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• Having trouble Getting "RTSP over HTTP"

  - by Muhammad Adeel Zahid

  There is an axis camera that is connected to our site (camba.tv) through axis one click connection component (which acts as proxy). We can communicate with this camera only through http by setting the proxy to our OCCC server's address. If we want to get RTSP streams (h.264) we are only left with "RTSP over HTTP" option. For this I have followed axis VAPIX 3 documentation section 3.3. I issue requests through fiddler but don't get any response. But when i put the URL (axrtsphttp://1.00408CBEA38B/axis-media/media.amp) in windows media player (with proxy set to OCCC server 212.78.237.156:3128) the player is able to get RTSP stream over HTTP after logging in. I have created a request trace of communication between camera and windows media player through wireshark and the request that brings the stream looks like http://1.00408cbea38b/axis-media/media.amp HTTP/1.1 x-sessioncookie: 619 User-Agent: Axis AMC Host: 1.00408CBEA38B Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive Pragma: no-cache Authorization: Digest username="root",realm="AXIS_00408CBEA38B",nonce="000a8b40Y0100409c13ac7e6cceb069289041d8feb1691",uri="/axis-media/media.amp",cnonce="9946e2582bd590418c9b70e1b17956c7",nc=00000001,response="f3cab86fc84bfe33719675848e7fdc0a",qop="auth" HTTP/1.0 200 OK Content-Type: application/x-rtsp-tunnelled Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:45:23 GMT RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 1 Content-Type: application/sdp Content-Base: rtsp://1.00408CBEA38B/axis-media/media.amp/ Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:45:23 GMT Content-Length: 410 v=0 o=- 1288698323798001 1288698323798001 IN IP4 1.00408CBEA38B s=Media Presentation e=NONE c=IN IP4 0.0.0.0 b=AS:50000 t=0 0 a=control:* a=range:npt=0.000000- m=video 0 RTP/AVP 96 b=AS:50000 a=framerate:30.0 a=transform:1,0,0;0,1,0;0,0,1 a=control:trackID=1 a=rtpmap:96 H264/90000 a=fmtp:96 packetization-mode=1; profile-level-id=420029; sprop-parameter-sets=Z0IAKeNQFAe2AtwEBAaQeJEV,aM48gA== RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 2 Session: 3F4763D8; timeout=60 Transport: RTP/AVP/TCP;unicast;interleaved=0-1;ssrc=060922C6;mode="PLAY" Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:45:24 GMT RTSP/1.0 200 OK CSeq: 3 Session: 3F4763D8 Range: npt=0- RTP-Info: url=rtsp://1.00408CBEA38B/axis-media/media.amp/trackID=1;seq=7392;rtptime=4190934902 Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:45:24 GMT [Binary Stream Content] But when i copy this request to fiddler, I only get 200 status code with content-type set to application/x-rtsp-tunneled and there is no stream data. The only thing i do different with stream is to use Basic in authorization header instead of Digest and I do not get 401 (Un authorized) status code. Can anyone explain what's happening here? How can I write request sequences to get stream in fiddler? If it is needed, I can upload the wireshark request dump somewhere.

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• Linux Mint 14 severe overheating

  - by agvares

  I've tried switching to Mint (it was Mint 12) about 6 months ago, but failed to do it due to enormous overheating which made it virtually impossible to run any applications more complex than Gedit. Time had passed, and now I'm back again with Mint 14, but feeling way more determined. What I face are the following issues: 1) Great overheating (and by great I mean that just by doing nothing my CPU temp is floating around 70-75 C, which I find a lot) 2) Running multiple applications (let's say Chrome, Skype and Pidgin) results in critical overheating and immediate shutdown of the system 3) Due to the stuff listed above, my battery drains in about 10-15 minutes, pretty much turning my laptop into a crippled desktop machine I've got a HP-dv6 laptop (i7, 6gb RAM, dual graphics) Here's the output of lspci: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 05) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b5) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b5) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev b5) 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b5) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 05) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 05) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Whistler XT [AMD Radeon HD 6700M Series] 07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06) 0d:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01) 13:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5209 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01) 19:00.0 USB controller: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 04) what i've tried to do already: 1) I've edited my grub file to add some "splash" arguments there 2) Installed jupiter and powertop 3) Tried to upgrade to newer kernels (up to 3.8), btw running anything newer than 3.5 results in both resolution and wi-fi detection fail 4) Read lots of forum threads devoted to the topic So, my question is simple: What else might I do to become finally able to use Mint as my default OS without the risk of being burned alive by the CPU heat?

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• How to grow to be global sysadmin of an organization?

  - by user64729

  Bit of a non-technical question but I have seen questions of the career development type on here before so hopefully it is fine. I work for a fast growing but still small organization (~65 employees). I have been their external sysadmin for a while now, looking after hosted Linux servers and infrastructure. In the past 12 months I have been transforming into the internal sysadmin for our office too. I'm currently studying Cisco CCNA to cover the demands of being an internal sysadmin and looking after the office LAN, routers, switches and VPNs. Now they want me to look after the global sysadmin function of the organization as a whole. The organization has 3 offices in total, 2 in the UK and 1 in the US. I work in one of the UK offices. The other offices are primarily Windows desktops with AD domain shops. My office is primarily a Linux shop with a file-server and NFS/NIS (no AD domain for the Windows desktops yet but it's in the works). Each other office has a sysadmin which in theory I am supposed to supervise but in reality each is independent. I have a very competent junior sysadmin working with me who shares the day-to-day tasks and does some of the longer term projects with my supervision. My boss has asked me how to grow from being the external sysadmin to the global sysadmin. I am to ponder this and then report back to him on how to achieve this. My current thoughts are: Management training or professional development - eg. reading books such as "Influencer" and "7 Habits". Also I feel I should take steps to improving communication skills since a senior person is expected to talk and speak out more often. Learn more about Windows and Active Directory - I'm an LPI-certified guy and have a lot of experience in Linux (Ubuntu or desktop, Debian/Ubuntu as server). Since the other offices are mainly Windows-domains it makes sense to skill-up in that area so I can understand what the other admins are talking about. Talk to previous colleagues who have are are in this role already - to try and get the benefit of their experience. Produce an "IT Roadmap" or similar that maps out where we want the organization to be and when, plotted out over the next couple of years with regards to internal and external infrastructure. I have produced a "Security roadmap" already which does cover some of these things. I guess this can summed up as "thinking more strategically"? I'd appreciate comments from anyone who has been through a similar situation, thanks.

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• mysql: job failded to start. mysqld.sock is missing

  - by Freefri

  How can I fix this and start mysql-server? After /etc/init.d/mysql start or service mysql start I get the message start: "Job failed to start" And after # mysqld I get this: mysqld 121123 11:33:33 [ERROR] Can't find messagefile '/usr/share/mysql/errmsg.sys' 121123 11:33:33 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled. mysqld: Unknown error 1146 121123 11:33:33 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it. 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3.4 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda. 121123 11:33:33 InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start 121123 11:33:34 InnoDB: 1.1.8 started; log sequence number 1595675 121123 11:33:34 [ERROR] Aborting 121123 11:33:34 InnoDB: Starting shutdown... 121123 11:33:35 InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 1595675 121123 11:33:35 [Note] I try to do what mysql say me to do: mysql_upgrade Looking for 'mysql' as: mysql Looking for 'mysqlcheck' as: mysqlcheck Running 'mysqlcheck' with connection arguments: '--port=3306' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' mysqlcheck: Got error: 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) when trying to connect FATAL ERROR: Upgrade failed And yes, /var/run/mysql is empty: mysql_upgrade Looking for 'mysql' as: mysql Looking for 'mysqlcheck' as: mysqlcheck Running 'mysqlcheck' with connection arguments: '--port=3306' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' mysqlcheck: Got error: 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) when trying to connect FATAL ERROR: Upgrade failed And this is my file /etc/mysql/my.cnf # cat /etc/mysql/my.cnf |grep sock # Remember to edit /etc/mysql/debian.cnf when changing the socket location. socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock Then I try to reinstall mysql from cero: apt-get purge mysql-client mysql-common mysql-server rm -R /var/lib/mysql rm -R /etc/mysql rm -R /var/run/mysqld userdel mysql apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client Then, after typing my root password for mysql I get this error: | Unable to set password for the MySQL "root" user ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ An error occurred while setting the password for the MySQL administrative ¦ ¦ user. This may have happened because the account already has a password, or ¦ ¦ because of a communication problem with the MySQL server. ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ You should check the account's password after the package installation. ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ Please read the /usr/share/doc/mysql-server-5.5/README.Debian file for more ¦ ¦ information. And again I can't start mysql getting the same messages.

