dce-users — List for discussion of using & developing the dce environment.

[Dce-users] dce/rpc - OSF/1 (BSD-like) codebase already exists

[Luke K. C. L. <lk...@sa...>]

hi there guys,

my name's luke, i worked on samba TNG for four years,
developing a DCE/RPC environment from scratch and
hard-coding sufficient services to produce Windows
NT Primary Domain Controller etc. interoperability.

one hundred thousand lines later, i still get
twinges four years on and i would not recommend
to anyone to do a dce/rpc rewrite unless they are
certifiable.

the dce 1.1 codebase has made it out into the
open source world already, known as freedce, and it
is under an OSF/1 (BSD-line) OSI approved license.

if you are interested in helping with this, i can
offer cvs, ftp and web services and access: please
join up on http://dcerpc.net.

i'm trying to collect as many dce/rpc developers
and interest as possible into one, focussed
place, and you guys fit the bill :)

if you'd like to jump-start your goals from design
stage instantly to finished product, sign up for
an account on dcerpc.net, put in an ssh public
key into your profile on there and let me know how
you'd like to help.

there's a lot more work still to do!

all best,

luke.

[Dce-users] Weekly Update

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

Here is the status of things as they stand:

Master:
- authenticate is setup minus the code for using the authentication
server. After looking at the CORBA Security Service that is in ACE+TAO I
asked the developers of it about Level 2 service (uses Kerberos). They
said that it should be in there by the end of this year. So in the
meantime I suspect that for the user authentication we will use Kerberos
directly via GSSAPI. Communication between nodes will be done using the
CORBA Security Service when it uses Kerberos.

- sendJob is setup but needs a good review. Thinking about using a
hash-map to keep track of the Overseer threads in the Thread Manager. Also
thinking about how to generate a unique indentifier for the transaction.

- slaveFree is setup using a structure for returning the job information
back to the slave that called it.

- getStatus and getLog do nothing at this time. The Log Server is still in
limbo.


Personal note: I am going to be hard to reach this next week and a half. I
may be online but not sure. My graduation ceremony is on Friday. My
parents come tomorrow. So I will be back on regular emails on the 21st.

Curious final note. Looking for a job where I could do this project for a
living. Ideas?

Stephen

[Dce-users] Using Object factories

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

I am trying to understand the use of CORBA Object Factories. I am looking
at how the Master server will use this. In the past I have not used object
factories. For the master I just created one copy of the Master. Typically
this was done by:

Master_Impl* mstr_impl = new Master_Impl();

This one instance completed the task. This was ofcourse in a single job
environment. Now I am trying to understand how to build the new Master
server in an environment which has more than one job going on at a time.

Check the CVS code later today for the update of the Master server code.

Stephen

[Dce-users] Weekly Update.

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

Okay. New code is uploaded into the CVS server. I have added prospective
header files of how the classes could be done. I am not sure about the
modules header files. I looked at the linux kernel for ideas on how to do
loadable modules.

There is new cpp files. The master directory are just blank functions of
those declared in the header files. The directory for slave and
slave_service are files from the old project. Do not feel compelled to use
them. I only included them as guidelines.

Wenbo is taking on the authentication server and related questions. For
now I am just working on the class structures.

Frank, three things:
1. Can you look at the modules header files? I am not sure how to do
that yet. How could I use the Facade process pattern for user creation of
modules?

2. In regards to your idea of using the Facade process pattern I
believe that the CORBA idl file is a good idea for limiting user
interaction with the system. This is an assumption ofcourse that they do
not make calls against any of the servers. Is there a way in which we can
limit calls for example to the Slave_Service are only made from the
Master?


General note: I receive my results from my degree on Wednesday.

GROUP QUESTION: Does anyone know of a venture capitalist that would
financially back this project? Curious.

