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• Home ADSL Modem Dropping Packets?

  - by Cody

  I know this is supposed to be a "pro" forum, but I'm hoping someone can help since my ISP isn't doing much to try and fix things. My ISP has given me a DSL modem / Router combo - a ADB / Pirelli P.DG A2100N and I have a 4096 / 767 kbps connection. I use it purely as modem and router, and have the wireless AP feature turned off. I run it to a Ubiquiti Networks Toughswitch and use a Ubiquiti UAP as the wireless access point - although I've ran tests directly wired to the router with nothing else connected, and still see the same issues. I've been having issues where latency suddenly spikes from 8ms to google.com to 250+ if someone does anything on the internet. If I run a speedtest or something, I can see latencies above 3000ms. Regularly when downloading something, even if the speed is throttled to , it can get random drops to 0kbps every few seconds. Online gaming is impossible because I notice the sudden lag-outs in the connection, and video streams or VoIP drop out as well - it's not at all consistent. I managed to find the password to my modem and I don't think I see anything wrong with the settings - but I looked for the logs and found this: Jun 6 17:10:30 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:10:30 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:10:31 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:10:40 user warn kernel: __ratelimit: 63 callbacks suppressed Jun 6 17:10:40 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:10:40 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:10:40 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:10:40 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:10:40 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:10:40 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:22 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:23 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:24 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:24 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:24 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:24 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:24 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:25 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:25 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:25 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:29 user warn kernel: __ratelimit: 15 callbacks suppressed Jun 6 17:11:29 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:29 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:30 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:11:30 user warn kernel: nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet. Jun 6 17:55:26 user warn kernel: bcmxtmcfg: OAM loopback response not received on VCC 1.1.3 Jun 6 17:55:27 user warn kernel: bcmxtmcfg: OAM loopback response not received on VCC 1.1.4 So, as I understand it, it appears the router is dropping packets? If that's the case, is there anything in the config that I can change? Or should I buy a new router, a new modem, or both?

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• Having Hotlink Protectin problem in nginx

  - by Ayaz Malik

  Hello, i am having image hotlink protection problem in my nginx need help. i have a huge issue of my site's images being submited to social networks like stumbleupon with direct link ... xxxxx.jpg which some times get huge traffic and increases cpu usage plus bandwidth usage. what i am trying to do is block direct access to image from other refrers and hotlink protection. Here is the code from my vhost.conf server { access_log off; error_log logs/vhost-error_log warn; listen 80; server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com; # uncomment location below to make nginx serve static files instead of Apache # NOTE this will cause issues with bandwidth accounting as files wont be logged location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|wmv|avi|mpg|mpeg|mp4|htm|html|js|css)$ { root /home/username/public_html; expires 1d; } root /home/mydomain/public_html; } location / { client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; # you can increase proxy_buffers here to suppress "an upstream response # is buffered to a temporary file" warning proxy_buffers 16 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; proxy_connect_timeout 30s; proxy_redirect http://www.mydomain.com:81 http://www.mydomain.com; proxy_redirect http://mydomain.com:81 http://mydomain.com; proxy_pass http://ip_address/; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; expires 24h; } } So for hotlink protection i added this code : location ~* (\.jpg|\.png|\.gif|\.jpeg)$ { valid_referers blocked www.mydomain.com mydomain.com; if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; } This is how the current nginx code for this domain looks like but didn't worked: server { access_log off; error_log logs/vhost-error_log warn; listen 80; server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com; # uncomment location below to make nginx serve static files instead of Apache # NOTE this will cause issues with bandwidth accounting as files wont be logged location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|wmv|avi|mpg|mpeg|mp4|htm|html|js|css)$ { root /home/username/public_html; expires 1d; } root /home/mydomain/public_html; } location ~* (\.jpg|\.png|\.gif|\.jpeg)$ { valid_referers blocked www.mydomain.com mydomain.com; if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; } location / { client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; # you can increase proxy_buffers here to suppress "an upstream response # is buffered to a temporary file" warning proxy_buffers 16 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; proxy_connect_timeout 30s; proxy_redirect http://www.mydomain.com:81 http://www.mydomain.com; proxy_redirect http://mydomain.com:81 http://mydomain.com; proxy_pass http://ip_address/; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; expires 24h; } } Thank you in advance :) cheers

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• How to redirect http requests to https (nginx)

  - by spuder

  There appear to be many questions and guides out there that instruct how to setup nginx to redirect http requests to https. Many are outdated, or just flat out wrong. # MANAGED BY PUPPET upstream gitlab { server unix:/home/git/gitlab/tmp/sockets/gitlab.socket; } # setup server with or without https depending on gitlab::gitlab_ssl variable server { listen *:80; server_name gitlab.localdomain; server_tokens off; root /nowhere; rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri permanent; } server { listen *:443 ssl default_server; server_name gitlab.localdomain; server_tokens off; root /home/git/gitlab/public; ssl on; ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem; ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key; ssl_protocols SSLv3 TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; ssl_ciphers AES:HIGH:!ADH:!MDF; ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on; # individual nginx logs for this gitlab vhost access_log /var/log/nginx/gitlab_access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/gitlab_error.log; location / { # serve static files from defined root folder;. # @gitlab is a named location for the upstream fallback, see below try_files $uri $uri/index.html $uri.html @gitlab; } # if a file, which is not found in the root folder is requested, # then the proxy pass the request to the upsteam (gitlab puma) location @gitlab { proxy_read_timeout 300; # https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/694 proxy_connect_timeout 300; # https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/694 proxy_redirect off; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_pass http://gitlab; } } I've restarted after every configuration change, and yet I still only get the 'Welcome to nginx' page when visiting http://192.168.33.10. whereas https://192.168.33.10 works perfectly. Why will nginx still not redirect http requests to https? I've also tried the following configurations listen *:80; server_name <%= @fqdn %>; #root /nowhere; #rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri? permanent; #rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri permanent; #return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri; #return 301 http://$server_name$request_uri; #return 301 http://192.168.33.10$request_uri; return 301 http://$host$request_uri; The logs tailf /var/log/nginx/access.log 192.168.33.1 - - [22/Oct/2013:03:41:39 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 304 0 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0" 192.168.33.1 - - [22/Oct/2013:03:44:43 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 133 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0" tailf /var/log/nginx/gitlab_error.lob 2013/10/22 02:29:14 [crit] 27226#0: *1 connect() to unix:/home/git/gitlab/tmp/sockets/gitlab.socket failed (2: No such file or directory) while connecting to upstream, client: 192.168.33.1, server: gitlab.localdomain, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://unix:/home/git/gitlab/tmp/sockets/gitlab.socket:/", host: "192.168.33.10" Resources http://wiki.nginx.org/Pitfalls How to make nginx redirect How to force or redirect to SSL in nginx? nginx ssl redirect Nginx & Https Redirection https://www.tinywp.in/301-redirect-wordpress/ How to force or redirect to SSL in nginx?

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• Local DNS server (bind) and the router DHCP

  - by Luca

  I just set up an internal http server for internal use (I set up Redmine), in a small network (30 or so PCs). I set up the http server on a virtual box ubuntu, that runs also the DNS server (bind). In the DNS lookup I added the Redmine server name (redmine.engserver <- 192.168.1.14) and as forwarders the outside ISP DNS IP adresses. I am using a small wi-fi router (ASUS RT-N66U) as DHCP (and as gateway). In the DHCP config page I set up as DNS the ubuntu server IP (it is fixed 192.168.1.14). Now when I connect a new PC to the network, the DHCP router issues its new IP and as DNS servers it issues: primary: 192.168.1.14 (ubuntu machine) and seconary 192.168.1.1 (the router itself). ipconfig /all Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 248539109 DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-17-15-AA-3F-D0-67-E5-49-A7-EF DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.14 192.168.1.1 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled Before changing the DHCP setting on the router, I would always get only one DNS server: 192.168.1.1 (which uses probably DNS forwarding to external public DNS services). The problem is this: If in my browser I type www.google.com, it works all the time. If in the browser I type http://redmine.engserver/ it works most of the time, but sometimes it ends up with a yahoo page search or something else. In the DNS cache it shows as (Server not found). ipconfig /displaydns I looked with wireshark and it seems like sometimes the client PC interrogates the secondary DNS (192.168.1.1) instead of the first 192.168.1.14. Obviously this one is a public domain and it does not have the redmine.engserver entry. What is wrong in this configuration? Is it even legitimate to have 2 DNS (one internal and one forwarded by the router) which are inconsistent? Is there another way to have a local name service in a small office network? Why is the router DHCP issuing itself as DNS?

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• Since upgrading to Solaris 11, my ARC size has consistently targeted 119MB, despite having 30GB RAM. What? Why?

  - by growse

  I ran a NAS/SAN box on Solaris 11 Express before Solaris 11 was released. The box is an HP X1600 with an attached D2700. In all, 12x 1TB 7200 SATA disks, 12x 300GB 10k SAS disks in separate zpools. Total RAM is 30GB. Services provided are CIFS, NFS and iSCSI. All was well, and I had a ZFS memory usage graph looking like this: A fairly healthy Arc size of around 23GB - making use of the available memory for caching. However, I then upgraded to Solaris 11 when that came out. Now, my graph looks like this: Partial output of arc_summary.pl is: System Memory: Physical RAM: 30701 MB Free Memory : 26719 MB LotsFree: 479 MB ZFS Tunables (/etc/system): ARC Size: Current Size: 915 MB (arcsize) Target Size (Adaptive): 119 MB (c) Min Size (Hard Limit): 64 MB (zfs_arc_min) Max Size (Hard Limit): 29677 MB (zfs_arc_max) It's targetting 119MB while sitting at 915MB. It's got 30GB to play with. Why? Did they change something? Edit To clarify, arc_summary.pl is Ben Rockwood's, and the relevent lines generating the above stats are: my $mru_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{p}; my $target_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{c}; my $arc_min_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{c_min}; my $arc_max_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{c_max}; my $arc_size = ${Kstat}->{zfs}->{0}->{arcstats}->{size}; The Kstat entries are there, I'm just getting odd values out of them. Edit 2 I've just re-measured the arc size with arc_summary.pl - I've verified these numbers with kstat: System Memory: Physical RAM: 30701 MB Free Memory : 26697 MB LotsFree: 479 MB ZFS Tunables (/etc/system): ARC Size: Current Size: 744 MB (arcsize) Target Size (Adaptive): 119 MB (c) Min Size (Hard Limit): 64 MB (zfs_arc_min) Max Size (Hard Limit): 29677 MB (zfs_arc_max) The thing that strikes me is that the Target Size is 119MB. Looking at the graph, it's targeted the exact same value (124.91M according to cacti, 119M according to arc_summary.pl - think the difference is just 1024/1000 rounding issues) ever since Solaris 11 was installed. It looks like the kernel's making zero effort to shift the target size to anything different. The current size is fluctuating as the needs of the system (large) fight with the target size, and it appears equilibrium is between 700 and 1000MB. So the question is now a little more pointed - why is Solaris 11 hard setting my ARC target size to 119MB, and how do I change it? Should I raise the min size to see what happens? I've stuck the output of kstat -n arcstats over at http://pastebin.com/WHPimhfg Edit 3 Ok, weirdness now. I know flibflob mentioned that there was a patch to fix this. I haven't applied this patch yet (still sorting out internal support issues) and I've not applied any other software updates. Last thursday, the box crashed. As in, completely stopped responding to everything. When I rebooted it, it came back up fine, but here's what my graph now looks like. It seems to have fixed the problem. This is proper la la land stuff now. I've literally no idea what's going on. :(

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• pptpd not working externally on Ubuntu Server 11.10

  - by Brendan

  I am trying to set up a pptpd vpn on our newly installed Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit server, but am not having success having a client connect via an iPhone to the VPN. Note that no clients have been able to connect to this VPN from outside of the network. The system is up to date with patches. Here is the output of /var/log/syslog. Please note that 222.153.x.y is my remote IP address. Mar 30 22:07:47 server pptpd[9546]: CTRL: Client 222.153.x.y control connection started Mar 30 22:07:47 server pptpd[9546]: CTRL: Starting call (launching pppd, opening GRE) Mar 30 22:07:47 server pppd[9555]: Plugin /usr/lib/pptpd/pptpd-logwtmp.so loaded. Mar 30 22:07:47 server pppd[9555]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0 Mar 30 22:07:47 server pppd[9555]: Using interface ppp0 Mar 30 22:07:47 server pppd[9555]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/3 Mar 30 22:07:47 server pptpd[9546]: GRE: Bad checksum from pppd. Mar 30 22:08:17 server pppd[9555]: LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests Mar 30 22:08:17 server pppd[9555]: Connection terminated. Mar 30 22:08:17 server pppd[9555]: Modem hangup Mar 30 22:08:17 server pppd[9555]: Exit. Mar 30 22:08:17 server pptpd[9546]: GRE: read(fd=6,buffer=6075a0,len=8196) from PTY failed: status = -1 error = Input/output error, usually caused by unexpected termination of pppd, check option syntax and pppd logs Mar 30 22:08:17 server pptpd[9546]: CTRL: PTY read or GRE write failed (pty,gre)=(6,7) Mar 30 22:08:17 server pptpd[9546]: CTRL: Reaping child PPP[9555] Mar 30 22:08:17 server pptpd[9546]: CTRL: Client 222.153.x.y control connection finished As you can see, the problem seems to be the connection timing out after 30 seconds ("Mar 30 22:08:17 server pppd[9555]: LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests". Over Wifi however (inside the local network) there are no issues: Mar 30 22:12:33 unreal-server pptpd[12406]: CTRL: Client 192.168.0.100 control connection started Mar 30 22:12:33 unreal-server pptpd[12406]: CTRL: Starting call (launching pppd, opening GRE) Mar 30 22:12:33 unreal-server pppd[12407]: Plugin /usr/lib/pptpd/pptpd-logwtmp.so loaded. Mar 30 22:12:33 unreal-server pppd[12407]: pppd 2.4.5 started by root, uid 0 Mar 30 22:12:33 unreal-server pppd[12407]: Using interface ppp0 Mar 30 22:12:33 unreal-server pppd[12407]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/pts/3 Mar 30 22:12:33 unreal-server pptpd[12406]: GRE: Bad checksum from pppd. Mar 30 22:12:36 unreal-server pppd[12407]: peer from calling number 192.168.0.100 authorized Mar 30 22:12:36 unreal-server pppd[12407]: MPPE 128-bit stateless compression enabled Mar 30 22:12:36 unreal-server pppd[12407]: Cannot determine ethernet address for proxy ARP Mar 30 22:12:36 unreal-server pppd[12407]: local IP address 192.168.0.10 Mar 30 22:12:36 unreal-server pppd[12407]: remote IP address 192.168.1.1 I have set up an iptables config for the server; to check this isn't the problem I allowed all traffic temporarily, but this does NOT change the symptoms in the first example. Here is the output from /etc/iptables.rules.save *filter :FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0] :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0] :OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0] COMMIT Even with these rules applied, the output from /var/log/syslog is LINE FOR LINE what I saw in the the first block of code. Please note that before running this Ubuntu server; an old SME Server box was running in place of it, that had a pptpd server on it just like we are using, and we experienced no issues.

