Binary Files

I wanted to do some work on an undocumented binary file format. The free HexEdit tool for Windows from Catch22 Software is a pretty good for mapping data structures to the raw binary/hex data in a file. It uses the C format struct to format the data structures into a human readable format. It could use some additional docs on how to use the typedef format but was relatively easy to figure out.

What was frustrating was finding a tool that would allow for doing binary diffs with a decent interface. There are several methods for doing binary diffs on files. The unix ‘od’ command, ‘bvi’ and others presented themselves but were not as interactive as I would like when looking at large numbers of files visually for iterative small changes. Editors and Binary Editors fall into an area of preferences. I could be entering a flame-war picking a tool but would love to hear some feedback on tools people have used.

What I found that seemed to fit the bill for me was Chris’ excellent tool called vBinDiff found at his website. Since I wanted to use UNIX tools for scripted automation but still be on a Windows system, I installed Cygwin. Getting vbindiff to work on Cygwin was a testament to Chris’ excellent code base. After finishing up and getting it working, I thought it might be nice to package it for the Cygwin project.

Cygports

Thus started my journey into Cygport. I found myself frustrated with the documentation for the assumption that I knew a lot about the Cygwin packaging which is what I was trying to avoid by using the tool. This is not a bashing session for cygport which does an amazing job of wrapping up lots of the trivia that is Cygwin packaging. What was missing is a basic “HowTo Package ABC” for Cygwin. The cygport documents while good are written for someone who had done the manual process of packaging at some point. The documentation failed to meet my expectations as a competent developer who has done lots of porting work to quickly introduce me to this new means of packaging for their platform. There is not quick guide on the simple cases with a couple of interesting example. The other lack was how to get these example applications of varied type out of Cygwin easily. I figured it out and afterwards felt silly for not having seen it. All that said, I have come the realization that I have to put some time aside and try to write an HowTo guide on packaging for Cygwin.

I’ve got two packages done so far. vBinDiff is the first and I am still polishing that install as I learn more along the way. vbindiff is currently working great as a package on my local system. Wy60 is another tool from years back when I worked on UniData/Universe systems and needed access to their Wyse 60 PICK interfaces. This makes for two packages and I have used several features to make these work. I’ll have to learn how to submit a request for inclusion into the main Cygwin package group. There is a mailing list and a set of questions to answer. I’ll just need to put some time aside for it. :)

Interests

So those are my current interests in the world of technology. I keep playing around with the BlackArmor NAS devices occasionally and would like to find the time to get the USB to serial interface setup on my second unit. The ARM gcc tool-chain languishes for lack of time as well. The DLNA server ended up being too much of a pain without a decent tool-chain so I knuckled under and installed Microsoft Media Center on an old laptop to feed my digital media to my xbox360. I really want to revisit that particular issue and get a low-power digital media server working. Maybe I’ll find the time and pick those back up.

I’m not going to give a full run down of what Eucalyptus is but just point you to their marketing material at their website. The quick summary is it offers the Amazon Web Services loaded on a local computer. These include several of the most interesting services: EC2, S3, EBS, AMI, IAM, and recently they added Autoscaling, Elastic Load Balancer, and Cloudwatch. If that alphabet soup has your interest piqued, then you should continue reading.

Building one of these using their pre-packaged images is dead simple. I’m not one to do anything the simple way and decided to build everything from the source directly from their Github repository. This was not an easy task but definitely taught me a lot about their software and the components of the system. I would recommend a first-time user to not take my route and just take their binary builds from RPM or their ISO image. Fedora Core has these as well and the guy who supports it is a great guy. Please take the path of least resistance first to get familiar with the software.

My first step was to review the major services we wanted to use on Amazon. They have a massive set of services available for use and some are not easily replicated without a major infrastructure and skill set to manage it. To give you some idea of the number of services here is a summary of the services and a quick reference as of August 2013.

This blog has been neglected quite a bit so I’ll catch you up on what I’ve been doing in the last several years. I worked several interesting places including the NC Department of Revenue for five years. Before that I worked for a couple of places that are less memorable. I finished up ten years of state government service and left the public sector for private.

My sister-in-law lived with us for awhile with my niece and nephew while my brother divorced her. That made for some drama but the kids are doing well and life moves on. I’m back to talking to my parents less again. The less said the better.

I have recently been posting to another blog of mine called “Something Completely Different” that talks about my technology hobbies. The Seagate BlackArmor NAS is favored heavily in the last several months and some Android programming stuff.

In my regular life, we are in the middle of a major renovation/addition to our house. A first floor master bedroom, master bath, sun room and garage with bonus room are coming together. Living in the house as the work happens has been a challenge on occasions. Part of doing the renovation included doing all the phone and network wiring myself so I’ve probably over done the cabling.

I got a job at SAS Institute about six months ago working for their OnDemand Validated Hosting group. I’m liking it quite a bit and learning lots of things in lots of different areas of technology. The above renovation was partly due to my proximity to my job being biking distance. My commute is really nice and I’m looking forward to walking it when I get in better shape.

Those are some highlights. I’ve completely skipped talking about the kids and my amazing wife as those would take a whole post each.