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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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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 10.0.0 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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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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In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital, details how to use the Client Drivers provided with the Recital Database Server to work with local or remote server-side OLE DB 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 equal sign (=) connects each keyword and its value.

The following table lists the valid names for keyword/values.


Name Default Description

Data Source
-or-
Server
-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   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.

Using Gateways, you can transparently access the following local or remote data sources:

  • Recital
  • Oracle
  • ODBC (Server-side ODBC data sources)
  • JDBC (Server-side JDBC data sources)
  • ADO (Use this to connect to SQL Server and other Native Windows OLEDB data sources)
  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL

The gateway can be specified in several formats:

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 OLE DB data source, you use the gateway=value key/value pair in the following way.

gateway=oledb:oledb_connection_string_on_server

Important
When specifying the connection string be sure to quote the gateway= with "...".

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
// the SQL server Northwind database. It then 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()
{
	string gateway = "oledb:Provider=sqloledb;Initial Catalog=Northwind;
		Data Source=localhost;Integrated Security=SSPI";
	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 SQL server Northwind database. 
// It then retrieves all the customers.
public void SelectCustomers()
{
    // setup the Connection URL for JDBC
	String gateway = "oledb:Provider=sqloledb;Initial Catalog=Northwind;
		Data Source=localhost;Integrated Security=SSPI";
	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();
}
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Recital is a rich and versatile product with many ways to do the same thing. Developers usually write code in the way that they are accustomed to without paying much attention to how this will perform in a multi-user environment with large amounts of users and transactions. The best way to optimize Recital applications is to use the built-in tuning capabilities introduced in Recital 10.

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In this article Chris Mavin, explains and details how to Store and Retrieve Binary Objects in a Recital Database.
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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
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In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital, gives details on Working with user-defined Functions in the Recital Database Server.

Overview

User-defined functions (UDFs) are collections of statements written in the Recital 4GL (compatible with Visual FoxPro) stored under a name and saved in a Database. User-defined functions are just-in-time compiled by the Recital database engine. User-defined functions can be used in SQL statements to extend the power and flexibility of the inbuilt functions. Using the Database Administrator in Recital Enterprise Studio, you can easily create, view, modify, and test Stored Procedures, Triggers, and user-defined functions.

Tip
You can also extend the Recital Database Server with C Extension Libraries and use the functions defined within that library also.

Creating and Editing user-defined functions

To create a new User-defined function,  right-click the Procedures node in the Databases tree of the Project Explorer and choose Create. To modify an existing User-defined function select the User-defined function 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 User-defined functions beginning with "f_xxx_", where xxx is the name of the table that they are associated with.

Testing the user-defined function

To test run the user-defined function, select it 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 it.

Example

Example: user-defined function "f_order_details_total".
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// example user-defined function
function f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount)
    return (pUnitprice + pQuantity + pDiscount) > 0
endfunc
Example: using the user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// sample code to use a user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement
select * from customers where f_order_details_total(Unitprice, Quantity, Discount)

Using user-defined function libraries with the Recital Database Server

You can place all of the user-defined functions associated with a particular table into a procedure library. You then define an Open Trigger for the table that opens up the procedure library whenever the table is accessed. This is a much faster way of using user-defined functions as it reduces the amount of file open/close operations during a query and also simplifies development and maintenance.

By convertion we recommend that you should name the library using the convention "lib_xxx", where xxx is the name of the table that the library is associated with.

Example: procedure library in lib_order_details.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// example user-defined functions
function f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount)
    return (pUnitprice * pQuantity - pDiscount) > 0
endfunc

function f_order_details_diff(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount, pValue)
    return f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount) - pValue
endfunc
Example: Open Trigger in dt_order_details_open.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// This trigger will open up the procedure library when the table is opened
set procedure to lib_order_details additive
Example: Close Trigger in dt_order_details_close.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// This trigger will close the procedure library when the table is closed
close procedure lib_order_details
Example: using the user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// sample code to use a user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement
select * from customers where f_order_details_total(Unitprice, Quantity, Discount)

User-defined functions can also be used with any of the Client Drivers that work with the Recital Database Server.

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