There are a lot of reasons I feel this way, but this post is just my latest example.
Nice job to Benny Cornellissen:
http://blog.bennycornelissen.nl/bash-4-x-on-osx-the-bash-that-apple-wont-ship/
Also, if you want to run an updated bash shell on your Mac, then Benny's your uncle, and you'll get introduced to Homebrew (the missing package manager for OS X), which you should be using anyway. Seriously.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Oracle primary key creation in parallel
After an earlier post, Saving a LOT of time with Oracle foreign key creation in PARALLEL, I was asked about primary key creation in parallel. It suffers from the same issue, and can be really time-consuming if you need to drop and recreate a primary key, either after a new load, or if you are partitioning an existing primary key.
There are 2 similar but slightly different approaches that I have tried and used. The first, more straightforward approach is to create a unique index on the column you wish, in parallel, and then reference that index in the primary key creation clause, with USING INDEX. The second involves creating the primary key in a disabled state, creating an index in parallel using whatever definition you want, and using the same name as the constraint, then enabling the constraint. In both cases, you need to turn off the PARALLEL option with an alter index statement, or you will get behavior you might not want.
A simple example of the less obvious second option follows:
Why would you want to do this instead of the more obvious approach of creating a stand alone index? Well, for one thing, you can keep the names the same, which is pretty cool. This can help keep standards in line, if you normally have a 1-1 match between the constraint name and the index name.
There are 2 similar but slightly different approaches that I have tried and used. The first, more straightforward approach is to create a unique index on the column you wish, in parallel, and then reference that index in the primary key creation clause, with USING INDEX. The second involves creating the primary key in a disabled state, creating an index in parallel using whatever definition you want, and using the same name as the constraint, then enabling the constraint. In both cases, you need to turn off the PARALLEL option with an alter index statement, or you will get behavior you might not want.
A simple example of the less obvious second option follows:
alter table my_foo drop constraint pk_my_foo;alter table my_foo add constraint pk_my_foo primary key(id) disable;
create unique index pk_my_foo on my_foo(id) global partition by hash(id) partitions 8 parallel;
alter index pk_my_foo noparallel;
alter table my_foo enable primary key;
Why would you want to do this instead of the more obvious approach of creating a stand alone index? Well, for one thing, you can keep the names the same, which is pretty cool. This can help keep standards in line, if you normally have a 1-1 match between the constraint name and the index name.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Stop calendars added on Google calendar from appearing or sending notifications on your phone
A quick shout out to Ben Rimes (@techsavvyed) for posting a quick walk through for removing the endless spam of notifications on an iPhone or Mac when also using multiple google calendars on their calendar. It is a massive pain in the butt, and should be an exposed and obvious setting someplace, not a special web page you have to find the URL for.
See his blog post at techsavvyed.net for a video walk through, and the actual URL: google.com/calendar/syncselect.
Hope this helps others!
See his blog post at techsavvyed.net for a video walk through, and the actual URL: google.com/calendar/syncselect.
Hope this helps others!
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Increasing Swap Space by Stealing from /home
Recently, I was installing Oracle 12c on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6. This should have been easy, right? In this case, I did not install the OS - my IT guy did, and he didn't know that Oracle has a minimum swap size requirement. And of course, I didn't remember to tell him. So... as I was checking prerequisites, I find that I was below the minimum on swap space. I needed 16G, and only had 4G.
What to do? Well, the simplest approach is to steal home. Or actually, steal some space from /home.
In my case, I had about 4G of swap space, and I had about 224G of space in the /home partition. With a default install of RHEL6, the filesystems are in volume groups, so instead of using fdisk, we get to use lvm commands, which is really pretty cool.
The short and simple approach follows. Note, this is not a well written guide with examples and output and highlights. It is a quick and dirty cookbook for someone who knows what they are doing. I might expand on this later... or not. Log off all existing users, and login as root. In a bash shell, run the following, changing the paths and sizes for the specifics for your install.
Preliminary Information
vgs
Get the name and size of the volume group.
lvs
This will show the size of the various logical volumes in the volume group
mount
Show the paths of the mounted filesystems. Take the base of the home path, and find out the other paths.
fdisk -l /dev/mapper/vg_node*
This will give us the other similarly named partitions, which will give us the swap partition path.
