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• Supporting multiple instances of a plugin DLL with global data

  - by Bruno De Fraine

  Context: I converted a legacy standalone engine into a plugin component for a composition tool. Technically, this means that I compiled the engine code base to a C DLL which I invoke from a .NET wrapper using P/Invoke; the wrapper implements an interface defined by the composition tool. This works quite well, but now I receive the request to load multiple instances of the engine, for different projects. Since the engine keeps the project data in a set of global variables, and since the DLL with the engine code base is loaded only once, loading multiple projects means that the project data is overwritten. I can see a number of solutions, but they all have some disadvantages: You can create multiple DLLs with the same code, which are seen as different DLLs by Windows, so their code is not shared. Probably this already works if you have multiple copies of the engine DLL with different names. However, the engine is invoked from the wrapper using DllImport attributes and I think the name of the engine DLL needs to be known when compiling the wrapper. Obviously, if I have to compile different versions of the wrapper for each project, this is quite cumbersome. The engine could run as a separate process. This means that the wrapper would launch a separate process for the engine when it loads a project, and it would use some form of IPC to communicate with this process. While this is a relatively clean solution, it requires some effort to get working, I don't now which IPC technology would be best to set-up this kind of construction. There may also be a significant overhead of the communication: the engine needs to frequently exchange arrays of floating-point numbers. The engine could be adapted to support multiple projects. This means that the global variables should be put into a project structure, and every reference to the globals should be converted to a corresponding reference that is relative to a particular project. There are about 20-30 global variables, but as you can imagine, these global variables are referenced from all over the code base, so this conversion would need to be done in some automatic manner. A related problem is that you should be able to reference the "current" project structure in all places, but passing this along as an extra argument in each and every function signature is also cumbersome. Does there exist a technique (in C) to consider the current call stack and find the nearest enclosing instance of a relevant data value there? Can the stackoverflow community give some advice on these (or other) solutions?

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• What to Expect in Rails 4

  - by mikhailov

  Rails 4 is nearly there, we should be ready before it released. Most developers are trying hard to keep their application on the edge. Must see resources: 1) @sikachu talk: What to Expect in Rails 4.0 - YouTube 2) Rails Guides release notes: http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/4_0_release_notes.html There is a mix of all major changes down here: ActionMailer changes excerpt: Asynchronously send messages via the Rails Raise an ActionView::MissingTemplate exception when no implicit template could be found ActionPack changes excerpt Added controller-level etag additions that will be part of the action etag computation Add automatic template digests to all CacheHelper#cache calls (originally spiked in the cache_digests plugin) Add Routing Concerns to declare common routes that can be reused inside others resources and routes Added ActionController::Live. Mix it in to your controller and you can stream data to the client live truncate now always returns an escaped HTML-safe string. The option :escape can be used as false to not escape the result Added ActionDispatch::SSL middleware that when included force all the requests to be under HTTPS protocol ActiveModel changes excerpt AM::Validation#validates ability to pass custom exception to :strict option Changed `AM::Serializers::JSON.include_root_in_json' default value to false. Now, AM Serializers and AR objects have the same default behaviour Added ActiveModel::Model, a mixin to make Ruby objects work with AP out of box Trim down Active Model API by removing valid? and errors.full_messages ActiveRecord changes excerpt Use native mysqldump command instead of structure_dump method when dumping the database structure to a sql file. Attribute predicate methods, such as article.title?, will now raise ActiveModel::MissingAttributeError if the attribute being queried for truthiness was not read from the database, instead of just returning false ActiveRecord::SessionStore has been extracted from Active Record as activerecord-session_store gem. Please read the README.md file on the gem for the usage Fix reset_counters when there are multiple belongs_to association with the same foreign key and one of them have a counter cache Raise ArgumentError if list of attributes to change is empty in update_all Add Relation#load. This method explicitly loads the records and then returns self Deprecated most of the 'dynamic finder' methods. All dynamic methods except for find_by_... and find_by_...! are deprecated Added ability to ActiveRecord::Relation#from to accept other ActiveRecord::Relation objects Remove IdentityMap ActiveSupport changes excerpt ERB::Util.html_escape now escapes single quotes ActiveSupport::Callbacks: deprecate monkey patch of object callbacks Replace deprecated memcache-client gem with dalli in ActiveSupport::Cache::MemCacheStore Object#try will now return nil instead of raise a NoMethodError if the receiving object does not implement the method, but you can still get the old behavior by using the new Object#try! Object#try can't call private methods Add ActiveSupport::Deprecations.behavior = :silence to completely ignore Rails runtime deprecations What are the most important changes for you?

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• Representing xml through a single class

  - by Charles

  I am trying to abstract away the difficulties of configuring an application that we use. This application takes a xml configuration file and it can be a bit bothersome to manually edit this file, especially when we are trying to setup some automatic testing scenarios. I am finding that reading xml is nice, pretty easy, you get a network of element nodes that you can just go through and build your structures quite nicely. However I am slowly finding that the reverse is not quite so nice. I want to be able to build a xml configuration file through a single easy to use interface and because xml is composed of a system of nodes I am having a lot of struggle trying to maintain the 'easy' part. Does anyone know of any examples or samples that easily and intuitively build xml files without declaring a bunch of element type classes and expect the user to build the network themselves? For example if my desired xml output is like so <cook version="1.1"> <recipe name="chocolate chip cookie"> <ingredients> <ingredient name="flour" amount="2" units="cups"/> <ingredient name="eggs" amount="2" units="" /> <ingredient name="cooking chocolate" amount="5" units="cups" /> </ingredients> <directions> <direction name="step 1">Preheat oven</direction> <direction name="step 2">Mix flour, egg, and chocolate</direction> <direction name="step 2">bake</direction> </directions> </recipe> <recipe name="hot dog"> ... How would I go about designing a class to build that network of elements and make one easy to use interface for creating recipes? Right now I have a recipe object, an ingredient object, and a direction object. The user must make each one, set the attributes in the class and attach them to the root object which assembles the xml elements and outputs the formatted xml. Its not very pretty and I just know there has to be a better way. I am using python so bonus points for pythonic solutions

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• I have a problem with a TextBox in an application... A window has a Grid with two columns. The left

  - by haagel

  I have a problem with a TextBox in an application... A window has a Grid with two columns. The left column contains a control with a constant width but with a height that adapts. The right column contains a TextBox that takes up all remaining space in the Grid (and thereby in the Window). The Grid is given a minimal width and height and is wrapped within a ScrollViewer. If the user resizes the window to be smaller than the minimal widht/height of the Grid, scrollbars are displayed. This is exactly how I want it to be. However, a problem occurs when the user starts typing text. If the text is to long to fit in one line in the TextBox, I want the text to wrap. Therefore I set TextWrapping="Wrap" on the TextBox. But since the TextBox has an automatic width and is wrapped in a ScrollViewer (its actually the whole Grid that is wrapped), the TextBox just keeps expanding to the right. I do want the TextBox to expand if the window is expanded, but I don't want the TextBox to expand by the text. Rather the text should wrap inside the available TextBox. If the text don't fit within the TextBox height, a scrollbar should be displayed within the TextBox. Is there a way to accomplish this? Below is some code that shows my problem. <Window x:Class="AdaptingTextBoxes.MainWindow" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="MainWindow" Height="300" Width="400" Background="DarkCyan"> <Grid Margin="10" Name="LayoutRoot"> <ScrollViewer HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto"> <Grid MinWidth="300" MinHeight="200"> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="auto" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="*" /> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <Button Grid.Column="0" Margin="0,0,10,0" Content="Button" Width="100" /> <TextBox Grid.Column="1" AcceptsReturn="True" TextWrapping="Wrap" ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled" ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" /> </Grid> </ScrollViewer> </Grid> </Window>

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• General workflow to allow multiple OpenIDs to be associated with one app account

  - by BobTodd

  I have a (typical?) scenario: that my app's users can use multiple openids mapped to one app account (like stackoverflow). For me the unique thing on the account is the email address, so this binds openids to the profile. Question is, how to allow a user to start using a second openid once one is setup. I am asking as I have read that it is a security hole to allow automatic account openid syncing simply based on the provider-supplied email address as someone could easily spoof someone's email address to create a spoof openid and falsely access the account (how I am not sure) - although this seems to be exactly how stack operates. See options a. and b. below. Problem for me with a. is what happens if the original openid no longer works for whatever reason - how would you set-up a new openid? Would b. be more acceptable if we used email verification? Does anyone have an article detailing a "standard" way (set of user stories) for this - it seems to be an increasingly popular way to authenticate. I have tried to detail this in a rough decision tree... 1. My Site > authentication landing page - user chooses an openid (facebook, google, myopenid etc), redirection > 2. Provider site returns with token (includes user registering a new openid, logging in or is already logged in to Provider site) 3. My Site > use token id to lookup user 3.1 Profile exists? Yes > authenticate. ends. No > 3.1.1 was email address supplied by provider? Yes > lookup user by email address 3.1.1.1 Profile exists? Yes > a. error message - please login with existing openid and associate this openid (from special page) Yes > b. or associate this openid with existing profile automatically. authenticate. ends. No > Register profile. With registration email address follow 3.1.1, except this time where email is unique, we will associate openid. ends

