Search Results

Search found 9396 results on 376 pages for 'stored procedures'.

Page 370/376 | < Previous Page | 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376  | Next Page >

• What Every Developer Should Know About MSI Components

  - by Alois Kraus

  Hopefully nothing. But if you have to do more than simple XCopy deployment and you need to support updates, upgrades and perhaps side by side scenarios there is no way around MSI. You can create Msi files with a Visual Studio Setup project which is severely limited or you can use the Windows Installer Toolset. I cannot talk about WIX with my German colleagues because WIX has a very special meaning. It is funny to always use the long name when I talk about deployment possibilities. Alternatively you can buy commercial tools which help you to author Msi files but I am not sure how good they are. Given enough pain with existing solutions you can also learn the MSI Apis and create your own packaging solution. If I were you I would use either a commercial visual tool when you do easy deployments or use the free Windows Installer Toolset. Once you know the WIX schema you can create well formed wix xml files easily with any editor. Then you can “compile” from the wxs files your Msi package. Recently I had the “pleasure” to get my hands dirty with C++ (again) and the MSI technology. Installation is a complex topic but after several month of digging into arcane MSI issues I can safely say that there should exist an easier way to install and update files as today. I am not alone with this statement as John Robbins (creator of the cool tool Paraffin) states: “.. It's a brittle and scary API in Windows …”. To help other people struggling with installation issues I present you the advice I (and others) found useful and what will happen if you ignore this advice. What is a MSI file? A MSI file is basically a database with tables which reference each other to control how your un/installation should work. The basic idea is that you declare via these tables what you want to install and MSI controls the how to get your stuff onto or off your machine. Your “stuff” consists usually of files, registry keys, shortcuts and environment variables. Therefore the most important tables are File, Registry, Environment and Shortcut table which define what will be un/installed. The key to master MSI is that every resource (file, registry key ,…) is associated with a MSI component. The actual payload consists of compressed files in the CAB format which can either be embedded into the MSI file or reside beside the MSI file or in a subdirectory below it. To examine MSI files you need Orca a free MSI editor provided by MS. There is also another free editor called Super Orca which does support diffs between MSI and it does not lock the MSI files. But since Orca comes with a shell extension I tend to use only Orca because it is so easy to right click on a MSI file and open it with this tool. How Do I Install It? Double click it. This does work for fresh installations as well as major upgrades. Updates need to be installed via the command line via msiexec /i <msi> REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus   This tells the installer to reinstall all already installed features (new features will NOT be installed). The reinstallmode letters do force an overwrite of the old cached package in the %WINDIR%\Installer folder. All files, shortcuts and registry keys are redeployed if they are missing or need to be replaced with a newer version. When things did go really wrong and you want to overwrite everything unconditionally use REINSTALLMODE=vamus. How To Enable MSI Logs? You can download a MSI from Microsoft which installs some registry keys to enable full MSI logging. The log files can be found in your %TEMP% folder and are called MSIxxxx.log. Alternatively you can add to your msiexec command line the option msiexec …. /l*vx <LogFileName> Personally I find it rather strange that * does not mean full logging. To really get all logs I need to add v and x which is documented in the msiexec help but I still find this behavior unintuitive. What are MSI components? The whole MSI logic is bound to the concept of MSI components. Nearly every msi table has a Component column which binds an installable resource to a component. Below are the screenshots of the FeatureComponents and Component table of an example MSI. The Feature table defines basically the feature hierarchy.  To find out what belongs to a feature you need to look at the FeatureComponents table where for each feature the components are listed which will be installed when a feature is installed. The MSI components are defined in the  Component table. This table has as first column the component name and as second column the component id which is a GUID. All resources you want to install belong to a MSI component. Therefore nearly all MSI tables have a Component_ column which contains the component name. If you look e.g. a the File table you see that every file belongs to a component which is true for all other tables which install resources. The component table is the glue between all other tables which contain the resources you want to install. So far so easy. Why is MSI then so complex? Most MSI problems arise from the fact that you did violate a MSI component rule in one or the other way. When you install a feature the reference count for all components belonging to this feature will increase by one. If your component is installed by more than one feature it will get a higher refcount. When you uninstall a feature its refcount will drop by one. Interesting things happen if the component reference count reaches zero: Then all associated resources will be deleted. That looks like a reasonable thing and it is. What it makes complex are the strange component rules you have to follow. Below are some important component rules from the Tao of the Windows Installer … Rule 16: Follow Component Rules Components are a very important part of the Installer technology. They are the means whereby the Installer manages the resources that make up your application. The SDK provides the following guidelines for creating components in your package: Never create two components that install a resource under the same name and target location. If a resource must be duplicated in multiple components, change its name or target location in each component. This rule should be applied across applications, products, product versions, and companies. Two components must not have the same key path file. This is a consequence of the previous rule. The key path value points to a particular file or folder belonging to the component that the installer uses to detect the component. If two components had the same key path file, the installer would be unable to distinguish which component is installed. Two components however may share a key path folder. Do not create a version of a component that is incompatible with all previous versions of the component. This rule should be applied across applications, products, product versions, and companies. Do not create components containing resources that will need to be installed into more than one directory on the user’s system. The installer installs all of the resources in a component into the same directory. It is not possible to install some resources into subdirectories. Do not include more than one COM server per component. If a component contains a COM server, this must be the key path for the component. Do not specify more than one file per component as a target for the Start menu or a Desktop shortcut. … And these rules do not even talk about component ids, update packages and upgrades which you need to understand as well. Lets suppose you install two MSIs (MSI1 and MSI2) which have the same ComponentId but different component names. Both do install the same file. What will happen when you uninstall MSI2?   Hm the file should stay there. But the component names are different. Yes and yes. But MSI uses not use the component name as key for the refcount. Instead the ComponentId column of the Component table which contains a GUID is used as identifier under which the refcount is stored. The components Comp1 and Comp2 are identical from the MSI perspective. After the installation of both MSIs the Component with the Id {100000….} has a refcount of two. After uninstallation of one MSI there is still a refcount of one which drops to zero just as expected when we uninstall the last msi. Then the file which was the same for both MSIs is deleted. You should remember that MSI keeps a refcount across MSIs for components with the same component id. MSI does manage components not the resources you did install. The resources associated with a component are then and only then deleted when the refcount of the component reaches zero.   The dependencies between features, components and resources can be described as relations. m,k are numbers >= 1, n can be 0. Inside a MSI the following relations are valid Feature    1  –> n Components Component    1 –> m Features Component      1  –>  k Resources These relations express that one feature can install several components and features can share components between them. Every (meaningful) component will install at least one resource which means that its name (primary key to stay in database speak) does occur in some other table in the Component column as value which installs some resource. Lets make it clear with an example. We want to install with the feature MainFeature some files a registry key and a shortcut. We can then create components Comp1..3 which are referenced by the resources defined in the corresponding tables.   Feature Component Registry File Shortcuts MainFeature Comp1 RegistryKey1     MainFeature Comp2   File.txt   MainFeature Comp3   File2.txt Shortcut to File2.txt   It is illegal that the same resource is part of more than one component since this would break the refcount mechanism. Lets illustrate this:            Feature ComponentId Resource Reference Count Feature1 {1000-…} File1.txt 1 Feature2 {2000-….} File1.txt 1 The installation part works well but what happens when you uninstall Feature2? Component {20000…} gets a refcount of zero where MSI deletes all resources belonging to this component. In this case File1.txt will be deleted. But Feature1 still has another component {10000…} with a refcount of one which means that the file was deleted too early. You just have ruined your installation. To fix it you then need to click on the Repair button under Add/Remove Programs to let MSI reinstall any missing registry keys, files or shortcuts. The vigilant reader might has noticed that there is more in the Component table. Beside its name and GUID it has also an installation directory, attributes and a KeyPath. The KeyPath is a reference to a file or registry key which is used to detect if the component is already installed. This becomes important when you repair or uninstall a component. To find out if the component is already installed MSI checks if the registry key or file referenced by the KeyPath property does exist. When it does not exist it assumes that it was either already uninstalled (can lead to problems during uninstall) or that it is already installed and all is fine. Why is this detail so important? Lets put all files into one component. The KeyPath should be then one of the files of your component to check if it was installed or not. When your installation becomes corrupt because a file was deleted you cannot repair it with the Repair button under Add/Remove Programs because MSI checks the component integrity via the Resource referenced by its KeyPath. As long as you did not delete the KeyPath file MSI thinks all resources with your component are installed and never executes any repair action. You get even more trouble when you try to remove files during an upgrade (you cannot remove files during an update) from your super component which contains all files. The only way out and therefore best practice is to assign for every resource you want to install an extra component. This ensures painless updatability and repairs and you have much less effort to remove specific files during an upgrade. In effect you get this best practice relation Feature 1  –> n Components Component   1  –>  1 Resources MSI Component Rules Rule 1 – One component per resource Every resource you want to install (file, registry key, value, environment value, shortcut, directory, …) must get its own component which does never change between versions as long as the install location is the same. Penalty If you add more than one resources to a component you will break the repair capability of MSI because the KeyPath is used to check if the component needs repair. MSI ComponentId Files MSI 1.0 {1000} File1-5 MSI 2.0 {2000} File2-5 You want to remove File1 in version 2.0 of your MSI. Since you want to keep the other files you create a new component and add them there. MSI will delete all files if the component refcount of {1000} drops to zero. The files you want to keep are added to the new component {2000}. Ok that does work if your upgrade does uninstall the old MSI first. This will cause the refcount of all previously installed components to reach zero which means that all files present in version 1.0 are deleted. But there is a faster way to perform your upgrade by first installing your new MSI and then remove the old one.  If you choose this upgrade path then you will loose File1-5 after your upgrade and not only File1 as intended by your new component design.   Rule 2 – Only add, never remove resources from a component If you did follow rule 1 you will not need Rule 2. You can add in a patch more resources to one component. That is ok. But you can never remove anything from it. There are tricky ways around that but I do not want to encourage bad component design. Penalty Lets assume you have 2 MSI files which install under the same component one file   MSI1 MSI2 {1000} - ComponentId {1000} – ComponentId File1.txt File2.txt   When you install and uninstall both MSIs you will end up with an installation where either File1 or File2 will be left. Why? It seems that MSI does not store the resources associated with each component in its internal database. Instead Windows will simply query the MSI that is currently uninstalled for all resources belonging to this component. Since it will find only one file and not two it will only uninstall one file. That is the main reason why you never can remove resources from a component!   Rule 3 Never Remove A Component From an Update MSI. This is the same as if you change the GUID of a component by accident for your new update package. The resulting update package will not contain all components from the previously installed package. Penalty When you remove a component from a feature MSI will set the feature state during update to Advertised and log a warning message into its log file when you did enable MSI logging. SELMGR: ComponentId '{2DCEA1BA-3E27-E222-484C-D0D66AEA4F62}' is registered to feature 'xxxxxxx, but is not present in the Component table.  Removal of components from a feature is not supported! MSI (c) (24:44) [07:53:13:436]: SELMGR: Removal of a component from a feature is not supported Advertised means that MSI treats all components of this feature as not installed. As a consequence during uninstall nothing will be removed since it is not installed! This is not only bad because uninstall does no longer work but this feature will also not get the required patches. All other features which have followed component versioning rules for update packages will be updated but the one faulty feature will not. This results in very hard to find bugs why an update was only partially successful. Things got better with Windows Installer 4.5 but you cannot rely on that nobody will use an older installer. It is a good idea to add to your update msiexec call MSIENFORCEUPGRADECOMPONENTRULES=1 which will abort the installation if you did violate this rule.

  Read the article

• ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts and Sections with Razor

  - by ScottGu

  This is another in a series of posts I’m doing that cover some of the new ASP.NET MVC 3 features: Introducing Razor (July 2nd) New @model keyword in Razor (Oct 19th) Layouts with Razor (Oct 22nd) Server-Side Comments with Razor (Nov 12th) Razor’s @: and <text> syntax (Dec 15th) Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor (Dec 16th) Layouts and Sections with Razor (Today) In today’s post I’m going to go into more details about how Layout pages work with Razor.  In particular, I’m going to cover how you can have multiple, non-contiguous, replaceable “sections” within a layout file – and enable views based on layouts to optionally “fill in” these different sections at runtime.  The Razor syntax for doing this is clean and concise. I’ll also show how you can dynamically check at runtime whether a particular layout section has been defined, and how you can provide alternate content (or even an alternate layout) in the event that a section isn’t specified within a view template.  This provides a powerful and easy way to customize the UI of your site and make it clean and DRY from an implementation perspective. What are Layouts? You typically want to maintain a consistent look and feel across all of the pages within your web-site/application.  ASP.NET 2.0 introduced the concept of “master pages” which helps enable this when using .aspx based pages or templates.  Razor also supports this concept with a feature called “layouts” – which allow you to define a common site template, and then inherit its look and feel across all the views/pages on your site. I previously discussed the basics of how layout files work with Razor in my ASP.NET MVC 3: Layouts with Razor blog post.  Today’s post will go deeper and discuss how you can define multiple, non-contiguous, replaceable regions within a layout file that you can then optionally “fill in” at runtime. Site Layout Scenario Let’s look at how we can implement a common site layout scenario with ASP.NET MVC 3 and Razor.  Specifically, we’ll implement some site UI where we have a common header and footer on all of our pages.  We’ll also add a “sidebar” section to the right of our common site layout.  On some pages we’ll customize the SideBar to contain content specific to the page it is included on: And on other pages (that do not have custom sidebar content) we will fall back and provide some “default content” to the sidebar: We’ll use ASP.NET MVC 3 and Razor to enable this customization in a nice, clean way.  Below are some step-by-step tutorial instructions on how to build the above site with ASP.NET MVC 3 and Razor. Part 1: Create a New Project with a Layout for the “Body” section We’ll begin by using the “File->New Project” menu command within Visual Studio to create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 Project.  We’ll create the new project using the “Empty” template option: This will create a new project that has no default controllers in it: Creating a HomeController We will then right-click on the “Controllers” folder of our newly created project and choose the “Add->Controller” context menu command.  This will bring up the “Add Controller” dialog: We’ll name the new controller we create “HomeController”.  When we click the “Add” button Visual Studio will add a HomeController class to our project with a default “Index” action method that returns a view: We won’t need to write any Controller logic to implement this sample – so we’ll leave the default code as-is.  Creating a View Template Our next step will be to implement the view template associated with the HomeController’s Index action method.  To implement the view template, we will right-click within the “HomeController.Index()” method and select the “Add View” command to create a view template for our home page: This will bring up the “Add View” dialog within Visual Studio.  We do not need to change any of the default settings within the above dialog (the name of the template was auto-populated to Index because we invoked the “Add View” context menu command within the Index method).  When we click the “Add” Button within the dialog, a Razor-based “Index.cshtml” view template will be added to the \Views\Home\ folder within our project.  Let’s add some simple default static content to it: Notice above how we don’t have an <html> or <body> section defined within our view template.  This is because we are going to rely on a layout template to supply these elements and use it to define the common site layout and structure for our site (ensuring that it is consistent across all pages and URLs within the site).  Customizing our Layout File Let’s open and customize the default “_Layout.cshtml” file that was automatically added to the \Views\Shared folder when we created our new project: The default layout file (shown above) is pretty basic and simply outputs a title (if specified in either the Controller or the View template) and adds links to a stylesheet and jQuery.  The call to “RenderBody()” indicates where the main body content of our Index.cshtml file will merged into the output sent back to the browser. Let’s modify the Layout template to add a common header, footer and sidebar to the site: We’ll then edit the “Site.css” file within the \Content folder of our project and add 4 CSS rules to it: And now when we run the project and browse to the home “/” URL of our project we’ll see a page like below: Notice how the content of the HomeController’s Index view template and the site’s Shared Layout template have been merged together into a single HTML response.  Below is what the HTML sent back from the server looks like: Part 2: Adding a “SideBar” Section Our site so far has a layout template that has only one “section” in it – what we call the main “body” section of the response.  Razor also supports the ability to add additional "named sections” to layout templates as well.  These sections can be defined anywhere in the layout file (including within the <head> section of the HTML), and allow you to output dynamic content to multiple, non-contiguous, regions of the final response. Defining the “SideBar” section in our Layout Let’s update our Layout template to define an additional “SideBar” section of content that will be rendered within the <div id=”sidebar”> region of our HTML.  We can do this by calling the RenderSection(string sectionName, bool required) helper method within our Layout.cshtml file like below:   The first parameter to the “RenderSection()” helper method specifies the name of the section we want to render at that location in the layout template.  The second parameter is optional, and allows us to define whether the section we are rendering is required or not.  If a section is “required”, then Razor will throw an error at runtime if that section is not implemented within a view template that is based on the layout file (which can make it easier to track down content errors).  If a section is not required, then its presence within a view template is optional, and the above RenderSection() code will render nothing at runtime if it isn’t defined. Now that we’ve made the above change to our layout file, let’s hit refresh in our browser and see what our Home page now looks like: Notice how we currently have no content within our SideBar <div> – that is because the Index.cshtml view template doesn’t implement our new “SideBar” section yet. Implementing the “SideBar” Section in our View Template Let’s change our home-page so that it has a SideBar section that outputs some custom content.  We can do that by opening up the Index.cshtml view template, and by adding a new “SiderBar” section to it.  We’ll do this using Razor’s @section SectionName { } syntax: We could have put our SideBar @section declaration anywhere within the view template.  I think it looks cleaner when defined at the top or bottom of the file – but that is simply personal preference.  You can include any content or code you want within @section declarations.  Notice above how I have a C# code nugget that outputs the current time at the bottom of the SideBar section.  I could have also written code that used ASP.NET MVC’s HTML/AJAX helper methods and/or accessed any strongly-typed model objects passed to the Index.cshtml view template. Now that we’ve made the above template changes, when we hit refresh in our browser again we’ll see that our SideBar content – that is specific to the Home Page of our site – is now included in the page response sent back from the server: The SideBar section content has been merged into the proper location of the HTML response : Part 3: Conditionally Detecting if a Layout Section Has Been Implemented Razor provides the ability for you to conditionally check (from within a layout file) whether a section has been defined within a view template, and enables you to output an alternative response in the event that the section has not been defined.  This provides a convenient way to specify default UI for optional layout sections.  Let’s modify our Layout file to take advantage of this capability.  Below we are conditionally checking whether the “SideBar” section has been defined without the view template being rendered (using the IsSectionDefined() method), and if so we render the section.  If the section has not been defined, then we now instead render some default content for the SideBar:  Note: You want to make sure you prefix calls to the RenderSection() helper method with a @ character – which will tell Razor to execute the HelperResult it returns and merge in the section content in the appropriate place of the output.  Notice how we wrote @RenderSection(“SideBar”) above instead of just RenderSection(“SideBar”).  Otherwise you’ll get an error. Above we are simply rendering an inline static string (<p>Default SideBar Content</p>) if the section is not defined.  A real-world site would more likely refactor this default content to be stored within a separate partial template (which we’d render using the Html.RenderPartial() helper method within the else block) or alternatively use the Html.Action() helper method within the else block to encapsulate both the logic and rendering of the default sidebar. When we hit refresh on our home-page, we will still see the same custom SideBar content we had before.  This is because we implemented the SideBar section within our Index.cshtml view template (and so our Layout rendered it): Let’s now implement a “/Home/About” URL for our site by adding a new “About” action method to our HomeController: The About() action method above simply renders a view back to the client when invoked.  We can implement the corresponding view template for this action by right-clicking within the “About()” method and using the “Add View” menu command (like before) to create a new About.cshtml view template.  We’ll implement the About.cshtml view template like below. Notice that we are not defining a “SideBar” section within it: When we browse the /Home/About URL we’ll see the content we supplied above in the main body section of our response, and the default SideBar content will rendered: The layout file determined at runtime that a custom SideBar section wasn’t present in the About.cshtml view template, and instead rendered the default sidebar content. One Last Tweak… Let’s suppose that at a later point we decide that instead of rendering default side-bar content, we just want to hide the side-bar entirely from pages that don’t have any custom sidebar content defined.  We could implement this change simply by making a small modification to our layout so that the sidebar content (and its surrounding HTML chrome) is only rendered if the SideBar section is defined.  The code to do this is below: Razor is flexible enough so that we can make changes like this and not have to modify any of our view templates (nor make change any Controller logic changes) to accommodate this.  We can instead make just this one modification to our Layout file and the rest happens cleanly.  This type of flexibility makes Razor incredibly powerful and productive. Summary Razor’s layout capability enables you to define a common site template, and then inherit its look and feel across all the views/pages on your site. Razor enables you to define multiple, non-contiguous, “sections” within layout templates that can be “filled-in” by view templates.  The @section {} syntax for doing this is clean and concise.  Razor also supports the ability to dynamically check at runtime whether a particular section has been defined, and to provide alternate content (or even an alternate layout) in the event that it isn’t specified.  This provides a powerful and easy way to customize the UI of your site - and make it clean and DRY from an implementation perspective. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

  Read the article

• Cold Start

  - by antony.reynolds

  Well we had snow drifts 3ft deep on Saturday so it must be spring time.  In preparation for Spring we decided to move the lawn tractor.  Of course after sitting in the garage all winter it refused to start.  I then come into the office and need to start my 11g SOA Suite installation.  I thought about this and decided my tractor might be cranky but at least I can script the startup of my SOA Suite 11g installation. So with this in mind I created 6 scripts.  I created them for Linux but they should translate to Windows without too many problems.  This is left as an exercise to the reader, note you will have to hardcode more than I did in the Linux scripts and create separate script files for the sqlplus and WLST sections. Order to start things I believe there should be order in all things, especially starting the SOA Suite.  So here is my preferred order. Start Database This is need by EM and the rest of SOA Suite so best to start it before the Admin Server and managed servers. Start Node Manager on all machines This is needed if you want the scripts to work across machines. Start Admin Server Once this is done in theory you can manually stat the managed servers using WebLogic console.  But then you have to wait for console to be available.  Scripting it all is quicker and easier way of starting. Start Managed Servers & Clusters Best to start them one per physical machine at a time to avoid undue load on the machines.  Non-clustered install will have just soa_server1 and bam_serv1 by default.  Clusters will have at least SOA and BAM clusters that can be started as a group or individually.  I have provided scripts for standalone servers, but easy to change them to work with clusters. Starting Database I have provided a very primitive script (available here) to start the database, the listener and the DB console.  The section highlighted in red needs to match your database name. #!/bin/sh echo "##############################" echo "# Setting Oracle Environment #" echo "##############################" . oraenv <<-EOF orcl EOF echo "#####################" echo "# Starting Database #" echo "#####################" sqlplus / as sysdba <<-EOF startup exit EOF echo "#####################" echo "# Starting Listener #" echo "#####################" lsnrctl start echo "######################" echo "# Starting dbConsole #" echo "######################" emctl start dbconsole read -p "Hit <enter> to continue" Starting SOA Suite My script for starting the SOA Suite (available here) breaks the task down into five sections. Setting the Environment First set up the environment variables.  The variables highlighted in red probably need changing for your environment. #!/bin/sh echo "###########################" echo "# Setting SOA Environment #" echo "###########################" export MW_HOME=~oracle/Middleware11gPS1 export WL_HOME=$MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3 export ORACLE_HOME=$MW_HOME/Oracle_SOA export DOMAIN_NAME=soa_std_domain export DOMAIN_HOME=$MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/$DOMAIN_NAME Starting the Node Manager I start node manager with a nohup to stop it exiting when the script terminates and I redirect the standard output and standard error to a file in a logs directory. cd $DOMAIN_HOME echo "#########################" echo "# Starting Node Manager #" echo "#########################" nohup $WL_HOME/server/bin/startNodeManager.sh >logs/NodeManager.out 2>&1 & Starting the Admin Server I had problems starting the Admin Server from Node Manager so I decided to start it using the command line script.  I again use nohup and redirect output. echo "#########################" echo "# Starting Admin Server #" echo "#########################" nohup ./startWebLogic.sh >logs/AdminServer.out 2>&1 & Starting the Managed Servers I then used WLST (WebLogic Scripting Tool) to start the managed servers.  First I waited for the Admin Server to come up by putting a connect command in a loop.  I could have put the WLST commands into a separate script file but I wanted to reduce the number of files I was using and so used redirected input (here syntax). $ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh <<-EOF import time sleep=time.sleep print "#####################################" print "# Waiting for Admin Server to Start #" print "#####################################" while True:   try:     connect(adminServerName="AdminServer")     break   except:     sleep(10) I then start the SOA server and tell WLST to wait until it is started before returning.  If starting a cluster then the start command would be modified accordingly to start the SOA cluster. print "#######################" print "# Starting SOA Server #" print "#######################" start(name="soa_server1", block="true") I then start the BAM server in the same way as the SOA server. print "#######################" print "# Starting BAM Server #" print "#######################" start(name="bam_server1", block="true") EOF Finally I let people know the servers are up and wait for input in case I am running in a separate window, in which case the result would be lost without the read command. echo "#####################" echo "# SOA Suite Started #" echo "#####################" read -p "Hit <enter> to continue" Stopping the SOA Suite My script for shutting down the SOA Suite (available here)  is basically the reverse of my startup script.  After setting the environment I connect to the Admin Server using WLST and shut down the managed servers and the admin server.  Again the script would need modifying for a cluster. Stopping the Servers If I cannot connect to the Admin Server I try to connect to the node manager, in case the Admin Server is down but the managed servers are up. #!/bin/sh echo "###########################" echo "# Setting SOA Environment #" echo "###########################" export MW_HOME=~oracle/Middleware11gPS1 export WL_HOME=$MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3 export ORACLE_HOME=$MW_HOME/Oracle_SOA export DOMAIN_NAME=soa_std_domain export DOMAIN_HOME=$MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/$DOMAIN_NAME cd $DOMAIN_HOME $MW_HOME/Oracle_SOA/common/bin/wlst.sh <<-EOF try:   print("#############################")   print("# Connecting to AdminServer #")   print("#############################")   connect(username='weblogic',password='welcome1',url='t3://localhost:7001') except:   print "#########################################"   print "#   Unable to connect to Admin Server   #"   print "# Attempting to connect to Node Manager #"   print "#########################################"   nmConnect(domainName=os.getenv("DOMAIN_NAME")) print "#######################" print "# Stopping BAM Server #" print "#######################" shutdown('bam_server1') print "#######################" print "# Stopping SOA Server #" print "#######################" shutdown('soa_server1') print "#########################" print "# Stopping Admin Server #" print "#########################" shutdown('AdminServer') disconnect() nmDisconnect() EOF Stopping the Node Manager I stopped the node manager by searching for the java node manager process using the ps command and then killing that process. echo "#########################" echo "# Stopping Node Manager #" echo "#########################" kill -9 `ps -ef | grep java | grep NodeManager |  awk '{print $2;}'` echo "#####################" echo "# SOA Suite Stopped #" echo "#####################" read -p "Hit <enter> to continue" Stopping the Database Again my script for shutting down the database is the reverse of my start script.  It is available here.  The only change needed might be to the database name. #!/bin/sh echo "##############################" echo "# Setting Oracle Environment #" echo "##############################" . oraenv <<-EOF orcl EOF echo "######################" echo "# Stopping dbConsole #" echo "######################" emctl stop dbconsole echo "#####################" echo "# Stopping Listener #" echo "#####################" lsnrctl stop echo "#####################" echo "# Stopping Database #" echo "#####################" sqlplus / as sysdba <<-EOF shutdown immediate exit EOF read -p "Hit <enter> to continue" Cleaning Up Cleaning SOA Suite I often run tests and want to clean up all the log files.  The following script (available here) does this for the WebLogic servers in a given domain on a machine.  After setting the domain I just remove all files under the servers logs directories.  It also cleans up the log files I created with my startup scripts.  These scripts could be enhanced to copy off the log files if you needed them but in my test environments I don’t need them and would prefer to reclaim the disk space. #!/bin/sh echo "###########################" echo "# Setting SOA Environment #" echo "###########################" export MW_HOME=~oracle/Middleware11gPS1 export WL_HOME=$MW_HOME/wlserver_10.3 export ORACLE_HOME=$MW_HOME/Oracle_SOA export DOMAIN_NAME=soa_std_domain export DOMAIN_HOME=$MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/$DOMAIN_NAME echo "##########################" echo "# Cleaning SOA Log Files #" echo "##########################" cd $DOMAIN_HOME rm -Rf logs/* servers/*/logs/* read -p "Hit <enter> to continue" Cleaning Database I also created a script to clean up the dump files of an Oracle database instance and also the EM log files (available here).  This relies on the machine name being correct as the EM log files are stored in a directory that is based on the hostname and the Oracle SID. #!/bin/sh echo "##############################" echo "# Setting Oracle Environment #" echo "##############################" . oraenv <<-EOF orcl EOF echo "#############################" echo "# Cleaning Oracle Log Files #" echo "#############################" rm -Rf $ORACLE_BASE/admin/$ORACLE_SID/*dump/* rm -Rf $ORACLE_HOME/`hostname`_$ORACLE_SID/sysman/log/* read -p "Hit <enter> to continue" Summary Hope you find the above scripts useful.  They certainly stop me hanging around waiting for things to happen on my test machine and make it easy to run a test, change parameters, bounce the SOA Suite and clean the logs between runs so I can see exactly what is happening. Now I need to get that mower started…

