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.
RTOS()
Syntax
RTOS( [ <workarea> ] )Description
The RTOS() function returns all the fields in the current row as a string. The string will begin with the unique row identifier and then the deleted flag, followed by the data in the record. An optional workarea can be specified, otherwise the current workarea will be usedExample
use backup in 0
use accounts in 0
nrecs=reccount()
for i = 1 to nrecs
if rtos(accounts) != rtos(backup)
debug("record "+recno()+" don't match")
endif
next
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
SET DATADIR TO [ <directory> ]This command is used to specify a directory where database tables, memos, indexes, and dictionary files are located. When a table is being opened this directory is searched first before the current directory and the file search path to locate the table and its associated files. This allows the database tables to be relocated to a different file system without the need to change an existing application.
In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital provides details on how to use the Recital Universal .NET Data Provider with the Recital Database Server.
Overview
A data provider in the .NET Framework serves as a bridge between an application and a data source. A data provider is used to retrieve data from a data source and to reconcile changes to that data back to the data source.
Each .NET Framework data provider has a DataAdapter object: the .NET Framework Data Provider for OLE DB is the OleDbDataAdapter object, the .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server is the SqlDataAdapter object, the .NET Framework Data Provider for ODBC is the OdbcDataAdapter object, and the .NET Framework Data Provider for the Recital Database Server is the RecitalDataAdapter object.
The Recital Universal .NET Data Provider can access any data sources supported by the Recital Database Server. It is not restricted to only access Recital data. It can be used to access server-side ODBC, JDBC and OLE DB data sources also.
Core classes of the Data Provider
The Connection, Command, DataReader, and DataAdapter objects represent the core elements of the .NET Framework data provider model. The Recital Universal .NET Data Provider is plug compatible with the .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server. All SQL Server classes are prefixed with "Sql" e.g. SqlDataAdaptor. To use the Recital Universal Data Adaptor, simply change the "Sql" prefix to "Recital" e.g. RecitalDataAdaptor.
The following table describes these objects.
| Object | Description |
|---|---|
| RecitalConnection | Establishes a connection to a specific data source. |
| RecitalCommand | Executes a command against a data source. |
| RecitalDataReader | Reads a forward-only, read-only stream of data from a data source. |
| RecitalDataAdapter | Populates a DataSet and resolves updates with the data source. |
Along with the core classes listed in the preceding table, a .NET Framework data provider also contains the classes listed in the following table.
| Object | Description |
|---|---|
| RecitalTransaction | Enables you to enlist commands in transactions at the data source. |
| RecitalCommandBuilder | A helper object that will automatically generate command properties of a DataAdapter or will derive parameter information from a stored procedure and populate the Parameters collection of a Command object. |
| RecitalParameter | Defines input, output, and return value parameters for commands and stored procedures. |
The Recital Universal .NET Data Provider provides connectivity to the Recital Database Server running on any supported platform (Windows, Linux, Unix, OpenVMS) using the RecitalConnection object. The Recital Universal .NET Data Provider supports a connection string format that is similar to the SQL Server connection string format.
The basic format of a connection string consists of a series of keyword/value pairs separated by semicolons. The equal sign (=) connects each keyword and its value.
The following table lists the valid names for keyword values within the ConnectionString property of the RecitalConnection class.
| Name | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Data Source -or- Server -or- Servername -or- Nodename |
The name or network address of the instance of the Recital Database Server which to connect to. | |
| Directory | The target directory on the remote server where data to be accessed resides. This is ignored when a Database is specified. | |
| Encrypt -or- Encryption |
false | When true, DES3 encryption is used for all data sent between the client and server. |
| Initial Catalog -or- Database |
The name of the database on the remote server. | |
| Password -or- Pwd |
The password used to authenticate access to the remote server. | |
| User ID -or- uid -or- User -or- Username |
The user name used to authenticate access to the remote server. | |
| Connection Pooling -or- Pool |
false | Enable connection pooling to the server. This provides for one connection to be shared. |
| Logging | false | Provides for the ability to log all server requests for debugging purposes |
| Rowid | true | When Rowid is true (the default) a column will be post-fixed to each SELECT query that is a unique row identifier. This is used to provide optimised UPDATE and DELETE operations. If you use the RecitalSqlGrid, RecitalSqlForm, or RecitalSqlGridForm components then this column is not visible but is used to handle updates to the underlying data source. |
| Logfile | The name of the logfile for logging | |
| Gateway |
Opens an SQL gateway(Connection) to a foreign SQL data source on the remote server.
