Paul's Blog Spot

Creating a certificate in openssl

2011-05-16T14:57:00.002+01:00

Get the binary distribution of openssl from http://www.slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html

Install "Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) " first from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=A5C84275-3B97-4AB7-A40D-3802B2AF5FC2&displaylang=en

Install Win32 OpenSSL v1.0.0d from http://www.slproweb.com/download/Win32OpenSSL-1_0_0d.exe

Add openssl bin directory to the path environment variable

# In a comand prompt create a CA folder

mkdir CA

cd CA

# Create expected folders and files

mkdir private

mkdir newcerts

mkdir certs

mkdir crl

touch index.txt

touch serial # Best to copy this file from the demoCA in the bin directory

# change dir in openssl.cfg from ./demoCA to .

openssl req -new -x509 -keyout private/cakey.pem -out cacert.pem -days 365

openssl req -nodes -new -x509 -keyout newreq.pem -out newreq.pem -days 365

openssl x509 -x509toreq -in newreq.pem -signkey newreq.pem -out tmp.pem

openssl ca -policy policy_anything -out newcert.pem -infiles tmp.pem

openssl x509 -inform PEM -in newcert.pem -outform DER -out newcert.cer

Setting up Active MQ to Bridge to Oracle AQ

2011-03-29T11:12:00.005+01:00

I've recently been working on migrating away from Oracle Advanced Queues to Active MQ and as such I have tried to opt for a gradual migration strategy. As part of this I have looked into creating a JMS Bridge which is supprisingly easy to set up in Active MQ.

This post shows how to set up queues and routing for the following tests

A) Send message to AQ which gets Moved to an Active MQ queue

A1 -> A2

B) Send message to AQ, throw exception when dequeing message to push it into the exception queue, then moved to an Active MQ queue

B1 -> B1_E -> B3

C) Send message to MQ which then gets moved to AQ

C1 -> C2
C)

First create the queues under a new user called qtest in oracle

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE_TABLE( Queue_table => 'qtest.TEST_A1_QT', Queue_payload_type => 'SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE',
Sort_list => 'ENQ_TIME', Compatible => '8.1.3');
END;
/

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE( Queue_name => 'qtest.TEST_A1', Queue_table => 'qtest.TEST_A1_QT',
Queue_type => 0, Max_retries => 4, Retry_delay => 60, Retention_time => 220752000, dependency_tracking => FALSE);
END;
/

EXECUTE dbms_aqadm.start_queue (queue_name=>'qtest.TEST_A1');
/

commit;
/

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE_TABLE( Queue_table => 'qtest.TEST_B1_QT', Queue_payload_type => 'SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE',
Sort_list => 'ENQ_TIME', Compatible => '8.1.3');
END;
/

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE( Queue_name => 'qtest.TEST_B1', Queue_table => 'qtest.TEST_B1_QT',
Queue_type => 0, Max_retries => 4, Retry_delay => 60, Retention_time => 220752000, dependency_tracking => FALSE);
END;
/

EXECUTE dbms_aqadm.start_queue (queue_name=>'qtest.TEST_B1');
/

EXECUTE dbms_aqadm.start_queue(queue_name => 'AQ$_TEST_B1_QT_E', enqueue => FALSE, dequeue => TRUE);
/

commit;
/

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE_TABLE( Queue_table => 'qtest.TEST_C1_QT', Queue_payload_type => 'SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE',
Sort_list => 'ENQ_TIME', Compatible => '8.1.3');
END;
/

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE( Queue_name => 'qtest.TEST_C1', Queue_table => 'qtest.TEST_C1_QT',
Queue_type => 0, Max_retries => 4, Retry_delay => 60, Retention_time => 220752000, dependency_tracking => FALSE);
END;
/

EXECUTE dbms_aqadm.start_queue (queue_name=>'qtest.TEST_C1');
/

commit;
/

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE_TABLE( Queue_table => 'qtest.TEST_C2_QT', Queue_payload_type => 'SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE',
Sort_list => 'ENQ_TIME', Compatible => '8.1.3');
END;
/

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE( Queue_name => 'qtest.TEST_C2', Queue_table => 'qtest.TEST_C2_QT',
Queue_type => 0, Max_retries => 4, Retry_delay => 60, Retention_time => 220752000, dependency_tracking => FALSE);
END;
/

EXECUTE dbms_aqadm.start_queue (queue_name=>'qtest.TEST_C2');
/

commit;
/

Next edit the Active MQ configuration conf/activemq.xml and at the end of the config before the closing beans tag add the oracle connection and factories.

jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS_LIST = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = localhost)(PORT = 1521)))(CONNECT_DATA = (SERVER = DEDICATED)(SERVICE_NAME = xe)))

qtest

qtest

Finally add the routing in the camel section of Active MQ config

Enabling AQ Exception Queue

2011-03-24T11:50:00.002Z

Had to spend a little while searching for this one so added here for quick reference

By default exception queues are disabled for enqueue and dequeue so to enable them you need to use the start_queue function however Oracle prevents enquing to these queues so you will need to explicitly state that enqueue is disabled/FALSE and de-queue is enabled/TRUE

EXECUTE dbms_aqadm.start_queue(queue_name => 'AQ$_TEST_Q_IN_QT_E', enqueue => FALSE, dequeue => TRUE);
/

commit;
/

Creating an AQ queue

2011-03-24T11:49:00.001Z

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE_TABLE( Queue_table => 'MYQUEUES.TEST_Q_IN_QT', Queue_payload_type => 'SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE',
Sort_list => 'ENQ_TIME', Compatible => '8.1.3');
END;
/

commit;
/

BEGIN
DBMS_AQADM.CREATE_QUEUE( Queue_name => 'MYQUEUES.TEST_Q_IN', Queue_table => 'MYQUEUES.TEST_Q_IN_QT',
Queue_type => 0, Max_retries => 4, Retry_delay => 60, Retention_time => 220752000, dependency_tracking => FALSE);
END;
/

commit;
/

EXECUTE dbms_aqadm.start_queue (queue_name=>'MYQUEUES.TEST_Q_IN');
/

commit;
/

EXECUTE dbms_aqadm.start_queue(queue_name => 'AQ$_TEST_Q_IN_QT_E', enqueue => FALSE, dequeue => TRUE);
/

commit;
/

Split Comma delimited line into separate row output in Scala

2011-01-07T11:40:00.009Z

Needed to get the fields in a SQL statement from a list of comma delimited fields into row form so I could paste it into a spreadsheet to work on, this is how I did it:

scala> def listline(line: String) = for(i <- line.split(",").toList) println(i.trim)
listline: (line: String)Unit

scala> listline("abc,def,ghi")
abc
def
ghi

Update: More complex version

scala> def splitList(line: String, delim: List[String]): Unit = delim match {
| case head :: tail => for(item <- line.split(head).toList) splitList(item, tail)
| case Nil => println(line.trim)
| }
splitList: (line: String,delim: List[String])Unit

scala>

scala> def listline(line: String) = splitList(line, List(",","and","&"))
listline: (line: String)Unit

scala> listline("abc,def,ghi, jkl and mno & pqr")
abc
def
ghi
jkl
mno
pqr

Without prompt:

def splitList(line: String, delim: List[String]): Unit = delim match {
case head :: tail => for(item <- line.split(head).toList) splitList(item, tail)
case Nil => println(line.trim)
}

def listline(line: String) = splitList(line, List(",","and","&"))

// Simple
// def listline(line: String) = for(i <- line.split(",").toList) println(i.trim)

Re-Enqueuing Oracle AQ Message

2010-11-18T14:55:00.002Z

I recently had an issue with AQ messages which would not de-queue following a wierd Oracle error. The messages would only dequeue in Browse mode and therefore would never get processed or leave the queue.

To resolve this issue and to get my messages to the system that needed to processes them I wrote the following SQL to read the message and re-enqueue it as a new message which was then processed:

DECLARE
queueopts DBMS_AQ.DEQUEUE_OPTIONS_T;
msgprops DBMS_AQ.MESSAGE_PROPERTIES_T;
v_dequeue_options DBMS_AQ.dequeue_options_t;
v_enqueue_options DBMS_AQ.enqueue_options_t;
v_message_properties DBMS_AQ.message_properties_t;
v_message_prop_en DBMS_AQ.message_properties_t;
v_message_handle RAW(16);
v_message sys.aq$_jms_text_message ;
v_message_provider_id number(8,2);
v_message_provider varchar2(50);
v_alert_msg_id char(36);
v_alert_msg_type varchar2(50);
v_num_attach number(3);
v_alert_msg clob;
v_alert_msg_id_in char(36);
v_alert_msg_id_deq char(36);
v_corrmsg_id_in char(36);
V_QUEUE_MSG_NAME VARCHAR2(50);
V_QUEUE_MSG_ID NUMBER(8,2);
V_MESSAGE_EN SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE;
V_ENQUEUE_OPTIONS_EN DBMS_AQ.ENQUEUE_OPTIONS_T;
V_MSGID RAW(16);
V_MESSAGE_SIZE NUMBER(5);
BEGIN
v_dequeue_options.dequeue_mode := DBMS_AQ.BROWSE;
v_dequeue_options.wait := 2; --DBMS_AQ.NO_WAIT;
v_dequeue_options.correlation := v_alert_msg_id_deq ;
v_dequeue_options.navigation := DBMS_AQ.FIRST_MESSAGE;
-- v_dequeue_options.navigation := DBMS_AQ.NEXT_MESSAGE;
v_dequeue_options.msgid := '93E04404404463F7E04400144FDCA7C6';

V_QUEUE_MSG_NAME := 'MYAPP.MYAPP_WORK_IN';
v_alert_msg_id := '5bc0352d-4578-4578-b938-bd457841763b';
v_corrmsg_id_in := '9af66884-d74c-af66-af66-479be7e7d772';

-- Dequeue message from the queue
DBMS_AQ.DEQUEUE(queue_name => V_QUEUE_MSG_NAME,
dequeue_options => v_dequeue_options,
message_properties => v_message_properties,
payload => v_message,
msgid => v_message_handle);

V_MESSAGE.GET_TEXT(v_alert_msg);

/* Now display some of the information. */
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Dequeued msg id is ' || RAWTOHEX (v_message_handle));
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('MsgId: ' || v_message.get_string_property('msgId'));
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('MsgType: ' || v_message.get_string_property('msgType'));
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('numTags: ' || v_message.get_int_property('numTags'));

-- Output Message
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(v_alert_msg);

-- Create a new Message
V_MESSAGE_EN := SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE.CONSTRUCT;
v_message_prop_en.correlation := v_corrmsg_id_in;

-- Setting user defined message properties
V_MESSAGE_EN.SET_INT_PROPERTY('numTags', 0);
V_MESSAGE_EN.SET_STRING_PROPERTY('msgType' , v_message.get_string_property('msgType'));
V_MESSAGE_EN.SET_STRING_PROPERTY('msgProvider' , v_message.get_string_property('msgProvider'));
V_MESSAGE_EN.SET_STRING_PROPERTY('msgId' , v_alert_msg_id);

-- Set Message Payload
V_MESSAGE_EN.SET_TEXT(v_alert_msg);

-- Enqueue this message into AQ queue using DBMS_AQ package
DBMS_AQ.ENQUEUE(QUEUE_NAME => V_QUEUE_MSG_NAME,
ENQUEUE_OPTIONS => v_enqueue_options,
MESSAGE_PROPERTIES => v_message_prop_en,
PAYLOAD => V_MESSAGE_EN,
MSGID => v_alert_msg_id);

DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('Message ' || v_alert_msg_id || ' sent');
END;

Granting access to multiple tables

2010-11-17T16:55:00.002Z

Simple anonymous script to grant read access to a number of other user's tables

-- While as a DBA
DECLARE
BEGIN
FOR x in (SELECT owner, table_name FROM all_tables WHERE OWNER IN('SCOTT', 'MYAPP', 'HR'))
LOOP
EXECUTE IMMEDIATE 'GRANT SELECT ON ' || x.owner || '.' || x.table_name || ' TO myuser';
END LOOP;
END;

Using JRebel with sbt

2010-10-10T18:11:00.005+01:00

At the time of writing, JRebel are offering a free year's license for Scala development see http://sales.zeroturnaround.com/, this is how to install it:

1) Download and install JRebel from http://www.zeroturnaround.com/jrebel/current/

2) Edit the sbt command

java -Xmx512M -noverify -javaagent:/usr/bin/jrebel/jrebel.jar -jar `dirname $0`/sbt-launch.jar "$@"

3) go to your projects root directory and run:

sbt
sbt> update
sbt> jetty-run
sbt> ~ prepare-webapp

Creating Intellij Projects for SBT Projects

2010-09-15T19:08:00.005+01:00

I'm currently working on an Open-Source Scala project and we have switched our build process from Maven2 to SBT or Simple Build Tool http://code.google.com/p/simple-build-tool/. We've mainly done this as our project will be based on the Akka and the Lift framework which have also now switched to SBT.

SBT provides many of the features of Maven such as loading dependencies from remote repositories but is much simpler and the configuration is done in Scala rather than using messy xml files.

As part of this project I have found that JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition seems to be the best Scala IDE I have tried and also has an SBT plug-in. As a bonus SBT has an action which will generate an Intellij IDEA project file configured to work with SBT.

To use this, go to the root of your SBT project and type sbt to start sbt, then enter:

*sbtIdeaRepo at http://mpeltonen.github.com/maven/
*idea is com.github.mpeltonen sbt-idea-processor 0.1-SNAPSHOT
update
idea

This will generate the .ipr file which you can then use

==============================================================

Update

Plug-ins are now stored globally in a $HOME/.sbt/plugins/build.sbt or C:\Documents and Settings\username\.sbt\plugins file which for this plugin the following contents should be added:

resolvers += "sbt-idea-repo" at "http://mpeltonen.github.com/maven/"

libraryDependencies += "com.github.mpeltonen" %% "sbt-idea" % "0.10.0"

Also the task is now called gen-idea

Note: In window use the command line to create a .sbt directory

See https://github.com/harrah/xsbt/wiki/Plugins for more details

Decoding VBE and Re-Coding VBS Files

2010-09-15T18:55:00.003+01:00

Based on original article here

Since 2003 Microsoft has provided a command line script encoder available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=e7877f67-c447-4873-b1b0-21f0626a6329&DisplayLang=en This tool encodes the script so it can't be read by a casual user but is no protection against a determined hacker.

Usage:

screnc ScriptFile

Note: You will need to install the download and also add the directory to your path to use it.

If you have a vbe script which you need to view/edit use create a new .vbs file and add the following in it:

option explicit
Dim oArgs, txtFileName

'Optional argument : the encoded filename
txtFileName=""
Set oArgs = WScript.Arguments

Select Case oArgs.Count
Case 0 'No Arg, popup a dialog box to choose the file
txtFileName=BrowseForFolder("Choose an encoded file", &H4031, &H0011)
Case 1
If Instr(oArgs(0),"?")=0 Then '-? ou /? => aide
txtFileName=oArgs(0)
End If
Case Else
WScript.Echo "Too many parameters"
End Select
Set oArgs = Nothing

If txtFileName<>"" Then
Dim fso
Set fso=WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If fso.FileExists(txtFileName) Then
Dim oFile,txtFileContents
Set oFile = fso.OpenTextFile(txtFileName, 1)
txtFileContents=oFile.readAll
oFile.close
Set oFile=Nothing

Const TagInit="#@~^" '#@~^awQAAA==
Const TagFin="==^#~@" '& chr(0)
Dim lStartCode, lExitCode
Do
lExitCode=0
lStartCode=Instr(txtFileContents,TagInit)
If lStartCode>0 Then
If (Instr(lStartCode,txtFileContents,"==")-lStartCode)=10 Then 'If "==" follows the tag
lExitCode=Instr(lStartCode,txtFileContents,TagFin)
If lExitCode>0 Then
txtFileContents=Left(txtFileContents,lStartCode-1) & _
Decode(Mid(txtFileContents,lStartCode+12,lExitCode-lStartCode-12-6)) & _
Mid(txtFileContents,lExitCode+6)
End If
End If
End If
Loop Until lExitCode=0
writeToFile txtFileName & ".vbs", txtFileContents
WScript.Echo txtFileContents
Else
WScript.Echo txtFileName & " not found"
End If
Set fso=Nothing
Else
WScript.Echo "Please give a filename"
WScript.Echo "Usage : " & wscript.fullname & " " & WScript.ScriptFullName & " "
End If

Sub writeToFile(txtFileName, txtFileContents)
Dim txtstr

Set txtstr = fso.CreateTextFile(txtFileName, True)
txtstr.write txtFileContents

txtstr.close
Set txtstr=Nothing
End Sub

Function Decode(txtBinChars)
Dim se,i,c,j,index,txtBinCharsTemp
Dim tDecode(127)
Const Combinaison="1231232332321323132311233213233211323231311231321323112331123132"

Set se=WSCript.CreateObject("Scripting.Encoder")

For i=9 to 127
tDecode(i)="JLA"
Next

For i=9 to 127
txtBinCharsTemp=Mid(se.EncodeScriptFile(".vbs",string(3,i),0,""),13,3)
For j=1 to 3
c=Asc(Mid(txtBinCharsTemp,j,1))
tDecode(c)=Left(tDecode(c),j-1) & chr(i) & Mid(tDecode(c),j+1)
Next
Next

'Next line we correct a bug, otherwise a ")" could be decoded to a ">"
tDecode(42)=Left(tDecode(42),1) & ")" & Right(tDecode(42),1)

Set se=Nothing

txtBinChars=Replace(Replace(txtBinChars,"@&",chr(10)),"@#",chr(13))
txtBinChars=Replace(Replace(txtBinChars,"@*",">"),"@!","<")
txtBinChars=Replace(txtBinChars,"@$","@")
index=-1

For i=1 to Len(txtBinChars)
c=asc(Mid(txtBinChars,i,1))
If c<128 Then index=index+1
If (c=9) or ((c>31) and (c<128)) Then
If (c<>60) and (c<>62) and (c<>64) Then
txtBinChars=Left(txtBinChars,i-1) & Mid(tDecode(c),Mid(Combinaison,(index mod 64)+1,1),1) & Mid(txtBinChars,i+1)
End If
End If
Next
Decode=txtBinChars
End Function

Function BrowseForFolder(ByVal pstrPrompt, ByVal pintBrowseType, ByVal pintLocation)
Dim ShellObject, pstrTempFolder, x
Set ShellObject=WScript.CreateObject("Shell.Application")
On Error Resume Next
Set pstrTempFolder=ShellObject.BrowseForFolder(&H0,pstrPrompt,pintBrowseType,pintLocation)
BrowseForFolder=pstrTempFolder.ParentFolder.ParseName(pstrTempFolder.Title).Path
If Err.Number<>0 Then BrowseForFolder=""
Set pstrTempFolder=Nothing
Set ShellObject=Nothing
End Function

Usage:

YourDecryptScriptName.vbs FileToDecrypt.vbe

The script will decode the vbe file, display it in a message box and also create/overwrite a new file called FileToDecrypt.vbe.vbs which you can edit

Starting & Stopping Services on Ubuntu

2010-09-10T10:04:00.001+01:00

Get a list of services:

ls /etc/init.d

Then Stop/Start using servicename followed by action:

sudo invoke-rc.d servicename stop

sudo invoke-rc.d servicename stop

Oracle SQL to read a BLOB

2010-08-23T12:40:00.003+01:00

Oracle SQL to read a BLOB

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE read_blob
IS
l_blob BLOB;
l_blob_length NUMBER;
l_amount BINARY_INTEGER := 10000; -- must be <= ~32765.
l_offset INTEGER := 1;
l_buffer RAW(20000);
l_text_buffer VARCHAR2(32767);
l_break_at PLS_INTEGER := 141; -- must be <= 255.
BEGIN

SELECT PZPVSTREAM INTO l_blob FROM PEGARULES.XCS_WORK
WHERE pxinsname = 'W-10332';

-- Figure out how long the BLOB is.
l_blob_length := DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(l_blob);

-- We'll loop through the BLOB as many times as necessary to
-- get all its data.
FOR i IN 1..CEIL(l_blob_length/l_amount) LOOP

-- Read in the given chunk of the BLOB.
DBMS_LOB.READ(l_blob
, l_amount
, l_offset
, l_buffer);

-- The DBMS_LOB.READ procedure dictates that its output be RAW.
-- This next procedure converts that RAW data to character data.
l_text_buffer := UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(l_buffer);

-- Now that we have character data (up to l_amount characters long),
-- chunk it out so that we can call DBMS_OUTPUT (which only accepts
-- arguments less than or equal to 255 characters).
FOR j IN 1..CEIL(LENGTH(l_text_buffer) / l_break_at) LOOP
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(SUBSTR(l_text_buffer
, (((j - 1) * l_break_at) + 1)
, LEAST(LENGTH(l_text_buffer)
-
((j - 1) * l_break_at)
, l_break_at)));
END LOOP;

-- For the next iteration through the BLOB, bump up your offset
-- location (i.e., where you start reading from).
l_offset := l_offset + l_amount;
END LOOP;
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE('!ERROR: ' || SUBSTR(SQLERRM,1,247));
END;
/

Fixing Michael Galpin's Comet Tutorial

2010-03-26T09:17:00.009Z

I recently stumbled across the following tutorial on Comet:

Build Comet applications using Scala, Lift, and jQuery
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ajax/tutorials/wa-aj-comet/index.html

I was interested in this tutorial as comet is an alternative architecture to Ajax. In Ajax the browser makes calls (polls) to the web server in the background and then updates the users web page. This issue with this approach is that there is a delay between a change and the polling call. Also when you have a large number of users there will be a lot of polling calls hitting the web server that will not update the users web page (as there was no change).

Comet takes an alternative approach where it keeps a connection open to the user's browser and uses this to push data to the use. The benefit of this approach is that it essentially uses the Observer Pattern an only has web traffic when an update has been made which reduces load on the web server and is more scalable.

a potential replacement for Comet is Web Sockets in HTML 5 but this isn't supported by all browsers at present.

Anyway, when I tried building the tutorial I found that Michael had used a snapshot build to get new features but as this is a snapshot it is removed later from the Maven repositories giving this error:

[INFO] Failed to resolve artifact.

Missing:
----------
1) net.liftweb:lift-core:jar:0.10-SNAPSHOT

This is easily fixed by moving to the released version by changing pom.xml from:

net.liftweb
lift-core
0.10-SNAPSHOT

to the release version:

net.liftweb
lift-core
0.10

But unfortunately there were changes between the snapshot and the release which threw the following errors:

[INFO] Compiling 7 source files to C:\dev\scala\lift\broken_auctionNet\target\cl
asses at 1269595709118
[ERROR] C:\dev\scala\lift\broken_auctionNet\src\main\scala\bootstrap\liftweb\Boo
t.scala:44: error: value appendEarly is not a member of object net.liftweb.http.
LiftRules
[INFO] LiftRules.appendEarly(makeUtf8)
[INFO] ^
[ERROR] C:\dev\scala\lift\broken_auctionNet\src\main\scala\bootstrap\liftweb\Boo
t.scala:66: error: not found: type Can
[INFO] private def createOne: Can[Connection] = try {
[INFO] ^
[ERROR] C:\dev\scala\lift\broken_auctionNet\src\main\scala\bootstrap\liftweb\Boo
t.scala:87: error: not found: type Can
[INFO] def newConnection(name: ConnectionIdentifier): Can[Connection] =
[INFO] ^
[ERROR] C:\dev\scala\lift\broken_auctionNet\src\main\scala\org\developerworks\co
met\AuctionActor.scala:18: error: type mismatch;
[INFO] found : java.lang.String("auction")
[INFO] required: net.liftweb.util.Box[String]
[INFO] def defaultPrefix = "auction"
[INFO] ^
[ERROR] four errors found

The Can errors are fixed by replacing Can with Box in the two places in boot.scala

To fix the final error replace:

def defaultPrefix = "auction"

by boxing it Full and make it an override as follows:

override def defaultPrefix = Full("auction")

This fixes the errors but when you compile you get the following error in boot.scala:

[INFO] Compiling 7 source files to C:\dev\scala\lift\broken_auctionNet\target\cl
asses at 1269597516624
[ERROR] C:\dev\scala\lift\broken_auctionNet\src\main\scala\bootstrap\liftweb\Boo
t.scala:44: error: value appendEarly is not a member of object net.liftweb.http.
LiftRules
[INFO] LiftRules.appendEarly(makeUtf8)
[INFO] ^
[ERROR] one error found
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR

This is fixed by changing the line from:

LiftRules.appendEarly(makeUtf8)

to:

LiftRules.early.append(makeUtf8)

The code now compiles but when you start it using mvn jetty:run you get the following

2010-03-26 10:06:39.757:WARN::failed org.mortbay.jetty.plugin.Jetty6PluginWebApp
Context@33c78b{/,C:\dev\scala\lift\broken_auctionNet\src\main\webapp}: java.lang
.VerifyError: (class: net/liftweb/util/EmptyBox, method: open_$bang signature: (
)Ljava/lang/Object;) Can only throw Throwable objects
2010-03-26 10:06:39.757:WARN::failed ContextHandlerCollection@171bc3f: java.lang
.VerifyError: (class: net/liftweb/util/EmptyBox, method: open_$bang signature: (
)Ljava/lang/Object;) Can only throw Throwable objects
2010-03-26 10:06:39.757:WARN::failed HandlerCollection@1fddb33: java.lang.Verify
Error: (class: net/liftweb/util/EmptyBox, method: open_$bang signature: ()Ljava/
lang/Object;) Can only throw Throwable objects
2010-03-26 10:06:39.757:WARN::Error starting handlers
java.lang.VerifyError: (class: net/liftweb/util/EmptyBox, method: open_$bang sig
nature: ()Ljava/lang/Object;) Can only throw Throwable objects
at net.liftweb.http.LiftRules$.(LiftRules.scala:171)

This is resolved by increasing the Scala version to 2.7.3 from:

2.7.2

to:

2.7.3

Moving Exception Messages back onto the normal AQ queue

2010-02-17T15:53:00.005Z

Just wrote some PL/SQL to restore messages on the exception queue back onto the normal queue.

DECLARE
dequeue_options dbms_aq.dequeue_options_t;
enqueue_options dbms_aq.enqueue_options_t;
message_properties dbms_aq.message_properties_t;
message_handle RAW(32);
message SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE;

deq_qname varchar2(50);
enq_qname varchar2(50);

ex_no_messages exception;
ex_dequeue exception;
pragma exception_init (ex_no_messages, -25263);
pragma exception_init (ex_dequeue, -25228);
msg_count number;
BEGIN
deq_qname := 'SCOTT.AQ$_TBL_DATAFEED_REQ_E';
enq_qname := 'SCOTT.DATAFEED_REQ';

dequeue_options.wait := DBMS_AQ.NO_WAIT;
dequeue_options.navigation := DBMS_AQ.FIRST_MESSAGE;
dequeue_options.dequeue_mode := dbms_aq.remove_nodata;

msg_count := 0;

-- Enabling the exception queue for dequeue
dbms_aqadm.start_queue(deq_qname, false, true);

LOOP --Looping to find and remove the message from exception queue
dbms_aq.dequeue(queue_name => deq_qname,
dequeue_options => dequeue_options,
message_properties => message_properties,
payload => message,
msgid => message_handle);

dbms_aq.enqueue(queue_name => enq_qname,
enqueue_options => enqueue_options,
message_properties => message_properties,
payload =>message,
msgid => message_handle);

dequeue_options.navigation := DBMS_AQ.NEXT_MESSAGE;

msg_count := msg_count + 1;

DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('Processed ' || msg_count || ' messages');

dequeue_options.navigation := DBMS_AQ.NEXT_MESSAGE;
END LOOP;

EXCEPTION -- exception handling
WHEN ex_no_messages THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('No of Messages Moved: '||msg_count);
COMMIT;
WHEN ex_dequeue THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE ('No of Messages Moved: '||msg_count);
COMMIT;
END;
/

Extracting data from a JMS Text message

2010-02-17T11:54:00.002Z

Some useful SQL to extract data from a JMS Text message

SELECT SUBSTR(q.user_data.text_lob, INSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,'') + 20,7) "Special Reference",
SUBSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,
INSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,'') + 19,
(INSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,'')
- INSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,'') - 19)
) "Contact",
SUBSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,
INSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,'') + 5,
(INSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,'')
- INSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,'') - 5)
) "REF"
,q.MSGID, q.CORRID, q.ENQ_TIME, q.DEQ_TIME, q.RETRY_COUNT,
CASE WHEN q.Q_NAME = 'AQ$_TBL_XMLMSG_E' THEN 'FAIL' ELSE 'PASS' END as "successful",
q.Q_NAME, length(q.user_data.text_lob) as "MSG Size", q.user_data.text_lob, q.user_data.text_vc
FROM MSGUSER.TBL_XMLMSG q
WHERE q.ENQ_TIME > to_date('12-02-2010 00:00:00', 'dd-mm-yyyy hh24-mi-ss')
AND q.Q_NAME = 'AQ$_TBL_XMLMSG_E'
AND INSTR(q.user_data.text_lob,'Tester') = 0 -- Exclude Test records
ORDER BY q.DEQ_TIME desc, q.ENQ_TIME

Scala and Lift Maven Architypes

2010-02-10T09:48:00.003Z

Maven Architype command line instructions to be used with Maven 2 to create new projects

# Basic Scala maven type
mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:1.0-alpha-7:create -DarchetypeGroupId=org.scala-tools.archetypes -DarchetypeArtifactId=scala-archetype-simple -DarchetypeVersion=1.1 -DremoteRepositories=http://scala-tools.org/repo-releases -DgroupId=your.proj.gid -DartifactId=your-proj-id

# Lift type for LIFT projects
mvn archetype:generate -U -DarchetypeGroupId=net.liftweb -DarchetypeArtifactId=lift-archetype-blank -DarchetypeVersion=1.0 -DremoteRepositories=http://scala-tools.org/repo-releases -DgroupId=play -DartifactId=play -Dversion=1.0-SNAPSHOT

Reading Oracle AQ JMS Text XML

2010-01-27T16:23:00.001Z

Placeholder link to a great and very useful article on Oracle AQ JMS

Listing today's files in a directory without using find

2010-01-20T14:59:00.004Z

Had an issue today where I needed to get the today's log files from a Unix directory but couldn't use find. Normally I could use the time function in find to do this as follows where . is the directory to search from (. is the current directory):

find . -mtime +0

However the only way I could get the date for the files was by using ls -al and then removing all the extra data to leave just the filename.

The following script takes an argument of the directory you want to list all the files with the current date:

#!/bin/sh
die () {
echo >&2 "$@"
exit 1
}

[ "$#" -eq 1 ] || die "target directory argument required, $# provided"

target=$1
myvar=`date "+%h %d"`

for file in `ls -al $target | grep "$myvar" | sed 's/[-drwx]* *[0-9] *[a-zA-Z0-9]* *[a-zA-Z0-9]* *[0-9]* *[a-zA-Z]* [0-9]* *[0-9]*:[0-9]* *\.*//'`; do
echo $file
done

Testing my posterous account

2009-11-02T14:39:00.001Z

I this message appears in twitter and on my blog then posterous has processed my email and put it both on my blog and on twitter

this is a test

Posted via email from Paul's posterous

How to fix the Glassfish Admin App

2009-08-05T14:18:00.003+01:00

Recently we've been having intermittant issues with the GlassFish 2.1 (b.60e) Web Administration Console. The behaviour is that after successfully login you get a HTTP 500 error instead of the web app As follows (minus colours)

HTTP Status 500 - type Exception report

message
descriptionThe server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception
javax.servlet.ServletException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException while attempting to process a 'beforeCreate' event for 'sun_frameSet4'.

root cause
java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException while attempting to process a 'beforeCreate' event for 'sun_frameSet4'.

root cause
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException

root cause
javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactoryConfigurationError: Provider org.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl not found

note The full stack traces of the exception and its root causes are available in the Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1 logs.
Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server v2.1

At first we were told it was a jar class but I was skeptical as the appserver should keep those isolated from one application to another, however there is something I overlooked that creeps across applications which is the System Properties which are across the JVM.

In the end the issue is down to how the TransformerFactory creates a new instance which uses system properties, more details follow:

Issue:
The Admin app breaks displaying the http 500 error after a successful logon when the javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory system property is set to a class that is not in its classpath.

Rationale:
This is due to the way that the TransformerFactory is implemented which the Admin app calls to get an XML parser.

To get an XML parser javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory.newInstance()is called and this uses the following ordered lookup procedure to determine the TransformerFactory implementation class to load:

Use the javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory system property.
Use the properties file "lib/jaxp.properties" in the JRE directory. This configuration file is in standard java.util.Properties format and contains the fully qualified name of the implementation class with the key being the system property defined above. The jaxp.properties file is read only once by the JAXP implementation and it's values are then cached for future use. If the file does not exist when the first attempt is made to read from it, no further attempts are made to check for its existence. It is not possible to change the value of any property in jaxp.properties after it has been read for the first time.
Use the Services API (as detailed in the JAR specification), if available, to determine the classname. The Services API will look for a classname in the file META-INF/services/javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory in jars available to the runtime.
Platform default TransformerFactory instance.

see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/javax/xml/transform/TransformerFactory.html#newInstance()

System Setting are across the JVM and by default the javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory system property is not set.