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• MATLAB arbitrary code execution

  - by aristotle2600

  I am writing an automatic grader program under linux. There are several graders written in MATLAB, so I want to tie them all together and let students run a program to do an assignment, and have them choose the assignment. I am using a C++ main program, which then has mcc-compiled MATLAB libraries linked to it. Specifically, my program reads a config file for the names of the various matlab programs, and other information. It then uses that information to present choices to the student. So, If an assignment changes, is added or removed, then all you have to do is change the config file. The idea is that next, the program invokes the correct matlab library that has been compiled with mcc. But, that means that the libraries have to be recompiled if a grader gets changed. Worse, the whole program must be recompiled if a grader is added or removed. So, I would like one, simple, unchanging matlab library function to call the grader m-files directly. I currently have such a library, that uses eval on a string passed to it from the main program. The problem is that when I do this, apparently, mcc absorbs the grader m-code into itself; changing the grader m code after compilation has no effect. I would like for this not to happen. It was brought to my attention that Mathworks may not want me to be able to do this, since it could bypass matlab entirely. That is not my intention, and I would be happy with a solution that requires a full matlab install. My possible solutions are to use a mex file for the main program, or have the main program call a mcc library, which then calls a mex file, which then calls the proper grader. The reason I am hesitant about the first solution is that I'm not sure how many changes I would have to make to my code to make it work; my code is C++, not C, which I think makes things more complicated. The 2nd solution, though, may just be more complicated and ultimately have the same problem. So, any thoughts on this situation? How should I do this?

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• iPhone memory management (with specific examples/questions)

  - by donkim

  Hey all. I know this question's been asked but I still don't have a clear picture of memory management in Objective-C. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of it, but I'd still like some correct answers for the following code. I have a series of examples that I'd love for someone(s) to clarify. Setting a value for an instance variable. Say I have an NSMutableArray variable. In my class, when I initialize it, do I need to call a retain on it? Do I do fooArray = [[[NSMutableArray alloc] init] retain]; or fooArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; Does doing [[NSMutableArray alloc] init] already set the retain count to 1, so I wouldn't need to call retain on it? On the other hand, if I called a method that I know returns an autoreleased object, I would for sure have to call retain on it, right? Like so: fooString = [[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%d items", someInt] retain]; Properties. I ask about the retain because I'm a bit confused about how @property's automatic setter works. If I had set fooArray to be a @property with retain set, Objective-C will automatically create the following setter, right? - (void)setFooArray:(NSMutableArray *)anArray { [fooArray release]; fooArray = [anArray retain]; } So, if I had code like this: self.fooArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; (which I believe is valid code), Objective-C creates a setter method that calls retain on the value assigned to fooArray. In this case, will the retain count actually be 2? Correct way of setting a value of a property. I know there are questions on this and (possibly) debates, but which is the right way to set a @property? This? self.fooArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; Or this? NSMutableArray *anArray = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; self.fooArray = anArray; [anArray release]; I'd love to get some clarification on these examples. Thanks!

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• Undefined template methods trick ?

  - by Matthieu M.

  A colleague of mine told me about a little piece of design he has used with his team that sent my mind boiling. It's a kind of traits class that they can specialize in an extremely decoupled way. I've had a hard time understanding how it could possibly work, and I am still unsure of the idea I have, so I thought I would ask for help here. We are talking g++ here, specifically the versions 3.4.2 and 4.3.2 (it seems to work with both). The idea is quite simple: 1- Define the interface // interface.h template <class T> struct Interface { void foo(); // the method is not implemented, it could not work if it was }; // // I do not think it is necessary // but they prefer free-standing methods with templates // because of the automatic argument deduction // template <class T> void foo(Interface<T>& interface) { interface.foo(); } 2- Define a class, and in the source file specialize the interface for this class (defining its methods) // special.h class Special {}; // special.cpp #include "interface.h" #include "special.h" // // Note that this specialization is not visible outside of this translation unit // template <> struct Interface<Special> { void foo() { std::cout << "Special" << std::endl; } }; 3- To use, it's simple too: // main.cpp #include "interface.h" class Special; // yes, it only costs a forward declaration // which helps much in term of dependencies int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { Interface<Special> special; foo(special); return 0; }; It's an undefined symbol if no translation unit defined a specialization of Interface for Special. Now, I would have thought this would require the export keyword, which to my knowledge has never been implemented in g++ (and only implemented once in a C++ compiler, with its authors advising anyone not to, given the time and effort it took them). I suspect it's got something to do with the linker resolving the templates methods... Do you have ever met anything like this before ? Does it conform to the standard or do you think it's a fortunate coincidence it works ? I must admit I am quite puzzled by the construct...

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• Visual Studio not recognizing "BuildStep"

  - by AmbiguousX

  I'm trying to add an automatic post-build trigger to run NDepend after an automated team build in TFS 2010. NDepend's website provided code for integrating this capability, and so I have pasted their code into my .csproj file where they said for it to go, but I receive errors on the build. The errors refer to two of the three "BuildStep" tags I have in the code snippet. The following two snippets are giving me errors: <BuildStep TeamFoundationServerUrl="$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)" BuildUri="$(BuildUri)" Message="Running NDepend analysis"> <Output TaskParameter="Id" PropertyName="StepId" /> </BuildStep> and <BuildStep TeamFoundationServerUrl="$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)" BuildUri="$(BuildUri)" Id="$(StepId)" Status="Failed" /> However, this code snippet is NOT throwing up any problems: <BuildStep TeamFoundationServerUrl="$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)" BuildUri="$(BuildUri)" Id="$(StepId)" Status="Succeeded" /> I just don't understand why one works fine and a nearly identically laid out BuildStep tag does not. Is there something simple that I'm just overlooking? EDIT: Here is how it looks all together, if this makes a difference: <Target Name="NDepend" > <PropertyGroup> <NDPath>c:\tools\NDepend\NDepend.console.exe</NDPath> <NDProject>$(SolutionDir)MyProject.ndproj</NDProject> <NDOut>$(TargetDir)NDepend</NDOut> <NDIn>$(TargetDir)</NDIn> </PropertyGroup> <Exec Command='"$(NDPath)" "$(NDProject)" /OutDir "$(NDOut)" /InDirs "$(NDIn)"'/> </Target> <Target Name="AfterBuild"> <BuildStep TeamFoundationServerUrl="$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)" BuildUri="$(BuildUri)" Message="Running NDepend analysis"> <Output TaskParameter="Id" PropertyName="StepId" /> </BuildStep> <PropertyGroup> <NDPath>c:\tools\NDepend\NDepend.console.exe</NDPath> <NDProject>$(SolutionRoot)\Main\src\MyProject.ndproj</NDProject> <NDOut>$(BinariesRoot)\NDepend</NDOut> <NDIn>$(BinariesRoot)\Release</NDIn> </PropertyGroup> <Exec Command='$(NDPath) "$(NDProject)" /OutDir "$(NDOut)" /InDirs "$(NDIn)"'/> <BuildStep TeamFoundationServerUrl="$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)" BuildUri="$(BuildUri)" Id="$(StepId)" Status="Succeeded" /> <OnError ExecuteTargets="MarkBuildStepAsFailed" /> </Target> <Target Name="MarkBuildStepAsFailed"> <BuildStep TeamFoundationServerUrl="$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)" BuildUri="$(BuildUri)" Id="$(StepId)" Status="Failed" /> </Target> EDIT: Added a bounty because I really need to get this going for my team. Thank you in advance!

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• Why does OpenGL's glDrawArrays() fail with GL_INVALID_OPERATION under Core Profile 3.2, but not 3.3 or 4.2?