  Read the article

• Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio Ultimate 2010-Part 3

  - by Tarun Arora

  Welcome back once again, in Part 1 of Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 I talked about why Performance Testing the application is important, the test tools available in Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 and various test rig topologies, in Part 2 of Load and Web Performance Testing using Visual Studio 2010 I discussed the details of web performance & load tests as well as why it’s important to follow a goal based pattern while performance testing your application. In part 3 I’ll be discussing Test Result Analysis, Test Result Drill through, Test Report Generation, Test Run Comparison, Asp.net Profiler and some closing thoughts. Test Results – I see some creepy worms! In Part 2 we put together a web performance test and a load test, lets run the test to see load test to see how the Web site responds to the load simulation. While the load test is running you will be able to see close to real time analysis in the Load Test Analyser window. You can use the Load Test Analyser to conduct load test analysis in three ways: Monitor a running load test - A condensed set of the performance counter data is maintained in memory. To prevent the results memory requirements from growing unbounded, up to 200 samples for each performance counter are maintained. This includes 100 evenly spaced samples that span the current elapsed time of the run and the most recent 100 samples.         After the load test run is completed - The test controller spools all collected performance counter data to a database while the test is running. Additional data, such as timing details and error details, is loaded into the database when the test completes. The performance data for a completed test is loaded from the database and analysed by the Load Test Analyser. Below you can see a screen shot of the summary view, this provides key results in a format that is compact and easy to read. You can also print the load test summary, this is generated after the test has completed or been stopped.         Analyse the load test results of a previously run load test – We’ll see this in the section where i discuss comparison between two test runs. The performance counters can be plotted on the graphs. You also have the option to highlight a selected part of the test and view details, drill down to the user activity chart where you can hover over to see more details of the test run.   Generate Report => Test Run Comparisons The level of reports you can generate using the Load Test Analyser is astonishing. You have the option to create excel reports and conduct side by side analysis of two test results or to track trend analysis. The tools also allows you to export the graph data either to MS Excel or to a CSV file. You can view the ASP.NET profiler report to conduct further analysis as well. View Data and Diagnostic Attachments opens the Choose Diagnostic Data Adapter Attachment dialog box to select an adapter to analyse the result type. For example, you can select an IntelliTrace adapter, click OK and open the IntelliTrace summary for the test agent that was used in the load test.   Compare results This creates a set of reports that compares the data from two load test results using tables and bar charts. I have taken these screen shots from the MSDN documentation, I would highly recommend exploring the wealth of knowledge available on MSDN. Leaving Thoughts While load testing the application with an excessive load for a longer duration of time, i managed to bring the IIS to its knees by piling up a huge queue of requests waiting to be processed. This clearly means that the IIS had run out of threads as all the threads were busy processing existing request, one easy way of fixing this is by increasing the default number of allocated threads, but this might escalate the problem. The better suggestion is to try and drill down to the actual root cause of the problem. When ever the garbage collection runs it stops processing any pages so all requests that come in during that period are queued up, but realistically the garbage collection completes in fraction of a a second. To understand this better lets look at the .net heap, it is divided into large heap and small heap, anything greater than 85kB in size will be allocated to the Large object heap, the Large object heap is non compacting and remember large objects are expensive to move around, so if you are allocating something in the large object heap, make sure that you really need it! The small object heap on the other hand is divided into generations, so all objects that are supposed to be short-lived are suppose to live in Gen-0 and the long living objects eventually move to Gen-2 as garbage collection goes through.  As you can see in the picture below all < 85 KB size objects are first assigned to Gen-0, when Gen-0 fills up and a new object comes in and finds Gen-0 full, the garbage collection process is started, the process checks for all the dead objects and assigns them as the valid candidate for deletion to free up memory and promotes all the remaining objects in Gen-0 to Gen-1. So in the future when ever you clean up Gen-1 you have to clean up Gen-0 as well. When you fill up Gen – 0 again, all of Gen – 1 dead objects are drenched and rest are moved to Gen-2 and Gen-0 objects are moved to Gen-1 to free up Gen-0, but by this time your Garbage collection process has started to take much more time than it usually takes. Now as I mentioned earlier when garbage collection is being run all page requests that come in during that period are queued up. Does this explain why possibly page requests are getting queued up, apart from this it could also be the case that you are waiting for a long running database process to complete.      Lets explore the heap a bit more… What is really a case of crisis is when the objects are living long enough to make it to Gen-2 and then dying, this is definitely a high cost operation. But sometimes you need objects in memory, for example when you cache data you hold on to the objects because you need to use them right across the user session, which is acceptable. But if you wanted to see what extreme caching can do to your server then write a simple application that chucks in a lot of data in cache, run a load test over it for about 10-15 minutes, forcing a lot of data in memory causing the heap to run out of memory. If you get to such a state where you start running out of memory the IIS as a mode of recovery restarts the worker process. It is great way to free up all your memory in the heap but this would clear the cache. The problem with this is if the customer had 10 items in their shopping basket and that data was stored in the application cache, the user basket will now be empty forcing them either to get frustrated and go to a competitor website or if the customer is really patient, give it another try! How can you address this, well two ways of addressing this; 1. Workaround – A x86 bit processor only allows a maximum of 4GB of RAM, this means the machine effectively has around 3.4 GB of RAM available, the OS needs about 1.5 GB of RAM to run efficiently, the IIS and .net framework also need their share of memory, leaving you a heap of around 800 MB to play with. Because Team builds by default build your application in ‘Compile as any mode’ it means the application is build such that it will run in x86 bit mode if run on a x86 bit processor and run in a x64 bit mode if run on a x64 but processor. The problem with this is not all applications are really x64 bit compatible specially if you are using com objects or external libraries. So, as a quick win if you compiled your application in x86 bit mode by changing the compile as any selection to compile as x86 in the team build, you will be able to run your application on a x64 bit machine in x86 bit mode (WOW – By running Windows on Windows) and what that means is, you could use 8GB+ worth of RAM, if you take away everything else your application will roughly get a heap size of at least 4 GB to play with, which is immense. If you need a heap size of more than 4 GB you have either build a software for NASA or there is something fundamentally wrong in your application. 2. Solution – Now that you have put a workaround in place the IIS will not restart the worker process that regularly, which means you can take a breather and start working to get to the root cause of this memory leak. But this begs a question “How do I Identify possible memory leaks in my application?” Well i won’t say that there is one single tool that can tell you where the memory leak is, but trust me, ‘Performance Profiling’ is a great start point, it definitely gets you started in the right direction, let’s have a look at how. Performance Wizard - Start the Performance Wizard and select Instrumentation, this lets you measure function call counts and timings. Before running the performance session right click the performance session settings and chose properties from the context menu to bring up the Performance session properties page and as shown in the screen shot below, check the check boxes in the group ‘.NET memory profiling collection’ namely ‘Collect .NET object allocation information’ and ‘Also collect the .NET Object lifetime information’.    Now if you fire off the profiling session on your pages you will notice that the results allows you to view ‘Object Lifetime’ which shows you the number of objects that made it to Gen-0, Gen-1, Gen-2, Large heap, etc. Another great feature about the profile is that if your application has > 5% cases where objects die right after making to the Gen-2 storage a threshold alert is generated to alert you. Since you have the option to also view the most expensive methods and by capturing the IntelliTrace data you can drill in to narrow down to the line of code that is the root cause of the problem. Well now that we have seen how crucial memory management is and how easy Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 makes it for us to identify and reproduce the problem with the best of breed tools in the product. Caching One of the main ways to improve performance is Caching. Which basically means you tell the web server that instead of going to the database for each request you keep the data in the webserver and when the user asks for it you serve it from the webserver itself. BUT that can have consequences! Let’s look at some code, trust me caching code is not very intuitive, I define a cache key for almost all searches made through the common search page and cache the results. The approach works fine, first time i get the data from the database and second time data is served from the cache, significant performance improvement, EXCEPT when two users try to do the same operation and run into each other. But it is easy to handle this by adding the lock as you can see in the snippet below. So, as long as a user comes in and finds that the cache is empty, the user locks and starts to get the cache no more concurrency issues. But lets say you are processing 10 requests per second, by the time i have locked the operation to get the results from the database, 9 other users came in and found that the cache key is null so after i have come out and populated the cache they will still go in to get the results again. The application will still be faster because the next set of 10 users and so on would continue to get data from the cache. BUT if we added another null check after locking to build the cache and before actual call to the db then the 9 users who follow me would not make the extra trip to the database at all and that would really increase the performance, but didn’t i say that the code won’t be very intuitive, may be you should leave a comment you don’t want another developer to come in and think what a fresher why is he checking for the cache key null twice !!! The downside of caching is, you are storing the data outside of the database and the data could be wrong because the updates applied to the database would make the data cached at the web server out of sync. So, how do you invalidate the cache? Well if you only had one way of updating the data lets say only one entry point to the data update you can write some logic to say that every time new data is entered set the cache object to null. But this approach will not work as soon as you have several ways of feeding data to the system or your system is scaled out across a farm of web servers. The perfect solution to this is Micro Caching which means you cache the query for a set time duration and invalidate the cache after that set duration. The advantage is every time the user queries for that data with in the time span for which you have cached the results there are no calls made to the database and the data is served right from the server which makes the response immensely quick. Now figuring out the appropriate time span for which you micro cache the query results really depends on the application. Lets say your website gets 10 requests per second, if you retain the cache results for even 1 minute you will have immense performance gains. You would reduce 90% hits to the database for searching. Ever wondered why when you go to e-bookers.com or xpedia.com or yatra.com to book a flight and you click on the book button because the fare seems too exciting and you get an error message telling you that the fare is not valid any more. Yes, exactly => That is a cache failure! These travel sites or price compare engines are not going to hit the database every time you hit the compare button instead the results will be served from the cache, because the query results are micro cached, its a perfect trade-off, by micro caching the results the site gains 100% performance benefits but every once in a while annoys a customer because the fare has expired. But the trade off works in the favour of these sites as they are still able to process up to 30+ page requests per second which means cater to the site traffic by may be losing 1 customer every once in a while to a competitor who is also using a similar caching technique what are the odds that the user will not come back to their site sooner or later? Recap   Resources Below are some Key resource you might like to review. I would highly recommend the documentation, walkthroughs and videos available on MSDN. You can always make use of Fiddler to debug Web Performance Tests. Some community test extensions and plug ins available on Codeplex might also be of interest to you. The Road Ahead Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post, you may also want to read Part I and Part II if you haven’t so far. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Questions/Feedback/Suggestions, etc please leave a comment. Next ‘Load Testing in the cloud’, I’ll be working on exploring the possibilities of running Test controller/Agents in the Cloud. See you on the other side! Thank You!   Share this post : CodeProject

  Read the article

• Using VLOOKUP in Excel

  - by Mark Virtue

  VLOOKUP is one of Excel’s most useful functions, and it’s also one of the least understood.  In this article, we demystify VLOOKUP by way of a real-life example.  We’ll create a usable Invoice Template for a fictitious company. So what is VLOOKUP?  Well, of course it’s an Excel function.  This article will assume that the reader already has a passing understanding of Excel functions, and can use basic functions such as SUM, AVERAGE, and TODAY.  In its most common usage, VLOOKUP is a database function, meaning that it works with database tables – or more simply, lists of things in an Excel worksheet.  What sort of things?   Well, any sort of thing.  You may have a worksheet that contains a list of employees, or products, or customers, or CDs in your CD collection, or stars in the night sky.  It doesn’t really matter. Here’s an example of a list, or database.  In this case it’s a list of products that our fictitious company sells: Usually lists like this have some sort of unique identifier for each item in the list.  In this case, the unique identifier is in the “Item Code” column.  Note:  For the VLOOKUP function to work with a database/list, that list must have a column containing the unique identifier (or “key”, or “ID”), and that column must be the first column in the table.  Our sample database above satisfies this criterion. The hardest part of using VLOOKUP is understanding exactly what it’s for.  So let’s see if we can get that clear first: VLOOKUP retrieves information from a database/list based on a supplied instance of the unique identifier. Put another way, if you put the VLOOKUP function into a cell and pass it one of the unique identifiers from your database, it will return you one of the pieces of information associated with that unique identifier.  In the example above, you would pass VLOOKUP an item code, and it would return to you either the corresponding item’s description, its price, or its availability (its “In stock” quantity).  Which of these pieces of information will it pass you back?  Well, you get to decide this when you’re creating the formula. If all you need is one piece of information from the database, it would be a lot of trouble to go to to construct a formula with a VLOOKUP function in it.  Typically you would use this sort of functionality in a reusable spreadsheet, such as a template.  Each time someone enters a valid item code, the system would retrieve all the necessary information about the corresponding item. Let’s create an example of this:  An Invoice Template that we can reuse over and over in our fictitious company. First we start Excel… …and we create ourselves a blank invoice: This is how it’s going to work:  The person using the invoice template will fill in a series of item codes in column “A”, and the system will retrieve each item’s description and price, which will be used to calculate the line total for each item (assuming we enter a valid quantity). For the purposes of keeping this example simple, we will locate the product database on a separate sheet in the same workbook: In reality, it’s more likely that the product database would be located in a separate workbook.  It makes little difference to the VLOOKUP function, which doesn’t really care if the database is located on the same sheet, a different sheet, or a completely different workbook. In order to test the VLOOKUP formula we’re about to write, we first enter a valid item code into cell A11: Next, we move the active cell to the cell in which we want information retrieved from the database by VLOOKUP to be stored.  Interestingly, this is the step that most people get wrong.  To explain further:  We are about to create a VLOOKUP formula that will retrieve the description that corresponds to the item code in cell A11.  Where do we want this description put when we get it?  In cell B11, of course.  So that’s where we write the VLOOKUP formula – in cell B11. Select cell B11: We need to locate the list of all available functions that Excel has to offer, so that we can choose VLOOKUP and get some assistance in completing the formula.  This is found by first clicking the Formulas tab, and then clicking Insert Function:   A box appears that allows us to select any of the functions available in Excel.  To find the one we’re looking for, we could type a search term like “lookup” (because the function we’re interested in is a lookup function).  The system would return us a list of all lookup-related functions in Excel.  VLOOKUP is the second one in the list.  Select it an click OK… The Function Arguments box appears, prompting us for all the arguments (or parameters) needed in order to complete the VLOOKUP function.  You can think of this box as the function is asking us the following questions: What unique identifier are you looking up in the database? Where is the database? Which piece of information from the database, associated with the unique identifier, do you wish to have retrieved for you? The first three arguments are shown in bold, indicating that they are mandatory arguments (the VLOOKUP function is incomplete without them and will not return a valid value).  The fourth argument is not bold, meaning that it’s optional:   We will complete the arguments in order, top to bottom. The first argument we need to complete is the Lookup_value argument.  The function needs us to tell it where to find the unique identifier (the item code in this case) that it should be retuning the description of.  We must select the item code we entered earlier (in A11). Click on the selector icon to the right of the first argument: Then click once on the cell containing the item code (A11), and press Enter: The value of “A11” is inserted into the first argument. Now we need to enter a value for the Table_array argument.  In other words, we need to tell VLOOKUP where to find the database/list.  Click on the selector icon next to the second argument: Now locate the database/list and select the entire list – not including the header line.  The database is located on a separate worksheet, so we first click on that worksheet tab: Next we select the entire database, not including the header line: …and press Enter.  The range of cells that represents the database (in this case “’Product Database’!A2:D7”) is entered automatically for us into the second argument. Now we need to enter the third argument, Col_index_num.  We use this argument to specify to VLOOKUP which piece of information from the database, associate with our item code in A11, we wish to have returned to us.  In this particular example, we wish to have the item’s description returned to us.  If you look on the database worksheet, you’ll notice that the “Description” column is the second column in the database.  This means that we must enter a value of “2” into the Col_index_num box: It is important to note that that we are not entering a “2” here because the “Description” column is in the B column on that worksheet.  If the database happened to start in column K of the worksheet, we would still enter a “2” in this field. Finally, we need to decide whether to enter a value into the final VLOOKUP argument, Range_lookup.  This argument requires either a true or false value, or it should be left blank.  When using VLOOKUP with databases (as is true 90% of the time), then the way to decide what to put in this argument can be thought of as follows: If the first column of the database (the column that contains the unique identifiers) is sorted alphabetically/numerically in ascending order, then it’s possible to enter a value of true into this argument, or leave it blank. If the first column of the database is not sorted, or it’s sorted in descending order, then you must enter a value of false into this argument As the first column of our database is not sorted, we enter false into this argument: That’s it!  We’ve entered all the information required for VLOOKUP to return the value we need.  Click the OK button and notice that the description corresponding to item code “R99245” has been correctly entered into cell B11: The formula that was created for us looks like this: If we enter a different item code into cell A11, we will begin to see the power of the VLOOKUP function:  The description cell changes to match the new item code: We can perform a similar set of steps to get the item’s price returned into cell E11.  Note that the new formula must be created in cell E11.  The result will look like this: …and the formula will look like this: Note that the only difference between the two formulae is the third argument (Col_index_num) has changed from a “2” to a “3” (because we want data retrieved from the 3rd column in the database). If we decided to buy 2 of these items, we would enter a “2” into cell D11.  We would then enter a simple formula into cell F11 to get the line total: =D11*E11 …which looks like this… Completing the Invoice Template We’ve learned a lot about VLOOKUP so far.  In fact, we’ve learned all we’re going to learn in this article.  It’s important to note that VLOOKUP can be used in other circumstances besides databases.  This is less common, and may be covered in future How-To Geek articles. Our invoice template is not yet complete.  In order to complete it, we would do the following: We would remove the sample item code from cell A11 and the “2” from cell D11.  This will cause our newly created VLOOKUP formulae to display error messages: We can remedy this by judicious use of Excel’s IF() and ISBLANK() functions.  We change our formula from this…       =VLOOKUP(A11,’Product Database’!A2:D7,2,FALSE) …to this…       =IF(ISBLANK(A11),”",VLOOKUP(A11,’Product Database’!A2:D7,2,FALSE)) We would copy the formulas in cells B11, E11 and F11 down to the remainder of the item rows of the invoice.  Note that if we do this, the resulting formulas will no longer correctly refer to the database table.  We could fix this by changing the cell references for the database to absolute cell references.  Alternatively – and even better – we could create a range name for the entire product database (such as “Products”), and use this range name instead of the cell references.  The formula would change from this…       =IF(ISBLANK(A11),”",VLOOKUP(A11,’Product Database’!A2:D7,2,FALSE)) …to this…       =IF(ISBLANK(A11),”",VLOOKUP(A11,Products,2,FALSE)) …and then copy the formulas down to the rest of the invoice item rows. We would probably “lock” the cells that contain our formulae (or rather unlock the other cells), and then protect the worksheet, in order to ensure that our carefully constructed formulae are not accidentally overwritten when someone comes to fill in the invoice. We would save the file as a template, so that it could be reused by everyone in our company If we were feeling really clever, we would create a database of all our customers in another worksheet, and then use the customer ID entered in cell F5 to automatically fill in the customer’s name and address in cells B6, B7 and B8. If you would like to practice with VLOOKUP, or simply see our resulting Invoice Template, it can be downloaded from here. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make Excel 2007 Print Gridlines In Workbook FileMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 FormatConvert Older Excel Documents to Excel 2007 FormatImport Microsoft Access Data Into ExcelChange the Default Font in Excel 2007 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data

  Read the article

• NoSQL with RavenDB and ASP.NET MVC - Part 2

  - by shiju

  In my previous post, we have discussed on how to work with RavenDB document database in an ASP.NET MVC application. We have setup RavenDB for our ASP.NET MVC application and did basic CRUD operations against a simple domain entity. In this post, let’s discuss on domain entity with deep object graph and how to query against RavenDB documents using Indexes.Let's create two domain entities for our demo ASP.NET MVC appplication  public class Category {       public string Id { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public List<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }       public Category()     {         Expenses = new List<Expense>();     } }    public class Expense {       public string Id { get; set; }     public Category Category { get; set; }     public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }   }  We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category.Let's create  ASP.NET MVC view model  for Expense transaction public class ExpenseViewModel {     public string Id { get; set; }       public string CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Transaction Required")]            public string Transaction { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Date Required")]            public DateTime Date { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Amount Required")]     public double Amount { get; set; }       public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Category { get; set; } } Let's create a contract type for Expense Repository  public interface IExpenseRepository {     Expense Load(string id);     IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate,DateTime endDate);     void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId);     void Delete(string id);  } Let's create a concrete type for Expense Repository for handling CRUD operations. public class ExpenseRepository : IExpenseRepository {   private IDocumentSession session; public ExpenseRepository() {         session = MvcApplication.CurrentSession; } public Expense Load(string id) {     return session.Load<Expense>(id); } public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) {             //Querying using the Index name "ExpenseTransactions"     //filtering with dates     var expenses = session.LuceneQuery<Expense>("ExpenseTransactions")         .WaitForNonStaleResults()         .Where(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate)         .ToArray();     return expenses; } public void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId) {     var category = session.Load<Category>(categoryId);     if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(expense.Id))     {         //new expense transaction         expense.Category = category;         session.Store(expense);     }     else     {         //modifying an existing expense transaction         var expenseToEdit = Load(expense.Id);         //Copy values to  expenseToEdit         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseToEdit);         //set category object         expenseToEdit.Category = category;       }     //save changes     session.SaveChanges(); } public void Delete(string id) {     var expense = Load(id);     session.Delete<Expense>(expense);     session.SaveChanges(); }   }  Insert/Update Expense Transaction The Save method is used for both insert a new expense record and modifying an existing expense transaction. For a new expense transaction, we store the expense object with associated category into document session object and load the existing expense object and assign values to it for editing a existing record.  public void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId) {     var category = session.Load<Category>(categoryId);     if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(expense.Id))     {         //new expense transaction         expense.Category = category;         session.Store(expense);     }     else     {         //modifying an existing expense transaction         var expenseToEdit = Load(expense.Id);         //Copy values to  expenseToEdit         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseToEdit);         //set category object         expenseToEdit.Category = category;       }     //save changes     session.SaveChanges(); } Querying Expense transactions   public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) {             //Querying using the Index name "ExpenseTransactions"     //filtering with dates     var expenses = session.LuceneQuery<Expense>("ExpenseTransactions")         .WaitForNonStaleResults()         .Where(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate)         .ToArray();     return expenses; }  The GetExpenseTransactions method returns expense transactions using a LINQ query expression with a Date comparison filter. The Lucene Query is using a index named "ExpenseTransactions" for getting the result set. In RavenDB, Indexes are LINQ queries stored in the RavenDB server and would be  executed on the background and will perform query against the JSON documents. Indexes will be working with a lucene query expression or a set operation. Indexes are composed using a Map and Reduce function. Check out Ayende's blog post on Map/Reduce We can create index using RavenDB web admin tool as well as programmitically using its Client API. The below shows the screen shot of creating index using web admin tool. We can also create Indexes using Raven Cleint API as shown in the following code documentStore.DatabaseCommands.PutIndex("ExpenseTransactions",     new IndexDefinition<Expense,Expense>() {     Map = Expenses => from exp in Expenses                     select new { exp.Date } });  In the Map function, we used a Linq expression as shown in the following from exp in docs.Expensesselect new { exp.Date };We have not used a Reduce function for the above index. A Reduce function is useful while performing aggregate functions based on the results from the Map function. Indexes can be use with set operations of RavenDB.SET OperationsUnlike other document databases, RavenDB supports set based operations that lets you to perform updates, deletes and inserts to the bulk_docs endpoint of RavenDB. For doing this, you just pass a query to a Index as shown in the following commandDELETE http://localhost:8080/bulk_docs/ExpenseTransactions?query=Date:20100531The above command using the Index named "ExpenseTransactions" for querying the documents with Date filter and  will delete all the documents that match the query criteria. The above command is equivalent of the following queryDELETE FROM ExpensesWHERE Date='2010-05-31' Controller & ActionsWe have created Expense Repository class for performing CRUD operations for the Expense transactions. Let's create a controller class for handling expense transactions.   public class ExpenseController : Controller { private ICategoryRepository categoyRepository; private IExpenseRepository expenseRepository; public ExpenseController(ICategoryRepository categoyRepository, IExpenseRepository expenseRepository) {     this.categoyRepository = categoyRepository;     this.expenseRepository = expenseRepository; } //Get Expense transactions based on dates public ActionResult Index(DateTime? StartDate, DateTime? EndDate) {     //If date is not passed, take current month's first and last dte     DateTime dtNow;     dtNow = DateTime.Today;     if (!StartDate.HasValue)     {         StartDate = new DateTime(dtNow.Year, dtNow.Month, 1);         EndDate = StartDate.Value.AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     //take last date of startdate's month, if endate is not passed     if (StartDate.HasValue && !EndDate.HasValue)     {         EndDate = (new DateTime(StartDate.Value.Year, StartDate.Value.Month, 1)).AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }       var expenses = expenseRepository.GetExpenseTransactions(StartDate.Value, EndDate.Value);     if (Request.IsAjaxRequest())     {           return PartialView("ExpenseList", expenses);     }     ViewData.Add("StartDate", StartDate.Value.ToShortDateString());     ViewData.Add("EndDate", EndDate.Value.ToShortDateString());             return View(expenses);            }   // GET: /Expense/Edit public ActionResult Edit(string id) {       var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();     var expense = expenseRepository.Load(id);     ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseModel);     var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expense.Category.Id.ToString());                    return View("Save", expenseModel);          }   // // GET: /Expense/Create   public ActionResult Create() {     var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();               var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems("-1");     expenseModel.Date = DateTime.Today;     return View("Save", expenseModel); }   // // POST: /Expense/Save // Insert/Update Expense Tansaction [HttpPost] public ActionResult Save(ExpenseViewModel expenseViewModel) {     try     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {               var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();                 expenseViewModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expenseViewModel.CategoryId);                               return View("Save", expenseViewModel);         }           var expense=new Expense();         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expenseViewModel, expense);          expenseRepository.Save(expense, expenseViewModel.CategoryId);                       return RedirectToAction("Index");     }     catch     {         return View();     } } //Delete a Expense Transaction public ActionResult Delete(string id) {     expenseRepository.Delete(id);     return RedirectToAction("Index");     }     }     Download the Source - You can download the source code from http://ravenmvc.codeplex.com

  Read the article

• Beware Sneaky Reads with Unique Indexes

  - by Paul White NZ

  A few days ago, Sandra Mueller (twitter | blog) asked a question using twitter’s #sqlhelp hash tag: “Might SQL Server retrieve (out-of-row) LOB data from a table, even if the column isn’t referenced in the query?” Leaving aside trivial cases (like selecting a computed column that does reference the LOB data), one might be tempted to say that no, SQL Server does not read data you haven’t asked for.  In general, that’s quite correct; however there are cases where SQL Server might sneakily retrieve a LOB column… Example Table Here’s a T-SQL script to create that table and populate it with 1,000 rows: CREATE TABLE dbo.LOBtest ( pk INTEGER IDENTITY NOT NULL, some_value INTEGER NULL, lob_data VARCHAR(MAX) NULL, another_column CHAR(5) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.LOBtest pk] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (pk ASC) ); GO DECLARE @Data VARCHAR(MAX); SET @Data = REPLICATE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), 'x'), 65540);   WITH Numbers (n) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2 ) INSERT LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) ( some_value, lob_data ) SELECT TOP (1000) N.n, @Data FROM Numbers N WHERE N.n <= 1000; Test 1: A Simple Update Let’s run a query to subtract one from every value in the some_value column: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; As you might expect, modifying this integer column in 1,000 rows doesn’t take very long, or use many resources.  The STATITICS IO and TIME output shows a total of 9 logical reads, and 25ms elapsed time.  The query plan is also very simple: Looking at the Clustered Index Scan, we can see that SQL Server only retrieves the pk and some_value columns during the scan: The pk column is needed by the Clustered Index Update operator to uniquely identify the row that is being changed.  The some_value column is used by the Compute Scalar to calculate the new value.  (In case you are wondering what the Top operator is for, it is used to enforce SET ROWCOUNT). Test 2: Simple Update with an Index Now let’s create a nonclustered index keyed on the some_value column, with lob_data as an included column: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest (some_value) INCLUDE ( lob_data ) WITH ( FILLFACTOR = 100, MAXDOP = 1, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON ); This is not a useful index for our simple update query; imagine that someone else created it for a different purpose.  Let’s run our update query again: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; We find that it now requires 4,014 logical reads and the elapsed query time has increased to around 100ms.  The extra logical reads (4 per row) are an expected consequence of maintaining the nonclustered index. The query plan is very similar to before (click to enlarge): The Clustered Index Update operator picks up the extra work of maintaining the nonclustered index. The new Compute Scalar operators detect whether the value in the some_value column has actually been changed by the update.  SQL Server may be able to skip maintaining the nonclustered index if the value hasn’t changed (see my previous post on non-updating updates for details).  Our simple query does change the value of some_data in every row, so this optimization doesn’t add any value in this specific case. The output list of columns from the Clustered Index Scan hasn’t changed from the one shown previously: SQL Server still just reads the pk and some_data columns.  Cool. Overall then, adding the nonclustered index hasn’t had any startling effects, and the LOB column data still isn’t being read from the table.  Let’s see what happens if we make the nonclustered index unique. Test 3: Simple Update with a Unique Index Here’s the script to create a new unique index, and drop the old one: CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [UQ dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest (some_value) INCLUDE ( lob_data ) WITH ( FILLFACTOR = 100, MAXDOP = 1, SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON ); GO DROP INDEX [IX dbo.LOBtest some_value (lob_data)] ON dbo.LOBtest; Remember that SQL Server only enforces uniqueness on index keys (the some_data column).  The lob_data column is simply stored at the leaf-level of the non-clustered index.  With that in mind, we might expect this change to make very little difference.  Let’s see: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) SET some_value = some_value - 1; Whoa!  Now look at the elapsed time and logical reads: Scan count 1, logical reads 2016, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 36015, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 15992.   CPU time = 172 ms, elapsed time = 16172 ms. Even with all the data and index pages in memory, the query took over 16 seconds to update just 1,000 rows, performing over 52,000 LOB logical reads (nearly 16,000 of those using read-ahead). Why on earth is SQL Server reading LOB data in a query that only updates a single integer column? The Query Plan The query plan for test 3 looks a bit more complex than before: In fact, the bottom level is exactly the same as we saw with the non-unique index.  The top level has heaps of new stuff though, which I’ll come to in a moment. You might be expecting to find that the Clustered Index Scan is now reading the lob_data column (for some reason).  After all, we need to explain where all the LOB logical reads are coming from.  Sadly, when we look at the properties of the Clustered Index Scan, we see exactly the same as before: SQL Server is still only reading the pk and some_value columns – so what’s doing the LOB reads? Updates that Sneakily Read Data We have to go as far as the Clustered Index Update operator before we see LOB data in the output list: [Expr1020] is a bit flag added by an earlier Compute Scalar.  It is set true if the some_value column has not been changed (part of the non-updating updates optimization I mentioned earlier). The Clustered Index Update operator adds two new columns: the lob_data column, and some_value_OLD.  The some_value_OLD column, as the name suggests, is the pre-update value of the some_value column.  At this point, the clustered index has already been updated with the new value, but we haven’t touched the nonclustered index yet. An interesting observation here is that the Clustered Index Update operator can read a column into the data flow as part of its update operation.  SQL Server could have read the LOB data as part of the initial Clustered Index Scan, but that would mean carrying the data through all the operations that occur prior to the Clustered Index Update.  The server knows it will have to go back to the clustered index row to update it, so it delays reading the LOB data until then.  Sneaky! Why the LOB Data Is Needed This is all very interesting (I hope), but why is SQL Server reading the LOB data?  For that matter, why does it need to pass the pre-update value of the some_value column out of the Clustered Index Update? The answer relates to the top row of the query plan for test 3.  I’ll reproduce it here for convenience: Notice that this is a wide (per-index) update plan.  SQL Server used a narrow (per-row) update plan in test 2, where the Clustered Index Update took care of maintaining the nonclustered index too.  I’ll talk more about this difference shortly. The Split/Sort/Collapse combination is an optimization, which aims to make per-index update plans more efficient.  It does this by breaking each update into a delete/insert pair, reordering the operations, removing any redundant operations, and finally applying the net effect of all the changes to the nonclustered index. Imagine we had a unique index which currently holds three rows with the values 1, 2, and 3.  If we run a query that adds 1 to each row value, we would end up with values 2, 3, and 4.  The net effect of all the changes is the same as if we simply deleted the value 1, and added a new value 4. By applying net changes, SQL Server can also avoid false unique-key violations.  If we tried to immediately update the value 1 to a 2, it would conflict with the existing value 2 (which would soon be updated to 3 of course) and the query would fail.  You might argue that SQL Server could avoid the uniqueness violation by starting with the highest value (3) and working down.  That’s fine, but it’s not possible to generalize this logic to work with every possible update query. SQL Server has to use a wide update plan if it sees any risk of false uniqueness violations.  It’s worth noting that the logic SQL Server uses to detect whether these violations are possible has definite limits.  As a result, you will often receive a wide update plan, even when you can see that no violations are possible. Another benefit of this optimization is that it includes a sort on the index key as part of its work.  Processing the index changes in index key order promotes sequential I/O against the nonclustered index. A side-effect of all this is that the net changes might include one or more inserts.  In order to insert a new row in the index, SQL Server obviously needs all the columns – the key column and the included LOB column.  This is the reason SQL Server reads the LOB data as part of the Clustered Index Update. In addition, the some_value_OLD column is required by the Split operator (it turns updates into delete/insert pairs).  In order to generate the correct index key delete operation, it needs the old key value. The irony is that in this case the Split/Sort/Collapse optimization is anything but.  Reading all that LOB data is extremely expensive, so it is sad that the current version of SQL Server has no way to avoid it. Finally, for completeness, I should mention that the Filter operator is there to filter out the non-updating updates. Beating the Set-Based Update with a Cursor One situation where SQL Server can see that false unique-key violations aren’t possible is where it can guarantee that only one row is being updated.  Armed with this knowledge, we can write a cursor (or the WHILE-loop equivalent) that updates one row at a time, and so avoids reading the LOB data: SET NOCOUNT ON; SET STATISTICS XML, IO, TIME OFF;   DECLARE @PK INTEGER, @StartTime DATETIME; SET @StartTime = GETUTCDATE();   DECLARE curUpdate CURSOR LOCAL FORWARD_ONLY KEYSET SCROLL_LOCKS FOR SELECT L.pk FROM LOBtest L ORDER BY L.pk ASC;   OPEN curUpdate;   WHILE (1 = 1) BEGIN FETCH NEXT FROM curUpdate INTO @PK;   IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -1 BREAK; IF @@FETCH_STATUS = -2 CONTINUE;   UPDATE dbo.LOBtest SET some_value = some_value - 1 WHERE CURRENT OF curUpdate; END;   CLOSE curUpdate; DEALLOCATE curUpdate;   SELECT DATEDIFF(MILLISECOND, @StartTime, GETUTCDATE()); That completes the update in 1280 milliseconds (remember test 3 took over 16 seconds!) I used the WHERE CURRENT OF syntax there and a KEYSET cursor, just for the fun of it.  One could just as well use a WHERE clause that specified the primary key value instead. Clustered Indexes A clustered index is the ultimate index with included columns: all non-key columns are included columns in a clustered index.  Let’s re-create the test table and data with an updatable primary key, and without any non-clustered indexes: IF OBJECT_ID(N'dbo.LOBtest', N'U') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE dbo.LOBtest; GO CREATE TABLE dbo.LOBtest ( pk INTEGER NOT NULL, some_value INTEGER NULL, lob_data VARCHAR(MAX) NULL, another_column CHAR(5) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK dbo.LOBtest pk] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (pk ASC) ); GO DECLARE @Data VARCHAR(MAX); SET @Data = REPLICATE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), 'x'), 65540);   WITH Numbers (n) AS ( SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0)) FROM master.sys.columns C1, master.sys.columns C2 ) INSERT LOBtest WITH (TABLOCKX) ( pk, some_value, lob_data ) SELECT TOP (1000) N.n, N.n, @Data FROM Numbers N WHERE N.n <= 1000; Now here’s a query to modify the cluster keys: UPDATE dbo.LOBtest SET pk = pk + 1; The query plan is: As you can see, the Split/Sort/Collapse optimization is present, and we also gain an Eager Table Spool, for Halloween protection.  In addition, SQL Server now has no choice but to read the LOB data in the Clustered Index Scan: The performance is not great, as you might expect (even though there is no non-clustered index to maintain): Table 'LOBtest'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2011, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 36015, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 15992.   Table 'Worktable'. Scan count 1, logical reads 2040, physical reads 0, read-ahead reads 0, lob logical reads 34000, lob physical reads 0, lob read-ahead reads 8000.   SQL Server Execution Times: CPU time = 483 ms, elapsed time = 17884 ms. Notice how the LOB data is read twice: once from the Clustered Index Scan, and again from the work table in tempdb used by the Eager Spool. If you try the same test with a non-unique clustered index (rather than a primary key), you’ll get a much more efficient plan that just passes the cluster key (including uniqueifier) around (no LOB data or other non-key columns): A unique non-clustered index (on a heap) works well too: Both those queries complete in a few tens of milliseconds, with no LOB reads, and just a few thousand logical reads.  (In fact the heap is rather more efficient). There are lots more fun combinations to try that I don’t have space for here. Final Thoughts The behaviour shown in this post is not limited to LOB data by any means.  If the conditions are met, any unique index that has included columns can produce similar behaviour – something to bear in mind when adding large INCLUDE columns to achieve covering queries, perhaps. Paul White Email: [email protected] Twitter: @PaulWhiteNZ

