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Oracle Database 9iR2 goes and 11gR1 comes

On the 11th of July Oracle launched Version 11 of their RDBMS software. I just received an email from Oracle stating an count-down of 11 until the software will be available for public download. Well 11 could mean 11 hours or 11 days :-)

The release of a new software version is primarily an marketing thing. From an technical point of view it is more interesting to look at version 9iR2 which reached its final phase in the product life cycle. Odd thing, 9iR2 represents still the majority release for production installations. I would guess that around 70 to 80% of the databases of my customers run with 9iR2.

As a software developer I can understand that Oracle keeps the time frame for an product life cycle quite short. The market forces you to make major releases which include some new and cool features. On the other hand they have to support that piece of software on a lot of platforms. For instance 9iR2 was available on OpenVMS or OS/390. If you have to support more than two versions of your software, software testing and support become a real nightmare.

So you still have 9iR2 in production? My advice would be to upgrade to the Terminal Patch Set 9.2.0.8 within the next six month. You should also evaluate the Critical Patch Updates (CPUs) in a timely fashion. Good would be if you could manage to be aware of the problems that are fixed with a CPU in a time frame of 4 weeks after the CPU got released. Depending on how critical the fixed problems are to your environment, you should be able to roll-out the CPUs within 3 months.

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Google-Hoax mit Schrecken

Heute morgen in meinem Mail-Postfach:


Betreff: Entfernung Ihrer Webseite www.fm-berger.de aus dem Google Index

Sehr geehrter Seiteninhaber oder Webmaster der Domain www.fm-berger.de,

bei der Indexierung Ihrer Webseiten mussten wir feststellen, dass auf
Ihrer Seite Techniken angewendet werden, die gegen unsere Richtlinien
verstossen. Sie finden diese Richtlinien unter folgender Webadresse:
[...]
Wir haben auf Ihren Seiten insbesondere die Verwendung folgender Techniken
festgestellt:
*Seiten wie z. B. fm-berger.de, die zu Seiten wie z. B.
http://www.fm-berger.de/index.htm mit Hilfe eines Redirects
weiterleiten, der nicht mit unseren Richtlinien konform ist.
[...]

Der Text ist wirklich in gutem Deutsch verfasst. Welcher Webmaster würde bei einer Mail mit diesem Inhalt keinen Schreck bekommen? Erst ein Blick auf heise.de (Gefälschte Google-Rauswurf-Mails sorgen erneut für Verunsicherung) brachte dann die Erleichterung. Die Prüfung des Header der Mail offenbart, das die Mail in meinem Fall aus China (Jiangsu Provinz) stammte.

Dies ist wirklich ein gutes Beispiel für Mails, bei denen die Authentizität des Absenders über eine PGP oder S/MIME Signatur sichergestellt werden sollte.

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Oracle SQLPlus / Unix Shell Script interaction

Sometimes you need interaction between between sqlplus and unix shell scripts, like passing some shell variables to sqlplus or executing shell scripts based on the output of an SQL-Select statement.

I used the following demo table:

[frank@w0004 ~]$ sqlplus /nolog
SQL> connect foo/bar
SQL> create table foobar (line varchar2(20));
SQL> insert into foobar values('test1');
SQL> insert into foobar values('test2');
SQL> insert into foobar values('test3');
SQL> commit;

And here comes the shell script I used:

#!/bin/bash
username=foo
password=bar

sqlplus -s /nolog << EOF | grep -v 'Connected' > tmpout.txt
set pagesize 0 feedback off verify off head off echo off
connect $username/$password
whenever sqlerror exit 1
select line from foobar;
exit;
EOF

if [ -f tmpout2 ]; then 
  rm tmpout2.txt 
fi

for i in `cat tmpout.txt`; do
sqlplus -s /nolog << EOF | grep -v 'Connected' >> tmpout2.txt
set pagesize 0 feedback off verify off head off echo off
connect $username/$password
whenever sqlerror exit 1
select * from foobar where line = '$i';
exit;
EOF
echo $i "row";
done
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Cyrus 2.3.8 and Thunderbird 2.0 ACL Problem

I am currently moving my IT infrastructure to a new server. That included also an switch to Cyrus IMAP 2.3.8 - which comes with Fedora Core 6. After an smooth and short move I have seen - so far - on problem in combination with Thunderbird 2.0. I could move mails to the trash, but all "Delete Mail" buttons are disabled. :-(

It turned out that Cyrus 2.3.8 has a few more ACLs and to resolve that issue I had to add those ACLs to my mailboxes. You have a lot of users with many mailboxes? Jo Rhett has posted a short Perl-Script on the info-cyrus maillinglist http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/2007-April/025878.html.

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VMware Server under FC6 Kernel 2.6.19

Sometimes the Linux Kernel can be a little bit painful in my opinion. Just tried to compile the VMware Server Kernel Modules under 2.6.19 and got:

make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6-i686'
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/driver.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/hub.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.o
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.c: In function ‘VNetCopyDatagramToUser’:
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.c:629: error: ‘CHECKSUM_HW’ undeclared 
(first use in this function)
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.c:629: error: (Each undeclared identifier is 
reported only once
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.c:629: error: for each function it appears in.)
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only] Error 2

If you search for the error message in google you can already find some patches for the VMware Kernel Modules. But I preferred to get it working manually...

I added CHECKSUM_HW to /lib/modules/2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6/build/include/linux/skbuff.h:


#define CHECKSUM_NONE 0
#define CHECKSUM_PARTIAL 1
#define CHECKSUM_HW 1
#define CHECKSUM_UNNECESSARY 2
#define CHECKSUM_COMPLETE 3

Since config.h is missing as well, I gave config.h an touch as well:

touch /lib/modules/2.6.19-1.2911.6.5.fc6/build/include/linux/config.h

Now the Kernel Modules compile and VMware Server is up and running :-D