The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for July, 2021

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Ken Thompson’s 1980 Unix password got cracked only a while ago: he used much entropy in his password

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/22

A few years back, Ken Thompson’s 1980 Unix password got cracked.

It took that long because his password p/q2-q4! had enough entropy by using uncommon characters so the crypt(3) based hash ZghOT0eRm4U9s was hard to crack.

The password was an opening chess move noted in the variety of the descriptive notation. A shorter notation would have been P-Q4, which would require months to crack in that era.

In modern chess notation, it would be 1. d4, moving the Queen’s Pawn from d2 to d4.

References (many interesting messages in the TUHS thread below):

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Posted in *nix, B, C, Development, Power User, Security, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

console – When is System.IsConsole true in Delphi? – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/22

Some highlights from [WayBack] console – When is System.IsConsole true in Delphi? – Stack Overflow:

  • Project/Options/Linking/Generate console application and {$APPTYPE CONSOLE} are two separate things. – [WayBack] Andreas Rejbrand.
  • The -cc commandline parameter for dcc32.exe (which could be in your ProjectX.cfg file!) is equivalent to “Generate console application):

    Found it: the executable has been created using dcc32.exe and the dpr / cfg file, the cfg contains a line

    -cc

    which creates a console application. – [WayBack] mjn

  • Note that in Delphi XE2, OSX applications can not use this variable as it is always true. See QC Entry 98956 and Why Does My OSX FireMonkey App Think It Is a Console App ? – [WayBack] mjn

A few notes I have found out myself

The linker option “Project/Options/Linking/Generate console application” is the same as “DCC_ConsoleTarget” in the .dproj file:

    <PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Base_Win32)'!=''">
        <DCC_ConsoleTarget>true</DCC_ConsoleTarget>
    </PropertyGroup>

Even setting IsConsole to True does not allocate a new console, so the STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE handle does not work!

The below method in the System unit, then does not show output:

procedure WriteErrorMessage;
{$IFDEF MSWINDOWS}
var
  Dummy: Cardinal;
begin
  if IsConsole then
  begin
    with TTextRec(Output) do
    begin
      if (Mode = fmOutput) and (BufPos > 0) then
        TTextIOFunc(InOutFunc)(TTextRec(Output));  // flush out text buffer
    end;
    // Leave #0 off end of runErrMsg
    WriteFile(GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE), @runErrMsg, Sizeof(runErrMsg) - 1, Dummy, nil);
    WriteFile(GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE), @sLineBreak[1], 2, Dummy, nil);
  end
  else if not NoErrMsg then
    MessageBoxA(0, runErrMsg, errCaption, 0);
end;

For console output, you have to enable the linker option DCC_ConsoleTarget allocates a console (if not yet allocated), enables the “STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE” handle, and sets IsConsole to True.

–jeroen

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Fixing hg.exe “ImportError: DLL load failed: %1 is not a valid Win32 application.”

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/21

If you get the below error when running hg.exe, then you are mixing a 64-bit Mercurial with 32-bit dependencies:

C:\>hg --version
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "hg", line 43, in 
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 150, in __getattr__
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 94, in _load
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 43, in _hgextimport
  File "mercurial\dispatch.pyc", line 22, in 
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 248, in _demandimport
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 43, in _hgextimport
  File "mercurial\i18n.pyc", line 28, in 
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 150, in __getattr__
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 94, in _load
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 43, in _hgextimport
  File "mercurial\encoding.pyc", line 24, in 
  File "mercurial\policy.pyc", line 101, in importmod
  File "mercurial\policy.pyc", line 63, in _importfrom
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 164, in __doc__
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 94, in _load
  File "hgdemandimport\demandimportpy2.pyc", line 43, in _hgextimport
  File "mercurial\cext\parsers.pyc", line 12, in 
  File "mercurial\cext\parsers.pyc", line 10, in __load
ImportError: DLL load failed: %1 is geen geldige Win32-toepassing.

The equivalent English error is [WayBack] “ImportError: DLL load failed: %1 is not a valid Win32 application.” – Google Search.