Fix:
Remove the javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory system property and use one of the other methods to determine the TransformerFactory implementation class

Looping through a file search in unix

2009-04-01T10:58:00.000+01:00

Little handy script in unix to get file details from a find result

#!/bin/sh

# Find all the log files and loop through them
for file in `find $HOME -type f -name \*.log`; do
# Get the file details
ls -al $file
done

GlassFish ESB Netbeans Server Starting Issue

2009-03-19T08:41:00.000Z

Been having a few issue while doing the OpenESB tutorials http://wiki.open-esb.java.net/Wiki.jsp?page=OpenESBIntroductionTutorial in that the GlashFish server doesn't connect up in Netbeans.

Symptoms:

On the Server's tab in NetBeans you right click start on GlashFish V2, it starts up in the Glassfish Log but you get a time out and the GUI displays the server as not started. You can also go to the Admin console on http://localhost:4848 and everything looks fine and dandy.

Solution or at least the solution I found:

I seem to have a wierd setup where I mapped localhost to a MS Loopback Adaptor address, however when you ping this in cmd you still get the IP loopback address of 127.0.0.1. I came to the conclusion that the server is taking the 127.0.0.1 IP and netbeans is resolving it to the MS Loopback address, so I change my host file c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts so that localhost is mapped back to the 127.0.01 IP loopback address. Hey presto it now seems to work fine.

Manually undeploying a Service Assembly in ServiceMix

2009-03-11T08:39:00.000Z

Adding this entry mainly as a reference for myself.

The issue is that there is a a maven jbi plug-in deploy job but not an undeploy job which from a configuration management point of view is plain stupid. Anyway if you have a maven service mix project that you've deployed the service assembly using the maven command:

mvn jbi:projectDeploy

Then you're going to have fun undeploying it as apparently there is no undeploy task see http://www.nabble.com/How-to-undeploy-a-SA-in-serviceMix-td16736845.html or http://markmail.org/message/67pysr5olbq6wazt this can be done in ant (great another technology to use !) or manually by doing:

Stop ServiceMix
Go to /data/smx/serviceassemblies & delete the service assembly folder
Restart ServiceMix

To do this in ant you use the command:

ant -f servicemix-ant-task.xml -Dsm.username=smx -Dsm.password=smx -Dsm.service.assembly.name=NAME_OF_THE_SA undeploy-service-assembly

see http://www.infobean.de/2008/11/how_to_undeploy_a_serviceassem.html

Update:

Instead of using

mvn jbi:projectDeploy -DforceUpdate=true

Clear ServiceMix by stopping ServiceMix, deleting everything in the /data and restarting. Then just copy the jar from the /target/.jar to the /hotdeploy directory.

Appatently the force update redeploy's artifacts that don't need to be redeployed, see http://cwiki.apache.org/SM/discussion-forums.html#nabble-p21474293

First blog using iBlogger

2009-03-05T11:55:00.000Z

Here we go, just bought the app at a discounted rate of 59p or $0.99 after scanning the reviews.

It works :-)

Savings products cut

2009-03-05T11:15:00.000Z

Had a leaflet from Barclays yesterday entitled "Important information about our savings accounts" and was shocked to see that on page 3 they have cut 22 products leaving just 8 remaining.

Now some of this looks like some housekeeping such as removing the postal savings account but I was supprised to see the 30 and 60 day savings disappear, so it looks like it's not just the lending products that are being cut.

Details of the accounts are as follows:

Current range of Savings Accounts (8)

Active Savings
e-Savings
e-Savings Reward
Nest-egg Savings
Barclays Cash ISA
Tax Haven ISA
Children's Savings Account
BarclayPlus

Accounts no longer available to new savers (22)

Barclays Easy Saver
Barclays Flexible Saveings
Barclays Instant Cash Account
Barclays Instant Savings Account
Barclays Openplan Savings
Barclays TESSA-Only ISA
Bonus Saver
junior BarclaysPlus
Postal Account
Baby Postal Account
Barclays Savings Reserve
Day to Day Savings
Prime Account
Regular Savings Account
Reward Saver
Savings Builder
Tax Beater Cash ISA
Tracker Savings Account
30 Day Savings Account
60 Day Savings Account
Premier Openplan Savings
Premier Cash Reserve

First Post: ESB Intro

2007-02-10T22:44:00.000Z

For a good start into the world of the Enterprise Service Bus this is a good intro:

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Enterprise-Service-Bus