You can now search and browse through over a quarter million messages posted to the OpenSolaris Mail-lists using a free service called 'MarkMail'.
Head over to http://opensolaris.markmail.org/ and take a look.
I stumbled across the MarkMail web site last week,via Google. It seems to have been running for about 12 months, and in that time they have loaded the mail archives of thousands of open-source projects into their system.
But until last week, they did not include anything on OpenSolaris. A shocking omission! So I left feedback, and I was quickly contacted by MarkMail's Jason Hunter. Jason wasted no time in subscribing their system to most of the OpenSolaris lists, and then within a few days they had loaded the 'MailMan' archive files. (If you would like to see further lists added then leave feedback on the MarkMail site via their form.)
By going to this link http://opensolaris.markmail.org/search/?q= you can see the latest emails that have been added into the system. I find this a useful way of just getting some idea of the vast amount of activity being generated around the OpenSolaris communities and projects. If your browser has 'flash' enabled, you will also see a graph of email activity per month, which shows the story of tremendous growth in interest around OpenSolaris. You will also see some fascinating statistics which tell you which are the most popular mail lists and which individuals have made the most posts.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Progress on FISHworks?
Very little has been publicly announced by Sun about the FISHworks project.
After some initial news in early 2007, it seemed to go quiet.
Based on those reports, I would speculate that FISHworks appears to be a project to create a NAS/SAN appliance, based on existing OpenSolaris source code for ZFS, CIFS server, NFS server and the iScsi target, using DTrace observability to instrument under the hood.
At the start of September 2008, some more details about FISHworks emerged
when one of Sun's top engineers Mike Shapiro gave a video interview, bizarrely, on the noisy streets of San Francisco! It's a pity that this interview was conducted outside of a bar, as the background noise is somewhat distracting!
So when can we expect a proper announcement from Sun on FISHworks. Well according to the New York Time, that will be in November.
So do you want to know what progress is being made?
Then I suggest you check out the OpenSolaris bugs database.
This link shows bug activity in the iScsi target code for the last 30 days.
In the 'Reported Against' field, you will often see things like fw_36. This I believe is referring to FISHworks build 36.
Looking at the bugs for the last 30 days, there seems to be extensive & intensive testing happening of the OpenSolaris iScsi target, using various iScsi initiators and various operating systems, like Vista & Linux.
Some of the bugs looks quite obscure, occurring in relatively complex scenarios. Many of the bug comments refer to 'GRITS' and 'Diskomizer'. These seem to be Sun's internals tools for stress testing storage systems. Again, there does not seem to be much public information on these tools, but I googled and found these snippets on GRITS and Diskomizer.
It's good to see that in GRITS and Diskomizer, Sun seems to have the tools that
can expose these bugs. It's also good that these bugs are being fixed quickly.
Sun's Tim Szeto looks to have been particularly busy, and making good progress.
Some of the bug descriptions mention the 'Iwashi NAS appliance'
-So what it that? I would speculate maybe the code name for a Sun appliance?
After some initial news in early 2007, it seemed to go quiet.
Based on those reports, I would speculate that FISHworks appears to be a project to create a NAS/SAN appliance, based on existing OpenSolaris source code for ZFS, CIFS server, NFS server and the iScsi target, using DTrace observability to instrument under the hood.
At the start of September 2008, some more details about FISHworks emerged
when one of Sun's top engineers Mike Shapiro gave a video interview, bizarrely, on the noisy streets of San Francisco! It's a pity that this interview was conducted outside of a bar, as the background noise is somewhat distracting!
So when can we expect a proper announcement from Sun on FISHworks. Well according to the New York Time, that will be in November.
So do you want to know what progress is being made?
Then I suggest you check out the OpenSolaris bugs database.
This link shows bug activity in the iScsi target code for the last 30 days.
In the 'Reported Against' field, you will often see things like fw_36. This I believe is referring to FISHworks build 36.
Looking at the bugs for the last 30 days, there seems to be extensive & intensive testing happening of the OpenSolaris iScsi target, using various iScsi initiators and various operating systems, like Vista & Linux.
