December 2007 - Page 3 of 8

2007-12-18

Tracking file deletions on Windows

Have you ever wondered why an important file magically disappeared? My co-worker Andre has worked with a couple of folks, who didn’t like that scenario. As a corporate policy, deletion to some important file locations must be logged. Andre has created a nice guide for use under Windows. He utilizes MonitorWare Agent’s event log monitoring capabilities together with its advanced rule engine.

That guide is not only a good source of information if you need to implement Windows file deletion tracking. It also shows nicely what can be done with MonitorWare. It definitely helps understanding the full potential and how to make best use of it.

I suggest you have a quick look at Andre’s guide to tracking file and directory deletions under Windows.

2007-12-18

ISS SARJ inspection spacewalk has begun

The international space station ISS crew has headed outside of the orbiting complex to check the contamination of the starboard solar array rotary joint (SARJ). They are performing this task while I am writing. First results are expected during the course of today, with a detailed analysis to follow some time later (depending on the findings).

Side-Note: Atlantis tanking test will begin in roughly an hour from now. Final preparations are underway.

2007-12-17

Tuesday: ISS Spacewalk and Shuttle Fueling Test…

Tomorrow is a busy day for NASA – both on earth as well as in orbit. Seems to be “troubleshooting Tuesday”: The international space station crew performs a spacewalk to check out what is wrong with the orbiting laboratory while the ground crew at Kennedy Space Center checks out their supply vessel. Both activities are in support of the international space station program. Let’s hope everything turns out well.

But now let me quote a mail that I received from NASA, it is an excellent wrap-up of tomorrow’s activities, including ways to experience them first hand:

NASA Television will provide simultaneous live coverage of a spacewalk by the International Space Station crew and a shuttle fueling test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., on Tuesday, Dec. 18.

Expedition 16 Station Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Dan Tani are set to venture outside the station at about 6 a.m. EST to perform a detailed inspection of a giant rotary joint where contamination was found last month. The joint is used to rotate the starboard solar arrays of the complex to face the sun. The astronauts also will devote part of the spacewalk to an inspection of a device that tilts the starboard arrays toward the sun. The device, known as a Beta Gimbal Assembly, experienced unrelated electrical problems last weekend.

NASA TV’s public channel will begin coverage of spacewalk activities at 4:30 a.m. A briefing will follow the spacewalk, originating from NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, no earlier than 1:30 p.m.
Reporters will be able to ask questions from participating NASA sites. The briefing participants are:

— Mike Suffredini, International Space Station Program manager
— Ginger Kerrick, International Space Station spacewalk flight director
— Tomas Gonzalez-Torres, International Space Station spacewalk officer

At 7 a.m. EST, Tuesday, NASA TV’s media channel will begin coverage of a fueling test of space shuttle Atlantis at Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A. The fueling test will assist engineering efforts to resolve a problem with an engine cutoff sensor system that prevented Atlantis’ launch attempts earlier this month. Reporters will be notified of any plans to hold a news briefing following the test’s conclusion.

For NASA TV streaming video, schedules, and downlink information,visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

For more information about the space station and the Expedition 16 crew, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

For more information about space shuttle Atlantis’ upcoming STS-122 mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

2007-12-17

rsyslog changes upto 2007-12-14

This is my worklog for rsyslog:

2007-12-12
– begun to shuffle the mark code to a separate module – that will take some
time and definitely require much more code shuffling. This is the begin
of the input module interface

2007-12-14
– created new branch for what will become 2.0.0 stable
– begin work on on immark, the first input module. In the long term
this will lead to a complete rewrite of the input system
– changed license to GPLv3 (for what is to become rsyslog v3)
– moved core threading helpers out of syslogd.c
– remove USE_PTHREADS macro from all sources except omfwd.c (I wait
for a gssapi patch from Red Hat, removing these macros would probably
cause unnecessary grief…)
– tried approach to terminate input module thread via pthread_kell() – so
far, seems to work ok
– begun to create input module interface and macros
– changed module interface to include function to query type
– milestone: can load input module dynamically, but can not do anything
with it – now I need to think about activating IMs…

2007-12-15

STS-122: Atlantis being instrumented…

Troubleshooting efforts at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) continues: Space shuttle Atlantis has been instrumented for a tanking test scheduled to begin Monday. In parallel to the work at KSC, engineers at other NASA centers gather data about how the elements of the ECO sensor system should respond during the tanking test. This provides a baseline against which the actual tanking test results can be compared. Unfortunately, it is not sure if the failure will re-occur during the tanking test. But according to the latest findings it is quite likely.

