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• Setting up a home server - what to use? (ZFS vs btrfs, BSD vs Linux, misc other requirements)

  - by monch1962

  I need to get all our home content off individual machines and onto a central server. What I'd like to have is the metaphorical "server under the stairs". Stuff we need: expandable storage. I want to be able to add extra disc as we go along, with minimal maintenance required. Currently we've got about 3Tb of files we need to host, and that's likely to grow by another Tb every 6-12 months based on recent history. I need to be able to add additional disc with minimal pain needs to store all the media (i.e. photos, video, music) we have, and run services to serve the various devices we have in the house to playback (e.g. DAAP so we can play stuff through iTunes, ccxstream so we can play stuff over XBMC). DAAP and ccxstream are needed now, but we also need to support new standards as they emerge (so a closed-box solution isn't going to work) RAID 5, or something broadly equivalent (e.g. RAID-Z) BitTorrent client ssh, NFS, Samba access snapshot capability (as in ZFS), so we can snapshot individual file systems regularly and rollback when my kids delete their school assignments the day before they're due... ability to recover quickly from power outages (it's not unusual for us to have power outages that last longer than our UPS' batteries) FOSS software a modern distributed version control system running on the box, such as Mercurial Stuff I'd like to have on the server, but can live without: PVR capability, so I could record TV to the box Web server. We currently run a small Web server on a very old box, and I'd ideally like to turn the old box off and move the content to the new server just to save some electricity Nagios + mrtg I've been looking at using a EEE Box as the server, primarily because I can get them cheap and they don't consume much power. The choice of OS and file system is more difficult, from what I've found: I've got most experience with various Linux distros, but am happy to use another Unix FreeBSD and OpenSolaris seem to be the best choices for hosting ZFS OpenSolaris' hardware support is nowhere near as good as e.g. Ubuntu btrfs, while looking very good, doesn't seem ready for prime-time yet ZFS doesn't let you (easily?) add new discs to a RAID5 or RAID-Z reading around, it seems that ZFS is a bit short of tools for recovering lost data At the moment, I'm leaning towards running FreeNAS+ZFS, but I'm concerned about the requirement to be able to add new disc on a fairly regular basis to an existing RAID-Z. Can anyone provide some recommendations, or share experiences? Thanks in advance

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• Setting up a home server - what to use? (ZFS vs btrfs, BSD vs Linux, misc other requirements)

  - by monch1962

  I need to get all our home content off individual machines and onto a central server. What I'd like to have is the metaphorical "server under the stairs". Stuff we need: expandable storage. I want to be able to add extra disc as we go along, with minimal maintenance required. Currently we've got about 3Tb of files we need to host, and that's likely to grow by another Tb every 6-12 months based on recent history. I need to be able to add additional disc with minimal pain needs to store all the media (i.e. photos, video, music) we have, and run services to serve the various devices we have in the house to playback (e.g. DAAP so we can play stuff through iTunes, ccxstream so we can play stuff over XBMC). DAAP and ccxstream are needed now, but we also need to support new standards as they emerge (so a closed-box solution isn't going to work) RAID 5, or something broadly equivalent (e.g. RAID-Z) BitTorrent client ssh, NFS, Samba access snapshot capability (as in ZFS), so we can snapshot individual file systems regularly and rollback when my kids delete their school assignments the day before they're due... ability to recover quickly from power outages (it's not unusual for us to have power outages that last longer than our UPS' batteries) FOSS software a modern distributed version control system running on the box, such as Mercurial Stuff I'd like to have on the server, but can live without: PVR capability, so I could record TV to the box Web server. We currently run a small Web server on a very old box, and I'd ideally like to turn the old box off and move the content to the new server just to save some electricity Nagios + mrtg I've been looking at using a EEE Box as the server, primarily because I can get them cheap and they don't consume much power. The choice of OS and file system is more difficult, from what I've found: I've got most experience with various Linux distros, but am happy to use another Unix FreeBSD and OpenSolaris seem to be the best choices for hosting ZFS OpenSolaris' hardware support is nowhere near as good as e.g. Ubuntu btrfs, while looking very good, doesn't seem ready for prime-time yet ZFS doesn't let you (easily?) add new discs to a RAID5 or RAID-Z reading around, it seems that ZFS is a bit short of tools for recovering lost data At the moment, I'm leaning towards running FreeNAS+ZFS, but I'm concerned about the requirement to be able to add new disc on a fairly regular basis to an existing RAID-Z. Can anyone provide some recommendations, or share experiences? Thanks in advance

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• Scoping a home dev server

  - by AbhikRK

  Hi. I’m looking to build a multi-purpose home development server. In this post, I’m looking to outline what I want from such a system, and the ‘why’s of it, to some limited extent, and finally, some rudiments of how I’m looking to go about that. I’m mostly a developer, with just about some sysadmin familiarity. So, please excuse, correct me, and suggest on any ignorance which would come across in the following ;-) It will serve the following goals to start with:- NAS (Looking at using ZFS) Source control repo e.g Git server Database e.g MySQL server Continuous Integration e.g Hudson server Other stuff as and when they come up e.g RabbitMQ etc A development sandbox to play around with new stuff I want to achieve a high uptime for 2-5 as much as possible. They should run as independent services and with minimal maintenance. (e.g TurnKey Linux appliances) I’m thinking of running them as individual Xen DomUs. Then, maybe the NAS can be a Dom0 and 6 can be another DomU. The User for this would be mostly me. I can see 2-4 being sometimes used by 2-3 users, but that would be infrequent. I’m looking for a repeatable setup. Ideally I’d like to automate this setup through Chef or Puppet or something similar. Once everything runs, I want to be able to ssh/screen/tmux into 1-6 from my laptop or any other computer on the LAN/on-the-go. My queries are:- Is putting 1-6, all of them on a single box, a good idea? If so, what kind of hardware should I be looking at, for a low-cost, low-power setup? Although not at present, but in future I might be looking at adding audio/media servers to the mix. Would that impact the answers to 1? I have an old Pentium 3 and 810e motherboard combination. Is there any way I could put it to use? I had a look at the Sheevaplug, and was wondering if I could split off the NAS on its own using that. But ruled it out preliminarily due to its reported heating issues. Is it something i should still consider? Thanks in advance

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• Scoping a home dev server

  - by AbhikRK

  Hi. I’m looking to build a multi-purpose home development server. In this post, I’m looking to outline what I want from such a system, and the ‘why’s of it, to some limited extent, and finally, some rudiments of how I’m looking to go about that. I’m mostly a developer, with just about some sysadmin familiarity. So, please excuse, correct me, and suggest on any ignorance which would come across in the following ;-) It will serve the following goals to start with:- NAS (Looking at using ZFS) Source control repo e.g Git server Database e.g MySQL server Continuous Integration e.g Hudson server Other stuff as and when they come up e.g RabbitMQ etc A development sandbox to play around with new stuff I want to achieve a high uptime for 2-5 as much as possible. They should run as independent services and with minimal maintenance. (e.g TurnKey Linux appliances) I’m thinking of running them as individual Xen DomUs. Then, maybe the NAS can be a Dom0 and 6 can be another DomU. The User for this would be mostly me. I can see 2-4 being sometimes used by 2-3 users, but that would be infrequent. I’m looking for a repeatable setup. Ideally I’d like to automate this setup through Chef or Puppet or something similar. Once everything runs, I want to be able to ssh/screen/tmux into 1-6 from my laptop or any other computer on the LAN/on-the-go. My queries are:- Is putting 1-6, all of them on a single box, a good idea? If so, what kind of hardware should I be looking at, for a low-cost, low-power setup? Although not at present, but in future I might be looking at adding audio/media servers to the mix. Would that impact the answers to 1? I have an old Pentium 3 and 810e motherboard combination. Is there any way I could put it to use? I had a look at the Sheevaplug, and was wondering if I could split off the NAS on its own using that. But ruled it out preliminarily due to its reported heating issues. Is it something i should still consider? Thanks in advance Have posted this question previously on SuperUser but no responses yet. So was wondering if this is a more apt forum for this.

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• Seeking (somewhat) better explanations about supporting > 2.1 TB hard drives.