Some of the bugs looks quite obscure, occurring in relatively complex scenarios. Many of the bug comments refer to 'GRITS' and 'Diskomizer'. These seem to be Sun's internals tools for stress testing storage systems. Again, there does not seem to be much public information on these tools, but I googled and found these snippets on GRITS and Diskomizer.
It's good to see that in GRITS and Diskomizer, Sun seems to have the tools that
can expose these bugs. It's also good that these bugs are being fixed quickly.
Sun's Tim Szeto looks to have been particularly busy, and making good progress.
Some of the bug descriptions mention the 'Iwashi NAS appliance'
-So what it that? I would speculate maybe the code name for a Sun appliance?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
'Java.exe' and Oracle SQL Developer
I've just upgraded to v1.5.1 of 'Oracle SQL Developer'. When you first start the program, it will ask for the path to 'java.exe'. If you need to change or reset that path to a different value, you need to locate text file 'sqldeveloper.conf' and edit the value of setting 'SetJavaHome'. You may want to change this setting if you try to use an 'Unsupported Java Version'.
Friday, August 15, 2008
OpenSolaris and the HP ML-115
The HP ML-115 is a very low cost server, that is ideal for trying out VMware ESX:
"Using the HP ML115 as a Test Server"
"Building a Low Cost (Cheap) VMware ESX Test Server"
So maybe the ML-115 would also be suitable for OpenSolaris.
So I tried it out, but there are some driver issues.
The good news is that these should be fixed very soon.
Problem #1 -If you try to boot the Open Solaris 2008.05 live CD, it fails, with error "Console login service(s) cannot run". See this thread.
The problem is that the ML-115's DVD drive is connected to a SATA port on the nVidia MCP55 chipset, and the nv_sata driver has only support for disk drives and not CD/DVD drives. But now Bug 6595488 is fixed, if you use build 95.
Ok, so with build 95, you should be able to boot from the DVD drive and install OpenSolaris. I tried this with "Solaris Express Community Edition" and was successful. You should then see something like this:
Problem #2 - X will not run to give a graphical interface. If you check the Xerrors file, you will see:
The graphics chipset on ML-115 is identified as "MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines"
aka "mgag200 SE A PCI" aka "vendor 0x102b device 0x0522" and uses the MGA driver, in file "mga_drv.so". The version of the MGA driver supplier with OpenSolaris is version 1.4.6
I tried booting a Linux LiveCD, GRML v1.1, which uses
version 1.4.7 of the MGA driver and this worked without problem on the ML-115.
The OpenSolaris MGA driver has recently been updated. See Bug 6735095 and that fix should be available in build 97. Let's hope that fixes the X problem.
Problem #3 - No network card detected. The ML-115 network card is identified as
"Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5722 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express" aka "vendor 0x14e4 device 0x165a". The fix for this should be available in build 96 - see Bug 6726056.
Updated ISO for OpenSolaris to build 95 are available now. For an update to build 97, I guess that means a wait of a further 4 weeks.
"Using the HP ML115 as a Test Server"
"Building a Low Cost (Cheap) VMware ESX Test Server"
So maybe the ML-115 would also be suitable for OpenSolaris.
So I tried it out, but there are some driver issues.
The good news is that these should be fixed very soon.
Problem #1 -If you try to boot the Open Solaris 2008.05 live CD, it fails, with error "Console login service(s) cannot run". See this thread.
The problem is that the ML-115's DVD drive is connected to a SATA port on the nVidia MCP55 chipset, and the nv_sata driver has only support for disk drives and not CD/DVD drives. But now Bug 6595488 is fixed, if you use build 95.
Ok, so with build 95, you should be able to boot from the DVD drive and install OpenSolaris. I tried this with "Solaris Express Community Edition" and was successful. You should then see something like this:
# cfgadm -a | grep sata | grep configured
sata0/0::dsk/c0t0d0 disk connected configured ok
sata1/0::dsk/c4t0d0 disk connected configured ok
sata2/0::dsk/c1t0d0 cd/dvd connected configured ok
# rmformat -l
Looking for devices...
1. Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0p0
Physical Node: /pci@0,0/pci103c,1714@5,2/cdrom@0,0
Connected Device: HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH15L FA01
Device Type: DVD Reader/Writer
Size: 2.9 GB
# cdrw -l
Looking for CD devices...
