how to check rpm license without installing?

Command to find out installed rpm license information
   1) Find out the installed rpm name by running
       rpm -qa|grep -i <name-of-rpm>
       Ex: rpm -qa|grep -i post
             O/P: postfix-2.7.2-12.3.x86_64
   2) Query for additional information on that package, with below command
        rpm -qi <name of the installed rpm>
       It provides lots of information like Version, Description, License, etc. We can grep for required information like
        Ex: rpm -qi postfix-2.7.2-12.3.x86_64|grep "License:"
           O/P: Size        : 2685020                          License: IBM Public License ..

       As you can see the above command provided some extra information along with License. Is there a better way to do this? Yes.
        rpm -q --queryformat '%{name},%{version},%{license}\n' postfix-2.7.2-12.3.x86_64
       O/P: postfix,2.7.2,IBM Public License ..
       To fetch only license
       rpm -q --queryformat '%{license}\n' postfix-2.7.2-12.3.x86_64
       O/p:      IBM Public License ..

Command to find out rpm license information without installing it?
Now I assume you have the rpm file of your interest (Ex: postfix-2.5.13-0.17.4.x86_64.rpm). To know the licesnse information from it, run below command
rpm -qp --queryformat '%{name},%{version},%{license}\n' <rpm-file-name>
Ex:  rpm -qp --queryformat '%{name},%{version},%{license}\n' postfix-2.5.13-0.17.4.x86_64.rpm

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kiwi build failure Can't provide file from repository 'update'

Our Kiwi builds were failing inconsistently with the below error
Failed to provide Package users-1-1.x86_64. Do you want to retry retrieval? 
Can't provide file 
'./rpm/x86_64/users-1-1.x86_64.rpm' from repository 'update'
Though the message was clearly suggesting issue with rpm download from local Suse repository. But manually we were able to download it without any issues. Even we suspected something fishy with zypper cache.

Finally from the post
https://groups.google.com/group/kiwi-images/tree/browse_frm/month/2012-09/03256b31dffdacfc?rnum=151&_done=/group/kiwi-images/browse_frm/month/2012-09?&pli=1
we got to know that, we need to clean following folders in our build machine
rm -rf /var/cache/kiwi/packages/ 
rm -rf /var/cache/kiwi/zypper 

Now our builds are consistently passing.

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A quick tutorial on building appliance using Kiwi in restricted environment

In this blog, I'll share step by step information on building a appliance using opensuse kiwi tool on a restricted environment. Here restricted environment means in the network where access to internet is not available.

Step 1: Setting up build machine
     a ) Download OpenSuse iso file (like openSUSE-12.2-DVD-x86_64.iso)
     b) Install it either on a physical machine or virtual machine. Preferably allocate around 50 GB of disk space.
     c) Configure network. You can use yast. Also change firewall configuration to open ssh port and in /etc/ssh/sshd_config make the change 'PasswordAuthentication yes' to allow ssh connection.

Step 2: Configure Zypper repo
     a) Copy the openSUSE-12.2-DVD-x86_64.iso file to the newly setup build machine (in the location /root/tools/openSUSE-12.2-DVD-x86_64.iso)
     b) mount it
         mount -o loop /root/tools/openSUSE-12.2-DVD-x86_64.iso /mnt/openSUSE-12.2
     c) Add this iso as zypper repo
         zypper ar -c -t yast2 "iso:/?iso=/root/tools/openSUSE-12.2-DVD-x86_64.iso" "openSuSE 12"

Step 3: Installing kiwi tool set
    a) You can use rpms from the mounted iso to install kiwi.
        cd /mnt/openSUSE-12.2/suse/x86_64
        zypper --no-remote install kiwi
        zypper --no-remote install kiwi-templates
        cd /mnt/openSUSE-12.2/suse/noarch/
        zypper --no-remote install kiwi-desc-oemboot-5.03.37-1.1.1.noarch.rpm kiwi-desc-netboot-5.03.37-1.1.1.noarch.rpm kiwi-desc-oemboot-5.03.37-1.1.1.noarch.rpm kiwi-pxeboot-5.03.37-1.1.1.noarch.rpm kiwi-desc-isoboot-5.03.37-1.1.1.noarch.rpm

       The above step installs all the available templates, which will be used as base image while building appliance

Step 4: Building a Jeos iso image 
     a) mkdir /tmp/myjeos
     b) kiwi --set-repo /mnt/openSUSE-12.2 --build suse-12.1-JeOS --destdir /tmp/myjeos --type iso
      If no issues, you can find your appliance at /tmp/myjeos/LimeJeOS-openSUSE-12.1.x86_64-1.12.1.iso
     c) You can deploy it on VMWare ESX server to validate it.
     d) If deployed successfully, the login details are
          Login: root
          Passwd: linux

As shown above, we used the mounted OpenSUSE-12.2 iso  as repo and the kiwi template suse-12.1-JeOS has base template and built the appliance.

