for these operations. A dynamic object is assumed at compile time to support any operation, and only at runtime will you get an error if it wasn’t so. Oftentimes this will be no loss, because the object wouldn’t have a static type anyway, in other cases it is a tradeoff between brevity and safety. In order to facilitate this tradeoff, it is a design goal of C# to allow you to opt in or opt out of dynamic behavior on every single call. The dynamic type C# 4.0 introduces a new static type called dynamic. When you have an object of type dynamic you can “do things to it” that are resolved only at runtime: dynamic d = GetDynamicObject(…); d.M(7); The C# compiler allows you to call a method with any name and any arguments on d because it is of type dynamic. At runtime the actual object that d refers to will be examined to determine what it means to “call M with an int” on it. The type dynamic can be thought of as a special version of the type object, which signals that the object can be used dynamically. It is easy to opt in or out of dynamic behavior: any object can be implicitly converted to dynamic, “suspending belief” until runtime. Conversely, there is an “assignment conversion” from dynamic to any other type, which allows implicit conversion in assignment-like constructs: dynamic d = 7; // implicit conversion int i = d; // assignment conversion Dynamic operations Not only method calls, but also field and property accesses, indexer and operator calls and even delegate invocations can be dispatched dynamically: dynamic d = GetDynamicObject(…); d.M(7); // calling methods d.f = d.P; // getting and settings fields and properties d[“one”] = d[“two”]; // getting and setting thorugh indexers int i = d + 3; // calling operators string s = d(5,7); // invoking as a delegate The role of the C# compiler here is simply to package up the necessary information about “what is being done to d”, so that the runtime can pick it up and determine what the exact meaning of it is given an actual object d. Think of it as deferring part of the compiler’s job to runtime. The result of any dynamic operation is itself of type dynamic. Runtime lookup At runtime a dynamic operation is dispatched according to the nature of its target object d: COM objects If d is a COM object, the operation is dispatched dynamically through COM IDispatch. This allows calling to COM types that don’t have a Primary Interop Assembly (PIA), and relying on COM features that don’t have a counterpart in C#, such as indexed properties and default properties. Dynamic objects If d implements the interface IDynamicObject d itself is asked to perform the operation. Thus by implementing IDynamicObject a type can completely redefine the meaning of dynamic operations. This is used intensively by dynamic languages such as IronPython and IronRuby to implement their own dynamic object models. It will also be used by APIs, e.g. by the HTML DOM to allow direct access to the object’s properties using property syntax. Plain objects Otherwise d is a standard .NET object, and the operation will be dispatched using reflection on its type and a C# “runtime binder” which implements C#’s lookup and overload resolution semantics at runtime. This is essentially a part of the C# compiler running as a runtime component to “finish the work” on dynamic operations that was deferred by the static compiler. Example Assume the following code: dynamic d1 = new Foo(); dynamic d2 = new Bar(); string s; d1.M(s, d2, 3, null); Because the receiver of the call to M is dynamic, the C# compiler does not try to resolve the meaning of the call. Instead it stashes away information for the runtime about the call. This information (often referred to as the “payload”) is essentially equivalent to: “Perform an instance method call of M with the following arguments: 1. a string 2. a dynamic 3. a literal int 3 4. a literal object null” At runtime, assume that the actual type Foo of d1 is not a COM type and does not implement IDynamicObject. In this case the C# runtime binder picks up to finish the overload resolution job based on runtime type information, proceeding as follows: 1. Reflection is used to obtain the actual runtime types of the two objects, d1 and d2, that did not have a static type (or rather had the static type dynamic). The result is Foo for d1 and Bar for d2. 2. Method lookup and overload resolution is performed on the type Foo with the call M(string,Bar,3,null) using ordinary C# semantics. 3. If the method is found it is invoked; otherwise a runtime exception is thrown. Overload resolution with dynamic arguments Even if the receiver of a method call is of a static type, overload resolution can still happen at runtime. This can happen if one or more of the arguments have the type dynamic: Foo foo = new Foo(); dynamic d = new Bar(); var result = foo.M(d); The C# runtime binder will choose between the statically known overloads of M on Foo, based on the runtime type of d, namely Bar. The result is again of type dynamic. The Dynamic Language Runtime An important component in the underlying implementation of dynamic lookup is the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), which is a new API in .NET 4.0. The DLR provides most of the infrastructure behind not only C# dynamic lookup but also the implementation of several dynamic programming languages on .NET, such as IronPython and IronRuby. Through this common infrastructure a high degree of interoperability is ensured, but just as importantly the DLR provides excellent caching mechanisms which serve to greatly enhance the efficiency of runtime dispatch. To the user of dynamic lookup in C#, the DLR is invisible except for the improved efficiency. However, if you want to implement your own dynamically dispatched objects, the IDynamicObject interface allows you to interoperate with the DLR and plug in your own behavior. This is a rather advanced task, which requires you to understand a good deal more about the inner workings of the DLR. For API writers, however, it can definitely be worth the trouble in order to vastly improve the usability of e.g. a library representing an inherently dynamic domain. Open issues There are a few limitations and things that might work differently than you would expect. · The DLR allows objects to be created from objects that represent classes. However, the current implementation of C# doesn’t have syntax to support this. · Dynamic lookup will not be able to find extension methods. Whether extension methods apply or not depends on the static context of the call (i.e. which using clauses occur), and this context information is not currently kept as part of the payload. · Anonymous functions (i.e. lambda expressions) cannot appear as arguments to a dynamic method call. The compiler cannot bind (i.e. “understand”) an anonymous function without knowing what type it is converted to. One consequence of these limitations is that you cannot easily use LINQ queries over dynamic objects: dynamic collection = …; var result = collection.Select(e => e + 5); If the Select method is an extension method, dynamic lookup will not find it. Even if it is an instance method, the above does not compile, because a lambda expression cannot be passed as an argument to a dynamic operation. There are no plans to address these limitations in C# 4.0. Named and Optional Arguments Named and optional parameters are really two distinct features, but are often useful together. Optional parameters allow you to omit arguments to member invocations, whereas named arguments is a way to provide an argument using the name of the corresponding parameter instead of relying on its position in the parameter list. Some APIs, most notably COM interfaces such as the Office automation APIs, are written specifically with named and optional parameters in mind. Up until now it has been very painful to call into these APIs from C#, with sometimes as many as thirty arguments having to be explicitly passed, most of which have reasonable default values and could be omitted. Even in APIs for .NET however you sometimes find yourself compelled to write many overloads of a method with different combinations of parameters, in order to provide maximum usability to the callers. Optional parameters are a useful alternative for these situations. Optional parameters A parameter is declared optional simply by providing a default value for it: public void M(int x, int y = 5, int z = 7); Here y and z are optional parameters and can be omitted in calls: M(1, 2, 3); // ordinary call of M M(1, 2); // omitting z – equivalent to M(1, 2, 7) M(1); // omitting both y and z – equivalent to M(1, 5, 7) Named and optional arguments C# 4.0 does not permit you to omit arguments between commas as in M(1,,3). This could lead to highly unreadable comma-counting code. Instead any argument can be passed by name. Thus if you want to omit only y from a call of M you can write: M(1, z: 3); // passing z by name or M(x: 1, z: 3); // passing both x and z by name or even M(z: 3, x: 1); // reversing the order of arguments All forms are equivalent, except that arguments are always evaluated in the order they appear, so in the last example the 3 is evaluated before the 1. Optional and named arguments can be used not only with methods but also with indexers and constructors. Overload resolution Named and optional arguments affect overload resolution, but the changes are relatively simple: A signature is applicable if all its parameters are either optional or have exactly one corresponding argument (by name or position) in the call which is convertible to the parameter type. Betterness rules on conversions are only applied for arguments that are explicitly given – omitted optional arguments are ignored for betterness purposes. If two signatures are equally good, one that does not omit optional parameters is preferred. M(string s, int i = 1); M(object o); M(int i, string s = “Hello”); M(int i); M(5); Given these overloads, we can see the working of the rules above. M(string,int) is not applicable because 5 doesn’t convert to string. M(int,string) is applicable because its second parameter is optional, and so, obviously are M(object) and M(int). M(int,string) and M(int) are both better than M(object) because the conversion from 5 to int is better than the conversion from 5 to object. Finally M(int) is better than M(int,string) because no optional arguments are omitted. Thus the method that gets called is M(int). Features for COM interop Dynamic lookup as well as named and optional parameters greatly improve the experience of interoperating with COM APIs such as the Office Automation APIs. In order to remove even more of the speed bumps, a couple of small COM-specific features are also added to C# 4.0. Dynamic import Many COM methods accept and return variant types, which are represented in the PIAs as object. In the vast majority of cases, a programmer calling these methods already knows the static type of a returned object from context, but explicitly has to perform a cast on the returned value to make use of that knowledge. These casts are so common that they constitute a major nuisance. In order to facilitate a smoother experience, you can now choose to import these COM APIs in such a way that variants are instead represented using the type dynamic. In other words, from your point of view, COM signatures now have occurrences of dynamic instead of object in them. This means that you can easily access members directly off a returned object, or you can assign it to a strongly typed local variable without having to cast. To illustrate, you can now say excel.Cells[1, 1].Value = "Hello"; instead of ((Excel.Range)excel.Cells[1, 1]).Value2 = "Hello"; and Excel.Range range = excel.Cells[1, 1]; instead of Excel.Range range = (Excel.Range)excel.Cells[1, 1]; Compiling without PIAs Primary Interop Assemblies are large .NET assemblies generated from COM interfaces to facilitate strongly typed interoperability. They provide great support at design time, where your experience of the interop is as good as if the types where really defined in .NET. However, at runtime these large assemblies can easily bloat your program, and also cause versioning issues because they are distributed independently of your application. The no-PIA feature allows you to continue to use PIAs at design time without having them around at runtime. Instead, the C# compiler will bake the small part of the PIA that a program actually uses directly into its assembly. At runtime the PIA does not have to be loaded. Omitting ref Because of a different programming model, many COM APIs contain a lot of reference parameters. Contrary to refs in C#, these are typically not meant to mutate a passed-in argument for the subsequent benefit of the caller, but are simply another way of passing value parameters. It therefore seems unreasonable that a C# programmer should have to create temporary variables for all such ref parameters and pass these by reference. Instead, specifically for COM methods, the C# compiler will allow you to pass arguments by value to such a method, and will automatically generate temporary variables to hold the passed-in values, subsequently discarding these when the call returns. In this way the caller sees value semantics, and will not experience any side effects, but the called method still gets a reference. Open issues A few COM interface features still are not surfaced in C#. Most notably these include indexed properties and default properties. As mentioned above these will be respected if you access COM dynamically, but statically typed C# code will still not recognize them. There are currently no plans to address these remaining speed bumps in C# 4.0. Variance An aspect of generics that often comes across as surprising is that the following is illegal: IList<string> strings = new List<string>(); IList<object> objects = strings; The second assignment is disallowed because strings does not have the same element type as objects. There is a perfectly good reason for this. If it were allowed you could write: objects[0] = 5; string s = strings[0]; Allowing an int to be inserted into a list of strings and subsequently extracted as a string. This would be a breach of type safety. However, there are certain interfaces where the above cannot occur, notably where there is no way to insert an object into the collection. Such an interface is IEnumerable<T>. If instead you say: IEnumerable<object> objects = strings; There is no way we can put the wrong kind of thing into strings through objects, because objects doesn’t have a method that takes an element in. Variance is about allowing assignments such as this in cases where it is safe. The result is that a lot of situations that were previously surprising now just work. Covariance In .NET 4.0 the IEnumerable<T> interface will be declared in the following way: public interface IEnumerable<out T> : IEnumerable { IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator(); } public interface IEnumerator<out T> : IEnumerator { bool MoveNext(); T Current { get; } } The “out” in these declarations signifies that the T can only occur in output position in the interface – the compiler will complain otherwise. In return for this restriction, the interface becomes “covariant” in T, which means that an IEnumerable<A> is considered an IEnumerable<B> if A has a reference conversion to B. As a result, any sequence of strings is also e.g. a sequence of objects. This is useful e.g. in many LINQ methods. Using the declarations above: var result = strings.Union(objects); // succeeds with an IEnumerable<object> This would previously have been disallowed, and you would have had to to some cumbersome wrapping to get the two sequences to have the same element type. Contravariance Type parameters can also have an “in” modifier, restricting them to occur only in input positions. An example is IComparer<T>: public interface IComparer<in T> { public int Compare(T left, T right); } The somewhat baffling result is that an IComparer<object> can in fact be considered an IComparer<string>! It makes sense when you think about it: If a comparer can compare any two objects, it can certainly also compare two strings. This property is referred to as contravariance. A generic type can have both in and out modifiers on its type parameters, as is the case with the Func<…> delegate types: public delegate TResult Func<in TArg, out TResult>(TArg arg); Obviously the argument only ever comes in, and the result only ever comes out. Therefore a Func<object,string> can in fact be used as a Func<string,object>. Limitations Variant type parameters can only be declared on interfaces and delegate types, due to a restriction in the CLR. Variance only applies when there is a reference conversion between the type arguments. For instance, an IEnumerable<int> is not an IEnumerable<object> because the conversion from int to object is a boxing conversion, not a reference conversion. Also please note that the CTP does not contain the new versions of the .NET types mentioned above. In order to experiment with variance you have to declare your own variant interfaces and delegate types. COM Example Here is a larger Office automation example that shows many of the new C# features in action. using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq; using Excel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel; using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word; class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var excel = new Excel.Application(); excel.Visible = true; excel.Workbooks.Add(); // optional arguments omitted excel.Cells[1, 1].Value = "Process Name"; // no casts; Value dynamically excel.Cells[1, 2].Value = "Memory Usage"; // accessed var processes = Process.GetProcesses() .OrderByDescending(p =&gt; p.WorkingSet) .Take(10); int i = 2; foreach (var p in processes) { excel.Cells[i, 1].Value = p.ProcessName; // no casts excel.Cells[i, 2].Value = p.WorkingSet; // no casts i++; } Excel.Range range = excel.Cells[1, 1]; // no casts Excel.Chart chart = excel.ActiveWorkbook.Charts. Add(After: excel.ActiveSheet); // named and optional arguments chart.ChartWizard( Source: range.CurrentRegion, Title: "Memory Usage in " + Environment.MachineName); //named+optional chart.ChartStyle = 45; chart.CopyPicture(Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen, Excel.XlCopyPictureFormat.xlBitmap, Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen); var word = new Word.Application(); word.Visible = true; word.Documents.Add(); // optional arguments word.Selection.Paste(); } } The code is much more terse and readable than the C# 3.0 counterpart. Note especially how the Value property is accessed dynamically. This is actually an indexed property, i.e. a property that takes an argument; something which C# does not understand. However the argument is optional. Since the access is dynamic, it goes through the runtime COM binder which knows to substitute the default value and call the indexed property. Thus, dynamic COM allows you to avoid accesses to the puzzling Value2 property of Excel ranges. Relationship with Visual Basic A number of the features introduced to C# 4.0 already exist or will be introduced in some form or other in Visual Basic: · Late binding in VB is similar in many ways to dynamic lookup in C#, and can be expected to make more use of the DLR in the future, leading to further parity with C#. · Named and optional arguments have been part of Visual Basic for a long time, and the C# version of the feature is explicitly engineered with maximal VB interoperability in mind. · NoPIA and variance are both being introduced to VB and C# at the same time. VB in turn is adding a number of features that have hitherto been a mainstay of C#. As a result future versions of C# and VB will have much better feature parity, for the benefit of everyone. Resources All available resources concerning C# 4.0 can be accessed through the C# Dev Center. Specifically, this white paper and other resources can be found at the Code Gallery site. Enjoy! span.fullpost {display:none;}

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  • Custom ASP.NET Routing to an HttpHandler

    - by Rick Strahl
    As of version 4.0 ASP.NET natively supports routing via the now built-in System.Web.Routing namespace. Routing features are automatically integrated into the HtttpRuntime via a few custom interfaces. New Web Forms Routing Support In ASP.NET 4.0 there are a host of improvements including routing support baked into Web Forms via a RouteData property available on the Page class and RouteCollection.MapPageRoute() route handler that makes it easy to route to Web forms. To map ASP.NET Page routes is as simple as setting up the routes with MapPageRoute:protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); } void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.MapPageRoute("StockQuote", "StockQuote/{symbol}", "StockQuote.aspx"); routes.MapPageRoute("StockQuotes", "StockQuotes/{symbolList}", "StockQuotes.aspx"); } and then accessing the route data in the page you can then use the new Page class RouteData property to retrieve the dynamic route data information:public partial class StockQuote1 : System.Web.UI.Page { protected StockQuote Quote = null; protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { string symbol = RouteData.Values["symbol"] as string; StockServer server = new StockServer(); Quote = server.GetStockQuote(symbol); // display stock data in Page View } } Simple, quick and doesn’t require much explanation. If you’re using WebForms most of your routing needs should be served just fine by this simple mechanism. Kudos to the ASP.NET team for putting this in the box and making it easy! How Routing Works To handle Routing in ASP.NET involves these steps: Registering Routes Creating a custom RouteHandler to retrieve an HttpHandler Attaching RouteData to your HttpHandler Picking up Route Information in your Request code Registering routes makes ASP.NET aware of the Routes you want to handle via the static RouteTable.Routes collection. You basically add routes to this collection to let ASP.NET know which URL patterns it should watch for. You typically hook up routes off a RegisterRoutes method that fires in Application_Start as I did in the example above to ensure routes are added only once when the application first starts up. When you create a route, you pass in a RouteHandler instance which ASP.NET caches and reuses as routes are matched. Once registered ASP.NET monitors the routes and if a match is found just prior to the HttpHandler instantiation, ASP.NET uses the RouteHandler registered for the route and calls GetHandler() on it to retrieve an HttpHandler instance. The RouteHandler.GetHandler() method is responsible for creating an instance of an HttpHandler that is to handle the request and – if necessary – to assign any additional custom data to the handler. At minimum you probably want to pass the RouteData to the handler so the handler can identify the request based on the route data available. To do this you typically add  a RouteData property to your handler and then assign the property from the RouteHandlers request context. This is essentially how Page.RouteData comes into being and this approach should work well for any custom handler implementation that requires RouteData. It’s a shame that ASP.NET doesn’t have a top level intrinsic object that’s accessible off the HttpContext object to provide route data more generically, but since RouteData is directly tied to HttpHandlers and not all handlers support it it might cause some confusion of when it’s actually available. Bottom line is that if you want to hold on to RouteData you have to assign it to a custom property of the handler or else pass it to the handler via Context.Items[] object that can be retrieved on an as needed basis. It’s important to understand that routing is hooked up via RouteHandlers that are responsible for loading HttpHandler instances. RouteHandlers are invoked for every request that matches a route and through this RouteHandler instance the Handler gains access to the current RouteData. Because of this logic it’s important to understand that Routing is really tied to HttpHandlers and not available prior to handler instantiation, which is pretty late in the HttpRuntime’s request pipeline. IOW, Routing works with Handlers but not with earlier in the pipeline within Modules. Specifically ASP.NET calls RouteHandler.GetHandler() from the PostResolveRequestCache HttpRuntime pipeline event. Here’s the call stack at the beginning of the GetHandler() call: which fires just before handler resolution. Non-Page Routing – You need to build custom RouteHandlers If you need to route to a custom Http Handler or other non-Page (and non-MVC) endpoint in the HttpRuntime, there is no generic mapping support available. You need to create a custom RouteHandler that can manage creating an instance of an HttpHandler that is fired in response to a routed request. Depending on what you are doing this process can be simple or fairly involved as your code is responsible based on the route data provided which handler to instantiate, and more importantly how to pass the route data on to the Handler. Luckily creating a RouteHandler is easy by implementing the IRouteHandler interface which has only a single GetHttpHandler(RequestContext context) method. In this method you can pick up the requestContext.RouteData, instantiate the HttpHandler of choice, and assign the RouteData to it. Then pass back the handler and you’re done.Here’s a simple example of GetHttpHandler() method that dynamically creates a handler based on a passed in Handler type./// <summary> /// Retrieves an Http Handler based on the type specified in the constructor /// </summary> /// <param name="requestContext"></param> /// <returns></returns> IHttpHandler IRouteHandler.GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { IHttpHandler handler = Activator.CreateInstance(CallbackHandlerType) as IHttpHandler; // If we're dealing with a Callback Handler // pass the RouteData for this route to the Handler if (handler is CallbackHandler) ((CallbackHandler)handler).RouteData = requestContext.RouteData; return handler; } Note that this code checks for a specific type of handler and if it matches assigns the RouteData to this handler. This is optional but quite a common scenario if you want to work with RouteData. If the handler you need to instantiate isn’t under your control but you still need to pass RouteData to Handler code, an alternative is to pass the RouteData via the HttpContext.Items collection:IHttpHandler IRouteHandler.GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { IHttpHandler handler = Activator.CreateInstance(CallbackHandlerType) as IHttpHandler; requestContext.HttpContext.Items["RouteData"] = requestContext.RouteData; return handler; } The code in the handler implementation can then pick up the RouteData from the context collection as needed:RouteData routeData = HttpContext.Current.Items["RouteData"] as RouteData This isn’t as clean as having an explicit RouteData property, but it does have the advantage that the route data is visible anywhere in the Handler’s code chain. It’s definitely preferable to create a custom property on your handler, but the Context work-around works in a pinch when you don’t’ own the handler code and have dynamic code executing as part of the handler execution. An Example of a Custom RouteHandler: Attribute Based Route Implementation In this post I’m going to discuss a custom routine implementation I built for my CallbackHandler class in the West Wind Web & Ajax Toolkit. CallbackHandler can be very easily used for creating AJAX, REST and POX requests following RPC style method mapping. You can pass parameters via URL query string, POST data or raw data structures, and you can retrieve results as JSON, XML or raw string/binary data. It’s a quick and easy way to build service interfaces with no fuss. As a quick review here’s how CallbackHandler works: You create an Http Handler that derives from CallbackHandler You implement methods that have a [CallbackMethod] Attribute and that’s it. Here’s an example of an CallbackHandler implementation in an ashx.cs based handler:// RestService.ashx.cs public class RestService : CallbackHandler { [CallbackMethod] public StockQuote GetStockQuote(string symbol) { StockServer server = new StockServer(); return server.GetStockQuote(symbol); } [CallbackMethod] public StockQuote[] GetStockQuotes(string symbolList) { StockServer server = new StockServer(); string[] symbols = symbolList.Split(new char[2] { ',',';' },StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries); return server.GetStockQuotes(symbols); } } CallbackHandler makes it super easy to create a method on the server, pass data to it via POST, QueryString or raw JSON/XML data, and then retrieve the results easily back in various formats. This works wonderful and I’ve used these tools in many projects for myself and with clients. But one thing missing has been the ability to create clean URLs. Typical URLs looked like this: http://www.west-wind.com/WestwindWebToolkit/samples/Rest/StockService.ashx?Method=GetStockQuote&symbol=msfthttp://www.west-wind.com/WestwindWebToolkit/samples/Rest/StockService.ashx?Method=GetStockQuotes&symbolList=msft,intc,gld,slw,mwe&format=xml which works and is clear enough, but also clearly very ugly. It would be much nicer if URLs could look like this: http://www.west-wind.com//WestwindWebtoolkit/Samples/StockQuote/msfthttp://www.west-wind.com/WestwindWebtoolkit/Samples/StockQuotes/msft,intc,gld,slw?format=xml (the Virtual Root in this sample is WestWindWebToolkit/Samples and StockQuote/{symbol} is the route)(If you use FireFox try using the JSONView plug-in make it easier to view JSON content) So, taking a clue from the WCF REST tools that use RouteUrls I set out to create a way to specify RouteUrls for each of the endpoints. The change made basically allows changing the above to: [CallbackMethod(RouteUrl="RestService/StockQuote/{symbol}")] public StockQuote GetStockQuote(string symbol) { StockServer server = new StockServer(); return server.GetStockQuote(symbol); } [CallbackMethod(RouteUrl = "RestService/StockQuotes/{symbolList}")] public StockQuote[] GetStockQuotes(string symbolList) { StockServer server = new StockServer(); string[] symbols = symbolList.Split(new char[2] { ',',';' },StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries); return server.GetStockQuotes(symbols); } where a RouteUrl is specified as part of the Callback attribute. And with the changes made with RouteUrls I can now get URLs like the second set shown earlier. So how does that work? Let’s find out… How to Create Custom Routes As mentioned earlier Routing is made up of several steps: Creating a custom RouteHandler to create HttpHandler instances Mapping the actual Routes to the RouteHandler Retrieving the RouteData and actually doing something useful with it in the HttpHandler In the CallbackHandler routing example above this works out to something like this: Create a custom RouteHandler that includes a property to track the method to call Set up the routes using Reflection against the class Looking for any RouteUrls in the CallbackMethod attribute Add a RouteData property to the CallbackHandler so we can access the RouteData in the code of the handler Creating a Custom Route Handler To make the above work I created a custom RouteHandler class that includes the actual IRouteHandler implementation as well as a generic and static method to automatically register all routes marked with the [CallbackMethod(RouteUrl="…")] attribute. Here’s the code:/// <summary> /// Route handler that can create instances of CallbackHandler derived /// callback classes. The route handler tracks the method name and /// creates an instance of the service in a predictable manner /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="TCallbackHandler">CallbackHandler type</typeparam> public class CallbackHandlerRouteHandler : IRouteHandler { /// <summary> /// Method name that is to be called on this route. /// Set by the automatically generated RegisterRoutes /// invokation. /// </summary> public string MethodName { get; set; } /// <summary> /// The type of the handler we're going to instantiate. /// Needed so we can semi-generically instantiate the /// handler and call the method on it. /// </summary> public Type CallbackHandlerType { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Constructor to pass in the two required components we /// need to create an instance of our handler. /// </summary> /// <param name="methodName"></param> /// <param name="callbackHandlerType"></param> public CallbackHandlerRouteHandler(string methodName, Type callbackHandlerType) { MethodName = methodName; CallbackHandlerType = callbackHandlerType; } /// <summary> /// Retrieves an Http Handler based on the type specified in the constructor /// </summary> /// <param name="requestContext"></param> /// <returns></returns> IHttpHandler IRouteHandler.GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext) { IHttpHandler handler = Activator.CreateInstance(CallbackHandlerType) as IHttpHandler; // If we're dealing with a Callback Handler // pass the RouteData for this route to the Handler if (handler is CallbackHandler) ((CallbackHandler)handler).RouteData = requestContext.RouteData; return handler; } /// <summary> /// Generic method to register all routes from a CallbackHandler /// that have RouteUrls defined on the [CallbackMethod] attribute /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="TCallbackHandler">CallbackHandler Type</typeparam> /// <param name="routes"></param> public static void RegisterRoutes<TCallbackHandler>(RouteCollection routes) { // find all methods var methods = typeof(TCallbackHandler).GetMethods(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public); foreach (var method in methods) { var attrs = method.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(CallbackMethodAttribute), false); if (attrs.Length < 1) continue; CallbackMethodAttribute attr = attrs[0] as CallbackMethodAttribute; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(attr.RouteUrl)) continue; // Add the route routes.Add(method.Name, new Route(attr.RouteUrl, new CallbackHandlerRouteHandler(method.Name, typeof(TCallbackHandler)))); } } } The RouteHandler implements IRouteHandler, and its responsibility via the GetHandler method is to create an HttpHandler based on the route data. When ASP.NET calls GetHandler it passes a requestContext parameter which includes a requestContext.RouteData property. This parameter holds the current request’s route data as well as an instance of the current RouteHandler. If you look at GetHttpHandler() you can see that the code creates an instance of the handler we are interested in and then sets the RouteData property on the handler. This is how you can pass the current request’s RouteData to the handler. The RouteData object also has a  RouteData.RouteHandler property that is also available to the Handler later, which is useful in order to get additional information about the current route. In our case here the RouteHandler includes a MethodName property that identifies the method to execute in the handler since that value no longer comes from the URL so we need to figure out the method name some other way. The method name is mapped explicitly when the RouteHandler is created and here the static method that auto-registers all CallbackMethods with RouteUrls sets the method name when it creates the routes while reflecting over the methods (more on this in a minute). The important point here is that you can attach additional properties to the RouteHandler and you can then later access the RouteHandler and its properties later in the Handler to pick up these custom values. This is a crucial feature in that the RouteHandler serves in passing additional context to the handler so it knows what actions to perform. The automatic route registration is handled by the static RegisterRoutes<TCallbackHandler> method. This method is generic and totally reusable for any CallbackHandler type handler. To register a CallbackHandler and any RouteUrls it has defined you simple use code like this in Application_Start (or other application startup code):protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Register Routes for RestService CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes<RestService>(RouteTable.Routes); } If you have multiple CallbackHandler style services you can make multiple calls to RegisterRoutes for each of the service types. RegisterRoutes internally uses reflection to run through all the methods of the Handler, looking for CallbackMethod attributes and whether a RouteUrl is specified. If it is a new instance of a CallbackHandlerRouteHandler is created and the name of the method and the type are set. routes.Add(method.Name,           new Route(attr.RouteUrl, new CallbackHandlerRouteHandler(method.Name, typeof(TCallbackHandler) )) ); While the routing with CallbackHandlerRouteHandler is set up automatically for all methods that use the RouteUrl attribute, you can also use code to hook up those routes manually and skip using the attribute. The code for this is straightforward and just requires that you manually map each individual route to each method you want a routed: protected void Application_Start(objectsender, EventArgs e){    RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);}void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.Add("StockQuote Route",new Route("StockQuote/{symbol}",                     new CallbackHandlerRouteHandler("GetStockQuote",typeof(RestService) ) ) );     routes.Add("StockQuotes Route",new Route("StockQuotes/{symbolList}",                     new CallbackHandlerRouteHandler("GetStockQuotes",typeof(RestService) ) ) );}I think it’s clearly easier to have CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes() do this automatically for you based on RouteUrl attributes, but some people have a real aversion to attaching logic via attributes. Just realize that the option to manually create your routes is available as well. Using the RouteData in the Handler A RouteHandler’s responsibility is to create an HttpHandler and as mentioned earlier, natively IHttpHandler doesn’t have any support for RouteData. In order to utilize RouteData in your handler code you have to pass the RouteData to the handler. In my CallbackHandlerRouteHandler when it creates the HttpHandler instance it creates the instance and then assigns the custom RouteData property on the handler:IHttpHandler handler = Activator.CreateInstance(CallbackHandlerType) as IHttpHandler; if (handler is CallbackHandler) ((CallbackHandler)handler).RouteData = requestContext.RouteData; return handler; Again this only works if you actually add a RouteData property to your handler explicitly as I did in my CallbackHandler implementation:/// <summary> /// Optionally store RouteData on this handler /// so we can access it internally /// </summary> public RouteData RouteData {get; set; } and the RouteHandler needs to set it when it creates the handler instance. Once you have the route data in your handler you can access Route Keys and Values and also the RouteHandler. Since my RouteHandler has a custom property for the MethodName to retrieve it from within the handler I can do something like this now to retrieve the MethodName (this example is actually not in the handler but target is an instance pass to the processor): // check for Route Data method name if (target is CallbackHandler) { var routeData = ((CallbackHandler)target).RouteData; if (routeData != null) methodToCall = ((CallbackHandlerRouteHandler)routeData.RouteHandler).MethodName; } When I need to access the dynamic values in the route ( symbol in StockQuote/{symbol}) I can retrieve it easily with the Values collection (RouteData.Values["symbol"]). In my CallbackHandler processing logic I’m basically looking for matching parameter names to Route parameters: // look for parameters in the routeif(routeData != null){    string parmString = routeData.Values[parameter.Name] as string;    adjustedParms[parmCounter] = ReflectionUtils.StringToTypedValue(parmString, parameter.ParameterType);} And with that we’ve come full circle. We’ve created a custom RouteHandler() that passes the RouteData to the handler it creates. We’ve registered our routes to use the RouteHandler, and we’ve utilized the route data in our handler. For completeness sake here’s the routine that executes a method call based on the parameters passed in and one of the options is to retrieve the inbound parameters off RouteData (as well as from POST data or QueryString parameters):internal object ExecuteMethod(string method, object target, string[] parameters, CallbackMethodParameterType paramType, ref CallbackMethodAttribute callbackMethodAttribute) { HttpRequest Request = HttpContext.Current.Request; object Result = null; // Stores parsed parameters (from string JSON or QUeryString Values) object[] adjustedParms = null; Type PageType = target.GetType(); MethodInfo MI = PageType.GetMethod(method, BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic); if (MI == null) throw new InvalidOperationException("Invalid Server Method."); object[] methods = MI.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(CallbackMethodAttribute), false); if (methods.Length < 1) throw new InvalidOperationException("Server method is not accessible due to missing CallbackMethod attribute"); if (callbackMethodAttribute != null) callbackMethodAttribute = methods[0] as CallbackMethodAttribute; ParameterInfo[] parms = MI.GetParameters(); JSONSerializer serializer = new JSONSerializer(); RouteData routeData = null; if (target is CallbackHandler) routeData = ((CallbackHandler)target).RouteData; int parmCounter = 0; adjustedParms = new object[parms.Length]; foreach (ParameterInfo parameter in parms) { // Retrieve parameters out of QueryString or POST buffer if (parameters == null) { // look for parameters in the route if (routeData != null) { string parmString = routeData.Values[parameter.Name] as string; adjustedParms[parmCounter] = ReflectionUtils.StringToTypedValue(parmString, parameter.ParameterType); } // GET parameter are parsed as plain string values - no JSON encoding else if (HttpContext.Current.Request.HttpMethod == "GET") { // Look up the parameter by name string parmString = Request.QueryString[parameter.Name]; adjustedParms[parmCounter] = ReflectionUtils.StringToTypedValue(parmString, parameter.ParameterType); } // POST parameters are treated as methodParameters that are JSON encoded else if (paramType == CallbackMethodParameterType.Json) //string newVariable = methodParameters.GetValue(parmCounter) as string; adjustedParms[parmCounter] = serializer.Deserialize(Request.Params["parm" + (parmCounter + 1).ToString()], parameter.ParameterType); else adjustedParms[parmCounter] = SerializationUtils.DeSerializeObject( Request.Params["parm" + (parmCounter + 1).ToString()], parameter.ParameterType); } else if (paramType == CallbackMethodParameterType.Json) adjustedParms[parmCounter] = serializer.Deserialize(parameters[parmCounter], parameter.ParameterType); else adjustedParms[parmCounter] = SerializationUtils.DeSerializeObject(parameters[parmCounter], parameter.ParameterType); parmCounter++; } Result = MI.Invoke(target, adjustedParms); return Result; } The code basically uses Reflection to loop through all the parameters available on the method and tries to assign the parameters from RouteData, QueryString or POST variables. The parameters are converted into their appropriate types and then used to eventually make a Reflection based method call. What’s sweet is that the RouteData retrieval is just another option for dealing with the inbound data in this scenario and it adds exactly two lines of code plus the code to retrieve the MethodName I showed previously – a seriously low impact addition that adds a lot of extra value to this endpoint callback processing implementation. Debugging your Routes If you create a lot of routes it’s easy to run into Route conflicts where multiple routes have the same path and overlap with each other. This can be difficult to debug especially if you are using automatically generated routes like the routes created by CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes. Luckily there’s a tool that can help you out with this nicely. Phill Haack created a RouteDebugging tool you can download and add to your project. The easiest way to do this is to grab and add this to your project is to use NuGet (Add Library Package from your Project’s Reference Nodes):   which adds a RouteDebug assembly to your project. Once installed you can easily debug your routes with this simple line of code which needs to be installed at application startup:protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes<StockService>(RouteTable.Routes); // Debug your routes RouteDebug.RouteDebugger.RewriteRoutesForTesting(RouteTable.Routes); } Any routed URL then displays something like this: The screen shows you your current route data and all the routes that are mapped along with a flag that displays which route was actually matched. This is useful – if you have any overlap of routes you will be able to see which routes are triggered – the first one in the sequence wins. This tool has saved my ass on a few occasions – and with NuGet now it’s easy to add it to your project in a few seconds and then remove it when you’re done. Routing Around Custom routing seems slightly complicated on first blush due to its disconnected components of RouteHandler, route registration and mapping of custom handlers. But once you understand the relationship between a RouteHandler, the RouteData and how to pass it to a handler, utilizing of Routing becomes a lot easier as you can easily pass context from the registration to the RouteHandler and through to the HttpHandler. The most important thing to understand when building custom routing solutions is to figure out how to map URLs in such a way that the handler can figure out all the pieces it needs to process the request. This can be via URL routing parameters and as I did in my example by passing additional context information as part of the RouteHandler instance that provides the proper execution context. In my case this ‘context’ was the method name, but it could be an actual static value like an enum identifying an operation or category in an application. Basically user supplied data comes in through the url and static application internal data can be passed via RouteHandler property values. Routing can make your application URLs easier to read by non-techie types regardless of whether you’re building Service type or REST applications, or full on Web interfaces. Routing in ASP.NET 4.0 makes it possible to create just about any extensionless URLs you can dream up and custom RouteHanmdler References Sample ProjectIncludes the sample CallbackHandler service discussed here along with compiled versionsof the Westwind.Web and Westwind.Utilities assemblies.  (requires .NET 4.0/VS 2010) West Wind Web Toolkit includes full implementation of CallbackHandler and the Routing Handler West Wind Web Toolkit Source CodeContains the full source code to the Westwind.Web and Westwind.Utilities assemblies usedin these samples. Includes the source described in the post.(Latest build in the Subversion Repository) CallbackHandler Source(Relevant code to this article tree in Westwind.Web assembly) JSONView FireFoxPluginA simple FireFox Plugin to easily view JSON data natively in FireFox.For IE you can use a registry hack to display JSON as raw text.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET  AJAX  HTTP  