Please also let me quote the relevant part of NASA’s shuttle home page:

Engineers and technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center continue preparations to evaluate the hydrogen fuel sensor system on space shuttle Atlantis’ external fuel tank during a procedure next week. Working at Launch Pad 39A where Atlantis remains pointed to space, workers attached wiring to the cables that lead from the aft compartment of Atlantis to the external tank’s engine cutoff sensor system. Engineers will use the special instruments next Tuesday to send electrical pulses into the wiring and look for indications that will show the location of the issue that caused the sensors to return false readings last week. The failed readings showed up during launch countdowns on Dec. 6 and Dec. 9. Launch controllers postponed the liftoff on both occasions to find out the problem and develop solutions. Evaluations of the instruments themselves are also under way to show technicians what a normal reading on the external tank looks like. Those readings will be compared to the results from the test Tuesday during which the tank attached to Atlantis will be filled with super-cold liquid hydrogen. NASA is targeting Jan. 10 as the next possible launch opportunity for Atlantis on mission STS-122. Atlantis will carry the European-built Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station.

2007-12-14

STS-122 now set to Launch January, 10th 2008

The target launch date for space shuttle Atlantis STS-122 mission to the international space station has now been moved to January, 10th. Originally, it was set for January, 2nd when an ECO sensor problem made it impossible to lift off during the December 2007 launch window. The January, 10th date has now been selected to allow NASA workers to get some rest. They have been extremely busy. The holiday period is now a perfect time to make sure everybody is in a great shape when it comes to the next launch attempt.

As far as I know, launching exactly on January, 10th will not affect the overall shuttle launch schedule for 2008. However, I suspect even a further one day delay means trouble for the flight plan.

And finally, this is what the NASA shuttle home page has to say:

NASA’s Space Shuttle Program managers have targeted Jan. 10 for the launch of shuttle Atlantis’ STS-122 mission to the International Space Station.

“The workforce has stepped up to and met every challenge this year,” said Wayne Hale, Space Shuttle Program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “Moving the next launch attempt of Atlantis to Jan. 10 will allow as many people as possible to have time with family and friends at the time of year when it means the most. A lot has been asked of them this year and a lot will be asked of them in 2008.”

The liftoff date from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, depends on the resolution of a problem in a fuel sensor system. The shuttle’s planned launches on Dec. 6 and Dec. 9 were postponed because of false readings from the part of the system that monitors the liquid hydrogen section of the tank.

2007-12-14

begun working on rsyslog v3

I reproduce a note here that I sent out to the mailing list this morning. In the mean time, I have done most of the work in CVS.

As you know, I am looking at the way threading is supposed to work in future releases and, most importantly, looking at the inputs (like mark message generation).

Around summer, I wrote that I will probably need to release new major versions when we go into multithreading redesign. It looks like we have reached this stage. I tried to keep a single code base that still supports both single- and multi-threaded operations. I have looked into this the past days and I need to say that it creates a lot of complexity and hard to understand code.

For this reason, I think it is finally time to branch the code based and release some new versions.

Soon, I will create a branch for the current 1.20.1 code base. That will only receive bug fixes, but no new development (except, I guess, GSSAPI which I about to be contributed by Red Hat). When we are confident the last changes worked well and introduced no new bugs, there will be a version 2.0.0 stable release based on that code base.

CVS head, however, will then be rsyslog version 3. It will receive the new input module interface. It requires pthreads, because there is no way input modules and many more of the new desired features can be implemented without them. Consequently, I will remove all single-threading code from it, resulting in an easier to understand code base. Please note that I expect this code to change dramatically when it is being modified to be more modular (much like it was when I introduced modular outputs in summer). Please note that I will apply any non-bugfix patches to this code base, only.