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• Apache + Tomcat error 120006 Using mod_proxy_ajp for Load Balance

  - by Wakaru44

  I have an apache 2 frontend with two nodes, and a backend with two instances of tomcat 6 balance with mod_proxy_ajp. The bbdd is in a separate machine. All machines use RHEL, 6.2 on the frontend, 5.5 on the backend. The infraestructure is virtualized using VMware. # This is the apache config in one of the virtualHost. ProxyPreserveHost On ProxyPass / balancer://liferay/ <Proxy balancer://liferay> BalancerMember ajp://lrab:8009 route=liferaya BalancerMember ajp://lrbb:8009 route=liferayb status=+H ProxySet lbmethod=byrequests nofailover=on </Proxy> The conector in tomcat is now configured like this: <!-- Define an AJP 1.3 Connector on port 8009 --> <Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" URIEncoding="UTF-8" enableLookups="false" allowTrace="true" /> Do you think it could be useful to set a maxThreads parameter, like in this post?? in that case, How can i determine a proper number of threads? From time to time, we get errors like this [Tue Sep 18 17:57:02 2012] [error] ajp_read_header: ajp_ilink_receive failed [Tue Sep 18 17:57:02 2012] [error] (120006)APR does not understand this error code: proxy: read response failed from 192.168.1.104:8009 (lrab) And apache switches to the pasive node (if its active) or fails with 503. Some things i have tried so far: I think that i have some performance issues with one of the applications, Here you can see a threadDump But i'm not quite sure about it. I also started to monitor the network connection. I have noticed that there are some pings lost when i have a "ping -f " so maybe it could be a network issue, but the success rate is 100% (so the lost packets are only a few among the flood, but maybe, i don't know, enough to break the link betwen apache and tomcat). I wrote a python script to check connectivity with timestamps on the pings, so i can know when the network fails. After sniffing the network , i can also see some RST packets, but i don't know if that is a normal behaviour (some applications do that to end a network communication). I have also noticed that the applications have problems communicating with the database, but im not even sure if this could be related or not. If you think so, i can post more info about it. I changed the connector on the tomcats to use the native one, but still the same. I need not even a solution to this, but maybe some guidance on how can i troubleshoot this better ¿Analyze threads, monitor mysql performance, sniff the traffic between apaches and tomcats? Ultimately, all i need is to balance the tomcat instances in Active/pasive mode, so if there is another way to do it, i could give it a try.

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• apcupsd on Linux does not report on APC BackUPS Pro 900

  - by lserni

  From what documentation I could find, the UPS should be (is!) supported by Linux and ought to work with apcupsd. I looked for specific problems such as the infamous Microlink protocol, and found none. I have found a feedback from a guy in UK that reports using this very model on a not-too-different OS version (his OpenSuSE 12.1, mine 12.3 x86_64). The USB port is detected, lsusb reports Bus 002 Device 003: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply and lsusb -v -s002:003 confirms and expands: Bus 002 Device 003: ID 051d:0002 American Power Conversion Uninterruptible Power Supply Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x051d American Power Conversion idProduct 0x0002 Uninterruptible Power Supply bcdDevice 0.90 iManufacturer 1 American Power Conversion iProduct 2 Back-UPS RS 900G FW:879.L4 .I USB FW:L4 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: [...] Interface Descriptor: [...] bInterfaceClass 3 Human Interface Device bInterfaceSubClass 0 No Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 0 None iInterface 0 HID Device Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 33 bcdHID 1.00 bCountryCode 33 US bNumDescriptors 1 bDescriptorType 34 Report wDescriptorLength 1134 Report Descriptors: ** UNAVAILABLE ** Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0008 1x 8 bytes bInterval 100 Device Status: 0x0000 (Bus Powered) The kernel recognizes this and duly sets up crw------- 1 root root 180, 96 Nov 4 16:11 /dev/usb/hiddev0 As far as I know, everything is as it should be. I have put the standard configuration in /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf (which is Unix-terminated, ASCII-only, no BOM (just in case)) UPSCABLE usb UPSTYPE usb DEVICE (I have also tried commenting out DEVICE, and setting a device of /dev/puppa results in an access attempt to /dev/puppa, not some /var/lib/dev/puppa or /dev/puppa\r\n). Yet, what apcaccess tells me is VERSION : 3.14.10 (13 September 2011) suse CABLE : USB Cable DRIVER : USB UPS Driver UPSMODE : Stand Alone STARTTIME: 2013-11-04 16:24:22 +0100 MODEL : STATUS : NOBATT LINEV : 000.0 Volts LOADPCT : 0.0 Percent Load Capacity BCHARGE : 000.0 Percent TIMELEFT : 0.0 Minutes MBATTCHG : 5 Percent MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes MAXTIME : 0 Seconds SENSE : Low LOTRANS : 000.0 Volts HITRANS : 000.0 Volts It doesn't recognize the model, and reports no battery (and no voltage). This confirms that it's not the Microlink problem, or it would report the battery status, if precious little else. If I disconnect the USB cable, I get an apcupsd message to the effect that communications have been lost; and I get the "communication restored" broadcast too, if I reconnect the cable. apcupsd is monitoring. So everything tells me that it should work -- only it doesn't. Does anyone spot what I'm missing?

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• Ubuntu: Multiple NICs, one used only for Wake-On-LAN

  - by jcwx86

  This is similar to some other questions, but I have a specific need which is not covered in the other questions. I have an Ubuntu server (11.10) with two NICs. One is built into the motherboard and the other is a PCI express card. I want to have my server connected to the internet via my NAT router and also have it able to wake from suspend using a Magic Packet (henceforth referred to as Wake-On-LAN, WOL). I can't do this with just one of the NICs because each has an issue - the built-in NIC will crash the system if it is placed under heavy load (typically downloading data), whilst the PCI express NIC will crash the system if it is used for WOL. I have spent some time investigating these individual problems, to no avail. My plan is thus: use the built-in NIC solely for WOL, and use the PCI express card for all other network communication except WOL. Since I send the WOL Magic Packet to a specific MAC address, there is no danger of hitting the wrong NIC, but there is a danger of using the built-in NIC for general network access, overloading it and crashing the system. Both NICs are wired to the same LAN with address space 192.168.0.0/24. The built-in ethernet card is set to have interface name eth1 and the PCI express card is eth0 in Ubuntu's udev persistent rules (so they stay the same upon reboot). I have been trying to set this up with the /etc/network/interfaces file. Here is where I am currently: auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.0.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 network 192.168.0.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255 gateway 192.168.0.1 auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 192.168.0.254 netmask 255.255.255.0 I think by not specifying a gateway for eth1, I prevent it being used for outgoing requests. I don't mind if it can be reached on 192.168.0.254 on the LAN, i.e. via SSH -- it's IP is irrelevant to WOL, which is based on MAC addresses -- I just don't want it to be used to access internet resources. My kernel routing table (from route -n) is Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 0.0.0.0 192.168.0.1 0.0.0.0 UG 100 0 0 eth0 169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 1000 0 0 eth0 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth1 My question is this: Is this sufficient for what I want to achieve? My research has thrown up the idea of using static routing to specify that eth1 should only be used for WOL on the local network, but I'm not sure this is necessary. I have been monitoring the activity of the interfaces using iptraf and it seems like eth0 takes the vast majority of the packets, though I am not sure that this will be consistent based on my configuration. Given that if I mess up the configuration, my system will likely crash, it is important to me to have this set up correctly!

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• Postfix flow/hook reference, or high-level overview?

