Rudolf Henning

Listing BizTalk suspended filenames

rudolf — Thu, 22 May 2008 08:46:00 GMT

One of the real limitations of BizTalk server (design issue) is the lack of details for when things go wrong - and lets face it there will always be things outside the control of the product, not even mentioning bugs in the product itself. For example, when dealing with plain files (flat files or xml) something that is critical to some people gets lost - the original filename. It is possible to retrieve it through the context of the message inside BizTalk but it has to be done one by one per message. This piece of information is not logged in the eventlog - which is really weird! Sometimes files fail in batches and then it becomes a real plain to retrieve filenames one by one. For that reason I created a simple tool to retrieve the filenames of suspended files in bulk.

The solution is a bit of a hack as it requires direct access to the BizTalk messagebox database. The tricky bit is to retrieve the filename from the message context as it is encoded in some propriety binary format. Through trial and error I decoded this context format and is now able to retrieve some of the properties inside it. Of course, there is no guarentee that MS will not change the format in the future.

Since suspended entries are stored by Host it is tricky to simply have one select statement to gather all suspended files at once. Therefore it has to be done host by host. This means at least 2 select statements have to be executed to retrieve the data.

The first step to retrieve the suspended queue (table) names are easy:

private StringCollection GetHostInstanceSuspendedQs()
        {
            string sql = "select name from sysobjects where name like '%[_]Suspended'";
            StringCollection queues = new StringCollection();
            DataSet ds = new DataSet();
            using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
            {
                conn.Open();
                using (SqlCommand cmnd = new SqlCommand(sql, conn))
                {
                    SqlDataReader dr = cmnd.ExecuteReader();
                    while (dr.Read())
                    {
                        string queue = dr[0].ToString();
                        queues.Add(queue);
                    }
                }
            }
            return queues;
        }

Once you have a list of the suspended queues you can query the rest of the tables including the suspended queue in question:

private List<SuspendedEntry> GetSuspendedInstances(string hostInstanceSuspendedQ)
        {
            List<SuspendedEntry> list = new List<SuspendedEntry>();
            string hostName = hostInstanceSuspendedQ.Substring(0, hostInstanceSuspendedQ.Length - 11);
            string sql = "select b.nvcAdditionalInfo, s.imgContext, b.dtLastTouched, b.uidInstanceID, b.uidMessageID, " +
                    "s.PublishingServer, i.nvcErrorID, m.nvcName as [App], '%2' as [Host] " +
                    " from %1 b inner Join Spool s on b.uidMessageID = s.[uidMessageID ] inner join InstancesSuspended i on b.uidInstanceID = i.uidInstanceID inner join Services se on se.uidServiceID = b.uidServiceID inner join Modules m on m.nModuleID = se.nModuleID" +
                    " where (i.nState = 4) AND (i.nvcAdapter = 'FILE')";
            sql = sql.Replace("%1", hostInstanceSuspendedQ);
            sql = sql.Replace("%2", hostName);

            DataSet ds = new DataSet();
            using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
            {
                conn.Open();
                using (SqlCommand cmnd = new SqlCommand(sql, conn))
                {
                    cmnd.CommandTimeout = 300;
                    using (SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter(cmnd))
                        da.Fill(ds);
                }
            }
            foreach (DataRow row in ds.Tables[0].Rows)
            {
                SuspendedEntry entry = new SuspendedEntry();
                entry.InstanceId = row["uidInstanceID"].ToString();
                entry.MessageId = row["uidMessageID"].ToString();
                entry.LastTouchDate = DateTime.Parse(row["dtLastTouched"].ToString());