The gateway can be specified in several formats: |
Populating a DataSet from a DataAdaptor
The ADO.NET DataSet is a memory-resident representation of data that provides a consistent relational programming model independent of the data source. The DataSet represents a complete set of data including tables, constraints, and relationships among the tables. Because the DataSet is independent of the data source, a DataSet can include data local to the application, as well as data from multiple data sources. Interaction with existing data sources is controlled through the DataAdapter.
A DataAdapter is used to retrieve data from a data source and populate tables within a DataSet. The DataAdapter also resolves changes made to the DataSet back to the data source. The DataAdapter uses the Connection object of the .NET Framework data provider to connect to a data source and Command objects to retrieve data from and resolve changes to the data source.
The SelectCommand property of the DataAdapter is a Command object that retrieves data from the data source. The InsertCommand, UpdateCommand, and DeleteCommand properties of the DataAdapter are Command objects that manage updates to the data in the data source according to modifications made to the data in the DataSet.
The Fill method of the DataAdapter is used to populate a DataSet with the results of the SelectCommand of the DataAdapter. Fill takes as its arguments a DataSet to be populated, and a DataTable object, or the name of the DataTable to be filled with the rows returned from the SelectCommand.
The Fill method uses the DataReader object implicitly to return the column names and types used to create the tables in the DataSet, as well as the data to populate the rows of the tables in the DataSet. Tables and columns are only created if they do not already exist; otherwise Fill uses the existing DataSet schema.
Examples in C#:
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// include the references below
using System.Data;
using Recital.Data;
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// The following code example creates an instance of a DataAdapter that
// uses a Connection to the Recital Database Server Southwind database
// and populates a DataTable in a DataSet with the list of customers.
// The SQL statement and Connection arguments passed to the DataAdapter
// constructor are used to create the SelectCommand property of the DataAdapter.
public DataSet SelectCustomers()
{
RecitalConnection swindConn = new
RecitalConnection("Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=southwind");
RecitalCommand selectCMD = new
RecitalCommand("SELECT CustomerID, CompanyName FROM Customers", swindConn);
selectCMD.CommandTimeout = 30;
RecitalDataAdapter custDA = new RecitalDataAdapter();
custDA.SelectCommand = selectCMD;
swindConn.Open();
DataSet custDS = new DataSet();
custDA.Fill(custDS, "Customers");
swindConn.Close();
return custDS;
}
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// The following example uses the RecitalCommand, RecitalDataAdapter and
// RecitalConnection, to select records from a database, and populate a
// DataSet with the selected rows. The filled DataSet is then returned.
// To accomplish this, the method is passed an initialized DataSet, a
// connection string, and a query string that is a SQL SELECT statement
public DataSet SelectRecitalRows(DataSet dataset, string connection, string query)
{
RecitalConnection conn = new RecitalConnection(connection);
SqlDataAdapter adapter = new RecitalDataAdapter();
adapter.SelectCommand = new RecitalCommand(query, conn);
adapter.Fill(dataset);
return dataset;
} After split brain has been detected, one node will always have the resource in a StandAlone connection state. The other might either also be in the StandAlone state (if both nodes detected the split brain simultaneously), or in WFConnection (if the peer tore down the connection before the other node had a chance to detect split brain).
At this point, unless you configured DRBD to automatically recover from split brain, you must manually intervene by selecting one node whose modifications will be discarded (this node is referred to as the split brain victim). This intervention is made with the following commands:
# drbdadm secondary resource
# drbdadm disconnect resource
# drbdadm -- --discard-my-data connect resource
On the other node (the split brain survivor), if its connection state is also StandAlone, you would enter:
# drbdadm connect resource
You may omit this step if the node is already in the WFConnection state; it will then reconnect automatically.
If all else fails and the machines are still in a split-brain condition then on the secondary (backup) machine issue:
drbdadm invalidate resource