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4 simple kiwi commands used to generate appliance in Suse Studio

Following are the 4 kiwi commands called by create_appliance.sh, which provided by Suse studio.

1) kiwi --prepare bootsource --root bootbuild/root --logfile boot-prepare.log
2) kiwi --create bootbuild/root -d bootimage/initrd --logfile boot-create.log
3) kiwi --prepare source --root build/root --logfile prepare.log
4) kiwi --create build/root -d image --prebuiltbootimage bootimage/initrd --logfile create.log

Following are the equivalent 4 kiwi commands run by Suse Studio internally
1) /usr/sbin/kiwi --gzip-cmd /usr/bin/pigz --prepare /studio/runner/bootsource/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64
   --logfile /studio/runner/log/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/boot-prepare.log --root /studio/runner/bootbuild/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/root  --package-manager ensconce --ignore-repos
   --add-repo "http://127.0.0.1/repositories/SLES_11_SP1_x86_64" --add-repotype rpm-md
   --add-repo "http://127.0.0.1/repositories/SLE_11_SP1_SDK_x86_64" --add-repotype rpm-md
   --add-repo "http://127.0.0.1/repositories/SLES_11_SP1_Updates_x86_64" --add-repotype rpm-md
   --add-repo "http://127.0.0.1/repositories/SLE_11_SP1_SDK_Updates_x86_64" --add-repotype rpm-md

2) /usr/sbin/kiwi --gzip-cmd /usr/bin/pigz --create /studio/runner/bootbuild/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/root
  -d /studio/runner/bootimage/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/initrd --logfile /studio/runner/log/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/boot-create.log

3) /usr/sbin/kiwi --gzip-cmd /usr/bin/pigz --prepare /studio/runner/source/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64 --root /studio/runner/build/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/root --ignore-repos
 --add-repo "http://127.0.0.1/repositories/SLES_11_SP1_x86_64" --add-repotype rpm-md
--add-repo "http://127.0.0.1/repositories/SLE_11_SP1_SDK_x86_64" --add-repotype rpm-md
--add-repo "http://127.0.0.1/repositories/SLES_11_SP1_Updates_x86_64" --add-repotype rpm-md
--add-repo "http://127.0.0.1/repositories/SLE_11_SP1_SDK_Updates_x86_64" --add-repotype rpm-md
--logfile /studio/runner/log/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/prepare.log 2>&1

4) /usr/sbin/kiwi --gzip-cmd /usr/bin/pigz --create /studio/runner/build/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/root -d /studio/runner/image/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64 --logfile /studio/runner/log/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/create.log --prebuiltbootimage /studio/runner/bootimage/a29-0.0.8-vmx-x86_64/initrd 2>&1

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Jenkins Failed to locate Cygwin installation. Is Cygwin installed?

You configured a new Windows  (64 bit) node in Jenkins  (either run as Windows servvice or JNLP or ssh) and when you try to execute a shell command from it, you may get the below mentioned error.

FATAL: command execution failedhudson.util.IOException2: Failed to locate Cygwin installation. Is Cygwin installed? at hudson.plugins.cygpath.CygpathLauncherDecorator$GetCygpathTask.getCygwinRoot(CygpathLauncherDecorator.java:122) at hudson.plugins.cygpath.CygpathLauncherDecorator$GetCygpathTask.call(CygpathLauncherDecorator.java:127) at hudson.plugins.cygpath.CygpathLauncherDecorator$GetCygpathTask.call(CygpathLauncherDecorator.java:112) at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:118) at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:48) at hudson.remoting.Request$2.run(Request.java:287) at hudson.remoting.InterceptingExecutorService$1.call(InterceptingExecutorService.java:72) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(Unknown Source) at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)Caused by: hudson.util.jna.JnaException: Win32 error: 2 - null at hudson.util.jna.RegistryKey.check(RegistryKey.java:124) at hudson.util.jna.RegistryKey.open(RegistryKey.java:223) at hudson.util.jna.RegistryKey.openReadonly(RegistryKey.java:218) at hudson.plugins.cygpath.CygpathLauncherDecorator$GetCygpathTask.getCygwinRoot(CygpathLauncherDecorator.java:115) ... 11 more

You can try the fix provided in the link https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-6992

If you are still getting the same issue, then check in your Jenkins shell, whether you have
#!/bin/bash
in the first line.
If you have this, remove it. Your shell script will work fine.

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fortifyclient uploadFPR An internal error has occurred

When you try to upload a .fpr file to Fortify 360 server and you get the below mentioned error. Then, this blog provides one of the route cause info and fix.

fortifyclient -url http://some-fortify-server:8282/f360 -authtoken xxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xx1231324 uploadFPR -file myproject.fpr -project myproject -version 3.1


An internal error has occurred.
(org.springframework.oxm.jaxb.JaxbUnmarshallingFailureException: JAXB unmarshalling exception: null; nested exception is javax.xml.bind.UnmarshalException
 - with linked exception:

One of the reason this error occurs is "If the date/time on the machine where you run fortifyclient is ahead or too behind"

Solution: Set current date/time on the client machine.

