KISS

Today I'm looking at monitoring the throughput of a mail server running RHEL5. Unfortunately the default check_mailq supplied with Nagios just looks at the size of the number of messages in the mailq.

Another problem I encountered was that mailq is not setuid root on this distro. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I thought I'd have a look at how RH & sendmail measure the size of the queue.

• /usr/bin/mailq is a symlink to /etc/alternatives/mta-mailq
• /etc/alternatives/mta-mailq is a symlink to /usr/bin/mailq.sendmail
• /usr/bin/mailq.sendmail is a symlink to /usr/sbin/sendmail
• /usr/sbin/sendmail is a symlink to /etc/alternatives/mta
• /etc/alternatives/mta is a symlink to /usr/sbin/sendmail.sendmail

...of course!

It would appear that the UK Cabinet Office publish guidance on publishing word processor and other files on government websites:
"Microsoft Word (DOC)

Documents can also be saved in Microsoft Word format. ... This is the least desirable format as it is proprietary and it cannot be guaranteed that a reader exists for a particular user’s computer."

Guess what format they use.

Oracle Javascript

Finally got to the bottom of the problems with oracle_smp_chronos.js turns out its worse than I thought. The script just can't cope with links calling a forms onsubmit method on Mozilla based browsers (actually there is about three different defects here, only the first was initially visible). The odd thing is that the code they've written for MSIE works flawlessly on every version of Mozilla / Firefox I've tested - although I haven't gone back to Navigator version 4. The solution seems quite simple - just change the browser identification code so it runs the same code for Mozilla 5+ and Firefox 1+ as it does for MSIE.

Blackberry blues

Work has decided I need a Blackberry. So after a mere two months procurement process an 8800 appeared. It took me about 3 hours to find the first bug in the software (browser does not accept a cookie suplied in a HTTP 302 response) still I was trying to look on the bright side. Having previously worked for a company selling ringtones, I thought it would be a good idea to add something a bit out of the ordinary. But having previously worked in the industry, the last thing I would do is actually buy one from one of the many suppliers! Fate helped things along when I saw bluetooth USB dongles in my local Tesco for £7. It wasn't long before I had it plugged into my computer and the relevant software up and running. Unfortunately, although I could get the devies to pair, the only service I could get working was kbluelock - the Obex push client just couldn't see the device.

A bit of research suggested that this is a common problem - Blackberries won't talk to the BlueZ stack.

Ho hum.

Meanwhile, having built a test rig and demonstrated the browser problem, I tried reporting the fault to Vodafone. They've written back asking for lots and LOTS of information none of which relates to the bug. I spent less time re-writing the web application I was trying to access then I have trying to satisfy the requests from the support department - who don't seem to understand how their own software works.

Oracle - not as bad as I thought?

In fairness to Oracle, the problems I described only seem to manifest in conjunction with other suppliers javascript. But perhaps its just as well that the DMCA forbids me from finding out exactly how well written their code really is.

Oracle stop eating own dog food?

Enabling End-User performance monitoring using the Oracle application stack and Grid Control, depends on a script called oracle_smp_chronos.js however the the copy we've got will only work with MSIE (its hard-wired to the Microsoft browser event model). I had a look around forums.oracle.com to see if anyone had a solution - and I couldn't find anyone with the same problem. I couldn't - so I thought great, they've fixed it! But I can't find the fix.

But what's even more interesting is that Oracle no longer seem to be using their own tools for monitoring - a 'view source' on most of the oracle.com pages shows they are now using Omniture's SiteCatalyst.

Laptop bling

2 posts in a week! I must be sick or something.

In Spring a friend showed me his new laptop, running a new window manager - something called Beryl - OMG! It rocked. I was as impressed as the first time I saw a Windows/Mouse interface, or a Web Browser. Computers should be fun to use and this showed how! At that time though I didn't have the time to play around with such hardware (which surely required the very latest bitchin' graphics card).

Fast-forward to December. I've recently completed redecorating my daughter's bedroom, and thought I'd let her have my laptop (semi-) permanently installed in there. Despite being a computer geek, the hardware I own is usually cobbled together from spare parts picked up at jumble sales or bought off eBay. Laptop in question is a 1GHz Celeron with 384Mb memory (only recently upgraded from 128) and a slow 10Gb HD (where I need to keep a copy of XP which is used about.........never....so about 4GB left for everything else). Its a very basic workhorse and was bottom of the range even when new.

I thought I'd do a reinstall for her. Previously it had a series of Suse installs, currently at 9.3. Everything worked, but I felt it was rather bloatware, and her main interest would be in playing games - Suse do not provide a good portfolio of installable games. I had a look at the top 10 on Distrowatch, and decided to try out PC Linux OS. This can run as a Live CD before installing which is a very handy way to check if it supports your hardware (another area where Linux is now actually leading the other OS vendors!). After bottong it up and liking it, installation was painless and quick handling the Linksys PCMCIA WiFi card, sound and everything else.

After setting it all up, I noticed there was an option to run a "3D Window Manager" so I turned it on not expecting very much. WOW.

OK, so not all the effects work (its the most basic video chipset on this thing) I don't get Windows going up in flames or appearing from sparkles - but the wobble, expand, and I can rotate the Desktop cube - indeed the only falut is that it all happens so quickly/smoothly, if you blink you'll miss it.

Meanwhile everything else works really well - the single CD it installs from had an impressive amount of software on it - and more is easily added from the internet. The only thing which doesn't seem to work is SuperKaramba where the theme browser only list the most popular/highest rated and newest (you can't brows the main catalog from the application) also, liquid weather refused to work (IMHO the only reason for having SK) and SK loses its settings each time you log out. But I was really only playing around with it for extra eye-candy (I still can't believe I'm trying to demo-up that old banger of a laptop!)