Reducing the Size of /home and the Logical Volume
umount /home
Yep. It unmounts /home so you can mess with it.
e2fsck -f /dev/mapper/vg_node2-lv_home
This checks the volume, and is required before a resize.
resize2fs -p /dev/mapper/vg_node2-lv_home 210G
This resizes the ext4 volume to 210G, which added enough space for the swap space I needed.
lvreduce -L 210G /dev/mapper/vg_node2-lv_home
I use the exact same size specifier here, so I don't destroy the filesystem.
e2fsck -f /dev/mapper/vg_node2-lv_home
Not strictly required, but it really makes me feel better to do this.
mount /home
We should have a working home volume now.
lvs
Show use the new size of the volumes. In this example, /home should be 210G.
Increasing the Size of swap
cat /proc/swaps
Check out the size of our existing swap
swapoff /dev/mapper/vg_node2-lv_swap
Turn it off so we don't mess with it.
vgdisplay
This will show you the number of free extents, which we pass to the -l param below.
lvextend -l+3682 /dev/mapper/vg_node2-lv_swap
We extend the volume by as much as we had free (in this case 3682 extents).
mkswap /dev/mapper/vg_node2-lv_swap
We recreate the swap space using all available space.
swapon /dev/mapper/vg_node2-lv_swap
Turn on the swap space!
cat /proc/swaps
Verify that the new swap space is being used.
lvs
Display the size of the logical volumes.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Saving a LOT of time with Oracle foreign key creation in PARALLEL
One of the things that can consume a ton of time when doing DB maintenance is recreation of foreign keys. You can't drop and recreate an index when a foreign key points to it. So, if you are dropping a unique index or primary key, and you get an error telling you that you can't do that, here are the steps to take:
First, find the foreign keys that point to the index. Let's say you're dropping the primary key on a table, perhaps to hash partition it. If the table (parent_table) has a column named id, you can query the USER_CONS_COLUMNS view with the table_name and column_name of the table you are maintaining. It will show you the name of the constraint (and owner). If this is a system generated constraint name, and that isn't enough to identify the source table, you can join that constraint name against user_constraints and get more info.
Example:
select * from user_cons_columns where table_name = 'PARENT_TABLE' and column_name = 'ID';
So, drop the foreign key causing the problem:
ALTER TABLE child_table DROP CONSTRAINT fk1_child_table;
Do your work on the parent table:
-- get rid of the old primary key
ALTER TABLE parent_table DROP CONSTRAINT pk_parent_table;
-- replace with a performant partitioned primary key
ALTER TABLE parent_table ADD CONSTRAINT pk_parent_table
PRIMARY KEY(id) USING INDEX GLOBAL PARTITION BY HASH(id) PARTITIONS 64
TABLESPACE tblspc1;
Time to add the foreign key back... But wait! If these are huge tables (a strong possibility if you are partitioning them or their indexes!) it can take a LONG time to recreate a foreign key. Most of that time is spent doing validation, and it happens serially. There is a really easy way to create that foreign key in a few steps and save yourself a tremendous amount of time!
I ran across this idea in a post here, so I can't claim credit for it, but I do use it in different scenarios which might lead others to find it. It was a great post, and I plan to use it a lot more.
It's very simple - you defer validation, which you CAN do in parallel. Simply recreate the foreign key, like so:
ALTER TABLE child_table ADD CONSTRAINT fk1_child_table FOREIGN KEY (parent_id) REFERENCES parent_table(id) ON DELETE CASCADE ENABLE NOVALIDATE;
Of course, now you have a foreign key that needs validation. Very simple, but we want to do it in parallel, so our multi-hundred gigabyte table can be done quicker. First, turn on PARALLEL DDL for the session:
-- we can't go faster if we don't turn on parallel!
ALTER SESSION ENABLE PARALLEL DDL;
-- temporarily make the child table parallel enabled:
ALTER TABLE child_table PARALLEL;
-- prepare to wait a while on this, but you can entertain yourself
-- by watching your validation go massively parallel in Enterprise Manager :-)
ALTER TABLE child_table MODIFY CONSTRAINT fk1_child_table VALIDATE;
-- once the validate FINALLY finishes, be sure to turn off the parallel option, unless
-- you know what you are doing and really, really wanted it on.
ALTER TABLE child_table NOPARALLEL;
I should have tried this on the other operations as well, but that's for next time!
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Props to David Latham: Apache and SELinux
So, I was working on a CentOS 6.4 box to set up an SVN server. Early in the process, I decided I would try (for the first time) to successfully live with SELinux and its requirements, hoops and other arcana. Generally I just turn the POS off to allow me to admin my Linux boxes (which are usually behind multiple levels of fires, etc. etc. etc.). This time, I wanted to try to live with it for a while.