  Read the article

• Include weather information in ASP.Net site from weather.com services

  - by sreejukg

  In this article, I am going to demonstrate how you can use the XMLOAP services (referred as XOAP from here onwards) provided by weather.com to display the weather information in your website. The XOAP services are available to be used for free of charge, provided you are comply with requirements from weather.com. I am writing this article from a technical point of view. If you are planning to use weather.com XOAP services in your application, please refer to the terms and conditions from weather.com website. In order to start using the XOAP services, you need to sign up the XOAP datafeed. The signing process is simple, you simply browse the url http://www.weather.com/services/xmloap.html. The URL looks similar to the following. Click on the sign up button, you will reach the registration page. Here you need to specify the site name you need to use this feed for. The form looks similar to the following. Once you fill all the mandatory information, click on save and continue button. That’s it. The registration is over. You will receive an email that contains your partner id, license key and SDK. The SDK available in a zipped format, contains the terms of use and documentation about the services available. Other than this the SDK includes the logos and icons required to display the weather information. As per the SDK, currently there are 2 types of information available through XOAP. These services are Current Conditions for over 30,000 U.S. and over 7,900 international Location IDs Updated at least Hourly Five-Day Forecast (today + 4 additional forecast days in consecutive order beginning with tomorrow) for over 30,000 U.S. and over 7,900 international Location IDs Updated at least Three Times Daily The SDK provides detailed information about the fields included in response of each service. Additionally there is a refresh rate that you need to comply with. As per the SDK, the refresh rate means the following “Refresh Rate” shall mean the maximum frequency with which you may call the XML Feed for a given LocID requesting a data set for that LocID. During the time period in between refresh periods the data must be cached by you either in the memory on your servers or in Your Desktop Application. About the Services Weather.com will provide you with access to the XML Feed over the Internet through the hostname xoap.weather.com. The weather data from the XML feed must be requested for a specific location. So you need a location ID (LOC ID). The XML feed work with 2 types of location IDs. First one is with City Identifiers and second one is using 5 Digit US postal codes. If you do not know your location ID, don’t worry, there is a location id search service available for you to retrieve the location id from city name. Since I am a resident in the Kingdom of Bahrain, I am going to retrieve the weather information for Manama(the capital of Bahrain) . In order to get the location ID for Manama, type the following URL in your address bar. http://xoap.weather.com/search/search?where=manama I got the following XML output. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- This document is intended only for use by authorized licensees of The –> <!-- Weather Channel. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Copyright 1995-2011, –> <!-- The Weather Channel Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved. –> <search ver="3.0">       <loc id="BAXX0001" type="1">Al Manama, Bahrain</loc> </search> You can try this with any city name, if the city is available, it will return the location id, and otherwise, it will return nothing. In order to get the weather information, from XOAP,  you need to pass certain parameters to the XOAP service. A brief about the parameters are as follows. Please refer SDK for more details. Parameter name Possible Value cc Optional, if you include this, the current condition will be returned. Value can be anything, as it will be ignored e.g. cc=* dayf If you want the forecast for 5 days, specify dayf=5 This is optional iink Value should be XOAP par Your partner id. You can find this in your registration email from weather.com prod Value should be XOAP key The license key assigned to you. This will be available in the registration email unit s or m (standard or matric or you can think of Celsius/Fahrenheit) this is optional field, if not specified the unit will be standard(s) The URL host for the XOAP service is http://xoap.weather.com. So for my purpose, I need the following request to be made to access the XOAP services. http://xoap.weather.com/weather/local/BAXX0001?cc=*&link=xoap&prod=xoap&par=*********&key=************** (The ***** to be replaced with the corresponding alternatives) The response XML have a root element “weather”. Under the root element, it has the following sections <head> - the meta data information about the weather results returned. <loc> - the location data block that provides, the information about the location for which the wheather data is retrieved. <lnks> - the 4 promotional links you need to place along with the weather display. Additional to these 4 links, there should be another link with weather channel logo to the home page of weather.com. <cc> - the current condition data. This element will be there only if you specify the cc element in the request. <dayf> - the forcast data as you specified. This element will be there only if you specify the dayf in the request. In this walkthrough, I am going to capture the weather information for Manama (Location ID: BAXX0001). You need 2 applications to display weather information in your website. A Console application that retrieves data from the XMLOAP and store in the SQL Server database (or any data store as you prefer).This application will be scheduled to execute in every 25 minutes using windows task scheduler, so that we can comply with the refresh rate. A web application that display data from the SQL Server database Retrieve the Weather from XOAP I have created a console application named, Weather Service. I created a SQL server database, with the following columns. I named the table as tblweather. You are free to choose any name. Column name Description lastUpdated Datetime, this is the last time when the weather data is updated. This is the time of the service running TemparatureDateTime The date and time returned by XML feed Temparature The temperature returned by the XML feed. TemparatureUnit The unit of the temperature returned by the XML feed iconId The id of the icon to be used. Currently 48 icons from 0 to 47 are available. WeatherDescription The Weather Description Phrase returned by the feed. Link1url The url to the first promo link Link1Text The text for the first promo link Link2url The url to the second promo link Link2Text The text for the second promo link Link3url The url to the third promo link Link3Text The text for the third promo link Link4url The url to the fourth promo link Link4Text The text for the fourth promo link Every time when the service runs, the application will update the database columns from the XOAP data feed. When the application starts, It is going to get the data as XML from the url. This demonstration uses LINQ to extract the necessary data from the fetched XML. The following are the code segment for extracting data from the weather XML using LINQ. // first, create an instance of the XDocument class with the XOAP URL. replace **** with the corresponding values. XDocument weather = XDocument.Load("http://xoap.weather.com/weather/local/BAXX0001?cc=*&link=xoap&prod=xoap&par=***********&key=c*********"); // construct a query using LINQ var feedResult = from item in weather.Descendants() select new { unit = item.Element("head").Element("ut").Value, temp = item.Element("cc").Element("tmp").Value, tempDate = item.Element("cc").Element("lsup").Value, iconId = item.Element("cc").Element("icon").Value, description = item.Element("cc").Element("t").Value, links = from link in item.Elements("lnks").Elements("link") select new { url = link.Element("l").Value, text = link.Element("t").Value } }; // Load the root node to a variable, you may use foreach construct instead. var item1 = feedResult.First(); *If you want to learn more about LINQ and XML, read this nice blog from Scott GU. http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/08/07/using-linq-to-xml-and-how-to-build-a-custom-rss-feed-reader-with-it.aspx Now you have all the required values in item1. For e.g. if you want to get the temperature, use item1.temp; Now I just need to execute an SQL query against the database. See the connection part. using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=sreeju\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=Sample;Integrated Security=True")) { string strSql = @"update tblweather set lastupdated=getdate(), temparatureDateTime = @temparatureDateTime, temparature=@temparature, temparatureUnit=@temparatureUnit, iconId = @iconId, description=@description, link1url=@link1url, link1text=@link1text, link2url=@link2url, link2text=@link2text,link3url=@link3url, link3text=@link3text,link4url=@link4url, link4text=@link4text"; SqlCommand comm = new SqlCommand(strSql, conn); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparatureDateTime", item1.tempDate); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparature", item1.temp); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("temparatureUnit", item1.unit); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("description", item1.description); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("iconId", item1.iconId); var lstLinks = item1.links; comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link1url", lstLinks.ElementAt(0).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link1text", lstLinks.ElementAt(0).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link2url", lstLinks.ElementAt(1).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link2text", lstLinks.ElementAt(1).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link3url", lstLinks.ElementAt(2).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link3text", lstLinks.ElementAt(2).text); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link4url", lstLinks.ElementAt(3).url); comm.Parameters.AddWithValue("link4text", lstLinks.ElementAt(3).text); conn.Open(); comm.ExecuteNonQuery(); conn.Close(); Console.WriteLine("database updated"); } Now click ctrl + f5 to run the service. I got the following output Check your database and make sure, the data is updated with the latest information from the service. (Make sure you inserted one row in the database by entering some values before executing the service. Otherwise you need to modify your application code to count the rows and conditionally perform insert/update query) Display the Weather information in ASP.Net page Now you got all the data in the database. You just need to create a web application and display the data from the database. I created a new ASP.Net web application with a default.aspx page. In order to comply with the terms of weather.com, You need to use Weather.com logo along with the weather display. You can find the necessary logos to use under the folder “logos” in the SDK. Additionally copy any of the icon set from the folder “icons” to your web application. I used the 93x93 icon set. You are free to use any other sizes available. The design view of the page in VS2010 looks similar to the following. The page contains a heading, an image control (for displaying the weather icon), 2 label controls (for displaying temperature and weather description), 4 hyperlinks (for displaying the 4 promo links returned by the XOAP service) and weather.com logo with hyperlink to the weather.com home page. I am going to write code that will update the values of these controls from the values stored in the database by the service application as mentioned in the previous step. Go to the code behind file for the webpage, enter the following code under Page_Load event handler. using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=sreeju\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=Sample;Integrated Security=True")) { SqlCommand comm = new SqlCommand("select top 1 * from tblweather", conn); conn.Open(); SqlDataReader reader = comm.ExecuteReader(); if (reader.Read()) { lblTemparature.Text = reader["temparature"].ToString() + "&deg;" + reader["temparatureUnit"].ToString(); lblWeatherDescription.Text = reader["description"].ToString(); imgWeather.ImageUrl = "icons/" + reader["iconId"].ToString() + ".png"; lnk1.Text = reader["link1text"].ToString(); lnk1.NavigateUrl = reader["link1url"].ToString(); lnk2.Text = reader["link2text"].ToString(); lnk2.NavigateUrl = reader["link2url"].ToString(); lnk3.Text = reader["link3text"].ToString(); lnk3.NavigateUrl = reader["link3url"].ToString(); lnk4.Text = reader["link4text"].ToString(); lnk4.NavigateUrl = reader["link4url"].ToString(); } conn.Close(); } Press ctrl + f5 to run the page. You will see the following output. That’s it. You need to configure the console application to run every 25 minutes so that the database is updated. Also you can fetch the forecast information and store those in the database, and then retrieve it later in your web page. Since the data resides in your database, you have the full control over your display. You need to make sure your website comply with weather.com license requirements. If you want to get the source code of this walkthrough through the application, post your email address below. Hope you enjoy the reading.

  Read the article

• Transformation of Product Management in Telecommunications for Rapid Launch of Next Generation Products

  - by raul.goycoolea

  @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } The Telecom industry continues to evolve through disruptive products, uncertain markets, shorter product lifecycles and convergence of technologies. Today’s market has moved from network centric to consumer centric and focuses primarily on the customer experience. It has resulted in several product management challenges such as an increased complexity and volume of offerings, creating product variants, accelerating time-to-market, ability to provide multiple product views for varied stakeholders, leveraging OSS intelligence to BSS layer, product co-creation and increasing audit and security concerns for service providers. The document discusses how enterprise product management enabled by PLM-based product catalogue solutions helps to launch next generation products rapidly in the context of the Telecommunication Industry.   1.0.       Introduction   Figure 1: Business Scenario   Modern business demands the launch of complex products in a very short timeframe and effecting changes in the price plan faster without IT intervention. One of the key transformation initiatives companies are focusing on is in the area of product management transformation and operational efficiency improvement. As part of these initiatives, companies are investing in best- in-class COTs-based Product Management solutions developed on industry-wide standards.   The new COTs packages are planned to integrate with existing or new B/OSS systems to provide a strategic end-to-end agile solution for reduced time-to-market and order journey time. In addition, system rationalization is being undertaken to phase out legacy systems and migrate to strategic systems.   2.0.       An Overview of Product Management in Telecom   Product data in telecom is multi- dimensional and difficult to manage. It increased significantly due to the complexity of the product, product offerings on the converged network, increased volume of offerings, bundled offering structures and ever increasing regulatory requirements.   In addition, the shrinking product lifecycle in telecom makes it difficult to manage the dynamic product data. Mergers and acquisitions coupled with organic growth pose major challenges in product portfolio management. It is a roadblock in the journey towards becoming an agile organization.       Figure 2: Complexity in Product Management   Network Technology’ is the new dimension in telecom product management where the same products are realized through different networks i.e., Soiled network to Converged network. Consequently, the product solution is different.     Figure 3: Current Scenario - Pain Points in Product Management   The major business implications arising out of the current scenario are slow time-to-market and an inefficient process that affects innovation.   3.0. Transformation of Next Generation Product Management   Companies must focus on their Product Management Transformation Journey in the areas of:   ·       Management of single truth of product information across the organization/geographies which is currently managed in heterogeneous systems   ·       Management of the Intellectual Property (IP) on the product concept and partnership in the design of discrete components to integrate into the system   ·       Leveraging structured and unstructured product data within the extended enterprise to extract consumer insights and drive innovation   ·       Management of effective operational separation to comply with regulatory bodies   ·       Reuse of existing designs and add relevant features such as value-added services to enable effective product bundling     Figure 4: Next generation needs   PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions efficiently address the above requirements and act as an enabler towards product management transformation and rapid product launch.   4.0. PLM-based Enterprise Product Management     Figure 5: PLM-based Enterprise Product Mastering   Enterprise Product Management (EPM) enables the business to manage complex product attributes of data in complex environments. Product Mastering helps create a 'single view' of the product by creating a business-driven, IT-supported environment where a global 'single truth record' is created, managed and reused.   4.1 The Business Case for Telco PLM-based solutions for Enterprise Product Management   ·       Telco PLM-based Product Mastering solutions provide a centralized authoring environment for product definition and control of all product data and rules   ·       PLM packages are designed to support multiple perspectives of product data (ordering perspective, billing perspective, provisioning perspective)   ·       Maintains relationships/links between different elements of the entire product definition   ·       Telco PLM packages are specialized in next generation lifecycle management requirements of products such as revision and state management, test and release management, role management and impact analysis)   ·       Takes into consideration all aspects of OSS product requirements compared to CRM product catalogue solutions where the product data managed is mostly order oriented and transactional     ·       New breed of Telco PLM packages are designed with 'open' standards such as SID and eTOM. They are interoperable, support integration frameworks such as subscription and notification.   ·       Telco PLM packages have developed good collaboration frameworks to integrate suppliers and partners into the product development value chain   4.2 Various Architectures/Approaches for Product Mastering using Telco PLM systems   4. 2.a Single Central Product Management (Mastering) Approach   Figure 6: Single Central Product Management (Master) Approach       This approach is implemented across verticals such as aerospace and automotive. It focuses on a physically centralized product master to which other sources are dependent on. The product definition data (Product bundles, service bundles, price plans, offers and discounts, product configuration rules and market campaigns) is created and maintained physically in a centralized environment. In addition, the product definition/authoring environment is centralized. The existing legacy product definition data available in CRM product catalogue, billing catalogue and the legacy product catalogue is migrated to the centralized PLM-based Enterprise Product Management solution.   Architectural changes must be made in the existing business landscape of applications to create and revise data because the applications have to refer to the central repository for approvals and validation of product configurations. It is achieved by modifying how the applications write data or how the applications can be adapted to use the rules to be managed and published.   Complete product configuration validation will be done in enterprise / central product catalogue and final configuration will be sent to the B/OSS system through the SOA compliant product distribution architecture. The approach/architecture enables greater control in terms of product data management and product data governance.   4.2.b Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture     Figure 7: Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture   In the federated product mastering approach, the basic unique product definition data (product id, description product hierarchy, basic price plans and simple product design rules) will be centrally created and will be maintained. And, the advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers & discount plans) will be created in respective down stream OSS systems. The advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers and discount plans) will be created in respective downstream OSS systems.   For example, basic product definitions such as attributes, product hierarchy and basic price plans will be created and maintained in Enterprise/Central product reference catalogue and distributed to downstream OSS systems. Respective downstream OSS systems build product bundles, promotions, advanced price plans over the basic product definition and master the advanced product definition. Central reference database accesses the respective other source product master data and assembles a point-in-time consolidated view of the product. The approach is typically adapted in some merger and acquisition scenarios where there is a low probability of a central physical authority managing the data. In addition, the migration effort in this case is minimal and there are no big architectural changes to the organization application landscape. However, this approach will not result in better product data management and data governance.   5.0 Customer Scenario – Before EPC deployment   A leading global telecommunications service provider wanted to launch a quad play and triple play service offering in the shortest possible lead time. The service provider was offering Broadband and VoIP services to customers. The company wanted to reuse a majority of the Broadband services and price plans and bundle them with new wireless and IPTV services for quad play and triple play. The challenges in launching the new service offerings were:       Figure 8: Triple Play Plan   ·       Broadband product data was stored in multiple product catalogues (CRM catalogue, Billing catalogue, spread sheets)   ·       Product managers spent a lot of time performing tasks involving duplication or re-keying of data. Manual effort caused errors, cost and time over-runs.   ·       No effective product and price data governance mechanism. Price change issues arising from the lack of data consistency across systems resulted in leakage of customer value and revenue.   ·       Product data had re-usability issues and was not in a structured format. It resulted in uncontrolled product portfolio creation and product management issues.   ·       Lack of enterprise product model resulted into product distribution challenges and thus delays in product launch.   ·       Designers are constrained by existing legacy product management solutions to model product/service requirements and product configuration rules such as upgrading, downgrading and cross selling.    5.1 Customer Scenario - After EPC deployment     Figure 9: SOA-based end-to-end EPC Solution   The company deployed PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions to launch quad play service after evaluating various product catalogues. The broadband product offering, service and price data were migrated to the new system, and the product and price plan hierarchy for new offerings were created using the entities defined in the Enterprise Product Model. Supplier product catalogue data such as routers and set up boxes were loaded onto the new solution through SOA-based web service. Price plans and configuration rules were built in the new system. The validated final product configurations were extracted from the product catalogue in a SID format and were distributed to the downstream B/OSS systems through exposed SOA-based web services. The transformations required for the B/OSS system were handled using the transformation layer as part of the solution.   6.0 How PLM enabled Product Management Transformation         Figure 10: Product Management Transformation     PLM-based Product Catalogue Solution helped the customer reduce the product launch cycle time by 30% and enable transformation of Product Management for next generation services.   7.0 Conclusion   On the one hand, the telecom industry is undergoing changes due to disruptions, uncertain product markets and increased complexity of products. On the other hand, the ARPU is decreasing year-on-year. Communications Service Providers are embarking on convergence, bundled service offerings, flexibility to cross-sell and up-sell, introduce new value-added services, leverage Web 2.0 concepts and network capabilities. Consequently, large scale IT transformation initiatives to improve their ARPU supporting network and business transformations are a business imperative. Product Management has become a focus area. Companies are investing in best-in- class COTS solutions to reduce time-to-market, ensure rapid service delivery and improve operational efficiency. An efficient PLM-based enterprise product mastering solution plays a key role in achieving zero touch automation and rapid product launch.   References:   1.     Preston G.Smith, Donald G.Reineristsem, Van Nostrand Reinhold “Developing Products in Half the time”.   2.     John G. Innes, "Achieving Successful Product Change", Pitman Publishing.   3.     D T Pham and R M Setchi (16th Jan, 2001) "Authoring environment for documentation development" University of Wales Cardiff, U.K., Proceedings on Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 215, Part B.   4.     Oracle Product Hub for Communications:   http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/master-data-management/product-hub-082059.html  

  Read the article

• Laissez les bon temps rouler! (Microsoft BI Conference 2010)

  - by smisner

  "Laissez les bons temps rouler" is a Cajun phrase that I heard frequently when I lived in New Orleans in the mid-1990s. It means "Let the good times roll!" and encapsulates a feeling of happy expectation. As I met with many of my peers and new acquaintances at the Microsoft BI Conference last week, this phrase kept running through my mind as people spoke about their plans in their respective businesses, the benefits and opportunities that the recent releases in the BI stack are providing, and their expectations about the future of the BI stack. Notwithstanding some jabs here and there to point out the platform is neither perfect now nor will be anytime soon (along with admissions that the competitors are also not perfect), and notwithstanding several missteps by the event organizers (which I don't care to enumerate), the overarching mood at the conference was positive. It was a refreshing change from the doom and gloom hovering over several conferences that I attended in 2009. Although many people expect economic hardships to continue over the coming year or so, everyone I know in the BI field is busier than ever and expects to stay busy for quite a while. Self-Service BI Self-service was definitely a theme of the BI conference. In the keynote, Ted Kummert opened with a look back to a fairy tale vision of self-service BI that he told in 2008. At that time, the fairy tale future was a time when "every end user was able to use BI technologies within their job in order to move forward more effectively" and transitioned to the present time in which SQL Server 2008 R2, Office 2010, and SharePoint 2010 are available to deliver managed self-service BI. This set of technologies is presumably poised to address the needs of the 80% of users that Kummert said do not use BI today. He proceeded to outline a series of activities that users ought to be able to do themselves--from simple changes to a report like formatting or an addtional data visualization to integration of an additional data source. The keynote then continued with a series of demonstrations of both current and future technology in support of self-service BI. Some highlights that interested me: PowerPivot, of course, is the flagship product for self-service BI in the Microsoft BI stack. In the TechEd keynote, which was open to the BI conference attendees, Amir Netz (twitter) impressed the audience by demonstrating interactivity with a workbook containing 100 million rows. He upped the ante at the BI keynote with his demonstration of a future-state PowerPivot workbook containing over 2 billion records. It's important to note that this volume of data is being processed by a server engine, and not in the PowerPivot client engine. (Yes, I think it's impressive, but none of my clients are typically wrangling with 2 billion records at a time. Maybe they're thinking too small. This ability to work quickly with large data sets has greater implications for BI solutions than for self-service BI, in my opinion.) Amir also demonstrated KPIs for the future PowerPivot, which appeared to be easier to implement than in any other Microsoft product that supports KPIs, apart from simple KPIs in SharePoint. (My initial reaction is that we have one more place to build KPIs. Great. It's confusing enough. I haven't seen how well those KPIs integrate with other BI tools, which will be important for adoption.) One more PowerPivot feature that Amir showed was a graphical display of the lineage for calculations. (This is hugely practical, especially if you build up calculations incrementally. You can more easily follow the logic from calculation to calculation. Furthermore, if you need to make a change to one calculation, you can assess the impact on other calculations.) Another product demonstration will be available within the next 30 days--Pivot for Reporting Services. If you haven't seen this technology yet, check it out at www.getpivot.com. (It definitely has a wow factor, but I'm skeptical about its practicality. However, I'm looking forward to trying it out with data that I understand.) Michael Tejedor (twitter) demonstrated a feature that I think is really interesting and not emphasized nearly enough--overshadowed by PowerPivot, no doubt. That feature is the Microsoft Business Intelligence Indexing Connector, which enables search of the content of Excel workbooks and Reporting Services reports. (This capability existed in MOSS 2007, but was more cumbersome to implement. The search results in SharePoint 2010 are not only cooler, but more useful by describing whether the content is found in a table or a chart, for example.) This may yet be the dawning of the age of self-service BI - a phrase I've heard repeated from time to time over the last decade - but I think BI professionals are likely to stay busy for a long while, and need not start looking for a new line of work. Kummert repeatedly referenced strategic BI solutions in contrast to self-service BI to emphasize that self-service BI is not a replacement for the services that BI professionals provide. After all, self-service BI does not appear magically on user desktops (or whatever device they want to use). A supporting infrastructure is necessary, and grows in complexity in proportion to the need to simplify BI for users. It's one thing to hear the party line touted by Microsoft employees at the BI keynote, but it's another to hear from the people who are responsible for implementing and supporting it within an organization. Rob Collie (blog | twitter), Kasper de Jonge (blog | twitter), Vidas Matelis (site | twitter), and I were invited to join Andrew Brust (blog | twitter) as he led a Birds of a Feather session at TechEd entitled "PowerPivot: Is It the BI Deal-Changer for Developers and IT Pros?" I would single out the prevailing concern in this session as the issue of control. On one side of this issue were those who were concerned that they would lose control once PowerPivot is implemented. On the other side were those who believed that data should be freely accessible to users in PowerPivot, and even acknowledgment that users would get the data they want even if it meant they would have to manually enter into a workbook to have it ready for analysis. For another viewpoint on how PowerPivot played out at the conference, see Rob Collie's observations. Collaborative BI I have been intrigued by the notion of collaborative BI for a very long time. Before I discovered BI, I was a Lotus Notes developer and later a manager of developers, working in a software company that enabled collaboration in the legal industry. Not only did I help create collaborative systems for our clients, I created a complete project management from the ground up to collaboratively manage our custom development work. In that case, collaboration involved my team, my client contacts, and me. I was also able to produce my own BI from that system as well, but didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. Only in recent years has SharePoint begun to catch up with the capabilities that I had with Lotus Notes more than a decade ago. Eventually, I had the opportunity at that job to formally investigate BI as another product offering for our software, and the rest - as they say - is history. I built my first data warehouse with Scott Cameron (who has also ventured into the authoring world by writing Analysis Services 2008 Step by Step and was at the BI Conference last week where I got to reminisce with him for a bit) and that began a career that I never imagined at the time. Fast forward to 2010, and I'm still lauding the virtues of collaborative BI, if only the tools will catch up to my vision! Thus, I was anxious to see what Donald Farmer (blog | twitter) and Rita Sallam of Gartner had to say on the subject in their session "Collaborative Decision Making." As I suspected, the tools aren't quite there yet, but the vendors are moving in the right direction. One thing I liked about this session was a non-Microsoft perspective of the state of the industry with regard to collaborative BI. In addition, this session included a better demonstration of SharePoint collaborative BI capabilities than appeared in the BI keynote. Check out the video in the link to the session to see the demonstration. One of the use cases that was demonstrated was linking from information to a person, because, as Donald put it, "People don't trust data, they trust people." The Microsoft BI Stack in General A question I hear all the time from students when I'm teaching is how to know what tools to use when there is overlap between products in the BI stack. I've never taken the time to codify my thoughts on the subject, but saw that my friend Dan Bulos provided good insight on this topic from a variety of perspectives in his session, "So Many BI Tools, So Little Time." I thought one of his best points was that ideally you should be able to design in your tool of choice, and then deploy to your tool of choice. Unfortunately, the ideal is yet to become real across the platform. The closest we come is with the RDL in Reporting Services which can be produced from two different tools (Report Builder or Business Intelligence Development Studio's Report Designer), manually, or by a third-party or custom application. I have touted the idea for years (and publicly said so about 5 years ago) that eventually more products would be RDL producers or consumers, but we aren't there yet. Maybe in another 5 years. Another interesting session that covered the BI stack against a backdrop of competitive products was delivered by Andrew Brust. Andrew did a marvelous job of consolidating a lot of information in a way that clearly communicated how various vendors' offerings compared to the Microsoft BI stack. He also made a particularly compelling argument about how the existence of an ecosystem around the Microsoft BI stack provided innovation and opportunities lacking for other vendors. Check out his presentation, "How Does the Microsoft BI Stack...Stack Up?" Expo Hall I had planned to spend more time in the Expo Hall to see who was doing new things with the BI stack, but didn't manage to get very far. Each time I set out on an exploratory mission, I got caught up in some fascinating conversations with one or more of my peers. I find interacting with people that I meet at conferences just as important as attending sessions to learn something new. There were a couple of items that really caught me eye, however, that I'll share here. Pragmatic Works. Whether you develop SSIS packages, build SSAS cubes, or author SSRS reports (or all of the above), you really must take a look at BI Documenter. Brian Knight (twitter) walked me through the key features, and I must say I was impressed. Once you've seen what this product can do, you won't want to document your BI projects any other way. You can download a free single-user database edition, or choose from more feature-rich standard or professional editions. Microsoft Press ebooks. I also stopped by the O'Reilly Media booth to meet some folks that one of my acquisitions editors at Microsoft Press recommended. In case you haven't heard, Microsoft Press has partnered with O'Reilly Media for distribution and publishing. Apart from my interest in learning more about O'Reilly Media as an author, an advertisement in their booth caught me eye which I think is a really great move. When you buy Microsoft Press ebooks through the O'Reilly web site, you can receive it in any (or all) of the following formats where possible: PDF, epub, .mobi for Kindle and .apk for Android. You also have lifetime DRM-free access to the ebooks. As someone who is an avid collector of books, I fnd myself running out of room for storage. In addition, I travel a lot, and it's hard to lug my reference library with me. Today's e-reader options make the move to digital books a more viable way to grow my library. Having a variety of formats means I am not limited to a single device, and lifetime access means I don't have to worry about keeping track of where I've stored my files. Because the e-books are DRM-free, I can copy and paste when I'm compiling notes, and I can print pages when necessary. That's a winning combination in my mind! Overall, I was pleased with the BI conference. There were many more sessions that I couldn't attend, either because the room was full when I got there or there were multiple sessions running concurrently that I wanted to see. Fortunately, many of the sessions are accessible for viewing online at http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica along with the TechEd sessions. You can spot the BI sessions by the yellow skyline on the title slide of the presentation as shown below. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• LLBLGen Pro feature highlights: automatic element name construction