                byte[] bytes = (byte[])row["imgContext"];
                int receiveFileNameStart = SearchBytes(bytes, String2Bytes("ReceivedFileName"));
                receiveFileNameStart = receiveFileNameStart + 41;
                int receiveFileNameLen = (bytes[receiveFileNameStart] * 256) + bytes[receiveFileNameStart + 1];
                byte[] fileNameBytes = CopyBytes(bytes, receiveFileNameStart + 4, receiveFileNameLen);
                entry.FileName = Bytes2String(fileNameBytes);
                entry.AdditionalInfo = row["nvcAdditionalInfo"].ToString();
                entry.PublishingServer = row["PublishingServer"].ToString();
                entry.ErrorID = row["nvcErrorID"].ToString();
                entry.AppName = row["App"].ToString();
                entry.Host = row["Host"].ToString();
                list.Add(entry);
            }

            return list;
        }

There are a couple of helper functions to do byte and string conversions. I'll include them in the attached zip file.

The result of all this is a nice list you can use to display in a tool or on a web page. This works only for files, a.k.a. messages that was received through the file adapter.

The ideal would have been that the filename was logged in the event log as soon as it was suspended. This is a crucial bit of information that is usually needed by the people monitoring the whole system (including BizTalk).

Comparing GACs of two machines.

rudolf — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 05:45:00 GMT

Due to multiple environments (BizTalk) I have to manage and also oversee deployments over these environments I have created a tool to compare the GACs (Global Assembly Cache) of machines. The first tool I created was a simple command line one and was quite limited (and a bit flawed oops). Then recently we started using 64bit machines and I realized the old utility does not work so good anymore. Thus I created a new utility (Win form based) that take inconsideration things like 32bit/64bit as well.

First some background on how this utility works:

This tool only list the difference between the GACs of the machines. No changes are made - That would be a very interesting and perhaps hairy experience!
To get the information of what is installed in the GAC is really simple. As long as you have local admin rights on the machine you can do a plain old command line 'dir' command on \\machine\c$\windows\assembly and its sub directories. There are multiple sub directories like GAC, GAC_MSIL etc.

1. Under each of these there are sub directories that list the assembly names (not the assembly itself)
2. Under these there is another sub directory that reports the version, culture and public token key values (name of directory)
3. Under these the actual dlls are stored.

Then it is simply a matter to list the directories and processing the names and put them into a list. Once you have the lists you can compare them to each other and get the differences.

Just one interesting bit. The plain GAC directory was the default for .Net 1.x. The GAC_MSIL is the default for .Net 2.0. There are also GAC_32 and GAC_64 ones that contain 32bit and 64bit assemblies - of course GAC_64 only applies to 64bit machines.

I'm not listing the entire source code here but here is the main function that does the bulk of the work.

private void GetGACFiles(string rootDirectory)
        {
            if (Directory.Exists(rootDirectory))
            {
                string[] assemblyDirectories = Directory.GetDirectories(rootDirectory);
                foreach (string assemblyDirectory in assemblyDirectories)
                {
                    string[] versionTokenDirectories = Directory.GetDirectories(assemblyDirectory);
                    foreach (string versionTokenDirectory in versionTokenDirectories)
                    {
                        string[] assemblyFiles = Directory.GetFiles(versionTokenDirectory, "*.dll"); //There should only be one... Don't loose your head
                        foreach (string assemblyFile in assemblyFiles) //sometimes there are multiple files
                        {
                            if (gacEntry.AssemblyPath.ToLower().Contains(gacEntry.AssemblyName.ToLower() + ".dll"))
                            {
                                GACEntry gacEntry = new GACEntry();
                                gacEntry.AssemblyName = Path.GetFileName(assemblyDirectory);
                                gacEntry.AssemblyPath = assemblyFile;
                                gacEntry.AssemblyVersion = GetVersionFromVersionToken(versionTokenDirectory);
                                gacEntry.Culture = GetCultureFromVersionToken(versionTokenDirectory);
                                gacEntry.PublicKeyToken = GetTokenFromVersionToken(versionTokenDirectory);

                                if (!assemblies.Contains(gacEntry)) //avoid duplicates
                                    assemblies.Add(gacEntry);
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }

There you have it. Not rocket science. It is provided as is...

