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July/August 1999 Issue #10 Thursday, July 15 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. DOUG Meeting New Features of the Developer Suite (Erol Coner, Oracle Corporation) Thursday, August 19 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. DOUG Meeting Creating Custom Account Generators - The Fast and Easy Way! (Jason Chan, i2 Technologies) Location Oracle Corporation 222 W. Las Colinas Blvd., 10th Floor Irving, Texas 75039 972-401-5800 System and Process Review System Administration Support Database and Application Installations and Upgrades Database Backup and Recovery Review and Implementation Remote Database Support Database and Application Performance Tuning Application Implementation Oracle Training Computer Systems Authority (CSA) is a consulting services firm. Our vision is "to be recognized by our clients as the premier provider of real world solutions to their information systems integration challenges." CSA strives to provide the best quality solutions to our clients using the best quality personnel. Contact us at 972.960.0180 to find out what CSA can do for you. DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP What I Did on My First Day of School Andrew Iwanuck, DBCORP Allow me to introduce myself. After all, it’s my first day on the job. I am a wanna-be DBA. I am such a new DBA, I’m still shrink-wrapped and shiny. I got hooked on database administration because of some brief exposure to it during a company upgrade and conversion. No, this doesn’t mean I’m Queen of Nerd-City, or CEO of Geek Central. But, nonetheless, I dusted off my pocket protector, oiled the propeller on my hat and applied for a job at a DBA consulting company. Monday 7:30 a.m. – Bleary-eyed, I fumble with the office key, and let myself into the reception area; my heart barely beating, and in dire need of full-metal-jacket caffeine. A kind woman from down the hall shows me the lay of the land. I take note of the washroom location and foosball table. I admire the golf memorabilia in the reception area. There are some abstract pictures of Greg Norman, and a clock with embossed golf balls where the numbers should be. I hang my coat and make my way to the Hub, the bunker, the place where bad things come in, and good things go out. This is where the client help desk calls are received. They frighten me, the DBAs that inhabit this place; they are alert, yes, even ‘jazzed’at the prospect of problem-solving. While having visions of surrendering my firstborn or sacrificing a chicken, I scan the walls for pictures of Sun Yong Moon. All I see is more golf posters. I drink a sufficient amount of coffee to raise my heartbeat to ‘not-quite-dead-yet’pace, and find a place in front of a PC. 9:45 a.m. – I have had so much coffee, I can feel my hair growing. I am not alone. The natives here live on a steady diet of coffee and cola. Make no mistake; their bodies are temples. They are a collection of skiers, golfers, bikers, hikers, and runners. But it is the coffee and tea that pumps the creative juices in this office. It’s the kilo of gummy bears that promotes flashes of brilliance and innovation. I load up on both. 1:15 p.m. – To ensure I don’t injure myself or anyone else’s database, I am at first given a stand-alone server to blow up at will. What a run-of-the-mill DBA can do in one hour takes me 2 days. Throughout my attempts at database creation, the server continues to spit errors at me, taunting me until I want to beat it with a baseball bat. Did I say that out loud? 4:30 p.m. - My brain has long since hit saturation point by the end of the day. I stumble out to the bus and go home. Tuesday 7:05 a.m. - Initialization parameters have swam through my already confused dreams during the night and I wake up with the urge to shutdown and startup my blowdryer. I stand in front of the mirror, wondering how to reboot my toothbrush, because that might fix everything. Later, at the office, after several (more than 10) attempts at creating a small database, I have moderate success. I give myself a virtual high-five and feel better about going down the hall to play with the other kids. 2:00 p.m. – Hub room. The DBAs have switched from gummy bears to some foul-smelling deep fried cheese things. I disapprove but eat them anyway. There is a sense of comfort there; ghetto-blaster in the corner, bookshelves full of manuals, spontaneous brainstorming sessions erupting at the utterance of a simple question. I would suggest that not everyone has the right attitude to be a DBA. The ability to dispense calm and clarity, as well as database expertise to the client after their database has crumbled around them is an important personality trait. DBA responses to clients like. “Lock the doors for a couple of days, Sparky. You’re hooped.” often result in sporadic changes in career path. Client relations is truly one area where I’ve seen and heard these guys work their magic. The phrase “Trust me, I’m a doctor” springs to mind. 4:30 p.m. – Another day, another brush with database comprehension. I wrote my first successful script over six lines long. My synapses perform dances in the end-zone of my cerebral