Ext.Net 1.2 and Mono 2.10 on Ubuntu Oneiric

We have upgraded all the code of OpenPetra to .net 4.0.
We also upgraded to Ext.Net 1.2.

There were two bugs in Mono 2.10, which were show-stoppers:
http://bugzilla.xamarin.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2505 was a problem with the mono compiler, in Mono 2.10.x
This was fixed in mono master.

So I tried to build mono from master, but then I had problems with fastcgi, while xsp4 was serving the content correctly:
http://bugzilla.xamarin.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2876
This was also fixed in mono master.

Below is a link to a tar.gz file, that contains the build of Mono, with mod_mono and xsp, at the beginning of February 2012.

I wanted to use lighttpd and fastcgi with Mono and Ext.Net, but that did not work.
The error that I got was similar as to described here, but without a solution that works for me:
http://forums.ext.net/showthread.php?14040-All-DirectEvents-Is-Error
It works fine with xsp4.

I then tried with mod_mono and apache2:
I came across this issue http://forums.ext.net/showthread.php?12348-404-Not-Found-for-a-few-resources-requests, that the resources cannot be loaded. The solution from that thread also helped me:
Add CleanResourceUrl = "false" to your .aspx file:

<ext:ResourceManager  runat="server" CleanResourceUrl="false" />

So here are my configuration steps for Ext.Net with Mono and Apache2:

This works with Ubuntu Oneiric 64 bit (11.04). But it might work on other Ubuntu/Debian version as well. I have also used it on CentOS.

apt-get install apache2
cd /opt
wget http://download.pokorra.de/mono/ubuntu/mono.tar.gz
for 32 bit: wget http://download.pokorra.de/mono/ubuntu32/mono.tar.gz
tar xzf mono.tar.gz
cd /usr/lib/apache2/modules/
wget http://download.pokorra.de/mono/ubuntu/mod_mono.so
for 32 bit: wget http://download.pokorra.de/mono/ubuntu32/mod_mono.so
cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled
wget http://download.pokorra.de/mono/ubuntu/mod_mono.conf
# note that mod_mono.conf contains this line:
# MonoServerPath /opt/mono-2.10-git/bin/mod-mono-server4
vi /etc/init.d/apache2
# search for LANG, and replace with this line:

ENV="env -i LANG=en_GB PATH=/opt/mono-2.10-git/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"

Mono will create a directory /var/www/.mono which should not be public.
In your apache site configuration file, add just before  <Directory /var/www/>

<directorymatch \.mono>

           Deny from all
</directorymatch>

cd /var/www
wget http://download.pokorra.de/mono/ubuntu/extnet-sample-mono.tar.gz
tar xzf extnet-sample-mono.tar.gz
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

See the result here:
http://demo.openpetra.org/DemoDesktop

This is the demo for the Desktop from Ext.Net 1.2, with a slight modification in Default.aspx and Desktop.aspx for the ResourceManager as described above.

Ext.Net and Mono

I like ext.js/Sencha for having a rich client in the browser.

On the other hand, we are using Mono for running our .Net server.

ext.net is a good library that helps you to easily write web applications, based on your .net libraries.

For OpenPetra, I have created an online application system, and the backend for the registration office is written with ext.net.

Here are some problems I came across, and how I solved them:

First, I had to recompile the ext.net dlls and also the Newtonsoft.Json.Net20.dll.

See the pages that have been helpful to me at http://www.coolite.com/forums/Topic31022-16-2.aspx#bm31088 and http://www.coolite.com/forums/Topic31022-7-1.aspx

The Newtonsoft.Json.Net20.dll has been compiled with the latest compiler built from Mono 2.8 trunk. This was necessary so that no Microsoft dlls were linked in.

The ext.net dll was built against the Mono compiled Newtonsoft.Json.Net20.dll on Windows with SharpDevelop. The mono compiler crashed on Linux when trying to build the ext.net solution.