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• Postfix logs missing information on delivery status (postfix/smtp message)

  - by hegemon

  I noticed a problem with postfix logs, that information on some of emails delivery status is missing. The issue affects about 1% of emails. "Healthy" log: <server># grep 8EB992EFBB44 postfix_log/mail04.log Jun 5 03:09:29 mail04 postfix/smtpd[8537]: 8EB992EFBB44: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 5 03:09:29 mail04 postfix/cleanup[34349]: 8EB992EFBB44: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 5 03:12:02 mail04 postfix/qmgr[76377]: 8EB992EFBB44: from=<[email protected]>, size=48845, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Jun 5 03:15:12 mail04 postfix/smtp[35058]: 8EB992EFBB44: to=<[email protected]>, relay=mx.baz.com[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]:25, conn_use=70, delay=343, delays=153/190/0/0.24, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 ok) Jun 5 03:15:12 mail04 postfix/qmgr[76377]: 8EB992EFBB44: removed "Broken" log: <server># grep F3C362EF37CA postfix_log/mail04.log Jun 5 04:03:27 mail04 postfix/smtpd[39666]: F3C362EF37CA: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 5 04:03:27 mail04 postfix/cleanup[41287]: F3C362EF37CA: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 5 04:03:28 mail04 postfix/qmgr[76377]: F3C362EF37CA: from=<[email protected]>, size=48892, nrcpt=1 (queue active) ** here should be a log line from postfix/smtp but there is none ** Jun 5 04:03:29 mail04 postfix/qmgr[76377]: F3C362EF37CA: removed Background information: system: FreeBSD xxx.xxx.xxx 8.2-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #0: Thu Feb 17 02:41:51 UTC 2011 [email protected]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64 Postfix is installed inside jail. Logs are on the same machine, log dir is mounted thru nullfs. The site has spikes of heavy load, causing disks (local) to run at 100%. Update The log is rotated daily, current size is ~ 500MB. I made a test by queuing 99000 messages to same destination (in order to rule out dns/network/mx issues). 5715 messages don't have any DSN record. Failed messages queue time is spread evenly over time, i don't see any time-bound issues. Some undelivered emails: envelopeid | processed_time --------------+---------------------------- 8D7652EF3BAE | 2012-06-06 13:19:11.072715 DD53A2EF3C5C | 2012-06-06 13:33:24.374783 8C52F2EF4E3F | 2012-06-06 13:39:15.810616 BBC572EF525C | 2012-06-06 13:44:22.762812 E95822EF54D1 | 2012-06-06 13:52:01.134533 839DD2EF4FBB | 2012-06-06 14:13:48.511236 017EE2EF6234 | 2012-06-06 15:04:48.618963 Those are a few picks, such records of undelivered email occur almost every second. <server># egrep '(8D7652EF3BAE|BBC572EF525C|017EE2EF6234)' mail04.log Jun 6 13:19:10 mail04 postfix/smtpd[20350]: 8D7652EF3BAE: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 6 13:19:10 mail04 postfix/cleanup[21024]: 8D7652EF3BAE: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 6 13:19:10 mail04 postfix/qmgr[7939]: 8D7652EF3BAE: from=<[email protected]>, size=63718, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Jun 6 13:19:11 mail04 postfix/qmgr[7939]: 8D7652EF3BAE: removed Jun 6 13:44:22 mail04 postfix/smtpd[20346]: BBC572EF525C: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 6 13:44:22 mail04 postfix/cleanup[24811]: BBC572EF525C: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 6 13:44:22 mail04 postfix/qmgr[7939]: BBC572EF525C: from=<[email protected]>, size=63758, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Jun 6 15:04:49 mail04 postfix/smtpd[20344]: 017EE2EF6234: client=xxx.xxx.xxx[xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Jun 6 15:04:49 mail04 postfix/cleanup[35585]: 017EE2EF6234: message-id=<[email protected]> Jun 6 15:04:49 mail04 postfix/qmgr[7939]: 017EE2EF6234: from=<[email protected]>, size=63706, nrcpt=1 (queue active) <server># <server># find /var/spool/postfix/active/ -type f -print | wc -l 1 <server># IMPORTANT: As you can see above some of emails doesn't event have the removed line.

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• Can not access network computers anymore

  - by Johny Skovdal

  Last Thursday (03/05/12) I got a new computer to be able to work from home. I plugged it, by cable, into the company network and installed most of the software needed for me to do so, by accessing a share on my stationary computer at work. I had no issues here what so ever, and everything just worked. Yesterday evening I tried accessing the company network trough Windows VPN, and while I was able to connect to the network, I was unable to connect to any computers on the network. I did, however, get an error when connecting, but I can't seem to get the error again, to get the details of the error message. Today I am sitting on the company network again, and now I can not access anything on the network like I could last Thursday, though I can ping all the computers I am attempting to access. Here is a list of details that might help in troubleshooting this issue (updated): List of observations / actions My computer is identical to another computer that has no issues. It is not on the domain but rather on the default workgroup, but this was not an issue last Thursday, so I am assuming it still is not. I am able to access my e-mail on the exchange server. I can connect to our TFS server from Visual Studio but not from Explorer. I can also connect to Database Servers and Remote Desktop. I can see several computers when browsing network computers, but I am unable to connect to any of them. When trying to connect to a computer I am consistently met with the error code "0x80070035" (network path not found). I also get the 0x80070035 error when double clicking the target computer from the Network UI. I am not met with a login dialog when trying to access a computer, as I should, since I am not on the domain. (I did login to both Exchange, Remote Desktop and TFS though) Between Thursday where it worked and Sunday evening where it did not, I have installed quite a few security updates, plus various tools etc. that I need for programming. I have tried accessing by computer name and ip and neither of them work. I can ping by computer name. I have deleted all (1 entry) stored network credentials. I am able to access my computer from the target computer. Client and Server can see each other on the network = Network Discovery is enabled. I am using the network profile "Work". When accessing the network through VPN, I am unable to get anything to work using computernames, but all of the above applies when using IP adresses instead of computername. I run Windows 7 Home Premium on my computer. Using powershell attempting to access a share I get the following error (ComputerName and ShareName being correct values of course): PS C:\Users\MyUser> cd \\ComputerName\ShareName Set-Location : Cannot find path '\\ComputerName\ShareName' because it does not exist. At line:1 char:3 + cd <<<< \\ComputerName\ShareName + CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (\\ComputerName\ShareName:String) [Set-Location], ItemNotFoundException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SetLocationCommand However, ping'ing the same machine (ping ComputerName) from powershell I get response immediately. (As mentioned in the list of observations/actions, I tried the above with the IP address again on VPN, to get the same result) Conclusion So to sum up, pretty much the only thing I can not do, is access the other computers through browsing (explorer.exe, powershell, map networkdrive, etc.), which means that I am pretty much down to, that it is unable to resolve the path somehow, when trying to connect to other computers trough browsing, though the path gets resolved perfectly using all kinds of other services. Any recommendations as to what I can try next to resolve the issue? :)

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• Trouble in Nginx hotlink protection

  - by Ayaz Malik

  I am trying to implement image hotlink protection problem in nginx and I need help. I have a huge issue of my site's images being submitted to social networks like StumbleUpon with a direct link like http://example.com/xxxxx.jpg Which sometimes gets huge traffic and increases CPU usage and bandwidth usage. I want to block direct access to my images from other referrers and protect them from being hotlinked. Here is the code from my vhost.conf server { access_log off; error_log logs/vhost-error_log warn; listen 80; server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com; # uncomment location below to make nginx serve static files instead of Apache # NOTE this will cause issues with bandwidth accounting as files wont be logged location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|wmv|avi|mpg|mpeg|mp4|htm|html|js|css)$ { root /home/username/public_html; expires 1d; } root /home/mydomain/public_html; } location / { client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; # you can increase proxy_buffers here to suppress "an upstream response # is buffered to a temporary file" warning proxy_buffers 16 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; proxy_connect_timeout 30s; proxy_redirect http://www.mydomain.com:81 http://www.mydomain.com; proxy_redirect http://mydomain.com:81 http://mydomain.com; proxy_pass http://ip_address/; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; expires 24h; } } For hotlink protection I added this code location ~* (\.jpg|\.png|\.gif|\.jpeg)$ { valid_referers blocked www.mydomain.com mydomain.com; if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; } This is the current nginx code for this domain, but it didn't work: server { access_log off; error_log logs/vhost-error_log warn; listen 80; server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com; # uncomment location below to make nginx serve static files instead of Apache # NOTE this will cause issues with bandwidth accounting as files wont be logged location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|wmv|avi|mpg|mpeg|mp4|htm|html|js|css)$ { root /home/username/public_html; expires 1d; } root /home/mydomain/public_html; } location ~* (\.jpg|\.png|\.gif|\.jpeg)$ { valid_referers blocked www.mydomain.com mydomain.com; if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; } location / { client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; # you can increase proxy_buffers here to suppress "an upstream response # is buffered to a temporary file" warning proxy_buffers 16 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; proxy_connect_timeout 30s; proxy_redirect http://www.mydomain.com:81 http://www.mydomain.com; proxy_redirect http://mydomain.com:81 http://mydomain.com; proxy_pass http://ip_address/; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; expires 24h; } } How can I fix this?

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• What seems to be plaguing my hard drives?

  - by Craig

  In a little bit of a tech nightmare here. I know oodles about software, not so much more than the above average user about hardware. I recently had to toss an old desktop of mine. It was gradually getting slower and slower, and after shutting the desktop down for long periods of time, it would choke up upon startup. Sometimes it'd give a disk read error, sometimes say no OS was found, etc. Restarting it about 5-15 times would eventually boot properly. Weird. I also noticed that startup programs were going missing, Dropbox was reindexing my entire folder, and Backblaze was backing up less than the number of files that it should. This lead me to believe it was probably a hard drive issue. I began to wonder why I'd have hard drive issues, and came to closure when I assumed it was because of recent power surges and outages. I'm sure that does a number on the drive. I bought a new desktop recently. It's not a beast or anything, but it's enough for what I do. It's an eMachines (I know, I know) Ultra-Slim (http://www.amazon.com/eMachines-Ultra-Slim-ER1401-57-Desktop-PC/dp/B00475OG9U). This is ideal for me because it's small and portable. It comes with an AC adapter and battery, like a laptop. Just to be safe, I bought an uninterruptable power supply on top of that. It's basically protected completely from any outages that might scramble the drive. I set this up a few days ago and for the past few days I've been perfecting settings, downloading the usual applications, etc. Two days ago, I noticed Dropbox was reindexing my entire Dropbox folder. I installed both Dropbox and Backblaze on this system, but it is very much more lightweight than the other. Only about 15 third-party applications installed. I thought that maybe Dropbox and Backblaze were stressing my system, so I turned off Backblaze. Still, Dropbox runs and comes across this infinite reindex issue. I noticed that upon a reboot recently, two applications did not start on startup either. Also, much like my old desktop, every 3rd or 4th reboot, I'll be forced into a chkdsk. This makes me incredibly nervous. What could possibly be going wrong with my old, years-old desktop that is immediately causing the same issues to my new one? I've considered all of the basics. I'm in a very air conditioned room. I take run routine virus scans. I'd like to think I take care of my systems very well. What is this issue that is haunting me? There's always the possibility that this new desktop has a junk hard drive, but it just seems way too coincidental.

