Failed to run operation 'ProvisionApplications'.
Failed to run method 'Microsoft.Web.Farm.SyncApplicationsRemoteMethod' on server 'xx.xx.xx.xx'.
Exception in response stream. An error was encountered when processing operation 'Delete File' on 'APCE41E.tmp'.
The error code was 0x80070020.
The process cannot access 'C:\inetpub\temp\appPools\APCE41E.tmp' because it is being used by another process.
Exception in response stream. An error was encountered when processing operation 'Delete File' on 'APCE41E.tmp'.
The error code was 0x80070020.
The process cannot access 'C:\inetpub\temp\appPools\APCE41E.tmp' because it is being used by another process.

This can be resolved by ignoring the appPool temp files from the sync. To do edit the the ignore list in c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\conf\applicationHost.config on the web farm controller so that the web farm includes the following skip directives.

<webFarm>
  <applicationProvision offlineWhileSync="true" syncWebServerFromPrimary="true" periodicSync="00:00:30">
    <clear />
    <skipDirectives>
      <skip name="appPools" skipDirective="objectName=dirPath,absolutePath=.*appPools.*" />
      <skip name="logFiles" skipDirective="objectName=dirPath,absolutePath=.*LogFiles.*" />
    </skipDirectives>
  </applicationProvision>
</webFarm>

Within IIS you can backup everything to a server package by opening the context menu selecting depoy, then “Export Server Package”. This will create the server package containing the IIS configuration along with all the sites and their files. This is all good however it is still a manual process that is likely to be forgotten about after a while. Likely there are a series of libraries we can use to automate this process.

The namespace Microsoft.Web.Deployment provide the functionality we need to backup IIS, this is provided by Microsoft.Web.Deployment.dll. To backup the server we need to use the DeploymentManager to create an object use to create the package, we can then use this to “sync” the server setting to a package.

After we have backed up the site package we need to upload it to Amazon S3. To do this we can use the AWSSDK .NET library. The library can be installed via NuGet by searching for “AWS SDK”. This will install the required assemblies.

We can use the AWS SDK to upload our server package zip to S3 using the TransferUtilityUploadRequest to create our request to use with the TransferUtility to upload our file.

When this is all tied together we have an app that will backup and upload the server package to S3.

I have attached a sample app that can be configured using the App.config

Download yeticode-utility.zip

/// <summary>
/// User Online Action Filter Attribute
/// </summary>
public class UserOnlineActionFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Called by the ASP.NET MVC framework after the action method executes.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="filterContext">The filter context.</param>
    public override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext)
    {
        try
        {
            if (filterContext.HttpContext != null && filterContext.HttpContext.User != null && filterContext.HttpContext.User.Identity != null)
            {
                Membership.Provider.GetUser(filterContext.HttpContext.User.Identity.Name, true);
            }
        }
        catch
        {
            // BAD: Swallow the exception to prevent it messing with the users action
        }

        base.OnActionExecuted(filterContext);
    }
}

Add the action filter to the global list inside the global.asax Application_Start.

GlobalFilters.Filters.Add(new UserOnlineActionFilterAttribute());

http://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2011/02/02/is-gnome-3-going-to-melt-your-laptop/

http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/on-laptop-lids-and-power-settings/

http://live.gnome.org/Design/SystemSettings/Power

However all the discussion did not cover my use case, which occurs on a daily basis:

1. Play audio book.
2. Run command to shutdown laptop after half an hour.
3. close laptop lid turn off lights and go to sleep.

You can resolve this using the solution, provided by timlau, to use gsetting to manually set the power setting (He post links to a script to automatically set this using a zenity dialog).

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-ac-action “blank”
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power lid-close-battery-action “blank”

End Rant.

The web platform installer was used to install the Web Farm Framework 2.0 onto the load balancer. The guide “Setting up a Server Farm with the Web Farm Framework 2.0 for IIS 7” provides an easy walk through for getting your web farm setup. However once it has been setup there are a number of steps that still had to be configured to ensure the web farm worked correctly.

Before completing the following steps I ran into a an issue where the server would appear available for load balancing in the “Servers” view, but would be unavailable in the “Monitoring and Management” view. To resolve try the following steps.

1. Health Test Url

Make sure that the health test url has been set. The application request routing uses this to test whether a server should be used for load balancing.

2. Default App Pool Settings

Edit the advanced settings of the DefaultAppPool on the controlling server and set the recyling value for “Regular Time Interval (minutes)” to zero.

3. Set Primary and Secondary Servers to Response to Ping

Update the firewall settings on the Primary and Secondary servers to respond to ping.

These are thing steps that I followed to get it to work correctly, they might vary for you depending on your setup.

Related Reading

401 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials.

After searching around for a solution to why this was not displaying the correct page, even if it was redirecting to the login page I decided to try to set the error displaying to return more information. After adding <httpErrors errorMode=”Details” /> to try and get a detail output from IIS the page started to work as expected.

With this option enabled the login page was now correctly displayed. This can be set without having to edit the web.config on IIS7 by editing the “Error Pages” features settings for your site in IIS. Set the Error Response to “Detailed errors”

Related Reading

After laying out my foot towel in the perfect foot drying position and my helmet, shades and top in the most efficient way possible. All this in the vein hope that when it came to the actual transition I would have some clue what the hell I was supposed to be doing.