Stephen

[Dce-users] Another note

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

Sorry if the pictures seem a bit silly by themselves. The documentation
page on the web site contains the explanation about them. I am working
with Sourceforge to get the images linked into the documentation. At
present the images cannot be linked due to a security feature which
prevents items from unsecure pages of being use in a secure page. This
means images silly enough.

[Dce-users] First documentation up.

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

You will see, minus diagrams unforunately, the requirements specification
and three use cases on the dce documentation page on sourceforge. I am
working with sourceforge to get the images up. In the mean time I have
attached with as a tarball.

Bill can you begin to help me look at the architecture we might use for
this? I believe that the past structure may work once we separate the
slave service from the master. Frank is suggesting to look at the Facade
process pattern for making an easy to use interface for developers
writting their own modules.

Ashish how you are you CORBA? Do you think you can start researching
the thread capability of the ACE+TAO library? We need to port the
threading that I am using now JTC (Java like threads for c++) to ACE+TAO.

Frank, when you get time review the level of documentation that we have so
far. Don't want to just code and be another piece of carnage or risk
analysis paralysis.

I am going to complete the remaining documentation with bill and frank
plus anything I I see getting missed. Generally I am the clean up crew.

Stephen

[Dce-users] Weekly update

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

This is just a note to keep everyone up to date. I am working with Frank,
our project mentor, on getting the design documented. So right now I am
reading a book on Use Case Maps. Its an interesting read. Has anyone,
besides Frank, ever work with Use Case Maps?

Has anyone attempted to compile the project as it exists right now? Just
curious. Attached you will find the latest process flows that Frank wanted
me to do to determine what the system would do and define any boundaries.
I have done the first part but I have to work on defining the boundaries
of the system. What are people's opinions? Questions?

If it will be helpful I can put the contents of this email on the project
web page.

Stephen

[Dce-users] CVS -- ARGGGGG!

[bill c. <bi...@th...>]

Hi everyone

Ok ... more CVS newbie questions. (sorry guys -- guess I've gotten to used to 
point and click source control)

I think I got the commands down --
I can use cvs -d :ext:<username>@cvs.dce.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dce update
and it seems to pull down the latest code 
but if I do cvs -d :ext:<username>@cvs.dce.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dce 
checkout dce I get the error
could not chdir to home directory /home/users/x/xx/username and then the 
server aborts

Any ideas??

Thanks

Bill Cunning

PS: I'm sure I will have more questions, bear with me, I WILL get up to speed 
on this build process!

[Dce-users] Re: Other thoughts for areas of consideration

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

On Wed, 30 May 2001, Frank V. Castellucci wrote:

> Stephen,
>
> I went through your paper (but not with a critical eye as I am tired
> tonight) and a couple of things immediatley jumped out at me:
>
> 1. This is familiar in it's analogy to workload balancing concepts
> 2. This is familiar to work distribution systems (e.g. SETI)

Yes. The initial idea came from distributed.net. I looked at how they took
a large block of work and broke it into individual pieces that people
could work on.

> 3. A difficulty to overcome (hence an opportunity <grin>) is in knowing
> what granularity you can define as a work unit. Is it a source module?
> How do you resolve reference dependencies?

At present the system considers a work unit as an individual file to be
compiled. For example a slave might get the file called "main.c" and
compile that per the command given. If for example the slave get the
command for linking an object file (main.o) and main.o does not exist it
fails. There was no time in developing it to deal with this. I am sure its
a simple solution (grin) but will look it over.

> 4. Is this limited to GCC technology?

No. All commands that are sent are strings so anything could be written
in the string. I though of the following areas with a friend:

- Compiling (has been tried he said but his friend said they failed)
	- At present I only tried to compile C & C++ programs that
	  typically run on Linux. I am sure that if the compiler
	  logic or use of a cross-compiler other languages could be
	  dealt with by the system.
- Rendering (3D Movies, 3D graphics, etc.)
- Genetics (Protein folding)
- Cryptography (Distributed.net)

Anything that typically takes a long time and broken into bits was what I
was looking at here. Compiling was a "proof of concept".