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• need assistance with my.cnf - 1500% CPU usage

  - by Alan Long

  I'm running into a few issues with our new database server. It is a HP G8 with 2 INTEL XEON E5-2650 processors and 32GB of ram. This server is dedicated as a MySQL server (5.1.69) for our intranet portal. I have been having issues with this server staying alive - I notice high CPU usage during certain times of day (8% ~ 1500%+) and see very low memory usage (7 ~ 15%) based on using the 'top' command. When the CPU usage passes 1000%, that is when the app usually dies. I'm trying to see what I'm doing wrong with the config file, hopefully one of the experts can chime in and let me know what they think. See below for my.cnf file: [mysqld] default-storage-engine=InnoDB datadir=/var/lib/mysql socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock #user=mysql large-pages # Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks symbolic-links=0 max_connections=275 tmp_table_size=1G key_buffer_size=384M key_buffer=384M thread_cache_size=1024 long_query_time=5 low_priority_updates=1 max_heap_table_size=1G myisam_sort_buffer_size=8M concurrent_insert=2 table_cache=1024 sort_buffer_size=8M read_buffer_size=5M read_rnd_buffer_size=6M join_buffer_size=16M table_definition_cache=6k open_files_limit=8k slow_query_log #skip-name-resolve # Innodb Settings innodb_buffer_pool_size=18G innodb_thread_concurrency=0 innodb_log_file_size=1G innodb_log_buffer_size=16M innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=2 innodb_lock_wait_timeout=50 innodb_file_per_table #innodb_buffer_pool_instances=4 #eliminating double buffering innodb_flush_method = O_DIRECT flush_time=86400 innodb_additional_mem_pool_size=40M #innodb_io_capacity = 5000 #innodb_read_io_threads = 64 #innodb_write_io_threads = 64 # increase until threads_created doesnt grow anymore thread_cache=1024 query_cache_type=1 query_cache_limit=4M query_cache_size=256M # Try number of CPU's*2 for thread_concurrency thread_concurrency = 0 wait_timeout = 1800 connect_timeout = 10 interactive_timeout = 60 [mysqldump] max_allowed_packet=32M [mysqld_safe] log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid log-slow-queries=/var/log/mysql/slow-queries.log long_query_time = 1 log-queries-not-using-indexes we connect to one database with 75 tables, the largest table has 1,150,000 entries and the second largest has 128,036 entries. I have also verified that our PHP queries are optimized as best as possible. Reference - MySQLtuner: >> MySQLTuner 1.2.0 - Major Hayden <[email protected]> >> Bug reports, feature requests, and downloads at http://mysqltuner.com/ >> Run with '--help' for additional options and output filtering -------- General Statistics -------------------------------------------------- [--] Skipped version check for MySQLTuner script [OK] Currently running supported MySQL version 5.1.69-log [OK] Operating on 64-bit architecture -------- Storage Engine Statistics ------------------------------------------- [--] Status: -Archive -BDB -Federated +InnoDB -ISAM -NDBCluster [--] Data in InnoDB tables: 420M (Tables: 75) [!!] Total fragmented tables: 75 -------- Security Recommendations ------------------------------------------- [!!] User '[email protected]' has no password set. -------- Performance Metrics ------------------------------------------------- [--] Up for: 1h 14m 50s (8M q [1K qps], 705 conn, TX: 6B, RX: 892M) [--] Reads / Writes: 68% / 32% [--] Total buffers: 19.7G global + 35.2M per thread (275 max threads) [!!] Maximum possible memory usage: 29.1G (93% of installed RAM) [OK] Slow queries: 0% (472/8M) [OK] Highest usage of available connections: 66% (183/275) [OK] Key buffer size / total MyISAM indexes: 384.0M/91.0K [OK] Key buffer hit rate: 100.0% (173 cached / 0 reads) [OK] Query cache efficiency: 96.2% (7M cached / 7M selects) [!!] Query cache prunes per day: 553614 [OK] Sorts requiring temporary tables: 0% (3 temp sorts / 1K sorts) [!!] Temporary tables created on disk: 49% (3K on disk / 7K total) [OK] Thread cache hit rate: 74% (183 created / 705 connections) [OK] Table cache hit rate: 97% (231 open / 238 opened) [OK] Open file limit used: 0% (17/8K) [OK] Table locks acquired immediately: 100% (432K immediate / 432K locks) [OK] InnoDB data size / buffer pool: 420.9M/18.0G -------- Recommendations ----------------------------------------------------- General recommendations: Run OPTIMIZE TABLE to defragment tables for better performance MySQL started within last 24 hours - recommendations may be inaccurate Reduce your overall MySQL memory footprint for system stability Increasing the query_cache size over 128M may reduce performance Temporary table size is already large - reduce result set size Reduce your SELECT DISTINCT queries without LIMIT clauses Variables to adjust: *** MySQL's maximum memory usage is dangerously high *** *** Add RAM before increasing MySQL buffer variables *** query_cache_size (> 256M) [see warning above] Thanks in advanced for your help!

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• Windows 7 is stuck at "Starting Windows" when I attempt to boot computer

  - by Eli

  Basically, whenever I turn on my computer, it gets to the Starting Windows phase and just stays there. The startup animation still plays, yet it gets nowhere. I have tried booting into safe mode, however it gets stuck at loading CLASSPNP.SYS. It then freezes there and doesn't continue booting. I have tried booting into recovery mode from the hard drive, and it freezes after displaying the background image. I have tried booting from a recovery CD, which works, and I was able to use system restore. However, using system restore did not fix it, and it still is stuck at the Starting Windows screen. I have tried booting a Windows CD (Windows 8 Retail Installer) to see if I could upgrade it to fix this issue, however that froze at a blank screen after it got past the boot logo. I have tried changing around the BIOS settings (including resetting), to no avail. I have tried re-plugging the internal PSU cables (this is a custom-built desktop), yet this has changed nothing. I can boot into a loopback Ubuntu install on the same drive, which works fine, other than the fact that it has issues with some of the USB ports and the network card. This system has worked fine for the past few months, completely stable, and nothing in the configuration has changed before this error started happening. Startup Repair on the Windows recovery CD doesn't find any issues. Unplugging my secondary hard drive or swapping around memory doesn't change anything. The hard drive itself is fine, it hasn't shown any signs of failure and once again, boots my other OS fine. If anyone could help with this, that would be great. I can't seem to find any possible solution to this. If it makes any difference, my system specs are as follows: AMD FX-8320 Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 4GB of DDR3 Radeon HD 6870 550w PSU I'd like to not have to reinstall Windows, for I have more than a terabyte of data that I would have to back up if that becomes the only option. EDIT: I have since tried the following: Tried the solution involving restoring files from RegBackup, which changed nothing. Tried testing everything with Hiren's boot CD, everything comes back as fine. Tried disabling everything unnecessary in the BIOS and unplugging everything unneeded, it still hangs. Tried swapping out every possible combination of RAM, it still has the same result. The RAM is not at fault it seems Tried every GPU I own (which is many!) and it still hangs at the exact same place. Tried minimizing the power consumption as much as possible, even using an old PCI graphics card. It still hangs at the same place in the same way, signifying that it's not the PSU at fault. Tried resetting the BIOS again, still nothing. Tried every possible combination of BIOS options, even downclocking everything, it still hangs in the same spot. Tried upgrading the BIOS from version FB to FD, which changed nothing. Based on this, I would conclude the motherboard to be at fault. Are there any other possibilities? I don't want to spend $150 for a new motherboard. EDIT 2: This is what it gets stuck at when I try to boot into safe mode: Note the slight graphical corruption at the top of the screen. No matter how I set up the system, this seems to be there. In addition, either it has stopped booting into safe mode now, or it takes upwards of 2+ hours, and I haven't left it running for that long.

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• This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited. Limitation to both Nintex and SPD workflow

  - by ybbest

  Note, this post is from Nintex Forum here. These limitations apply to both SharePoint designer Workflow and Nintex Workflow as Nintex using the SharePoint workflow engine. The common cause that I experience is that ‘parent’ workflow is generating more than one task at once. This is common as you can have multiple approvers for certain approval process. You could also have workflow running when the task is created, one of the common scenario is you would like to set a custom column value in your approval task. For me this is huge limitation, as Nintex lover I really hope Nintex could solve this problem with Microsoft going forward. Introduction “This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited” is a common message that is seen when an error occurs while the SharePoint workflow engine is processing a task item associated with a workflow. When a workflow processes a task normally, the following sequence of events is expected to occur: 1.       The process begins. 2.       The workflow places a ‘lock’ on the task so nothing else can change the values while the workflow is processing. 3.       The workflow processes the task. 4.       The lock is released when the task processing is finished. When the message is encountered, it usually indicates that an error occurred between step 2 and 4. As a result, the lock is never released. Therefore, the ‘task locked’ message is not an error itself, rather a symptom of another error – the ‘task locked’ message does not indicate what went wrong. In most cases, once this message is encountered, the workflow cannot be made to continue and must be terminated and started again. The following is a guide that can help troubleshoot the cause of these messages.  Some initial observations to narrow down the potential causes are: Is the error consistent or intermittent? When the error is consistent, it will happen every time the workflow is run. When it is intermittent, it may happen regularly, but not every time. Does the error occur the first time the user tries to respond to a task, or do they respond and notice the workflow does not continue, and when they respond again the error occurs? If the message is present when the user first responds to the task, the issue would have occurred when the task was created. Otherwise, it would have occurred when the user attempted to respond to the task. Causes Modifying the task list A cause of this error appearing consistently the first time a user tries to respond to a task is a modification to the default task list schema. For example, changing the ‘Assigned to’ field in a task list to be a multiple selection will cause the behaviour. Deleting the workflow task then restoring it from the Recycle bin If you start a workflow, delete the workflow task then restore it from the Recycle Bin in SharePoint, the workflow will fail with the ‘task locked’ error.  This is confirmed behaviour whether using a SharePoint Designer or a Nintex workflow.  You will need to terminate the workflow and start it again. Parallel simultaneous responses A cause of this error appearing inconsistently is multiple users responding to tasks in parallel at the same time. In this scenario, one task will complete correctly and the other will not process. When the user tries again, the ‘task locked’ message will display. Nintex included a workaround for this issue in build 11000. In build 11000 and later, one of the users will receive a message on the task form when they attempt to respond, stating that they need to try again in a few moments. Additional processing on the task A cause of this error appearing consistently and inconsistently is having an additional system running on the items in the task list. Some examples include: a workflow running on the task list, an event receiver running on the task list or another automated process querying and updating workflow tasks. Note: This Microsoft help article (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102376561033.aspx#5) explains creating a workflow that runs on the task list to update a field on the task. Our experience shows that this causes the ‘Task Locked’ issues when the ‘parent’ workflow is generating more than one task at once. Isolated system error If the error is a rare event, or a ‘one off’ event, then an isolated system error may have occurred. For example, if there is a database connectivity issue while the workflow is processing the task response, the task will lock. In this case, the user will respond to a task but the workflow will not continue. When they respond again, the ‘task locked’ message will display. In this case, there will be an error in the SharePoint ULS Logs at the time that the user originally responded. Temporary delay while workflow processes If the workflow is taking a long time to process after a user submits a task, they may notice and try to respond to the task again. They will see the task locked error, but after a number of attempts (or after waiting some time) the task response page eventually indicates the task has been responded to. In this case, nothing actually went wrong, and the error message gives an accurate indication of what is happening – the workflow temporarily locked the task while it was processing. This scenario may occur in a very large workflow, or after the SharePoint application pool has just started. Modifying the task via a web service with an invalid url If the Nintex Workflow web service is used to respond to or delegate a task, the site context part of the url must be a valid alternative access mapping url. For example, if you access the web service via the IP address of the SharePoint server, and the IP address is not a valid AAM, the task can become locked. The workflow has become stuck without any apparent errors This behaviour can occur as a result of a bug in the SharePoint 2010 workflow engine.  If you do not have the August 2010 Cumulative Update (or later) for SharePoint, and your workflow uses delays, “Flexi-task”, State machine”, “Task Reminder” actions or variables, you could be affected. Check the SharePoint 2010 Updates site here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847.  The October CU is recommended http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553031.   The fix is described as “Consider the following scenario. You add a Delay activity to a workflow. Then, you set the duration for the Delay activity. You deploy the workflow in SharePoint Foundation 2010. In this scenario, the workflow is not resumed after the duration of the Delay activity”. If you find this is occurring in your environment, install the October CU, terminate all the running workflows affected and run them afresh. Investigative steps The first step to isolate the issue is to create a new task list on the site and configure the workflow to use it.  Any customizations that were made to the original task list should not be made to the new task list. If the new task list eliminates the issue, then the cause can be attributed to the original task list or a change that was made to it. To change the task list that the workflow uses: In Workflow Designer select Settings -> Startup Options Then configure the task list as required If any of the scenarios above do not help, check the SharePoint logs for any messages with a category of ‘Workflow Infrastructure’. Conclusion The information in this article has been gathered from observations and investigations by Nintex. The sources of these issues are the underlying SharePoint workflow engine. This article will be updated if further causes are discovered. From <http://connect.nintex.com/forums/thread/6503.aspx>

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• Enabling Kerberos Authentication for Reporting Services