  - by irrational John

  Today while Googling about I stumbled across posts claiming that Seagate plans to ship a 3TB drive sometime later in 2010. Unfortunately, the stuff I looked at all seemed to contain tidbits of info which I didn't think fit together properly. (I would link to some examples, but I'm only allowed 1 link per post at the moment). Now I really don't have any "need" to better understand the underlying tedious details of this. I am just curious. And confused. So ... some questions I'm hoping someone better informed than I might answer. The talk about a potential addressing problem in both the hardware and the software confused me. The assertion is that something called something called Long LBA addressing (LLBA) is needed in the Command Descriptor Block as a way to get around the current limits to access a hard drive bigger than ~2.1 (or ~2.2?) TB. OK, fine. But I thought the last time this problem came up it was solved by extending the length of the LBA field from 28 to 48 bits. (Remember this website? www.48bitlba.com) A 6 byte LBA is clearly large enough, so what's up with this LLBA talk. I thought this was all fixed back by Win XP SP2, if not sooner? And certainly all the hardware should be up to the task, shouldn't it? The real problem as I understand it with drives much bigger than 2 TB are the 4 byte LBA fields in the Master Boot Record (MBR) used to partition just about all hard drives at the moment. The most likely solution is to migrate to Intel's GUID Partition Table (GPT). A GPT uses 8 byte fields for the LBA. What I don't understand in this context is what is the problem with booting say Windows from a 3TB drive that uses a GPT. Granted, the current PC BIOS wouldn't know how to recognize or work with a GPT. But every GPT comes with a so-called "Safety" or "Guarding" MBR in sector 0.Apple already uses a hybrid version of the MBR to allow them to boot Windows on their Intel Macs (aka Boot Camp). Couldn't something similar be done to allow the PC BIOS to recognize and boot from a partition in, say, the first 1 GB of a 3GB or larger drive? I've got more questions such as where do 4K sectors fit into all of this. But it's probably time I just shut up and posted this. ;-) -irrational john

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• Corosync :: Restarting some resources after Lan connectivity issue

  - by moebius_eye

  I am currently looking into corosync to build a two-node cluster. So, I've got it working fine, and it does what I want to do, which is: Lost connectivity between the two nodes gives the first node '10node' both Failover Wan IPs. (aka resources WanCluster100 and WanCluster101 ) '11node' does nothing. He "thinks" he still has his Failover Wan IP. (aka WanCluster101) But it doesn't do this: '11node' should restart the WanCluster101 resource when the connectivity with the other node is back. This is to prevent a condition where node10 simply dies (and thus does not get 11node's Failover Wan IP), resulting in a situation where none of the nodes have 10node's failover IP because 10node is down 11node has "given back" his failover Wan IP. Here's the current configuration I'm working on. node 10sch \ attributes standby="off" node 11sch \ attributes standby="off" primitive LanCluster100 ocf:heartbeat:IPaddr2 \ params ip="172.25.0.100" cidr_netmask="32" nic="eth3" \ op monitor interval="10s" \ meta is-managed="true" target-role="Started" primitive LanCluster101 ocf:heartbeat:IPaddr2 \ params ip="172.25.0.101" cidr_netmask="32" nic="eth3" \ op monitor interval="10s" \ meta is-managed="true" target-role="Started" primitive Ping100 ocf:pacemaker:ping \ params host_list="192.0.2.1" multiplier="500" dampen="15s" \ op monitor interval="5s" \ meta target-role="Started" primitive Ping101 ocf:pacemaker:ping \ params host_list="192.0.2.1" multiplier="500" dampen="15s" \ op monitor interval="5s" \ meta target-role="Started" primitive WanCluster100 ocf:heartbeat:IPaddr2 \ params ip="192.0.2.100" cidr_netmask="32" nic="eth2" \ op monitor interval="10s" \ meta target-role="Started" primitive WanCluster101 ocf:heartbeat:IPaddr2 \ params ip="192.0.2.101" cidr_netmask="32" nic="eth2" \ op monitor interval="10s" \ meta target-role="Started" primitive Website0 ocf:heartbeat:apache \ params configfile="/etc/apache2/apache2.conf" options="-DSSL" \ operations $id="Website-one" \ op start interval="0" timeout="40" \ op stop interval="0" timeout="60" \ op monitor interval="10" timeout="120" start-delay="0" statusurl="http://127.0.0.1/server-status/" \ meta target-role="Started" primitive Website1 ocf:heartbeat:apache \ params configfile="/etc/apache2/apache2.conf.1" options="-DSSL" \ operations $id="Website-two" \ op start interval="0" timeout="40" \ op stop interval="0" timeout="60" \ op monitor interval="10" timeout="120" start-delay="0" statusurl="http://127.0.0.1/server-status/" \ meta target-role="Started" group All100 WanCluster100 LanCluster100 group All101 WanCluster101 LanCluster101 location AlwaysPing100WithNode10 Ping100 \ rule $id="AlWaysPing100WithNode10-rule" inf: #uname eq 10sch location AlwaysPing101WithNode11 Ping101 \ rule $id="AlWaysPing101WithNode11-rule" inf: #uname eq 11sch location NeverLan100WithNode11 LanCluster100 \ rule $id="RAND1083308" -inf: #uname eq 11sch location NeverPing100WithNode11 Ping100 \ rule $id="NeverPing100WithNode11-rule" -inf: #uname eq 11sch location NeverPing101WithNode10 Ping101 \ rule $id="NeverPing101WithNode10-rule" -inf: #uname eq 10sch location Website0NeedsConnectivity Website0 \ rule $id="Website0NeedsConnectivity-rule" -inf: not_defined pingd or pingd lte 0 location Website1NeedsConnectivity Website1 \ rule $id="Website1NeedsConnectivity-rule" -inf: not_defined pingd or pingd lte 0 colocation Never -inf: LanCluster101 LanCluster100 colocation Never2 -inf: WanCluster100 LanCluster101 colocation NeverBothWebsitesTogether -inf: Website0 Website1 property $id="cib-bootstrap-options" \ dc-version="1.1.7-ee0730e13d124c3d58f00016c3376a1de5323cff" \ cluster-infrastructure="openais" \ expected-quorum-votes="2" \ no-quorum-policy="ignore" \ stonith-enabled="false" \ last-lrm-refresh="1408954702" \ maintenance-mode="false" rsc_defaults $id="rsc-options" \ resource-stickiness="100" \ migration-threshold="3" I also have a less important question concerning this line: colocation NeverBothLans -inf: LanCluster101 LanCluster100 How do I tell it that this collocation only applies to '11node'.

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• Unextending Sharepoint 2007 Web Application from a zone

  - by dunxd

  When our Sharepoint was migrated from Sharepoint 2003 to Sharepoint 2007 (both fully paid versions), the consultants who carried it out extended each web app into two IIS sites/zones (e.g. the original Web App was http://intranet, then http://newintranet and http://intranet would be created for Sharepoint 2007 - each with its own IIS site). The idea was that during the migration period we would set up DNS to point the old url to SP2003 servers and the new one to SP2007, then once the migration was complete, do a DNS change so the SP2007 would recieve the requests to the http://intranet type URLs. Unfortunately the contractors did not tidy up the application extensions and IIS sites after the migration, and for some time both URLs were in use, resulting in many document links pointing to the http://newintranet type URLs. This means I need to maintain these URLs. Due to a rejig of organisation structure we now need to relocate some Sharepoint sites, and I'd like to use the RDA Collaboration Sharepoint URL Redirector feature. However a limitation of this is that it doesn't work for Web Applications which have been extended into multiple zones. So I have a need to tidy up the situation that our consultants left behind. I think the right thing to do is use the "Remove Sharepoint from IIS Web Site" page in Central Admin to remove the zone for the newintranet type sites, and select the option to also delete the IIS site. That should result in having no IIS sites listening for http://newintranet type URLs. Is this the right procedure? Once I have done that I need to set up Sharepoint to receive requests sent to the http://newintranet type URLs so they will continue to work. I am not sure if I should do this: using Alternative Access Mappings or, by adding a host header to the IIS site or, creating a non Sharepoint IIS site for each http://newintranet type URL, and use IIS redirection to forward the requests to the new URL using variables to pass the path to the Sharepoint site. Does anyone have any thoughts on these options, or any other way of achieving this? Sharepoint 2007 is running on Windows 2003 with IIS6. We don't currently have plans/budget to upgrade to Sharepoint 2010.