The resulting files are available from the online source repository of OpenPetra, eg. http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~openpetracore/openpetraorg/trunkhosted/files/head:/csharp/ThirdParty/ext.net/

I was not able to get Ext.Net to run with the latest Mono 2.8, but it is working fine with 2.6.7.

I had to build it from the sources.

Some links related to the problems I had with Mono 2.8 and Ext.Net:

compile ext.net: There is no implicit reference conversion from `Ext.Net.ComboBox' to `Ext.Net.ComboBoxBase'

fixed in master https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=653832

see also http://go-mono.com/forums/#nabble-td2546240

Running ext.net on Mono 2.8: get the error: Cannot add a Ext.Net.Parameter to System.String

For the moment, the solution for me was to use Mono 2.6.7.

The examples of ext.net only show the c# code inside the aspx file, but with growing size of the code it would be good to be able to split the code behind code from the UI code.

This is possible, but you need to define all controls in the .cs file, at least those you want to use in your code behind code.

see eg. OnlineRegistrationBackend/Desktop.aspx.cs

In the aspx file, make sure you have at the top:

<%@ Page Language="C#"

Inherits="Ict.Petra.WebServer.MConference.TPageOnlineApplication"

src="Desktop.aspx.cs" %>

<%@ Register assembly="Ext.Net" namespace="Ext.Net" tagprefix="ext" %>

see the whole file here: OnlineRegistrationBackend/Desktop.aspx

Now I ran into errors like this when Mono was compiling the code on the fly:

Compiler Error Message: CS1644: Feature `anonymous types' cannot be used because it is not part of the C# 2.0 language specification

I found on the Internet this page: http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/121207-1.aspx

linked from http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/c2PM7RMRJf7Ti7PP7uVb, where they discuss how to use "extension methods" and "collection initializers" with Mono.

I have added all those settings to my web.config, see the result here:

template/etc/web-postgresql.config

You can see a running demo here: http://demo.openpetra.org:8009/

CruiseControl.net and Mono

I have set up CruiseControl.net (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ccnet/) on Mono for building our OpenPetra.org project, which is quite a big project.

Here are the steps I followed, and my config files so that people can benefit from it:

Here is some advice how to change the ccnet.exe.config to make it work for Mono: http://markmail.org/message/uyfqysd55u4xqhfs; main things are to change the xsl paths' backslash to forward slash, and to replace ColoredConsoleAppender with ConsoleAppender, and to remove mappings for the ConsoleAppender.

You can see my modified ccnet.exe.config, and also the ccnet.config for OpenPetra here in the online git repository:

http://openpetraorg.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=openpetraorg/openpetraorg;a=tree;f=csharp/ICT/PetraTools/ContinuousIntegration

You will also find a cruisecontrol.sh which I use as a init.d script for starting and stopping my CruiseControl server.

I had to install Mono XSP from the Lenny backports repository, to get Mono 2.x. It was also important to install sendmail, otherwise the EmailProvider would obviously not work (which took me quite a while to notice).

apt-get -t lenny-backports install mono-xsp
apt-get install sendmail sendmail-bin

Then I had a nasty problem with the logging. After a failed build, I had this exception:

[OpenPetraOrg:ERROR] Publisher threw exception: ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.CruiseControlException: Unable to read the contents of the file: /home/timop/CruiseControl.NET/Server/OpenPetraOrg/Artifacts/nant-results-b2f2a299-05c5-42a6-a311-24df30a59b9a.xml ---> System.NotImplementedException: The requested feature is not implemented.
at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Tasks.FileTaskResult.ReadFileContents () [0x00000]
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Tasks.FileTaskResult.ReadFileContents () [0x00000]
at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Tasks.FileTaskResult.get_Data () [0x00000]
at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Publishers.XmlIntegrationResultWriter.WriteTaskResults (IIntegrationResult result) [0x00000]
at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Publishers.XmlIntegrationResultWriter.WriteBuildElement (IIntegrationResult result) [0x00000]
at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Publishers.XmlIntegrationResultWriter.Write (IIntegrationResult result) [0x00000]
at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Publishers.XmlLogPublisher.Execute (IIntegrationResult result) [0x00000]
at ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Tasks.TaskBase.Run (IIntegrationResult result) [0x00000]
[OpenPetraOrg:ERROR] Unable to build email message: ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.CruiseControlException: Unable to read the contents of the file: /home/timop/CruiseControl.NET/Server/OpenPetraOrg/Artifacts/nant-results-b2f2a299-05c5-42a6-a311-24df30a59b9a.xml --->  System.NotImplementedException: The requested feature is not implemented.

After some searching, I realised that the log file had become quite big, and in the CruiseControl.net code in FileTaskResult.cs the function ReadFileContents would call MemoryFailPoint, but this class has not been implemented yet in Mono 2.x (http://anonsvn.mono-project.com/viewvc/tags/mono-2-4-2-2/mcs/class/corlib/System.Runtime/MemoryFailPoint.cs).

My solution was to download the sources of Mono, and modify MemoryFailPoint.cs to not throw that NotImplementedException, but just stay quiet. I then copied the resulting file (eg. mono-2.4.2.3/mcs/class/lib/net_2_0/mscorlib.dll) to my server with the CruiseControl.net, to /usr/lib/mono/2.0/mscorlib.dll

Now CruiseControl.net works quite nicely, though I have not played with NUnit yet, and there are more things to explore...

Building a mono 2.0 RPM for RHEL4/CentOS4

When I noticed that Novell does not offer RPMS of Mono 2.0 for RedHat Linux, I had a look at the Fedora 10 Beta and found that there is a Mono 2.0 Source RPM:
mono-2.0-6.fc10.src.rpm
Update: mono-2.0.1-12.fc10.src.rpm

Because we work with CentOS4/RedHat Enterprise Linux 4, I installed the source package on that system, and tried to build the rpms.

Building the code was fine after I deactivated a couple of dependencies.
But I ran into some problems at the file checking stage. I wondered if I can prevent the build stage to happen again and again. That way I should be able to debug the file list check etc.

Reading the man page, these parameters are interesting:

--short-circuit
--nobuild
-bi
-bl

So with rpmbuild -bl mono.spec I was able to just run the file checking stage.

The errors I got were like this:
rpm build errors: File not found: /var/tmp/mono-2.0-6-root-root/usr/bin/certmgr/usr/bin/chktrust/usr/bin/gacutil/usr/bin/gmcs/usr/bin/mcs/usr/bin/mcs1

But the files do exist in the /var/tmp/mono-2.0-6-root-root/ directory

I finally realised that the problem was caused by the Macros.
see also http://rpm.org/wiki/PackagerDocs/Macros
I had to first add curly brackets to each Macro call:
%{macro parameters}
But even then only the first line of the Macro had an effect.
This command was helpful in the files section to see that the Macros just were not resolved correctly:
%{echo: %{your_macro_here}}

In the end, I ended up adding the missing files to my own mono.spec file.
I also had a look at the last available RedHat spec file from Novell for Mono 1.9.x, and I guess there is a different rpm version for RHEL 4 and RHEL 5.

Here is my modified mono.spec file that works for RHEL4/CentOS4 for Mono 2.0:
http://download.pokorra.de/mono/mono.spec

Please download the src.rpm file from the Fedora 10 Beta, or later, and install it:
rpm -i mono-2.0-6.fc10.src.rpm
Then copy my modified mono.spec to /usr/src/redhat/SPECS, and build the packages:
rpmbuild -ba mono.spec

Alternatively, here is a zip file with the compiled RPM files for CentOS4/RHEL4:
mono-2.0-6.i386.rhel4.rpm.zip
I cannot guarantuee that it actually works, but feel free to use it for your own experiments!