  - by robcarrol

  Recently, I’ve helped several customers with Kerberos authentication problems with Reporting Services and Analysis Services, so I’ve decided to write this blog post and pull together some useful resources in one place (there are 2 whitepapers in particular that I found invaluable configuring Kerberos authentication, and these can be found in the references section at the bottom of this post). In most of these cases, the problem has manifested itself with the Login failed for User ‘NT Authority\Anonymous’ (“double-hop”) error. By default, Reporting Services uses Windows Integrated Authentication, which includes the Kerberos and NTLM protocols for network authentication. Additionally, Windows Integrated Authentication includes the negotiate security header, which prompts the client to select Kerberos or NTLM for authentication. The client can access reports which have the appropriate permissions by using Kerberos for authentication. Servers that use Kerberos authentication can impersonate those clients and use their security context to access network resources. You can configure Reporting Services to use both Kerberos and NTLM authentication; however this may lead to a failure to authenticate. With negotiate, if Kerberos cannot be used, the authentication method will default to NTLM. When negotiate is enabled, the Kerberos protocol is always used except when: Clients/servers that are involved in the authentication process cannot use Kerberos. The client does not provide the information necessary to use Kerberos. An in-depth discussion of Kerberos authentication is beyond the scope of this post, however when users execute reports that are configured to use Windows Integrated Authentication, their logon credentials are passed from the report server to the server hosting the data source. Delegation needs to be set on the report server and Service Principle Names (SPNs) set for the relevant services. When a user processes a report, the request must go through a Web server on its way to a database server for processing. Kerberos authentication enables the Web server to request a service ticket from the domain controller; impersonate the client when passing the request to the database server; and then restrict the request based on the user’s permissions. Each time a server is required to pass the request to another server, the same process must be used. Kerberos authentication is supported in both native and SharePoint integrated mode, but I’ll focus on native mode for the purpose of this post (I’ll explain configuring SharePoint integrated mode and Kerberos authentication in a future post). Configuring Kerberos avoids the authentication failures due to double-hop issues. These double-hop errors occur when a users windows domain credentials can’t be passed to another server to complete the user’s request. In the case of my customers, users were executing Reporting Services reports that were configured to query Analysis Services cubes on a separate machine using Windows Integrated security. The double-hop issue occurs as NTLM credentials are valid for only one network hop, subsequent hops result in anonymous authentication. The client attempts to connect to the report server by making a request from a browser (or some other application), and the connection process begins with authentication. With NTLM authentication, client credentials are presented to Computer 2. However Computer 2 can’t use the same credentials to access Computer 3 (so we get the Anonymous login error). To access Computer 3 it is necessary to configure the connection string with stored credentials, which is what a number of customers I have worked with have done to workaround the double-hop authentication error. However, to get the benefits of Windows Integrated security, a better solution is to enable Kerberos authentication. Again, the connection process begins with authentication. With Kerberos authentication, the client and the server must demonstrate to one another that they are genuine, at which point authentication is successful and a secure client/server session is established. In the illustration above, the tiers represent the following: Client tier (computer 1): The client computer from which an application makes a request. Middle tier (computer 2): The Web server or farm where the client’s request is directed. Both the SharePoint and Reporting Services server(s) comprise the middle tier (but we’re only concentrating on native deployments just now). Back end tier (computer 3): The Database/Analysis Services server/Cluster where the requested data is stored. In order to enable Kerberos authentication for Reporting Services it’s necessary to configure the relevant SPNs, configure trust for delegation for server accounts, configure Kerberos with full delegation and configure the authentication types for Reporting Services. Service Principle Names (SPNs) are unique identifiers for services and identify the account’s type of service. If an SPN is not configured for a service, a client account will be unable to authenticate to the servers using Kerberos. You need to be a domain administrator to add an SPN, which can be added using the SetSPN utility. For Reporting Services in native mode, the following SPNs need to be registered --SQL Server Service SETSPN -S mssqlsvc/servername:1433 Domain\SQL For named instances, or if the default instance is running under a different port, then the specific port number should be used. --Reporting Services Service SETSPN -S http/servername Domain\SSRS SETSPN -S http/servername.domain.com Domain\SSRS The SPN should be set for the NETBIOS name of the server and the FQDN. If you access the reports using a host header or DNS alias, then that should also be registered SETSPN -S http/www.reports.com Domain\SSRS --Analysis Services Service SETSPN -S msolapsvc.3/servername Domain\SSAS Next, you need to configure trust for delegation, which refers to enabling a computer to impersonate an authenticated user to services on another computer: Location Description Client 1. The requesting application must support the Kerberos authentication protocol. 2. The user account making the request must be configured on the domain controller. Confirm that the following option is not selected: Account is sensitive and cannot be delegated. Servers 1. The service accounts must be trusted for delegation on the domain controller. 2. The service accounts must have SPNs registered on the domain controller. If the service account is a domain user account, the domain administrator must register the SPNs. In Active Directory Users and Computers, verify that the domain user accounts used to access reports have been configured for delegation (the ‘Account is sensitive and cannot be delegated’ option should not be selected): We then need to configure the Reporting Services service account and computer to use Kerberos with full delegation:   We also need to do the same for the SQL Server or Analysis Services service accounts and computers (depending on what type of data source you are connecting to in your reports). Finally, and this is the part that sometimes gets over-looked, we need to configure the authentication type correctly for reporting services to use Kerberos authentication. This is configured in the Authentication section of the RSReportServer.config file on the report server. <Authentication> <AuthenticationTypes>           <RSWindowsNegotiate/> </AuthenticationTypes> <EnableAuthPersistence>true</EnableAuthPersistence> </Authentication> This will enable Kerberos authentication for Internet Explorer. For other browsers, see the link below. The report server instance must be restarted for these changes to take effect. Once these changes have been made, all that’s left to do is test to make sure Kerberos authentication is working properly by running a report from report manager that is configured to use Windows Integrated authentication (either connecting to Analysis Services or SQL Server back-end). Resources: Manage Kerberos Authentication Issues in a Reporting Services Environment http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/E/1/BE1AABB3-6ED8-4C3C-AF91-448AB733B1AF/SSRSKerberos.docx Configuring Kerberos Authentication for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=23176 How to: Configure Windows Authentication in Reporting Services http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc281253.aspx RSReportServer Configuration File http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms157273.aspx#Authentication Planning for Browser Support http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms156511.aspx

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• TFS 2010 Basic Concepts

  - by jehan

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Here, I’m going to discuss some key Architectural changes and concepts that have taken place in TFS 2010 when compared to TFS 2008. In TFS 2010 Installation, First you need to do the Installation and then you have to configure the Installation Feature from the available features. This is bit similar to SharePoint Installation, where you will first do the Installation and then configure the SharePoint Farms. 1) Installation Features available in TFS2010: a) Basic: It is the most compact TFS installation possible. It will install and configure Source Control, Work Item tracking and Build Services only. (SharePoint and Reporting Integration will not be possible). b) Standard Single Server: This is suitable for Single Server deployment of TFS. It will install and configure Windows SharePoint Services for you and will use the default instance of SQL Server. c) Advanced: It is suitable, if you want use Remote Servers for SQL Server Databases, SharePoint Products and Technologies and SQL Server Reporting Services. d) Application Tier Only: If you want to configure high availability for Team Foundation Server in a Load Balanced Environment (NLB) or you want to move Team Foundation Server from one server to other or you want to restore TFS. e) Upgrade: If you want to upgrade from a prior version of TFS. Note: One more important thing to know here about  TFS 2010 Basic is that,  it can be installed on Client Operations Systems(Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP3), Where as  earlier you cannot Install previous version of TFS (2008 and 2005) on client OS. 2) Team Project Collections: Connect to TFS dialog box in TFS 2008:  In TFS 2008, the TFS Server contains a set of Team Projects and each project may or may not be independent of other projects and every checkin gets a ever increasing  changeset ID  irrespective of the team project in which it is checked in and the same applies to work items  also, who also gets unique Work Item Ids.The main problem with this approach was that there are certain things which were impossible to do; those were required as per the Application Development Process. a)      If something has gone wrong in one team project and now you want to restore it back to earlier state where it was working properly then it requires you to restore the Database of Team Foundation Server from the backup you have taken as per your Maintenance plans and because of this the other team projects may lose out on the work which is not backed up. b)       Your company had a merge with some other company and now you have two TFS servers. One TFS Server which you are working on and other TFS server which other company was working and now after the merge you want to integrate the team projects from two TFS servers into one, which is almost impossible to achieve in TFS 2008. Though you can create the Team Projects in one server manually (In Source Control) which you want to integrate from the other TFS Server, but will lose out on History of Change Sets and Work items and others which are very important. There were few more issues of this sort, which were difficult to resolve in TFS 2008. To resolve issues related to above kind of scenarios which were mainly related TFS Maintenance, Integration, migration and Security,  Microsoft has come up with Team Project Collections concept in TFS 2010.This concept is similar to SharePoint Site Collections and if you are familiar with SharePoint Architecture, then it will help you to understand TFS 2010 Architecture easily. Connect to TFS dialog box in TFS 2010: In above dialog box as you can see there are two Team Project Collections, each team project can contain any number of team projects as you can see on right side it shows the two Team Projects in Team Project Collection (Default Collection) which I have chosen. Note: You can connect to only one Team project Collection at a time using an instance of  TFS Team Explorer. How does it work? To introduce Team Project Collections, changes have been done in reorganization of TFS databases. TFS 2008 was composed of 5-7 databases partitioned by subsystem (each for Version Control, Work Item Tracking, Build, Integration, Project Management...) New TFS 2010 database architecture: TFS_Config: It’s the root database and it contains centralized TFS configuration data, including the list of all team projects exist in TFS server. TFS_Warehouse: The data warehouse contains all the reporting data of served by this server (farm). TFS_* : This contains individual team project collection data. This database contains all the operational data of team project collection regardless of subsystem.In additional to this, you will have databases for SharePoint and Report Server. 3) TFS Farms:  As TFS 2010 is more flexible to configure as multiple Application tiers and multiple Database tiers, so it will be more appropriate to call as TFS Farm if you going for multi server installation of TFS. NLB support for TFS application tiers – With TFS 2010: you can configure multiple TFS application tier machines to serve the same set of Team Project Collections. The primary purpose of NLB support is to enable a cleaner and more complete high availability than in TFS 2008. Even if any application tier in the farm fails then farm will automatically continue to work with hardly any indication to end users of a problem. SQL data tiers: With 2010 you can configure many SQL Servers. Each Database can be configured to be on any SQL Server because each Team Project Collection is an independent database. This feature can also be used to load balance databases across SQL Servers.These new capabilities will significantly change the way enterprises manage their TFS installations in the future. With Team Project Collections and TFS farms, you can create a single, arbitrarily large TFS installation. You can grow it incrementally by adding ATs and SQL Servers as needed.

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• These are few objective type questions which i was not able to find the solution [closed]