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• What part of SMF is likely broken by a hard power down?

  - by David Mackintosh

  At one of my customer sites, the local guy shut down their local Solaris 10 x86 server, pulled the power inputs, moved it, and now it won’t start properly. It boots and then presents a prompt which lets you log in. This appears to be single user milestone (or equivalent). Digging into it, I think that SMF isn’t permitting the system to go multi-user. SMF was generating a ton of errors on autofs, after some fooling with it I got it to generate errors on inetd and nfs/client instead. This all tells me that the problem is in some SMF state file or database that needs to be fixed/deleted/recreated or something, but I don’t know what the actual issue is. By “generate errors”, I mean that every second I get a message on the console saying “Method or service exit timed out. Killing contract <#.” This makes interacting with the computer difficult. Running svcs –xv shows the service as “enabled”, in state “disabled”, reason “Start method is running”. Fooling with svcadm on the service does nothing, except confirm that the service is not in a Maintenance state. Logs in /lib/svc/log/$SERVICE just tell you that this loop has been happening once per second. Logs in /etc/svc/volatile/$SERVICE confirm that at boot the service is attempted to start, and immediately stopped, no further entries. Note that system-log isn’t starting because system-log depends on autofs so I have no syslog or dmesg. Googling all these terms ends up telling me how to debug/fix either autofs or nfs/client or inetd or rpc/gss (which was the dependency that SMF was using as an excuse to prevent nfs/client from “starting”, it was claiming that rpc/gss was “undefined” which is incorrect since this all used to work. I re-enabled it with inetadm, but inetd still won’t start properly). But I think that the problem is SMF in general, not the individual services. Doing a restore_repository to the “manifest_import” does nothing to improve, or even detectibly change, the situation. I didn’t use a boot backup because the last boot(s) were not useful. I have told the customer that since the valuable data directories are on a separate file system (which fsck’s as clean so it is intact) we could just re-install solaris 10 on the / partition. But that seems like an awfully windows-like solution to inflict on this problem. So. Any ideas what piece is broken and how I might fix it?

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• Recommendations or advice for shared computer control

  - by Telemachus

  Basic scenario: we are a school (overwhelmingly Mac, some Windows machines via BootCamp), and we are considering using DeepFreeze to guard the state of our shared machines. We have roughly 250 machines that are either shared laptops (which move around quite a bit) or common desktops in public spaces. Obviously, we spend a lot of time maintaining the machines and trying to reverse the inevitable drift as people make changes to the computers. We would like to control the integrity of the build we initially put onto the machines without handcuffing users and especially without using Mac's Parental Control software. (We've had nothing but bad experiences with it.) We've been testing DeepFreeze, and so far it's very impressive. But I'm curious to hear if people who have used DeepFreeze or any similar software have any advice or tips. To get things started, I will post my own pros and cons. Pros: The state of the machine is frozen in our chosen state. All changes made to the machine after that disappear upon restart. (This frozen state really appears to cover everything. I have yet to do something to a test machine that isn't instantly healed.) Tons of trivial but time-consuming maintenance is gone in an instant. Also, lots of not-so-trivial breakage should be avoided. There are good options, however, that allow you to create storage spaces either globally or per user. (Otherwise, stored files disappear upon reboot. For some machines, this is a good option itself. Simply warn people: save externally or else; this machine is a kiosk, not your storage space.) Cons: Anytime we actually need to make a change (upgrade basic software, add a printer or an airport permanently, add new software), the process is a bit more complex. Reboot into a special mode (thaw state), make changes, reboot back into frozen mode. If (when?) we forget this, we will end up making changes that disappear after the next reboot. Users will forget to save files correctly (in the right place or externally), and we will have loud, unpleasant conversations explaining that we can't recover the document they worked on all afternoon yesterday. The machine rebooted. The file is gone. These are my initial thoughts, but I would love to hear from other people who have experience with DeepFreeze or any similar software. What should we be careful about? Do the pros outweigh the cons? What gains or problems am I not seeing? Thanks.

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• Monitoring tools that can take high rate and high volume?

  - by Jon Watte

  We're using Cacti with RRDTool to monitor and graph about 100,000 counters spread across about 1,000 Linux-based nodes. However, our current setup generally only gives us 5-minute graphs (with some data being minute-based); we often make changes where seeing feedback in "near real time" would be of value. I'd like approximately a week of 5- or 10-second data, a year of 1-minute data, and 5 years of 10-minute data. I have SSD disks and a dual-hexa-core server to spare. I tried setting up a Graphite/carbon/whisper server, and had about 15 nodes pipe to it, but it only has "average" for the retention function when promoting to older buckets. This is almost useless -- I'd like min, max, average, standard deviation, and perhaps "total sum" and "number of samples" or perhaps "95th percentile" available. The developer claims there's a new back-end "in beta" that allows you to write your own function, but this appears to still only do 1:1 retention (when saving older data, you really want the statistics calculated into many streams from a single input. Also, "in beta" seems a little risky for this installation. If I'm wrong about this assumption, I'd be happy to be shown my error! I've heard Zabbix recommended, but it puts data into MySQL or some other SQL database. 100,000 counters on a 5 second interval means 20,000 tps, and while I have an SSD, I don't have an 8-way RAID-6 with battery backup cache, which I think I'd need for that to work out :-) Again, if that's actually something that's not a problem, I'd be happy to be shown the error of my ways. Also, can Zabbix do the single data stream - promote with statistics thing? Finally, Munin claims to have a new 2.0 coming out "in beta" right now, and it boasts custom retention plans. However, again, it's that "in beta" part -- has anyone used that for real, and at scale? How did it perform, if so? I'm almost thinking about using a graphing front-end (such as Graphite) and rolling my own retention backend with a simple layer on top of mmap() and some stats. That wouldn't be particularly hard, and would probably perform very well, letting the kernel figure out the balance between frequency of flushing to disk and process operations. Any other suggestions I should look into? Note: it has to have shown itself able to sustain the kinds of data loads I'm suggesting above; if you can point at the specific implementation you're referencing, so much the better!

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• Looking for personal scheduling software / todo list with rather particular requirements

  - by Cthulhu

  I've been scouring the web for a couple of (my boss') hours, looking for a piece of software that can organize my tasks in two ways. First, I have a list of bullet points / todo items I can do at any given time. Think of stuff like solve issue X, ask X about Y, write documentation about Z, etcetera. Second, I have a number of running projects I'd like to organize better, as in schedule for a certain part of a day of the week. Ideally (I think), my day would be organized as 50% spent on projects and 50% on the other small things. Now, I don't like most calendar applications (such as Outlook & friends), their UI is too 'official', not really easy to move stuff around (in my experience). I don't like most todo lists either, too static and things. I like new, fast and hip software. I've looked at GTD versions of Tiddlywiki, and I like mGSD for one particular feature. You can make lists of tasks and basically give them one of three statusses - Now (nothing required, you can do it right away), Waiting (you need someone or something before you can work on this), or the most gratifying of all, Done. I like that feature because it's a simple todo list, but indicates more accurately the things you can do right now and the things you depend on someone else for to do. Anyways, that's just a small aspect of that program - most of the other things in there I can't find a particularly good use for. If there's something like that (maybe something that works even snappier, cleaner UI), combined with an easy to use bit of scheduling software (optionally separated into two applications, but preferrably not), I think I'd like that. (Besides something like that, I also use several instances of Trac to monitor tasks and bugs and things for the various clients and projects I have to serve, and TaskCoach to monitor the amount of time I spend on each task / each client. An easy / low-maintenance time tracking software would be neat too) Of course, the software has to be free to use. I don't like shareware, trials, limited software and the like. I could develop my own too, but I'm lazy like that and there's a dozen other projects I'd like to do in my free time (neither of which I actually do). Edit: I like David Seah's printable CEO stuff, if something like that (with some video game / instant achievement / gratification) exists in software, it'd be awesome.

