I am a fan of the previous incarnation of the PlugComputer so I was excited to see that Marvell have unveiled a new PlugComputer dubbed imaginatively "PlugComputer 3.0."
PlugComputer 3.0 Features:
Smaller sleeker design,
More powerful CPU - 2gz Armanda 300 CPU,
120GB 1.8-inch SATA hard drive,
Wifi,
Bluetooth,
10/100/1000 wired Ethernet,
USB 2.0.
512MB of RAM
512MB of Flash memory
I for one would like to see an additional Ethernet port added to increase application flexibility, for some applications where you are using clustered plugs or even for routing, having multiple Ethernet ports is a must.
Even without multiple ethernet ports, these low power consumption devices really could have a place in SME environments, replacing large cumbersome legacy hardware with compact Linux plug servers.
More information about the PlugComputer can be found here
Recital is a dynamic programming language with an integrated high performance database particularly well suited for the development and deployment of high transaction throughput applications. Recital 10 further enhances Recital with extensive features and functionality to facilitate its use in fault tolerant high availability systems. Much of the development of Recital 10 was concentrated on performance optimizations and cluster aware functionality to provide an application platform that can be scaled as needed without any application changes.
Key features of Recital 10 include:
- Cluster aware database engine that works transparently with drbd, heartbeat, glusterfs and samba
- High degree of fault tolerance with self healing indexes
- Massive performance improvements
- Extensive internals overall and modernization with superior object-oriented capabilities
- Chronological data versioning with database timelines
- SmartQuery caching
- Database Administration Tools
- Code and Data Profiling
- Better integration with unix/linux command shell
- Incorporates a range of new built-in functions compatible with those in the PHP core libraries
- Built-in support for outputting data in HTML, XML, and JSON format
- Seamless SQL command integration into the Recital scripting language
- Much improved Microsoft FoxPRO language compatibility
- Numerous extensions and improvements (see below for details)
- Very large file support (2^63)
MQCURMSGS()
Syntax
MQCURMSGS( <expN> )Description
The MQCURMSGS() function returns the current number of unread messages in the queue specified by <expN>Example
mqdes=mqopen("/myqueue")
if (mqdes < 0)
messagebox(strerror()+",errno="+alltrim(str(error())))
return
endif
do while (mqcurmsgs(mqdes) > 0)
mstr=mqreceive(mqdes)
if (empty(mstr))
messagebox(strerror()+",errno="+alltrim(str(error())))
return
endif
messagebox(mstr)
end do
mqclose(mqdes)
A number of people have complained about data loss after a system crash when using Ext4. A bug report was logged. According to multiple posts by a developer of Ext4, Theodore Tso, this is due to differences in approach to security and performance issues between the two file systems.
Ext3 commits writes to disk within approximately 5 seconds - Ext4 can take from 40-150 seconds. In addition, if a system is using Ext3 and crashes before the commit takes place you will still have the previous contents of a file where under Ext4 the file will be empty. Theodore Tso feels that this is a failure at the application level and that the file system is behaving as designed and as specified by the POSIX spec (which apparently does not specify what is supposed to happen when a system is not shut down cleanly). His solution to the issue is to suggest proper use of fsync() and lists various scenarios/examples in post 54 of the bug report (linked above). In addition he wrote a patch that recognize the rename() situation mentioned in his post 54 yet retains the normal Ext4 behaviors and performance in the majority of cases. Also a more "proper" solution has been provided which allows the behavior of Ext3 to be retained under Ext4 by mounting it with alloc_on_commit.
A somewhat related topic is the use of on-board caching by hard drives. This behavior can be modified on most drives by using hdparm.
Ext3 commits writes to disk within approximately 5 seconds - Ext4 can take from 40-150 seconds. In addition, if a system is using Ext3 and crashes before the commit takes place you will still have the previous contents of a file where under Ext4 the file will be empty. Theodore Tso feels that this is a failure at the application level and that the file system is behaving as designed and as specified by the POSIX spec (which apparently does not specify what is supposed to happen when a system is not shut down cleanly). His solution to the issue is to suggest proper use of fsync() and lists various scenarios/examples in post 54 of the bug report (linked above). In addition he wrote a patch that recognize the rename() situation mentioned in his post 54 yet retains the normal Ext4 behaviors and performance in the majority of cases. Also a more "proper" solution has been provided which allows the behavior of Ext3 to be retained under Ext4 by mounting it with alloc_on_commit.
A somewhat related topic is the use of on-board caching by hard drives. This behavior can be modified on most drives by using hdparm.
Recital 10 introduced the DIE( )and EXIT( ) functions. These functions operates in the same way as the PHP DIE( ) and EXIT( ) functions. They output a message and terminate the current session in both Recital and Recital Web.
try
open database southwind
catch
die("Cannot open database, please try later.")
endtry
If when your attempt to create device meta-data fails this is drbd preventing you from corrupting a file system present on the target partition.
$ drbdadm create-md drbd0
v08 Magic number not found
md_offset 30005817344
al_offset 30005784576
bm_offset 30004867072
Found ext2 filesystem which uses 190804004 kB
current configuration leaves usable 29301628 kB
Device size would be truncated, which
would corrupt data and result in
'access beyond end of device' errors.
You need to either
* use external meta data (recommended)
* shrink that filesystem first
* zero out the device (destroy the filesystem)
Operation refused.
Command 'drbdmeta /dev/drbd0 v08 /dev/sda4 internal create-md' terminated with exit code 40
drbdadm aborting
Once you have confirmed that the file system present on the target partition is no longer required at the prompt type the following:
Replace /dev/sdaX with the block device you are targeting.
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdaX bs=1M count=128
Once this has completed the drbdadm create-md drbd0 command will complete with a "success."
$ drbdadm create-md drbd0
v08 Magic number not found
v07 Magic number not found
v07 Magic number not found
v08 Magic number not found
Writing meta data...
initialising activity log
NOT initialized bitmap
New drbd meta data block successfully created.
success
$
After an extended period of intense software development, we are pleased to announce the release of Recital 10 which is a milestone in our development efforts.
Recital 10 is comprised of major new versions of all of our products (which are all now Cluster Ready) as well as some new products, and a collection of open source technologies fully supported by ourselves to our customer base.
The Recital 10 release notes can be found here.
The Recital 10 release notes can be found here.
- Recital
A powerful scripting language with an embedded database used for developing desktop database applications on Linux and Unix.
- Recital Server
A cross-platform SQL database and application server.
- Recital Web
A server-side scripting language with an embedded SQL database for creating web 2.0 web applications.
Opening SSH to the outside world is a security risk. Here is how to restrict SSH access to certain IP addresses on a machine.
- Edit the /etc/hosts.allow file to include these lines, assuming your machine is on the 192.168.2.x nonrouting IP block, and you want to enable an external address of 217.40.111.121 IP block: Remember to add the period on the end of each incomplete IP number. If you have another complete IP address or range, add a space and that range on the end.
sshd,sshdfwd-X11: 192.168.2. 217.40.111.121
- Edit your /etc/hosts.deny file to include this line:
sshd,sshdfwd-X11:ALL
- These lines refuse SSH connections from anyone not in the IP address blocks listed.
Additionally you can restrict SSH access by username.
- Edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file and add the following lines
PermitRootLogin no
AllowUsers user1 user2 user3 etc
PasswordAuthentication yes
Now restart the ssh daemon for these changes to take effect
service sshd restart
Recital Web: cookies, sessions, 64-bit Apache module: documentation update:
Recital Web Getting Started
Recital Web Getting Started