Here is the problem: We have a client that uses Progress Openedge database, we need to execute queries on this database from our servers.
Currently the drivers are installed on our Windows server, and the PHP code uses ODBC to run the queries.
Now we would like to move the code to a Linux server. We tried before to work with their linux drivers but that attempt has failed.
The question is, Is it possible somehow to run PHP code on a linux server, this code communicates with the Windows server, runs the query on the Windows server, and return the results to Linux?
How would you access to this problem.
Thanks!
Yes, it's possible. Your question boils down to "how can my Linux server ask my Windows server to do something" (where the "something" happens to be "talk to a database"), and there are a variety of ways to accomplish that. You could run a web service (RESTful or SOAP) on the Windows server, for example.
Make sure you think about security: if you deploy a service on your Windows server that lets remote clients modify a database, you have to be mindful of which remote clients are allowed to use that service. The last thing you want to do is accidentally allow random strangers to run arbitrary queries against your database.
We have a Knowledgebase Article detailing some setup procedures for Linux installations; it also has a video explaining some aspects of the setup. If the other answered haven't provided a complete solution for you, hopefully our article can at least get you started in the right direction.
Also keep in mind that depending on your version of OE, the driver libraries may be different.
Related
If it's possible, I'm interested in being able to embed a PostgreSQL database, similar to sqllite. I've read that it's not possible. I'm no database expert though, so I want to hear from you.
Essentially I want PostgreSQL without all the configuration and installation. If it's possible, tell me how.
Run postgresql in a background process.
Start a separate thread in your application that would start a postgresql server in local mode either by binding it to localhost with some random free port or by using sockets (does windows support sockets?). That should be fairly easy, something like:
system("C:\Program Files\MyApplication\pgsql\postgres.exe -D C:\Documents and Settings\User\Local Settings\MyApplication\database -h 127.0.0.1 -p 12345");
and then just connect to 127.0.0.1:12345.
When your application quits, you can always send a SIGTERM to your thread and then wait a few seconds for postgresql to quit (ie join the thread).
PS: You can also use pg_ctl to control your "embedded" database, even without threads, just do a "pg_ctl start" (with appropriate options) when starting the application and "pg_ctl stop" when quitting it.
You cannot embed it, nor should you try.
For embedding you should use sqlite as you mentioned or firebird rdbms.
Unless you do a major rewrite of code, it is not possible to run Postgres "embedded". Either run it as a separate process or use something else. SQLite is an excellent choice. But there are others. MySQL has an embedded version. See it at http://mysql.com/oem/. Also several java choices, and Mac has Core Data you can write too. Hell, you can even use FoxPro. What OS you on and what services you need from the database?
You can't embed it as a in process type thing like sqlite etc, but you can easily embed it into your application setup using Inno setup at http://www.innosetup.org. Search their mailing list archive and you will find someone did most of the work for you and all you have to to is grab the zipped distro and you can easily have postgresql installed when the user installs your app. You can then use the pg_hba.conf file to restrict the server to local host only. Not a true embedded DB, but it would work.
PostgreSQL is intended to run as a stand-alone server; it's probably possible to embed it if you hack at it hard and long enough, but it would be much easier to just run it as intended in a separate process.
HSQLDB (http://hsqldb.org/) is another db which is easily embedded. Requires Java, but is an excellent and often-used choice for Java applications.
Anyone tried on Mac OS X:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/bruno.gaufier/xhtml/prod_postgresql.xhtml
http://www.macosxguru.net/article.php?story=20041119135924825
(Of course sqlite would be my embedded db of choice as well)
Well, I know this is a very very very old post, but if anyone has nowadays this question, I would refer to:
You can use containers running Postgres. Here's a post that could be helpful, doing something along this line using R:
https://rsangole.netlify.app/post/2021/08/07/docker-based-rstudio-postgres/?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Take a look at duckdb https://duckdb.org/docs/installation/ It is relatively new and still needs to mature. But it works pretty much like an embedded database ("In-process, serverless"), with bindings for several languages (Python, R, Java, ...)
I'm writing a small program in Free Pascal on Linux and connecting to a Firebird database on the same server. For testing, I initially wrote a console application using the TIBConnection components in FP and successfully connected to the Firebird database and listed records from one of the tables.