Things were going great until I realized I needed to use some space assigned to /home to host some data. So, I setup a directory there (using Location in a an Apache .conf file). I restarted apache with
Well. Well. So, went through the normal hoops - checking for permissions and usernames and lions and tigers and bears oh my. No joy. However, I saw a reference somewhere that SELinux might be causing the problem (which I kinda expected) and that I could test that proposition with
Of course, the whole reason for this charade was to try to live with SELinux (even though we use trivial passwords behind the firewall) as a learning experience. Hmmmmph. I was starting to regret this already. So, I used
A few googles away, I found the link below, which let me resolve the problem. The magic incantations I recited included the following two lines:
I was able to view the current extended attributes for SE by using:
I'll include the entire blog post as a help to others, but there was no way I was gonna chmod 777 on the directories to make this work! Now, if I could just figure out WHERE those magic incantations come from, without having to learn 1,000 pages of arcana that don't really matter.
David Latham: Allow httpd ( apache ) to write to files and folde...: You may have read my previous post about configuring apache for public_html with selinux. Now today we look at extending this a little wit...
Things were going great until I realized I needed to use some space assigned to /home to host some data. So, I setup a directory there (using Location in a an Apache .conf file). I restarted apache with
service httpd restart and launched my browser... and got a 500 error.Well. Well. So, went through the normal hoops - checking for permissions and usernames and lions and tigers and bears oh my. No joy. However, I saw a reference somewhere that SELinux might be causing the problem (which I kinda expected) and that I could test that proposition with
setenforce 0. Viola'! It worked!Of course, the whole reason for this charade was to try to live with SELinux (even though we use trivial passwords behind the firewall) as a learning experience. Hmmmmph. I was starting to regret this already. So, I used
setenforce 1 to turn the beast back on, and set off on my quest.A few googles away, I found the link below, which let me resolve the problem. The magic incantations I recited included the following two lines:
setsebool httpd_enable_homedirs true
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t .
I was able to view the current extended attributes for SE by using:
ls -alZI'll include the entire blog post as a help to others, but there was no way I was gonna chmod 777 on the directories to make this work! Now, if I could just figure out WHERE those magic incantations come from, without having to learn 1,000 pages of arcana that don't really matter.
David Latham: Allow httpd ( apache ) to write to files and folde...: You may have read my previous post about configuring apache for public_html with selinux. Now today we look at extending this a little wit...
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Cool page talking about Linux RAM usage
So, first, I've been using Linux for a really, really, really long time. Like... 1994. I had to hack a SCSI driver to get my Adaptec 2940W working. Yeah, I know - bragging, right?
I've been using top for even longer - it was a good friend on AIX, HPUX, etc. And I've certainly peeked at /proc/meminfo a few times. But something I never really new existed until recently was a cool command line tool called "free". And more to the point, I never knew something really, really basic about memory usage on Linux.
I stumbled across this page, and had to smile at the title:
Linux Ate My RAM!
It definitely opened my eyes about something I hadn't spent much time thinking about, so - thanks!
free -m... it's your friend.
I've been using top for even longer - it was a good friend on AIX, HPUX, etc. And I've certainly peeked at /proc/meminfo a few times. But something I never really new existed until recently was a cool command line tool called "free". And more to the point, I never knew something really, really basic about memory usage on Linux.
I stumbled across this page, and had to smile at the title:
Linux Ate My RAM!
It definitely opened my eyes about something I hadn't spent much time thinking about, so - thanks!
free -m... it's your friend.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Resolving TONS of Oracle Text errors in emagent.trc
I originally tried to post my question and my eventual answer to my own question on Stack Overflow, but they won't let me answer my own question for 8 hours (SIGH!). Here is the original question and my answer. I hope it helps other part time Oracle DBAs out there. Or full time DBAs for that matter!
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18543098/resolve-a-drg-11119-error-in-emagent-trc-on-oracle-11-2
We have several Oracle Text indexes of type CTXCAT in our Oracle 11.2.0.3 database. A process from Oracle Enterprise Manager is running every 8 minutes and dumping errors about an index that hasn't existed in years, like this one in the trace file $ORACLE_HOME/node_SID/sysman/log/emagent.trc:
More sleuthing followed, since looking for textIndexStats on google didn't turn up much. I finally found it in the output list of: emctl status agent scheduler | grep textIndexStats
but nothing in select * from dba_scheduler_jobs matched textIndexStats, so I was unclear where to look next, and would like to know how to prevent a recurrence.