  - by metaleap

  I have OpenGL rendering code calling glDrawArrays that works flawlessly when the OpenGL context is (automatically / implicitly obtained) 4.2 but fails consistently (GL_INVALID_OPERATION) with an explicitly requested OpenGL core context 3.2. (Shaders are always set to #version 150 in both cases but that's beside the point here I suspect.) According to specs, there are only two instances when glDrawArrays() fails with GL_INVALID_OPERATION: "if a non-zero buffer object name is bound to an enabled array and the buffer object's data store is currently mapped" -- I'm not doing any buffer mapping at this point "if a geometry shader is active and mode? is incompatible with [...]" -- nope, no geometry shaders as of now. Furthermore: I have verified & double-checked that it's only the glDrawArrays() calls failing. Also double-checked that all arguments passed to glDrawArrays() are identical under both GL versions, buffer bindings too. This happens across 3 different nvidia GPUs and 2 different OSes (Win7 and OSX, both 64-bit -- of course, in OSX we have only the 3.2 context, no 4.2 anyway). It does not happen with an integrated "Intel HD" GPU but for that one, I only get an automatic implicit 3.3 context (trying to explicitly force a 3.2 core profile with this GPU via GLFW here fails the window creation but that's an entirely different issue...) For what it's worth, here's the relevant routine excerpted from the render loop, in Golang: func (me *TMesh) render () { curMesh = me curTechnique.OnRenderMesh() gl.BindBuffer(gl.ARRAY_BUFFER, me.glVertBuf) if me.glElemBuf > 0 { gl.BindBuffer(gl.ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, me.glElemBuf) gl.VertexAttribPointer(curProg.AttrLocs["aPos"], 3, gl.FLOAT, gl.FALSE, 0, gl.Pointer(nil)) gl.DrawElements(me.glMode, me.glNumIndices, gl.UNSIGNED_INT, gl.Pointer(nil)) gl.BindBuffer(gl.ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER, 0) } else { gl.VertexAttribPointer(curProg.AttrLocs["aPos"], 3, gl.FLOAT, gl.FALSE, 0, gl.Pointer(nil)) /* BOOM! */ gl.DrawArrays(me.glMode, 0, me.glNumVerts) } gl.BindBuffer(gl.ARRAY_BUFFER, 0) } So of course this is part of a bigger render-loop, though the whole "*TMesh" construction for now is just two instances, one a simple cube and the other a simple pyramid. What matters is that the entire drawing loop works flawlessly with no errors reported when GL is queried for errors under both 3.3 and 4.2, yet on 3 nvidia GPUs with an explicit 3.2 core profile fails with an error code that according to spec is only invoked in two specific situations, none of which as far as I can tell apply here. What could be wrong here? Have you ever run into this? Any ideas what I have been missing?

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• avoiding enums as interface identifiers c++ OOP

  - by AlasdairC

  Hi I'm working on a plugin framework using dynamic loaded shared libraries which is based on Eclipse's (and probally other's) extension-point model. All plugins share similar properties (name, id, version etc) and each plugin could in theory satisfy any extension-point. The actual plugin (ie Dll) handling is managed by another library, all I am doing really is managing collections of interfaces for the application. I started by using an enum PluginType to distinguish the different interfaces, but I have quickly realised that using template functions made the code far cleaner and would leave the grunt work up to the compiler, rather than forcing me to use lots of switch {...} statements. The only issue is where I need to specify like functionality for class members - most obvious example is the default plugin which provides a particular interface. A Settings class handles all settings, including the default plugin for an interface. ie Skin newSkin = settings.GetDefault<ISkin>(); How do I store the default ISkin in a container without resorting to some other means of identifying the interface? As I mentioned above, I currently use a std::map<PluginType, IPlugin> Settings::defaults member to achieve this (where IPlugin is an abstract base class which all plugins derive from. I can then dynamic_cast to the desired interface when required, but this really smells of bad design to me and introduces more harm than good I think. would welcome any tips edit: here's an example of the current use of default plugins typedef boost::shared_ptr<ISkin> Skin; typedef boost::shared_ptr<IPlugin> Plugin; enum PluginType { skin, ..., ... } class Settings { public: void SetDefault(const PluginType type, boost::shared_ptr<IPlugin> plugin) { m_default[type] = plugin; } boost::shared_ptr<IPlugin> GetDefault(const PluginType type) { return m_default[type]; } private: std::map<PluginType, boost::shared_ptr<IPlugin> m_default; }; SkinManager::Initialize() { Plugin thedefault = g_settings.GetDefault(skinplugin); Skin defaultskin = boost::dynamic_pointer_cast<ISkin>(theskin); defaultskin->Initialize(); } I would much rather call the getdefault as the following, with automatic casting to the derived class. However I need to specialize for every class type. template<> Skin Settings::GetDefault<ISkin>() { return boost::dynamic_pointer_cast<ISkin>(m_default(skin)); }

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• PHP array performance

  - by dfo

  Hi, this is my first question on Stackoverflow, please bear with me. I'm testing an algorithm for 2d bin packing and I've chosen PHP to mock it up as it's my bread-and-butter language nowadays. As you can see on http://themworks.com/pack_v0.2/oopack.php?ol=1 it works pretty well, but you need to wait around 10-20 seconds for 100 rectangles to pack. For some hard to handle sets it would hit the php's 30s runtime limit. I did some profiling and it shows that most of the time my script goes through different parts of a small 2d array with 0's and 1's in it. It either checks if certain cell equals to 0/1 or sets it to 0/1. It can do such operations million times and each times it takes few microseconds. I guess I could use an array of booleans in a statically typed language and things would be faster. Or even make an array of 1 bit values. I'm thinking of converting the whole thing to some compiled language. Is PHP just not good for it? If I do need to convert it to let's say C++, how good are the automatic converters? My script is just a lot of for loops with basic arrays and objects manipulations. Thank you! Edit. This function gets called more than any other. It reads few properties of a very simple object, and goes through a very small part of a smallish array to check if there's any element not equal to 0. function fits($bin, $file, $x, $y) { $flag = true; $xw = $x + $file->get_width();; $yh = $y + $file->get_height(); for ($i = $x; $i < $xw; $i++) { for ($j = $y; $j < $yh; $j++) { if ($bin[$i][$j] !== 0) { $flag = false; break; } } if (!$flag) break; } return $flag; }

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• VPN in Ubuntu fails every time

  - by fazpas

  I am trying to setup a vpn connection in Ubuntu 10.04 to use the service from relakks.com I used the network manager to add the vpn connection and the settings are: Gateway: pptp.relakks.com Username: user Password: pwd IPv4 Settings: Automatic (VPN) Advanced: MSCHAP & MSCHAPv2 checked Use point-to-point encryption (security:default) Allow BSD data compression checked Allow deflate data compression checked Use TCP header compression checked The connection always fail, here is the syslog: Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> Starting VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp'... Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp' started (org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp), PID 2064 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp' just appeared, activating connections Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN plugin state changed: 3 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN connection 'Relakks' (Connect) reply received. Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pppd[2067]: Plugin /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.5//nm-pptp-pppd-plugin.so loaded. Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pppd[2067]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: SCPlugin-Ifupdown: devices added (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp1, iface: ppp1) Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: SCPlugin-Ifupdown: device added (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp1, iface: ppp1): no ifupdown configuration found. Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pppd[2067]: Using interface ppp1 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pppd[2067]: Connect: ppp1 <--> /dev/pts/0 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pptp[2071]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[main:pptp.c:314]: The synchronous pptp option is NOT activated Jun 27 20:11:57 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_rep:pptp_ctrl.c:251]: Sent control packet type is 1 'Start-Control-Connection-Request' Jun 27 20:11:58 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:739]: Received Start Control Connection Reply Jun 27 20:11:58 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:773]: Client connection established. Jun 27 20:11:58 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_rep:pptp_ctrl.c:251]: Sent control packet type is 7 'Outgoing-Call-Request' Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:858]: Received Outgoing Call Reply. Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:897]: Outgoing call established (call ID 0, peer's call ID 1024). Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop kernel: [ 56.564074] Inbound IN=ppp0 OUT= MAC= SRC=93.182.139.2 DST=186.110.76.26 LEN=61 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=52 ID=40460 DF PROTO=47 Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop kernel: [ 56.944054] Inbound IN=ppp0 OUT= MAC= SRC=93.182.139.2 DST=186.110.76.26 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=52 ID=40461 DF PROTO=47 Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[pptp_read_some:pptp_ctrl.c:544]: read returned zero, peer has closed Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[callmgr_main:pptp_callmgr.c:258]: Closing connection (shutdown) Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_rep:pptp_ctrl.c:251]: Sent control packet type is 12 'Call-Clear-Request' Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[pptp_read_some:pptp_ctrl.c:544]: read returned zero, peer has closed Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[call_callback:pptp_callmgr.c:79]: Closing connection (call state) Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pppd[2067]: Modem hangup Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pppd[2067]: Connection terminated. Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN plugin failed: 1 Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop NetworkManager: SCPlugin-Ifupdown: devices removed (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp1, iface: ppp1) Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pppd[2067]: Exit. Does someone can identify something in the syslog? I've been googling and reading about pptp but couldn't find anything about the error "read returned zero, peer has closed"

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• Recommendations for distributed processing/distributed storage systems

