Run like Hell

Oracle SQL Developer 3.1 Early Adopter is available

2012-01-14T20:56:00.001+01:00

Oracle release SQL Developer Release 3.1 EA:

RMAN
Oracle Recovery Manager, is now part of the DBA navigator.
Data Pump
Use SQL Developer's Data Pump UI to import and export your Database, Tablespaces, Schemas, and Tables. Select the option to import and export just the DDL, Data or both. Data Pump also offers scheduling capabilities.
DB Diff (DDL)
DB Diff now provides a more reliable comparison and difference management support of your DDL.
DB Copy
copy objects, copy a schema or consolidate multiple schemas into one, copy tablespaces, copy DDL, data or both.
Migrations
Migrations in 3.1 include enhancements to Teradata and Sybase.
PDF Reports
The Reports dialog is enhanced for ease of use and flexibility to create or update a report.

The download can be started via this link. You can get the software for 32-bit Windows, 64-bit Windows, Max OS X, RPM for Linux or other platforms (which mean, that no JDK is included).
If you download for other platforms just do the following to install:

Unzip sqldeveloper.zip
cd sqldeveloper
sh sqldeveloper

Oracle Weblogic 12c: Installation

2011-12-19T23:13:00.004+01:00

After writing some things about the Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c Release and its documentation, here the screenshots from the installation. You have to start with this command:

schroff@hades:$ ./oepe-indigo-installer-12.1.1.0.0.201112072225-12.1.1-linux32.bin
Extracting 0%....................................................................................................100%

Here i chose custom:

Running on nearly the current java version (recommended version fom www.java.com: version 6 update 30)

And ready for startup:

Oracle Fusion Middleware 12c Release 1: Documentation

2011-12-14T20:55:00.001+01:00

Oracle has released its Weblogic Server 12c. Their press release says:

Oracle WebLogic Server 12c is now certified for the full Java EE 6 platform specification
Oracle WebLogic Server developers can now leverage Java Platform
Standard Edition (Java SE) 7 features to create cleaner, more
maintainable code.
Improved integration between Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)
...

The documentation can be found here: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24329_01/index.htm

The screenshot only shows the "Get Started" section. Other sections are:

system administration
programming
security
webservices
weblogic tuxedo connector
references
additional resources

Very interesting ist the licensing information ;-) :

WebLogic Server 12c is the first Fusion Middleware 12c product release. For licensing information for WebLogic Server please refer to Oracle Fusion Middleware Licensing Information, 11g Release 1 (11.1.1) documentation

The list of the supported standards is very helpful as well: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24329_01/web.1211/e24494/toc.htm#BGGBIJBI

ORACLE SOLARIS 11 11/11

2011-11-12T21:43:00.001+01:00

Oracle released Solaris 11 11/11. The documentation says:

Oracle Solaris is the #1 enterprise operating system providing industry leading availability,
security and performance on both SPARC and x86 systems.

Ok.. it is the only os, which runs only on SPARC and x86 systems. Just kidding ;-). Here the key features listed in the official documentation:

• Automated Installer
• Image Packaging System
• Oracle Solaris Zones
• ZFS File System
• Simplified Administration
• Designed-in Virtualization
• Scalable Data Management
• Advanced Protection

Here my favourites:

I/O Enhancements to netcat
netcat, a popular utility used for network observation and debugging, has been enhanced to include a number of command line options that allow administrators to configure a number of previously hard coded values related to I/O and integration with zones, along with a number
of usability additions to improve familiarity with netcat on other operating systems.

Default Shell
bash(1) is now the default shell for new users added to the system using useradd(1M) command line utility if another alternative shell is not provided, and the default shell for new installations. ksh93(1) is used as the default system shell.

Resetting System Configuration
A new utility, sysconfig(1M), for unconfiguring and reconfiguring an existing Oracle Solaris 11 system has been added to replace the legacy sys-unconfig and sysidtool utilities. This tool can be used within the global zone and non-global zones to configure a set of pre-defined groupings such as system identity, network, users, naming services and location/time zones. The tool can be run interactively, using the System Configuration Interactive Tool, or in a hands-off manner using a system configuration profile.

Changing MAC Address with dladm(1M)
Support for changing the MAC address has been added to dladm(1M). Unlike changing the MAC address using ifconfig(1M), this is a persistent change across reboots, and changes the primary MAC address used by all current and future MAC clients of the underlying data
link.

If you want to find your own favourites, just read http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/solaris11/documentation/solaris11-whatsnew-201111-392603.pdf...

Openafs: Version 1.7.1 Client for Windows

2011-11-08T21:19:00.001+01:00

In september 2011 openafs.org released a new windows version (1.7.1). In this version the following features were changed:

OpenAFS is a native Microsoft Windows file system.
Significantly faster than the OpenAFS 1.6 release (up to 800MB/second
read throughput from Solid State Disk backed cache)
Does not require the installation of the Microsoft Windows Loopback
Adapter
Provides support for kernel enforced Process and Thread Authentication
Groups
New Explorer Shell integration including AFS specific property sheets
Immediate access to \\AFS namespace after
system resume
AFS Mount Points and Symlinks are File System Reparse Points

These features simplify the usage of AFS! First you do not have to fear windows updates, because of weird changes in some samba routines. Second: AFS really works after standby/suspend to disk. Even working in networks with no access does not require a restart of your afs client...
If you are still working on pre 1.7 releases: UPGRADE!!!
But do not forget to install MIT Kerberos for Windows. This is for 1.7 recommended...

Review at amazon: Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials

2011-10-03T21:01:00.001+02:00

Last week i read Oracle 11g R1/R2 Real Application Clusters Essentials.

Ok, the cover is really cool (does anybody know, if this is a real city?), but the content (500 pages) is missing any coolness. Only three of the twelve chapters do contain informations, you cannot easily google...
The description shows the problem:

Basic understanding of Oracle DBA is required. No experience of Oracle RAC is required.

Is it really possible to describe Oracle RAC within 500 pages for Newbies? All essentials? Perhaps RAC is so easy, that after introducing HA, RAC architecture and installation (100 pages) the rest is enough.
If you are interested, take a look at my review at amazon.de (like all my reviews: written in german ;-).

Firefox: Java plugin for Firefox does not work...

2011-09-16T22:59:00.001+02:00

Do you have a problem with getting the java plugin running on your linux?
First a site, which checks, if your plugins are installed and up to date:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/
You should get something like:

But how to add java into this list?
There are many tutorials out there:

link jdk1.6.0_23/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
or copy some other libs...

But this will only result in no plugin or a crashing firefox, when you visit a website, which starts this plugin.
The only way to get the plugin running is:

delete all java-lib/plugins in .mozilla/plugins
create a link to YOUR-JRE/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so
(do not copy!!!!)

Thats all...
Just check via https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/ again:

Oracle 11g Database Express Edition released

2011-09-02T22:07:00.001+02:00

After the beta phase Oracle Database Express Edition 11g Release 2 was released:

Free to develop, deploy, and distribute
Oracle Database Express Edition 11g Release 2 (Oracle Database XE) is an entry-level, small-footprint database based on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 code base. It's free to develop, deploy, and distribute; fast to download; and simple to administer.

The installation is only for the following operating systems supported:

Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 Update 7
Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 7
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Update 2
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

(only RPM-based 64 bit distributions).

Here some important license statements:

If Oracle Database XE is installed on a computer with more than one CPU
(including dual-core CPUs), then it will consume, at most, processing
resources equivalent to one CPU.
Only one installation of Oracle Database XE can be performed on a single computer.
The maximum amount of user data in an Oracle Database XE database cannot exceed 11 gigabytes.
The maximum amount of RAM that an Oracle Database XE database uses cannot exceed 1 gigabyte, even if more is available.

If you are interested in features which are not included with Oracle Database XE take a look here:

...
Flashback Database
...
Oracle Active Data Guard
Oracle Total Recall
...
Oracle Real Application Clusters
In-Memory Database Cache
Oracle Diagnostic Pack
Oracle Partitioning
...
Advanced Replication
...

Google+ games: privacy and sharing information about played games

2011-08-13T21:41:00.001+02:00

I read about Google+ games and i knew:

Today we’re starting to gradually roll out games in Google+. We look
forward to making them fully available to everyone in Google+ soon.

and this evening there is a new icon:

and clicking on this four connected points showed the following:

Ok. Let's go: I clicked the blue "play" button and got:

I followed the "Learn more" link:

Who can see that you're playing games

Games on Google+ are social. Information such as the games you play
and your accomplishments within the game (such as high scores and
levels) may be visible to other Google+ users.
Google+ won’t publish your gameplay information to the stream without
your consent. You get to choose when to share updates from games (and
the people you share with). So how do people see that you've played a
particular game?
In “Featured Games”

If you’re looking at the "Featured games" area, you might see the number
of people in your circles who have recently played a game, along with a
photo of a recent player. Click on played recently to bring up a box that shows who those people are.
Within Games

When you play a game, you’re consenting to share information such as
your name and profile picture with the game developer. This lets
developers design better social games.
Additionally, a game may involve multiple players in a single match
(such as a poker table). In these situations, the other players in the
room can see and interact with each other during gameplay.
Some games allow you to partner up with (or work against) another
player, such as a neighbor, ally, or an enemy/rival. These games use
your circles to suggest people to interact with. You could show up as a
suggestion to another player to become an ally or to challenge.

This sounds fair, so let's start playing one:

And then just play...

Linux VPN Client: disconnect every 600s (10min)

2011-07-30T11:23:00.002+02:00

You are trying to connect to a Cisco Pix or Cisco ASA with a Linux PC and the connection disconnects after 10 minutes?

You tried

Network Manager (s. this posting)
vpnc

You found after googling around the following hints:

rekeying problem (not implemented for Linux)
missing open ports in your firewall (500 UDP, 4500 UDP, 10000 UDP)
write a automatic restart script
set MTU size on tun0 below 1300
disable dead pear detection (--dpd-idle 0)
this is done via port 500
...

None of this tips worked. And now?
Let's take a look at the debug messages from vpnc:

vpnc -no-detach --debug 2 profile0

after 10 minutes:

S7.2 QM_packet2 send_receive
S7.3 QM_packet2 validate type
vpnc: no response from target

Anything learned? The connection is dead again with no response from target...
Where are this response packets? Let's take a look at wireshark:

Hmmm
Dst Port 500...
Let's try the following:

vpnc --no-detach --debug 2 --dh dh5 gip2

and voila: no disconnects anymore...

Why?
Read this link:

The Diffie-Hellman Group 5 feature enables group 5
on all platforms that support crypto images. Group 5 specifies the
1536-bit Diffie-Hellman group, which is a method of establishing a
shared key over an insecure medium.

So my advise:
If your VPN disconnects after some minutes, try some of the cli-options of vpnc. Or ask your administrator, which Diffie-Hellman group is configured...

Here the cli-option (via vpnc --long-help)

Usage: vpnc [--version] [--print-config] [--help] [--long-help] [options] [config files]

Options:
--gateway <ip/hostname>
IP/name of your IPSec gateway
conf-variable: IPSec gateway <ip/hostname>

--id <ASCII string>
your group name
conf-variable: IPSec ID <ASCII string>

(configfile only option)
your group password (cleartext)
conf-variable: IPSec secret <ASCII string>

(configfile only option)
your group password (obfuscated)
conf-variable: IPSec obfuscated secret <hex string>

--username <ASCII string>
your username
conf-variable: Xauth username <ASCII string>

(configfile only option)
your password (cleartext)
conf-variable: Xauth password <ASCII string>

(configfile only option)
your password (obfuscated)
conf-variable: Xauth obfuscated password <hex string>

--domain <ASCII string>
(NT-) Domain name for authentication
conf-variable: Domain <ASCII string>

--xauth-inter
enable interactive extended authentication (for challenge response auth)

--dpd-idle
conf-variable: Xauth interactive

--vendor <cisco/netscreen>
vendor of your IPSec gateway
Default: cisco
conf-variable: Vendor <cisco/netscreen>

--natt-mode <natt/none/force-natt/cisco-udp>
Which NAT-Traversal Method to use:
* natt -- NAT-T as defined in RFC3947
* none -- disable use of any NAT-T method
* force-natt -- always use NAT-T encapsulation even
without presence of a NAT device
(useful if the OS captures all ESP traffic)
* cisco-udp -- Cisco proprietary UDP encapsulation, commonly over Port 10000
Note: cisco-tcp encapsulation is not yet supported
Default: natt
conf-variable: NAT Traversal Mode <natt/none/force-natt/cisco-udp>

--script <command>
command is executed using system() to configure the interface,
routing and so on. Device name, IP, etc. are passed using enviroment
variables, see README. This script is executed right after ISAKMP is
done, but before tunneling is enabled. It is called when vpnc
terminates, too
Default: /etc/vpnc/vpnc-script
conf-variable: Script <command>

--dh <dh1/dh2/dh5>
name of the IKE DH Group
Default: dh2
conf-variable: IKE DH Group <dh1/dh2/dh5>

--pfs <nopfs/dh1/dh2/dh5/server>
Diffie-Hellman group to use for PFS
Default: server
conf-variable: Perfect Forward Secrecy <nopfs/dh1/dh2/dh5/server>

--enable-1des
enables weak single DES encryption
conf-variable: Enable Single DES

--enable-no-encryption
enables using no encryption for data traffic (key exchanged must be encrypted)
conf-variable: Enable no encryption

--application-version <ASCII string>
Application Version to report. Note: Default string is generated at runtime.
Default: Cisco Systems VPN Client 0.5.3:Linux
conf-variable: Application version <ASCII string>

--ifname <ASCII string>
visible name of the TUN/TAP interface
conf-variable: Interface name <ASCII string>

--ifmode <tun/tap>
mode of TUN/TAP interface:
* tun: virtual point to point interface (default)
* tap: virtual ethernet interface
Default: tun
conf-variable: Interface mode <tun/tap>

--debug <0/1/2/3/99>
Show verbose debug messages
* 0: Do not print debug information.
* 1: Print minimal debug information.
* 2: Show statemachine and packet/payload type information.
* 3: Dump everything exluding authentication data.
* 99: Dump everything INCLUDING AUTHENTICATION data (e.g. PASSWORDS).
conf-variable: Debug <0/1/2/3/99>

--no-detach
Don't detach from the console after login
conf-variable: No Detach

Report bugs to vpnc@unix-ag.uni-kl.de

Google+: Huddle with your Browser - does not work...