  - by Tarun

  1. Which of the following advantages does System.Collections.IDictionaryEnumerator provide over System.Collections.IEnumerator? a. It adds properties for direct access to both the Key and the Value b. It is optimized to handle the structure of a Dictionary. c. It provides properties to determine if the Dictionary is enumerated in Key or Value order d. It provides reverse lookup methods to distinguish a Key from a specific Value 2. When Implementing System.EnterpriseServices.ServicedComponent derived classes, which of the following statements are true? a. Enabling object pooling requires an attribute on the class and the enabling of pooling in the COM+ catalog. b. Methods can be configured to automatically mark a transaction as complete by the use of attributes. c. You can configure authentication using the AuthenticationOption when the ActivationMode is set to Library. d. You can control the lifecycle policy of an individual instance using the SetLifetimeService method. 3. Which of the following are true regarding event declaration in the code below? class Sample { event MyEventHandlerType MyEvent; } a. MyEventHandlerType must be derived from System.EventHandler or System.EventHandler<TEventArgs> b. MyEventHandlerType must take two parameters, the first of the type Object, and the second of a class derived from System.EventArgs c. MyEventHandlerType may have a non-void return type d. If MyEventHandlerType is a generic type, event declaration must use a specialization of that type. e. MyEventHandlerType cannot be declared static 4. Which of the following statements apply to developing .NET code, using .NET utilities that are available with the SDK or Visual Studio? a. Developers can create assemblies directly from the MSIL Source Code. b. Developers can examine PE header information in an assembly. c. Developers can generate XML Schemas from class definitions contained within an assembly. d. Developers can strip all meta-data from managed assemblies. e. Developers can split an assembly into multiple assemblies. 5. Which of the following characteristics do classes in the System.Drawing namespace such as Brush,Font,Pen, and Icon share? a. They encapsulate native resource and must be properly Disposed to prevent potential exhausting of resources. b. They are all MarshalByRef derived classes, but functionality across AppDomains has specific limitations. c. You can inherit from these classes to provide enhanced or customized functionality 6. Which of the following are required to be true by objects which are going to be used as keys in a System.Collections.HashTable? a. They must handle case-sensitivity identically in both the GetHashCode() and Equals() methods. b. Key objects must be immutable for the duration they are used within a HashTable. c. Get HashCode() must be overridden to provide the same result, given the same parameters, regardless of reference equalityl unless the HashTable constructor is provided with an IEqualityComparer parameter. d. Each Element in a HashTable is stored as a Key/Value pair of the type System.Collections.DictionaryElement e. All of the above 7. Which of the following are true about Nullable types? a. A Nullable type is a reference type. b. A Nullable type is a structure. c. An implicit conversion exists from any non-nullable value type to a nullable form of that type. d. An implicit conversion exists from any nullable value type to a non-nullable form of that type. e. A predefined conversion from the nullable type S? to the nullable type T? exists if there is a predefined conversion from the non-nullable type S to the non-nullable type T 8. When using an automatic property, which of the following statements is true? a. The compiler generates a backing field that is completely inaccessible from the application code. b. The compiler generates a backing field that is a private instance member with a leading underscore that can be programmatically referenced. c. The compiler generates a backing field that is accessible via reflection d. The compiler generates a code that will store the information separately from the instance to ensure its security. 9. Which of the following does using Initializer Syntax with a collection as shown below require? CollectionClass numbers = new CollectionClass { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 }; a. The Collection Class must implement System.Collections.Generic.ICollection<T> b. The Collection Class must implement System.Collections.Generic.IList<T> c. Each of the Items in the Initializer List will be passed to the Add<T>(T item) method d. The items in the initializer will be treated as an IEnumerable<T> and passed to the collection constructor+K110 10. What impact will using implicitly typed local variables as in the following example have? var sample = "Hello World"; a. The actual type is determined at compilation time, and has no impact on the runtime b. The actual type is determined at runtime, and late binding takes effect c. The actual type is based on the native VARIANT concept, and no binding to a specific type takes place. d. "var" itself is a specific type defined by the framework, and no special binding takes place 11. Which of the following is not supported by remoting object types? a. well-known singleton b. well-known single call c. client activated d. context-agile 12. In which of the following ways do structs differ from classes? a. Structs can not implement interfaces b. Structs cannot inherit from a base struct c. Structs cannot have events interfaces d. Structs cannot have virtual methods 13. Which of the following is not an unboxing conversion? a. void Sample1(object o) { int i = (int)o; } b. void Sample1(ValueType vt) { int i = (int)vt; } c. enum E { Hello, World} void Sample1(System.Enum et) { E e = (E) et; } d. interface I { int Value { get; set; } } void Sample1(I vt) { int i = vt.Value; } e. class C { public int Value { get; set; } } void Sample1(C vt) { int i = vt.Value; } 14. Which of the following are characteristics of the System.Threading.Timer class? a. The method provided by the TimerCallback delegate will always be invoked on the thread which created the timer. b. The thread which creates the timer must have a message processing loop (i.e. be considered a UI thread) c. The class contains protection to prevent reentrancy to the method provided by the TimerCallback delegate d. You can receive notification of an instance being Disposed by calling an overload of the Dispose method. 15. What is the proper declaration of a method which will handle the following event? Class MyClass { public event EventHandler MyEvent; } a. public void A_MyEvent(object sender, MyArgs e) { } b. public void A_MyEvent(object sender, EventArgs e) { } c. public void A_MyEvent(MyArgs e) { } d. public void A_MyEvent(MyClass sender,EventArgs e) { } 16. Which of the following scenarios are applicable to Window Workflow Foundation? a. Document-centric workflows b. Human workflows c. User-interface page flows d. Builtin support for communications across multiple applications and/or platforms e. All of the above 17. When using an automatic property, which of the following statements is true? a. The compiler generates a backing field that is completely inaccessible from the application code. b. The compiler generates a backing field that is a private instance member with a leading underscore that can be programmatically referenced. c. The compiler generates a backing field that is accessible via reflection d. The compiler generates a code that will store the information separately from the instance to ensure its security. 18 While using the capabilities supplied by the System.Messaging classes, which of the following are true? a. Information must be explicitly converted to/from a byte stream before it uses the MessageQueue class b. Invoking the MessageQueue.Send member defaults to using the System.Messaging.XmlMessageFormatter to serialize the object. c. Objects must be XMLSerializable in order to be transferred over a MessageQueue instance. d. The first entry in a MessageQueue must be removed from the queue before the next entry can be accessed e. Entries removed from a MessageQueue within the scope of a transaction, will be pushed back into the front of the queue if the transaction fails. 19. Which of the following are true about declarative attributes? a. They must be inherited from the System.Attribute. b. Attributes are instantiated at the same time as instances of the class to which they are applied. c. Attribute classes may be restricted to be applied only to application element types. d. By default, a given attribute may be applied multiple times to the same application element. 20. When using version 3.5 of the framework in applications which emit a dynamic code, which of the following are true? a. A Partial trust code can not emit and execute a code b. A Partial trust application must have the SecurityCriticalAttribute attribute have called Assert ReflectionEmit permission c. The generated code no more permissions than the assembly which emitted it. d. It can be executed by calling System.Reflection.Emit.DynamicMethod( string name, Type returnType, Type[] parameterTypes ) without any special permissions Within Windows Workflow Foundation, Compensating Actions are used for: a. provide a means to rollback a failed transaction b. provide a means to undo a successfully committed transaction later c. provide a means to terminate an in process transaction d. achieve load balancing by adapting to the current activity 21. What is the proper declaration of a method which will handle the following event? Class MyClass { public event EventHandler MyEvent; } a. public void A_MyEvent(object sender, MyArgs e) { } b. public void A_MyEvent(object sender, EventArgs e) { } c. public void A_MyEvent(MyArgs e) { } d. public void A_MyEvent(MyClass sender,EventArgs e) { } 22. Which of the following controls allows the use of XSL to transform XML content into formatted content? a. System.Web.UI.WebControls.Xml b. System.Web.UI.WebControls.Xslt c. System.Web.UI.WebControls.Substitution d. System.Web.UI.WebControls.Transform 23. To which of the following do automatic properties refer? a. You declare (explicitly or implicitly) the accessibility of the property and get and set accessors, but do not provide any implementation or backing field b. You attribute a member field so that the compiler will generate get and set accessors c. The compiler creates properties for your class based on class level attributes d. They are properties which are automatically invoked as part of the object construction process 24. Which of the following are true about Nullable types? a. A Nullable type is a reference type. b. An implicit conversion exists from any non-nullable value type to a nullable form of that type. c. A predefined conversion from the nullable type S? to the nullable type T? exists if there is a predefined conversion from the non-nullable type S to the non-nullable type T 25. When using an automatic property, which of the following statements is true? a. The compiler generates a backing field that is completely inaccessible from the application code. b. The compiler generates a backing field that is accessible via reflection. c. The compiler generates a code that will store the information separately from the instance to ensure its security. 26. When using an implicitly typed array, which of the following is most appropriate? a. All elements in the initializer list must be of the same type. b. All elements in the initializer list must be implicitly convertible to a known type which is the actual type of at least one member in the initializer list c. All elements in the initializer list must be implicitly convertible to common type which is a base type of the items actually in the list 27. Which of the following is false about anonymous types? a. They can be derived from any reference type. b. Two anonymous types with the same named parameters in the same order declared in different classes have the same type. c. All properties of an anonymous type are read/write. 28. Which of the following are true about Extension methods. a. They can be declared either static or instance members b. They must be declared in the same assembly (but may be in different source files) c. Extension methods can be used to override existing instance methods d. Extension methods with the same signature for the same class may be declared in multiple namespaces without causing compilation errors

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• GZip/Deflate Compression in ASP.NET MVC

  - by Rick Strahl

  A long while back I wrote about GZip compression in ASP.NET. In that article I describe two generic helper methods that I've used in all sorts of ASP.NET application from WebForms apps to HttpModules and HttpHandlers that require gzip or deflate compression. The same static methods also work in ASP.NET MVC. Here are the two routines:/// <summary> /// Determines if GZip is supported /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static bool IsGZipSupported() { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip") || AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))) return true; return false; } /// <summary> /// Sets up the current page or handler to use GZip through a Response.Filter /// IMPORTANT: /// You have to call this method before any output is generated! /// </summary> public static void GZipEncodePage() { HttpResponse Response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (IsGZipSupported()) { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip")) { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip"); } else { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate"); } } // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); } The first method checks whether the client sending the request includes the accept-encoding for either gzip or deflate, and if if it does it returns true. The second function uses IsGzipSupported() to decide whether it should encode content and uses an Response Filter to do its job. Basically response filters look at the Response output stream as it's written and convert the data flowing through it. Filters are a bit tricky to work with but the two .NET filter streams for GZip and Deflate Compression make this a snap to implement. In my old code and even now in MVC I can always do:public ActionResult List(string keyword=null, int category=0) { WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); …} to encode my content. And that works just fine. The proper way: Create an ActionFilterAttribute However in MVC this sort of thing is typically better handled by an ActionFilter which can be applied with an attribute. So to be all prim and proper I created an CompressContentAttribute ActionFilter that incorporates those two helper methods and which looks like this:/// <summary> /// Attribute that can be added to controller methods to force content /// to be GZip encoded if the client supports it /// </summary> public class CompressContentAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute { /// <summary> /// Override to compress the content that is generated by /// an action method. /// </summary> /// <param name="filterContext"></param> public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext) { GZipEncodePage(); } /// <summary> /// Determines if GZip is supported /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static bool IsGZipSupported() { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip") || AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))) return true; return false; } /// <summary> /// Sets up the current page or handler to use GZip through a Response.Filter /// IMPORTANT: /// You have to call this method before any output is generated! /// </summary> public static void GZipEncodePage() { HttpResponse Response = HttpContext.Current.Response; if (IsGZipSupported()) { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip")) { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip"); } else { Response.Filter = new System.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter, System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress); Response.Headers.Remove("Content-Encoding"); Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate"); } } // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); } } It's basically the same code wrapped into an ActionFilter attribute, which intercepts requests MVC requests to Controller methods and lets you hook up logic before and after the methods have executed. Here I want to override OnActionExecuting() which fires before the Controller action is fired. With the CompressContentAttribute created, it can now be applied to either the controller as a whole:[CompressContent] public class ClassifiedsController : ClassifiedsBaseController { … } or to one of the Action methods:[CompressContent] public ActionResult List(string keyword=null, int category=0) { … } The former applies compression to every action method, while the latter is selective and only applies it to the individual action method. Is the attribute better than the static utility function? Not really, but it is the standard MVC way to hook up 'filter' content and that's where others are likely to expect to set options like this. In fact,  you have a bit more control with the utility function because you can conditionally apply it in code, but this is actually much less likely in MVC applications than old WebForms apps since controller methods tend to be more focused. Compression Caveats Http compression is very cool and pretty easy to implement in ASP.NET but you have to be careful with it - especially if your content might get transformed or redirected inside of ASP.NET. A good example, is if an error occurs and a compression filter is applied. ASP.NET errors don't clear the filter, but clear the Response headers which results in some nasty garbage because the compressed content now no longer matches the headers. Another issue is Caching, which has to account for all possible ways of compression and non-compression that the content is served. Basically compressed content and caching don't mix well. I wrote about several of these issues in an old blog post and I recommend you take a quick peek before diving into making every bit of output Gzip encoded. None of these are show stoppers, but you have to be aware of the issues. Related Posts GZip Compression with ASP.NET Content ASP.NET GZip Encoding Caveats© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET  MVC   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Issue 15: The Benefits of Oracle Exastack