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  • ControlTemplate Exception: "XamlParseException: Cannot find a Resource with the Name/Key"

    - by akaphenom
    If I move the application resources to a UserControl resources everythgin runs groovy. I still don't understand why. I noticed that my application object MyApp did more than inherit from Application it loaded an XAML for the main template and connected all the plumbing. So I decided to create a user control to remove the template from the applciation (thinking there may be an even order issue not allowing my resource to be found). namespace Module1 type Template() as this = //inherit UriUserControl("/FSSilverlightApp;component/template.xaml", "") inherit UriUserControl("/FSSilverlightApp;component/templateSimple.xaml", "") do Application.LoadComponent(this, base.uri) let siteTemplate : Grid = (this.Content :?> FrameworkElement) ? siteTemplate let nav : Frame = siteTemplate ? contentFrame let pages : UriUserControl array = [| new Module1.Page1() :> UriUserControl ; new Module1.Page2() :> UriUserControl ; new Module1.Page3() :> UriUserControl ; new Module1.Page4() :> UriUserControl ; new Module1.Page5() :> UriUserControl ; |] do nav.Navigate((pages.[0] :> INamedUriProvider).Uri) |> ignore type MyApp() as this = inherit Application() do Application.LoadComponent(this, new System.Uri("/FSSilverlightApp;component/App.xaml", System.UriKind.Relative)) do System.Windows.Browser.HtmlPage.Plugin.Focus() this.RootVisual <- new Template() ; // test code to check for the existance of the ControlTemplate - it exists let a = Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries let b = a.[0] let c = b.Count let d : ControlTemplate = downcast c.["TransitioningFrame"] () "/FSSilverlightApp;component/templateSimple.xaml" <UserControl x:Class="Module1.Template" xmlns:navigation="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Navigation" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" > <Grid HorizontalAlignment="Center" Background="White" Name="siteTemplate"> <StackPanel Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="2" Name="mainPanel"> <!--Template="{StaticResource TransitioningFrame}"--> <navigation:Frame Name="contentFrame" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Template="{StaticResource TransitioningFrame}"/> </StackPanel> </Grid> </UserControl> "/FSSilverlightApp;component/App.xaml" <Application xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" x:Class="Module1.MyApp"> <Application.Resources> <ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> <ResourceDictionary Source="/FSSilverlightApp;component/TransitioningFrame.xaml" /> </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> </ResourceDictionary> </Application.Resources> </Application> "/FSSilverlightApp;component/TransitioningFrame.xaml" <ResourceDictionary xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:navigation="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Navigation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"> <ControlTemplate x:Key="TransitioningFrame" TargetType="navigation:Frame"> <Border Background="Olive" BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}" BorderThickness="5" HorizontalAlignment="{TemplateBinding HorizontalContentAlignment}" VerticalAlignment="{TemplateBinding VerticalContentAlignment}"> <ContentPresenter Cursor="{TemplateBinding Cursor}" HorizontalAlignment="{TemplateBinding HorizontalContentAlignment}" Margin="{TemplateBinding Padding}" VerticalAlignment="{TemplateBinding VerticalContentAlignment}" Content="{TemplateBinding Content}"/> </Border> </ControlTemplate> </ResourceDictionary> Unfortunately that did not work. If I remove the template attribute from the navigationFrame element, the app loads and directs the content area to the first page in the pages array. Referencing that resource continues to throw a resource no found error. Original Post I have the following app.xaml (using Silverlight 3) <Application xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" x:Class="Module1.MyApp"> <Application.Resources> <ResourceDictionary> <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> <ResourceDictionary Source="/FSSilverlightApp;component/TransitioningFrame.xaml" /> </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> </ResourceDictionary> </Application.Resources> </Application> and content template: <ResourceDictionary xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:navigation="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.Navigation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"> <ControlTemplate x:Key="TransitioningFrame" TargetType="navigation:Frame"> <Border Background="{TemplateBinding Background}" BorderBrush="{TemplateBinding BorderBrush}" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" HorizontalAlignment="{TemplateBinding HorizontalContentAlignment}" VerticalAlignment="{TemplateBinding VerticalContentAlignment}"> <ContentPresenter Cursor="{TemplateBinding Cursor}" HorizontalAlignment="{TemplateBinding HorizontalContentAlignment}" Margin="{TemplateBinding Padding}" VerticalAlignment="{TemplateBinding VerticalContentAlignment}" Content="{TemplateBinding Content}"/> </Border> </ControlTemplate> </ResourceDictionary> The debugger says it the contentTemplate is loaded correctly by adding some minimal code: type MyApp() as this = inherit Application() do Application.LoadComponent(this, new System.Uri("/FSSilverlightApp;component/App.xaml", System.UriKind.Relative)) let cc = new ContentControl() let mainGrid : Grid = loadXaml("MainWindow.xaml") do this.Startup.Add(this.startup) let t = Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries let t1 = t.[0] let t2 = t1.Count let t3: ControlTemplate = t1.["TransitioningFrame"] With this line in my main.xaml <navigation:Frame Name="contentFrame" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Template="{StaticResource TransitioningFrame}"/> Yields this exception Webpage error details User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.2; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E) Timestamp: Mon, 24 May 2010 23:10:15 UTC Message: Unhandled Error in Silverlight Application Code: 4004 Category: ManagedRuntimeError Message: System.Windows.Markup.XamlParseException: Cannot find a Resource with the Name/Key TransitioningFrame [Line: 86 Position: 115] at MS.Internal.XcpImports.CreateFromXaml(String xamlString, Boolean createNamescope, Boolean requireDefaultNamespace, Boolean allowEventHandlers, Boolean expandTemplatesDuringParse) at MS.Internal.XcpImports.CreateFromXaml(String xamlString, Boolean createNamescope, Boolean requireDefaultNamespace, Boolean allowEventHandlers) at System.Windows.Markup.XamlReader.Load(String xaml) at Globals.loadXaml[T](String xamlPath) at Module1.MyApp..ctor() Line: 54 Char: 13 Code: 0 URI: file:///C:/fsharp/FSSilverlightDemo/FSSilverlightApp/bin/Debug/SilverlightApplication2TestPage.html

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  • SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn

    - by Claus Jandausch
    Ich war nicht nur irritiert, ich war sogar regelrecht schockiert - und für einen kurzen Moment sprachlos (was nur selten der Fall ist). Gerade eben hatte mich jemand gefragt "Wann Oracle denn etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde - und ob überhaupt?" War ich hier im falschen Film gelandet? Ich konnte nicht anders, als meinen Unmut kundzutun und zu erklären, dass die Fragestellung normalerweise anders herum läuft. Zugegeben - es mag vielleicht strittige Punkte geben im Vergleich zwischen Oracle und SQL Server - bei denen nicht unbedingt immer Oracle die Nase vorn haben muss - aber das Thema Clustering für Hochverfügbarkeit (HA), Disaster Recovery (DR) und Skalierbarkeit gehört mit Sicherheit nicht dazu. Dieses Erlebnis hakte ich am Nachgang als Einzelfall ab, der so nie wieder vorkommen würde. Bis ich kurz darauf eines Besseren belehrt wurde und genau die selbe Frage erneut zu hören bekam. Diesmal sogar im Exadata-Umfeld und einem Oracle Stretch Cluster. Einmal ist keinmal, doch zweimal ist einmal zu viel... Getreu diesem alten Motto war mir klar, dass man das so nicht länger stehen lassen konnte. Ich habe keine Ahnung, wie die Microsoft Marketing Abteilung es geschafft hat, unter dem AlwaysOn Brading eine innovative Technologie vermuten zu lassen - aber sie hat ihren Job scheinbar gut gemacht. Doch abgesehen von einem guten Marketing, stellt sich natürlich die Frage, was wirklich dahinter steckt und wie sich das Ganze mit Oracle vergleichen lässt - und ob überhaupt? Damit wären wir wieder bei der ursprünglichen Frage angelangt.  So viel zum Hintergrund dieses Blogbeitrags - von meiner Antwort handelt der restliche Blog. "Windows was the God ..." Um den wahren Unterschied zwischen Oracle und Microsoft verstehen zu können, muss man zunächst das bedeutendste Microsoft Dogma kennen. Es lässt sich schlicht und einfach auf den Punkt bringen: "Alles muss auf Windows basieren." Die Überschrift dieses Absatzes ist kein von mir erfundener Ausspruch, sondern ein Zitat. Konkret stammt es aus einem längeren Artikel von Kurt Eichenwald in der Vanity Fair aus dem August 2012. Er lautet Microsoft's Lost Decade und sei jedem ans Herz gelegt, der die "Microsoft-Maschinerie" unter Steve Ballmer und einige ihrer Kuriositäten besser verstehen möchte. "YOU TALKING TO ME?" Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer bei seiner Keynote auf der 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas am 9. Januar   Manche Dinge in diesem Artikel mögen überspitzt dargestellt erscheinen - sind sie aber nicht. Vieles davon kannte ich bereits aus eigener Erfahrung und kann es nur bestätigen. Anderes hat sich mir erst so richtig erschlossen. Insbesondere die folgenden Passagen führten zum Aha-Erlebnis: “Windows was the god—everything had to work with Windows,” said Stone... “Every little thing you want to write has to build off of Windows (or other existing roducts),” one software engineer said. “It can be very confusing, …” Ich habe immer schon darauf hingewiesen, dass in einem SQL Server Failover Cluster die Microsoft Datenbank eigentlich nichts Nenneswertes zum Geschehen beiträgt, sondern sich voll und ganz auf das Windows Betriebssystem verlässt. Deshalb muss man auch die Windows Server Enterprise Edition installieren, soll ein Failover Cluster für den SQL Server eingerichtet werden. Denn hier werden die Cluster Services geliefert - nicht mit dem SQL Server. Er ist nur lediglich ein weiteres Server Produkt, für das Windows in Ausfallszenarien genutzt werden kann - so wie Microsoft Exchange beispielsweise, oder Microsoft SharePoint, oder irgendein anderes Server Produkt das auf Windows gehostet wird. Auch Oracle kann damit genutzt werden. Das Stichwort lautet hier: Oracle Failsafe. Nur - warum sollte man das tun, wenn gleichzeitig eine überlegene Technologie wie die Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) zur Verfügung steht, die dann auch keine Windows Enterprise Edition voraussetzen, da Oracle die eigene Clusterware liefert. Welche darüber hinaus für kürzere Failover-Zeiten sorgt, da diese Cluster-Technologie Datenbank-integriert ist und sich nicht auf "Dritte" verlässt. Wenn man sich also schon keine technischen Vorteile mit einem SQL Server Failover Cluster erkauft, sondern zusätzlich noch versteckte Lizenzkosten durch die Lizenzierung der Windows Server Enterprise Edition einhandelt, warum hat Microsoft dann in den vergangenen Jahren seit SQL Server 2000 nicht ebenfalls an einer neuen und innovativen Lösung gearbeitet, die mit Oracle RAC mithalten kann? Entwickler hat Microsoft genügend? Am Geld kann es auch nicht liegen? Lesen Sie einfach noch einmal die beiden obenstehenden Zitate und sie werden den Grund verstehen. Anders lässt es sich ja auch gar nicht mehr erklären, dass AlwaysOn aus zwei unterschiedlichen Technologien besteht, die beide jedoch wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) basieren. Denn daraus ergeben sich klare Nachteile - aber dazu später mehr. Um AlwaysOn zu verstehen, sollte man sich zunächst kurz in Erinnerung rufen, was Microsoft bisher an HA/DR (High Availability/Desaster Recovery) Lösungen für SQL Server zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Replikation Basiert auf logischer Replikation und Pubisher/Subscriber Architektur Transactional Replication Merge Replication Snapshot Replication Microsoft's Replikation ist vergleichbar mit Oracle GoldenGate. Oracle GoldenGate stellt jedoch die umfassendere Technologie dar und bietet High Performance. Log Shipping Microsoft's Log Shipping stellt eine einfache Technologie dar, die vergleichbar ist mit Oracle Managed Recovery in Oracle Version 7. Das Log Shipping besitzt folgende Merkmale: Transaction Log Backups werden von Primary nach Secondary/ies geschickt Einarbeitung (z.B. Restore) auf jedem Secondary individuell Optionale dritte Server Instanz (Monitor Server) für Überwachung und Alarm Log Restore Unterbrechung möglich für Read-Only Modus (Secondary) Keine Unterstützung von Automatic Failover Database Mirroring Microsoft's Database Mirroring wurde verfügbar mit SQL Server 2005, sah aus wie Oracle Data Guard in Oracle 9i, war funktional jedoch nicht so umfassend. Für ein HA/DR Paar besteht eine 1:1 Beziehung, um die produktive Datenbank (Principle DB) abzusichern. Auf der Standby Datenbank (Mirrored DB) werden alle Insert-, Update- und Delete-Operationen nachgezogen. Modi Synchron (High-Safety Modus) Asynchron (High-Performance Modus) Automatic Failover Unterstützt im High-Safety Modus (synchron) Witness Server vorausgesetzt     Zur Frage der Kontinuität Es stellt sich die Frage, wie es um diesen Technologien nun im Zusammenhang mit SQL Server 2012 bestellt ist. Unter Fanfaren seinerzeit eingeführt, war Database Mirroring das erklärte Mittel der Wahl. Ich bin kein Produkt Manager bei Microsoft und kann hierzu nur meine Meinung äußern, aber zieht man den SQL AlwaysOn Team Blog heran, so sieht es nicht gut aus für das Database Mirroring - zumindest nicht langfristig. "Does AlwaysOn Availability Group replace Database Mirroring going forward?” “The short answer is we recommend that you migrate from the mirroring configuration or even mirroring and log shipping configuration to using Availability Group. Database Mirroring will still be available in the Denali release but will be phased out over subsequent releases. Log Shipping will continue to be available in future releases.” Damit wären wir endlich beim eigentlichen Thema angelangt. Was ist eine sogenannte Availability Group und was genau hat es mit der vielversprechend klingenden Bezeichnung AlwaysOn auf sich?   SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn Zwei HA-Features verstekcne sich hinter dem “AlwaysOn”-Branding. Einmal das AlwaysOn Failover Clustering aka SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) - zum Anderen die AlwaysOn Availability Groups. Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Entspricht ungefähr dem Stretch Cluster Konzept von Oracle Setzt auf Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) auf Bietet HA auf Instanz-Ebene AlwaysOn Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Ähnlich der Idee von Consistency Groups, wie in Storage-Level Replikations-Software von z.B. EMC SRDF Abhängigkeiten zu Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Bietet HA auf Datenbank-Ebene   Hinweis: Verwechseln Sie nicht eine SQL Server Datenbank mit einer Oracle Datenbank. Und auch nicht eine Oracle Instanz mit einer SQL Server Instanz. Die gleichen Begriffe haben hier eine andere Bedeutung - nicht selten ein Grund, weshalb Oracle- und Microsoft DBAs schnell aneinander vorbei reden. Denken Sie bei einer SQL Server Datenbank eher an ein Oracle Schema, das kommt der Sache näher. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema. Wenn Sie die genauen Unterschiede kennen möchten, finden Sie eine detaillierte Beschreibung in meinem Buch "Oracle10g Release 2 für Windows und .NET", erhältich bei Lehmanns, Amazon, etc.   Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Wie man sieht, basieren beide AlwaysOn Technologien wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC), um einerseits Hochverfügbarkeit auf Ebene der Instanz zu gewährleisten und andererseits auf der Datenbank-Ebene. Deshalb nun eine kurze Beschreibung der WSFC. Die WSFC sind ein mit dem Windows Betriebssystem geliefertes Infrastruktur-Feature, um HA für Server Anwendungen, wie Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, etc. zu bieten. So wie jeder andere Cluster, besteht ein WSFC Cluster aus einer Gruppe unabhängiger Server, die zusammenarbeiten, um die Verfügbarkeit einer Applikation oder eines Service zu erhöhen. Falls ein Cluster-Knoten oder -Service ausfällt, kann der auf diesem Knoten bisher gehostete Service automatisch oder manuell auf einen anderen im Cluster verfügbaren Knoten transferriert werden - was allgemein als Failover bekannt ist. Unter SQL Server 2012 verwenden sowohl die AlwaysOn Avalability Groups, als auch die AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances die WSFC als Plattformtechnologie, um Komponenten als WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen zu registrieren. Verwandte Ressourcen werden in eine Ressource Group zusammengefasst, die in Abhängigkeit zu anderen WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen gebracht werden kann. Der WSFC Cluster Service kann jetzt die Notwendigkeit zum Neustart der SQL Server Instanz erfassen oder einen automatischen Failover zu einem anderen Server-Knoten im WSFC Cluster auslösen.   Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Eine SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanz (FCI) ist eine einzelne SQL Server Instanz, die in einem Failover Cluster betrieben wird, der aus mehreren Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Knoten besteht und so HA (High Availability) auf Ebene der Instanz bietet. Unter Verwendung von Multi-Subnet FCI kann auch Remote DR (Disaster Recovery) unterstützt werden. Eine weitere Option für Remote DR besteht darin, eine unter FCI gehostete Datenbank in einer Availability Group zu betreiben. Hierzu später mehr. FCI und WSFC Basis FCI, das für lokale Hochverfügbarkeit der Instanzen genutzt wird, ähnelt der veralteten Architektur eines kalten Cluster (Aktiv-Passiv). Unter SQL Server 2008 wurde diese Technologie SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering genannt. Sie nutzte den Windows Server Failover Cluster. In SQL Server 2012 hat Microsoft diese Basistechnologie unter der Bezeichnung AlwaysOn zusammengefasst. Es handelt sich aber nach wie vor um die klassische Aktiv-Passiv-Konfiguration. Der Ablauf im Failover-Fall ist wie folgt: Solange kein Hardware-oder System-Fehler auftritt, werden alle Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache auf Platte geschrieben Alle entsprechenden SQL Server Services (Dienste) in der Ressource Gruppe werden auf dem aktiven Knoten gestoppt Die Ownership der Ressource Gruppe wird auf einen anderen Knoten der FCI transferriert Der neue Owner (Besitzer) der Ressource Gruppe startet seine SQL Server Services (Dienste) Die Connection-Anforderungen einer Client-Applikation werden automatisch auf den neuen aktiven Knoten mit dem selben Virtuellen Network Namen (VNN) umgeleitet Abhängig vom Zeitpunkt des letzten Checkpoints, kann die Anzahl der Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache, die noch auf Platte geschrieben werden müssen, zu unvorhersehbar langen Failover-Zeiten führen. Um diese Anzahl zu drosseln, besitzt der SQL Server 2012 eine neue Fähigkeit, die Indirect Checkpoints genannt wird. Indirect Checkpoints ähnelt dem Fast-Start MTTR Target Feature der Oracle Datenbank, das bereits mit Oracle9i verfügbar war.   SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Ein SQL Server Multi-Subnet Failover Cluster entspricht vom Konzept her einem Oracle RAC Stretch Cluster. Doch dies ist nur auf den ersten Blick der Fall. Im Gegensatz zu RAC ist in einem lokalen SQL Server Failover Cluster jeweils nur ein Knoten aktiv für eine Datenbank. Für die Datenreplikation zwischen geografisch entfernten Sites verlässt sich Microsoft auf 3rd Party Lösungen für das Storage Mirroring.     Die Verbesserung dieses Szenario mit einer SQL Server 2012 Implementierung besteht schlicht darin, dass eine VLAN-Konfiguration (Virtual Local Area Network) nun nicht mehr benötigt wird, so wie dies bisher der Fall war. Das folgende Diagramm stellt dar, wie der Ablauf mit SQL Server 2012 gehandhabt wird. In Site A und Site B wird HA jeweils durch einen lokalen Aktiv-Passiv-Cluster sichergestellt.     Besondere Aufmerksamkeit muss hier der Konfiguration und dem Tuning geschenkt werden, da ansonsten völlig inakzeptable Failover-Zeiten resultieren. Dies liegt darin begründet, weil die Downtime auf Client-Seite nun nicht mehr nur von der reinen Failover-Zeit abhängt, sondern zusätzlich von der Dauer der DNS Replikation zwischen den DNS Servern. (Rufen Sie sich in Erinnerung, dass wir gerade von Multi-Subnet Clustering sprechen). Außerdem ist zu berücksichtigen, wie schnell die Clients die aktualisierten DNS Informationen abfragen. Spezielle Konfigurationen für Node Heartbeat, HostRecordTTL (Host Record Time-to-Live) und Intersite Replication Frequeny für Active Directory Sites und Services werden notwendig. Default TTL für Windows Server 2008 R2: 20 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 1 Minute DNS Update Replication Frequency in Windows Umgebung: 180 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 15 Minuten (minimaler Wert)   Betrachtet man diese Werte, muss man feststellen, dass selbst eine optimale Konfiguration die rigiden SLAs (Service Level Agreements) heutiger geschäftskritischer Anwendungen für HA und DR nicht erfüllen kann. Denn dies impliziert eine auf der Client-Seite erlebte Failover-Zeit von insgesamt 16 Minuten. Hierzu ein Auszug aus der SQL Server 2012 Online Dokumentation: Cons: If a cross-subnet failover occurs, the client recovery time could be 15 minutes or longer, depending on your HostRecordTTL setting and the setting of your cross-site DNS/AD replication schedule.    Wir sind hier an einem Punkt unserer Überlegungen angelangt, an dem sich erklärt, weshalb ich zuvor das "Windows was the God ..." Zitat verwendet habe. Die unbedingte Abhängigkeit zu Windows wird zunehmend zum Problem, da sie die Komplexität einer Microsoft-basierenden Lösung erhöht, anstelle sie zu reduzieren. Und Komplexität ist das Letzte, was sich CIOs heutzutage wünschen.  Zur Ehrenrettung des SQL Server 2012 und AlwaysOn muss man sagen, dass derart lange Failover-Zeiten kein unbedingtes "Muss" darstellen, sondern ein "Kann". Doch auch ein "Kann" kann im unpassenden Moment unvorhersehbare und kostspielige Folgen haben. Die Unabsehbarkeit ist wiederum Ursache vieler an der Implementierung beteiligten Komponenten und deren Abhängigkeiten, wie beispielsweise drei Cluster-Lösungen (zwei von Microsoft, eine 3rd Party Lösung). Wie man die Sache auch dreht und wendet, kommt man an diesem Fakt also nicht vorbei - ganz unabhängig von der Dauer einer Downtime oder Failover-Zeiten. Im Gegensatz zu AlwaysOn und der hier vorgestellten Version eines Stretch-Clusters, vermeidet eine entsprechende Oracle Implementierung eine derartige Komplexität, hervorgerufen duch multiple Abhängigkeiten. Den Unterschied machen Datenbank-integrierte Mechanismen, wie Fast Application Notification (FAN) und Fast Connection Failover (FCF). Für Oracle MAA Konfigurationen (Maximum Availability Architecture) sind Inter-Site Failover-Zeiten im Bereich von Sekunden keine Seltenheit. Wenn Sie dem Link zur Oracle MAA folgen, finden Sie außerdem eine Reihe an Customer Case Studies. Auch dies ist ein wichtiges Unterscheidungsmerkmal zu AlwaysOn, denn die Oracle Technologie hat sich bereits zigfach in höchst kritischen Umgebungen bewährt.   Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Die sogenannten Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) sind - neben FCI - der weitere Baustein von AlwaysOn.   Hinweis: Bevor wir uns näher damit beschäftigen, sollten Sie sich noch einmal ins Gedächtnis rufen, dass eine SQL Server Datenbank nicht die gleiche Bedeutung besitzt, wie eine Oracle Datenbank, sondern eher einem Oracle Schema entspricht. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema.   Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe setzt sich zusammen aus einem Set mehrerer Benutzer-Datenbanken, die im Falle eines Failover gemeinsam als Gruppe behandelt werden. Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe unterstützt ein Set an primären Datenbanken (primäres Replikat) und einem bis vier Sets von entsprechenden sekundären Datenbanken (sekundäre Replikate).       Es können jedoch nicht alle SQL Server Datenbanken einer AlwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zugeordnet werden. Der SQL Server Spezialist Michael Otey zählt in seinem SQL Server Pro Artikel folgende Anforderungen auf: Verfügbarkeitsgruppen müssen mit Benutzer-Datenbanken erstellt werden. System-Datenbanken können nicht verwendet werden Die Datenbanken müssen sich im Read-Write Modus befinden. Read-Only Datenbanken werden nicht unterstützt Die Datenbanken in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe müssen Multiuser Datenbanken sein Sie dürfen nicht das AUTO_CLOSE Feature verwenden Sie müssen das Full Recovery Modell nutzen und es muss ein vollständiges Backup vorhanden sein Eine gegebene Datenbank kann sich nur in einer einzigen Verfügbarkeitsgruppe befinden und diese Datenbank düerfen nicht für Database Mirroring konfiguriert sein Microsoft empfiehl außerdem, dass der Verzeichnispfad einer Datenbank auf dem primären und sekundären Server identisch sein sollte Wie man sieht, eignen sich Verfügbarkeitsgruppen nicht, um HA und DR vollständig abzubilden. Die Unterscheidung zwischen der Instanzen-Ebene (FCI) und Datenbank-Ebene (Availability Groups) ist von hoher Bedeutung. Vor kurzem wurde mir gesagt, dass man mit den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen auf Shared Storage verzichten könne und dadurch Kosten spart. So weit so gut ... Man kann natürlich eine Installation rein mit Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und ohne FCI durchführen - aber man sollte sich dann darüber bewusst sein, was man dadurch alles nicht abgesichert hat - und dies wiederum für Desaster Recovery (DR) und SLAs (Service Level Agreements) bedeutet. Kurzum, um die Kombination aus beiden AlwaysOn Produkten und der damit verbundene Komplexität kommt man wohl in der Praxis nicht herum.    Availability Groups und WSFC AlwaysOn hängt von Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) ab, um die aktuellen Rollen der Verfügbarkeitsreplikate einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zu überwachen und zu verwalten, und darüber zu entscheiden, wie ein Failover-Ereignis die Verfügbarkeitsreplikate betrifft. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt de Beziehung zwischen Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und WSFC:   Der Verfügbarkeitsmodus ist eine Eigenschaft jedes Verfügbarkeitsreplikats. Synychron und Asynchron können also gemischt werden: Availability Modus (Verfügbarkeitsmodus) Asynchroner Commit-Modus Primäres replikat schließt Transaktionen ohne Warten auf Sekundäres Synchroner Commit-Modus Primäres Replikat wartet auf Commit von sekundärem Replikat Failover Typen Automatic Manual Forced (mit möglichem Datenverlust) Synchroner Commit-Modus Geplanter, manueller Failover ohne Datenverlust Automatischer Failover ohne Datenverlust Asynchroner Commit-Modus Nur Forced, manueller Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust   Der SQL Server kennt keinen separaten Switchover Begriff wie in Oracle Data Guard. Für SQL Server werden alle Role Transitions als Failover bezeichnet. Tatsächlich unterstützt der SQL Server keinen Switchover für asynchrone Verbindungen. Es gibt nur die Form des Forced Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust. Eine ähnliche Fähigkeit wie der Switchover unter Oracle Data Guard ist so nicht gegeben.   SQL Sever FCI mit Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Neben den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen kann eine zweite Failover-Ebene eingerichtet werden, indem SQL Server FCI (auf Shared Storage) mit WSFC implementiert wird. Ein Verfügbarkeitesreplikat kann dann auf einer Standalone Instanz gehostet werden, oder einer FCI Instanz. Zum Verständnis: Die Verfügbarkeitsgruppen selbst benötigen kein Shared Storage. Diese Kombination kann verwendet werden für lokale HA auf Ebene der Instanz und DR auf Datenbank-Ebene durch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt dieses Szenario:   Achtung! Hier handelt es sich nicht um ein Pendant zu Oracle RAC plus Data Guard, auch wenn das Bild diesen Eindruck vielleicht vermitteln mag - denn alle sekundären Knoten im FCI sind rein passiv. Es existiert außerdem eine weitere und ernsthafte Einschränkung: SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanzen (FCI) unterstützen nicht das automatische AlwaysOn Failover für Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Jedes unter FCI gehostete Verfügbarkeitsreplikat kann nur für manuelles Failover konfiguriert werden.   Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate Ein oder mehrere Verfügbarkeitsreplikate in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe können für den lesenden Zugriff konfiguriert werden, wenn sie als sekundäres Replikat laufen. Dies ähnelt Oracle Active Data Guard, jedoch gibt es Einschränkungen. Alle Abfragen gegen die sekundäre Datenbank werden automatisch auf das Snapshot Isolation Level abgebildet. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Versionierung der Rows. Microsoft versuchte hiermit die Oracle MVRC (Multi Version Read Consistency) nachzustellen. Tatsächlich muss man die SQL Server Snapshot Isolation eher mit Oracle Flashback vergleichen. Bei der Implementierung des Snapshot Isolation Levels handelt sich um ein nachträglich aufgesetztes Feature und nicht um einen inhärenten Teil des Datenbank-Kernels, wie im Falle Oracle. (Ich werde hierzu in Kürze einen weiteren Blogbeitrag verfassen, wenn ich mich mit der neuen SQL Server 2012 Core Lizenzierung beschäftige.) Für die Praxis entstehen aus der Abbildung auf das Snapshot Isolation Level ernsthafte Restriktionen, derer man sich für den Betrieb in der Praxis bereits vorab bewusst sein sollte: Sollte auf der primären Datenbank eine aktive Transaktion zu dem Zeitpunkt existieren, wenn ein lesbares sekundäres Replikat in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen wird, werden die Row-Versionen auf der korrespondierenden sekundären Datenbank nicht sofort vollständig verfügbar sein. Eine aktive Transaktion auf dem primären Replikat muss zuerst abgeschlossen (Commit oder Rollback) und dieser Transaktions-Record auf dem sekundären Replikat verarbeitet werden. Bis dahin ist das Isolation Level Mapping auf der sekundären Datenbank unvollständig und Abfragen sind temporär geblockt. Microsoft sagt dazu: "This is needed to guarantee that row versions are available on the secondary replica before executing the query under snapshot isolation as all isolation levels are implicitly mapped to snapshot isolation." (SQL Storage Engine Blog: AlwaysOn: I just enabled Readable Secondary but my query is blocked?)  Grundlegend bedeutet dies, dass ein aktives lesbares Replikat nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden kann, ohne das primäre Replikat vorübergehend stillzulegen. Da Leseoperationen auf das Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level abgebildet werden, kann die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf dem primären Replikat durch Transaktionen auf einem oder mehreren sekundären Replikaten geblockt werden - z.B. durch eine lang laufende Abfrage auf dem sekundären Replikat. Diese Bereinigung wird auch blockiert, wenn die Verbindung zum sekundären Replikat abbricht oder der Datenaustausch unterbrochen wird. Auch die Log Truncation wird in diesem Zustant verhindert. Wenn dieser Zustand längere Zeit anhält, empfiehlt Microsoft das sekundäre Replikat aus der Verfügbarkeitsgruppe herauszunehmen - was ein ernsthaftes Downtime-Problem darstellt. Die Read-Only Workload auf den sekundären Replikaten kann eingehende DDL Änderungen blockieren. Obwohl die Leseoperationen aufgrund der Row-Versionierung keine Shared Locks halten, führen diese Operatioen zu Sch-S Locks (Schemastabilitätssperren). DDL-Änderungen durch Redo-Operationen können dadurch blockiert werden. Falls DDL aufgrund konkurrierender Lese-Workload blockiert wird und der Schwellenwert für 'Recovery Interval' (eine SQL Server Konfigurationsoption) überschritten wird, generiert der SQL Server das Ereignis sqlserver.lock_redo_blocked, welches Microsoft zum Kill der blockierenden Leser empfiehlt. Auf die Verfügbarkeit der Anwendung wird hierbei keinerlei Rücksicht genommen.   Keine dieser Einschränkungen existiert mit Oracle Active Data Guard.   Backups auf sekundären Replikaten  Über die sekundären Replikate können Backups (BACKUP DATABASE via Transact-SQL) nur als copy-only Backups einer vollständigen Datenbank, Dateien und Dateigruppen erstellt werden. Das Erstellen inkrementeller Backups ist nicht unterstützt, was ein ernsthafter Rückstand ist gegenüber der Backup-Unterstützung physikalischer Standbys unter Oracle Data Guard. Hinweis: Ein möglicher Workaround via Snapshots, bleibt ein Workaround. Eine weitere Einschränkung dieses Features gegenüber Oracle Data Guard besteht darin, dass das Backup eines sekundären Replikats nicht ausgeführt werden kann, wenn es nicht mit dem primären Replikat kommunizieren kann. Darüber hinaus muss das sekundäre Replikat synchronisiert sein oder sich in der Synchronisation befinden, um das Beackup auf dem sekundären Replikat erstellen zu können.   Vergleich von Microsoft AlwaysOn mit der Oracle MAA Ich komme wieder zurück auf die Eingangs erwähnte, mehrfach an mich gestellte Frage "Wann denn - und ob überhaupt - Oracle etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde?" und meine damit verbundene (kurze) Irritation. Wenn Sie diesen Blogbeitrag bis hierher gelesen haben, dann kennen Sie jetzt meine darauf gegebene Antwort. Der eine oder andere Punkt traf dabei nicht immer auf Jeden zu, was auch nicht der tiefere Sinn und Zweck meiner Antwort war. Wenn beispielsweise kein Multi-Subnet mit im Spiel ist, sind alle diesbezüglichen Kritikpunkte zunächst obsolet. Was aber nicht bedeutet, dass sie nicht bereits morgen schon wieder zum Thema werden könnten (Sag niemals "Nie"). In manch anderes Fettnäpfchen tritt man wiederum nicht unbedingt in einer Testumgebung, sondern erst im laufenden Betrieb. Erst recht nicht dann, wenn man sich potenzieller Probleme nicht bewusst ist und keine dedizierten Tests startet. Und wer AlwaysOn erfolgreich positionieren möchte, wird auch gar kein Interesse daran haben, auf mögliche Schwachstellen und den besagten Teufel im Detail aufmerksam zu machen. Das ist keine Unterstellung - es ist nur menschlich. Außerdem ist es verständlich, dass man sich in erster Linie darauf konzentriert "was geht" und "was gut läuft", anstelle auf das "was zu Problemen führen kann" oder "nicht funktioniert". Wer will schon der Miesepeter sein? Für mich selbst gesprochen, kann ich nur sagen, dass ich lieber vorab von allen möglichen Einschränkungen wissen möchte, anstelle sie dann nach einer kurzen Zeit der heilen Welt schmerzhaft am eigenen Leib erfahren zu müssen. Ich bin davon überzeugt, dass es Ihnen nicht anders geht. Nachfolgend deshalb eine Zusammenfassung all jener Punkte, die ich im Vergleich zur Oracle MAA (Maximum Availability Architecture) als unbedingt Erwähnenswert betrachte, falls man eine Evaluierung von Microsoft AlwaysOn in Betracht zieht. 1. AlwaysOn ist eine komplexe Technologie Der SQL Server AlwaysOn Stack ist zusammengesetzt aus drei verschiedenen Technlogien: Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) SQL Server Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Man kann eine derartige Lösung nicht als nahtlos bezeichnen, wofür auch die vielen von Microsoft dargestellten Einschränkungen sprechen. Während sich frühere SQL Server Versionen in Richtung eigener HA/DR Technologien entwickelten (wie Database Mirroring), empfiehlt Microsoft nun die Migration. Doch weshalb dieser Schwenk? Er führt nicht zu einem konsisten und robusten Angebot an HA/DR Technologie für geschäftskritische Umgebungen.  Liegt die Antwort in meiner These begründet, nach der "Windows was the God ..." noch immer gilt und man die Nachteile der allzu engen Kopplung mit Windows nicht sehen möchte? Entscheiden Sie selbst ... 2. Failover Cluster Instanzen - Kein RAC-Pendant Die SQL Server und Windows Server Clustering Technologie basiert noch immer auf dem veralteten Aktiv-Passiv Modell und führt zu einer Verschwendung von Systemressourcen. In einer Betrachtung von lediglich zwei Knoten erschließt sich auf Anhieb noch nicht der volle Mehrwert eines Aktiv-Aktiv Clusters (wie den Real Application Clusters), wie er von Oracle bereits vor zehn Jahren entwickelt wurde. Doch kennt man die Vorzüge der Skalierbarkeit durch einfaches Hinzufügen weiterer Cluster-Knoten, die dann alle gemeinsam als ein einziges logisches System zusammenarbeiten, versteht man was hinter dem Motto "Pay-as-you-Grow" steckt. In einem Aktiv-Aktiv Cluster geht es zwar auch um Hochverfügbarkeit - und ein Failover erfolgt zudem schneller, als in einem Aktiv-Passiv Modell - aber es geht eben nicht nur darum. An dieser Stelle sei darauf hingewiesen, dass die Oracle 11g Standard Edition bereits die Nutzung von Oracle RAC bis zu vier Sockets kostenfrei beinhaltet. Möchten Sie dazu Windows nutzen, benötigen Sie keine Windows Server Enterprise Edition, da Oracle 11g die eigene Clusterware liefert. Sie kommen in den Genuss von Hochverfügbarkeit und Skalierbarkeit und können dazu die günstigere Windows Server Standard Edition nutzen. 3. SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering - Abhängigkeit zu 3rd Party Storage Mirroring  Die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur unterstützt den Aufbau eines Stretch Clusters, basiert dabei aber auf dem Aktiv-Passiv Modell. Das eigentlich Problematische ist jedoch, dass man sich zur Absicherung der Datenbank auf 3rd Party Storage Mirroring Technologie verlässt, ohne Integration zwischen dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) und der darunterliegenden Mirroring Technologie. Wenn nun im Cluster ein Failover auf Instanzen-Ebene erfolgt, existiert keine Koordination mit einem möglichen Failover auf Ebene des Storage-Array. 4. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - Vier, oder doch nur Zwei? Ein primäres Replikat erlaubt bis zu vier sekundäre Replikate innerhalb einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe, jedoch nur zwei im Synchronen Commit Modus. Während dies zwar einen Vorteil gegenüber dem stringenten 1:1 Modell unter Database Mirroring darstellt, fällt der SQL Server 2012 damit immer noch weiter zurück hinter Oracle Data Guard mit bis zu 30 direkten Stanbdy Zielen - und vielen weiteren durch kaskadierende Ziele möglichen. Damit eignet sich Oracle Active Data Guard auch für die Bereitstellung einer Reader-Farm Skalierbarkeit für Internet-basierende Unternehmen. Mit AwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppen ist dies nicht möglich. 5. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - kein asynchrones Switchover  Die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen wird auch als geeignetes Mittel für administrative Aufgaben positioniert - wie Upgrades oder Wartungsarbeiten. Man muss sich jedoch einem gravierendem Defizit bewusst sein: Im asynchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus besteht die einzige Möglichkeit für Role Transition im Forced Failover mit Datenverlust! Um den Verlust von Daten durch geplante Wartungsarbeiten zu vermeiden, muss man den synchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus konfigurieren, was jedoch ernstzunehmende Auswirkungen auf WAN Deployments nach sich zieht. Spinnt man diesen Gedanken zu Ende, kommt man zu dem Schluss, dass die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen für geplante Wartungsarbeiten in einem derartigen Umfeld nicht effektiv genutzt werden kann. 6. Automatisches Failover - Nicht immer möglich Sowohl die SQL Server FCI, als auch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen unterstützen automatisches Failover. Möchte man diese jedoch kombinieren, wird das Ergebnis kein automatisches Failover sein. Denn ihr Zusammentreffen im Failover-Fall führt zu Race Conditions (Wettlaufsituationen), weshalb diese Konfiguration nicht länger das automatische Failover zu einem Replikat in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe erlaubt. Auch hier bestätigt sich wieder die tiefere Problematik von AlwaysOn, mit einer Zusammensetzung aus unterschiedlichen Technologien und der Abhängigkeit zu Windows. 7. Problematische RTO (Recovery Time Objective) Microsoft postioniert die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur als brauchbare HA/DR Architektur. Bedenkt man jedoch die Problematik im Zusammenhang mit DNS Replikation und den möglichen langen Wartezeiten auf Client-Seite von bis zu 16 Minuten, sind strenge RTO Anforderungen (Recovery Time Objectives) nicht erfüllbar. Im Gegensatz zu Oracle besitzt der SQL Server keine Datenbank-integrierten Technologien, wie Oracle Fast Application Notification (FAN) oder Oracle Fast Connection Failover (FCF). 8. Problematische RPO (Recovery Point Objective) SQL Server ermöglicht Forced Failover (erzwungenes Failover), bietet jedoch keine Möglichkeit zur automatischen Übertragung der letzten Datenbits von einem alten zu einem neuen primären Replikat, wenn der Verfügbarkeitsmodus asynchron war. Oracle Data Guard hingegen bietet diese Unterstützung durch das Flush Redo Feature. Dies sichert "Zero Data Loss" und beste RPO auch in erzwungenen Failover-Situationen. 9. Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate mit Einschränkungen Aufgrund des Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level für lesbare sekundäre Replikate, besitzen diese Einschränkungen mit Auswirkung auf die primäre Datenbank. Die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf der primären Datenbank, wird beeinflusst von lang laufenden Abfragen auf der lesabaren sekundären Datenbank. Die lesbare sekundäre Datenbank kann nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden, wenn es aktive Transaktionen auf der primären Datenbank gibt. Zusätzlich können DLL Änderungen auf der primären Datenbank durch Abfragen auf der sekundären blockiert werden. Und imkrementelle Backups werden hier nicht unterstützt.   Keine dieser Restriktionen existiert unter Oracle Data Guard.

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  • Why should you choose Oracle WebLogic 12c instead of JBoss EAP 6?