I posted the question above after about 6 hours of detective work and frustration. I don't normally throw a question to the net for others to answer, but I do like to provide answers for others - weird, I know. In any event, within an hour, I had stumbled on an article that gave me a few clues. Some filesystem grepping and XML file reading, and I found another set. So... here is the solution I tried to post to Stack Overflow.
I was able to fix the issue, and decided to answer my own question for others that might run into this problem and hit the same wall I did. I still don't know what caused it, but it is fixed.
Further research pointed me to the following link, which contained enough hints to point me in the right direction. http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B14099_19/manage.1012/b16242/emctl.htm
The section 2.7.6 "Reevaluating Metric Collections" had information on the files that the Enterprise Manager Metrics are stored in. To avoid dead links, I will copy some excerpts of that article here:
1. Go to $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/admin/metadata directory, where $ORACLE_HOME is the Oracle Home of the Management Agent.
2. Locate the XML file for the target type. For example, if you are interested in the host metric 'Filesystem Space Available(%)' metric, look for the host.xml file.
I actually grep'd for textIndexStats in this directory and found it in a file called database.xmlp. I found a lot of information inside the following line:
The most useful piece of information came from SQL embedded as CDATA, which included the lines:
cursor idx_cur IS
select owner,job_name,comments
from dba_scheduler_jobs where job_name like 'EM_IDX_STAT_JOB%' and
upper(owner) = 'DBSNMP';
idx_rec idx_cur%ROWTYPE;
BEGIN
OPEN idx_cur;
FETCH idx_cur into idx_rec;
guid := :1;
IF idx_cur%FOUND THEN
dbms_lob.createtemporary(statData,false);
dbms_lob.createtemporary(sizeData,false);
dbms_lob.createtemporary(objectsData,false);
idx_name := substr(idx_rec.comments,1,instr(idx_rec.comments,'|')-1);
This makes it obvious that the non-existent index name was being parsed out of a comments column in dba_scheduler_jobs for the DBSNMP user, with a job name like 'EM_IDX_STAT_JOB%'.
Running the same query used in the cursor above showed me a number of records in the scheduler table. Apparently they aren't true scheduler entries but are used to queue this script, which inserts data into sysman.mgmt_text_index_stats. A number of CTXCAT and missing indexes were in the scheduler table. Apparently the rows in the scheduler table are only removed on success, and an incorrect entry will hang around for years.
To fix this issue, I ran the following as user DBSNMP:
BEGIN
for idx_rec in (
select owner,job_name,comments
from dba_scheduler_jobs
where job_name like 'EM_IDX_STAT_JOB%' and upper(owner) = 'DBSNMP')
LOOP
DBMS_SCHEDULER.DROP_JOB( idx_rec.job_name );
END LOOP;
END;
/
This has eliminated the issue of the SPAM'd trace log file. It would be good if CTXCAT indexes could not be added, or that they were handled gracefully when in there. I hope this helps the next DBA down the road, because I spent way too much time on it.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18543098/resolve-a-drg-11119-error-in-emagent-trc-on-oracle-11-2
We have several Oracle Text indexes of type CTXCAT in our Oracle 11.2.0.3 database. A process from Oracle Enterprise Manager is running every 8 minutes and dumping errors about an index that hasn't existed in years, like this one in the trace file $ORACLE_HOME/node_SID/sysman/log/emagent.trc:
==================================================================
2013-08-13 05:51:09,882 Thread-1079278176 WARN vpxoci: OCI Error -- ErrorCode(20000): ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-10502: index PRODUCTION.IX2_WEB_SESSION_DETAIL does not exist
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.DRUE", line 160
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.CTX_REPORT", line 534
ORA-06512: at line 48
SQL = "/* OracleOEM */
DECLARE
TYPE data_cursor_type IS REF CURSOR;
data_c"...
LOGIN = dbsnmp/<PW>@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=node-vip)(PORT=1521))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=ORCL1)))
2013-08-13 05:51:09,882 Thread-1079278176 ERROR fetchlets.sql: ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-10502: index PRODUCTION.IX2_WEB_SESSION_DETAIL does not exist
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.DRUE", line 160
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.CTX_REPORT", line 534
ORA-06512: at line 48
2013-08-13 05:51:09,882 Thread-1079278176 ERROR engine: [rac_database,ORCL,textIndexStats] : nmeegd_GetMetricData failed : ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-10502: index PRODUCTION.IX2_WEB_SESSION_DETAIL does not exist
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.DRUE", line 160
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.CTX_REPORT", line 534
ORA-06512: at line 48
2013-08-13 05:51:09,882 Thread-1079278176 WARN collector: <nmecmc.c> Error exit. Error message: ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-10502: index PRODUCTION.IX2_WEB_SESSION_DETAIL does not exist
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.DRUE", line 160
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.CTX_REPORT", line 534
ORA-06512: at line 48
====================================================================================================================================
2013-08-30 02:13:07,129 Thread-1075751520 WARN vpxoci: OCI Error -- ErrorCode(20000): ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-11119: operation is not supported by this index type
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.DRUE", line 160
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.CTX_REPORT", line 534
ORA-06512: at line 48
SQL = "/* OracleOEM */
DECLARE
TYPE data_cursor_type IS REF CURSOR;
data_c"...