Node Connected Device Device type
----------------------+--------------------------------+-----------------
cdrom0 | HL-DT-ST DVD-RAM GH15L FA01 | CD Reader/Writer
# modinfo | grep nv_sata
45 fffffffff7883000 6458 207 1 nv_sata (Nvidia ck804/mcp55 HBA v1.7)
Problem #2 - X will not run to give a graphical interface. If you check the Xerrors file, you will see:
(EE) MGA(0): Given color and fb depth combination not supported by this driver
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.
The graphics chipset on ML-115 is identified as "MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines"
aka "mgag200 SE A PCI" aka "vendor 0x102b device 0x0522" and uses the MGA driver, in file "mga_drv.so". The version of the MGA driver supplier with OpenSolaris is version 1.4.6
I tried booting a Linux LiveCD, GRML v1.1, which uses
version 1.4.7 of the MGA driver and this worked without problem on the ML-115.
The OpenSolaris MGA driver has recently been updated. See Bug 6735095 and that fix should be available in build 97. Let's hope that fixes the X problem.
Problem #3 - No network card detected. The ML-115 network card is identified as
"Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5722 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express" aka "vendor 0x14e4 device 0x165a". The fix for this should be available in build 96 - see Bug 6726056.
Updated ISO for OpenSolaris to build 95 are available now. For an update to build 97, I guess that means a wait of a further 4 weeks.
Friday, June 20, 2008
ISDN Caller ID and Cisco ISDN routers
We recently had a ISDN-2e line installed at work. But I forgot to ask BT (British Telecom) for 'caller ID' aka CLID to be enabled. BT terminology for this is the 'Calling Line Identity Presentation' or CLIP service, and BT will only enable it if you specifically ask for it, and there is an additional charge for the service.
Without the number of the calling party, the Cisco router does not know which 'Dialer profile' to associate with the incoming call, and rejects the call.
I kept a record of the log from the Cisco router, before and after enabling CLID, so here we can see the differences.
While doing the testing & troubleshooting, I had debugging enable on the cisco router as follows:
First an incoming data call, before BT enabled CLID on the ISDN line:
After BT enabled CLID, which was done within a couple of hours, the log shows this:
I also tried making a voice call to the ISDN number, which I knew would fail, just to see what it looked like. Here is before CLID was enabled:
And here is a voice call, after CLID enabled:
By the way, the Cisco router was a 1721 using IOS v12.3
Without the number of the calling party, the Cisco router does not know which 'Dialer profile' to associate with the incoming call, and rejects the call.
I kept a record of the log from the Cisco router, before and after enabling CLID, so here we can see the differences.
While doing the testing & troubleshooting, I had debugging enable on the cisco router as follows:
#show debug
Dial on demand:
Dial on demand events debugging is on
The following ISDN debugs are enabled on all DSLs:
debug isdn error is ON.
debug isdn event is ON.
debug isdn q931 is ON.