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• How do I (robustly) remotely execute tasks on Windows workstations in a domain?

  - by Zac B

  I'm not even sure if "robustly" is a word. Anyway. Context: We have a few hundred Windows 7 workstations on a LAN. We use AD/GPO management pretty heavily, but there are a lot of periodic and/or manual maintenance tasks we need to do that can't be done via GPO/scheduled task. For example, say I want to execute program X (which runs silently, in the background, and doesn't bother the user) on workstation Y, or say I want to execute task A on a workstation group B either on a schedule or on demand. Kicking the users off of their computers to do this (i.e. using RDP) is a no-no, and doesn't work on groups anyway. Question: What's the best way to do this that is robust enough that, after setup, I could give it to beginner support people (read: people who are phobic of the command line, and get confused with GUI interfaces more complicated than Firefox)? I'm a competent programmer, and, if there is a robust set of tools or framework out there for this type of task, I'd consider hacking something together myself if it didn't take too long. If there's some combination of tools or techniques that others use to make remote-workstation-administration doable by beginners, I have yet to find it. For those who care about the "why": I'm midlevel IT, and was told to implement a remote management solution that allows arbitrary/scheduled remote execution, with confirmation that programs actually ran remotely, and the ability to view what they returned. "Why?" I asked, "Can't I just use PsExec and the task scheduler on a dispatcher machine?" "No," I was told, "'Joe' the second-week tech is going to be in charge of this one, and he needs something simple with a GUI." What I've tried: I've played with making a bunch of one-clickable "transfer files to remote computer and run them with PsExec" batch/VB scrips, but those tend to break down and don't easily support running on customizable groups. I've played a little bit with the Windows version of Puppet, but it doesn't support arbitrary-time remote execution (it's ability to group computers into a tree/node structure is really nice though). I've used an older version of Altiris, and, while it does a lot of what I want, it's interface is awful, it's slow, crashes a lot, and is probably too expensive for management. SwiftWater's DMS solution does some of what I want, but it's very underdeveloped, closed-source (not a deal breaker but not ideal), and I get the impression that support and reliability are lacking.

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• IT merger - self-sufficient site with domain controller VS thin clients outpost with access to termi

  - by imagodei

  SITUATION: A larger company acquires a smaller one. IT infrastructure has to be merged. There are no immediate plans to change the current size or role of the smaller company - the offices and production remain. It has a Win 2003 SBS domain server, Win 2000 file server, linux server for SVN and internal Wikipedia, 2 or 3 production machines, LTO backup solution. The servers are approx. 5 years old. Cisco network equippment (switches, wireless, ASA). Mail solution is a hosted Exchange. There are approx. 35 desktops and laptops in the company. IT infrastructure unification: There are 2 IT merging proposals. 1.) Replacing old servers, installing Win Server 2008 domain controller, and setting up either subdomain or domain trust to a larger company. File server and other servers remain local and synchronization should be set up to a centralized location in larger company. Similary with the backup - it remains local and if needed it should be replicated to a centralized location. Licensing is managed by smaller company. 2.) All servers are moved to a centralized location in larger company. As many desktop machines as possible are replaced by thin clients. The actual machines are virtualized and hosted by Terminal server at the same central location. Citrix solutions will be used. Only router and site-2-site VPN connection remain at the smaller company. Backup internet line to insure near 100% availability is needed. Licensing is mainly managed by larger company. Only specialized software for PCs that will not be virtualized is managed by smaller company. I'd like to ask you to discuss both solutions a bit. In your opinion, which is better from the operational point of view? Which is more reliable, cheaper in the long run? Easier to manage from the system administrator's point of view? Easier on the budget and easier to maintain from IT department's point of view? Does anybody have any experience with the second option and how does it perform in production environment? Pros and cons of both? Your input will be of great significance to me. Thank you very much!

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• Why is BIND giving me a SERVFAIL in this case? (Notes inside)

  - by imaginative

  Woke up this morning to a bunch of the following: root@foo:/etc/bind# dig @1.2.3.4 foo.example.com ; <<>> DiG 9.6.1-P2 <<>> @1.2.3.4 foo.example.com ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 36121 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;;foo.example.com. IN A ;; Query time: 0 msec ;; SERVER: 1.2.3.4#53(1.2.3.4) ;; WHEN: Thu Apr 1 09:57:59 2010 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 31 Some background on the fictitious "1.2.3.4". It's a slave name server in my nameserver "farm". Technically I have ns1 (being the master) and ns2/ns3. Currently ns1/ns2 are down for maintenance, so I left ns3 at it serving live traffic. That's the point, DNS is supposed to be resilient. Now the odd part is, "1.2.3.4" was serving requests for example.com just fine for the last 4-5 days. This morning I get a phone call that it's non-responsive. After investigation I see the message you see above, SERVFAIL. I looked into the zone file and saw the following: example.com IN SOA ns1.example.com. hostmaster.mail.example.com. ( I wondered if at this point that the nameserver thought it was not authoritative over example.com and adjusted it to the following: example.com IN SOA ns3.example.com. hostmaster.mail.example.com. ( After that, it started responding again for all authoritative queries for example.com. I have no idea why. I thought these things were supposed to be normalized upon zone transfer from ns1 - ns3? Can someone please example why this happened and how to prevent it from happening in the future? I've never had a similar problem, and because I don't understand it well, I might be missing some critical information in this question. So please let me know if I can further add any detail to make things clearer as well. One more thing to note: I have other domains that I'm authoritative for that have their SOA still saying ns1.example.com. and not ns3.example.com. Those domains are serving requests just fine! Is it a matter of time before they stop also and I have to change SOA to ns3.example.com? Is this also only required because ns1 and ns2 are currently offline?

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• Which hardware to VM ratio for Build-Server virtualization?

  - by Martin

  Let's start with saying that I'm a total noob wrt. to server virtualization. That is, I use VMs often during development, but they're simple desktop machine things for me. Now to my problem: We have two (physical) build servers, one master, one slave running Jenkins to do daily tasks and build (Visual C++ Builds) our release packages for our software. As such these machines are critical to our company, because we do lot's releases and without a controlled environment to create them, we can't ship fixes. (And currently there's no proper backup of these machines in place, because they do not hold any data as such - it just would be a major pain to setup them again should they go bust. (But setting up backup that I'd know would work in case of HW failure would even be more pain, so we have skipped that until now.)) Therefore (and for scaling purposes) we would like to go virtual with these machines. Outsourcing to the cloud is not an option, not at all, so we'll have to use on-premises hardware and VM hosts. Each Build-Server (master or slave) is a fully configured (installs, licenses, shares in case of the master, ...) Windows Server box. I would now ideally like to just convert the (two) existing physical nodes to VM images and run them. Later add more VM slave instances as clones of the existing ones. And here begin my questions: Should I go for one VM per one hardware-box or should I go for something where a single hardware runs multiple VMs? That would mean a single point of failure hardware wise and doesn't seem like a good idea ... or?? Since we're doing C++ compilation with Visual Studio, I assume that during a build the hardware (processor cores + disk) will be fully utilized, so going with more than one build-node per hardware doesn't seem to make much sense?? Wrt. to hardware options, does it make any difference which VM software we use (VMWare, MS, Virtualbox, ... ?) (We're using Windows exclusively for our builds.) Regarding budget: We have a normal small company (20 developers) budget for this. ;-) That is, if it's going to cost a few k$ it's going to cost. If it's free - the better. I strongly prefer solutions where there's no multi-k$ maintenance costs per year.