LOGIN = dbsnmp/<PW>@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=node-vip)(PORT=1521))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=ORCL1)))
2013-08-30 02:13:07,129 Thread-1075751520 ERROR fetchlets.sql: ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-11119: operation is not supported by this index type
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.DRUE", line 160
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.CTX_REPORT", line 534
ORA-06512: at line 48
2013-08-30 02:13:07,130 Thread-1075751520 ERROR engine: [rac_database,ORCL,textIndexStats] : nmeegd_GetMetricData failed : ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-11119: operation is not supported by this index type
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.DRUE", line 160
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.CTX_REPORT", line 534
ORA-06512: at line 48
2013-08-30 02:13:07,130 Thread-1075751520 WARN collector: <nmecmc.c> Error exit. Error message: ORA-20000: Oracle Text error:
DRG-11119: operation is not supported by this index type
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.DRUE", line 160
ORA-06512: at "CTXSYS.CTX_REPORT", line 534
ORA-06512: at line 48
==================================================================More sleuthing followed, since looking for textIndexStats on google didn't turn up much. I finally found it in the output list of: emctl status agent scheduler | grep textIndexStats
but nothing in select * from dba_scheduler_jobs matched textIndexStats, so I was unclear where to look next, and would like to know how to prevent a recurrence.
I posted the question above after about 6 hours of detective work and frustration. I don't normally throw a question to the net for others to answer, but I do like to provide answers for others - weird, I know. In any event, within an hour, I had stumbled on an article that gave me a few clues. Some filesystem grepping and XML file reading, and I found another set. So... here is the solution I tried to post to Stack Overflow.
I was able to fix the issue, and decided to answer my own question for others that might run into this problem and hit the same wall I did. I still don't know what caused it, but it is fixed.
Further research pointed me to the following link, which contained enough hints to point me in the right direction. http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B14099_19/manage.1012/b16242/emctl.htm
The section 2.7.6 "Reevaluating Metric Collections" had information on the files that the Enterprise Manager Metrics are stored in. To avoid dead links, I will copy some excerpts of that article here:
1. Go to $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/admin/metadata directory, where $ORACLE_HOME is the Oracle Home of the Management Agent.
2. Locate the XML file for the target type. For example, if you are interested in the host metric 'Filesystem Space Available(%)' metric, look for the host.xml file.
I actually grep'd for textIndexStats in this directory and found it in a file called database.xmlp. I found a lot of information inside the following line:
The most useful piece of information came from SQL embedded as CDATA, which included the lines:
cursor idx_cur IS
select owner,job_name,comments
from dba_scheduler_jobs where job_name like 'EM_IDX_STAT_JOB%' and
upper(owner) = 'DBSNMP';
idx_rec idx_cur%ROWTYPE;
BEGIN
OPEN idx_cur;
FETCH idx_cur into idx_rec;
guid := :1;
IF idx_cur%FOUND THEN
dbms_lob.createtemporary(statData,false);
dbms_lob.createtemporary(sizeData,false);
dbms_lob.createtemporary(objectsData,false);
idx_name := substr(idx_rec.comments,1,instr(idx_rec.comments,'|')-1);
This makes it obvious that the non-existent index name was being parsed out of a comments column in dba_scheduler_jobs for the DBSNMP user, with a job name like 'EM_IDX_STAT_JOB%'.
Running the same query used in the cursor above showed me a number of records in the scheduler table. Apparently they aren't true scheduler entries but are used to queue this script, which inserts data into sysman.mgmt_text_index_stats. A number of CTXCAT and missing indexes were in the scheduler table. Apparently the rows in the scheduler table are only removed on success, and an incorrect entry will hang around for years.