  - by rituchhibber

       SOLUTIONS FOCUS The Benefits of Oracle Exastack Paul ThompsonDirector, Alliances and Solutions Partner ProgramsOracle EMEA Alliances & Channels RESOURCES -- Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Oracle Exastack Program Oracle Exastack Ready Oracle Exastack Optimized Oracle Exastack Labs and Enablement Resources Oracle Exastack Labs Video Tour SUBSCRIBE FEEDBACK PREVIOUS ISSUES Exastack is a revolutionary programme supporting Oracle independent software vendor partners across the entire Oracle technology stack. Oracle's core strategy is to engineer software and hardware together, and our ISV strategy is the same. At Oracle we design engineered systems that are pre-integrated to reduce the cost and complexity of IT infrastructures while increasing productivity and performance. Oracle innovates and optimises performance at every layer of the stack to simplify business operations, drive down costs and accelerate business innovation. Our engineered systems are optimised to achieve enterprise performance levels that are unmatched in the industry. Faster time to production is achieved by implementing pre-engineered and pre-assembled hardware and software bundles. Our strategy of delivering a single-vendor stack simplifies and reduces costs associated with purchasing, deploying, and supporting IT environments for our customers and partners. In parallel to this core engineered systems strategy, the Oracle Exastack Program enables our Oracle ISV partners to leverage a scalable, integrated infrastructure that delivers their applications tuned, tested and optimised for high-performance. Specifically, the Oracle Exastack Program helps ISVs run their solutions on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4 - integrated systems products in which the software and hardware are engineered to work together. These products provide OPN members with a lower cost and high performance infrastructure for database and application workloads across on-premise and cloud based environments. Ready and Optimized Oracle Partners can now leverage our new Oracle Exastack Program to become Oracle Exastack Ready and Oracle Exastack Optimized. Partners can achieve Oracle Exastack Ready status through their support for Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, Oracle Database, Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4. By doing this, partners can demonstrate to their customers that their applications are available on the latest major releases of these products. The Oracle Exastack Ready programme helps customers readily differentiate Oracle partners from lesser software developers, and identify applications that support Oracle engineered systems. Achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status demonstrates that an OPN member has proven itself against goals for performance and scalability on Oracle integrated systems. This status enables end customers to readily identify Oracle partners that have tested and tuned their solutions for optimum performance on an Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and Oracle SPARC SuperCluster T4-4. These ISVs can display the Oracle Exadata Optimized, Oracle Exalogic Optimized or Oracle SPARC SuperCluster Optimized logos on websites and on all their collateral to show that they have tested and tuned their application for optimum performance. Deliver higher value to customers Oracle's investment in engineered systems enables ISV partners to deliver higher value to customer business processes. New innovations are enabled through extreme performance unachievable through traditional best-of-breed multi-vendor server/software approaches. Core product requirements can be launched faster, enabling ISVs to focus research and development investment on core competencies in order to bring value to market as quickly as possible. Through Exastack, partners no longer have to worry about the underlying product stack, which allows greater focus on the development of intellectual property above the stack. Partners are not burdened by platform issues and can concentrate simply on furthering their applications. The advantage to end customers is that partners can focus all efforts on business functionality, rather than bullet-proofing underlying technologies, and so will inevitably deliver application updates faster. Exastack provides ISVs with a number of flexible deployment options, such as on-premise or Cloud, while maintaining one single code base for applications regardless of customer deployment preference. Customers buying their solutions from Exastack ISVs can therefore be confident in deploying on their own networks, on private clouds or into a public cloud. The underlying platform will support all conceivable deployments, enabling a focus on the ISV's application itself that wouldn't be possible with other vendor partners. It stands to reason that Exastack accelerates time to value as well as lowering implementation costs all round. There is a big competitive advantage in partners being able to offer customers an optimised, pre-configured solution rather than an assortment of components and a suggested fit. Once a customer has decided to buy an Oracle Exastack Ready or Optimized partner solution, it will be up and running without any need for the customer to conduct testing of its own. Operational costs and complexity are also reduced, thanks to streamlined customer support through standardised configurations and pro-active monitoring. 'Engineered to Work Together' is a significant statement of Oracle strategy. It guarantees smoother deployment of a single vendor solution, clear ownership with no finger-pointing and the peace of mind of the Oracle Support Centre underpinning the entire product stack. Next steps Every OPN member with packaged applications must seriously consider taking steps to become Exastack Ready, or Exastack Optimized at the first opportunity. That first step down the track is to talk to an expert on the OPN Portal, at the Oracle Partner Business Center or to discuss the next steps with the closest Oracle account manager. Oracle Exastack lab environments and other technical enablement resources are available for OPN members wishing to further their knowledge of Oracle Exastack and qualify their applications for Oracle Exastack Optimized. New Boot Camps and Guided Learning Paths (GLPs), tailored specifically for ISVs, are available for Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris, Oracle Database, and Oracle WebLogic Server. More information about these GLPs and Boot Camps (including delivery dates and locations) are posted on the OPN Competency Center and corresponding OPN Knowledge Zones. Learn more about Oracle Exastack labs and ISV specific enablement resources. "Oracle Specialized partners are of course front-and-centre, with potential customers clearly directed to those partners and to Exadata Ready partners as a matter of priority." --More OpenWorld 2011 highlights for Oracle partners and customers Oracle Application Testing Suite 9.3 application testing solution for Web, SOA and Oracle Applications Oracle Application Express Release 4.1 improving the development of database-centric Web 2.0 applications and reports Oracle Unified Directory 11g helping customers manage the critical identity information that drives their business applications Oracle SOA Suite for healthcare integration Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 11g demonstrating continued commitment to the developer and open source communities Oracle Coherence 3.7.1, the latest release of the industry's leading distributed in-memory data grid Oracle Process Accelerators helping to simplify and accelerate time-to-value for customers' business process management initiatives Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne on the iPad meeting the increasingly mobile demands of today's workforces Oracle CRM On Demand Release 19 Innovation Pack introducing industry-leading hosted call centre and enterprise-marketing capabilities designed to drive further revenue and productivity while reducing costs and improving the customer experience Oracle's Primavera Portfolio Management 9 for businesses delivering on project portfolio goals with increased versatility, transparency and accuracy Oracle's PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (HCM) 9.1 On Demand Standard Edition helping customers manage their long-term investment in enterprise-wide business applications New versions of Oracle FLEXCUBE Universal Banking and Oracle FLEXCUBE Investor Servicing for Financial Institutions, as well as Oracle Financial Services Enterprise Case Management, Oracle Financial Services Pricing Management, Oracle Financial Management Analytics and Oracle Tax Analytics Oracle Utilities Network Management System 1.11 offering new modelling and analysis features to improve distribution-grid management for electric utilities Oracle Communications Network Charging and Control 4.4 helping communications service providers (CSPs) offer their customers more flexible charging options Plus many, many more technology announcements, enhancements, momentum news and community updates -- Oracle OpenWorld 2012 A date has already been set for Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Held once again in San Francisco, exhibitors, partners, customers and Oracle people will gather from 30 September until 4 November to meet, network and learn together with the rest of the global Oracle community. Register now for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 and save $$$! We'll reward your early planning for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 with reduced rates. Super Saver deals are now available! -- Back to the welcome page

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• Michael Crump&rsquo;s notes for 70-563 PRO &ndash; Designing and Developing Windows Applications usi

  - by mbcrump

  TIME TO GO PRO! This is my notes for 70-563 PRO – Designing and Developing Windows Applications using .NET Framework 3.5 I created it using several resources (various certification web sites, msdn, official ms 70-548 book). The reason that I created this review is because a) I am taking the exam. b) MS did not create a book for this exam. Use the(MS 70-548)book. c) To make sure I am familiar with each before the exam. I hope that it provides a good start for your own notes. I hope that someone finds this useful. At least, it will give you a starting point of what to expect to know on the PRO exam. Also, for those wondering, the PRO exam does contains very little code. It is basically all theory. 1. Validation Controls – How to prevent users from entering invalid data on forms. (MaskedTextBox control and RegEx) 2. ServiceController – used to start and control the behavior of existing services. 3. User Feedback (know winforms Status Bar, Tool Tips, Color, Error Provider, Context-Sensitive and Accessibility) 4. Specific (derived) exceptions must be handled before general (base class) exceptions. By moving the exception handling for the base type Exception to after exception handling of ArgumentNullException, all ArgumentNullException thrown by the Helper method will be caught and logged correctly. 5. A heartbeat method is a method exposed by a Web service that allows external applications to check on the status of the service. 6. New users must master key tasks quickly. Giving these tasks context and appropriate detail will help. However, advanced users will demand quicker paths. Shortcuts, accelerators, or toolbar buttons will speed things along for the advanced user. 7. MSBuild uses project files to instruct the build engine what to build and how to build it. MSBuild project files are XML files that adhere to the MSBuild XML schema. The MSBuild project files contain complete file, build action, and dependency information for each individual projects. 8. Evaluating whether or not to fix a bug involves a triage process. You must identify the bug's impact, set the priority, categorize it, and assign a developer. Many times the person doing the triage work will assign the bug to a developer for further investigation. In fact, the workflow for the bug work item inside of Team System supports this step. Developers are often asked to assess the impact of a given bug. This assessment helps the person doing the triage make a decision on how to proceed. When assessing the impact of a bug, you should consider time and resources to fix it, bug risk, and impacts of the bug. 9. In large projects it is generally impossible and unfeasible to fix all bugs because of the impact on schedule and budget. 10. Code reviews should be conducted by a technical lead or a technical peer. 11. Testing Applications 12. WCF Services – application state 13. SQL Server 2005 / 2008 Express Edition – reliable storage of data / Microsoft SQL Server 3.5 Compact Database– used for client computers to retrieve and save data from a shared location. 14. SQL Server 2008 Compact Edition – used for minimum possible memory and can synchronize data with a corporate SQL Server 2008 Database. Supports offline user and minimum dependency on external components. 15. MDI and SDI Forms (specifically IsMDIContainer) 16. GUID – in the case of data warehousing, it is important to define unique keys. 17. Encrypting / Security Data 18. Understanding of Isolated Storage/Proper location to store items 19. LINQ to SQL 20. Multithreaded access 21. ADO.NET Entity Framework model 22. Marshal.ReleaseComObject 23. Common User Interface Layout (ComboBox, ListBox, Listview, MaskedTextBox, TextBox, RichTextBox, SplitContainer, TableLayoutPanel, TabControl) 24. DataSets Class - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.dataset%28VS.71%29.aspx 25. SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS) 26. SystemIcons.Shield (Vista UAC) 27. Leverging stored procedures to perform data manipulation for a database schema that can change. 28. DataContext 29. Microsoft Windows Installer Packages, ClickOnce(bootstrapping features), XCopy. 30. Client Application Services – will authenticate users by using the same data source as a ASP.NET web application. 31. SQL Server 2008 Caching 32. StringBuilder 33. Accessibility Guidelines for Windows Applications http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228004.aspx 34. Logging erros 35. Testing performance related issues. 36. Role Based Security, GenericIdentity and GenericPrincipal 37. System.Net.CookieContainer will store session data for webapps (see isolated storage for winforms) 38. .NET CLR Profiler tool will identify objects that cause performance issues. 39. ADO.NET Synchronization (SyncGroup) 40. Globalization - CultureInfo 41. IDisposable Interface- reports on several questions relating to this. 42. Adding timestamps to determine whether data has changed or not. 43. Converting applications to .NET Framework 3.5 44. MicrosoftReportViewer 45. Composite Controls 46. Windows Vista KNOWN folders. 47. Microsoft Sync Framework 48. TypeConverter -Provides a unified way of converting types of values to other types, as well as for accessing standard values and sub properties. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.componentmodel.typeconverter.aspx 49. Concurrency control mechanisms The main categories of concurrency control mechanisms are: Optimistic - Delay the checking of whether a transaction meets the isolation rules (e.g., serializability and recoverability) until its end, without blocking any of its (read, write) operations, and then abort a transaction, if the desired rules are violated. Pessimistic - Block operations of a transaction, if they may cause violation of the rules. Semi-optimistic - Block operations in some situations, and do not block in other situations, while delaying rules checking to transaction's end, as done with optimistic. 50. AutoResetEvent 51. Microsoft Messaging Queue (MSMQ) 4.0 52. Bulk imports 53. KeyDown event of controls 54. WPF UI components 55. UI process layer 56. GAC (installing, removing and queuing) 57. Use a local database cache to reduce the network bandwidth used by applications. 58. Sound can easily be annoying and distracting to users, so use it judiciously. Always give users the option to turn sound off. Because a user might have sound off, never convey important information through sound alone.

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• At the Java DEMOgrounds - JavaFX

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  JavaFX has made rapid progress in the last year, as is evidenced by the wealth of demos on display. A few questions appear to be prominent in the minds of JavaFX enthusiasts. Here are some questions with answers provided by Oracle’s JavaFX team.When will the rest of the JavaFX code be available in open source?Oracle has started to open source JavaFX. The existing platform code will finish being committed to OpenJFX by the end of the year.Why should I use JavaFX instead of HTML5?We see JavaFX as complementary to HTML5, and most companies we talk to react positively once they understand how they can benefit from a hybrid solution. As most HTML5 developers will tell you, the biggest obstacle to deploying HTML5 applications is fragmentation. JavaFX offers a convenient way to render HTML and JavaScript within its WebView component, which provides the same level of quality and features across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Additionally, JavaScript in WebView can make calls into the Java code, and vice versa, allowing developers to tap into the best of both worlds.What is the market penetration of JavaFX? It is currently limited, as we've just made available JavaFX on Mac and Linux in August, but we expect JavaFX to be present on millions of desktop-type systems now that JavaFX is included as part of the JRE. We have also significantly lowered the level of effort required to deploy an application bundling the JRE and JavaFX runtime libraries. Finally, we are seeing a lot of interest by companies operating in the embedded market, who have found it hard to develop compelling UIs with existing technologies.Below are summaries of JavaFX Demos on display at JavaOne 2012:JavaFX EnsembleEnsemble is a collection of over 100 JavaFX samples packaged as a JavaFX application. This demo is especially useful to those new to JavaFX, or those not familiar with its latest features (e.g. canvas, color picker). Ensemble is the reference for getting familiar with JavaFX functionality. Each sample can be run from within Ensemble, and the API for each sample, as well as the source code are available alongside the sample.The samples source code can be saved as a NetBeans project for convenience purposes, or can be copied as is in any other Java IDE. The version of Ensemble shown is packaged as a native Windows application, including the JRE and JavaFX libraries. It was created with the JavaFX packager, which provides multiple packaging options, and frees developers from the cumbersome and error-prone process of packaging a Java application.FX Experience ToolsFX Experience Tools is a JavaFX application that provides different utilities to create new skins for your JavaFX applications. One of the most powerful features of JavaFX is the ability to skin applications via CSS. Since not all Java developers are familiar with CSS, these utilities are a great starting point to create custom skins. JavaFX allows developers to easily customize the look and feel of their applications through CSS. FX Experience Tools makes it easy to create new themes for JavaFX applications, even if you are not familiar with CSS. FX Experience Tools is a JavaFX application packaged as a native application including the JRE and JavaFX runtime libraries. FX Experience tools shows how this type of deployment simplifies the packaging of Java applications without requiring developers to master the intricacies of Java application packaging. The download site for FX Experience Tools is http://fxexperience.com/2012/03/announcing-fx-experience-tools/ JavaFX Scene BuilderJavaFX Scene Builder is a visual layout tool that lets users quickly design the UI of your JavaFX application, without coding. Users can drag and drop UI components, modify their properties, apply style sheets, and the FXML code they create for the layout is automatically generated in the background. The result is an FXML file that can then be combined with a Java project by binding the UI to the application’s logic. Developers can easily create user interfaces for their application, as well as separate the application’s UI from the application logic for easier maintenance. Attendees can get this app by going to javafx.com and checking the link at top of the “Overview” page.Scene Builder allows developers to easily layout JavaFX UI controls, charts, shapes, and containers, so that you can quickly prototype user interfaces. It generates FXML, an XML-based markup language that enables users to define an application’s user interface, separately from the application logic. Scene Builder can be used in combination with any Java IDE, but is more tightly integrated with NetBeans IDE. It is written as a JavaFX application, with native desktop integration on Windows and Mac OS X. It’s a perfect example of a JavaFX application packages as a native application.Scene Builder is available for your preferred development platform. Besides the GA release on Windows and Mac, a Developer Preview of Scene Builder for Linux has just been made available.Scenic ViewScenic View is a tool that can be used to understand the current state of your application UI, and to also easily manipulate properties of the scenegraph without having to keep editing your code. Creating UIs is a complex process, and it can be hard and tedious detecting these issues, editing the code, and then compiling it to test the app again. Scenic View is a great diagnostics tool that helps developers identify these issues and correct them at runtime.Attendees can get Scenic View by going to javafx.com, selecting the “Community” tab, and clicking the link under the “Third Party Tools and Utilities” section.Scenic View allows developers to easily examine the state of a JavaFX application scenegraph while the application is running. Some of the latest features added to Scenic View include event monitoring, javadoc browsing, and contextual menus. The download site for Scenic View is available here: http://fxexperience.com/scenic-view/ Conference TourConference Tour is an application that lets users discover some of the major Java conferences throughout the world. The Conference Tour application shows how simple it is to mix JavaFX and HTML5 into a single, interactive application. Attendees get Conference Tour here.JavaFX includes a Web engine based on Webkit that provides a consistent web interface to render HTML5 across operating systems, within a JavaFX application. JavaFX features a bi-directional bridge that allows Java APIs to call JavaScript within WebView, or allows JavaScript to make calls to Java APIs. This allows developers to leverage the best of both worlds.Java EE developers can take advantage of WebView and the JavaScript-Java bridge to allow their HTML clients to seamlessly bypass Web browser’s sandbox to access native system resources, providing a richer user experience.FXMediaPlayerFXMediaPlayer is an application that lets developers check different media functionality in JavaFX, such as synthesizer or support for HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). This demo shows how developers can embed video content in their Java applications. JavaFX leverages the underlying video (e.g., H.264) and audio (e.g., AAC) codecs on the user’s computer. JavaFX APIs allow developers to interact with the video content (e.g. play/pause, or programmable markers). Some of the latest media features introduced in JavaFX 2.2 include HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). Obviously there is a lot for JavaFX enthusiasts to chew on!

