MacLochlainns Weblog

After updating the AVGFree virus definitions, I was surprised to find that Zend CE (Community Edition) 4.0.6 had a reported worm in the JavaServer.exe file. There was greater surprise when Zend CE 5.3.9 (5.6.0-SP1) also had the same reported worm.

This is the message identifying the worm (click on it to see a full size image), and you can read about this particular worm on the Mcafee site or the AVG threat labs site:

If you check AVGFree’s page, the actual infection isn’t a stated variant, but it appears the heuristics are a bit aggressive.

File Name: C:\Program Files (x86)\Zend\ZendServer\bin\JavaServer.exe
Infection: Win32/DH.FF860061{00000000-00080000-00000000}

Unless you have the full version of AVGFree or another security program to try and fix the file, you can only quarantine the file. Quarantine or removal disables Zend CE from working. It begs the question: “How does Zend release a core file with a worm?” or “Is AVGFree reporting a false positive?”

Update: AVGFree was providing a false positive. In addition to the checks by Zeev at Zend, I created a new test instance with Norton 360 and it likewise found no virus/worm in Zend’s JavaServer.exe file. Hopefully the post will prevent others from spending more than a Google search to sort it out.

Since I use AVGFree on all my Windows 7 VM test instances, it seemed logical to illustrate how to work around this current false positive and annoying quarantining of the core JavaServer.exe file from the Zend Server. There are two sets of tasks, the first requires removing the file from quarantine and the second eliminates future scans from quarantining the file again.

Remove the file from the Virus Vault

1. Launch AVGFree and navigate to the History menu option and choose the Virus Vault option, as shown below.

2. Click the Virus Vault option in the list of the History, which displays the following screen. Click the Infection row and then click the Restore button to remove the file from the virus vault.

3. A confirmation dialog opens and you click the Yes button to proceed.

4. The Infection row is gone When you’re returned to the History dialog. Click the Close button to complete this task.

Exclude the file from future scans

1. Select the Tools menu option and choose the Advanced settings … option, as shown below.

2. Click the Excluded files option in the list of the History, which displays the following screen. Click the Add button to select the file for exclusion. Click the Apply button to effect the change and the OK button to complete the change.

All I can say, one the AVGFree false positive was annoying and it’s dark at 3 a.m. and light the next day. 😉

Thanks to those who knew or surmised it was AVGFree’s heuristics and took the time to add a comment.

Last day of Collaborate 2012 and Scott Spendolini, Sumneva, gave a great presentation on APEX. Only caught the beginning Jan Visser’s Perl presentation because of the distance to the Luxor from the Mandalay South Conference Center and anticipated queuing time for checkout.

We can now look forward to Collaborate 2013 in Denver, Colorado.

Back to observing and working with code, here’s a nice article from MacWorld on how you set up a WebDAV on the Mac. While I’m mentioning Mac OS X and development, there’s still no firm upgrade window for the missing text editing tool – TextMate, and WWDC 2012 tickets sold out in two hours.

Virtualization is important and Dave Welch from the House of Brick gave a great presentation of experiences with VMWare and Tier 1 databases. It was a comprehensive presentation, but the white paper was easier to follow. The slides were complete but the volume of information was a lot for an hour presentation. Well worth the time though.

Utah Oracle User Group (UTOUG) announced a call for Fall Symposium papers today. The Fall Symposium will be in Salt Lake City on 9/6/2012. If you’re interested in presenting on Oracle or MySQL, the call for presentations will be open until 6/15/2012.

The conference party was tonight, and it provided some nice orderves and pizza. The theme was a return to 1980s music, and some folks really dressed their parts. You can listen to a short snapshot of the band by clicking the image to launch a small video segment.

I’m looking forward to the APEX Behind the Scenes presentation at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. When the conference is over, I won’t miss the smoke filled air that we walk through from the Luxor to the Mandalay. It’s really amazing that the complex is more than a mile in length. It runs from the Luxor to the Mandalay South Conference Center.