  - by threecheeseopera

  The Postfix MTA consists of several components/services that work together to perform the different stages of delivery and receipt of mail; these include the smtp daemon, the pickup and cleanup processes, the queue manager, the smtp service, pipe/spawn/virtual/rewrite ... and others (including the possibility of custom components). Postfix also provides several types of hooks that allow it to integrate with external software, such as policy servers, filters, bounce handlers, loggers, and authentication mechanisms; these hooks can be connected to different components/stages of the delivery process, and can communicate via (at least) IPC, network, database, several types of flat files, or a predefined protocol (e.g. milter). An old and very limited example of this is shown at this page. My question: Does anyone have access to a resource that describes these hooks, the components/delivery stages that the hook can interact with, and the supported communication methods? Or, more likely, documentation of the various Postfix components and the hooks/methods that they support? For example: Given the requirement "if the recipient primary MX server matches 'shadysmtpd', check the recipient address against a list; if there is a match, terminate the SMTP connection without notice". My software would need to 1) integrate into the proper part of the SMTP process, 2) use some method to perform the address check (TCP map server? regular expressions? mysql?), and 3) implement the required action (connection termination). Additionally, there will probably be several methods to accomplish this, and another requirement would be to find that which best fits (ex: a network server might be faster than a flat-file lookup; or, if a large volume of mail might be affected by this check, it should be performed as early in the mail process as possible). Real-world example: The apolicy policy server (performs checks on addresses according to user-defined rules) is designed as a standalone TCP server that hooks into Postfix inside the smtpd component via the directive 'check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:10001' in the 'smtpd_client_restrictions' configuration option. This means that, when Postfix first receives an item of mail to be delivered, it will create a TCP connection to the policy server address:port for the purpose of determining if the client is allowed to send mail from this server (in addition to whatever other restrictions / restriction lookup methods are defined in that option); the proper action will be taken based on the server's response. Notes: 1)The Postfix architecture page describes some of this information in ascii art; what I am hoping for is distilled, condensed, reference material. 2) Please correct me if I am wrong on any level; there is a mountain of material, and I am just one man ;) Thanks!

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• Managing multiple independant domains with Google Apps

  - by Saif Bechan

  I am currently running a server where I have multiple domains with all of them running there own mail server. My plan is to outsource this whole email service and have Google, or competitor, do this for me. Let me start by telling you the setup I have now and want to migrate to Google. Initial setup I have a main domain where I run my server, and my nameserver. This is an important domain because this holds the connection with all my internal applications. For example log messages, cronjob messages, and virus-scan messages are sent to this domain. This email is also registered at my registrar and I use it to communicate with my ISP. Next I run a few independent websites that all need their independent email addresses. This can be on shared space, I don't mind. 1 Gig will be enough for everything I am going to do. Summary: superdomain.com (which only has a catchall for internal use and communication with my ISP) cars.com (independent) flowers.com (independent) foods.com (independent) I am going to be the admin for all of this. The independent domains don't need there own admin panel, they just need email addresses like info@ support@, etc. I do all the managing and they just send and receive emails using the accounts i give them. All of the websites have there different staff that use the accounts. Tried so far I have registered my superdomain, but I can only add aliases to the main domain. If I make all the other domains aliases the emails from [email protected] and [email protected] will have the same inbox. I want them to be separate. is the only way to achieve this by creating an account for each domain? And if so, is there no way of creating a superdomain account where I can edit all these accounts easily without having to log in 4 different places to get my work done. I have searched the Google help forums, and posted questions but without any results so far. Questions Can anyone please give me some advice on what to do. I currently use the free program Google has.

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• Windows 2008 R2 IPsec encryption in tunnel mode, hosts in same subnet

  - by fission

  In Windows there appear to be two ways to set up IPsec: The IP Security Policy Management MMC snap-in (part of secpol.msc, introduced in Windows 2000). The Windows Firewall with Advanced Security MMC snap-in (wf.msc, introduced in Windows 2008/Vista). My question concerns #2 – I already figured out what I need to know for #1. (But I want to use the ‘new’ snap-in for its improved encryption capabilities.) I have two Windows Server 2008 R2 computers in the same domain (domain members), on the same subnet: server2 172.16.11.20 server3 172.16.11.30 My goal is to encrypt all communication between these two machines using IPsec in tunnel mode, so that the protocol stack is: IP ESP IP …etc. First, on each computer, I created a Connection Security Rule: Endpoint 1: (local IP address), eg 172.16.11.20 for server2 Endpoint 2: (remote IP address), eg 172.16.11.30 Protocol: Any Authentication: Require inbound and outbound, Computer (Kerberos V5) IPsec tunnel: Exempt IPsec protected connections Local tunnel endpoint: Any Remote tunnel endpoint: (remote IP address), eg 172.16.11.30 At this point, I can ping each machine, and Wireshark shows me the protocol stack; however, nothing is encrypted (which is expected at this point). I know that it's unencrypted because Wireshark can decode it (using the setting Attempt to detect/decode NULL encrypted ESP payloads) and the Monitor Security Associations Quick Mode display shows ESP Encryption: None. Then on each server, I created Inbound and Outbound Rules: Protocol: Any Local IP addresses: (local IP address), eg 172.16.11.20 Remote IP addresses: (remote IP address), eg 172.16.11.30 Action: Allow the connection if it is secure Require the connections to be encrypted The problem: Though I create the Inbound and Outbound Rules on each server to enable encryption, the data is still going over the wire (wrapped in ESP) with NULL encryption. (You can see this in Wireshark.) When the arrives at the receiving end, it's rejected (presumably because it's unencrypted). [And, disabling the Inbound rule on the receiving end causes it to lock up and/or bluescreen – fun!] The Windows Firewall log says, eg: 2014-05-30 22:26:28 DROP ICMP 172.16.11.20 172.16.11.30 - - 60 - - - - 8 0 - RECEIVE I've tried varying a few things: In the Rules, setting the local IP address to Any Toggling the Exempt IPsec protected connections setting Disabling rules (eg disabling one or both sets of Inbound or Outbound rules) Changing the protocol (eg to just TCP) But realistically there aren't that many knobs to turn. Does anyone have any ideas? Has anyone tried to set up tunnel mode between two hosts using Windows Firewall? I've successfully got it set up in transport mode (ie no tunnel) using exactly the same set of rules, so I'm a bit surprised that it didn't Just Work™ with the tunnel added.

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• How to set up a file server in a restricted corporate environment

  - by Emilio M Bumachar

  I work in a big corporation, and the disk space my team gets in the corporate file server is so low, I am considering turning my work PC into a file server. I ask this community for links to tutorials, software suggestions, and advice in general about how to set it up. My machine is an Intel Core2Duo E7500 @ 3GHz, 3 GB of RAM, Running Windows XP Service Pack 3. Upgrading, formatting or installing another OS is out of the question. But I do have Administrator priviledges on the PC, and I can install programs (at least for now). A lot of security software I don't even know about is and must remain installed. But I only need communication whithin the corporate network, which is not restricted. People have usernames (logins) on the corporate network, and I need to use them to restrict access. Simply put, I have a list of logins of team members, and only people in the list should access the files. I have about 150 GB of free disk space. I'm thinking of allocating 100 GB to the team's shared files. I plan monthly backups on machines of co-workers, same configuration. But automation of backups is a nice, unnecessary feature: it's totally acceptable for me to manually copy the contents to a different machine once a month. Uptime is important, as everyone would use these files in their daily work. I have experience as a python and C programmer, but no experience whatsoever as a sysadmin, and almost nothing of my programming experience is network programming. I'm a complete beginner in this. Thanks in advance for any help. EDIT I honestly appreciate all the warnings, I really do, but what I plan to make available is mostly stuff that now is solely on DVDs just for space reasons. It's 'daily work' to read them, but 'daily work write' files will remain on the corporate server. As for the importance of uptime, I think I overstated it: a few outages are OK, it's already an improvement over getting the DVDs. As for policy, my manager is kind of on my side, I will confirm that before making my move. As for getting more space through the proper channels, well, that was Plan A, and it's still on the table... But I don't have much hope. I'm not as "core businees" as I'd like.