2011-07-28T21:23:00.002+02:00

After submitting some posts, let's take a look at other features:
If you read http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/learnmore/, you can find the following:

This sound nice, so let's try it.
But where is this icon:

Google's demo video shows huddle only on a smart phone. Does this only work with an app?
I was invited to a huddle:

If i click the > and then "join the conversation" i am directed to this page:

So i conclude: There is no huddle for webbrowsers...

Google+: How to submit posts

2011-07-26T20:54:00.001+02:00

After completing the registration process you have to add people to your circles. This can be done via drag and drop:

This is straigth forward. But how to write postings and submit them?
Google calls this "stream". You have to go back to your home:

Now add some text on the dialog in the middle:

and configure the circles to which this posting should be submitted. The four icons on the left are for adding a photo, video, link or your location. It is really nice, that you can configure, which circles get the postings.

Joining Google+: the registration process

2011-07-24T21:36:00.003+02:00

Here a short report about the new social network google+. Today i got a inviation and here the first steps into the circles...

First you have to do the registration:

Then google fills the first name and lastname from your google account and the foto, too:

The Privacy Policy can be found via this link. Here some important facts:

People in your circles (but not the name of the circle) will appear to others on your Google Profile, unless you choose not to display that information.

If you do not want us to store metadata (such as photo details) associated with your photos and videos, please remove that data before uploading the content.

We may display posts to which you’ve attached your location to users who seek to view Google+ posts "nearby" the location where you created your post. Those posts will be viewable only by those with whom the content has been shared.

Then one thing about your picasa albums:

This sounds ok, if your fotos are for everyone...

After that you can start with google+

Firefox 5.0 ready for download...

2011-06-18T20:49:00.001+02:00

Just to clarify: It is ready for download but Mozilla has not released 5.0 yet.
But you can get it here (Win, linux, mac).
After startup you get the following page:

But if you query the version via Help-> About Firefox, you will get:

And the good news, most of the plugins work (for me at least ;-)

Review at amazon: IPv6 Security

2011-06-14T22:35:00.001+02:00

World IPv6 day is now one week ago and still many participants announce their websites with AAAA records.
But what does this mean? -> IPv6 is already around us - and it is time (ok, it is a little bit late, but hopefully not too late ;-) to dive deep...

One book which you dive through is:

Here some phrases of the summary:

IPv6 Security Protection measures for the next Internet Protocol As the
world's networks migrate to the IPv6 protocol, networking professionals
need a clearer understanding of the security risks, threats, and
challenges this transition presents.

In IPv6 Security, two of the
world's leading Internet security practitioners review each potential
security issue introduced by IPv6 networking and present today's best
solutions.

IPv6 Security offers guidance for avoiding security problems
prior to widespread IPv6 deployment.

The book covers every component of
today's networks, identifying specific security deficiencies that occur
within IPv6 environments and demonstrating how to combat them.

The
authors describe best practices for identifying and resolving weaknesses
as you maintain a dual stack network.

Then they describe the security
mechanisms you need to implement as you migrate to an IPv6-only network.

This book is one of the best IPv6 books on the market. In contrast to IPv6 for Enterprise Networks every topic is well introduced and then explained with really good figures and commented configurations. Even if you are just looking for the commands on different operating systems: chapter 7 is your candidate - Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris... If you want to build a firewall: chapter 5 contains a list of subnets you should block and what else is important for ipv6 firewalls...
You are interested in transition mechanisms? Read chapter 10 (for the next years this will be an important chapter...)

If you are interested, take a look at my review at amazon.de (like all my reviews: written in german ;-).

World IPv6 Day: The Future is forever!

2011-06-07T21:33:00.003+02:00

The Internet Society has announced the world IPv6 day:

On 8 June, 2011, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai and Limelight Networks will be amongst some of the major organisations
that will offer their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour “test flight”.
The goal of the Test Flight Day is to motivate organizations across the
industry – Internet service providers, hardware makers, operating system
vendors and web companies – to prepare their services for IPv6 to
ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out.

My company has decided to take part in this initiative. The AAAA record is announced, so www.gip.com is translated into 2002:d58b:8be3:2000::2

$ dig www.gip.com AAAA +short
2002:d58b:8be3:2000::2

If you have native ipv6 connectivity or if you are using 6to4 or other transition mechanism:
You can get our website via

If you are using IPv4 only, than you should expirience nothing...

There a many other companies, which will anounce their domain with AAAA-records tomorrow. Up to now 65% of the participating companies are already reachable via IPv6 (for online chart click the image).

Google publishes a nice statistic, which shows the IPv6 traffic to their site:

Tomorrow this graph should reach 1%? 10%? 50%? Let's wait for the results....

StatCounter with new web interface

2011-05-31T21:17:00.001+02:00

StatCounter started be testing their new site. Here just two screenshots to show you the difference:

old:

new:

For more details just read the official StatCounter Blog.

NXClient: using only one screen on a dual-screen system

2011-05-27T21:46:00.001+02:00

If you want to use Linux applications remote on a windows box, have a lot of options. But if you have only limited bandwidth, your should use NX from nomachine:

Thanks to its outstanding compression, session resilience and resource management
and its integration
with the powerful audio, printing and resource sharing capabilities of the Unix world, NX makes it possible
to run any graphical application on any operating system across any network connection.
Via
NX accessing remote desktops, servers and applications, whatever
their location, is just as fast, easy and secure as if you were sitting
in front of them.

But if you use a dual-screen system and want to get the remote desktop using both screen, this did not work in the past. But upgrading the client to a version > 3.4.0.5 will do the job. You only have to check "spread over multiple screens" and connect...

Openafs: disconnected network drive?!

2011-05-18T21:54:00.001+02:00

You are using the Andrew File System?
You like local caching of files and using YOUR filesystem everywhere you go?
On Linux/Unix everything is quite ok?
But on Windows there are many users complaining about the label "disconnected network drive" for every AFS network drive although the drive is connected and working well?

But there are some solutions to get rid of this label:

Read the mail at openafs-info:
But this does not work on every windows machine. One thing you should take care of is:

However, if 
you are using global drives, the explorer shell will not ever remove those 
newly created GUIDs and it will begin to fill up over time with registry 
entries.  This is BAD.

Do not use global drives, if possible.
But how to get your drives mounted? With openafs clients > 1.5.6 you can not manage local drives within the openafs control panel....
This is not a problem: Just add a network drive and type "\\afs\yourcell\..." and this will be mounted without this ugly "disconnected network drive"-label....

By the way: Openafs plans to add IPv6 support...

Review at amazon: IPv6 for Enterprise Networks

2011-05-13T21:06:00.001+02:00

I was looking for books talking about IPv6. One book i found was:

The summary sounds quite good:

Four leading Cisco IPv6 experts present a practical approach to organizing and executing your large-scale IPv6 implementation. They show how IPv6 affects existing network designs, describe common IPv4/IPv6 coexistence mechanisms, guide you in planning, and present validated configuration examples for building labs, pilots, and production networks.
[...]
Finally, they translate IPv6 concepts into usable configurations. Up-to-date and practical, IPv6 for Enterprise Networks is an indispensable resource for every network engineer, architect, manager, and consultant who must evaluate, plan, migrate to, or manage IPv6 networks.

Some chapters are really informative and cover some really nice aspects. But the main chapter (chapter 6) is unclear and confusing:

Many Cisco configurations without explanations
Many Topics without any grouping and structure

If you have the time to implement the configurations in your lab, then this book might be helpful. But if you only want to read, you should look for an alternative.
If you are interested, take a look at my review at amazon.de (like all my reviews: written in german ;-).

Oracle Database XE 11g beta

2011-04-26T21:57:00.002+02:00

Last week Oracle announced database XE 11g beta:

The beta edition supports only two operating systems:

So what about using the Linux x64 edition?
But first: You should consider the following licensing restrictions (see here):

Only one CPU will be used.
Only one installation on a single computer allowed.
The maximum amount of user data in an Oracle Database XE database cannot exceed 11 gigabytes.
The maximum amount of RAM that an Oracle Database XE database uses cannot exceed 1 gigabyte
HTTPS is not supported natively.

The installation itself is straight forward:

Log on to your computer with root permissions.
Go to the following Web site:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe

Click Free Download and follow the instructions to select and download the Linux version of Oracle Database XE.
Run the Oracle Database XE executable oracle-xe-11.2.0-0.4.x86_64.rpm to install Oracle Database XE.
$ rpm -ivh downloads/oracle-xe-11.2.0-0.4.x86_64.rpm
The installation displays a status of its progress.
When prompted, run the following command:
$ /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure
Enter the following configuration information:
A valid HTTP port for the Oracle APEX (the default is 8080)
A valid port for the Oracle database listener (the default is 1521)
A password for the SYS and SYSTEM administrative user accounts
Whether you want the database to start automatically when the computer starts
If you enter Yes, then the database starts immediately

That's it.

Linux Shell Programming: Converting hex to binary

2011-04-02T21:46:00.001+02:00

What about:

You have to convert a hex value into a binary value
Your only tool is a linux shell
You have to start in 30s
You have to do it for >10000 hex values

Write a small program in c or java or whatever you would prefer?

What about this:

schroff@hades:$ echo "ibase=16;obase=2; 10 "|bc
10000
schroff@hades:$ echo "ibase=16;obase=2; 1F "|bc
11111

ibase: base of input value
obase: base of output value
The following bases can be used:

16 -> hex
10 -> decimal
8 -> octal
2 -> binary

Debian 6: IPSec-VPN?! -> Network-Manager

2011-03-24T20:57:00.003+01:00

After changing to Debian 6 i had to recompile the Cisco IPSec kernel module (cisco_ipsec.ko). But i ended up with:

hades:/packages/vpnclient# ./vpn_install
Cisco Systems VPN Client Version 4.8.02 (0030) Linux Installer
Copyright (C) 1998-2006 Cisco Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
....
Making module
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.37.3/build SUBDIRS=/packages/vpnclient modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.37.3'
CC [M] /packages/vpnclient/linuxcniapi.o
/packages/vpnclient/linuxcniapi.c:14:28: error: linux/autoconf.h: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
make[2]: *** [/packages/vpnclient/linuxcniapi.o] Fehler 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/packages/vpnclient] Fehler 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.37.3'
make: *** [default] Fehler 2
Failed to make module "cisco_ipsec.ko".

Ok... this does not work anymore.
But the network-manager has one tab labelled vpn... What about using this one?

The first try was not successful, because the "add"-button was disabled. After some googling around there was a hint to install the following package:

apt-get install network-manager-pptp-gnome

The button was enabled but only Point-to-Point-Tunneling-Protocol could be chosen. A lookup on http://packages.debian.org showed the following packages in addition:

apt-get install network-manager-openvpn-gnome
apt-get install network-manager-vpnc-gnome

After installing these packages the following vpn-types were selectable:

And with choosing vpnc the following dialog was shown

and after filling in all parameters, the vpn connection was established without any problem...

How to enable the firefox-button on linux

2011-03-18T22:32:00.002+01:00

Have you tried firefox 4 on your linux box?
Then you expected something like this:

But on linux the menu bar is enabled as default and no firefox button is present at the window decoration...

grrrr....

But there is an easy way to get the firefox button enabled:

Just disable the menu bar and firefox button will appear

If you want to replace the text with a button try this posting at glandium.org.
If you are using the extension tree style tab, the button looks this way:

SQLDeveloper Data Modeler 3.0 released

2011-02-10T21:08:00.001+01:00

Two weeks ago SQLDeveloper 3.0 was released:

The list of new features can be found here. Some nice tutorials can be found on this page:

Documentation can be found at download.oracle.com/docs and it's free:

amazonmp3: error while loading shared libraries: libglademm-2.4.so.1

2011-02-06T21:23:00.001+01:00

If you want to buy a mp3 album via amazon on a linux system, you have to use a program which can handle amz-files.
Amazon provides for this amazonmp3. But on an ubuntu 10 the provided download for Ubuntu 9.04 does not work:

amazonmp3:
error while loading shared libraries:
libglademm-2.4.so.1:
cannot open shared object file:
No such file or directory

Now you can try to download this lib, but then the next one is missing an again and again and...

To end not up this way, you should read this page:

http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Amazon_MP3-Downloader

There are two alternatives:

Clamz (command line tool)
Pymazon (GUI)

IPv6: Statless autoconfiguration not working on wireless networks...

2011-02-02T21:56:00.001+01:00

If you are running a AVM FritzBox, you can easily enable IPv6 support on this FritzBox (take a look at this posting). But this is only half the way ;-).
I checked the following clients:

Ubuntu: autoconfiguration works just out of the box...
On windows client you have to enable IPv6 support and after that everything works fine...
Debian: there are no router solicitation (ra) messages sent... ;-(
[and of course no ipv6-connectivity...]

After some checks it was obvious, that the wpa_supplicant-mechanism is the problem. The initialization of wpa needs up to 10s and the ra messages are sent at a time, when the wpa encryption is not set up and the kernel does not resend them.

But there is an easy workaround to resend this messages:

rdisc6 eth1
hades:/etc/network# rdisc6 eth1
Soliciting ff02::2 (ff02::2) on eth1...

Hop limit                 :          255 (      0xff)
Stateful address conf.    :           No
Stateful other conf.      :          Yes
Router preference         :       medium
Router lifetime           :         1800 (0x00000708) seconds
Reachable time            : unspecified (0x00000000)
Retransmit time           : unspecified (0x00000000)
Prefix                   : 2002:5ed5:8422::/64
Valid time              :         7200 (0x00001c20) seconds
Pref. time              :         3600 (0x00000e10) seconds
Recursive DNS server     : fd00::21c:55ff:fe1a:2632
DNS server lifetime     :         1200 (0x000004b0) seconds
MTU                      :         1280 bytes (valid)
Source link-layer address: 00:1C:55:1A:26:32
from fe80::21c:55ff:fe1a:2632

After that ifconfig shows a auto configured ipv6 address:

inet6-Adresse: 2002:5dd2:84d3:0:210:ff:fe0d:1244/64 Gültigkeitsbereich:Global

and the routes are set like they should:

2002:5dd2:84d3:0:210:ff:fe0d:1244/128 ::                         Un    0 1    351 lo
2002:5dd2:84d3::/64                   ::                         UAe   256 0 4 eth1
::/0                                  fe80::21c:55ff:fe1a:2632   UGDAe 1024 0   42 eth1
...

Just open http://test-ipv6.com:

Virtualbox 4.0: SCSI-Controllers and sharing host directories

2011-01-15T22:55:00.001+01:00

In december 2010 Oracle released Virtualbox 4.0:

Very nice is the new preview window inside the manager window:

There are several new features with version 4. In my opinion new hdd controllers and sharing host directories with guest machines are very important enhancements, which were missing in oder version.
The following screenshots show how to configure these new features:
IDE, SCSI and SATA controllers can be configured via:

with using the icon which opens the following drop down menu:

With 4.0 it is possible to share host folders with the guest machines. Just follow these steps:

But i got:

mount.vboxsf tmp2 /tmp2
/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such device

But this is due to the fact, that the guest system failed installing the guest additions and so the appropriate kernel modules were missing ;-(.
After some additional work (installing kernel-headers, etc.) everything worked well....

Review at amazon: Getting Started with Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 – A Hands-On Tutorial

2010-12-30T21:06:00.001+01:00

Last two weeks i read "Getting Started with Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 – A Hands-On Tutorial" and played with the examples given in this book.

On the packtpub website the following can be found about this book:

What you will learn from this book :
Build a business process application
Model executable processes with Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) 2.0
Optimize your processes using process simulation
Analyze activity with Process Analytics and Business Activity Monitoring
Integrate business decisions with Business Rules
Design complex Human Task flows
Develop rich forms for BPM
Collaborate with Process Spaces (Social BPM)
Explore life-cycle management features

What they are not telling is, that this book contains many step by step examples with excellent screenshots. For this reason it is very easy to follow all the steps to set up a running BPM Suite (The installation process is described very detailed for windows) and get a process running.
On more than 500 pages you can find a short introduction in BPMN 2.0, Installation, BPM Studio, Roles, Simulation, ....
If you are interested, take a look at my review at amazon.de (like all my reviews: written in german ;-).

Oracle BPM: How to use start and end events

2010-09-28T21:47:00.002+02:00

For modelling a process you have to configure your Jdeveloper 11g like shown in this posting. Then you can create easliy a process like this one:

[The behaviour of the tool palette is a little bit weird, because you can not use drag&drop. You have to click an item and then move the mouse inside the graph. Then the item is beneath the mouse cursor and you can place it with a second click.]

The start event can be changed via right mouse click:

[The start event with the envelope is called "message start event"]

Here an excerpt from the official documentation about the start events:

The none start event is used when no instance trigger is defined. Process analysts can use the none start event as a placeholder when the necessary start event of a process is unknown or is defined and implemented later by process developers. None start events are also used to specify the beginning of a process where the process instance is created by another flow object. Although the none start event does not trigger the creation of a process instance, it is required when triggering a process instance using the following flow objects:
Receive task. The receive task must have the Create Instance property set to true.
User task implemented with the initiator pattern
The message start event triggers a process instance when a message is received. This message can be sent from another BPMN or BPEL process or from a service. Messages are types of data used for of exchanging information between processes. Just as data objects are used to define the data used within a project, messages are used to define the data used between processes or between a process and a service.
You can exposed a BPMN process as service which enables other processes and applications to invoke the process. To expose a process as a service, your process must begin with a message start event.

The signal start event is similar to a message start event in that it is based on communication from another process or service. However, the message start event responds to a message sent to a specific process. In contrast, the signal start event is a response to a signal broadcast to multiple processes. Signals can be broadcast from a BPMN process using the signal throw event. Using a combination of signal throw and signal start events, you can invoke multiple processes simultaneously.

The timer start event triggers the creation of a process instance based on a specific time condition. You can configure the timer start event to trigger a process instance based on the following:
A specific date and time. For example, a process could be triggered on December 31, at 11:59 PM.
A recurring interval. For example, a process could be triggered every 10 hours, 5 minutes, 32 seconds.

The following end events can be used:

None end event
like start event
Error end event
Errors end events are normally used with the error boundary event. The error
boundary event is used to alter the process flow based on a specific error. This flow usually ends using an error end event.
Message end event
like start event
Terminate end event
The terminate end event is used to immediately terminate a process. When a terminate end event is reached, the process ends immediately. There is no error handling or additional clean up performed.

Fritz!Box: New firmwares with IPv6-support!

2010-09-19T21:10:00.001+02:00

Last week AVM released some new firmwares including IPv6-support. After running the online update my Fritz!Box 7270 showed the following version:

[54.04.86]

But how to activate IPv6? After some clicks i found the this tab:

Per default the IPv6-support is switched off:

After activating this checkbox the following options are shown:

That's all.
Now you can use IPv6 for your lan at home and first check is opening the Fritz!Box webinterface via IPv6:

BPM on Linux...

2010-09-12T21:18:00.002+02:00

Running jdeveloper on Linux is not really a problem. Just unzip the tarball (<11g) or run the installer (11g +) and start with ./jdev.
Jdeveloper 11g starts on Linux but after installing the BPM functionality i got:

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.modeler.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.tests.jdev-test.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.bpm.fusion.soa, oracle.bpm.workflow

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:55 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.sca.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:56 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.soa.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.sca.modeler, oracle.sca.mediator, oracle.bpm.modeler, oracle.bpm.modeler.plugins, oracle.sca.modeler.plugins, oracle.bpm.mapper, oracle.bpm.rules, oracle.bpm.workflow

Sep 12, 2010 9:02:56 PM oracle.ideimpl.extension.WarnAboutDisabledExtensionsAddinlogDisabledExtensions
SEVERE: jar:/file:/home/data/opt/Oracle11.1.1.3.0/jdeveloper/jdev/extensions/oracle.bpm.fusion.internal.jar!/META-INF/extension.xml:0: Not loaded: Missing dependencies: oracle.bpm.rules, oracle.bpm.workflow

With this error messages the bpm.modeler does not work...
Does anybody know, how to get around this problem? (On Windows there are no problems -> BPM-modellers do not use Linux?!)

Oracle BPM Suite: Overview

2010-09-08T10:40:00.001+02:00

In my last posting i provided some links to the documentation. After reading some pages, i will try to give a summary.

In Business Process Composer User's Guide for Oracle Business Process Management i found the folling picture:

Here some explanations to these boxes:

BPM Studio = Jdeveloper 11g with BPM installed
Business Process Composer = a web-based application that enables business
users to collaborate with process developers and designers
BAM = a complete solution for building interactive, real-time dashboards and proactive alerts for
monitoring business processes and services

But how do this components fit into Oracle Fusion? Take a look at this picture:

Here you can see, that the BPMN and BPEL Service Engines share the same process core.

The Oracle BPM Engine provides a run-time environment for running business processes. It provides native support for both BPMN and BPEL processes. The Process Core
provides engine functionality that is shared by the BPMN and BPEL engines.
Some of the key functionality performed by the process core includes:
– Manage security
– Generate audit trails
– Invoke services
– Manage persistence

Ok. But why are there two ways for creating business processes? And hwo do they interact with each other?
Here two pictures with typical worksteps:

With knowing all this we are able to start our first project. Finally a screenshot of the business process composer:

Oracle BPM Suite: Documentation

2010-09-05T21:16:00.002+02:00

After getting the BPM Suite ready (Installing BPM components into jdeveloper), here a collections of links to quick-starts, tutorials and the original documentation:

Oracle BPM and Oracle Service Bus Integration:
About the global picture...
BPM 11g: For Oracle, It's All About Integration:
Summarizing the steps to Oracle's BPM...
The official documentation library (11g Release 1)
and inside this documentation you can find the following Guides:
Modelling and Implementation Guide
This guide contains 447 pages and is for the following audience:
This guide is intended for process developers who use the Business Process Studio application to create and implement business processes, and create and configure Oracle BPM projects used to created process-based applications using the Oracle Business Process Management Suite.
Administrator's Guide
Targeted audience (618 pages):
This document is intended for administrators managing applications on an SOA platform.
User's Guide
With only 150 pages for:
This document is intended for all users of both Oracle Business Process Management Workspace and Oracle Business Process Management Process Spaces.
User's Guide for Oracle Business Composer
135 pages with the following intended audience:
This guide is intended for process analysts who use the Business Process Composer application to create and edit the business processes and Oracle BPM projects used to created process-based applications using the Oracle Business Process Management Suite.
This guide is also intended for process developers who must use Business Process Composer. See Section 1.2, "Oracle BPM User Personas" for more information on these user personas.
This manual assumes that you have basic knowledge of business process design and are familiar with Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) 2.0.
Samples and Demos

Enjoy and Happy Reading!

Oracle BPM 11g: Missing BPM Studio Components in Jdeveloper 11g

2010-08-31T21:54:00.006+02:00

Oracle announced Business Process Management Suite 11g on June 14th 2010:

A component of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g is the industry’s most complete, open and integrated Business Process Management (BPM) solution.
Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g supports all types of processes with a new unified process foundation, user-centric design and social BPM capabilities.
Oracle Business Process Management Suite 11g includes a native implementation of BPMN 2.0.

So let's take a look at BPM homepage. There you can find a link "getting started". But on the "getting started" page there is a link "Get started with BPM Suite 10g".
Ok - you want 11g you should start with 10g and no quick link how to start the studio...

Next try: Start with the BPM download page. This sounds better:

JDeveloper: Download JDeveloper 11.1.1.3.0 (BPM Studio) from the FMW download page. Look for JDeveloper and Application Development Framework in the Required Addition Software section.
SOA and BPM Extension for JDeveloper: Install the SOA and BPM Extension using the JDeveloper Update Center. From the JDeveloper menu choose Help > Check for Updates. In the Update Wizard, select Search Update Centers and ensure Oracle Fusion Middleware Products is checked ( screenshot). Then ensure that Oracle SOA Composite Editor is checked ( screenshot, your version may not match the screenshot exactly). The SOA and BPM Extension is approximately 200 MB each.

But the screenshots are a redirects to the BPM Homepage....

To save your time, here a quick start, how to get the BPM Studio.

First download JDeveloper 11g (11.1.1.3.0), unzip it and run jdeveloper:

Then open "Check for Updates" inside the "help" menu.

After that follow the Update Wizard like shown in the next pictures:

At this step you have to provide your Oracle account credentials.

Finished!!!

Now you can choose "New Appliation"

and here we go:

That's all...

Review at amazon: Turbo Coded Modulation for Multicarrier Communication Systems: Applications to WiMAX, WLAN and DSL

2010-07-22T21:14:00.002+02:00

Bump!
Did you ever think about how you cd player does its error correction? If so, you know abount Reed-Solomon-Codes. But this is state of the art of 1960 (ok: 1980). Just take a look at wikipedia:

Today, RS codes are widely implemented in digital storage devices and digital communication standards, though they are being slowly replaced by more modern low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes or turbo codes.

And if you want to dive into this new world, here is a chance to start:

A printout of a dissertation which can compete with signal processing lectures. Not easy to read but the subject is not easy, too ;-). Read my review at amazon (like always only in german, sorry).

Review at amazon: VirtualBox 3.1 - Beginner's Guide

2010-06-27T21:23:00.005+02:00

Many postings on this blog are related to virtualization technology. Some about VMWare and most about VirtualBox. This weekend i read this book:

Here a summary from packtpub.com about this book:

Download and install VirtualBox in a Windows/Linux environment
Create your virtual machine on VirtualBox, using Ubuntu Linux Desktop/Windows XP as the "guest" operating system
Share folders and pass information between the host and the guest operating systems
Explore the Hardware 3D Acceleration feature available in Windows and Linux guests
Revert the state of a virtual machine using snapshots
Architect a virtual machine using fixed and dynamically expanding hard drive images and choose the appropriate hard disk controller
Clone hard disks using the Virtual Media Manager
Connect a virtual machine to the Internet and a local network using the default NAT mode
Illustrations for using WordPress, Drupal, and File Server virtual appliances
Set up a headless server and create, manage, and run virtual machines in that server from a remote PC

But in this list there are some important points missing like

Using Seamless Windows (using windows from the virtual machine within the host desktop)
Shared folders between guest and host
Configuring the disk controller type for a guest (IDE <-> SATA <-> SCSI)
Snapshottings guest machines

My summary: VirtualBox 3.1 is a good book with many configurations including detailed screenshots. For Beginners it is very easy to get everything running. Experts should skip the chapter 1 to 3, because there you can only find howto install a guest (like ubuntu, windows 7, damn small linux) or how to browse inside a guest or using openoffice. But the rest even experts should read!
If you are interested, take a look at my review at amazon.de (It is written in german, sorry).

Oracle Fusion Demo

2010-06-02T22:35:00.001+02:00

Download the zip-file from here.
Then create a appropriate directory:

mkdir fusiondemo
cd fusiondemo
unzip /tmp/FusionOrderDemo_R1PS2.zip

After that you will see:

schroff@hades:$ l
insgesamt 32
drwxr-xr-x 7 schroff schroff 4096 2. Jun 21:38 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 schroff schroff 4096 2. Jun 21:38 ..
drwxr-xr-x 13 schroff schroff 4096 2. Jun 21:38 CompositeServices
drwxr-xr-x 6 schroff schroff 4096 2. Jun 21:38 Infrastructure
drwxr-xr-x 6 schroff schroff 4096 2. Jun 21:38 MasterPriceList
-rw-r--r-- 1 schroff schroff 3061 28. Mai 11:00 readme.txt
drwxr-xr-x 7 schroff schroff 4096 2. Jun 21:38 StandaloneExamples
drwxr-xr-x 7 schroff schroff 4096 2. Jun 21:38 StoreFrontModule

The readme.txt contains the following:

About the Oracle Fusion Order Demo Application

Fusion Order Demo (FOD) is an end-to-end application sample developed by Fusion Middleware Product Management. The purpose of the demo is to demostrate common use cases in Fusion Middleware applications, including the integration between different components of the Fusion technology stack, (ADF, BPEL, and WebCenter). The demo contains several applications that make up various parts of functionality.

Note that there are two versions of the demo: One which includes the ADF and SOA components (named FusionOrderDemo_R1PS2.zip), and one which includes these components, as well as WebCenter functionality.
About the Applications included in the Demo (organized by extracted directory name)

CompositeServices - WebLogicFusionOrderDemo.jws is a sample SOA application based on Oracle Mediator, BPEL Process, Human Task, Business Rules, and Messaging Service. This application shows how to use Oracle SOA Suite to integrate a number of applications into one cohesive ordering system. The accompanying developer's guide for this module is Oracle<AE> Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle SOA Suite 11g (http://www.oracle.com/pls/as111130/lookup?id=SOASE).

Infrastructure - Infrastructure.jws contains the database schema information for the sample application. All applications use the same schema, FOD. The accompanying Developer's Guide for this module is Oracle<AE> Fusion Middleware Fusion Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework 11g (http://www.oracle.com/pls/as111130/lookup?id=ADFFD).