cortex. I’m convinced it’s the gummy bears that assisted my small revelation, and I am excited at the prospect of what jelly-beans can do for me. Dallas Oracle User Group 32 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP AOL FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Character: Use \Help->Version GENERAL AOL Where do concurrent request logfiles and output files go? The concurrent manager first looks for the environment variable $APPLCSF If this is set, it creates a path using two other environment variables: $APPLLOG and $APPLOUT It places log files in $APPLCSF/$APPLLOG Output files go in $APPLCSF/$APPLOUT So for example, if you have this environment set: $APPLCSF = /u01/appl/common $APPLLOG = log $APPLOUT = out The concurrent manager will place log files in /u01/appl/ common/log, and output files in /u01/appl/common/out Note that $APPLCSF must be a full, absolute path, and the other two are directory names. If $APPLCSF is not set, it places the files under the product top of the application associated with the request. So for example, a PO report would go under $PO_TOP/ $APPLLOG and $PO_TOP/$APPLOUT Logfiles go to: /u01/appl/po/9.0/log Output files to: /u01/appl/po/9.0/out Of course, all these directories must exist and have the correct permissions. Note that all concurrent requests produce a log file, but not necessarily an output file. What are the logfile and output file naming conventions? Logfiles: l<request id>.req Output files: If $APPCPNAM is not set: <username>.<request id> If $APPCPNAM = REQID: o<request id>.out If $APPCPNAM = USER: <username>.out Where: <request id> = The request id of the concurrent request And: <username> = The id of the user that submitted the request How do I check if Multi-org is installed? SELECT multi_org_flag FROM fnd_product_groups; How do I find out what the currently installed release of Applications is? SELECT release_name FROM fnd_product_groups How do I lookup ORA errors? (and TNS errors) Use: oerr ora XXXX or: oerr tns XXXX where XXXX is the error number (This also supports a number of other error types. Use the 3-letter error prefix in place of 'ora') How do I generate a message file (usaeng.msb)? Use: FNDMDCMF applsys/pwd 0 Y APP usaeng where: applsys/pwd is the APPLSYS user and password and APP is the short name of the application (like PO or INV) How do I submit a concurrent request from PL/ SQL? Use FND_REQUEST.SUBMIT_REQUEST Example: req_id := FND_REQUEST.SUBMIT_REQUEST('FND', 'FNDSCARU'); Note that this can only be called from a concurrent program See the Coding Standards for parameter details How do I cancel a running concurrent request? Navigate to the Concurrent Request Summary form Select a request In character, do a Quickpick on the Status column You can select Cancel or Hold In GUI, use the Cancel or Hold buttons The Sysadmin responsibility can cancel or hold any running request Why can't I find adrelink on my NT APPL_TOP? This is a trick question right? There is no adrelink, we supply executables pre-built. There is no need to relink as on UNIX. There is also no adunload. Why can't I use character mode on NT? You're just full of trick questions today... Applications for NT does not include character mode forms. Why does Help->Tools->Examine ask for a password? The profile option Utilities:Diagnostics is set to NO This profile option controls whether users can use the Examine utility. The password should be the APPS password. How do I find the name of a form? GUI: Use Help->About Oracle Applications Scroll down to find the form name (Continued on page 5) Dallas Oracle User Group 3 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP ORACLE 8i RELEASE 8.1 NEW FEATURES by Sandra Cheevers, Oracle Corporation SUMMARY Oracle8i, Release 8.1, is the latest release of the Oracle data server. Oracle8i introduces many new, innovative features specifically designed to make it the database for the Internet. Oracle8i continues Oracle’s strategy of embracing and supporting Java by delivering a Java VM within the Oracle server. Just as Oracle made SQL the language for client server architectures, Oracle is making Java the standard for next generation applications by supporting Java in all tiers, including within the server. This brings the support for the Java language to the same level as the support for PL/SQL. Also, new features such as WebDB make it easy for users and developers to create web-based applications that allow Oracle data to be accessed through the Internet. Oracle8i improves upon many of the advances of Release 8.0 as well as introduces powerful new functionality for online transaction processing (OLTP) and data warehousing applications. Oracle8i also includes enhancements in nearly all other areas of the Oracle Data Server improving overall quality, availability, performance, manageability, multi-media datatype support, and replication. INTERNET COMPUTING ORACLE WEBDB Oracle8i introduces Oracle WebDB to make it easy to create web-based Oracle applications. Oracle WebDB is the solution for building, deploying, and proactively monitoring Web database applications and content-driven Web sites. By combining an intuitive, HTML interface with