Posted on

27-Jun-2010

More on 8.4 + WASD 10 + PHP
I installed the latest version of WASD (10.1) and PHP (5.2.13, as supplied by Mark Berryman) but still it didn’t work – got the same errors as before. After some fiddling around with files (I should have read the README file first 🙂 ) the PHP_INFO script did finally produce output, but notr entirely as I expected: for instance, no additional modules are shown. But at least, the error is now gone.
Using PHP interactively however, does produce the well known error:

$ php CGI_BIN:PHP_INFO.PHP
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/php_root/extensions/php_mysqli.exe' - %LIB-E-ACTIMAGE, error activating image $1$DKA0:[SYS0.SYSCOMMON.][SYSLIB]SSL$LIBCRYPTO_SHR32.EXE
-SYSTEM-F-SHRIDMISMAT, ident mismatch with shareable image in Unknown on line 0

but continues – and lists all modules that I enabled…

Perhaps it’s just a mismatch in logical names when running interactively, and when by the server, and if so: what caused it?

Question put into the WASD mailing list.

Posted on

23-Jan-2010

New kids on the block
I got my niece’s old ACER laptop, it has a non-working TFT screen and a CD drive that isn’t reckognized by Windows (it seems) but otherwise running fine. That one (nicknamed “Melvin” – after her cat) will be used in testing OpenVMS 8.4 when running PersonalAlpha (and do nothing else).
PersonalAlpha on my company laptop fails to connect over the Loopback interface, but I think that’s due to the fact that I had to disable some interfaces for the VPN connection …

Speaking of PA: It isn’t the only free Alpha-emulator any more. Camiel Ver der Hoeven started working on a ES40 emulator a few years ago, and Bruce Claremont of Migration Specialties joined in to complete the CPU emulation. There will be a commercial version some time this year, but the free version is available in BETA test; the first versions were Windows 64 only, but since last week, a 32-bit version is added.
This has now been installed on my normal workstation – to test it, and to add into the 8.4 fieldtest as well. I started installing it:
It got as far as obtaining the initialisation data for the system disk, but than run into a runtime error… Well, it’s still beta, it’s allowed in that phase :). Ok, contact Bruce and retry.

Next week, I;’ll spend some time in setting up the Cluster-over-IP environment. The links have been set up.

Posted on

01-Nov-2009

Mail statistics
PMAS statistics for Oct
Total messages    : 2985 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted   : 1897 =  63.5 o/o (Files: 31)
Relay attempts    :   90 =   3.0 o/o (Files: 31)
Processed by PMAS :  998 =  33.4 o/o (Files: 31)
        Discarded :  206 =  20.6 o/o (processed),   6.9 o/o (all)
     Quarantained :  208 =  20.8 o/o (processed),   6.9 o/o (all)
        Delivered :  584 =  58.5 o/o (processed),  19.5 o/o (all)

Compared the numbers with those of half a year ago (4-May-2009) the numbers tell a story: the total amount of messages has dropped by 2000 – almost half; the percentages are fairly equal – except for the percentage of DNS-blacklisted messages that is significant lower. But since the number of accepted messages is more or less the same as before, the percentage has doubled.

I’m not sure what caused this trend, there can be many reasons: blockage of spamming domains and open relayes, less infected systems connected (some Dutch ISV’s do).

PHP et al
No news on this front, just that WP 2.8.5 has been released, plus that I don’t think my troubles are over with that version. I tend to forget about PHP alltogether. There are more issues than I want to handle. So….

Blogging program
I started the development of this program. It will be a daemon that can handle multiple blogs concurrently, so that means a one-time reading of the configuration and keep it in memory, and it gives me the ability to cache files (index pages come to mind, rebuilding the indexes is only needed when a page is added or removed).

But since I’m not yet familiar with C, it will take some time…

Posted on

12-Oct-2009

Backlog
After a week’s holiday, it’s time to get rid of the backlog of content creation, patches and testing of new software: PHP 5.3 (looking good), PhPMyAdmin 2.10 and WP 2.8.4 (both looking dim). PHP itself seems to have no, or little problems, so it’s quite likely it will be installed into production soon, it seems to work well with WP 2.6.5, but WP 2.8.4 still has it’s redirection issues causing a loop that prevents a main page to appear, signaled by Firefox, and causing IE to time-out. The WP forums have not been of any help here, it may be required to adjust the code. Or abandon WP altogether and finally write my own program….
Furthermore, there is quite some work to be done on the content side. I still have a number of trips, tracks and travels to prepare and publish the results; I did two last night: one just the maps because it cannot be followed, and a walk we did in June; and I repaired one that bore mistakes. But a few big ones await processing. All to be published with the newest version on JAlbum; I’ve seen another nice tool the other day, but I cannot remember what it was, but it looked really nice. I’ll have to ask around again….
And of course, there are some updates to be done on the VMS side (on Windows and Linux, it’s easier, because there are a LOT of them), and I’ll have to setup the new VMS workstation a s well. The Console software could not be downloaded before the holiday because the server was being maintained (and hence inaccessible). But using FTP it was not a real problem – it’s possible that the link is broken. I now have the file available – something to be kept in a safe place!

Posted on

07-Feb-2009

Software offline….

I just learned by this article that the vast OpenVMS archives have been taken offline.

Who’s looking for the freeware CD contents can reach them from this site. As for the rest: I have no idea of the size of the whole archive, but I found I’ve just found out I have a pair of 36 GB disks available. If the archives fit on these, I’ll be happy to (co-)host them.

OpenVMS Technical Journal Volume 12

is just out. It can be read online, and downloaded as a single volume or by article, from the OTJ site