    - by Ricardo Ferreira
    In this post, I will cover some technical differences between Oracle WebLogic 12c and JBoss EAP 6, which was released a couple days ago from Red Hat. This article claims to help you in the evaluation of key points that you should consider when choosing for an Java EE application server. In the following sections, I will present to you some important aspects that most customers ask us when they are seriously evaluating for an middleware infrastructure, specially if you are considering JBoss for some reason. I would suggest that you keep the following question in mind while you are reading the points: "Why should I choose JBoss instead of WebLogic?" 1) Multi Datacenter Deployment and Clustering - D/R ("Disaster & Recovery") architecture support is embedded on the WebLogic Server 12c product. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct D/R support included, Red Hat relies on third-part tools with higher prices. When you consider a middleware solution to host your business critical application, you should worry with every architectural aspect that are related with the solution. Fail-over support is one little aspect of a truly reliable solution. If you do not worry about D/R, your solution will not be reliable. Having said that, with Red Hat and JBoss EAP 6, you have this extra cost that will increase considerably the total cost of ownership of the solution. As we commonly hear from analysts, open-source are not so cheaper when you start seeing the big picture. - WebLogic Server 12c supports advanced LAN clustering, detection of death servers and have a common alert framework. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has limited LAN clustering support with no server death detection. They do not generate any alerts when servers goes down (only if you buy JBoss ON which is a separated technology, but until now does not support JBoss EAP 6) and manual intervention are required when servers goes down. In most cases, admin people must rely on "kill -9", "tail -f someFile.log" and "ps ax | grep java" commands to manage failures and clustering anomalies. - WebLogic Server 12c supports the concept of Node Manager, which is a separated process that runs on the physical | virtual servers that allows extend the administration of the cluster to WebLogic managed servers that are often distributed across multiple machines and geographic locations. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no equivalent technology. Whole server instances must be managed individually. - WebLogic Server 12c Node Manager supports Coherence to boost performance when managing servers. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no similar technology. There is no way to coordinate JBoss and infiniband instances provided by JBoss using high throughput and low latency protocols like InfiniBand. The Node Manager feature also allows another very important feature that JBoss EAP lacks: secure the administration. When using WebLogic Node Manager, all the administration tasks are sent to the managed servers in a secure tunel protected by a certificate, which means that the transport layer that separates the WebLogic administration console from the managed servers are secured by SSL. - WebLogic Server 12c are now integrated with OTD ("Oracle Traffic Director") which is a web server technology derived from the former Sun iPlanet Web Server. This software complements the web server support offered by OHS ("Oracle HTTP Server"). Using OTD, WebLogic instances are load-balanced by a high powerful software that knows how to handle SDP ("Socket Direct Protocol") over InfiniBand, which boost performance when used with engineered systems technologies like Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand only offers support to Apache Web Server with custom modules created to deal with JBoss clusters, but only across standard TCP/IP networks.  2) Application and Runtime Diagnostics - WebLogic Server 12c have diagnostics capabilities embedded on the server called WLDF ("WebLogic Diagnostic Framework") so there is no need to rely on third-part tools. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no diagnostics capabilities. Their only diagnostics tool is the log generated by the application server. Admin people are encouraged to analyse thousands of log lines to find out what is going on. - WebLogic Server 12c complement WLDF with JRockit MC ("Mission Control"), which provides to administrators and developers a complete insight about the JVM performance, behavior and possible bottlenecks. WebLogic Server 12c also have an classloader analysis tool embedded, and even a log analyzer tool that enables administrators and developers to view logs of multiple servers at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand relies on third-part tools to do something similar. Again, only log searching are offered to find out whats going on. - WebLogic Server 12c offers end-to-end traceability and monitoring available through Oracle EM ("Enterprise Manager"), including monitoring of business transactions that flows through web servers, ESBs, application servers and database servers, all of this with high deep JVM analysis and diagnostics. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand, even using JBoss ON ("Operations Network"), which is a separated technology, does not support those features. Red Hat relies on third-part tools to provide direct Oracle database traceability across JVMs. One of those tools are Oracle EM for non-Oracle middleware that manage JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere and IIS transparently. - WebLogic Server 12c with their JRockit support offers a tool called JRockit Flight Recorder, which can give developers a complete visibility of a certain period of application production monitoring with zero extra overhead. This automatic recording allows you to deep analyse threads latency, memory leaks, thread contention, resource utilization, stack overflow damages and GC ("Garbage Collection") cycles, to observe in real time stop-the-world phenomenons, generational, reference count and parallel collects and mutator threads analysis. JBoss EAP 6 don't even dream to support something similar, even because they don't have their own JVM. 3) Application Server Administration - WebLogic Server 12c offers a complete administration console complemented with scripting and macro-like recording capabilities. A single WebLogic console can managed up to hundreds of WebLogic servers belonging to the same domain. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited console and provides a XML centric administration. JBoss, after ten years, started the development of a rudimentary centralized administration that still leave a lot of administration tasks aside, so admin people and developers must touch scripts and XML configuration files for most advanced and even simple administration tasks. This lead applications to error prone and risky deployments. Even using JBoss ON, JBoss EAP are not able to offer decent administration features for admin people which must be high skilled in JBoss internal architecture and its managing capabilities. - Oracle EM is available to manage multiple domains, databases, application servers, operating systems and virtualization, with a complete end-to-end visibility. JBoss ON does not provide management capabilities across the complete architecture, only basic monitoring. Even deployment must be done aside JBoss ON which does no integrate well with others softwares than JBoss. Until now, JBoss ON does not supports JBoss EAP 6, so even their minimal support for JBoss are not available for JBoss EAP 6 leaving customers uncovered and subject to high skilled JBoss admin people. - WebLogic Server 12c has the same administration model whatever is the topology selected by the customer. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand differentiates between two operational models: standalone-mode and domain-mode, that are not consistent with each other. Depending on the mode used, the administration skill is different. - WebLogic Server 12c has no point-of-failures processes, and it does not need to define any specialized server. Domain model in WebLogic is available for years (at least ten years or more) and is production proven. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand needs special processes to garantee JBoss integrity, the PC ("Process-Controller") and the HC ("Host-Controller"). Different from WebLogic, the domain model in JBoss is quite new (one year at tops) of maturity, and need to mature considerably until start doing things like WebLogic domain model does. - WebLogic Server 12c supports parallel deployment model which enables some artifacts being deployed at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have any similar feature. Every deployment are done atomically in the containers. This means that if you have a huge EAR (an EAR of 120 MB of size for instance) and deploy onto JBoss EAP 6, this EAR will take some minutes in order to starting accept thread requests. The same EAR deployed onto WebLogic Server 12c will reduce the deployment time at least in 2X compared to JBoss. 4) Support and Upgrades - WebLogic Server 12c has patch management available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no patch management available, each JBoss EAP instance should be patched manually. To achieve such feature, you need to buy a separated technology called JBoss ON ("Operations Network") that manage this type of stuff. But until now, JBoss ON does not support JBoss EAP 6 so, in practice, JBoss EAP 6 does not have this feature. - WebLogic Server 12c supports previuous WebLogic domains without any reconfiguration since its kernel is robust and mature since its creation in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a proven lack of supportability between JBoss AS 4, 5, 6 and 7. Different kernels and messaging engines were implemented in JBoss stack in the last five years reveling their incapacity to create a well architected and proven middleware technology. - WebLogic Server 12c has patch prescription based on customer configuration. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such capability. People need to create ticket supports and have their installations revised by Red Hat support guys to gain some patch prescription from them. - Oracle WebLogic Server independent of the version has 8 years of support of new patches and has lifetime release of existing patches beyond that. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand provides patches for a specific application server version up to 5 years after the release date. JBoss EAP 4 and previous versions had only 4 years. A good question that Red Hat will argue to answer is: "what happens when you find issues after year 5"?  5) RAC ("Real Application Clusters") Support - WebLogic Server 12c ships with a specific JDBC driver to leverage Oracle RAC clustering capabilities (Fast-Application-Notification, Transaction Affinity, Fast-Connection-Failover, etc). Oracle JDBC thin driver are also available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand ships only the standard Oracle JDBC thin driver. Load balancing with Oracle RAC are not supported. Manual intervention in case of planned or unplanned RAC downtime are necessary. In JBoss EAP 6, situation does not reestablish automatically after downtime. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called Active GridLink for Oracle RAC which provides up to 3X performance on OLTP applications. This seamless integration between WebLogic and Oracle database enable more value added to critical business applications leveraging their investments in Oracle database technology and Oracle middleware. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no performance gains at all, even when admin people implement some kind of connection-pooling tuning. - WebLogic Server 12c also supports transaction and web session affinity to the Oracle RAC, which provides aditional gains of performance. This is particularly interesting if you are creating a reliable solution that are distributed not only in an LAN cluster, but into a different data center. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. 6) Standards and Technology Support - WebLogic Server 12c is fully Java EE 6 compatible and production ready since december of 2011. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand became fully compatible with Java EE 6 only in the community version after three months, and production ready only in a few days considering that this article was written in June of 2012. Red Hat says that they are the masters of innovation and technology proliferation, but compared with Oracle and even other proprietary vendors like IBM, they historically speaking are lazy to deliver the most newest technologies and standards adherence. - Oracle is the steward of Java, driving innovation into the platform from commercial and open-source vendors. Red Hat on the other hand does not have its own JVM and relies on third-part JVMs to complete their application server offer. 95% of Red Hat customers are using Oracle HotSpot as JVM, which means that without Oracle involvement, their support are limited exclusively to the application server layer and we all know that most problems are happens in the JVM layer. - WebLogic Server 12c supports natively JDK 7, which empower developers to explore the maximum of the Java platform productivity when writing code. This feature differentiate WebLogic from others application servers (except GlassFish that are also managed by Oracle) because the usage of JDK 7 introduce such remarkable productivity features like the "try-with-resources" enhancement, catching multiple exceptions with one try block, Strings in the switch statements, JVM improvements in terms of JDBC, I/O, networking, security, concurrency and of course, the most important feature of Java 7: native support for multiple non-Java languages. More features regarding JDK 7 can be found here. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not support JDK 7 officially, they comment in their community version that "Java SE 7 can be used with JBoss 7" which does not gives you any guarantees of enterprise support for JDK 7. - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c supports integration with Spring framework allowing Spring applications to use WebLogic special transaction manager, exposing bean interfaces to WebLogic MBeans to take advantage of all WebLogic monitoring and administration advantages. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no special integration with Spring. In fact, Red Hat offers a suspicious package called "JBoss Web Platform" that in theory supports Spring, but in practice this package does not offers any special integration. It is just a facility for Red Hat customers to have support from both JBoss and Spring technology using the same customer support. 7) Lightweight Development - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c and Oracle GlassFish are completely integrated and can share applications without any modifications. Starting with the 12c version, WebLogic now understands natively GlassFish deployment descriptors and specific configurations in order to offer you a truly and reliable migration path from a community Java EE application server to a enterprise middleware product like WebLogic. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no support to natively reuse an existing (or still in development) application from JBoss AS community server. Users of JBoss suffer of critical issues during deployment time that includes: changing the libraries and dependencies of the application, patching the DTD or XSD deployment descriptors, refactoring of the application layers due classloading issues and anomalies, rebuilding of persistence, business and web layers due issues with "usage of the certified version of an certain dependency" or "frameworks that Red Hat potentially does not recommend" etc. If you have the culture or enterprise IT directive of developing Java EE applications using community middleware to in a certain future, transition to enterprise (supported by a vendor) middleware, Oracle WebLogic plus Oracle GlassFish offers you a more sustainable solution. - WebLogic Server 12c has a very light ZIP distribution (less than 165 MB). JBoss EAP 6 ZIP size is around 130 MB, together with JBoss ON you have more 100 MB resulting in a higher download footprint. This is particularly interesting if you plan to use automated setup of application server instances (for example, to rapidly setup a development or staging environment) using Maven or Hudson. - WebLogic Server 12c has a complete integration with Maven allowing developers to setup WebLogic domains with few commands. Tasks like downloading WebLogic, installation, domain creation, data sources deployment are completely integrated. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited offer integration with those tools.  - WebLogic Server 12c has a startup mode called WLX that turns-off EJB, JMS and JCA containers leaving enabled only the web container with Java EE 6 web profile. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such feature, you need to disable manually the containers that you do not want to use. - WebLogic Server 12c supports fastswap, which enables you to change classes without redeployment. This is particularly interesting if you are developing patches for the application that is already deployed and you do not want to redeploy the entire application. This is the same behavior that most application servers offers to JSP pages, but with WebLogic Server 12c, you have the same feature for Java classes in general. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. Even JBoss EAP 5 does not support this until now. 8) JMS and Messaging - WebLogic Server 12c has a proven and high scalable JMS implementation since its initial release in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a still immature technology called HornetQ, which was introduced in JBoss EAP 5 replacing everything that was implemented in the previous versions. Red Hat loves to introduce new technologies across JBoss versions, playing around with customers and their investments. And when they are asked about why they have changed the implementation and caused such a mess, their answer is always: "the previous implementation was inadequate and not aligned with the community strategy so we are creating a new a improved one". This Red Hat practice leads to uncomfortable investments that in a near future (sometimes less than a year) will be affected in someway. - WebLogic Server 12c has troubleshooting and monitoring features included on the WebLogic console and WLDF. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct monitoring on the console, activity is reflected only on the logs, no debug logs available in case of JMS issues. - WebLogic Server 12c has extremely good performance and scalability. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a JMS storage mechanism relying on Oracle database or MySQL. This means that if an issue in production happens and Red Hat affirms that an performance issue is happening due to database problems, they will not support you on the performance issue. They will orient you to call Oracle instead. - WebLogic Server 12c supports messaging enterprise features like SAF ("Store and Forward"), Distributed Queues/Topics and Foreign JMS providers support that leverage JMS implementations without compromise developer code making things completely transparent. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand do not even dream to support such features. 9) Caching and Grid - Coherence, which is the leading and most mature data grid technology from Oracle, is available since early 2000 and was integrated with WebLogic in 2009. Coherence and WebLogic clusters can be both managed from WebLogic administrative console. Even Node Manager supports Coherence. JBoss on the other hand discontinued JBoss Cache, which was their caching implementation just like they did with the messaging implementation (JBossMQ) which was a issue for long term customers. JBoss EAP 6 ships InfiniSpan version 1.0 which is immature and lack a proven record of successful cases and reliability. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called ActiveCache which uses Coherence to, without any code changes, replicate HTTP sessions from both WebLogic and other application servers like JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere, GlassFish and even Microsoft IIS. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does have such support and even when they do in the future, they probably will support only their own application server. - Coherence can be used to manage both L1 and L2 cache levels, providing support to Oracle TopLink and others JPA compliant implementations, even Hibernate. JBoss EAP 6 and Infinispan on the other hand supports only Hibernate. And most important of all: Infinispan does not have any successful case of L1 or L2 caching level support using Hibernate, which lead us to reflect about its viability. 10) Performance - WebLogic Server 12c is certified with Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and can run unchanged applications at this engineered system. This approach can benefit customers from Exalogic optimization's of both kernel and JVM layers to boost performance in terms of 10X for web, OLTP, JMS and grid applications. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no investment on engineered systems: customers do not have the choice to deploy on a Java ultra fast system if their project becomes relevant and performance issues are detected. - WebLogic Server 12c maintains a performance gain across each new release: starting on WebLogic 5.1, the overall performance gain has been close to 4X, which close to a 20% gain release by release. JBoss on the other hand does not provide SPECJAppServer or SPECJEnterprise performance benchmarks. Their so called "performance gains" remains hidden in their customer environments, which lead us to think if it is true or not since we will never get access to those environments. - WebLogic Server 12c has industry performance benchmarks with submissions across platforms and configurations leading SPECJ. Oracle WebLogic leads SPECJAppServer performance in multiple categories, fitting all customer topologies like: dual-node, single-node, multi-node and multi-node with RAC. JBoss... again, does not provide any SPECJAppServer performance benchmarks. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called work manager which allows your application to embrace new performance levels based on critical resource utilization of the CPUs usage. Work managers prioritizes work and allocates threads based on an execution model that takes into account administrator-defined parameters and actual run-time performance and throughput. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no compared feature and probably they never will. Not supporting such feature like work managers, JBoss EAP 6 forces admin people and specially developers to uncover performance gains in a intrusive way, rewriting the code and doing performance refactorings. 11) Professional Services Support - WebLogic Server 12c and any other technology sold by Oracle give customers the possibility of hire OCS ("Oracle Consulting Services") to manage critical scenarios, deployment assistance of new applications, high skilled consultancy of architecture, best practices and people allocation together with customer teams. All OCS services are available without any restrictions, having the customer bought software from Oracle or just starting their implementation before any acquisition. JBoss EAP 6 or Red Hat to be more specifically, only offers professional services if you buy subscriptions from them. If you are developing a new critical application for your business and need the help of Red Hat for a serious issue or architecture decision, they will probably say: "OK... I can help you but after you buy subscriptions from me". Red Hat also does not allows their professional services consultants to manage environments that uses community based software. They will probably force you to first buy a subscription, download their "enterprise" version and them, optionally hire their consultants. - Oracle provides you our university to educate your team into our technologies, including of course specialized trainings of WebLogic application server. At any time and location, you can hire Oracle to train your team so you get trustful knowledge according to your specific needs. Certifications for the products are also available if your technical people desire to differentiate themselves as professionals. Red Hat on the other hand have a limited pool of resources to train your team in their technologies. Basically they are selling training and certification for RHEL ("Red Hat Enterprise Linux") but if you demand more specialized training in JBoss middleware, they will probably connect you to some "certified" partner localized training since they are apparently discontinuing their education center, at least here in Brazil. They were not able to reproduce their success with RHEL education to their middleware division since they need first sell the subscriptions to after gives you specialized training. And again, they only offer you specialized training based on their enterprise version (EAP in the case of JBoss) which means that the courses will be a quite outdated. There are reports of developers that took official training's from Red Hat at this year (2012) and in a certain JBoss advanced course, Red Hat supposedly covered JBossMQ as the messaging subsystem, and even the printed material provided was based on JBossMQ since the training was created for JBoss EAP 4.3. 12) Encouraging Transparency without Ulterior Motives - WebLogic Server 12c like any other software from Oracle can be downloaded any time from anywhere, you should only possess an OTN ("Oracle Technology Network") credential and you can download any enterprise software how many times you want. And is not some kind of "trial" version. It is the official binaries that will be running for ever in your data center. Oracle does not encourages the usage of "specific versions" of our software. The binaries you buy from Oracle are the same binaries anyone in the world could download and use for testing and personal education. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand are not available for download unless you buy a subscription and get access to the Red Hat enterprise repositories. If you need to test, learn or just start creating your application using Red Hat's middleware software, you should download it from the community website. You are not allowed to download the enterprise version that, according to Red Hat are more secure, reliable and robust. But no one of us want to start the development of a software with an unsecured, unreliable and not scalable middleware right? So what you do? You are "invited" by Red Hat to buy subscriptions from them to get access to the "cool" version of the software. - WebLogic Server 12c prices are publicly available in the Oracle website. If you want to know right now how much WebLogic will cost to your organization, just click here and get access to our price list. In the case of WebLogic, check out the "US Oracle Technology Commercial Price List". Oracle also encourages you to get in touch with a sales representative to discuss discounts that would make possible the investment into our technology. But you are not required to do this, only if you are interested in buying our technology or maybe you want to discuss some discount scenarios. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have its cost publicly available in Red Hat's website or in any other media, at least is not so easy to get such information. The only link you will possibly find in their website is a "Contact a Sales Representative" link. This is not a very good relationship between an customer and an vendor. This is not an example of transparency, mainly when the software are sold as open. In this situations, customers expects to see the software prices publicly available, so they can have the chance to decide, based on the existing features of the software, if the cost is fair or not. Conclusion Oracle WebLogic is the most mature, secure, reliable and scalable Java EE application server of the market, and have a proven record of success around the globe to prove it's majority. Don't lose the chance to discover today how WebLogic could fit your needs and sustain your global IT middleware strategy, no matter if your strategy are completely based on the Cloud or not.

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  • Nested property binding

    - by EtherealMonkey
    Recently, I have been trying to wrap my mind around the BindingList<T> and INotifyPropertChanged. More specifically - How do I make a collection of objects (having objects as properties) which will allow me to subscribe to events throughout the tree? To that end, I have examined the code offered as examples by others. One such project that I downloaded was Nested Property Binding - CodeProject by "seesharper". Now, the article explains the implementation, but there was a question by "Someone@AnotherWorld" about "INotifyPropertyChanged in nested objects". His question was: Hi, nice stuff! But after a couple of time using your solution I realize the ObjectBindingSource ignores the PropertyChanged event of nested objects. E.g. I've got a class 'Foo' with two properties named 'Name' and 'Bar'. 'Name' is a string an 'Bar' reference an instance of class 'Bar', which has a 'Name' property of type string too and both classes implements INotifyPropertyChanged. With your binding source reading and writing with both properties ('Name' and 'Bar_Name') works fine but the PropertyChanged event works only for the 'Name' property, because the binding source listen only for events of 'Foo'. One workaround is to retrigger the PropertyChanged event in the appropriate class (here 'Foo'). What's very unclean! The other approach would be to extend ObjectBindingSource so that all owner of nested property which implements INotifyPropertyChanged get used for receive changes, but how? Thanks! I had asked about BindingList<T> yesterday and received a good answer from Aaronaught. In my question, I had a similar point as "Someone@AnotherWorld": if Keywords were to implement INotifyPropertyChanged, would changes be accessible to the BindingList through the ScannedImage object? To which Aaronaught's response was: No, they will not. BindingList only looks at the specific object in the list, it has no ability to scan all dependencies and monitor everything in the graph (nor would that always be a good idea, if it were possible). I understand Aaronaught's comment regarding this behavior not necessarily being a good idea. Additionally, his suggestion to have my bound object "relay" events on behalf of it's member objects works fine and is perfectly acceptable. For me, "re-triggering" the PropertyChanged event does not seem so unclean as "Someone@AnotherWorld" laments. I do understand why he protests - in the interest of loosely coupled objects. However, I believe that coupling between objects that are part of a composition is logical and not so undesirable as this may be in other scenarios. (I am a newb, so I could be waaayyy off base.) Anyway, in the interest of exploring an answer to the question by "Someone@AnotherWorld", I altered the MainForm.cs file of the example project from Nested Property Binding - CodeProject by "seesharper" to the following: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Core.ComponentModel; using System.Windows.Forms; namespace ObjectBindingSourceDemo { public partial class MainForm : Form { private readonly List<Customer> _customers = new List<Customer>(); private readonly List<Product> _products = new List<Product>(); private List<Order> orders; public MainForm() { InitializeComponent(); dataGridView1.AutoGenerateColumns = false; dataGridView2.AutoGenerateColumns = false; CreateData(); } private void CreateData() { _customers.Add( new Customer(1, "Jane Wilson", new Address("98104", "6657 Sand Pointe Lane", "Seattle", "USA"))); _customers.Add( new Customer(1, "Bill Smith", new Address("94109", "5725 Glaze Drive", "San Francisco", "USA"))); _customers.Add( new Customer(1, "Samantha Brown", null)); _products.Add(new Product(1, "Keyboard", 49.99)); _products.Add(new Product(2, "Mouse", 10.99)); _products.Add(new Product(3, "PC", 599.99)); _products.Add(new Product(4, "Monitor", 299.99)); _products.Add(new Product(5, "LapTop", 799.99)); _products.Add(new Product(6, "Harddisc", 89.99)); customerBindingSource.DataSource = _customers; productBindingSource.DataSource = _products; orders = new List<Order>(); orders.Add(new Order(1, DateTime.Now, _customers[0])); orders.Add(new Order(2, DateTime.Now, _customers[1])); orders.Add(new Order(3, DateTime.Now, _customers[2])); #region Added by me OrderLine orderLine1 = new OrderLine(_products[0], 1); OrderLine orderLine2 = new OrderLine(_products[1], 3); orderLine1.PropertyChanged += new PropertyChangedEventHandler(OrderLineChanged); orderLine2.PropertyChanged += new PropertyChangedEventHandler(OrderLineChanged); orders[0].OrderLines.Add(orderLine1); orders[0].OrderLines.Add(orderLine2); #endregion // Removed by me in lieu of region above. //orders[0].OrderLines.Add(new OrderLine(_products[0], 1)); //orders[0].OrderLines.Add(new OrderLine(_products[1], 3)); ordersBindingSource.DataSource = orders; } #region Added by me // Have to wait until the form is Shown to wire up the events // for orderDetailsBindingSource. Otherwise, they are triggered // during MainForm().InitializeComponent(). private void MainForm_Shown(object sender, EventArgs e) { orderDetailsBindingSource.AddingNew += new AddingNewEventHandler(orderDetailsBindSrc_AddingNew); orderDetailsBindingSource.CurrentItemChanged += new EventHandler(orderDetailsBindSrc_CurrentItemChanged); orderDetailsBindingSource.ListChanged += new ListChangedEventHandler(orderDetailsBindSrc_ListChanged); } private void orderDetailsBindSrc_AddingNew( object sender, AddingNewEventArgs e) { } private void orderDetailsBindSrc_CurrentItemChanged( object sender, EventArgs e) { } private void orderDetailsBindSrc_ListChanged( object sender, ListChangedEventArgs e) { ObjectBindingSource bindingSource = (ObjectBindingSource)sender; if (!(bindingSource.Current == null)) { // Unsure if GetType().ToString() is required b/c ToString() // *seems* // to return the same value. if (bindingSource.Current.GetType().ToString() == "ObjectBindingSourceDemo.OrderLine") { if (e.ListChangedType == ListChangedType.ItemAdded) { // I wish that I knew of a way to determine // if the 'PropertyChanged' delegate assignment is null. // I don't like the current test, but it seems to work. if (orders[ ordersBindingSource.Position].OrderLines[ e.NewIndex].Product == null) { orders[ ordersBindingSource.Position].OrderLines[ e.NewIndex].PropertyChanged += new PropertyChangedEventHandler( OrderLineChanged); } } if (e.ListChangedType == ListChangedType.ItemDeleted) { // Will throw exception when leaving // an OrderLine row with unitialized properties. // // I presume this is because the item // has already been 'disposed' of at this point. // *but* // Will it be actually be released from memory // if the delegate assignment for PropertyChanged // was never removed??? if (orders[ ordersBindingSource.Position].OrderLines[ e.NewIndex].Product != null) { orders[ ordersBindingSource.Position].OrderLines[ e.NewIndex].PropertyChanged -= new PropertyChangedEventHandler( OrderLineChanged); } } } } } private void OrderLineChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e) { MessageBox.Show(e.PropertyName, "Property Changed:"); } #endregion } } In the method private void orderDetailsBindSrc_ListChanged(object sender, ListChangedEventArgs e) I am able to hook up the PropertyChangedEventHandler to the OrderLine object as it is being created. However, I cannot seem to find a way to unhook the PropertyChangedEventHandler from the OrderLine object before it is being removed from the orders[i].OrderLines list. So, my questions are: Am I simply trying to do something that is very, very wrong here? Will the OrderLines object that I add the delegate assignments to ever be released from memory if the assignment is not removed? Is there a "sane" method of achieving this scenario? Also, note that this question is not specifically related to my prior. I have actually solved the issue which had prompted me to inquire before. However, I have reached a point with this particular topic of discovery where my curiosity has exceeded my patience - hopefully someone here can shed some light on this?