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Upgrading Virtual Machine hardware versions using Kiwi

In this blog, I'm providing information on upgrading the VMWare Virtual machine hardware version. Also this VM is generated using the SuSe appliance build utility - KIWI.

What hardware versions in VM's mean?

Refer the links 

   http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003746

and

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1014006

How to determine the current hardware version of a virtual machine ?

In the vSphere Client

  1) Click the virtual machine.

  2) Click the Summary tab.

  3) Find the hardware version in the VM Version field.

Upgrading hardware versions using VMWare utilities

 Refer the above mentioned links for this info.

Ugrading hardware versions in automated builds generated using kiwi (Suse Studio)

KIWI is an application for making a wide variety of image sets for Linux supported hardware platforms as well as virtualisation systems. 

We use Kiwi to build our virtual appliances. Kiwi builds appliances by referring a configuration file config.xml . To upgrade the VM machine HW version, you just need to make an entry to this config.xml file (source/config.xml  not bootsource/config.xml).

Your config.xml file may have a "vmwareconfig" section as shown below (in our case) and that describes the properties of a VM it is going to generate. Add desired HWversion field to this line as shown below (we upgraded from 4 to 7).

<vmwareconfig memory='4096' usb='true' arch='ix86' HWversion='7' guestOS='sles'>

    <vmwaredisk id='0' controller='scsi'/>

    <vmwarecdrom id='0' controller='ide'/>

    <vmwarenic mode='bridged' interface='0' driver='e1000'/>

 </vmwareconfig>

By default it was generating HW version 4 images. After adding HWversion='7', now it generated version 7 images for us. This is the working in our case.

If you don't find "vmwareconfig" section in your config.xml, then you need to deal it under "preferences" section as described in Kiwi cookbook. 

<machine arch="arch" memory="MB" HWversion="number" guestOS="suse|sles" domain="dom0|domU"/>

   <vmconfig-entry>Entry_for_VM_config_file<\vmconfig-entry>

   <vmconfig-entry .../>

   <vmnic driver="name" interface="number" mode="mode"/>

   <vmnic ...>

   <vmdisk controller="ide|scsi" id="number"/>

   <vmdvd controller="ide|scsi" id="number"/>

</machine>

Refer Kiwi cookbook for details.

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Solution to Project Euler Problem 10 - Find the sum of all the primes below two million

http://projecteuler.net/problem=10

Problem
The sum of the primes below 10 is 2 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 17.
Find the sum of all the primes below two million.

Answer:   457143142877

Solution:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

use Math::Complex;

my (@primes,$ulimit,$stop);

$ulimit=2000000;

$stop=10001;

generate_prime();

sub generate_prime {

        my ($i,$j,$prime,$squareroot,$count);

        @primes=(2,3,5,7); #initial prime numbers

        my $sum=17;  #initial sum = 2+3+5+7

        #We know only 2 is the even prime numbers, hence skip all even numbers

        for ($i=9;$i<=$ulimit; $i+=2) {

                $prime=0;

                #Divide the number by all the prime numbers less than the square root

                $squareroot=sqrt($i);

                foreach $j (@primes) {

                        if ( $j > $squareroot ) {

                                last;

                        }

                        if (($i%$j) == 0) {

                                $prime=1;

                                last;

                        }

                }

                if ($prime == 0 ) {

                        print "The current prime number is: $i\n";

                        $sum+=$i;

                        print "sum till now: $sum \n";

                }
        }
}

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Building SuSe appliances locally using Kiwi (command line)

SuSe Studio is a online/standalone software appliance build tool. We typically use it to generate appliances based on SLES O.S. We can use the online utility for free but the standalone utility is licensed.
But SuSe Studio is just a web interface. The core of the appliance building is done by a command line utility - Kiwi. Kiwi is part of OpenSuse and it is maintained by Open Source community (I guess it's funded by Novell).

Generating appliances through online is good for initial exploration, but if need to generate appliances frequently, can we do this manual task everyday? No. We need to automate. This blog explains how to automate appliance building process using Kiwi tool.

Step 1: Configure your appliance on SuSe Studio Standalone (preferably), build, deploy and validate your appliance.
Step 2: Export your appliance's Kiwi configuration, for building your appliance locally.
          In the build tab of Suse Studio, in the bottom you can find the link to download Kiwi config files.
Step 3: Copy the Kiwi config files to a SLES build machine, where kiwi is installed. Try to use the same kiwi version, the Suse studio have used to build it. Refer README file for details.
Step 4: Compile it using the script create_appliance.sh which comes along with kiwi config files when you export. It has 2 phases
             1) Boot build   - 2 sub process
                                     a) Prepare (generates boot-prepare.log)
                                     b) Create ( generates boot-create.log)
             2) Actual image build - 2 sub process
                                      a) Prepare (generates prepare.log)
                                      b) Create ( generates create.log)

             You can generate the appliance in ISO format or Virtual appliance ( .vmdk , OVF) or some other format.
Step 5: Deploy it either on physical machine or on virtual machine like (VMWare ESX server).
 If it gets deployed without any error, then you are lucky. Otherwise you may get error like
    VFS: Cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block
    Or some Kernel Panic message.

