Latest Development News
The Lianja Application Platform is a cost-effective cloud database computing platform for SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) that lets them focus on developing and deploying business Apps without the need to invest in lengthy application development times and an expensive IT infrastructure.The three pillars of Lianja are:
- The Lianja App Builder
- The Lianja Cloud Database
- Lianja.com Apps
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
In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital, details Working with Stored Procedures in the Recital Database Server.
Overview
Stored procedures and user-defined functions are collections of SQL statements and optional control-of-flow statements written in the Recital 4GL (compatible with VFP) stored under a name and saved in a Database. Both stored procedures and user-defined functions are just-in-time compiled by the Recital database engine. Using the Database Administrator in Recital Enterprise Studio, you can easily create, view, modify, and test Stored Procedures, Triggers, and user-defined functions
Creating and Editing Stored Procedures
To create a new Stored Procedure, right-click the Procedures node in the Databases tree of the Project Explorer and choose Create. To modify an existing stored procedure select the Stored Procedure in the Databases Tree in the Project Explorer by double-clicking on it or selecting 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.
Testing the Procedure
To test run the Stored Procedure, select the Stored Procedure 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 procedure.
Getting return values
Example Stored Procedure called "sp_myproc":
parameter arg1, arg2 return arg1 + arg2
Example calling the Stored Procedure from C# .NET:
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// include the references below
using System.Data;
using Recital.Data;
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// sample code to call a Stored Procedure that adds to numeric values together
public int CallStoredProcedure()
{
RecitalConnection conn = new
RecitalConnection("Data Source=localhost;Database=southwind;uid=?;pwd=?");
RecitalCommand cmd = new RecitalCommand();
cmd.Connection = conn;
cmd.CommandText = "sp_myproc(@arg1, @arg2)";
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
cmd.Parameters["@arg1"].Value = 10;
cmd.Parameters["@arg2"].Value = 20;
conn.Open();
cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
int result = (int)(cmd.Parameters["retvalue"].Value); // get the return value from the sp
conn.Close();
return result;
}
Writing Stored Procedures that return a Resultset
If you want to write a Stored Procedure that returns a ResultSet, you use the SETRESULTSET() function of the 4GL. Using the Universal .NET Data Provider, you can then execute the 4GL Stored Procedure and return the ResultSet to the client application for processing. ResultSets that are returned from Stored Procedures are read-only.
Example Stored Procedure called "sp_myproc":
parameter query
select * from customers &query into cursor "mydata"
return setresultset("mydata")
Example calling the Stored Procedure from C# .NET:
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// include the references below
using System.Data;
using Recital.Data;
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// sample code to call a stored procedure that returns a ResultSet
public void CallStoredProcedure()
{
RecitalConnection conn = new
RecitalConnection("Data Source=localhost;Database=southwind;uid=?;pwd=?");
RecitalCommand cmd = new RecitalCommand();
cmd.Connection = conn;
cmd.CommandText = "sp_myproc(@query)";
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
cmd.Parameters["@query"].Value = "where not deleted()";
conn.Open();
RecitalDataReader dreader = cmd.ExecuteReader();
int sqlcnt = (int)(cmd.Parameters["sqlcnt"].Value); // returns number of affected rows
while (dreader.Read())
{
// read and process the data
}
dreader.Close();
conn.Close();
} In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital, details on how to use the Client Drivers provided with the Recital Database Server to work with local or remote server-side JDBC data sources.
Overview
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 JDBC Driver provides the same functionality for java applications.
The Recital Universal ODBC Driver provides the same functionality for applications that use ODBC.
Each of the above Client Drivers use a connection string to describe connections parameters.
The basic format of a connection string consists of a series of keyword/value pairs separated by semicolons. The equals sign (=) connects each keyword and its value.
The following table lists the valid names for keyword/values.
| Name | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Data Source |
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 |
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 | The user name used to authenticate access to the remote server. | |
|
Connection Pooling |
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.
servertype@nodename:username/password-database e.g. oracle@nodename:username/password-database mysql@nodename:username/password-database postgresql@nodename:username/password-database -or- odbc:odbc_data_source_name_on_server oledb:oledb_connection_string_on_server jdbc:jdbc_driver_path_on_server;jdbc:Recital:args |
To connect to a server-side JDBC data source, you ue the gateway=value key/value pair in the following way.
gateway=jdbc:jdbc_driver_path_on_server;jdbc:Recital:args
You can find examples of connection strings for most ODBC and OLE DB data sources by clicking here.