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• How to setup Proxy Cache with Nginx and Passenger

  - by tiny

  I use Nginx and Passenger for my rails application. I want to use proxy cache to cache my pages. However, every request go direct to my rails application. I don't know what wrong with my configuration. Below is my configuration: user www-data; worker_processes 1; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { passenger_root /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15; passenger_ruby /usr/bin/ruby1.8; passenger_max_pool_size 6; passenger_max_instances_per_app 1; passenger_pool_idle_time 0; rails_spawn_method conservative; include mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; server_names_hash_bucket_size 512; sendfile on; #tcp_nopush on; keepalive_timeout 65; tcp_nodelay on; gzip on; gzip_http_version 1.0; gzip_vary on; gzip_comp_level 6; gzip_proxied any; gzip_types text/plain text/css text/javascript application/javascript application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss; proxy_cache_path /var/www/cache/webapp levels=1:2 keys_zone=webapp:8m max_size=1000m inactive=600m; include vhosts/*.conf; include /opt/nginx/conf/sites-enabled/*; root /var/www; } server { listen 127.0.0.1:3008; server_name localhost; root /var/www/yoolk_web_app/public; # <--- be sure to point to 'public'! passenger_enabled on; rails_env development; passenger_use_global_queue on; } server { listen 80; server_name webpage.dev; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header Host $host; error_page 503 http://$host/maintenance.html; location ~* (css|js|png|jpe?g|gif|ico)$ { root /var/www/web_app/public; expires max; } location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3008/; proxy_cache webapp; proxy_cache_valid 200 10m; } #More Location }

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• If Nvidia Shield can stream a game via wifi, why can I not do the same via ethernet to any other PC?

  - by Enigma

  I think it absurd that a wireless game streaming solution is the *first to hit the market when a 1000mbps+ Ethernet connection would accomplish the same feat with roughly 6x the available bandwidth. I can only assume that there must be some reason behind this or a limitation preventing this, but what? 150mbps wifi is in no way superior to a 1000mbps LAN connection aside from well wireless mobility. Not only that but I have a secondary laptop and desktop which should by hardware comparison completely outperform anything the Tegra in the Nvidia Shield can do. Is this all just a marketing scheme to force people to buy the shield for the streaming benefit? Chief among these is that NVIDIA’s Shield handheld game console will be getting a microconsole-like mode, dubbed “Shield Console Mode”, that will allow the handheld to be converted into a more traditional TV-connected console. In console mode Shield can be controlled with a Bluetooth controller, and in accordance with the higher resolution of TVs will accept 1080p game streaming from a suitably equipped PC, versus 720p in handheld mode. With that said 1080p streaming will require additional bandwidth, and while 720p can be done over WiFi NVIDIA will be requiring a hardline GigE connection for 1080p streaming (note that Shield doesn’t have Ethernet, so this is presumably being done over USB). Streaming aside, in console mode Shield will also support its traditional local gaming/application functionality. - http://www.anandtech.com/show/7435/nvidia-consolidates-game-streaming-tech-under-gamestream-brand-announces-shield-console-mode ^ This is not acceptable for me for a number of reasons not to mention the ridiculousness of having a little screen+controller unit sitting there while using a secondary controller and screen instead. That kind of redundant absurdity exemplifies how wrong of a solution that is. They need a second product for this solution without the screen or controller for it to make sense... at which point your just buying a little computer that does what most other larger computers do better. All that is required, by my understanding, is the ability to decode H.264 video compression and transmit control/feedback so by any logical comparison, one (Nvidia especially) should have no difficulty in creating an application for PC's (win32/64 environment) that does the exact same thing their android app does. I have 2 video cards capable of streaming (encoding) H.264 so by right they must be capable of decoding it I would think. I haven't found anything stating plans to allow non-shield owners to do this. Can a third party create this software or does it hinge on some limitation that only Nvidia can overcome? (*) - perhaps this isn't the first but afaik it is the first complete package.

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• What DNS server to use for dynamic load-balancing of website?

  - by Marki555

  I will have 2 servers in different datacenters (different countries) and I want to use DNS load-balancing mainly for High Availability of website hosted on those 2 servers. It is just ad tracking site, which records hit in local database and returns few lines on html code. I want to return 2 A records each time because of DNS pinning in browsers (if one server fails, browser will try second A record which it has already cached). Both servers will be acting also as DNS servers for redundancy. Now comes my proposed solution: I will use BIND and have both servers as a master for that zone. On each server there will be running script, which will periodically test availability (http) of both servers and remove IP from DNS in case of failure. Now the questions :) 1) Is BIND suitable for this solution? I think BIND performance is good and it is easy to manipulate the zone file via script. And as I will modify the zone only in case of failure/maintenance, the modifications (and thus bind reload) won't be often. 2) I plan to use TTL of 5 minutes. The website will have about 1000-3000 req/s but from distinct clients (each IP only 1-3 requests), so I think the DNS load won't be too much. I suppose their ISPs will cache the responses for those 5 mins. Is there any reason to lower the TTL even more? 3) Is my master-master approach good? Or should I make one of the servers master and the other one slave? Right now each server can monitor both itself and the other one. If only webservice fails, both DNS nodes will notice it. If the whole server fails, then the remaining DNS node will notice it and the failed node will not answer DNS queries anyway. 4) Is it a big issue when one NS server does not respond to queries? If yes, I can make a third DNS, so anytime at least 2 of them would accept queries... 5) Should I rewrite the zone file via script, or just use dynamic DNS update (for example via nsupdateutility)?

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• Wrapping a point-to-point link

  - by user3712955

  I'm using a pair of IP radios (non-WiFi) to bridge my office engineering LAN (172.0.0.0/8) to a lab in another building. The radios work fine, but they expose a web management interface I'd like to hide, and they also generate traffic (ARP, STP, and more) that I need to keep off my (very, very clean) LAN segments. I have some ARM-Linux boards (similar to Beagle/Panda/RasPi) running Ubuntu, and I've put one at each end of the link, between the radio and the LAN. Each of the boards has 2 wired Ethernet interfaces, eth0 and eth1. The LAN segments are connected to eth0, and the radios are connected to eth1. I'd like to accomplish the following: Keep radio-originated traffic off my LAN segments! Hide all services provided by the radio (web, ssh, etc.) Transparently pass all traffic between the LAN segments (including things like ARP). The above also applies to the ARM-Linux boards: No stray traffic my LAN from them either! I'd like the system to look like a switch: LAN packets arriving at one eth0 appear at the other. And neither eth0 should have an IP address: The working system should behave like a CAT6 cable with some latency (instead of ARM boards and radios). Unfortunately, I'm confused about how to properly configure the ARM Ubuntu systems. What I'm guessing I need is a bridge on each board (br0?) and a VLAN (vlan0 or eth0.0?) to isolate the LAN traffic from everything else as it passes through the ARM boards and the radios. Then I need some kind of a firewall to block sending anything out eth0 that isn't from the other eth0 (via the VLAN). I've looked at the ip and ebtables commands (especially -t broute). While the concepts sorta-kinda make sense, I'm completely lost in the details. Edit: In the perverse case that a system on one of my LAN segments has the same IP address as one of the radios, or as eth1 on the ARM-Ubuntu boards, a VLAN won't work. Which I believe means I need to tunnel all traffic between the two eth0 interfaces to get that "like a wire" behavior. Help? Finally, I'd like to have a way to temporarily expose services on the ARM boards (ssh) and the radios (web) for maintenance purposes. Ideally, it would expose an IP address with ssh available on port 22. Once connected, I figure I'd start an X11 session and run a browser on the ARM board to access the radios. Or something. I could login via the console to enable/disable this, or perhaps could use a GPIO to trigger a script. I feel I've identified most of the pieces needed to make all this happen, but I have no idea how to combine them to make a working system. Thanks!

