Lent

For Lent it is traditional to give up a luxury as a form of penitence.

Adios  ...

• Blogging
• Twitter
• Facebook

That's what ... a week, two?

Forty days?

Aw man: this penitence stuff is hard.

Phone book and newLISP

Work has a web-based phone book but ... it's web-based.  Gotta load up the page, enter the last name, hit 'go' ... all for a four-digit number.

Had a bash script for years; wget, grep-fu and voila. Good problem-space to try out new language on, like newLISP.

Doesn't spit back the actual data, yet, but getting this done up after a man-hour of study-time tickles me.

(print "Last name?")

(set 'lastname (read-line))

(println "Looking for " lastname)

(set 'phone (parse (read-file "/Users/bdunbar/foo/phone/phone.cfm") {\W} 0))

(set 'loc (find lastname phone 0))
(if loc
(println "Found name " (phone loc) " in directory.")
(println "Found nothing. Do you have the right spelling?"))

(println "finished.")


Something I did not know this morning

One can write functions in DOS batch.

Cool: I learned something useful.  DOS batch files are still around, making one better is a worth a few minutes of study time.

Sad: I've been noodling around a DOS prompt since 1989.  That same year I got real intimate and familiar with the best NOS of that era - Banyan Vines.

Banyan Vines and StreetTalk are in the rubbish bin.  Microsoft Friggin' DOS is still around.

Where is the justice, I say.

Agile PLM - BEA-090402 - BEA-000386 - Authentication for user superadmin denied

Encountered a problem with Agile PLM where the database user credentials were invalid, but the error returned referenced the WebLogic Server (WLS) superadmin credentials.

This caused us (me!) to look in the wrong area for troubleshooting for several hours, and needless downtime of a systemthat, while not production, was critical for training efforts for a new process to go live several days later.

Hopefully by putting this data here it might show up in google it will save someone else some grief.

• Agile PLM 9301
• WebLogic Server 10.3
• Solaris 10

Startup uses WLS encrypted boot.properties for the WLS credentials.  While this is not how the system is setup by Agile install binary, changing this around is a) trivial and b) common sense. 

Parking login credentials in a bash script variable is asking for trouble.

I do not believe this has anything to do with the problem.  But certain people (coughOraclecough) were confused on this point.

Symptoms

On startup of WLS Node Manager fails with this error message.

<Critical> <Security> <BEA-090402> <Authentication denied:
Boot identity not valid; The user name and/or password from the boot identity file (boot.properties)
is not valid. The boot identity may have been changed since the boot identity file was created.
Please edit and update the boot identity file with the proper values of username and password.
The first time the updated boot identity file is used to start the server, these new values are encrypted.>

This is, needless to say, alarming.

In an effort to simplify things, do some fault isolation, one might change the startup scripts to restore the WLS superadmin credentials and is rewarded with this error message.


<Critical>
<WebLogicServer> <BEA-000386> <Server subsystem failed. Reason: weblogic.security.SecurityInitializationException:
Authentication for user superadmin denied
weblogic.security.SecurityInitializationException: Authentication for user superadmin denied
        at weblogic.security.service.CommonSecurityServiceManagerDelegateImpl.doBootAuthorization(Unknown Source)
        at weblogic.security.service.CommonSecurityServiceManagerDelegateImpl.initialize(Unknown Source)
        at weblogic.security.service.SecurityServiceManager.initialize(Unknown Source)
        at weblogic.security.SecurityService.start(SecurityService.java:141)
        at weblogic.t3.srvr.SubsystemRequest.run(SubsystemRequest.java:64)
        Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace>

<Error> <WebLogicServer> <BEA-000383> <A critical service failed. The server will shut itself down>

One can even remove the shell variables from the startup script, and will be prompted to manually input the credentials.  Which will fail with the above error message.

The problem was NOT with the WLS superadmin credentials.  I know this because we can look in the database for those.  While they are encrypted, after a while one learns that the encrypted value AE43938383AKKH23566 eq 'tartan' [1].


What Happened

We have different credentials for the Agile database user in our five different environments.

The day prior, we had refreshed our Training environment with a copy of the Production database.  To do this we used the cloning facility provided by NetApp.

