Rainer Gerhards, Author at Rainer Gerhards

2007-09-25

rsyslog changes until 2007-09-24

Hi all,

I’ve been a bit lazy reporting what I’ve done with rsyslog. The primary reason is that it was a lot of review, which is quite boring to report in a blog. Today, I think, I’ll do a new release, so at least here is my worklog for up until yesterday.

2007-09-17
– possibly found a bug in cvthname() that lead to a wrong size being specified
in a getnameinfo() API call – not sure, though, if it is “the” bug (actually,
it looks like it isn’t). – this is EXPERIMENTAL
– fixed a bug that caused signal handlers in cvthname() not to be restored when
a malicious pointer record was detected and processing of the message been
stopped for that reason (this should be really rare and can not be related
to the segfault bug we are hunting).
2007-09-18
– split the function cvthname() for clarity. Also changed to using the rsRetVal
status return system
– removed some compiler warnings in regard to signed / unsigned comparison
2007-09-20
– code cleanup
– fixed a minor memory leak that occured when the %APPNAME% property was
used (I think nobody used that in practice)
2007-09-21
– more review and cleanup
– simplified code in shouldProcessThisMessage() for debug output
– changed strerror() calls to thread-safe strerror_r() variant

2007-09-24

Discovery in VAB…

I just stumbled upon this webcam image which I thought I should share. It shows Discovery in the VAB, roughly two hours ago. Its getting ready to be mated to the external tank and the solid rocket boosters.

2007-09-24

Discovery rolled over to the VAB

I just read on the NASA space shuttle homepage:

Sept. 23 at 5:30 p.m. EDT
The orbiter Discovery is parked in the transfer aisle of the Vehicle Assembly Building after rolling over from the Orbiter Processing Facility bay 3. First motion was at 12:22 p.m. EDT. This marks a prelaunch milestone.

Overnight Discovery will be rotated to a vertical position, hoisted and attached to its external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters for its upcoming mission, STS-120, to the International Space Station.

Space Shuttle Discovery will roll out to Launch Pad 39A approximately one week after rollover. The launch of STS-120 is currently targeted for Oct. 23.

This is excellent news. Looks like my reservations are still right.

But what does this all mean? And why was it necessary?

Orbiters are parked in special, smaller buildings called “orbiter processing facility” or OPF. This is where the majority of work is being done on them. For example, the strut repair happened there. As far as I know, orbiters are immediately moved to the OPF when they have arrived in Kennedy Space Center. Then they are checked, repairs conducted and prepared for the next mission. They are not, mated to either the tank or the solid rocket boosters – the OPF is simply too small to do that.

Instead, that is done in the “Vehicle Assembly Building”, or VAB for short. This is a gigantic building (see picture), where the boosters and tank are mounted and the shuttle is then mated to them. As I have now learned, shuttles are typically moved over to the VAB roughly a month before launch. There the mate happens and, I assume, also some further checks.

I requires good weather to move a shuttle from the OPF to the VAB. Thus this movement can easily be delayed, especially at this time of the year (just think about Florida’s frequent afternoon thunderstorms…). This time, we obviously had no or at least very little delay – which is, why we are still on the timeline.

2007-09-22

Kennedy Space Center Webcams…

I just did a quick search on Google to view webcam of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) complex. I have to admit I did not expect anything real interesting to pop up – wrong! There is actually a bunch of webcams run by NASA itself, and they seem to over interesting content.

BTW: I need to say “seem”, because it is night in Florida as I blog this. So I rely on the captions.

But see yourself:

I’ll be on the hunt for more related webcams. If you happen to know some, I’d appreciate if you let me know (just use a comment).

2007-09-21

Even a day of contingency for launch…

As nasaspaceflight.com reports, there is even one day of contingency (spare time) left in the schedule for the launch of space shuttle Discovery on October, 23rd. This is excellent news for me, once again showing that it was right to stick with my original travel plans.

2007-09-20

What’s going on with rsyslog?

I’ve not posted much the past days. That doesn’t mean nothing has happened. I wanted to post a work log today, but I have to admit I have forgotten it on a machine I right now can not access. OK, first thing tomorrow morning…

In short words, we are still on the bug hunt. I am now again back to reviewing code, this time on a functional basis. I am checking everything based on the message flow, looking at functions as they are called. Today, I completed the review of the reception part (up to the point when it gets into the main message queue). Unfortunately, no serious problem found. I used the review, however, to clean out some nits, add a large number of new comments and even found a memory leak. The later one would currently most probably never occur in practice, but when syslog-protocol gets adopted, it would have hit.