MasterPriceList - MasterPriceList.jws is a sample application that integrates with Microsoft Excel to demonstrate the use of ADF Data Integration functionality. The accompanying Developer's Guide for this module is Oracle<AE> Fusion Middleware Desktop Integration Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework 11g (http://www.oracle.com/pls/as111130/lookup?id=ADFDI).

StandaloneExamples - This module contains several workspaces that demonstrate various features of the ADF Framework that are not included in the Store Front scenario. The accompanying Developer's Guide for this module is Oracle<AE> Fusion Middleware Fusion Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework 11g (http://www.oracle.com/pls/as111130/lookup?id=ADFFD).

StoreFrontModule - StoreFrontModule.jws is a sample web application based on Oracle ADF Business Components, ADF Model data bindings and ADF Faces. The application follows an online shopping scenario and contains hook points for integrating with the CompositeServices module. The accompanying Developer's Guide for this module is Oracle<AE> Fusion Middleware Fusion Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Development Framework 11g (http://www.oracle.com/pls/as111130/lookup?id=ADFFD).

The sample application is provided for informational purposes only.

Credits
Fusion Order Demo was created by:

Laura Akel
Duncan Mills
Lynn Munsinger
Juan Ruiz
Clemens Utschig
Kundan Vyas

Each directory contains another readme.txt for further instructions
(deployment, import to jdev).
Inside the CompositeServices you should open the jws-file with jdeveloper:

The follwing screenshot shows the applications with SOA content:

Here the composite.xml form the B2BX12OrderGateway:

This is a really small composite. If you want to see something larger, you should open the composite from the OrderBooking application. In one of the next posts i will try merge the screenshots to one picture (or does anybody know, how to create images from composites without doing screenshots?)...

Building Virtualbox from scratch

2010-05-15T22:12:00.001+02:00

Virtualbox can be used with two licenses. Here the official statement from the website:

The full VirtualBox package is available in binary (executable) form free of charge from the Downloads page. This version is free for personal use and evaluation under the terms of the VirtualBox Personal Use and Evaluation License.
If, instead, you wish to purchase licenses for enterprise use and/or enterprise support for VirtualBox, please do not hesitate to contact your Sun representative or buy online from the Web Store
The VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE) is the one that has been released under the GPL and comes with complete source code. It is functionally equivalent to the full VirtualBox package, except for a few features that primarily target enterprise customers. This gives us a chance to generate revenue to fund further development of VirtualBox.

So if you want to use Virtualbox under GPL you have to build it from scratch. This is not very difficult:

Download the OSE (Open Source Edition) from Virtualbox
Take a look at the build instructions
If you are running Debian, you have to install the following packages:
apt-get install bin86 bcc iasl libxml2-dev libxslt-dev liborbit-de libcurl4-openssl-dev libpng12-dev libsdl1.2-dev libxcursor-dev libxmu-dev python-dev libpulse-dev libcap-dev libqt4-opengl-dev
Unpack the tarball
tar -jxf VirtualBox-3.1.8-OSE.tar.bz2
Configure the package
./configure -help
Usage: ./configure [OPTIONS]...

Configuration:
-h, --help display this help and exit
--nofatal don't abort on errors
--disable-xpcom disable XPCOM and related stuff
--disable-python disable python bindings
--disable-sdl-ttf disable SDL_ttf detection
--disable-alsa disable the ALSA sound backend
--disable-pulse disable the PulseAudio backend
--disable-dbus don't use DBus and hal for hardware detection
--disable-kmods don't build Linux kernel modules (host and guest)
--disable-opengl disable OpenGL support
--enable-webservice enable the webservice stuff
--disable-hardening don't be strict about /dev/vboxdrv access
--build-libxml2 build libxml2 from sources
--build-libxslt build libxslt from sources
--setup-wine setup a Wine directory and register the hhc hack

Paths:
--with-gcc=PATH location of the gcc compiler [gcc]
--with-g++=PATH location of the g++ compiler [g++]
--with-kbuild=DIR kbuild directory [/tmp/VirtualBox-3.1.8_OSE/kBuild]
--with-iasl=PATH location of the iasl compiler [iasl]
--with-mkisofs=PATH location of mkisofs [mkisofs]
--with-linux=DIR Linux kernel source directory [/lib/modules/2.6.28.7/build]
--with-qt-dir=DIR directory for Qt4 headers/libraries [pkgconfig]
--with-openssl-dir=DIR directory for OpenSSL headers/libraries
--out-path=PATH the folder to which configuration and build output
should go

Build type:
-d, --build-debug build with debugging symbols and assertions
--build-profile build with profiling support
--build-headless build headless (without any GUI frontend)
schroff@hades:$ ./configure
Checking for environment: Determined build machine: linux.x86, target machine: linux.x86, OK.
Checking for kBuild: found, OK.
Checking for gcc: found version 4.3.2, OK.
Checking for as86: found version 0.16.17, OK.
Checking for bcc: found version 0.16.17, OK.
Checking for iasl: found version 20061109, OK.
Checking for xslt: found, OK.
Checking for pthread: found, OK.
Checking for libxml2: found version 2.6.32, OK.
Checking for libxslt: found version 1.1.24, OK.
Checking for libIDL: found version 0.6.8, OK.
Checking for ssl: found version OpenSSL 0.9.8g 19 Oct 2007, OK.
Checking for libcurl: found version 7.18.2, OK.
Checking for zlib: found version 1.2.3.3, OK.
Checking for libpng: found version 1.2.27, OK.
Checking for SDL: found version 1.2.12, OK.
Checking for X libraries: found, OK.
Checking for Xcursor: found, OK.
Checking for Xmu: found, OK.
Checking for Mesa / GLU: found version 1.2, OK.
Checking for Qt4: found version 4.4.3, OK.
Checking for Qt4 devtools: found version 4.4.3, OK.
Checking for python support: found version 2.5.2, OK.
Checking for static stc++ library: found, OK.
Checking for Linux kernel sources: found version 2.6.28, OK.
Checking for ALSA: found version 1.0.16, OK.
Checking for PulseAudio: found version 0.9.10 API version 11, OK.
Checking for libcap library: found, OK.
Checking for compiler.h: compiler.h not found, OK.

Successfully generated '/tmp/VirtualBox-3.1.8_OSE/AutoConfig.kmk' and '/tmp/VirtualBox-3.1.8_OSE/env.sh'.
Source '/tmp/VirtualBox-3.1.8_OSE/env.sh' once before you start to build VBox:

source /tmp/VirtualBox-3.1.8_OSE/env.sh
kmk

To compile the kernel modules, do:

cd ./out/linux.x86/release/bin/src
make

+++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++
Hardening is enabled which means that the VBox binaries will not run from
the binary directory. The binaries have to be installed suid root and some
more prerequisites have to be fulfilled which is normally done by installing
the final package. For development, the hardening feature can be disabled
by specifying the --disable-hardening parameter. Please never disable that
feature for the final distribution!
+++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++ WARNING +++

Enjoy!
source ./env.sh
kmk all
cd out/linux.x86/release/bin/components
ln -s ../VBoxDDU.so .
ln -s ../VBoxREM.so .
ln -s ../VBoxRT.so .
ln -s ../VBoxVMM.so .
ln -s ../VBoxXPCOM.so .
Last but not least follow the instructions here to build the kernel modules und to run Virtualbox...

If this was to much work, just do the three steps here and use official binaries...

Exif?!

2010-05-09T21:26:00.002+02:00

Did you ever examine what data your digital camera is writing inside your images? There is much more than the picture itself. It is called

EXIF = Exchangeable Image File Format

Here a shortened listing:

ExifTool Version Number : 7.30
File Name : 2OG.JPG
File Size : 831 kB
File Modification Date/Time : 2008:05:19 13:49:28
File Type : JPEG
MIME Type : image/jpeg
Exif Byte Order : Little-endian (Intel, II)
Make : NIKON
Camera Model Name : COOLPIX S6
Orientation : Horizontal (normal)
Software : COOLPIX S6V1.0
Modify Date : 2008:05:19 13:49:28
Y Cb Cr Positioning : Co-sited
Exposure Time : 1/125
F Number : 8.5
Exposure Program : Program AE
ISO : 50
Exif Version : 0220
Date/Time Original : 2008:05:19 13:49:28
Create Date : 2008:05:19 13:49:28
Max Aperture Value : 3.0
Flash : Off
Focal Length : 5.8 mm
Maker Note Version : 2.00
Color Mode : Color
White Balance : Auto
Focus Mode : AF-S
ISO Selection : Auto
Data Dump : (Binary data 1502 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Compression : JPEG (old-style)
Preview Image Start : 14921
Preview Image Length : 16048

Until this weekend i did not care about this information, too. But After upgrading my laptop all images loosed the right date, because with a wrong copy command the date was replaced with the current date. But with the help of exiftool (apt-get install libimage-exiftool-perl) it was easy to correct the wrong date:

$ exiftool 2OG.JPG |grep "Create Date"
Create Date : 2008:05:19 13:49:21

Using exiftool together with awk, sed and touch the date of the images can be restored without a problem...

Installating Openafs on Windows fails... (64Bit)

2010-04-02T20:43:00.002+02:00

If you have to install a msi-installer on a windows 64Bit machine, it is possible that this installer just fail silently. After you enable logging (look at this posting) this is a possible error message:

MSI (s) (60:CC) [20:34:54:265]: Product: OpenAFS for Windows (64-bit) -- Error 1719. The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if you are running Windows in safe mode, or if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance.

This is an indication, that your msi-installer is configured in 32-bit mode and not in 64-bit mode but the installable needs 64-bit mode.
How can you change this? Here one answer found on Aaron Stebner's WebLog:

Click on the Start menu, choose Run, type cmd and click OK
Run %windir%\system32\msiexec.exe /unregister
Run %windir%\syswow64\msiexec.exe /unregister
Run %windir%\system32\msiexec.exe /regserver
Run %windir%\syswow64\msiexec.exe /regserver
Restart the computer

After that the installation will finish (hopefully) without an error ;-)

Windows-Installer MSI: failing without a trace

2010-03-28T20:47:00.002+02:00

Did you ever try to install a program on a microsoft windows OS with msi (Microsoft Installer)? This type of installation mostly works, but sometimes the process ends with a dialog: "There was an error .. Please try again"
And of course, everyone tries again, but just the same dialog. Ok. Reboot. Same dialog...
Hmm - this will not work.
If you ask some friends, you get the typical answers:

use a real operating system
on Linux this never happens
buy a MAC

But not the OS is the problem. The problem is, that there are no logfiles for the installation process.
However, this can be changed:

Start regedit and edit the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\
Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer
Add Reg_SZ: Logging
Set Logging to "v"
open a shell via cmd and type "cd %temp%". In this directory you will find logfiles of the next installations.

Next please...

2010-02-18T20:49:00.001+01:00

Today i read in my newspaper about IT-hypes of the last years. www.faz.net built up a list how a company has to communicate to its customers:

2003: friendster
2004: blogs/wikis
2005: cyworld
2006: podcasts
2007: second life
2008: facebook/myspace
2009: twitter
2010: foursquare/apps

Wow... Do you remember all of them? (if not just ask google ;-)
And what about 2011 (i know 2010 is young, but i think the apps are just unbeatable...)

and the winner is:

2010-02-14T20:44:00.003+01:00

If you are insterested, here a link to a nice pdf about the boat USA.

"Oracle has finalized the Sun transaction and the deal has closed."

2010-01-31T20:42:00.002+01:00

The title of this blogging is from the offical website from oracle "Overview and Frequently Asked Questions for the Developer Community".
So what are the important answers for these questions?

For the near future, all these sites [Sun Developer Network, java.sun.com, and BigAdmin] will remain in their current form.

Java.net is an important part of the community, and Oracle will continue
to invest in it—as well as look for new and better ways to support its
membership

NetBeans.org will continue to be available at the usual URL—no changes.

We will also communicate important admin/Solaris-related news through
BigAdmin's existing newsletter.

But what has changed with closing the deal?
If you try www.sun.com you get redirected to www.oracle.com and you can find the hardware here:

And after some clicks you will see something like this:

If you want to get the sun hardware more quickly, you can use http://catalogs.sun.com.

Oracles SQL Developer 2.1...

2010-01-23T20:47:00.001+01:00

On december 15th Oracle released a new version of its database tool SQL Developer:

Version 2.1.0.63.73

They jumped from version 1.5.5 to 2.1.0, so there should be some really new features built in. The release notes tell us:

Oracle SQL Developer Unit Testing provides a unit testing framework that allows you to build a set of sequential steps to create test cases for testing your PL/SQL code. These tests can optionally be collected into test suites, which can then be run and rerun to verify required functionality after any changes to your PL/SQL code. Command
line access for executing, exporting, and importing suites or tests is provided for integration with your build and version control environment.

SQL Developer 2.1 incorporates a Data Modeler viewer, integrated into SQL Developer. The Data Modeler Viewer also supports visualizing tables, views and object types on read-only Data Modeler diagrams. The SQL Developer Data Modeler Viewer extension is a free extension to SQL Developer. For a updateable data model, download and review the Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler, a stand alone product that supports logical,
relational and conceptual modeling. The tool supports forward and reverse engineering and import and export from various sources. The Data Modeler supports an additional standalone model viewer, which allows users to open models built in the full Data Modeler.

The SQL Worksheet has been redesigned for SQL Developer 2.1 to support concurrent task processing for long running operations. Updates to the worksheet include the support of multiple data grids off the F9 (Run Statement) command and dockable OWA, DBMSOutput and SQL History windows.

A detailed explanation is given here.

Let's focus on the second point: Data Modeler

I tried to work with that tool, but without the documentation or tutorial you are really lost. The official documentation does not explain anything useful about the data modeler...
After searching a while i found some some nice links to start:

After at least the first tutorial you will be able to maintain your ERD with SQL Developer 2.1...

Backup on Linux: storeBackup / storeBackupRecover

2010-01-16T20:53:00.002+01:00

You made a good start into 2010? What about new years pledges?
Here one thing, which you can add to your list:

BACKUP / RESTORE for your private data
(your company should already do backups ;-)

I am using storeBackup which has some really nice features:

The first measure to decrease the necessary hard drive storage space would be the compression of data - if that makes sense. storeBackup allows the use of any compression algorithm as an external program. The default is bzip2.
Within storeBackup, a hard link is used for referencing. With this trick of adding hard links, which were already created in existing backup files, each file is present in each backup although it exists physically on the hard drive only once. Copying and renaming of files or directories takes only the storage space of the hard links - nearly nothing.
Unlike with traditional backups, there is no need to consider if an incremental backup is depending on previous backups. The options permit the deletion or saving of backups on specific workdays, first or last existing backup of the week/month or year.