Creating BizTalk HostInstance through code

rudolf — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:18:00 GMT

Following on yesterdays post about creating a host the next step is to create a host instance. This sample create the instance and start it as well.

Here is the code:

---------------------------------------------------------------

using System;
using System.Management;

namespace CreateStartHostInstance
{
    class AddStartHostInstance
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// The main entry point for the application.
        /// </summary>
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string bts_WMINameSpace;
            string bts_ServerAppTypeNameSpace;
            string bts_HostInstanceNameSpace;
            string user;
            string pwd;
            string hostName;
            string serverName;

            bts_ServerAppTypeNameSpace = "MSBTS_ServerHost";
            bts_HostInstanceNameSpace = "MSBTS_HostInstance";
            // WMI NameSpace for BizTalk Server
            bts_WMINameSpace = @"root\MicrosoftBizTalkServer";

            try
            {
                if (args.Length < 4)
                {
                    ShowHelp();
                }
                else if (args[0] == "-?" || args[0] == "/?" || args[0] == "/h" || args[0] == "/h")
                {
                    ShowHelp();
                }
                else
                {
                    hostName = args[0];
                    serverName = args[1];
                    user = args[2];
                    pwd = args[3];

                    PutOptions options = new PutOptions();
                    options.Type = PutType.CreateOnly;
                    ManagementObject bts_AdminObjectServerHost = null;
                    ManagementObject bts_AdminObjectHostInstance = null;
                    System.Management.ObjectGetOptions bts_objOptions = new ObjectGetOptions();
                    // Creating instance of BizTalk Host.
                    ManagementClass bts_AdminObjClassServerHost = new ManagementClass(bts_WMINameSpace, bts_ServerAppTypeNameSpace, bts_objOptions);
                    bts_AdminObjectServerHost = bts_AdminObjClassServerHost.CreateInstance();
                    // Make sure to put correct Server Name,username and // password
                    bts_AdminObjectServerHost["ServerName"] = serverName;
                    bts_AdminObjectServerHost["HostName"] = hostName;
                    bts_AdminObjectServerHost.InvokeMethod("Map", null);

                    ManagementClass bts_AdminObjClassHostInstance = new ManagementClass(bts_WMINameSpace, bts_HostInstanceNameSpace, bts_objOptions);
                    bts_AdminObjectHostInstance = bts_AdminObjClassHostInstance.CreateInstance();
                    // Make Sure you correct HostName and MachineName for HostInstance name,
                    bts_AdminObjectHostInstance["Name"] = "Microsoft BizTalk Server " + hostName + " " + serverName;

                    object[] objparams = new object[3];
                    objparams[0] = user;
                    objparams[1] = pwd;
                    objparams[2] = true;
                    bts_AdminObjectHostInstance.InvokeMethod("Install", objparams);
                    Console.WriteLine("Host instance created successfully!");
                    bts_AdminObjectHostInstance.InvokeMethod("Start", null);
                    Console.WriteLine("Host instance started successfully!");
                }
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {

                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Red;
                Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
                Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
            }
        }

        private static void ShowHelp()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Usage: CreateStartHostInstance.exe <HostName> <ServerName> <UserName> <Password>");
        }
    }
}

---------------------------------------------------------------

BizTalk 2006 application restart util

rudolf — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:47:00 GMT

Something I only discovered this morning (thanks Brandon) is a nice small utility to stop/start BizTalk 2006 applications. You would have thought MS should have include this functionality in the plain BTSTask utility.

It can be found here

BizTalk scripting

rudolf — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:35:00 GMT

Being an BizTalk server administrator now I've been looking around for some tool and scripts to make life easier (being a developer at heart). I found some good samples here . I made some 'additions' to make it more useful and have some reuse of it through different environments. I though of sharing this so others might have some use for it too.