First an incoming data call, before BT enabled CLID on the ISDN line:
ISDN BR0 Q931: RX <- SETUP pd = 8 callref = 0x01
Sending Complete
Bearer Capability i = 0x8890
Standard = CCITT
Transfer Capability = Unrestricted Digital
Transfer Mode = Circuit
Transfer Rate = 64 kbit/s
Channel ID i = 0x89
Called Party Number i = 0x81, '67xxxx'
Plan:ISDN, Type:Unknown
ISDN BR0 EVENT: process_rxstate: ces/callid 1/0x14 calltype 1 HOST_INCOMING_CALL
ISDN BR0:1: Incoming call rejected, unbindable
ISDN BR0 **ERROR**: host_incoming_call: DIALER ERROR 0x1: b channel 0, call id 0x14
ISDN BR0 EVENT: process_rxstate: ces/callid 1/0x14 calltype 1 HOST_DISCONNECT_ACK
ISDN BR0 Q931: TX -> RELEASE_COMP pd = 8 callref = 0x81
Cause i = 0x8095 - Call rejected
After BT enabled CLID, which was done within a couple of hours, the log shows this:
ISDN BR0 Q931: RX <- SETUP pd = 8 callref = 0x01
Sending Complete
Bearer Capability i = 0x8890
Standard = CCITT
Transfer Capability = Unrestricted Digital
Transfer Mode = Circuit
Transfer Rate = 64 kbit/s
Channel ID i = 0x89
Calling Party Number i = 0x2183, '142761xxxx'
Plan:ISDN, Type:National
Called Party Number i = 0x81, '67xxxx'
Plan:ISDN, Type:Unknown
ISDN BR0 EVENT: process_rxstate: ces/callid 1/0x17 calltype 1 HOST_INCOMING_CALL
BR0:1 DDR: Caller id 142761xxxx matched to profile
%DIALER-6-BIND: Interface BR0:1 bound to profile Di1
I also tried making a voice call to the ISDN number, which I knew would fail, just to see what it looked like. Here is before CLID was enabled:
ISDN BR0 Q931: RX <- SETUP pd = 8 callref = 0x01
Sending Complete
Bearer Capability i = 0x8090A3
Standard = CCITT
Transfer Capability = Speech
Transfer Mode = Circuit
Transfer Rate = 64 kbit/s
Channel ID i = 0x89
Called Party Number i = 0x81, '67xxxx'
Plan:ISDN, Type:Unknown
ISDN BR0 EVENT: process_rxstate: ces/callid 1/0x11 calltype 2 HOST_INCOMING_CALL
ISDN BR0 **ERROR**: host_incoming_call: Received a call with a bad bearer cap from <unknown> on B1
And here is a voice call, after CLID enabled:
ISDN BR0 Q931: RX <- SETUP pd = 8 callref = 0x01
Sending Complete
Bearer Capability i = 0x8090A3
Standard = CCITT
Transfer Capability = Speech
Transfer Mode = Circuit
Transfer Rate = 64 kbit/s
Channel ID i = 0x89
Calling Party Number i = 0x2183, '142768xxxx'
Plan:ISDN, Type:National
Called Party Number i = 0x81, '67xxxx'
Plan:ISDN, Type:Unknown
ISDN BR0 EVENT: process_rxstate: ces/callid 1/0x19 calltype 2 HOST_INCOMING_CALL
ISDN BR0 **ERROR**: host_incoming_call: Received a call with a bad bearer cap from 142768xxxx on B1
By the way, the Cisco router was a 1721 using IOS v12.3
#show version
Cisco Internetwork Operating System Software
IOS (tm) C1700 Software (C1700-Y-M), Version 12.3(26), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc2)
Technical Support: http://www.cisco.com/techsupport
Copyright (c) 1986-2008 by cisco Systems, Inc.
Compiled Mon 17-Mar-08 14:24 by dchih
ROM: System Bootstrap, Version 12.2(7r)XM1, RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1)
System returned to ROM by power-on
System restarted at 12:53:16 GMT Wed May 21 2008
System image file is "flash:c1700-y-mz.123-26.bin"
cisco 1721 (MPC860P) processor (revision 0x100) with 28231K/4537K bytes of memory.
MPC860P processor: part number 5, mask 2
Bridging software.
X.25 software, Version 3.0.0.
Basic Rate ISDN software, Version 1.1.
1 FastEthernet/IEEE 802.3 interface(s)
1 Serial(sync/async) network interface(s)
1 ISDN Basic Rate interface(s)
32K bytes of non-volatile configuration memory.
16384K bytes of processor board System flash (Read/Write)
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Oracle, Access & ODBC: Problems & Solution
I was using Microsoft Access, in this case Access 97, to connect to an Oracle 10g database, using the ability of Access to set linked tables using an ODBC data source.
For the client, I was using the Oracle Instant Client v10.1.0.4 and setting an environmental variable NLS_LANG.
I was seeing two problems. First, when trying to link to the tables/views on the Oracle server, after selecting the ODBC data source DSN, Access would list all the tables/views on the Oracle server, but It would only display the first character of the name of the tables/views, making it impossible to find the correct table/view.
Second, when I tried setting up the Oracle linked tables in the Access MDB file on another PC, where everything was working ok, and then going back to the original problem PC and opening same MDB file, when opening the Oracle linked tables, all rows and all fields contained #Deleted.