To fix this issue, I ran the following as user DBSNMP:
BEGIN
for idx_rec in (
select owner,job_name,comments
from dba_scheduler_jobs
where job_name like 'EM_IDX_STAT_JOB%' and upper(owner) = 'DBSNMP')
LOOP
DBMS_SCHEDULER.DROP_JOB( idx_rec.job_name );
END LOOP;
END;
/
This has eliminated the issue of the SPAM'd trace log file. It would be good if CTXCAT indexes could not be added, or that they were handled gracefully when in there. I hope this helps the next DBA down the road, because I spent way too much time on it.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Chipotle Fan rocks!
This is the output from Chipotle Fan
How cool is this to get this level of info? I wish all restaurants had this built in!
Nutrition Facts | |||||||||||
Amount Per Serving | |||||||||||
Calories 680 | Cal from Fat 285 | ||||||||||
% Daily Value* | |||||||||||
Total Fat 31g | 47% | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Cholesterol 140mg | 47% | ||||||||||
Sodium 1430mg | 60% | ||||||||||
Total Carbs 52g | 17% | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Protein 47g | |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
INGREDIENTS: Rice,Black Beans,Carnitas (4oz),Green Tomatillo Salsa,Cheese,Sour Cream,Lettuce | |||||||||||
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Roku rocks the world! I love it!
I love my Roku so much I own 3 of them now. These little guys are easy enough for my kids to use, and is really convenient when they want to watch "kid movies", and we don't have any in the house. Pandora streaming, Amazon.com video, and great wireless setup means you can put them anywhere.
Did I mention I love it? Get a great deal on the entire line - they're much cheaper this month!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Stupid fun with cygwin and sqlplus
So, I have Oracle 11g running on a RedHat Enterprise Linux box, and for some reason, after I switched to a new client workstation, the backspace key in sqlplus stopped working correctly, although it worked well in bash. Well, I reckoned, something must have been different in my Cygwin settings, right? The answer is *right*, of course. Figuring out the simple solution was really hard, given the ton of misinformation that came up on the net. I hope that someone might find this solution really useful one day.
The scenario: Using Cygwin on the client workstation, connecting via ssh to the RHEL box, and running bash and sqlplus on the linux box.
Bash works great on the local workstation and the remote RHEL box. However, sqlplus did not. When I typed a backspace key, the prior character was erased from the buffer, but a control character was echoed to the screen. It looked like a little house, but was actually ^? in stty-speak.
stty -a | grep erase shows that erase is mapped to ^?, which is the backspace key, and all should be good. Like I said, bash works! Vi works... Only sqlplus did not.
The solution is not trying stty erase ^H, like so many posts said. I think that is a remnant of times gone by now, or at least I hope so.
The reason that bash and vim (VI) behave differently from sqlplus is simple - they both do their own processing of input. bash uses readline, and is controlled by /etc/inputrc. sqlplus uses something else, I presume getty, although I don't know for sure, and really don't care.
If you look at the output of stty -a, look for some flags at the bottom of the output saying something like:
iexten echo -echoe -echok -echonl
To fix the borked sqlplus behavior, all I had to do was change the setting for echoe, like this:
~ $ stty echoe
Now when I type stty -a, near the end you will see:
iexten echo echoe -echok -echonl
echoe does the same thing as crterase, which the man page for stty says does this:
"echo erase characters as backspace-space-backspace"
Basically, when the backspace occurs, wipe the character off the screen in addition to removing it from the buffer. Problem solved! sqlplus works fine when I ssh to the RHEL box, and all is good.
Of course, to make sure it works the NEXT time you login, you have to do something like add it to your .bashrc or .bash_profile. I chose to do this on my cygwin box, and put stty echoe into my .bashrc. All works, and I am on to the real problems I am supposed to be solving. :)
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Bill's Law
THEOREM: Strategy, Tactics and Logistics can be considered separately only in the realm of theory.
COROLLARY: Design, without regard to implementation, is flawed in the real world.
I've had these on my white boards for about 15 years. I do it to remind myself that you need to remind yourself that you have a REAL environment that you will play in, and not just some make believe world where everything behaves the way you want it to.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
99 Things to Do
I saw this list on another site somewhere. If you like this list, you should copy it and bold the things you've done! Make sure you revisit it next year and update it with any new things that you've done. :)
If you want to play too, bold the things that you've done and post on your blog now.
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii and danced on a lava cliff with the roar of the Pacific below
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year's Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
If you want to play too, bold the things that you've done and post on your blog now.
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii and danced on a lava cliff with the roar of the Pacific below
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year's Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Facebook Rocks!
