Andreas' Adventures

Use RDA or Enterprise Manager for Governance

2012-01-22T21:54:00.002+01:00

Within my current project I ended up in an interesting discussion. As part of the governance or more specifically some government regulations for the systems security we needed a description of the system components.

Obviously there are several layers for this topic, but in order to have a complete view of the system a list of installed system components and also of the systems configuration was desired.

Well, as you can guess, there was no tangible description of the current configuration, and there was also only a sketchy overview of the Oracle components which were used to build the system.

So, the first idea was to ask the various departments which were involved in the setup and configuration of the system to use a variety of tools and approaches to deliver the information.
I offered the idea to use "the one ring to rule them all" approach. Oracle offers two tools that provide an overview of the used components, their configuration and even of platform settings.

One tool would be either the local Enterprise Manager or the central Grid Control (Cloud Control if you are up to date). The problem is that from the Enterprise Manager perspective, each of the layers (host, OS, storage, Oracle components, configuration) would need its own report. So a number of reports would need to be executed.

So my thought turned to the Remote Diagnostic Assistant. The RDA is a tool that is used by Oracle Support to gather information of the system setup, OS settings, and the like.

So I downloaded RDA for one of the machines, unpacked it, configured it and executed it.
Within minutes you'll have the output of a large number of Perl scripts.

The good thing is that the presentation is provided in a human readable format (HTML) so that a support analyst or the DBA can have a glance at the data.
But even more interesting is the fact that each HTML page is also available as a text file, with a nice structure.

So with the intention of building a prototype, I used some AWK scripts to get the data out of the text files, and used it as input for the data pump.
Create some tables in a new tablespace, get the data into it and you have a description of your technical components for your governance.

Next step would be to add the date of the execution, and you could easily figure out if changes had happened in the last period and add them to your governance.

So again a nice use of things you already have in your environment which can be put to good use for slightly different purposes as they were intended in the first place.

Learn it from the horses mouth

2011-12-21T23:45:00.000+01:00

Early February you should convince your boss (and yourself) to come to Malaga in Spain from 07-FEB-2012 to 08-FEB-2012 or even until 10-FEB-2012 to attend the first combined Fusion Middleware Partner Community Forum for the SOA Suite, WebCenter, BPM and WebLogic Partner Communities.

Let me give you a number of reasons why you should be there:

A number of senior Oracle PM's will be there to share the newest developments in these different themes
Meet the creme-de-la-creme of the Oracle Communities
See me presenting
See presentations of others who are even more exiting then I am ;-)
Give your network to the Oracle communities a boost
Enjoy the city and social event
Participate in excellent trainings

More info and how to register can be found here: http://www.oracle.com/partners/secure/news/oracle-events/1400537

Let me know if you are coming so we can plan ahead for some time to grab a beer - cu in Malaga

Celebration party for an award

2011-11-20T21:37:00.001+01:00

When you win you need to celebrate. This was the line of thinking when I found out that I was part of a group that won the Oracle SOA Community Country Award.

Well - thinking about a party is one thing, preparing it and finally having the small party is something completely different. It starts with finding a date that would be suitable for the majority of invited people. As you can imagine the SOA ACE's and ACE Directors have a busy life, that takes them places. Alongside that they are engaged with customers who want to squeeze every bit of knowledge out of them. So everybody is pretty busy (that's what makes you an ACE).

After some deliberation (and checks of international Oracle events, Trip-it, blogs and tweets) a date was chosen.

Meeting on a Friday evening for some drinks is probably not a Dutch-only activity. But as some of the ACE's are self-employed they miss the companies around them to organize such events. Come the day a turn-out of almost 50% was great - although I expected some more folks :-( . This was mainly due to some illness and work overload.

Luckily the mini-party got going, (alcoholic) beverages were consumed, food was appreciated, a decent picture was made (see below) and all had a good chat and hopefully a good time.

(Above from left to right: Eric Elzinga, Andreas Chatziantoniou, Mike van Aalst, Edwin Biemond)

The only minor disappointment of the day was that the organizer of the SOA Community was not capable of joining. Neither directly nor via a Skype video feed. Apparently there were some adverse weather conditions near his home office that required his attention - and the use of a kite ;-)
Jürgen - with you we would have had even more fun.

All in all a nice evening and certainly a "meeting" which can be repeated.

Quirk in the IDM 11 installation

2011-10-05T22:04:00.000+02:00

OID root.sh seems to have an error in IDM 11.1.1.x ; root.sh does not set the setuid for the OID procs.You need to change them with: chmod 4750 oidldapd chmod 4700 oidmon chmod 4700 oidrepld and retry the configuration afterwards. The strange thing though is that the installer than proceeds with using ports 3060 and 3061.Restart - and as the permissions are ok now - it will work.

x86_64 startup issues with Oracle 11.2

2011-09-16T11:55:00.000+02:00

I started running an Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.6 with an Oracle 11.2 database.When I started the dbca I was hit by this error:

Any ORA-27xxx error looks scary to me but they all seem to boil down to issues with the kernel's semaphore settings.So I opened the sysctl.conf file and to my astonishment found the following:

I changed the kernel.sem line to something more useful with 4 parameters. Running sysctl -p and a restart solved the problem.

Installation of Oracle Enterprise Repository on OEL

2011-05-25T09:07:00.002+02:00

I am in the process of installing the Oracle Enterprise Repository in an Oracle Enterprise Linux environment (actually on a VirtualBox).

One of the post-installation steps is to install and enable the Java Web Start. As the documentation is a little bit murky I researched and found the following site with excellent information: http://stuffivelearned.org/doku.php?id=apps:firefox:jnlpfix

Had to use it as the Firefox installation in the OEL is pretty basic.

Tiny quirk in VirtualBox (kind of)

2011-05-25T07:55:00.003+02:00

I started up my VirtualBox this morning and was amazed that it told me that the DVD ISO image I have still mounted was no longer accessible.

So what has happened since last night? Well - I charged my iPod on my laptop before I hooked up my external USB drive which contains the ISO image. Apparently Windows changed the order of the drive letters (was E: is F: now).

So after all it seems that VirtualBox has not so much a quirk as it connot do anything better that accept what Windows will feed into it.

Oracle VirtualBox - first (short) impressions

2011-05-18T22:30:00.003+02:00

I am using Oracle VirtualBox now since a couple of weeks in order to establish if it can replace my VMWare Server.

I want to put down a couple of quick impressions - which will hopefully be followed up by some more insight.

Speed:
It seems that Oracle VirtualBox is faster than the VMWare Server. Creating an image as well as starting it up and shutting it down are pretty fast. However if your machine is pushing the limits on memory the shutdown process of an image can easily take 5 minutes.

FAT/NTFS:
I have not yet found the possibility to create a disk file in chunks of 2GB. VMWare offered this OOTB. Now when I move my image from my Windows7 NTFS filesystem to the FAT external disk it complains about a 20GB file. More research is needed here.

Distributing images:
I copied the images and gave them to some colleagues during several trainings. My experience is that the different laptops we use are not handled well by VirtualBox. E.g. I had to remove a network from the vbox-file in order to just start an image on a different laptop.

Stay tuned for more.

WebCenter Spaces startup problems

2011-05-12T21:17:00.000+02:00

For a training I installed a WebCenter Suite environment on an Oracle Enterprise Linux.

I ran into two problems. First I couldn't start the AdminServer. The logfile told me that the JDBC to mdsSpaces failed due to a Socket time out. Took me some time to realize this, but the reason was that I had configured the VirtualBox with a DNS (on the Windows host). Therefore the JDBC calls went out to seek for the database - which timed out.

The second issue I had (and still have) is that after starting the NodeManager and AdminServer I couldn't start the WC_Spaces Server from inside the WebLogic Console. I have no solution for this yet, only a work-around. When I start the WC_Spaces from the commandline as a Managed Server it works.

If somebody has an idea why this happens, obviously I'd like to hear from you.

Eine Woche voller Samstage *

2011-03-19T19:34:00.003+01:00

* (stolen title from a German children book - a week full of Saturdays)

This week was different than other weeks. I spend one day working from home (well, almost - as I had to travel to the office to get my laptop re-staged) and also at two Oracle Community meetings. Although this was work (with some great fun-activities as well) this felt like an extraordinary week. Read the book if you want to get the feeling.

The first community meeting (SOA and E2.0) was in my own town Utrecht, which was off course very convenient. I met a lot of people from all over Europe and had the chance to exchange ideas about SOA and learned that BPM will be the next big thing. WebCenter will also evolve into something even bigger than it is now, due to the advance of Fusion Apps.