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  • 256 Windows Azure Worker Roles, Windows Kinect and a 90's Text-Based Ray-Tracer

    - by Alan Smith
    For a couple of years I have been demoing a simple render farm hosted in Windows Azure using worker roles and the Azure Storage service. At the start of the presentation I deploy an Azure application that uses 16 worker roles to render a 1,500 frame 3D ray-traced animation. At the end of the presentation, when the animation was complete, I would play the animation delete the Azure deployment. The standing joke with the audience was that it was that it was a “$2 demo”, as the compute charges for running the 16 instances for an hour was $1.92, factor in the bandwidth charges and it’s a couple of dollars. The point of the demo is that it highlights one of the great benefits of cloud computing, you pay for what you use, and if you need massive compute power for a short period of time using Windows Azure can work out very cost effective. The “$2 demo” was great for presenting at user groups and conferences in that it could be deployed to Azure, used to render an animation, and then removed in a one hour session. I have always had the idea of doing something a bit more impressive with the demo, and scaling it from a “$2 demo” to a “$30 demo”. The challenge was to create a visually appealing animation in high definition format and keep the demo time down to one hour.  This article will take a run through how I achieved this. Ray Tracing Ray tracing, a technique for generating high quality photorealistic images, gained popularity in the 90’s with companies like Pixar creating feature length computer animations, and also the emergence of shareware text-based ray tracers that could run on a home PC. In order to render a ray traced image, the ray of light that would pass from the view point must be tracked until it intersects with an object. At the intersection, the color, reflectiveness, transparency, and refractive index of the object are used to calculate if the ray will be reflected or refracted. Each pixel may require thousands of calculations to determine what color it will be in the rendered image. Pin-Board Toys Having very little artistic talent and a basic understanding of maths I decided to focus on an animation that could be modeled fairly easily and would look visually impressive. I’ve always liked the pin-board desktop toys that become popular in the 80’s and when I was working as a 3D animator back in the 90’s I always had the idea of creating a 3D ray-traced animation of a pin-board, but never found the energy to do it. Even if I had a go at it, the render time to produce an animation that would look respectable on a 486 would have been measured in months. PolyRay Back in 1995 I landed my first real job, after spending three years being a beach-ski-climbing-paragliding-bum, and was employed to create 3D ray-traced animations for a CD-ROM that school kids would use to learn physics. I had got into the strange and wonderful world of text-based ray tracing, and was using a shareware ray-tracer called PolyRay. PolyRay takes a text file describing a scene as input and, after a few hours processing on a 486, produced a high quality ray-traced image. The following is an example of a basic PolyRay scene file. background Midnight_Blue   static define matte surface { ambient 0.1 diffuse 0.7 } define matte_white texture { matte { color white } } define matte_black texture { matte { color dark_slate_gray } } define position_cylindrical 3 define lookup_sawtooth 1 define light_wood <0.6, 0.24, 0.1> define median_wood <0.3, 0.12, 0.03> define dark_wood <0.05, 0.01, 0.005>     define wooden texture { noise surface { ambient 0.2  diffuse 0.7  specular white, 0.5 microfacet Reitz 10 position_fn position_cylindrical position_scale 1  lookup_fn lookup_sawtooth octaves 1 turbulence 1 color_map( [0.0, 0.2, light_wood, light_wood] [0.2, 0.3, light_wood, median_wood] [0.3, 0.4, median_wood, light_wood] [0.4, 0.7, light_wood, light_wood] [0.7, 0.8, light_wood, median_wood] [0.8, 0.9, median_wood, light_wood] [0.9, 1.0, light_wood, dark_wood]) } } define glass texture { surface { ambient 0 diffuse 0 specular 0.2 reflection white, 0.1 transmission white, 1, 1.5 }} define shiny surface { ambient 0.1 diffuse 0.6 specular white, 0.6 microfacet Phong 7  } define steely_blue texture { shiny { color black } } define chrome texture { surface { color white ambient 0.0 diffuse 0.2 specular 0.4 microfacet Phong 10 reflection 0.8 } }   viewpoint {     from <4.000, -1.000, 1.000> at <0.000, 0.000, 0.000> up <0, 1, 0> angle 60     resolution 640, 480 aspect 1.6 image_format 0 }       light <-10, 30, 20> light <-10, 30, -20>   object { disc <0, -2, 0>, <0, 1, 0>, 30 wooden }   object { sphere <0.000, 0.000, 0.000>, 1.00 chrome } object { cylinder <0.000, 0.000, 0.000>, <0.000, 0.000, -4.000>, 0.50 chrome }   After setting up the background and defining colors and textures, the viewpoint is specified. The “camera” is located at a point in 3D space, and it looks towards another point. The angle, image resolution, and aspect ratio are specified. Two lights are present in the image at defined coordinates. The three objects in the image are a wooden disc to represent a table top, and a sphere and cylinder that intersect to form a pin that will be used for the pin board toy in the final animation. When the image is rendered, the following image is produced. The pins are modeled with a chrome surface, so they reflect the environment around them. Note that the scale of the pin shaft is not correct, this will be fixed later. Modeling the Pin Board The frame of the pin-board is made up of three boxes, and six cylinders, the front box is modeled using a clear, slightly reflective solid, with the same refractive index of glass. The other shapes are modeled as metal. object { box <-5.5, -1.5, 1>, <5.5, 5.5, 1.2> glass } object { box <-5.5, -1.5, -0.04>, <5.5, 5.5, -0.09> steely_blue } object { box <-5.5, -1.5, -0.52>, <5.5, 5.5, -0.59> steely_blue } object { cylinder <-5.2, -1.2, 1.4>, <-5.2, -1.2, -0.74>, 0.2 steely_blue } object { cylinder <5.2, -1.2, 1.4>, <5.2, -1.2, -0.74>, 0.2 steely_blue } object { cylinder <-5.2, 5.2, 1.4>, <-5.2, 5.2, -0.74>, 0.2 steely_blue } object { cylinder <5.2, 5.2, 1.4>, <5.2, 5.2, -0.74>, 0.2 steely_blue } object { cylinder <0, -1.2, 1.4>, <0, -1.2, -0.74>, 0.2 steely_blue } object { cylinder <0, 5.2, 1.4>, <0, 5.2, -0.74>, 0.2 steely_blue }   In order to create the matrix of pins that make up the pin board I used a basic console application with a few nested loops to create two intersecting matrixes of pins, which models the layout used in the pin boards. The resulting image is shown below. The pin board contains 11,481 pins, with the scene file containing 23,709 lines of code. For the complete animation 2,000 scene files will be created, which is over 47 million lines of code. Each pin in the pin-board will slide out a specific distance when an object is pressed into the back of the board. This is easily modeled by setting the Z coordinate of the pin to a specific value. In order to set all of the pins in the pin-board to the correct position, a bitmap image can be used. The position of the pin can be set based on the color of the pixel at the appropriate position in the image. When the Windows Azure logo is used to set the Z coordinate of the pins, the following image is generated. The challenge now was to make a cool animation. The Azure Logo is fine, but it is static. Using a normal video to animate the pins would not work; the colors in the video would not be the same as the depth of the objects from the camera. In order to simulate the pin board accurately a series of frames from a depth camera could be used. Windows Kinect The Kenect controllers for the X-Box 360 and Windows feature a depth camera. The Kinect SDK for Windows provides a programming interface for Kenect, providing easy access for .NET developers to the Kinect sensors. The Kinect Explorer provided with the Kinect SDK is a great starting point for exploring Kinect from a developers perspective. Both the X-Box 360 Kinect and the Windows Kinect will work with the Kinect SDK, the Windows Kinect is required for commercial applications, but the X-Box Kinect can be used for hobby projects. The Windows Kinect has the advantage of providing a mode to allow depth capture with objects closer to the camera, which makes for a more accurate depth image for setting the pin positions. Creating a Depth Field Animation The depth field animation used to set the positions of the pin in the pin board was created using a modified version of the Kinect Explorer sample application. In order to simulate the pin board accurately, a small section of the depth range from the depth sensor will be used. Any part of the object in front of the depth range will result in a white pixel; anything behind the depth range will be black. Within the depth range the pixels in the image will be set to RGB values from 0,0,0 to 255,255,255. A screen shot of the modified Kinect Explorer application is shown below. The Kinect Explorer sample application was modified to include slider controls that are used to set the depth range that forms the image from the depth stream. This allows the fine tuning of the depth image that is required for simulating the position of the pins in the pin board. The Kinect Explorer was also modified to record a series of images from the depth camera and save them as a sequence JPEG files that will be used to animate the pins in the animation the Start and Stop buttons are used to start and stop the image recording. En example of one of the depth images is shown below. Once a series of 2,000 depth images has been captured, the task of creating the animation can begin. Rendering a Test Frame In order to test the creation of frames and get an approximation of the time required to render each frame a test frame was rendered on-premise using PolyRay. The output of the rendering process is shown below. The test frame contained 23,629 primitive shapes, most of which are the spheres and cylinders that are used for the 11,800 or so pins in the pin board. The 1280x720 image contains 921,600 pixels, but as anti-aliasing was used the number of rays that were calculated was 4,235,777, with 3,478,754,073 object boundaries checked. The test frame of the pin board with the depth field image applied is shown below. The tracing time for the test frame was 4 minutes 27 seconds, which means rendering the2,000 frames in the animation would take over 148 hours, or a little over 6 days. Although this is much faster that an old 486, waiting almost a week to see the results of an animation would make it challenging for animators to create, view, and refine their animations. It would be much better if the animation could be rendered in less than one hour. Windows Azure Worker Roles The cost of creating an on-premise render farm to render animations increases in proportion to the number of servers. The table below shows the cost of servers for creating a render farm, assuming a cost of $500 per server. Number of Servers Cost 1 $500 16 $8,000 256 $128,000   As well as the cost of the servers, there would be additional costs for networking, racks etc. Hosting an environment of 256 servers on-premise would require a server room with cooling, and some pretty hefty power cabling. The Windows Azure compute services provide worker roles, which are ideal for performing processor intensive compute tasks. With the scalability available in Windows Azure a job that takes 256 hours to complete could be perfumed using different numbers of worker roles. The time and cost of using 1, 16 or 256 worker roles is shown below. Number of Worker Roles Render Time Cost 1 256 hours $30.72 16 16 hours $30.72 256 1 hour $30.72   Using worker roles in Windows Azure provides the same cost for the 256 hour job, irrespective of the number of worker roles used. Provided the compute task can be broken down into many small units, and the worker role compute power can be used effectively, it makes sense to scale the application so that the task is completed quickly, making the results available in a timely fashion. The task of rendering 2,000 frames in an animation is one that can easily be broken down into 2,000 individual pieces, which can be performed by a number of worker roles. Creating a Render Farm in Windows Azure The architecture of the render farm is shown in the following diagram. The render farm is a hybrid application with the following components: ·         On-Premise o   Windows Kinect – Used combined with the Kinect Explorer to create a stream of depth images. o   Animation Creator – This application uses the depth images from the Kinect sensor to create scene description files for PolyRay. These files are then uploaded to the jobs blob container, and job messages added to the jobs queue. o   Process Monitor – This application queries the role instance lifecycle table and displays statistics about the render farm environment and render process. o   Image Downloader – This application polls the image queue and downloads the rendered animation files once they are complete. ·         Windows Azure o   Azure Storage – Queues and blobs are used for the scene description files and completed frames. A table is used to store the statistics about the rendering environment.   The architecture of each worker role is shown below.   The worker role is configured to use local storage, which provides file storage on the worker role instance that can be use by the applications to render the image and transform the format of the image. The service definition for the worker role with the local storage configuration highlighted is shown below. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="CloudRay" >   <WorkerRole name="CloudRayWorkerRole" vmsize="Small">     <Imports>     </Imports>     <ConfigurationSettings>       <Setting name="DataConnectionString" />     </ConfigurationSettings>     <LocalResources>       <LocalStorage name="RayFolder" cleanOnRoleRecycle="true" />     </LocalResources>   </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition>     The two executable programs, PolyRay.exe and DTA.exe are included in the Azure project, with Copy Always set as the property. PolyRay will take the scene description file and render it to a Truevision TGA file. As the TGA format has not seen much use since the mid 90’s it is converted to a JPG image using Dave's Targa Animator, another shareware application from the 90’s. Each worker roll will use the following process to render the animation frames. 1.       The worker process polls the job queue, if a job is available the scene description file is downloaded from blob storage to local storage. 2.       PolyRay.exe is started in a process with the appropriate command line arguments to render the image as a TGA file. 3.       DTA.exe is started in a process with the appropriate command line arguments convert the TGA file to a JPG file. 4.       The JPG file is uploaded from local storage to the images blob container. 5.       A message is placed on the images queue to indicate a new image is available for download. 6.       The job message is deleted from the job queue. 7.       The role instance lifecycle table is updated with statistics on the number of frames rendered by the worker role instance, and the CPU time used. The code for this is shown below. public override void Run() {     // Set environment variables     string polyRayPath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("RoleRoot"), PolyRayLocation);     string dtaPath = Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("RoleRoot"), DTALocation);       LocalResource rayStorage = RoleEnvironment.GetLocalResource("RayFolder");     string localStorageRootPath = rayStorage.RootPath;       JobQueue jobQueue = new JobQueue("renderjobs");     JobQueue downloadQueue = new JobQueue("renderimagedownloadjobs");     CloudRayBlob sceneBlob = new CloudRayBlob("scenes");     CloudRayBlob imageBlob = new CloudRayBlob("images");     RoleLifecycleDataSource roleLifecycleDataSource = new RoleLifecycleDataSource();       Frames = 0;       while (true)     {         // Get the render job from the queue         CloudQueueMessage jobMsg = jobQueue.Get();           if (jobMsg != null)         {             // Get the file details             string sceneFile = jobMsg.AsString;             string tgaFile = sceneFile.Replace(".pi", ".tga");             string jpgFile = sceneFile.Replace(".pi", ".jpg");               string sceneFilePath = Path.Combine(localStorageRootPath, sceneFile);             string tgaFilePath = Path.Combine(localStorageRootPath, tgaFile);             string jpgFilePath = Path.Combine(localStorageRootPath, jpgFile);               // Copy the scene file to local storage             sceneBlob.DownloadFile(sceneFilePath);               // Run the ray tracer.             string polyrayArguments =                 string.Format("\"{0}\" -o \"{1}\" -a 2", sceneFilePath, tgaFilePath);             Process polyRayProcess = new Process();             polyRayProcess.StartInfo.FileName =                 Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("RoleRoot"), polyRayPath);             polyRayProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = polyrayArguments;             polyRayProcess.Start();             polyRayProcess.WaitForExit();               // Convert the image             string dtaArguments =                 string.Format(" {0} /FJ /P{1}", tgaFilePath, Path.GetDirectoryName (jpgFilePath));             Process dtaProcess = new Process();             dtaProcess.StartInfo.FileName =                 Path.Combine(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("RoleRoot"), dtaPath);             dtaProcess.StartInfo.Arguments = dtaArguments;             dtaProcess.Start();             dtaProcess.WaitForExit();               // Upload the image to blob storage             imageBlob.UploadFile(jpgFilePath);               // Add a download job.             downloadQueue.Add(jpgFile);               // Delete the render job message             jobQueue.Delete(jobMsg);               Frames++;         }         else         {             Thread.Sleep(1000);         }           // Log the worker role activity.         roleLifecycleDataSource.Alive             ("CloudRayWorker", RoleLifecycleDataSource.RoleLifecycleId, Frames);     } }     Monitoring Worker Role Instance Lifecycle In order to get more accurate statistics about the lifecycle of the worker role instances used to render the animation data was tracked in an Azure storage table. The following class was used to track the worker role lifecycles in Azure storage.   public class RoleLifecycle : TableServiceEntity {     public string ServerName { get; set; }     public string Status { get; set; }     public DateTime StartTime { get; set; }     public DateTime EndTime { get; set; }     public long SecondsRunning { get; set; }     public DateTime LastActiveTime { get; set; }     public int Frames { get; set; }     public string Comment { get; set; }       public RoleLifecycle()     {     }       public RoleLifecycle(string roleName)     {         PartitionKey = roleName;         RowKey = Utils.GetAscendingRowKey();         Status = "Started";         StartTime = DateTime.UtcNow;         LastActiveTime = StartTime;         EndTime = StartTime;         SecondsRunning = 0;         Frames = 0;     } }     A new instance of this class is created and added to the storage table when the role starts. It is then updated each time the worker renders a frame to record the total number of frames rendered and the total processing time. These statistics are used be the monitoring application to determine the effectiveness of use of resources in the render farm. Rendering the Animation The Azure solution was deployed to Windows Azure with the service configuration set to 16 worker role instances. This allows for the application to be tested in the cloud environment, and the performance of the application determined. When I demo the application at conferences and user groups I often start with 16 instances, and then scale up the application to the full 256 instances. The configuration to run 16 instances is shown below. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="CloudRay" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="1" osVersion="*">   <Role name="CloudRayWorkerRole">     <Instances count="16" />     <ConfigurationSettings>       <Setting name="DataConnectionString"         value="DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=cloudraydata;AccountKey=..." />     </ConfigurationSettings>   </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>     About six minutes after deploying the application the first worker roles become active and start to render the first frames of the animation. The CloudRay Monitor application displays an icon for each worker role instance, with a number indicating the number of frames that the worker role has rendered. The statistics on the left show the number of active worker roles and statistics about the render process. The render time is the time since the first worker role became active; the CPU time is the total amount of processing time used by all worker role instances to render the frames.   Five minutes after the first worker role became active the last of the 16 worker roles activated. By this time the first seven worker roles had each rendered one frame of the animation.   With 16 worker roles u and running it can be seen that one hour and 45 minutes CPU time has been used to render 32 frames with a render time of just under 10 minutes.     At this rate it would take over 10 hours to render the 2,000 frames of the full animation. In order to complete the animation in under an hour more processing power will be required. Scaling the render farm from 16 instances to 256 instances is easy using the new management portal. The slider is set to 256 instances, and the configuration saved. We do not need to re-deploy the application, and the 16 instances that are up and running will not be affected. Alternatively, the configuration file for the Azure service could be modified to specify 256 instances.   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="CloudRay" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration" osFamily="1" osVersion="*">   <Role name="CloudRayWorkerRole">     <Instances count="256" />     <ConfigurationSettings>       <Setting name="DataConnectionString"         value="DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=cloudraydata;AccountKey=..." />     </ConfigurationSettings>   </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>     Six minutes after the new configuration has been applied 75 new worker roles have activated and are processing their first frames.   Five minutes later the full configuration of 256 worker roles is up and running. We can see that the average rate of frame rendering has increased from 3 to 12 frames per minute, and that over 17 hours of CPU time has been utilized in 23 minutes. In this test the time to provision 140 worker roles was about 11 minutes, which works out at about one every five seconds.   We are now half way through the rendering, with 1,000 frames complete. This has utilized just under three days of CPU time in a little over 35 minutes.   The animation is now complete, with 2,000 frames rendered in a little over 52 minutes. The CPU time used by the 256 worker roles is 6 days, 7 hours and 22 minutes with an average frame rate of 38 frames per minute. The rendering of the last 1,000 frames took 16 minutes 27 seconds, which works out at a rendering rate of 60 frames per minute. The frame counts in the server instances indicate that the use of a queue to distribute the workload has been very effective in distributing the load across the 256 worker role instances. The first 16 instances that were deployed first have rendered between 11 and 13 frames each, whilst the 240 instances that were added when the application was scaled have rendered between 6 and 9 frames each.   Completed Animation I’ve uploaded the completed animation to YouTube, a low resolution preview is shown below. Pin Board Animation Created using Windows Kinect and 256 Windows Azure Worker Roles   The animation can be viewed in 1280x720 resolution at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5jy6bvSxWc Effective Use of Resources According to the CloudRay monitor statistics the animation took 6 days, 7 hours and 22 minutes CPU to render, this works out at 152 hours of compute time, rounded up to the nearest hour. As the usage for the worker role instances are billed for the full hour, it may have been possible to render the animation using fewer than 256 worker roles. When deciding the optimal usage of resources, the time required to provision and start the worker roles must also be considered. In the demo I started with 16 worker roles, and then scaled the application to 256 worker roles. It would have been more optimal to start the application with maybe 200 worker roles, and utilized the full hour that I was being billed for. This would, however, have prevented showing the ease of scalability of the application. The new management portal displays the CPU usage across the worker roles in the deployment. The average CPU usage across all instances is 93.27%, with over 99% used when all the instances are up and running. This shows that the worker role resources are being used very effectively. Grid Computing Scenarios Although I am using this scenario for a hobby project, there are many scenarios where a large amount of compute power is required for a short period of time. Windows Azure provides a great platform for developing these types of grid computing applications, and can work out very cost effective. ·         Windows Azure can provide massive compute power, on demand, in a matter of minutes. ·         The use of queues to manage the load balancing of jobs between role instances is a simple and effective solution. ·         Using a cloud-computing platform like Windows Azure allows proof-of-concept scenarios to be tested and evaluated on a very low budget. ·         No charges for inbound data transfer makes the uploading of large data sets to Windows Azure Storage services cost effective. (Transaction charges still apply.) Tips for using Windows Azure for Grid Computing Scenarios I found the implementation of a render farm using Windows Azure a fairly simple scenario to implement. I was impressed by ease of scalability that Azure provides, and by the short time that the application took to scale from 16 to 256 worker role instances. In this case it was around 13 minutes, in other tests it took between 10 and 20 minutes. The following tips may be useful when implementing a grid computing project in Windows Azure. ·         Using an Azure Storage queue to load-balance the units of work across multiple worker roles is simple and very effective. The design I have used in this scenario could easily scale to many thousands of worker role instances. ·         Windows Azure accounts are typically limited to 20 cores. If you need to use more than this, a call to support and a credit card check will be required. ·         Be aware of how the billing model works. You will be charged for worker role instances for the full clock our in which the instance is deployed. Schedule the workload to start just after the clock hour has started. ·         Monitor the utilization of the resources you are provisioning, ensure that you are not paying for worker roles that are idle. ·         If you are deploying third party applications to worker roles, you may well run into licensing issues. Purchasing software licenses on a per-processor basis when using hundreds of processors for a short time period would not be cost effective. ·         Third party software may also require installation onto the worker roles, which can be accomplished using start-up tasks. Bear in mind that adding a startup task and possible re-boot will add to the time required for the worker role instance to start and activate. An alternative may be to use a prepared VM and use VM roles. ·         Consider using the Windows Azure Autoscaling Application Block (WASABi) to autoscale the worker roles in your application. When using a large number of worker roles, the utilization must be carefully monitored, if the scaling algorithms are not optimal it could get very expensive!

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  • Class member functions instantiated by traits [policies, actually]

    - by Jive Dadson
    I am reluctant to say I can't figure this out, but I can't figure this out. I've googled and searched Stack Overflow, and come up empty. The abstract, and possibly overly vague form of the question is, how can I use the traits-pattern to instantiate member functions? [Update: I used the wrong term here. It should be "policies" rather than "traits." Traits describe existing classes. Policies prescribe synthetic classes.] The question came up while modernizing a set of multivariate function optimizers that I wrote more than 10 years ago. The optimizers all operate by selecting a straight-line path through the parameter space away from the current best point (the "update"), then finding a better point on that line (the "line search"), then testing for the "done" condition, and if not done, iterating. There are different methods for doing the update, the line-search, and conceivably for the done test, and other things. Mix and match. Different update formulae require different state-variable data. For example, the LMQN update requires a vector, and the BFGS update requires a matrix. If evaluating gradients is cheap, the line-search should do so. If not, it should use function evaluations only. Some methods require more accurate line-searches than others. Those are just some examples. The original version instantiates several of the combinations by means of virtual functions. Some traits are selected by setting mode bits that are tested at runtime. Yuck. It would be trivial to define the traits with #define's and the member functions with #ifdef's and macros. But that's so twenty years ago. It bugs me that I cannot figure out a whiz-bang modern way. If there were only one trait that varied, I could use the curiously recurring template pattern. But I see no way to extend that to arbitrary combinations of traits. I tried doing it using boost::enable_if, etc.. The specialized state information was easy. I managed to get the functions done, but only by resorting to non-friend external functions that have the this-pointer as a parameter. I never even figured out how to make the functions friends, much less member functions. The compiler (VC++ 2008) always complained that things didn't match. I would yell, "SFINAE, you moron!" but the moron is probably me. Perhaps tag-dispatch is the key. I haven't gotten very deeply into that. Surely it's possible, right? If so, what is best practice? UPDATE: Here's another try at explaining it. I want the user to be able to fill out an order (manifest) for a custom optimizer, something like ordering off of a Chinese menu - one from column A, one from column B, etc.. Waiter, from column A (updaters), I'll have the BFGS update with Cholesky-decompositon sauce. From column B (line-searchers), I'll have the cubic interpolation line-search with an eta of 0.4 and a rho of 1e-4, please. Etc... UPDATE: Okay, okay. Here's the playing-around that I've done. I offer it reluctantly, because I suspect it's a completely wrong-headed approach. It runs okay under vc++ 2008. #include <boost/utility.hpp> #include <boost/type_traits/integral_constant.hpp> namespace dj { struct CBFGS { void bar() {printf("CBFGS::bar %d\n", data);} CBFGS(): data(1234){} int data; }; template<class T> struct is_CBFGS: boost::false_type{}; template<> struct is_CBFGS<CBFGS>: boost::true_type{}; struct LMQN {LMQN(): data(54.321){} void bar() {printf("LMQN::bar %lf\n", data);} double data; }; template<class T> struct is_LMQN: boost::false_type{}; template<> struct is_LMQN<LMQN> : boost::true_type{}; // "Order form" struct default_optimizer_traits { typedef CBFGS update_type; // Selection from column A - updaters }; template<class traits> class Optimizer; template<class traits> void foo(typename boost::enable_if<is_LMQN<typename traits::update_type>, Optimizer<traits> >::type& self) { printf(" LMQN %lf\n", self.data); } template<class traits> void foo(typename boost::enable_if<is_CBFGS<typename traits::update_type>, Optimizer<traits> >::type& self) { printf("CBFGS %d\n", self.data); } template<class traits = default_optimizer_traits> class Optimizer{ friend typename traits::update_type; //friend void dj::foo<traits>(typename Optimizer<traits> & self); // How? public: //void foo(void); // How??? void foo() { dj::foo<traits>(*this); } void bar() { data.bar(); } //protected: // How? typedef typename traits::update_type update_type; update_type data; }; } // namespace dj int main() { dj::Optimizer<> opt; opt.foo(); opt.bar(); std::getchar(); return 0; }

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  • Node.js Adventure - Storage Services and Service Runtime