I'm having a blast so far with Facebook. I don't have a ton of friends yet, and probably won't ever get HUGE numbers, but I hope to have good ones. :)
It seems pretty cool though. I'm considering writing applications, but first I need to figure out what that entails, and what people seem to want. Right now, it seems that most folks just want new and interesting things to share. That's easy enough to write, of course, if you have something interesting to provide.
Aye! There's the rub!
It seems pretty cool though. I'm considering writing applications, but first I need to figure out what that entails, and what people seem to want. Right now, it seems that most folks just want new and interesting things to share. That's easy enough to write, of course, if you have something interesting to provide.
Aye! There's the rub!
Monday, May 19, 2008
Crappy Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 problem with corrupted .NET 2.0
Man, I just spent hours today googling around to find the answer to failing updates of Service Pack 1 to .NET Framework 2.0. The error, 0x643, told me to try the update again, which was useless.
This server was running Data Protection Manager 2007, so it had SQL Server 2005 installed also, which was crashing on startup. This seemed to indicate a corrupted install of .NET Framework 2.0.
Well, luckily, or so I though, that is what the built in "Repair" option is for under change/remove in Add/Remove Programs. Unfortunately, it failed, saying that there were invalid characters in the path "Program Files". This was a hint, but not a very good one. I spent hours trying to find other ways to "repair" the problem, since I couldn't really uninstall the Framework.
Finally, I stumbled across a single blog post from a user named "favorini" which had the magic hint, especially given the message I received when I first tried to repair it.
Aaron Stebner's WebLog
The answer to this problem was to run regedit, find all of the references to D:\Program Files, especially the ones with "D:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DW", which is a leftover from a bug where Dr. Watson was installed on the D: drive instead of the C: drive, even though D: was a CD drive. Find all of those and change them to reference "C:" instead of "D:".
Just ick.
As always, be careful editing the registry, etc. etc. yada yada.
I hope this helps someone out there.
This server was running Data Protection Manager 2007, so it had SQL Server 2005 installed also, which was crashing on startup. This seemed to indicate a corrupted install of .NET Framework 2.0.
Well, luckily, or so I though, that is what the built in "Repair" option is for under change/remove in Add/Remove Programs. Unfortunately, it failed, saying that there were invalid characters in the path "Program Files". This was a hint, but not a very good one. I spent hours trying to find other ways to "repair" the problem, since I couldn't really uninstall the Framework.
Finally, I stumbled across a single blog post from a user named "favorini" which had the magic hint, especially given the message I received when I first tried to repair it.
Aaron Stebner's WebLog
The answer to this problem was to run regedit, find all of the references to D:\Program Files, especially the ones with "D:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DW", which is a leftover from a bug where Dr. Watson was installed on the D: drive instead of the C: drive, even though D: was a CD drive. Find all of those and change them to reference "C:" instead of "D:".
Just ick.
As always, be careful editing the registry, etc. etc. yada yada.
I hope this helps someone out there.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The election season seems to be heating up!
I saw this cool primary leaderboard over at MSNBC and I had to snag it. It's pretty cool, and keeps updating.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Windows users at risk from flaw in Macromedia DRM
Microsoft has warned that both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 suffer from a vulnerability resulting from a flaw in a bundled DRM module. First reported by Symantec, this antipiracy component has been bundled with Windows for the last six years.
read more | digg story
So, once again, DRM actually reduces the security of a system, especially on older XP systems in homes where you KNOW the Administrator account name (or it's something really original like Compaq_Administrator, LOL) and there is no password.
All those poor folks who thought they just wanted to play a game are now vulnerable... again.
At least this wasn't something as horrible as a rootkit, but still, there is code running on my box that I really don't want there, and it's sole purpose is to make copy protection easier. Too bad that copy protection has been broken for years, and is effectively useless.
Sigh...
Blu-ray’s DRM crown jewel tarnished with crack of BD+
SlySoft promised the BD+ would be cracked by the end of 2007, and the company was on the money. Blu-ray's one DRM "advantage" over HD DVD has apparently disappeared, as the newest beta of AnyDVD reportedly can rip discs protected with BD+.read more | digg story
I have some level of hope that the content producers will realize they are in a losing war, and learn to adapt to the new reality. If not, at least I get the freedom to do what I want with media that I've paid for, whether they like it or not.
The genie is out of the bottle, and there's no putting it back. The DRM on Blu-Ray was one of three issues stopping me from buying into the technology.