The best thing however was the Q&A session with David Shaffer of Oracle. Oracle shows a lot of interest in the activities and concerns of partners.

After that I went to Paris to attend the Security Community meeting. Same setting as above. Met again a lot of people I knew and a lot of people who I will be in contact with in the near future. Again excellent presentations of Oracle and another key take away message - everything in Fusion Apps will be based on 11g IDM and Security products.

Obviously both events had also a social get together. Tasting beer in Utrecht was great (probably because I was on my bicycle and could drink more than one beer ;-) and the cruise on the Seine in Paris was spectacular.

I encourage everybody to join the partner communities - as this will give you the feeling of inclusion and will widen your network tremendously.

oracle.as.config.ProvisionException

2011-02-24T16:32:00.003+01:00

Ran into a problem when installing Oracle Identity Management into a WLS 11g. Registering the OID with opmnctl gave me an oracle.as.config.ProvisionException.

Solved it by extending the domain (although the configuration of the OID was specifically set to No Domain). Make sure that the Enterprise Manager is in the domain.
After that (and this is the important part) make sure to restart the domain, at least the AdminServer.

Several Node Managers in Oracle WebLogic on one machine

2011-02-22T13:15:00.002+01:00

This is an age old dilemma for people like me. You work in a project, that has several environments (DEV, TEST, QA, PRD). Typically as a project member you are not allowed access to QA and PRD - which is very good. The main problem is that the QA and PRD environments offer high availability.

In order to provide a good installation manual you need to come up with clustering even when you do not have enough machines.

So for my current project I have chosen a different approach.
I have four blades, three with 1 CPU (dual core) and one with 2 CPU's (dual core as well).

I use one for the database, one for the middle tier (the bigger one), one for the web tier, and the fourth one for the load balancer and firewall.

The load balancer and firewall will be done with iptables and HAProxy.

Now on the middle tier I needed to have 14 different nodes.
I created virtual NIC's and put them into the hosts file as well.

In order to have "independent" WebLogic Servers I installed them in different WLS_HOME directories. Now I want a Node manager, an Admin Server and at least one Managed Server per NIC. This proved a little bit more difficult than expected.

Changing the Node Manager to run on a different port is one activity that takes three steps already. As all my Managed Servers will run on SSL as well I ran into a problem with the BEA-090482. Solving this meant to recreate the Java Keystore for the virtual NIC hostname. After this I was capable of starting everything independently.

I will try to put everything as a document tonight and place it on my website.

WLS installer - Uncheck security updates

2011-02-21T08:28:00.002+01:00

I intended to install some WLS homes on Friday. Somehow, when I unchecked the "I want to receive security updates via My Oracle Support" I ended up with a grayed out dialog box.

This wandered around my head the whole weekend. I retried this morning and found a solution.
Please check out the document on http://www.foxglove-it.nl/html/documents.html (easier for me to put documents there, instead of blogspot.

Ubuntu Gnome quirk - d minimizes Window

2011-02-07T08:41:00.003+01:00

Reinstalled one of my laptops with Ubuntu Server 10.10 and put Gnome on it as well.
While I was accessing the Gnome Desktop with VNC I experienced some strange behavior. Entering the letter 'd' minimized the Window. A little bit of research showed that this can be solved by changing the following setting:
System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
Scroll down to "Hide all normal Windows and set focus to the desktop"
In there the letter 'D' should be present. Set this to disable and enjoy Gnome as it was meant to be.

Tron - Legacy

2011-02-06T16:55:00.003+01:00

Tron was one of the two movies that gave me the push to study computer science. Now - some 30 years later Tron - Legacy hit the movies, off course with better graphics, 3D effects, and a somewhat better story.

During the movie I looked back at the time since the first part.

Man - WHAT A RIDE!

I'm still the young lad (OK - with a fatter belly and the first gray hairs) and I am still enjoying every minute of it.

This shows that if you do something with passion and conviction - every day is a good one.

Oracle VM

2010-11-07T13:38:00.003+01:00

Haven't blogged this before. A while ago I posted that my Oracle VM was not working and that I shut it down. Shortly after this I found that the reason was the faulty disk I was using. Rebuild Oracle VM and still happy about it.

Error while patching OIM 10.1.4 to 10.1.4.3

2010-11-06T15:53:00.003+01:00

When patching the Oracle OIM 10.1.4 to OIM 10.1.4.3 the first configuration assistant might fail immediately.

Try starting the listener and issue a retry. This helped in my case.

Script to add SCSI drives on the fly

2010-10-10T08:42:00.002+02:00

Very often when you are busy with VMWare, you need an extra disk. Now creating the disk can happen while the VM Linux guest is active. However you don't see the disk immediately. A reboot will help obviously, but I found a nice script on http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ that will show the new SCSI device, so that you can continue and add the disk without a reboot. Just search for the rescan-scsi-bus.sh script.

It is on my VMWare Server now and will go directly to each new Linux guest from now on. Any possibility to prevent a reboot is welcome ;-)

Patching with OPatch

2010-10-06T11:27:00.003+02:00

Hmm, sometimes life is funny. If I say to you that I have a generic patch, you would expect one patch that can be applied to all versions.
Not in this case.
I need to apply a patch for the Oracle IDM Suite (10.1.4).
Finding the patch is already difficult - and then there are four versions of the same patch - apparently based on different versions of the underlying J2EE. In my opinion this is not generic.

Trial and error led me to one of the four versions - which then came back with:
OPatch detects your platform as 46 while this patch xxxxxxx supports platforms:
0 (Generic Platform)

So again - it seems that my definition of generic differs from Oracle's view. I would understand an error, if the patch was for platform 46 or 18 or whatever.
But here a generic patch is apparently not applicable for my platform.

Luckily Metalink Note 404473.1 offers a solution.
So setting the following:

export OPATCH_PLATFORM_ID=0

does trick the opatch into believing that it is no Linux machine any longer.
Running opatch apply now works.

Still leaves me puzzled about the meaning of GENERIC.

Good-bye Oracle VM

2010-09-19T16:59:00.002+02:00

Today I decided to abandon Oracle VM and move back to VMWare. A while ago I bought my old 4GB laptop from my company, when I was given a new one. I added a 1TB disk and installed Oracle VM 2.2 on it.

There are some quirks with Oracle VM when it comes to support low end systems.
First of all the system is memory bound quite fast. See an earlier post of me (http://achatzia.blogspot.com/2010/05/oracle-vm-memory-issue.html) to see how Oracle VM treats it memory. The second main issue is the problem with external USB2.0 devices. I ended up rebooting an image quite often as the SCSI drive was declared dead.

I worked with VMWare since about 6 years, and only had lost one image - a colleague disconnected my external drive which resulted in a corrupt Oracle database. With Oracle VM I never had that stability.

So for me it is good-bye OVM, and welcome back VMWare Server. Obviously the VMWare Server will run on a Linux host with Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 .

Oracle VM /etc/hosts file

2010-09-08T21:20:00.002+02:00

I was reinstalling my Oracle VM (again).

During the configuration of the Oracle VM Manager template I ran into an error: OVM-2007.

The template (new OVM image) could not find the host it was running on.

Quick check in the /etc/hosts file of the OVM Server showed:

127.0.0.1 ovm.mydomain.local ovm localhost.localdomain localhost

So I changed it to read:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
10.1.1.100 ovm.mydomain.local ovm localhost.localdomain localhost

To me as a Unix veteran it is still a mistery why somebody came up with the idea to put anything besides 127.0.0.1 localhost into the first line.

Problems with an external disk on Oracle VM

2010-08-14T12:26:00.003+02:00

Recently I had a lot of disk errors on my Oracle VM server.
The errors indicated that some scsi problems were manifesting itself with:

unable to enumerate USB device on port 2

After unloading and reloading the ehci_hcd it seems to be gone.

Different silent install files WLS 10.3.2 and 10.3.3

2010-08-04T07:47:00.003+02:00

Today I tried to cut some corners and use a silent.xml file for WLS 10.3.3 for a silent installation of 10.3.2.

To my amazement on a clean machine I received the following error:

oracle@xxx001:/opt/oracle$ java -Djava.io.tmpdir=/opt/oracle/tmp -jar /nfsstage/wls1032_generic.jar -mode=silent -silent_xml=./silent/wls_silent.xml -log=/tmp/wls.log
Extracting 0%....................................................................................................100%
The local BEA product registry is corrupted. Please select another Middleware Home or contact Oracle Support

I checked the wls_silent.xml file and found that it includes Coherence, which was not bundled with the 10.3.2 version.