a complete set of robust, browser-based HTML tools, Oracle WebDB allows users to easily and quickly develop Web database applications. Oracle WebDB is the fastest and easiest way to “Web-enable” Oracle databases. Oracle WebDB comes with all the tools necessary to build dynamic Web applications and content-driven Web sites. Applications and Web sites developed using Oracle WebDB are completely contained within the Oracle database. The only software needed to develop and deploy Oracle WebDB applications is a Web browser. There is no need to install software on every machine being used, no need to use FTP to remotely manage files, and no need to have a complex deployment plan every time a developer fixes a bug and needs to upgrade the deployed system. Oracle WebDB meets the demanding challenges that the Internet has posed to the traditional IT shop – fast application development and simplified application deployment. ALL YOUR DATA ON THE WEB Web applications require advanced data management services that support rich datatypes used in Web repository, ecommerce, and other Internet applications. Oracle InterMedia adds the support to enable Oracle8 i to manage multimedia content both for Internet and traditional applications that need access to image, audio, video, text and location data: interMedia-Image supports image management within an Oracle8i database and basic manipulation of images, such as scaling and cropping. interMedia-Audio manages audio from a variety of sources, including within Oracle8i and from external sources, such as Web URL sites or specialized servers. interMedia-Audio supports delivery of audio through any streaming server, such as the RealAudio Server or Oracle Video Server. interMedia-Video manages video from a variety of sources both within Oracle8i and from external sources, such as Web URL sites or specialized servers. It also supports delivery of video through any streaming server, such as the RealVideo Server or Oracle Video Server. interMedia-Locator supports applications that help users locate information, such as stores, distribution points, and events, based on their location or their distance from a given address or spatial component. interMedia-Locator fea tures are fully integrated with Oracle8i and with third-party software vendors that provide products to graphically display the data, such as GIS systems (geographic information systems). (Continued on page 6) Dallas Oracle User Group 4 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 3) How do I set the name of the site that shows up under Help->About Oracle Applications? Set the profile option 'Site Name' How do I open a form in query-only mode? Navigate to the Form Functions form (Application>Function) Query the particular form and add the parameter QUERY_ONLY=YES Not all forms will accept this parameter however. How do I find the version of an installed product? (such as Reports, SQL*Net etc.) One of the easiest ways is to run the product if you can. Running Reports designer will give you the Reports version, running SQL*Plus will give you its version etc. Another easy way is to launch the Oracle Installer and look in the installed products on the right side. It will list all the products installed with their versions. Another way is to look at the .rgs file. This file is located in $ORACLE_HOME/orainst On UNIX, it will be called unix.rgs. On the PC, it will be called Windows.rgs. This file will list all the products installed and their versions. Note though that this file is not always correct. For example, patching Reports from 2.5.5.4 to 2.5.5.8 will not show up in this file as the new version. Running Reports Designer is the best way of getting the correct version. Also, on UNIX there is an executable called 'inspdver'. It is located $ORACLE_HOME/orainst. Running it will produce a display of all the installed products. It just pulls the information from unix.rgs, so it may show the wronginformation as well. I just ran AutoInstall successfully, but I don't have character mode! (on UNIX) You probably picked 'Server' when asked what type of installation to do. This choice installs everything except the character mode forms and executables. The choice you wanted to pick was 'Standalone'. You can recreate character mode by unloading the forms directories regenerating the forms, and relinking aiap. I changed a profile option, but it doesn't seem to take effect? Profile option values are cached, so you need to log out and back in in order to have the new value take effect. Switching responsibilities will usually do it too. How do I generate one single form? (As opposed to using adadmin to generate them all) Character mode forms: Use adfrmgen Usage : adfrmgen filelist=<name of filelist file> or : adfrmgen product="product shortname(s)" [filepath="dir-path/filename"] For example : adfrmgen filelist=filelist.txt adfrmgen product="gl" filepath="forms/ GLXSSMTY.inp" (one file) adfrmgen product="gl" filepath="forms" (entire directory) adfrmgen product="gl" (entire product) adfrmgen product="fnd gl" (multiple products) adfrmgen product="fnd gl" filepath="forms" (entire directories from multiple products) GUI forms: use f45gen Usage : f45gen