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It would appear that gigabit LAN is not! In fact it often runs at the same speed as 100Mbps LAN. Let's look at why exactly.

After configuring your network you can use the ifconfig command to see what speeds the LAN is connected. Even though 1000Mbps is reported by the card, the reality is that the overall throughtput may well be ~100Mpbs. You can try copying a large file using scp to demonstrate this.

As it turns out, in order to use a gigabit LAN you need to use CAT6 cables. CAT5 and CAT5E are not good enough. End result, the ethernet cards throttle back the speed to reduce dropped packets and errors.

You can find a good article here titled Squeeze Your Gigabit NIC for Top Performance. After tuning up the TCP parameters i found that it made no dfifference. The principal reasons behind low gigabit ethernet performance can be summed up as follows.

  1. Need to use CAT6 cables
  2. Slow Disk speed
  3. Limitations of the PCI bus which the gigabit ethernet cards use

You can get an idea about the disk speed using the hdparm command:

Display the disk partitions and choose the main linux partition which has the / filesystem.

# fdisk -l


Then get disk cache and disk read statistics:

# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda0


On my desktop system the sata disk perfomance is a limiting factor. These were the results:

/dev/sda1:
Timing cached reads:   9984 MB in  2.00 seconds = 4996.41 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:   84 MB in  3.13 seconds =  58.49 MB/sec

Well, that equates to a raw disk read speed of 58.49 * 8 = 467Mbps which is half the speed of a gigabit LAN.

So.. NAS storage with lots of memory looks to be the way to go... If you use the right cables!


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Opening SSH to the outside world is a security risk. Here is how to restrict SSH access to certain IP addresses on a machine.

  1. 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
  2. Edit your /etc/hosts.deny file to include this line:

    sshd,sshdfwd-X11:ALL 
  3. These lines refuse SSH connections from anyone not in the IP address blocks listed.

Additionally you can restrict SSH access by username.

  1. 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




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Recital 10.0.0 Linux x86 is now available

The full download for linux x86 can be downloaded from here.

Release notes can be found here.

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If you have a live linux site that is running vmware virtual machines, you can pause the virtual machines when you want to perform a backup, I use acronis for linux which does incremental backups and you can specify a command to run before and after the backup, this allows backups to be performed at scheduled times daily without any intervention. In my examples below, the virtual machine i want to control is in /root/vmware/Recital/Recital.vmx

To pause the virtual machine on linux:

# vmrun pause /root/vmware/Recital/Recital.vmx


and then to unpause after the backup has completed:

# vmrun unpause /root/vmware/Recital/Recital.vmx


That is basicallty it, no need to attend the backup and it can be perfomed at a suitable time so no users are affected.

Incidentally, vmrun lets you startup a virtual machine at system startup too, without needing the GUI:

# vmrun start /root/vmware/Recital/Recital.vmx


Or alternatively stop it:

# vmrun stop /root/vmware/Recital/Recital.vmx


There are lots of other capabilities of this command, running applications inside the virtual machine etc etc. For full details just type vmrun in a terminal window.



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Recital 10 enhances the APPEND FROM command. The enhancement was added to the following syntax ;
APPEND FROM  <table-name> 
Before when appending into a shared Recital table each new row was locked along with the table header, then unlocked after it was inserted. This operation has now been enhanced to lock the table once, complete inserting all the rows from the table and then unlock the table. The performance of this operation has been increased by using this method. All the database and table constraints are still enforced.
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Recital 10 enhances the way updating tables with indexes is done. The Recital engine will now evaluate each index individually to determine if any changes being made to the row effect it. If this is not the case then the index is flagged not to be updated. This enhancement helps speed up performance of updates and is particularly noticeable in cluster/network installations.
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Recital 10 introduced a FOREACH command, much like PHP and some other languages. This simply gives an easy way to iterate over arrays. foreach works on arrays and objects, and will issue an error when you try to use it on a variable with a different data type or an uninitialized variable. There are two syntaxes; the second is a minor but useful extension of the first:
FOREACH array_expression AS value
    statements...
ENDFOR
FOREACH array_expression AS key => value statements... ENDFOR
The first form loops over the array given by array_expression. On each loop, the value of the current element is assigned to value and the internal array pointer is advanced by one (so on the next loop, you'll be looking at the next element).
The second form does the same thing, except that the current element's key will be assigned to the variable key on each loop. This form works only on associative arrays and objects.
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In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital, details how to work with Triggers in the Recital Database Server.

