Laurent Schneider

Linux x86

Solaris Sparc 64bits
Solaris Sparc 32bits

Patchset 9.2.0.8 is out for a few plateform. I am quite surprised it did not come out on Solaris 32bits first, as I expected, but rather on the following

Microsoft Windows 32bits
Microsoft Windows 64bits
Linux Itanium
Linux x86_64
HP UX PA-RISC
IBM AIX5L
IBM z/OS (OS 390)

This is the terminal release of 9iR2

Huge downtime on forums.oracle.com today. After landing on an Error-500 page, I discovered a quick and neat overview of oracle patchsets, accessible without metalink account :

http://www.oracle.com/technology/support/patches.htm

Still waiting for 9.2.0.8 Solaris by the way, announced for 2006Q3, whatever this mean

Novell SLES10 Oracle Database
Originally uploaded by laurentschneider.

The orarun package to be installed in SLES10

How neat is Suse!

I downloaded the DVD SLES10 on Novell.com. At the installation time, appart from Gnome, Development, X Window, there are a few new categories. One of them is called Oracle Database, and guess what, it installs all what I needed for Oracle. It creates an oracle account, with oinstall as primary group and dba as secondary group, it sets usefull things like ORACLE_HOME.

Ok, let’s unlock the account

chltlxlsc1:~ # usermod -s /bin/bash oracle
chltlxlsc1:~ # passwd oracle
Changing password for oracle.
New Password:
Reenter New Password:
Password changed.

Ok, let’s install. SLES10 is not recognized as a certified OS yet. The DISPLAY thing has to be manually set too.

oracle@chltlxlsc1:~> ./runInstaller  -ignoreSysPrereqs
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking installer requirements...

Checking operating system version: must be redhat-3, SuSE-9, 
redhat-4, UnitedLinux-1.0, asianux-1 or asianux-2
                                      Failed <<<<

>>> Ignoring required pre-requisite failures. Continuing...

this is one of the friendliest installation I have ever made…

I successfully applied patch 5225799 on my notebook

SQL> select action,version,id,comments from dba_registry_history;
ACTION VERSION          ID COMMENTS
------ ---------- -------- ----------
CPU    10.2.0.2.0  5225799 CPUJul2006

Download of the pre-release version of Suse Linux Entreprise 10 is now available

http://www.novell.com/linux/prerelease.html?sourceid=prerelease1

mod_plsql is an oracle module for Apache. Let’s do it from A to Z.

I install HTTP server. In 10g, it is located on the companion cd and requires a separate oracle home.

I copy my tnsnames.ora in COMPANIONHOME/network/admin

Then, I configure COMPANIONHOME/Apache/modplsql/conf/dads.conf

<Location /helloworld>
  SetHandler pls_handler
  PlsqlDatabaseUsername         scott
  PlsqlDatabasePassword         tiger
  PlsqlDatabaseConnectString    LSC01
</Location>

I create my procedure
create or replace procedure helloworld is begin htp.bold('hello world'); end;

I start my Apache server
$ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startproc ias-component=HTTP_Server

I open my browser
firefox http://localhost:7780/helloworld/scott.helloworld

So easy!

Oracle Secure Backup is out. It enables the use encryption of backup on tapes, it can help you to save on media library costs (no need from a media manager any more).

Well, I am curious how many customer will take the challenge to migrate from tivoli or netbackup to oracle secure backup…

Oracle Release a solaris release for the intel/amd 64bits platform.

This is the first release ever from oracle on solaris x86-64.

Download Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.1.0) for Solaris Operating System (x86-64) now

the patchset 1 of database 10gR2 is available on AIX, HPUX, Solaris, Linux and Windows yet.

download patch 4547817 on metalink

As a habit of changing name of everything, the catpatch sql script has been renamed to catupgrd

Well, it is now renamed to SQL Developer.

There is now an expected “Save password” checkbox to save the password… apart from the name, it looks quite similar to raptor

check on metalink for availability:
patch 4505133

I am waiting for eomgc 10gR2 for AIX so I check the download page often. Instead of adding new plateforms, I notice they just removed Solaris !
Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Release 2 (10.2.0.1) for Solaris Operating System (SPARC)

google cache

I just download and installed Oracle Application 10g Release 3 on my linux box.

The version released this week is very light! No ldap, no database, well, a light one…

Application Server 10g Release 3 x86: 531 MB
  Included:   
    * Oracle HTTP Server
    * Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J)
    * Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control
    * Oracle Business Rules
    * Oracle TopLink

Application Server 10g Release 2 x86: 2 GB
 Included:
    * Oracle HTTP Server Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J)
    * Oracle Application Server Web Cache
    * Oracle Application Server Portal
    * Oracle Application Server Wireless
    * Oracle Sensor Edge Server
    * Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control
    * Oracle Database Server 10g (10.1.0.4.2)
    * Oracle Internet Directory
    * Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On
    * Oracle Application Server Directory Integration Provisioning
    * Oracle Application Server Delegated Administration Services
    * Oracle Application Server Certificate Authority
    * Oracle Application Server Forms Services
    * Oracle Application Server Reports Services
    * Oracle Application Server Personalization
    * Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer
    * Oracle Security Developer Tools
    * Oracle Application Server Guard
    * OracleAS Backup and Recovery Tool

I tried to install on my notebook, and, o surprise, it works…
the only thing that was missing and required was public domain korn shell, pdksh, which is easy to find by googling

raptor product page

I have not checked the differences with 3.0 yet, probably bug fixes with “do not save passwords”

This is THE release I have been waiting for, a raptor which does NOT save the password on your local PC. Save a password, even encrypted, on you local PC allows every one with physical access to your PC to get access to your productive database, which may be high-secured and with controlled physical access.

Download immediatly on otn !

a few improvement described in the readme.txt. One of this is big-tnsfile support.

always missing is a way to NOT SAVE the password on the client!

Last friday I installed RAC on my Suse10. Today, I installed Grid Control.

Of course it is not supported.

The packages I neeeded additionaly are db1 and openmotif.

It did not work 100%. I finally started the iasconsole (emctl start iasconsole), and within the iasconsole, I restarted the failed elements.

I created the repository manually (sysman/admin/emdrep/bin/RepManager)

Hi,
[EDIT]
I did read Dizwell article about Linux 10g Laptop RAC. The article is no longer available
[/EDIT]

I have just installed RAC 10gR2 on Suse10.

The document above guided me thru the steps.

Specific Suse10 :
- raw devices are configured by editing /etc/raw with values like raw1:loop1 and must be activated with rcraw start (+ chkconfig -a raw for persitence)

To take care :
- read point 8 to survive reboot…

Specific 10gR2 :
In 10gR2, MAXINSTANCES must not be specified by create controlfiles. In 10gR2, the controlfile can grow dynamically. Even if I created my controlfile with maxinstances=1, I can do alter database add logfile instance 'RAC2' ; alter database add logfile instance 'RAC2' ; alter database enable instance 'RAC2';, which is simply great! CREATE CONTROLFILE just belongs to the past!

Installation:
I had to run vipca manually as root at the end of the root script of the crs installation. I also removed my existing oracle_homes and rebooted before installing database software again. The VIP interface must be configured in /etc/hosts and DOWN (ifconfig down eth0:2).

Conclusion:
The doc written by Amit Poddar on Howad site is usefull. Enjoy rac’ing on your pocket desk calculator!

solaris version now available
Entreprise Manager download (Solaris 32bits)

I prefer and recommend using Oracle on a supported version, like Suse Entreprise 9, because the installation is fair. The Installer does complain on SLES9 what is missing.

Ok, I just received a brand new notebook, I decided to go to Suse 10, and, Ô Miracle, the installation was pretty easy! I surely installed C++ development tools (how can I survive without a C compiler), but I missed the libaio and libaio-devl. Well, I installed it afterwards and my create database statement succeeded.

Sincerly, installing Oracle 10gR2 on Suse 10 is no longer a pain as it was before with non-supported versions.

I am so happy

Well, my gnome evolution ms-exchange connector is still not working, but this I will fix asap

I just found in my RSS feed that a new agent has been released. 10.1.0.4 for AIX5L. Well, if you go to the OEM download page, you will see only 10.1.0.2 version for AIX, HPUX, Solaris Sparc. But by clicking on the link, for example
Grid Control (10.1.0.2)
for AIX5L Based Systems, you will find a link OEM 10g Grid Control Management Agent Release 1, from there I finally discovered that 10.1.0.4 agent download.

Well, I already had 10.1.0.4, but it was a 10.1.0.2 installation patched with 10.1.0.4. So I prefer installing directly 10.1.0.4 agent.

Not trivial to found, but hopefully, I subscribed to RSS feeds on Newest Downloads

what can I do with LDAP?
what is the difference between LDAP and Oracle Internet Directory?

Well, there is quite a lot of interresting documents, pictures and faq on otn :

My ldap server is up and running on my notebook with SLES9.

Next, next, next, install. That is it.

Oracle Application Server creates a 10.1.0.4.2 database and start the Oracle Internet Directory – understand LDAP server – automatically.

It can then be configured with the web interface.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Downloads: oem download

this is a great announcement!

one fresh download today oracle database 10g download

I heard that grid control 10g release 2 may be available only in 2006. Quite annoying, since the repository cannot be on a 10gR2 db…

just waiting

Well, the virus scanner did not let me download it 10gR2 Aix on monday. I called the IT-support. Finally, they allowed me to bypass the virus scanner and I managed to download the software + the doc within 10 minutes. Not bad!

Ok, the installer complained my maintenance level to be 5200-03. I upgraded it to 5200-06.

The oracle installer is not my best friend. I have many installations per servers, 7.3.4, 8.0.6, 8.1.7 32bits, 8.1.7 64bits (AIX4), 9.2, 10.1, 10.2… with different patch levels, and I consider installing and deinstalling with runinstaller to be a nightmare.

I did not find the “remove software” functionnality on the 10gR2 installer. Strange!

I created a new db. Got a warning that SQL_TRACE is deprecated, so I removed that parameter and my db is up and running.

We just received new PCs. Brand new with XP. Nice? Let’s see!

As usual, I started my Exceed and logged on my AIX server. I tried to start the Grid Control Engine (opmn). Hard luck. Failed to start OC4J instance

The first problem is, when I installed the Grid, my old workstation DISPLAY name has been registered in opmn.xml!
The second problem, my server has no graphic card, and no X server running.
Actually, I do not need X on this server. But to let the Grid start, I will use Frame Buffer. In AIX, you install X11.vfb base package, then mkitab “xvfb:2:once:/usr/lpp/X11/bin/X -force -vfb :1 >tmp/x.txt 2>&1″ to start it at the next reboot. Start it now as well.
Then edit your opmn.xml file and set the DISPLAY variable to localhost:1

<variable id=”DISPLAY” value=”localhost:1″/>