  - by Eddie

  At my organization we have a processing and storage system spread across two dozen linux machines that handles over a petabyte of data. The system right now is very ad-hoc; processing automation and data management is handled by a collection of large perl programs on independent machines. I am looking at distributed processing and storage systems to make it easier to maintain, evenly distribute load and data with replication, and grow in disk space and compute power. The system needs to be able to handle millions of files, varying in size between 50 megabytes to 50 gigabytes. Once created, the files will not be appended to, only replaced completely if need be. The files need to be accessible via HTTP for customer download. Right now, processing is automated by perl scripts (that I have complete control over) which call a series of other programs (that I don't have control over because they are closed source) that essentially transforms one data set into another. No data mining happening here. Here is a quick list of things I am looking for: Reliability: These data must be accessible over HTTP about 99% of the time so I need something that does data replication across the cluster. Scalability: I want to be able to add more processing power and storage easily and rebalance the data on across the cluster. Distributed processing: Easy and automatic job scheduling and load balancing that fits with processing workflow I briefly described above. Data location awareness: Not strictly required but desirable. Since data and processing will be on the same set of nodes I would like the job scheduler to schedule jobs on or close to the node that the data is actually on to cut down on network traffic. Here is what I've looked at so far: Storage Management: GlusterFS: Looks really nice and easy to use but doesn't seem to have a way to figure out what node(s) a file actually resides on to supply as a hint to the job scheduler. GPFS: Seems like the gold standard of clustered filesystems. Meets most of my requirements except, like glusterfs, data location awareness. Ceph: Seems way to immature right now. Distributed processing: Sun Grid Engine: I have a lot of experience with this and it's relatively easy to use (once it is configured properly that is). But Oracle got its icy grip around it and it no longer seems very desirable. Both: Hadoop/HDFS: At first glance it looked like hadoop was perfect for my situation. Distributed storage and job scheduling and it was the only thing I found that would give me the data location awareness that I wanted. But I don't like the namename being a single point of failure. Also, I'm not really sure if the MapReduce paradigm fits the type of processing workflow that I have. It seems like you need to write all your software specifically for MapReduce instead of just using Hadoop as a generic job scheduler. OpenStack: I've done some reading on this but I'm having trouble deciding if it fits well with my problem or not. Does anyone have opinions or recommendations for technologies that would fit my problem well? Any suggestions or advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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• I cut-to-move DCIM folder to ext SD when an auto android OS update popped up b4 I could choose target - Cannot recover 200+ photos

  - by ZeroG

  I was downloading my Exhibit II's DCIM camera folder (with month's of photos inside) to its external SD card, in order to transfer them into my laptop. In my overconfidence, I hurriedly chose cut-to-move (rather than copy-to-move) when KABOOM! —an automatic Android OS update popped up before I could choose the target!!! I figured everything was in cache & calmly tried to go through with the update. But that was not a typically seamless event. It showed downloading icon but hmm… since I rooted the phone it brought the command line up & recovery sequence. But neither Android nor I had yet downloaded any alternate custom ROM Files to internal SD to update from! So were they trying to make me unroot my phone by giving me some bogus update on the fly or just give me a hard time in trying to hand me down an unrooted ROM that I'd have to figure out how to root again? Yes, I know there was that blurb about overwriting a file of the same name but I was trying to shake the darn stubborn update being forced on my phone during this precarious moment. I thought I had frozen or turned off all those auto-updates previously. Anyway, phones are small & fingers are big (sigh)... I tried to reboot into safe mode but the resultant photo file was partially overwritten (200 files had names but Zero bytes in them). I thought maybe it was still hung in cache or deposited somewhere else but I have searched everywhere with file managers. Since I did not have Titanium backing up camera, photo folder or gallery, I cannot recover 200+ photos. Dumb. You can understand my dilemma as I am involved in the arts & although just a camera phone, most of these photos were historic & aesthetic or at least as to subject matter. Photo-ops don't reoccur. I have tried a couple of recovery apps from the market like Search Duplicates & Recover to no avail. I was only able to salvage stuff I'd sent out in messages. I've got several decades in computers & this is such a miserable beginner's piece of bad luck I can't believe it happened to me. They were precious photos! Yes, I turned on Titanium since & yes I even tried USB to laptop recoveries. Being on a MacBookPro I'm trying androidfiletransfer.dmg, but I'd have to upgrade to Peach Sunrise to get above Android 3.0 for that App to recognize the phone via USB & the programmer says installation zeros your data, so that pretty much toasts any secret hidden places where these photos may have been deposited. Don't want to do that & am still trying to find them. They certainly didn't make it to my external SD Card. If any of you techies out there know anything, please help & thanks. Despite decades of being in computing, unfamiliar & ever-changing hard or software can humble even the most seasoned veterans.

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• VPN in Ubuntu fails every time

  - by fazpas

  I am trying to setup a vpn connection in Ubuntu 10.04 to use the service from relakks.com I used the network manager to add the vpn connection and the settings are: Gateway: pptp.relakks.com Username: user Password: pwd IPv4 Settings: Automatic (VPN) Advanced: MSCHAP & MSCHAPv2 checked Use point-to-point encryption (security:default) Allow BSD data compression checked Allow deflate data compression checked Use TCP header compression checked The connection always fail, here is the syslog: Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> Starting VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp'... Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp' started (org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp), PID 2064 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN service 'org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.pptp' just appeared, activating connections Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN plugin state changed: 3 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN connection 'Relakks' (Connect) reply received. Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pppd[2067]: Plugin /usr/lib/pppd/2.4.5//nm-pptp-pppd-plugin.so loaded. Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pppd[2067]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: SCPlugin-Ifupdown: devices added (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp1, iface: ppp1) Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop NetworkManager: SCPlugin-Ifupdown: device added (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp1, iface: ppp1): no ifupdown configuration found. Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pppd[2067]: Using interface ppp1 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pppd[2067]: Connect: ppp1 <--> /dev/pts/0 Jun 27 20:11:56 desktop pptp[2071]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[main:pptp.c:314]: The synchronous pptp option is NOT activated Jun 27 20:11:57 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_rep:pptp_ctrl.c:251]: Sent control packet type is 1 'Start-Control-Connection-Request' Jun 27 20:11:58 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:739]: Received Start Control Connection Reply Jun 27 20:11:58 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:773]: Client connection established. Jun 27 20:11:58 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_rep:pptp_ctrl.c:251]: Sent control packet type is 7 'Outgoing-Call-Request' Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:858]: Received Outgoing Call Reply. Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_disp:pptp_ctrl.c:897]: Outgoing call established (call ID 0, peer's call ID 1024). Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop kernel: [ 56.564074] Inbound IN=ppp0 OUT= MAC= SRC=93.182.139.2 DST=186.110.76.26 LEN=61 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=52 ID=40460 DF PROTO=47 Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop kernel: [ 56.944054] Inbound IN=ppp0 OUT= MAC= SRC=93.182.139.2 DST=186.110.76.26 LEN=60 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=52 ID=40461 DF PROTO=47 Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[pptp_read_some:pptp_ctrl.c:544]: read returned zero, peer has closed Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[callmgr_main:pptp_callmgr.c:258]: Closing connection (shutdown) Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[ctrlp_rep:pptp_ctrl.c:251]: Sent control packet type is 12 'Call-Clear-Request' Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[pptp_read_some:pptp_ctrl.c:544]: read returned zero, peer has closed Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pptp[2079]: nm-pptp-service-2064 log[call_callback:pptp_callmgr.c:79]: Closing connection (call state) Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pppd[2067]: Modem hangup Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pppd[2067]: Connection terminated. Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop NetworkManager: <info> VPN plugin failed: 1 Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop NetworkManager: SCPlugin-Ifupdown: devices removed (path: /sys/devices/virtual/net/ppp1, iface: ppp1) Jun 27 20:11:59 desktop pppd[2067]: Exit. Does someone can identify something in the syslog? I've been googling and reading about pptp but couldn't find anything about the error "read returned zero, peer has closed"

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• Cannot get official CentOS 5.4 BIND package to start

  - by Brian Cline

  Yesterday I installed CentOS 5.4 on one of my servers, and it appears that the official BIND/named package has trouble starting for reasons I cannot deduce. Here is what happens: [root@hal init.d]# service named start Starting named: Error in named configuration: /etc/named.conf:57: open: named.root.hints: permission denied [FAILED] The line in question, with the directory option for context: // further up in the file: directory "/var/named"; // line 57: include "named.root.hints"; Like you, my first reaction was to check permissions on /var/named/named.root.hints, /var/named, and /var to make sure the named user would be able to read it. Here are the permissions at each level: drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 4096 Nov 3 02:05 var drwxr-x--- 5 root named 4096 Nov 3 02:36 named -rw-r--r-- 1 named named 524 Mar 29 2006 named.root.hints Everything appears to be fine permission-wise. The same error occurs if the /var/named directory is writable by the named user. I've even temporarily allowed the named user to log in via bash, su'ed from root to named, and checked that I was, in fact, able to cat /var/named/named.root.hints successfully. (Yes, don't worry: I changed the shell back to nologin). My last endeavor showed that BIND is able to run under the named user account and start up just fine, if done so manually: [root@hal ~]# named -u named -g 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.021 starting BIND 9.3.6-P1-RedHat-9.3.6-4.P1.el5 -u named -g 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.021 adjusted limit on open files from 1024 to 1048576 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.021 found 2 CPUs, using 2 worker threads 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.021 using up to 4096 sockets 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.028 loading configuration from '/etc/named.conf' 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.030 using default UDP/IPv4 port range: [1024, 65535] 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.031 using default UDP/IPv6 port range: [1024, 65535] 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.034 listening on IPv4 interface lo, 127.0.0.1#53 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.034 listening on IPv4 interface eth0, 10.0.0.5#53 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.034 listening on IPv4 interface eth1, ww.xx.yy.zz#53 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.040 command channel listening on 127.0.0.1#953 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.040 command channel listening on ::1#953 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.040 ignoring config file logging statement due to -g option 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.041 zone 0.in-addr.arpa/IN/localhost_resolver: loaded serial 42 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.042 zone 0.0.127.in-addr.arpa/IN/localhost_resolver: loaded serial 1997022700 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.042 zone 255.in-addr.arpa/IN/localhost_resolver: loaded serial 42 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.042 zone 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.ip6.arpa/IN/localhost_resolver: loaded serial 1997022700 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.043 zone localdomain/IN/localhost_resolver: loaded serial 42 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.043 zone localhost/IN/localhost_resolver: loaded serial 42 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.043 zone x.y.z.in-addr.arpa/IN/internal: loaded serial 1 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.044 zone x.y.z/IN/internal: loaded serial 2 03-Nov-2009 16:31:02.045 running What type and size of firearm should I use to resolve this? I'd prefer something with automatic ammunition, and, at worst, it should be able to fit on my shoulder. Of course I am open to suggestions.