I did a Google and found this Microsoft KnowledgeBase article - Q913070:
#Deleted is displayed in the records when you open a linked ODBC table from an Oracle 10g database in Access 2003, in Access 2002, or in Access 2000
To cut a long story short, I had set the client side environmental variable
but this did not match the setting on the Oracle database, and I was advised
by our Oracle DBA that I should have been using:
Apparently, our Oracle DBA had changed the NLS_CHARACTERSET of the database at some stage in the past.
After I corrected the value of NLS_LANG, everything starting working ok. It seems WE8MSWIN1252 is a binary super set of WE8ISO8859P1.
See these links for further background:
For the client, I was using the Oracle Instant Client v10.1.0.4 and setting an environmental variable NLS_LANG.
I was seeing two problems. First, when trying to link to the tables/views on the Oracle server, after selecting the ODBC data source DSN, Access would list all the tables/views on the Oracle server, but It would only display the first character of the name of the tables/views, making it impossible to find the correct table/view.
Second, when I tried setting up the Oracle linked tables in the Access MDB file on another PC, where everything was working ok, and then going back to the original problem PC and opening same MDB file, when opening the Oracle linked tables, all rows and all fields contained #Deleted.
I did a Google and found this Microsoft KnowledgeBase article - Q913070:
#Deleted is displayed in the records when you open a linked ODBC table from an Oracle 10g database in Access 2003, in Access 2002, or in Access 2000
To cut a long story short, I had set the client side environmental variable
NLS_LANG = ENGLISH_UNITED KINGDOM.WE8ISO8859P1
but this did not match the setting on the Oracle database, and I was advised
by our Oracle DBA that I should have been using:
NLS_LANG = ENGLISH_UNITED KINGDOM.WE8MSWIN1252
Apparently, our Oracle DBA had changed the NLS_CHARACTERSET of the database at some stage in the past.
After I corrected the value of NLS_LANG, everything starting working ok. It seems WE8MSWIN1252 is a binary super set of WE8ISO8859P1.
See these links for further background:
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
My new motherboard: Discovering hardware with 'grml'
I've bought a new motherboard for a new PC I'm building. It's intended to run OpenSolaris with the ZFS file system and the Solaris iScsi target. But to kick-off, I'm going to start by taking a look at the system, running a Linux Live-CD distribution called 'grml'.
Gigabyte seem to have generated some confusion over the numbering of this motherboard. My board it labelled 'GA-P35C-DS3R v2.1'. A very similar motherboard, the 'GA-EP35C-DS3R' has been reviewed this month in 'PCpro' magazine here in the UK, and was selected as 'Labs Winner'.
So what is the difference between these two similarly named motherboards. Other are asking the same question, and the answer seems to be 'there is no difference'. They are both 'dynamic energy saver' motherboards.
Grml originates from Germany, and is based on a Debian. It boot's directly to a command line prompt, which I love, as this is where the real work is done.
On any new hardware I get my hands on, I like to boot up grml, and use it to poke around & identify what sort of hardware we have for hard drive interfaces and networking.
One of the reasons I picked this Gigabyte motherboard was that it used the Intel ICH9R chipset to provide six AHCI compatible SATA interfaces. In addition it has a JMicron interface chip, which can either provide two more AHCI sata ports, or alternatively run in legacy mode with old style IDE drives.
Again to kick off, I am running the JMicron in legacy mode, with a DVD drive
and a IDE drive hanging off of the ribbon cable.
Ok, lets take a look:
Here are some 'highlights' from the 'dmesg' command, showing I have a
Samsung SATA drive on one of the ICH9 ports, and a Western Digital drive
on the JMicron IDE port.
Ok, that's enough excitement for this time, as I'm out of time.
See you next time...
Gigabyte seem to have generated some confusion over the numbering of this motherboard. My board it labelled 'GA-P35C-DS3R v2.1'. A very similar motherboard, the 'GA-EP35C-DS3R' has been reviewed this month in 'PCpro' magazine here in the UK, and was selected as 'Labs Winner'.
So what is the difference between these two similarly named motherboards. Other are asking the same question, and the answer seems to be 'there is no difference'. They are both 'dynamic energy saver' motherboards.
