I couldn't find explicit statements on this, and just wanted to be sure.
Does Lighthouse work in isolation, or does it require connection to some Google service, or at least internet connectivity?
I've used Lighthouse (via Chrome Dev Tools) for years to analyze live websites. However I haven't really used it on localhost while developing websites; I was always under the impression it needed some Google service to do it's thing.
On running localhost tests it looks like it runs as-is, in isolation. However when publishing said website and running the same audit on the online version, some numbers differ (mainly Performance), and I guess this would be due to different server properties/configuration. Perhaps I've answered my own question.
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I would like to know if this is even feasible. And if so, what a possible approach would be.
I am thinking that the .exe would have to be made available through a web service running on a windows stack (asp.net or php) and that a direct heroku solution would not be the way to go.
If you do it as a externally, yes. The main trick there would be making the service on the windows box and making sure your service was secure. If you're going for cloud stuff, your best bet is probably to set your service up on a windows server on EC2 or Rackspace or [insert cloud provider here]. They're not as cheap as linux boxes because of the license cost, but shouldn't be too difficult to manage.
Unless Heroku has changed a lot from the last time I looked at it, the underlying OS was linux of some variety, so it's really unlikely that you could get an windows binary to run internally without bundling wine into your application (probably not worth trying to figure out).
I'm a hobby programmer trying to build a client/server application suite, using Delphi XE.
I write stand-alone applications occasionally, for my personal use. The problem is I don't know ANYTHING when it comes to networking / multi-tier. I am willing to learn though.
I looked for ways to do this and DataSnap and IntraWeb jump out as the most likely candidates for the job. But, before I start using one or the other, I would like to know a few info I wasn't able to find on the web:
If I build an IW stand-alone app and deploy it on my site (as server) will I be able to connect to it/retrieve data with a client application? I need to do that within my Delphi written app, without using a browser and without using HTML (I know very little HTML and I'm not eager to learn). I know IntraWeb isn't meant for this, but will it work?
If I go with DataSnap and build a server app, will I be able to deploy it to my website? Or do I have to make a computer on the network the server?
In case anyone wants to know, I want to connect 5 computers(from different cities), to exchange information between them, if at all possible using ADO, as I'm very familiar with it.
Intraweb is a server based tool for building web sites, accessed via a browser. It is not "proper" multi-tier, and it sounds like it isn't what you need.
DataSnap is designed to do what you want I think. First, the ADO part would be on the server, and you would define an interface that the server offers to do tasks. Then your clients would call that interface over the internet to get data or do those tasks etc.
As for whether they will work on your web server, that depends on what your server is, and the access that is provided to it. A web server is just a PC, but typical hosting is fairly restricted to running "scripted" languages on that server, which reside in the hosting directory. A Delphi server would be a running executable (usually a Windows Service), listening on a port, and needs much more access to the computer than typical. You would need at least a virtual Windows server with administrator access to the desktop to allow it to work. In the first instance though, you could happily run the server on a DSL line or similar and make it work just fine. You can worry about hosting it on the net when you have customers paying for it.
So I have been looking every where, and so far i haven't been able to find anything that allows me to ssh from an iPhone app, and have finally resorted to posting a new pos.
So I am trying to make an app to manage servers and part of the tasks that I need to be able to do it to be able to some how remotely connect over the internet to a server with either an ip address or a DNS name.
The connection to the server does not necessarily need to be a SSH connection, it could be a telnet although because of the security issues i would prefer SSH (if it is a lot less code I would accept telnet), but on the other hand it could be some other type of connection.
The application just needs to be able to run a script on the server end and if a SSH or telnet I would not need any help but if some other type of connection i may need a bit of help. Also the server on the other end is intended to be linux server (either ubuntu or gentoo, but not sure which yet but all i can say is will almost certainly be a linux server operating system).
I have already looked at the libssh/2 and would welcome any other similar demos as have not been able to work out how get the frameworks to work as well as licensing issues with using the frameworks in it.
PS. I am relatively new to programming and although i have some basic knowledge of coding some type of tutorial or sample code would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks For Any Help
Thomas
SSH is a hugely complicated beast. As long as you only need to execute one command without interactivity, it sounds like you could achieve the same thing by running a web server on the server and posting the commands via HTTP from the device. You can use SSL to achieve security. You'll need a mechanism that allows you to authenticate the device (you'd need something with ssh, too). And you'll have to have something in the web server on the server that figures out and runs the desired script. But all that is still hugely easier than dealing with libssh.
Our company provides web-based management software (servicedesk, helpdesk, timesheet, etc) for our clients.
One of them have been causing a great headache for some months complaining about the connection speed with our servers.
In our individual tests, the connection and response speeds are always great.
Some information about this specific client :
They have about 300 PC's on their local network, all using the same bandwith/server for internet access.
They dont allow us to ping their server, so we cant establish a trace route.
They claim every other site (google, blogs, news, etc) are always responding fast. We know for a fact they have no intention to mislead us and know this to be true.
They might have up to 100 PC's simulateneously logged in our software at any given time. They have a need to increase that amount up to 300 so this is a major issue.
They are helpfull and colaborative in this issue we are trying to resolve for a long time.
Some information about our server and software :
We have been able to allocate more then 400 users at a single time without major speed losses for other clients.