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• Win a place at a SQL Server Masterclass with Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal

  - by Testas

  The top things YOU need to know about managing SQL Server - in one place, on one day - presented by two of the best SQL Server industry trainers!And you could be there courtesy of UK SQL Server User Group and SQL Server Magazine! This week the UK SQL Server User Group will provide you with details of how to win a place at this must see seminar   You can also register for the seminar yourself at:www.regonline.co.uk/kimtrippsql More information about the seminar   Where: Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel, London When: Thursday 17th June 2010 This one-day MasterClass will focus on many of the top issues companies face when implementing and maintaining a SQL Server-based solution. In the case where a company has no dedicated DBA, IT managers sometimes struggle to keep the data tier performing well and the data available. This can be especially troublesome when the development team is unfamiliar with the affect application design choices have on database performance. The Microsoft SQL Server MasterClass 2010 is presented by Paul S. Randal and Kimberly L. Tripp, two of the most experienced and respected people in the SQL Server world. Together they have over 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server in the field, and on the SQL Server product team itself. This is a unique opportunity to hear them present at a UK event which will:·         Debunk many of the ingrained misconceptions around SQL Server's behaviour   ·         Show you disaster recovery techniques critical to preserving your company's life-blood - the data   ·         Explain how a common application design pattern can wreak havoc in the database ·         Walk through the top-10 points to follow around operations and maintenance for a well-performing and available data tier! Please Note: Agenda may be subject to changeSessions AbstractsKEYNOTE: Bridging the Gap Between Development and Production  Applications are commonly developed with little regard for how design choices will affect performance in production. This is often because developers don't realize the implications of their design on how SQL Server will be able to handle a high workload (e.g. blocking, fragmentation) and/or because there's no full-time trained DBA that can recognize production problems and help educate developers. The keynote sets the stage for the rest of the day. Discussing some of the issues that can arise, explaining how some can be avoided and highlighting some of the features in SQL 2008 that can help developers and DBAs make better use of SQL Server, and troubleshoot when things go wrong.  SESSION ONE: SQL Server MythbustersIt's amazing how many myths and misconceptions have sprung up and persisted over the years about SQL Server - after many years helping people out on forums, newsgroups, and customer engagements, Paul and Kimberly have heard it all. Are there really non-logged operations? Can interrupting shrinks or rebuilds cause corruption? Can you override the server's MAXDOP setting? Will the server always do a table-scan to get a row count? Many myths lead to poor design choices and inappropriate maintenance practices so these are just a few of many, many myths that Paul and Kimberly will debunk in this fast-paced session on how SQL Server operates and should be managed and maintained. SESSION TWO: Database Recovery Techniques Demo-Fest Even if a company has a disaster recovery strategy in place, they need to practice to make sure that the plan will work when a disaster does strike. In this fast-paced demo session Paul and Kimberly will repeatedly do nasty things to databases and then show how they are recovered - demonstrating many techniques that can be used in production for disaster recovery. Not for the faint-hearted! SESSION THREE: GUIDs: Use, Abuse, and How To Move Forward Since the addition of the GUID (Microsoft’s implementation of the UUID), my life as a consultant and "tuner" has been busy. I’ve seen databases designed with GUID keys run fairly well with small workloads but completely fall over and fail because they just cannot scale. And, I know why GUIDs are chosen - it simplifies the handling of parent/child rows in your batches so you can reduce round-trips or avoid dealing with identity values. And, yes, sometimes it's even for distributed databases and/or security that GUIDs are chosen. I'm not entirely against ever using a GUID but overusing and abusing GUIDs just has to be stopped! Please, please, please let me give you better solutions and explanations on how to deal with your parent/child rows, round-trips and clustering keys! SESSION 4: Essential Database MaintenanceIn this session, Paul and Kimberly will run you through their top-ten database maintenance recommendations, with a lot of tips and tricks along the way. These are distilled from almost 30 years combined experience working with SQL Server customers and are geared towards making your databases more performant, more available, and more easily managed (to save you time!). Everything in this session will be practical and applicable to a wide variety of databases. Topics covered include: backups, shrinks, fragmentation, statistics, and much more! Focus will be on 2005 but we'll explain some of the key differences for 2000 and 2008 as well.    Speaker Biographies     Paul S.Randal  Kimberley L. Tripp Paul and Kimberly are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. Paul worked on the SQL Server team for nine years in development and management roles, writing many of the DBCC commands, and ultimately with responsibility for core Storage Engine for SQL Server 2008. Paul writes extensively on his blog (SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul) and for TechNet Magazine, for which he is also a Contributing Editor. Kimberly worked on the SQL Server team in the early 1990s as a tester and writer before leaving to found SQLskills and embrace her passion for teaching and consulting. Kimberly has been a staple at worldwide conferences since she first presented at TechEd in 1996, and she blogs at SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly. They have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft.In their spare time, they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world.  

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• How can a code editor effectively hint at code nesting level - without using indentation?

  - by pgfearo

  I've written an XML text editor that provides 2 view options for the same XML text, one indented (virtually), the other left-justified. The motivation for the left-justified view is to help users 'see' the whitespace characters they're using for indentation of plain-text or XPath code without interference from indentation that is an automated side-effect of the XML context. I want to provide visual clues (in the non-editable part of the editor) for the left-justified mode that will help the user, but without getting too elaborate. I tried just using connecting lines, but that seemed too busy. The best I've come up with so far is shown in a mocked up screenshot of the editor below, but I'm seeking better/simpler alternatives (that don't require too much code). [Edit] Taking the heatmap idea (from: @jimp) I get this and 3 alternatives - labelled a, b and c: The following section describes the accepted answer as a proposal, bringing together ideas from a number of other answers and comments. As this question is now community wiki, please feel free to update this. NestView The name for this idea which provides a visual method to improve the readability of nested code without using indentation. Contour Lines The name for the differently shaded lines within the NestView The image above shows the NestView used to help visualise an XML snippet. Though XML is used for this illustration, any other code syntax that uses nesting could have been used for this illustration. An Overview: The contour lines are shaded (as in a heatmap) to convey nesting level The contour lines are angled to show when a nesting level is being either opened or closed. A contour line links the start of a nesting level to the corresponding end. The combined width of contour lines give a visual impression of nesting level, in addition to the heatmap. The width of the NestView may be manually resizable, but should not change as the code changes. Contour lines can either be compressed or truncated to keep acheive this. Blank lines are sometimes used code to break up text into more digestable chunks. Such lines could trigger special behaviour in the NestView. For example the heatmap could be reset or a background color contour line used, or both. One or more contour lines associated with the currently selected code can be highlighted. The contour line associated with the selected code level would be emphasized the most, but other contour lines could also 'light up' in addition to help highlight the containing nested group Different behaviors (such as code folding or code selection) can be associated with clicking/double-clicking on a Contour Line. Different parts of a contour line (leading, middle or trailing edge) may have different dynamic behaviors associated. Tooltips can be shown on a mouse hover event over a contour line The NestView is updated continously as the code is edited. Where nesting is not well-balanced assumptions can be made where the nesting level should end, but the associated temporary contour lines must be highlighted in some way as a warning. Drag and drop behaviors of Contour Lines can be supported. Behaviour may vary according to the part of the contour line being dragged. Features commonly found in the left margin such as line numbering and colour highlighting for errors and change state could overlay the NestView. Additional Functionality The proposal addresses a range of additional issues - many are outside the scope of the original question, but a useful side-effect. Visually linking the start and end of a nested region The contour lines connect the start and end of each nested level Highlighting the context of the currently selected line As code is selected, the associated nest-level in the NestView can be highlighted Differentiating between code regions at the same nesting level In the case of XML different hues could be used for different namespaces. Programming languages (such as c#) support named regions that could be used in a similar way. Dividing areas within a nesting area into different visual blocks Extra lines are often inserted into code to aid readability. Such empty lines could be used to reset the saturation level of the NestView's contour lines. Multi-Column Code View Code without indentation makes the use of a multi-column view more effective because word-wrap or horizontal scrolling is less likely to be required. In this view, once code has reach the bottom of one column, it flows into the next one: Usage beyond merely providing a visual aid As proposed in the overview, the NestView could provide a range of editing and selection features which would be broadly in line with what is expected from a TreeView control. The key difference is that a typical TreeView node has 2 parts: an expander and the node icon. A NestView contour line can have as many as 3 parts: an opener (sloping), a connector (vertical) and a close (sloping). On Indentation The NestView presented alongside non-indented code complements, but is unlikely to replace, the conventional indented code view. It's likely that any solutions adopting a NestView, will provide a method to switch seamlessly between indented and non-indented code views without affecting any of the code text itself - including whitespace characters. One technique for the indented view would be 'Virtual Formatting' - where a dynamic left-margin is used in lieu of tab or space characters. The same nesting-level data used to dynamically render the NestView could also used for the more conventional-looking indented view. Printing Indentation will be important for the readability of printed code. Here, the absence of tab/space characters and a dynamic left-margin means that the text can wrap at the right-margin and still maintain the integrity of the indented view. Line numbers can be used as visual markers that indicate where code is word-wrapped and also the exact position of indentation: Screen Real-Estate: Flat Vs Indented Addressing the question of whether the NestView uses up valuable screen real-estate: Contour lines work well with a width the same as the code editor's character width. A NestView width of 12 character widths can therefore accommodate 12 levels of nesting before contour lines are truncated/compressed. If an indented view uses 3 character-widths for each nesting level then space is saved until nesting reaches 4 levels of nesting, after this nesting level the flat view has a space-saving advantage that increases with each nesting level. Note: A minimum indentation of 4 character widths is often recommended for code, however XML often manages with less. Also, Virtual Formatting permits less indentation to be used because there's no risk of alignment issues A comparison of the 2 views is shown below: Based on the above, its probably fair to conclude that view style choice will be based on factors other than screen real-estate. The one exception is where screen space is at a premium, for example on a Netbook/Tablet or when multiple code windows are open. In these cases, the resizable NestView would seem to be a clear winner. Use Cases Examples of real-world examples where NestView may be a useful option: Where screen real-estate is at a premium a. On devices such as tablets, notepads and smartphones b. When showing code on websites c. When multiple code windows need to be visible on the desktop simultaneously Where consistent whitespace indentation of text within code is a priority For reviewing deeply nested code. For example where sub-languages (e.g. Linq in C# or XPath in XSLT) might cause high levels of nesting. Accessibility Resizing and color options must be provided to aid those with visual impairments, and also to suit environmental conditions and personal preferences: Compatability of edited code with other systems A solution incorporating a NestView option should ideally be capable of stripping leading tab and space characters (identified as only having a formatting role) from imported code. Then, once stripped, the code could be rendered neatly in both the left-justified and indented views without change. For many users relying on systems such as merging and diff tools that are not whitespace-aware this will be a major concern (if not a complete show-stopper). Other Works: Visualisation of Overlapping Markup Published research by Wendell Piez, dated from 2004, addresses the issue of the visualisation of overlapping markup, specifically LMNL. This includes SVG graphics with significant similarities to the NestView proposal, as such, they are acknowledged here. The visual differences are clear in the images (below), the key functional distinction is that NestView is intended only for well-nested XML or code, whereas Wendell Piez's graphics are designed to represent overlapped nesting. The graphics above were reproduced - with kind permission - from http://www.piez.org Sources: Towards Hermenutic Markup Half-steps toward LMNL

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• What to Do When Windows Won’t Boot

  - by Chris Hoffman

  You turn on your computer one day and Windows refuses to boot — what do you do? “Windows won’t boot” is a common symptom with a variety of causes, so you’ll need to perform some troubleshooting. Modern versions of Windows are better at recovering from this sort of thing. Where Windows XP might have stopped in its tracks when faced with this problem, modern versions of Windows will try to automatically run Startup Repair. First Things First Be sure to think about changes you’ve made recently — did you recently install a new hardware driver, connect a new hardware component to your computer, or open your computer’s case and do something? It’s possible the hardware driver is buggy, the new hardware is incompatible, or that you accidentally unplugged something while working inside your computer. The Computer Won’t Power On At All If your computer won’t power on at all, ensure it’s plugged into a power outlet and that the power connector isn’t loose. If it’s a desktop PC, ensure the power switch on the back of its case — on the power supply — is set to the On position. If it still won’t power on at all, it’s possible you disconnected a power cable inside its case. If you haven’t been messing around inside the case, it’s possible the power supply is dead. In this case, you’ll have to get your computer’s hardware fixed or get a new computer. Be sure to check your computer monitor — if your computer seems to power on but your screen stays black, ensure your monitor is powered on and that the cable connecting it to your computer’s case is plugged in securely at both ends. The Computer Powers On And Says No Bootable Device If your computer is powering on but you get a black screen that says something like “no bootable device” or another sort of “disk error” message, your computer can’t seem to boot from the hard drive that Windows was installed on. Enter your computer’s BIOS or UEFI firmware setup screen and check its boot order setting, ensuring that it’s set to boot from its hard drive. If the hard drive doesn’t appear in the list at all, it’s possible your hard drive has failed and can no longer be booted from. In this case, you may want to insert Windows installation or recovery media and run the Startup Repair operation. This will attempt to make Windows bootable again. For example, if something overwrote your Windows drive’s boot sector, this will repair the boot sector. If the recovery environment won’t load or doesn’t see your hard drive, you likely have a hardware problem. Be sure to check your BIOS or UEFI’s boot order first if the recovery environment won’t load. You can also attempt to manually fix Windows boot loader problems using the fixmbr and fixboot commands. Modern versions of Windows should be able to fix this problem for you with the Startup Repair wizard, so you shouldn’t actually have to run these commands yourself. Windows Freezes or Crashes During Boot If Windows seems to start booting but fails partway through, you may be facing either a software or hardware problem. If it’s a software problem, you may be able to fix it by performing a Startup Repair operation. If you can’t do this from the boot menu, insert a Windows installation disc or recovery disk and use the startup repair tool from there. If this doesn’t help at all, you may want to reinstall Windows or perform a Refresh or Reset on Windows 8. If the computer encounters errors while attempting to perform startup repair or reinstall Windows, or the reinstall process works properly and you encounter the same errors afterwards, you likely have a hardware problem. Windows Starts and Blue Screens or Freezes If Windows crashes or blue-screens on you every time it boots, you may be facing a hardware or software problem. For example, malware or a buggy driver may be loading at boot and causing the crash, or your computer’s hardware may be malfunctioning. To test this, boot your Windows computer in safe mode. In safe mode, Windows won’t load typical hardware drivers or any software that starts automatically at startup. If the computer is stable in safe mode, try uninstalling any recently installed hardware drivers, performing a system restore, and scanning for malware. If you’re lucky, one of these steps may fix your software problem and allow you to boot Windows normally. If your problem isn’t fixed, try reinstalling Windows or performing a Refresh or Reset on Windows 8. This will reset your computer back to its clean, factory-default state. If you’re still experiencing crashes, your computer likely has a hardware problem. Recover Files When Windows Won’t Boot If you have important files that will be lost and want to back them up before reinstalling Windows, you can use a Windows installer disc or Linux live media to recover the files. These run entirely from a CD, DVD, or USB drive and allow you to copy your files to another external media, such as another USB stick or an external hard drive. If you’re incapable of booting a Windows installer disc or Linux live CD, you may need to go into your BIOS or UEFI and change the boot order setting. If even this doesn’t work — or if you can boot from the devices and your computer freezes or you can’t access your hard drive — you likely have a hardware problem. You can try pulling the computer’s hard drive, inserting it into another computer, and recovering your files that way. Following these steps should fix the vast majority of Windows boot issues — at least the ones that are actually fixable. The dark cloud that always hangs over such issues is the possibility that the hard drive or another component in the computer may be failing. Image Credit: Karl-Ludwig G. Poggemann on Flickr, Tzuhsun Hsu on Flickr     

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• It's not just “Single Sign-on” by Steve Knott (aurionPro SENA)

  - by Greg Jensen

  It is true that Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-on (Oracle ESSO) started out as purely an application single sign-on tool but as we have seen in the previous articles in this series the product has matured into a suite of tools that can do more than just automated single sign-on and can also provide rapidly deployed, cost effective solution to many demanding password management problems. In the last article of this series I would like to discuss three cases where customers faced password scenarios that required more than just single sign-on and how some of the less well known tools in the Oracle ESSO suite “kitbag” helped solve these challenges. Case #1 One of the issues often faced by our customers is how to keep their applications compliant. I had a client who liked the idea of automated single sign-on for most of his applications but had a key requirement to actually increase the security for one specific SOX application. For the SOX application he wanted to secure access by using two-factor authentication with a smartcard. The problem was that the application did not support two-factor authentication. The solution was to use a feature from the Oracle ESSO suite called authentication manager. This feature enables you to have multiple authentication methods for the same user which in this case was a smartcard and the Windows password.  Within authentication manager each authenticator can be configured with a security grade so we gave the smartcard a high grade and the Windows password a normal grade. Security grading in Oracle ESSO can be configured on a per application basis so we set the SOX application to require the higher grade smartcard authenticator. The end result for the user was that they enjoyed automated single sign-on for most of the applications apart from the SOX application. When the SOX application was launched, the user was required by ESSO to present their smartcard before being given access to the application. Case #2 Another example solving compliance issues was in the case of a large energy company who had a number of core billing applications. New regulations required that users change their password regularly and use a complex password. The problem facing the customer was that the core billing applications did not have any native user password change functionality. The customer could not replace the core applications because of the cost and time required to re-develop them. With a reputation for innovation aurionPro SENA were approached to provide a solution to this problem using Oracle ESSO. Oracle ESSO has a password expiry feature that can be triggered periodically based on the timestamp of the users’ last password creation therefore our strategy here was to leverage this feature to provide the password change experience. The trigger can launch an application change password event however in this scenario there was no native change password feature that could be launched therefore a “dummy” change password screen was created that could imitate the missing change password function and connect to the application database on behalf of the user. Oracle ESSO was configured to trigger a change password event every 60 days. After this period if the user launched the application Oracle ESSO would detect the logon screen and invoke the password expiry feature. Oracle ESSO would trigger the “dummy screen,” detect it automatically as the application change password screen and insert a complex password on behalf of the user. After the password event had completed the user was logged on to the application with their new password. All this was provided at a fraction of the cost of re-developing the core applications. Case #3 Recent popular initiatives such as the BYOD and working from home schemes bring with them many challenges in administering “unmanaged machines” and sometimes “unmanageable users.” In a recent case, a client had a dispersed community of casual contractors who worked for the business using their own laptops to access applications. To improve security the around password management the security goal was to provision the passwords directly to these contractors. In a previous article we saw how Oracle ESSO has the capability to provision passwords through Provisioning Gateway but the challenge in this scenario was how to get the Oracle ESSO agent to the casual contractor on an unmanaged machine. The answer was to use another tool in the suite, Oracle ESSO Anywhere. This component can compile the normal Oracle ESSO functionality into a deployment package that can be made available from a website in a similar way to a streamed application. The ESSO Anywhere agent does not actually install into the registry or program files but runs in a folder within the user’s profile therefore no local administrator rights are required for installation. The ESSO Anywhere package can also be configured to stay persistent or disable itself at the end of the user’s session. In this case the user just needed to be told where the website package was located and download the package. Once the download was complete the agent started automatically and the user was provided with single sign-on to their applications without ever knowing the application passwords. Finally, as we have seen in these series Oracle ESSO not only has great utilities in its own tool box but also has direct integration with Oracle Privileged Account Manager, Oracle Identity Manager and Oracle Access Manager. Integrated together with these tools provides a complete and complementary platform to address even the most complex identity and access management requirements. So what next for Oracle ESSO? “Agentless ESSO available in the cloud” – but that will be a subject for a future Oracle ESSO series!                                                                                                                               

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• Fixing a SkyDrive Sync Disaster

  - by Rick Strahl

  For a few months I've been using SkyDrive to handle some basic synching tasks for a number of folders of mine. Specifically I've been dumping a few of my development folders into sky drive so I have a live running backup. It had been working just fine until about a week ago when something went awry. Badly! The idea is that the SkyDrive should sync files, but somewhere in its sync relationship it appears that SkyDrive got confused and assumed it needed to sync back older files to my local machine from the SkyDrive server. So rather than syncing my newer files to the server SkyDrive was pushing older files back to me. Because SkyDrive is so slow actually updating data it's not unusual for SkyDrive to be far behind in syncing and apparently some files were out of date by several months. Of course this is insidious because I didn't notice it for quite some time. I'd been happily working away on my files when a few days ago I noted a bunch of files with -RasXps (my machine name) popping up in various folders. At first I thought my Git repository was giving me a fit, but eventually realized that SkyDrive was actually pushing old files into my monitored folders. To be fair SkyDrive did make backups of the existing files, but by the time I caught it there were literally a few thousand files scattered on my machine that were now updated with old files from online. Here's what some of this looks like: If you look at the directory list you see a bunch of files with a -RasXps postfix appended to them. Those are the files that SkyDrive replaced and backed up on my machine. As you can see the backed up files are actually newer than the ones it pulled from the online SkyDrive. Unless I modified the files after they were updated they all were older than the existing local files. Not exactly how I imagined my synching would work. At first I started cleaning up this mess manually. In most cases the obvious solution was to simply delete the original file and replace with the -RasXps file, but not in all files. Some scrutiny was required and besides being a pain in the ass to rename files, quite frequently I had to dig out Beyond Compare to compare a few files where it wasn't quite clear what's wrong. I quickly realized that doing this by hand would be too hard for the large number of files that got hosed. Hacking together a small .NET Utility So, I figured the easiest way to tackle this is to write a small utility app that shows me all the mangled files that have backups, allows me to compare them and then quickly select and update them, removing the -RasXps file after choosing one of the two files. What I ended up with was a quick and dirty WinForms app that allows me to pick a root folder, and then shows all the -MachineName files: I start by picking a base folder and a template to search for - typically the -MachineName. Clicking Go brings up a list of all files in that folder and its subdirectories.  The list also displays the dates for the saved (-MachineName) file and the current file on disk, along with highlighting for the newer of the two. I can right click on any file and get a context menu pop up to open the folder in Explorer, or open Beyond Compare and view the two files to compare differences which I found very helpful for a number of files where I had modified the files after SkyDrive had updated to an old one. Typically these would be the green files (of which there were thankfully few). To 'fix' files I can select any number of files in the list, then use one of the three buttons on the right to apply an operation. I can use the Saved files - that is the backup file that SkyDrive created with the -MachineName extension (-RasXps above). Or I can use the current file, which is the file with the right name on disk right now and delete the -MachineName file. Or on some occasions I can just opt to delete both of them. For some files like binaries it's often easier to just delete and them be rebuild than choosing. For the most part the process involves accepting the pink files, and checking the few green files and see if any modifications were made since the file was updated incorrectly by SkyDrive. For me luckily those are few in number. Anyways, I thought I share this utility in case anybody else runs into this issue. I've included the VS2012 solution and all the source code so you can see how it works and you can tweak it as needed. The .NET 4.5 binaries are also included if you can't compile. Be warned though!  This rough code is provided as is and makes no guarantees or claims about file safety. All three of the action buttons on the form will delete data. It's a very rough utility and there are no safeguards that ask nicely before deleting files. I highly recommend you make a backup before you have at it. This tools is very narrow in focus, but it might also work with other sync issues from other vendors. I seem to remember that I had similar issues with SugarSync at some point and it too created the -MachineName style files on sync conflicts. Hope this helps somebody out so you can avoid wasting the better part of a full work day on this… Resources Download the Source Code and Binaries for SkyDrive Rescue© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2013Posted in Windows  .NET   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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