Now I'm wanting to do the same thing from a CGI application under Apache. A sample CGI app with various parameters displays different HTML results via the WebBroker "actions" like expected.
So both preliminary tests, connecting to Firebird and getting a CGI web app running, have worked. The final test is to combine them and that's where my problem is.
Whenever I run the test cgi application and try to connect to the Firebird database, I get a "permission denied" error. I've left the username, password, and port all at defaults, have checked the firewall, switched between "localhost" and "127.0.0.1" and several other things including setting the permissions on the database file to read/write globally (for temporary testing, of course).
I've found lots of information on the internet about connecting to Firebird on Linux and lots of information about writing CGI applications, but very little where it combines the two subjects. I'm sure there's a subtle yet important security or firewall issue, but it eludes me.
CentOS 6.6 64-bit on a virtual machine
Firebird 2.1.7 64-bit
Lazarus 1.4.0 64-bit
Anyone have any suggestions on what I could try?
I figured out how to get it working by reading the solution to a different problem. Not sure why disabling the firewall didn't work (I had to completely uninstall it) and don't know what SELinux is yet (had to set it to "permissive"), but I will need to study those two issues so the live server won't be left vulnerable.
I'm a newbie to SQL and .Net and this question might be stupid too to ask but I still need help.
I've a Database located on Server1. Now I got another Server, lets call it Server2 to work on my Development.
Server1 on which my database is located seems to be a SQL Server Express installation so I don't see a SQL Server Agent in there. Server2 has a SQL Server Agent. So can I use Server2's SQL Server Agent and schedule queries to run automatically on Server1? Is this possible? If it is then can someone explain me how to do it.
I've successfully run Jobs from SQL Express, there's no built in support for the mangement studio, but you can manually do all the work. it is a pretty long-winded process though. Follow the excellent and very detailed guide in this blog post.
http://www.sqlteam.com/article/scheduling-jobs-in-sql-server-express
Alternatively there is a project to create an SQL Agent for SQL Express: http://standalonesqlagent.codeplex.com/
If you create a linked server on Server2 that points to Server1, yes you can create jobs on Server2 that execute code on Server1 using server1.database.dbo.object syntax.
You can learn about creating linked servers here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff772782.aspx
(You'll have to change the version to your version, since you didn't tell us what version you're using. You'll also want to make sure the linked server is collation compatible and supports data access/RPC.)
Of course you will have to deal with security and also how to deal with connectivity failures, and general dependencies between the two servers.
You can add error handling with sp_testlinkedserver.
I was recently working with a product from Symantech called Norton EndPoint protection. It consists of a server console application and a deployment application and I would like to incorporate their deployment method into a future version of one of my products.
The deployment application allows you to select computer workstations running Win2K, WinXP, or Win7. The selection of workstations is provided from either AD (Active Directory) or NT Domain (WINs/DNS NetBIOS lookup). From the list, one can click and choose which workstations to deploy the end point software which is Symantech's virus & spyware protection suite.
Then, after selecting which workstations should receive the package, the software copies the setup.exe program to each workstation (presumable over the administrative share \pcname\c$) and then commands the workstation to execute setup.exe resulting in the workstation installing the software.
I really like how their product works but not sure what they are doing to accomplish all the steps. I've not done any deep investigations into this such as sniffing the network, etc... and wanted to check here to see if anyone is familiar with what I'm talking about and if you know how it's accomplished or have ideas how it could be accomplished.
My thinking is that they are using the admin share to copy the software to the selected workstations and then issuing an RPC call to command the workstation to do the install.
What's interesting is that the workstations do this without any of the logged in users knowing what's going on until the very end where a reboot is necessary. At which point, the user gets a pop-up asking to reboot now or later, etc... My hunch is that the setup.exe program is popping this message.
To the point: I'm looking to find out the mechanism by which one Windows based machine can tell another to do some action or run some program.
My programming language is C/C++
Any thoughts/suggestions appreciated.
I was also looking into this, since I too want to remote deploy software. I chose to packet sniff pstools since it has proven itself quite reliable in such remote admin tasks.