So I modified the 10.3.3 silent_xml file from

value="WebLogic Server/Core Application Server|WebLogic Server/Administration Console|WebLogic Server/Configuration Wizard and Upgrade Framework|WebLogic Server/Web 2.0 HTTP Pub-Sub Server|WebLogic Server/WebLogic JDBC Drivers|WebLogic Server/Third Party JDBC Drivers|WebLogic Server/WebLogic Server Clients|WebLogic Server/WebLogic Web Server Plugins|WebLogic Server/UDDI and Xquery Support|WebLogic Server/Server Examples|Oracle Coherence/Coherence Product Files"

to

When your own documentation rocks!!!

2010-07-30T14:53:00.003+02:00

Nobody likes to write documentation, and I'm not that different.

But today I was very happy and said "Thank You" to myself. A while ago I needed to install some software for a project. Now after my vacation, which apparently wiped a lot of my mind's hard disk clean, I needed to repeat the installation for a new environment.

Reverting back to my own documentation saved me a lot of time.

Maybe I should create a video on YouTube with my impersonation of Steven Balmer's monkey dance and substitute the words "Developers, developers..." with "Document! Document! Document!".

So take it from me: writing documentation before your vacation keeps you longer in your post-vacation mode ;-)

Clarification on the sluggishness of the silent install

2010-07-30T12:19:00.002+02:00

A few posts ago I mentioned that the silent install was very slow.

Still had this on my to-blog list, so here is the clarification.

It turned out that somebody had the idea that we needed some kind of virus protection on the Linux boxes. Each time something was written to the disk the virus protection kicked in. Imagine what this is doing to your installation performance :-(

Modifying database.properties for WebLogic Portal

2010-06-04T09:30:00.003+02:00

When using the Oracle Database for the storage of WebLogic Portal settings you need to modify the database.properties and run the create_db.sh script.

In the database.properties the example uses the Pointbase, so the values in the Oacle section are filled with placeholders.

When replacing the jdbc string be carefull not to remove all @ signs.

The original value is:

oracle.url=jdbc:oracle:thin:@@DB_HOST@:@DB_PORT@:@DB_NAME@

The fisrt @ after the 'thin:@' needs to remain there.

Otherwise you will get a sql exception when you run the create_db.sh script.

WebLogic silent install

2010-06-03T07:35:00.002+02:00

It seems that I'm all into silent installs these days.
Trying to do a WebLogic installation in silent mode. Went to the documentation, as a few things have changed since the early BEA days.

So I found the sample file for the silent.xml .

Without big thinking I copied the sample like this:

<bea-installer>
<input-fields>
<data-value value="D:\Oracle\Middleware_Home" name="BEAHOME">
<data-value value="D:\Oracle\Middleware_Home\wlserver_10.3" name="WLS_INSTALL_DIR">
<data-value value="WebLogic Server/Core Application ServerWebLogic Server /Administration ConsoleWebLogic Server/Configuration Wizard and Upgrade FrameworkWebLogic Server/Web 2.0 HTTP Pub-Sub ServerWebLogic Server/WebLogic JDBC DriversWebLogic Server/Third Party JDBC DriversWebLogic Server /WebLogic Server ClientsWebLogic Server/WebLogic Web Server Plugins WebLogic Server/UDDI and Xquery SupportWebLogic Server/Server ExamplesOracle Coherence/Coherence Product Files" name="COMPONENT_PATHS">
<data-value value="yes" name="INSTALL_NODE_MANAGER_SERVICE">
<data-value value="5559" name="NODEMGR_PORT">
<data-value value="yes" name="INSTALL_SHORTCUT_IN_ALL_USERS_FOLDER">

</INPUT-FIELDS>
</BEA-INSTALLER>

only to find out that the installation terminated with the message:
The local BEA product registry is corrupted. Please select another Middleware Home or contact Oracle Support

As so often the solution was quite easy. The list of components ended up on different lines. This resulted in an incomplete description of components to install. So, just make sure that the list of components is on one line and the silent installation works like a charm.

Silent install is veeeeeery slow

2010-06-03T01:18:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I did my first ever silent install. Nothing fancy yet. There are two possibilities:

a) Silent install is dead slow

or

b) There is something wrong with the machine or the storage

Bottom line is, it took me 1.5 hours to just install the database software.
I need to investigate this, as this is not what I had in mind.

Continuing now with the listener and the dbca in a silent manner.

Oracle software has become pretty big ...

2010-06-02T06:04:00.001+02:00

... or Google Chrome has a problem with counting ;-)

Moved to Australia

2010-05-30T14:24:00.002+02:00

I finally have made the jump over to Australia. After a somewhat bumpy first week (oh man - what a jet-lag) I started to settle down.

On my project I will do a lot of stuff with Coherence, WebLogic Portal, the OSB, Grid Control and a RAC database.

I'm looking forward to do this. This is part of re-inventing myself, while being in a nice place.

I will also try to blog some of my experiences in
http://yetanotheraustraliablog.blogspot.com/

Oracle VM memory issue

2010-05-19T18:02:00.004+02:00

After some first baby steps with Oracle VM I wanted to push this thing a little bit further. So my idea was to have more than a couple of VM's running simultaneously.
The Oracle VM told me however that I had not enough memory to do this.
So I was sitting in front of my dedicated laptop and told the screen that there should be 4 GB inside. The laptop however had one of his funny days and told me (using free and top) that really nothing more than 572 MB would be inside the machine.

Hmm - when a machine tells me something I am the first to listen. So I shutdown everything, got my screwdriver, opened the memory compartment and had a look. Indeed 1 bank of 2GB. I didn't check the second bank as this is hidden underneath the keyboard. Closing the machine and powering it up, I prepared myself for another round of telling it that it should recognize a little bit more than 572 MB.

I examined the dmesg and still it told me that there was only 572 MB inside.

Now imagine, you have just seen 2 GB inside (and hope that 3 or 4 are in there) while the Oracle VM keeps telling me that only a very limited part of that memory was there.

So friends and neighbors, there are two possibilities:
a) The memory was KAPUT
b) Something prevents Linux to see/use it all.

As I could not prove or examine option a) I had a look at option b).

A long long time ago I was pretty good with low level Linux (baking my own kernels and so on). And then I remembered that with Xen it is possible to fool around with the memory during boot time.

Checking the menu.lst of the GRUB I found the following:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
# Detect64 claims this is 64 bit box
default=2
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Oracle VM Server-ovs (xen-3.4.0 2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5ovs)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /xen-32bit.gz dom0_mem=572M
module /vmlinuz-2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5xen ro root=UUID=ad545ccc-b2bb-450b-a048-a58b22c51cc4
module /initrd-2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5xen.img
title Oracle VM Server-ovs serial console (xen-3.4.0 2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5ovs)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /xen-32bit.gz console=com1,vga com1=57600,8n1 dom0_mem=572M
...

Gotcha!

dom0_mem=572M

So I found the reason for the lack of memory (an amnesic laptop ;-)

Off we go - with a modified menu.lst:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda2
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
# Detect64 claims this is 64 bit box
default=2
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Oracle VM Server-ovs (xen-3.4.0 2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5ovs)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /xen-32bit.gz dom0_mem=572M
module /vmlinuz-2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5xen ro root=UUID=ad545ccc-b2bb-450b-a048-a58b22c51cc4
module /initrd-2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5xen.img
title Andreas VM Server-ovs (xen-3.4.0 2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5ovs)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /xen-32bit.gz dom0_mem=2048M
module /vmlinuz-2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5xen ro root=UUID=ad545ccc-b2bb-450b-a048-a58b22c51cc4
module /initrd-2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5xen.img
title Oracle VM Server-ovs serial console (xen-3.4.0 2.6.18-128.2.1.4.9.el5ovs)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /xen-32bit.gz console=com1,vga com1=57600,8n1 dom0_mem=572M
...

I added the "Andreas Server-ovs" stanza, to prevent me from a re-installation if something would not work.

So after a reboot my laptop tells me that it has the large amount I was hoping for.

As this part of the memory is just the amount Xen is using there is some more in it.

Checking what really is in there:

[root@ovm ~]# xm info | grep memory
total_memory : 3447
free_memory : 1363
node_to_memory : node0:1363

This looks better.
Well i keep it like this for a while and play with my 2GB for now.

