MS12-027 and SQL Server
This morning Microsoft released MS12-027 as a 'Critical' update. After being scared by the advanced notification that a 'Critical' patch affecting SQL Server was coming out this week I was relieved to read it in its entirety.
The patch fixes an exploit in an office control that unfortunately is installed by default by all versions of SQL Server. They announced that there are reports of the issue being exploited in targeted attacks but I can't see how they affect the average dedicated SQL Server in the enterprise.
The attacks require you to visit a webpage or open an office document, so if no one logs on to your SQL Server hosts it would seem, with the information available right now, that you are all ok.
Still it's going to add to the workload this month, especially if you are running non-dedicated SQL Servers and the applications they share with use the windows components. You can read about some problems with 3rd party applications in KB2664258.
To top it off the patch is for all supported versions of SQL Server, from 2000 through to 2008R2.
SQL 2012 Certification
I've been studying for the SQL 2012 Certification and sitting the beta exams. I've done the first three DBA exams now with one to go later this week. 70-461, 70-462 and 70-464 all done, with 70-465 as the one I'm yet to do.
Anyone can sit the beta exams but they finish up this week, you can see details on them on the born to learn blog. While I've sat the 'administration' streams for SQL 2000, 2005 and 2008 I'd never done a beta exam. You don't get your results at the end of the exam session, they send them out sometime before the exam goes live
So far I've found the developer strain to be a bit more challenging and the administration exams to be pretty straight forward. Guess that shows where I sit skill-wise, I certainly do a lot more DBA work than development. The whole thing has been thoroughly enjoyable though.
My first real exposure to SQL 2012 was attending Greg Lowe's What's New in SQL Server 2012 course in February. Since then I have been pretty busy reading, testing and trying it out. If it turns out I pass all the beta exams, then I'll look to do the BI ones too, though that will be a real stretch since it looks very much focused on BI Developers rather than the infrastructure side.
wordpress battle
I've had a real battle with wordpress. A few months ago I tried to upgrade to the latest version, but something went wrong. So I left it. I finally got some time to look at it again, since I'm meant to be studying for SQL 2012 Certification, and got it working. It was a real battle. I know nothing about wordpress, so in the end I just backed up the wordpress mysql database, deleted everything on this host, and reinstalled wordpress
Despite seeming so simple this didn't work. Kept getting server internal 500 errors, until I finally found this post on my hosts' forums which directed me to this php.ini file that needs to be created but wasn't getting created by the fantastico setup that was being used.
Once that was working I just setup wordpress again, found the same theme, then re-inserted everything in to the mysql database from the previous databases' backup. I probably could have pointed the new install at the old db, but I was battling with the 500 internal server errors and though maybe that database was now to blame.
Greenhouse Friendly Design for the Tropics
My Dad, Steve Beagley, is now a published author. His book on designing houses for the tropics was sent to the printers in late May. It is being distributed by the NT Government through COOLmob. There's a few pictures of my childhood home in there, as examples of doing it right, and the illustrations were done by my Auntie, Sally Heinrich.
The book is called Greenhouse Friendly Design for the Tropics. You can download it from that link.
Confirming sparse files available in NTFS folder
Sparse files is a feature of NTFS. What if something crazy has happened to your permissions and you need to confirm that sparse files works on that folder/filesystem because you received an error message as part of some other issue suggesting sparse files were failing? Well here's how you can test that sparse files is working and the error message is leading you astray:
# create a test file
echo > E:\data\dba-sparse-file-test.txt
#check sparse file setting on your file (or any file)
fsutil sparse queryflag E:\data\dba-sparse-file-test.txt
#sets file as sparse file
fsutil sparse setflag E:\data\dba-sparse-file-test.txt
#confirm sparse file setting active
fsutil sparse queryflag E:\data\dba-sparse-file-test.txt
#clean up
del /f E:\data\dba-sparse-file-test.txt
fsutil seems to require local admin to run under Win 2008, though I'm not sure that's always true. You should be running this as the user you are concerned mightn't have sparse files permissions in that particular folder. The easiest way if you are checking the SQL Server service account is to run the above through xp_cmdshell (assuming you have it enabled).