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• Site-to-site VPN using MD5 instead of SHA and getting regular disconnection

  - by Steven

  We are experiencing some strange behavior with a site-to-site IPsec VPN that goes down about every week for 30 minutes (Iam told 30 minutes exactly). I don't have access to the logs, so it's difficult to troubleshoot. What is also strange is that the two VPN devices are set to use SHA hash algorithm but apparently end up agreeing to use MD5. Does anybody have a clue? or is this just insufficient information? Edit: Here is an extract of the log of one of the two VPN devices, which is a Cisco 3000 series VPN concentrator. 27981 03/08/2010 10:02:16.290 SEV=4 IKE/41 RPT=16120 xxxxxxxx IKE Initiator: New Phase 1, Intf 2, IKE Peer xxxxxxxx local Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, remote Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, SA (L2L: 1A) 27983 03/08/2010 10:02:56.930 SEV=4 IKE/41 RPT=16121 xxxxxxxx IKE Initiator: New Phase 1, Intf 2, IKE Peer xxxxxxxx local Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, remote Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, SA (L2L: 1A) 27986 03/08/2010 10:03:35.370 SEV=4 IKE/41 RPT=16122 xxxxxxxx IKE Initiator: New Phase 1, Intf 2, IKE Peer xxxxxxxx local Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, remote Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, SA (L2L: 1A) [… same continues for another 15 minutes …] 28093 03/08/2010 10:19:46.710 SEV=4 IKE/41 RPT=16140 xxxxxxxx IKE Initiator: New Phase 1, Intf 2, IKE Peer xxxxxxxx local Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, remote Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, SA (L2L: 1A) 28096 03/08/2010 10:20:17.720 SEV=5 IKE/172 RPT=1291 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] Automatic NAT Detection Status: Remote end is NOT behind a NAT device This end IS behind a NAT device 28100 03/08/2010 10:20:17.820 SEV=3 IKE/134 RPT=79 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] Mismatch: Configured LAN-to-LAN proposal differs from negotiated proposal. Verify local and remote LAN-to-LAN connection lists. 28103 03/08/2010 10:20:17.820 SEV=4 IKE/119 RPT=1197 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] PHASE 1 COMPLETED 28104 03/08/2010 10:20:17.820 SEV=4 AUTH/22 RPT=1031 xxxxxxxx User [xxxxxxxx] Group [xxxxxxxx] connected, Session Type: IPSec/LAN- to-LAN 28106 03/08/2010 10:20:17.820 SEV=4 AUTH/84 RPT=39 LAN-to-LAN tunnel to headend device xxxxxxxx connected 28110 03/08/2010 10:20:17.920 SEV=5 IKE/25 RPT=1291 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] Received remote Proxy Host data in ID Payload: Address xxxxxxxx, Protocol 0, Port 0 28113 03/08/2010 10:20:17.920 SEV=5 IKE/24 RPT=88 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] Received local Proxy Host data in ID Payload: Address xxxxxxxx, Protocol 0, Port 0 28116 03/08/2010 10:20:17.920 SEV=5 IKE/66 RPT=1290 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] IKE Remote Peer configured for SA: L2L: 1A 28117 03/08/2010 10:20:17.930 SEV=5 IKE/25 RPT=1292 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] Received remote Proxy Host data in ID Payload: Address xxxxxxxx, Protocol 0, Port 0 28120 03/08/2010 10:20:17.930 SEV=5 IKE/24 RPT=89 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] Received local Proxy Host data in ID Payload: Address xxxxxxxx, Protocol 0, Port 0 28123 03/08/2010 10:20:17.930 SEV=5 IKE/66 RPT=1291 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] IKE Remote Peer configured for SA: L2L: 1A 28124 03/08/2010 10:20:18.070 SEV=4 IKE/173 RPT=17330 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] NAT-Traversal successfully negotiated! IPSec traffic will be encapsulated to pass through NAT devices. 28127 03/08/2010 10:20:18.070 SEV=4 IKE/49 RPT=17332 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] Security negotiation complete for LAN-to-LAN Group (xxxxxxxx) Responder, Inbound SPI = 0x56a4fe5c, Outbound SPI = 0xcdfc3892 28130 03/08/2010 10:20:18.070 SEV=4 IKE/120 RPT=17332 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] PHASE 2 COMPLETED (msgid=37b3b298) 28131 03/08/2010 10:20:18.750 SEV=4 IKE/41 RPT=16141 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] IKE Initiator: New Phase 2, Intf 2, IKE Peer xxxxxxxx local Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, remote Proxy Address xxxxxxxx, SA (L2L: 1A) 28135 03/08/2010 10:20:18.870 SEV=4 IKE/173 RPT=17331 xxxxxxxx Group [xxxxxxxx] NAT-Traversal successfully negotiated! IPSec traffic will be encapsulated to pass through NAT devices.

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• Wordpress Permissions OS X & MAMP

  - by Matt2020

  I have installed several local versions of Wordpress for development purposes. After the install I can create posts, pages and edit admin options. However as soon as try to upload images which would be saved in wp_content/uploads I get an error: Upload Error: Unable to create directory ...../blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05. Is its parent directory writable by the server? Looks like MAMP server runs as user _www The blog directory is owned by User1 and the group User1 _www is not in the User1 group, should it be? I do not want to chmod 777 or 765 on the directories just to get it going. Googled up a couple of references: http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions in "Permission Scheme for WordPress" All files should be owned by your user (ftp) account on your web server, and should be writable by that account. On shared hosts, files should never be owned by the webserver process itself (sometimes this is www, or apache, or nobody user). Any file that needs write access from WordPress should be owned or group-owned by the user account used by the WordPress (which may be different than the server account). For example, you may have a user account that lets you FTP files back and forth to your server, but your server itself may run using a separate user, in a separate usergroup, such as dhapache or nobody. If WordPress is running as the FTP account, that account needs to have write access, i.e., be the owner of the files, or belong to a group that has write access. In the latter case, that would mean permissions are set more permissively than default (for example, 775 rather than 755 for folders, and 664 instead of 644). User and group are User1 (which is admin). Running "ps aux | grep httpd" is running as _www So I think this means Wordpress is running as user _www. So the advice seems contradictory: "files should never be owned by the webserver process" i.e. _www but then later it says "Any file that needs write access from WordPress should be owned or group-owned by the user account used by the WordPress" So isn't this _www again? Another search found this url http://dancingengineer.com/computing/2009/07/how-to-install-wordpress-on-mac-os-x-leopard States Which says: My preferred way to do this is to change the group of the wordpress directory and its contents to _www and give write permissions to the group. Keep the owner as your "username". $ cd /Users/"username"/Sites $ sudo chown -R username:_www wordpress_directory $ sudo chmod -R g+w wordpress_directory However, when I tried this, it did not work for automatic upgrades to newer versions of WordPress although it worked for automatically updating the .htaccess file for pretty permalinks. It is not entirely clear to me what should be done. This last suggestion seems to be saying change the group from User1 to _www and give the group write access, but Wordpress upgrades won't work. Is this the right solution? I would have thought there would be a clear way to set this up on OS X 10.6? Be great if there was a plugin that could run a script for each of the main OS's that Wordpress runs on.

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• What NAS setup for two-way syncing over the internet?