Startup problems of OSB on OEL

2010-05-06T07:55:00.002+02:00

Another thing I came across when dealing with the OSB was that the Workshop throw an error and didn't start at all. When you end up with a large dialog box showing a list of startup parameters (which all originate from the workshop.ini file) have a look at this site: http://wiki.oracle.com/page/How+to+get+Oracle+Workshop+for+Weblogic+10GR3+working+in+Linux?t=anon

Problem when starting the Eclipse Workshop for OSB

2010-05-06T07:51:00.004+02:00

During the startup of the Eclipse Workshop in my OSB environment I encountered the following error:
“requested array is larger than heap”

The solution (from the OTN forums) is to delete the publish*.dat from the following directory:

FMW_HOME/user_projects/workspaces/YOUR_WORKSPACE/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.wst.server.core/publish/

Leightweight is not always good

2010-05-05T17:57:00.003+02:00

I am busy installing the latest version of the Oracle Enterprise Manager. Obviously I need a database for this.
In order to protect my resources in the Oracle VM image that use I switched off all extra Database options. Among others the Partitioning option is offered. Well - during the installation of the OEM I found out the hard way that the Partitioning option is required for the database.
I know that the OEM creates a lot of partitions - which will then get emptied during the data consolidation process. I happened to forget this.

The funny thing is that the OEM installer checks this and comes back with a warning box, stating:
Using the Partitoning option is strongly recommended. Being a wise guy I tried to ignore this. But when Oracle says that they STRONGLY RECOMMEND something they mean it. So I am deinstalling and reinstalling the database software as I write this ;-)

Starting an Oracle VM image from the commandline

2010-05-02T12:42:00.003+02:00

Just for your convenience:

When you start an Oracle VM image from the commandline with

xm create -c ./vm.cfg

you will see that the boot process continues until the login is displayed:

EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
type=1403 audit(1272761495.554:2): policy loaded auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295

Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux Server release 5.4 (Carthage)
Kernel 2.6.18-164.0.0.0.1.el5xen on an i686

soa.mydomain.local login:

In order to get back to your commandline type CTRL-] and you will get back the control.

Some people are brave - others are chickenshit

2010-04-24T12:41:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I received a farewell email from my dear colleague David Calcano. After years with Accenture he is moving into a total different area, leaving us with all the mess of Oracle and SOA.

I always admired folks who know more than I do, and the more they know more than me the more I dream of becoming like them. And then they turn out to be brave enough and do something completely different.

I will keep www.nosecodeproductions.com on my radar - and I know that with people like David on board they can only succeed!

And now back to the scared and meek folks who just keep on doing the same - me ;-)

VMWare hick-up

2010-04-24T12:32:00.003+02:00

Although I am busy moving to Oracle VM I needed to access one of my systems on VMWare on my laptop which I had not used for a while.

The console of VMWare did not load. Ok - I though his might be due to some networks which I had disabled on Windows. Enabled them - no result. Checking the VMWare services I found out that the VMWare Host Agent was not running. So I restarted it. Crashed again.

Obviously the next step is to check the Windows event viewer. To my surprise the System Log could not be displayed.

Needless to say I had to fix this first. Clear the Log typically solves this and I was lucky this time.
Back to the VMWare Host Agent. Started it agian - still crashes. I found the following error:

The VMware Host Agent service terminated with service-specific error 4294967295 (0xFFFFFFFF).

Checking the VMWare log.

Log for VMware Server, pid=7444, version=2.0.2, build=build-203138, option=Release, section=2
[2010-04-24 12:20:34.264 'App' 2600 info] Current working directory: C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware Server
[2010-04-24 12:20:34.265 'App' 2600 info] Trying blklistsvc
[2010-04-24 12:20:34.265 'App' 2600 info] Trying cimsvc
[2010-04-24 12:20:34.266 'App' 2600 info] Trying directorysvc
[2010-04-24 12:20:34.266 'App' 2600 info] Trying hostsvc
[2010-04-24 12:20:34.727 'App' 2600 panic] error: not well-formed (invalid token)
[2010-04-24 12:20:34.728 'App' 2600 panic] backtrace:(backtraces not supported)
[2010-04-24 12:20:34.728 'App' 2600 info] Win32 service stopped

Googling for a solution, the datasources.xml could be corrupt. I checked it and indeed - only garbage in there. Renamed this file and restarted the VMWare Host Agent.

Now everything works. Finally I can get back to my VMWare server and restart my age-old Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control.

How Database Vault really works

2010-04-23T14:35:00.004+02:00

I was worried as I ran into a problem with the Database Vault security. I configured a new realm in a database where the Oracle E-Business Suite is running. The main idea was to have a user for the OBIEE that should have only limited access.

Together with some colleagues we made sure that the OBIEE user had the correct grants on some tables and views inside the EBS schema (APPS, AR, GMS, PA). I created the realm and added the OBIEE user as a participant.
Everything seemed to work. Then I disabled the realm and even removed the OBIEE user from the realm, but still Oracle Answers was capable of accessing the APPS schema objects.

Took me a day and finally I reread the manual. I understood my error.

The purpose of the DBV is to lockout users with system privileges, such as the SYS or SYSTEM user.
Now the account of the OBIEE user does not have these system privileges except CREATE SESSION.
In order to access any object the OBIEE user relies on discretionary grants (e.g. the AR user grants select on HZ_CUST_ACCOUNTS).
By this the OBIEE userR does not need the realm as this is granted.

The intention of the DBV is not focusing on users as OBIEE user but on all users who have system privileges.

From the Oracle manual:

... Oracle Database Vault does not replace the discretionary access control model in the existing Oracle database. It functions as a layer on top of this model for both realms and command rules. ...

Something old - something new

2010-03-23T18:45:00.002+01:00

No - I'm not going to be married (been there - did it - bought the ring - still happy).

This was a day in which all extremes came together. Talked about Oracle Complex Event Processing (still need to learn something in there), while I was helping some colleagues to solve some Oracle AS 10.1.2 issues. And in between I was investigating some EBS with Database Vault and TDE after a morning session about the strategy for our Oracle unit.

For me this proves that even if you teach an old dog some new tricks, there is always an audience for the previous show, while still performing the bread and butter business today.

Problems installing Oracle IDM on a 64bit Linux

2010-03-19T19:33:00.002+01:00

I need to install an Oracle IDM on a 64bit Linux.
In order to get this running I need a 64bit WebLogic Server. As this is not delivered with an included JDK I downloaded the Sun 1.6 JDK for 64bit Linux systems.

When I then tried to install the WLS I always received an "out of disk" error.

The magic option to pass to the self-extracting WLS is the following:

java -Djava.io.tmpdir=/apps/tmp -jar ./wls1032_generic.jar

OOW 2010 submissions

2010-03-14T19:17:00.001+01:00

I have just added three submisions for OOW 2010.

Automate the creation of extra Coherence machines based on Grid Control data
Use Oracle VM to learn Oracle technology
Build a Coherence cluster using Oracle VM to speed up Oracle FMW

Customize the VM template

2010-03-13T18:41:00.004+01:00

One size does not fit all.
The Oracle VM template comes with just the twm windows manager. Since my days in University I dislike this thing. For me it is Motif.

So in order to get my favorite Windows manager up and running I need to install it.
Luckily Oracle offers a public yum server. Do the following:

cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-el5.repo

Edit this file and set the stanza to enabled for the corresponding entry. The template is based on EL5 Update4.

Then just run
yum install openmotif

Afterwards I modify the xstart file in the /home/oracle/.vnc directory to use mwm instead of twm.
In order to access the vncviewer I also need to modify the iptables.

Add a line into the iptables to enable access in the port range 5900-5950. This will enable the access of the custom vncserver, as well as the vncserver which runs on the VM Server. The second vncserver acts as a console for the VM image. Depending on the order in which the VM's are started the vnc port changes. Therefore I use a port.

I'm too lazy to change the hostname of the WebCenter VM Template

2010-03-13T14:34:00.003+01:00

I could change the hostname of the VM template for the WebCenter. This would be done on the OS using the standard Linux way (change /etc/hosts, /etc/sysconfig/network). However as the Oracle Application Server OC4J is still configured with the template hostname (haovm007) I would need to changethis. Now - as a lot of you know - the hostname and domainname change in the OC4J is not the easiest tasks of the Application Server Administration.