Grml originates from Germany, and is based on a Debian. It boot's directly to a command line prompt, which I love, as this is where the real work is done.
On any new hardware I get my hands on, I like to boot up grml, and use it to poke around & identify what sort of hardware we have for hard drive interfaces and networking.
One of the reasons I picked this Gigabyte motherboard was that it used the Intel ICH9R chipset to provide six AHCI compatible SATA interfaces. In addition it has a JMicron interface chip, which can either provide two more AHCI sata ports, or alternatively run in legacy mode with old style IDE drives.
Again to kick off, I am running the JMicron in legacy mode, with a DVD drive
and a IDE drive hanging off of the ribbon cable.
Ok, lets take a look:
root@grml ~ # uname -a
Linux grml 2.6.23-grml64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Feb 11 16:49:32 CET 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
root@grml ~ # lspci -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Controller [8086:29c0] (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express PCI Express Root Port [8086:29c1] (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:2937] (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 [8086:2938] (rev 02)
00:1a.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 [8086:2939] (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 [8086:293c] (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller [8086:293e] (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:2940] (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 4 [8086:2946] (rev 02)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 [8086:2948] (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:2934] (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:2935] (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:2936] (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 [8086:293a] (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge [8086:244e] (rev 92)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801IR (ICH9R) LPC Interface Controller [8086:2916] (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 82801IR/IO/IH (ICH9R/DO/DH) 6 port SATA AHCI Controller [8086:2922] (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:2930] (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: nVidia Corporation NV44 [Quadro NVS 285] [10de:0165] (rev a1)
03:00.0 SATA controller [0106]: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMicron 20360/20363 AHCI Controller [197b:2363] (rev 02)
03:00.1 IDE interface [0101]: JMicron Technologies, Inc. JMicron 20360/20363 AHCI Controller [197b:2363] (rev 02)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller [10ec:8168] (rev 01)
Here are some 'highlights' from the 'dmesg' command, showing I have a
Samsung SATA drive on one of the ICH9 ports, and a Western Digital drive
on the JMicron IDE port.
root@grml ~ # dmesg
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
JMB363: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:03:00.1
PCI: Enabling device 0000:03:00.1 (0000 -> 0001)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:00.1[B] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
JMB363: chipset revision 2
JMB363: 100% native mode on irq 16
Probing IDE interface ide0...
hda: SAMSUNG CD-ROM SC-148C, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdb: WDC WD800JB-00CRA1, ATA DISK drive
hda: Disabling (U)DMA for SAMSUNG CD-ROM SC-148C (blacklisted)
hdb: selected mode 0x45
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: version 2.3
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.2[B] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: AHCI 0001.0200 32 slots 6 ports 3 Gbps 0x3f impl SATA mode
ahci 0000:00:1f.2: flags: 64bit ncq sntf stag pm led clo pmp pio slum part
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.2 to 64
scsi0 : ahci
scsi1 : ahci
scsi2 : ahci
scsi3 : ahci
scsi4 : ahci
scsi5 : ahci
ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000026100 ctl 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 507
ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000026180 ctl 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 507
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000026200 ctl 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 507
ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000026280 ctl 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 507
ata5: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000026300 ctl 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 507
ata6: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000026380 ctl 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 507
ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
ata1.00: ATA-7: SAMSUNG HD400LJ, ZZ100-15, max UDMA7
ata1.00: 781422768 sectors, multi 0: LBA48 NCQ (depth 31/32)
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata5: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata6: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA SAMSUNG HD400LJ ZZ10 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 781422768 512-byte hardware sectors (400088 MB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:03:00.0[A] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ahci 0000:03:00.0: AHCI 0001.0000 32 slots 2 ports 3 Gbps 0x3 impl SATA mode
ahci 0000:03:00.0: flags: 64bit ncq pm led clo pmp pio slum part
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:03:00.0 to 64
scsi6 : ahci
scsi7 : ahci
ata7: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000028100 ctl 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 19
ata8: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xffffc20000028180 ctl 0x0000000000000000 bmdma 0x0000000000000000 irq 19
ata7: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
ata8: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.2LK-NAPI loaded
eth0: RTL8168b/8111b at 0xffffc20000030000, 00:1a:4d:5e:b9:ba, XID 38500000 IRQ 16
r8169: eth0: link up
Ok, that's enough excitement for this time, as I'm out of time.