  - by Jamse

  I have family living a few hours away and have a lot of files that I would like to share - especially lots of folders of digital photos, but also documents etc. - partially so they can see them, partially so I can have access when I visit them and partially for backup / redundancy purposes. My current hard drives on my main machine are getting pretty full anyway, and I have a MythTV box where my music is currently stored, so I was thinking of getting a NAS anyway. And at the other end my family have a few computers, so they would probably benefit from a NAS too. My general idea (though I'm willing to shift on this if there are any bright ideas about other ways of achieving my objectives) is to get a matching pair of NASs and have them sync over the internet. (To cut down on bandwidth use I would get them in sync locally to start with.) Having read around as best I can it seems that syncing over the internet is generally only a feature on quite high end units. However, I have seen that QNAP seem to feature this on their TS-110 and TS-210 units, which might work (they call it "remote replication"). They seem pretty reasonably priced for what they are, but of course with buying 2 of them and then adding the drives (say 1TB or 2TB each) I'd be looking at about £400 total. So, I'm looking for recommendations really. I don't want to spend more than the QNAPs would cost me, but any other ideas would be most appreciated. I am comfortable with technology and tinkering around, but I don't have as much time for that as I would like, so I guess I would favour solutions that require less tinkering rather than more (even though that's less fun!). Any thoughts would be welcome, as would any comments from people who have used the QNAP boxes for this. Thanks in advance. Some specifications: Two-way syncing. Changes made at either end should be synced to the other. There shouldn't be one unit that is effectively a read-only mirror of the other. Not real time. The syncing doesn't need to be real time - if it updated, say, daily overnight that would be fine. Set and forget. I would prefer minimal user interaction once set up - it would be great if syncs were scheduled and automatic. OS independence. I am running Windows XP plus an Ubuntu-based MythTV box. At the other end there are Windows 7 and Windows XP machines, plus a networked TV set top box which I think can play files off the network. Machine independence. I would favour a system that is self-contained, i.e. not reliant on any particular PC being switched on. If the system had enough else going for it I could perhaps work around it at this end, where I only have one PC that's used as such, but it would be harder at the other where there are at least two PCs that might be accessing the files. Notifications. I guess things like getting an email notification if the syncing fell over for any reason would be useful, though it's not a deal breaker. Update I've been digging some more and it looks like QNAP's Remote Replication function is actually just Rsync, so only really suitable for one-way syncing. I've posted on their forum to double check, but I think that's the case. In which case, I think the focus of my question is now either: do any reasonably-priced NASs support bidirectional syncing over the internet?, or has anyone had any luck installing onto NASs for this purpose? (Also, updated question to clarify that I'm after two-way syncing.)

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• What NAS setup for syncing over the internet?

  - by Jamse

  I have family living a few hours away and have a lot of files that I would like to share - especially lots of folders of digital photos, but also documents etc. - partially so they can see them, partially so I can have access when I visit them and partially for backup / redundancy purposes. My current hard drives on my main machine are getting pretty full anyway, and I have a MythTV box where my music is currently stored, so I was thinking of getting a NAS anyway. And at the other end my family have a few computers, so they would probably benefit from a NAS too. My general idea (though I'm willing to shift on this if there are any bright ideas about other ways of achieving my objectives) is to get a matching pair of NASs and have them sync over the internet. (To cut down on bandwidth use I would get them in sync locally to start with.) Having read around as best I can it seems that syncing over the internet is generally only a feature on quite high end units. However, I have seen that QNAP seem to feature this on their TS-110 and TS-210 units, which might work (they call it "remote replication"). They seem pretty reasonably priced for what they are, but of course with buying 2 of them and then adding the drives (say 1TB or 2TB each) I'd be looking at about £400 total. So, I'm looking for recommendations really. I don't want to spend more than the QNAPs would cost me, but any other ideas would be most appreciated. I am comfortable with technology and tinkering around, but I don't have as much time for that as I would like, so I guess I would favour solutions that require less tinkering rather than more (even though that's less fun!). Any thoughts would be welcome, as would any comments from people who have used the QNAP boxes for this. Thanks in advance. Some specifications: Two-way syncing. Changes made at either end should be synced to the other. There shouldn't be one unit that is effectively a read-only mirror of the other. Not real time. The syncing doesn't need to be real time - if it updated, say, daily overnight that would be fine. Set and forget. I would prefer minimal user interaction once set up - it would be great if syncs were scheduled and automatic. OS independence. I am running Windows XP plus an Ubuntu-based MythTV box. At the other end there are Windows 7 and Windows XP machines, plus a networked TV set top box which I think can play files off the network. Machine independence. I would favour a system that is self-contained, i.e. not reliant on any particular PC being switched on. If the system had enough else going for it I could perhaps work around it at this end, where I only have one PC that's used as such, but it would be harder at the other where there are at least two PCs that might be accessing the files. Notifications. I guess things like getting an email notification if the syncing fell over for any reason would be useful, though it's not a deal breaker.

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• Where is my VMware-ws FreeNAS CIFS(ZFS) bottle-neck?

  - by maka

  Background: I'm building a quiet HTPC + NAS that is also supposed to be used for general computer usage. I'm so far generally happy with things, it was just that I was expecting a little better IO performance. I have no clue if my expectations are unreal. The NAS is there as a general purpose file storage and as a media server for XBMC and other devices. ZFS is a requirement. Question: Where is my bottle-neck, and is there anything I can do config wise, to improve my performance? I'm thinking VM-disk settings could be something but I really have no idea where to go since I'm neither experienced with FreeNAS nor VMware-WS. Tests: When I'm on the host OS and copy files (from the SSD) to the CIFS share, I get around 30 Mbytes/sec read and write. When I'm on my laptop laptop, wired to the network, I get about the same specs. The test I've done are with a 16 GB ISO, and with about 200 MB of RARs and I've tried avoiding the RAM-cache by reading different files than the ones I'm writing ( 10 GB). It feels like having less CPU cores is a lot more efficient, since the resource manager in Windows reports less CPU-usage. With 4 cores in VMware, CPU usage was 50-80%, with 1 core it was 25-60%. EDIT: HD ActiveTime was quite high on SSD so I moved the page file, disabled hibernate and enabled Win DiskCache both on SSD and RAID. This resulted in no real performance difference for one file, but if i transferred 2 files the total speed went up to 50 Mbytes/s vs ~40. The ActiveTime avg also went down a lot (to ~20%) but has now higher bursts. DiskIO is on ~ 30-35 Mbytes/s avgs, with ~100Mb bursts. Network is on 200-250Mbits/s with ~45 active TCP connections. Hardware Asus F2A85-M Pro A10-5700 16GB DDR3 1600 OCZ Vertex 2 128GB SSD 2x Generic 1tb 7200 RPM drives as RAID0 (in win7) Intel Gigabit Desktop CT Software Host OS: Win7 (SSD) VMware Worksation 9 (SSD) FreeNAS 8.3 VM (20GB VDisk on SSD) CPU: I've tried 1, 2 and 4 cores. Virtualisation engine, Preferred mode: Automatic 10,24Gb ram 50Gb SCSI VDisk on the RAID0, VDisk is formatted as ZFS and exposed through CIFS through FreeNAS. NIC Bridge, Replicate physical network state Below are two typical process print-outs while I'm transfering one file to the CIFS share. last pid: 2707; load averages: 0.60, 0.43, 0.24 up 0+00:07:05 00:34:26 32 processes: 2 running, 30 sleeping Mem: 101M Active, 53M Inact, 1620M Wired, 2188K Cache, 149M Buf, 8117M Free Swap: 4096M Total, 4096M Free PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU COMMAND 2640 root 1 102 0 50164K 10364K RUN 0:25 25.98% smbd 1897 root 6 44 0 168M 74808K uwait 0:02 0.00% python last pid: 2746; load averages: 0.93, 0.60, 0.33 up 0+00:08:53 00:36:14 33 processes: 2 running, 31 sleeping Mem: 101M Active, 53M Inact, 4722M Wired, 2188K Cache, 152M Buf, 5015M Free Swap: 4096M Total, 4096M Free PID USERNAME THR PRI NICE SIZE RES STATE TIME WCPU COMMAND 2640 root 1 76 0 50164K 10364K RUN 0:52 16.99% smbd 1897 root 6 44 0 168M 74816K uwait 0:02 0.00% python I'm sorry if my question isn't phrased right, I'm really bad at these kind of things, and it is the first time I post here at SU. I also appreciate any other suggestions to something, I could have missed.

