In the first part of this series, we looked at building a very minimal Restlet application using Spring configuration. In this article, we’re going to add security. Specifically, Amazon Web Services style security. As before, I’m trying to hit on some points that I didn’t find to be well-covered elsewhere, especially using AWS security from a Restlet-based client to talk to AWS. There are also a lot of examples using simple username / password security for Restlet server apps. But you can also use AWS security in your own server applications, and that’s what I’m describing here.
Restlet Development: Spring Integration
I’ve recently been working on a project that, like most, has several parts: a web site, a mobile app, a desktop app, and tying it all together, a server. Not being one to buck current trends, I’m building the server with a RESTful interface. Like all good programmers, I’m lazy and wanted to let existing libraries do the heavy lifting. I was looking for something Java-based that was simple to use, flexible, and scalable. I ended up using the Restlet library.
Android, Java, and Differences Between the Two.
I’ve recently started learning Android development. I’ve enjoyed working on small devices since my first job out of college in 1989 developing an app for a portable bar code scanner. I haven’t been able to do much development like this since other than for my own interests on an off, but in the current environment it seems foolish to not try and learn more about mobile development.
New site!
You may notice that the site looks a bit different now. I have moved from using my web provider’s hosted WordPress instance to my own copy. This will give me much more control over the site.
There is a downside however. I was able to successfully export / import all the site content. However I was NOT able to export all the user info, and with the hosted instance I did not have direct access to the DB to export the data that way. This means that if you were a registered user before you will have to re-register now.
I apologize for the inconvenience, but this will let me make a better, more enjoyable site.
LDNS for Windows – Source
Should have done this earlier. I’ve had several requests for the LDNS library that I built on Windows, so here it is. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a quick and dirty port, with minimal testing. Around the time I finally succeeded with building it, I was laid off and had to find a new job. So in the midst of all that I didn’t really do much more with it, and a couple of other unrelated projects came up that’s I may talk more about here later. I really want to get back to my goal of a .tel plugin for Thunderbird. But I’m hoping someone else will be able to take LDNS and polish it up more and we can all benefit from each other’s work.
Posted in General, LDNS, Windows
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LDNS on Windows – Success!
FINALLY! ldns is now working on Windows. More polish would be good, but it is working. Ultimately the changes weren’t too tough. Had to find replacements for a couple of functions (gettimeofday and getopts) and add a function for creating the resolver based on entries from the registry rather than /etc/resolv.conf.I’ll try to get it posted up soon after some more tweaking, but if anyone is interested in the code now, let me know and I’ll shoot you a copy.
Posted in General, LDNS, Windows
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LDNS on Windows, take 2
After many attempts, and just recently finding posts on Google groups from someone else trying to do the same thing (use ldns from XPCOM) it’s become obvious that linking the VC++ built XPCOM libraries with Cygwin built ldns just won’t work. The library formats simply aren’t compatible.
Posted in General, LDNS, Windows
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Mixing Cygwin, XPCOM, ldns
In my continuing adventures working on a .tel extension for Thunderbird, I’ve switched to using ldns for the DNS lookups. After a bit of futzing around to give ldns the ability to get the DNS server addresses from the Windows registry rather than resolv.conf. I haven’t tested the result very heavily, but building ldns under Cygwin seems to be working fine. The ‘drill’ utility won’t build – seems to be something to do with Cygwin’s lack of support for IPv6, but the core library works.
MS Suckage Beyond My Wildest Imagination
OK, so I’ve been working on some stuff related to the .tel domains – basically an extension for Thunderbird / Firefox for synchronizing contact info through a domain. Best I can tell the DNS support in Firefox already doesn’t support the NAPTR (Naming Authority Pointer) records used by .tel lookups. So I’m having to write an XPCOM component to handle it. On Windows I’m using MS’s windns lib (for the time being) and there the troubles began…
Posted in .tel, General, Windows, XPCOM
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Unit Testing and Databases
Recently I’ve been refactoring some DB access code. Basically unraveling the DB code that is sprinkled throughout the code into a separate layer. Testing this code is challenging and honestly tedious. Continue reading
Posted in General, Unit Testing
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