  - by FransBouma

  (This post is part of a series of posts about features of the LLBLGen Pro system) One of the things one might take for granted but which has a huge impact on the time spent in an entity modeling environment is the way the system creates names for elements out of the information provided, in short: automatic element name construction. Element names are created in both directions of modeling: database first and model first and the more names the system can create for you without you having to rename them, the better. LLBLGen Pro has a rich, fine grained system for creating element names out of the meta-data available, which I'll describe more in detail below. First the model element related element naming features are highlighted, in the section Automatic model element naming features and after that I'll go more into detail about the relational model element naming features LLBLGen Pro has to offer in the section Automatic relational model element naming features. Automatic model element naming features When working database first, the element names in the model, e.g. entity names, entity field names and so on, are in general determined from the relational model element (e.g. table, table field) they're mapped on, as the model elements are reverse engineered from these relational model elements. It doesn't take rocket science to automatically name an entity Customer if the entity was created after reverse engineering a table named Customer. It gets a little trickier when the entity which was created by reverse engineering a table called TBL_ORDER_LINES has to be named 'OrderLine' automatically. Automatic model element naming also takes into effect with model first development, where some settings are used to provide you with a default name, e.g. in the case of navigator name creation when you create a new relationship. The features below are available to you in the Project Settings. Open Project Settings on a loaded project and navigate to Conventions -> Element Name Construction. Strippers! The above example 'TBL_ORDER_LINES' shows that some parts of the table name might not be needed for name creation, in this case the 'TBL_' prefix. Some 'brilliant' DBAs even add suffixes to table names, fragments you might not want to appear in the entity names. LLBLGen Pro offers you to define both prefix and suffix fragments to strip off of table, view, stored procedure, parameter, table field and view field names. In the example above, the fragment 'TBL_' is a good candidate for such a strip pattern. You can specify more than one pattern for e.g. the table prefix strip pattern, so even a really messy schema can still be used to produce clean names. Underscores Be Gone Another thing you might get rid of are underscores. After all, most naming schemes for entities and their classes use PasCal casing rules and don't allow for underscores to appear. LLBLGen Pro can automatically strip out underscores for you. It's an optional feature, so if you like the underscores, you're not forced to see them go: LLBLGen Pro will leave them alone when ordered to to so. PasCal everywhere... or not, your call LLBLGen Pro can automatically PasCal case names on word breaks. It determines word breaks in a couple of ways: a space marks a word break, an underscore marks a word break and a case difference marks a word break. It will remove spaces in all cases, and based on the underscore removal setting, keep or remove the underscores, and upper-case the first character of a word break fragment, and lower case the rest. Say, we keep the defaults, which is remove underscores and PasCal case always and strip the TBL_ fragment, we get with our example TBL_ORDER_LINES, after stripping TBL_ from the table name two word fragments: ORDER and LINES. The underscores are removed, the first character of each fragment is upper-cased, the rest lower-cased, so this results in OrderLines. Almost there! Pluralization and Singularization In general entity names are singular, like Customer or OrderLine so LLBLGen Pro offers a way to singularize the names. This will convert OrderLines, the result we got after the PasCal casing functionality, into OrderLine, exactly what we're after. Show me the patterns! There are other situations in which you want more flexibility. Say, you have an entity Customer and an entity Order and there's a foreign key constraint defined from the target of Order and the target of Customer. This foreign key constraint results in a 1:n relationship between the entities Customer and Order. A relationship has navigators mapped onto the relationship in both entities the relationship is between. For this particular relationship we'd like to have Customer as navigator in Order and Orders as navigator in Customer, so the relationship becomes Customer.Orders 1:n Order.Customer. To control the naming of these navigators for the various relationship types, LLBLGen Pro defines a set of patterns which allow you, using macros, to define how the auto-created navigator names will look like. For example, if you rather have Customer.OrderCollection, you can do so, by changing the pattern from {$EndEntityName$P} to {$EndEntityName}Collection. The $P directive makes sure the name is pluralized, which is not what you want if you're going for <EntityName>Collection, hence it's removed. When working model first, it's a given you'll create foreign key fields along the way when you define relationships. For example, you've defined two entities: Customer and Order, and they have their fields setup properly. Now you want to define a relationship between them. This will automatically create a foreign key field in the Order entity, which reflects the value of the PK field in Customer. (No worries if you hate the foreign key fields in your classes, on NHibernate and EF these can be hidden in the generated code if you want to). A specific pattern is available for you to direct LLBLGen Pro how to name this foreign key field. For example, if all your entities have Id as PK field, you might want to have a different name than Id as foreign key field. In our Customer - Order example, you might want to have CustomerId instead as foreign key name in Order. The pattern for foreign key fields gives you that freedom. Abbreviations... make sense of OrdNr and friends I already described word breaks in the PasCal casing paragraph, how they're used for the PasCal casing in the constructed name. Word breaks are used for another neat feature LLBLGen Pro has to offer: abbreviation support. Burt, your friendly DBA in the dungeons below the office has a hate-hate relationship with his keyboard: he can't stand it: typing is something he avoids like the plague. This has resulted in tables and fields which have names which are very short, but also very unreadable. Example: our TBL_ORDER_LINES example has a lovely field called ORD_NR. What you would like to see in your fancy new OrderLine entity mapped onto this table is a field called OrderNumber, not a field called OrdNr. What you also like is to not have to rename that field manually. There are better things to do with your time, after all. LLBLGen Pro has you covered. All it takes is to define some abbreviation - full word pairs and during reverse engineering model elements from tables/views, LLBLGen Pro will take care of the rest. For the ORD_NR field, you need two values: ORD as abbreviation and Order as full word, and NR as abbreviation and Number as full word. LLBLGen Pro will now convert every word fragment found with the word breaks which matches an abbreviation to the given full word. They're case sensitive and can be found in the Project Settings: Navigate to Conventions -> Element Name Construction -> Abbreviations. Automatic relational model element naming features Not everyone works database first: it may very well be the case you start from scratch, or have to add additional tables to an existing database. For these situations, it's key you have the flexibility that you can control the created table names and table fields without any work: let the designer create these names based on the entity model you defined and a set of rules. LLBLGen Pro offers several features in this area, which are described in more detail below. These features are found in Project Settings: navigate to Conventions -> Model First Development. Underscores, welcome back! Not every database is case insensitive, and not every organization requires PasCal cased table/field names, some demand all lower or all uppercase names with underscores at word breaks. Say you create an entity model with an entity called OrderLine. You work with Oracle and your organization requires underscores at word breaks: a table created from OrderLine should be called ORDER_LINE. LLBLGen Pro allows you to do that: with a simple checkbox you can order LLBLGen Pro to insert an underscore at each word break for the type of database you're working with: case sensitive or case insensitive. Checking the checkbox Insert underscore at word break case insensitive dbs will let LLBLGen Pro create a table from the entity called Order_Line. Half-way there, as there are still lower case characters there and you need all caps. No worries, see below Casing directives so everyone can sleep well at night For case sensitive databases and case insensitive databases there is one setting for each of them which controls the casing of the name created from a model element (e.g. a table created from an entity definition using the auto-mapping feature). The settings can have the following values: AsProjectElement, AllUpperCase or AllLowerCase. AsProjectElement is the default, and it keeps the casing as-is. In our example, we need to get all upper case characters, so we select AllUpperCase for the setting for case sensitive databases. This will produce the name ORDER_LINE. Sequence naming after a pattern Some databases support sequences, and using model-first development it's key to have sequences, when needed, to be created automatically and if possible using a name which shows where they're used. Say you have an entity Order and you want to have the PK values be created by the database using a sequence. The database you're using supports sequences (e.g. Oracle) and as you want all numeric PK fields to be sequenced, you have enabled this by the setting Auto assign sequences to integer pks. When you're using LLBLGen Pro's auto-map feature, to create new tables and constraints from the model, it will create a new table, ORDER, based on your settings I previously discussed above, with a PK field ID and it also creates a sequence, SEQ_ORDER, which is auto-assigns to the ID field mapping. The name of the sequence is created by using a pattern, defined in the Model First Development setting Sequence pattern, which uses plain text and macros like with the other patterns previously discussed. Grouping and schemas When you start from scratch, and you're working model first, the tables created by LLBLGen Pro will be in a catalog and / or schema created by LLBLGen Pro as well. If you use LLBLGen Pro's grouping feature, which allows you to group entities and other model elements into groups in the project (described in a future blog post), you might want to have that group name reflected in the schema name the targets of the model elements are in. Say you have a model with a group CRM and a group HRM, both with entities unique for these groups, e.g. Employee in HRM, Customer in CRM. When auto-mapping this model to create tables, you might want to have the table created for Employee in the HRM schema but the table created for Customer in the CRM schema. LLBLGen Pro will do just that when you check the setting Set schema name after group name to true (default). This gives you total control over where what is placed in the database from your model. But I want plural table names... and TBL_ prefixes! For now we follow best practices which suggest singular table names and no prefixes/suffixes for names. Of course that won't keep everyone happy, so we're looking into making it possible to have that in a future version. Conclusion LLBLGen Pro offers a variety of options to let the modeling system do as much work for you as possible. Hopefully you enjoyed this little highlight post and that it has given you new insights in the smaller features available to you in LLBLGen Pro, ones you might not have thought off in the first place. Enjoy!

  Read the article

• ERR_INCOMPLETE_CHUNKED_ENCODING apache 2.4

  - by Bujanca Mihai

  I upgraded my Ubuntu server to 14.04 and Apache 2.4.7. Now my images don't load and console yields net::ERR_INCOMPLETE_CHUNKED_ENCODING. Also, I can sometimes see some of the images load for a little while (1 sec max) and then they disappear. .htaccess RewriteEngine On # Serve the favicon file from img folder RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/favicon.ico$ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /img/$1 [NC,L] # Redirect HTTP traffic to WWW subdomain RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] # Redirect HTTPS traffic to WWW subdomain RewriteCond %{HTTPS} on [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] # Auto Versioning rules RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-s RewriteRule ^(.*)\.[\d]+\.(css|js)$ $1.$2 [L] # Default Zend rewrite rules RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L] RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L] VHost <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin admin@localhost ServerName localhost DocumentRoot /home/mihai/ARTD/www/public/website # Omit this in production environment SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV local <Directory /home/mihai/ARTD/www/public/website > Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All #Order deny,allow #Allow from all Require all granted </Directory> <IfModule mod_php5.c> php_value memory_limit 128M php_value upload_max_filesize 20M php_value post_max_size 20M </IfModule> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/ARTD-error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/ARTD-access.log combined </VirtualHost> <IfModule mod_ssl.c> <VirtualHost *:443> ServerAdmin admin@localhost ServerName localhost DocumentRoot /home/mihai/ARTD/www/public/website # Omit this in production environment SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV local <Directory /home/mihai/ARTD/www/public/website > Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride All #Order deny,allow #Allow from all Require all granted </Directory> <IfModule mod_php5.c> php_value memory_limit 128M php_value upload_max_filesize 20M php_value post_max_size 20M </IfModule> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/ARTD-ssl-error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/ARTD.log combined # SSL Engine Switch: # Enable/Disable SSL for this virtual host. SSLEngine on # A self-signed (snakeoil) certificate can be created by installing # the ssl-cert package. See # /usr/share/doc/apache2.2-common/README.Debian.gz for more info. # If both key and certificate are stored in the same file, only the # SSLCertificateFile directive is needed. SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key # Server Certificate Chain: # Point SSLCertificateChainFile at a file containing the # concatenation of PEM encoded CA certificates which form the # certificate chain for the server certificate. Alternatively # the referenced file can be the same as SSLCertificateFile # when the CA certificates are directly appended to the server # certificate for convinience. #SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/server-ca.crt # Certificate Authority (CA): # Set the CA certificate verification path where to find CA # certificates for client authentication or alternatively one # huge file containing all of them (file must be PEM encoded) # Note: Inside SSLCACertificatePath you need hash symlinks # to point to the certificate files. Use the provided # Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes. #SSLCACertificatePath /etc/ssl/certs/ #SSLCACertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crt/ca-bundle.crt # Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL): # Set the CA revocation path where to find CA CRLs for client # authentication or alternatively one huge file containing all # of them (file must be PEM encoded) # Note: Inside SSLCARevocationPath you need hash symlinks # to point to the certificate files. Use the provided # Makefile to update the hash symlinks after changes. #SSLCARevocationPath /etc/apache2/ssl.crl/ #SSLCARevocationFile /etc/apache2/ssl.crl/ca-bundle.crl # Client Authentication (Type): # Client certificate verification type and depth. Types are # none, optional, require and optional_no_ca. Depth is a # number which specifies how deeply to verify the certificate # issuer chain before deciding the certificate is not valid. #SSLVerifyClient require #SSLVerifyDepth 10 # Access Control: # With SSLRequire you can do per-directory access control based # on arbitrary complex boolean expressions containing server # variable checks and other lookup directives. The syntax is a # mixture between C and Perl. See the mod_ssl documentation # for more details. #<Location /> #SSLRequire ( %{SSL_CIPHER} !~ m/^(EXP|NULL)/ \ # and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_O} eq "Snake Oil, Ltd." \ # and %{SSL_CLIENT_S_DN_OU} in {"Staff", "CA", "Dev"} \ # and %{TIME_WDAY} >= 1 and %{TIME_WDAY} <= 5 \ # and %{TIME_HOUR} >= 8 and %{TIME_HOUR} <= 20 ) \ # or %{REMOTE_ADDR} =~ m/^192\.76\.162\.[0-9]+$/ #</Location> # SSL Engine Options: # Set various options for the SSL engine. # o FakeBasicAuth: # Translate the client X.509 into a Basic Authorisation. This means that # the standard Auth/DBMAuth methods can be used for access control. The # user name is the `one line' version of the client's X.509 certificate. # Note that no password is obtained from the user. Every entry in the user # file needs this password: `xxj31ZMTZzkVA'. # o ExportCertData: # This exports two additional environment variables: SSL_CLIENT_CERT and # SSL_SERVER_CERT. These contain the PEM-encoded certificates of the # server (always existing) and the client (only existing when client # authentication is used). This can be used to import the certificates # into CGI scripts. # o StdEnvVars: # This exports the standard SSL/TLS related `SSL_*' environment variables. # Per default this exportation is switched off for performance reasons, # because the extraction step is an expensive operation and is usually # useless for serving static content. So one usually enables the # exportation for CGI and SSI requests only. # o StrictRequire: # This denies access when "SSLRequireSSL" or "SSLRequire" applied even # under a "Satisfy any" situation, i.e. when it applies access is denied # and no other module can change it. # o OptRenegotiate: # This enables optimized SSL connection renegotiation handling when SSL # directives are used in per-directory context. #SSLOptions +FakeBasicAuth +ExportCertData +StrictRequire #<FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$"> # SSLOptions +StdEnvVars #</FilesMatch> # SSL Protocol Adjustments: # The safe and default but still SSL/TLS standard compliant shutdown # approach is that mod_ssl sends the close notify alert but doesn't wait for # the close notify alert from client. When you need a different shutdown # approach you can use one of the following variables: # o ssl-unclean-shutdown: # This forces an unclean shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. no # SSL close notify alert is send or allowed to received. This violates # the SSL/TLS standard but is needed for some brain-dead browsers. Use # this when you receive I/O errors because of the standard approach where # mod_ssl sends the close notify alert. # o ssl-accurate-shutdown: # This forces an accurate shutdown when the connection is closed, i.e. a # SSL close notify alert is send and mod_ssl waits for the close notify # alert of the client. This is 100% SSL/TLS standard compliant, but in # practice often causes hanging connections with brain-dead browsers. Use # this only for browsers where you know that their SSL implementation # works correctly. # Notice: Most problems of broken clients are also related to the HTTP # keep-alive facility, so you usually additionally want to disable # keep-alive for those clients, too. Use variable "nokeepalive" for this. # Similarly, one has to force some clients to use HTTP/1.0 to workaround # their broken HTTP/1.1 implementation. Use variables "downgrade-1.0" and # "force-response-1.0" for this. #BrowserMatch ".*MSIE.*" \ # nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \ # downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0 </VirtualHost> </IfModule> logs Apache/2.4.7 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.3 OpenSSL/1.0.1f (internal dummy connection) 127.0.0.1 - - [25/Aug/2014:13:09:53 +0300] "GET /img/header/top-nav-separator.png HTTP/1.1" 200 462 "https://localhost/art" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/34.0.1847.132 Safari/537.36"

  Read the article

• Sorting Algorithms

  - by MarkPearl

  General Every time I go back to university I find myself wading through sorting algorithms and their implementation in C++. Up to now I haven’t really appreciated their true value. However as I discovered this last week with Dictionaries in C# – having a knowledge of some basic programming principles can greatly improve the performance of a system and make one think twice about how to tackle a problem. I’m going to cover briefly in this post the following: Selection Sort Insertion Sort Shellsort Quicksort Mergesort Heapsort (not complete) Selection Sort Array based selection sort is a simple approach to sorting an unsorted array. Simply put, it repeats two basic steps to achieve a sorted collection. It starts with a collection of data and repeatedly parses it, each time sorting out one element and reducing the size of the next iteration of parsed data by one. So the first iteration would go something like this… Go through the entire array of data and find the lowest value Place the value at the front of the array The second iteration would go something like this… Go through the array from position two (position one has already been sorted with the smallest value) and find the next lowest value in the array. Place the value at the second position in the array This process would be completed until the entire array had been sorted. A positive about selection sort is that it does not make many item movements. In fact, in a worst case scenario every items is only moved once. Selection sort is however a comparison intensive sort. If you had 10 items in a collection, just to parse the collection you would have 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2=54 comparisons to sort regardless of how sorted the collection was to start with. If you think about it, if you applied selection sort to a collection already sorted, you would still perform relatively the same number of iterations as if it was not sorted at all. Many of the following algorithms try and reduce the number of comparisons if the list is already sorted – leaving one with a best case and worst case scenario for comparisons. Likewise different approaches have different levels of item movement. Depending on what is more expensive, one may give priority to one approach compared to another based on what is more expensive, a comparison or a item move. Insertion Sort Insertion sort tries to reduce the number of key comparisons it performs compared to selection sort by not “doing anything” if things are sorted. Assume you had an collection of numbers in the following order… 10 18 25 30 23 17 45 35 There are 8 elements in the list. If we were to start at the front of the list – 10 18 25 & 30 are already sorted. Element 5 (23) however is smaller than element 4 (30) and so needs to be repositioned. We do this by copying the value at element 5 to a temporary holder, and then begin shifting the elements before it up one. So… Element 5 would be copied to a temporary holder 10 18 25 30 23 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 4 would shift to Element 5 10 18 25 30 30 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 3 would shift to Element 4 10 18 25 25 30 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 2 (18) is smaller than the temporary holder so we put the temporary holder value into Element 3. 10 18 23 25 30 17 45 35 – T 23   We now have a sorted list up to element 6. And so we would repeat the same process by moving element 6 to a temporary value and then shifting everything up by one from element 2 to element 5. As you can see, one major setback for this technique is the shifting values up one – this is because up to now we have been considering the collection to be an array. If however the collection was a linked list, we would not need to shift values up, but merely remove the link from the unsorted value and “reinsert” it in a sorted position. Which would reduce the number of transactions performed on the collection. So.. Insertion sort seems to perform better than selection sort – however an implementation is slightly more complicated. This is typical with most sorting algorithms – generally, greater performance leads to greater complexity. Also, insertion sort performs better if a collection of data is already sorted. If for instance you were handed a sorted collection of size n, then only n number of comparisons would need to be performed to verify that it is sorted. It’s important to note that insertion sort (array based) performs a number item moves – every time an item is “out of place” several items before it get shifted up. Shellsort – Diminishing Increment Sort So up to now we have covered Selection Sort & Insertion Sort. Selection Sort makes many comparisons and insertion sort (with an array) has the potential of making many item movements. Shellsort is an approach that takes the normal insertion sort and tries to reduce the number of item movements. In Shellsort, elements in a collection are viewed as sub-collections of a particular size. Each sub-collection is sorted so that the elements that are far apart move closer to their final position. Suppose we had a collection of 15 elements… 10 20 15 45 36 48 7 60 18 50 2 19 43 30 55 First we may view the collection as 7 sub-collections and sort each sublist, lets say at intervals of 7 10 60 55 – 20 18 – 15 50 – 45 2 – 36 19 – 48 43 – 7 30 10 55 60 – 18 20 – 15 50 – 2 45 – 19 36 – 43 48 – 7 30 (Sorted) We then sort each sublist at a smaller inter – lets say 4 10 55 60 18 – 20 15 50 2 – 45 19 36 43 – 48 7 30 10 18 55 60 – 2 15 20 50 – 19 36 43 45 – 7 30 48 (Sorted) We then sort elements at a distance of 1 (i.e. we apply a normal insertion sort) 10 18 55 60 2 15 20 50 19 36 43 45 7 30 48 2 7 10 15 18 19 20 30 36 43 45 48 50 55 (Sorted) The important thing with shellsort is deciding on the increment sequence of each sub-collection. From what I can tell, there isn’t any definitive method and depending on the order of your elements, different increment sequences may perform better than others. There are however certain increment sequences that you may want to avoid. An even based increment sequence (e.g. 2 4 8 16 32 …) should typically be avoided because it does not allow for even elements to be compared with odd elements until the final sort phase – which in a way would negate many of the benefits of using sub-collections. The performance on the number of comparisons and item movements of Shellsort is hard to determine, however it is considered to be considerably better than the normal insertion sort. Quicksort Quicksort uses a divide and conquer approach to sort a collection of items. The collection is divided into two sub-collections – and the two sub-collections are sorted and combined into one list in such a way that the combined list is sorted. The algorithm is in general pseudo code below… Divide the collection into two sub-collections Quicksort the lower sub-collection Quicksort the upper sub-collection Combine the lower & upper sub-collection together As hinted at above, quicksort uses recursion in its implementation. The real trick with quicksort is to get the lower and upper sub-collections to be of equal size. The size of a sub-collection is determined by what value the pivot is. Once a pivot is determined, one would partition to sub-collections and then repeat the process on each sub collection until you reach the base case. With quicksort, the work is done when dividing the sub-collections into lower & upper collections. The actual combining of the lower & upper sub-collections at the end is relatively simple since every element in the lower sub-collection is smaller than the smallest element in the upper sub-collection. Mergesort With quicksort, the average-case complexity was O(nlog2n) however the worst case complexity was still O(N*N). Mergesort improves on quicksort by always having a complexity of O(nlog2n) regardless of the best or worst case. So how does it do this? Mergesort makes use of the divide and conquer approach to partition a collection into two sub-collections. It then sorts each sub-collection and combines the sorted sub-collections into one sorted collection. The general algorithm for mergesort is as follows… Divide the collection into two sub-collections Mergesort the first sub-collection Mergesort the second sub-collection Merge the first sub-collection and the second sub-collection As you can see.. it still pretty much looks like quicksort – so lets see where it differs… Firstly, mergesort differs from quicksort in how it partitions the sub-collections. Instead of having a pivot – merge sort partitions each sub-collection based on size so that the first and second sub-collection of relatively the same size. This dividing keeps getting repeated until the sub-collections are the size of a single element. If a sub-collection is one element in size – it is now sorted! So the trick is how do we put all these sub-collections together so that they maintain their sorted order. Sorted sub-collections are merged into a sorted collection by comparing the elements of the sub-collection and then adjusting the sorted collection. Lets have a look at a few examples… Assume 2 sub-collections with 1 element each 10 & 20 Compare the first element of the first sub-collection with the first element of the second sub-collection. Take the smallest of the two and place it as the first element in the sorted collection. In this scenario 10 is smaller than 20 so 10 is taken from sub-collection 1 leaving that sub-collection empty, which means by default the next smallest element is in sub-collection 2 (20). So the sorted collection would be 10 20 Lets assume 2 sub-collections with 2 elements each 10 20 & 15 19 So… again we would Compare 10 with 15 – 10 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10) leaving us with 20 & 15 19 Compare 20 with 15 – 15 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10 15) leaving us with 20 & 19 Compare 20 with 19 – 19 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10 15 19) leaving us with 20 & _ 20 is by default the winner so our sorted collection is 10 15 19 20. Make sense? Heapsort (still needs to be completed) So by now I am tired of sorting algorithms and trying to remember why they were so important. I think every year I go through this stuff I wonder to myself why are we made to learn about selection sort and insertion sort if they are so bad – why didn’t we just skip to Mergesort & Quicksort. I guess the only explanation I have for this is that sometimes you learn things so that you can implement them in future – and other times you learn things so that you know it isn’t the best way of implementing things and that you don’t need to implement it in future. Anyhow… luckily this is going to be the last one of my sorts for today. The first step in heapsort is to convert a collection of data into a heap. After the data is converted into a heap, sorting begins… So what is the definition of a heap? If we have to convert a collection of data into a heap, how do we know when it is a heap and when it is not? The definition of a heap is as follows: A heap is a list in which each element contains a key, such that the key in the element at position k in the list is at least as large as the key in the element at position 2k +1 (if it exists) and 2k + 2 (if it exists). Does that make sense? At first glance I’m thinking what the heck??? But then after re-reading my notes I see that we are doing something different – up to now we have really looked at data as an array or sequential collection of data that we need to sort – a heap represents data in a slightly different way – although the data is stored in a sequential collection, for a sequential collection of data to be in a valid heap – it is “semi sorted”. Let me try and explain a bit further with an example… Example 1 of Potential Heap Data Assume we had a collection of numbers as follows 1[1] 2[2] 3[3] 4[4] 5[5] 6[6] For this to be a valid heap element with value of 1 at position [1] needs to be greater or equal to the element at position [3] (2k +1) and position [4] (2k +2). So in the above example, the collection of numbers is not in a valid heap. Example 2 of Potential Heap Data Lets look at another collection of numbers as follows 6[1] 5[2] 4[3] 3[4] 2[5] 1[6] Is this a valid heap? Well… element with the value 6 at position 1 must be greater or equal to the element at position [3] and position [4]. Is 6 > 4 and 6 > 3? Yes it is. Lets look at element 5 as position 2. It must be greater than the values at [4] & [5]. Is 5 > 3 and 5 > 2? Yes it is. If you continued to examine this second collection of data you would find that it is in a valid heap based on the definition of a heap.

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 11, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 11, 2011Popular ReleasesSnoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.6.1: This release is a bug fixing release. Most importantly, issues have been seen around WPF 4.0 applications not always showing up in the app chooser. Hopefully, they are fixed now. I thought this issue warranted a minor release since more and more people are going WPF 4.0 and I don't want anyone to have any problems. Dan Hanan also contributes again with several usability features. Thanks Dan! Happy Snooping! p.s. By request, I am also attaching a .zip file ... so that people can install it ...RIBA - Rich Internet Business Application for Silverlight: Preview of MVVM Framework Source + Tutorials: This is a first public release of the MVVM Framework which is part of the final RIBA application. The complete RIBA example LOB application has yet to be published. Further Documentation on the MVVM part can be found on the Blog, http://www.SilverlightBlog.Net and in the downloadable source ( mvvm/doc/ ). Please post all issues and suggestions in the issue tracker.SharePoint Learning Kit: 1.5: SharePoint Learning Kit 1.5 has the following new functionality: *Support for SharePoint 2010 *E-Learning Actions can be localised *Two New Document Library Edit Options *Automatically add the Assignment List Web Part to the Web Part Gallery *Various Bug Fixes for the Drop Box There are 2 downloads for this release SLK-1.5-2010.zip for SharePoint 2010 SLK-1.5-2007.zip for SharePoint 2007 (WSS3 & MOSS 2007)Facebook C# SDK: 5.0.3 (BETA): This is fourth BETA release of the version 5 branch of the Facebook C# SDK. Remember this is a BETA build. Some things may change or not work exactly as planned. We are absolutely looking for feedback on this release to help us improve the final 5.X.X release. For more information about this release see the following blog posts: Facebook C# SDK - Writing your first Facebook Application Facebook C# SDK v5 Beta Internals Facebook C# SDK V5.0.0 (BETA) Released We have spend time trying ...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.161: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release adds a new Twitter List network importer, makes some minor feature improvements, and fixes a few bugs. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Installation StepsFollow these steps to install and use the template: Download the Zip file. Unzip it into any folder. Use WinZip or a similar program, or just right-click the Zip file...WatchersNET.TagCloud: WatchersNET.TagCloud 01.09.03: Whats NewAdded New Skin TagTastic http://www.watchersnet.de/Portals/0/screenshots/dnn/TagCloud-TagTastic-Skin.jpg Added New Skin RoundedButton http://www.watchersnet.de/Portals/0/screenshots/dnn/TagCloud-RoundedButton-Skin.jpg changes Tag Count fixed on Tag Source Referrals Fixed Tag Count when multiple Tag Sources are usedExtremeML: ExtremeML v1.0 Beta 3: VS solution source code updated for compatibility with VS2010 (accommodates VS2010 breaking changes in T4 template support).Finestra Virtual Desktops: 1.1: This release adds a few more performance and graphical enhancements to 1.0. Switching desktops is now about as fast as you can blink. Desktop switching optimizations New welcome wizard for Vista/7 Fixed a few minor bugs Added a few more options to the options dialog (including ability to disable the taskbar switching)WCF Data Services Toolkit: WCF Data Services Toolkit: The source code and binary releases of the WCF Data Services Toolkit. For simplicity, the source code download doesn't include any of the MSTest files. If you want those, you can pull the code down via MercurialyoutubeFisher: youtubeFisher 3.0 [beta]: What's new: Video capturing improved Supports YouTube's new layout (january 2011) Internal refactoringNearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v5.0: Version 5.0 of the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing the following improvements: .NET 4.0 as target framework using ASP.NET MVC 3. All views migrated to Razor for cleaner markup. Alternate template (Layout file) for mobile devices 4 Bug Fixes since Version 4.1 Visit the project Roadmap for more details. Webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 28785b7248052465ea0738a7775e8e8744d84c27fuv: 1.0 release, codename Chopper Joe: features: search/replace :o to open file :s to save file :q to quitASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.7: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager html generation optimized new features for the lookup (add additional search data ) live demo went aeroEnhSim: EnhSim 2.3.6 BETA: 2.3.6 BETAThis release supports WoW patch 4.06 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 Changes since 2.3.0 ...TestApi - a library of Test APIs: TestApi v0.6: TestApi v0.6 comes with the following changes: TestApi code development has been moved to Codeplex: Moved TestApi soluton to VS 2010; Moved all source code to Codeplex. All development work is done there now. Fault Injection API: Integrated the unmanaged FaultInjectionEngine.dll COM component in the build; Cleaned up FaultInjectionEngine.dll to build at warning level 4; Implemented “FaultScope” which allows for in-process fault injection; Added automation scripts & sample program; ...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.5: AutoChat now allows up to 6 items. Items with nr. 7-0 will be removed! News page url's are now opened in the default browser Added a context menu to the system tray icon (thanks to Alex Banagos) AutoChat now allows configuring the Chat Keys and the Modifier Key The recent files list now supports compact and full mode Fix: Swapped mouse buttons are now properly detected Fix: Sometimes the Play button was pressed while still greyed out Champion: Karma Note: You can also run the u...mojoPortal: 2.3.6.2: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2362-released.aspx Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Rawr: Rawr 4.0.19 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Trac...IronRuby: 1.1.2: IronRuby 1.1.2 is a servicing release that keeps on improving compatibility with Ruby 1.9.2 and includes IronRuby integration to Visual Studio 2010. We decided to drop 1.8.6 compatibility mode in all post-1.0 releases. We recommend using IronRuby 1.0 if you need 1.8.6 compatibility. In this release we fixed several major issues: - problems that blocked Gem installation in certain cases - regex syntax: the parser was replaced with a new one that is much more compatible with Ruby 1.9.2 - cras...MVVM Light Toolkit: MVVM Light Toolkit V3 SP1 (4): There was a small issue with the previous release that caused errors when installing the templates in VS10 Express. This release corrects the error. Only use this if you encountered issues when installing the previous release. No changes in the binaries.New ProjectsAlchemySearch: A middleware application that allows the searching of Open Text's Alchemy application from a command line or from a calling application. C# .NET 4alltuan: all tuan infoasp.net mvc 2.0 ??????: asp.net mvc 2.0 ??????Basic Text File Generator: This is an investigatory development that creates text files from a windows forms app.bisolu_luc: nothing yetCriteria Pack for EPiServer CMS: This is a collection of useful criteria for extending the personalization mechanism, Visitor Groups, in EPiServer CMS 6 R2 (or later).CTRNN.NET: CTRNN.NET is a C# implementation of Continuous Time Recurrent Neural Networks.DXperience Toolkit: Complimentary controls and libraries from DevExpress.Excel Library for Small Basic: This library extend Small Basic to allows you to read or write contents of a cell in the Excel file from Small Basic program. ???????? Small Basic ????、Small Basic ??? Excel ???????????????????。HealthVault Eventing Sample: A sample application demonstrating the new HealthVault Eventing feature.Hitcents Blog - Example Code: Contains various source code examples from articles at http://www.hitcents.com/blog. Brought to you by Hitcents.INI Modifier: A proprietary application to amend users ini files for JBAe automatically from a central control file.issueIT.net - ”I just found the last bug”: issueIT is the best open source web-based issue tracker for .NET. It’s easy to customize to suit your organization. This project is not finished yet - it is only at a very early stage Leage of Legends Masteries Tool: -Small, portable and fast tool to help you set your masteries. -No Install. -Masteries saved in the same folder: "lolMasterSet.dat" (text file) How to use: - Run and then go to masteries tab in League of Legends luncher. You should see the overlay. Memory View controls: Memory View controls are a pair of controls for real time and static viewing and editing of a memory space. MemoryHexEditor is a hex editor that supports viewing and editing memory, and MemoryHeatMap is a time-based graphical view that shows how memory is read and written to.Moq Contrib: Community contributions to Moq.Operating System Basic: Sistema operacional desenvolvido em QuickBasic, durante minha adolecência.PAiRS - A WPF Memory Card Game: PAiRS is an implementation of a card matching game in which you are given an even number of cards face down in a grid, and you try to flip over 2 cards at a time to create a match until all cards are matched. PAiRS is built using C#, .Net 3.5+ and WPF.RIBA - Rich Internet Business Application for Silverlight: RIBA is an example LOB application with many features to show how to build distributed and secure Line of Business applications based on Silverlight 4. You can find the official blog on www.silverlightblog.netSearcher: Searcher is a Windows Phone project which allows you to quickly search using multiple search engines. SharePoint Term Store Powershell Utilities: An assortment of PowerShell script-based utilities to perform actions on the SharePoint Managed Metadata Term Store. PowerShell script-based utilities have been chosen rather than cmdlets as they are more suitable for environments that have strict installation policies.SmartHotelFoundation: Smart Hotel FoundationSumer Filemanager: This project ensured fully ajax based file management.The Open Source PMU: The Open Source PMU Project provides resources that enable you to build your own SynchroPhasor sensor for use with the openPDC project, research, development, or electric grid observation.Trail Blazer: Movie Trailer Fetcher - Downloads trailers for movies in a collection and saves them in movie folder. It is being developed as a companion to Meta Data Fetchers for the Media Browser project. It is being developed as a standalone C# app but a frontend in MCML is being considered.University Project Tracker: University Project TrackerVideo Backup Fusion: The complete and simply to use backup solution for video portalsWPF ShellFactory: WPF ShellFactory is an easy-to-use application framework for WPF, using a system derived from M-V-VM for its views. It supports multiple modules, either statically or dynamically loaded (i.e. plugins). It also contains mechanisms for application-wide services.