module=<source file> userid=<Apps account/password> output_file=<destination file> module_type=form batch=yes compile_all=special Example: f45gen module=/u16/appl/nca/au/1.0/forms/US/FNDCPMCP.fmb userid=APPS_APPDEMO/APPS output_file=/u16/appl/nca/fnd/7.5/forms/US/FNDCPMCP.fmx module_type=form batch=yes compile_all=special Note that in Release 11, adadmin will allow you to compile specific forms What do I do if I am missing an executable from my APPL_TOP? Binary executables are created with adrelink. For example, if addmimp is missing use: adrelink force=y ranlib=y "ad addmimp" In Release 11, where do I apply all of these new patch drivers? (i.e. where do I apply the c driver, the d driver and the g driver?) The 'c' driver is the copy driver. It copies files and relinks executables, similar to the old patch.drv. The 'd' driver is the database driver. It runs scripts against the database like the old db driver. The 'g' driver is new to release 11. It is the generate driver. It generates forms, reports, and message files. In a multiple-tier environment, you should apply the copy driver to all tiers, the database driver to the administration tier, and the generate driver to the forms and concurrent processing tier. (Some of these may be the same tier) Adpatch will ask questions about what kind of APPL_TOP it is in, so it will know what portions of the driver to run. What is Shaggy's real name? Norville 'Shaggy' Rogers Dallas Oracle User Group 5 (Continued on page 7) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 4) interMedia-Text, based on Oracle’s award winning ConText functionality, delivers powerful text retrieval capabilities fundamental to Web applications. interMedia-Text enables organizations to manage unstructured text data as easily as traditional structured data while additional functionality provides users with the technology to easily search text data with advanced retrieval and natural-language queries. ORACLE IFS: INTERNET FILE SYSTEM Oracle iFS combines the power of the Oracle8i server with the ease of use of a file system. iFS provides universal access to data, making data that is stored within Oracle8i appear as if it were simply another file system volume on the network. Whether users access contents of the iFS through Windows Explorer, a Web browser, an FTP client, or an e-mail client, the files appear the same. Relational data can appear and be manipulated as files; so too can “hybrid” documents that combine relational and non-relational data. From a developer’s standpoint, the iFS is the single data store containing the data for many different applications, making application development and interfacing much easier. For the system administrator, the iFS is a single system for file storage and messaging, rather than several separate systems to maintain and administer. JAVA AND APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT Oracle8i continues Oracle’s Java strategy by introducing a Java VM in the database for storing and executing Java code on the server. Oracle8i also introduces SQLJ, a syntax for embedding SQL into client or server Java code. Java in the database allows you to create high performing, scalable applications based on open, industry standards. The Java VM in the Oracle Data Server allows you to write, store, and execute Java code within the database. This allows you to create stored procedures, functions, or triggers in Java. This also dramatically reduces the skill set required for database programming. As opposed to C, OCI, PL/SQL, and other languages, you can now develop applications using only Java. (Continued on page 9) Dallas Oracle User Group 6 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 5) UNIX QUESTIONS I know the name of a UNIX command, but I don't know what it does? Use the 'whatis' command whatis will give a brief description of the command Example: $ whatis grep grep grep (1) - search a file for a pattern OK. I know what a UNIX command does, but I can't remember the name? Use 'man -k' This will do a keyword search of the man pages Example: $ man -k grep egrep egrep (1) - search a file for a pattern using full regular expressions fgrep fgrep (1) - search a file for a character string fmlgrep fmlgrep (1f) - search a file for a pattern grep grep (1) - search a file for a pattern nisgrep nismatch (1) - utilities for searching NIS+ tables What are .o files? .a files? When a programmer writes a program, he begins by writing the code in a programming language. This 'source code' is kept in a text file. When he is ready to build the program, he runs the source code text through a compiler. This translates the source code into 'object code'. Object code is in a format that is understandable by the machine. ('Machine language') Note that object code is not portable across platforms. The same source code compiled on a Solaris machine will produce a different .o file when compiled on a HP-UX machine. All object files (.o, .a, .so) cannot be copied across different platforms. When all the object code is compiled, the programmer next collects all the object files, and runs them through the linker. The linker basically collects all the object code, along with