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• JMS Step 1 - How to Create a Simple JMS Queue in Weblogic Server 11g

  - by John-Brown.Evans

  JMS Step 1 - How to Create a Simple JMS Queue in Weblogic Server 11g ol{margin:0;padding:0} .c5{vertical-align:top;width:156pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:0pt 2pt 0pt 2pt} .c7{list-style-type:disc;margin:0;padding:0} .c4{background-color:#ffffff} .c14{color:#1155cc;text-decoration:underline} .c6{height:11pt;text-align:center} .c13{color:inherit;text-decoration:inherit} .c3{padding-left:0pt;margin-left:36pt} .c0{border-collapse:collapse} .c12{text-align:center} .c1{direction:ltr} .c8{background-color:#f3f3f3} .c2{line-height:1.0} .c11{font-style:italic} .c10{height:11pt} .c9{font-weight:bold} .title{padding-top:24pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#000000;font-size:36pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:6pt}.subtitle{padding-top:18pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-style:italic;font-size:24pt;font-family:"Georgia";padding-bottom:4pt} li{color:#000000;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial"} p{color:#000000;font-size:10pt;margin:0;font-family:"Arial"} h1{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-size:18pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h2{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-size:14pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h3{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h4{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-style:italic;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial";padding-bottom:0pt} h5{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h6{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-style:italic;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";padding-bottom:0pt} This example shows the steps to create a simple JMS queue in WebLogic Server 11g for testing purposes. For example, to use with the two sample programs QueueSend.java and QueueReceive.java which will be shown in later examples. Additional, detailed information on JMS can be found in the following Oracle documentation: Oracle® Fusion Middleware Configuring and Managing JMS for Oracle WebLogic Server 11g Release 1 (10.3.6) Part Number E13738-06 http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/web.1111/e13738/toc.htm 1. Introduction and Definitions A JMS queue in Weblogic Server is associated with a number of additional resources: JMS Server A JMS server acts as a management container for resources within JMS modules. Some of its responsibilities include the maintenance of persistence and state of messages and subscribers. A JMS server is required in order to create a JMS module. JMS Module A JMS module is a definition which contains JMS resources such as queues and topics. A JMS module is required in order to create a JMS queue. Subdeployment JMS modules are targeted to one or more WLS instances or a cluster. Resources within a JMS module, such as queues and topics are also targeted to a JMS server or WLS server instances. A subdeployment is a grouping of targets. It is also known as advanced targeting. Connection Factory A connection factory is a resource that enables JMS clients to create connections to JMS destinations. JMS Queue A JMS queue (as opposed to a JMS topic) is a point-to-point destination type. A message is written to a specific queue or received from a specific queue. The objects used in this example are: Object Name Type JNDI Name TestJMSServer JMS Server TestJMSModule JMS Module TestSubDeployment Subdeployment TestConnectionFactory Connection Factory jms/TestConnectionFactory TestJMSQueue JMS Queue jms/TestJMSQueue 2. Configuration Steps The following steps are done in the WebLogic Server Console, beginning with the left-hand navigation menu. 2.1 Create a JMS Server Services > Messaging > JMS Servers Select New Name: TestJMSServer Persistent Store: (none) Target: soa_server1  (or choose an available server) Finish The JMS server should now be visible in the list with Health OK. 2.2 Create a JMS Module Services > Messaging > JMS Modules Select New Name: TestJMSModule Leave the other options empty Targets: soa_server1  (or choose the same one as the JMS server)Press Next Leave “Would you like to add resources to this JMS system module” unchecked and  press Finish . 2.3 Create a SubDeployment A subdeployment is not necessary for the JMS queue to work, but it allows you to easily target subcomponents of the JMS module to a single target or group of targets. We will use the subdeployment in this example to target the following connection factory and JMS queue to the JMS server we created earlier. Services > Messaging > JMS Modules Select TestJMSModule Select the Subdeployments  tab and New Subdeployment Name: TestSubdeployment Press Next Here you can select the target(s) for the subdeployment. You can choose either Servers (i.e. WebLogic managed servers, such as the soa_server1) or JMS Servers such as the JMS Server created earlier. As the purpose of our subdeployment in this example is to target a specific JMS server, we will choose the JMS Server option. Select the TestJMSServer created earlier Press Finish 2.4  Create a Connection Factory Services > Messaging > JMS Modules Select TestJMSModule  and press New Select Connection Factory  and Next Name: TestConnectionFactory JNDI Name: jms/TestConnectionFactory Leave the other values at default On the Targets page, select the Advanced Targeting  button and select TestSubdeployment Press Finish The connection factory should be listed on the following page with TestSubdeployment and TestJMSServer as the target. 2.5 Create a JMS Queue Services > Messaging > JMS Modules Select TestJMSModule  and press New Select Queue and Next Name: TestJMSQueueJNDI Name: jms/TestJMSQueueTemplate: NonePress Next Subdeployments: TestSubdeployment Finish The TestJMSQueue should be listed on the following page with TestSubdeployment and TestJMSServer. Confirm the resources for the TestJMSModule. Using the Domain Structure tree, navigate to soa_domain > Services > Messaging > JMS Modules then select TestJMSModule You should see the following resources The JMS queue is now complete and can be accessed using the JNDI names jms/TestConnectionFactory andjms/TestJMSQueue. In the following blog post in this series, I will show you how to write a message to this queue, using the WebLogic sample Java program QueueSend.java.

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• SQLAuthority News – Author Visit Review – TechMela Nepal – March 29-30, 2010

  - by pinaldave

  I was very fortunate to attend TechMela at Kathmandu, Nepal on 29th and 30th of March 2010. I would like to thank Allen Bailochan Tuladhar from Microsoft MDP Nepal for inviting me. Allen is a person with seemingly infinite energy and unlimited passion for Microsoft Technology. If you get an opportunity to spend just one hour with him, you will surely be more enthusiastic with regards to Microsoft Technology. And, I was lucky enough that I was able to spend about a total of 9 days with him in Kathmandu, working along with him in the Tech Community. TechMela Nepal Pinal at TechMela, Nepal TechMela is considered as one of the biggest events in Nepal, having been organized by Microsoft MDP Nepal. This event was attended by around 500 students and hundreds of Tech professionals. The event was handled very professionally and at very large scale. Every minor detail was properly planned and obviously thought out well. There were around 50+ volunteers from MS MDP who were monitoring this event systematically to make sure the event would run as smooth as planned. Attendees in Geek T-Shirts During this event, I was delighted to meet David Lim of Microsoft Singapore. He is very passionate in working for Microsoft Technology, as well as building deep relations with the Community. I was fortunate to spend my entire afternoon with him during the sight-seeing trip. We discussed various MS technologies and their community’s adoption as well as the way how each of us can be a part of the community activity. He also delivered excellent keynotes at the event. I must say that this is one of the most enjoyable keynotes I have ever attended. It was interesting and interactive, and I must say that I had the 70s feelings with all the fonts and graphics. I still remember him saying, “Yeah, I was a student and I know you.” Allen Tuladhar, David Lim, Pinal Dave and Guests After the keynote, everybody cheered when Allen came on stage to talk about the event and to introduce the agenda for the next two days. I must say that Allen is one of the most well-known people in Nepal. I was impressed with his popularity, and to prove this, when he got on the stage he had to wait for a long full minute before he was able to greet “Welcome” while the attendees were clapping and cheering. Technology Panelist at Techmela Kathmandu, Nepal This event was blessed with the top-of-the-top officials of various IT industries, Nepal ministries and the US Embassy. All the prominent personalities were present for panel discussion on the stage. The talk was done on various subjects. Also, the energy level which was set by Allen really echoed in the audience as they asked certain questions on different global as well local IT-related questions. The panel discussion really was discussion instead of usual monologue of one person. Pinal Dave presenting at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal This was a two-day event and my session was on either of the day. I had a great participation from the audience on both days. The place where the event was organized had a capacity of around 500+ audience. Both of my sessions were heavily attended and volunteers did a fabulous job helping the attendees find empty seats or arrange some additional seats. I was overwhelmed with the interaction I have received in the large hall. Attendees were not so shy to express their thoughts, so both the sessions were followed up by top notch one-on-one conversations for a couple of hours. Pinal Dave presenting at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal Pinal Dave presenting at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal There are many questions that I have received during the event, and many of them can be interesting for all of us here so I will write detailed blog posts on these subjects. I also tried to participate in the gaming activities held at the event, but I felt I was kind of lost even if I was only playing for the very first minutes. This made me realize that I am really getting old for video games. Allen presenting at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal Allen’s session on Digital Photography was very impressive as he demonstrated so many features of the Windows Live Product that at one point I felt he is MVP for Windows Live. In fact, he demonstrated how all the Microsoft products work together to give users an excellent desktop experience; no wonder he is an MVP for Windows Desktop Experience. Pinal Dave presending at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal Any event has two common dilemmas – food and logistics. However, this event had excellent food and state-of-the-art organization. I was very glad that this two-day event turned out to be one of the most successful events in Nepal. I also noticed that almost all attendees rate their experience as beyond expectation and truly exceptional. Pinal Dave and Allen Bailochan Tuladhar If you ever get invited by Allen in any of his event, I strongly suggest that you drop all your plans and scheduled stuff, and accept his invitation. For sure, the event will be a very memorable one and would be your once-in-a-lifetime experience. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• SQLAuthority News – Author Visit Review – TechMela Nepal – March 29-30, 2010