  Read the article

• WLS MBeans

  - by Jani Rautiainen

  WLS provides a set of Managed Beans (MBeans) to configure, monitor and manage WLS resources. We can use the WLS MBeans to automate some of the tasks related to the configuration and maintenance of the WLS instance. The MBeans can be accessed a number of ways; using various UIs and programmatically using Java or WLST Python scripts.For customization development we can use the features to e.g. manage the deployed customization in MDS, control logging levels, automate deployment of dependent libraries etc. This article is an introduction on how to access and use the WLS MBeans. The goal is to illustrate the various access methods in a single article; the details of the features are left to the linked documentation.This article covers Windows based environment, steps for Linux would be similar however there would be some differences e.g. on how the file paths are defined. MBeansThe WLS MBeans can be categorized to runtime and configuration MBeans.The Runtime MBeans can be used to access the runtime information about the server and its resources. The data from runtime beans is only available while the server is running. The runtime beans can be used to e.g. check the state of the server or deployment.The Configuration MBeans contain information about the configuration of servers and resources. The configuration of the domain is stored in the config.xml file and the configuration MBeans can be used to access and modify the configuration data. For more information on the WLS MBeans refer to: Understanding WebLogic Server MBeans WLS MBean reference Java Management Extensions (JMX)We can use JMX APIs to access the WLS MBeans. This allows us to create Java programs to configure, monitor, and manage WLS resources. In order to use the WLS MBeans we need to add the following library into the class-path: WL_HOME\lib\wljmxclient.jar Connecting to a WLS MBean server The WLS MBeans are contained in a Mbean server, depending on the requirement we can connect to (MBean Server / JNDI Name): Domain Runtime MBean Server weblogic.management.mbeanservers.domainruntime Runtime MBean Server weblogic.management.mbeanservers.runtime Edit MBean Server weblogic.management.mbeanservers.edit To connect to the WLS MBean server first we need to create a map containing the credentials; Hashtable<String, String> param = new Hashtable<String, String>(); param.put(Context.SECURITY_PRINCIPAL, "weblogic");        param.put(Context.SECURITY_CREDENTIALS, "weblogic1");        param.put(JMXConnectorFactory.PROTOCOL_PROVIDER_PACKAGES, "weblogic.management.remote"); These define the user, password and package containing the protocol. Next we create the connection: JMXServiceURL serviceURL =     new JMXServiceURL("t3","127.0.0.1",7101,     "/jndi/weblogic.management.mbeanservers.domainruntime"); JMXConnector connector = JMXConnectorFactory.connect(serviceURL, param); MBeanServerConnection connection = connector.getMBeanServerConnection(); With the connection we can now access the MBeans for the WLS instance. For a complete example see Appendix A of this post. For more details refer to Accessing WebLogic Server MBeans with JMX Accessing WLS MBeans The WLS MBeans are structured hierarchically; in order to access content we need to know the path to the MBean we are interested in. The MBean is accessed using “MBeanServerConnection. getAttribute” API.  WLS provides entry points to the hierarchy allowing us to navigate all the WLS MBeans in the hierarchy (MBean Server / JMX object name): Domain Runtime MBean Server com.bea:Name=DomainRuntimeService,Type=weblogic.management.mbeanservers.domainruntime.DomainRuntimeServiceMBean Runtime MBean Servers com.bea:Name=RuntimeService,Type=weblogic.management.mbeanservers.runtime.RuntimeServiceMBean Edit MBean Server com.bea:Name=EditService,Type=weblogic.management.mbeanservers.edit.EditServiceMBean For example we can access the Domain Runtime MBean using: ObjectName service = new ObjectName( "com.bea:Name=DomainRuntimeService," + "Type=weblogic.management.mbeanservers.domainruntime.DomainRuntimeServiceMBean"); Same syntax works for any “child” WLS MBeans e.g. to find out all application deployments we can: ObjectName domainConfig = (ObjectName)connection.getAttribute(service,"DomainConfiguration"); ObjectName[] appDeployments = (ObjectName[])connection.getAttribute(domainConfig,"AppDeployments"); Alternatively we could access the same MBean using the full syntax: ObjectName domainConfig = new ObjectName("com.bea:Location=DefaultDomain,Name=DefaultDomain,Type=Domain"); ObjectName[] appDeployments = (ObjectName[])connection.getAttribute(domainConfig,"AppDeployments"); For more details refer to Accessing WebLogic Server MBeans with JMX Invoking operations on WLS MBeans The WLS MBean operations can be invoked with MBeanServerConnection. invoke API; in the following example we query the state of “AppsLoggerService” application: ObjectName appRuntimeStateRuntime = new ObjectName("com.bea:Name=AppRuntimeStateRuntime,Type=AppRuntimeStateRuntime"); Object[] parameters = { "AppsLoggerService", "DefaultServer" }; String[] signature = { "java.lang.String", "java.lang.String" }; String result = (String)connection.invoke(appRuntimeStateRuntime,"getCurrentState",parameters, signature); The result returned should be "STATE_ACTIVE" assuming the "AppsLoggerService" application is up and running. WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) The WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) is a command-line scripting environment that we can access the same WLS MBeans. The tool is located under: $MW_HOME\oracle_common\common\bin\wlst.bat Do note that there are several instances of the wlst script under the $MW_HOME, each of them works, however the commands available vary, so we want to use the one under “oracle_common”. The tool is started in offline mode. In offline mode we can access and manipulate the domain configuration. In online mode we can access the runtime information. We connect to the Administration Server : connect("weblogic","weblogic1", "t3://127.0.0.1:7101") In both online and offline modes we can navigate the WLS MBean using commands like "ls" to print content and "cd" to navigate between objects, for example: All the commands available can be obtained with: help('all') For details of the tool refer to WebLogic Scripting Tool and for the commands available WLST Command and Variable Reference. Also do note that the WLST tool can be invoked from Java code in Embedded Mode. Running Scripts The WLST tool allows us to automate tasks using Python scripts in Script Mode. The script can be manually created or recorded by the WLST tool. Example commands of recording a script: startRecording("c:/temp/recording.py") <commands that we want to record> stopRecording() We can run the script from WLST: execfile("c:/temp/recording.py") We can also run the script from the command line: C:\apps\Oracle\Middleware\oracle_common\common\bin\wlst.cmd c:/temp/recording.py There are various sample scripts are provided with the WLS instance. UI to Access the WLS MBeans There are various UIs through which we can access the WLS MBeans. Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Middleware Control Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console Fusion Middleware Control MBean Browser In the integrated JDeveloper environment only the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console is available to us. For more information refer to the documentation, one noteworthy feature in the console is the ability to record WLST scripts based on the navigation. In addition to the UIs above the JConsole included in the JDK can be used to access the WLS MBeans. The JConsole needs to be started with specific parameter to force WLS objects to be used and jar files in the classpath: "C:\apps\Oracle\Middleware\jdk160_24\bin\jconsole" -J-Djava.class.path=C:\apps\Oracle\Middleware\jdk160_24\lib\jconsole.jar;C:\apps\Oracle\Middleware\jdk160_24\lib\tools.jar;C:\apps\Oracle\Middleware\wlserver_10.3\server\lib\wljmxclient.jar -J-Djmx.remote.protocol.provider.pkgs=weblogic.management.remote For more details refer to the Accessing Custom MBeans from JConsole. Summary In this article we have covered various ways we can access and use the WLS MBeans in context of integrated WLS in JDeveloper to be used for Fusion Application customization development. References Developing Custom Management Utilities With JMX for Oracle WebLogic Server Accessing WebLogic Server MBeans with JMX WebLogic Server MBean Reference WebLogic Scripting Tool WLST Command and Variable Reference Appendix A package oracle.apps.test; import java.io.IOException;import java.net.MalformedURLException;import java.util.Hashtable;import javax.management.MBeanServerConnection;import javax.management.MalformedObjectNameException;import javax.management.ObjectName;import javax.management.remote.JMXConnector;import javax.management.remote.JMXConnectorFactory;import javax.management.remote.JMXServiceURL;import javax.naming.Context;/** * This class contains simple examples on how to access WLS MBeans using JMX. */public class BlogExample {    /**     * Connection to the WLS MBeans     */    private MBeanServerConnection connection;    /**     * Constructor that takes in the connection information for the      * domain and obtains the resources from WLS MBeans using JMX.     * @param hostName host name to connect to for the WLS server     * @param port port to connect to for the WLS server     * @param userName user name to connect to for the WLS server     * @param password password to connect to for the WLS server     */    public BlogExample(String hostName, String port, String userName,                       String password) {        super();        try {            initConnection(hostName, port, userName, password);        } catch (Exception e) {            throw new RuntimeException("Unable to connect to the domain " +                                       hostName + ":" + port);        }    }    /**     * Default constructor.     * Tries to create connection with default values. Runtime exception will be     * thrown if the default values are not used in the local instance.     */    public BlogExample() {        this("127.0.0.1", "7101", "weblogic", "weblogic1");    }    /**     * Initializes the JMX connection to the WLS Beans     * @param hostName host name to connect to for the WLS server     * @param port port to connect to for the WLS server     * @param userName user name to connect to for the WLS server     * @param password password to connect to for the WLS server     * @throws IOException error connecting to the WLS MBeans     * @throws MalformedURLException error connecting to the WLS MBeans     * @throws MalformedObjectNameException error connecting to the WLS MBeans     */    private void initConnection(String hostName, String port, String userName,                                String password)                                 throws IOException, MalformedURLException,                                        MalformedObjectNameException {        String protocol = "t3";        String jndiroot = "/jndi/";        String mserver = "weblogic.management.mbeanservers.domainruntime";        JMXServiceURL serviceURL =            new JMXServiceURL(protocol, hostName, Integer.valueOf(port),                              jndiroot + mserver);        Hashtable<String, String> h = new Hashtable<String, String>();        h.put(Context.SECURITY_PRINCIPAL, userName);        h.put(Context.SECURITY_CREDENTIALS, password);        h.put(JMXConnectorFactory.PROTOCOL_PROVIDER_PACKAGES,              "weblogic.management.remote");        JMXConnector connector = JMXConnectorFactory.connect(serviceURL, h);        connection = connector.getMBeanServerConnection();    }    /**     * Main method used to invoke the logic for testing     * @param args arguments passed to the program     */    public static void main(String[] args) {        BlogExample blogExample = new BlogExample();        blogExample.testEntryPoint();        blogExample.testDirectAccess();        blogExample.testInvokeOperation();    }    /**     * Example of using an entry point to navigate the WLS MBean hierarchy.     */    public void testEntryPoint() {        try {            System.out.println("testEntryPoint");            ObjectName service =             new ObjectName("com.bea:Name=DomainRuntimeService,Type=" +"weblogic.management.mbeanservers.domainruntime.DomainRuntimeServiceMBean");            ObjectName domainConfig =                (ObjectName)connection.getAttribute(service,                                                    "DomainConfiguration");            ObjectName[] appDeployments =                (ObjectName[])connection.getAttribute(domainConfig,                                                      "AppDeployments");            for (ObjectName appDeployment : appDeployments) {                String resourceIdentifier =                    (String)connection.getAttribute(appDeployment,                                                    "SourcePath");                System.out.println(resourceIdentifier);            }        } catch (Exception e) {            throw new RuntimeException(e);        }    }    /**     * Example of accessing WLS MBean directly with a full reference.     * This does the same thing as testEntryPoint in slightly difference way.     */    public void testDirectAccess() {        try {            System.out.println("testDirectAccess");            ObjectName appDeployment =                new ObjectName("com.bea:Location=DefaultDomain,"+                               "Name=AppsLoggerService,Type=AppDeployment");            String resourceIdentifier =                (String)connection.getAttribute(appDeployment, "SourcePath");            System.out.println(resourceIdentifier);        } catch (Exception e) {            throw new RuntimeException(e);        }    }    /**     * Example of invoking operation on a WLS MBean.     */    public void testInvokeOperation() {        try {            System.out.println("testInvokeOperation");            ObjectName appRuntimeStateRuntime =                new ObjectName("com.bea:Name=AppRuntimeStateRuntime,"+                               "Type=AppRuntimeStateRuntime");            String identifier = "AppsLoggerService";            String serverName = "DefaultServer";            Object[] parameters = { identifier, serverName };            String[] signature = { "java.lang.String", "java.lang.String" };            String result =                (String)connection.invoke(appRuntimeStateRuntime, "getCurrentState",                                          parameters, signature);            System.out.println("State of " + identifier + " = " + result);        } catch (Exception e) {            throw new RuntimeException(e);        }    }}

  Read the article

• The Inkremental Architect&acute;s Napkin - #4 - Make increments tangible

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/06/12/the-inkremental-architectacutes-napkin---4---make-increments-tangible.aspxThe driver of software development are increments, small increments, tiny increments. With an increment being a slice of the overall requirement scope thin enough to implement and get feedback from a product owner within 2 days max. Such an increment might concern Functionality or Quality.[1] To make such high frequency delivery of increments possible, the transition from talking to coding needs to be as easy as possible. A user story or some other documentation of what´s supposed to get implemented until tomorrow evening at latest is one side of the medal. The other is where to put the logic in all of the code base. To implement an increment, only logic statements are needed. Functionality like Quality are just about expressions and control flow statements. Think of Assembler code without the CALL/RET instructions. That´s all is needed. Forget about functions, forget about classes. To make a user happy none of that is really needed. It´s just about the right expressions and conditional executions paths plus some memory allocation. Automatic function inlining of compilers which makes it clear how unimportant functions are for delivering value to users at runtime. But why then are there functions? Because they were invented for optimization purposes. We need them for better Evolvability and Production Efficiency. Nothing more, nothing less. No software has become faster, more secure, more scalable, more functional because we gathered logic under the roof of a function or two or a thousand. Functions make logic easier to understand. Functions make us faster in producing logic. Functions make it easier to keep logic consistent. Functions help to conserve memory. That said, functions are important. They are even the pivotal element of software development. We can´t code without them - whether you write a function yourself or not. Because there´s always at least one function in play: the Entry Point of a program. In Ruby the simplest program looks like this:puts "Hello, world!" In C# more is necessary:class Program { public static void Main () { System.Console.Write("Hello, world!"); } } C# makes the Entry Point function explicit, not so Ruby. But still it´s there. So you can think of logic always running in some function. Which brings me back to increments: In order to make the transition from talking to code as easy as possible, it has to be crystal clear into which function you should put the logic. Product owners might be content once there is a sticky note a user story on the Scrum or Kanban board. But developers need an idea of what that sticky note means in term of functions. Because with a function in hand, with a signature to run tests against, they have something to focus on. All´s well once there is a function behind whose signature logic can be piled up. Then testing frameworks can be used to check if the logic is correct. Then practices like TDD can help to drive the implementation. That´s why most code katas define exactly how the API of a solution should look like. It´s a function, maybe two or three, not more. A requirement like “Write a function f which takes this as parameters and produces such and such output by doing x” makes a developer comfortable. Yes, there are all kinds of details to think about, like which algorithm or technology to use, or what kind of state and side effects to consider. Even a single function not only must deliver on Functionality, but also on Quality and Evolvability. Nevertheless, once it´s clear which function to put logic in, you have a tangible starting point. So, yes, what I´m suggesting is to find a single function to put all the logic in that´s necessary to deliver on a the requirements of an increment. Or to put it the other way around: Slice requirements in a way that each increment´s logic can be located under the roof of a single function. Entry points Of course, the logic of a software will always be spread across many, many functions. But there´s always an Entry Point. That´s the most important function for each increment, because that´s the root to put integration or even acceptance tests on. A batch program like the above hello-world application only has a single Entry Point. All logic is reached from there, regardless how deep it´s nested in classes. But a program with a user interface like this has at least two Entry Points: One is the main function called upon startup. The other is the button click event handler for “Show my score”. But maybe there are even more, like another Entry Point being a handler for the event fired when one of the choices gets selected; because then some logic could check if the button should be enabled because all questions got answered. Or another Entry Point for the logic to be executed when the program is close; because then the choices made should be persisted. You see, an Entry Point to me is a function which gets triggered by the user of a software. With batch programs that´s the main function. With GUI programs on the desktop that´s event handlers. With web programs that´s handlers for URL routes. And my basic suggestion to help you with slicing requirements for Spinning is: Slice them in a way so that each increment is related to only one Entry Point function.[2] Entry Points are the “outer functions” of a program. That´s where the environment triggers behavior. That´s where hardware meets software. Entry points always get called because something happened to hardware state, e.g. a key was pressed, a mouse button clicked, the system timer ticked, data arrived over a wire.[3] Viewed from the outside, software is just a collection of Entry Point functions made accessible via buttons to press, menu items to click, gestures, URLs to open, keys to enter. Collections of batch processors I´d thus say, we haven´t moved forward since the early days of software development. We´re still writing batch programs. Forget about “event-driven programming” with its fancy GUI applications. Software is just a collection of batch processors. Earlier it was just one per program, today it´s hundreds we bundle up into applications. Each batch processor is represented by an Entry Point as its root that works on a number of resources from which it reads data to process and to which it writes results. These resources can be the keyboard or main memory or a hard disk or a communication line or a display. Together many batch processors - large and small - form applications the user perceives as a single whole: Software development that way becomes quite simple: just implement one batch processor after another. Well, at least in principle ;-) Features Each batch processor entered through an Entry Point delivers value to the user. It´s an increment. Sometimes its logic is trivial, sometimes it´s very complex. Regardless, each Entry Point represents an increment. An Entry Point implemented thus is a step forward in terms of Agility. At the same time it´s a tangible unit for developers. Therefore, identifying the more or less numerous batch processors in a software system is a rewarding task for product owners and developers alike. That´s where user stories meet code. In this example the user story translates to the Entry Point triggered by clicking the login button on a dialog like this: The batch then retrieves what has been entered via keyboard, loads data from a user store, and finally outputs some kind of response on the screen, e.g. by displaying an error message or showing the next dialog. This is all very simple, but you see, there is not just one thing happening, but several. Get input (email address, password) Load user for email address If user not found report error Check password Hash password Compare hash to hash stored in user Show next dialog Viewed from 10,000 feet it´s all done by the Entry Point function. And of course that´s technically possible. It´s just a bunch of logic and calling a couple of API functions. However, I suggest to take these steps as distinct aspects of the overall requirement described by the user story. Such aspects of requirements I call Features. Features too are increments. Each provides some (small) value of its own to the user. Each can be checked individually by a product owner. Instead of implementing all the logic behind the Login() entry point at once you can move forward increment by increment, e.g. First implement the dialog, let the user enter any credentials, and log him/her in without any checks. Features 1 and 4. Then hard code a single user and check the email address. Features 2 and 2.1. Then check password without hashing it (or use a very simple hash like the length of the password). Features 3. and 3.2 Replace hard coded user with a persistent user directoy, but a very simple one, e.g. a CSV file. Refinement of feature 2. Calculate the real hash for the password. Feature 3.1. Switch to the final user directory technology. Each feature provides an opportunity to deliver results in a short amount of time and get feedback. If you´re in doubt whether you can implement the whole entry point function until tomorrow night, then just go for a couple of features or even just one. That´s also why I think, you should strive for wrapping feature logic into a function of its own. It´s a matter of Evolvability and Production Efficiency. A function per feature makes the code more readable, since the language of requirements analysis and design is carried over into implementation. It makes it easier to apply changes to features because it´s clear where their logic is located. And finally, of course, it lets you re-use features in different context (read: increments). Feature functions make it easier for you to think of features as Spinning increments, to implement them independently, to let the product owner check them for acceptance individually. Increments consist of features, entry point functions consist of feature functions. So you can view software as a hierarchy of requirements from broad to thin which map to a hierarchy of functions - with entry points at the top.   I like this image of software as a self-similar structure on many levels of abstraction where requirements and code match each other. That to me is true agile design: the core tenet of Agility to move forward in increments is carried over into implementation. Increments on paper are retained in code. This way developers can easily relate to product owners. Elusive and fuzzy requirements are not tangible. Software production is moving forward through requirements one increment at a time, and one function at a time. In closing Product owners and developers are different - but they need to work together towards a shared goal: working software. So their notions of software need to be made compatible, they need to be connected. The increments of the product owner - user stories and features - need to be mapped straightforwardly to something which is relevant to developers. To me that´s functions. Yes, functions, not classes nor components nor micro services. We´re talking about behavior, actions, activities, processes. Their natural representation is a function. Something has to be done. Logic has to be executed. That´s the purpose of functions. Later, classes and other containers are needed to stay on top of a growing amount of logic. But to connect developers and product owners functions are the appropriate glue. Functions which represent increments. Can there always be such a small increment be found to deliver until tomorrow evening? I boldly say yes. Yes, it´s always possible. But maybe you´ve to start thinking differently. Maybe the product owner needs to start thinking differently. Completion is not the goal anymore. Neither is checking the delivery of an increment through the user interface of a software. Product owners need to become comfortable using test beds for certain features. If it´s hard to slice requirements thin enough for Spinning the reason is too little knowledge of something. Maybe you don´t yet understand the problem domain well enough? Maybe you don´t yet feel comfortable with some tool or technology? Then it´s time to acknowledge this fact. Be honest about your not knowing. And instead of trying to deliver as a craftsman officially become a researcher. Research an check back with the product owner every day - until your understanding has grown to a level where you are able to define the next Spinning increment. ? Sometimes even thin requirement slices will cover several Entry Points, like “Add validation of email addresses to all relevant dialogs.” Validation then will it put into a dozen functons. Still, though, it´s important to determine which Entry Points exactly get affected. That´s much easier, if strive for keeping the number of Entry Points per increment to 1. ? If you like call Entry Point functions event handlers, because that´s what they are. They all handle events of some kind, whether that´s palpable in your code or note. A public void btnSave_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {…} might look like an event handler to you, but public static void Main() {…} is one also - for then event “program started”. ?

  Read the article

• Unable to connect to Samba printer

  - by user127236

  I have a headless Ubuntu 12.04 server for files and printers. It shares files via Samba just fine. However, the HP PSC-750xi connected to the server via USB is not accessible from my Ubuntu 12.04 laptop. I can browse for it in the Printing control panel, but any attempt to authenticate my ID to the printer with my user credentials results in the error "This print share is not accessible". I have included the Samba smb.conf file below. Any help appreciated. Thanks... JGB # # Sample configuration file for the Samba suite for Debian GNU/Linux. # # # This is the main Samba configuration file. You should read the # smb.conf(5) manual page in order to understand the options listed # here. Samba has a huge number of configurable options most of which # are not shown in this example # # Some options that are often worth tuning have been included as # commented-out examples in this file. # - When such options are commented with ";", the proposed setting # differs from the default Samba behaviour # - When commented with "#", the proposed setting is the default # behaviour of Samba but the option is considered important # enough to be mentioned here # # NOTE: Whenever you modify this file you should run the command # "testparm" to check that you have not made any basic syntactic # errors. # A well-established practice is to name the original file # "smb.conf.master" and create the "real" config file with # testparm -s smb.conf.master >smb.conf # This minimizes the size of the really used smb.conf file # which, according to the Samba Team, impacts performance # However, use this with caution if your smb.conf file contains nested # "include" statements. See Debian bug #483187 for a case # where using a master file is not a good idea. # #======================= Global Settings ======================= [global] log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m passwd chat = *Enter\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *Retype\snew\s*\spassword:* %n\n *password\supdated\ssuccessfully* . obey pam restrictions = yes map to guest = bad user encrypt passwords = true passwd program = /usr/bin/passwd %u passdb backend = tdbsam dns proxy = no writeable = yes server string = %h server (Samba, Ubuntu) unix password sync = yes workgroup = WORKGROUP syslog = 0 panic action = /usr/share/samba/panic-action %d usershare allow guests = yes max log size = 1000 pam password change = yes ## Browsing/Identification ### # Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of # server string is the equivalent of the NT Description field # Windows Internet Name Serving Support Section: # WINS Support - Tells the NMBD component of Samba to enable its WINS Server # wins support = no # WINS Server - Tells the NMBD components of Samba to be a WINS Client # Note: Samba can be either a WINS Server, or a WINS Client, but NOT both ; wins server = w.x.y.z # This will prevent nmbd to search for NetBIOS names through DNS. # What naming service and in what order should we use to resolve host names # to IP addresses ; name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast #### Networking #### # The specific set of interfaces / networks to bind to # This can be either the interface name or an IP address/netmask; # interface names are normally preferred ; interfaces = 127.0.0.0/8 eth0 # Only bind to the named interfaces and/or networks; you must use the # 'interfaces' option above to use this. # It is recommended that you enable this feature if your Samba machine is # not protected by a firewall or is a firewall itself. However, this # option cannot handle dynamic or non-broadcast interfaces correctly. ; bind interfaces only = yes #### Debugging/Accounting #### # This tells Samba to use a separate log file for each machine # that connects # Cap the size of the individual log files (in KiB). # If you want Samba to only log through syslog then set the following # parameter to 'yes'. # syslog only = no # We want Samba to log a minimum amount of information to syslog. Everything # should go to /var/log/samba/log.{smbd,nmbd} instead. If you want to log # through syslog you should set the following parameter to something higher. # Do something sensible when Samba crashes: mail the admin a backtrace ####### Authentication ####### # "security = user" is always a good idea. This will require a Unix account # in this server for every user accessing the server. See # /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/ServerType.html # in the samba-doc package for details. # security = user # You may wish to use password encryption. See the section on # 'encrypt passwords' in the smb.conf(5) manpage before enabling. # If you are using encrypted passwords, Samba will need to know what # password database type you are using. # This boolean parameter controls whether Samba attempts to sync the Unix # password with the SMB password when the encrypted SMB password in the # passdb is changed. # For Unix password sync to work on a Debian GNU/Linux system, the following # parameters must be set (thanks to Ian Kahan <<[email protected]> for # sending the correct chat script for the passwd program in Debian Sarge). # This boolean controls whether PAM will be used for password changes # when requested by an SMB client instead of the program listed in # 'passwd program'. The default is 'no'. # This option controls how unsuccessful authentication attempts are mapped # to anonymous connections ########## Domains ########### # Is this machine able to authenticate users. Both PDC and BDC # must have this setting enabled. If you are the BDC you must # change the 'domain master' setting to no # ; domain logons = yes # # The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set # It specifies the location of the user's profile directory # from the client point of view) # The following required a [profiles] share to be setup on the # samba server (see below) ; logon path = \\%N\profiles\%U # Another common choice is storing the profile in the user's home directory # (this is Samba's default) # logon path = \\%N\%U\profile # The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set # It specifies the location of a user's home directory (from the client # point of view) ; logon drive = H: # logon home = \\%N\%U # The following setting only takes effect if 'domain logons' is set # It specifies the script to run during logon. The script must be stored # in the [netlogon] share # NOTE: Must be store in 'DOS' file format convention ; logon script = logon.cmd # This allows Unix users to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR # RPC pipe. The example command creates a user account with a disabled Unix # password; please adapt to your needs ; add user script = /usr/sbin/adduser --quiet --disabled-password --gecos "" %u # This allows machine accounts to be created on the domain controller via the # SAMR RPC pipe. # The following assumes a "machines" group exists on the system ; add machine script = /usr/sbin/useradd -g machines -c "%u machine account" -d /var/lib/samba -s /bin/false %u # This allows Unix groups to be created on the domain controller via the SAMR # RPC pipe. ; add group script = /usr/sbin/addgroup --force-badname %g ########## Printing ########## # If you want to automatically load your printer list rather # than setting them up individually then you'll need this # load printers = yes # lpr(ng) printing. You may wish to override the location of the # printcap file ; printing = bsd ; printcap name = /etc/printcap # CUPS printing. See also the cupsaddsmb(8) manpage in the # cupsys-client package. ; printing = cups ; printcap name = cups ############ Misc ############ # Using the following line enables you to customise your configuration # on a per machine basis. The %m gets replaced with the netbios name # of the machine that is connecting ; include = /home/samba/etc/smb.conf.%m # Most people will find that this option gives better performance. # See smb.conf(5) and /usr/share/doc/samba-doc/htmldocs/Samba3-HOWTO/speed.html # for details # You may want to add the following on a Linux system: # SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192 # socket options = TCP_NODELAY # The following parameter is useful only if you have the linpopup package # installed. The samba maintainer and the linpopup maintainer are # working to ease installation and configuration of linpopup and samba. ; message command = /bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/linpopup "%f" "%m" %s; rm %s' & # Domain Master specifies Samba to be the Domain Master Browser. If this # machine will be configured as a BDC (a secondary logon server), you # must set this to 'no'; otherwise, the default behavior is recommended. # domain master = auto # Some defaults for winbind (make sure you're not using the ranges # for something else.) ; idmap uid = 10000-20000 ; idmap gid = 10000-20000 ; template shell = /bin/bash # The following was the default behaviour in sarge, # but samba upstream reverted the default because it might induce # performance issues in large organizations. # See Debian bug #368251 for some of the consequences of *not* # having this setting and smb.conf(5) for details. ; winbind enum groups = yes ; winbind enum users = yes # Setup usershare options to enable non-root users to share folders # with the net usershare command. # Maximum number of usershare. 0 (default) means that usershare is disabled. ; usershare max shares = 100 # Allow users who've been granted usershare privileges to create # public shares, not just authenticated ones #======================= Share Definitions ======================= # Un-comment the following (and tweak the other settings below to suit) # to enable the default home directory shares. This will share each # user's home director as \\server\username ;[homes] ; comment = Home Directories ; browseable = no # By default, the home directories are exported read-only. Change the # next parameter to 'no' if you want to be able to write to them. ; read only = yes # File creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to # create files with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775. ; create mask = 0700 # Directory creation mask is set to 0700 for security reasons. If you want to # create dirs. with group=rw permissions, set next parameter to 0775. ; directory mask = 0700 # By default, \\server\username shares can be connected to by anyone # with access to the samba server. Un-comment the following parameter # to make sure that only "username" can connect to \\server\username # The following parameter makes sure that only "username" can connect # # This might need tweaking when using external authentication schemes ; valid users = %S # Un-comment the following and create the netlogon directory for Domain Logons # (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.) ;[netlogon] ; comment = Network Logon Service ; path = /home/samba/netlogon ; guest ok = yes ; read only = yes # Un-comment the following and create the profiles directory to store # users profiles (see the "logon path" option above) # (you need to configure Samba to act as a domain controller too.) # The path below should be writable by all users so that their # profile directory may be created the first time they log on ;[profiles] ; comment = Users profiles ; path = /home/samba/profiles ; guest ok = no ; browseable = no ; create mask = 0600 ; directory mask = 0700 [printers] comment = All Printers browseable = no path = /var/spool/samba printable = yes guest ok = no read only = yes create mask = 0700 # Windows clients look for this share name as a source of downloadable # printer drivers [print$] comment = Printer Drivers browseable = yes writeable = no path = /var/lib/samba/printers # Uncomment to allow remote administration of Windows print drivers. # You may need to replace 'lpadmin' with the name of the group your # admin users are members of. # Please note that you also need to set appropriate Unix permissions # to the drivers directory for these users to have write rights in it ; write list = root, @lpadmin # A sample share for sharing your CD-ROM with others. ;[cdrom] ; comment = Samba server's CD-ROM ; read only = yes ; locking = no ; path = /cdrom ; guest ok = yes # The next two parameters show how to auto-mount a CD-ROM when the # cdrom share is accesed. For this to work /etc/fstab must contain # an entry like this: # # /dev/scd0 /cdrom iso9660 defaults,noauto,ro,user 0 0 # # The CD-ROM gets unmounted automatically after the connection to the # # If you don't want to use auto-mounting/unmounting make sure the CD # is mounted on /cdrom # ; preexec = /bin/mount /cdrom ; postexec = /bin/umount /cdrom [mediafiles] path = /media/multimedia/