any other necessary code, and produces an executable (or 'binary') Object code can also be collected into a library file, or archive. (.a file) This file is created by the 'ar' command. It just collects all the object code nto one file, and adds a table of contents to it. Library files can be linked into an executable the same way as .o files. Oracle delivers its code (except for the NT platform) as .o or .a files. These files are run through the linker to produce executables. What are .so files? .so files contain object code like .a and .o files. However, these libraries are not linked in when the programmer creates the executable. Instead, they are loaded in when the program runs. This allows the library to be shared among multiple programs, hence the name 'shared libraries' (on Windows, these are called DLLs) If a program cannot find the shared libraries it needs, it will not run. See also the questions on ldd and LD_LIBRARY_PATH. How do I tell an HP10.20 object file from an HP11.0 object file? The preferred way to tell whether an object was built with HP-UX 10.20 or HP-UX 11.0 is use the odump command. odump -comp <object name> The -comp switch will give you the flags with which the object was compiled as will as the revision. The revision number for objects built with 10.x will appear as "A.10.xx" where xx is dependent on the exact revision and patch level. For 11.0 objects, the revision number will appear as "A.11.xx". What is the best way to kill a process? First, use ps to get the process id (PID) Try using: kill <pid> This will give the process a chance to clean up after itself, like removing temp files, etc. Some processes will not accept or ignore this signal. If the process does not go away, use: kill -9 <pid>This signal cannot be ignored, it will definitely kill the process. The process will not have a chance to clean up after itself though. Use kill -9 only if necessary. Note that you must be the process owner or the superuser to kill a process. How about killing defunct processes? You can't do it. Defunct processes are already dead, the system just has not been able to clean up the process because the parent process is not responding. How do I get a process to coredump? Send it the QUIT signal. This is usually done with Control\ It will cause the process to exit and generate a core file. You can also use: kill -s SIGQUIT <pid> What does '..don't know how to make target XXX' mean? Applications uses the 'make' command to build executable programs. 'Make' uses a 'makefile', which is basi cally a list of programs to build and instructions on how to build them. These programs are called 'targets' in the makefile. When you say: 'make XXX', it looks in the makefile for a target called 'XXX', and follows the instructions there to build it. If it cannot find the given target in the makefile, it returns this error. So either: 1. A wrong name was passed to the make command Dallas Oracle User Group 7 (Continued on page 10) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP Dallas Oracle User Group 8 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 6) SQLJ is an embedded SQL language for Java. Client or server Java code can easily embed SQL for communication with a relational database. SQLJ is an open standard being developed by Oracle, IBM, and Sun. Client-side Java code with SQLJ statements are run through a Java pre-compiler to create executable Java programs based on JDBC. Server-side Java code directly accesses the database via native interfaces. SQLJ provides a powerful and easy to use interface between relational databases and Java. Oracle8i also provides support for Enterprise Java Beans and communication via the CORBA communication standard IIOP. Distributed Java objects can connect directly to Java objects in an Oracle Data Server via native CORBA protocols. JDeveloper is Oracle’s next generation component-based Java development tool. JDeveloper allows developers to build complete Oracle and 100 percent Java business solutions. JDeveloper supports any kind of development from a simple JavaBeans component to an enterprise-wide application development environment. DATA WAREHOUSING AND OLTP Oracle8i expands upon the high-end functionality of Release 8.0 and includes new features for managing multi-user data warehouses, more partitioning options, better interaction with OLAP tools, and a fast and easy mechanism for moving data between identical Oracle databases. RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Managing CPU and disk resources in a multi-user data warehouse or OLTP application is challenging. As more users require access, contention for resources becomes greater. Oracle8i introduces resource management functionality to provide greater control of system resources assigned to users. Important on-line users, such as order entry clerks, can be given a high priority, while other users -- those running batch reports -- receive lower priorities. High priority users are given more system resources than lower priority users. Users are assigned to resource classes, such as “data warehouse” or “OLTP”, and each resource class is then assigned an appropriate percentage of machine resources. PARTITIONED