Older blog entries for muks (starting at number 13)

Try Sparse

Try Sparse to analyze your C code. Unlike Splint, it works well with the GTK libraries and reports a wide range of issues. It also neatly fits in with the autotools build system, so you can basically run your autotools and prep for a make, and then call:

make CC=cgcc

cgcc is a wrapper which invokes sparse first, and then gcc. Then go through the warnings and fix them. :)

Syndicated 2008-03-28 23:24:33 from Mukund's adventures

SMB/CIFS file migration engine

For the last 9 months, I’ve been working on a SMB/CIFS virtualization product at Brocade. We announced this product to the world yesterday.

FME lets sysadmins migrate open files (holding rangelocks and oplocks) that are being used by client applications in a DFS namespace, from one filer to another without disruption. Hence the name virtualization. Client applications don’t know that files are being moved at the remote end. My work has been in the CIFS datapath, tracking and restoring open file metadata such as rangelocks and oplocks, and also helping migration processes track changes in a file’s data while it’s being migrated. It’d be very cool to a network filesystem developer or even a sysadmin, to see a Wireshark packet capture of the orchestrated steps.

This work was, for various reasons, done in Windows land, as a driver. Yes, I know.. ugh yuck bleh, but I got to explore a bit of Windows land :).

Syndicated 2008-03-19 23:38:41 from Mukund's adventures

March 20, 2008

For the last 9 months, I've been working on a SMB/CIFS virtualization product at Brocade. We announced this product to the world yesterday.

FME lets sysadmins migrate open files (holding rangelocks and oplocks) that are being used by client applications in a DFS namespace, from one filer to another without disruption. Hence the name virtualization. Client applications don't know that files are being moved at the remote end. My work has been in the CIFS datapath, tracking and restoring open file metadata such as rangelocks and oplocks, and also helping migration processes track changes in a file's data while it's being migrated. It'd be very cool to a network filesystem developer or even a sysadmin, to see a Wireshark packet capture of the orchestrated steps.

This work was, for various reasons, done in Windows land, as a driver. Yes, I know.. ugh yuck bleh, but I got to explore a bit of Windows land :).

Syndicated 2008-03-19 23:38:00 from Mukund's journal

February 11, 2008

I forked tinyproxy to create nanoproxy today.

I've been a regular user of tinyproxy for the past 2 years, as it allows me to masquerade as a user in another country/university pretty easily through a SSH shell account. Unfortunately, tinyproxy has been unmaintained for about 3 years now and is marked as inactive on SourceForge.net. There are known bugs in it. I also want it to be a part of my Linux distribution. So what's better than to maintain it. I tried to contact the last active author to ask for access to maintain it, but didn't get any responses so I forked it to a new project called nanoproxy. There'll be releases after a few things are fixed.

Syndicated 2008-02-11 02:27:00 from Mukund's journal

Some cool scripts

Here are some cool scripts found on the web:

  • pat2pdf will take a US patent number and generate a PDF document of the patent for you. Google patents can also do the same, but it is missing many new patent applications. (Btw it’s wonderful to go through some of the old inventions from the last century.)
  • mb2md takes a mbox and converts it to Maildir
  • That _svndiff script, which makes svn diff generate an annotated diff

Syndicated 2008-01-27 11:57:11 from Mukund's blog

Ethical gadgets

Make Magazine has a nice list of items that gadgets should conform to, so that they are user friendly. Most of them are reasonable and should be required. Here are some more that I want:

  1. Gadgets must support open formats, and preferrably not have DRM at all
  2. No frail wires in the open that can snap off
  3. Any chipsets and processors that the gadget uses must at the very least have open and complete documentation
  4. Any firmware / software on a gadget should be free software, along with a HOWTO on how the software can be compiled and replaced by the user
  5. It’s the designer’s job to make sure the gadget cannot be disabled (or `bricked’) by any software updates, and it must always be possible to reload a default image and get the gadget back to its factory state

Syndicated 2007-12-23 22:04:49 (Updated 2007-12-23 22:05:02) from Mukund's blog

New host, new website!

I’d asked on this blog for hosting after Nerdfest’s demise. While some kind folks offered to pitch in free user accounts, I needed a full server as there were many web applications to run. After a lot of careful evaluation, I decided to go with The Planet for hosting. At $69/month, they provide a dedicated 2.4 GHz P4 server with 512MB RAM, 80GB disk, 750 GB bandwidth and most important of all, remote reboots and support. It’s real money and expensive for someone living in India, but all in the name of a free software company :).

FWIW, I had evaluated several options including SFCCP, Blue Linux, Jump and Server Beach. I can only say good things about the former three options and the nice people behind them, but they ended up as either expensive or not a good match. Now I have to contact them and let them know.

After about a week of moving in, things are good so far. There is no upstream firewall which is a great thing. I have moved many of Banu’s web applications and services over in the past week, and hope to finish it off this week. This website and blog have also been moved.

Syndicated 2007-12-17 07:12:12 (Updated 2007-12-17 07:12:51) from Mukund's blog

Got a spare server?

After the demise of Nerdfest, I was/am looking for a dedicated server setup to host projects and other assorted websites such as Graphics Planet. The trouble with popular hosts such as ServerBeach and Layered Tech is that they filter useful ports such as IRC to achieve a false sense of security. Blue Linux seems to be a great place to go to, but I’m facing trouble getting a Dell server out to them as Dell UK will only accept UK registered credit cards. Other options are far too expensive.

If any company in UK is willing to donate a used 1U rackmount server (x86 P4, 1GB RAM and 80 GB disk - or higher class), please get back to me (muks at mukund dot org). The server will be used to host free software and open media projects, and we can add a link in the footer back to any website of your choice. It will be a one-way transfer though and the server will not be returned. It will be put to good use. :)

Syndicated 2007-12-03 10:13:49 (Updated 2007-12-23 19:53:06) from Mukund's blog

Google web hosting

It looks like Nerdfest will be shutting down operations very soon, after a good 8 years of consistent free community hosting, because our upstream provider is going away. Yes we started in 2000! Btw, if you can provide free colo for Nerdfest (low bandwidth requirements), or can take over some of our users’ accounts, please contact me.

This is a tip for Nerdfest account holders who are unable to locate alternative hosting. Google has a free apps service which lets you host your webpages, email (including IMAP), chat, etc. for your domain. I see at least one user who has already switched partly to it. The hosting isn’t as good as rolling your own.. you host static content, and you can have a blog too. But this is better than nothing, and Google is bound to be around for a long time. Think about it.

Syndicated 2007-10-29 07:27:02 (Updated 2007-12-23 19:52:54) from Mukund's blog

GIMP 2.4 is out!

GIMP 2.4 has been released! It is the culmination of many man-years of real effort by several developers from around the world. There are many new things to expect in the new version, with more features, better usability and less bugs. Uncork your champagne and enjoy by upgrading to it.

Syndicated 2007-10-24 09:32:13 from Mukund's blog

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