  Read the article

• Oracle BI Server Modeling, Part 1- Designing a Query Factory

  - by bob.ertl(at)oracle.com

    Welcome to Oracle BI Development's BI Foundation blog, focused on helping you get the most value from your Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BI EE) platform deployments.  In my first series of posts, I plan to show developers the concepts and best practices for modeling in the Common Enterprise Information Model (CEIM), the semantic layer of Oracle BI EE.  In this segment, I will lay the groundwork for the modeling concepts.  First, I will cover the big picture of how the BI Server fits into the system, and how the CEIM controls the query processing. Oracle BI EE Query Cycle The purpose of the Oracle BI Server is to bridge the gap between the presentation services and the data sources.  There are typically a variety of data sources in a variety of technologies: relational, normalized transaction systems; relational star-schema data warehouses and marts; multidimensional analytic cubes and financial applications; flat files, Excel files, XML files, and so on. Business datasets can reside in a single type of source, or, most of the time, are spread across various types of sources. Presentation services users are generally business people who need to be able to query that set of sources without any knowledge of technologies, schemas, or how sources are organized in their company. They think of business analysis in terms of measures with specific calculations, hierarchical dimensions for breaking those measures down, and detailed reports of the business transactions themselves.  Most of them create queries without knowing it, by picking a dashboard page and some filters.  Others create their own analysis by selecting metrics and dimensional attributes, and possibly creating additional calculations. The BI Server bridges that gap from simple business terms to technical physical queries by exposing just the business focused measures and dimensional attributes that business people can use in their analyses and dashboards.   After they make their selections and start the analysis, the BI Server plans the best way to query the data sources, writes the optimized sequence of physical queries to those sources, post-processes the results, and presents them to the client as a single result set suitable for tables, pivots and charts. The CEIM is a model that controls the processing of the BI Server.  It provides the subject areas that presentation services exposes for business users to select simplified metrics and dimensional attributes for their analysis.  It models the mappings to the physical data access, the calculations and logical transformations, and the data access security rules.  The CEIM consists of metadata stored in the repository, authored by developers using the Administration Tool client.     Presentation services and other query clients create their queries in BI EE's SQL-92 language, called Logical SQL or LSQL.  The API simply uses ODBC or JDBC to pass the query to the BI Server.  Presentation services writes the LSQL query in terms of the simplified objects presented to the users.  The BI Server creates a query plan, and rewrites the LSQL into fully-detailed SQL or other languages suitable for querying the physical sources.  For example, the LSQL on the left below was rewritten into the physical SQL for an Oracle 11g database on the right. Logical SQL   Physical SQL SELECT "D0 Time"."T02 Per Name Month" saw_0, "D4 Product"."P01  Product" saw_1, "F2 Units"."2-01  Billed Qty  (Sum All)" saw_2 FROM "Sample Sales" ORDER BY saw_0, saw_1       WITH SAWITH0 AS ( select T986.Per_Name_Month as c1, T879.Prod_Dsc as c2,      sum(T835.Units) as c3, T879.Prod_Key as c4 from      Product T879 /* A05 Product */ ,      Time_Mth T986 /* A08 Time Mth */ ,      FactsRev T835 /* A11 Revenue (Billed Time Join) */ where ( T835.Prod_Key = T879.Prod_Key and T835.Bill_Mth = T986.Row_Wid) group by T879.Prod_Dsc, T879.Prod_Key, T986.Per_Name_Month ) select SAWITH0.c1 as c1, SAWITH0.c2 as c2, SAWITH0.c3 as c3 from SAWITH0 order by c1, c2   Probably everybody reading this blog can write SQL or MDX.  However, the trick in designing the CEIM is that you are modeling a query-generation factory.  Rather than hand-crafting individual queries, you model behavior and relationships, thus configuring the BI Server machinery to manufacture millions of different queries in response to random user requests.  This mass production requires a different mindset and approach than when you are designing individual SQL statements in tools such as Oracle SQL Developer, Oracle Hyperion Interactive Reporting (formerly Brio), or Oracle BI Publisher.   The Structure of the Common Enterprise Information Model (CEIM) The CEIM has a unique structure specifically for modeling the relationships and behaviors that fill the gap from logical user requests to physical data source queries and back to the result.  The model divides the functionality into three specialized layers, called Presentation, Business Model and Mapping, and Physical, as shown below. Presentation services clients can generally only see the presentation layer, and the objects in the presentation layer are normally the only ones used in the LSQL request.  When a request comes into the BI Server from presentation services or another client, the relationships and objects in the model allow the BI Server to select the appropriate data sources, create a query plan, and generate the physical queries.  That's the left to right flow in the diagram below.  When the results come back from the data source queries, the right to left relationships in the model show how to transform the results and perform any final calculations and functions that could not be pushed down to the databases.   Business Model Think of the business model as the heart of the CEIM you are designing.  This is where you define the analytic behavior seen by the users, and the superset library of metric and dimension objects available to the user community as a whole.  It also provides the baseline business-friendly names and user-readable dictionary.  For these reasons, it is often called the "logical" model--it is a virtual database schema that persists no data, but can be queried as if it is a database. The business model always has a dimensional shape (more on this in future posts), and its simple shape and terminology hides the complexity of the source data models. Besides hiding complexity and normalizing terminology, this layer adds most of the analytic value, as well.  This is where you define the rich, dimensional behavior of the metrics and complex business calculations, as well as the conformed dimensions and hierarchies.  It contributes to the ease of use for business users, since the dimensional metric definitions apply in any context of filters and drill-downs, and the conformed dimensions enable dashboard-wide filters and guided analysis links that bring context along from one page to the next.  The conformed dimensions also provide a key to hiding the complexity of many sources, including federation of different databases, behind the simple business model. Note that the expression language in this layer is LSQL, so that any expression can be rewritten into any data source's query language at run time.  This is important for federation, where a given logical object can map to several different physical objects in different databases.  It is also important to portability of the CEIM to different database brands, which is a key requirement for Oracle's BI Applications products. Your requirements process with your user community will mostly affect the business model.  This is where you will define most of the things they specifically ask for, such as metric definitions.  For this reason, many of the best-practice methodologies of our consulting partners start with the high-level definition of this layer. Physical Model The physical model connects the business model that meets your users' requirements to the reality of the data sources you have available. In the query factory analogy, think of the physical layer as the bill of materials for generating physical queries.  Every schema, table, column, join, cube, hierarchy, etc., that will appear in any physical query manufactured at run time must be modeled here at design time. Each physical data source will have its own physical model, or "database" object in the CEIM.  The shape of each physical model matches the shape of its physical source.  In other words, if the source is normalized relational, the physical model will mimic that normalized shape.  If it is a hypercube, the physical model will have a hypercube shape.  If it is a flat file, it will have a denormalized tabular shape. To aid in query optimization, the physical layer also tracks the specifics of the database brand and release.  This allows the BI Server to make the most of each physical source's distinct capabilities, writing queries in its syntax, and using its specific functions. This allows the BI Server to push processing work as deep as possible into the physical source, which minimizes data movement and takes full advantage of the database's own optimizer.  For most data sources, native APIs are used to further optimize performance and functionality. The value of having a distinct separation between the logical (business) and physical models is encapsulation of the physical characteristics.  This encapsulation is another enabler of packaged BI applications and federation.  It is also key to hiding the complex shapes and relationships in the physical sources from the end users.  Consider a routine drill-down in the business model: physically, it can require a drill-through where the first query is MDX to a multidimensional cube, followed by the drill-down query in SQL to a normalized relational database.  The only difference from the user's point of view is that the 2nd query added a more detailed dimension level column - everything else was the same. Mappings Within the Business Model and Mapping Layer, the mappings provide the binding from each logical column and join in the dimensional business model, to each of the objects that can provide its data in the physical layer.  When there is more than one option for a physical source, rules in the mappings are applied to the query context to determine which of the data sources should be hit, and how to combine their results if more than one is used.  These rules specify aggregate navigation, vertical partitioning (fragmentation), and horizontal partitioning, any of which can be federated across multiple, heterogeneous sources.  These mappings are usually the most sophisticated part of the CEIM. Presentation You might think of the presentation layer as a set of very simple relational-like views into the business model.  Over ODBC/JDBC, they present a relational catalog consisting of databases, tables and columns.  For business users, presentation services interprets these as subject areas, folders and columns, respectively.  (Note that in 10g, subject areas were called presentation catalogs in the CEIM.  In this blog, I will stick to 11g terminology.)  Generally speaking, presentation services and other clients can query only these objects (there are exceptions for certain clients such as BI Publisher and Essbase Studio). The purpose of the presentation layer is to specialize the business model for different categories of users.  Based on a user's role, they will be restricted to specific subject areas, tables and columns for security.  The breakdown of the model into multiple subject areas organizes the content for users, and subjects superfluous to a particular business role can be hidden from that set of users.  Customized names and descriptions can be used to override the business model names for a specific audience.  Variables in the object names can be used for localization. For these reasons, you are better off thinking of the tables in the presentation layer as folders than as strict relational tables.  The real semantics of tables and how they function is in the business model, and any grouping of columns can be included in any table in the presentation layer.  In 11g, an LSQL query can also span multiple presentation subject areas, as long as they map to the same business model. Other Model Objects There are some objects that apply to multiple layers.  These include security-related objects, such as application roles, users, data filters, and query limits (governors).  There are also variables you can use in parameters and expressions, and initialization blocks for loading their initial values on a static or user session basis.  Finally, there are Multi-User Development (MUD) projects for developers to check out units of work, and objects for the marketing feature used by our packaged customer relationship management (CRM) software.   The Query Factory At this point, you should have a grasp on the query factory concept.  When developing the CEIM model, you are configuring the BI Server to automatically manufacture millions of queries in response to random user requests. You do this by defining the analytic behavior in the business model, mapping that to the physical data sources, and exposing it through the presentation layer's role-based subject areas. While configuring mass production requires a different mindset than when you hand-craft individual SQL or MDX statements, it builds on the modeling and query concepts you already understand. The following posts in this series will walk through the CEIM modeling concepts and best practices in detail.  We will initially review dimensional concepts so you can understand the business model, and then present a pattern-based approach to learning the mappings from a variety of physical schema shapes and deployments to the dimensional model.  Along the way, we will also present the dimensional calculation template, and learn how to configure the many additivity patterns.

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, February 12, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, February 12, 2011Popular ReleasesEnhSim: EnhSim 2.4.0: 2.4.0This release supports WoW patch 4.06 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 Changes since 2.3.0 - Upd...Sterling Isolated Storage Database with LINQ for Silverlight and Windows Phone 7: Sterling OODB v1.0: Note: use this changeset to download the source example that has been extended to show database generation, backup, and restore in the desktop example. Welcome to the Sterling 1.0 RTM. This version is not backwards-compatible with previous versions of Sterling. Sterling is also available via NuGet. This product has been used and tested in many applications and contains a full suite of unit tests. You can refer to the User's Guide for complete documentation, and use the unit tests as guide...PDF Rider: PDF Rider 0.5.1: Changes from the previous version * Use dynamic layout to better fit text in other languages * Includes French and Spanish localizations Prerequisites * Microsoft Windows Operating Systems (XP - Vista - 7) * Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 runtime * A PDF rendering software (i.e. Adobe Reader) that can be opened inside Internet Explorer. Installation instructionsChoose one of the following methods: 1. Download and run the "pdfRider0.5.1-setup.exe" (reccomended) 2. Down...Snoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.6.1: This release is a bug fixing release. Most importantly, issues have been seen around WPF 4.0 applications not always showing up in the app chooser. Hopefully, they are fixed now. I thought this issue warranted a minor release since more and more people are going WPF 4.0 and I don't want anyone to have any problems. Dan Hanan also contributes again with several usability features. Thanks Dan! Happy Snooping! p.s. By request, I am also attaching a .zip file ... so that people can install it ...RIBA - Rich Internet Business Application for Silverlight: Preview of MVVM Framework Source + Tutorials: This is a first public release of the MVVM Framework which is part of the final RIBA application. The complete RIBA example LOB application has yet to be published. Further Documentation on the MVVM part can be found on the Blog, http://www.SilverlightBlog.Net and in the downloadable source ( mvvm/doc/ ). Please post all issues and suggestions in the issue tracker.SharePoint Learning Kit: 1.5: SharePoint Learning Kit 1.5 has the following new functionality: *Support for SharePoint 2010 *E-Learning Actions can be localised *Two New Document Library Edit Options *Automatically add the Assignment List Web Part to the Web Part Gallery *Various Bug Fixes for the Drop Box There are 2 downloads for this release SLK-1.5-2010.zip for SharePoint 2010 SLK-1.5-2007.zip for SharePoint 2007 (WSS3 & MOSS 2007)GMare: GMare Alpha 02: Alpha version 2. With fixes detailed in the issue tracker.Facebook C# SDK: 5.0.3 (BETA): This is fourth BETA release of the version 5 branch of the Facebook C# SDK. Remember this is a BETA build. Some things may change or not work exactly as planned. We are absolutely looking for feedback on this release to help us improve the final 5.X.X release. For more information about this release see the following blog posts: Facebook C# SDK - Writing your first Facebook Application Facebook C# SDK v5 Beta Internals Facebook C# SDK V5.0.0 (BETA) Released We have spend time trying ...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.161: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release adds a new Twitter List network importer, makes some minor feature improvements, and fixes a few bugs. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Installation StepsFollow these steps to install and use the template: Download the Zip file. Unzip it into any folder. Use WinZip or a similar program, or just right-click the Zip file...Finestra Virtual Desktops: 1.1: This release adds a few more performance and graphical enhancements to 1.0. Switching desktops is now about as fast as you can blink. Desktop switching optimizations New welcome wizard for Vista/7 Fixed a few minor bugs Added a few more options to the options dialog (including ability to disable the taskbar switching)WCF Data Services Toolkit: WCF Data Services Toolkit: The source code and binary releases of the WCF Data Services Toolkit. For simplicity, the source code download doesn't include any of the MSTest files. If you want those, you can pull the code down via MercurialyoutubeFisher: youtubeFisher 3.0 [beta]: What's new: Video capturing improved Supports YouTube's new layout (january 2011) Internal refactoringNearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v5.0: Version 5.0 of the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing the following improvements: .NET 4.0 as target framework using ASP.NET MVC 3. All views migrated to Razor for cleaner markup. Alternate template (Layout file) for mobile devices 4 Bug Fixes since Version 4.1 Visit the project Roadmap for more details. Webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 28785b7248052465ea0738a7775e8e8744d84c27fuv: 1.0 release, codename Chopper Joe: features: search/replace :o to open file :s to save file :q to quitASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.7: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager html generation optimized new features for the lookup (add additional search data ) live demo went aeroAutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.5: AutoChat now allows up to 6 items. Items with nr. 7-0 will be removed! News page url's are now opened in the default browser Added a context menu to the system tray icon (thanks to Alex Banagos) AutoChat now allows configuring the Chat Keys and the Modifier Key The recent files list now supports compact and full mode Fix: Swapped mouse buttons are now properly detected Fix: Sometimes the Play button was pressed while still greyed out Champion: Karma Note: You can also run the u...mojoPortal: 2.3.6.2: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2362-released.aspx Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Rawr: Rawr 4.0.19 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Trac...IronRuby: 1.1.2: IronRuby 1.1.2 is a servicing release that keeps on improving compatibility with Ruby 1.9.2 and includes IronRuby integration to Visual Studio 2010. We decided to drop 1.8.6 compatibility mode in all post-1.0 releases. We recommend using IronRuby 1.0 if you need 1.8.6 compatibility. In this release we fixed several major issues: - problems that blocked Gem installation in certain cases - regex syntax: the parser was replaced with a new one that is much more compatible with Ruby 1.9.2 - cras...MVVM Light Toolkit: MVVM Light Toolkit V3 SP1 (4): There was a small issue with the previous release that caused errors when installing the templates in VS10 Express. This release corrects the error. Only use this if you encountered issues when installing the previous release. No changes in the binaries.New Projects.net Statistics and Probability: z scores, ectAdvanced Lookup: Yet another custom lookup field. Advanced Lookup uses SharePoint 2010 dialog framework and supports Ajax autocomplete. Pop up dialog page could be any custom web part page containing AdvancedLookupDialogWebPart web part which should be connected to any other web parts on the pageBanico ERP: A Silverlight ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) application.Behavior in Visual Studio 2010 WPF and Silverlight Designer- Support Tool: This tool supports to add the Behavior, Trigger / Action to the Visual Studio 2010 WPF and Silverlight designer.Branch Navigator: This component can be used for navigating to the nearest branch or station. It can be applicable for company’s websites which already have several distributed branches. It is a completely separated module which can be easily removed from or added to the already existing websites.Consejo Guild Site MVC: This is a project for a website for our WoW guild.Cronus: An application that helps keep track of your time. Setup multiple tasks as part of different projects. Includes some basic reporting (summation) functionality.Custom SharePoint List Item Attachments versions: Recently, I am working on a custom requirement to have maintaining own file versions for SPListItem Attachments with one of my engagements. This forced me to have this code published for community to share IP. DashBoardApp: AppDigibiz Advanced Media Picker: The Digibiz Advanced Media Picker (DAMP) can be used to replace the normal media picker in Umbraco because it has a lot of extra features.DnsShell: DnsShell is a Microsoft DNS administration / management module written for PowerShell 2.0. DnsShell is developed in C#.Dragger - Sokoban clone written in C#: Dragger is a sokoban clone written in WinForms C# in 2008 by CrackSoft. Now its source is availableFingering: ??????Full Thrust Logic: This project is aimed at encapsulating the “Full Thrust” (http://www.groundzerogames.net/) starship miniatures rules. This C# business logic library will enable game developers to create games based on these rules at an accelerated pace.jQuery Camera Driver: A jQuery and URL based camera driverLoggingMagic: MSBuild task for adding some logging to your application. Inject calls to Log.Trace at the beginning of each method. Integrates with nlog, log4net or your custom static logger class within your assemblyNBug: NBug is a .NET library created to automate the bug reporting process. It automatically creates and sends: * Bug reports, * Crash reports with minidump, * Error/exception reports with stack trace + ext. info. It can also be set up as a user feedback system (i.e. feature requests).NJHSpotifyEngine: NJHspotifyEngine is a c# wrapper around the Spotify Search API.PragmaSQL: T-SQL script editor with syntax highlighting and lots of other features. Princeton SharePoint User Group CodeShare: Web Parts, script, master pages, and styles used in the creation of the Princeton SharePoint User Group site, located at http://www.princetonsug.com.Reg Explore - Registry editor written in C#: RegExplore is a registry editor written by CrackSoft and released in 2008 It is now made open sourceRegEx TestBed - A regular expression testing tool written in WinForms C#: RegEx TestBed is a regular expression testing tool written in WinForms C# released in 2007 It is now made open source.Soluzione di Single Signon per BPOS: La soluzione di Comedata è in grado di interagire con Active Directory per intercettare le modifiche alla password degli utenti nel dominio locale inserendo la stessa informazione nel sistema remoto Microsoft BpoS (Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite).syobon: based on opensyobon: http://sf.net/projects/opensyobonTietaaCal: TietaaCal is an opensource agenda/scheduler for Silverlight/MoonlightWCFReactiveX: WCFReactiveX is a .NET framework that provides an unified functional process to communicating with WCF clients built around IObserverable<T> and IObserver<T>