I hope the formatting doesn't suck to much :)

---------------------------------

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml;
using System.Management;

/**
* As per sample
* http://book.itzero.com/read/microsoft/0505/sams.microsoft.biztalk.server.2004.unleashed.nov.2004.ebook-lib_html/0672325985/ch17lev1sec4.html#PLID0
*
*/

namespace CreateHost
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (args.Length < 1)
            {
                ShowHelp();
            }
            else if (args[0] == "-?" || args[0] == "/?" || args[0] == "/h" || args[0] == "/h")
            {
                ShowHelp();
            }
            else
            {
                string bts_WMINameSpace;
                string bts_HostSettingNameSpace;
                string newHostName = args[0];
                string ntGroupName = "BizTalk Application Users";
                bool isDefault = false;
                bool hostTracking = false;
                bool authTrusted = false;

                // WMI NameSpace for BizTalk Server
                bts_WMINameSpace = @"root\MicrosoftBizTalkServer";
                // WMI class for HostSetting
                bts_HostSettingNameSpace = "MSBTS_HostSetting";

                try
                {
                    for (int i = 1; i < args.Length; i++)
                    {
                        if (args.StartsWith("NTGroupName:"))
                        {
                            ntGroupName = args.Replace("NTGroupName:", "");
                        }
                        else if (args.StartsWith("IsDefault:"))
                        {
                            isDefault = bool.Parse(args.Replace("IsDefault:", ""));
                        }
                        else if (args.StartsWith("HostTracking:"))
                        {
                            hostTracking = bool.Parse(args.Replace("HostTracking:", ""));
                        }
                        else if (args.StartsWith("AuthTrusted:"))
                        {
                            authTrusted = bool.Parse(args.Replace("AuthTrusted:", ""));
                        }
                    }

                    PutOptions options = new PutOptions();
                    options.Type = PutType.CreateOnly;
                    ManagementObject bts_AdminObject = null;
                    System.Management.ObjectGetOptions bts_objOptions = new ObjectGetOptions();
                    // Creating instance of BizTalk Host.
                    ManagementClass bts_AdminObjClass = new ManagementClass(bts_WMINameSpace, bts_HostSettingNameSpace, bts_objOptions);
                    bts_AdminObject = bts_AdminObjClass.CreateInstance();
                    ManagementObject appObject = bts_AdminObject;
                    // Assigning Host Properties.
                    appObject["Name"] = newHostName;
                    appObject["NTGroupName"] = ntGroupName;
                    appObject["IsDefault"] = isDefault;
                    appObject["HostTracking"] = hostTracking;
                    appObject["AuthTrusted"] = authTrusted;
                    appObject["HostType"] = 1;
                    appObject.Put(options);
                    Console.WriteLine("Host created successfully!");
                }
                catch (Exception e)
                {
                    Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Red;
                    Console.WriteLine (e.Message);
                    Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
                }
            }
        }

        private static void ShowHelp()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Usage: CreateHost.exe <HostName> [NTGroupName:<NTGroupName>] [IsDefault:<true|false>] [HostTracking:<true|false>] [AuthTrusted:<true|false>]");
            Console.WriteLine("Note: only In-process hosts can be created this way");
        }
    }
}

------------------------------

My Flickr account

rudolf — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:24:00 GMT

The photo bug has bitten me and I'm taking pictures whenever I can. Also, it helps to now have a proper SLR camera...

Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/rudolfhenning/

How many stars can you see?

rudolf — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 09:39:00 GMT

Many times you hear people saying went to a dark place and they could see millions of stars... Well, it turns out that it is not really possible to see that many even if you had the eye sight of the six million dollar man....

In reality you can at most see around 2500 stars even in the best of conditions - aka perfectly dark sky. The total number of stars visible to the human eye on Earth is around the 8500. Of course you can only see one half the sky at any one time (unless you can see through the planet) plus there are various atmospheric reasons that limit the number of stars you can see near the horizon.