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• Ajax Control Toolkit Now Supports jQuery

  - by Stephen.Walther

  I’m excited to announce the September 2013 release of the Ajax Control Toolkit, which now supports building new Ajax Control Toolkit controls with jQuery. You can download the latest release of the Ajax Control Toolkit from http://AjaxControlToolkit.CodePlex.com or you can install the Ajax Control Toolkit directly within Visual Studio by executing the following NuGet command: The New jQuery Extender Base Class This release of the Ajax Control Toolkit introduces a new jQueryExtender base class. This new base class enables you to create Ajax Control Toolkit controls with jQuery instead of the Microsoft Ajax Library. Currently, only one control in the Ajax Control Toolkit has been rewritten to use the new jQueryExtender base class (only one control has been jQueryized). The ToggleButton control is the first of the Ajax Control Toolkit controls to undergo this dramatic transformation. All of the other controls in the Ajax Control Toolkit are written using the Microsoft Ajax Library. We hope to gradually rewrite these controls as jQuery controls over time. You can view the new jQuery ToggleButton live at the Ajax Control Toolkit sample site: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/ToggleButton/ToggleButton.aspx Why are we rewriting Ajax Control Toolkits with jQuery? There are very few developers actively working with the Microsoft Ajax Library while there are thousands of developers actively working with jQuery. Because we want talented developers in the community to continue to contribute to the Ajax Control Toolkit, and because almost all JavaScript developers are familiar with jQuery, it makes sense to support jQuery with the Ajax Control Toolkit. Also, we believe that the Ajax Control Toolkit is a great framework for Web Forms developers who want to build new ASP.NET controls that use JavaScript. The Ajax Control Toolkit has great features such as automatic bundling, minification, caching, and compression. We want to make it easy for ASP.NET developers to build new controls that take advantage of these features. Instantiating Controls with data-* Attributes We took advantage of the new JQueryExtender base class to change the way that Ajax Control Toolkit controls are instantiated. In the past, adding an Ajax Control Toolkit to a page resulted in inline JavaScript being injected into the page. For example, adding the ToggleButton control to a page injected the following HTML and script: <input id="ctl00_SampleContent_CheckBox1" name="ctl00$SampleContent$CheckBox1" type="checkbox" checked="checked" /> <script type="text/javascript"> //<![CDATA[ Sys.Application.add_init(function() { $create(Sys.Extended.UI.ToggleButtonBehavior, {"CheckedImageAlternateText":"Check", "CheckedImageUrl":"ToggleButton_Checked.gif", "ImageHeight":19, "ImageWidth":19, "UncheckedImageAlternateText":"UnCheck", "UncheckedImageUrl":"ToggleButton_Unchecked.gif", "id":"ctl00_SampleContent_ToggleButtonExtender1"}, null, null, $get("ctl00_SampleContent_CheckBox1")); }); //]]> </script> Notice the call to the JavaScript $create() method at the bottom of the page. When using the Microsoft Ajax Library, this call to the $create() method is necessary to create the Ajax Control Toolkit control. This inline script looks pretty ugly to a modern JavaScript developer. Inline script! Horrible! The jQuery version of the ToggleButton injects the following HTML and script into the page: <input id="ctl00_SampleContent_CheckBox1" name="ctl00$SampleContent$CheckBox1" type="checkbox" checked="checked" data-act-togglebuttonextender="imageWidth:19, imageHeight:19, uncheckedImageUrl:'ToggleButton_Unchecked.gif', checkedImageUrl:'ToggleButton_Checked.gif', uncheckedImageAlternateText:'I don&#39;t understand why you don&#39;t like ASP.NET', checkedImageAlternateText:'It&#39;s really nice to hear from you that you like ASP.NET'" /> Notice that there is no script! There is no call to the $create() method. In fact, there is no inline JavaScript at all. The jQuery version of the ToggleButton uses an HTML5 data-* attribute instead of an inline script. The ToggleButton control is instantiated with a data-act-togglebuttonextender attribute. Using data-* attributes results in much cleaner markup (You don’t need to feel embarrassed when selecting View Source in your browser). Ajax Control Toolkit versus jQuery So in a jQuery world why is the Ajax Control Toolkit needed at all? Why not just use jQuery plugins instead of the Ajax Control Toolkit? For example, there are lots of jQuery ToggleButton plugins floating around the Internet. Why not just use one of these jQuery plugins instead of using the Ajax Control Toolkit ToggleButton control? There are three main reasons why the Ajax Control Toolkit continues to be valuable in a jQuery world: Ajax Control Toolkit controls run on both the server and client jQuery plugins are client only. A jQuery plugin does not include any server-side code. If you need to perform any work on the server – think of the AjaxFileUpload control – then you can’t use a pure jQuery solution. Ajax Control Toolkit controls provide a better Visual Studio experience You don’t get any design time experience when you use jQuery plugins within Visual Studio. Ajax Control Toolkit controls, on the other hand, are designed to work with Visual Studio. For example, you can use the Visual Studio Properties window to set Ajax Control Toolkit control properties. Ajax Control Toolkit controls shield you from working with JavaScript I like writing code in JavaScript. However, not all developers like JavaScript and some developers want to completely avoid writing any JavaScript code at all. The Ajax Control Toolkit enables you to take advantage of JavaScript (and the latest features of HTML5) in your ASP.NET Web Forms websites without writing a single line of JavaScript. Better ToolkitScriptManager Documentation With this release, we have added more detailed documentation for using the ToolkitScriptManager. In particular, we added documentation that describes how to take advantage of the new bundling, minification, compression, and caching features of the Ajax Control Toolkit. The ToolkitScriptManager documentation is part of the Ajax Control Toolkit sample site and it can be read here: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/ToolkitScriptManager/ToolkitScriptManager.aspx Other Fixes This release of the Ajax Control Toolkit includes several important bug fixes. For example, the Ajax Control Toolkit Twitter control was completely rewritten with this release. Twitter is in the process of retiring the first version of their API. You can read about their plans here: https://dev.twitter.com/blog/planning-for-api-v1-retirement We completely rewrote the Ajax Control Toolkit Twitter control to use the new Twitter API. To take advantage of the new Twitter API, you must get a key and access token from Twitter and add the key and token to your web.config file. Detailed instructions for using the new version of the Ajax Control Toolkit Twitter control can be found here: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/Twitter/Twitter.aspx   Summary We’ve made some really great changes to the Ajax Control Toolkit over the last two releases to modernize the toolkit. In the previous release, we updated the Ajax Control Toolkit to use a better bundling, minification, compression, and caching system. With this release, we updated the Ajax Control Toolkit to support jQuery. We also continue to update the Ajax Control Toolkit with important bug fixes. I hope you like these changes and I look forward to hearing your feedback.

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• WinInet Apps failing when Internet Explorer is set to Offline Mode

  - by Rick Strahl

  Ran into a nasty issue last week when all of a sudden many of my old applications that are using WinInet for HTTP access started failing. Specifically, the WinInet HttpSendRequest() call started failing with an error of 2, which when retrieving the error boils down to: WinInet Error 2: The system cannot find the file specified Now this error can pop up in many legitimate scenarios with WinInet such as when no Internet connection is available or the HTTP configuration (usually configured in Internet Explorer’s options) is misconfigured. The error typically means that the server in question cannot be found or more specifically an Internet connection can’t be established. In this case the problem started suddenly and was causing some of my own applications (old Visual FoxPro apps using my own wwHttp library) and all Adobe Air applications (which apparently uses WinInet for its basic HTTP stack) along with a few more oddball applications to fail instantly when trying to connect via HTTP. Most other applications – all of my installed browsers, email clients, various social network updaters all worked just fine. It seems it was only WinInet apps that were failing. Yet oddly Internet Explorer appeared to be working. So the problem seemed to be isolated to those ‘classic’ applications using WinInet. WinInet’s base configuration uses the Internet Explorer options dialog. To check this out I typically go to the Internet Explorer options and find the Connection tab, and check out the LAN Setup. Make sure there are no rogue proxy settings or configuration scripts that are invalid. Trying with Auto-configuration on and off also can often fix ‘real’ configuration errors. This time however this wasn’t a problem – nothing in the LAN configuration was set (all default). I also played with the Automatic detection of settings which also had no effect. I also tried to use Fiddler to see if that would tell me something. Fiddler has a few additional WinInet configuration options in its configuration. Running Fiddler and hitting an HTTP request using WinInet would never actually hit Fiddler – the failure would occur before WinInet ever fired up the HTTP connection to go through the Fiddler HTTP proxy. And the Culprit is: Internet Explorer’s Work Offline Option The culprit in this situation was Internet Explorer which at some point, unknown to me switched into Offline Mode and was then shut down: When this Offline mode is checked when IE is running *or* if IE gets shut down with this flag set, all applications using WinInet by default assume that it’s running in offline mode. Depending on your caching HTTP headers and whether the page was cached previously you may or may not get a response or an error. For an independent non-browser application this will be highly unpredictable and likely result in failures getting online – especially if the application forces requests to always reload by disabling HTTP caching (as I do on most of my dynamic HTTP clients). What makes this especially tricky is that even when IE is in offline mode in the browser, you can still browse around the Web *if* you have a connection. IE will try to load anything it has cached from the local cache, but as soon as you hit a URL that isn’t cached it will automatically try to access that URL and uncheck the Work Offline option. Conversely if you get knocked off the Internet and browse in IE 9, IE will automatically go into offline mode. I never explicitly set offline mode – it just automatically sets itself on and off depending on the connection. Problem is if you’re not using IE all the time (as I do – rarely and just for testing so usually a few commonly used URLs) and you left it in offline mode when you exit, offline mode stays set which results in the above head scratcher. Ack. This isn’t new behavior in IE 9 BTW – this behavior has always been there, but I think what’s different is that IE now automatically switches between online and offline modes without notifying you at all, so it’s hard to tell when you are offline. Fixing the Issue in your Code If you have an application that is using WinInet, there’s a WinInet option called INTERNET_OPTION_IGNORE_OFFLINE. I just checked this out in my own applications and Internet Explorer 9 and it works, but apparently it’s been broken for some older releases (I can’t confirm how far back though) – lots of posts seem to suggest the flag doesn’t work. However, in IE 9 at least it does seem to work if you call InternetSetOption before you call HttpOpenRequest with the Http Session handle. In FoxPro code I use: DECLARE INTEGER InternetSetOption ;    IN WININET.DLL ;    INTEGER HINTERNET,;    INTEGER dwFlags,;    INTEGER @dwValue,;    INTEGER cbSize lnOptionValue = 1   && BOOL TRUE pass by reference   *** Set needed SSL flags lnResult=InternetSetOption(this.hHttpSession,;    INTERNET_OPTION_IGNORE_OFFLINE ,;  && 77    @lnOptionValue ,4)   DECLARE INTEGER HttpOpenRequest ;    IN WININET.DLL ;    INTEGER hHTTPHandle,;    STRING lpzReqMethod,;    STRING lpzPage,;    STRING lpzVersion,;    STRING lpzReferer,;    STRING lpzAcceptTypes,;    INTEGER dwFlags,;    INTEGER dwContextw     hHTTPResult=HttpOpenRequest(THIS.hHttpsession,;    lcVerb,;    tcPage,;    NULL,NULL,NULL,;    INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD + ;    IIF(THIS.lsecurelink,INTERNET_FLAG_SECURE,0) + ;    this.nHTTPServiceFlags,0) …  And this fixes the issue at least for IE 9… In my FoxPro wwHttp class I now call this by default to never get bitten by this again… This solves the problem permanently for my HTTP client. I never want to see offline operation in an HTTP client API – it’s just too unpredictable in handling errors and the last thing you want is getting unpredictably stale data. Problem solved but this behavior is – well ugly. But then that’s to be expected from an API that’s based on Internet Explorer, eh?© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in HTTP  Windows  