We have gone extensive lengths to make good use of data caching and opcode caching in the software itself, and we did notice the improvement (from fast to faster)
There are no database, CPU or memory bottlenecks or leaks. Other clients are able to access the server just fine.
We have little to no knowledge on how to do some analyzing on specific end-user problems (Apache running under Windows server), and this is where I could use a lot of help.
Anything that might be related to Apache configuration would also be helpfull.
While all signs points to it being an internal problem in this specific client network, we are dedicating this effort to solve that too, if that is the case, but do not have capable or instructed professionals to deal with network problems (they do, however, while their main argument is that 'all other sites are fast, only yours is slow')
you might want to have a look at the tools from google "page speed family": http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/overview.html
your customer should maybe run the page speed extension for you. maybe then you can find out what is the problem: http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/docs/extension.html
The situation is simple. I've created a complex Delphi application which uses several different techniques. The main application is a WIN32 module but a few parts are developed as .NET assemblies. It also communicates with a web service or retrieves data from a specific website. It keeps most of it's user-data inside an MS Access database with some additional settings inside the Registry. In-memory, all data is converted inside an XML document, which is occasionally saved to disk as backup in case the system crashes. (Thus allowing the user to recover his data.) There's also some data in XML files for read-only purposes. The application also executes other applications and wants for those to finish. All in al, it's a pretty complex application.
We don't support Citrix with this application, although a few users do use this application on a Citrix server. (Basically, it allows those users to be more mobile.) But even though we keep telling them that we don't support Citrix, those customers are trying to push us to help them with some occasional problems that they tend to have.
The main problem seems to be an occasional random exception that seems to pop up on Citrix systems. Never at the same location and often it looks related to some memory problems. We've p[lenty of error reports already and there are just too many different errors. So I know solving all those will be complex.
So I would like to go a bit more generic and just want to know about the possible issues a Delphi (2007) can have when it's run on a Citrix system. Especially when this application is not designed to be Citrix-aware in any way. We don't want to support Citrix officially but it would be nice if we can help those customers. Not that they're going to pay us more, but still...
So does anyone know some common issues a Delphi application can have on a Citrix system?
Does anyone know about common issues with Citrix in general?
Is there some Silver Bullet or Golden Hammer solution somewhere for Citrix problems?
Btw. My knowledge about Citrix is limited to this Wikipedia entry and this website... And a bit I've Googled...
There were some issues in the past with Published Delphi Applications on Citrix having no icon in the taskbar. I think this was resolved by the MainFormOnTaskbar (available in D2007 and higher). Apart from that there's not much difference between Terminal Server and Citrix (from the Application's perspective), the most important things you need to account for are:
Users are NEVER administrator on a Terminal or Citrix Server, so they no rights in the Local Machine part of the registry, the C drive, Program Folder and so on.
It must be possible for multiple users on the same system to start your application concurrently.
Certain folders such as the Windows folder are redirected to prevent possible application issues, this is also means that API's like GetWindowsFolder do not return the real windows folder but the redirected one. Note that this behaviour can be disabled by setting a particular flag in the PE header (see delphi-and-terminal-server-aware).
Sometimes multiple servers are used in a farm which means your application can run on any of these servers, the user is redirected to the least busy server at login (load balancing). Thefore do not use any local database to store things.
If you use an external database or middleware or application server note that multiple users will connect with the same computername and ip address (certain Citrix versions can use Virtual IP addresses to address this).
Many of our customers use our Delphi applications on Citrix. Generally speaking, it works fine. We had printing problems with older versions of Delphi, but this was fixed in a more recent version of Delphi (certainly more recent than Delphi 2007). However, because you are now running under terminal services, there are certain things which will not work, with or without Citrix. For example, you cannot make a local connection to older versions of InterBase, which use a named pipe without the GLOBAL modifier. Using DoubleBuffered would also be a really bad idea. And so on. My suggestion is to look for advice concerning Win32 apps and Terminal Services, rather than looking for advice on Delphi and Citrix in particular. The one issue which is particular to Citrix that I'm aware of is that you can't count on having a C drive available. Hopefully you haven't hard-coded any drive letters into your code, but if you have you can get in trouble.
Generally speaking, your application needs to be compatible with MS Terminal Services in order to work with XenApp. My understanding is that .NET applications are Terminal Services-compatible, and so by extension should also work in a Citrix environment. Obviously, as you're suffering some problems, it's not quite that simple, however.
There's a testing and verification kit available from http://community.citrix.com/citrixready that you may find helpful. I would imagine the Test Kit and Virtual Lab tools will be of most use to you. The kit is free to use, but requires sign-up.
Security can be an issue. If sensitive folders are not "sandboxed" (See Remko's discussion about redirection), the user can break out of your app and run things that they shouldn't. You should probe your app to see what happens when they "shell out" of your app. Common attack points are CHM Help, any content that uses IE to display HTML, and File Open/Save dialogs.
ex: If you show .chm help, the user can right-click within a help topic, View Source. That typically opens Notepad. From there, they can navigate the directory structure. If they are not properly contained, they may be able to do some mischief.
ex: If they normally don't have a way to run Internet Explorer, and your app has a clickable URL in the about box or a "visit our web site" in the Help menu, voila! they have access to the web browser. If unrestrained, they can open a command shell by navigating to the windows directory.