Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft : Technical Analysis, Interop

Technical Analysis: Installing Apache on Windows

jcannon — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:21:00 GMT

Abstract: By many estimates, Apache is the world's most popular web server software, hosting more than half of active domains according to Netcraft. Typically, Apache is run on Linux or UNIX, but it runs quite well on Windows. This paper provides an introduction to running this software on Windows and provides a framework for understanding how Apache on Windows is fundamentally different from Apache on Linux.

Download Installing Apache on Windows

Note:This paper represents testing and documentation in a lab environment. User Account Control (UAC) is an essential security component to Windows and Microsoft does not recommend turning off UAC in production environments.

Technical Analysis: Installing Apache with SSL on Windows

jcannon — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:02:00 GMT

Abstract:
Often SSL or TLS is required to secure data from web applications. Sometimes this is just prudent to prevent confidential or sensitive data from being confiscated. Sometimes this is required by regulations like HIPAA or industry bodies, such as the Payment Card Industry. This guide will show how to install Apache with SSL on Windows.

Note: This paper represents testing and documentation in a lab environment. User Account Control (UAC) is an essential security component to Windows and Microsoft does not recommend turning off UAC in production environments.

Download Report Installing Apache on Windows

Technical Analysis: Active Directory and Linux Identity Management

jcannon — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:22:00 GMT

Abstract: This paper is written for a somewhat technical audience and covers how the identity management expectations differ between the Windows Server platform and Linux - and how Windows Server can be used to manage both. This paper assume that the reader is familiar with general Windows administration tasks, such as user management.

Note: This paper represents testing and documentation in a lab environment. User Account Control (UAC) is an essential security component to Windows and Microsoft does not recommend turning off UAC in production environments.

Windows Vista Beta/Linux IPsec Interop Testing

MichaelF — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:27:00 GMT

In addition to technical tips, blogs and video interviews, the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft conducts a number of technical analysis and research projects throughout the year to help inform and solve key interoperability challenges between Microsoft and open source technologies. This particular research was conducted after reviewing data from our VPN research which was previously posted to Port 25.

Abstract:

This document provides an overview of Linux IPsec solutions as well as detailed discussions on configuring IPsec-Tools for interoperability scenarios between Red Hat Linux Enterprise 4 and Windows Vista Ultimate Beta.

Connecting Office Applications to MySQL and PostgreSQL via ODBC

MichaelF — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:05:00 GMT

In cases where business applications have been built on open source databases, it may be necessary to connect other Windows applications, such as Microsoft Access or Excel, to these databases for reporting or business intelligence purposes.

One potential application of this process is to use Excel as a front-end for data analysis. Data can be pulled from views or tables and then further analyzed, graphed, and the like. Even pivot tables can be used to create even more powerful reporting solutions.

This how-to walks through this process using Excel as an example application. Although in this example, the MySQL and PostgreSQL servers are running on Linux, the steps are no different if the software is running on Windows. These steps are:

1.         Setting up authentication
2.         Installing the ODBC Drivers
3.         Configuring the data source
4.         Importing the data.

PostgreSQL on Windows: A Primer

MichaelF — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 21:06:00 GMT

This paper will cover the installation and initial configuration of PostgreSQL 8.2 on Windows up to a point where a database is created and plpgsql is installed in it. We assume an ability to walk through the install wizard in general, though screens that do require additional information will be covered (with screenshots). Important options in the postgresql.conf and pg_hba.conf will be covered, as will database creation in PgAdmin III.

HOW-TO: CONNECTING SQL SERVER 2005 JDBC to JBOSS

admin — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:46:00 GMT

HOW-TO: CONNECTING SQL SERVER 2005 JDBC to JBOSS

We have been working in the labs regarding testing and integration of jBoss talking to a SQL server 2005 backend.

We have seen some questions on how to connect a SQL Server in the Windows environment to jBoss. So I wrote a little how-to that describes just that.

It turns out that it is actually very simple.

Essentially, all that’s involved with installing the driver is:

Download the jdbc driver from here; http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e22bc83b-32ff-4474-a44a-22b6ae2c4e17&displaylang=en#filelist (Scroll to the bottom of the screen)
You can either download the Windows or Unix version. It does not really matter which one you use. For this example I use the Windows version.
Run the downloaded exe file; this will create a directory called Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver in the directory you downloaded the file to.
Copy the file Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC Driver\sqljdbc_1.0\enu\sqljdbc.jar to your $JBOSS_HOME/server/default/lib
Set your data source of your application to use the driver;

<local-tx-datasource>

<jndi-name>DATASOURCENAME</jndi-name>

<connection-url>jdbc:sqlserver://DATABASE URL;databaseName=jboss;</connection-url>

<driver-class>com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver</driver-class>

<user-name>DATABASE USERNAME</user-name>

<password>DATABASE PASSWORD</password>

</local-tx-datasource>

NOTE: Substitute DATASOURCE NAME, DATABASE-URL, DATABASE USERNAME and DATABASE PASSWORD for your local values.

And that is all there is to it. jBoss now should be able to connect to the SQL Server.

Special thanks to Dan Simonton one of our penguins who did a bunch of the testing on this.