So I decided to build a WebCenter machine from scratch.
A) It is easier
B) I learn all the steps (probably have to install it more than once)
C) I configure it as I would like to have it
D) It is more fun

Problem with a WebCenter VM template hostname

2010-03-13T13:31:00.002+01:00

The beauty of the Oracle VM templates is of course the ease with which you create a new machine. But then it has to work, or at least it must be customizable.

I have created a new machine from a WebCenter VM template.
During the boot it asks for the network configuration. This seems to work, as ifconfig returns the correct settings. However the machinename is not used. I entered webcenter1 but the template still has the haovm007:

While I am a Bond fan I'd rather see my own name for the machine. Let's see how this can be corrected.

Screw up and repair

2010-03-09T13:52:00.002+01:00

I thought it worked - but of course I forgot the Oracle VM Manager on my second machine.

It still displayed the ServerPool1 that I had created previously.
In order to begin with a clean slate you might need to drop the database in the Oracle VM Server.

Login to the server as root and execute the following commands:

service stop ovs-agent
rm -rf /etc/ovs-agent/db
service start ovs-agent

Then the external disk needs to be added again:
[root@ovm utils]# ./repos.py --new /dev/sdb1
[ NEW ] 6ad759c5-d706-4b3a-9d14-bcffafc61fc3 => /dev/sdb1
[root@ovm utils]# ./repos.py --list
[ ] 6ad759c5-d706-4b3a-9d14-bcffafc61fc3 => /dev/sdb1
[root@ovm utils]# ./repos.py --root 6ad759c5-d706-4b3a-9d14-bcffafc61fc3
[ R ] 6ad759c5-d706-4b3a-9d14-bcffafc61fc3 => /dev/sdb1

The filesystems were back again and also the directories in /OVS.

Now back to importing a VM Template.

Finally my OVM looks like it should

2010-03-09T09:54:00.002+01:00

I rebuild my OVM server for the n-th time this morning. Problem was that it was difficult to have the external disk mounted on the /OVS directory.
I tried to add a shared virtual disk - which I formatted as an ocfs2 disk to the existing disk. I found this excellent posting http://geertdepaep.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/oracle-vm-and-multiple-local-disks/ that described the process and guided me into the correct direction. Although the disk was visible in the repos.py script I was unable to see it in the Oracle VM Manager.

Now I thought that I need to build the server and format the filesystems myself.
Sorry I have no screenshots here as the installer runs on the machine itself.
During the installation the two disks (internal 50 GB and external 1 TB) are shown as /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. In the disk setup utility in the installer choose the option to define a custom layout.

The installer offers a predefined layout, which it would normally apply to the available disks.
I decided to have three filesystems on the internal disk. This will be /, /boot and a swap filesystem. On the external disk I gave away the complete disk and formatted it as an ocfs2 filesystem.
During this I received a lot of errors on the screen, stating that there was an error while setting the type of the filesystem to ocfs2. However I continued - ignoring the errors - and finally ended up with this disk layout:

[root@ovm ~]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 54G 953M 50G 2% /
/dev/sda1 99M 45M 49M 48% /boot
tmpfs 287M 0 287M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1 931G 315M 931G 1% /var/ovs/mount/6AD759C5D7064B3A9D14BCFFAFC61FC3
[root@ovm ~]#

so, now the fun can begin, as I finally got to the point where I have my 1 TB disk fully exposed for my Oracle VM server.

Installing Oracle VM Manager on Fedora

2010-02-22T13:38:00.002+01:00

Although my Oracle VM Manager was running on OEL, I reinstalled the machine with Fedora and obviously I wanted the OVM Manager back on it.

The installation was pretty straight forward. Two tiny things had to be done in order to convince the installer to proceed. I needed to comment out the checks for the OS and the libaio package. After this the installer was on its way.

During the Oracle XE installation I adapted the swapfile (created a big additional swapfile) as the XE installer decided to stop when tere was not enough swap space.

Conclusion: OVM Manager runs fine on Fedora.

Starting with my OVM

2010-02-12T10:17:00.001+01:00

Added a 1 TB disk to my OVM machine :-)

[root@ovm ~]# mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
/dev/sdb is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
122109952 inodes, 244190646 blocks
12209532 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=0
7453 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000, 214990848

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 38 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
[root@ovm ~]#

So - now the fun part can start.

dbca - Exception in thread "main"

2010-02-11T12:00:00.002+01:00

Sometimes error messages are very misleading. If you see an error stating:

Exception in thread "main"

you expect that this is some java-related issue. Maybe the classpath is wrong, your JAVA_HOME is not set, etc.

I had this error when I was starting up the Oracle dbca.

After some checks and different tries I found out that the DISPLAY environment was set, but to a different screen, which I was not using. So even when you check the dbca shell script, you will find a build-in check for the DISPLAY environment.
But now the check passed with flying flags - as it was set. The problem that my dbca was unable to use this DISPLAY lead to the java error.

Setting the DISPLAY to the one I was using (and setting xhost to allow all) solved this.

Copying files to a VMWare Server

2009-12-10T13:47:00.003+01:00

I am using VMWare a lot for my Oracle activites. To be specific I use the VMWare Server. Now one of the missing features of the VMWare Server is that the drag and drop of files does not work.
Typically with a Linux I use WinSCP from my Windows Vista host. With a Windows guest I often use the feature of the Remote Desktop to connect my local drive.
Another possibility exists, although it is a little awkward and almost cumbersome if you need to transport a lot of files.
In the VMWare Server a utility exists which will copy a file into the guest OS. This utility is called vmrun and it works as follows.
Go to the directory where the file that you want to copy is located. Then execute the vmrun command with the following switches:
-T server
-h https://yourVMWareServerName:port/sdk (typically the port is 8333)
-u username_of_the_vmware_server
-p password_of_the_vmware_server
-gu username_of_the_vmware_guest
-gp password_of_the_vmware_guest
copyFileFromHostToGuest
“VMWare Configuration File”
source_file_name target_file_name
In the following screenshot you can see this command in action.

If you don’t know the VMWare configuration file location go to the summary page of the VMWare image and click on the “Configure VM”. This will bring up the following dialog box. The VMWare configuration file location is in the second part of the dialog box.

Fun at OOW 2009

2009-11-08T18:07:00.004+01:00

Although Oracle Open World is behind us I still need to put some content about this on the site.

Let me start with the fun part - the Oracle ACE Dinner.

Here is a picture of Lillian Buziak, Steven Feuerstein and me at the ACE Dinner:

I had a lot of fun but found out too late that the barkeepers were putting alcohol in the cocktails :#)

OOW2009 is over

2009-10-16T19:27:00.002+02:00

It is Friday, the OOW 2009 is over and as almost everybody I feel that it was a good conference, but also am happy that it is over.
The event is of course perfect for networking and learning. But you have very long days and need to be careful that all the parties will not leave you drunk all the time.

I will post my sessions as soon as possible on the net - especially the Lego presentation had some good feedback and was very funny.

And I have to say that staying in a house in San Francisco (thank you Anjo) made this trip very worthwhile. Sitting in the hot tub after a long day is very very cool.

Meet a real author ;-)

2009-10-11T22:23:00.002+02:00

While wandering around at Moscone, I bounced into Ronald Rood. Ronald and I had worked together and we had a very good time back then. Apparently without me he has too much spare time so he found the time to write a book on the Oracle Scheduler (http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Oracle-Scheduler-11g-Databases/dp/1847195989) .

Tuesday he will be at Moscone signing his book.

Meanwhile I have bought another book - on SOA Suite 11gR1. With the current exchange rate of the dollar and an extra 20% discount this was a steal.

Hmmmm, maybe I should write a book myself and become famous.

OOW is in full swing now

2009-10-11T17:18:00.002+02:00

Sunday 08:30 - and the fun starts!!!

It is always a tremendous feeling to be at OOW. So many colleagues and people genuinely interested in Oracle.

I'm taking my morning fix first with Alex Gorbachev on RAC Workload Management and then I will head from Moscone to the Hilton to see a session on Oracle Service Bus 11g Deep Dive.

Stay tuned for more.

I will be presenting at Oracle Open World 2009

2009-08-09T19:43:00.003+02:00

After the Oracle Mix voting process was finished two of my five presentations were selected to be presented.

I am looking forward to present:

The great ESB - OSB - BPEL cook-off

and

Combining the two coolest things on the world Weblogic and Lego Mindstorms

See you all at the Oracle Open World in SF ;-)

Using Grid Control to monitor the performance of web services

2009-07-11T18:44:00.004+02:00

I have written a short how-to document that demonstrates the usage of Grid Control to monitor the performance of web services.

