Month: April 2007

Update
Tonight I updatd the blog to WordPress version 2.1.3, as simple as usual (backup all files, remove a number of PHP files, roillout the zip-file (in the generic location) and run the upgrade script – once for each of the blogs), and the specific include file that I had to edit in the begining (classes.PHP) has been disabled by now – the code now runs out-of-the-box.
The theme that I use now isnt fully compatible, it seems: the image of the OpenVMS Forum expanded well into the textual area so I removed the link to the image. But for the rest, it looks good.
Reason for this update: I want to create a blog on this year’s bootcamp, either within SYSMGR or separately. I found a nice theme that I can use – after some adaptations. I’m still working on that. It may become the major entrypoint of the web as well – this is under investigation. But there is one problem: it requires a plugin that causes tremendous problems: It causes any admin function to fail – even when not enabled – by exhausting over 8 Mb of memory….(that is: 800.000 in hex). And I found it may require PHP 4.3 – at least. So wheter it cab ne used remains to be seen.
Webserver issues?
It looks as if the webserver has some problems – it seems to be stalled sometimes, even static pages won’t show up. I restarted the server yesterday, since there has been very heavy traffic for a few minutes, causing a lot of pagefaults and leaving the pagefile full for about 70% – where it was less than 50. It did make some difference, but I guess I’ll need to do more. But a full stop of the system is out of the question, unless as a last resort.

Minor Soymail problem
Last Friday, Soymail crashed on accessing one particilar message:
%HTTPD-W-NOTICED, 19-APR-2007 06:29:11, CGI:1969, not a strict CGI
response
-NOTICED-I-SERVICE, https://xxxxxxxxxx
-NOTICED-I-CLIENT, aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
-NOTICED-I-URI, POST (18 bytes) /cgi-bin/soymail/~
-NOTICED-I-SCRIPT, /cgi-bin/soymail CGI-BIN:[000000]SOYMAIL ()
CGI-BIN:[000000]SOYMAIL.EXE
-NOTICED-I-CGI, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (118 bytes)
%SYSTEM-F-ACCVIO, access violation, reason mask=00,
virtual address=0000000000000000, PC=00000000000994E8, PS=0000001B
-NOTICED-I-RXTX, err:0/0 raw:3350/0 net:493/0
but other messages were fine. I created WATCH file of both and send them to Mark Daniel, he requested a debug output from SOYMAIL (just setup one SYSTEM logical and it’s done! – don’t forget to deassign it afterwards – and he came up withj the reason: the header contains a LF character where the standard doesn’t allow one, he made a patch and set it. This solved the problem. It’s preliminary so I should consider it Beta. But it works now so I leave it on the system. The new version will soon be released anyway.

For the rest – nothing in particular. Just that I’ve been looking into WP version 2.1.3 – still have to see if this theme is all right. I had a look to another one, but that is to be changed somewhat – I’m missing parts I want to have. But in general, it looks good.
Fot the bootcamp blog, I will use WordPress, I think. PHPBB2 is actually overdone, and Phorum (that has a BLOG facility) cannot be used for now due to the PHP version.
Minor WordPress problem
Browsing older entries I noticed that some had the worng date as their title. I tried to change that by editing the message in WordPress but for some reason, thgis failed and changed were not applied:
%HTTPD-W-NOTICED, 22-APR-2007 23:03:19, CGI:1969, not a strict CGI response
-NOTICED-I-SERVICE, http://www.grootersnet.nl:80
-NOTICED-I-CLIENT, 192.168.0.33
-NOTICED-I-URI, POST (26 bytes) /sysblog/wp-admin/post.php
-NOTICED-I-SCRIPT, /sysblog/wp-admin/post.php sysblog:[wp-admin]post.php (cgi_exe:phpwasd.exe) SYSBLOG:[wp-admin]post.php
-NOTICED-I-CGI, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (129 bytes) %SYSTEM-F-HPARITH, high performance arithmetic trap, Imask=00000000, Fmask=00000002, summary=02, PC=00000000001E9C94, PS=0000001B
-NOTICED-I-RXTX, err:0/0 raw:1986/0 net:962/0
so I had te use MyPhpAdmin to make the chnages directly in the database. It may speed up installation of 2.1.3….