Actually when we download Kiwi configuration files from Suse Studio, it is not exporting the same config files it used to build. It is providing some modified set of files. Is it fooling us?

Here are the steps to overcome it.
Step 6: Login to the machine where you installed Standalone suse studio. If you don't have stand alone installation and got config files from online suse studio, then you may need to contact Suse Studio for help.
Step 7: Go to /studio/runner/ directory (cd /studio/runner/). You will notice 2 directories of interest bootsource & source.
Step 8: When you start the build on Suse studio, in the build log file you can notice which config files it used for that build. Like
   Running Step 3: Setting up build environment
  '/studio/runner/bootsource/a24-0.0.3-vmx-x86_64/' 'bootsource'
  '/studio/runner/source/a24-0.0.3-vmx-x86_64/' 'source'

   From the above output you can locate where on the Studio machines the actual config files for 'boorsource' and 'source' are getting stored
  Copy these 2 folders to your build machine mentioned in Step 3
Step 9: You may not be able to directly use the config files obtained in Step 8. Instead replace few selected files obtained from config files in step 8, with the existing config files on build machine ( Obtained in Step 2)
   Some of the files which we replaced/added to make it work are
        bootsource/config.xml
        bootsource/root/config.oempartition
        bootsource/root/dump
        bootsource/root/include
        bootsource/root/linuxrc
        bootsource/root/preinit
        bootsource/root/repart
        source/config.xml

 All the files mentioned above may not be needed to replace/add, but this is what worked for us.
Step 10: If you have local repository, don't forget to mention it in config.xml files ( source & bootsource)
Step 11: Build & deploy it again (Step 4 & 5).

Hopefully now your appliance should get deployed without any issues.

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How to find source changelist number used to create a perforce branch?

All perforce admins will mostly get this query "Hey from what changelist number branch //branch/B is created from branch //branch/A?"
There is no simple single command from Perforce to answer this question. But still  you can figure it out with below method. Though it is not 100% perfect answer, I can bet it will give 99.99% right one.

Scenario:
 Branch //release/dpm-3.1/KMS/... is created from //dev/rkm/KMS/... a year ago and we didn't preserve the source branch (i.e. //dev/rkm/KMS/...) changelist number used to create new //release branch.
 Usually the standard practice is to record this changelist number in the description of new branch changelist while creating it.
 Anyways, if you have missed it, no worries, still you can figure it out.

Solution:
Step 1: Find the first changelist number which got created when the new branch //release/dpm-3.1/KMS/... took birth. You can use below command to find it.
   $ p4 changes //release/dpm-3.1/KMS/...|tail -1
  Change 1270598 on 2011/11/22 by guruss1@sguru_VWINRSA2-46 'Creating //release/dpm-3.1/KMS '

  Note down this number 1270598

Step 2: Find the ancestral history of new branch //release/dpm-3.1/KMS/... using 'p4 changes -i' command and find out what was the changelist number before the birth of branch (i.e changelist before 1270598). Note that -i option will traverse behind and tell what all parent branch changelists are integrated to this new branch.
You can use below command to find ancestral history. Here I'm limiting history to 3 changelist numbers before this branch took birth.
  $  p4 changes -i //release/dpm-3.1/KMS/...|grep -A3 '1270598'
Change 1270598 on 2011/11/22 by guruss1@sguru_VWINRSA2-46 'Creating //release/dpm-3.1/KMS '
Change 1254271 on 2011/09/20 by sguru@sguru_VWINRSA2-46 'Adding thirdpartylicenses.pdf f'
Change 1254094 on 2011/09/19 by pasuns@Sreeekanth_RKM 'coverage reduced to 70% to make'
Change 1253772 on 2011/09/19 by pasuns@Sreeekanth_RKM 'Fix for KMSRV-1798: Addressing '

From this output, I got to know that, changelist number 1254271, which is from the parent branch  //dev/rkm/KMS/... is the last changelist number integrated and hence this is the changelist used to create this branch. 

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Firewall configuration. How to open a port on Linux?