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• How to run a restricted set of programs with Administrator privileges without giving up Admin acces (Win7 Pro)

  - by frLich

  I have a shared system, running Windows7 X64, restricted to a 'standard user' with no password. Not everyone who has access to the system has the administrator password. This works rather well, except for some applications - specially the unlock-applications for encrypted hard drives/USB flash drives. The specific ones either require Administrator access (eg. Seagate Blackarmor) or simply fail without it -- since these programs are sending raw commands to a device, this is to be expected. I would like to be able to add the hashes of these particular programs to a whitelist, and have them run as administrator without needing any prompts. Since these are by definition on removable media, I can't simply use a filename or even a path. One of the users who shares the system can be considered 'crafty', so anything which temporarily grants administrator rights to an user account is certain to cause problems. What i'd like to be able to do: 1) Create an admin account that can only run programs from a whitelist (or, failing that, from a directory) I can't find a good way to do this: As far as I can tell, SRP applies equally to ALL users? Even if I put a "Deny" token on all directories on the system, such that new directories would inherit it, it could still potentially run things from the mounted USB devices. I also don't know whether it's possible to create a new directory that DOESN'T inherit from the parent, that would lake the deny token, and provide admin access. 2) Find a lightweight service that will run these programs in its local context Windows7 seems to block cross-privilege level communication by default, and I haven't found such for windows 7. One example seems to be "sudo" (http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~nfriess/sudo/) but because it uses a WLNOTIFY hook, it won't work under Vista nor Windows7 Non-Solutions: - RunAs: Requires administrator password! (but everyone calls it "sudo" anyway) - RunAs /savecred: Nice idea, but appears to be completely insecure. - RUNASSPC - Same concept as RunAs, uses "encrypted" files with credentials, but checks in user-space. - Scheduled Tasks - "Fixed" permissions make this difficult, and doesn't support interactive processes even if it did. - SuRun: From Google: "Surun uses its own Windows service that adds the user to the group of administrators during program start and removes him automatically from that group again"

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• Django | Apache | Deploy website behind SSL

  - by planet260

  So here are my requirements. I have a website built in Django. I deployed it on Apache Ubuntu. Before there was no SSL involved so the deployment was pretty simple. But now the requirements are changed. Now I have to take a few actions like signup and login behind SSL and present the admin panel and other normally via HTTP. By following the this tutorial I have set-up Apache and SSL and generated certificates for SSL communication. But I am not sure how to proceed, ie. how to serve only a few of my actions through SSL. Below is my configuration. The normal actions are working fine but I don't know how to configure SSL calls. WSGIScriptAlias / /home/ubuntu/myproject/src/myproject/wsgi.py WSGIPythonPath /home/ubuntu/myproject/src <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName mydomain.com <Directory /home/ubuntu/myproject/src/myproject> <Files wsgi.py> order deny,allow Allow from all </Files> </Directory> Alias /static/admin/ "/home/ubuntu/myproject/src/static/admin/" <Directory "/home/ubuntu/myproject/src/static/admin/"> Order allow,deny Options Indexes Allow from all IndexOptions FancyIndexing </Directory> <Location "/login"> RewriteEngine on RewriteRule /admin(.*)$ https://mydomain.com/login$1 [L,R=301] </Location> </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost *:443> ServerName mydomain.com SSLEngine on SSLOptions +StrictRequire SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key <Directory /home/ubuntu/myproject/src/myproject> <Files wsgi.py> order deny,allow Allow from all </Files> </Directory> Alias /static/admin/ "/home/ubuntu/myproject/src/static/admin/" <Directory "/home/ubuntu/myproject/src/static/admin/"> Order allow,deny Options Indexes Allow from all IndexOptions FancyIndexing </Directory> </VirtualHost> Can you please help me out on how to achieve this? What am I doing wrong? I have read a lot of tutorials but honestly I am not really good at configurations. Any help is appreciated.

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• How to run a restricted set of programs with Administrator privileges without giving up Admin acces (Win7 Pro)

  - by frLich

  I have a shared system, running Windows7 X64, restricted to a 'standard user' with no password. Not everyone who has access to the system has the administrator password. This works rather well, except for some applications - specially the unlock-applications for encrypted hard drives/USB flash drives. The specific ones either require Administrator access (eg. Seagate Blackarmor) or simply fail without it -- since these programs are sending raw commands to a device, this is to be expected. I would like to be able to add the hashes of these particular programs to a whitelist, and have them run as administrator without needing any prompts. Since these are by definition on removable media, I can't simply use a filename or even a path. One of the users who shares the system can be considered 'crafty', so anything which temporarily grants administrator rights to an user account is certain to cause problems. What i'd like to be able to do: 1) Create an admin account that can only run programs from a whitelist (or, failing that, from a directory) I can't find a good way to do this: As far as I can tell, SRP applies equally to ALL users? Even if I put a "Deny" token on all directories on the system, such that new directories would inherit it, it could still potentially run things from the mounted USB devices. I also don't know whether it's possible to create a new directory that DOESN'T inherit from the parent, that would lake the deny token, and provide admin access. 2) Find a lightweight service that will run these programs in its local context Windows7 seems to block cross-privilege level communication by default, and I haven't found such for windows 7. One example seems to be "sudo" (http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~nfriess/sudo/) but because it uses a WLNOTIFY hook, it won't work under Vista nor Windows7 Non-Solutions: - RunAs: Requires administrator password! (but everyone calls it "sudo" anyway) - RunAs /savecred: Nice idea, but appears to be completely insecure. - RUNASSPC - Same concept as RunAs, uses "encrypted" files with credentials, but checks in user-space. - Scheduled Tasks - "Fixed" permissions make this difficult, and doesn't support interactive processes even if it did. - SuRun: From Google: "Surun uses its own Windows service that adds the user to the group of administrators during program start and removes him automatically from that group again"

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• Ubuntu + SSL ports + AVAST

  - by jurajvt

  I have an interesting problem with communication via standard SSL ports. Fresh installed Ubuntu 14.04 server + Postfix + Dovecot, SASL authentication provided by Dovecot, self-signed certificate generated trough the Dovecot script mkcert.sh. Redirected ports on ZyWALL USG 200. I can send and receive e-mails from outside with standard ports 25 and 110, but not over 587. I am connecting to my server from machine with Windows 8.1 + VMWare Player + Ubuntu 14.04 Desktop + ssh. On Windows host I have installed Avast! antivirus. When I am trying to telnet from virtual machine to server over 587, it refused connection. But when I turn on Avast! it let me in to message Connected to... Same with nmap. When Avast! is turned on it is show me all SSL ports. When I turned it off, only standard ports appeared. OpenSSL shows me CONNECTED(00000003). But outside virtual machine directly in Windows 8.1 using nmap with zenmap there are not opened SSL ports in both Avast! states. From other external linux machines are problems with touching SSL ports same - refused. I have turned on submission in master.cf and 587 port is correctly listening on 0.0.0.0 in process master.pid which belongs to Postfix. I can telnet, or nmap over port 587 to my domain directly from server. Other ports like 995, 993 are OK on localhost, too. It is true, that I can't send emails via 587 anyway (Avast! turned on/off), but I can see ports opened. It is possible, that I have simply bad certificate and Avast! has right one, so with turned it on I can see opened ports? EDIT: To be more clear, I can't see or using port 587 everywhere from outside (tried Thunderbird, telnet, openssl, nmap, putty, swaks; both from Linux or Windows machines) and that is my problem. It was only by chance that I saw opened ports when Avast! is turned on.