If you want to read a bit more detail about it check this out

Sheldean

rudolf — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 06:50:00 GMT

Apologies if this is not entirely on topic for this site but I'm trying to spread the message and its influence as wide as possible.

Hopefully most of you have heard about this story already but in case you haven't..

Over a week ago a little 7 year old was abducted from her home and she has been missing since then. The family has started a campaign to raise awareness about this case and also about the general safety of all children in our country. In the broader sense it is message to show how many dangers there are that threaten our children but also ourselves. In the end the government must take notice and do something (more than what they are doing now).

Several web sites, including the news sites like news24 and iAfrica.com have regular reports about the story.

Another web site (http://www.eblockwatch.co.za) has a live forum going with updates as news become available or things happen.

Sheldean is still missing and the police is doing all they can to help. The hope is that it would become so difficult for criminals to do these kind of things that it won't be worth their while doing this again. Of course, we live in a non perfect world but we have to keep on trying.

How big is that asteriod crater gona be?

rudolf — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:23:00 GMT

I while ago (ok, some years ago) I stumble across a NASA web page that let you calculate how big the impact of a meteorite is going to be. You simply fill in some numbers like how big the 'projectile' will be and so on and it will calculate a few things for you like how big the resulting crater will be plus a whole lot of other useful information like the big the earthquake will be etc.

The URL is http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

Just as an example, I have specified an object 50 meters in diameter (average) and it will create a crater over 2km wide and 500 meter deep. You don't want to be close to the impact site when it hits. Even at 50 km from ground zero there will be a 5.6 earth quake (on the Richter Scale). The explosion will be equivalent to a 33.8 Mega ton blast. It will be about 3 times as bright as the sun.

It is both fun and very scary how this can happen at any moment and there is about f@$all we can do to stop it if it should happen.

IMate JAMin

rudolf — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 11:27:00 GMT

Last Friday my service provider (staying anonymous for someone's benefit...) phoned me informing me my contract was up for renewal. Yeah, I was kind of aware it should be around the time but I've been so busy with life (just surviving most of the time) that I just didn't get to it yet.

So after the call I decided to just go and browse around to see what is available (since I haven't been paying attention to what is new these days). At first the IMate K Jam caught my eye but then I started browsing further and saw the IMate JAMin which seemed even better. That afternoon after work I went to the (anonymous service provider) shop and they happen to have just one left in stock. Well, I though, I better grab it since it might be gone soon.

I'm not a professional reviewer so the following is just my opinion about the phone compared to my previous IMate Qtec 2020. I used my old phone heavily for things like the phone, scheduler, tasks, notes and a few games (when I was bored and waiting somewhere for someone). The biggest thing that bothered me about the old phone was the short battery life (at most 2 days). Seeing that it is a PocketPC phone this was normal. At times I used it heavily and then it lasts just over a day. I still have it and will continue using it as a plain PocketPC device.

As for the new phone, first thing, the looks: It looks much better being black and smaller. The colour just let it looks more professional and 'cool'. It feels more like a 'phone' being more compact. The old one always felt a bit awkward as a plain phone - although as a PocketPC device the larger size was always a plus). The JAMin is more compact and the screen in smaller but it still is workable as a PocketPC device. The screen seems a bit less responsive for two reasons I suspect. One, the CPU is slower (which helps with conserving battery power) and two my Qtec 2020 was probably 'worn in' and I knew exactly how to use the screen.

My favourite new feature (and also the one I hate the most some times) is that the screen and buttons can be locked like a regular phone. The old one didn't have this which caused several 'funnies'. One thing that do seems to be a problem with this model is that the speaker is a bit soft and it is hard to make out what someone is saying unless you press the phone hard against your ear. Also if you pick a custom ring tone that uses a wav it plays very softly. It is almost as though the phone ring volume only applies to standard built in ring tones and not custom wav or mp3 files. At least it has the ring and vibrate option so you can still 'feel' it rings.