It seems the Titanic is everywhere, even inside the pyramid of the Luxor hotel. While the Luxor is within the Mandalay Bay complex, it’s about a half mile walk to the conference and a half mile back. We go by the Mandalay Conference Center’s aquarium. We thought it might be interesting but at $18 an admission, we opted to pass on it. It’s amazing to have an aquarium in the desert, but it’s probably not as nice as the Monterey Bay aquarium.

It was interesting to start the day listening to Rich Niemiec on partitioning tables and using Exadata in Oracle. The NoSQL (Not Only SQL) presentations were interesting, as was the upgrading of Oracle 11gR2 in an E-Business Suite environment presentation. Then, I finished the day with what’s new with the Oracle VM Server.

Checking out the exhibit hall I managed to get a signed copy of Rich Niemiec’s Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Performance Tuning Tips & TechniquesOracle Database 11g Release 2 Performance Tuning Tips & Techniques and a copy of MongoDB: The Definitive GuideMongoDB The Definitive Guide.

Collaborate 2012 started on Sunday but for me I began on Monday. I enjoyed Bob Burgess, SalesForce, presentation on shell scripting for MySQL Administration today. It preceded my presentation in the same room, which I thought was an interesting coincidence since we got our conference credentials together.

I presented on portable SQL between Oracle and MySQL. The presentation went well. Before I took questions, I got to ask them because I had three copies of my new Oracle Press book to give away: Oracle Database 11g and MySQL 5.6 Developer Handbook. Handing out the books served as a nice ice breaker for the audience to ask questions about the presentation.

My favorite question was, “Will Oracle continue to improve MySQL?” My answer to that is always simple because Oracle’s support for MySQL has and continues to be great, “Oracle only spends money on winners and that means MySQL wins.” Oracle product management was in attendance and they re-enforced Oracle’s commitment to MySQL.

At 6 p.m., the Exhibit Hall opened and I checked it out. Cisco hired Kathy Bailey to draw caricatures, and she drew mine as you can see at the left. I’m looking forward to more presentations tomorrow.

Somebody asked me for a useful example of Oracle 11gR2’s new analytical LISTAGG function that uses a WITHIN GROUP syntax. They’d noticed an update to the askTom that showed how to use it. This post shows how to list values without a displayed aggregation column and how to use a JOIN and GROUP BY clause with the new analytical feature.

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COLUMN list      FORMAT A10
COLUMN last_name FORMAT A10
COLUMN names     FORMAT A42
COLUMN members   FORMAT 9,990
 
 
SELECT   m.account_number AS account
,        c.last_name AS last_name
,        LISTAGG(c.first_name||DECODE(c.middle_name,NULL,NULL,' '||SUBSTR(c.middle_name,1,1)||'.'),', ')
           WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY 2) AS names
,        COUNT(*) AS members
FROM     contact c INNER JOIN member m USING (member_id)
GROUP BY m.account_number
,        c.last_name
ORDER BY c.last_name;

It produces the following output:

ACCOUNT    LAST_NAME  NAMES                                      MEMBERS
---------- ---------- ------------------------------------------ -------
SLC-000021 Jonah      Gretelz S.                                       1
SLC-000020 Moss       Jane W.                                          1
SLC-000023 Nathan     Smith B.                                         1
SLC-000024 Potter     Albus S., Ginny, Harry, James S., Lily L.        5
SLC-000022 Royal      Jennifer E.                                      1
SJC-000003 Sweeney    Ian M., Matthew, Meaghan                         3
SJC-000002 Vizquel    Doreen, Oscar                                    2
SLC-000018 Ward       Clinton G.                                       1
SLC-000019 Ward       Brandt H.                                        1
SJC-000001 Winn       Brian, Randi                                     2
 
10 rows selected.

I also found some existing examples you might like, at Oracle-Base, and there they’re showing you how to make it work in prior releases of the database without the new LISTAGG function.

Let’s say you just wanted a concatenated list of users, you could use the following in-line view approach:

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SELECT   list.names
FROM    (SELECT   'List' AS list
         ,        LISTAGG(last_name ||', '||first_name||DECODE(middle_name,NULL,NULL,' '||SUBSTR(middle_name,1,1)||'.'),'; ')
                  WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY 2) AS names
         FROM     contact) list;

As always, I hope this helps somebody.