PHP trouble
Looking into Operator.log, I noticed a number of messages like:
%%%%%%%%%%% OPCOM 16-APR-2007 01:15:59.12 %%%%%%%%%%%
Message from user HTTP$SERVER on DIANA
Process HTTPd:80 reports
%HTTPD-W-NOTICED, CGI:1969, not a strict CGI response
Looking into the webserver log, it’s quite obvious. Since 13-Apr02007, it happens again and again, sevarl times in a row:
%HTTPD-W-NOTICED, 13-APR-2007 03:06:37, CGI:1969, not a strict CGI response
-NOTICED-I-SERVICE, http://www.grootersnet.nl:80
-NOTICED-I-CLIENT, 87.118.112.246
-NOTICED-I-URI, GET (22 bytes) /sysblog/index.php?p=4
-NOTICED-I-SCRIPT, /sysblog/index.php sysblog:[000000]index.php (cgi_exe:phpwasd.exe) SYSBLOG:[000000]index.php
-NOTICED-I-CGI, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (62 bytes) %DEBUGBOOT-W-CHN, assign channel system service request failed
-NOTICED-I-RXTX, err:0/0 raw:319/0 net:319/0
and mostly from this address – and one or two others. Not just on the weblog, the very same occurred on the forum index page.
In the access log, it shows up as well – inside a whole bunch of accesses to the blog:
87.118.112.246 - - [13/Apr/2007:03:06:30 +0100] "GET /sysblog/index.php?m=200701 HTTP/1.0" 200 16701
87.118.112.246 - - [13/Apr/2007:03:06:37 +0100] "GET /sysblog/index.php?p=4 HTTP/1.0" 502 881
87.118.112.246 - - [13/Apr/2007:03:06:39 +0100] "GET /sysblog/index.php?m=20070104 HTTP/1.0" 200 11351
Accoring to the access log, the whole blog has been extracted:
87.118.112.246 - - [13/Apr/2007:03:03:25 +0100] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 3475
87.118.112.246 - - [13/Apr/2007:03:03:28 +0100] "GET /forums/index.php HTTP/1.0" 200 22584
...
87.118.112.246 - - [13/Apr/2007:03:46:06 +0100] "GET /sysblog/index.php?page_id=2 HTTP/1.0" 200 9767
87.118.112.246 - - [13/Apr/2007:03:46:11 +0100] "GET /sysblog HTTP/1.0" 404 868
and as far I could quickly scan the logfile, it’s every entry, but each is valid.
On 14-Apr-2007, there was another wave of access – from the same address:
87.118.112.246 - - [14/Apr/2007:21:35:46 +0100] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 3475
87.118.112.246 - - [14/Apr/2007:21:35:48 +0100] "GET /forums/index.php HTTP/1.0" 200 22584
87.118.112.246 - - [14/Apr/2007:21:35:53 +0100] "GET /sysblog/index.php HTTP/1.0" 200 14884
...
87.118.112.246 - - [14/Apr/2007:21:44:29 +0100] "GET /sysblog HTTP/1.0" 404 868
87.118.112.246 - - [14/Apr/2007:21:44:29 +0100] "GET /sysblog/index.php?feed=rss2&p=36 HTTP/1.0" 200 793
Just getting the feeds, perhaps?
The address doesn’t translate to a domain, it seems, but I could get at least some hint. It appears to be German:
$ dig -x 87.118.112.246

; < <>> DiG 9.3.1 < <>> -x 87.118.112.246
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER< <- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 35963 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;246.112.118.87.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR ;; ANSWER SECTION: 246.112.118.87.in-addr.arpa. 71593 IN PTR ns.km30229.keymachine.de. ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: 112.118.87.in-addr.arpa. 28648 IN NS ns.keyweb.de. 112.118.87.in-addr.arpa. 28648 IN NS ns2.keyweb.de. ;; ADDITIONAL SECTION: ns.keyweb.de. 83446 IN A 62.141.60.15 ns2.keyweb.de. 83446 IN A 62.141.49.15 ;; Query time: 706 msec ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#53(127.0.0.1) ;; WHEN: Tue Apr 17 18:28:13 2007 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 157

At least, I have one more question to be answered at the bootcamp!
Bootcamp blog
Speaking about the OpenVMS bootcamp: such a blog is something I consider to set up. I may use Phorum, if that works with the currently installed MySQL version, which I doubt since the relase notes tell me I need at least 4.3 and I’m running 4.1 on VMS. Otherwise, I may create another PHPBB2 forum for it, either new or an expamnsion of the Dutch forums, or I could take the opportunity to get it running using WordPress 2.1.
There too little time to develop a full-featured real-VMS application to do the job ;).