As far as the software goes it has the standard Windows Mobile 5 set which includes Pocket versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, MSN messenger and Media player. What is nice is that it also have a centralize 'Com manager' where you can enable/disable all the communication options like wifi and bluetooth. One nice thing is that it also now has built in support for zip files.

The phone software is much improved over the old model. It is still not a regular cell phone but it does have few features not even a regular cell has - you can attach a note to a call and save important info related to that conversation.

Then there is the 2MP camera. I'm not a big fan of cameras in phones but this one seems to be at least semi-useful. The pictures are not that bad - especially compared to the Qtec 2020 where the screen display was 'larger' that the actual photo!

All in all I'm satisfy with this 'device'. It still have all the features my old Qtec 2020 had (some may work a bit differently) plus it has some new and useful functions added. Someone trying to compare it as a phone itself to a regular cell might be disappointed but then the real power of this device is in the integration between a PC and a phone. If you are a person on the move or need some 'personal computing power like a proper mobile address book, task list and calendar this phone is for you.

Well, there you have it

IE7 and Firefox 2.0

rudolf — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:17:00 GMT

Well, they both have now been released and no, I'm not going to compare them or say which one is better than the other or that one sucks and the other not.

Seems everywhere you read something about one that the author is raving about the one and bitching about the other. Come on people, these are just browsers to surf the web. If you expect too much from them then... it's you f*ing problem. For those saying this one or that one is too insecure or is not patched quickly enough - wake up and stop surfing all those porn sites where you will get stuff!

Personally I like the built in spelling checker for Firefox - It really helps with my 'challenged' knowledge of the inglish language. IE really is better with tabs. I just hate the buttons being spread all over the interface but will probably get use to it. In case you are still wondering I'm using both but prefer Firefox as my main 'everyday' browser.

And then there is still Opera... still a (sad) song for another day.

USP

rudolf — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 06:13:00 GMT

I don't know if anyone else noticed it lately but it seems that everything on sites like digg, slashdot or even codeproject soapbox ends up being spammed by americans fighting over politics. It is getting to the point where is really is not useful to try to read the comments of any stories anymore.

I know they are passionate about their country, leaders and being either republican or democrat but when it starts affecting everything that does not include politics then... This morning there was a story about Mars showing some recent climate changes and guess what - about the first comments was about how it must be because of the 'other' political side screwing up causing it! I mean, really!

Perhaps as a suggestion they must add some category of comment just for politics so the rest of us (rest of the world) can just plain ignore it.

Oh yes, the USP - should stand for United states of politics!

Then in other news, in my beloved South Africa if ever there is any story about a politician you can bet it is some scandal going on. Perhaps we should just relabel it scolitics - mix scandal and politics. Now can you see why I hate politics!

Using Settings in C#

rudolf — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 09:29:00 GMT

On many occations I have found myself in need of having an application save application and user settings at Run-Time. In .Net 1.1 there was no built in way of doing it easily and therefore I and many others created custom libraries to do exactly that. Each implemetation had its strengths and weaknesses. Luckily with .Net 2.0 they built something in to help solve this problem but not everyone might be so aware of it.

Thanks to the Start page of Visual Studio (that I also mostly ignore most of the time) I saw an article about this functionality.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vcsharp/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnvs05/html/SettingsCS_RL.asp

At least this solves a few issues with some implemetations of custom settings handlers around support, security and integration into the VS IDE.

Astronomy humor

rudolf — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 12:14:00 GMT

It seems that even astronomers can have a little humor as well. Those not aware of it the IAU recently declared that Pluto is no longer considered a planet (dwarf planet now) and therefore we now only have 8 planets in the solar system.

Today I visited the web site www.nineplanets.org looking for some info and then saw their 'quick and easy' correction for the name/number of planets... Very clever!

Turbo Delphi available

rudolf — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 12:40:00 GMT

At last the actual download of Borland's Turbo range of development tools are available now.

http://www.borland.com/downloads/download_turbo.html

Now to find the bandwidth to download it...