I must admit I was definitely over-thinking this challenge. You have probably done your packet sniff by now and discovered the same things I have. I hope by leaving this post behind we can assist other developers.
This is how pstools accomplishes execution of arbitrary code:
It copies a system service executable to \\server\admin$ (you either have to already have local admin on the remote machine, or supply credentials). Once the file is copied, it uses the Service Control Manager API to make the copied file a system service and start it.
Obviously, this system service can now do whatever it wants, including binding to an RPC named pipe. In our case, the system service would install an msi. To get confirmation of successful installation you could either remote poll a registry key, or an rpc function. Either way, you should remove the system service when you are done and delete the file (psexec does not do this, I guess they don't want it to be used surreptitiously, and in that case leaving the service behind would at least give an admin a fighting chance of realizing someone had compromised their box.) This method does not require any preconfiguration of the remote machine, simply that you have admin creds and that file sharing and rpc are open in the firewall.
I've seen demos in C# using WMI, but I don't like those solutions. File sharing and RPC are most likely to be open in firewalls. If they aren't, file sharing and remote MMC management of the remote server wouldn't work. WMI can be blocked and still leave these functional.
I've worked with a lot of software that does remote installations, and a lot of them are not as reliable as pstools. My guess is that this is because those developers are using other methods that are not as likely to be open at the firewall level.
The simple solution is often the most elusive. As always, my hat is off to the SysInternals folks. They are true hackers in the positive, old school meaning of the word!
This sort of functionality is also available with products LANDesk and Altiris. You need a daemonized listener on the client side that will listen for instructions/connections from the server. Once a connection is made any number of things can happen: you can transfer files, kick on installation scripts, etc. usually transparently to any users on that box.
I've used the Twisted Framework (http://twistedmatrix.com) to do this with a small handful of Linux machines. It's Python and Linux, not Windows, but the premise is the same: a listening client accepts instructions from a server and executes them. Very simple.
This functionality can also be accomplished with VB/Powershell scripts in a Windows-based domain.
We have a set of Mac machines (mostly PPC) that are used for running Java applications for experiments. The applications consist of folders with a bunch of jar files, some documentation, and some shell scripts.
I'd like to be able to push out new version of our experiments to a directory on one Linux server, and then instruct the Macs to update their versions, or retrieve an entire new experiment if they don't yet have it.
../deployment/
../deployment/experiment1/
../deployment/experiment2/
and so on
I'd like to come up with a way to automate the update process. The Macs are not always on, and they have their IP addresses assigned by DHCP, so the server (which has a domain name) can't contact them directly. I imagine that I would need some sort of daemon running full-time on the Macs, pinging the server every minute or so, to find out whether some "experiments have been updated" announcement has been set.
Can anyone think of an efficient way to manage this? Solutions can involve either existing Mac applications, or shell scripts that I can write.
You might have some success with a simple Subversion setup; if you have the dev tools on your farm of Macs, then they'll already have Subversion installed.
Your script is as simple as running svn up on the deployment directory as often as you want and checking your changes in to the Subversion server from your machine. You can do this without any special setup on the server.
If you don't care about history and a version control system seems too "heavy", the traditional Unix tool for this is called rsync, and there's lots of information on its website.
Perhaps you're looking for a solution that doesn't involve any polling; in that case, maybe you could have a process that runs on each Mac and registers a local network Bonjour service; DNS-SD libraries are probably available for your language of choice, and it's a pretty simple matter to get a list of active machines in this case. I wrote this script in Ruby to find local machines running SSH:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'rubygems'
require 'dnssd'
handle = DNSSD.browse('_ssh._tcp') do |reply|
puts "#{reply.name}.#{reply.domain}"
end
sleep 1
handle.stop
You can use AppleScript remotely if you turn on Remote Events on the client machines. As an example, you can control programs like iTunes remotely.
I'd suggest that you put an update script on your remote machines (AppleScript or otherwise) and then use remote AppleScript to trigger running your update script as needed.
If you update often then Jim Puls idea is a great one. If you'd rather have direct control over when the machines start looking for an update then remote AppleScript is the simplest solution I can think of.