Check it out on:

http://www.foxglove-it.nl/documents/MonitorWebServicesinGridControl.pdf

Spending day and night at the Oracle office

2009-07-10T18:05:00.003+02:00

I had two sessions at Oracle Netherlands yesterday in the evening and today the whole day.

Yesterday Rob Zoeteweij gave a presentation about the Provisioning within Grid Control.
Today was the technical briefing of the Oracle Partners about FMW11g.

Both events gave me a pile of new ideas - both business wise as well as technical.
So I guess I will spend a part of the upcoming weekend with another deep-dive of the new FMW11g products and also prepare some input for my management on "How to make money with FMW11g".

I expect that I will take my laptop with me on my vacation - which is just a week away. I only need to find a way to smuggle this machine into my car without my wife finding this out :-)

The funny thing of being in the same place (Oracle office) twice was that I started to look for my car this afternoon where I had put it yesterday in the evening. I guess I need a little bit of vacation anyway.

Test run of OFMW11g

2009-07-04T14:55:00.002+02:00

I am sitting in my garden, enjoying the good weather (26 C/79 F) and build a new Virtual Machine in order to install the new Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g.
For me this is a perfect afternoon ;-)

Fusion Middleware documentation

2009-07-02T10:26:00.005+02:00

If you go to
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E12839_01/index.htm
you will see the following:

So with the new version of the software a new look and feel of the documentation is available.
It takes a minute to find your way around, but it looks a little bit better than the old tabbed version of the documentation.

Fusion Middleware is released

2009-07-02T10:10:00.002+02:00

Yesterday the new version of Fusion Middleware was released. Thomas Kurian and a group of senior Oracle people talked about the new version, showed some demos and included customers for some testimonials.

The software is already available for download at http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/middleware/htdocs/111110_fmw.html

I have downloaded almost everything already and will start to install this piece by piece on my machine. I am particularly interested in the IDM Analytics and the new features of the Web Center Suite. Also the integration of the Oracle Service Bus with BPEL and their management inside the Enterprise Manager seem to be more than worthwhile to investigate.

Vote for my presentations at Oracle Open World 2009

2009-06-25T00:24:00.000+02:00

Could you do me a favor and vote for my sessions for the Oracle Open World 2009? Go to these URL's (short registration) and click on vote:

https://mix.oracle.com/oow/proposals/10412-combining-the-two-coolest-things-on-the-world-weblogic-and-lego-mindstorms

https://mix.oracle.com/oow/proposals/10471-the-big-esb-osb-bpel-cook-off

Thanks in advance!

cu
Andreas

Different servers in Content Server

2009-06-14T16:27:00.002+02:00

I'm taking some steps to work on my ECM 2.0 skills.
One of the things to do was the tutorial which comes with the software.
At a certain point you are asked to use the "Administration Server".
Clicking on it revealed the following text:

Unable to retrieve root IdcAdmin page. Permission denied. Address '127.0.0.1' is not an allowable remote socket address.

Ok, I'm using VMWare and did this from the Windows host, while the Content Server runs on one of my Linux machines. I tried with a browser inside the VMWare itself.
Same result.

Searching the OTN forums I found a part of the solution. The posts say that you need to add the IP address of the machine to the config.cfg file. Then the apache.cfg file needs to be changed ("Allow from any" becomes "Allow from all"). The final step is the restart of the server.

Well - it took me a while to find out why it didn't work.
The content server has (at least) two servers:

one in $UCM_HOME/etc
and one in $UCM_HOME/admin/etc

My first attempts where in the first directory but never delivered the result I needed. After restarting the server in the $UCM_HOME/admin/etc I finally succeeded.

Are You The Smartest 2009

2009-06-01T10:55:00.003+02:00

Oracle has a competition which is called "Are You The Smartest". This is for Oracle partners only. After five sessions with four multiple choice tests the results came in last week.

I won for Accenture.

Apparently I was the only one who prolongated his title from the 2008 competition. So I will be on a trip to see Oracle's HQ in Redwood Shores, enjoy Las Vegas and fly with a helicopter to the Grand Canyon.

Before you all think I'm bragging I need to tell you that I did not expect it, and the two runner ups were just trailing one and two points. So the competitors were very good and I will need to do my best to beat them again next year.

However the best is of course that I have again learned some things which I did not know before. This is the BEST PRICE EVER!

OOW2009

2009-05-22T11:20:00.003+02:00

I found this on the Oracle OOW2009 blog: http://blogs.oracle.com/oracleopenworld/2009/05/come_fly_with_me.html#

I hope that the possibility to fly with Sean Tucker also applies to presenters - who register in a different way than the normal conference attendee.

BTW: I just showed the YouTube movie of Sean Tucker to my wife. She just said: "All Oracle people are crazy!". I just replied: "Yes - they are! And this is a good thing ;-) ".

Deleting a Weblogic domain

2009-03-31T19:09:00.000+02:00

As I am setting my first baby steps into the world of Weblogic I have to deal with things that might seem very easy for the experienced Weblogic gurus out there, but nevertheless I put my ranting on this blog.

When you are faced with an issue in your Weblogic domain, there is apparently no tool to delete this domain.

The only solution seems to be to remove the directory in which you have created this domain.

Concatenation LDIF lines

2009-03-24T15:30:00.002+01:00

When I was extracting some information from an OID I found that the LDIF lines contain a line break. Some searches on the Internet delivered a nice solution from Dan Norris:

http://www.dannorris.com/2008/09/08/concatenating-lines-in-ldapsearch-results/

Using that the the ldif file was modified and was reusable for my purpose (creating provisioning profiles for DIP).

How to crash a Linux system

2009-01-09T21:02:00.003+01:00

Sometimes you just need a system to be gone immediately. And with immediately I mean NOW. The moment I do something it should be gone.

This comes in quite handy when you work in an environment that offers High Availability, such as an Oracle RAC, and you need to test a failover or a node crash. The same applies to a middle tier that runs the Oracle Application Server on multiple machines.

Well, if you want to do this you can use these handy commands:

[root@mymachine] cd /proc
[root@mymachine] echo c > sysrq-trigger

Of course you must be root to write into that file. And be aware, you must have (physical) access to the machine as you really need to boot it again. This can be done by pressing the button, or if you use virtualization or any ILO-tool by the available interface.

Fun with RAC on Windows (part 2)

2008-12-23T15:02:00.002+01:00

Another issue during the installation with RAC on Windows was the fact that the VIPCA failed. Of course both machines were pingable so there was no obvious error.

After some searching the following emerged: the VIP's for both nodes were all on one node.

While trying to move the VIP to the other node it showed that the network was called "Team A + B" on machine 1 and "Team A+ B" on machine two. Apparently under windows the network name is used as well when it comes to the VIPCA.

After fixing this error the VIPCA completed and the resource could be moved to the second node.

Followers

2008-12-23T14:59:00.001+01:00

I added a nice gadget to the sidebar. If you are a follower of this blog just get on it.

Fun with RAC on Windows (part 1)

2008-12-22T20:58:00.002+01:00

After having some "nice" experiences with the installation of RAC on Windows I like to share this with you - so you might find a solution easier.

The environment is easy, but not without some nice "features".

We have a three node RAC cluster with two machines in room 1 and the third machine in room 2 (both on the same site).

We did not run cluvfy as this very often gives errors when everything is OK.

On the SAN we will start with only one voting disk, and add two more later. Also the OCR will be mirrored. Furthermore we intend to use OCFS on some of the LUN's of the SAN.

Well, the installation went ok, the other machine was found, etc etc etc.
However the first configuration assistant failed.
Research showed some error - the usual stuff about node connectivity.

Stopped the OUI and retried from the command line.

Found the following errors in the evmd.log

Oracle Database 10g CRS Release 10.2.0.1.0 Production Copyright 1996, 2005 Oracle. All rights reserved.

2008-12-17 23:33:27.430: [ EVMD][4900]32EVMD Starting

2008-12-17 23:33:27.445: [ EVMD][4900]32

Oracle Database 10g CRS Release 10.2.0.1.0 Production Copyright 1996, 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved

2008-12-17 23:33:28.414: [ COMMCRS][1456]clsc_send_msg: (00000000032B8BA0) NS err (12571, 12560), transport (533, 57, 0)

The TNS error did look promising but it was not related to the 12571 or 12560.