    - by Shaun
    When I described on how to host a Node.js application on Windows Azure, one of questions might be raised about how to consume the vary Windows Azure services, such as the storage, service bus, access control, etc.. Interact with windows azure services is available in Node.js through the Windows Azure Node.js SDK, which is a module available in NPM. In this post I would like to describe on how to use Windows Azure Storage (a.k.a. WAS) as well as the service runtime.   Consume Windows Azure Storage Let’s firstly have a look on how to consume WAS through Node.js. As we know in the previous post we can host Node.js application on Windows Azure Web Site (a.k.a. WAWS) as well as Windows Azure Cloud Service (a.k.a. WACS). In theory, WAWS is also built on top of WACS worker roles with some more features. Hence in this post I will only demonstrate for hosting in WACS worker role. The Node.js code can be used when consuming WAS when hosted on WAWS. But since there’s no roles in WAWS, the code for consuming service runtime mentioned in the next section cannot be used for WAWS node application. We can use the solution that I created in my last post. Alternatively we can create a new windows azure project in Visual Studio with a worker role, add the “node.exe” and “index.js” and install “express” and “node-sqlserver” modules, make all files as “Copy always”. In order to use windows azure services we need to have Windows Azure Node.js SDK, as knows as a module named “azure” which can be installed through NPM. Once we downloaded and installed, we need to include them in our worker role project and make them as “Copy always”. You can use my “Copy all always” tool mentioned in my last post to update the currently worker role project file. You can also find the source code of this tool here. The source code of Windows Azure SDK for Node.js can be found in its GitHub page. It contains two parts. One is a CLI tool which provides a cross platform command line package for Mac and Linux to manage WAWS and Windows Azure Virtual Machines (a.k.a. WAVM). The other is a library for managing and consuming vary windows azure services includes tables, blobs, queues, service bus and the service runtime. I will not cover all of them but will only demonstrate on how to use tables and service runtime information in this post. You can find the full document of this SDK here. Back to Visual Studio and open the “index.js”, let’s continue our application from the last post, which was working against Windows Azure SQL Database (a.k.a. WASD). The code should looks like this. 1: var express = require("express"); 2: var sql = require("node-sqlserver"); 3:  4: var connectionString = "Driver={SQL Server Native Client 10.0};Server=tcp:ac6271ya9e.database.windows.net,1433;Database=synctile;Uid=shaunxu@ac6271ya9e;Pwd={PASSWORD};Encrypt=yes;Connection Timeout=30;"; 5: var port = 80; 6:  7: var app = express(); 8:  9: app.configure(function () { 10: app.use(express.bodyParser()); 11: }); 12:  13: app.get("/", function (req, res) { 14: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 15: if (err) { 16: console.log(err); 17: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 18: } 19: else { 20: conn.queryRaw("SELECT * FROM [Resource]", function (err, results) { 21: if (err) { 22: console.log(err); 23: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 24: } 25: else { 26: res.json(results); 27: } 28: }); 29: } 30: }); 31: }); 32:  33: app.get("/text/:key/:culture", function (req, res) { 34: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 35: if (err) { 36: console.log(err); 37: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 38: } 39: else { 40: var key = req.params.key; 41: var culture = req.params.culture; 42: var command = "SELECT * FROM [Resource] WHERE [Key] = '" + key + "' AND [Culture] = '" + culture + "'"; 43: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 44: if (err) { 45: console.log(err); 46: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 47: } 48: else { 49: res.json(results); 50: } 51: }); 52: } 53: }); 54: }); 55:  56: app.get("/sproc/:key/:culture", function (req, res) { 57: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 58: if (err) { 59: console.log(err); 60: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 61: } 62: else { 63: var key = req.params.key; 64: var culture = req.params.culture; 65: var command = "EXEC GetItem '" + key + "', '" + culture + "'"; 66: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 67: if (err) { 68: console.log(err); 69: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 70: } 71: else { 72: res.json(results); 73: } 74: }); 75: } 76: }); 77: }); 78:  79: app.post("/new", function (req, res) { 80: var key = req.body.key; 81: var culture = req.body.culture; 82: var val = req.body.val; 83:  84: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 85: if (err) { 86: console.log(err); 87: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 88: } 89: else { 90: var command = "INSERT INTO [Resource] VALUES ('" + key + "', '" + culture + "', N'" + val + "')"; 91: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 92: if (err) { 93: console.log(err); 94: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 95: } 96: else { 97: res.send(200, "Inserted Successful"); 98: } 99: }); 100: } 101: }); 102: }); 103:  104: app.listen(port); Now let’s create a new function, copy the records from WASD to table service. 1. Delete the table named “resource”. 2. Create a new table named “resource”. These 2 steps ensures that we have an empty table. 3. Load all records from the “resource” table in WASD. 4. For each records loaded from WASD, insert them into the table one by one. 5. Prompt to user when finished. In order to use table service we need the storage account and key, which can be found from the developer portal. Just select the storage account and click the Manage Keys button. Then create two local variants in our Node.js application for the storage account name and key. Since we need to use WAS we need to import the azure module. Also I created another variant stored the table name. In order to work with table service I need to create the storage client for table service. This is very similar as the Windows Azure SDK for .NET. As the code below I created a new variant named “client” and use “createTableService”, specified my storage account name and key. 1: var azure = require("azure"); 2: var storageAccountName = "synctile"; 3: var storageAccountKey = "/cOy9L7xysXOgPYU9FjDvjrRAhaMX/5tnOpcjqloPNDJYucbgTy7MOrAW7CbUg6PjaDdmyl+6pkwUnKETsPVNw=="; 4: var tableName = "resource"; 5: var client = azure.createTableService(storageAccountName, storageAccountKey); Now create a new function for URL “/was/init” so that we can trigger it through browser. Then in this function we will firstly load all records from WASD. 1: app.get("/was/init", function (req, res) { 2: // load all records from windows azure sql database 3: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 4: if (err) { 5: console.log(err); 6: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 7: } 8: else { 9: conn.queryRaw("SELECT * FROM [Resource]", function (err, results) { 10: if (err) { 11: console.log(err); 12: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 13: } 14: else { 15: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 16: // begin to transform the records into table service 17: } 18: } 19: }); 20: } 21: }); 22: }); When we succeed loaded all records we can start to transform them into table service. First I need to recreate the table in table service. This can be done by deleting and creating the table through table client I had just created previously. 1: app.get("/was/init", function (req, res) { 2: // load all records from windows azure sql database 3: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 4: if (err) { 5: console.log(err); 6: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 7: } 8: else { 9: conn.queryRaw("SELECT * FROM [Resource]", function (err, results) { 10: if (err) { 11: console.log(err); 12: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 13: } 14: else { 15: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 16: // begin to transform the records into table service 17: // recreate the table named 'resource' 18: client.deleteTable(tableName, function (error) { 19: client.createTableIfNotExists(tableName, function (error) { 20: if (error) { 21: error["target"] = "createTableIfNotExists"; 22: res.send(500, error); 23: } 24: else { 25: // transform the records 26: } 27: }); 28: }); 29: } 30: } 31: }); 32: } 33: }); 34: }); As you can see, the azure SDK provide its methods in callback pattern. In fact, almost all modules in Node.js use the callback pattern. For example, when I deleted a table I invoked “deleteTable” method, provided the name of the table and a callback function which will be performed when the table had been deleted or failed. Underlying, the azure module will perform the table deletion operation in POSIX async threads pool asynchronously. And once it’s done the callback function will be performed. This is the reason we need to nest the table creation code inside the deletion function. If we perform the table creation code after the deletion code then they will be invoked in parallel. Next, for each records in WASD I created an entity and then insert into the table service. Finally I send the response to the browser. Can you find a bug in the code below? I will describe it later in this post. 1: app.get("/was/init", function (req, res) { 2: // load all records from windows azure sql database 3: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 4: if (err) { 5: console.log(err); 6: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 7: } 8: else { 9: conn.queryRaw("SELECT * FROM [Resource]", function (err, results) { 10: if (err) { 11: console.log(err); 12: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 13: } 14: else { 15: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 16: // begin to transform the records into table service 17: // recreate the table named 'resource' 18: client.deleteTable(tableName, function (error) { 19: client.createTableIfNotExists(tableName, function (error) { 20: if (error) { 21: error["target"] = "createTableIfNotExists"; 22: res.send(500, error); 23: } 24: else { 25: // transform the records 26: for (var i = 0; i < results.rows.length; i++) { 27: var entity = { 28: "PartitionKey": results.rows[i][1], 29: "RowKey": results.rows[i][0], 30: "Value": results.rows[i][2] 31: }; 32: client.insertEntity(tableName, entity, function (error) { 33: if (error) { 34: error["target"] = "insertEntity"; 35: res.send(500, error); 36: } 37: else { 38: console.log("entity inserted"); 39: } 40: }); 41: } 42: // send the 43: console.log("all done"); 44: res.send(200, "All done!"); 45: } 46: }); 47: }); 48: } 49: } 50: }); 51: } 52: }); 53: }); Now we can publish it to the cloud and have a try. But normally we’d better test it at the local emulator first. In Node.js SDK there are three build-in properties which provides the account name, key and host address for local storage emulator. We can use them to initialize our table service client. We also need to change the SQL connection string to let it use my local database. The code will be changed as below. 1: // windows azure sql database 2: //var connectionString = "Driver={SQL Server Native Client 10.0};Server=tcp:ac6271ya9e.database.windows.net,1433;Database=synctile;Uid=shaunxu@ac6271ya9e;Pwd=eszqu94XZY;Encrypt=yes;Connection Timeout=30;"; 3: // sql server 4: var connectionString = "Driver={SQL Server Native Client 11.0};Server={.};Database={Caspar};Trusted_Connection={Yes};"; 5:  6: var azure = require("azure"); 7: var storageAccountName = "synctile"; 8: var storageAccountKey = "/cOy9L7xysXOgPYU9FjDvjrRAhaMX/5tnOpcjqloPNDJYucbgTy7MOrAW7CbUg6PjaDdmyl+6pkwUnKETsPVNw=="; 9: var tableName = "resource"; 10: // windows azure storage 11: //var client = azure.createTableService(storageAccountName, storageAccountKey); 12: // local storage emulator 13: var client = azure.createTableService(azure.ServiceClient.DEVSTORE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT, azure.ServiceClient.DEVSTORE_STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY, azure.ServiceClient.DEVSTORE_TABLE_HOST); Now let’s run the application and navigate to “localhost:12345/was/init” as I hosted it on port 12345. We can find it transformed the data from my local database to local table service. Everything looks fine. But there is a bug in my code. If we have a look on the Node.js command window we will find that it sent response before all records had been inserted, which is not what I expected. The reason is that, as I mentioned before, Node.js perform all IO operations in non-blocking model. When we inserted the records we executed the table service insert method in parallel, and the operation of sending response was also executed in parallel, even though I wrote it at the end of my logic. The correct logic should be, when all entities had been copied to table service with no error, then I will send response to the browser, otherwise I should send error message to the browser. To do so I need to import another module named “async”, which helps us to coordinate our asynchronous code. Install the module and import it at the beginning of the code. Then we can use its “forEach” method for the asynchronous code of inserting table entities. The first argument of “forEach” is the array that will be performed. The second argument is the operation for each items in the array. And the third argument will be invoked then all items had been performed or any errors occurred. Here we can send our response to browser. 1: app.get("/was/init", function (req, res) { 2: // load all records from windows azure sql database 3: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 4: if (err) { 5: console.log(err); 6: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 7: } 8: else { 9: conn.queryRaw("SELECT * FROM [Resource]", function (err, results) { 10: if (err) { 11: console.log(err); 12: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 13: } 14: else { 15: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 16: // begin to transform the records into table service 17: // recreate the table named 'resource' 18: client.deleteTable(tableName, function (error) { 19: client.createTableIfNotExists(tableName, function (error) { 20: if (error) { 21: error["target"] = "createTableIfNotExists"; 22: res.send(500, error); 23: } 24: else { 25: async.forEach(results.rows, 26: // transform the records 27: function (row, callback) { 28: var entity = { 29: "PartitionKey": row[1], 30: "RowKey": row[0], 31: "Value": row[2] 32: }; 33: client.insertEntity(tableName, entity, function (error) { 34: if (error) { 35: callback(error); 36: } 37: else { 38: console.log("entity inserted."); 39: callback(null); 40: } 41: }); 42: }, 43: // send reponse 44: function (error) { 45: if (error) { 46: error["target"] = "insertEntity"; 47: res.send(500, error); 48: } 49: else { 50: console.log("all done"); 51: res.send(200, "All done!"); 52: } 53: } 54: ); 55: } 56: }); 57: }); 58: } 59: } 60: }); 61: } 62: }); 63: }); Run it locally and now we can find the response was sent after all entities had been inserted. Query entities against table service is simple as well. Just use the “queryEntity” method from the table service client and providing the partition key and row key. We can also provide a complex query criteria as well, for example the code here. In the code below I queried an entity by the partition key and row key, and return the proper localization value in response. 1: app.get("/was/:key/:culture", function (req, res) { 2: var key = req.params.key; 3: var culture = req.params.culture; 4: client.queryEntity(tableName, culture, key, function (error, entity) { 5: if (error) { 6: res.send(500, error); 7: } 8: else { 9: res.json(entity); 10: } 11: }); 12: }); And then tested it on local emulator. Finally if we want to publish this application to the cloud we should change the database connection string and storage account. For more information about how to consume blob and queue service, as well as the service bus please refer to the MSDN page.   Consume Service Runtime As I mentioned above, before we published our application to the cloud we need to change the connection string and account information in our code. But if you had played with WACS you should have known that the service runtime provides the ability to retrieve configuration settings, endpoints and local resource information at runtime. Which means we can have these values defined in CSCFG and CSDEF files and then the runtime should be able to retrieve the proper values. For example we can add some role settings though the property window of the role, specify the connection string and storage account for cloud and local. And the can also use the endpoint which defined in role environment to our Node.js application. In Node.js SDK we can get an object from “azure.RoleEnvironment”, which provides the functionalities to retrieve the configuration settings and endpoints, etc.. In the code below I defined the connection string variants and then use the SDK to retrieve and initialize the table client. 1: var connectionString = ""; 2: var storageAccountName = ""; 3: var storageAccountKey = ""; 4: var tableName = ""; 5: var client; 6:  7: azure.RoleEnvironment.getConfigurationSettings(function (error, settings) { 8: if (error) { 9: console.log("ERROR: getConfigurationSettings"); 10: console.log(JSON.stringify(error)); 11: } 12: else { 13: console.log(JSON.stringify(settings)); 14: connectionString = settings["SqlConnectionString"]; 15: storageAccountName = settings["StorageAccountName"]; 16: storageAccountKey = settings["StorageAccountKey"]; 17: tableName = settings["TableName"]; 18:  19: console.log("connectionString = %s", connectionString); 20: console.log("storageAccountName = %s", storageAccountName); 21: console.log("storageAccountKey = %s", storageAccountKey); 22: console.log("tableName = %s", tableName); 23:  24: client = azure.createTableService(storageAccountName, storageAccountKey); 25: } 26: }); In this way we don’t need to amend the code for the configurations between local and cloud environment since the service runtime will take care of it. At the end of the code we will listen the application on the port retrieved from SDK as well. 1: azure.RoleEnvironment.getCurrentRoleInstance(function (error, instance) { 2: if (error) { 3: console.log("ERROR: getCurrentRoleInstance"); 4: console.log(JSON.stringify(error)); 5: } 6: else { 7: console.log(JSON.stringify(instance)); 8: if (instance["endpoints"] && instance["endpoints"]["nodejs"]) { 9: var endpoint = instance["endpoints"]["nodejs"]; 10: app.listen(endpoint["port"]); 11: } 12: else { 13: app.listen(8080); 14: } 15: } 16: }); But if we tested the application right now we will find that it cannot retrieve any values from service runtime. This is because by default, the entry point of this role was defined to the worker role class. In windows azure environment the service runtime will open a named pipeline to the entry point instance, so that it can connect to the runtime and retrieve values. But in this case, since the entry point was worker role and the Node.js was opened inside the role, the named pipeline was established between our worker role class and service runtime, so our Node.js application cannot use it. To fix this problem we need to open the CSDEF file under the azure project, add a new element named Runtime. Then add an element named EntryPoint which specify the Node.js command line. So that the Node.js application will have the connection to service runtime, then it’s able to read the configurations. Start the Node.js at local emulator we can find it retrieved the connections, storage account for local. And if we publish our application to azure then it works with WASD and storage service through the configurations for cloud.   Summary In this post I demonstrated how to use Windows Azure SDK for Node.js to interact with storage service, especially the table service. I also demonstrated on how to use WACS service runtime, how to retrieve the configuration settings and the endpoint information. And in order to make the service runtime available to my Node.js application I need to create an entry point element in CSDEF file and set “node.exe” as the entry point. I used five posts to introduce and demonstrate on how to run a Node.js application on Windows platform, how to use Windows Azure Web Site and Windows Azure Cloud Service worker role to host our Node.js application. I also described how to work with other services provided by Windows Azure platform through Windows Azure SDK for Node.js. Node.js is a very new and young network application platform. But since it’s very simple and easy to learn and deploy, as well as, it utilizes single thread non-blocking IO model, Node.js became more and more popular on web application and web service development especially for those IO sensitive projects. And as Node.js is very good at scaling-out, it’s more useful on cloud computing platform. Use Node.js on Windows platform is new, too. The modules for SQL database and Windows Azure SDK are still under development and enhancement. It doesn’t support SQL parameter in “node-sqlserver”. It does support using storage connection string to create the storage client in “azure”. But Microsoft is working on make them easier to use, working on add more features and functionalities.   PS, you can download the source code here. You can download the source code of my “Copy all always” tool here.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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  • Why html frame behave differently in Firefox and IE8 ?

    - by Frank
    I use html frame on my webiste, it's been running for I while, usually I only use Firefox to surf the net, my site looks and functions ok, but today I suddenly found IE8 has a problem with the frame on my site, if I click on the top menu items, it's supposed to display the content in the lower part of the frame, it does this correctly in Firefox, but in IE8, it displays the content in the upper part of the frame and replaces the menu items. In order to give more details, I'll include a simplified version of my html pages, at the top level there are two items, an index.html page and a file directory, all the pages except the index.html are in the directory, so it looks like this : index.html Dir_Docs 00_Home.html 00_Install_Java.html 00_Top_Menu.html 01_Home_Menu.html 01_Install_Java_Menu.html 10_Home_Welcome.html 10_How_To_Install_Java.html [ index.html ] <Html> <Head><Title>Java Applications : Tv_Panel, Java_Sound, Biz Manager and Web Academy</Title></Head> <Frameset Rows="36,*" Border=5 Bordercolor=#006B9F> <Frame Src=Dir_Docs/00_Top_Menu.html Frameborder=YES Scrolling=no Marginheight=1 Marginwidth=1> <Frame Src=Dir_Docs/00_Home.html Name=lower_frame Marginheight=1 Marginwidth=1> </Frameset> </Html> [ 00_Home.html ] <Html> <Head><Title>NMJava Application Development</Title></Head> <Frameset Cols="217,*" Align=center BorderColor="#006B9F"> <Frame Src=01_Home_Menu.html Frameborder=YES Name=side_menu Marginheight=1 Marginwidth=1> <Frame Src=10_Home_Welcome.html Name=content Marginheight=1 Marginwidth=1> </Frameset> </Html> [ 00_Install_Java.html ] <Html> <Head> <Title>Install Java</Title> </Head> <Frameset Cols="217,*" Align=center BorderColor="#006B9F"> <Frame Src=01_Install_Java_Menu.html Frameborder=YES Name=side_menu Marginheight=1 Marginwidth=1> <Frame Src=10_How_To_Install_Java.html Name=content Marginheight=1 Marginwidth=1> </Frameset> </Html> [ 00_Top_Menu.html ] <Html> <Head>Top Menu</Head> <Body> <Center> <Base target=lower_frame> <Table Border=1 Cellpadding=3 Width=100%> <Tr> <Td Align=Center Bgcolor=#3366FF><A Href=00_Home.html><Font Size=4 Color=White>Home</Font></A></Td> <Td Align=Center Bgcolor=#3366FF><A Href=00_Install_Java.html><Font Size=4 Color=White>Install Java</Font></A></Td> </Tr> </Table> </Center> </Body> </Html> [ 01_Home_Menu.html ] <Html> <Head><Title>Home Menu</Title></Head> <Base Target=content> <Body Bgcolor=#7799DD> <Center> <Table Border=1 Width=100%> <Tr><Td Align=center Bgcolor=#66AAFF><A Href=10_Home_Welcome.html>Welcome</A></Td></Tr> </Table> </Center> </Body> </Html> [ 01_Install_Java_Menu.html ] <Html> <Head><Title>Install Java</Title></Head> <Base Target=content> <Body Bgcolor=#7799DD> <Center> <Table Border=1 Width=100%> <Tr><Td Align=Center Bgcolor=#66AAFF><A Href=10_How_To_Install_Java.html>How To Install Java ?</A></Td></Tr> </Table> </Center> </Body> </Html> [ 10_Home_Welcome.html ] <Html> <Head><Title>NMJava For Software Development</Title></Head> <Body> <Center> <P> <Font Size=5 Color=blue>Welcome To NMJava For Software Development</Font> <P> </Center> </Body> </Html> [ 10_How_To_Install_Java.html ] <Html> <Head> <Title>Install Java</Title> </Head> <Body> <Center> <Br> <Font Size=5 Color=#0022AE><A Href=http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp>How To Install Java ?</A></Font> <Br> <P> <Table Width=90% Cellspacing=5 Cellpadding=5> <Tr><Td><Font Color=#0022AE> You need JRE 6 (Java Runtime Environment) to run the programs on this site. You may or may not have Java already installed on your PC, you can find out by going to the following site, if you don't have the latest version, you can install/upgrade it, it's free from Sun/Oracle at :<Font Size=4> <A Href=http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp>http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp</A></Font>.<P> </Font></Td></Tr> </Table> </Center> </Body> </Html> What's wrong with them, why the two browsers behave differently, and how to fix this ? My site is at : http://nmjava.com , in case you want to see more details. Frank

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  • Capturing Alt+PrintScreen hot key and clipboard contents

    - by kusanagi
    I setup catching hotkey on alt+printscreen. It catches perfectly but there is nothing in the buffer - no image. How can I get the image from Clipboard.GetImage() after catching hotkey? Here is the the code. using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; namespace Magic_Screenshot { public enum ModifierKey : uint { MOD_NULL = 0x0000, MOD_ALT = 0x0001, MOD_CONTROL = 0x0002, MOD_SHIFT = 0x0004, MOD_WIN = 0x0008, } public enum HotKey { PrintScreen, ALT_PrintScreen, CONTROL_PrintScreen } public class HotKeyHelper : IMessageFilter { const string MSG_REGISTERED = "??????? ??????? ??? ????????????????, ???????? UnRegister ??? ?????? ???????????."; const string MSG_UNREGISTERED = "??????? ??????? ?? ????????????????, ???????? Register ??? ???????????."; //?????? ?? ?????? ?????? singleton public HotKeyHelper() { } //public static readonly HotKeyHelper Instance = new HotKeyHelper(); public bool isRegistered; ushort atom; //ushort atom1; ModifierKey modifiers; Keys keyCode; public void Register(ModifierKey modifiers, Keys keyCode) { //??? ???????? ??? ????? ????? ? PreFilterMessage this.modifiers = modifiers; this.keyCode = keyCode; //?? ????????? ?? ??? ???????????? //if (isRegistered) // throw new InvalidOperationException(MSG_REGISTERED); //????????? atom, ??? ??????????? ?????? ??????????? atom = GlobalAddAtom(Guid.NewGuid().ToString()); //atom1 = GlobalAddAtom(Guid.NewGuid().ToString()); if (atom == 0) ThrowWin32Exception(); if (!RegisterHotKey(IntPtr.Zero, atom, modifiers, keyCode)) ThrowWin32Exception(); //if (!RegisterHotKey(IntPtr.Zero, atom1, ModifierKey.MOD_CONTROL, Keys.PrintScreen)) // ThrowWin32Exception(); //????????? ???? ? ??????? ???????? ????????? Application.AddMessageFilter(this); isRegistered = true; } public void UnRegister() { //?? ???????? ?? ??? ???????????? if (!isRegistered) throw new InvalidOperationException(MSG_UNREGISTERED); if (!UnregisterHotKey(IntPtr.Zero, atom)) ThrowWin32Exception(); GlobalDeleteAtom(atom); //??????? ???? ?? ??????? ???????? ????????? Application.RemoveMessageFilter(this); isRegistered = false; } //?????????? Win32Exception ? ????? ?? ????????? ????? ????????????? Win32 ??????? void ThrowWin32Exception() { throw new Win32Exception(Marshal.GetLastWin32Error()); } //???????, ???????????? ??? ??????????? ??????? HotKeys public event HotKeyHelperDelegate HotKeyPressed; public bool PreFilterMessage(ref Message m) { //???????? ?? ????????? WM_HOTKEY if (m.Msg == WM_HOTKEY && //???????? ?? ???? m.HWnd == IntPtr.Zero && //???????? virtual key code m.LParam.ToInt32() >> 16 == (int)keyCode && //???????? ?????? ????????????? (m.LParam.ToInt32() & 0x0000FFFF) == (int)modifiers && //???????? ?? ??????? ??????????? ????????? HotKeyPressed != null) { if ((m.LParam.ToInt32() & 0x0000FFFF) == (int)ModifierKey.MOD_CONTROL && (m.LParam.ToInt32() >> 16 == (int)Keys.PrintScreen)) { HotKeyPressed(this, EventArgs.Empty, HotKey.CONTROL_PrintScreen); } else if ((m.LParam.ToInt32() & 0x0000FFFF) == (int)ModifierKey.MOD_ALT && (m.LParam.ToInt32() >> 16 == (int)Keys.PrintScreen)) { HotKeyPressed(this, EventArgs.Empty, HotKey.ALT_PrintScreen); } else if (m.LParam.ToInt32() >> 16 == (int)Keys.PrintScreen) { HotKeyPressed(this, EventArgs.Empty, HotKey.PrintScreen); } } return false; } //??????????? Win32 ????????? ? ??????? const string USER32_DLL = "User32.dll"; const string KERNEL32_DLL = "Kernel32.dll"; const int WM_HOTKEY = 0x0312; [DllImport(USER32_DLL, SetLastError = true)] static extern bool RegisterHotKey(IntPtr hWnd, int id, ModifierKey fsModifiers, Keys vk); [DllImport(USER32_DLL, SetLastError = true)] static extern bool UnregisterHotKey(IntPtr hWnd, int id); [DllImport(KERNEL32_DLL, SetLastError = true)] static extern ushort GlobalAddAtom(string lpString); [DllImport(KERNEL32_DLL)] static extern ushort GlobalDeleteAtom(ushort nAtom); } } Where is the bug?

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  • Did I lose my RAID again?