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• Cloud MBaaS : The Next Big Thing in Enterprise Mobility

  - by shiju

  In this blog post, I will take a look at Cloud Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) and how we can leverage Cloud based Mobile Backend as a Service for building enterprise mobile apps. Today, mobile apps are incredibly significant in both consumer and enterprise space and the demand for the mobile apps is unbelievably increasing in day to day business. An enterprise can’t survive in business without a proper mobility strategy. A better mobility strategy and faster delivery of your mobile apps will give you an extra mileage for your business and IT strategy. So organizations and mobile developers are looking for different strategy for meeting this demand and adopting different development strategy for their mobile apps. Some developers are adopting hybrid mobile app development platforms, for delivering their products for multiple platforms, for fast time-to-market. Others are adopting a Mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) such as Kony for their enterprise mobile apps for fast time-to-market and better business integration. The Challenges of Enterprise Mobility The real challenge of enterprise mobile apps, is not about creating the front-end environment or developing front-end for multiple platforms. The most important thing of enterprise mobile apps is to expose your enterprise data to mobile devices where the real pain is your business data might be residing in lot of different systems including legacy systems, ERP systems etc., and these systems will be deployed with lot of security restrictions. Exposing your data from the on-premises servers, is not a easy thing for most of the business organizations. Many organizations are spending too much time for their front-end development strategy, but they are really lacking for building a strategy on their back-end for exposing the business data to mobile apps. So building a REST services layer and mobile back-end services, on the top of legacy systems and existing middleware systems, is the key part of most of the enterprise mobile apps, where multiple mobile platforms can easily consume these REST services and other mobile back-end services for building mobile apps. For some mobile apps, we can’t predict its user base, especially for products where customers can gradually increase at any time. And for today’s mobile apps, faster time-to-market is very critical so that spending too much time for mobile app’s scalability, will not be worth. The real power of Cloud is the agility and on-demand scalability, where we can scale-up and scale-down our applications very easily. It would be great if we could use the power of Cloud to mobile apps. So using Cloud for mobile apps is a natural fit, where we can use Cloud as the storage for mobile apps and hosting mechanism for mobile back-end services, where we can enjoy the full power of Cloud with greater level of on-demand scalability and operational agility. So Cloud based Mobile Backend as a Service is great choice for building enterprise mobile apps, where enterprises can enjoy the massive scalability power of their mobile apps, provided by public cloud vendors such as Microsoft Windows Azure. Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) We have discussed the key challenges of enterprise mobile apps and how we can leverage Cloud for hosting mobile backend services. MBaaS is a set of cloud-based, server-side mobile services for multiple mobile platforms and HTML5 platform, which can be used as a backend for your mobile apps with the scalability power of Cloud. The information below provides the key features of a typical MBaaS platform: Cloud based storage for your application data. Automatic REST API services on the application data, for CRUD operations. Native push notification services with massive scalability power. User management services for authenticate users. User authentication via Social accounts such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter. Scheduler services for periodically sending data to mobile devices. Native SDKs for multiple mobile platforms such as Windows Phone and Windows Store, Android, Apple iOS, and HTML5, for easily accessing the mobile services from mobile apps, with better security.  Typically, a MBaaS platform will provide native SDKs for multiple mobile platforms so that we can easily consume the server-side mobile services. MBaaS based REST APIs can use for integrating to enterprise backend systems. We can use the same mobile services for multiple platform so hat we can reuse the application logic to multiple mobile platforms. Public cloud vendors are building the mobile services on the top of their PaaS offerings. Windows Azure Mobile Services is a great platform for a MBaaS offering that is leveraging Windows Azure Cloud platform’s PaaS capabilities. Hybrid mobile development platform Titanium provides their own MBaaS services. LoopBack is a new MBaaS service provided by Node.js consulting firm StrongLoop, which can be hosted on multiple cloud platforms and also for on-premises servers. The Challenges of MBaaS Solutions If you are building your mobile apps with a new data storage, it will be very easy, since there is not any integration challenges you have to face. But most of the use cases, you have to extract your application data in which stored in on-premises servers which might be under VPNs and firewalls. So exposing these data to your MBaaS solution with a proper security would be a big challenge. The capability of your MBaaS vendor is very important as you have to interact with your legacy systems for many enterprise mobile apps. So you should be very careful about choosing for MBaaS vendor. At the same time, you should have a proper strategy for mobilizing your application data which stored in on-premises legacy systems, where your solution architecture and strategy is more important than platforms and tools.  Windows Azure Mobile Services Windows Azure Mobile Services is an MBaaS offerings from Windows Azure cloud platform. IMHO, Microsoft Windows Azure is the best PaaS platform in the Cloud space. Windows Azure Mobile Services extends the PaaS capabilities of Windows Azure, to mobile devices, which can be used as a cloud backend for your mobile apps, which will provide global availability and reach for your mobile apps. Windows Azure Mobile Services provides storage services, user management with social network integration, push notification services and scheduler services and provides native SDKs for all major mobile platforms and HTML5. In Windows Azure Mobile Services, you can write server-side scripts in Node.js where you can enjoy the full power of Node.js including the use of NPM modules for your server-side scripts. In the previous section, we had discussed some challenges of MBaaS solutions. You can leverage Windows Azure Cloud platform for solving many challenges regarding with enterprise mobility. The entire Windows Azure platform can play a key role for working as the backend for your mobile apps where you can leverage the entire Windows Azure platform for your mobile apps. With Windows Azure, you can easily connect to your on-premises systems which is a key thing for mobile backend solutions. Another key point is that Windows Azure provides better integration with services like Active Directory, which makes Windows Azure as the de facto platform for enterprise mobility, for enterprises, who have been leveraging Microsoft ecosystem for their application and IT infrastructure. Windows Azure Mobile Services  is going to next evolution where you can expect some exciting features in near future. One area, where Windows Azure Mobile Services should definitely need an improvement, is about the default storage mechanism in which currently it is depends on SQL Server. IMHO, developers should be able to choose multiple default storage option when creating a new mobile service instance. Let’s say, there should be a different storage providers such as SQL Server storage provider and Table storage provider where developers should be able to choose their choice of storage provider when creating a new mobile services project. I have been used Windows Azure and Windows Azure Mobile Services as the backend for production apps for mobile, where it performed very well. MBaaS Over MEAP Recently, many larger enterprises has been adopted Mobile enterprise application platform (MEAP) for their mobile apps. I haven’t worked on any production MEAP solution, but I heard that developers are really struggling with MEAP in different way. The learning curve for a proprietary MEAP platform is very high. I am completely against for using larger proprietary ecosystem for mobile apps. For enterprise mobile apps, I highly recommend to use native iOS/Android/Windows Phone or HTML5  for front-end with a cloud hosted MBaaS solution as the middleware. A MBaaS service can be consumed from multiple mobile apps where REST APIs are using to integrating with enterprise backend systems. Enterprise mobility should start with exposing REST APIs on the enterprise backend systems and these REST APIs can host on Cloud where we can enjoy the power of Cloud for our services. If you are having REST APIs for your enterprise data, then you can easily build mobile frontends for multiple platforms.   You can follow me on Twitter @shijucv

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