The solution was that the hostname of the second node was looked up as a FQDN in the OUI, while the command line looked for the hostname.
As both were one way or the other not correctly administrated in the DNS (other department did this) the OUI failed.

More too follow.

DMS aggrespy

2008-11-24T19:34:00.000+01:00

In a standalone OC4J installation (e.g. SOA Suite) the dms can be reached with
http://host:port/dmsoc4j/AggreSpy

If the access is not allowed than a config in the $OH/Apache/Apache/conf/dms.conf does exist which states: Deny from all

What you see is not what you expected

2008-11-21T09:02:00.001+01:00

Had a nice issue - which demonstrated that looks can be deceiving.

My colleague asked me to increase the size of a certain tablespace as it was full.
I added a datafile in ASM for this tablespace but put it on autoextend = ON .

He complained that it was still on 100 % full.

A second I thought I messed up things (happens to the best :-)

Then another look solved the problem:
The query - which apparently was used in a lot of Nagios installations - checked only the
datafiles which were on autoextend = no .

The following query was used in Nagios.

select d.tablespace_name "TABLESPACE",
sum(d.bytes)/1048576 "SIZE (M)",
100 -(nvl(round((FREESPCE/(sum(d.bytes)/1048576))*100),0)) "USED (%)"
FROM dba_data_files d,
( SELECT round(sum(f.bytes)/1048576,2) FREESPCE,
f.tablespace_name Tablespc
FROM dba_free_space f
GROUP BY f.tablespace_name)
WHERE d.autoextensible IN 'NO' AND d.tablespace_name = Tablespc (+)
group by d.tablespace_name,FREESPCE,d.autoextensible
order by 1 desc

So, never belief a monitoring tool - unless you have double checked the underlying query.

OC4J status URL's

2008-11-02T12:33:00.000+01:00

http://localhost:7200/oc4j-service?cmd=Getprocs
Show the processes

http://localhost:7200/oc4j-service?cmd=p
Show the status

Import large amount of data

2008-11-01T12:30:00.001+01:00

For a project we needed to import a large amount of data into a RAC database.

A certain partitioned table with some 4 million rows took ages.

Grid Control showed a large value for the log buffer waits.

So I increased the FAST_START_MTTR_TARGET to reduce the number of checkpoints which worked almost immediately.

Another possibility could have been to increase the log_buffer size (14 M to 32 M) as the ADDM suggested. Maybe I do this as a structural change. Right now changing the parameter on the instance where the import happened solved the problem.

RAC is beautiful

2008-11-01T12:25:00.000+01:00

More often than once you will encounter the issue that you need to change an init-parameter that cannot be changed during an active state.

SQL> alter system set sessions=500 scope=both;
alter system set sessions=500 scope=both
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-02095: specified initialization parameter cannot be modified

Well - the beauty of RAC is of course that you can change init parameters in the spfile and bounce an instance. Your users won't notice - as the database is still available while you accomplish the change of the init parameter.

SQL> alter system set sessions=500 scope=spfile sid='ORCL4';

System altered.

SQL> shutdown immediate

SQL> startup
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 1862270976 bytes
Fixed Size 2072096 bytes
Variable Size 436208096 bytes

...

Upcoming article over the history of Oracle on Linux

2008-10-18T19:34:00.002+02:00

I'm just busy preparing an article on the history of Oracle on Linux for the Dutch magazine We Love IT.

This article will be pulished in edition number 5 of this excellent Oracle & Java magazine.

If you want to take a look at We Love IT Oracle & Java Magazine
you can also read past editions on-line or register for a free paper copy.

OOW2008 goes Tron 3.0

2008-09-24T17:00:00.003+02:00

One of the things that has gotten me into the IT world was the movie TRON.

So you can imagine how it feels when you become part of the movie ;-)

Check out the following photo (it is a little bit dark - but we're inside the computer).

You know you are a nerd when ....

2008-09-24T16:55:00.002+02:00

you attend the Oracle ACE's dinner and a lot of the Oracle GODS that make this community work are around.

You are even a bigger nerd when you go to another reception and try to tell your manager that you just had dinner with the who-is-who of the Oracle world and all your name-dropping just brings empty looks to your managers faces.

Are you experiencing the same?

Beehive

2008-09-24T16:52:00.002+02:00

One of the big announcements this year on OOW is of course Beehive. As I did a lot in the area of the Oracle Collaboration Suite I am very curious what Beehive will bring.

I had a look on the Oracle Demogrounds on OOW and it definitely looks impressive. I will get my hands dirty as soon as I'm back home. My first impression is that Beehive is what the Collaboration Suite always intended to be.

OOW2008 in full swing

2008-09-23T16:21:00.001+02:00

Since Sunday Oracle Open is in full swing. Sessions, hands-on labs, exhibitions, user groups, receptions, parties, and best of all: ALL OF YOU!

I meet so many people that I have heard of, people who have blogs as well, familiar faces from Oracle, lots of folks from my company and of course from other companies and Oracle customers.

Content of the sessions is usually very good, and again you get the insider information from Oracle product managers, and partners who implemented some cool pieces of Oracle software in their projects.

Hope you all enjoy the show and I also hope to see as many of my readers here in sunny San Francisco!

cu
Andreas

Metalink is upgraded

2008-09-21T16:43:00.002+02:00

Starting with OOW the Metalink interface was uograded. Although this was already available for a while as a beta and as metalink3.oracle.com it has now entered mainstream.

Let's see what else will be changed during this OOW.

RAC and ORA-1102

2008-08-07T08:05:00.000+02:00

Hit the following problem:

After a manual install of a database the database and its instances were not registered with the CRS.

Using srvctl I registered the database and its instances in the CRS.

Unfortunately I could not start the database or and instance. Well I could start one instance but none of the other three. Same thing happened when I used another instance (start inst1 but not inst2, inst3 and inst4, then start inst4, but not inst1, inst2, inst3).

Then I tried to start one of the other instances manually. See what happened:

SQL> startup
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 838860800 bytes
Fixed Size 2074992 bytes
Variable Size 218105488 bytes
Database Buffers 612368384 bytes
Redo Buffers 6311936 bytes
ORA-01102: cannot mount database in EXCLUSIVE mode

I found out that the culprit was an nice combination of init parameters.

CLUSTER_DATABASE_INSTANCES=4
CLUSTER_DATABASE=NO

So my explanation was that the database was willing to start one instance, but none of the other three.

So how could this happen?
Well, our partner came with its own setup tool. This is a mix of shell scripts that are governed by a collection of XML files.
As this is their first RAC environment I guess that they usually set CLUSTER_DATABASE to NO while in some other part they count the number of nodes where the instances will run. Hence the logical difference in their init parameters.

As they had pfiles on all nodes the solution was very easy. Correct the CLUSTER_DATABASE=YES, create a spfile and use that.

AS Control in a Cluster

2008-07-06T16:10:00.003+02:00

When you cluster two Oracle Application Servers (10.1.3) you will receive a warning that it is not recommended (supported) to have two Application Server Controls in this cluster.

This week I had the need to enable the second ASC as the deployment of an application failed if it was carried of from the remote ASC.

This is how I did this.

Go to the server.xml in j2ee/home/config and change
< application name="ascontrol" path="../../home/applications/ascontrol.ear" parent="system" start="false" / >

into

< application name="ascontrol" path="../../home/applications/ascontrol.ear" parent="system" start="true" / >

MRCA has problems with RAC

2008-06-27T10:06:00.005+02:00

Had a problem with the installation of MRCA in a RAC cluster.

This can happen when you are installing the MRCA in a RAC environment and the total length of the description string is longer than 239 chars.

Found this in the logfile of the MRCA assistant:

[SQLPlusAction] Connect string: (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=abcdefghijklmno01)(PORT=1582))(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=abcdefghijklmno02)(PORT=1582))(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=abcdefghijklmno03)(PORT=1582)))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=INFRA)))

SQL> string beginning "(DESCRIPTI..." is too long. maximum size is 239 characters.

Of course the above hostnames are fake (we have different ones, but just as long).

The strange thing is that not all parts fail. So apparently each assistant uses a different method.

Solution was to use just one or two of the hostnames in the MRCA assistant. It is a RAC cluster - so even one host would be sufficient.

Secure Grid Control agents

2008-06-27T09:56:00.003+02:00

I encountered another strange thing in the Grid Control.
The intention was to secure the communication between the agents on AIX and the OMS. However on one machine this was working, while the other two machines where I installed the agent succeeded in putting the agent in secure mode but did never upload their data.