So what do you have to do?

storeBackup -s /home/schroff -t /home/backup/truecrypt/schroff --progressReport 1000

and everything inside /home/schroff is backuped to /home/backup/truecrypt/schroff (if you like to exclude some directories use -e .wine for example). Here the output of the first run:

STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 [sec] | user| system
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 -------+----------+----------
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 process| 31.84| 59.91
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 childs | 16.49| 0.84
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 -------+----------+----------
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum | 48.33| 60.75 => 109.08 (1m49s)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 directories = 8923
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 files = 53726
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 symbolic links = 417
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 named pipes = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 new internal linked files = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 old linked files = 16
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 unchanged files = 53260
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 copied files = 10
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 compressed files = 23
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 excluded files because pattern = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 included files because pattern = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 max size of copy queue = 3
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 max size of compression queue = 4
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 calced md5 sums = 49
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 forks total = 46
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 forks md5 = 23
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 forks copy = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 forks bzip2 = 23
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum of source = 4.6G (4943663018)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum of target all = 3.8G (4131620957)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum of target all = 83.57%
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum of target new = 10M (10961305)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum of target new = 0.22%
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum of md5ed files = 14M (14712199)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum of md5ed files = 0.30%
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum internal linked (copy) = 0.0 (0)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum internal linked (compr) = 0.0 (0)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum old linked (copy) = 405 (405)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum old linked (compr) = 411k (420508)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum unchanged (copy) = 2.4G (2545886135)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum unchanged (compr) = 1.5G (1574352604)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum new (copy) = 19k (19126)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum new (compr) = 10M (10942179)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum new (compr), orig size = 14M (14272160)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 sum new / orig = 76.70%
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 size of md5CheckSum file = 1.7M (1810889)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 size of temporary db files = 7.6M (7921664)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 deleted old backups = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 deleted directories = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 deleted files = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 (only) removed links = 0
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 freed space in old directories = 0.0 (0)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 add. used space in files = 12M (12772194)
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 backup duration = 3m12s
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 over all files/sec (real time) = 279.82
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 over all files/sec (CPU time) = 492.54
STATISTIC 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 CPU usage = 56.81%
END 2009.10.18 07:56:11 20965 backing up directory </home/schroff> to </home/backup/2009.10.18_07.52.59>

The first execution ran for several hours because all files had to be compressed. A run few days later just finished within several minutes and consumed only few space more...
And recovery? Just use storeBackupRecover.

This program recovers files saved with storeBackup.pl.
usage:
storeBackupRecover -r restore [-b root] -t targetDir [--flat]
[-o] [--tmpdir] [--noHardLinks] [-p number] [-v] [-n]
--restoreTree -r file or (part of) the tree to restore
when restoring a file, the file name in the backup has
to be used (eg. with compression suffix)
--backupRoot -b root of storeBackup tree, normally not needed
--targetDir -t directory for unpacking
--flat do not create subdirectories
--overwrite -o overwrite existing files
--tmpdir -T directory for temporary file, default is </tmp>
--noHardLinks do not reconstruct hard links in restore tree
--noRestoreParallel -p max no of paralell programs to unpack, default is 12
--verbose -v print verbose messages
--noRestored -n print number of restored dirs, hardlinks, symlinks, files
Copyright (c) 2002-2004 by Heinz-Josef Claes
Published under the GNU General Public License

WLAN problems: ping: sendmsg: No buffer space available ???

2010-01-09T22:28:00.004+01:00

Last week i installed linux on a new laptop. Everything went fine but after the first hibernate cylce downloads just stopped. Restarting the wireless cured the problem for some minutes and then the connectivity went down again...
I started to ping the router and i only saw roundtrip time larger than 50ms, where i expected <1ms. Each time the connection went down, ping failed with

ping: sendmsg: No buffer space available

After some googling around i found the solution:
Install ndiswrapper including ndiswrapper-utils
After doing a

modprobe ndiswrapper

the ping roundtrip times were <1ms and the connectivity never went down again....
To ensure that ndiswrapper is loaded during bootup do

ndiswrapper -m

Oracle Metalink: User experience (Error #1095 ;-)

2009-12-16T21:22:00.002+01:00

Today i logged into metalink - ups - into support.oracle.com. The new interface with Adobe flash is really nice. Three months ago i had problems in viewing service requests, so i decided to stay with the old metalink interface (take a look at my posting).
Now i have to work with the new interface. This worked but more then 20 times i got the following error message:

I queried metalink itself for this error - nothing.
I queried google: and there i found a very nice page:
(Before following the link, read to the end!!!)

http://blogs.oracle.com/Support/2009/11/top_issues_for_my_oracle_suppo.html

The posting at this link is nice but you should read the COMMENTS!!
Here a best of:

Here's my saga:
- Did everything as requested and on time (well before time) by tying my MetaLink account with Oracle SSO
- It stopped working promptly with the cutover with 'Account setup in progres ...' error.
- Had a colleage open an SR (strike 1) which was promptly closed by support without resolving the issue.
- Had my colleage open yet another SR (strike 2) which was promptly closed by support without resolving the issue
- My colleage called in the problem (strike 3) and of course support didn't resolve the problem.
- Many days pass by and yesterday I called it in (strike 4) and I was told to re-register. Didn't work as expected.
- Sent email to our customer rep in disgust
- Finally able to login this morning and what do you know they lost all my CSIs associated with the account.
- Call support again to have the CSI issue resolved again.
- I've many CSIs associated with my account (some of which I'm the admin) and was flooded with email (add/approve/... requests).
- A total of 9 days without access to the Support site; not that I needed to create any SRs.
- I was surprised to discover how much I depend on the Support site on a routine basis.

So, Oracle Support has
1.) intentionally decided to choose a competitors product to build their new front end (thereby declaring their own software products are inferior for the task),
2.) made themselves completely dependant upon a competitors ability (and/or desire) to quickly fix security and/or compatibility problems,
3.) wound up ignoring the largest installed base of browser on the web
4.) created a HTML version of the support site (to replace a version that was working fine, built with an Oracle product) that isn't supported!!!!!

My Oracle Support Services Error:
A server connection error occurred.
You cannot continue.
Please try again later.

Collection of exotic fly-by error messages we are receiving
"Unable to perform "" operation due to the following error: "BusinessException thrown from ReOpen First Step : updateSR() at 2009-12-02 14:59:12.488 CST"."
"Service Error: sr/home: javax.xml.rpc.soap.SOAPFaultException: Cannot perform client request"
"Error #1095"
"Error #1088"
And last but not the least - the neat and deadly
"Exception raised"

It would be nice to have an official admission by Support that says:
"Yes. We screwed up in a big way. We realize that out support system is in complete disarray. Here are the things that we know are completely and unacceptably messed up and here are the current statuses and what is being done."

or ....
Enjoy ;-) and remember Things can only get better!

Twitter: First Contact...

2009-12-13T20:54:00.001+01:00

After all this articles about twitter, i decided to create a account on twitter and to take a look at this new, so called real-time internet.
OK, creating an account is very easy and after that, you can login and see something like this:

Hmmm...
So what about following someone? In the magazine of the GI i read, that the Tower Bridge in London is twittering its status. So i searched for this bridge and here we go:

This was easy, but not really helpful ;-). So what about some further searches e.g. Oracle:

???
This is not really what i expected.
So let's do my first tweet(?):

Without any follower this does not really look good ;-(
After that i did a search for "dietrich schroff". This gave the following result:

Yippie! My blog postings are already in the real-time internet via blog aggregators....
[Does anybody know some good tweets to follow?]

Chrome beta for Linux

2009-12-08T20:45:00.005+01:00

Today i downloaded google's browser chrome for Linux. It is available via this link.
I chose

The size of the debian package is 12MB:

-rw-r--r-- 1 schroff schroff 12M 8. Dez 20:17 /tmp/google-chrome-beta_current_i386.deb

I tried dpgk -i google-chrome-beta_current_i386.deb but this did not work:

dpkg: Abhängigkeitsprobleme verhindern Konfiguration von google-chrome-beta:
google-chrome-beta hängt ab von xdg-utils (>= 1.0.1); aber:
Paket xdg-utils ist nicht installiert.

Ok. Not really a big problem. Just add this packages: apt-get install xdg-utils. After that the installation succeded.
But how to start chrome?
There is no binary named chrome, but a the package name gives a hint:

/usr/bin/X11/google-chrome

While installation, there following is happening:

an entry in /etc/cron.daily is added.
# This script is part of the google-chrome package.
#
# It creates the repository configuration file for package updates, and it
# monitors that config to see if it has been disabled by the overly aggressive
# distro upgrade process (e.g. intrepid -> jaunty). When this situation is
# detected, the respository will be re-enabled. If the respository is disabled
# for any other reason, the config file won't be changed.
#
# This functionality can be controlled by creating the $DEFAULTS_FILE and
# setting "repo_add_once" and/or "repo_reenable_on_distupgrade" to "true" or
# "false" as desired. An empty $DEFAULTS_FILE is the same as setting both values
# to "false".
in /opt/google/chrome some files are added (product_logo*png, locales
in /usr/share something in gnome-control-center, menu and man
a link in /usr/bin and /usr/bin/X11 to /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome

After that i started chrome. The first dailog was:

The import from firefox failed, because i did not stop firefox and then:

Faster rendering of webpages is promotoed as one of the advantages of chrome. So i tried www.faz.de:

Firefox: 14s
Chrome: 14s

But this is not really a benchmark ;-)

Password policies: enforcing digits/uppercase letters using pam-config

2009-10-31T20:50:00.002+01:00

Since my last posting about password policies on debian, i got several mails with the following question:

How to configure pluggable authentication modules (pam) with the command pam-config?

This is neccesary because some linux distributions add the following header on all files inside /etc/pam.d/:

# This file is autogenerated by pam-config. All changes
# will be overwritten.

Running pam-config --help shows 155 lines. For newbies this is completely unreadable. Querying the net with google gives the manpage but no examples...
So let's start.
To get the actual password check method run the following command:

# pam-config -q --pwcheck
password: nullok cracklib

This was easy. So just add am ucredit-rule:

# pam-config -a --cracklib-ucredit=-2 --cracklib
INFO: pam_pwcheck.so und pam_cracklib.so aktiviert,
INFO: nur pam_pwcheck.so mit aktivierter Cracklib-Unterstützung wird benutzt.

Hmm. pwcheck has to be removed. Not really difficult:

# pam-config -d --pwcheck

After that, retry the command with ucredit:

# pam-config -a --cracklib-ucredit=-2 --cracklib

And how can you check, that it has really worked?

# pam-config -q --cracklib
password: ucredit=-2

Here the complete reference of pam-config:

# pam-config --help
Anwendung: pam-config -a|-c|-d [...]
pam-config - Erstelle PAM-Konfigurationsdateien.

-a, --add         Füge Optionen/PAM-Module hinzu.
-c, --create      Erstelle neue Konfiguration.
-d, --delete      Entferne Optionen/PAM-Module.
      --confdir     Benutze ein benutzerdefiniertes Konfigurations-Verzeichnis
      --initialize Konvertiere alte Konfiguration and erstelle neue.
      --service config Dienst zum modifizieren der Konfiguration von
      --update      Lese momentane Konfiguration und schreibe sie neu
-q, --query       Anfrage für installierte Module und Optionen
      --list-modules Zeige alle unterstützten Module
      --help        Gibt diese Hilfeliste aus
-u, --usage       Gibt eine kurze Gebrauchsanweisung aus
-v, --version     Ausgabe der Programmversion

Globale Modul-Optionen:
      Die globalen Module werden eingesetzt in die
      common-{account,auth,password,session}-Dateien, welche in den einzelnen
      Dateien der Dienste beinhaltet sind.
   --apparmor
   --apparmor-debug
   --ccreds
   --cracklib
   --cracklib-debug
   --cracklib-type=<value>
   --cracklib-retry=<value>
   --cracklib-difok=<value>
   --cracklib-difignore=<value>
   --cracklib-minlen=<value>
   --cracklib-dcredit=<value>
   --cracklib-ucredit=<value>
   --cracklib-lcredit=<value>
   --cracklib-ocredit=<value>
   --cracklib-minclass=<value>
   --cracklib-dictpath=<value>
   --env
   --env-debug
   --env-conffile=<value>
   --env-envfile=<value>
   --env-readenv=<value>
   --fp
   --fp-debug
   --gnome_keyring
   --gnome_keyring-auto_start
   --gnome_keyring-auto_start_if=<value>
   --group
   --krb5
   --krb5-debug
   --krb5-ignore_unknown_principals
   --krb5-minimum_uid=<value>
   --ldap
   --ldap-debug
   --limits
   --limits-debug
   --limits-change_uid
   --limits-utmp_early
   --limits-conf=<value>
   --localuser
   --localuser-debug
   --localuser-file=<value>
   --make
   --make-debug
   --make-nosetuid
   --make-make=<value>
   --make-log=<value>
   --make-option=<value>
   --mkhomedir
   --mkhomedir-debug
   --mkhomedir-silent
   --mkhomedir-umask=<value>
   --mkhomedir-skel=<value>
   --nam
   --pkcs11
   --pkcs11-debug
   --pkcs11-configfile=<value>
   --pwcheck
   --pwcheck-debug
   --pwcheck-nullok
   --pwcheck-cracklib
   --pwcheck-no_obscure_checks
   --pwcheck-enforce_for_root
   --pwcheck-cracklib_path=<value>
   --pwcheck-maxlen=<value>
   --pwcheck-minlen=<value>
   --pwcheck-tries=<value>
   --pwcheck-remember=<value>
   --pwhistory
   --pwhistory-debug
   --pwhistory-use_authtok
   --pwhistory-enforce_for_root
   --pwhistory-remember=<value>
   --pwhistory-retry=<value>
   --pwhistory-type=<value>
   --selinux
   --selinux-debug
   --ssh
   --ssh-debug
   --ssh-nullok
   --ssh-try_first_pass
   --ssh-keyfiles=<value>
   --thinkfinger
   --thinkfinger-debug
   --umask
   --umask-debug
   --umask-silent
   --umask-usergroups
   --umask-umask=<value>
   --unix
   --unix-debug
   --unix-audit
   --unix-nodelay
   --unix-nullok
   --unix-shadow
   --unix-md5
   --unix-bigcrypt
   --unix-not_set_pass
   --unix-nis
   --unix-broken_shadow
   --unix-remember=<value>
   --unix2
   --unix2-nullok
   --unix2-debug
   --unix2-trace
   --unix2-none
   --unix2-call_modules=<value>
   --unix2-nisdir=<value>
   --winbind
   --winbind-debug

Dienst-spezifische Modul-Optionen:
      Diese Module können nur zu einzelnen Dienst-Dateien hinzugefügt werden.
   --ck_connector
   --ck_connector-debug
   --cryptpass
   --csync
   --csync-use_first_pass
   --csync-try_first_pass
   --csync-soft_try_pass
   --csync-nullok
   --csync-debug
   --csync-silent
   --lastlog
   --lastlog-debug
   --lastlog-silent
   --lastlog-never
   --lastlog-nodate
   --lastlog-nohost
   --lastlog-noterm
   --lastlog-nowtmp
   --lastlog-noupdate
   --lastlog-showfailed
   --loginuid
   --loginuid-require_auditd
   --mount

Password policies on debian linux: dcredit? pam_cracklib.so?

