An oldtimer - Error 1722 or 2755 from Wise installer

Here it is for future reference if anyone ends up here on their endeavor of searching to solve this encountering problem.

Internal Error 2755. 1632 setup fails

This problem occurs when the following conditions are all true:

You install on a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or Microsoft Windows 2000 (or Windows XP...).

-and-

The WinNT folder is located on an NTFS partition.

-and-

You have a folder called Installer under the WinNT folder, and you do not have full access permissions to the Installer folder.

To resolve this problem, change the permissions on the Installer folder to:

Everyone - Read (RX)
Administrators - FullControl
SYSTEM - FullControl

The installer folder is a protected folder. To change perms you will have to go to:
Windows Explorer - Tools - Folder Options - Select View.
Un-check: Hide protected Operating System Files.
The Installer folder is now visible under \Winnt

kmem russian roulette

sudo dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/kmem bs=1 count=1 seek=$RANDOM

I already forgot where and when I read about this first... The theory is that every weekend you shoot this on one of your servers, that should eventually fail. Now, if your HA/failover solution does not compensate inside your SLA, you can fix it outside business time.

About this game on bashorg :-)

Oracle: Get approximate size of storage used by indexes by a user

SELECT
  SEGMENT_NAME,
  ROUND(BYTES / 1048576)       AS MEGABYTES,
  ROUND(BYTES / 1073741824, 1) AS GIGABYTES
FROM DBA_SEGMENTS
WHERE SEGMENT_TYPE = 'INDEX' AND OWNER = '_YOURUSER_COMES_HERE_'
ORDER BY 2 DESC, 1 ASC;

gcc does not link unused lib it used to before

How to force gcc to link an otherwise unused library to your executable:

Add -Wl,--no-as-needed before your lib, and -Wl,--as-needed after.

Example: LDFLAGS=-L/opt/informix/lib/esql/ -lm -Wl,--no-as-needed -lifgls -Wl,--as-needed -liodbc
This example will force linking libifgls.so but libiodbc.so will be left out, if not used.

HP BSM: Decrypt Management password

You will need filesystem access.

1. Get crypt.seed.key from %HPBSM%\conf\seed.properties (also note crypt.seed.conf, it is usually AES/ECB)
2. Get crypt.secret.key from %HPBSM%\conf\encryption.properties (also note crypt.conf.1 [substitute your crypt.conf.active.id], should be same as crypt.seed.conf)
3. Split crypt.secret.key around the one Z in it.
   
   1. pre-Z part: cryptedSecretKey
   2. post-Z part: MAC
4. Get ManagementDb.password from %HPBSM%\conf\TopazInfra.ini
   
   1. Split the HEX string to 4 pieces, there are three Z-s in it.
   2. Third of the four parts is the cryptText
   3. Note: This method was only checked out with ManagementDb.dbEType=1, and crypt.seed.conf=AES/ECB settings.
5. Go here: http://aes.online-domain-tools.com
   
   1. Input text (hex): cryptedSecretKey
   2. Key (hex): crypt.seed.key
   3. Function: AES (note: crypt.seed.conf)
   4. Mode: ECB (note: crypt.seed.conf)
   5. Decrypted text: plaintextSecretKey, will be a HEX string, trim the 0x0A-like garbages from the end (some kind of padding I did not bother to research).
6. Go here again: http://aes.online-domain-tools.com
   
   1. Input text (hex): cryptText
   2. Key (hex): plaintextSecretKey
   3. Function: AES (note: crypt.seed.conf)
   4. Mode: ECB (note: crypt.seed.conf)
   5. Decrypted text: will be the plaintext database password used for the ConnectString in TopazInfra.ini, trim the garbage bytes again, as usual.

Oracle: Get UNIX epoch

SELECT
  ROUND((SYSDATE - TO_DATE('01-01-1970 00:00:00', 'DD-MM-YYYY HH24:MI:SS')) * 24 * 60 * 60) AS EPOCH
FROM DUAL;

The subtraction tells how many days is the difference, as a floating point number. Multiply it with 24 hours * 60 minutes * 60 seconds to scale it to seconds. Round it as we don't want sub-second precision.