When we install CentOS, the default configuration will be hardened and hence most of the unneeded ports will be blocked.
I configured Perforce proxy server in a centOS, which needed port 1666 to be opened. Since it is blocked, none of the other machines were able to contact perforce proxy server.  It used to give below error
$ p4 info

Perforce client error:
        Connect to server failed; check $P4PORT.
        TCP connect to xxx.xxx.com:1666 failed.
        connect: xxx.xxx..com:1666: WSAETIMEDOUT


To configure Firewall, we can use ipconfig command in Linux.
Here is the iptables command to open it
  iptables -t filter -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 1666 -j ACCEPT
where
   --table       -t table        table to manipulate (default: `filter')
   --append  -A chain            Append to chain
   --proto     -p proto        protocol: by number or name, eg. `tcp'
   --jump      -j target         target for rule (may load target extension)

Then save the configuration

   service iptables save

Next reload the configuration

  service iptables reload

Check the status

  service iptables status

O/P:

   Table: filter

   Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)

    num  target     prot opt source               destination

   1    ACCEPT     tcp  --  0.0.0.0/0            0.0.0.0/0           tcp dpt:1666

As shown above, now the port 1666 is opened.

Other options 

  iptables -L    

      where 

        --list    -L [chain [rulenum]]         List the rules in a chain or all chains

        --flush   -F [chain]          Delete all rules in  chain or all chains

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Running perforce p4d as service on RHEL

Perforce is not providing standard script to run the perforce server p4d as service on Linux systems. Different people configured it in different way. Here is my way of running it as service on RHEL machines.

• Create an account 'perforce' in your machine
• Download p4d and place it in designated directory as defined P4ROOT. Provide exec permission for it. And also change the owner to 'perforce' account.

         In my case P4ROOT=/home/perforce/server

• Create a start-up script 'p4d' at /etc/init.d

cat /etc/init.d/p4d
#!/bin/sh
# description: This is a daemon which starts perforce server on reboot
PATH=/sbin:/bin

test -f /home/perforce/server/p4d || exit 0
export P4ROOT=/home/perforce/server
export P4PORT=1818
RUN_AS_USER=perforce

case "$1" in
start)
  su -m $RUN_AS_USER -c "/home/perforce/server/p4d -r $P4ROOT -J /home/perforce/logs/journal -L /home/perforce/logs/p4err -p tcp:$P4PORT &"
  ;;
stop)
  /usr/local/bin/p4 admin stop
  ;;
*)
  echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/p4proxy {start|stop}"
  exit 1
esac

exit 0

Here note that we are not running p4d as root, instead using the account 'perforce'

• Add a new service for management through chkconfig

          chkconfig --add p4d

• Configure the run levels on which it needs to be on

          chkconfig --levels 345 p4d on

        It creates soft-links like

           ls -ltr /etc/rc3.d/S29p4d

        lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Sep  4 16:36 /etc/rc3.d/S29p4d -> ../init.d/p4d

• Verify it by running commands

            service p4d start

            service p4d stop

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commons.ova deploy error on vmware esx - Unsupported hardware family 'virtualbox-2.2'

I downloaded Perforce commons OVA file commons.ova and when I tried to deploy it on VMWare ESX server, it failed with the error

Error: OVF Package is not supported by target: - Line 25: Unsupported hardware family 'virtualbox-2.2'.

Here the issue is with the commons.ovf file inside commons.ova . It defined virtual system type as virtualbox-2.2, which is a Oracle Open source virtualization product. Hence VMWare doesn't understand it.

    <vssd:VirtualSystemType>virtualbox-2.2</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

We need to change it from virtualbox-2.2 to vmx-04 a VMWare format in that file.

Here are the steps to modify .ovf file inside .ova on linux system

• Copy .ova file (commons.ova) to a Linux system
• Extract ova file using tar utility

            tar xvf commons.ova

       Now you will get the following files

           commons-disk1.vmdk  commons.ovf

•  Edit the .ovf file (commons.ovf) and do following changes 

               vi commons.ovf   (change the below line as shown)
            1) Replace  virtualbox-2.2 with vmx-04

              <vssd:VirtualSystemType>vmx-04</vssd:VirtualSystemType>

            2) To fix the error Line 66: OVF hardware element 'ResourceType' with instance ID '5': No support for the virtual hardware device type '2

  changed this item:

      <Item>

        <rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>

        <rasd:Caption>sataController0</rasd:Caption>

        <rasd:Description>SATA Controller</rasd:Description>

        <rasd:ElementName>sataController0</rasd:ElementName>

        <rasd:InstanceID>5</rasd:InstanceID>

        <rasd:ResourceSubType>AHCI</rasd:ResourceSubType>

        <rasd:ResourceType>20</rasd:ResourceType>

      </Item>

into this item:

     <Item>
        <rasd:Address>0</rasd:Address>
        <rasd:Caption>SCSIController</rasd:Caption>
        <rasd:Description>SCSI Controller</rasd:Description>
        <rasd:ElementName>SCSIController</rasd:ElementName>
        <rasd:InstanceID>5</rasd:InstanceID>
        <rasd:ResourceSubType>lsilogic</rasd:ResourceSubType>
        <rasd:ResourceType>6</rasd:ResourceType>
      </Item>

           

• Convert ovf back to ova again. You should have installed 'ovftool' utility on your machine

           ovftool commons.ovf commons.ova

        Deploy it on your ESX server now. There shouldn't be any issue.