Stuff sorted we waiting casually chatting with the other competitors about the course and general pre-race banter. Ranging from our kit to subtle ways to psych one another out. After the race briefing the first swimmer started at 7.00. Me and my brother took a walk to the observation deck in the pool to watch the starters. This was when the nerves started to kick in.

More and more of the swimmers started my start time neared and my position in the line grew shorter. With only four competitors I turned to my brother, now feeling really nervous, and said “Whose stupid idea was this?”

There was no one in front of me and I was in the pool. Three. Two. One. I was off. Nothing quite prepared myself from going from full of nerves to race mode. Halfway down the first length my body woke up and all the training I had done kicked in. No longer nervous. A single thought in my mind. Swim straight, don’t drown don’t waste to much energy.

The final length of the swim drew to a close and it was time to get out of the pool. Using the steps, as not to make a tit of myself if i fell over, I pulled myself out and started the run to the transition area to get ready for the bike ride. I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to be doing. I got to the transition area remembering only one thing. Make sure you helmet is on before you touch your bike. I stand on the towel, move my top out of the way and put my helmet on it. Pick up top and realise that I need to take my helmet off, put my top on, put my helmet on and step into my shoes. Now its time to pick up my bike and run with it to the mounting area. Enter the mounting area mounting my bike and start to ride narrowly missing a woman trying to get her bike into gear. A luck escape as I don’t think she would have been too happy if I had ridden into her. Exiting the leisure centre the race portion begins.

For the majority of the bike ride there was nothing to worry about. A side from needing to practice on gear changes on the hills it all went fairly well. I was taken back a few times as the more experienced competitors, on really expensive bikes, wizzed past me closer than I expected. But after the first couple of times that happened I started to check behind me more often so that I knew who was behind me, and so that I wasn’t causing an obstruction people who were clearly better than me. Like the people who overtook me on the steep up hill sections.

With the bike section drawing to a close I changed down gears to try and warm up my legs ready for the run. In my haste I changed down to many gears and was left coasting with my legs spinning around aimlessly. Coasting into the dismount area I jump off my bike and run it back to my place in the transition area to rack it up. Throwing my helmet into my box and picking up a bottle of water I head out for the final section, the run.

Leaving the transition area water bottle in hand I start the run. My legs feeling heavy from the cycle I knew it would only be a little longer before they would feel normal again. The run went fine with brownies lining the route with list of everyone’s names and numbers ready to cheer you on just when you need it. With the final stretch drawing to a close, the cheers from the brownies getting louder and the finished line getting closer it was time to muster the last of my energy. It was time for a sprint finish. My legs where not quite feeling up to the job. Then I spy my bother, who had already finished waiting on the finish straight. I hold my arms out for a high five. High five received I now have the energy, pulled from the ether, to sprint the last little bit to the finish. Crossing the line and stopping my watch. Covered in sweat and in dire need for a shower and a cup of tea I look down at the time. 1:19:55. Happy that my first triathlon went better than my first marathon.

Install

Download the tar file from [download id="3"]
Extract and run the installer using the following:

tar -vxzf bzr-ontime-0.0.1.tar.gz
cd bzr-ontime-0.0.1
sudo python setup.py install

Configure

Setup the database connection information.
/etc/bzr-ontime.conf

[ontime]
server=your-mssql-server
username=sa
password=p4ssw0rd
database=ontime

Confirm Installation

bzr hooks

If the plugin is installed correct you should see the plugin listed under the post_commit section.

Related Reading

I am using NHibernate 2.1.2 and C# .NET 3.5 in Visual Studio 2008.

Step 1

Download Castle.Core from gitbhub
git://github.com/castleproject/Castle.Core.git

Step 2

Enable Castle to allow partially trusted callers.
Open buildscripts/CommonAssemblyInfo.cs and enable the library to enable partially trusted callers

Step 3

Disable generation of debug information for the projects Castle.Core and Castle.DynamicProxy.

Step 4

Build the projects

Step 5

Download Nhibernate source code from source forge.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nhibernate/files/

Step 6

Open Nhibernate.Everything.sln and update the references for the NHibernate.ByteCode.Castle project so that the references for Castle.Core and Castle.DynamicProxy2 are the libraries build in step 4. Disable generation of debug information for the projects NHibernate, Iesi.Collections and NHibernate.ByteCode.Castle, similar to what was done in step 3.

Step 7

Copy the outputted library files from NHibernate.ByteCode/bin/Release to your shared libs folder of your project.

Step 8

Update the references in your project to point to the new libraries. Next turn off reflection optimization. This needs to be done in code before you create the configuration object. Configuring this in the hibernate.cfg.xml does not work. Update all your projects assemblies to set allow partially trusted callers, similar to step 2. Update your web.config to set requirePermission=”false” in the nhibernate section delceration

NHibernate.Cfg.Environment.UseReflectionOptimizer = false;
Configuration = new Configuration();
Configuration.Configure();

You can now run your site in medium trust using lay loading.

Links

• msysgit – http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
• TortoiseGit – http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/
• NHibernate – http://nhforge.org/
• Castle.Core Source – http://github.com/castleproject/
• NHibernate Source – http://sourceforge.net/projects/nhibernate/files/

Related Reading