2009-10-30T21:05:00.001+01:00

Ok, nearly everybody knows pam:

PAM = Pluggable Authentication Modules

The linux-pam homepage states "Basically, it is a flexible mechanism for authenticating users." But is there an easy way to enforce password policies within this pam mechanism?

It is not really difficult, if you know where to look:
Open /etc/pam.d/common-password (debian) and read

# Alternate strength checking for password. Note that this
# requires the libpam-cracklib package to be installed.
# You will need to comment out the password line above and
# uncomment the next two in order to use this.

The two next two lines are:

password required pam_cracklib.so retry=3 minlen=6 difok=3
password required pam_unix.so use_authtok nullok md5

and pam_cracklib.so can be installed via

apt-get install libpam-cracklib

At the first line add

dcredit=-4 lcredit=-2 ucredit=-1

This translates to dcredit=-4 (4 digits required), lcredit=-2 (2 letter lowercase required), ucredit=-1 (1 letter uppercase required). For a full list of parameters look here.

Offer or fraud? Marketing for blogs...

2009-10-25T21:23:00.002+01:00

Last week i got the following mail:

Hello, my name is XXX YYYY and I am an internet marketing
specialist. I was looking at websites under the keyword system tools
and came across your website http://dietrichschroff.blogspot.com. I see that you're not ranked on the first page of Google for a system tools search.

I'm not sure if you're aware of why you're ranked this low but more importantly how easily correctable this is.

There's no reason you can't have a top three ranking for the keyword
system tools based on your site structure and content. You have a very
nice site.

You need significantly more one way anchor text backlinks. If you're interested I can help you with this...

I'm talking about getting you ranked for ALL your keywords. Adding new
backlinks on a steady and consistent basis from high PR quality
websites is what produces the rankings you are looking for http://dietrichschroff.blogspot.com.

The right kind of links are very critical in getting top ranking....and I can hand deliver these quality links to you.

My partners and I own 1000's websites and offer private linking to hundreds of website owners just like yourself.

I didn't send this email out to very many people but I am currently
reaching out to a list of your 'keyword competitors' as well. But I do
favor your website because I can see your website monetizing the
targeted website traffic the keyword system tools can deliver.

I have your contact information and phone number. Is it ok if I give you a call?

I have a very simple way to prove that what I do works and it's risk
free for you to try. Nothing beats seeing the results with your own eyes

Is it ok if I give you a call? I would love to pursue this further over the phone with you or should I go somewhere else?

Sincerely,

XXXX YYY
(aa) bb-cccccccc
www.url.com

P.S - If the tables were turned and somebody I didn't know came to me
with a proposition, even one that was appealing, I would be hesitant
because I would be wondering - what's the catch? What does this guy
know that I don't.

But then I would think he does know something that I don't know. He
does have thousands of high PR websites, he does have hundreds of
thousands of pages indexed and ranking in Google Yahoo and MSN. Sites
that can deliver the quality anchor text backlinks. I would also think
that I need to get my website in the top rankings. And he is offering
to turn key top rankings for me...on all my keywords including system
tools. Even keywords I'm not currently competing for. Keywords that
produce traffic that's potentially worth tens of thousands, hundreds of
thousands, millions of dollars.

I emailed you because It's a win -win for both of us. Think of it this
way - Who wouldn't be interested in buying money at a discount? Because
that's what I'll be able to do offer you...Money at a discount.

Is it Ok to give you a call? Or you can can call me anytime at the number above?

I am really stunned...
Is this the way to get high ranks for google searches?
If everybody starts this, the search engines will not provide useful links anymore ;-)

Searching for cpu capabilities? Look at /proc/cpuinfo...

2009-10-21T21:50:00.001+02:00

Most of us know, that with

cat /proc/cpuinfo

the number of cpus, cpu speed, cpu model etc. can be found. But there is one interesting line which is called flags:

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 13
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.73GHz
stepping : 8
cpu MHz : 1733.000
cache size : 2048 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe bts est tm2
bogomips : 3457.11
clflush size : 64

Ok, the acronyms sound familiar. Here the outputs from some other cpus:

flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr dca sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm ida
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe constant_tsc pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl cid xtpr

Hmmm. No flag like 64Bit or x64... How can this acronyms be decoded?
Let's ask the kernel sources!
There is one file inside the sources, where all this flags are defined:

arch/x86/include/asm/cpufeature.h

Here are the most interesting ones:

#define X86_FEATURE_HT (0*32+28) /* Hyper-Threading */
#define X86_FEATURE_LM (1*32+29) /* Long Mode (x86-64) */
#define X86_FEATURE_VMX (4*32+ 5) /* Hardware virtualization */
#define X86_FEATURE_PN (0*32+18) /* Processor serial number */

Just if you are not sure about installing 64Bit Linux, check for lm. And if ht is shown, you do not worry, can detect twice as much cores as there are, or if...

Batch processing: ssh access to multiple servers without ssh-keys

2009-10-16T21:00:00.001+02:00

It is always the same: You are used to a technique like

accessing server via ssh with ssh-keys

But in some environments you are not allowed or you just don't want to put your authorized_keys to the servers, which you want to access. But how to automate logins to this servers?

Poor man's approach
buffer the password and use the middle button on your mouse, each time the script asks for the password.
This works, but this is only "semi-automatic"
Use expect
With this tool it is very easy to automate logins without using ssh-keys. Just write a script auto.ssh.sh like this:

#!/usr/bin/expect
spawn ssh -l root $argv
expect "Password: "
send "mypassword\n"
expect "#";
send "date\n";
expect "#";
send "exit\n";

This script can be called with a parameter (here IP or hostname) and executes the date command on the server. Now just write a loop:

for server in 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.3; do ./auto.ssh.sh $server; done

And you are done...
(But this is not so secure like using ssh-keys!)

Bash history for multiple shells...

2009-10-14T21:25:00.002+02:00

Did you ever configure something and after a while you were not able to remember the exact syntax for the command?
If you used the bash shell, then the command history was your friend:

history|grep <part of command>

and you got everytime the line with the right command back.
Everytime? Hmm no. Sometimes the command did not show up in the history. First guess:

HISTFILESIZE

was not big enough, but there is another option for missing entries:
If you work with multiple shells at the same time, then the history will be (over)written by closing the last shell.
But this can be avoided:
After adding the following to your .bashrc, you will never miss an entry again ;-):

shopt -s histappend

For more information of shopt take a look here.

Linux: hash algorithms for passwords inside /etc/shadow

2009-10-01T22:07:00.003+02:00

You read the headline and you are sure that this is easy to answer?
I was thinking the same: Just a MD5-hash inside this /etc/shadow file.

But this is not true anymore:
You can use several hash algorithms inside /etc/shadow like

MD5
blowfish
DES
SHA-256
SHA-512

Inside /etc/shadow you can see the following:

schroff:$1$<String1>$<String2>:0:99999:7:::

$1$ stays for MD5, $2a$ for blowfish, $5$ for SHA-256, $6$ for SHA-512. The <String1> contains a salt and <String2> the hashed password.
The other values can be easily interpreted (and changed) with the following command:

schroff@hades:$ chage -l schroff
Letzte Passwortänderung : Feb 01, 2009
Passwort läuft ab : nie
Passwort inaktiv : nie
Benutzerzugang läuft ab : nie
Minimale Anzahl der Tage zwischen Passwortänderungen : 0
Maximale Anzahl der Tage zwischen Passwortänderungen : 99999
Anzahl Tage, an denen vor Passwortablauf gewarnt wird : 7

And where can the hash algorithm be changed? This depends on the linux you are using:

/etc/pam.d/common-password (Debian)
/etc/default/password (SUSE/Novell)

Is there a way to generate this passwords via command line? Yes, with debian package makepasswd (but only for MD5):

echo "mypasswd" | makepasswd --crypt-md5
$1$r2elYKyB$vUr/Ph.brKTldM2h2k8J5.

But this will not work via copy and paste inside /etc/shadow ;-(
To change password via script some linux distribution can use:

echo oracle:mypasswd | chpasswd

echo -n mypasswd | passwd --stdin oracle

DHCP on PCs: Lease-Time

2009-09-21T20:40:00.007+02:00

Everyone knows DHCP. Yes your PC gets something like a lease for a time...
Do you know how to ask your PC, when this lease expires?
This is not very difficult:
On Windows:

ipconfig /all

Ethernetadapter Drahtlose Netzwerkverbindung:

Verbindungsspezifisches DNS-Suffix: mydomain.me
Beschreibung. . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
Physikalische Adresse . . . . . . : 00-12-34-56-78-90
DHCP aktiviert. . . . . . . . . . : Ja
Autokonfiguration aktiviert . . . : Ja
IP-Adresse. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.18.21
Subnetzmaske. . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Standardgateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.18.1
DHCP-Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.18.1
DNS-Server. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.18.1
Lease erhalten. . . . . . . . . . : Dienstag, 22. September 2009 20:58:40
Lease läuft ab. . . . . . . . . . : Freitag, 2. Oktober 2009 20:58:40

On Linux:

cat /var/lib/dhcp3/dhclient.leases
lease {
interface "eth1";
fixed-address 192.168.18.21;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option routers 192.168.18.1;
option dhcp-lease-time 864000;
option dhcp-message-type 5;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.18.1;
option dhcp-server-identifier 192.168.18.1;
option dhcp-renewal-time 432000;
option ntp-servers 192.168.18.1;
option broadcast-address 192.168.18.255;
option dhcp-rebinding-time 756000;
option domain-name "mydomain.me";
renew 6 2009/09/26 15:58:34;
rebind 3 2009/09/30 12:17:44;
expire 4 2009/10/01 18:17:44;
}

This is ok, but what if you use a black box as router, where you can not adjust the dhcpd parameters? Something like changing the lease time, because 756000s=210h=8.75d is really to long for a network, where you use computers only on a hourly base...
On Linux you can configure your client very easy:
Add inside /etc/dhclient.conf the following line

send dhcp-lease-time 3600;

After this little change start dhcp with

dhclient -cf /etc/dhclient.conf

and your lease details show:

option dhcp-lease-time 3600;
option dhcp-renewal-time 1800;
option dhcp-rebinding-time 3150;

On Windows this is nearly impossible:
There is a nice starting point provided by Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/121005. But with this information you only know that you have to add the following key inside the registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dhcp\Parameters\Options\51

With the explanation given there

Lease Time (51): This option is used in a client request (DHCPDISCOVER or DHCPREQUEST) to allow the client to request a lease time for the IP address. In a server reply (DHCPOFFER), a DHCP server uses this option to specify the lease time it is willing to offer. The time is in seconds, and is specified as a 32-bit unsigned integer. The code for this option is 51, and its length is 4.

it is not possible without any futher documentation to create the appropriate keys and values ... ;-(

Sun's hardware at Oracle: cont'd

2009-09-18T20:51:00.003+02:00

After my last posting there was another announcement from Oracle regarding SUN hardware and Oracle software:

At http://streaming.oracle.com/ebn/download/8176478.pdf the full presentation is provided by Oracle.

Please note that Exadata Version 2 consists of

x86 CPU cores

So Oracle does not only commit the SUNs SPARC architecture...

Sun's hardware at Oracle: a new announcement

2009-09-11T21:22:00.002+02:00

Oracle announced the following statement on their website:

But why did they announce this now?
Here some answers out of the web:

The advertisement is a sign of how seriously Oracle views the Sun customer base as part of the value of Sun. At JavaOne, Ellison said Oracle has sold many database systems to run on Sun servers. Linux servers make up its fastest growing business, but Sparc/Solaris platforms remain its largest installed base, he said.
www.informationwee.com

Analysts see Oracle's ad as a defensive move ... Among the top hardware makers, Sun registered the biggest decline in server revenue in the second quarter, offering evidence that this protracted merger may be eroding Sun's value.
www.computerworld.com

Still, this may all be a little propaganda to ease the worries of the EU's Competition Commission, which has extended its investigation of the deal.
news.softpedia.com

This is very good news for us geeks; Oracle is promising to invest in not only Solaris, some decent competition for Linux, but also in the SPARC architecture. We're getting two alternative products for one here.
www.osnews .com

Many opinions and if you ask yourself, you will get even more ;-)

Oracle SOA Suite 11g: How to start the soa instance...

2009-09-09T21:39:00.001+02:00

You tried to install Oracle's SOA Suite 11g?
The installation completed successfully?
You got the login screen like shown in this posting?

Now you can login...

The next screen shows this:

After that there is this fancy gui with some flash components inside:

Yippie! Everything is ok...
Let's take a look at the SOA components:

But stop! There are no SOA components. The manual shows this:

???
How do i get this additional folder inside the SOA console?
Ok, this is very easy:

/opt/Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/domains/soa_domain/bin/
startManagedWebLogic.sh soa_server1 http://localhost:7001

And here we go:

Just a last comment: Stopping this server can be done via command:

./stopManagedWebLogic.sh soa_server1 t3://hades:7001 weblogic oracle10

Oracle WLS: Installation errors

2009-09-08T20:32:00.001+02:00

Did you try to install an Oracle WLS and got some errors like:

INST-07248
INST-07292

and you do not know what to do?
The official pages are here. There you can find some explanations.
For the errors abouve, the provided Middleware home was empty....

Review at amazon: Sichere Netzwerkkommunikation: Grundlagen, Protokolle und Architekturen

2009-08-26T23:28:00.000+02:00

Are you interested in securing networks and german books are no problem? Then you should read this one:

Because german is mandantory, here the link to my review at amazon.de in german.