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The images and .mar files packed in war using maven are getting corrupted

We faced this strange issue - The images and .mar files packed in war using maven are getting corrupted.
The images in local work-space before invoking 'mvn package' were fine, but the same images packed inside war file by maven were getting corrupted.

The root cause of the issue was 'filterset' task invoked as part 'copy' task from maven-antrun-plugin.
Here is the code from pom.xml which was causing corrupted images
<project>
.
.

 <build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
        <executions>
          <execution>
            <id>prepare-webapp</id>
            <phase>process-resources</phase>
            <goals>
              <goal>run</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>     
                <tasks>
                  <echo>copying the web-app folder</echo>


                <tstamp>
                  <format property="build.at" pattern="dd MMMM yyyy HH:mm Z" />
                </tstamp>


               <copy todir="${basedir}/target/main/webapp">
                 <fileset dir="${basedir}/../../../src/web/webapp" includes="**/*" />                                    
                    <filterset>
                         <filter token="VERSION" value="${pom.version}" />
                         <filter token="BUILD_DATE" value="${build.at}" />
                     </filterset>
                </copy>
              </tasks>
            </configuration>
           </execution>
          </executions>
         </plugin>
        </plugins>
      </build>
 </project>

Here we incorporated token replacement for all the files under 'webapp' directory. Due to which the 'filterset'  was corrupting binary files like images & .mar files.
Actually we are supposed to perform token replacement only on web.xml files. The fix was to perform it only on these files.
Here is the code used to fix the issue.
<plugin>
   <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
     <dependencies>
       <dependency>
<groupId>ant</groupId>
<artifactId>ant-nodeps</artifactId>
<version>1.6.5</version>
</dependency>
     </dependencies>
     <executions>
       <execution>
         <id>prepare-webapp</id>
         <phase>process-resources</phase>
         <goals>
            <goal>run</goal>
         </goals>
         <configuration>
          <tasks>
  <tstamp>
             <format property="build.at" pattern="dd MMMM yyyy HH:mm Z" />
           </tstamp>
  <echo>Token replacement in web.xml</echo>
  <replaceregexp byline="true">
    <regexp pattern="@VERSION@" />
    <substitution expression="${pom.version}" />
    <fileset dir="${basedir}/../../../src/web/webapp" includes="**/web.xml" />
  </replaceregexp>
  <replaceregexp byline="true">
    <regexp pattern="@BUILD_DATE@" />
    <substitution expression="${build.at}" />
    <fileset dir="${basedir}/../../../src/web/webapp" includes="**/web.xml" />
           </replaceregexp>
  <echo>copying the web-app folder</echo>                                
           <copy todir="${basedir}/target/main/webapp">
             <fileset dir="${basedir}/../../../src/web/webapp" includes="**/*" />                                  
           </copy>
          </tasks>
          </configuration>
        </execution>
     <executions>
</plugin>         

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Security vulnerabilities in Nexus Pre-2.1 releases

Sonatype posted security vulnerabilities in Nexus releases prior to 2.1 and recommending upgrade to latest release (i.e. 2.1)

We areusing the nexus version  2.0.6 OSS. Considering this alert, I’m planning to upgrade soon.

Here is the quote from sonatype

“Unless you want to risk exposing a secure credential, get hacked via some XML, or suffer a denial of service attack via our Artifactory bridge, you probably want to upgrade to Nexus 2.1 right now.”

Refer the link http://www.sonatype.com/people/2012/08/dogfooding-sonatype-insight-we-found-vulnerabilities-in-nexus/#more-11947for details.

I hope they are not marketing Sonatype Insight with this alert J

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How to customize MANIFEST files in WAR using Maven?

A war file contains MANIFEST files which is created by Maven. This post explains how to customize a manifest files to add our own values, which may get reflected while deploying on application servers like websphere.

The post How to create java war (web archive) file using Maven?  explains in detail about building war file for sample application using Maven. Refer it for creating your own simple webapp. This post is the continuation to it.

When you explode the war file created for the sample application code described in my previous post, it contains the below directory structure.

   simple-1.1-SNAPSHOT

       images/springsource.png

       jsp/hello.jsp

       META-INF

           maven/com.rsa.siddesh.simple/simple

              pom.properties

              pom.xml

           MANIFEST.MF

     WEB-INF

          web.xml

          classes

            examples/Hello.class

            images/springsource.png

          lib/servlet-api-2.5.jar

       index.html

The default MANIFEST.MF created by Maven looks like this

MANIFEST.MF

   Manifest-Version: 1.0

   Archiver-Version: Plexus Archiver

   Created-By: Apache Maven

   Built-By: guruss1

   Build-Jdk: 1.6.0_16

We can add many values to it through Maven.

