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ContentDB installation

Yesterday I installed ContentDB. The installation is fairly straightforward.

Download and install Oracle Identity Management

  • OID 10.1.4.0.1
  • Install the Infrastructure, with the Identity Management and Repository, including Internet Directory, Single Sign-on, Delegated Administration Services and Directory provisioning

This will create a 10.1.0.5 database. The default parameters are too low for contentDB.


alter system set
  processes=250
    scope=spfile
  sga_max_size=629145600
    scope=spfile
  shared_pool_size=184549376
    scope=spfile
  java_pool_size=125829120
    scope=spfile
  db_cache_size=150994944
    scope=spfile
  db_file_multiblock_read_count=32
    scope=spfile
  db_create_file_dest='/u02/oradata'
    scope=spfile
  job_queue_processes=10
    scope=spfile
  session_max_open_files=50
    scope=spfile
  open_cursors=400
    scope=spfile
  star_transformation_enabled=true
    scope=spfile
  pga_aggregate_target=203423744
    scope=spfile;

It is recommended to stop the application server infrastructure before restarting the database to make the parameters above effective.

$ $ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl stop iasconsole
$ $ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl stopall
$ sqlplus / as sysdba
SQL> shutdown immediate
SQL> startup
$ $ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startall
$ $ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl start iasconsole

It is now possible to install ContentDB in this database. Of course the ContentDB could be installed in a separate database, it does not have to be the same as the infrastructure database.

Now, download and install Oracle ContentDB

  • Content Database 10.2.0.0.0
  • Install the ContentDB

That’s all. There now two application server instances, one for the infrastructure and one for the content database.

To launch the Content Database web interface, just go to the http server of the ContentDB installation, something like http://server:7779.

$ /app/oracle/product/10.1.2/cdb_1/bin/opmnctl status -l

Processes in Instance: CONTENTDB01.srv01
-------------------+----------+------------------------
ias-component      | status   | ports
-------------------+----------+------------------------
DSA                | Down     | N/A
HTTP_Server        | Alive    | http1:7779,http2:7202
LogLoader          | Down     | N/A
dcm-daemon         | Alive    | N/A
OC4J               | Alive    | ajp:12503,rmi:12403,...
WebCache           | Alive    | http:7778,invalidati...
WebCache           | Alive    | administration:9400
Content            | Alive    | node_dms_http:53900,...
Content            | Alive    | node_manager_locator...

Login with user ORCLADMIN and the password you specified for IAS_ADMIN.

ContentDB interface let you upload and download files. You can use it to keep your documentation in a single location. It has versioning capabilities too.

screenshot

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Oracle Certification

I have been waiting for three years for the OCM 10g upgrade certification. Still waiting…
OCM DBA 10g Upgrade

Gavin just posted about the Oracle Expert Program

The beta phase has started for 1Z1-046 Managing Oracle on Linux for DBAs and 1Z1-048 Administering Real Application Clusters. Those exams will lead to Linux and RAC Certified Expert certifications.

Beta exam 1Z1-312 Oracle Application Server 10g: Administration II has not started yet. This exam will lead to Oracle Application Server OCP certification.

I have never taken a beta exam. They are quite long (3.5 hours), and you have to wait a few months to get your score. Since the OCM DBA 10g has not been released, I may well go for the RAC Expert exam if I have the time in June.

References :
Oracle Certification Program Beta Exams
Expert Program Page

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oas-console


oas-console
Originally uploaded by laurentschneider.

I installed OAS 10.1.3 on my notebook. Why? well, just to test if it is installable… and to justify my need of 2Gb of memory to my boss 😉

Ok, SLES10 is not certified yet, Not even planned yet on metalink. But it will definitely be certified one day.

The first step is to install the necessary packages

1) db1 : Berkeley DB Database Library Version 1.85
this package is needed, in order to avoid :

httpd: error while loading shared libraries: libdb.so.2: 
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

2) openmotif21-libs, sysstat
as listed in the quick installation guide for SLES9

3) libgnome and libgnome-devel
replace the old gnome-libs and gnome-libs-devel

4) pdksh
ksh-93r seems to be suffisant

5) glibc 2.3 and gcc 3.3
no problem until yet by using glibc 2.4 and gcc 4.1

The second and last step is to launch the installer, with -ignoreSysPrereqs or with an updated install/oraparam.ini

That’s all. I did get some warning about memory and requirements, but it seems that it works.

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Oracle Application Server

One month ago, I attended an Oracle Application Server course in Geneva, Switzerland. We were a group of 3 students and the 5-days lesson has been extremly interesting and intense. Starting at 9am, we used to finish at 5:30pm or later.

At LC Systems, we have a few customers using OAS, that is why I did jump into this non-database product cursus.

As I experienced in the course, it is quite different from Oracle Database. Technically speaking, you do not need much database know-how to administer an application server.

There are basically two parts. One is the Infrastructure. It contains a Directory Server (LDAP) which is stored physically on a database. As for the Grid Control, you can just click Next->Next->Next->Install to have it up and running (if you are lucky). You do not specify the size of the memory, the location of the files, the logging mode, nothing. Just the database passwords.

The second part is called the Middle Tier. It contains a J2EE engine. There you can “hotplug” your application : portal, forms, reports, discoverer…

The consistency, availability, backup strategy are not as clearly defined as in the db world I know. In the “online backup” mode, you should just hope that nothing is going to modify the xml configuration files at the time you edit them. If your file system is getting full of logs, it can well happen that your config file get truncated. If you think you are not modifying anything during the backup, it could well be Oracle itself that updates the xml files. What did also sound dubious to me is the point in time recovery. It sounds like : “Well, I will try to recover until time your repository with rman, and if I found your backup sets on the disk, it may work. If the config changed since that time, well, this is probably not the best thing to try…”

The security concept made me hurl more than one time. For example Portal. There is a superuser called PORTAL in the Oracle Internet Directory (OID). To my surprise, you can see his database password in clear text in the OID. This user has, no joke, DBA role in the database. You can “revoke” the DBA role from PORTAL in the Application Server Console, but, believe me, it does not revoke the DBA at the db level. The mod_plsql enables you to encrypt passwords in files. This is a 2-ways encryption, I doubt the algorythm is very strong. The concept rather rely on “No one should ever log-in neither on the application server (with telnet) nor on the repository database (with sqlplus).

This morning I passed my 1Z0-311 exam with success (0 error).

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OCP Column

There is a new INSIDE OCP column in the Oracle Magazine this month (May-June 2006 Edition).

It is about the Application Server exam. In the magazine, it is referenced as 1Z1-311, but the beta phase ended half a year ago, so the exam is now production 1Z0-311. I could guess most answers, and I hope I can succeed at first try, which is no sure thing. Anyway, I will try it next Friday at Oracle University in Baden/Zurich.

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Application Server 10gR3 on Suse Linux 10

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