> In other words, again with Facade
> in mind, can each of the "compiler" logical components be interchanged
> so that the front end token and parse can be language specific but the
> emitter and optimizing phases be input language independent?

I do not know. Personally I have never dealt with the actual compiler
internals. Sounds interesting. Could give me an example.

> Neat application of some of the familiar/similar concepts by the way.

Thanks. It encouraging to hear this. So far people have felt that either
it was not useful (a few) but others said is sounds great but not sure
where to use it. Where to use it is what I hope to answer.

Stephen

[Dce-users] Re: Checkup

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

On Wed, 30 May 2001, bill cunning wrote:

> Hi Stephen
>
> Two questions (one may just be a newbie type of question -- sorry)
> 1)Which CORBA environment are you planning on using? I have installed
> ORBacus (and discovered I am going to need more disk space :> ) but I seem
> to remember mention of a different one on your website, but could find no
> mention of it on your new site.

The one that I am thinking about is ACE+TAO at http://ace.cs.wustl.edu.
The link is correct I believe. Typically ACE+TAO with everything compiled
takes up 1.7 GB (rather large space). At present they are working on get
ACE to use autoconf therefore configure. This will make it easier to
build, install and remove the source therefore saving space. That project
is in the works. TAO for my knowledge is not ready for autoconf.

> 2- probably a dumb newbie question) I can't build the code :<  I am coming up
> to speed on CVS, but I just downloaded your dce-0.2.4 tar file and extracted
> that. It seems to be missing the make.in file, or I am just missing something
> stupid (more than possible) - I am new to the CVS-shared projects type thing
> and I envision a steep learning curve here for a bit on the mechanics of how
> it all "fits"

I removed all make.in files. Check the README on what software is
required. A typical build is:

	aclocal
	autoheader
	automake
	autoconf
	./configure (read ./configure --help for more options).
	make

Double check me on this. If this works then we are fine. If not I need to
put up the correct source.

For using CVS from sourcforge you need to:

	1. Set the global variable: CVS_RSH = ssh.
		(you will need ssh version 1 but 2 will work also)
	2. Set the global variable: CVSROOT to

CVSROOT=:ext:<your_sourceforge_name>.cvs.dce.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/dce

		(you are set as a developer so you should have access
		 this way. You can just do it anonymous by following
		 the instructions of the sourceforge project page for
		 dce. But since you are a developer this method gives
		 you write access. I am new to as well but we will
		 have to setup a system in regards to cvs commits.
		 I may just have the system where only I can write
		 but everyone can submit patches. I am not sure yet.)

	3. use the command "cvs checkout dce" will grab cvs

	4. use the command "cvs udpate" from dce directory that you
	   got earlier to make changes.

> On another note -- I have checked out CORBA in general and your code
> specifically and it all makes sense. Except for the "broker" in the middle
> CORBA is fairly close to com/dcom (if you consider the OS in dcom the broker,
> they are more or less the same) in syntax and usage so I don't envision to
> much trouble coming up to speed with that.

Thanks. I am working with Frank (check the project page for developers).
He is our mentor for this project. We are working out how we are going to
develop the system in general. Once that is done we can structure the
CORBA around it.

> I look forward to contributing usefull ideas and work to this project, and I
> think we can develop something cool as well as usefull.

Great. Please use the mailing for making posts. I want everyone to know
what is happening and have the ability to participate in the
conversations.

> Bill Cunning
>
> PS: Had a great holiday weekend, hope you did as well

I had to study for an exam on Monday. My last exam. Yeah! Hurrah! So now I
am an unemployed university graduate.

Stephen

[Dce-users] New project web page

[Stephen T. <s....@la...>]

I have posted a new project web page stated what we are trying to
accomplish. Let me know if you can think of anything else we need to say.

Hope everyone had a good memorial day weekend.

Stephen