Allow Chinese characters on a Client-Server application

I recently had to provide a working solution for Traditional Chinese for Hongkong.

It involved both ODBC on the Linux server to read correct data from a Progress database, and process that data in .net on Mono, but also on the client side to be able to read data through ODBC.

Here is the solution and also some warnings about what can go wrong:

For Mono, you need to have installed the RPM package mono-locale-extras, which installs the dll I18N.CJK.dll (CJK stands for Chinese Japanese Korean).

Make sure the Progress database is in codepage big-5.
proutil mydb -C convchar convert undefined -G 15
proutil mydb -C convchar convert big-5 -G 15
_progres -pf batch.pf -1 -b -rx -p upgrade.p -param $DLC/prolang/tch/big-5/_tran.df | cat
proutil mydb -C idxbuild all

Make sure that your pf files (or even the Progress startup.pf) contain these lines:
-cpinternal big-5
-cpstream big-5
-cprcodein undefined

For the Progress server, you need to set this variable before the server is started (note: if you have both sql and 4gl server, the first one needs all settings already):
export SQL_CLIENT_CHARSET=BIG-5

Mono would rather expect BIG5 (without the dash), so we need to set another variable so that the default encoding is correct.
Before you start the server in the Mono environment, make sure that you export this variable:
export LANG=zh_TW.big5

The following command shows what languages are available on your Linux:
locale -a
Unfortunately there is no big5 for Hongkong, and zh_HK.big5hkscs does not seem to work for me. zh_TW.big5 works fine.

This code converts the data from the codepage coming through ODBC from the Progress database into Unicode:

FDBEncoding := System.Text.Encoding.Default;
try
sqlClientCodePage := Convert.ToInt32(System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable('SQL_CLIENT_CHARSET'));
FDBEncoding := System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(sqlClientCodePage);
except on exp: Exception do
end;

function ConvertToUnicode(s: System.String): System.String;
var
bytes: array of byte;
begin
bytes := Encoding.Default.GetBytes(s);
result := FDBEncoding.GetChars(bytes);
end;

function ConvertFromUnicode(s: System.String): System.String;
var
bytes: array of byte;
begin
bytes := FDBEncoding.GetBytes(s);
result := Encoding.Default.GetChars(bytes);
end;

For the client to be able to access through ODBC, we also need to set the environment variable in Windows XP SQL_CLIENT_CHARSET=BIG-5
(Start/Settings/Control Panel/System/Advanced/Environment Variables/System or User Variables)

My first little ASP.net project using the Mono XSP server

I wanted to provide an online version for the project Delphi2C#, so that people can just paste their Pascal code on the website, and see how good the converter is for them when it displays the C# version of their code.

On Debian, you need to install:

apt-get install mono-xsp asp.net-examples

This will give you a file

/etc/xsp/debian.webapp

It already contains the configuration for the samples, that live in

/usr/share/asp.net-demos

To start the xsp server, you just run

/etc/init.d/mono-xsp start

And you will be able to access the samples at

http://YOURSERVER:8081/samples

For example to add your own aspx file, copy it to

/usr/share/asp.net-demos/DelphiNet2CSharp.aspx

The source code of that file you can see here:
Browse CVS of Delphi2C#

If you have a dll as well, copy that to

/usr/share/asp.net-demos/bin/Delphi2CSharp.dll

In your aspx file, you need to write at the top to use that dll:

<%@ Import Namespace="Delphi2CSharp" %>

To debug your application (e.g. I had compiled the DLL for .Net 2.0, but the xsp only supported 1.1 and crashed without any message to the browser):

cd /usr/share/asp.net-demos
MONO_OPTIONS=--debug && xsp --verbose

Then in the webbrowser go to

http://YOURSERVER:8080/DelphiNet2CSharp.aspx 

You will see all the Console.WriteLine output, and also any exceptions and Mono crash messages.