[ERROR] Error message file '/usr/share/mysql/english/errmsg.sys' had only 481 error messages,
but it should contain at least 641 error messages.

After some googling, I found that some of the official RPM packages for MySQL actually contain the incorrect errmsg.sys files. The recommended fix listed on several sites was to either recompile from scratch or, vaguely, to “replace it with the correct errmsg.sys file.” I decided to try the vague reference and make it more specific here.

• First, determine the version of MySQL installed. In our case it was 5.1.56
• Second, locate a zip file of the raw uncompiled tar.gz of that version. I used http://mysql.llarian.net/Downloads/MySQL-5.1/mysql-5.1.56.tar.gz
• Third, download and extract the file to a location of your choosing.
  cd /usr/local/src
wget http://mysql.llarian.net/Downloads/MySQL-5.1/mysql-5.1.56.tar.gz
tar -zxf mysql-5.1.56.tar.gz
• Fourth, backup the existing errsg.sys file.
  mv /usr/share/mysql/english/errmsg.sys /usr/share/mysql/english/errmsg.sys.old
• Fifth, copy the errmsg.sys file from the extrated source code to the live location.
  cp /usr/local/src/mysql-5.1.56/sql/share/english/errmsg.sys /usr/share/mysql/english/errmsg.sys

After that’s done, MySQL should start normally unless it encounters other errors.

-Mark Kraus
Senior Systems Administrator

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You can use PHP to detect crawling activity, rotate images/banners, and process forms. Here is an example of code that will email you whenever Google crawler Googlebot visits your page by detecting the useragent. You could expand the code to include other crawlers, add date and time stamp, and validate the IP to exclude impostors. I left that stuff out for simplicity and because you can  get that info from your webstats/logs. Just copy and paste this code in your web page to try it out. Note that the page may have to end with .php file extension to work, it depends on how your web server is setup.

<?
if(eregi(“Googlebot”,$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])){

//put your email address below
$address=youname@yourdomain.com;
$subject=”Google visited “.$_SERVER[’HTTP_HOST’];
$message=”Googlebot visited today.”;
mail($address, $subject, $message);
}
?>

Here is an example of how to display  random images in a web page, it will pick one of the three banners each time the page loads. You could easily add more cases here or change the img src line to make this a random text function.

<?
$randomimage = Rand (1,3) ;

//put your image name at bannerx
switch ($randomimage)
{
case 1:
“banner1″;
break;

case 2:
“banner2″;
break;

case 3:
“banner3″;
break;
}

echo ‘<img src=”‘$randomimage.’” border=0>’;

?>

Another cool thing you can do is filter form data to by blocking bad words, banning ip addresses, and setting a timer with a cookie. There is nothing worse than having your website form spammed. You can get the visitor’s IP address with a built in php function and then check it against a list of bad IP addresses you have stored in a list called an array. You can modify this to include words by replacing the IP addresses with words. This is useful if there is a relatively small number of abusers. In the case of larger numbers, blocking at the server level using iptables or a firewall may work better for you.

Here is the code for blocking IPs and you can add more IPs to the array if needed:

<?
$banned_ip_addresses = array(’4.2.5.5′, ’64.43.67.19′, ’207.22.32.152′);

if(in_array($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], $banned_ip_addresses))
{
echo “You are banned.”;
} else {
continue with form processing…
}

If you are having problems with abusive surfers filling out your forms with constantly changing ip addresses, you can stop them by adding a cookie. A cookie is a small piece of code sent to the user’s pc to identify them.  Note that not all browsers will accept cookies, but most will. Once the cookie is set, you check for the existence of it in your form processing. Here is an example:

//this sets time to 7200 seconds, 2 hours
<?
setcookie(“userx”, “cookie1″, time()+7200);
?>

Then add the code below to find out if this person has been on your page before:

<?
if (isset($_COOKIE1["userx"])){
echo “You have already filled out this form recently”;

} else {
continue with form processing…
}
?>

There is a plethora of PHP support websites on the Internet. My longtime favorite is  PHP Freaks Forum where you can post  technical questions and read responses. Another good one is the Digital Point PHP Forum. If you are looking for scripts then visit Hotscripts, where you will find many, some free and some paid. Also check out Free Scripts Directory,  Script Repository, and PHP Resource Index. They have scripts for: counters, auctions, voting, calculators, searching, support ticketing, etc.

PHP works fine on both Linux and Windows systems. If you have a Linux box then chances are good that it is already installed; if not, visit php.net to download it. PHP is not standard on Windows but it can be installed. If you need technical support we can help you with installing or upgrading.

PHP is very powerful. In an upcoming post I will explain how to speed it up using accelerators, pull data from a database, write it to a webpage, and add functionality using extensions.

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There are many new features in version 6. Database backups have a new function to minimize table locking while running a backup or restore. This is a big improvement over the old way of dumping a database using mysqldump which caused transactions to stop while backup was running. There is a storage engine called Falcon that was designed for multi-core processors and huge memory banks. Falcon will dynamically compress data, cache data indexes, and is optimized for multi threaded cpus. Beware that Falcon is considered alpha software and will probably have bugs at first. Also there will be a new SQL statement that allows tables to be locked in a way that allows multimodes: share mode and exclusive mode. You can learn all the technical details by reading MySQL 6 online.

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Security:
The database should be accessible only by the front-end application server and not accessible by or open to the Internet. To accomplish this, private IPs are used to connect the public http server with the private database server. We use our Private Backend Network (PBN) or add a cross-connect cable between the servers creating private LAN communications. The database server has no public IP nor Internet access. Only the http server has a public IP address.

Performance:
Database applications are generally resource intensive. When you run web/application/database/e-commerce/dns/email services (or any combination) on the same server, you are taking resources away from the database application. Database applications will typically use all the RAM you can throw at them, and you don’t want your visitors waiting for database queries to load. You want it fast, because they want it now!

Scalability:
You hope the millions of dollars you’ve budgeted to promote your site will allow your business to grow rapidly, so you can someday retire a wealthy tycoon – spending your days on the beach sipping your favorite beverage while basking in the sun – right? Create an environment now for that rapid growth that easily allows for scalability. MS SQL and MySQL database applications integrate tools for data replication services – the ability to duplicate the data to multiple servers. A replicated database environment can offer two (2) distinct benefits; 1. performance (utilizing load balancing of multiple db servers) and 2. high-availability (preservation of data in the event of a single server failure).

Need help customizing an environment to meet your needs for security, high-availability, performance and scalability? Just ask – it’s what we do best.

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