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• Ask How-To Geek: Learning the Office Ribbon, Booting to USB with an Old BIOS, and Snapping Windows

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  You’ve got questions and we’ve got answers. Today we highlight how to master the new Office interface, USB boot a computer with outdated BIOS, and snap windows to preset locations. Learning the New Office Ribbon Dear How-To Geek, I feel silly asking this (in light of how long the new Office interface has been out) but my company finally got around to upgrading from Windows XP and Office 2000 so the new interface it totally new to me. Can you recommend any resources for quickly learning the Office ribbon and the new changes? I feel completely lost after two decades of the old Office interface. Help! Sincerely, Where the Hell is Everything? Dear Where the Hell, We think most people were with you at some point in the last few years. “Where the hell is…” could possibly be the slogan for the new ribbon interface. You could browse through some of the dry tutorials online or even get a weighty book on the topic but the best way to learn something new is to get hands on. Ribbon Hero turns learning the new Office features and ribbon layout into a game. It’s no vigorous round of Team Fortress mind you, but it’s significantly more fun than reading a training document. Check out how to install and configure Ribbon Hero here. You’ll be teaching your coworkers new tricks in no time. Boot via USB with an Old BIOS Dear How-To Geek, I’m trying to repurpose some old computers by updating them with lightweight Linux distros but the BIOS on most of the machines is ancient and creaky. How ancient? It doesn’t even support booting from a USB device! I have a large flash drive that I’ve turned into a master installation tool for jobs like this but I can’t use it. The computers in question have USB ports; they just aren’t recognized during the boot process. What can I do? USB Bootin’ in Boise Dear USB Bootin’, It’s great you’re working to breathe life into old hardware! You’ve run into one of the limitations of older BIOSes, USB was around but nobody was thinking about booting off of it. Fortunately if you have a computer old enough to have that kind of BIOS it’s likely to also has a floppy drive or a CDROM drive. While you could make a bootable CDROM for your application we understand that you want to keep using the master USB installer you’ve made. In light of that we recommend PLoP Boot Manager. Think of it like a boot manager for your boot manager. Using it you can create a bootable floppy or CDROM that will enable USB booting of your master USB drive. Make a CD and a floppy version and you’ll have everything in your toolkit you need for future computer refurbishing projects. Read up on creating bootable media with PLoP Boot Manager here. Snapping Windows to Preset Coordinates Dear How-To Geek, Once upon a time I had a company laptop that came with a little utility that snapped windows to preset areas of the screen. This was long before the snap-to-side features in Windows 7. You could essentially configure your screen into a grid pattern of your choosing and then windows would neatly snap into those grids. I have no idea what it was called or if was anymore than a gimmick from the computer manufacturer, but I’d really like to have it on my new computer! Bend and Snap in San Francisco, Dear Bend and Snap, If we had to guess, we’d guess your company must have had a set of laptops from Acer as the program you’re describing sounds exactly like Acer GridVista. Fortunately for you the application was extremely popular and Acer released it independently of their hardware. If, by chance, you’ve since upgraded to a multiple monitor setup the app even supports multiple monitors—many of the configurations are handy for arranging IM windows and other auxiliary communication tools. Check out our guide to installing and configuring Acer GridVista here for more information. Have a question you want to put before the How-To Geek staff? Shoot us an email at [email protected] and then keep an eye out for a solution in the Ask How-To Geek column. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Upgrade Windows 7 Easily (And Understand Whether You Should) The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal Install a Wii Game Loader for Easy Backups and Fast Load Times The Best of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy Download the New Year in Japan Windows 7 Theme from Microsoft Once More Unto the Breach – Facebook Apps Can Now Access Your Address and Phone Number Dial Zero Speeds You Through Annoying Customer Service Menus Complete Dropquest 2011 and Receive Free Dropbox Storage Desktop Computer versus Laptop Wallpaper The Kids Have No Idea What Old Tech Is [Video]

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• Announcing SonicAgile – An Agile Project Management Solution

  - by Stephen.Walther

  I’m happy to announce the public release of SonicAgile – an online tool for managing software projects. You can register for SonicAgile at www.SonicAgile.com and start using it with your team today. SonicAgile is an agile project management solution which is designed to help teams of developers coordinate their work on software projects. SonicAgile supports creating backlogs, scrumboards, and burndown charts. It includes support for acceptance criteria, story estimation, calculating team velocity, and email integration. In short, SonicAgile includes all of the tools that you need to coordinate work on a software project, get stuff done, and build great software. Let me discuss each of the features of SonicAgile in more detail. SonicAgile Backlog You use the backlog to create a prioritized list of user stories such as features, bugs, and change requests. Basically, all future work planned for a product should be captured in the backlog. We focused our attention on designing the user interface for the backlog. Because the main function of the backlog is to prioritize stories, we made it easy to prioritize a story by just drag and dropping the story from one location to another. We also wanted to make it easy to add stories from the product backlog to a sprint backlog. A sprint backlog contains the stories that you plan to complete during a particular sprint. To add a story to a sprint, you just drag the story from the product backlog to the sprint backlog. Finally, we made it easy to track team velocity — the average amount of work that your team completes in each sprint. Your team’s average velocity is displayed in the backlog. When you add too many stories to a sprint – in other words, you attempt to take on too much work – you are warned automatically: SonicAgile Scrumboard Every workday, your team meets to have their daily scrum. During the daily scrum, you can use the SonicAgile Scrumboard to see (at a glance) what everyone on the team is working on. For example, the following scrumboard shows that Stephen is working on the Fix Gravatar Bug story and Pete and Jane have finished working on the Product Details Page story: Every story can be broken into tasks. For example, to create the Product Details Page, you might need to create database objects, do page design, and create an MVC controller. You can use the Scrumboard to track the state of each task. A story can have acceptance criteria which clarify the requirements for the story to be done. For example, here is how you can specify the acceptance criteria for the Product Details Page story: You cannot close a story — and remove the story from the list of active stories on the scrumboard — until all tasks and acceptance criteria associated with the story are done. SonicAgile Burndown Charts You can use Burndown charts to track your team’s progress. SonicAgile supports Release Burndown, Sprint Burndown by Task Estimates, and Sprint Burndown by Story Points charts. For example, here’s a sample of a Sprint Burndown by Story Points chart: The downward slope shows the progress of the team when closing stories. The vertical axis represents story points and the horizontal axis represents time. Email Integration SonicAgile was designed to improve your team’s communication and collaboration. Most stories and tasks require discussion to nail down exactly what work needs to be done. The most natural way to discuss stories and tasks is through email. However, you don’t want these discussions to get lost. When you use SonicAgile, all email discussions concerning a story or a task (including all email attachments) are captured automatically. At any time in the future, you can view all of the email discussion concerning a story or a task by opening the Story Details dialog: Why We Built SonicAgile We built SonicAgile because we needed it for our team. Our consulting company, Superexpert, builds websites for financial services, startups, and large corporations. We have multiple teams working on multiple projects. Keeping on top of all of the work that needs to be done to complete a software project is challenging. You need a good sense of what needs to be done, who is doing it, and when the work will be done. We built SonicAgile because we wanted a lightweight project management tool which we could use to coordinate the work that our team performs on software projects. How We Built SonicAgile We wanted SonicAgile to be easy to use, highly scalable, and have a highly interactive client interface. SonicAgile is very close to being a pure Ajax application. We built SonicAgile using ASP.NET MVC 3, jQuery, and Knockout. We would not have been able to build such a complex Ajax application without these technologies. Almost all of our MVC controller actions return JSON results (While developing SonicAgile, I would have given my left arm to be able to use the new ASP.NET Web API). The controller actions are invoked from jQuery Ajax calls from the browser. We built SonicAgile on Windows Azure. We are taking advantage of SQL Azure, Table Storage, and Blob Storage. Windows Azure enables us to scale very quickly to handle whatever demand is thrown at us. Summary I hope that you will try SonicAgile. You can register at www.SonicAgile.com (there’s a free 30-day trial). The goal of SonicAgile is to make it easier for teams to get more stuff done, work better together, and build amazing software. Let us know what you think!

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• If You Could Cut Your Meeting Times in ½ Would You?