1) 

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How to create java war (web archive) file using Maven?

Maven by default creates a JAR package. But we can build package in any other format easily through Maven. This blog explains how to generate a WAR package, customizing the MANIFEST and web.xml files within it, using simple HelloWorld example.

Project structure
<proj-home>
        pom.xml
        src
          main
            java
               App.java
        target
           simple-1.1-SNAPSHOT.jar


First we create a Java file which prints Hello World.
  Maven projects expects Java source files under  src/main/java directory. Hence lets create our Hellow World program App.java under it.

The content of App.java is


public class App
{
        public static void main (String args[])
        {
                System.out.println("Hello World");
        }
}

Create a simple pom.xml file to compile, package (generate JAR file by default)
   Create the below pom.xml file under <proj-home>
   <project>
        <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
        <groupId>com.rsa.siddesh.simple</groupId>
        <artifactId>simple</artifactId>
        <packaging>jar</packaging>
        <version>1.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <name>simple</name>
    </project>

Compile the Simple project
   Run the command
        mvn package

   On it's successful completion it will create simple-1.1-SNAPSHOT.jar file under <proj-home>/target directory.

Creating WAR package
  As explained above, maven created by default the JAR package. Now its time create a WAR package for the same project. A web application (war) needs to have some additional files like web.xml, jsp files, servlet, images, etc. The below directory structure depicts the needy files for one of the sample web application. I took this sample application code from Spring Source site
 http://static.springsource.com/projects/tc-server/6.0/getstart/tgsdevtut.html
This site explains building web app using Ant, but I migrated the same code to build with Maven.

<proj-home>
        pom.xml
        src
          main
            java
               examples
                  Hello.java
            resources
               images
                  springsource.png
           webapp
               images
                  springsource.png
               jsp
                  hello.jsp
              WEB-INF
                  web.xml             
         target 
             simple-1.1-SNAPSHOT.war                    

       
Now lets look at the code for all source files mentioned above.
pom.xml

<project>
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>com.rsa.siddesh.simple</groupId>
  <artifactId>simple</artifactId>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <version>1.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <name>simple</name>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
      <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
      <version>2.5</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</project>


Hello.java - It's a Java servlet file.

package examples;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;


/**
 * Simple Hello servlet.
 */

public final class Hello extends HttpServlet {


    /**
     * Respond to a GET request for the content produced by
     * this servlet.
     *
     * @param request The servlet request we are processing
     * @param response The servlet response we are producing
     *
     * @exception IOException if an input/output error occurs
     * @exception ServletException if a servlet error occurs
     */
    public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request,
                      HttpServletResponse response)
      throws IOException, ServletException {

        response.setContentType("text/html");
        PrintWriter writer = response.getWriter();        
        writer.println("<html>");
        writer.println("<head>");
        writer.println("<title>Sample Application Servlet Page</title>");
        writer.println("</head>");
        writer.println("<body bgcolor=white>");

        writer.println("<table border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"10\">");
        writer.println("<tr>");
        writer.println("<td>");
        writer.println("<img src=\"images/springsource.png\">");
        writer.println("</td>");
        writer.println("<td>");
        writer.println("<h1>Sample Application Servlet</h1>");
        writer.println("</td>");
        writer.println("</tr>");
        writer.println("</table>");

        writer.println("This is the output of a servlet that is part of");
        writer.println("the Hello, World application.");

        writer.println("</body>");
        writer.println("</html>");
    }
}

springsource.png - Download this image from springsource web link given above
hello.jsp

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Sample Application JSP Page</title>
  </head>

  <body bgcolor=white>

  <table border="0" cellpadding="10">
    <tr>
      <td align=center>
        <img src="../images/springsource.png">
      </td>
      <td>
         <h1>Sample Application JSP Page</h1>
      </td>
    </tr>
  </table>

  <br />
  <p>This is the output of a JSP page that is part of the HelloWorld application.</p>

  <%= new String("Hello!") %>

  </body>
</html>


web.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>

<web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd"
    version="2.4">

    <display-name>HelloWorld Application</display-name>
    <description>
        This is a simple web application with a source code organization
        based on the recommendations of the Application Developer's Guide.
    </description>

    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>HelloServlet</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>examples.Hello</servlet-class>
    </servlet>

    <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>HelloServlet</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/hello</url-pattern>
    </servlet-mapping>

</web-app>



Run the command
     mvn package

It will create a war file target/simple-1.1-SNAPSHOT.war, which can be deployed on web server like Apache tomcat. A war file contains MANIFEST files which is created by Maven and also the web.xml files.
Customizing it to add our own values is described in next blog

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Upgrading Sonatype nexus from 1.5 to 1.6

Here are the steps followed while upgrading Sonatype nexus server from 1.5 to 1.6 version in Linux server (RHEL)