    - by BarsMonster
    Hi! A little history: 2 years ago I was really excited to find out that mdadm is so powerful that it even can reshape arrays, so you can start with a smaller array and then grow it as you need. I've bought 3x1Tb drives and made a RAID-5. It was fine for a year. Then I bought 2x more, and tried to reshape to RAID-6 out of 5 drives, and due to some mess with superblock versions, lost all content. Had to rebuild it from scratch, but 2Tb of data were gone. Yesterday I bought 2 more drives, and this time I had everything: properly built array, UPS. I've disabled write intent map, added 2 new drives as spares and run a command to grow array to 7-disks. It started working, but speed was ridiculously slow, ~100kb/sec. After processing first 37Mb at such an amazing speed, one of old HDDs fails. I properly shutdown the PC and disconnected the failed drive. After bootup it appeared that it recreated the intent map as it was still in mdadm config, so I removed it from config and rebooted again. Now all I see is that all mdadm processes deadlock, and don't do anything. PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 1937 root 20 0 12992 608 444 D 0 0.1 0:00.00 mdadm 2283 root 20 0 12992 852 704 D 0 0.1 0:00.01 mdadm 2287 root 20 0 0 0 0 D 0 0.0 0:00.01 md0_reshape 2288 root 18 -2 12992 820 676 D 0 0.1 0:00.01 mdadm And all I see in mdstat is: $ cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10] md0 : active raid6 sdb1[1] sdg1[4] sdf1[7] sde1[6] sdd1[0] sdc1[5] 2929683456 blocks super 1.2 level 6, 1024k chunk, algorithm 2 [7/6] [UU_UUUU] [>....................] reshape = 0.0% (37888/976561152) finish=567604147.2min speed=0K/sec I've already tried mdadm 2.6.7, 3.1.4 and 3.2 - nothing helps. Did I lose my data again? Any suggestions on how can I make this work? OS is Ubuntu Server 10.04.2. PS. Needless to say, the data is inaccessible - I cannot mount /dev/md0 to save the most valuable data. You can see my disappointment - the very specific thing I was excited about failed twice taking 5Tb of my data with it. Update: It appears there is some nice info in kern.log: 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.522055] raid5: reshape will continue 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.522085] raid5: device sdb1 operational as raid disk 1 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.522091] raid5: device sdg1 operational as raid disk 4 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.522097] raid5: device sdf1 operational as raid disk 5 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.522102] raid5: device sde1 operational as raid disk 6 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.522107] raid5: device sdd1 operational as raid disk 0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.522111] raid5: device sdc1 operational as raid disk 3 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.523942] raid5: allocated 7438kB for md0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524041] 1: w=1 pa=2 pr=5 m=2 a=2 r=7 op1=0 op2=0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524050] 4: w=2 pa=2 pr=5 m=2 a=2 r=7 op1=0 op2=0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524056] 5: w=3 pa=2 pr=5 m=2 a=2 r=7 op1=0 op2=0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524062] 6: w=4 pa=2 pr=5 m=2 a=2 r=7 op1=0 op2=0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524068] 0: w=5 pa=2 pr=5 m=2 a=2 r=7 op1=0 op2=0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524073] 3: w=6 pa=2 pr=5 m=2 a=2 r=7 op1=0 op2=0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524079] raid5: raid level 6 set md0 active with 6 out of 7 devices, algorithm 2 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524519] RAID5 conf printout: 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524523] --- rd:7 wd:6 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524528] disk 0, o:1, dev:sdd1 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524532] disk 1, o:1, dev:sdb1 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524537] disk 3, o:1, dev:sdc1 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524541] disk 4, o:1, dev:sdg1 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524545] disk 5, o:1, dev:sdf1 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524550] disk 6, o:1, dev:sde1 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524553] ...ok start reshape thread 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524727] md0: detected capacity change from 0 to 2999995858944 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524735] md: reshape of RAID array md0 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524740] md: minimum _guaranteed_ speed: 1000 KB/sec/disk. 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524745] md: using maximum available idle IO bandwidth (but not more than 200000 KB/sec) for reshape. 21:38:48 ...: [ 166.524756] md: using 128k window, over a total of 976561152 blocks. 21:39:05 ...: [ 166.525013] md0: 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520063] INFO: task mdadm:1937 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520068] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520073] mdadm D 00000000ffffffff 0 1937 1 0x00000000 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520083] ffff88002ef4f5d8 0000000000000082 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520092] ffff88002eb5b198 ffff88002ef4ffd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002eb5ade0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520100] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ef4ffd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002eb5b198 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520107] Call Trace: 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520133] [<ffffffffa0224892>] get_active_stripe+0x312/0x3f0 [raid456] 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520148] [<ffffffff81059ae0>] ? default_wake_function+0x0/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520159] [<ffffffffa0228413>] make_request+0x243/0x4b0 [raid456] 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520169] [<ffffffffa0221a90>] ? release_stripe+0x50/0x70 [raid456] 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520179] [<ffffffff81084790>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520188] [<ffffffff81414df0>] md_make_request+0xc0/0x130 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520194] [<ffffffff81414df0>] ? md_make_request+0xc0/0x130 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520205] [<ffffffff8129f8c1>] generic_make_request+0x1b1/0x4f0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520214] [<ffffffff810f6515>] ? mempool_alloc_slab+0x15/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520222] [<ffffffff8116c2ec>] ? alloc_buffer_head+0x1c/0x60 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520230] [<ffffffff8129fc80>] submit_bio+0x80/0x110 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520236] [<ffffffff8116c849>] submit_bh+0xf9/0x140 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520244] [<ffffffff8116f124>] block_read_full_page+0x274/0x3b0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520251] [<ffffffff81172c90>] ? blkdev_get_block+0x0/0x70 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520258] [<ffffffff8110d875>] ? __inc_zone_page_state+0x35/0x40 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520265] [<ffffffff810f46d8>] ? add_to_page_cache_locked+0xe8/0x160 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520272] [<ffffffff81173d78>] blkdev_readpage+0x18/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520279] [<ffffffff810f484b>] __read_cache_page+0x7b/0xe0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520285] [<ffffffff81173d60>] ? blkdev_readpage+0x0/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520290] [<ffffffff81173d60>] ? blkdev_readpage+0x0/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520297] [<ffffffff810f57dc>] do_read_cache_page+0x3c/0x120 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520304] [<ffffffff810f5909>] read_cache_page_async+0x19/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520310] [<ffffffff810f591e>] read_cache_page+0xe/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520317] [<ffffffff811a6cb0>] read_dev_sector+0x30/0xa0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520324] [<ffffffff811a7fcd>] amiga_partition+0x6d/0x460 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520331] [<ffffffff811a7938>] check_partition+0x138/0x190 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520338] [<ffffffff811a7a7a>] rescan_partitions+0xea/0x2f0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520344] [<ffffffff811744c7>] __blkdev_get+0x267/0x3d0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520350] [<ffffffff81174650>] ? blkdev_open+0x0/0xc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520356] [<ffffffff81174640>] blkdev_get+0x10/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520362] [<ffffffff811746c1>] blkdev_open+0x71/0xc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520369] [<ffffffff811419f3>] __dentry_open+0x113/0x370 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520377] [<ffffffff81253f8f>] ? security_inode_permission+0x1f/0x30 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520385] [<ffffffff8114de3f>] ? inode_permission+0xaf/0xd0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520391] [<ffffffff81141d67>] nameidata_to_filp+0x57/0x70 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520398] [<ffffffff8115207a>] do_filp_open+0x2da/0xba0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520406] [<ffffffff811134a8>] ? unmap_vmas+0x178/0x310 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520414] [<ffffffff8115dbfa>] ? alloc_fd+0x10a/0x150 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520421] [<ffffffff81141769>] do_sys_open+0x69/0x170 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520428] [<ffffffff811418b0>] sys_open+0x20/0x30 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520437] [<ffffffff810121b2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520446] INFO: task mdadm:2283 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520450] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520454] mdadm D 0000000000000000 0 2283 2212 0x00000000 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520462] ffff88002cca7d98 0000000000000086 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520470] ffff88002ededf78 ffff88002cca7fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ededbc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520478] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002cca7fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ededf78 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520485] Call Trace: 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520495] [<ffffffff81543a97>] __mutex_lock_slowpath+0xf7/0x180 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520502] [<ffffffff8154397b>] mutex_lock+0x2b/0x50 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520508] [<ffffffff8117404d>] __blkdev_put+0x3d/0x190 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520514] [<ffffffff811741b0>] blkdev_put+0x10/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520520] [<ffffffff811741f3>] blkdev_close+0x33/0x60 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520527] [<ffffffff81145375>] __fput+0xf5/0x210 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520534] [<ffffffff811454b5>] fput+0x25/0x30 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520540] [<ffffffff811415ad>] filp_close+0x5d/0x90 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520546] [<ffffffff81141697>] sys_close+0xb7/0x120 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520553] [<ffffffff810121b2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520559] INFO: task md0_reshape:2287 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520563] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520567] md0_reshape D ffff88003aee96f0 0 2287 2 0x00000000 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520575] ffff88003cf05a70 0000000000000046 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520582] ffff88003aee9aa8 ffff88003cf05fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003aee96f0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520590] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003cf05fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003aee9aa8 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520597] Call Trace: 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520608] [<ffffffffa0224892>] get_active_stripe+0x312/0x3f0 [raid456] 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520616] [<ffffffff81059ae0>] ? default_wake_function+0x0/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520626] [<ffffffffa0226f80>] reshape_request+0x4c0/0x9a0 [raid456] 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520634] [<ffffffff81084790>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520644] [<ffffffffa022777a>] sync_request+0x31a/0x3a0 [raid456] 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520651] [<ffffffff81052713>] ? __wake_up+0x53/0x70 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520658] [<ffffffff814156b1>] md_do_sync+0x621/0xbb0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520668] [<ffffffff810387b9>] ? default_spin_lock_flags+0x9/0x10 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520675] [<ffffffff8141640c>] md_thread+0x5c/0x130 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520681] [<ffffffff81084790>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520688] [<ffffffff814163b0>] ? md_thread+0x0/0x130 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520694] [<ffffffff81084416>] kthread+0x96/0xa0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520701] [<ffffffff810131ea>] child_rip+0xa/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520707] [<ffffffff81084380>] ? kthread+0x0/0xa0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520713] [<ffffffff810131e0>] ? child_rip+0x0/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520718] INFO: task mdadm:2288 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520721] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520725] mdadm D 0000000000000000 0 2288 1 0x00000000 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520733] ffff88002cca9c18 0000000000000086 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520741] ffff88003aee83b8 ffff88002cca9fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003aee8000 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520748] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002cca9fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003aee83b8 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520755] Call Trace: 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520763] [<ffffffff81543a97>] __mutex_lock_slowpath+0xf7/0x180 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520771] [<ffffffff812a6d50>] ? exact_match+0x0/0x10 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520777] [<ffffffff8154397b>] mutex_lock+0x2b/0x50 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520783] [<ffffffff811742c8>] __blkdev_get+0x68/0x3d0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520790] [<ffffffff81174650>] ? blkdev_open+0x0/0xc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520795] [<ffffffff81174640>] blkdev_get+0x10/0x20 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520801] [<ffffffff811746c1>] blkdev_open+0x71/0xc0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520808] [<ffffffff811419f3>] __dentry_open+0x113/0x370 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520815] [<ffffffff81253f8f>] ? security_inode_permission+0x1f/0x30 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520821] [<ffffffff8114de3f>] ? inode_permission+0xaf/0xd0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520828] [<ffffffff81141d67>] nameidata_to_filp+0x57/0x70 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520834] [<ffffffff8115207a>] do_filp_open+0x2da/0xba0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520841] [<ffffffff810ff0e1>] ? lru_cache_add_lru+0x21/0x40 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520848] [<ffffffff8111109c>] ? do_anonymous_page+0x11c/0x330 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520855] [<ffffffff81115d5f>] ? handle_mm_fault+0x31f/0x3c0 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520862] [<ffffffff8115dbfa>] ? alloc_fd+0x10a/0x150 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520868] [<ffffffff81141769>] do_sys_open+0x69/0x170 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520874] [<ffffffff811418b0>] sys_open+0x20/0x30 21:42:04 ...: [ 362.520882] [<ffffffff810121b2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520065] INFO: task mdadm:1937 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520071] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520077] mdadm D 00000000ffffffff 0 1937 1 0x00000000 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520087] ffff88002ef4f5d8 0000000000000082 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520096] ffff88002eb5b198 ffff88002ef4ffd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002eb5ade0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520104] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ef4ffd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002eb5b198 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520112] Call Trace: 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520139] [<ffffffffa0224892>] get_active_stripe+0x312/0x3f0 [raid456] 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520154] [<ffffffff81059ae0>] ? default_wake_function+0x0/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520165] [<ffffffffa0228413>] make_request+0x243/0x4b0 [raid456] 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520175] [<ffffffffa0221a90>] ? release_stripe+0x50/0x70 [raid456] 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520185] [<ffffffff81084790>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520194] [<ffffffff81414df0>] md_make_request+0xc0/0x130 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520201] [<ffffffff81414df0>] ? md_make_request+0xc0/0x130 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520212] [<ffffffff8129f8c1>] generic_make_request+0x1b1/0x4f0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520221] [<ffffffff810f6515>] ? mempool_alloc_slab+0x15/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520229] [<ffffffff8116c2ec>] ? alloc_buffer_head+0x1c/0x60 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520237] [<ffffffff8129fc80>] submit_bio+0x80/0x110 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520244] [<ffffffff8116c849>] submit_bh+0xf9/0x140 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520252] [<ffffffff8116f124>] block_read_full_page+0x274/0x3b0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520258] [<ffffffff81172c90>] ? blkdev_get_block+0x0/0x70 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520266] [<ffffffff8110d875>] ? __inc_zone_page_state+0x35/0x40 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520273] [<ffffffff810f46d8>] ? add_to_page_cache_locked+0xe8/0x160 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520280] [<ffffffff81173d78>] blkdev_readpage+0x18/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520286] [<ffffffff810f484b>] __read_cache_page+0x7b/0xe0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520293] [<ffffffff81173d60>] ? blkdev_readpage+0x0/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520299] [<ffffffff81173d60>] ? blkdev_readpage+0x0/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520306] [<ffffffff810f57dc>] do_read_cache_page+0x3c/0x120 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520313] [<ffffffff810f5909>] read_cache_page_async+0x19/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520319] [<ffffffff810f591e>] read_cache_page+0xe/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520327] [<ffffffff811a6cb0>] read_dev_sector+0x30/0xa0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520334] [<ffffffff811a7fcd>] amiga_partition+0x6d/0x460 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520341] [<ffffffff811a7938>] check_partition+0x138/0x190 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520348] [<ffffffff811a7a7a>] rescan_partitions+0xea/0x2f0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520355] [<ffffffff811744c7>] __blkdev_get+0x267/0x3d0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520361] [<ffffffff81174650>] ? blkdev_open+0x0/0xc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520367] [<ffffffff81174640>] blkdev_get+0x10/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520373] [<ffffffff811746c1>] blkdev_open+0x71/0xc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520380] [<ffffffff811419f3>] __dentry_open+0x113/0x370 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520388] [<ffffffff81253f8f>] ? security_inode_permission+0x1f/0x30 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520396] [<ffffffff8114de3f>] ? inode_permission+0xaf/0xd0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520403] [<ffffffff81141d67>] nameidata_to_filp+0x57/0x70 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520410] [<ffffffff8115207a>] do_filp_open+0x2da/0xba0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520417] [<ffffffff811134a8>] ? unmap_vmas+0x178/0x310 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520426] [<ffffffff8115dbfa>] ? alloc_fd+0x10a/0x150 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520432] [<ffffffff81141769>] do_sys_open+0x69/0x170 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520438] [<ffffffff811418b0>] sys_open+0x20/0x30 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520447] [<ffffffff810121b2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520458] INFO: task mdadm:2283 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520462] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520467] mdadm D 0000000000000000 0 2283 2212 0x00000000 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520475] ffff88002cca7d98 0000000000000086 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520483] ffff88002ededf78 ffff88002cca7fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ededbc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520490] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002cca7fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ededf78 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520498] Call Trace: 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520508] [<ffffffff81543a97>] __mutex_lock_slowpath+0xf7/0x180 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520515] [<ffffffff8154397b>] mutex_lock+0x2b/0x50 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520521] [<ffffffff8117404d>] __blkdev_put+0x3d/0x190 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520527] [<ffffffff811741b0>] blkdev_put+0x10/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520533] [<ffffffff811741f3>] blkdev_close+0x33/0x60 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520541] [<ffffffff81145375>] __fput+0xf5/0x210 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520547] [<ffffffff811454b5>] fput+0x25/0x30 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520554] [<ffffffff811415ad>] filp_close+0x5d/0x90 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520560] [<ffffffff81141697>] sys_close+0xb7/0x120 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520568] [<ffffffff810121b2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520574] INFO: task md0_reshape:2287 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520578] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520582] md0_reshape D ffff88003aee96f0 0 2287 2 0x00000000 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520590] ffff88003cf05a70 0000000000000046 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520597] ffff88003aee9aa8 ffff88003cf05fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003aee96f0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520605] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003cf05fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003aee9aa8 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520612] Call Trace: 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520623] [<ffffffffa0224892>] get_active_stripe+0x312/0x3f0 [raid456] 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520633] [<ffffffff81059ae0>] ? default_wake_function+0x0/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520643] [<ffffffffa0226f80>] reshape_request+0x4c0/0x9a0 [raid456] 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520651] [<ffffffff81084790>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520661] [<ffffffffa022777a>] sync_request+0x31a/0x3a0 [raid456] 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520668] [<ffffffff81052713>] ? __wake_up+0x53/0x70 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520675] [<ffffffff814156b1>] md_do_sync+0x621/0xbb0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520685] [<ffffffff810387b9>] ? default_spin_lock_flags+0x9/0x10 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520692] [<ffffffff8141640c>] md_thread+0x5c/0x130 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520699] [<ffffffff81084790>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520705] [<ffffffff814163b0>] ? md_thread+0x0/0x130 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520711] [<ffffffff81084416>] kthread+0x96/0xa0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520718] [<ffffffff810131ea>] child_rip+0xa/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520725] [<ffffffff81084380>] ? kthread+0x0/0xa0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520730] [<ffffffff810131e0>] ? child_rip+0x0/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520735] INFO: task mdadm:2288 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520739] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520743] mdadm D 0000000000000000 0 2288 1 0x00000000 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520751] ffff88002cca9c18 0000000000000086 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520759] ffff88003aee83b8 ffff88002cca9fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003aee8000 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520767] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002cca9fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88003aee83b8 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520774] Call Trace: 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520782] [<ffffffff81543a97>] __mutex_lock_slowpath+0xf7/0x180 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520790] [<ffffffff812a6d50>] ? exact_match+0x0/0x10 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520797] [<ffffffff8154397b>] mutex_lock+0x2b/0x50 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520804] [<ffffffff811742c8>] __blkdev_get+0x68/0x3d0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520810] [<ffffffff81174650>] ? blkdev_open+0x0/0xc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520816] [<ffffffff81174640>] blkdev_get+0x10/0x20 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520822] [<ffffffff811746c1>] blkdev_open+0x71/0xc0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520829] [<ffffffff811419f3>] __dentry_open+0x113/0x370 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520837] [<ffffffff81253f8f>] ? security_inode_permission+0x1f/0x30 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520843] [<ffffffff8114de3f>] ? inode_permission+0xaf/0xd0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520850] [<ffffffff81141d67>] nameidata_to_filp+0x57/0x70 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520857] [<ffffffff8115207a>] do_filp_open+0x2da/0xba0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520864] [<ffffffff810ff0e1>] ? lru_cache_add_lru+0x21/0x40 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520871] [<ffffffff8111109c>] ? do_anonymous_page+0x11c/0x330 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520878] [<ffffffff81115d5f>] ? handle_mm_fault+0x31f/0x3c0 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520885] [<ffffffff8115dbfa>] ? alloc_fd+0x10a/0x150 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520891] [<ffffffff81141769>] do_sys_open+0x69/0x170 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520897] [<ffffffff811418b0>] sys_open+0x20/0x30 21:44:04 ...: [ 482.520905] [<ffffffff810121b2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520053] INFO: task mdadm:1937 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520059] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520065] mdadm D 00000000ffffffff 0 1937 1 0x00000000 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520075] ffff88002ef4f5d8 0000000000000082 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520084] ffff88002eb5b198 ffff88002ef4ffd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002eb5ade0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520091] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ef4ffd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002eb5b198 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520099] Call Trace: 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520127] [<ffffffffa0224892>] get_active_stripe+0x312/0x3f0 [raid456] 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520142] [<ffffffff81059ae0>] ? default_wake_function+0x0/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520153] [<ffffffffa0228413>] make_request+0x243/0x4b0 [raid456] 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520162] [<ffffffffa0221a90>] ? release_stripe+0x50/0x70 [raid456] 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520171] [<ffffffff81084790>] ? autoremove_wake_function+0x0/0x40 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520180] [<ffffffff81414df0>] md_make_request+0xc0/0x130 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520187] [<ffffffff81414df0>] ? md_make_request+0xc0/0x130 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520197] [<ffffffff8129f8c1>] generic_make_request+0x1b1/0x4f0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520206] [<ffffffff810f6515>] ? mempool_alloc_slab+0x15/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520215] [<ffffffff8116c2ec>] ? alloc_buffer_head+0x1c/0x60 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520222] [<ffffffff8129fc80>] submit_bio+0x80/0x110 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520229] [<ffffffff8116c849>] submit_bh+0xf9/0x140 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520237] [<ffffffff8116f124>] block_read_full_page+0x274/0x3b0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520244] [<ffffffff81172c90>] ? blkdev_get_block+0x0/0x70 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520252] [<ffffffff8110d875>] ? __inc_zone_page_state+0x35/0x40 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520259] [<ffffffff810f46d8>] ? add_to_page_cache_locked+0xe8/0x160 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520266] [<ffffffff81173d78>] blkdev_readpage+0x18/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520273] [<ffffffff810f484b>] __read_cache_page+0x7b/0xe0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520279] [<ffffffff81173d60>] ? blkdev_readpage+0x0/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520285] [<ffffffff81173d60>] ? blkdev_readpage+0x0/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520292] [<ffffffff810f57dc>] do_read_cache_page+0x3c/0x120 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520300] [<ffffffff810f5909>] read_cache_page_async+0x19/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520306] [<ffffffff810f591e>] read_cache_page+0xe/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520314] [<ffffffff811a6cb0>] read_dev_sector+0x30/0xa0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520321] [<ffffffff811a7fcd>] amiga_partition+0x6d/0x460 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520328] [<ffffffff811a7938>] check_partition+0x138/0x190 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520335] [<ffffffff811a7a7a>] rescan_partitions+0xea/0x2f0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520342] [<ffffffff811744c7>] __blkdev_get+0x267/0x3d0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520348] [<ffffffff81174650>] ? blkdev_open+0x0/0xc0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520354] [<ffffffff81174640>] blkdev_get+0x10/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520359] [<ffffffff811746c1>] blkdev_open+0x71/0xc0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520367] [<ffffffff811419f3>] __dentry_open+0x113/0x370 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520375] [<ffffffff81253f8f>] ? security_inode_permission+0x1f/0x30 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520383] [<ffffffff8114de3f>] ? inode_permission+0xaf/0xd0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520390] [<ffffffff81141d67>] nameidata_to_filp+0x57/0x70 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520397] [<ffffffff8115207a>] do_filp_open+0x2da/0xba0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520404] [<ffffffff811134a8>] ? unmap_vmas+0x178/0x310 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520413] [<ffffffff8115dbfa>] ? alloc_fd+0x10a/0x150 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520419] [<ffffffff81141769>] do_sys_open+0x69/0x170 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520425] [<ffffffff811418b0>] sys_open+0x20/0x30 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520434] [<ffffffff810121b2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520443] INFO: task mdadm:2283 blocked for more than 120 seconds. 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520447] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520451] mdadm D 0000000000000000 0 2283 2212 0x00000000 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520460] ffff88002cca7d98 0000000000000086 0000000000015bc0 0000000000015bc0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520468] ffff88002ededf78 ffff88002cca7fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ededbc0 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520475] 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002cca7fd8 0000000000015bc0 ffff88002ededf78 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520483] Call Trace: 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520492] [<ffffffff81543a97>] __mutex_lock_slowpath+0xf7/0x180 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520500] [<ffffffff8154397b>] mutex_lock+0x2b/0x50 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520506] [<ffffffff8117404d>] __blkdev_put+0x3d/0x190 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520512] [<ffffffff811741b0>] blkdev_put+0x10/0x20 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520518] [<ffffffff811741f3>] blkdev_close+0x33/0x60 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520526] [<ffffffff81145375>] __fput+0xf5/0x210 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520533] [<ffffffff811454b5>] fput+0x25/0x30 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520539] [<ffffffff811415ad>] filp_close+0x5d/0x90 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520545] [<ffffffff81141697>] sys_close+0xb7/0x120 21:46:04 ...: [ 602.520552] [<ffffffff810121b2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b

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  • Authoritative sources about Database vs. Flatfile decision

    - by FastAl
    <tldr>looking for a reference to a book or other undeniably authoritative source that gives reasons when you should choose a database vs. when you should choose other storage methods. I have provided an un-authoritative list of reasons about 2/3 of the way down this post.</tldr> I have a situation at my company where a database is being used where it would be better to use another solution (in this case, an auto-generated piece of source code that contains a static lookup table, searched by binary sort). Normally, a database would be an OK solution even though the problem does not require a database, e.g, none of the elements of ACID are needed, as it is read-only data, updated about every 3-5 years (also requiring other sourcecode changes), and fits in memory, and can be keyed into via binary search (a tad faster than db, but speed is not an issue). The problem is that this code runs on our enterprise server, but is shared with several PC platforms (some disconnected, some use a central DB, etc.), and parts of it are managed by multiple programming units, parts by the DBAs, parts even by mathematicians in another department, etc. These hit their own platform’s version of their databases (containing their own copy of the static data). What happens is that every implementation, every little change, something different goes wrong. There are many other issues as well. I can’t even use a flatfile, because one mode of running on our enterprise server does not have permission to read files (only databases, and of course, its own literal storage, e.g., in-source table). Of course, other parts of the system use databases in proper, less obscure manners; there is no problem with those parts. So why don’t we just change it? I don’t have administrative ability to force a change. But I’m affected because sometimes I have to help fix the problems, but mostly because it causes outages and tons of extra IT time by other programmers and d*mmit that makes me mad! The reason neither management, nor the designers of the system, can see the problem is that they propose a solution that won’t work: increase communication; implement more safeguards and standards; etc. But every time, in a different part of the already-pared-down but still multi-step processes, a few different diligent, hard-working, top performing IT personnel make a unique subtle error that causes it to fail, sometimes after the last round of testing! And in general these are not single-person failures, but understandable miscommunications. And communication at our company is actually better than most. People just don't think that's the case because they haven't dug into the matter. However, I have it on very good word from somebody with extensive formal study of sociology and psychology that the relatively small amount of less-than-proper database usage in this gigantic cross-platform multi-source, multi-language project is bureaucratically un-maintainable. Impossible. No chance. At least with Human Beings in the loop, and it can’t be automated. In addition, the management and developers who could change this, though intelligent and capable, don’t understand the rigidity of this ‘how humans are’ issue, and are not convincible on the matter. The reason putting the static data in sourcecode will solve the problem is, although the solution is less sexy than a database, it would function with no technical drawbacks; and since the sharing of sourcecode already works very well, you basically erase any database-related effort from this section of the project, along with all the drawbacks of it that are causing problems. OK, that’s the background, for the curious. I won’t be able to convince management that this is an unfixable sociological problem, and that the real solution is coding around these limits of human nature, just as you would code around a bug in a 3rd party component that you can’t change. So what I have to do is exploit the unsuitableness of the database solution, and not do it using logic, but rather authority. I am aware of many reasons, and posts on this site giving reasons for one over the other; I’m not looking for lists of reasons like these (although you can add a comment if I've miss a doozy): WHY USE A DATABASE? instead of flatfile/other DB vs. file: if you need... Random Read / Transparent search optimization Advanced / varied / customizable Searching and sorting capabilities Transaction/rollback Locks, semaphores Concurrency control / Shared users Security 1-many/m-m is easier Easy modification Scalability Load Balancing Random updates / inserts / deletes Advanced query Administrative control of design, etc. SQL / learning curve Debugging / Logging Centralized / Live Backup capabilities Cached queries / dvlp & cache execution plans Interleaved update/read Referential integrity, avoid redundant/missing/corrupt/out-of-sync data Reporting (from on olap or oltp db) / turnkey generation tools [Disadvantages:] Important to get right the first time - professional design - but only b/c it's meant to last s/w & h/w cost Usu. over a network, speed issue (best vs. best design vs. local=even then a separate process req's marshalling/netwk layers/inter-p comm) indicies and query processing can stand in the way of simple processing (vs. flatfile) WHY USE FLATFILE: If you only need... Sequential Row processing only Limited usage append only (no reading, no master key/update) Only Update the record you're reading (fixed length recs only) Too big to fit into memory If Local disk / read-ahead network connection Portability / small system Email / cut & Paste / store as document by novice - simple format Low design learning curve but high cost later WHY USE IN-MEMORY/TABLE (tables, arrays, etc.): if you need... Processing a single db/ff record that was imported Known size of data Static data if hardcoding the table Narrow, unchanging use (e.g., one program or proc) -includes a class that will be shared, but encapsulates its data manipulation Extreme speed needed / high transaction frequency Random access - but search is dependent on implementation Following are some other posts about the topic: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1499239/database-vs-flat-text-file-what-are-some-technical-reasons-for-choosing-one-over http://stackoverflow.com/questions/332825/are-flat-file-databases-any-good http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2356851/database-vs-flat-files http://stackoverflow.com/questions/514455/databases-vs-plain-text/514530 What I’d like to know is if anybody could recommend a hard, authoritative source containing these reasons. I’m looking for a paper book I can buy, or a reputable website with whitepapers about the issue (e.g., Microsoft, IBM), not counting the user-generated content on those sites. This will have a greater change to elicit a change that I’m looking for: less wasted programmer time, and more reliable programs. Thanks very much for your help. You win a prize for reading such a large post!