The problem is the bitness of hg.exe: [WayBack] python – Error while installing Mercurial on IIS7 64bit: “DLL Load Failed: %1 is not a valid Win32 application” – Stack Overflow

You can quickly figure out the bitness of hg.exe:

C:\>where hg
C:\Program Files\Mercurial\hg.exe

C:\>sigcheck "C:\Program Files\Mercurial\hg.exe"

Sigcheck v2.72 - File version and signature viewer
Copyright (C) 2004-2019 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

c:\program files\mercurial\hg.exe:
        Verified:       Unsigned
        Link date:      17:49 9-7-2019
        Publisher:      n/a
        Company:        n/a
        Description:    Fast scalable distributed SCM (revision control, version control) system
        Product:        mercurial
        Prod version:   5.0.2
        File version:   5.0.2
        MachineType:    64-bit

Forcing x86 of Mercurial

Since I use chocolatey for most my installs, I forced x86 the Chocolatey way:

So after these:

choco uninstall --yes hg
choco install --yes --force86 hg

I got this signature check:

C:\>sigcheck "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mercurial\hg.exe"

Sigcheck v2.72 - File version and signature viewer
Copyright (C) 2004-2019 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

c:\program files (x86)\mercurial\hg.exe:
        Verified:       Unsigned
        Link date:      17:50 9-7-2019
        Publisher:      n/a
        Company:        n/a
        Description:    Fast scalable distributed SCM (revision control, version control) system
        Product:        mercurial
        Prod version:   5.0.2
        File version:   5.0.2
        MachineType:    32-bit

–jeroen

Posted in Development, DVCS - Distributed Version Control, Encoding, Mercurial/Hg, Python, Scripting, Software Development, Source Code Management | Leave a Comment »

Filezilla: figuring out the cause of “Connection timed out after 20 seconds of inactivity”

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/21

On one of my Raspberry Pi boxes, somehow I could not access files over SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) via FileZilla.

I would consistently get this error:

"Connection timed out after 20 seconds of inactivity"

Figuring the exact cause took a while.

TL;DR: SFTP uses an interactive non-login shell, then interprets the output from that shell. For that kind of shell, ensure few or none scripts run that output text.

These links finally got me to the cause

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Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, bash, bash, Communications Development, Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Event, Internet protocol suite, Power User, Scripting, SFTP, Software Development, SSH, TCP | Leave a Comment »

Some useful FastMM related methods to track memory usage

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/21

Below, for my link archive, some searches and relevant posts on FastMM related method calls to track or report memory usage.

Searches:

  • LogMemoryManagerStateToFile
  • FastGetHeapStatus {Returns summarised information about the state of the memory manager. (For
    backward compatibility.)}
  • GetMemoryManagerState (InternalBlockSize, UseableBlockSize, AllocatedBlockCount, ReservedAddressSpace) {Returns statistics about the current state of the memory manager}GetMemoryManagerUsageSummary {Returns a summary of the information returned by GetMemoryManagerState}
  • GetMemoryMap {Non-POSIX only; Gets the state of every 64K block in the 4GB address space}
  • ScanMemoryPoolForCorruptions; {Scans the memory pool for any corruptions. If a corruption is encountered an “Out of Memory” exception is raised.}
    • It is very costly in CPU usage, but helps finding heap corruption quickly.
  • function GetCurrentAllocationGroup: Cardinal;
    • {Returns the current “allocation group”. Whenever a GetMem request is serviced
      in FullDebugMode, the current “allocation group” is stored in the block header.
      This may help with debugging. Note that if a block is subsequently reallocated
      that it keeps its original “allocation group” and “allocation number” (all
      allocations are also numbered sequentially).}
  • procedure PushAllocationGroup(ANewCurrentAllocationGroup: Cardinal);
    procedure PopAllocationGroup;

    • {Allocation groups work in a stack like fashion. Group numbers are pushed onto
      and popped off the stack. Note that the stack size is limited, so every push
      should have a matching pop.}
  • LogAllocatedBlocksToFile
    • {Logs detail about currently allocated memory blocks for the specified range of
      allocation groups. if ALastAllocationGroupToLog is less than
      AFirstAllocationGroupToLog or it is zero, then all allocation groups are
      logged. This routine also checks the memory pool for consistency at the same
      time, raising an “Out of Memory” error if the check fails.}
  • SetMMLogFileName
    • {Specify the full path and name for the filename to be used for logging memory
      errors, etc. If ALogFileName is nil or points to an empty string it will
      revert to the default log file name.}

Posts (note that not all of them get their calculations right):

These help you track leaks that do not appear as leaks during shutdown: memory allocations that will be released at the end of your application, but are mostly unused while your application is still alive.