See you next time...
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Vista SP1 crashes Linux L2TP daemon
In the last week, one of our users has had problems connecting to our VPN, which uses Smoothwall and the Linux L2TP daemon. Until recently this user had not experienced a problem.
I checked our Smoothwall box, and found that the L2TP daemon (l2tpd) was not running. But after restarting it, it crashed again as soon as the user tried to connect. Other users could connect without problem.
Here is the tail end of the log from /var/log/messages:
So, why suddenly a problem?
The Windows XP users could connect ok. The Windows Vista users could connect ok.
Ahh! The user who was having problems had recently applied Vista SP1.
Using tcpdump, I captured the packets arriving at Smoothwall on UDP port 1701, and then examined the capture file using WireShark. The problem seems to occur on the ICRQ packet, which is the 'Incomming Call Request', transmitted by the Windows client to the Smoothwall server.
For Windows XP clients, we see the following AVP's (Attribute Value pair):
'Control Message', 'Assigned Session', 'Call Serial Number' and 'Bearer Type'.
For the Windows Vista SP1 client, there was an extra AVP tagged onto the end. This is a 'Vendor-Specific' AVP of 'Type 1', specifying a 'Vendor ID' of 311 (0x0137), meaning 'Microsoft'.
So what is this extra Microsoft AVP? A quick google finds a Cisco document, implying it may be a related to RADIUS. It talks about Vendor-Specific Attributes (VSAs). Table 36 lists Vendor-Specific RADIUS IETF Attributes with Vendor company code 311 and Sub-type 1 which is a "MSCHAP-Response" attribute.
Ok, so it seems the version of l2tpd we are using does not like the presence of this extra AVP, and mistakes it for a 'Result Code' AVP, which should only be present in CDN and StopCCN messages.
The relavent RFC is: RFC2261 - "Layer Two Tunneling Protocol".
Looking at the top of page 50 of the RFC, for an ICRQ, it lists the AVPs that MUST be present, and the AVPs that MAY be present. This would seem to indicate that a vendor specific AVP is NOT valid at this stage.
Looking at page 12 of the RFC, section 4.1, which details the format of the AVP, implies that the problem could be fixed if l2tpd were to look at the 'Vendor ID' field, and ignore the AVP in the ICRQ where the Vendor ID was non zero.
Looking at the code for l2tpd, in the file "avp.c" and in function "handle_avps()" there is no code that checks to confirm that (avp->vendorid) is zero.
At the moment we do not have a fix, other than to un-install Vista SP1.
I checked our Smoothwall box, and found that the L2TP daemon (l2tpd) was not running. But after restarting it, it crashed again as soon as the user tried to connect. Other users could connect without problem.
Here is the tail end of the log from /var/log/messages:
l2tpd version 0.70-smoothwall started on smoothwallAF1 PID:28094
Linux version 2.4.34.5-up on a i686, listening on IP address 0.0.0.0, port 1701
<--snip-->
handle_avps: handling avp's for tunnel 61598, call 0
message_type_avp: message type 10 (Incoming-Call-Request)
message_type_avp: new incoming call
ourcid = 13433, entropy_buf = 3479
assigned_session_avp: assigned session id: 1
call_serno_avp: serial number is 0
bearer_type_avp: peer bears: analog
handle_avps: Bad exit status handling attribute 1 (Result Code).
Segmentation fault (core dumped) /modules/tunnel/usr/sbin/l2tpd
So, why suddenly a problem?
The Windows XP users could connect ok. The Windows Vista users could connect ok.
Ahh! The user who was having problems had recently applied Vista SP1.
Using tcpdump, I captured the packets arriving at Smoothwall on UDP port 1701, and then examined the capture file using WireShark. The problem seems to occur on the ICRQ packet, which is the 'Incomming Call Request', transmitted by the Windows client to the Smoothwall server.
For Windows XP clients, we see the following AVP's (Attribute Value pair):
'Control Message', 'Assigned Session', 'Call Serial Number' and 'Bearer Type'.