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 02, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 02, 2010New ProjectsBackupCleaner.Net: A C#.Net-based tool for automatically removing old backups selectively. It can be used when you already make daily backups on disk, and want to cle...C# Dotnetnuke Module development Template for Visual Studio 2010: C# DNN Module Development template for Visual Studio 2010 Get a head-start on DNN Module development. Whether you're a pro or just starting with D...Christoc's DotNetNuke C# Module Development Template: A quick and easy to use C# Module development template for DotNetNuke 5, Visual Studio 2008.Client per la digitalizzazione di documenti integrato con DotNetNuke: Questo applicativo in ambiente windows 32bit consente di digitalizzare documenti con piu scanner contemporaneamente, processare OCR in 17 Lingue (p...ContainerOne - C# application server: An application server completely written in c# (.net 4.0).Drop7 Silverlight: It's a clone of the original Drop7 written in Silverlight (C#). Echo.Net: Echo.Net is an embedded task manager for web and windows apps. It allows for simple management of background tasks at specific times. It's develope...energy: Smartgrid Demand Response ImplementationGenerate Twitter Message for Live Writer: This is a plug-in for Windows Live Writer that generates a twitter message with your blog post name and a TinyUrl link to the blog post. It will d...HomingCMS.Net: A lightweight cms.Information Système & Shell à distance: Un web service qui permet d'avoir des informations sur le système et de lancer de commande (terminal) à distance.Javascript And Jquery: gqq's javascript and jquery examplesMemory++: "Tweak the memory to speed up your computer" Memory ++ is basically an application that will speed up your computer ensuring comfort in their norma...Microformat Parsers for .NET: Microformat's Parsers for .NET helps you to collect information you run into on the web, that is stored by means of microformats. It's written in C...MoneyManager: Trying to make Personal Finances management System for my needs. Microsoft stopped to support MSMoney - it makes me so sad, so I wanna to make my ...Open source software for running a financial markets trading business: The core conceptual model will support running a business in the financial markets, for example running a trading exchange business.Ovik: Open Video Converter with simple and intuitive interface for converting video files to the open formats.Oxygen Smil Player: The <project name> is a open a-smil player implementation that is meaned to be connected to a Digital Signage CMS like Oxygen media platform ( www....Protect The Carrot: Protect The Carrot is a small fastpaced XNA game. You are a farmer whose single carrot is under attack by ravenous rabbits. You have to shoot the r...Race Day Commander: The core project is designed to support coaches of "long distance" or "endurance" sporting events coach their athletes during a race. The idea bein...Raygun Diplomacy: Raygun Diplomacy is an action shooter sandbox game set in a futuristic world. It will use procedural generation for the world, weapons, and vehicle...Resx-Translator-Bot: Resx-Translator-Bot uses Google Tanslate to automatically translate the .resx-files in your .NET and ASP.NET applications.Sistema de Expedición del Permiso Único de Siembra: Sistema de Expedición del Permiso Único de Siembra.SiteOA: 一个基于asp.net mvc2的OAStraighce: This is a low-featured, cyclic (log files reside in appname\1.txt to at mose 31.txt), thread-safe and non-blocking TraceListener with some extensio...Touch Mice: Touch Mice turns multiple mice on a computer into individual touch devices. This allows you to create multi-touch applications using the new touch...TStringValidator: A project helper to validate strings. Use this class to hold your regex strings for use with any project's string validation.Ultimate Dotnetnuke Skin Object: Ultimate Skin Object is a Dotnetnuke 5.4.2+ extension that will allow you to easily change your skins doc type, remove unneeded css files, inject e...Ventosus: Ventosus is an upcoming partially text-based game. No further information is available at this time.vit: vit based on asp.net mvcW7 Auto Playlist Generator: Purpose: This application is designed to create W7MC playlist automatically whenever you want. You can select if you want the playlist sorted Alpha...W7 Video Playlist Creator: Purpose: This program allows you to quickly create wvx video play list for Windows Media Center. This functionality is not included in WMC and is u...New ReleasesBCryptTool: BCryptTool v0.2.1: The Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 is needed to run this program.BFBC2 PRoCon: PRoCon 0.5.2.0: Notes available on phogue.netC# Dotnetnuke Module development Template for Visual Studio 2010: DNNModule 1.0: This is the initial release of DNNModule as was available for download from http://www.subodh.com/Projects/DNNModule In this release: Contains one...Client per la digitalizzazione di documenti integrato con DotNetNuke: Versione 3.0.1: Versione 3.0.1CommonLibrary.NET: CommonLibrary.NET 0.9.4 - Final Release: A collection of very reusable code and components in C# 3.5 ranging from ActiveRecord, Csv, Command Line Parsing, Configuration, Holiday Calendars,...Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V20: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has ad...Community Forums NNTP bridge: Community Forums NNTP Bridge V21: Release of the Community Forums NNTP Bridge to access the social and anwsers MS forums with a single, open source NNTP bridge. This release has ad...DirectQ: Release 1.8.4: Significant bug fixes and improvments over 1.8.3c; there may be some bugs that I haven't caught here as development became a little disjointed towa...DotNetNuke 5 Thai Language Pack: 1.0.1: Fixed Installation Problem. Version 1.0 -> 1.0.1 Type : Character encoding. Change : ().dnn description file to "ไทย (ไทย)".dnnEcho.Net: Echo.Net 1.0: Initial release of Echo.Net.Extend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.018: ShapeMaker, Program Window, Timer, and many threading errors fixedExtend SmallBasic: Teaching Extensions v.019: Added Rectangles to shapemaker, and the bubble quizGenerate Twitter Message for Live Writer: Final Source Code Plus Binaries: Compete C# source code available below. I have also included the binary for those that just want to run it.GoogleMap Control: GoogleMap Control 4.5: Map and map events are only functional. New state, persistence and event implementation in progress. Javascript classes are implemented as MS AJAX ...Industrial Dashboard: ID 3.1: -Added new widget IndustrialSlickGrid. -Added example with IndustrialChart.LongBar: LongBar 2.1 Build 310: - Library: Double-clicking on tile will install it - Feedback: Now you can type your e-mail and comment for errorMavention: Mavention Insert Lorem ipsum: A Sandbox Solution for SharePoint 2010 that allows you to easily insert Lorem ipsum text into RTE. More information and screenshots available @ htt...Memory++: Memory ++: Tweak the memory to speed up your computer Memory is basically an application that will speed up your computer ensuring comfort in their normal ac...MyVocabulary: Version 2.0: Improvements over version 1.0: Several bug fixes New shortcuts added to increase usability A new section for testing verbs was addednopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.: nopCommerce 1.60: You can also install nopCommerce using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. Simply click the button below: nopCommerce To see the full list of f...Nuntio Content: Nuntio Content 4.2.1: Patch release that fixes a couple of minor issues with version numbers and priority settings for role content. The release one package for DNN 4 an...Ovik: Ovik v0.0.1 (Preview Release): This is a very early preview release of Ovik. It contains only the pure processes of selecting files and launching a conversion process. Preview r...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.3c Production: This is a patch release for 26477. Want to contribute?Please refer the Contribute page. DonationsDonate via PayPal. If you want to, we can also a...PowerShell Admin Modules: PAM 0.2: Version 0.2 contains the PAMShare module with Get-Share Get-ShareAccessMask Get-ShareSecurity New-Share Remove-Share Set-Share and the PAMath modu...Professional MRDS: RDS 2008 R3 Release: This is an updated version of the code to work with RDS 2008 R3 (version 2.2.76.0). IMPORTANT NOTE These samples are supplied as a ZIP file. Unzip...Protect The Carrot: First release: We provide two ways to install the game. The first is PTC 1.0.0.0 Zip which contains a Click-Once installer (the DVD type since codeplex does not...PST File Format SDK: PST File Format SDK v0.2.0: Updated version of pstsdk with several bug fixes, including: Improved compiler support (several changes, including two patches from hub) Fixed Do...Race Day Commander: Race Day Commander v1: First release. The exact code that was written on the day in 6 hours.Resx-Translator-Bot: Release 1.0: Initial releaseSalient.StackApps: JavaScript API Wrapper beta 2: This is the first draft of the generated JS wrapper. Added basic test coverage for each route that can also serve as basic usage examples. More i...SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Scripts & Utilities: PSSP2010 Utils 0.2: Added Install-SPIFilter script cmdlet More information can be found at http://www.ravichaganti.com/blog/?p=1439SharePoint Tools from China Community: ECB菜单控制器: ECB菜单控制器Shopping Cart .NET: 1.5: Shopping Cart .NET 1.5 has received an upgrade to .NET 4.0 along with SQL Server 2005/8. There is a new AJAX Based inventory system that helps you ...sMODfix: sMODfix v1.0b: Added: provisional support for ecm_v54 Added: provisional support for gfx_v88SNCFT Gadget: SNCFT gadget v1: cette version est la version 1 de ma gadgetSnippet Designer: Snippet Designer 1.3: Change logChanges for Visual Studio 2010Fixed bug where "Export as Snippet" was failing in a website project Changed Snippet Explorer search to u...sNPCedit: sNPCedit v0.9b: + Fixed: structure of resources + Changed: some labels in GUISoftware Is Hardwork: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+05: Sw. Is Hw. Lib. 3.0.0.x+05SQL Server PowerShell Extensions: 2.2.3 Beta: Release 2.2 re-implements SQLPSX as PowersShell version 2.0 modules. SQLPSX consists of 9 modules with 133 advanced functions, 2 cmdlets and 7 scri...StackOverflow.Net: Preview Beta: Goes with the Stack Apps API version 0.8Ultimate Dotnetnuke Skin Object: Ultimate Skin Object V1.00.00: Ultimate Skin Object is a Dotnetnuke 5.4.2+ extension that will allow you to easily change your skins doc type, remove unneeded css files, inject e...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30601.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVelocity Shop: JUNE 2010: Source code aligned to .NET Framework 4.0, ASP.NET 4.0 and Windows Server AppFabric Caching RC.ViperWorks Ignition: ViperWorks_5.0.1005.31: ViperWorks Ignition Source, version 5.0.1005.31.Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 VM Factory: Session Recordings: This release contains the "raw" and undedited session recordings and slides delivered by the team. 2010-06-01 Create package and add two session r...W7 Auto Playlist Generator: Source Code plus Binaries: Compete C# and WinForm source code available below. I have also included the binary for those that just want to run it.W7 Video Playlist Creator: Source Code plus Binaries: Compete C# and WPF source code available below. I have also included the binary for those that just want to run it.Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryPHPExcelMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NETMost Active ProjectsCommunity Forums NNTP bridgepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationBlogEngine.NETIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterMirror Testing SystemRawrCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and SilverlightPHPExcelCustomer Portal Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 31, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 31, 2011Popular ReleasesNearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v6.0: Version 6.0 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing new features: Authentication using Membership Provider for SQL Server and MySql Spam prevention: Flood Control Moderation: Flag messages Content management: Pages: Create pages (about us/contact/texts) through web administration Allow nearforums to run as an IIS subapp Migrated Facebook Connect to OAuth 2.0 Visit the project Roadmap for more details.NetOffice - The easiest way to use Office in .NET: NetOffice Release 0.8b: Changes: - fix critical issue 15922(AccessViolationException) once and for all update is strongly recommended Includes: - Runtime Binaries and Source Code for .NET Framework:......v2.0, v3.0, v3.5, v4.0 - Tutorials in C# and VB.Net:..............................................................COM Proxy Management, Events, etc. - Examples in C# and VB.Net:............................................................Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access - COMAddin Examples in C# and VB....Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 1.5.4186: Updates the API in response to Facebook's recent change of policy: All Graph Api accessing feeds or posts must provide a AccessToken.SharePoint Farm Poster: SharePoint Farm Poster: SharePoint Farm Poster is generated by a PowerShell Script. Run this script under the Farm Admin Account. After downloading, unblock the file in the Property Window. Current version is beta : v0.3.0VCC: Latest build, v2.1.40530.0: Automatic drop of latest buildServiio for Windows Home Server: Beta Release 0.5.2.0: Ready for widespread beta. Synchronized build number to Serviio version to avoid confusion.AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta4: ??AcDown?????????????，??????????????，????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta4 2011-5-31?? ???Bilibili.us????? ???? ?? ???"????" ???Bilibili.us??? ??????? ?? ??????? ?? ???????? ?? ?? ???Bilibili.us?????(??????????????????) ??????(6.cn)?????(????) ?? ?????Acfun?????????? ?????????????? ???QQ???????? ????????????Discussion...Terraria Map Generator: TerrariaMapTool 1.0.0.2 Beta: Version 1.0.0.2 Beta Release - Now has a Gui - Draws backgrounds (May still not be exact) - Hopefully fixed support on DirectX 9 machine.CodeCopy Auto Code Converter: Code Copy v0.1: Full add-in, setup project source code and setup fileEnhSim: EnhSim 2.4.5 ALPHA: 2.4.5 ALPHAThis release supports WoW patch 4.1 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Added in the T12 s...TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v2.4.1: Added Piggy Bank editor and fixed some minor bugs.Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.02: What is new in kooboo cms 3.02 The most important updates of this version is the Kooboo site builder, an unique and creative web design tool, design an professional website and export to Kooboo CMS. See: http://www.sitekin.com Add Version contorl on View, Layout and other elements. Add user CMS language selection, user can select a language to use on their CMS backend. Add User profile provider, you can use now stop website user information on a SQL database. Previously it stored on XML...mojoPortal: 2.3.6.6: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2366-released Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Terraria World Creator: Terraria World Creator: Version 1.01 Fixed a bug that would cause the application to crash. Re-named the Application.VidCoder: 0.9.0: New startup UI for one-click scanning of discs or opening a file/folder. New seek bar on the preview window to make switching previews easier (you can click anywhere on the bar). Added gradient backgrounds to the main window to visually group the sections. Added Open Video File and Open Video Folder options to the File menu. Moved preview button to be in line with the other control buttons. Fixed settings getting in a weird state if they were saved without an output folder being chos...General Media Access WebService: 0.2.0.0 Beta: Updated GMA release with sorting/ordering mechanisms. Several bug fixes.Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - a centralized code sample library: All-In-One Code Framework 2011-05-26: Alternatively, you can install Sample Browser or Sample Browser VS extension, and download the code samples from Sample Browser. Improved and Newly Added Examples:For an up-to-date code sample index, please refer to All-In-One Code Framework Sample Catalog. NEW Samples for Dynamics Sample Description Owner CSDynamicsNAVWebServices The code sample shows syntax for calling Dynamics NAV Web Services. Lars Lohndorf-Larsen NEW Samples for WPF Sample Description Owner CSWPFDataGridCustomS...Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.1: Update May 26th Added Chest Filtering, this allows chests only containing certain items to have their symbol drawn. (Its under advanced settings tab) GUI elements (checkboxes/etc) are persistant between uses of the application Beta Worlds (i.e. Release #38) will work properly Symbols can be enabled or disabled on a per symbol basis Chest Information tab which is just a dump of the current chest information Meterorite is now visible as a bright magenta pink Application defaults to ...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.1 RC: *Added: Compatibility with jQuery 1.6.1 Rendering of enumerables with images and/or customizable strings improved the client side tempate engine added new parameters to the template definition binding all new knockout bindings helpers have been fully implemented added a new overload for defining the client-side ViewModel The SetTme method has the option to store the theme in a permanent cookie If no CSS class is provided for the watermark of a TypedTextBox the watermark class of the current t...patterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk - Documentation Only Drop - May 24: To get the latest code, please see the previous drop here. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The following chapters (provided in CHM or PDF format) are ready for community review. Our team very much appreciates your feedback and technical review. All documentation feedback should be posted in the Issue Tracker; if required, a document can be attached along with the feedback. Architecture jQuery UI Widgets Server-Side Implementation Security Unit Testing Web Applications Widget Q...New Projects#liveDB: liveDB is an in-memory database engine for Microsoft .NET providing full ACID support, lightning fast performance and offering a significant reduction of development and operational costs. liveDB is built on Live Domain Technology(TM).8 hours: 8hours Private studyABox2d: A port of Box 2d game engine doing it has an exercise to study how the game engine work.ADempiere.NET: If I have enough time and support I we will translate this into .NETAlmonaster: Almonaster is a turn-based multi-player war game. It is free for all players and comes with absolutely no warranty. The game is fully web-based and requires no downloads, Javascript, Java or ActiveX controls. ASPone API: ASPone partnerské API (aplikacní programové rozhraní) je rozhraní pro vytvorené a urcené pro partnery spolecnosti ASPone, s.r.o. Pomocí tohoto aplikacního rozhraní mužete zautomatizovat radu úkonu, které by pomocí webového rozhraní mohly být casove nárocnejší nebo vyžadují interakci cloveka. API umožnuje zautomatizovat radu úkonu souvisejících se správou domén, doménových kontaktu, webhostingu, databází, serveru a mnoha dalších. Pro zjednodušení práce s API jsou již pripraveni dva ukázkový...CodeCopy Auto Code Converter: This add-in project converts c# and vb.net codes in visual studio.drms: Data Resource Management SystemDrop Down CheckBoxList control (DropDownCheckBoxes): DropDownCheckBoxes is an ASP.NET server control directly inheriting standard ASP.NET CheckBoxList control and fully it supports parent's API (except members responsible for rendering and styling). Thus in most cases CheckBoxList control can be simply replaced with DropDownCheckBoxes with no need to change any data binding code or event handlers. In normal state the control is displayed as a select (DropDownList) control. Clicking the expand button shows a list with check boxes. When the se...Extended Registration module for Orchard CMS: This project has a dependency on the Contrib.Profile module. With this module enabled, users must fill out any parts you add to the User ContentItem in the Registration page. Ideal if you require additional information from your users.GreenWay: Car navigation softwareHost Profiles: Host Profiles is small tool to control, switch and management the hosts file of the computer. The hosts file is located in "c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts".HRM System MVVM sample code: This is the sample WPF MVVM application that i've described in my blog posts. I hope to give you a clear view of mvvm and other commonly used patterns.Mi Game Library: Ever wanted to store all the games you own into one place that you, could then later come see and search also with your own personal wish list!Micorrhiza: Micorrhiza is a client-server solution written in C# for voice- and video-communications between users in local and global networks.MPlayer.NET for Windows Forms & WPF: MPlayer.NET is a wrapper around MPlayer executable. It's developed on .NET platform and includes visual controls for both Windows Forms and WPF applications.MyGet - NuGet-as-a-Service: This project is the source for http://myget.org. MyGet offers you the possibility to create your own, private, filtered NuGet feed for use in the Visual Studio Package Manager. It can contain packages from the official NuGet feed as well as your private packages, hosted on MyGet.MZExtensions: A collection of handy C# Extension Methods.NCAds: NCadsNetSync: Universal file synchronization agent.OLE 1C7.7: OLE 1C7.7 ?????????? ??????? ??? ??????? ? 1?7.7 ????????? OLE ??????????.Pear 2.5: Pear 2.5 is a web browser which has MetroUI which is also known for WP7. Pear 2.5's graphics is totally made up with MetroUI and looks stunning when browse. This version has 3 builds - 2 alpha builds and 1 gamma delta (beta) build. It's developed in VB.NET which is the easiest.ProjectOne: ProjectOne is a Open Community Information Sharing Website regarding Realty as its primary source.russomi: russomiSopaco Server Foundation 1.x: The one earlier version of my server infrastructure(SSF, Sopaco Server Foundation 1.x, owned by ??)。 Network Layer Based On MINA， message meta in 1.x is hard coded to 6bytes message header like this struct NetworkMessageHeader { short msgId; int msgLength; } struct NetworkMTray Timer: A simple timer/stopwatch which runs fromt he system tray. I started it as a hobby learning project to understand the Win32 API. Now open sourcing it to get more inputs about the same, and at the same time it may prove helpful to othersVENSOFT DIPERCAX: Proyecto Final del Curso de Proyectos II de la Universidad Privada del NorteWindows Phone Blog Menu: A Silverlight navigation control that looks like a Windows Phone 7. The live tiles are links to websites. Use this control on your blog or website to show your love for WP7. It is a creative way to link to external sites you are interested in.

  Read the article

• Configuring Oracle iPlanet WebServer / Oracle Traffic Director to use crypto accelerators on T4-1 servers

  - by mv

  Configuring Oracle iPlanet Web Server / Oracle Traffic Director to use crypto accelerators on T4-1 servers Jyri had written a technical article on Configuring Solaris Cryptographic Framework and Sun Java System Web Server 7 on Systems With UltraSPARC T1 Processors. I tried to find out what has changed since then in T4. I have used a T4-1 SPARC system with Solaris 10. Results slightly vary for Solaris 11.  For Solaris 11, the T4 optimization was implemented in libsoftcrypto.so while it was in pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so for Solaris 10. Overview of T4 processors is here in this blog. Many thanx to Chi-Chang Lin and Julien for their help. 1. Install Oracle iPlanet Web Server / Oracle Traffic Director.  Go to instance/config directory.  # cd /opt/oracle/webserver7/https-hostname.fqdn/config 2. List default PKCS#11 Modules # ../../bin/modutil -dbdir . -listListing of PKCS #11 Modules-----------------------------------------------------------1. NSS Internal PKCS #11 Moduleslots: 2 slots attachedstatus: loadedslot: NSS Internal Cryptographic Servicestoken: NSS Generic Crypto Servicesslot: NSS User Private Key and Certificate Servicestoken: NSS Certificate DB2. Root Certslibrary name: libnssckbi.soslots: 1 slot attachedstatus: loadedslot: NSS Builtin Objectstoken: Builtin Object Token----------------------------------------------------------- 3. Initialize the soft token data store in the $HOME/.sunw/pkcs11_softtoken/ directory # pktool setpin keystore=pkcs11Enter token passphrase: olderpasswordCreate new passphrase: passwordRe-enter new passphrase: passwordPassphrase changed. 4. Offload crypto operations to Solaris Crypto Framework on T4 $ ../../bin/modutil -dbdir . -nocertdb -add SCF -libfile /usr/lib/libpkcs11.so -mechanisms RSA:AES:SHA1:MD5 Module "SCF" added to database. Note that -nocertdb means modutil won't try to open the NSS softoken key database. It doesn't even have to be present. PKCS#11 library used is /usr/lib/libpkcs11.so. If the server is running in 64 bit mode, we have to use /usr/lib/64/libpkcs11.so Unlike T1 and T2, in T4 we do not have to disable mechanisms in softtoken provider using cryptoadm. 5. List again to check that a new module SCF is added # ../../bin/modutil -dbdir . -list Listing of PKCS #11 Modules-----------------------------------------------------------1. NSS Internal PKCS #11 Moduleslots: 2 slots attachedstatus: loadedslot: NSS Internal Cryptographic Servicestoken: NSS Generic Crypto Servicesslot: NSS User Private Key and Certificate Servicestoken: NSS Certificate DB2. SCFlibrary name: /usr/lib/libpkcs11.soslots: 2 slots attachedstatus: loadedslot: Sun Metaslottoken: Sun Metaslotslot: n2rng/0 SUNW_N2_Random_Number_Generator token: n2rng/0 SUNW_N2_RNG 3. Root Certs library name: libnssckbi.so slots: 1 slot attached status: loaded slot: NSS Builtin Objects token: Builtin Object Token----------------------------------------------------------- 6.  Create certificate in “Sun Metaslot” : I have used certutil, but you must use Admin Server CLI / GUI # ../../bin/certutil -S -x -n "Server-Cert" -t "CT,CT,CT" -s "CN=*.fqdn" -d . -h "Sun Metaslot"Enter Password or Pin for "Sun Metaslot": password 7. Verify that the certificate is created properly in “Sun Metslaot” # ../../bin/certutil -L -d . -h "Sun Metaslot"Certificate Nickname Trust AttributesSSL,S/MIME,JAR/XPIEnter Password or Pin for "Sun Metaslot": passwordSun Metaslot:Server-Cert CTu,Cu,Cu# 8. Associate this newly created certificate to http listener using Admin CLI/GUI. After that server.xml should have <http-listener> ...    <ssl>        <server-cert-nickname>Sun Metaslot:Server-Cert</server-cert-nicknamer>    </ssl> Note the prefix "Sun Metaslot" 9. Disable PKCS#11 bypass To use the accelerated AES algorithm, turn off PKCS#11 bypass, and configure modutil to have the AES mechanism go to the Metaslot. After you disable PKCS#11 bypasss using Admin GUI/CLI,  check that server.xml should have <server> ....    <pkcs11>         <enabled>1</enabled>         <allow-bypass>0</allow-bypass>     </pkcs11> With PKCS#11 bypass enabled, Oracle iPlanet Web Server will only use the RSA capability of the T4, provided certificate and key are stored in the T4 slot (Metaslot). Actually, the RSA op is never bypassed in NSS, it's always done with PKCS#11 calls. So the bypass settings won't affect the behavior of the probes for RSA at all. The only thing that matters if where the RSA key and certificate live, ie. which PKCS#11 token, and thus which PKCS#11 module gets called to do the work. If your certificate/key are in the NSS certificate/key db, you will see libsoftokn3/libfreebl libraries doing the RSA work. If they are in the Sun Metaslot, it should be the Solaris code. 10. Start the server instance # ../bin/startserv Oracle iPlanet Web Server 7.0.16 B09/14/2012 03:33Please enter the PIN for the "Sun Metaslot" token: password...info: HTTP3072: http-listener-1: https://hostname.fqdn:80 ready to accept requestsinfo: CORE3274: successful server startup 11. Figure out which process to run this DTrace script on # ps -eaf | grep webservd | grep -v dogwebservd 18224 18223 0 13:17:25 ? 0:07 webservd -d /opt/oracle/webserver7/https-hostname.fqdn/config -r /opt/root 18225 18224 0 13:17:25 ? 0:00 webservd -d /opt/oracle/webserver7/https-hostname.fqdn/config -r /opt/ (For Oracle Traffic Director look for process named "trafficd") We see that the child process id is “18225” 12. Clients for testing : You can use any browser. I used NSS tool tstclnt for testing $cat > req.txtGET /index.html HTTP/1.0 For checking both RSA and AES, I used cipher “:0035” which is TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA $./tstclnt -h hostname -p 80 -d . -T -f -o -v -c “:0035” < req.txt 13. How do I make sure that crypto accelerator is being used 13.1 Create DTrace script The following D script should be able to uncover whether T4-specific crypto routine are being called or not. It also displays stats per second. # cat > t4crypto.d#!/usr/sbin/dtrace -spid$target::*rsa*:entry,pid$target::*yf*:entry{    @ops[probemod, probefunc] = count();}tick-1sec{    printa(@ops);    trunc(@ops);} Invoke with './t4crypto.d -p <pid> ' 13.2 EXPECTED PROBES FOR Solaris 10 : If offloading to T4 HW are correctly set up, the expected DTrace output would have these probes and libraries library Operations PROBES pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so RSA soft_decrypt_rsa_pkcs_decode, soft_encrypt_rsa_pkcs_encode soft_rsa_crypt_init_common soft_rsa_decrypt, soft_rsa_encrypt soft_rsa_decrypt_common, soft_rsa_encrypt_common AES yf_aes_instructions_present yf_aes_expand256, yf_aes256_cbc_decrypt, yf_aes256_cbc_encrypt, yf_aes256_load_keys_for_decrypt, yf_aes256_load_keys_for_encrypt, Note that these are for 256, same for 128, 192... these are for cbc, same for ecb, ctr, cfb128... DES yf_des_expand, yf_des_instructions_present yf_des_encrypt libmd_psr.so MD5 yf_md5_multiblock, yf_md5_instruction_present SHA1 yf_sha1_instruction_present, yf_sha1_multibloc 13.3 SAMPLE OUTPUT FOR CIPHER TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0x0035) ON T4 SPARC SOLARIS 10 WITHOUT PKCS#11 BYPASS # ./t4crypto.d -p 18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   soft_decrypt_rsa_pkcs_decode    1 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   soft_rsa_crypt_init_common      1 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   soft_rsa_decrypt                1 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   big_mp_mul_yf                   2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   mpm_yf_mpmul                    2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   mpmul_arr_yf                    2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   rijndael_key_setup_enc_yf       2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   soft_rsa_decrypt_common         2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_aes_expand256                2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_aes256_cbc_decrypt           3 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_aes256_load_keys_for_decrypt 3 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   big_mont_mul_yf                 6 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   mm_yf_montmul                   6 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_des_instructions_present     6 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_aes256_cbc_encrypt           8 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_aes256_load_keys_for_encrypt 8 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_mpmul_present                8 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_aes_instructions_present    13 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_des_encrypt                 18 libmd_psr.so.1                yf_md5_multiblock              41 libmd_psr.so.1                yf_md5_instruction_present     72 libmd_psr.so.1                yf_sha1_instruction_present    82 libmd_psr.so.1                yf_sha1_multiblock             82 This indicates that both RSA and AES ops are done in Solaris Crypto Framework. 13.4 SAMPLE OUTPUT FOR CIPHER TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA (0x0035) ON T4 SPARC SOLARIS 10 WITH PKCS#11 BYPASS # ./t4crypto.d -p 18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   soft_decrypt_rsa_pkcs_decode 1 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   soft_rsa_crypt_init_common   1 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   soft_rsa_decrypt             1 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   soft_rsa_decrypt_common      1 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   big_mp_mul_yf                2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   mpm_yf_mpmul                 2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   mpmul_arr_yf                 2 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   big_mont_mul_yf              6 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   mm_yf_montmul                6 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1   yf_mpmul_present             8 For this cipher, when I enable PKCS#11 bypass, Only RSA probes are being hit AES probes are not being hit. 13.5 ustack() for RSA operations / probefunc == "soft_rsa_decrypt" / Shows that libnss3.so is calling C_* functions of libpkcs11.so which is calling functions of pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so for both cases with and without bypass. When PKCS#11 bypass is disabled (allow-bypass is 0) pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`soft_rsa_decrypt pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`soft_rsa_decrypt_common+0x94 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`soft_unwrapkey+0x258 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`C_UnwrapKey+0x1ec libpkcs11.so.1`meta_unwrap_key+0x17c libpkcs11.so.1`meta_UnwrapKey+0xc4 libpkcs11.so.1`C_UnwrapKey+0xfc libnss3.so`pk11_AnyUnwrapKey+0x6b8 libnss3.so`PK11_PubUnwrapSymKey+0x8c libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleRSAClientKeyExchange+0x1a0 libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleClientKeyExchange+0x154 libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleHandshakeMessage+0x440 libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleHandshake+0x11c libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleRecord+0x5e8 libssl3.so`ssl3_GatherCompleteHandshake+0x5c libssl3.so`ssl_GatherRecord1stHandshake+0x30 libssl3.so`ssl_Do1stHandshake+0xec libssl3.so`ssl_SecureRecv+0x1c8 libssl3.so`ssl_Recv+0x9c libns-httpd40.so`__1cNDaemonSessionDrun6M_v_+0x2dc When PKCS#11 bypass is enabled (allow-bypass is 1) pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`soft_rsa_decrypt pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`soft_rsa_decrypt_common+0x94 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`C_Decrypt+0x164 libpkcs11.so.1`meta_do_operation+0x27c libpkcs11.so.1`meta_Decrypt+0x4c libpkcs11.so.1`C_Decrypt+0xcc libnss3.so`PK11_PrivDecryptPKCS1+0x1ac libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleRSAClientKeyExchange+0xe4 libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleClientKeyExchange+0x154 libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleHandshakeMessage+0x440 libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleHandshake+0x11c libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleRecord+0x5e8 libssl3.so`ssl3_GatherCompleteHandshake+0x5c libssl3.so`ssl_GatherRecord1stHandshake+0x30 libssl3.so`ssl_Do1stHandshake+0xec libssl3.so`ssl_SecureRecv+0x1c8 libssl3.so`ssl_Recv+0x9c libns-httpd40.so`__1cNDaemonSessionDrun6M_v_+0x2dc libnsprwrap.so`ThreadMain+0x1c libnspr4.so`_pt_root+0xe8 13.6 ustack() FOR AES operations / probefunc == "yf_aes256_cbc_encrypt" / When PKCS#11 bypass is disabled (allow-bypass is 0) pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`yf_aes256_cbc_encrypt pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`aes_block_process_contiguous_whole_blocks+0xb4 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`aes_crypt_contiguous_blocks+0x1cc pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`soft_aes_encrypt_common+0x22c pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1`C_EncryptUpdate+0x10c libpkcs11.so.1`meta_do_operation+0x1fc libpkcs11.so.1`meta_EncryptUpdate+0x4c libpkcs11.so.1`C_EncryptUpdate+0xcc libnss3.so`PK11_CipherOp+0x1a0 libssl3.so`ssl3_CompressMACEncryptRecord+0x264 libssl3.so`ssl3_SendRecord+0x300 libssl3.so`ssl3_FlushHandshake+0x54 libssl3.so`ssl3_SendFinished+0x1fc libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleFinished+0x314 libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleHandshakeMessage+0x4ac libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleHandshake+0x11c libssl3.so`ssl3_HandleRecord+0x5e8 libssl3.so`ssl3_GatherCompleteHandshake+0x5c libssl3.so`ssl_GatherRecord1stHandshake+0x30 libssl3.so`ssl_Do1stHandshake+0xec Shows that libnss3.so is calling C_* functions of libpkcs11.so which is calling functions of pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so However when PKCS#11 bypass is disabled (allow-bypass is 1) this stack isn't getting called. 14. LIST OF ALL THE PROBES MATCHED BY D SCRIPT FOR REFERENCE # ./t4crypto.d -p 18225 -l ID PROVIDER MODULE FUNCTION NAME ... 55720 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_md5_instruction_present entry 55721 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha256_instruction_present entry 55722 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha512_instruction_present entry 55723 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha1_instruction_present entry 55724 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha256 entry 55725 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha256_multiblock entry 55726 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha512 entry 55727 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha512_multiblock entry 55728 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha1 entry 55729 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_sha1_multiblock entry 55730 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_md5 entry 55731 pid18225 libmd_psr.so.1 yf_md5_multiblock entry 55732 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_instructions_present entry 55733 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 rijndael_key_setup_enc_yf entry 55734 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_expand128 entry 55735 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_encrypt128 entry 55736 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_decrypt128 entry 55737 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_expand192 entry 55738 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_encrypt192 entry 55739 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_decrypt192 entry 55740 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_expand256 entry 55741 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_encrypt256 entry 55742 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes_decrypt256 entry 55743 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_load_keys_for_encrypt entry 55744 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_load_keys_for_encrypt entry 55745 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_load_keys_for_encrypt entry 55746 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_ecb_encrypt entry 55747 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_ecb_encrypt entry 55748 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_ecb_encrypt entry 55749 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_cbc_encrypt entry 55750 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_cbc_encrypt entry 55751 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_cbc_encrypt entry 55752 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_ctr_crypt entry 55753 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_ctr_crypt entry 55754 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_ctr_crypt entry 55755 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_cfb128_encrypt entry 55756 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_cfb128_encrypt entry 55757 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_cfb128_encrypt entry 55758 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_load_keys_for_decrypt entry 55759 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_load_keys_for_decrypt entry 55760 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_load_keys_for_decrypt entry 55761 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_ecb_decrypt entry 55762 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_ecb_decrypt entry 55763 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_ecb_decrypt entry 55764 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_cbc_decrypt entry 55765 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_cbc_decrypt entry 55766 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_cbc_decrypt entry 55767 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes128_cfb128_decrypt entry 55768 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes192_cfb128_decrypt entry 55769 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_aes256_cfb128_decrypt entry 55771 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_des_instructions_present entry 55772 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_des_expand entry 55773 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_des_encrypt entry 55774 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_mpmul_present entry 55775 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 yf_montmul_present entry 55776 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 mm_yf_montmul entry 55777 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 mm_yf_montsqr entry 55778 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 mm_yf_restore_func entry 55779 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 mm_yf_ret_from_mont_func entry 55780 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 mm_yf_execute_slp entry 55781 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 big_modexp_ncp_yf entry 55782 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 big_mont_mul_yf entry 55783 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 mpmul_arr_yf entry 55784 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 big_mp_mul_yf entry 55785 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 mpm_yf_mpmul entry 55786 pid18225 libns-httpd40.so nsapi_rsa_set_priv_fn entry ... 55795 pid18225 libnss3.so prepare_rsa_priv_key_export_for_asn1 entry 55796 pid18225 libresolv.so.2 sunw_dst_rsaref_init entry 55797 pid18225 libnssutil3.so NSS_Get_SEC_UniversalStringTemplate entry ... 55813 pid18225 libsoftokn3.so prepare_low_rsa_priv_key_for_asn1 entry 55814 pid18225 libsoftokn3.so rsa_FormatOneBlock entry 55815 pid18225 libsoftokn3.so rsa_FormatBlock entry 55816 pid18225 libnssdbm3.so lg_prepare_low_rsa_priv_key_for_asn1 entry 55817 pid18225 libfreebl_32fpu_3.so rsa_build_from_primes entry 55818 pid18225 libfreebl_32fpu_3.so rsa_is_prime entry 55819 pid18225 libfreebl_32fpu_3.so rsa_get_primes_from_exponents entry 55820 pid18225 libfreebl_32fpu_3.so rsa_PrivateKeyOpNoCRT entry 55821 pid18225 libfreebl_32fpu_3.so rsa_PrivateKeyOpCRTNoCheck entry 55822 pid18225 libfreebl_32fpu_3.so rsa_PrivateKeyOpCRTCheckedPubKey entry 55823 pid18225 pkcs11_kernel.so.1 key_gen_rsa_by_value entry 55824 pid18225 pkcs11_kernel.so.1 get_rsa_private_key entry 55825 pid18225 pkcs11_kernel.so.1 get_rsa_public_key entry 55826 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_encrypt entry 55827 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_decrypt entry 55828 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_crypt_init_common entry 55829 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_encrypt_common entry 55830 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_decrypt_common entry 55831 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_sign_verify_init_common entry 55832 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_sign_common entry 55833 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_verify_common entry 55834 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 generate_rsa_key entry 55835 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_genkey_pair entry 55836 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 get_rsa_sha1_prefix entry 55837 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_digest_sign_common entry 55838 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_digest_verify_common entry 55839 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_rsa_verify_recover entry 55840 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 rsa_pri_to_asn1 entry 55841 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 asn1_to_rsa_pri entry 55842 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_encrypt_rsa_pkcs_encode entry 55843 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_decrypt_rsa_pkcs_decode entry 55844 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_sign_rsa_pkcs_encode entry 55845 pid18225 pkcs11_softtoken_extra.so.1 soft_verify_rsa_pkcs_decode entry 55770 profile tick-1sec