Tomorrow, and probably then next two or three days I’ll review the code that is executed once the message leaves to main queue. There is probably more meat for a bug in that part (its by far more complex).

I also think I’ll release the cleaned-up version sometime soon – after all, it’s better then what is currently released.

I keep you posted. Comments are always welcome.

2007-09-20

Discovery still in for October, 23rd launch…

The guys at NASA and its suppliers are fantastic. As you can see on the picture, the strut is re-assembled and even the tires are mounted again. NASA is very optimistic to even launch on the 23rd, as originally planned.

Listen to what these fantastic guys have to say:

With space shuttle Discovery’s right landing gear reassembled following the replacement of its four hydraulic seals, technicians now are carrying out a series of tests on the system. Once these tests are concluded on Saturday and the repairs have been determined successful, the way would be cleared for Discovery’s move on Sunday from its processing hangar at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Depending on how processing operations go, rollout to the launch pad could take place one week later.

One of Discovery’s struts, which act as shock absorbers during the shuttle’s landing, began leaking hydraulic fluid last week.

Once Discovery is in the Vehicle Assembly Building, it will be attached to its external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters for its upcoming mission, STS-120, to the International Space Station.

While NASA managers will continue to assess the progress, the ongoing preparations would still support Discovery’s Oct. 23 target launch date.

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

2007-09-19

Shuttle Discovery probably back on schedule

On the picture, you can see the shuttle strut being reassembled. That’s actually a great relief to me.

This article does a full wrap-up and analysis of the current state:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=5234

As it looks, the launch date for Discovery’s STS-120 mission will only slip nominally, if at all. The engineers have done superb work today, managed the repair that was scheduled for a few days in just one morning – congrats!

To me, that means my travel plans are so far unaffected. However, there is now no buffer time left, so everything else is on the critical path. But, hey, why should something else go wrong? :-D

I see that it was right not to panic, even while a larger launch slip was in question. I guess I’ll manage to keep cool on other occasions, too (at least this is my current school of thinking ;)).

OK, enough good news for the evening.

2007-09-19

Shuttle Discovery is being repaired…

I have just read that the repairs on Discovery’s strut are well under way.

I also found the nice picture showing how the landing gear is being disassembled. If you look closely, you can see the bottom part (right at the floor), where the tires normally sit. And right behind the head of the worker in front of the picture is the upper part of the strut, that one that is still connected to the space shuttle.

I am very glad to see these pictures, because they provide evidence that the repair seems to be on good track. I assume that there are now all needed spare parts available and work can continue to be carried out.

In the mean time, several space forums on the web report that there will probably be a slip in the launch date, but it is not expected to be extreme. So maybe I loose a day or two of “my launch” window, but I think chances are still pretty high I’ll make it. When I first heard about all that, I wondered if I should change my travel plans. Especially air travel to Orlando is a bit problematic. But today everything is unclear. If I move the dates, I’ll probably miss the launch when it is on time (and as of NASA’s official site, there still is a chance). I stay tuned…

Update: I found some new pictures, find them at http://www.gerhards.net/Gallery-sts_120_strut_repair.phtml (thumbs below).

space shuttle strut space shuttle

2007-09-19

a dedicated shuttle blog

Ah, the joys of blogging. When I started this blog a few years ago, I kept it focussed on one topic – and thus had a few other blogs for other topics. Then, these nice labels appeared in blogger. That looked like an ultimate solution to me: just put everything in a single blog and then use the labels (or tags, as others would call them) to generate topic-specific feeds. Now is the the first time that I really did this. And, guess what, it doesn’t seem to work as nicely as I initially thought.

Mixing rsyslog/logging and a field trip to the space shuttle launch causes some confusion. I do not like confusion ;) So I have created another blog for my space shuttle launch viewing trip today.

I hope this will work out. I sincerely think it is in the best interest of all readers. The next days (as time permits, its obviously not a priority task…), I’ll create some useful links to get the different pieces together if you are interested in the big picture. Also, I’ll remove the shuttle posts here and change them to redirects.