What is Adobe LifeCycle? (25 of 285 technotes for 2015)

Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite (ES4) is a 

SOA Java EE server software product from Adobe Systems Incorporated used to build applications that automate a broad range of business processes for enterprises and government agencies. 

LiveCycle ES4 is an enterprise document and form platform that allows capturing and processing information, delivering personalized communications, and protecting and tracking sensitive information. 

• It is used to deliver solutions such as 
  
• account opening, 
• services and benefits enrollment, 
• correspondence management, 
• request for proposal processes, 
• and other manual based workflows. 

LiveCycle ES4 incorporates new features with a particular focus on mobile devices. 

LiveCycle applications also function in both online or offline environments. 

These capabilities are enabled through the use of Adobe Reader, HTML/PhoneGap and the Flash Player clients to reach desktop computers and mobile devices.

How to extract data from PDF Files? (24 of 285 technotes for 2015)

Apache PDFBox is a good tool to extract data from PDF files.

A Very good discussion about PDF Box… its issues, concerns, advantages and disadvantages.

http://www.lawandsoftware.com/blog/filling-xfa-pdf-forms-using-pdfbox/

—

http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/pdfbox/trunk/examples/src/main/java/org/apache/pdfbox/examples/fdf/PrintFields.java

Reference: .

• http://pdfbox.apache.org/index.html
  
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9767376/convert-pdf-data-into-excelsheet-in-java
  
• http://www.onlineocr.net/ - PDF Scan to Excel
  

Creating Windows Service to start / stop Websphere Application Server(23 of 285 technotes for 2015)

To Remove Windows Service

Go to d:ibmwebsphereappserverbin
d:...>wasservice.exe -remove “name of service” (from services)

To Add new Windows Service

Go to d:ibmwebsphereappserverbin

d:.…>WASService.exe -add “<service_name>” -serverName “<server_name>” -profilePath “<profile_path>” -logRoot “<log_server_path>” -logFile “<log_file_path_name>” -encodeParams -stopArgs “-username <user_name> -password <password>” -startType automatic -restart false

eg:

WASService.exe -add “CTHIX_DMGR” -serverName “dmgr” -profilePath “D:IBMWebSphereAppServerprofilesCTHIX_DMGR” -logRoot “D:IBMWebSphereAppServerprofilesCTHIX_DMGRlogsdmgr” -logFile “SystemOut.log” -encodeParams -stopArgs “-username wasadmin -password Admin.1” -startType automatic -restart false

For more info - http://ibm.co/1HZv9b9

Configuring Active Directory in Websphere Application Server (22 of 285 technotes for 2015)

http://bit.ly/1FrSyza

What are the short comings of SSL? (21 of 285 technotes for 2015)

SSL/TLS Shortcomings -

• SSL is point to point - when the message reaches a peer server
• SSL needs to be stripped off so that the message can be processed
  

SSL Limitations:

• SSL is point to point - where as we need end 2 end security, as typical enterprise application has multiple layers.

• SSL is transport layer security - not message level security - data in disk cannot be protected by ssl

• HTTPS - does not support nonrepudiation well - critical for business
  
• server can prove that a completed transaction was requested by a client (in case a dispute arises)
  
• SSL does not support element wise signing - i.e. sign only the credit card details of the entire message.
  

What is SSL Accelerators? (20 of 285 technotes for 2015)

SSL acceleration is a method of offloading the processor-intensive public-key encryption algorithms involved in SSL transactions to a hardware accelerator.


Typically this means having a separate card that plugs into a PCI slot in a computer that contains one or more co-processors able to handle much of the SSL processing.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSL_acceleration

How to create a WSRR profile using a response file? (19 of 285 technotes for 2015)

Run:

D:IBMWebSphereWSRRbin>manageprofiles.bat–response WSRR_Node.txt

Sample response file - ‘WSRR_Node.txt’

create
profileName=test_WSRR
serverName=WSRRServer
cellName=WSRRCell
nodeName=WSRRNode
hostName=DEVAPPESB4
profilePath=D:/IBM/WebSphere/WSRR/profiles/test_WSRR
templatePath=D:/IBM/WebSphere/WSRR/profileTemplates/default.wsrr
enableAdminSecurity=false
wsrrDbAlreadyConfigured=false
wsrrDbCreateNew=false
wsrrDbDelayConfig=true
wsrrDbOutputScriptDir=dbscripts
wsrrDbType=MSSQLSERVER_MICROSOFT
wsrrDbJDBCClasspath=D:/IBM/WebSphere/WSRR/jdbcdrivers/SQLServer
wsrrDbSysUserId=testwsr
wsrrDbSysPassword=
wsrrDbHostName=10.20.30.40
wsrrDbServerPort=1533
wsrrDbName=DWSRRDB01
wsrrDbUserId=hixwsr
wsrrDbPassword=
wsrrDbSchemaName=WSRR
actDbSchemaName=WSRRACT
sibDbSchemaName=WSRRSIB
configureBSpace=true

How to create a Websphere Profile using a response file? (18 of 285 technotes for 2015)

Execute:

D:DataIBMWebSphereESBbin>manageprofiles.bat-response  node.txt

Sample response file below - ‘node.txt’

create
templatePath=D:/IBM/WebSphere/ESB/profileTemplates/default.esbserver
profileName=TEST_ESB
serverName=ESBServer
cellName=ESBCell
nodeName=ESBNode
enableAdminSecurity=false
dbServerPort=51000
ceiDbName=event
ceiDbAlreadyConfigured=false
configureBPC=false
dbCreateNew=false
dbCommonForME=true
fileStoreForME=false
dbHostName=172.31.1.188
dbType=DB2_UNIVERSAL
dbName=CMNDB
dbDelayConfig=true
dbAlreadyConfigured=false
applyPerfTuningSetting=standard
dbUserId=testesb
dbPassword=
configureBSpace=true
configureBRM=false
dbJDBCClasspath=D:/Data/TESTESB/jdbc
omitAction=defaultAppDeployAndConfig,samplesInstallAndConfig

How to create a Websphere profile in command line and add as Windows Service? (17 of 285 technotes of 2015)

Step1: WAS – Application server Installation path

D: IBMWebsphereAppserver

Step 2: Go to WAS_HOMEbin location (D:IBMWebsphereAppserver) and run the below cmd

manageprofiles.bat -create -profileNameTEST_CP -hostName DEVAPPPORTAL1 -cellName cell01 -nodeName Node01 -serverName CPServer -enableAdminSecurity -false -winserviceCheck false

Step 3: Once the profile is created add as Windows Service.

From the WAS_HOMEbin location (D: IBMWebsphereAppserver) and run the below cmd

WASService.exe -add TEST_CP -servername CPServer -profilePath D:IBMWebSphereAppServerprofilesTEST_CP

What is XML Signature? (16 of 285 tech notes for 2015)

XML Signature or Digital Signature:

• Provides end 2 end message integrity - gurantee
  
• authentication information about msg originator

To handle SSL shortcomings the XML Signature is used.

XML Signature:

• “hash” the message - 
  
• arbitrary stream of bytes and converts it to a single fixed-size value known as a digest.
  
• A digest is a one-way process: it’s “computationally infeasible” to recreate a message from the hash
  
• or to find two different messages which produce the same digest value.
  
• common hash mechanism is SHA1, the Secure Hash Algorithm

• (read more in the link below)

——————————–

• To hash the message - we need a shared secret key which should be difficult to guess
• use Kerberos
• when 2 entities want to communicate
• a central authority distributes “tickets” that contain a temporary session key 

• Or use public-key cryptography
• private key, known only to the holder
  
• public key, accessible to anyone who wants to communicate with the key holder
  
• anything encrypted with the private key can only be decrypted with the public key, and vice versa 
• (read more about RSA in the link below)

——————————– 

• I want to send message M
• generate a digest, H(M)
  
  
  
• signature  - encrypt the digest with my private key, {H(M)}private-key
• you receive the message, M and the signature
  
• you generate the digest, H’(M)
  
  
  
• decrypt the signature using my public key getting the H(M)
• If H(M)and H’(M) are the same, then we know that M is the same  
  

References:

MSDN - http://bit.ly/1Hnqek1