Things I did:

• Developed a method for calling parts of functions to minimize/obfuscate programs
• Worked with Ryan on OSP to get a web based cluster management system integrated into the cluster administration page
• Played with return-to-libc attacks and got them working on the latest version of Ubuntu Linux

Things on the horizon:

• Working full-time for AIS
• Traveling to Iceland for 3 weeks
• Working on a computer security textbook
• Running a marathon in August

It is very weird to me to think that today is the last day of classes for me as a traditional full-time student. I’ve been going to school since I was 5 and it is very weird to think that come August I will not be returning to the classroom as my primary past-time. I am excited to travel and get away from the normal swing of things for a while to reflect on the new changes in my life, and excited to begin working, especially due to the extra leisure time after work.

Peace and chow,

Ranok

The simplest way to start serving web content with Erlang is to use the inets server and the httpd service. This is a HTTP/1.1 server built into the Erlang distribution that supports some more advanced features, most interesting of all, the ability to use Erlang to dynamically generate content. It is however very poorly documented, and there are a few very annoying things I came across that I’m posting to hopefully help anyone else trying to get it working.

1. The order of modules in the {modules, []} directive matters, if you want to have mod_dir work, it needs to be specified *AFTER* the mod_alias.
2. The logging is rather horrid, the transfer.log will not log anything except for HTTP 200 for every request, even if it failed.
3. You must specify {bind_address, any} in the configuration to use the httpd:reload_config function, otherwise it will return {error, not_started}
4. If you just want to server static content, you will need at a minimum the following modules: mod_get, mod_head, mod_log, mod_actions and mod_range. However, adding mod_alias is recommended along with the {directory_index, ["index.html"]} directive to stop it from failing (HTTP 500) on a directory request.
5. To use dynamic content, create a module that exports callbacks of the form: function(SessionID, _Env, _Input). To write Str back to the client, use the mod_esi:deliver(SessionID, Str) function.

I hope that this helps out!

Peace and chow,

Ranok

Improvements:

• Added replication nodes to increase fail-safe reliability
• Added commands to the administration console to stop and live migrate applications
• Can use configuration files to assist in the start up of OSP
• Many bug fixes and documentation updates
• The HTTPd servlet example now supports large files and the HEAD command

So, please check it out and let me know what you think!

Peace and chow,

Ranok

In the new git setup, I have two branches (aside from master, which follows the SVN repository): otp and no-otp. The no-otp version is currently the stable code that runs just fine, but doesn’t take advantage of Erlang’s OTP framework. The otp branch is the more cutting edge OTP aware version, which I hope to fully migrate to soon. With full support for OTP, I should be able to use an already existing distribution platform, and more battle tested redundancy.

This evening, I fixed a long standing bug in the example HTTPd where the server would crash when opening large files due to a shortcut I took with first implementing the server. Originally, the server would read the entire file into a string and then send that to the client, as you can probably see, there is a problem when the server tries to read in a 3.9 GB file (my test file). Now, my servlet takes a much more sane approach, read in the file 1 kilobyte at time, sending that to the client before reading more. This new approach works perfectly, though I had to add some messiness for handling CGI/PHP files and different MIME types. I also added support for the HTTP HEAD command.

Peace and chow,

Ranok

Projects in progress:

• FANG – I’d like to polish the multi-processing system, add namespaces, and tie it into the Erlang stdlib. Also add macros (real macros!) to FANG.
• OSP – I’m going to be using OSP as a basis for LadieBug (mentioned below). This will hopefully give me perspective into what I should work on in OSP to make it more friendly for development.

New projects:

• I’d like to take advantage of LaunchPad’s ‘Personal Package Archive’ system to host a few of my own Ubuntu packages, namely a more up-to-date version of Erlang’s OTP system.
• LadieBug – To take advantage of OSP’s distributed data store, I’d like to implement my own caching, recursive DNS server that would be both DNSSEC and DNSCurve compliant and would share the cache over the entire cluster, making it more scalable and reduce the number of needless queries.

That’s about all I can think of at the moment, if anyone would like to help me on any of these, feel free to comment below and we can get in touch.

Peace and chow,

Ranok

• r88 – Now will autosense is a node has a disk, and will determine whether or not to keep a copy of the applications table on the disk or just in RAM
• r89 – Made gen-join.pl which asks the user a bunch of questions to make a join script for easier setup
• r93 – When you first install OSP, you should run ./setup-osp.sh to initialize the database on the first/master node
• r96 – Added the add-backup-server, which will make a disk copy of all the tables to that backup server incase of node failure, there’s a backup copy

While thse changes are small, they are still very needed in creating an actual application. Currently, OSP is at r97, only 3 away from the big 100. I thought that we should have a mini OSP party when we reach r100, but since OSP is distributed, so should the party. So when you get word of the 100th commit, please raise a glass or eat a slice of cake.

Accomplishments:

1. Released the Open Server Platform version 0.2
2. Managed COSI‘s Zimbra server
3. Took the following classes: Compilers, Operating Systems, Network Security, Intro. to Psych, E. Linear Algebra.

Goals:

1. Polish off Wiki Wide Web
2. Work on OSP
3. Have a relaxing, fun summer
4. Work on MOSS

That’s all that comes to mind at the moment, I’m sure I’ll think of more as time goes by.

Peace and chow,

Ranok

The most important bug fix was a performance issue that caused a slowdown over time, this has been fixed and along with it, the performance and scalability has increased! The biggest feature added was support for UDP (and soon SCTP, and SSL) which can be set without changing the code! Imagine writing a server and deploying it using TCP, UDP, SSL and SCTP, just by changing one line in the XML servlet.

Setup should be simple too, just download from Google Code, extract, make and then compile your servlet. Now on the first node, run ./start-osp.sh and then you can telnet to port 9876 and administer your cluster.

Links:

• Open Server Platform home
• OSP Group
• OSP Code

Enjoy,

Ranok

For more information, check out the home page, the Google Code page and the Google Group.

Progress:

• Rewrote much of OSP to take in a XML servlet (meta-data and code) and act as a socket broker for that servlet.
• Wrote a  number of  servlet libraries to make programming easier and safer.
• Added a global shared state that can be spread redundantly across multiple nodes (using Mnesia)
• Added the ability for applications to be atomic, either they complete and update the shared state, or they crash and don’t influence the shared state at all.

Todo:

• Move the OSP broker under an OTP supervisor for auto-restart.
• Make OSP more configurable and automatic
• Make a nice administration and status system
• Devise and implement a load balancing and fail-over system
• Test and tweak as needed
• Write more servlet libraries

Also, I have been approached by a CS senior from the west coast who has offered to help work on ERLFS! I’d love more help if you know/want to learn Erlang, and help develop a very powerful and useful product.