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The Recital Oracle Gateway requires the Oracle libclntsh.so shared library.  If this file is unknown to ld.so.conf, add it using the ldconfig command. 
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This website runs in a  virtual machine under vmware server. It is clustered between two servers using heartbeat and DRBD.
 
When VMware server starts up a virtual machine it generates a uuid (unique id) based on the machine it is running on and stores this in the .vmx file.
 
When heartbeat switches from slave to master, it will start VMware server (which is setup as a resource in the haresources file).
 
Virtual machines that you want started automatically when you start VMware server will not start because the uuid changes between the master and backup systems. To get around this problem always do the following:
  • edit the .vmx file and add the following line

    uuid.action = "keep"
If this is not done then everytime you try to run the virtual machine on the backup system in your cluster, VMware server will complain that the virtual machine has been copied or moved and it will not start it.
  • 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.
This will allow the virtual machine to start properly on the backup machine.
 
 
 
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Recital 10 introduced the PIPETOSTR() function. This function operates in a similar fashion to the FILETOSTR() function but it can be used to capture the output from externally executed operating system commands. e.g.
// determine how many Recital users are on the system
nusers = pipetostr("ps -ef | grep db.exe | wc -l")
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Platforms supported

  • Intel® / AMD™ 32 bit Linux
  • Intel® / AMD™ 64 bit Linux
  • HP PA-RISC HP-UX® 10.20 and above
  • Sun® SPARC Solaris™ 8 and above
  • HP Alpha OpenVMS 7.2-1 and above
  • SCO® OpenServer 5.0.5 and above
  • Sun® Intel® Solaris™ 10 and above
  • IBM AIX® 4.3 and above
  • HP Integrity OpenVMS 8.2-1 and above
  • HP Intel® Itanium® HP-UX® 11.23 and above
  • Mac OS X leopard 10.5 and above

Large File Support is available for Windows, Itanium HP-UX and Linux. 
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By default Recital uses PAM to authenticate users.  It is also possible to tell PAM to use Kerberos.  Simply replace the existing entries in the /etc/pam.d/recital file with the ones below:

auth       sufficient   pam_krb5.so try_first_pass
auth       sufficient   pam_unix.so shadow nullok try_first_pass
account    required     pam_unix.so broken_shadow
account    [default=bad success=ok user_unknown=ignore] pam_krb5.so
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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();
}
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If you have 4 GB or more RAM use the Linux kernel compiled for PAE capable machines. Your machine may not show up total 4GB ram. All you have to do is install PAE kernel package.

This package includes a version of the Linux kernel with support for up to 64GB of high memory. It requires a CPU with Physical Address Extensions (PAE).

The non-PAE kernel can only address up to 4GB of memory. Install the kernel-PAE package if your machine has more than 4GB of memory (>=4GB).

# yum install kernel-PAE

If you want to know how much memory centos is using type this in a terminal:

# cat /proc/meminfo
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Hdparm can be used to view or set many hardware characteristics of IDE or SATA drives including optical drives (and even some SCSI drives).  For example, the read-lookahead feature can be enabled or disabled.  Also of interest is that the on board write caching can be disabled.  This may or may not be of use when trying to optimize the writing of data to the drive especially when the operating system and/or file system itself may also perform write caching.

Some options of hdparm are dangerous and are generally listed as such in the man page.

Hdparm is available from SourceForge and there is even a version for Windows.
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SE Linux is a feature of the Linux kernel that provides mandatory access control. This policy based access control system grants far greater control over the resources on a machine than standard Linux access controls such as permissions.

Many modern Linux distributions are shipping with SELinux enabled by default, Fedora 14 and Rhel 6 both install with it enabled.

When you run Recital Web on a SELinux enabled machine and navigate to the default.rsp page you will see something similar to the screen shot below.

1
If you launch the SELinux troubleshooter you will see the following problem.

SELinux is blocking the apache server from accessing the Recital server running on port 8001.

2
To manage you SELinux policy you must have the policycoreutils package group installed. The policycoreutils contains the policy core utilities that are required for basic operation of a SELinux system.

If you wish to use a GUI tool, you must install the policycoreutils-gui package.

At the command prompt execute the following:

As root

$ yum install policycoreutils

$ semanage port -a -t http_port_t -p tcp 8001

$ service recital restart

$ service httpd restart 
 

We use the semanage command here to allow the http server access to port 8001. Once you have completed the steps detailed above you can go and navigate back to the default.rsp page in your borwser, where you will find the permission denied message is now replaced by the default.rsp page.


4
SELinux does a great job of restricting services and daemons so rather than simply disabling it, why not work with it!

When it comes to security, every little bit helps...

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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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