In no particular order, the issues are:
1) DRM - I don't want to be restricted in my use of a product. I can play DVDs on my computer, or I can rip them and use media center software to distribute them throughout my house. I can do the same with CDs, and make a copy so that my $15 CD or DVD doesn't get scratched up when my kids forget to put it back in the case. That doesn't seem like much to ask.
2) Cost - The intial cost of a Blu-Ray player is fairly ridiculous, especially when Walmart was carrying a Toshiba HD-DVD player for $98 in the last week. Wow!
3) Sony - They've just pissed me off too many times in the past. DRM on CDs, not playing burned CDs or DVDs in my Sony DVD player, rootkits... ROOTKITS! !@#@&*#!!! My Sony Trinitron TV that broke after 4 years, in the 6th year, and the 7th and last year.
The advantages of Blu-Ray do exist. I like the larger capacity. Eh. Whatever. HD-DVD seems to be big enough for movies in HD.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Friday, May 4, 2007
Lemme create a literary work about a "hex"
I think I'll write a quick blurb... about a spell. Or a hex, as it were.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39330
Using this as my inspiration, I've decided to write something fun. Let's hear it for free speech and Fair Use!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For in the darkest depths of yore, there were many attempts to stifle speech, and many attempts to prevent fair use. For, of all the uses, Fair was the fairest. And against the hosts of Fair, there stood the evil empire, MmmPah! And the hosts of the MmmPah relied on their superweapon AACS, which had a critical weakness, as all superweapons do. These hosts of the MmmPah were numbered thusly:
09 Executives, shrieking mindlessly
f9 Legal notices, issued hopelessly
11 Lawfirms, cashing checks
02 Websites, taking down posts
9d Technicians, searching for bloggers
74 Law clerks, preparing take down notices
e3 Media members, submitting stories
5b Members of congress, bought and paid for
These were the hosts of the evil MmmPah, but against them were arrayed the seemingly infinite hordes of the Fair, and the Fair were profligate, and spake unto the world the number of freedom. And this number was 0xd84156c5635688c0, for this was the number of supporters of the Fair, posting on blogs against the evil MmmPah.
And in the final battle, the hosts of the MmmPah and the hordes of the Fair clashed, and as they arrayed for battle, and strove for control of the imposing but fatally flawed AACS, the combination of the two proved most propitious for the hordes of the Fair, for the hosts of the MmmPah combined with the number of freedom proved too much, and a new thing was brought into the world, and this thing was Freedom, and all of the hordes of the Fair, looking upon it, proclaimed it good. But the hosts of the MmmPah, seeing that they had encouraged and nurtured the Freedom, which was anathema to them, cried out in fury!
For the array of the hosts of MmmPah, in order, followed by the number of freedom, created a new and interesting spell. This hex cracked the shell of the AACS, and as its vital energy spilled, there arose a shout, as it was an idiots tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39330
Using this as my inspiration, I've decided to write something fun. Let's hear it for free speech and Fair Use!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For in the darkest depths of yore, there were many attempts to stifle speech, and many attempts to prevent fair use. For, of all the uses, Fair was the fairest. And against the hosts of Fair, there stood the evil empire, MmmPah! And the hosts of the MmmPah relied on their superweapon AACS, which had a critical weakness, as all superweapons do. These hosts of the MmmPah were numbered thusly:
09 Executives, shrieking mindlessly
f9 Legal notices, issued hopelessly
11 Lawfirms, cashing checks
02 Websites, taking down posts
9d Technicians, searching for bloggers
74 Law clerks, preparing take down notices
e3 Media members, submitting stories
5b Members of congress, bought and paid for
These were the hosts of the evil MmmPah, but against them were arrayed the seemingly infinite hordes of the Fair, and the Fair were profligate, and spake unto the world the number of freedom. And this number was 0xd84156c5635688c0, for this was the number of supporters of the Fair, posting on blogs against the evil MmmPah.
And in the final battle, the hosts of the MmmPah and the hordes of the Fair clashed, and as they arrayed for battle, and strove for control of the imposing but fatally flawed AACS, the combination of the two proved most propitious for the hordes of the Fair, for the hosts of the MmmPah combined with the number of freedom proved too much, and a new thing was brought into the world, and this thing was Freedom, and all of the hordes of the Fair, looking upon it, proclaimed it good. But the hosts of the MmmPah, seeing that they had encouraged and nurtured the Freedom, which was anathema to them, cried out in fury!
For the array of the hosts of MmmPah, in order, followed by the number of freedom, created a new and interesting spell. This hex cracked the shell of the AACS, and as its vital energy spilled, there arose a shout, as it was an idiots tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)