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  • My App crashes when launched on my Iphone

    - by Miky Mike
    hi guys, I have a problem here : my app crashed on my Iphone (JB) though Xcode doesn't complain about anything. The app works fine on the simulator though. However, there is this in the device logs : Thread 0 Crashed: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00078ac8 kill + 8 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00078ab8 kill + 4 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00078aaa raise + 10 3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x0008d03a abort + 50 4 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x00044a20 __gnu_cxx::__verbose_terminate_handler() + 376 5 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00005958 _objc_terminate + 104 6 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x00042df2 _cxxabiv1::_terminate(void (*)()) + 46 7 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x00042e46 std::terminate() + 10 8 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x00042f16 __cxa_throw + 78 9 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00004838 objc_exception_throw + 64 10 CoreFoundation 0x0009fd0e +[NSException raise:format:arguments:] + 62 11 CoreFoundation 0x0009fd48 +[NSException raise:format:] + 28 12 Foundation 0x000125d8 -[NSURL(NSURL) initFileURLWithPath:] + 64 13 Foundation 0x000371e0 +[NSURL(NSURL) fileURLWithPath:] + 24 14 TheLearningMachine 0x00002d08 0x1000 + 7432 15 TheLearningMachine 0x00002e8c 0x1000 + 7820 16 TheLearningMachine 0x00002be4 0x1000 + 7140 17 TheLearningMachine 0x000029b6 0x1000 + 6582 18 UIKit 0x0000e47a -[UIApplication _callInitializationDelegatesForURL:payload:suspended:] + 766 19 UIKit 0x000049e0 -[UIApplication _runWithURL:payload:launchOrientation:statusBarStyle:statusBarHidden:] + 200 20 UIKit 0x0005dfd6 -[UIApplication handleEvent:withNewEvent:] + 1390 21 UIKit 0x0005d8fa -[UIApplication sendEvent:] + 38 22 UIKit 0x0005d330 _UIApplicationHandleEvent + 5104 23 GraphicsServices 0x00005044 PurpleEventCallback + 660 24 CoreFoundation 0x00034cdc __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE1_PERFORM_FUNCTION + 20 25 CoreFoundation 0x00034ca0 __CFRunLoopDoSource1 + 160 26 CoreFoundation 0x00027566 __CFRunLoopRun + 514 27 CoreFoundation 0x00027270 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 224 28 CoreFoundation 0x00027178 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 52 29 UIKit 0x000040fc -[UIApplication _run] + 364 30 UIKit 0x00002128 UIApplicationMain + 664 31 TheLearningMachine 0x00002948 0x1000 + 6472 32 TheLearningMachine 0x000028fc 0x1000 + 6396 Thread 1: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x0002d330 kevent + 24 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x000d6b6c _dispatch_mgr_invoke + 88 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x000d65bc _dispatch_queue_invoke + 96 3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x000d675c _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 120 4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x0007a67a _pthread_wqthread + 258 5 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00073190 start_wqthread + 0 Thread 2: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x0007b19c __workq_kernreturn + 8 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x0007a790 _pthread_wqthread + 536 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00073190 start_wqthread + 0 Thread 3: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00000c98 mach_msg_trap + 20 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00002d64 mach_msg + 44 2 CoreFoundation 0x00027c38 __CFRunLoopServiceMachPort + 88 3 CoreFoundation 0x000274c2 __CFRunLoopRun + 350 4 CoreFoundation 0x00027270 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 224 5 CoreFoundation 0x00027178 CFRunLoopRunInMode + 52 6 WebCore 0x000024e2 RunWebThread(void*) + 362 7 libSystem.B.dylib 0x0007a27e _pthread_start + 242 8 libSystem.B.dylib 0x0006f2a8 thread_start + 0 Thread 0 crashed with ARM Thread State: r0: 0x00000000 r1: 0x00000000 r2: 0x00000001 r3: 0x3e0862b4 r4: 0x00000006 r5: 0x0015a2ec r6: 0x2fffe090 r7: 0x2fffe0a0 r8: 0x3e1a378c r9: 0x00000065 r10: 0x33028e5a r11: 0x3e1ab89c ip: 0x00000025 sp: 0x2fffe0a0 lr: 0x30277abf pc: 0x30277ac8 cpsr: 0x000f0010 Any idea what the problem can be ? I've already spent my whole day on that, but... I'm stuck. Thanks in advance... Miky Mike Ok, Here is more then from the console, I get this : This GDB was configured as "--host=i386-apple-darwin --target=arm-apple-darwin".tty /dev/ttys002 Loading program into debugger… Program loaded. target remote-mobile /tmp/.XcodeGDBRemote-17280-65 Switching to remote-macosx protocol mem 0x1000 0x3fffffff cache mem 0x40000000 0xffffffff none mem 0x00000000 0x0fff none run Running… Error launching remote program: failed to get the task for process 456. Error launching remote program: failed to get the task for process 456. The program being debugged is not being run. The program being debugged is not being run. [Session started at 2010-12-23 20:33:33 +0100.] GNU gdb 6.3.50-20050815 (Apple version gdb-1472) (Thu Aug 5 05:54:10 UTC 2010) Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions. Type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "--host=i386-apple-darwin --target=arm-apple-darwin".tty /dev/ttys004 Loading program into debugger… Program loaded. target remote-mobile /tmp/.XcodeGDBRemote-17280-72 Switching to remote-macosx protocol mem 0x1000 0x3fffffff cache mem 0x40000000 0xffffffff none mem 0x00000000 0x0fff none run Running… Error launching remote program: failed to get the task for process 508. Error launching remote program: failed to get the task for process 508. The program being debugged is not being run. The program being debugged is not being run. And here is the code page that calls the URL import "TheLearningMachineAppDelegate.h" import "RootViewController.h" @implementation TheLearningMachineAppDelegate @synthesize window; @synthesize navigationController; pragma mark - pragma mark Application lifecycle (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions { RootViewController *rootViewController = (RootViewController *)[navigationController topViewController]; rootViewController.managedObjectContext = self.managedObjectContext; [window addSubview:[navigationController view]]; [window makeKeyAndVisible]; return YES; } (void)applicationWillResignActive:(UIApplication )application { / Sent when the application is about to move from active to inactive state. This can occur for certain types of temporary interruptions (such as an incoming phone call or SMS message) or when the user quits the application and it begins the transition to the background state. Use this method to pause ongoing tasks, disable timers, and throttle down OpenGL ES frame rates. Games should use this method to pause the game. */ } (void)applicationDidEnterBackground:(UIApplication *)application { [self saveContext]; } (void)applicationWillEnterForeground:(UIApplication )application { / Called as part of the transition from the background to the inactive state: here you can undo many of the changes made on entering the background. */ } (void)applicationDidBecomeActive:(UIApplication )application { / Restart any tasks that were paused (or not yet started) while the application was inactive. If the application was previously in the background, optionally refresh the user interface. */ } // Method that saves the managed object context before the application terminates. (void)applicationWillTerminate:(UIApplication *)application { [self saveContext]; } (void)saveContext { NSError *error = nil; if (managedObjectContext != nil) { if ([managedObjectContext hasChanges] && ![managedObjectContext save:&error]) { NSLog(@"Unresolved error %@, %@", error, [error userInfo]); abort(); //Replace this implementation with code to handle the error appropriately. //abort() causes the application to generate a crash log and terminate. You should not use this function in a shipping application, although it may be useful during development. If it is not possible to recover from the error, display an alert panel that instructs the user to quit the application by pressing the Home button. } } } pragma mark - pragma mark Core Data stack // Returns the managed object context for the application. (NSManagedObjectContext *)managedObjectContext { if (managedObjectContext != nil) { return managedObjectContext; } NSPersistentStoreCoordinator *coordinator = [self persistentStoreCoordinator]; if (coordinator != nil) { managedObjectContext = [[NSManagedObjectContext alloc] init]; [managedObjectContext setPersistentStoreCoordinator:coordinator]; } return managedObjectContext; } // Returns the managed object model for the application. (NSManagedObjectModel *)managedObjectModel { if (managedObjectModel != nil) { return managedObjectModel; } NSString *modelPath = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"TheLearningMachine" ofType:@"momd"]; NSURL *modelURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:modelPath]; managedObjectModel = [[NSManagedObjectModel alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:modelURL]; return managedObjectModel; } pragma mark - pragma mark Application's Documents directory // Returns the path to the application's Documents directory. - (NSString *)applicationDocumentsDirectory { return [NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) lastObject]; } // Returns the persistent store coordinator for the application. - (NSPersistentStoreCoordinator *)persistentStoreCoordinator { if (persistentStoreCoordinator != nil) { return persistentStoreCoordinator; } NSURL *storeURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath: [[self applicationDocumentsDirectory] stringByAppendingPathComponent: @"TheLearningMachine.sqlite"]]; NSError *error = nil; persistentStoreCoordinator = [[NSPersistentStoreCoordinator alloc] initWithManagedObjectModel:[self managedObjectModel]]; if (![persistentStoreCoordinator addPersistentStoreWithType:NSSQLiteStoreType configuration:nil URL:storeURL options:nil error:&error]) { NSLog(@"Unresolved error %@, %@", error, [error userInfo]); abort(); } return persistentStoreCoordinator; } pragma mark - pragma mark Memory management (void)applicationDidReceiveMemoryWarning:(UIApplication )application { / Free up as much memory as possible by purging cached data objects that can be recreated (or reloaded from disk) later. */ } (void)dealloc { [managedObjectContext release]; [managedObjectModel release]; [persistentStoreCoordinator release]; [window release]; [super dealloc]; } @end

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  • Ideas for multiplatform encrypted java mobile storage system

    - by Fernando Miguélez
    Objective I am currently designing the API for a multiplatform storage system that would offer same interface and capabilities accross following supported mobile Java Platforms: J2ME. Minimum configuration/profile CLDC 1.1/MIDP 2.0 with support for some necessary JSRs (JSR-75 for file storage). Android. No minimum platform version decided yet, but rather likely could be API level 7. Blackberry. It would use the same base source of J2ME but taking advantage of some advaced capabilities of the platform. No minimum configuration decided yet (maybe 4.6 because of 64 KB limitation for RMS on 4.5). Basically the API would sport three kind of stores: Files. These would allow standard directory/file manipulation (read/write through streams, create, mkdir, etc.). Preferences. It is a special store that handles properties accessed through keys (Similar to plain old java properties file but supporting some improvements such as different value data types such as SharedPreferences on Android platform) Local Message Queues. This store would offer basic message queue functionality. Considerations Inspired on JSR-75, all types of stores would be accessed in an uniform way by means of an URL following RFC 1738 conventions, but with custom defined prefixes (i.e. "file://" for files, "prefs://" for preferences or "queue://" for message queues). The address would refer to a virtual location that would be mapped to a physical storage object by each mobile platform implementation. Only files would allow hierarchical storage (folders) and access to external extorage memory cards (by means of a unit name, the same way as in JSR-75, but that would not change regardless of underlying platform). The other types would only support flat storage. The system should also support a secure version of all basic types. The user would indicate it by prefixing "s" to the URL (i.e. "sfile://" instead of "file://"). The API would only require one PIN (introduced only once) to access any kind of secure object types. Implementation issues For the implementation of both plaintext and encrypted stores, I would use the functionality available on the underlying platforms: Files. These are available on all platforms (J2ME only with JSR-75, but it is mandatory for our needs). The abstract File to actual File mapping is straight except for addressing issues. RMS. This type of store available on J2ME (and Blackberry) platforms is convenient for Preferences and maybe Message Queues (though depending on performance or size requirements these could be implemented by means of normal files). SharedPreferences. This type of storage, only available on Android, would match Preferences needs. SQLite databases. This could be used for message queues on Android (and maybe Blackberry). When it comes to encryption some requirements should be met: To ease the implementation it will be carried out on read/write operations basis on streams (for files), RMS Records, SharedPreferences key-value pairs, SQLite database columns. Every underlying storage object should use the same encryption key. Handling of encrypted stores should be the same as the unencrypted counterpart. The only difference (from the user point of view) accessing an encrypted store would be the addressing. The user PIN provides access to any secure storage object, but the change of it would not require to decrypt/re-encrypt all the encrypted data. Cryptographic capabilities of underlying platform should be used whenever it is possible, so we would use: J2ME: SATSA-CRYPTO if it is available (not mandatory) or lightweight BoncyCastle cryptographic framework for J2ME. Blackberry: RIM Cryptographic API or BouncyCastle Android: JCE with integraced cryptographic provider (BouncyCastle?) Doubts Having reached this point I was struck by some doubts about what solution would be more convenient, taking into account the limitation of the plataforms. These are some of my doubts: Encryption Algorithm for data. Would AES-128 be strong and fast enough? What alternatives for such scenario would you suggest? Encryption Mode. I have read about the weakness of ECB encryption versus CBC, but in this case the first would have the advantage of random access to blocks, which is interesting for seek functionality on files. What type of encryption mode would you choose instead? Is stream encryption suitable for this case? Key generation. There could be one key generated for each storage object (file, RMS RecordStore, etc.) or just use one for all the objects of the same type. The first seems "safer", though it would require some extra space on device. In your opinion what would the trade-offs of each? Key storage. For this case using a standard JKS (or PKCS#12) KeyStore file could be suited to store encryption keys, but I could also define a smaller structure (encryption-transformation / key data / checksum) that could be attached to each storage store (i.e. using addition files with the same name and special extension for plain files or embedded inside other types of objects such as RMS Record Stores). What approach would you prefer? And when it comes to using a standard KeyStore with multiple-key generation (given this is your preference), would it be better to use a record-store per storage object or just a global KeyStore keeping all keys (i.e. using the URL identifier of abstract storage object as alias)? Master key. The use of a master key seems obvious. This key should be protected by user PIN (introduced only once) and would allow access to the rest of encryption keys (they would be encrypted by means of this master key). Changing the PIN would only require to reencrypt this key and not all the encrypted data. Where would you keep it taking into account that if this got lost all data would be no further accesible? What further considerations should I take into account? Platform cryptography support. Do SATSA-CRYPTO-enabled J2ME phones really take advantage of some dedicated hardware acceleration (or other advantage I have not foreseen) and would this approach be prefered (whenever possible) over just BouncyCastle implementation? For the same reason is RIM Cryptographic API worth the license cost over BouncyCastle? Any comments, critics, further considerations or different approaches are welcome.

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  • How do I prove I should put a table of values in source code instead of a database table?

    - by FastAl
    <tldr>looking for a reference to a book or other undeniably authoritative source that gives reasons when you should choose a database vs. when you should choose other storage methods. I have provided an un-authoritative list of reasons about 2/3 of the way down this post.</tldr> I have a situation at my company where a database is being used where it would be better to use another solution (in this case, an auto-generated piece of source code that contains a static lookup table, searched by binary sort). Normally, a database would be an OK solution even though the problem does not require a database, e.g, none of the elements of ACID are needed, as it is read-only data, updated about every 3-5 years (also requiring other sourcecode changes), and fits in memory, and can be keyed into via binary search (a tad faster than db, but speed is not an issue). The problem is that this code runs on our enterprise server, but is shared with several PC platforms (some disconnected, some use a central DB, etc.), and parts of it are managed by multiple programming units, parts by the DBAs, parts even by mathematicians in another department, etc. These hit their own platform’s version of their databases (containing their own copy of the static data). What happens is that every implementation, every little change, something different goes wrong. There are many other issues as well. I can’t even use a flatfile, because one mode of running on our enterprise server does not have permission to read files (only databases, and of course, its own literal storage, e.g., in-source table). Of course, other parts of the system use databases in proper, less obscure manners; there is no problem with those parts. So why don’t we just change it? I don’t have administrative ability to force a change. But I’m affected because sometimes I have to help fix the problems, but mostly because it causes outages and tons of extra IT time by other programmers and d*mmit that makes me mad! The reason neither management, nor the designers of the system, can see the problem is that they propose a solution that won’t work: increase communication; implement more safeguards and standards; etc. But every time, in a different part of the already-pared-down but still multi-step processes, a few different diligent, hard-working, top performing IT personnel make a unique subtle error that causes it to fail, sometimes after the last round of testing! And in general these are not single-person failures, but understandable miscommunications. And communication at our company is actually better than most. People just don't think that's the case because they haven't dug into the matter. However, I have it on very good word from somebody with extensive formal study of sociology and psychology that the relatively small amount of less-than-proper database usage in this gigantic cross-platform multi-source, multi-language project is bureaucratically un-maintainable. Impossible. No chance. At least with Human Beings in the loop, and it can’t be automated. In addition, the management and developers who could change this, though intelligent and capable, don’t understand the rigidity of this ‘how humans are’ issue, and are not convincible on the matter. The reason putting the static data in sourcecode will solve the problem is, although the solution is less sexy than a database, it would function with no technical drawbacks; and since the sharing of sourcecode already works very well, you basically erase any database-related effort from this section of the project, along with all the drawbacks of it that are causing problems. OK, that’s the background, for the curious. I won’t be able to convince management that this is an unfixable sociological problem, and that the real solution is coding around these limits of human nature, just as you would code around a bug in a 3rd party component that you can’t change. So what I have to do is exploit the unsuitableness of the database solution, and not do it using logic, but rather authority. I am aware of many reasons, and posts on this site giving reasons for one over the other; I’m not looking for lists of reasons like these (although you can add a comment if I've miss a doozy): WHY USE A DATABASE? instead of flatfile/other DB vs. file: if you need... Random Read / Transparent search optimization Advanced / varied / customizable Searching and sorting capabilities Transaction/rollback Locks, semaphores Concurrency control / Shared users Security 1-many/m-m is easier Easy modification Scalability Load Balancing Random updates / inserts / deletes Advanced query Administrative control of design, etc. SQL / learning curve Debugging / Logging Centralized / Live Backup capabilities Cached queries / dvlp & cache execution plans Interleaved update/read Referential integrity, avoid redundant/missing/corrupt/out-of-sync data Reporting (from on olap or oltp db) / turnkey generation tools [Disadvantages:] Important to get right the first time - professional design - but only b/c it's meant to last s/w & h/w cost Usu. over a network, speed issue (best vs. best design vs. local=even then a separate process req's marshalling/netwk layers/inter-p comm) indicies and query processing can stand in the way of simple processing (vs. flatfile) WHY USE FLATFILE: If you only need... Sequential Row processing only Limited usage append only (no reading, no master key/update) Only Update the record you're reading (fixed length recs only) Too big to fit into memory If Local disk / read-ahead network connection Portability / small system Email / cut & Paste / store as document by novice - simple format Low design learning curve but high cost later WHY USE IN-MEMORY/TABLE (tables, arrays, etc.): if you need... Processing a single db/ff record that was imported Known size of data Static data if hardcoding the table Narrow, unchanging use (e.g., one program or proc) -includes a class that will be shared, but encapsulates its data manipulation Extreme speed needed / high transaction frequency Random access - but search is dependent on implementation Following are some other posts about the topic: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1499239/database-vs-flat-text-file-what-are-some-technical-reasons-for-choosing-one-over http://stackoverflow.com/questions/332825/are-flat-file-databases-any-good http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2356851/database-vs-flat-files http://stackoverflow.com/questions/514455/databases-vs-plain-text/514530 What I’d like to know is if anybody could recommend a hard, authoritative source containing these reasons. I’m looking for a paper book I can buy, or a reputable website with whitepapers about the issue (e.g., Microsoft, IBM), not counting the user-generated content on those sites. This will have a greater change to elicit a change that I’m looking for: less wasted programmer time, and more reliable programs. Thanks very much for your help. You win a prize for reading such a large post!

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  • Ajax, Callback, postback and Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_beginRequest

    - by user338262
    Hi, I have a user control which encapsulates a NumericUpDownExtender. This UserControl implements the interface ICallbackEventHandler, because I want that when a user changes the value of the textbox associated a custom event to be raised in the server. By the other hand each time an async postback is done I shoe a message of loading and disable the whole screen. This works perfect when something is changed in for example an UpdatePanel through this lines of code: Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_beginRequest( function (sender, args) { var modalPopupBehavior = $find('programmaticSavingLoadingModalPopupBehavior'); modalPopupBehavior.show(); } ); The UserControl is placed inside a detailsview which is inside an UpdatePanel in an aspx. When the custom event is raised I want another textbox in the aspx to change its value. So far, When I click on the UpDownExtender, it goes correctly to the server and raises the custom event, and the new value of the textbox is assigned in the server. but it is not changed in the browser. I suspect that the problem is the callback, since I have the same architecture for a UserControl with an AutoCompleteExtender which implement IPostbackEventHandler and it works. Any clues how can I solve this here to make the UpDownNumericExtender user control to work like the AutComplete one? This is the code of the user control and the parent: using System; using System.Web.UI; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Text; namespace Corp.UserControls { [Themeable(true)] public partial class CustomNumericUpDown : CorpNumericUpDown, ICallbackEventHandler { protected void Page_PreRender(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (!Page.IsPostBack) { currentInstanceNumber = CorpAjaxControlToolkitUserControl.getNextInstanceNumber(); } registerControl(this.HFNumericUpDown.ClientID, currentInstanceNumber); string strCallServer = "NumericUpDownCallServer" + currentInstanceNumber.ToString(); // If this function is not written the callback to get the disponibilidadCliente doesn't work if (!Page.ClientScript.IsClientScriptBlockRegistered("ReceiveServerDataNumericUpDown")) { StringBuilder str = new StringBuilder(); str.Append("function ReceiveServerDataNumericUpDown(arg, context) {}").AppendLine(); Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock(typeof(CorpNumericUpDown), "ReceiveServerDataNumericUpDown", str.ToString(), true); } nudeNumericUpDownExtender.BehaviorID = "NumericUpDownEx" + currentInstanceNumber.ToString(); ClientScriptManager cm = Page.ClientScript; String cbReference = cm.GetCallbackEventReference(this, "arg", "ReceiveServerDataNumericUpDown", ""); String callbackScript = "function " + strCallServer + "(arg, context)" + Environment.NewLine + "{" + Environment.NewLine + cbReference + ";" + Environment.NewLine + "}" + Environment.NewLine; cm.RegisterClientScriptBlock(typeof(CustomNumericUpDown), strCallServer, callbackScript, true); base.Page_PreRender(sender,e); } [System.ComponentModel.Browsable(true)] [System.ComponentModel.Bindable(true)] public Int64 Value { get { return (string.IsNullOrEmpty(HFNumericUpDown.Value) ? Int64.Parse("1") : Int64.Parse(HFNumericUpDown.Value)); } set { HFNumericUpDown.Value = value.ToString(); //txtAutoCompleteCliente_AutoCompleteExtender.ContextKey = value.ToString(); // TODO: Change the text of the textbox } } [System.ComponentModel.Browsable(true)] [System.ComponentModel.Bindable(true)] [Description("The text of the numeric up down")] public string Text { get { return txtNumericUpDown.Text; } set { txtNumericUpDown.Text = value; } } public delegate void NumericUpDownChangedHandler(object sender, NumericUpDownChangedArgs e); public event NumericUpDownChangedHandler numericUpDownEvent; [System.ComponentModel.Browsable(true)] [System.ComponentModel.Bindable(true)] [System.ComponentModel.Description("Raised after the number has been increased or decreased")] protected virtual void OnNumericUpDownEvent(object sender, NumericUpDownChangedArgs e) { if (numericUpDownEvent != null) //check to see if anyone has attached to the event numericUpDownEvent(this, e); } #region ICallbackEventHandler Members public string GetCallbackResult() { return "";//throw new NotImplementedException(); } public void RaiseCallbackEvent(string eventArgument) { NumericUpDownChangedArgs nudca = new NumericUpDownChangedArgs(long.Parse(eventArgument)); OnNumericUpDownEvent(this, nudca); } #endregion } /// <summary> /// Class that adds the prestamoList to the event /// </summary> public class NumericUpDownChangedArgs : System.EventArgs { /// <summary> /// The current selected value. /// </summary> public long Value { get; private set; } public NumericUpDownChangedArgs(long value) { Value = value; } } } using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text; namespace Corp { /// <summary> /// Summary description for CorpAjaxControlToolkitUserControl /// </summary> public class CorpNumericUpDown : CorpAjaxControlToolkitUserControl { private Int16 _currentInstanceNumber; // This variable hold the instanceNumber assignated at first place. public short currentInstanceNumber { get { return _currentInstanceNumber; } set { _currentInstanceNumber = value; } } protected void Page_PreRender(object sender, EventArgs e) { const string strOnChange = "OnChange"; const string strCallServer = "NumericUpDownCallServer"; StringBuilder str = new StringBuilder(); foreach (KeyValuePair<String, Int16> control in controlsToRegister) { str.Append("function ").Append(strOnChange + control.Value).Append("(sender, eventArgs) ").AppendLine(); str.Append("{").AppendLine(); str.Append(" if (sender) {").AppendLine(); str.Append(" var hfield = document.getElementById('").Append(control.Key).Append("');").AppendLine(); str.Append(" if (hfield.value != eventArgs) {").AppendLine(); str.Append(" hfield.value = eventArgs;").AppendLine(); str.Append(" ").Append(strCallServer + control.Value).Append("(eventArgs, eventArgs);").AppendLine(); str.Append(" }").AppendLine(); str.Append(" }").AppendLine(); str.Append("}").AppendLine(); Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock(typeof(CorpNumericUpDown), Guid.NewGuid().ToString(), str.ToString(), true); } str = new StringBuilder(); foreach (KeyValuePair<String, Int16> control in controlsToRegister) { str.Append(" funcsPageLoad[funcsPageLoad.length] = function() { $find('NumericUpDownEx" + control.Value + "').add_currentChanged(").Append(strOnChange + control.Value).Append(");};").AppendLine(); str.Append(" funcsPageUnLoad[funcsPageUnLoad.length] = function() { $find('NumericUpDownEx" + control.Value + "').remove_currentChanged(").Append(strOnChange + control.Value).Append(");};").AppendLine(); } Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock(typeof(CorpNumericUpDown), Guid.NewGuid().ToString(), str.ToString(), true); } } } and to create the loading view I use this: //The beginRequest event is raised before the processing of an asynchronous postback starts and the postback is sent to the server. You can use this event to call custom script to set a request header or to start an animation that notifies the user that the postback is being processed. Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_beginRequest( function (sender, args) { var modalPopupBehavior = $find('programmaticSavingLoadingModalPopupBehavior'); modalPopupBehavior.show(); } ); //The endRequest event is raised after an asynchronous postback is finished and control has been returned to the browser. You can use this event to provide a notification to users or to log errors. Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_endRequest( function (sender, arg) { var modalPopupBehavior = $find('programmaticSavingLoadingModalPopupBehavior'); modalPopupBehavior.hide(); } ); Thanks in advance! Daniel.

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