I need to learn more about creating setup projects from within Visual Studio to support the following scenario:
When the user starts the setup, he needs to choose between the parts that he wants to set up. The setup should offer to install three web services, one web site and maybe even run some SQL scripts to install/update the database.
During installation, the user will need to tell where he wants the sites/services to be installed within IIS. He also needs to specify the database connection which is used within the services/sites and to update the database. And there will probably be a few other wishes too. It should also support an uninstall of the site and services, but the database can continue to exist.
Is this even possible with the Setup projects that Visual Studio creates? If not, no worries. I don't need an alternative solution! I just need to know if this is possible before trying myself and discovering it's not possible after weeks of trying... This is for an internal project and I want to make life easier for the administrators who need to install/upgrade these sites/ services every time when there's an update. (About once every two weeks.)
Stay well away from vdproj stuff and move to WiX ASAP (As you'll see me being advised in questions I asked here). For a start, flexibility around where to put the IIS apps is seriously limited (you get one virtual dir and the user can only choose the name, you cant have multiple instances).
The other side of this is of course that the vdproj stuff is an 80% solution. Ultimately you can add as many custom steps as you like, and they can pop up dialogs and whatever they like. There's no reason why a custom step cant do all the things you want.
I just know that I once thought like you, and looking back wish someone had grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and said, just use the proper stuff - even if it seems a little harder initially. There is a conversion tool that will suck in your vdproj and spit you out a WiX.
By all means, try wizarding up what you need and seeing if it works - most of the stuff is pretty searchable - just know when to call it quits.
Related
My site is messed up and I am trying to fix it, and regardless of it I get help, it is going to take awhile likely, and it's really important that my site be live, even if it's a crappy version with just the articles and no template.
Would it not work to make a backup of the database, install Joomla fresh (the same version) and connect it to that duplicate database (then point my domain there) and then go back to working on fixing the current site that is live now? Are there any issues I should know about going in? There's a good chance the issues are related to the template or extensions (at least my understanding so far, see my other post for details on the issue) so I would think it would be faster to do this to get a working site rather than trying to turn off and on each extension, especially when I have to do it manually (and I don't know how yet) as I can't access the backend.
If this will work, do I choose the database when I install or just install empty and then change what database it connects to or do i install empty and import the tables (and how)? Still have to figure out if I can make a clone of the database and not all the files as it takes hours.
Thanks for the help, and if I should have appended this to the other post I apologize, but I figured its a separate issue.
First, ensure you have backups of both the files and the database. Then make a local copy of your site where you will work later.
The infection may lie:
in the Joomla core files, with extra content (which is usually fairly easy to spot, for example an eval of a large base64-encoded variable);
in extra files (keep in mind that even images could contain malicious code), these would be usually triggered outside of Joomla for spamming or other nefarious purposes
in the database content.
Fix:
Apply a fresh Joomla update package over your site; you will only fix n.1 above. This may restore some functionality for the first hour of survival.
Analyse the logs, and try to figure out how they got in. You need to step up security as obviously what you have is not enough.
Install a fresh Joomla, add all extensions that your site uses, copy the images folder, then connect it to a copy of the compromised database. This will fix n.1 and 2 above (as you got rid of any extra files). This may survive until they figure out you fixed it; but if you haven't patched your security, they will hack into your site again. Keep a copy of this, and restore as needed as you proceed with the following step.
Export the db to sql format (mysqldump or phpmyadmin may come in handy), then search for any xss traces, php code, javascripts that may have been injected. Since a complete control could take days, and assuming the malicious code links elsewhere, look for strings such as "https://" and "http://"; escape / as \/ and \\\/ to account for json-encoded data as well.
Once the db is clean, your local copy is reasonably safe; update all extensions and Joomla, and use it to restore the website until you fix your security.
It might work, i mean cloning the DB as far as joomla version is the same. It won't break like that, but may fail if files for extensions are not found. This is somewhat wrong, the question is how many extensions you are using and how much cleansing you need.
On the other side you mention that the site should be 'live'. Just do everything on localhost, test, fix templates, etc. Then if you're sure you're done, use akeeba backup and deploy new version to your server without long delays.
Any kind of cleansing needs some start.
You can clean the site while live, depends on complexity.
Clean might be done offline and deployed.
Sometimes import/export custom routines are needed, so you have to make own tools for everything. It occurs with large data, like when people used to made mess inside images folder or something like that.
4 ...
It's pointless to make copies of DB. You install the same version of Joomla on your local server, then you install the same template, you copy styles etc.
Then you import data with your own tools or paid ones. Estimated time is from few hours to few days, it's just data :)
There is a process in our company built by a long-departed dev that pulls data from a cube stored in a MS SQL Analysis Server (which I typically access via Management Studio). The overall process almost never fails and is refreshed several times a day. However, there appear to be some bugs in the calculations that has been handed to me to investigate and fix.