  - by Brian Dayton

                  I know it sounds like a big promise. And what I'm thinking about may not cut a :60 minute meeting into :30 minutes, but it could make meetings and interactions up to 2X more productive. How? Social Media for the Enterprise, Not Social Media In the Enterprise Bear with me. I'm not talking about whether or not workers should or shouldn't have access to Facebook on corporate networks. That topic has been discussed @ length. I'm also not talking about the direct benefits of Social Networking tools like Presence (the ability to see someone online and ask a question in real-time), blogs, RSS feeds or external tools like Twitter. The Un-Measurable Benefits Would you do something that you believe will have a positive effect--but can't be measured? It's impossible to quantify the effectiveness of a meeting. However, what I am talking about would be more of a byproduct of all of the social networking tools above. Here's the hypothesis: As I've gotten more and more busy with work, family, travel and kids--and the same has happened to my friends and family--I'm less and less connected. But by introducing Facebook to my life I've not only made connections with longtime friends whom I haven't spoken to in years--but I've increased the pace and quality of interactions, on and offline, with close friends who I see and speak to every week. In some cases it even enhances the connections and interactions with those I see or speak to every day. The same holds true in an organization. Especially a larger one with highly matrixed organizational structures. You work with people on a project, new people come in with each different project and a disproportionate amount of time is spent getting oriented and staying current. Going back to the initial value proposition--making meetings shorter/more effective--a large amount of time is spent: -          At Project Kick-off: Meeting and understanding team member's histories, goals & roles -          Ongoing: Summarizing events since the last meeting or update email In my personal, Facebook life today I know that: -          My best friend from college - has been stranded in India for 5 days because of the volcano in Iceland and is now only 250 miles from home -          One of my co-workers started conference calls at 6:30 this morning -          My wife wasn't terribly pleased with my painting skills in our new bathroom (disclosure: she told me this face to face too) Strengthening Weak Links A recent article in CIO Magazine, Three Dangerous Social Media Misconceptions (Kristen Burnham, March 12, 2010) calls out the #1 misconception as follows: 1. "Face-to-face relationships are far more valuable than virtual ones." While some level of physical interaction will always add value to relationships, Gartner says that come 2020, most relationships and teams will be based on "weak links"--that is, you may not have personally met a contact, but you'll know of or may have interacted with him via social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The sooner your enterprise adopts these tools, the sooner your employees will learn them, and the sooner you'll begin to cultivate these relationships-of-the-future.   I personally believe that it's not an either/or choice between face-to-face and virtual interactions. In fact, I'll be as bold as saying it doesn't matter. I can point to two extremely valuable work relationships that I've had over the past 5 years: -          I shared an office with one of them -          I met the other person, face-to-face, only once Both relationships were very productive. The dynamics were similar. The communication tactics differed immensely. What does matter is the quality, frequency and relevance of interactions. Still sound like too much? An over-promise? Stay tuned for my next post The Gap Between Facebook and LinkedIn. I'll also connect some of the dots with where Oracle Applications and technologies are headed.        

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• Change Comes from Within

  - by John K. Hines

  I am in the midst of witnessing a variety of teams moving away from Scrum. Some of them are doing things like replacing Scrum terms with more commonly understood terminology. Mainly they have gone back to using industry standard terms and more traditional processes like the RAPID decision making process. For example: Scrum Master becomes Project Lead. Scrum Team becomes Project Team. Product Owner becomes Stakeholders. I'm actually quite sad to see this happening, but I understand that Scrum is a radical change for most organizations. Teams are slowly but surely moving away from Scrum to a process that non-software engineers can understand and follow. Some could never secure the education or personnel (like a Product Owner) to get the whole team engaged. And many people with decision-making authority do not see the value in Scrum besides task planning and tracking. You see, Scrum cannot be mandated. No one can force a team to be Agile, collaborate, continuously improve, and self-reflect. Agile adoptions must start from a position of mutual trust and willingness to change. And most software teams aren't like that. Here is my personal epiphany from over a year of attempting to promote Agile on a small development team: The desire to embrace Agile methodologies must come from each and every member of the team. If this desire does not exist - if the team is satisfied with its current process, if the team is not motivated to improve, or if the team is afraid of change - the actual demonstration of all the benefits prescribed by Agile and Scrum will take years. I've read some blog posts lately that criticise Scrum for demanding "Big Change Up Front." One's opinion of software methodologies boils down to one's perspective. If you see modern software development as successful, you will advocate for small, incremental changes to how it is done. If you see it as broken, you'll be much more motivated to take risks and try something different. So my question to you is this - is modern software development healthy or in need of dramatic improvement? I can tell you from personal experience that any project that requires exploration, planning, development, stabilisation, and deployment is hard. Trying to make that process better with only a slightly modified approach is a mistake. You will become completely dependent upon the skillset of your team (the only variable you can change). But the difficulty of planned work isn't one of skill. It isn't until you solve the fundamental challenges of communication, collaboration, quality, and efficiency that skill even comes into play. So I advocate for Big Change Up Front. And I advocate for it to happen often until those involved can say, from experience, that it is no longer needed. I hope every engineer has the opportunity to see the benefits of Agile and Scrum on a highly functional team. I'll close with more key learnings that can help with a Scrum adoption: Your leaders must understand Scrum. They must understand software development, its inherent difficulties, and how Scrum helps. If you attempt to adopt Scrum before the understanding is there, your leaders will apply traditional solutions to your problems - often creating more problems. Success should be measured by quality, not revenue. Namely, the value of software to an organization is the revenue it generates minus ongoing support costs. You should identify quality-based metrics that show the effect Agile techniques have on your software. Motivation is everything. I finally understand why so many Agile advocates say you that if you are not on a team using Agile, you should leave and find one. Scrum and especially Agile encompass many elegant solutions to a wide variety of problems. If you are working on a team that has not encountered these problems the the team may never see the value in the solutions.   Having said all that, I'm not giving up on Agile or Scrum. I am convinced it is a better approach for software development. But reality is saying that its adoption is not straightforward and highly subject to disruption. Unless, that is, everyone really, really wants it.

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• SQLAuthority News – A Real Story of Book Getting ‘Out of Stock’ to A 25% Discount Story Available

  - by pinaldave

  As many of my readers may know, I have recently written a few books.  Right now I’d like to talk about SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers (http://bit.ly/sqlinterviewbook ), my newest release. What inspired me to write this book was similar to my motivations for my previous titles – I wanted to help people understand SQL Server concepts and ace interview questions so that they could get a great job they love, as much as I love my own job. If you are new to SQL Server, don’t think I left you out of my book writing efforts. If you are new to the subject or have not had to deal with SQL Server in a long time, this book is perfect for someone who wants or needs a last minute refresher. If you are facing an upcoming interview and want to impress your future bosses, this book is perfect for getting you up to speed in a short time. However, if you are already an expert, you will still find a lot to learn and many pointers and suggestions that go deep into the subject. As I said before, I wrote this book in order to help my community, and I certainly hoped that this book would become popular. However, we decided to print a very limited number of copies to begin with. We did not think that it would sell out since much of the information is available for free online. We could not have been more wrong! We incorrectly estimated what people wanted. We did not realize that there is still a need and an interest for structured learning. So, with great reservations, we printed quite a large number of copies – and it still ran out in 36 hours! We got call from the online store with a request for more copies within 12 hours. But we had printed only as many as we had sent them. There were no extra copies. We finally talked to the printer to get more copies. However, due to festivals and holidays the copies could not be shipped to the online retailer for two days. We knew for sure that they were going to be out of the book for 48 hours. 48 hours – this was very difficult as the book was very highly anticipated. Many people wanted to buy this book quickly, and receive it soon in order to meet a deadline or to study for an upcoming test of their knowledge. But now this book was out of stock on the retail store. The way the online store works is that if the Indian-priced book is not there they list the US version of the book so that buyers will not be disappointed. The problem was that the US price of the book is three times more than the Indian price – which means one has to pay three times as much to buy this book instead of the previous very low price. We received a lot of communication on this subject, here are some examples: We are now businessmen and only focusing on money Why has the price tripled in 36 hours Why we are not honest with the price If the prices will ever come down And some of the letters we cannot post here! Well, finally after 48 hours the Indian stock was finally available online. Thanks to our printer who worked day and night to get all the copies printed. He divided the complete stock in two parts. The first part they sent immediately to online retailer  and the second part they kept with them to sell. Finally, the online retailer got them online promptly as well, and the price returned to normal. Our book once again got in business and became the eighth most popular new release in 36 hours. We appreciate your love and support. Without all of your interest and love we would have never come this far and the book would not be so successful. After thinking about all your support and how patient you were with our online troubles, the online retailer has decided to give an extra 25% discount for a limited time only. I think the 48 hours when the book was out of stock were very horrible and stressful and I’d like to apologize to my loyal readers for the mishap. I hope that the 25% off is enough to sooth any remaining hurt feelings, and that everyone will continue to learn and discover things in the book. Once again thank you so much and I truly hope that you all enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it. My book SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers is available now. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• On checking is a port open on the firewall?