JDeveloper 10g: 10.1.3.1 to 10.1.3.5 and BPEL

2009-08-26T20:54:00.002+02:00

I was searching for the changes from JDeveloper 10.1.3.1 to 10.1.3.5 related to BPEL technology. Here the official webpages:

There are many fix lists and readme but nothing about BPEL.
Even on metalink i was not able to find anything...
So if anybody knows how to get the lists with the JDeveloper patches related to BPEL, please add a comment to this blog ;-)
Thanks!

Oracle SOA Suite 11g: How to get a running test instance (on a laptop)?

2009-08-21T20:39:00.001+02:00

After migrating the first project, the next step is to deploy this bpel to a server. I started with only installing JDeveloper an let's see, if it possible to stay with that (without installing the real wls production server).

I started with just with

/opt/Oracle/Middleware/utils/quickstart/quickstart.sh

So this looks like the wls server can be configured with Getting started with WebLogic Server 10.3.1:

But after some clicks i ended with:

Ok, there was only a very small chance, that a database is included inside the jdev-package. Like expected i installed Oracle's XE database. And after a short search i found a nice guide for setting up test instances inside wiki.oracle.com.

Just to add the missing steps:

dpkg -i oracle-xe-universal_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.deb
/etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure
oracle@hades:~/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/server/bin$ ./createdb.sh
lsnrctl start
sqlplus system/passwd@XE

and as written in the Oracle documentation - download the rcu and run it:

./rcu

Ok, ignore this, but then:

RCU-6107:Fehler bei der Prüfung auf Voraussetzungen von DB Init Param für: SHARED_POOL_SIZE
Erforderlicher Wert = 147456 KB, Aktueller Wert = 0 KB, Vergleichsoperator: ">="
RCU-6107:Fehler bei der Prüfung auf Voraussetzungen von DB Init Param für: SGA_MAX_SIZE
Erforderlicher Wert = 147456 KB, Aktueller Wert = 143360 KB, Vergleichsoperator: ">="

But this is fixable:

SQL> alter system set sga_max_size=150M scope=spfile;
System altered.
SQL> alter system set sga_target=150M scope=spfile;
System altered.

and restart the DB:

Once again:

/opt/Oracle/Middleware/wlserver_10.3/common/bin/config.sh

...

Then i tried via Jdeveloper -> Run -> Start Server Instance
But the result was just many errors and no connectivity via http://localhost:7001.

Then i tried

cd /opt/Oracle/Middleware/user_projects/domains/DefaultDomain/
./startWebLogic.sh

And after waiting 2 minutes, it worked:

Review at amazon: SOA Principles of Service Design

2009-08-18T20:11:00.000+02:00

Last week i read the first book from Thomas Erl.

It is a very nice book, if you have to build some slides or if you want to give a lecture. But really deep insights into the topic service design is not provided. For example chapter 6 "service contracts" covers only a simple WSDL as example.
Nearly 50% of the book is occupied by fancy graphics, but most of the are quite useless or without any additional value.
Perhaps it was just the wrong book from Thomas Erl, so i will try another one, too...
If you like, take a look at my review at amazon.de (It is written in german, sorry again ;-).

Review at amazon: Multiprojektmanagement. Projekte erfolgreich planen, vernetzen und steuern

2009-08-16T20:21:00.002+02:00

Are you interested in multi-project-management and german books are no problem? Then you should read this one:

Because german is mandantory, here the link to my review at amazon.de in german.

Migrating BPEL projects from 10g to 11g (example: 101.HelloWorld)

2009-08-15T22:14:00.004+02:00

On this blog i started more than one year ago with the lost (collaxa) BPEL-tutorials. My first posting was the 101.HelloWorld.
Now after the arrival of Oracle's application server 11g i decided to do all the tutorials again to see what has changed. So let's start:
First you need to download jdeveloper 11g and add the bpel components.
Then get the old bpel tutorials (you can copy them from an 10g installation area: /opt/oracle/product/10.1.3.1/OracleAS_1/bpel/samples/tutorials).
After that open jdeveloper and create an application:

Then you have to create a project, even we do not need this here:

Then you can click finish.
Now choose open and select the HelloWorld.jpr:

This starts the migration wizard:

And the wait:

Done! So let's see what happened.
Ok, much more files than in 10g:

The bpel itself has one transformation more than before:

Opening the transformation, i got the following error:

But after restarting jdeveloper, i was able to access this xslt.

In addition a composite was generated:

The test suite was migrated, too

As a difference to 10g the tests are added at composite level and not inside the bpel (the blue arrow inside the light blue circle).

Double clicking this arrow opens this dialog:

And Generate Sample does really work (it changes Kireet to name1 ;-)....
Deploying and checking will be done in another posting.

Using Eclipse with Oracle's application server 11g (Weblogic)

2009-07-26T21:46:00.001+02:00

JDeveloper 11g is fully integrated with Oracle Weblogic 11g (that is what everybody has expected). Now i tried to connect Eclipse to Oracle's new application server.
This was not easy, so here the steps, if you really want to stay with Eclipse....

Do a right click on the server tab and use the link Download additional server adapters:
After hitting the next button, i got the following error:
org.eclipse.jst.common_core.... missing
So i installed the missing plugins via ->help->install new software:
But after this upgrade the installation of the Oracle Weblogic server plugins stills failed ;-(
So i googled around and found this page.
1. Select Help > Install New Software.
2. Click Add to add a new update site.
3. In the Add Site dialog, enter http://download.oracle.com/otn_software/oepe/galileo, and then click OK.
4. Select Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse, verify that all of the subcomponents are selected, and then click Next.
5. Confirm information presented in the Install Details, and then click Finish.
So next try:

After that you can choose inside the "new server wizard" Oracle Weblogic 10 or 11:

It works, but there is at least one big difference between JDeveloper and Eclipse: No SOA or BPEL extension is available for Eclipse...

Rotating cubes, window carrousel: using COMPIZ

2009-07-16T23:32:00.001+02:00

You have no glue, what this title means?
Just ask youtube about compiz and watch some movies...

But how to get this? (on a debian system with an ATI mobility radeon X600)

Install a linux kernel <2.6.29 (
Download the ati-driver version 8.12 (Driver Download -> Previous Drivers)
(with newer drivers the suspend to disk does not work anymore)
Add the fglrx driver into /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Open a X-session with xfce (you can use other, but this works...)
Type compiz --replace
Now you have compiz running, but the window decorations are gone, and no chance to move windows...
Start compiz configuration settings manager: ccsm
Goto window decorations and add /usr/bin/X11/gtk-window-decorator as command
Login again, compiz --replace should work with window decorations
Configure window decorations via gnome-control-center
Change some parameters via gtk-theme-switch2

Thats all...

JDeveloper 11g: Installing BPEL/SOA Suite components via Update Center

2009-07-12T21:41:00.001+02:00

Here some screenshots to the steps from this posting (Adding the missing BPEL/SOA Suite components to jdeveloper 11g):

Add this URL:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/101/update/fmw_products.xml

as an update center:

Then select at least the Oracle SOA Composite Editor:

and wait...

and wait...

Installing JDeveloper 11g: Screenshots...

2009-07-12T20:47:00.001+02:00

Here some screenshots of a installation of JDeveloper 11g. This is different to 10g installations, because it is not possible to unzip the package. You really have to install parts of a weblogic server:

At this step it is not possible to install only JDeveloper and skip the Weblogic Server. You have to install the Core Application Server and the Configuration Wizard and Upgrade Framework.

JDeveloper 11g: Missing BPEL/SOA Suite components?

2009-07-02T21:06:00.002+02:00

The new Oracle JDeveloper 11g (11.1.1.1.0) is released and it is really a big package (>900MB). But after downloading and installing there is no way to create SOA Suite projects or BPELs...
??
First check: Yes, this JDeveloper was released for developement of Oracle's Fusion Middleware components.
Second check: Is the SOA Suite included inside the Fusion Middleware 11g Release 1?

Ok, it is inlcuded in the documentation...
So let's search for the missing BPEL/SOA Suite components and voila:
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12839_01/integration.1111/e10275/intro.htm#BABEBBGD

Oracle SOA Suite is not automatically installed with Oracle JDeveloper. Before you can create SOA applications, SOA composite applications, and projects, you must download the Oracle SOA Suite extension for Oracle JDeveloper (file name soa-jdev-extension.zip) from the Oracle Technology Network and import it into JDeveloper.

So after some browsing here the link for this soa-jdev-extension.zip.
Just stop jdev, unzip it into <WHEREEVERYOUINSTALLEDIT>/jdeveloper und start once again.
Done.
Now you can create SOA project for 11g like shown in this posting.

Addendum (Thanks to Gerard Davison):
The better way of doing this is to add

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/101/update/fmw_products.xml

to the list of update centers under check for update. That way JDeveloper will tell you when new versions are available.

Using an USB-Stick via FritzBox with Linux (Debian)

2009-06-20T22:19:00.002+02:00

First you have to configure the FritzBox to allow access via network to the usb storage. This has to be done via the web-interface http://fritz.box:

You can choose read-only or read/write. The important thing is to mark the checkbox activate USB-network-storage.
On your linux machine you have to install the package smbfs. This can be done on debian (or ubuntu) with the following command:

apt-get install smbfs

After that you can mount the network drive with

/usr/bin/smbmount //fritz.box/SanDisk-CruzerMicro-01 /media/fritz.box -o password=

Note: The string after //fritz.box/ has to match the string inside the FTP configuration (look at the screenshot abouve). For the password you have add your password or just nothing, if you have set no password ;-)
To umount the network drive use this command:

/bin/umount /media/fritz.box

If you want to get this drive mounted everytime you enter the directory /mnt/fritz.box, you need autofs (apt-get install autofs). Add the file /etc/auto.media with the line:

fritz.box -fstype=smbfs,umask=000 ://fritz.box/SanDisk-CruzerMicro-01

and this line into /etc/auto.master:

/mnt /etc/auto.media --timeout=3

after that restart autofs:

/etc/init.d/autofs restart

and each time you enter /mnt/fritz.box, you see the content of your usb stick...

Dan Brown's Angels & Demons at CERN.ch

2009-06-14T19:55:00.001+02:00

CERN launched a website for answering questions about the movie Angels&Demons (german title Illuminati): http://angelsanddemons.cern.ch

and why do i post this on my blog?
Because the ATLAS detector, where i did my thesis, was part of the movie!!! Including the control room...

Linux-Kernel: CFQ-Scheduling and ionice...

2009-06-06T20:43:00.003+02:00

Everyone, who uses computers, has experienced a hanging system. Sometimes this is due to high cpu usage, but often it is due to i/o contention.
Now with Linux 2.6 kernels there is this parameter "elevator":

elevator= [IOSCHED]
Format: {"anticipatory" | "cfq" | "deadline" | "noop"}
See Documentation/block/as-iosched.txt and
Documentation/block/deadline-iosched.txt for details.

Choosing CFQ solve this problem, if you aware of ionice. With ionice i/o can be prioritized using classes.
For example:

ionice -c3 myprogram

The only problem is, that ps or top does not support this ionice parameter. So you have to ask for each process the ioniceness via ionice -p PID:

$ ionice -p 6344
none: prio 0

Windows 7: Local Security Policy

2009-05-30T21:40:00.001+02:00

With Windows 7, you can use security policies to create rules which prevent users from running executables and installers. But where can you find the local security policy editor?
Here (Control Panel->System and Security-> Administrative Tools):

With opening the tree at Application Control Policies-> Applocker you get an impression, what you can do...
And action:

Choose Automatically Generate Rules...

Now we have 5 rules. Fine. Excellent. But what can you do with these rules?
For example do a right mouse click on the internet explorer rule.

If you want, you can change this rule from Allow to Deny ;-)

Review at amazon: Oracle SOA Suite Developer's Guide

2009-05-26T20:14:00.004+02:00

Some days ago i read this book:

I am very interested in this topic, because i am quite familar with Oracle's SOA Suite and of course there are many books out there about Oracle's BPEL/SOA products (SOA using BPEL and BPMN, SOA Approach to Integration, BPEL for Web Service, ...) but a real developer's guide was missing.
On the web pages from packtpub they say:

A hands-on guide to using and applying the Oracle SOA Suite in the delivery of real-world SOA applications.
Detailed coverage of the Oracle Service Bus, BPEL Process Manager, Web Service Manager, Rules, Human Workflow, and Business Activity Monitoring.
Master the best way to combine / use each of these different components in the implementation of a SOA solution.
Illustrates key techniques and best practices using a working example of an online auction site (oBay).

In my opinion the book is a good start for beginners. The book covers all components of the SOA Suite, but not very detailed. If you are an expert, you should read the Oracle documentation or books which are already published:

OWSM (Oracle Web Service Manager book)
BPEL PM (BPEL Process Manager book)
Rule Engine (Oracle documentation)
BAM (Oracle documentation)
OSB (Oracle documentation)

If this was too short, take a look at my review at amazon.de (It is written in german, sorry...)

Batch processing: modify images with mogrify

2009-05-21T21:11:00.002+02:00

Did you ever think about resizing many images or cutting an area out of many images?
Yes you can open every single image with gimp and click through all the menus (image -> scale image -> new values -> ok). For selecting an area you can use your mouse and just do crtl-c (copy), crtl-shft-v (paste into new) and then crtl-shft-s (save as).
But there is a small command, which can do all this work for you:

mogrify (from ImageMagick)

With this tool you can resize your image just with this command:

mogrify -resize 640x480 *.jpg

or using a percentage:

mogrify -resize 50% *.jpg

Or cutting an area out of image serie:

mogrify -extract 370x295+124+102 *.jpg

There are much more options you can use...

Windows 7: System Tools cont'd (Easy Transfer)

2009-05-17T22:48:00.001+02:00

After so many visitor reading the posting about the new system tools of Windows 7, here some screenshots about Windows Easy Transfer:

You can start this via menu and the first question is, how you want to to the transfer:

I chose An external hard disk or USB flash drive. Next question was if this computer is the target or source of the transfer. I selected this host as source (This is my old computer).

Ok, next step is to decide where to store this Easy Transfer File...

Huuh... 89.8MB on a new installed computer. Impressive. I think next time, i should not choose such a large password ;-)

So after this steps you are done and ready to import this Easy Transfer File on to another computer...