  - by pinaldave

  I was very fortunate to attend TechMela at Kathmandu, Nepal on 29th and 30th of March 2010. I would like to thank Allen Bailochan Tuladhar from Microsoft MDP Nepal for inviting me. Allen is a person with seemingly infinite energy and unlimited passion for Microsoft Technology. If you get an opportunity to spend just one hour with him, you will surely be more enthusiastic with regards to Microsoft Technology. And, I was lucky enough that I was able to spend about a total of 9 days with him in Kathmandu, working along with him in the Tech Community. TechMela Nepal Pinal at TechMela, Nepal TechMela is considered as one of the biggest events in Nepal, having been organized by Microsoft MDP Nepal. This event was attended by around 500 students and hundreds of Tech professionals. The event was handled very professionally and at very large scale. Every minor detail was properly planned and obviously thought out well. There were around 50+ volunteers from MS MDP who were monitoring this event systematically to make sure the event would run as smooth as planned. Attendees in Geek T-Shirts During this event, I was delighted to meet David Lim of Microsoft Singapore. He is very passionate in working for Microsoft Technology, as well as building deep relations with the Community. I was fortunate to spend my entire afternoon with him during the sight-seeing trip. We discussed various MS technologies and their community’s adoption as well as the way how each of us can be a part of the community activity. He also delivered excellent keynotes at the event. I must say that this is one of the most enjoyable keynotes I have ever attended. It was interesting and interactive, and I must say that I had the 70s feelings with all the fonts and graphics. I still remember him saying, “Yeah, I was a student and I know you.” Allen Tuladhar, David Lim, Pinal Dave and Guests After the keynote, everybody cheered when Allen came on stage to talk about the event and to introduce the agenda for the next two days. I must say that Allen is one of the most well-known people in Nepal. I was impressed with his popularity, and to prove this, when he got on the stage he had to wait for a long full minute before he was able to greet “Welcome” while the attendees were clapping and cheering. Technology Panelist at Techmela Kathmandu, Nepal This event was blessed with the top-of-the-top officials of various IT industries, Nepal ministries and the US Embassy. All the prominent personalities were present for panel discussion on the stage. The talk was done on various subjects. Also, the energy level which was set by Allen really echoed in the audience as they asked certain questions on different global as well local IT-related questions. The panel discussion really was discussion instead of usual monologue of one person. Pinal Dave presending at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal This was a two-day event and my session was on either of the day. I had a great participation from the audience on both days. The place where the event was organized had a capacity of around 500+ audience. Both of my sessions were heavily attended and volunteers did a fabulous job helping the attendees find empty seats or arrange some additional seats. I was overwhelmed with the interaction I have received in the large hall. Attendees were not so shy to express their thoughts, so both the sessions were followed up by top notch one-on-one conversations for a couple of hours. Pinal Dave presending at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal Pinal Dave presending at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal Pinal Dave presending at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal There are many questions that I have received during the event, and many of them can be interesting for all of us here so I will write detailed blog posts on these subjects. I also tried to participate in the gaming activities held at the event, but I felt I was kind of lost even if I was only playing for the very first minutes. This made me realize that I am really getting old for video games. Allen presending at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal Allen’s session on Digital Photography was very impressive as he demonstrated so many features of the Windows Live Product that at one point I felt he is MVP for Windows Live. In fact, he demonstrated how all the Microsoft products work together to give users an excellent desktop experience; no wonder he is an MVP for Windows Desktop Experience. Pinal Dave presending at TechMela Kathmandu, Nepal Any event has two common dilemmas – food and logistics. However, this event had excellent food and state-of-the-art organization. I was very glad that this two-day event turned out to be one of the most successful events in Nepal. I also noticed that almost all attendees rate their experience as beyond expectation and truly exceptional. Pinal Dave and Allen Bailochan Tuladhar If you ever get invited by Allen in any of his event, I strongly suggest that you drop all your plans and scheduled stuff, and accept his invitation. For sure, the event will be a very memorable one and would be your once-in-a-lifetime experience. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Framework 4 Features: Summary of Security enhancements

  - by Anthony Shorten

  In the last log entry I mentioned one of the new security features in Oracle Utilities Application Framework 4.0.1. Security is one of the major "tent poles" (to borrow a phrase from Steve Jobs) in this release of the framework. There are a number of security related enhancements requested by customers and as a result of internal reviews that we have introduced. Here is a summary of some of the security enchancements we have added in this release: Security Cache Changes - Security authorization information is automatically cached on the server for performance reasons (security is checked for every single call the product makes for all modes of access). Prior to this release the cache auto-refreshed every 30 minutes (or so). This has beem made more nimble by supporting a cache refresh every minute (or so). This means authorization changes are reflected quicker than before. Business Level security - Business Services are configurable services that are based upon Application Services. Typically, the business service inherited its security profile from its parent service. Whilst this is sufficient for most needs, it is now required to further specify security on the Business Service definition itself. This will allow granular security and allow the same application service to be exposed as different Business Services with their own security. This is particularly useful when you base a Business Service on a query zone. User Propogation - As with other client server applications, the database connections are pooled and shared as needed. This means that a common database user is used to access the database from the pool to allow sharing. Unfortunently, this means that tracability at the database level is that much harder. In Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4 the end userid is now propogated to the database using the CLIENT_IDENTIFIER as part of the Oracle JDBC connection API. This not only means that the common database userid is still used but the end user is indentifiable for the duration of the database call. This can be used for monitoring or to hook into Oracle's database security products. This enhancement is only available to Oracle Database customers. Enhanced Security Definitions - Security Administrators use the product browser front end to control access rights of defined users. While this is sufficient for most sites, a new security portal has been introduced to speed up the maintenance of security information. Oracle Identity Manager Integration - With the popularity of Oracle's Identity Management Suite, the Framework now provides an integration adapter and Identity Manager Generic Transport Connector (GTC) to allow users and group membership to be provisioned to any Oracle Utilities Application Framework based product from Oracle's Identity Manager. This is also available for Oracle Utilties Application Framework V2.2 customers. Refer to My Oracle Support KBid 970785.1 - Oracle Identity Manager Integration Overview. Audit On Inquiry - Typically the configurable audit facility in the Oracle Utilities Application Framework is used to audit changes to records. In Oracle Utilities Application Framework the Business Services and Service Scripts could be configured to audit inquiries as well. Now it is possible to attach auditing capabilities to zones on the product (including base package ones). Time Zone Support - In some of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework based products, the timezone of the end user is a factor in the processing. The user object has been extended to allow the recording of time zone information for use in product functionality. JAAS Suport - Internally the Oracle Utilities Application Framework uses a number of techniques to validate and transmit security information across the architecture. These various methods have been reconciled into using Java Authentication and Authorization Services for standardized security. This is strictly an internal change with no direct on how security operates externally. JMX Based Cache Management - In the last bullet point, I mentioned extra security applied to cache management from the browser. Alternatively a JMX based interface is now provided to allow IT operations to control the cache without the browser interface. This JMX capability can be initiated from a JSR120 compliant JMX console or JMX browser. I will be writing another more detailed blog entry on the JMX enhancements as it is quite a change and an exciting direction for the product line. Data Patch Permissions - The database installer provided with the product required lower levels of security for some operations. At some sites they wanted the ability for non-DBA's to execute the utilities in a controlled fashion. The framework now allows feature configuration to allow delegation for patch execution. User Enable Support - At some sites, the use of temporary staff such as contractors is commonplace. In this scenario, temporary security setups were required and used. A potential issue has arisen when the contractor left the company. Typically the IT group would remove the contractor from the security repository to prevent login using that contractors userid but the userid could NOT be removed from the authorization model becuase of audit requirements (if any user in the product updates financials or key data their userid is recorded for audit purposes). It is now possible to effectively diable the user from the security model to prevent any use of the useridwhilst retaining audit information. These are a subset of the security changes in Oracle Utilities Application Framework. More details about the security capabilities of the product is contained in My Oracle Support KB Id 773473.1 - Oracle Utilities Application Framework Security Overview.