  - by [email protected]

  Hi, well sometimes DBAs and sysadmin need to check if a particular port is "open" on the corporate firewall --i.e. *Grid Control* Will the communication between OMS and a management agent work? --One solution well consist on deploying the piece of software in question, start it and just check if everything works fine, however i find more classy trying to get that information beforeThere are several tools for doing so --i.e. nmap *like Trinity on The Matrix*, but just found a nice piece of code for establishing a socket on a parameter passed port.After running the program doing a telnet from the client machine  will be a walk in the park Normal 0 21 false false false 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} #include <stdio.h> #include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> #include <netinet/in.h> int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {      int sockfd, newsockfd, portno, clilen;      char buffer[256];      struct sockaddr_in serv_addr, cli_addr;      int n;      if (argc < 2) {          fprintf(stderr,"ERROR: A port must be provided. Aborting ...\n");          return 1;      }      sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);      if (sockfd < 0)          {         fprintf("ERROR: Unable to open socket. Aborting ...\n");         return 1;       }      portno = atoi(argv[1]);      serv_addr.sin_family = AF_INET;      serv_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;      serv_addr.sin_port = htons(portno);      if (bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *) &serv_addr,sizeof(serv_addr)) < 0)          {               fprintf("ERROR: Unable to bind socket. Aborting ...\n");               return 1;       }      listen(sockfd,5);      clilen = sizeof(cli_addr);      newsockfd = accept(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *) &cli_addr,&clilen);      if (newsockfd < 0)          {           fprintf("ERROR: Unable to accept connection. Aborting...\n");           return 1;        }      return 0; }Of course, you can still ask to the network guy if the port is open or notHope it helpsL

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• The Complementary Roles of PLM and PIM

  - by Ulf Köster

  Oracle Product Value Chain Solutions (aka Enterprise PLM Solutions) are a comprehensive set of product management solutions that work together to provide Oracle customers with a broad array of capabilities to manage all aspects of product life: innovation, design, launch, and supply chain / commercialization processes beyond the capabilities and boundaries of traditional engineering-focused Product Lifecycle Management applications. They support companies with an integrated managed view across the product value chain: From Lab to Launch, From Farm to Fork, From Concept to Product to Customer, From Product Innovation to Product Design and Product Commercialization. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) represents a broad suite of software solutions to improve product-oriented business processes and data. PLM success stories prove that PLM helps companies improve time to market, increase product-related revenue, reduce product costs, reduce internal costs and improve product quality. As a maturing suite of enterprise solutions, PLM is still evolving to realize the promise it can provide across all facets of a business and all phases of the product lifecycle. The vision for PLM includes everything from gathering early requirements for a product through multiple stages of the product lifecycle from product design, through commercialization and eventual product retirement or replacement. In discrete or process industries, PLM is typically more focused on Product Definition as items with respect to the technical view of a material or part, including specifications, bills of material and manufacturing data. With Agile PLM, this is specifically related to capabilities addressing Product Collaboration, Governance and Compliance, Product Quality Management, Product Cost Management and Engineering Collaboration. PLM today is mainly addressing key requirements in the early product lifecycle, in engineering changes or in the “innovation cycle”, and primarily adds value related to product design, development, launch and engineering change process. In short, PLM is the master for Product Definition, wherever manufacturing takes place. Product Information Management (PIM) is a product suite that has evolved in parallel to PLM. Product Information Management (PIM) can extend the value of PLM implementations by providing complementary tools and capabilities. More relevant in the area of Product Commercialization, the vision for PIM is to manage product information throughout an enterprise and supply chain to improve product-related knowledge management, information sharing and synchronization from multiple data sources. PIM success stories have shown the ability to provide multiple benefits, with particular emphasis on reducing information complexity and information management costs. Product Information in PIM is typically treated as the commercial view of a material or part, including sales and marketing information and categorization. PIM collects information from multiple manufacturing sites and multiple suppliers into its repository, but also provides integration tools to push the information back out to the other systems, serving as an active central repository with the aim to provide a holistic view on any product sold by a company (hence the name “Product Hub”). In short, PIM is the master of commercial Product Information. So PIM is quickly becoming mandatory because of its value in optimizing multichannel selling processes and relationships with customers, as you can see from the following table: Viewpoint PLM Current State PIM Key Benefits PIM adds to PLM Product Lifecycle Primarily R&D Front end Innovation Cycle Change process Primarily commercial / transactional state of lifecycle Provides a seamless information flow from design and manufacturing through the ultimate selling and servicing of products Data Primarily focused on “item” vs. “product” data Product structures Specifications Technical information Repository for all product information. Reaches out to entire enterprise and its various silos of product information and descriptions Provides a “trusted source” of accurate product information to the internal organization and trading partners Data Lifecycle Repository for all design iterations Historical information Released, current information, with version management and time stamping Provides a single location to track and audit historical product information Communication PLM release finished product to ERP PLM is the master for Product Definition Captures information from disparate sources, including in-house data stores Recognizes the reality of today’s data “mess” across information silos Provides the ability to package product information to its audience in the desired, relevant format to meet their exacting business requirements Departmental R&D Manufacturing Quality Compliance Procurement Strategic Marketing Focus on Marketing and Sales Gathering information from other Departments, multiple sites, multiple suppliers A singular enterprise solution that leverages existing information silos and data stores Supply Chain Multi-site internal collaboration Supplier collaboration Customer collaboration Works with customers, exchanges / data pools, and trading partners to provide relevant product information packaged the way the customer desires Provides ability to provide trading partners and internal customers with information in a manner they desire, continuously Tools Data Management Collaboration Innovation Management Cleansing Synchronization Hub functions Consistent, clean and complete commercial product information The goals of both PLM and PIM, put simply, are to help companies make more profit from their products. PLM and PIM solutions can be easily added as they share some of the same goals, while coming from two different perspectives: the definition of the product and the commercialization of the product. Both can serve as a form of product “system of record”, but take different approaches to delivering value. Oracle Product Value Chain solutions offer rich new strategies for executives to collectively leverage Agile PLM, Product Data Hub, together with Enterprise Data Quality for Products, and other industry leading Oracle applications to achieve further incremental value, like Oracle Innovation Management. This is unique on the market today.

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• SQL Authority News – Play by Play with Pinal Dave – A Birthday Gift