For the Windows Vista SP1 client, there was an extra AVP tagged onto the end. This is a 'Vendor-Specific' AVP of 'Type 1', specifying a 'Vendor ID' of 311 (0x0137), meaning 'Microsoft'.
So what is this extra Microsoft AVP? A quick google finds a Cisco document, implying it may be a related to RADIUS. It talks about Vendor-Specific Attributes (VSAs). Table 36 lists Vendor-Specific RADIUS IETF Attributes with Vendor company code 311 and Sub-type 1 which is a "MSCHAP-Response" attribute.
Ok, so it seems the version of l2tpd we are using does not like the presence of this extra AVP, and mistakes it for a 'Result Code' AVP, which should only be present in CDN and StopCCN messages.
The relavent RFC is: RFC2261 - "Layer Two Tunneling Protocol".
Looking at the top of page 50 of the RFC, for an ICRQ, it lists the AVPs that MUST be present, and the AVPs that MAY be present. This would seem to indicate that a vendor specific AVP is NOT valid at this stage.
Looking at page 12 of the RFC, section 4.1, which details the format of the AVP, implies that the problem could be fixed if l2tpd were to look at the 'Vendor ID' field, and ignore the AVP in the ICRQ where the Vendor ID was non zero.
Looking at the code for l2tpd, in the file "avp.c" and in function "handle_avps()" there is no code that checks to confirm that (avp->vendorid) is zero.
At the moment we do not have a fix, other than to un-install Vista SP1.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Windbg Symbols for ntoskrnl.exe
In this case the OS was Windows Vista 64-bit with SP1 RTM applied,
so the kernel was "6001.18000.amd64fre.longhorn_rtm.080118-1840".
I tried setting WinDbg to load sysmbols across the Internet
from Microsoft's symbol server. But I got errors like the following:
So I decided to download the symbols, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/symbolpkg.mspx
I extracted them onto my hard drive, updated my symbols path,
but I still got the same errors.
I discovered that to fix this, you need to go into
the SYMBOLS\EXE folder and copy file 'ntkrnlmp.pdb'
to 'ntoskrnl.pdb'.
so the kernel was "6001.18000.amd64fre.longhorn_rtm.080118-1840".
I tried setting WinDbg to load sysmbols across the Internet
from Microsoft's symbol server. But I got errors like the following:
ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for ntoskrnl.exe
Kernel symbols are WRONG. Please fix symbols to do analysis.
Your debugger is not using the correct symbols
Type referenced: nt!_KPRCB
So I decided to download the symbols, from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/symbolpkg.mspx
I extracted them onto my hard drive, updated my symbols path,
but I still got the same errors.
I discovered that to fix this, you need to go into
the SYMBOLS\EXE folder and copy file 'ntkrnlmp.pdb'
to 'ntoskrnl.pdb'.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Calling Oracle Stored Procedure with PHP
I've just been following this excellent tutorial article
on the Oracle WebSite:
Calling Oracle Stored Procedure with PHP
I'm only just starting to use Oracle PL/SQL and PHP,
and it's still early days. So I'm making really stupid
mistakes and getting errors like this:
Here was my code:
The fix was simple:
Yes, the Procedure is in a Package.
So you need to prefix the procedure name, with the package name.
Being a newbie, it look me a while to spot that!
on the Oracle WebSite:
Calling Oracle Stored Procedure with PHP
I'm only just starting to use Oracle PL/SQL and PHP,
and it's still early days. So I'm making really stupid
mistakes and getting errors like this:
Warning: oci_execute() [function.oci-execute]: ORA-06550: line 1, column 7:
PLS-00201: identifier 'ROLLROUTE' must be declared ORA-06550: line 1, column 7:
Here was my code:
$sql = "BEGIN RollRoute(:PartNo); END;";
$s = oci_parse($c, $sql );
oci_bind_by_name($s,':PartNo',$PartNo,32);
oci_execute($s);
The fix was simple:
$sql = "BEGIN RROUTING_API.RollRoute(:PartNo); END;";
Yes, the Procedure is in a Package.
So you need to prefix the procedure name, with the package name.
Being a newbie, it look me a while to spot that!
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