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• Session Report: What’s New in JSF: A Complete Tour of JSF 2.2

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  On Wednesday, Ed Burns, Consulting Staff Member at Oracle, presented a session, CON3870 -- “What’s New in JSF: A Complete Tour of JSF 2.2,” in which he provided an update on recent developments in JavaServer Faces 2.2. He began by emphasizing that, “JavaServer Faces 2.2 continues the evolution of the Java EE standard user interface technology. Like previous releases, this iteration is very community-driven and transparent.” He pointed out that since JSF was introduced at the 2001 JavaOne Keynote, it has had a long and successful run and has found a home in applications where the UI logic resides entirely on the server where the model and UI logic is. In such cases, the browser performs fairly simple functions. However, developers can take advantage of the power of browsers, something that Project Avatar is focused on by letting developers author their applications so the UI logic is running on the client and communicating to the back end via RESTful web services. “Most importantly,” remarked Burns, “JSF 2.2 offers a really good migration path because even in the scope of one application you could have an app written with JSF that has its UI logic on the server and, on a gradual basis, you could migrate parts of the app over to use client-side technologies. This can be done at any level of granularity – per page or per collection of pages. It all depends on what you want to do.” His presentation, which focused on the basic new features of JSF 2.2, began by restating the scope of JSF and encouraged attendees to check out Roger Kitain’s session: CON5133 “Techniques for Responsive Real-Time Web UIs.” Burns explained that JSF has endured because, “We still need web apps that are maintainable, localizable, quick to build, accessible, secure, look great and are fun to use.” It is used on every continent – the curious can go here to check out where its unofficial usage is tracked. He emphasized the significance of the UI logic being substantially on the server. This: Separates Component Semantics from Rendering, Allows components to “own” their little patch of the UI -- encode/decode, And offers a well-defined lifecycle: Inversion of Control. Burns reminded attendees that JSR-344, the spec for JSF 2.2, is now on Java Community Process 2.8, a revised version of the JCP that allows for more openness and transparency. He then offered some tools for community access to JSF 2.2:    * Public java.net projects spec http://jsf-spec.java.net/ impl http://jsf.java.net/ Open Source: GPL+Classpath Exception    * Mailing Lists [email protected]                                Public readable archive, JSPA signed member read/write [email protected]                                     Public readable archive, any java.net member read/write                         All mail sent to jsr344-experts is sent to users. * Issue Tracker spec http://jsf-spec.java.net/issues/ impl http://jsf.java.net/issues/ JSF 2.2, which is JSR 344, has a Public Review Draft planned by December 2012 with no need for a Renewal Ballot. The Early Draft Review of JSR 344 was published on December 8, 2011. Interested developers are encouraged to offer their input. Six Big Ticket Features of JSF 2.2 Burns summarized the six big ticket features of JSF 2.2:* HTML5 Friendly Markup Support Pass through attributes and elements * Faces Flows* Cross Site Request Forgery Protection* Loading Facelets via ResourceHandler* File Upload Component* Multi-Templating He explained that he called it “HTML 5 friendly” because there is really nothing HTML 5 specific about it -- it could be 4. But it enables developers to use new elements that are present in HTML5 without having a JSF component library that is written to take advantage of those specifically. It gives the page author the ability to use plain HTML5 to write their page, but to still take advantage of the server-side available in JSF. He presented a demo showing JSF 2.2’s ability to leverage the expressiveness of HTML5. Burns then explained the significance of face flows, which offer function points and quantify how much work has taken place, something of great value to JSF users. He went on to talk about JSF 2.2.’s cross-site request forgery protection (CSRF) and offered details about how it protects applications against attack. Then he talked about JSF 2.2’s File Upload Component and explained that the final specification will have Ajax and non-Ajax support. The current milestone has non-Ajax support implemented. He then went on to explain its capacity to add facelets through ResourceHandler. Previously, JSF 2.0 added Facelets and ResourceHandler as disparate units; now in JSF 2.2 the two concepts are unified. Finally, he explained the concept of multi-templating in JSF 2.2 and went on to discuss more medium-level features of the release. For an easy, low maintenance way of staying in touch with JSF developments go to JSF’s Twitter page where every month or so, important updates are offered.

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• “Being Agile” Means No Documentation, Right?

  - by jesschadwick

  Ask most software professionals what Agile is and they’ll probably start talking about flexibility and delivering what the customer wants.  Some may even mention the word “iterations”.  But inevitably, they’ll say at some point that it means less or even no documentation.  After all, doesn’t creating, updating, and circulating painstakingly comprehensive documentation that everyone and their mother have officially signed off on go against the very core of Agile?  Of course it does!  But really, they’re missing the point! Read The Agile Manifesto. (No, seriously - read it now. It’s short. I’ll wait.)  It’s essentially a list of values.  More specifically, it’s a right-side/left-side weighted list of values:  “Value this over that”. Many people seem to get the impression that this is really a “good vs. bad” list and that those values on the right side are evil and should essentially be tossed on the floor.  This leads to the conclusion that in order to be Agile we must throw away our fancy expensive tools, document as little as possible, and scoff at the idea of a project plan.  This conclusion is quite convenient because it essentially means “less work, more productivity!” (particularly in regards to the documentation and project planning).  I couldn’t disagree with this conclusion more. My interpretation of the Manifesto targets “over” as the operative word.  It’s not just a list of right vs. wrong or good vs. bad.  It’s a list of priorities.  In other words, none of the concepts on the list should be removed from your development lifecycle – they are all important… just not equally important.  This is not a unique interpretation, in fact it says so right at the end of the manifesto! So, the next time your team sits down to tackle that big new project, don’t make the first order of business to outlaw all meetings, documentation, and project plans.  Instead, collaborate with both your team and the business members involved (you do have business members sitting in the room, directly involved in the project planning, right?) and determine the bare minimum that will allow all of you to work and communicate in the best way possible.  This often means that you can pick and choose which parts of the Agile methodologies and process work for your particular project and end up with an amalgamation of Waterfall, Agile, XP, SCRUM and whatever other methodologies the members of your team have been exposed to (my favorite is “SCRUMerfall”). The biggest implication of this is that there is no one way to implement Agile.  There is no checklist with which you can tick off boxes and confidently conclude that, “Yep, we’re Agile™!”  In fact, depending on your business and the members of your team, moving to Agile full-bore may actually be ill-advised.  Such a drastic change just ends up taking everyone out of their comfort zone which they inevitably fall back into by the end of the project.  This often results in frustration to the point that Agile is abandoned altogether because “we just need to ship something!”  Needless to say, this is far more devastating to a project. Instead, I offer this approach: keep it simple and take it slow.  If your business members or customers are only involved at the beginning phases and nowhere to be seen until the project is delivered, invite them to your daily meetings; encourage them to keep up to speed on what’s going on on a daily basis and provide feedback.  If your current process is heavy on the documentation, try to reduce it as opposed to eliminating it outright.  If you need a “TPS Change Request” signed in triplicate with a 5-day “cooling off period” before a change is implemented, try a simple bug tracking system!  Tighten the feedback loop! Finally, at the end of every “iteration” (whatever that means to you, as long as it’s relatively frequent), take as much time as you can spare (even if it’s an hour or so) and perform some kind of retrospective.  Learn from your mistakes.  Figure out what’s working for you and what’s not, then fix it.  Before you know it you’ve got a handful of iterations and/or projects under your belt and you sit down with your team to realize that, “Hey, this is working - we’re pretty Agile!”  After all, Agile is a Zen journey.  It’s a destination that you aim for, not force, and even if you never reach true “enlightenment” that doesn’t mean your team can’t be exponentially better off from merely taking the journey.

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