  - by Pinal Dave

  Today is my birthday. Personal Note When I was young, I was always looking forward to my birthday as on this day, I used to get gifts from everybody. Now when I am getting old on each of my birthday, I have almost same feeling but the direction is different. Now on each of my birthday, I feel like giving gifts to everybody. I have received lots of support, love and respect from everybody; and now I must return it back.Well, on this birthday, I have very unique gifts for everybody – my latest course on SQL Server. How I Tune Performance I often get questions where I am asked how do I work on a normal day. I am often asked that how do I work when I have performance tuning project is assigned to me. Lots of people have expressed their desire that they want me to explain and demonstrate my own method of solving performance problem when I am facing real world problem. It is a pretty difficult task as in the real world, nothing goes as planned and usually planned demonstrations have no place there. The real world, demands real solutions and in a timely fashion. If a consultant goes to industry and does not demonstrate his/her capabilities in very first few minutes, it does not matter how much fame he/she is, the door is shown to them eventually. It is true and in my early career, I have faced it quite commonly. I have learned the trick to be honest from the start and request absolutely transparent communication from the organization where I am to consult. Play by Play Play by Play is a very unique setup. It is not planned and it is a step by step course. It is like a reality show – a very real encounter to the problem and real problem solving approach. I had a great time doing this course. Geoffrey Grosenbach (VP of Pluralsight) sits down with me to see what a SQL Server Admin does in the real world. This Play-by-Play focuses on SQL Server performance tuning and I go over optimizing queries and fine-tuning the server. The table of content of this course is very simple. Introduction In the introduction I explained my basic strategies when I am approached by a customer for performance tuning. Basic Information Gathering In this module I explain how I do gather various information for performance tuning project. It is very crucial to demonstrate to customers for consultant his capability of solving problem. I attempt to resolve a small problem which gives a big positive impact on performance, consultant have to gather proper information from the start. I demonstrate in this module, how one can collect all the important performance tuning metrics. Removing Performance Bottleneck In this module, I build upon the previous module’s statistics collected. I analysis various performance tuning measures and immediately start implementing various tweaks on the performance, which will start improving the performance of my server. This is a very effective method and it gives immediate return of efforts. Index Optimization Indexes are considered as a silver bullet for performance tuning. However, it is not true always there are plenty of examples where indexes even performs worst after implemented. The key is to understand a few of the basic properties of the index and implement the right things at the right time. In this module, I describe in detail how to do index optimizations and what are right and wrong with Index. If you are a DBA or developer, and if your application is running slow – this is must attend module for you. I have some really interesting stories to tell as well. Optimize Query with Rewrite Every problem has more than one solution, in this module we will see another very famous, but hard to master skills for performance tuning – Query Rewrite. There are few do’s and don’ts for any query rewrites. I take a very simple example and demonstrate how query rewrite can improve the performance of the query at many folds. I also share some real world funny stories in this module. This course is hosted at Pluralsight. You will need a valid login for Pluralsight to watch  Play by Play: Pinal Dave course. You can also sign up for FREE Trial of Pluralsight to watch this course. As today is my birthday – I will give 10 people (randomly) who will express their desire to learn this course, a free code. Please leave your comment and I will send you free code to watch this course for free. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Video

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• Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective – Part 3

  - by pinaldave

  Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 Congratulations!  You are now a fully trained developer!  You spent hours in a classroom, watching webinars, and reading materials.  You are now more educated and more prepared than ever before.  Now what? Stay or Quit The simple answer is that you now have two options – stay where you are or move on to a new job.  Even though you might now be smarter than you have ever felt before, this can still be a tough decision to make.  You feel extra trained and ready for a promotion or a raise, but you and your employer might not see eye to eye on this issue.  The logical conclusion is to go on a job hunt, but that might not be the most ethical thing to do. Click Image to Enlarge Manager’s Perspective Click Image to Enlarge Try to see the issue from your manager’s perspective.  You feel that you have just spent a lot of time and energy getting trained, and you should be rewarded.  But they have invested their time and energy in you.  They might see the training as a way to help you complete the goals they require from you, or as a way to help you complete tasks that will ultimately end in a reward or promotion. Moral Compass As in most cases, honesty is the best policy.  Be open with your manager about your expectations, and ask them to explain their goals.  When there is open and honest communication, everyone can walk away happy.  If you’re unable to discuss with your manager for one reason or another, just try to keep the company policy in mind and follow your own moral compass.  If all else fails, and your company is unwilling to make allowances for your new value, offer to pay the company back for the training before moving on your way. Whether you stay at your old job or move on to a new one, you are still faced with the question of what you’re going to do with all your new knowledge.  If you feel comfortable, offer to train others around you who are interested in the same subject.  This can look very good on your resume, and if you are working in a team environment it is sure to help you in the long run! What Next? You can even offer to train other trainers at the company – managers, those above you, or even report back to your original trainer about how your education is helping you in the work place.  Obviously this should be completely voluntary on the trainer’s part.  Taking advice from a “newbie” may not be their favorite idea, but it could also show the company that you are open to expanding your horizons and being helpful to everyone around you. Last in Line for Opportunity Click Image to Enlarge At this time, let us address a subject related to training and what to do with it – what if you are always overlooked for training?  This can as thorny a problem as receiving training in the first place.  The best advice is to let your supervisors know that you are always open to training and very interested in certain topics.  If you are consistently passed over, be patient.  Your turn will probably come, but the company as a whole has to focus on other problems at the moment.  If you feel that there are more personal issues at play, be sure to bring this up with your supervisor in a calm and professional manager so that everything can be worked out best for both parties. You, Yourself and Your Future! If all else fails, offer to pay for training yourself.  Perhaps money problems are at the root of being passed over.  Even if there are other reasons, offering to pay your own way shows your dedication and could work out well for you in the long run.  Always remember – in life you have to go out and make your own way, you cannot always sit and wait for things to land in your lap. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• A Graduate&rsquo;s Journey at Oracle &ndash; Bhaskar Ghosh From Oracle India

  - by david.talamelli

  I am Bhaskar Ghosh, and I work as an Applications Engineer with Oracle. Well, it was three years ago when my journey with one of the largest software companies started. It was a fine day and a decisive moment, when I was placed in Oracle as a campus recruit from College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University, Chennai! I always thought of looking back, the time that helped me learn beyond my boundaries, think broader and ahead, and grow – technically, professionally and personally. Hmmn! Let me recall the eventful moments once again. My first day as an intern at Oracle started in late 2007. I met one of the Oracle Managers at the Oracle Campus in Hyderabad and on the same day I also met another Oracle employee who was to later to become my first manager. I was charged and thrilled with the environment and the wonderful people around me! I was joined by two other interns, who also had a Masters in Computer Applications. We formed a very friendly group with all the interns and the new hires, and shared our excitement and learning. Myself and one of the other Graduates started working on a very interesting project on Semantic technology. We finally had our names added as co-developers for this very project. This phase of five months was the time and we learnt tremendously and worked very hard, partly because we had to travel back and forth to our colleges to submit reports and present for the Masters in Computer Applications final year project reviews. After completing my MCA, I joined as a full-time employee in 2008. During the next year, we worked on interesting and bleeding edge technologies - OWL, RDF, SPARQL, Visualization, J2EE, Social Web features, Semantic Web technologies, Web Services and many more! We developed cool, rich internet and desktop applications. Little did I know at that time, that this learning would help me tremendously for my the next project in Oracle. The following year saw me being assigned a role in a different project that my other team members were working on for the last two years. It took me two months to understand and get into a flow with this new task. I was fortunate that this phase helped me enhance my inter-personal and communication skills, as much as it helped me grow professionally with better ability to tackle multiple priorities and switch between tasks based on the team’s requirements. I was made the POC for all communications with our team and other product teams. I personally feel that this time enhanced me tremendously in technologies like Oracle Forms, J2EE, and Java and Web Services. The last six months, saw myself becoming an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer member, and continuing my higher education International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad. Oracle supports its employees becoming members of professional bodies, and higher studies are supported by management, I think it is tremendously helpful in the professional and technical growth of the employees. Last three months, I have been working on great and useful enhancements to our product. Ah beautiful! All these years, there have been other moments and events of fun that are too worth mentioning. Clubs and groups at Oracle such as Employee Club, Oracle Volunteers, Football Club, etc. have always kept on organizing numerous events and competitions, full of fun and entertainment. I really enjoyed participating, even if it was small, in the intra-Oracle football tourney, Oracle Volunteer Days, OraFora, OraOvations, and a few more. Those ‘Seasons of Sharing’, those ‘Blood Donation camps’, those ‘Diwali and Christmas gifts and events’, those ‘fun events at the annual function called OraOvations’, those ‘books and cycle stalls’, and those so many other things… It only fills my mind with pleasure. The last three years have been very eventful:they have been full of learning and growth, and under the very able and encouraging guidance of my manager. I have got the opportunity to know about and/or interact with many wonderful personalities, and learn from them, here at Oracle. The environment, the people, and the fellow developers have been so friendly, and always ever ready to help, when we were in doubt.. I really love the big office space, and the flexible timings, and the caring people around. I look forward to a beautiful, learning and motivating journey with Oracle.

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