If the time zones don't match up, use UTC:

SELECT
  ROUND((CAST(SYS_EXTRACT_UTC(SYSTIMESTAMP) AS DATE) - TO_DATE('01-01-1970 00:00:00', 'DD-MM-YYYY HH24:MI:SS')) * 24 * 60 * 60) AS EPOCH
FROM DUAL;

C: Get uid by loginname

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <pwd.h>
uid_t getuid_by_loginname(const char *name)
{
 struct passwd *pwd;
 if(name) {
  pwd = getpwnam(name); /* don't free, see getpwnam() for details */
  if(pwd)
   return pwd->pw_uid;
 }
 
 return (uid_t)-1;
}

JIRA: Get workflows where the post-function refers to a plugin

Note, that JIRAWORKFLOWS.DESCRIPTOR is a valid XML, stored in a CLOB.

WITH W_JIRAWORKFLOWS AS
  ( SELECT WORKFLOWNAME,
      XMLTYPE.CREATEXML( REPLACE(DESCRIPTOR,
                '<!DOCTYPE workflow PUBLIC "-//OpenSymphony Group//DTD OSWorkflow 2.8//EN" "http://www.opensymphony.com/osworkflow/workflow_2_8.dtd">'
        )) AS DESCRIPTOR_XML
    FROM JIRAWORKFLOWS)
SELECT
  WS.NAME      AS WF_SCHEME_NAME,
  WSE.WORKFLOW AS WF_ENTITY_WORKFLOW,
  IT.PNAME     AS ISSUETYPE_NAME,
  XMLQUERY(
      'string-join(distinct-values(//post-functions/function/arg[@name="class.name" and not(starts-with(., "com.atlassian.jira.workflow"))]/text()), ",")'
      PASSING DESCRIPTOR_XML
      RETURNING CONTENT
    ).getStringVal() AS PLUGIN_CLASSNAMES
FROM WORKFLOWSCHEMEENTITY WSE
LEFT JOIN ISSUETYPE IT
ON IT.ID = WSE.ISSUETYPE
LEFT JOIN WORKFLOWSCHEME WS
ON WS.ID = WSE.SCHEME
INNER JOIN W_JIRAWORKFLOWS W ON W.WORKFLOWNAME = WSE.WORKFLOW
WHERE XMLEXISTS('//post-functions[function/arg[@name="class.name" and not(starts-with(., "com.atlassian.jira.workflow"))]]'
      PASSING BY VALUE DESCRIPTOR_XML);

This way you can see, what kind of Workflows you have, that has post-functions bound to plugins.

As you see, it is using Oracle XDB features, so you might need some rework when using another RDBMS. Also, the cutting out of the DTD is neccessary, as by default, XDB does not allow to load XML-s that have external references (here, the DTD has one).

JIRA: List Workflow Schemes, their Workflows, and associated Issue Types

SELECT
  WS.NAME      AS WF_SCHEME_NAME,
  WSE.WORKFLOW AS WF_ENTITY_WORKFLOW,
  IT.PNAME     AS ISSUETYPE_NAME
FROM
  WORKFLOWSCHEMEENTITY WSE
LEFT JOIN ISSUETYPE IT
ON
  IT.ID = WSE.ISSUETYPE
LEFT JOIN WORKFLOWSCHEME WS
ON
  WS.ID = WSE.SCHEME;

JMX connection to a remote HP BSM in VisualVM

1. Add Remote Host... and enter your BSM's hostname (this will be the <bsm host>)
2. Add JMX Connection...
1. To the connection field, enter "<bsm host>:11020" (for BSM, JMX listens on 11020)
2. Use security credentials: enter the same that you use at HP Business Service Management Status.
3. When VisualVM  nags about no SSL, say Yes, if you accept the risks.