Using

emctl status agent -secure

I found out that they thought that they were not in secure mode.

The solution was pretty simple (and another proof that Oracle has to find some unique way to resolve network addresses)..

In my hostfile the hosts that did not work were described as
10.1.2.3 hostname hostname.domain.com

I changed this to be
10.1.2.3 hostname.domain.com hostname

resecured everything (OMS and agents) and it then it worked.

Hot of the press

2008-06-23T09:36:00.000+02:00

I will be presenting at the Oracle Open World in San Francisco in September.

Session details:

Session ID: S300515
Session Title: How to Achieve 99.99 Percent Availability
Track: Database

More to come ....

Firefox - Google maps - skype

2008-06-16T19:49:00.001+02:00

Hi folks!

I switched to Firefox RC2 and all of a sudden the Google Maps stopped.

I found out that the Skype Extension was messing it up. So if you have a similar problem (or switch to Firefox 3 from 17-JUN-2008) just try this to fix the problem.

Just wanted to let you know.

Unpacking Oracle cpio for AIX

2008-06-08T15:36:00.001+02:00

When extracting a cpio file with Oracle software from OTN on AIX you might encounter the following problem:

oracle@mymachine-app:/install/oracle/MRCA>cpio -idmv < ../as_ibm_aix_mrca_101203_disk1.cpio

cpio: 0511-903 Out of phase!
cpio attempting to continue...

cpio: 0511-904 skipping 642010 bytes to get back in phase!
One or more files lost and the previous file is possibly corrupt!

Segmentation fault

The solution is to use the option -idcmv
oracle@mymachine-app:/install/oracle/MRCA>cpio -idcmv < ../as_ibm_aix_mrca_101203_disk1.cpio

c
Reads and writes header information in ASCII character form. If a
cpio archive was created using the c flag, it must be extracted
with c flag.

Oracle dbca does not create the archive directory

2008-06-07T19:46:00.003+02:00

Found out that the DBCA does not create a specific ARCH location when you do not use the default one.

When you are in the dbca and edit the init parameter

So after my nice little database was frozen I created the arch directory in the ASM and voila, everything was back to normal.

Default character set used in the DB

2008-05-28T12:36:00.001+02:00

As I always forget this (and have to look for it) I will put it into my blog - maybe I will memorize it now ;-)

SELECT value$ FROM sys.props$ WHERE name = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET';

Oracle Data Guard screw up

2008-05-18T10:59:00.002+02:00

Setting up Data Guard with Maximum Protection requires the Data Guard Broker.

Having setup Data Guard a couple of times without the broker I thought "how difficult can it be?" and started.

After some preparations I started the dgmgrl in order to configure the various sites.
To my astonishment no command at all was recognized. I have to admit that I even went back to the manuals to see if it was my fault. And then - shame on me - I tried to use the help function inside the dgmgrl.

See what happens then:

WHAHAHAHA!

Ok, so either I was seriously stupid or there was an error - probably a relink issue.
A good friend of mine at Oracle PTS - Robert Pastijn - offered the needed help and pointed out that a bug was introduced on AIX in the upgrade from 10.2.0.1.0 to 10.2.0.2.0 . The patch fixed this problem.

So after all Oracle did not (yet) follow the classic Microsoft error: Error - No Error.

IP with VMWare

2008-04-23T09:11:00.001+02:00

Lately I ran into a strange problem.

I switched on my Wireless Network on my laptop only to find out that every time it receives a hostname localdomain
and an IP address of 192.168.2.174 .

Of course I blamed Windows as this is often the problem.
However I found out that the problem is the DHCP Server of the VMWare Server.
This seems to assign DHCP leases not only for the networks towards the Virtual Machines but also to the host as well.

The only remedy is to shutdown the Windows service of the VMWare DHCP Server when requesting a new IP address.

Setup Oracle RAC - problem with runcluvfy.sh

2008-04-23T08:52:00.000+02:00

When running the runcluvfy.sh I received the following error:

/tmp does not exist and is not writable

The reason for this is the fact that during the setup of the user equivalence the ssh to the own host was not performed. This leads to the issue that the commands in the runcluvfy.sh are not issued on the localhost. This leads to the strange error, as the /tmp directory did of course exist.

Change the instancename of the Oracle Application Server

2008-04-18T13:35:00.002+02:00

During the installation of an Oracle Application Server I mistyped the instancename. I was not so keen on re-installing everything. So I tried to change the name of the instance. Mind you - I'm talking about the name that is displayed when issuing an

opmnctl status

The solution is pretty easy: Edit the ias.properties and the opmn.xml . Change the instancename there and restart the opmn.

User interface design @ Oracle - or how to distinguish blue on blue

2008-03-02T12:50:00.004+01:00

Came across the following last week - and I have to admit that this is something which made my eyes hurt.

When you are in the Policy Manager of the Oracle Identity Management Suite and you want to add a group you REALLY need to know that there is a hidden link on this page. Try to find it yourself in the next picture:

Found it?

No?
Let me give you a hint. Look in the blue band and search for some blue text :-)

I'm not sure if anybody knew about this. I checked the documentation, and nothing about adding a group to such an Authorization Rule for groups is written in there.

I wonder if anybody at Oracle knows about this hidden gem.
I will log an SR with Support and also mail some people I know at Oracle to discuss this perfect piece of user interface design.

A good old fashioned switchboard

2008-02-23T17:16:00.003+01:00

Nowadays you see a lot of those nifty no-nonsense datacenters where everything is ordered and no room is left for human ingenuity.

However - once in a while you encounter some good old-fashioned folks, who think that intelligence rules over the chaos.

Here is a lovely picture from one of my customers.

Well - in order to protect the innocent let me say that their network is ok!

Solution for OAM WebPass and WebGate in different directories

2007-12-08T16:06:00.000+01:00

When installing the Oracle Access Manager WebGate and WebPass in different directories on Windows you will encounter some problems when it comes to forms-based authentication. The reason for this lies in the configuration of the IIS (oh - how I like Apache :-) .

The redirection to the forms based HTML login and its redirection can easily fail as the IIS is not aware of the different location of the other directory.

I solved this by changing the Virtual Directory settings in the IIS.

Here is a picture that will give you an idea where and how to do this:

Either I'm stupid, getting too old or the 40C fever has taken the better of me :-(

2007-11-27T19:52:00.000+01:00

Today during a workshop where we had to setup the Oracle Access Manager we had a very detailed cookbook.

Then I reached the following page:

I hit next and always received a strange error - stating that the inetOrgPerson could not be found in the LDAP.

Well - I have to say for my defense that I suffered from fever, cold, and headache.

Just restarting the servers OUTSIDE the browser did the trick!

Going to bed and get rid of my fever.

cu
Andreas

Problems when syncing AD with OID

2007-10-21T15:16:00.000+02:00

Lately I've been doing some AD-OID synchronization.

Should be not that difficult, but as so often the devil is in the detail.

The AD admin created a user that is capable of reading the complete AD - as it is described in the documentation.

Then I tried to login. And tried, and tried. Password was reset, different password was used, etc.

No luck.

I tried a very easy ldapsearch and received the follwoing error:

80090308: LdapErr: DSID-0C09030B, comment: AcceptSecurityContext error, data 531, v893
HEX: 0x531 - not permitted to logon from this workstation
DEC: 1329 - ERROR_INVALID_WORKSTATION (Logon failure: user not allowed to log on to this computer.)
LDAP[userWorkstations: ]
NOTE: Returns only when presented with valid username and password/credential.

Aha, that gave me a clue. So the username and password seemed to be correct. Some googeling established the problem.

The user was created but the AD admin did not allow the user to login to the machine where the AD was running.

Pain in my hands

2007-09-22T15:03:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I wish that there was just one language and therefore just one keyboard.

I'm working in Belgium right now and at this customer there is no possibility to use my laptop on the network. Instead they have a thin client concept based on Citrix. That is ok but working with a Belgian keyboard just makes my hands hurt.

I have switched the locale to English. But now I have to convince my eyes that there are different keys.

Also after locking the PC I mistyped my password too often (the Citrix environment was still on FR) so the helpdesk had to unlock my account.

I have not yet done Oracle related work on this machine but I cannot imagine what will happen when doing some interessting stuff with the DB or the Application Server and entering $#@%^& instead of some numbers or terminating each command with an m (that's where they've put the semicolon).