I have somewhat bad feeling of going ahead with implementing a more sophisticated and more parallel multi-threading while we still have an issue with the segfault. However, I think by now we did everything imaginable to capture that rare bug. I have come to the conclusion that the best chance to find it is go ahead and implement the more sophisticated design. That will lead to a review, and rewrite, of much of the code in question, uncovering this we didn’t think about before. The recently discovered race condition is an excellent sample.

One thing about the license: rsyslog 2 will stay with “GPL v2 and above” license, but rsyslog V3 will be licensed under “GPL v3 and above”. I already wrote about that change. It is my firm believe that GPL v3 brings benefit to our freedom to use digital goods. I am a strong oppose of digital restrictions management (DRM) and software patens and I do not like the idea that rsyslog benefits anyone who encourages these things. I hope for your understanding.

I will set stage now for these changes and will do a web announcement soon. Please don’t be surprised that rsyslog v3 will be available before v2, you now know the reason.

2007-12-13

ISS Spacewalk on Tuesday

The international space station ISS crew will put the time until the next space shuttle visits the orbiting complex to good use. A spacewalk is scheduled for next Tuesday. It is part of the ongoing troubleshooting of the solar array rotary joint (SARJ) problem problem that troubles the station for some weeks now.

The SARJ issue reduces power generation from the solar array. This is currently no issue, but when more modules are added, it becomes a constraint. The Columbus module, to be delivered by Atlantis whenever STS-122 is ready to launch, can operate with currently available power. However, the Kibo module, rocketed into space with STS-123, will probably exhaust current power availability. As such, it is vital to solve the issue with the rotary joints.

Previous spacewalks found some material on the race ring, a result of abrasion. There is a backup race ring available, but it will not be activated until the root cause of the problem is understood.

And now let me quote the NASA ISS home page:

Station Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Dan Tani will perform the 100th spacewalk in support of International Space Station assembly on Tuesday, Dec. 18. The spacewalk will focus on the starboard solar arrays. Whitson and Tani will examine the starboard Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ) and return a trundle assembly to the station’s interior.

Whitson and Tani also will examine the Beta Gimbal Assembly (BGA). It tilts solar wings for optimal power generation. The starboard BGA has been locked since some power feeds to it were interrupted last Saturday.

While spacewalk preparations are under way, the docked Progress 26 cargo ship is being loaded with discarded items and readied for undocking on Dec. 21. Progress 27 will arrive at the station with supplies on Dec. 26.

2007-12-13

How large is an Orion Capsule?

Have you ever wondered how much space there is inside an Orion capsule? NASA tells us more than in Apollo was, and it will carry up to a crew of six. Damaris B. Sarria, who wants to become an astronaut, has found some really nice picture. Here is one of them, for the other – and some great reading – please visit Damaris’ blog.

It looks really tiny, doesn’t it? Compare it to the man in front of it. I wonder how it will be to stay in there to reach the moon. Obviously, the comfortable days of the space shuttle will not be seen again any time soon…

2007-12-12

rsyslog changes upto 2007-12-12

It looks like I have become too lazy in reporting my changes. I’ll try to be more quickly again in the future. Here is the part of the work log that is missing. Please note that it does not always mention my hard thinking about the new threading model ;)

2007-12-07
– applied patch from Michael Biebl to finally fix the -ldl cross-platform
issue
– fixed some type conversion warnings that appeared on 64 bit machines – these were in
debug statements, so indicated no real problem
– some code cleanup
– released 1.20.0 (finally ;))

2007-12-11
– When a hostname ACL was provided and DNS resolution for that name failed,
ACL processing was stopped at that point. Thanks to mildew for the patch.
Fedora Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=395911
– fixed a small memory leak that happend when PostgreSQL date formatting
was used
– corrected a debug setting that survived release. Caused TCP connections
to be retried unnecessarily often.
– added expr.c, which has some thoughts on expression implementation
– fixed a potential race condition, see link for details:
http://rgerhards.blogspot.com/2007/12/rsyslog-race-condition.html
– added synchronization class to handle mutex-operations in the most
portable way.

2007-12-12
– handled selector flushing on termination (and hup) correctly. Could lose
some information before.
– done some more hard thinking on the threading model for upcoming
enhancements
– released 1.20.1