TABLES AND INDEXES Partitioning stores large tables and indexes in pieces, instead of as one large monolithic object. Partitions are a “divide and conquer” technique which provides scalable performance with a large amount of data. Oracle8 Release 8.0 introduced range partitioning which provides better manageability, availability, and performance. Oracle8i introduces two new partitioning types: hash and composite. Hash partitioning provides an easy-to-use mechanism for evenly striping data across devices, retaining the benefit of performance. Composite partitioning combines the best of both approaches. Data is first partitioned by a range of values, then each partition is sub-partitioned into several hash partitions. Hash partitioning provides a very simple way to break data up into evenly sized containers to be spread across multiple I/O devices, or even multiple machines in a shared-nothing cluster. Query performance is improved by spreading I/O across multiple devices. Manageability is simple if the number of partitions doesn’t change, which makes this approach inappropriate for rolling change windows of historical data. Composite partitioning provides the superior manageability and availability benefits of range partitioning with the data distribution advantages of hash partitioning. You specify ranges of values for the primary partitions of the table or index, then you specify a number of hash sub-partitions. Data skew is unlikely because you can always add or drop sub-partitions within a partition to maintain even distribution of each container. You can also easily maintain rolling change windows of historical data by adding/dropping primary partitions without affecting sub-partitions in other primary partitions. All partitioning techniques are transparent to applications and standard DML statements run against partitioned tables. The optimizer is partition-aware, and partitions which could not contain any data for a query are eliminated from the search, often resulting in a substantial performance increase. SUMMARY MANAGEMENT Oracle8i provides a mechanism for storing summaries as tables which can be accessed when a query requests an aggregated value. When a query requests a summary of detail records, the query is transparently re-written to access the stored aggregates, rather than summing the detail records every time the query is issued, thereby resulting in dramatic query performance improvements. These summaries are automatically maintained from data in the base table. (Continued on page 12) Dallas Oracle User Group 9 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 7) 2. The make file does not contain the given target. This could mean that you need a newer version of the makefile If the error points to a .o file, as in XXX.o, it could mean that the .o file is missing. What happens is, make finds the target in the makefile, sees that it depends on the .o file, and looks for the .o file in the filesystem. When it does not find it, it tries to make the .o file by looking for a target for the .o file. When it does not find this target, it returns the error. Note that adrelink uses makefiles called $PROD_TOP/lib/ prod.mk Where 'prod' is the short name of the product, like fnd.mk and inv.mk How do I use the modem pool? telnet appsmp01 userid is aol no password type: c out type: atdt <phone number> libelf.so.1 => /usr/lib/libelf.so.1 libintl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libintl.so.1 libmp.so.1 => /usr/lib/libmp.so.1 libw.so.1 => /usr/lib/libw.so.1 This lists all the libraries adaimgr expects to load, and where they are located. Using ldd -s will also show the search path ldd used to find the libraries Using ldd -v will list a more verbose output See the ldd man pages for more information. (See frhp10.fr.oracle.com/ports.html for the command to use on platforms other than Solaris) How can I capture zwrite messages to a file? Use: zwgc -ttymode >>zw.log You can add this line to your .profile How do I cut/copy from a zwrite message? Hold down the shift key while selecting the text. How do I lookup a UNIX signal number? Use: kill -l This will list the signals and their numbers Also, look in /usr/include/sys/signal.h All the signals are listed in here as well How do I telnet outside the firewall? telnet gatekeeper1 auth <username>@us enter the response value from your SNK connect <hostname> How do I uuencode a file for mailing? Use: uuencode filename filename > filename.uue Use uudecode to decode an encoded file How do I use ldd? The UNIX command 'ldd' lists dynamic dependencies of executables or shared objects. Basically, it is used to list what shared libraries an executable depends on. When an executable is launched, it expects to load certain shared libraries (similar to Windows DLLs) It uses the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH to find these shared libraries. LD_LIBRARY_PATH contains a list of directories, each of which will be searched. (similar to the PATH variable) ldd <executable name> will display all the shared libraries the executable needs, and where the library was found. Here is an example: $ ldd adaimgr libsocket.so.1 => /usr/lib/libsocket.so.1 