Unfortunately, I knew nothing about cubes when this was handed to me, was not part of the original development process, and generic web tutorials don't seem to quite apply to whatever I'm looking at. On the plus side, trial and error has taught me enough that I can ask a few questions.
The bug is definitely in the calculations. But I obviously don't want to test in Production and I also don't want to make changes without a proper backup (that I know how to revert).
Is there a way to export the whole Analysis db to a .SLN file and open it in VS?
Should I instead use Script Cube as->Create to, change the cube name, and execute to make a copy?
If I'm later asked to add new dimensions or need to edit the data source, what's the best way to do this?
Any other tips?
You can create a Visual Studio project based on an existing cube. This will get everything in a project so you can investigate the calculations, make the necessary changes, deploy to a test environment, and check everything out before deploying to production. Don't forget to check the project into source control ;-)
I am currently in the process of trying to launch a database that has a VB6 front end connected to an access 2000 database. On certain computers we are experiencing a problem where the data being pulled from the database does not show up or does not show up correctly.
The computers that work seem to have the same dao360.dll date modified in both the system 32 and microsoftshared/dao while the one that are not working do not have the same date modified.
Is this whats causing the error? How can I correct this? Or is it something else that is happening?
There shouldn't be two copies of the DLL on the system. It sounds like a poorly designed install of some application had been previously done on these systems. There is no telling what the full extent of this has been.
Packaging as an isolated application can insulate your programs from these kinds of bad installs that create DLL Hell. Sadly MDAC/DAC and related components are very difficult to isolate.
This is another reason to have moved to ADO back in 1998, if not in the time since then. While you can't isolate the ADO-related parts of MDAC/DAC any more than you can DAO, those libraries are now shipped as part of Windows. You don't need to deploy them and they are protected from bad installers by the increasingly better system file protection mechanisms in Windows.
However providing specific assistance will probably require a more specific and detailed description of what is going on than "does not show up or show up corectly."
I'd create a minimal test case using DAO to begin exploring where (and what) the problems really are. To begin with perhaps just a simple query displaying the returned rowset without data binding.
I suggest installing the latest version of MDAC and Jet. While Jet used to be a part of the MDAC, I'm pretty sure they dropped it into its own installl/update/service pack at this point. Perhaps start here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/239114
I am in the process of writing an offline-capable smartclient that will have syncing capability back to the main backend when a connection can be made. As a side note, I considered the Microsoft Sync Framework but since I'm really only going one-way I didn't feel it would buy me enough to justify it.
The question I have is related to SQLite vs. SQLCE and ClickOnce deployments. I've dealt with SQLite before (impressive little tool) and I've dealt with ClickOnce, but never together. If I setup an installer for my app via ClickOnce, how do I ensure during upgrades the local database doesn't get wiped out? Is it possible to upgrade the database (table structure, etc. if necessary) as part of the installer? Or is it better to use SQLCE for something like this? I definitely don't want to go the route of installing SQL Express or anything as the overhead would be far too high for what I am doing.
I can't speak about SQLLite, having never deployed it, but I do have some info about SQLCE.
First, you don't have to deploy it as a prerequisite. You can just include the dll's in your project. You can check this article which explains how. This gives you finite control over what version is being used, and you don't have to deal with installing it per se.
Second, I don't recommend that you deploy the database as a data file and let ClickOnce manage it. When you change that file, ClickOnce will publish it again and put it in the data directory. Then it will take the previous one and put it in the \pre subfolder, and if you have no code to handle that, your user will lose his data. So if you open the database file to look at the table structure, you might be unpleasantly surprised to get a phone call from your user about the data being gone.
If you need to retain the data between updates, I recommend you move the database to the [LocalApplicationData] folder the first time the application runs, and reference it there. Then if you need to do any updates to the structure, you can do them programmatically and control when they happen. This article explains how to do this and why.
The other advantage to putting the data in LocalApplicationData is that if the user has a problem and has to uninstall and reinstall the application, his data is retained.
Regardless of the embedded database you choose your database file (.sqlite or .sdf) will be a part of your project so you will be able to use "Build Action" and "Copy to Output Directory" properties of that file to control what happens with the file during the install/update.
If you choose "Do not copy" it will not copy the database file and if you choose "Copy if newer" it will only copy if you have a new version of your database file.
You will need to experiment a little but by using these two properties you can have full control of how and when your database file is deployed/updated...
This is a very simple question, and maybe the man himself can provide insight on this :)
Does anyone know the pseudocode behind how Fog Creek does database schema management?
I'm running into an issue and I'm trying to figure out if I'm handling it right... I have a module that runs each time someone spins up their site and examines their database to make sure that they have the right changes in place. if they are missing changes, then the script makes the required changes.
My issue is that I was trying to tie it to the session_start portion of the Global.asax, but it seems to be rather flaky at times, and I'm trying to come up with a better scenario.
For reference, I'm trying to run 1 x web application that can respond to any number of hosts, where the host maps via a metabase to find out what database it belongs to and then makes the necessary connections.
You might have more luck asking this on http://fogbugz.stackexchange.com/