Starting SQL Anywhere 10.x on Ubuntu 12.04

Yes i know,

SQL Anyhwere 10 is out of the normal support cycle, so we won't get any new EBF for it.

Neverless we still have customers running SQL Anywhere on linux systems.
When you upgrade your Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to the 12.04 LTS version, then the database will no longer run.
On startup you will see a message telling you that there is not enough free memory available.

The cause is the switch from kernel 2.6.x to 3.x, which has some other memory handling.

You can find the original thread here in the sql aynwhere forum.

The simplest solution (beside upgrading to a new license of sql anywhere) is to start the database server with the architecture specified as kernel version 2.6.

Fortunally there is a tool which allows us to do this: setarch

So the command to start dbsrv10 looks like this:

setarch $(arch) --uname-2.6 /opt/sqlanywhere10/bin32/dbsrv10 @/opt/sqlanywhere10/databases.list

Linux and Bixolon BCD-1100

 A few years ago I posted a howto to enable a epson client display to be used with linux.


Now we wished to use bixolon client displays with out pos solution.
And as usually, they also don't know what anything beside windows is, so they don't offer drivers for linux.

The corresponding lsusb did show up this:

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 1504:0011

So the simple way to go is just use the same command as a few years back and enable the ftdi_sio module for the Bixolon displays too.

modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x1504 product=0x0011

Enables the bixolon display as the tty device in linux.

This did create a /dev/ttyUSB0 which we then could use to communicate with the device.
To automate the module loading on plug events, just create a new file in /etc/udev/rules.d

File: 50-udev-default.rules

ATTR{idVendor}=="1504", ATTR{idProduct}=="0011", RUN+="/sbin/modprobe -q ftdi_sio vendor=0x1504 product=0x0011"

For a solutions also working with 3.12 and newer kernels, please read on here.

Folder empty in HORDE / IMP, but folder has content

Horde / IMP Empty Mailbox

I have been using the Horde groupware suite for many years now, and cannot remember ever having any problems other than minor issues in connection with upgrades of either Horde itself or the OS on the machine where Horde is installed.
A couple of days ago, however, all of a sudden my inbox displayed the following message, even though there were plenty of messages both read and unread in the folder:
There are no messages in this mailbox.
The funny thing was, I could see all of the messages in the folder if I did a search for a string that was not found - for example search for messages in inbox from "nosuchuser".
Some searching revealed that others have occassionally seen a similar problem, and there seemed to be a connection to the IMP preferences for the user having the problem. The most common recommended solution was to delete all of the imp preferences for the user.

Since I have a lot of customized settings, I wanted to avoid that if possible, so I went digging. I tracked the problem down to a garbled setting in the sortpref preference setting.
The solution for me was to reset sortpref to its' default setting. I did this with the following SQL code:

update horde_prefs set pref_value='a:0:{}' where pref_uid='USERNAME' and pref_name='sortpref' and pref_scope='imp';

(Of course, you have to replace USERNAME with the actual username of the user having the problem)

After logging out and back in again, the problem was fixed.

Originally written: 2011-03-28

Origin from here: http://tips.negaard.net/info/HordePrefs.html

DOS memory problems under Windows XP

If you are one those (un)happy people to still having to use DOS applications under Windows XP, then it is possible that your applications no longer run.

If you used high memory then this won't work any longer and you will receive out of memory messages from the DOS application.

The reason for this are a few recent microsoft updates for windows XP.

In more detail,
deinstall these 4 updates and restart the computer

kb2749655
kb2756822
kb2661254-v2
kb2724197

You will then have back the high memory area for your DOS applications.
Why they deactivate high memory is not clear, but I think it's (realy, realy) time to replace your DOS application (and Windows XP at the same time) by a modern solution.

XEN 32-Bit DomU running on a 64-Bit Dom0

Running 32bit guests in a 64bit Dom= XEN system is not a problem.
Just copy over the lib/modules from the Dom0 server and it works.

There are a few things however you should be aware of:
- 32bit utilities (userland tools) can't modify kernel parameters

In real world this involves problems with these components:
- Iptables won't work
- IPSEC tunnels (openswan) won't work
- (x)ntp will also have problems

When you need to have these functionality in a DOmU guest you are out of chance.
Your only options are:

- Use 64bit DomU as well
- Install these tools in the Dom0 environment
- Use the hardware virtualization

Provide auto configuration for your mail services

When you use exchange with outlook then the client configuration works almost magically.
This is also possible for non-exchange mail servers.

The simplest solution is the new software called automx
Together with two entries in your dns you get automatic configuration.

The system covers automatic configuration for Outlook and Thunderbird (and all others using the same configuration discovery).
You specify what pop/imap/smtp services should be used and what ports and ssl/tls encryption should be used as default.

We at aarboard have now enabled this autodiscovery service for all our client domains.

Automated backups for MS SQL Express

MS SQL Express systems do not allow you to backup the databases via sheduled jobs (Since the job sheduler is one of th emissing features in the express edition)

With this handy script you can however automate it and even compress and send the backup files to a remote resource.

automssqlbackup

http://devio.wordpress.com/category/automssqlbackup/