Git pulls were taking forever on my new VirtualBox running Ubuntu.  I'm doing git over ssh and it turns out if you edit the /etc/ssh/ssh_config file( save a copy first ) and change GSSAPIAuthentication to no that speeds it right up.

Originally saw this here

Performing a screen capture on a linux box remotely

I was having a tough time running some functional tests against Firefox using Xvfb on our Jenkins machine here at work. I couldn't figure out why the tests were dying.  I looked up how to do a screen capture and went to some page that suggested an xvd command well we didn't have that installed on our box but we did have ImageMagick.  Turns out you can run an import command to take captures for you and save them to a file.  Then you can scp them off the machine.

The simple command is:

import -window root screenshot.png

Here's more info if you need it.

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/import.php

Grails 2 sample tomcat security policy file

We've been working on a new project at work.  Using Grails after an exhaustive search for a new platform.  And it was my duty to lock it up with a security policy file. It took some doing.  I ended up using VirtualBox to install Ubuntu on my Win7 box to simulate our deployment environment better.  It took some doing but in the end it was best to start with the default catalina.policy file and add to it. So we created our own security.policy file and started with the defaults then we added below and now it works!  Took forever.  Hope this helps someone.


grant codeBase "file:${example.webapp.root}/WEB-INF/-" {
 permission java.io.FilePermission "${example.webapp.root}${/}-", "read";
 permission java.io.FilePermission "${/}WEB-INF${/}-", "read";
 permission java.io.FilePermission "${example.java.home}${/}..${/}-", "read";
 permission java.io.FilePermission "${example.catalina.home}${/}log${/}-", "read,write,delete";
 permission java.io.FilePermission "velocity.log", "read,write,delete";
 permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "modifyThread";
 permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "accessDeclaredMembers";
 permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "setContextClassLoader";
 permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "accessClassInPackage.*";
 permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "reflectionFactoryAccess";
 
 permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read";
};




grant codeBase "file:${file.separator}groovy${file.separator}script" {
        // grails 1.1 + jdk 1.6.0_13
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "defineClassInPackage.java.io";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "defineClassInPackage.java.lang";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "defineClassInPackage.java.net";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "defineClassInPackage.java.util";
    permission java.lang.reflect.ReflectPermission "suppressAccessChecks";
    permission java.util.PropertyPermission "grails.env", "read";


};


grant {
        // basic grails stuff incl. groovy magic
    permission groovy.security.GroovyCodeSourcePermission "${file.separator}groovy${file.separator}script";
    permission java.io.FilePermission "file:${example.webapp.root}${file.separator}WEB-INF${file.separator}grails-app${file.separator}-", "read";
    permission java.io.FilePermission "${file.separator}groovy${file.separator}script", "read";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "accessClassInPackage.*";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "accessDeclaredMembers.*";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "createClassLoader";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "defineClassInPackage.*";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "getClassLoader";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "getProtectionDomain";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "setContextClassLoader";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "shutdownHooks";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "stopThread";
    permission java.lang.reflect.ReflectPermission "suppressAccessChecks";
    permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read,write";
    permission java.util.PropertyPermission "ANTLR_DO_NOT_EXIT", "read";
    permission java.util.PropertyPermission "ANTLR_USE_DIRECT_CLASS_LOADING", "read";
    permission java.util.PropertyPermission "groovyjarjarantlr.ast", "read";
    permission java.util.PropertyPermission "groovy.ast", "read";
    permission java.util.PropertyPermission "org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory.HashtableImpl", "read";
    // grails 1.1
    permission java.io.FilePermission "file:${example.webapp.root}${file.separator}WEB-INF${file.separator}grails-app${file.separator}*", "read";
    permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "setIO";


    // grails 1.1: various jars incl ant use ${file.separator}bin${file.separator}env
    permission java.io.FilePermission "${file.separator}bin${file.separator}env", "read,execute";
};




grant {
 permission java.net.SocketPermission "*", "accept,connect,resolve,listen";
 permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read";
 permission javax.management.MBeanPermission "*", "registerMBean";
 permission javax.management.MBeanPermission "*", "invoke";
 permission javax.management.MBeanPermission "*", "getAttribute";
 permission javax.management.MBeanPermission "*", "queryMBeans";
 permission javax.management.MBeanPermission "*", "queryMBeans";
 permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "accessDeclaredMembers", "";
 permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "getenv.*", "";
};

Sharing engineering resources with oversight

Our team recently loaned out engineers to another team in need. Apparently the other team is burried in work. In order to make sure their time was used efficiently we also attached a Lead to the loan. The lead was able to shoot down a few ideas that were over designed and not making good use of public libraries already available.

Thought it was a great idea adding the lead

Unit tests getting an NPE on build.properties in Eclipse

Make sure you have run a build all in eclipse. Project -> Build All. Also make sure you have changed your build path and removed the "exlude *.*" from all the sections of the Source tab

Getting Pidgin to work w/Google Talk for your own domain

What a pain in the arse. I use gmail to host my own domain and getting Pidgin to work with it took a little extra effort.

Click Accounts -> Manage Accounts -> Add

Protocol: XMPP
Username: <username>
Domain: <your-domain>
Resource: Home
Password: <password>

Click Advanced Tab.
Check Force old(port 5223)SSL
Connect port: 443
Connect server: talk.google.com

Html Checkboxes

I always have trouble passing checkboxes to the server and I always forget how to do it again later. For this example we have a check boxe for the field Master . We are calling setters on the server in a Criteria object.

-In the Criteria Object

void setMaster( Boolean master ) {
this.master = master;
}
Boolean getMaster() {
return this.master;
}

-In the velocity page

<input type="checkbox" name="criteria.master" value="true">

This ensures we send true when the checkbox is checked, instead of the default "on"
If the checkbox is not checked we send nothing to the server Criteria object.

Concat/append json

This was a tough nut to crack. I scoured the internet for about an hour. This solution owes a thanks to Nikhil Dvivedi. The Javascript master.

var langObj = {
 a : one,
 b: two
}

var langObj2 = {
 c:three,
 d:four
}

for( var key in langObj2 ) {
 langObj[ key ] = langObj2[ key ];
}

langObj2 will be:
{
 a:one,
 b:two,
 c:three,
 d:four
}

If you want to get see the unicode codes of a regular varchar2 field on select in your oracle database you need to do this.

select ASCIISTR(name) from entity_table

this will display codes like this:

\30AF\30E9\30C3\30B7\30E5\30FB\30D0\30F3\30C7\30A3\30AF\30FC

instead of this:

クラッシュ・バンディクー ( actually it's a row of blocks in the oracle client )