Linux.com

2009-05-16T21:17:00.002+02:00

Last week linux.com started its new website (news on zdnet) after the URL linux.com was bought from The Linux Foundation. Here a screenhot of the new layout:

You can find linux-news related to hardware, software, embedded/mobile, business opensource or enterprise. Some of these news are pretty short (like this one,), but perhaps this will change in the future or it is enough for you ;-). I think the real benefit of linux.com is, that this page should evolve to the central news page for all linux distributions.
I hope, this posting made you curious and you are going to visit linux.com yourself...

Windows 7: New System Tools on board?

2009-05-12T21:01:00.001+02:00

Is the next Microsoft operating system shipped with some new system tools?
Here a screenshot from Windows 7 with all system tools:

Disk Cleanup, Disk Defragmenter are old friends...
Internet Explorer is a system tool?!?
For Control panel see this posting. Here see some screenshots of the other tools:

Resource Monitor

Task Scheduler

System Information

Windows Easy Transfer i will show on another posting ;-)

If you are interested in Screenshots of a Windows 7 Installation click here.

Windows 7: Changing Network Parameters (like enabling DHCP)

2009-05-11T21:35:00.000+02:00

There were many statements about Windows 7 and usability. So i tried to find a way to switch from DHCP to fixed ip-addresses.
First guess was on clicking on the network interface symbol in the task bar in the right corner... But from there i only got to screenshot 3 and i did not recognize, that this was the right panel. So here my way starting with the control panel:

Ok, network related topics should be unter the Network and Internet icon:

This windows was a little bit confusing. There are these four entries under Change your networking settings, but this tiny link Local Areal Connection led me to this familiar window:

and here we are:

I don't know, if this is the only way for changing from DHCP to fixed ip-adresses. There should be another way with less clicks...

Virtualbox: Installing Windows 7 (Part 2)

2009-05-10T06:20:00.000+02:00

In this posing are just the missing screenshots of part 1 of the Windows 7 installation.

Virtualbox: Installing Windows 7 (Part 1)

2009-05-09T21:02:00.003+02:00

Last week i installed Windows 7 inside Virtualbox successfully, but a Virtualbox client machine contains no special hardware and really old chipsets, so there was no real challenge.
Here are the screenshots, just to give you an impression...

Ok, enough screenshots for this posting, i will continue after the reboot on the next posting...

Review at amazon: Processing XML Documents with Oracle Jdeveloper 11g

2009-04-15T20:47:00.002+02:00

XML is a very important technology (see this posting), so where can you improve/refresh your knowledge about this technique?
First place: Ask google...
Ok. Many links - goto w3c.org - read about working groups - read about conferences - ???
Second try: Read a book.
Here my tip:

This book covers many XML related topics like XSD-validation, JAXP (DOM, SAX), XPath, XSLT, JAXB 2.0...
For each topic detailed examples are given and provided as download. You can use the examples within JDeveloper 11g, but if you do not like this IDE, Oracle's XDK is sufficient.
For a full description of this book look at packtpub or read my review at amazon.de (in german ;-)

VirtualBox 2.2: Network configuration (Bridged, NAT, ...)

2009-04-09T21:50:00.005+02:00

This week SUN released VirtualBox 2.2.

Many features were added (copied from www.virtualbox.org):

OVF (Open Virtualization Format) appliance import and export (see chapter 3.8, Importing and exporting virtual machines, User Manual page 55)
Host-only networking mode (see chapter 6.7, Host-only networking, User Manual page 88)
Hypervisor optimizations with signiﬁcant performance gains for high context switching rates
Raised the memory limit for VMs on 64-bit hosts to 16GB
VT-x/AMD-V are enabled by default for newly created virtual machines
USB (OHCI & EHCI) is enabled by default for newly created virtual machines (Qt GUI only)
Experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts
Shared folders for Solaris and OpenSolaris guests
OpenGL 3D acceleration for Linux and Solaris guests (see chapter 4.8, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL), User Manual page 70)
Added C API in addition to C++, Java, Python and Web Services

Very useful are the changes for network configuration. Before version 2.2 configuring the network was a complex task (e.g. ubuntu documentation).
Now you can enable the networking via GUI:

You can choose

Not attached (ok - this worked before)
NAT
Bridged Network
Internal Network
Host-only Network

After that the screwdriver leads to the following window:

After this window you have to start your guest system and the network should be up and running...

For installing VirtualBox read this posting. If you want to migrate a VMWare image to VirtualBox click here.

The lost (collaxa) BPEL-Tutorials: 106.ParallelFlows

2009-04-03T21:45:00.001+02:00

This tutorials shows, how to use the parallel flow with Oracle's BPEL PM.
The process looks like this:

First you have to set up everything (see this posting) and change these property files:

/opt/oracle/product/10.1.3.1/OracleAS_1/bpel/samples/tutorials/106.ParallelFlows/build.properties
/opt/oracle/product/10.1.3.1/OracleAS_1/bpel/samples/utils/AsyncLoanService/UnitedLoan/build.properties
/opt/oracle/product/10.1.3.1/OracleAS_1/bpel/samples/utils/AsyncLoanService/AmericanLoan/build.properties

(at least username, passwort and port)
Then use the following commands to deploy everything:

/opt/oracle/product/10.1.3.1/OracleAS_1/bpel/bin/devprompt.sh

bash-3.00$ /opt/oracle/product/10.1.3.1/OracleAS_1/ant/bin/ant
...
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 4 seconds

To see the example running, go to the BPELConsole and open the FlowSample process and initiate it with the following XML Source:

<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Header/>
<soap:Body xmlns:ns1="http://www.autoloan.com/ns/autoloan">
<loanApplication xmlns="http://www.autoloan.com/ns/autoloan">
<SSN>987654321</SSN>
<email>ganga.sah@oracle.com</email>
<customerName>Ganga Sah</customerName>
<loanAmount>25000.00</loanAmount>
<carModel>Honda Acura</carModel>
<carYear>2004</carYear>
<creditRating>750</creditRating>
</loanApplication>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Then the audit trails will show the following:

You can see at the timestamps, that both sequences are really running in parallel. But note that this does not already happen:

http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=3297029&#3297029
(running synchronous processes in parallel)
or
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2246512&#2246512
(variables in parallel flows)

You can find all bpel tutorials on this blog via this link.

GlobalStats: web statistics

2009-03-12T20:33:00.002+01:00

Statcounter has released a web interface for everyone, where you can get statistics about browers, operating system for different countries and regions about all projects which included a counter from statcounter... (like this blog).
Here a screenshot:

So first week of decembre nearly 10% percent of all internet users changed from internet exporer to firefox. If you are interested get your own statistics:

GlobalStats

Cloning servers/changing hardware: network problem with eth0

2009-03-08T20:23:00.004+01:00

Last week i took a hard disk out of one computer and put it into another one.
Operating system was debian lenny, so no worries about re-activating the OS. But the computer started without bringing up the network on eth0. After some investigation i knew

the network card was known by the kernel:
03:05.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5788 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
the appropriate kernel module was loaded
if i changed eth0 to eth1 in /etc/network/interfaces, the second network interface was used without any problem

So what was going on here?
The only difference between the two computers was the MAC address of the NICs...
After some further investigation, here the solution:

The package udev had created a file named /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules
and this file contained the following entry:

SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:12:34:56:78:90", NAME="eth0"

After changing the MAC inside this file, eth0 came up on the new computer like expected.

The lost (collaxa) BPEL-tutorials: 102.Invoking... RMI

2009-03-06T22:08:00.004+01:00

This tutorials shows, how to invoke a BPEL process inside Oracle's PM using RMI.
To run this tutorial please deploy the CrediRatingService like shown in this posting.

Then enter the directory $ORACLE_HOME/bpel/samples/tutorials/102.InvokingProcesses/rmi. First take a look at the sample code (com/otn/samples/RMIClient.java):

Locator locator = new Locator("default","bpel",props);
IDeliveryService deliveryService = (IDeliveryService)locator.lookupService(IDeliveryService.SERVICE_NAME );
// construct the normalized message and send to collaxa server
NormalizedMessage nm = new NormalizedMessage( );
nm.addPart("payload", xml );
NormalizedMessage res = deliveryService.request("CreditRatingService", "process", nm);
Map payload = res.getPayload();

and the properties inside context.properties:
orabpel.platform=ias_10g
java.naming.factory.initial=com.evermind.server.rmi.RMIInitialContextFactory
java.naming.provider.url=opmn:ormi://mysoaserver:6003:oc4j_soa/orabpel
java.naming.security.principal=oc4jadmin
java.naming.security.credentials=SECRET

and that's all.
To run this example set BPEL_HOME to $ORACLE_HOME/bpel and type
$ORACLE_HOME/ant/bin/ant javac
and
$ORACLE_HOME/ant/bin/ant run

The result should look like this:

oracle@mysoaserver:tutorials/102.InvokingProcesses/rmi >/opt/oracle/product/10.1.3.1/OracleAS_1/ant/bin/ant run
Buildfile: build.xml

run:
[copy] Copying 1 file to $ORACLE_HOME/bpel/samples/tutorials/102.InvokingProcesses/rmi/classes
[echo] JRMI Client on ias_10g app-server
[java] ssn is 123-12-1234
[java] {java.naming.provider.url=opmn:ormi://gipsun173.gip.local:6003:oc4j_soa/orabpel, java.naming.factory.initial=com.evermind.server.rmi.RMIInitialContextFactory, orabpel.platform=ias_10g, java.naming.security.principal=oc4jadmin, java.naming.security.credentials=SECRET}
[java] BPELProcess CreditRatingService executed!<br>
[java] Credit Rating is <rating xmlns="http://services.otn.com">560</rating>

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 12 seconds

You can find all bpel tutorials on this blog via this link.

EyePlorer: continued...

2009-03-05T21:42:00.003+01:00

Two weeks ago i posted about eyePlorer. Martin Hirsch added a comment, that the developers of eyePlorer try to improve the software every two weeks.

First i searched for physics:

Ok. Nothing special. All search results are put on this plane and the results are grouped in coloured sections. But now take one of the points and drag it to the plus. I chose experimental physics because of my own history:

And this feature is really nice. This does not work with many topics, because eyePlorer has not yet filled its database. But i think its a nice proof of concept...

Oracle Web Service Manager: extract...

2009-02-25T20:17:00.003+01:00

The last blog posting must have been read be someone from PACKT publishing, because today i was given a extract of the Oracle Web Service Manager book to publish on my blog!
So for all interested readers here an extract of chapter 6 "Digitally Signing and Verifying Messages in Web Services":

....

If you want read more, follow the link to complete chapter 6 or buy this book ;-)

Review at amazon: Oracle Web Services Manager

2009-02-23T20:08:00.007+01:00

On the weekend i read this book:

It is a good book for OWSM beginners and administrators. It explains the basics of WS*-security. For a short introduction read my posting from last year. The book shows many screenshot for configuring OWSM for e.g. Active Directory.
Here the link to my review.
The product description states:

This book not only describes the need for Web Services security but also explains with detailed examples how to define security policies and enforce those policies using Oracle Web Services Manager. This book emphasizes how to use Oracle WSM to address various security use cases with detailed step-by-step examples to learn Oracle Web Service Manager. This is the book for those who want to learn how to Secure web services and Use Oracle WSM to configure web services security. It is mainly for Developers and Architects who want to learn how to use Oracle WSM to address the security challenges of web services and those who want to learn how to use Oracle WSM to address their security needs. If you have a basic knowledge of Web Services then this book will help you understand the need for security and how to use Oracle WSM to address the security challenges.

Web 2.x: eyePlorer

2009-02-22T21:33:00.001+01:00

Today i read about a nice way to search the web:

eyePlorer

Ok it is only in beta stage, but a nice idea to visualize searches. The semantic web is coming!
There is also a channel on youtube, where you can watch some clips about this eyePlorer.

Have fun!

OPN Center Champion

2009-02-06T20:15:00.006+01:00

On my posting from 4th january i wrote about this full use license certificate. Because i was one of the first 150 in completing the Latest Business Practices Training,today i got a package from Oracle, which contained this:

Okay, another paper... so why writing about it?
In this package there was a smaller package:

Features :

Laser Pointer
Remote control page Up & Down for Powerpoint by infrared transmission
USB storage Drive - Storage capacity: 4GB

;-)

Distributing Full Use Licenses for Technology Programs Champion

2009-01-28T20:59:00.001+01:00

Huh... this title sound really funny. What about an acronym:

DFULfTP Champion

This does not look better ;-). But if your company is involved in selling Oracle products you have to know such things. Nearly one year ago i had to spent an evening for Oracle Technology Support Champion.

So here is my next champion certificate:

I think my blog is a better place than the wall behind me....

Review at amazon: Business Process Driven SOA Using BPMN and BPEL

2008-12-22T21:06:00.002+01:00

Oracle released its BPA Suite, which is based on ARIS.
Now there is the first book on the market, talking about the round trip from BPMN to BPEL and back:

Its cover states:

This book is for CIOs, executives, SOA project managers, business
process analysts, BPM and SOA architects, who are responsible for
improving the efficiency of business processes through IT, or for
designing SOA. It provides a high-level coverage of business process
modeling, but it also gives practical development examples on how to
move from model to execution. We expect the readers to be familiar with
the basics of SOA.

The examples provided are not detailed enough for really start developing but this book was not written for developers..
For more details read my review at amazon.de (in german ;-)

Comparison: BPEL 1.1 vs BPEL 2.0

2008-12-12T20:59:00.001+01:00

The BPEL 2.0 specification was released in April 2007. Now 1.5 years later only a few BPEL engines have implemented this standard. Oracle had released a white paper about BPEL 2.0 and future SOA Suite releases in October 2006. Now we have still to wait for 11g to get BPEL 2.0, but is this really a problem?
What is the difference between BPEL 1.1 and 2.0 or what is the difference between Oracle's BPEL PM and BPEL 2.0?

Here the new feature of BPEL 2.0 (from wikipedia):

Improved data access (XPath)
Improved dta manipulation (XSL transformations)
New activities (forEach, repeatUntil)
Enriched fault handling (rethrow,termination handler)
Advaned message operations (join-style correlation set)
Syntax makeovers (switch to if-else, terminate to exit)

In Oracle's BPEL PM there is already the new XPath extension built in and XSLTs can be used via <transform>. The Syntax makeovers are not really new functionality.
Rewriting forEach and repeatUntil into while is possible, but sometimes painful and the enriched fault handling will make some workflows more readable.
So it will be nice to get BPEL 2.0 but it is no major problem to stay with BPEL 1.1 and the Oracle specific enhancements....