A few things to take away from these:

  1. “Out of Memory” (or exception EOutOfMemor) could mean that the memory manager structures are hosed, but memory is still available.
  2. You can specify the FastMM log file used (for instance to include a PID or run-time ID in them so each run gets a separate filename)
  3. When carefully setting up allocation groups, you are able to zoom in at allocations

A gist with a MemoryManagerUnit showing a few of these calls is below.

An example of its usage is this:

procedure TMyTestClass.TestMethod();
begin
   TLogMemoryStatesHelper.DumpMemoryStatesBeforeAndAfter('TestMethod',
     TLogging.LogDir,
     TFileLogger.GetLogFileName,
     procedure (const AFormat: string; const Args: array of const)
     begin
       TLogging.LogEvent(ltInfoHigh, aFormat, Args);
     end,
     procedure()
     begin
       try
         // Given
         BuildSomeTestScenario();
         // When
         InitializeTestScenario();
         // Then
         CheckEquals(0, TestScenarioSummary());
       finally
         // Cleanup
         CleanUpTestScenario();
       end;
     end
  );
end;

–jeroen

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Posted in Delphi, Development, FastMM, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Very different views on the repository pattern

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/20

–jeroen

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Posted in .NET, Design Patterns, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Many http headers via 🔎Julia Evans🔍 on Twitter: “some security headers… “

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/20

An image on CORS will follow; likely more on related topics too. [WayBack] 🔎Julia Evans🔍 on Twitter: “some security headers… “ about:

Interesting comments in the thread.

More to follow: [Archive.is] 🔎Julia Evans🔍 on Twitter: “going to talk about CORS headers on a different page because that’s a Whole Thing but i’d love to know what else I left out / got wrong here :)” including these:

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Posted in Communications Development, Development, Encryption, HTTP, https, HTTPS/TLS security, Internet protocol suite, Power User, Security, TCP | Leave a Comment »

Some links for detecting memory leaks from individual DUnit test methods

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/20

–jeroen

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, DUnit, Event, FastMM, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

How do i get the old CTRL + TAB function back

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/19

I hate those updates (this time around FireFox 65) where suddenly the UX changes without an obvious way to switch back to the old behaviour. [WayBack] How do i get the old CTRL + TAB function back? | Firefox Support Forum | Mozilla Support led me to the proper name (“browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedOrder”), and a confirmation of the below steps in:

I by now know this is only for new user profiles, but since I do not sync profiles (as almost all of my equipment servers different use cases), but still have the same physical user (me), I want consistent behaviour. See [WayBack/Archive.is] Enable “Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order” feature by default in new profiles

Script needed

Too bad I could not find a way to script this: my [WayBack] Mozilla Bugzilla “browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedOrder” “script” – Google Search turned no useful results.

If you have a scripting workaround, please let me know.

Resetting to the old tab behaviour

For me, the easiest way is to

  1. browse to about:config,
  2. confirm “I accept the risk!”,
  3. type “tab” in the “Search” pane,
  4. select browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedOrder,
  5. double click on the “browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedOrder” entry to switch from non-bold true (default value; wrong) to false (actual value; correct).

No need for any save button: the change is immediate.

These might help me script it:

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Posted in Firefox, Power User, Web Browsers | Leave a Comment »

Mijn pakket raakte kwijt bij het Albert Heijn verzendpunt, wat nu? – Ius Mentis

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/07/19

[WayBack] Mijn pakket raakte kwijt bij het Albert Heijn verzendpunt, wat nu? – Ius Mentis

Interessante discussie bij Tweakers: Lang verhaal in oktober 2017 wat besteld bij bol.com, week later geretourneerd via de AH daarvoor gekozen tijdens het retourproces. Daar een ontvangstbewijs van gekregen. Poos daarna herinnering ontvangen niet betaald, bewijs doorgestuurd niets meer gehoord. Toen opeens in januari van accountor een incassobureau een mail/brief gehad met een vordering. Het… Lees verder

En de links van het artikel:

–jeroen

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

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