1) Stop the nexus service
   service nexus stop
2) Copy the nexus 1.6.0 package to previously installed directory
     cp  nexus-oss-webapp-1.6.0-bundle.tar.gz  /usr/local
3) Extract nexus 1.6.0 package in a temp directory
    cd /usr/local/temp
    tar xvf ../nexus-oss-webapp-1.6.0-bundle.tar.gz
4) Copy nexus-oss-webapp-1.6.0 directory to installation directory
     mv /usr/local/temp/nexus-oss-webapp-1.6.0 /usr/local
5) Change ownership to the Unix user account nexus was running
    chown -R nexus:nexus nexus-oss-webapp-1.6.0
6) Create a softlink to the new nexus installation source directory
     ln -s nexus-oss-webapp-1.6.0 nexus
7) There are some changes in 'nexus' script and location of wrapper.conf. Hence we need to replace the previously installed /etc/init.d/nexus script
    diff nexus/bin/jsw/linux-x86-64/nexus /etc/init.d/nexus
     mv /etc/init.d/nexus /etc/init.d/nexus.old
     cp nexus/bin/jsw/linux-x86-64/nexus /etc/init.d/nexus
8) If you have made changes in old /etc/init.d/nexus script, restore it to the new script
    The notable change is the WRAPPER_CONF location got changed in 1.6 version. Hence correct path needs to be defined in /etc/init.d/nexus script
  For example, in our setup, we made these changes in old script, which is transferred to new script
   vi nexus

      #USER DEFINED VARIABLES
      NEXUS_HOME=/usr/local/nexus
      PLATFORM="linux-x86-64"
      JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk1.6.0_27
       PATH="${JAVA_HOME}/bin:$PATH"

      # Wrapper
      WRAPPER_CMD="${NEXUS_HOME}/bin/jsw/${PLATFORM}/wrapper"
      WRAPPER_CONF="${NEXUS_HOME}/bin/jsw/conf/wrapper.conf"

     # Location of the pid file.
      PIDDIR="/var/run"

      #RUN_AS_USER=
      RUN_AS_USER=nexus
9) If you have changed the nexus storage location from the default /usr/local/sonatype-work or default tcp port, then make sure you update this path in the file nexus/conf/plexus.properties
     nexus-work=/export/nexus/sonatype-work/nexus
     application-port=8081

10) Restart nexus
    service nexus start

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Jira workflows - Dealing with validator

Recently I got a request to make certain fields mandatory while marking a issue as 'Fix' (A step in our workflow'). Initially I made the requested custom fields as 'Required' in Field configuration, but it screwed !!!. After this change it started asking to provide values for fields which are not visible in 'create' page.
Finally I learnt it needs to be configured in Workflows validator.
I'm sharing my learning's here.

Introduction
Workflow is the place where we define business process. A JIRA workflow is the set of steps (or statuses) and transitions that an issue goes through during its lifecycle.
The below picture represents the default Jira workflow.

JIRA workflows consist of steps and transitions:
  A step represents a workflow's current status for an issue.An issue can exist in one step only at any point in time. In the diagram above the rectangular boxes represent steps/statuses.
 A transition is a link between two steps. A transition allows an issue to move from one step to another step. A transition is a one-way link, so if an issue needs to move back and forth between two steps, two transitions need to be created. In the diagram above the arrows represent transitions.



Workflow Administration
Creating Workflow:  Login -> Administration -> Workflows -> Add new Workflow  (Give name & desc)
Editing a workflow: 
   Inactive workflow:  You can simply edit steps & transition
   Active workflow:  Not possible to edit active workflow directly. 
         Create draft -> Edit  & validate ->  Publish -> Backup old workflow

• Login ->  Administration -> Workflows  -> Choose your workflow -> Edit
• There are two types of edit mode, Diagram and Text

How to make a field mandatory during a workflow transition change ?
Request: In the “Fix” page, (when the bug is marked as fixed), Make the following fields as mandatory
1) Fixed in build 2) Fixed in Iteration 3) Code reviewed by 4) Fix description

Solution:
Using Diagram edit mode.

• Login ->  Administration -> Workflows  -> Choose your workflow -> Edit 
• Using workflow diagram I tracked my workflow steps involved in the transition. The source step is 'New' and destination is 'Assigned to QE' through the transition label 'Fix - Release to QE'. 
• Click on round wheel as shown above and select 'View Validators'
• Click Add a new validator -> Select 'Fields Required' -> Add -> Select the custom fields names (in my case its 'Fixed in build', 'Fixed in Iteration', etc -> Add.
• Publish and Take backup
• That's it
• Alternatively to do the same from Text mode
• Select workflows ->  Edit in Text mode -> Create Draft 
• Find the Step name (in my case its 'New') and the transition ( In my case 'Assign to QE') -> Click on the transition -> Validators -> Add -> Fields Required
• Publish & Backup

    




  

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