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, February 15, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, February 15, 2011Popular ReleasesAllNewsManager.NET: AllNewsManager.NET 1.3: AllNewsManager.NET 1.3. This new version provide several new features, improvements and bug fixes. Some new features: Online Users. Avatars. Copy function (to create a new article from another one). SEO improvements (friendly urls). New admin buttons. And more...Comet - Visual Studio 2010 Addin: Installers: Offers the basic functionality of generating constructors from data members or from superclass. The current release does not respect the user's indentation preferences.Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 0.8: Version 0.8 (15 Feb 2011)moved to Beta stage publish photo feature "email" field of User object added new Graph Api object: Group, Event new Graph Api connection: likes, groups, eventsDJME - The jQuery extensions for ASP.NET MVC: DJME2 -The jQuery extensions for ASP.NET MVC beta2: The source code and runtime library for DJME2. For more product info you can goto http://www.dotnetage.com/djme.html What is new ?The Grid extension added The ModelBinder added which helping you create Bindable data Action. The DnaFor() control factory added that enabled Model bindable extensions. Enhance the ListBox , ComboBox data binding.Jint - Javascript Interpreter for .NET: Jint - 0.9.0: New CLR interoperability features Many bugfixesBuild Version Increment Add-In Visual Studio: Build Version Increment v2.4.11046.2045: v2.4.11046.2045 Fixes and/or Improvements:Major: Added complete support for VC projects including .vcxproj & .vcproj. All padding issues fixed. A project's assembly versions are only changed if the project has been modified. Minor Order of versioning style values is now according to their respective positions in the attributes i.e. Major, Minor, Build, Revision. Fixed issue with global variable storage with some projects. Fixed issue where if a project item's file does not exist, a ...Document.Editor: 2011.4: Whats new for Document.Editor 2011.4: New Subscript support New Superscript support New column display in statusbar Improved dialogs Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsCoding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.1: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.1 release. Bug fixes and minor feature requests addedTV4Home - The all-in-one TV solution!: 0.1.0.0 Preview: This is the beta preview release of the TV4Home software.Finestra Virtual Desktops: 1.2: Fixes a few minor issues with 1.1 including the broken per-desktop backgrounds Further improves the speed of switching desktops A few UI performance improvements Added donations linksNuGet: NuGet 1.1: NuGet is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. This release is a Visual Studio 2010 extension and contains the the Package Manager Console and the Add Package Dialog. The URL to the package OData feed is: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=206669 To see the list of issues fixed in this release, visit this our issues listEnhSim: EnhSim 2.4.0: 2.4.0This release supports WoW patch 4.06 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 Changes since 2.3.0 - Upd...Sterling Isolated Storage Database with LINQ for Silverlight and Windows Phone 7: Sterling OODB v1.0: Note: use this changeset to download the source example that has been extended to show database generation, backup, and restore in the desktop example. Welcome to the Sterling 1.0 RTM. This version is not backwards-compatible with previous versions of Sterling. Sterling is also available via NuGet. This product has been used and tested in many applications and contains a full suite of unit tests. You can refer to the User's Guide for complete documentation, and use the unit tests as guide...PDF Rider: PDF Rider 0.5.1: Changes from the previous version * Use dynamic layout to better fit text in other languages * Includes French and Spanish localizations Prerequisites * Microsoft Windows Operating Systems (XP - Vista - 7) * Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 runtime * A PDF rendering software (i.e. Adobe Reader) that can be opened inside Internet Explorer. Installation instructionsChoose one of the following methods: 1. Download and run the "pdfRider0.5.1-setup.exe" (reccomended) 2. Down...Snoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.6.1: This release is a bug fixing release. Most importantly, issues have been seen around WPF 4.0 applications not always showing up in the app chooser. Hopefully, they are fixed now. I thought this issue warranted a minor release since more and more people are going WPF 4.0 and I don't want anyone to have any problems. Dan Hanan also contributes again with several usability features. Thanks Dan! Happy Snooping! p.s. By request, I am also attaching a .zip file ... so that people can install it ...RIBA - Rich Internet Business Application for Silverlight: Preview of MVVM Framework Source + Tutorials: This is a first public release of the MVVM Framework which is part of the final RIBA application. The complete RIBA example LOB application has yet to be published. Further Documentation on the MVVM part can be found on the Blog, http://www.SilverlightBlog.Net and in the downloadable source ( mvvm/doc/ ). Please post all issues and suggestions in the issue tracker.SharePoint Learning Kit: 1.5: SharePoint Learning Kit 1.5 has the following new functionality: *Support for SharePoint 2010 *E-Learning Actions can be localised *Two New Document Library Edit Options *Automatically add the Assignment List Web Part to the Web Part Gallery *Various Bug Fixes for the Drop Box There are 2 downloads for this release SLK-1.5-2010.zip for SharePoint 2010 SLK-1.5-2007.zip for SharePoint 2007 (WSS3 & MOSS 2007)GMare: GMare Alpha 02: Alpha version 2. With fixes detailed in the issue tracker.Facebook C# SDK: 5.0.3 (BETA): This is fourth BETA release of the version 5 branch of the Facebook C# SDK. Remember this is a BETA build. Some things may change or not work exactly as planned. We are absolutely looking for feedback on this release to help us improve the final 5.X.X release. For more information about this release see the following blog posts: Facebook C# SDK - Writing your first Facebook Application Facebook C# SDK v5 Beta Internals Facebook C# SDK V5.0.0 (BETA) Released We have spend time trying ...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.161: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release adds a new Twitter List network importer, makes some minor feature improvements, and fixes a few bugs. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Installation StepsFollow these steps to install and use the template: Download the Zip file. Unzip it into any folder. Use WinZip or a similar program, or just right-click the Zip file...New Projects.NET JSON parser & deserializer: JSON.net makes it easy to consume JSON encoded objects in your application. It features a fast parser and deserializer written in C# 2.0 with a simple and intuitive API making integration in your application a breeze Actor Look: Single screen Actor Outlook(ActorLook) for Skelta.Its skelta based work item component.Its providing outlook features like Compose, Inbox,Outbox(which acted by me), My Requests (wf created by me) and generic custom request history tracking.AJAX Mapping Performance Tests: This project contains simple test html pages that compare the performance of Bing Maps V6.3, Bing Maps V7 and Google Maps V3 when displaying increasing numbers of pushpins on a map.Author-it DITA Project: The Author-it DITA Project contains components that enable importing, authoring, and publishing DITA content using Author-it software.Author-it PowerShell Project: The Author-it PowerShell Project provides cmdlets that allow you to interact with Author-it objects using PowerShell scripts.BizTalk Message Decompressor: This tool, written in C#, enables you to decompress BizTalk messages/context from a screen that looks like SQL Query Analyzer. By simple entering a SQL query and some custom functions, you can retrieve (partial) message content and/or context. Handy for administrators/engineers!CavemanTools Mvc: Asp.Net Mvc 3 toolkit for faster development with less code. Features theming support for both Razor and WebForm engines and easy to use helpers. It's developed in C#, .Net 4 .CityLizard XML Schema Pack: The project is for contribution of XML Schemas to CityLizard Framework.crazyKTV: this is a KTV system from TaiwanException Catcher: Exception catcher is a tool, it can attach to any .net process in the system and record all exceptions(including 1st chance exception) thrown in the process.Export Test Cases From TFS: This project lets the users to export the test cases present in form Work items in TFS 2010 to MS Excel.Extended Text Library for Small Basic: This library extend "Text" class of Microsoft Small Basic to append custom methods, such as Split, Replace, and so on. Small Basic ? Text ???? Split ? Replace ????????????、?????????。fossilGui: Gui for fossil (http://www.fossil-scm.org)Gamoliyas: Gamoliyas is an open source John Conway's Game of Life game totally written in DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML). Uses mouse and keyboard. Very configurable. This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Linux, *BSD, Windows and others.Gilly Messenger - MSN clone written in VB6: Gilly Messenger is a MSN client built in Visual Basic 6 in 2002-2004 by CrackSoft. It is now open sourced.jetzt liveticker: A desktop version of the liveticker for "jetzt.de", a german online communityLMKTool: LMKTool is a small project that helps users to migrate Thales cryptographic keys from the old LMK to the new LMK set.LocalAdmins WMI Provider: WMI Provider to report all members of the local Administrators group in the WMI Class root\cimv2\Win32_LocalAdminsMarbles CMS: Marbles aims to be a simple Content Management Server for hosting multiple websites.MediaElement Extensions: MediaElement Extensions makes it easier for WPF/SilverLight Developers to interact with MediaElement. You will no longer have to handle media and user events... Controls: ProgressSlider / VolumeSlider / Buttons (Play, Pause, Stop, FullScreen..) Features: PlaylistManagementMessage Router: MessageRouter enables routing of messages in a heterogeneous environment: - ServiceBroker queue - MSMQ - FTP - othersMultiUp: Silverlight application for multiple files upload and recoverymuzoblog: muzoblogMVC 3 con Razor - Mercurial: Proyecto MVC 3 con Razor para trabajar en un proyecto desde cero, con control de código en Mercurial.Opalis Exchange Calendaring Integration Pack: An integration pack for Opalis extending functionality to exchange calendaring features.OpenEMIS: OpenEMIS is a generic open source Education Management Information System (EMIS) developped by UNESCO.PFC2011: My PFC ^^Proyecto español. Aplicacion tpv para bar pub , gestion ... opensource: España Aplicacion tpv para bar pub , gestion ... opensource Datos con XML y resportes con Crystal Reports. Imagen: http://img375.imageshack.us/i/proba1xml.jpg/Realtime C# Pitch Tracker: Use the PitchTracker class to easily track the pitch of a waveform (typically from vocals). It is fast (~3000 detections/sec) and accurate (within 0.02% of the actual frequency). It is written in C#. A sample app is included.SCOM Maintenance Mode Tool: A maintenance mode tool for System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)scooby: This is a scooby dooby doo projectSDSConsulting: Samples, resources, and solutions provided by SDS Consulting.SilverPop: Silverpop is a Silverlight 4, PRISM, MVVM demonstration application that demonstrates basic use of these concepts plus how to visualise data in a diagram. It is an accompaniment to a series of blog posts.Skywave Class Library: Skywave Class Library will contain multiple projects (one at start) targeting classes, interfaces, controls and ... for different .Net technologies like ASP.Net, WPF, Windows Forms, ... and one Core Project including shared classes. It's my shared library of 10 years development.Sofire FX: .NET ???????????，?????????????????，??? Sofire ????????！SQL Server Process Info Log: The SQL Server Process Info Log makes it easier to identify the cause of CPU & Physical Disk resource consumption by facilitating the production of visualizations that help pinpoint the smoking gun.Sup!: IIS7.5 + .NET4 + DLR + JSON.NET = Sup! Replacement for ASP.NET web services. Makes interacting with clients of all types pretty and easy. Right now it's like: "What? I can't hear you. My iPhone sucks." With Sup! it's like: "Sup."sven's msvs addons: A couple quick Visual Studio addons implementing features I missed from other IDEs. The first, MultiLineComments, implements inline comment wrapping as per Matlab. The second, FunctionBar, is a function-list C/C++ file navigation bar inspired by XCode. Both are written in C#.UHEMS: This Web Based Employee Management System With the following modules. 1. Employee Registration 2. Attendance Module 3. Leave Module 4. Payroll Processing 5. Reports 6. Independent User and Admin Registration Module 7. ResignationWebsite Monitor: Website monitorWMI Performance Counter Logging Console App: A demonstration how to create and populate a datawarehouse of WMI counters which can be used to diagnose performance problems. A presentation provided demonstrates how to detect IIS/ASP.NET thread starvation.YuxinProjs: YuxinProjs Hello World

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, February 01, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, February 01, 2011Popular ReleasesWatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke®: CKEditor Provider 1.12.07: Whats New Added CKEditor 3.5.1 (Rev. 6398) - Whats New File Browser now List all Anchor on selected Dnn Page (Tab) changes File Browser now uses DNN Cache instead of HTTP Session for Authorization Using now Google Hosted CDN Versions of jQuery and jQuery-UI Scripts (Auto detects if needed http or https)Chemistry Add-in for Word: Chemistry Add-in for Word - Version 1.0: On February 1, 2011, we announced the availability of version 1 of the Chemistry Add-in for Word, as well as the assignment of the open source project to the Outercurve Foundation by Microsoft Research and the University of Cambridge. System RequirementsHardware RequirementsAny computer that can run Office 2007 or Office 2010. Software RequirementsYour computer must have the following software: Any version of Windows that can run Office 2007 or Office 2010, which includes Windows XP SP3 and...StyleCop for ReSharper: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.1.15005.000: Applied patch from rodpl for merging of stylecop setting files with settings in parent folder. Previous release: A considerable amount of work has gone into this release: Huge focus on performance around the violation scanning subsystem: - caching added to reduce IO operations around reading and merging of settings files - caching added to reduce creation of expensive objects Users should notice condsiderable perf boost and a decrease in memory usage. Bug Fixes: - StyleCop's new Objec...Minecraft Tools: Minecraft Topographical Survey 1.4: MTS requires version 4 of the .NET Framework - you must download it from Microsoft if you have not previously installed it. This version of MTS adds MCRegion support and fixes bugs that caused rendering to fail for some users. New in this version of MTS: Support for rendering worlds compressed with MCRegion Fixed rendering failure when encountering non-NBT files with the .dat extension Fixed rendering failure when encountering corrupt NBT files Minor GUI updates Note that the command...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 0.8: Fixed the following bugs: *Variable name error in the jvascript file that prevented the use of the deleted item template of the Datagrid *Now after the changes applied to an item of the DataGrid are cancelled all input fields are reset to the very initial value they had. *Other minor bugs. Added: *This version is available both for MVC2, and MVC 3. The MVC 3 version has a release number of 0.85. This way one can install both version. *Client Validation support has been added to all control...Office Web.UI: Beta preview (Source): This is the first Beta. it includes full source code and all available controls. Some designers are not ready, and some features are not finalized allready (missing properties, draft styles) ThanksASP.net Ribbon: Version 2.2: This release brings some new controls (part of Office Web.UI). A few bugs are fixed and it includes the "auto resize" feature as you resize the window. (It can cause an infinite loop when the window is too reduced, it's why this release is not marked as "stable"). I will release more versions 2.3, 2.4... until V3 which will be the official launch of Office Web.UI. Both products will evolve at the same speed. Thanks.Barcode Rendering Framework: 2.1.1.0: Final release for VS2008 Finally fixed bugs with code 128 symbology.xUnit.net - Unit Testing for .NET: xUnit.net 1.7: xUnit.net release 1.7Build #1540 Important notes for Resharper users: Resharper support has been moved to the xUnit.net Contrib project. Important note for TestDriven.net users: If you are having issues running xUnit.net tests in TestDriven.net, especially on 64-bit Windows, we strongly recommend you upgrade to TD.NET version 3.0 or later. This release adds the following new features: Added support for ASP.NET MVC 3 Added Assert.Equal(double expected, double actual, int precision) Ad...DoddleReport - Automatic HTML/Excel/PDF Reporting: DoddleReport 1.0: DoddleReport will add automatic tabular-based reporting (HTML/PDF/Excel/etc) for any LINQ Query, IEnumerable, DataTable or SharePoint List For SharePoint integration please click Here PDF Reporting has been placed into a separate assembly because it requies AbcPdf http://www.websupergoo.com/download.htmSpark View Engine: Spark v1.5: Release Notes There have been a lot of minor changes going on since version 1.1, but most important to note are the major changes which include: Support for HTML5 "section" tag. Spark has now renamed its own section tag to "segment" instead to avoid clashes. You can still use "section" in a Spark sense for legacy support by specifying ParseSectionAsSegment = true if needed while you transition Bindings - this is a massive feature that further simplifies your views by giving you a powerful ...Marr DataMapper: Marr DataMapper 1.0.0 beta: First release.WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.3: Version: 2.0.0.3 (Milestone 3): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...Rawr: Rawr 4.0.17 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 and on the Version Notes page: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you...Squiggle - A Free open source LAN Messenger: Squiggle 2.5 Beta: In this release following are the new features: Localization: Support for Arabic, French, German and Chinese (Simplified) Bridge: Connect two Squiggle nets across the WAN or different subnets Aliases: Special codes with special meaning can be embedded in message like (version),(datetime),(time),(date),(you),(me) Commands: cls, /exit, /offline, /online, /busy, /away, /main Sound notifications: Get audio alerts on contact online, message received, buzz Broadcast for group: You can ri...VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.4.2: Version 7.4.2 of VivoSocial has been released. If you experienced any issues with the previous version, please update your modules to the 7.4.2 release and see if they persist. If you have any questions about this release, please post them in our Support forums. If you are experiencing a bug or would like to request a new feature, please submit it to our issue tracker. Web Controls * Updated Business Objects and added a new SQL Data Provider File. Groups * Fixed a security issue whe...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1.1 for IIS 7: This is a minor release of PHP Manager for IIS 7. It contains all the functionality available in 56962 plus several bug fixes (see change list for more details). Also, this release includes Russian language support. SHA1 codes for the downloads are: PHPManagerForIIS-1.1.0-x86.msi - 6570B4A8AC8B5B776171C2BA0572C190F0900DE2 PHPManagerForIIS-1.1.0-x64.msi - 12EDE004EFEE57282EF11A8BAD1DC1ADFD66A654mojoPortal: 2.3.6.1: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2361-released.aspx Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Parallel Programming with Microsoft Visual C++: Drop 6 - Chapters 4 and 5: This is Drop 6. It includes: Drafts of the Preface, Introduction, Chapters 2-7, Appendix B & C and the glossary Sample code for chapters 2-7 and Appendix A & B. The new material we'd like feedback on is: Chapter 4 - Parallel Aggregation Chapter 5 - Futures The source code requires Visual Studio 2010 in order to run. There is a known bug in the A-Dash sample when the user attempts to cancel a parallel calculation. We are working to fix this.NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.160: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release improves NodeXL's Twitter and Pajek features. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Installation StepsFollow these steps to install and use the template: Download the Zip file. Unzip it into any folder. Use WinZip or a similar program, or just right-click the Zip file in Windows Explorer and select "Extract All." Close Ex...New Projectsabcdeffff: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAutomating Variation: This project help you to automate the Site Variation in SharePoint 2010BAM Converter: DEMO Project showcasing several functionalities of Windows Phone 7 - Isolated Storage, Web Service Access, User Interface.cstgamebgs: Project for wp7DFS-Commands: A PowerShell module containing functions for manipulating Distributed File System (DFS). This allows admins to carry out DFS tasks using PowerShell without resorting to external commands such as dfsutil.exe, dfscmd.exe or modlink.exe.Disk Usage: Disk Usage is a small WPF tool to analyze the drive space on Windows. It can plot pie charts of the folder size. EPiServer Filtered Page Reference Properties: The EPiServer Filtered Page Reference properties provide you with the ability to restrict the pages in which an EPiServer can pick. The assembly once depoyed to your projects bin folder will add two new properties: -FilteredPageReferenceProperty -FilteredLinkCollectoinPropertyExample Ajax MVC address-book: This is an example application in PHP, using no framework but PHP only, utilizing MVC, SQLite, jQuery and Ajax. It is fully SOA. FlyMedia: FlyMedia is a simple music player written in C/C++ based on FMOD and Gdiplus. It aims to fly your media at a touch!Global String Formatter: The Global String Formatter library allows developers to deal with conditional string formatting in an elegant fashion. Developers specify a predicate and a corresponding string output function for each case of the formatting. The library plays well with DI frameworks.JS Mixer: JS Mixer is a simple UI over the YUI Compressor for .Net Library. It allows you to merge and minimize javascript files easily.LAPD: Lapd (Location and Attendance to Dependant People) make care-dependent people's life easier, improving the communication between their care providers and them. It is developed in C# over .NET Compact Framework 3.5motion10 SharePoint Twitter Status Notes Control: Change the normal SharePoint Status control to the motion10 SharePoint Twitter Status Notes Control and you can send your tweets to Twitter! Music TD: Music TD is a Tower Defence project by Cypress Falls High School programming team. It is our first game, made in XNA.OJDetective: a win32 project for detecting your submissons on OJOpalis System Center VMM Extended Integration Pack: A Opalis Integration Pack for VMM with extended Functions to the offical IP from Microsoft.Opalis Virsto Integration Pack: A Opalis Integration Pack for Managing VirstoOne Hyper-V Storage (http://www.virsto.com) Pimp My Wave: It will be both an open source implementation of Multiloader / Kies firmware flasher and modding tool like changing boot screens directly. RESTful Connector for SharePoint 2010: This is a reusable custom connector for Business Data Connectivity Serivces in SharePoint 2010. It uses a RESTful service as a data source and XPath to map the propeties.SCWS: SCWS - XML web service for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (AKA SCOM / OpsMgr). Developed in C# and .Net 3.5 with Visual Studio 2010. Can be used to get information on MonitoringObjects and to control maintenance mode. Ideal for integration with SCCM / ConfigMgr.somelameaspstuff: see titleSQLMap: Projeto com um Atlas do Mundo e suas divisões, salvos em tabelas no SQL Server, usando o seu módulo SpatialStackOverflow Google Chrome extension: Shows StackOverflow and StackExchange questions in new tab window in your Google ChromeSupMoul: Moulinette pour noter les supTodayTodo: This is software for manage every day tasks (one todo list for day). Silverlight (OOB), NoSQL, FullText Search for all task history

  Read the article

• Security Issues with Single Page Apps

  - by Stephen.Walther

  Last week, I was asked to do a code review of a Single Page App built using the ASP.NET Web API, Durandal, and Knockout (good stuff!). In particular, I was asked to investigate whether there any special security issues associated with building a Single Page App which are not present in the case of a traditional server-side ASP.NET application. In this blog entry, I discuss two areas in which you need to exercise extra caution when building a Single Page App. I discuss how Single Page Apps are extra vulnerable to both Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks. This goal of this blog post is NOT to persuade you to avoid writing Single Page Apps. I’m a big fan of Single Page Apps. Instead, the goal is to ensure that you are fully aware of some of the security issues related to Single Page Apps and ensure that you know how to guard against them. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks According to WhiteHat Security, over 65% of public websites are open to XSS attacks. That’s bad. By taking advantage of XSS holes in a website, a hacker can steal your credit cards, passwords, or bank account information. Any website that redisplays untrusted information is open to XSS attacks. Let me give you a simple example. Imagine that you want to display the name of the current user on a page. To do this, you create the following server-side ASP.NET page located at http://MajorBank.com/SomePage.aspx: <%@Page Language="C#" %> <html> <head> <title>Some Page</title> </head> <body> Welcome <%= Request["username"] %> </body> </html> Nothing fancy here. Notice that the page displays the current username by using Request[“username”]. Using Request[“username”] displays the username regardless of whether the username is present in a cookie, a form field, or a query string variable. Unfortunately, by using Request[“username”] to redisplay untrusted information, you have now opened your website to XSS attacks. Here’s how. Imagine that an evil hacker creates the following link on another website (hackers.com): <a href="/SomePage.aspx?username=<script src=Evil.js></script>">Visit MajorBank</a> Notice that the link includes a query string variable named username and the value of the username variable is an HTML <SCRIPT> tag which points to a JavaScript file named Evil.js. When anyone clicks on the link, the <SCRIPT> tag will be injected into SomePage.aspx and the Evil.js script will be loaded and executed. What can a hacker do in the Evil.js script? Anything the hacker wants. For example, the hacker could display a popup dialog on the MajorBank.com site which asks the user to enter their password. The script could then post the password back to hackers.com and now the evil hacker has your secret password. ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC have two automatic safeguards against this type of attack: Request Validation and Automatic HTML Encoding. Protecting Coming In (Request Validation) In a server-side ASP.NET app, you are protected against the XSS attack described above by a feature named Request Validation. If you attempt to submit “potentially dangerous” content — such as a JavaScript <SCRIPT> tag — in a form field or query string variable then you get an exception. Unfortunately, Request Validation only applies to server-side apps. Request Validation does not help in the case of a Single Page App. In particular, the ASP.NET Web API does not pay attention to Request Validation. You can post any content you want – including <SCRIPT> tags – to an ASP.NET Web API action. For example, the following HTML page contains a form. When you submit the form, the form data is submitted to an ASP.NET Web API controller on the server using an Ajax request: <!DOCTYPE html> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <form data-bind="submit:submit"> <div> <label> User Name: <input data-bind="value:user.userName" /> </label> </div> <div> <label> Email: <input data-bind="value:user.email" /> </label> </div> <div> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> </div> </form> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { user: { userName: ko.observable(), email: ko.observable() }, submit: function () { $.post("/api/users", ko.toJS(this.user)); } }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script> </body> </html> The form above is using Knockout to bind the form fields to a view model. When you submit the form, the view model is submitted to an ASP.NET Web API action on the server. Here’s the server-side ASP.NET Web API controller and model class: public class UsersController : ApiController { public HttpResponseMessage Post(UserViewModel user) { var userName = user.UserName; return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK); } } public class UserViewModel { public string UserName { get; set; } public string Email { get; set; } } If you submit the HTML form, you don’t get an error. The “potentially dangerous” content is passed to the server without any exception being thrown. In the screenshot below, you can see that I was able to post a username form field with the value “<script>alert(‘boo’)</script”. So what this means is that you do not get automatic Request Validation in the case of a Single Page App. You need to be extra careful in a Single Page App about ensuring that you do not display untrusted content because you don’t have the Request Validation safety net which you have in a traditional server-side ASP.NET app. Protecting Going Out (Automatic HTML Encoding) Server-side ASP.NET also protects you from XSS attacks when you render content. By default, all content rendered by the razor view engine is HTML encoded. For example, the following razor view displays the text “<b>Hello!</b>” instead of the text “Hello!” in bold: @{ var message = "<b>Hello!</b>"; } @message   If you don’t want to render content as HTML encoded in razor then you need to take the extra step of using the @Html.Raw() helper. In a Web Form page, if you use <%: %> instead of <%= %> then you get automatic HTML Encoding: <%@ Page Language="C#" %> <% var message = "<b>Hello!</b>"; %> <%: message %> This automatic HTML Encoding will prevent many types of XSS attacks. It prevents <script> tags from being rendered and only allows &lt;script&gt; tags to be rendered which are useless for executing JavaScript. (This automatic HTML encoding does not protect you from all forms of XSS attacks. For example, you can assign the value “javascript:alert(‘evil’)” to the Hyperlink control’s NavigateUrl property and execute the JavaScript). The situation with Knockout is more complicated. If you use the Knockout TEXT binding then you get HTML encoded content. On the other hand, if you use the HTML binding then you do not: <!-- This JavaScript DOES NOT execute --> <div data-bind="text:someProp"></div> <!-- This Javacript DOES execute --> <div data-bind="html:someProp"></div> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { someProp : "<script>alert('Evil!')<" + "/script>" }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script>   So, in the page above, the DIV element which uses the TEXT binding is safe from XSS attacks. According to the Knockout documentation: “Since this binding sets your text value using a text node, it’s safe to set any string value without risking HTML or script injection.” Just like server-side HTML encoding, Knockout does not protect you from all types of XSS attacks. For example, there is nothing in Knockout which prevents you from binding JavaScript to a hyperlink like this: <a data-bind="attr:{href:homePageUrl}">Go</a> <script src="Scripts/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script> <script src="Scripts/knockout-2.1.0.js"></script> <script> var viewModel = { homePageUrl: "javascript:alert('evil!')" }; ko.applyBindings(viewModel); </script> In the page above, the value “javascript:alert(‘evil’)” is bound to the HREF attribute using Knockout. When you click the link, the JavaScript executes. Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Attacks Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks rely on the fact that a session cookie does not expire until you close your browser. In particular, if you visit and login to MajorBank.com and then you navigate to Hackers.com then you will still be authenticated against MajorBank.com even after you navigate to Hackers.com. Because MajorBank.com cannot tell whether a request is coming from MajorBank.com or Hackers.com, Hackers.com can submit requests to MajorBank.com pretending to be you. For example, Hackers.com can post an HTML form from Hackers.com to MajorBank.com and change your email address at MajorBank.com. Hackers.com can post a form to MajorBank.com using your authentication cookie. After your email address has been changed, by using a password reset page at MajorBank.com, a hacker can access your bank account. To prevent CSRF attacks, you need some mechanism for detecting whether a request is coming from a page loaded from your website or whether the request is coming from some other website. The recommended way of preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks is to use the “Synchronizer Token Pattern” as described here: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Cross-Site_Request_Forgery_%28CSRF%29_Prevention_Cheat_Sheet When using the Synchronizer Token Pattern, you include a hidden input field which contains a random token whenever you display an HTML form. When the user opens the form, you add a cookie to the user’s browser with the same random token. When the user posts the form, you verify that the hidden form token and the cookie token match. Preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery Attacks with ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET gives you a helper and an action filter which you can use to thwart Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks. For example, the following razor form for creating a product shows how you use the @Html.AntiForgeryToken() helper: @model MvcApplication2.Models.Product <h2>Create Product</h2> @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.AntiForgeryToken(); <div> @Html.LabelFor( p => p.Name, "Product Name:") @Html.TextBoxFor( p => p.Name) </div> <div> @Html.LabelFor( p => p.Price, "Product Price:") @Html.TextBoxFor( p => p.Price) </div> <input type="submit" /> } The @Html.AntiForgeryToken() helper generates a random token and assigns a serialized version of the same random token to both a cookie and a hidden form field. (Actually, if you dive into the source code, the AntiForgeryToken() does something a little more complex because it takes advantage of a user’s identity when generating the token). Here’s what the hidden form field looks like: <input name=”__RequestVerificationToken” type=”hidden” value=”NqqZGAmlDHh6fPTNR_mti3nYGUDgpIkCiJHnEEL59S7FNToyyeSo7v4AfzF2i67Cv0qTB1TgmZcqiVtgdkW2NnXgEcBc-iBts0x6WAIShtM1″ /> And here’s what the cookie looks like using the Google Chrome developer toolbar: You use the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] action filter on the controller action which is the recipient of the form post to validate that the token in the hidden form field matches the token in the cookie. If the tokens don’t match then validation fails and you can’t post the form: public ActionResult Create() { return View(); } [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(Product productToCreate) { if (ModelState.IsValid) { // save product to db return RedirectToAction("Index"); } return View(); } How does this all work? Let’s imagine that a hacker has copied the Create Product page from MajorBank.com to Hackers.com – the hacker grabs the HTML source and places it at Hackers.com. Now, imagine that the hacker trick you into submitting the Create Product form from Hackers.com to MajorBank.com. You’ll get the following exception: The Cross-Site Request Forgery attack is blocked because the anti-forgery token included in the Create Product form at Hackers.com won’t match the anti-forgery token stored in the cookie in your browser. The tokens were generated at different times for different users so the attack fails. Preventing Cross-Site Request Forgery Attacks with a Single Page App In a Single Page App, you can’t prevent Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks using the same method as a server-side ASP.NET MVC app. In a Single Page App, HTML forms are not generated on the server. Instead, in a Single Page App, forms are loaded dynamically in the browser. Phil Haack has a blog post on this topic where he discusses passing the anti-forgery token in an Ajax header instead of a hidden form field. He also describes how you can create a custom anti-forgery token attribute to compare the token in the Ajax header and the token in the cookie. See: http://haacked.com/archive/2011/10/10/preventing-csrf-with-ajax.aspx Also, take a look at Johan’s update to Phil Haack’s original post: http://johan.driessen.se/posts/Updated-Anti-XSRF-Validation-for-ASP.NET-MVC-4-RC (Other server frameworks such as Rails and Django do something similar. For example, Rails uses an X-CSRF-Token to prevent CSRF attacks which you generate on the server – see http://excid3.com/blog/rails-tip-2-include-csrf-token-with-every-ajax-request/#.UTFtgDDkvL8 ). For example, if you are creating a Durandal app, then you can use the following razor view for your one and only server-side page: @{ Layout = null; } <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>Index</title> </head> <body> @Html.AntiForgeryToken() <div id="applicationHost"> Loading app.... </div> @Scripts.Render("~/scripts/vendor") <script type="text/javascript" src="~/App/durandal/amd/require.js" data-main="/App/main"></script> </body> </html> Notice that this page includes a call to @Html.AntiForgeryToken() to generate the anti-forgery token. Then, whenever you make an Ajax request in the Durandal app, you can retrieve the anti-forgery token from the razor view and pass the token as a header: var csrfToken = $("input[name='__RequestVerificationToken']").val(); $.ajax({ headers: { __RequestVerificationToken: csrfToken }, type: "POST", dataType: "json", contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8', url: "/api/products", data: JSON.stringify({ name: "Milk", price: 2.33 }), statusCode: { 200: function () { alert("Success!"); } } }); Use the following code to create an action filter which you can use to match the header and cookie tokens: using System.Linq; using System.Net.Http; using System.Web.Helpers; using System.Web.Http.Controllers; namespace MvcApplication2.Infrastructure { public class ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken : System.Web.Http.AuthorizeAttribute { protected override bool IsAuthorized(HttpActionContext actionContext) { var headerToken = actionContext .Request .Headers .GetValues("__RequestVerificationToken") .FirstOrDefault(); ; var cookieToken = actionContext .Request .Headers .GetCookies() .Select(c => c[AntiForgeryConfig.CookieName]) .FirstOrDefault(); // check for missing cookie or header if (cookieToken == null || headerToken == null) { return false; } // ensure that the cookie matches the header try { AntiForgery.Validate(cookieToken.Value, headerToken); } catch { return false; } return base.IsAuthorized(actionContext); } } } Notice that the action filter derives from the base AuthorizeAttribute. The ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken only works when the user is authenticated and it will not work for anonymous requests. Add the action filter to your ASP.NET Web API controller actions like this: [ValidateAjaxAntiForgeryToken] public HttpResponseMessage PostProduct(Product productToCreate) { // add product to db return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK); } After you complete these steps, it won’t be possible for a hacker to pretend to be you at Hackers.com and submit a form to MajorBank.com. The header token used in the Ajax request won’t travel to Hackers.com. This approach works, but I am not entirely happy with it. The one thing that I don’t like about this approach is that it creates a hard dependency on using razor. Your single page in your Single Page App must be generated from a server-side razor view. A better solution would be to generate the anti-forgery token in JavaScript. Unfortunately, until all browsers support a way to generate cryptographically strong random numbers – for example, by supporting the window.crypto.getRandomValues() method — there is no good way to generate anti-forgery tokens in JavaScript. So, at least right now, the best solution for generating the tokens is the server-side solution with the (regrettable) dependency on razor. Conclusion The goal of this blog entry was to explore some ways in which you need to handle security differently in the case of a Single Page App than in the case of a traditional server app. In particular, I focused on how to prevent Cross-Site Scripting and Cross-Site Request Forgery attacks in the case of a Single Page App. I want to emphasize that I am not suggesting that Single Page Apps are inherently less secure than server-side apps. Whatever type of web application you build – regardless of whether it is a Single Page App, an ASP.NET MVC app, an ASP.NET Web Forms app, or a Rails app – you must constantly guard against security vulnerabilities.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376  | Next Page >