The database came up 'ok', but when the application supplied database credentials on startup ... it failed.

Which one could expect.  The passwords are different.

What one doesn't expect is that the error returned does not reference an actual database account, but WLS superadmin credentials, which are still valid: authentication for user superadmin denied.

As soon as the DBA applied the Training environment credentials to the database, I was able to start the Node Manager and Managed Hosts.

Sha-zam!


So What?

Based on my experience, by comments from the Oracle SE, I believe that any Agile PLM version 9.3 [2] database account that is locked out, has invalid credentials, will experience the same problem: that is they will have an error that indicates the WLS superadmin credentials are wrong, when they are not.

This seems to not be common knowledge with the Agile support team at Oracle, or if it is it's not something the support engineer assigned to the case knew about.  And when he closed the case he was real quick to not make a KB out of the problem because it was, he said, specific to the way we implemented Agile PLM.

Which seems wrong but whatever. [3]

If this happens to you, hopefully you will find this document, not have to waste hours and hours of time fixing your problem.


[1] Not the real password.
[2] At least this version.  The way to bet is all versions that use WLS.
[3] Ref.

Making soap from components - costs - reasons why

Travis

I'm interested by your soap ideas.  Can you break this down a bit? How much does "washing soda" cost?  Am I saving 50 cents a week, or $9 ?  How much time does it take to make the mix?  If I can earn $20+/hr, tax-free, by doing these things, I might.  ...but if I'm going to earn $3/hr, and have to story more items under my sink (which is already crammed), then I'm not interested.

Cost
The Store Bought Stuff [1] : $21.99 for 80 loads (.27 cents per load)
Semi-Home Made [2] : $6.67 for 43 loads (.15 cents per load)

Recipe
One Fels-Naptha bar, grated
One cup borax
One cup washing soda

Mix well.  Use 1 tbs per load, double if heavily soiled.

Takes me five minutes for a batch.

One doesn't have to go out of their way to acquire the ingredients.  I found everything at Walmart, in the mop and soap aisle.

Commentary
Spending five minutes every six weeks to make up a new batch to save five dollars.

This is a no-brianer.  It's a few bucks.  Pick up a box of Tide, call it a day.  What are you, some kind of freak?

Yet ... it's half (rounding up) the cost per load.  Half.

Yet ... five minutes of labor every six weeks is nothing.  I spend more time than that blowing my nose, woolgathering, thinking dark thoughts about the government.  Five minutes at the kitchen table is lost in the noise of everyday life. 

Mr. Bluntobject wrote on the same subject

I suspect that the big payoff of making your own dish soap is the making your own part, giving the finger to the world of prepackaged overpriced convenience. Which, now that I spell it out, is pretty persuasive.

Yeah!

In the end, this is why I make my own washing-machine soap:

• Being thrifty is it's own reward. 
• Pennies make dollars. 
• Proverbs 6:6-8.

[1] All prices from Amazon, 2012-02-11
Tide Ultra High Efficiency Original Scent Powder
80 Loads
$21.99

Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
55 oz.
$9.175

Fels-Naptha Laundry Bar
5.5 oz.
$3.99

Twenty Mule Borax
76 oz.
 $12.92

[2] Really, I'm not eschewing modern prepackaged convenience in favor of brewing my own soap from atomic components.  I'm just making my own from the same ingredients that P&G does. Got no time to mine borax.

I don't understand this

One can make washing machine soap: Borax, washing soda, Fels-Naptha bar.

One can make dish-washer soap: Borax, washing soda, sea salt, unsweetened lemonade flavor Kool-Aid.

One can buy a bread machine for $75 bucks - and then make loaves of bread @ .16 cents per.

So why the heck do people continue to buy washing machine soap, dish-washer soap, and bread at the grocery?

Poodle - it's what's for dinner

Him: There's an eagle outside! In the tree!

You mean a hawk?

Him (eye roll): I know what an eagle looks like. White head, orange beak. In. Our. Tree.  I need the binoculars.  (exit)

He's twelve. Knows his birds o' prey.

Sat there looking huge and national symbolish for a while.

Flapped away at a sedate mosey, when, I guess, it was clear none of the smaller dogs would be outside for dinner.