Example in C# using the Recital Universal .NET Data Provider:
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// 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, and a gateway to
// Recital Southwind database. It then populates a DataTable
// in a DataSet with the list of customers via the JDBC driver.
// The SQL statement and Connection arguments passed to the DataAdapter
// constructor are used to create the SelectCommand property of the
// DataAdapter.
public DataSet SelectCustomers()
{
string gateway = "jdbc:/usr/java/lib/RecitalJDBC/Recital/sql/RecitalDriver;"+
"jdbc:Recital:Data Source=localhost;database=southwind";
RecitalConnection swindConn = new
RecitalConnection("Data Source=localhost;gateway=\""+gateway+"\");
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;
}
Example in Java using the Recital Universal JDBC Driver:
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// // standard imports required by the JDBC driver import java.sql.*; import java.io.*; import java.net.URL; import java.math.BigDecimal; import Recital.sql.*; ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// The following code example creates a Connection to the Recital // Database Server, and a gateway to the Recital Southwind database. // It then retrieves all the customers via the JDBC driver. public void SelectCustomers() { // setup the Connection URL for JDBC String gateway = "jdbc:/usr/java/lib/RecitalJDBC/Recital/sql/RecitalDriver;"+ "jdbc:Recital:Data Source=localhost;database=southwind"; String url = "jdbc:Recital:Data Source=localhost;gateway=\""+gateway+"\";
// load the Recital Universal JDBC Driver new RecitalDriver(); // create the connection Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection(url); // create the statement Statement stmt = con.createStatement(); // perform the SQL query ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery("SELECT CustomerID, CompanyName FROM Customers"); // fetch the data while (rs.next()) { String CompanyID = rs.getString("CustomerID"); String CompanyName = rs.getString("CompanyName"); // do something with the data... } // Release the statement stmt.close(); // Disconnect from the server con.close(); }
I am pleased to finally report that the Centos release of Redhats 5.3 has been built and is available for download from http://www.centos.org/
The highlights of this release can be found at the following URL: http://www.redhat.com
The main areas of interest in my opinion excluding critical secirty fixes are:
- Updated hardwaresupport support for the new Intel Core i7 (Nehalem) chips
- Beefed up virtualiseation support increasing CPU and Ram limits of Virtual machines.
- Inclusion of the fully open sourced OpenJDK. This makes Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 the first enterprise-ready solution with a fully open source Java stack when combined with JBoss Enterprise Application Platform.
For those who already have Centos 5.2 installed you can simply receive the update via Yum.
Before you do the following, check that you do not have 3rd party repo's and the Centos-testing repo enabled.
You can display the currently enabled repo's using the following command.
$ yum repolist
Then as root at the prompt type:
$ yum update
- edit the .vmx file and add the following line
uuid.action = "keep"
- set the virtual machine to power off when vmware is stopped. Do not set this to "suspend" or it will not restart on the backup machine.
Many motherboards nowadays have integrated gigabit ethernet that use the Realtek NIC chipset.
The Realtek r8168B network card does not work out of the box in Redhat/Centos 5.3: instead of loading the r8168 driver, modprobe loads the r8169 driver, which is broken as can be seen with ifconfig which shows large amounts of dropped packets. A solution is to download the r8168 driver from the Realtek website and install it using the following steps:
Check whether the built-in driver, r8169.ko (or r8169.o for kernel 2.4.x), is installed.
# lsmod | grep r8169
If it is installed remove it.
# rmmod r8169
Download the R8168B linux driver from here into /root.
Unpack the tarball :
# cd /root
# tar vjxf r8168-8.012.00.tar.bz2
Change to the directory:
# cd r8168-8.012.00
If you are running the target kernel, then you should be able to do :
# make clean modules
# make install
# depmod -a
# insmod ./src/r8168.ko (or r8168.o in linux kernel 2.4.x)
make sure modprobe knows not to use r8169, and that depmod doesn’t find the r8169 module.
# echo "blacklist r8169" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
# mv /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/r8169.ko \ /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/r8169.ko.bak
You can check whether the driver is loaded by using the following commands.
# lsmod | grep r8168
# ifconfig -a
If there is a device name, ethX, shown on the monitor, the linux driver is loaded. Then, you can use the following command to activate it.
# ifconfig ethX up
After this you should not see any more dropped packets reported.
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)
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.