Send mail from Windows

When we create backup scripts sometimes we need to email notifications of success or failure.
There are few ways to do it. One of them is to use blat. Another one is VBScript. Here is example of such vbs:

Set oShell = CreateObject( "WScript.Shell" )
user=oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%UserName%")
comp=oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%ComputerName%")
Set objEmail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
objEmail.From = user+"@"+comp
objEmail.To = "your-name@your-email.com"
objEmail.Subject = comp + " RMAN backup failed"
objEmail.Textbody = "Please check RMAN log file"
objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
    ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
    ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = _
        "your.smtp.server.com"
objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
    ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25
objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Update
objEmail.Send

Database performance monitoring

Some handy commands to help with database performance monitoring and troubleshooting.
Environment: Oracle 10.2.0.4 on Solaris

1. PGA usage, top consumers
   select
   round(p.pga_alloc_mem/1024/1024) "pga_alloc_MiB",
   round(p.pga_used_mem/1024/1024) "pga_used_MiB",
   p.spid "OS_pid",
   s.sid, s.serial#, s.username, s.status, s.client_info, s.osuser, s.machine, s.terminal, s.program, s.module,s.sql_id
   from v$process p, v$session s
   where p.addr=s.paddr
   order by p.pga_alloc_mem desc;
   
2. UNDO usage, top consumers
   select round(t.used_ublk*(select block_size from dba_tablespaces where tablespace_name=(select value from v$parameter where name = 'undo_tablespace'))/1024/1024) "undo_used_MiB",
   t.used_ublk used_blocks,
   t.START_DATE trn_started,
   s.sid, s.serial#, s.username, s.status,s.osuser, s.machine, s.terminal, s.program, s.module,s.sql_id
   from V$TRANSACTION t, v$session S
   where t.SES_ADDR=s.saddr
   order by used_ublk desc;
   
3. TEMP usage, top consumers
   select t.tablespace, t.blocks,
   round((t.blocks * ts.block_size)/1024/1024) "Size_MiB", t.segtype,
   s.sid, s.serial#, s.username, s.status,s.osuser, s.machine, s.terminal, s.program, s.module,s.sql_id
   from v$session s, v$tempseg_usage t, dba_tablespaces ts
   where t.tablespace=ts.tablespace_name and s.saddr = t.session_addr
   order by t.blocks desc;
   
4.  CPU usage
   
   • UNIX top command, it can be sorted by CPU or memory (SIZE or RES). Press “h” for help.
   • In OEM you can look at Performance page of host.
   • UNIX Solaris command prstat
     sorted by CPU usage:
     
     
     prstat
     processes sorted by CPU and totals per user
     prstat -a
     sorted by memory and totals per user. Careful! It is different from top command as it shows shared memory as well.
     prstat -a -s rss
     
     
     
   
   
5. Free memory
   UNIX top command and OEM host performance page can be used. They show the same result.
    
6.  Paging and Swapping
   In OEM:
   Go to target host, "Performance" tab. Click "Swap Utilization" number to see a graph or click "Paging Activity" to see more metrics.
   Unix commands:
   vmstat -S 3 12
   Where 3 is the number of seconds between statistics samplings and 12 is the number of samples to take. Watch "si" and "so", swap in/out columns, and scan rate "sr". If scan rate is non-zero for an extended period of time, you need more RAM.
   Note that first line of output includes all activity since the last vmstat report.

Video problem in Skype on Linux

Environment:
Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala 64-bit, Skype 2.1.0.47 (deb package downloaded from skype.com)
Problem:
test video is just a green screen.
Solution:
You need to use correct v4l1compat.so library.
az@az1:~$ locate v4l1compat.so
/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so
/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so

Second one works ok for 64-bit linux. Try from shell:
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype &

To make it permanent go to (using Gnome)
System > Preferences > Main Menu
and change properties of Skype shortcut to

env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype