DST Change - OEM start agent failed, agentTZRegion settings

Because of DST change, I saw the agents which were shutdown are not starting, tried manually but no luck.

$ emctl start agent
Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Release 10.2.0.2.0.
Copyright (c) 1996, 2006 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Starting agent ...... failed.
The agentTZRegion value in /home/oracle/product/10.2.0/em10g/agent10g/sysman/config/emd.properties is not in agreement with what agent thinks it should be.Please verify your environment to make sure that TZ setting has not changed since the last start of the agent.
If you modified the timezone setting in the environment, please stop the agent and exectute 'emctl resetTZ agent' and also execute the script mgmt_target.set_agent_tzrgn(, ) to get the value propagated to repository.
Consult the log files in: /home/oracle/product/10.2.0/em10g/agent10g/sysman/log

Resolution
In emd.properties you need to correctly set the agentTZRegion value
agentTZRegion=-04:00

And login to OEM repository and run the following SQL to get the present values, so you can reset the value in repdb - login as SYS

select TARGET_NAME, timezone_region FROM mgmt_targets WHERE target_type = 'oracle_emd' AND target_name like '%hostname%';

TARGET_NAME TIMEZONE_REGION
-------------------------- --------------------------
hostname.domainname:2872 -05:00


Now reset the value to correct TZ settings

SQL> exec mgmt_target.set_agent_tzrgn('hostname.domainname:2872','-04:00');
SQL> commit;

Restart the agent, its successful

$emctl start agent
Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Release 10.2.0.2.0.
Copyright (c) 1996, 2006 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Starting agent .............................. started.


Good Luck, Cheers

WebADI Excel Macro Settings

I have seen lot of users coming to DBA's with WebADI issues, one of the common issue is not having proper excel settings.

The following is the summary - excel settings for using WebADI.




Good Luck

Cheers!

Burn multiple ISO into DVD

Non Oracle Post

If you have downloaded software and if it comes in multiple cd ISO images and want to burn into one single image for creating dvd then do the following.

In my case some of the linux s/w which i downloaded has multiple cd's so I used the below method to create the dvd image. I used the single iso image to install linux on vmware.

cat image1.iso image2.iso image3.iso >imagedvd.iso
or
cat image1.iso > imagedvd.iso
cat image2.iso >> imagedvd.iso
cat image3.iso >> imagedvd.iso

All the contents if 3 iso images are clubbed into one image.


Hope this helps someone

How to setup more than one AD Domains for OID External Authentication (10.1.2 vs 10.1.4)

You might be wondering why I am comparing 2 versions, when we started our integration, 10.1.4 was released and I read technet documentation but could not find any information on metalink (all the info is for 10.1.2 and 9.0.4) and at my earlier project I worked on integrating SiteMinder against 10.1.2, thats how I got some insight into differences which I am sharing with you.

The above combinations are integrated with 11.5.10.2 instances, To login to 11i Users are externally authenticated by AD or Siteminder and 10gAS is used as a intermediary to accomplish it.

We have multiple domains, so I worked on seting up multiple plug-in for external authentication. But at the end we ended up using AD Global Catalog.

10.1.2 - Source:

1) Go to $ORACLE_HOME/ldap/admin
2) Make a copy of oidspada.pls file, and save it as oidspada2.pls
3) Modify oidspada2.pls
* Replace OIDADPSWD with OIDADPSWD2 (Global replace)
4) Make a copy of oidspadi.sh file and save it as oidspadi2.sh (Global Replace)
* replace "oidspada.pls" with "oidspada2.pls"
* replace "adwhencompare" with "adwhencompare2"
* replace "adwhenbind" with "adwhenbind2"
* replace "OIDADPSWD" with "OIDADPSW2"
5) Run oidspad2.sh
It will register new profiles for new domain.

10.1.4 - Source:

1) Configure external authentication for one domain
2) Dump the configuration information into LDIF file
ldapsearch -p 3060 -D cn=orcladmin -w welcome -s sub -L -b "cn=plugin,cn=subconfigsubentry" cn="oidexplg_*_ad" >> output.ldif
3) Modify the output.ldif
cn=oidexplg_compare_ad with cn=oidexplg_compare_ad2
cn=oidexplg_bind_ad with cn=oidexplg_bind_ad2
Change the values for orclpluginflexfield;host and orclpluginflexfield;port for the external directory host name and port number
Modify orclpluginsubscriberdnlist for the plug-in invocation naming context.
4) Upload the new plug-in information
$ORACLE_HOME/ldap/bin/ldapadd -h host -p port -D cn=orcladmin -w orcladminPwd -v -f input.ldif

Test using ldapbind and ldapcompare against both the domains
a) ldapbind -h oidHost -p port -D "cn=ADUser,cn=Users,dc=uk,dc=acme,dc=com" -w adpassword
b) ldapcompare -h oidHost -p port -D "cn=orcladmin" -w iasadminpswd -b "cn=ADUser,cn=Users,dc=uk,dc=acme,dc=com" -a userPassword -v adpassword

a) ldapbind -h oidHost -p port -D "cn=ADUser,cn=Users,dc=us,dc=acme,dc=com" -w adpassword
b) ldapcompare -h oidHost -p port -D "cn=orcladmin" -w iasadminpswd -b "cn=ADUser,cn=Users,dc=us,dc=acme,dc=com" -a userPassword -v adpassword



Good Luck

Configure OID External Authentication Plug-In (10.1.2 vs 10.1.4) against Microsoft AD

We recently integrated our 11.5.10.2 instance with 10gAS (10.1.4 Identity management) using external Authentication from Microsoft Active Directory. Automatic USER provisioning from AD to OID to 11i.

The way external authentication happens in 10.1.2 and 10.1.4 is quite different.In 10.1.2 it uses pl/sql plug-in and 10.1.4 it uses java plug-in.

In 10.1.2 you have to run "$ORACLE_HOME/ldap/admin/oidspadi.sh" to register adwhencompare & adwhenbind profiles.

In 10.1.4 you need to run "$ORACLE_HOME/ldap/jlib/oidexcfg.jar oidexcfg -h oidhost -p port -D cn=orcladmin -w password -t AD" to modify the oidexcfg_compare_ad and oidexcfg_bind_ad plug-in's, the same can also be modified by login to ODM and going to Plug-in Management.

After registering run the following commands to check if AD can authenticate you
1) ldapbind -h oidHost -p port -D "cn=ADUser,cn=Users,dc=acme,dc=com" -w adpassword
2) ldapcompare -h oidHost -p port -D "cn=orcladmin" -w iasadminpswd -b "cn=ADUser,cn=Users,dc=acme,dc=com" -a userPassword -v adpassword

In 10.1.4 you can still use pl/sql plug-in for external authentication but make sure you are not hitting bug#5912665

Another important thing is - In 10.1.2 "orclUserPrincipalName" objectclass contains the external identity used for validating to Active Directory and in 10.1.4 "orclSourceObjectDN" is used instead.

Good Luck

Timeout Setting when you have 10gAS integrated with 11i along with External Authentication

We are using 11i (11.5.10.2) with 10gAS (10.1.4.0.1) with AD external Authentication. The timeout behavior was not consistent across the board.

The following places needs to be modified to set timeout across the board

11i
System Profile option ICX:Session Timeout 30 (Minutes)
zone.properties file session.timeout=180000 (Milliseconds=30 Minutes)


SSO
a) Navigate to http://:port/pls/orasso
b) Login with an administration account
c) Press 'SSO Server Administration'
d) Press 'Edit SSO Server Configuration'
e) In the section 'Single Sign-On Session Policy', change the Single Sign-on Session Duration from 8Hrs to .5 Hr (30 Min) ---This must match 11i Timeout

Other Timeouts

SSO
Set Global Inactivity Timeout – Login as ORASSO and run $ORACLE_HOME/sso/admin/plsql/sso/ssogito.sq set the “inactivity_period” in Minutes (Default 15 min, To disable timeout set inactivity period to 0)

Set connectionIdleTimeout = 30 (default 120 min) in $ORACLE_HOME/sso/conf/policy.properties

Set OssoIdleTimeout on (Default off) in $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/conf/mod_osso.conf



OID
To set the interval in ODM select the server, then the Query Optimization tab, LDAP Connection Timeout. The set to 30 (default is 0, no timeout). The value is in minutes. The value should be set to less than any firewall or load balancer timeout.

In ODM select the server, then the System Operational Attributes tab, Statistics Collection Interval is set to 15. The default is 60 minutes. This value should be set to about half the connection timeout.


Bounce the services on 10gAS and 11i
opmnctl stopproc process-type=HTTP_Server
opmnctl startproc process-type=HTTP_Server

opmnctl stopproc process-type=OC4J_SECURITY
opmnctl startproc process-type=OC4J_SECURITY

adapcctl.sh stop
adapcctl.sh start


Good Luck...

Oracle Applications Benchmarks

Just saw this article on Oracle site, benchmarks for medium and small configurations.

http://www.oracle.com/apps_benchmark/html/results.html

Hope this helps

Wanna know version of RedHat installed?

Wanna know exactly what version of redhat/centos/enterprise linux you are running?

Normally on any unix flavors if you do "uname -a" you get all the details along with servername, o/s build details.

If yo do the same on redhat, it will not tell you what version you are running.
$uname -a
Linux servername 2.4.21-47.ELhugemem #1 SMP Wed Jul 5 20:30:35 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

To know the version on Redhat/Centos/Oracle Enterprise Linux you need to ...
$cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 3 (Taroon Update 8)

$cat /etc/enterprise-release
Enterprise Linux Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (October Update 4)

Good Luck and Cheers!

Search FND_PROFILES for Hard-Coded Path

As part of Windows to Linux Upgrade/Migrate project. I wrote the following query to pull all the profiles that has a hard-coded Windows Path

-- Start Script

SELECT fpo.profile_option_name PROFILE, fpov.profile_option_value VALUE,
DECODE (fpov.level_id,10001, 'SITE', 10002, 'APPLICATION',10003, 'RESPONSIBILITY',10004, 'USER') "LEVEL",
fa.application_short_name app, fr.responsibility_name responsibility,
fu.user_name "USER"
FROM apps.fnd_profile_option_values fpov,
apps.fnd_profile_options fpo,
apps.fnd_application fa,
apps.fnd_responsibility_vl fr,
apps.fnd_user fu,
apps.fnd_logins fl
WHERE fpo.profile_option_id = fpov.profile_option_id
AND fa.application_id(+) = fpov.level_value
AND fr.application_id(+) = fpov.level_value_application_id
AND fr.responsibility_id(+) = fpov.level_value
AND fu.user_id(+) = fpov.level_value
AND fl.login_id(+) = fpov.last_update_login
AND ( LOWER (fpov.profile_option_value) LIKE 'f:%'
OR LOWER (fpov.profile_option_value) LIKE 'd:%'
OR LOWER (fpov.profile_option_value) LIKE 'c:%'
)
ORDER BY 2

-- End Script

Search LONG Column for a string

I am working on Windows to Linux upgrade project. As part of it I was looking for Hard-Coded Paths in Profiles, Packages, Procedures, Functions, Views and Triggers.

Searching for the hard-coded path in DBA_VIEWS and DBA_TRIGGERS posed some challenges. So described is the SQL which I used created to search DBA_VIEWS, same thing can be modified for DBA_TRIGGERS.

(Gave up with formating the code)

-- START Script
SELECT 'Views containing WINDOWS path' WINPATH FROM DUAL;

SET SERVEROUTPUT ON

DECLARE
/* This program will retrive the Hard-coded WINDOWS path used in dba_views; The same program can be used to search in dba_triggers by changing SELECT clause. This script can also be used to search a LONG datatype column by changing required clauses.
*/
v_path varchar2(10);
p_path varchar2(10) := ' ';
v_view dba_views.view_name%TYPE;
v_own dba_views.owner%TYPE;

-- For search in long datatype
cursor1 INTEGER;
ignore INTEGER;
STATEMENT VARCHAR2 (1000);
out_val VARCHAR2 (1000);
out_length INTEGER;
num_bytes INTEGER := 1000;
offset INTEGER;
num_fetches INTEGER;
row_count INTEGER;
out_view VARCHAR2 (30);
out_own VARCHAR2 (30);

CURSOR c1
IS
SELECT 'F:' winpath FROM dual Union
SELECT 'C:' winpath FROM dual Union
SELECT 'D:' winpath FROM dual;

BEGIN
BEGIN
FOR c1_rec IN c1
LOOP
v_path := c1_rec.winpath;

--Search in TRIGGER Body
BEGIN
STATEMENT := 'select text ,view_name,owner from dba_views where owner not in (''SYS'',''SYSTEM'')';
cursor1 := DBMS_SQL.open_cursor;
DBMS_SQL.parse (cursor1, STATEMENT, DBMS_SQL.native);
DBMS_SQL.define_column_long (cursor1, 1);
DBMS_SQL.define_column (cursor1, 2, v_view, 30);
DBMS_SQL.define_column (cursor1, 3, v_own, 30);
ignore := DBMS_SQL.EXECUTE (cursor1);

LOOP
IF DBMS_SQL.fetch_rows (cursor1) > 0
THEN
row_count := row_count + 1;
offset := 0; num_fetches := 1;
DBMS_SQL.COLUMN_VALUE (cursor1, 2, out_view);
DBMS_SQL.COLUMN_VALUE (cursor1, 3, out_own);

LOOP
DBMS_SQL.column_value_long (cursor1, 1, num_bytes, offset, out_val,out_length );

IF (INSTR (UPPER (out_val), v_path) > 0)
THEN
IF (p_path = v_path)
THEN
NULL;
ELSE
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ( 'Windows path '
|| v_path
|| ' found in view '
|| out_own
|| '.'
|| out_view
);
p_path := v_path;
END IF;

offset := offset + num_bytes;
num_fetches := num_fetches + 1;
ELSE
EXIT;
END IF;

IF out_length < num_bytes
THEN
EXIT;
END IF;
END LOOP;
ELSE
EXIT;
END IF;
END LOOP;

DBMS_SQL.close_cursor (cursor1);
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS
THEN
DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (SQLERRM);

IF DBMS_SQL.is_open (cursor1)
THEN
DBMS_SQL.close_cursor (cursor1);
END IF;
END;
END LOOP; -- End of c1_rec loop
END;
END;
/


--END Script

UPGRADING wanna reduce DOWNTIME by couple of Hours!

In May we upgraded from 11.5.9 to 11.5.10.2. It took only 18 Hrs for Patching. (800+GB Database, 3 Nodes with 6 NLS languages, followed STAGED Patching). Never heard of STAGED Patching then check Metalink Note:242480.1

During our practice builds we were looking for time consuming jobs. And the following 2 jobs took couple of Hours. By following the below PRE-TASKS we saved couple of Hours and 60+GB of disk space.

Pre Task FIX for Job ICXDLTMP.sql
******
truncate table icx.icx_sessions;
truncate table icx.icx_session_attributes;
truncate table icx.icx_text;
truncate table icx.icx_requisitioner_info;
truncate table icx.icx_transactions;

begin
fnd_bc4j_cleanup_pkg.delete_transaction_rows(SYSDATE - 4/24);
fnd_bc4j_cleanup_pkg.delete_control_rows(SYSDATE - 4/24);
end;
/
******
Pre Task FIX for Job afupdfmt.sql
******
update applsys.fnd_lobs set FILE_FORMAT = 'IGNORE'
where nvl(program_name,'attach') != 'FND_HELP';

sql> @$FND_TOP/sql/aflobbld.sql APPLSYS APPS
******

Bump the values of ADJREOPTS & ADJRIOPTS tags to atlease 512MB or 1GB in contextfile "XML file" and run ADCONFIG - During patching ADJAVA cmd will load XML Files, Jar Files into DB and setting these to higher values will reduce the downtime.


Good Luck and Cheers!

Insight into AutoConfig

I am going to give you some insight or inner working of this tool. Thanks to Harminder Singh (Try at your own risk)

For detailed information on AUTOCONFIG refer to the following metalink Note:165195.1, Note:218089.1, Note:270519.1 and Note:217368.1.

Wanna create CONTEXT file manually, try this ... and then copy the generated XML to $APPL_TOP/admin/host_SID.xml
adbldxml.pl tier=apps appsuser=apps appspass=pswd log=$HOME/admin/log/adconfig_`date '+%m%d%y_%H%M%S'`.log out=$HOME/admin/SID_`date '+%m%d%y_%H%M%S'`.xml servername=nodename

Wanna Update the tags in CONTEXT File, try this to update tag s_appsEnvName to SHYAM
java -classpath "${CLASSPATH}:${CMDDIR}/java/adconfig.zip" oracle.apps.ad.context.UpdateContext ${HOME}/admin/SID.xml s_appsEnvName "SHYAM"

Wanna try to instantiate configuration files from custom driver and templates files based on the values from CONTEXT FILE.
java -classpath "${CLASSPATH}:${CMDDIR}/java/adconfig.zip" oracle.apps.ad.autoconfig.InstantiateFile -e $HOME/admin/${TWO_TASK}.xml -d /d01/sid/admin/custom.drv -log /d01/sid/admin/$CONTEXT_NAME.xxcinstantiate.log -bacdir /d01/sid/admin/bak/$CONTEXT_NAME -pwd NOP


Good Luck and Cheers!

Check if Concurent Managers can start without really Starting!

Do you want to know, without starting Concurrent managers if they can start without any issues. I personally ran into this issue many times both in the single node and in multi-node (Parallel Concurrent Processing) Solaris environments.

The following command can be used to check if the Concurrent Managers can be started without really starting. If it comes up with " Internal heap Dump" then there will be no issues, but if it core dumps or hangs then there is some issue with LISTENER. Try stopping listener it hangs, only way is to kill the process.

sqlplus apps/pswd@FNDSM_NODE1_SID
sqlplus apps/pswd@FNDSM_NODE2_SID
sqlplus apps/pswd@FNDSM_NODE3_SID

When we are on 11.5.9 I had to really push Oracle to fix bug #3617132. In the manager log file you normally see the following error "CONC-SM TNS FAIL". I even saw the same issue in 11.5.10 instance also.

Only way is modifying the listener.ora on the appsTier OR start listener with debug mode enabled.
APPS_SID =
(ADDRESS_LIST =
(ADDRESS= (PROTOCOL= TCP)(Host= hostname)(Port= 1522))
(ADDRESS= (PROTOCOL= IPC)(Host= hostname)(Port= 15221)(KEY=SIDKEY1))
(ADDRESS= (PROTOCOL= IPC)(Host= hostname)(Port= 15222)(KEY=SIDKEY2))
(ADDRESS= (PROTOCOL= IPC)(Host= hostname)(Port= 15223)(KEY=SIDKEY3))
)

Need more details, shoot me an email

Good Luck and Cheers!

Enable SSL on 10gAS 10.1.2.0.2

For detailed discussion about SSLConfigTool please refer to Oracle Doc

If you are installing Infrastructure in a cluster environment you have an option to enable SSL during installation. In Non-Cluster environment you have to enable SSL using manual method or by using SSLConfigTool(Introduced in 10.1.2.)
Where as on the Middle Tier you don't have an option to install in SSL mode. We have to use SSLConfigTool to enable SSL (For single node or multi node)

Enabling SSL manually is bit tricky and also takes lot of time. Using this tool it can be enabled in less than 5 min.

The SSLConfigTool command is used as follows:

SSLConfigTool ( -config_w_prompt
| -config_w_file
| -config_w_default
| -rollback )
[-dry_run]
[-wc_for_infra]
[-secure_admin]
[-opwd ]
[-ptl_dad ]
[-ptl_inv_pwd ]

Commands I used to Enable Rollback SSL.

On Infrastructure Tier:

SSLConfigTool -config_w_prompt -opwd orcladminpswd

On Middle Tier:
1) SSLConfigTool -config_w_prompt -opwd orcladminpswd -ptl_inv_pwd orcladminpswd
2) Go to Webcacheadmin and change the settings in Site Definitions (Make SSL site Default) & in Site-to-Server Mapping change the Origin Server to to use SSL Port
To Rollback:
SSLConfigTool -rollback -opwd orcladminpswd


Good Luck and Cheers!

Convert openssl to oracle wallet certificate

Oracle Wallet certificate is different from openssl certificate. If you already have a openssl certificate for yourcompany.com and want to use the same certificate for 10gAS then follow the steps to convert openssl certificate to Oracle Wallet certificate. Thanks to my colleague Jim Kennedy he has put the steps together.

For detailed explanation refer to metalink Note:340178.1

1) Copy the following files to a directory (e.g /var/opt/oracle/walletcert)

server.crt = Standard server certificate (received from Verisign)
server.key = Standard key (generated with openssl - 1024.key)
ca.crt = Combination of intermediate certificate and root certificate concatenated

2) Generate wallet certificate

$IAS_HOME/Apache/open_ssl/bin/openssl pkcs12 -export -descert -in server.crt -inkey server.key -certfile ca.crt -name server_wallet.crt(can be anyname) -out ewallet.p12

3) Copy/ftp the walletcert directory to the server where 10gAS is installed.

4) Open and save the certificate using owm executable.

Good Luck and Cheers