Overview

A trigger is a special kind of stored procedure that runs when you modify data in a specified table using one or more of the data modification operations: UPDATE, INSERT, or DELETE.

Triggers can query other tables and can include complex SQL statements. They are primarily useful for enforcing complex business rules or requirements. For example, you can control whether to allow a new order to be inserted based on a customer's current account status.

Triggers are also useful for enforcing referential and data integrity.

Triggers can be used with any data source that is handled natively by the Recital Database Engine. This includes Recital, FoxPro, FoxBASE, Clipper, dBase, CISAM, and RMS data,

Creating and Editing Triggers

To create a new Trigger,  right-click the Procedures node in the Databases tree of the Project Explorer and choose Create. To modify an existing Trigger select the Trigger in the Databases Tree in the Project Explorer by double-clicking on it, or select Modify from the context menu. By convertion we recommend that you name your Stored Procedures beginning with "sp_xxx_", user-defined functions with "f_xxx_", and Triggers with "dt_xxx_", where xxx is the name of the table that they are associated with.

Associating Triggers with a Table

Once you have written your Triggers as detailed above you can associate them with the operations performed on a Table by selecting the Table tab.

The Tables tab allows you to select a Trigger procedure by clicking on the small button at the right of the Text field.

Types of Triggers

As can be seen from the Tables tab detailed below, The Recital Database Server handles 6 distinct types of Triggers.

Open Trigger

The Open Trigger is called after is a table is opened but before any operations are performed on it. You can use this trigger to record a log of table usage or provide a programmable means of checing security. If the Trigger procedure returns .F. (false), then the table is not opened. You can use a TRY...CATCH block around the associated command to inform the user.

Close Trigger

The Close Trigger is called just prior to a table being closed. In this trigger you may find it useful to get transaction counts by using the IOSTATS() built-in 4GL function, and record these values in a transaction log.

Update Trigger

The Update Trigger is called prior to a record update operation being performed. You can use this trigger to perform complex application or data specific validation. If the Trigger procedure returns .F. (false), then the record is not updated. You can use inform the user from within the Trigger procedure the reason that the data cannot be updated.

Delete Trigger

The Delete Trigger is called prior to a record delete operation being performed. You can use this trigger to perform complex application or data specific validation such as cross-table lookups e.g. attempting to delete a customer recortd when there are still open orders for that specific customer. If the Trigger procedure returns .F. (false), then the record is not deleted.

Insert Trigger

The Insert Trigger is called prior to a record insert (append) operation being performed. You can use this trigger to perform such tasks as setting up default values of columns within the record. If the Trigger procedure returns .F. (false), then the record is not inserted.

Rollback Trigger

The RollbackTrigger is called prior to a rollback operation being performed from within a form. If the Trigger procedure returns .F. (false), then the record is not rolled back to its original state.

Testing the Trigger

To test run the Trigger, select the Trigger in the Databases Tree in the Project Explorer by double-clicking on it. Once the Database Administrator is displayed, click the Run button to run the Trigger.

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And apparently IE9 will support rounded corners.
http://kbala.com/ie-9-supports-corner-radius/
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We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Recital 10.0.1.

Included in this version are:

  • Improved SQL query optimizer
  • *New* apache plugin for building Recital web apps on x86_64 (mod_recital64.so)
  • Performance improvements in connections to Recital Server and Recital Web.
  • Recital ODBC driver performance improvements and bug fixes
  • Miscellaneous bug fixes 
The download is available from http://www.recitalsoftware.com in the downloads section of our website.

Existing Recital 10 users can download the patch file and apply it to an existing installation.

Enjoy!
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