libnsl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libnsl.so.1 libm.so.1 => /usr/lib/libm.so.1 libdl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libdl.so.1 libposix4.so.1 => /usr/lib/libposix4.so.1 libsunmath.so.1 => /u16/oracle7/product/7.3.3/lib/libsunmath.so.1 libc.so.1 => /usr/lib/libc.so.1 libucb.so.1 => /usr/ucblib/libucb.so.1 libresolv.so.2 => /usr/lib/libresolv.so.2 How do I set the setuid/setgid bit? Add a fourth digit to the 'chmod' command For example, to set permissions to 755 you would normally use: chmod 755 To set the setuid bit, add a 4 before the 755, like: chmod 4755 To set the setgid bit, use: chmod 2755 To set them both, use chmod 6755 Or, use the symbolic method like chmod u+s/chmod u-s (to set/unset the setuid bit) chmod g+s/chmod g-s (to set/unset the setgid bit) (Remember, the oracle executable must have the setuid bit set or no other users besides oracle will be able to connect to the database) How do I get the value of SHMMAX? Solaris: use 'sysdef | grep SHMMAX' HP-UX: use 'grep SHMMAX /usr/conf/master.d/core-hpux' I want to eject the cdrom, but it says it is busy. How do I find who has it locked? Use the 'fuser' command Type: fuser -u /cdrom (or whatever mount point the cdrom is on) This will give a process ID, followed by a letter The letter 'c' indicates this process is using the /cdrom directory as it's current directory From the process id, you should be able to find the user Dallas Oracle User Group 10 (Continued on page 11) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 10) I'm trying to uncompress a file that I know is in this directory, but it keeps telling me the file cannot be found? Make sure the file has an extension of .Z (capital Z) Uncompress will try to add the extension if it does not have it and you will get something like this: $ uncompress 504305t.z 504305t.z.Z: No such file or directory How do I remove a file that begins with a hyphen? (Like -filename) rm will normally complain about an invalid option if you say: rm -filename Most UNIX commands will bhave this way, treating the characters after the hyphen as an option. rm has an option to say 'end of options, the next parameter is a filename' The option is '--' (double hyphen) So you can use: rm -- -filename Most UNIX commands have a -- option like this to signify end of options. My Escape key does not work in vi? Help! Go to your NCD boot server machine (orlsun1, 2, 10, or 11) There should be a file called 'xh' in your home directory. Add these two lines to the file: /usr/openwin/bin/xmodmap -e 'keycode 9 = grave asciitilde' & /usr/openwin/bin/xmodmap -e 'keycode 14 = Escape' & Reboot your NCD. Now, the ~ key (at the top left of the keyboard) is now the Escape key. The ~ and ` are on the key between the Shift key and Z. (Control-[ also works as Escape) NETWORKING How do I start a SQL*Net trace? (on the client) In sqlnet.ora, set: TRACE_LEVEL_CLIENT=16 TRACE_FILE_CLIENT=<filename> (to use a different file name, default is sqlnet.trc) TRACE_DIRECTORY_CLIENT=<path> (to put the trace file in a different directory, default is ORACLE_HOME\network\trace) How do I start a SQL*Net trace? (on the listener) Use: lsnrctl trace 16 lsnrctl trace off Or: In listener.ora, set: TRACE_LEVEL_LISTENER=16 TRACE_FILE_LISTENER=<filename> (to use a different file name, default is listener.trc) TRACE_DIRECTORY_LISTENER=<path> (to put the trace file in a different directory, default is $ORACLE_HOME/network/trace) How do I start/stop the TNS listener? To start the listener: lsnrctl start [listener name] To stop the listener: lsnrctl stop [listener name] The listener default name is LISTENER. If the listener has a different name, you must supply the name To reload the listener.ora file: lsnrctl reload [listener name] To check the status: lsnrctl status [listener name] REPORTS/PRINTING How do I run reports from the commandline? ar25run userid=apps/apps@database destype=file desname=try.out desformat=$FND_TOP/srw/L batch=yes report=<path to report> Substitute the report name you want to run Use the srw file appropriate for the report The output will be in the try.out file How do I run ar25run in debug mode? Under $FND_TOP/bin there should be two files: ar25run, and ar25rund Rename ar25run to ar25run.save Rename ar25rund to ar25run Now, whenever a report is run, it will produce a log file called ar20run.log This file will contain the command line used to run the report, as well as the environment (Note that this will not actually run the report) How do I relink Reports? cd $ORACLE_HOME/reports25/lib make -f ins_reports25.mk cinstall make -f ins_reports25.mk minstall How do I install SQL*Report? On the 10.7 CD, there is a directory called rdbms732. Under this is a directory called rptpatch. Copy this directory to your local disk and run the script 'patchutil.sh' On HP-UX, the directory does not exist on the CD. Instead, there is a file called PATCHES. Copy this file to your disk and execute: cpio -icdvu < "PATCHES;1" What are the different Reports executables? The Applications versions: (These are linked with Applications user exits) Dallas Oracle User Group 11 (Continued on page 13) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP sponse time. (Continued from page 9) Oracle8i also includes the CUBE and ROLLUP operators in SQL for OLAP-type analysis. This makes cross-tab and Rollup reports easy via simple SQL. TRANSPORTABLE TABLESPACES Moving data from a data warehouse to a data mart or from an OLTP system to a staging area for a data warehouse can be cumbersome and time consuming. Direct path loading via SQL*Loader or parallel DML makes the task faster, but the process should be simpler for data movement between identical databases. Oracle8i provides a mechanism for copying tablespaces (datafiles) between identical systems and allowing the same data to be accessed by both systems. Now data movement can be as fast as simply transferring the file between machines. This greatly improves performance and operational simplicity of transferring data. DIRECT PATH LOAD API Oracle8i provides an API to the direct path load mechanism. This provides a way for ISVs and system management tool partners to create easy-to-use and highperformance data loading tools. Access to all load functionality is available through the API. Performance of any third-party data loading tool can therefore be comparable to SQL*Loader. MAINFRAME-CALIBER OLTP Demanding OLTP applications benefit from a number of new features which improve availability, scalability, performance, and manageability. AUTOMATED STANDBY DATABASE Oracle8i improves upon the standby database features introduced in Oracle7 Release 7.3. Redo log files are now automatically shipped and applied to the standby database. This greatly simplifies the administration of the standby system and allows it to be quickly available in the event of a failure at the primary site. Optionally, Oracle8i allows you to perform read-only operations on the standby database. You can halt the application of the redo log files to perform queries and produce reports on the standby so as not to consume resources on the primary system. Once the reports are complete, you can then resume the automatic application of redo log files. ADVANCED QUEUING AND DATABASE EVENT TRIGGERS Advanced queuing adds direct support in the database for high performance queuing or messaging operations. This capability adds asynchrony and eliminates the dependency on external systems for applications requiring high scalability. The enqueue and dequeue operations may also be used to shift processing from within a transaction to a background process, improving the transaction re- In Oracle8i, advanced queuing has been improved with a robust rule-based publish/subscribe model for automatic forwarding of messages to registered clients. Applications can subscribe to a queue using a rule to determine what queue messages they are “interested” in. ORACLE PARALLEL SERVER IMPROVEMENTS Numerous enhancements in the Oracle Parallel Server improve performance, scalability, and manageability. Oracle8i brings a new mechanism for inter-instance communication with dramatically improves the performance of read operations between instances. If an instance requests to read a block, it no longer needs to have the block pinged to disk before the read operation. The block is sent over a high-speed interconnect between instances and the read completes significantly faster. This new mechanism, named the Consistent Read Server, allows applications to be implemented in an Oracle Parallel Server without modification to utilize the scalability that clusters offer. Oracle8i also brings significant manageability improvements to the Oracle Parallel Server. New views aid in determining where errors occurred. There are new statistics about cache coordination between instances that can help tune the environment. Also, configuration wizard aids the setup and maintenance of the Oracle Parallel Server. EXTENDED BACKUP/RECOVERY SUBSYSTEM Recovery Manager has been enhanced in Oracle8i to provide significant manageability improvements. Recovery Manager now has an integrated media management layer so that it can direct the media management software to perform the copy operation on Oracle’s behalf. Recovery Manager also cross checks its catalog with the media management software’s catalog and marks deleted backups as “expired”. Recovery Manager also allows the administrator to preview a planned restore/recovery, thus allowing them to know what will happen before the restore/recovery starts. For multiple copies of backups, Recovery Manager now allows you to duplex backup sets to multiple I/O devices. For easy rollout of multiple identical databases, Recovery Manager allows you to restore duplicate databases. You can restore a database in multiple locations, for example, for the purpose of deploying a distributed database. Recovery Manager also improves the performance of MPP systems by being aware of disk affinity on each node. Recovery Manager will attempt to perform local read and write operations as opposed to remote operations. Dallas Oracle User Group 12 (Continued on page 15) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP from the command line, the problem may be with the printer or the OS print services. (Continued from page 11) ar25desb: Reports Designer ar25run: Reports runtime - ascii ar25runb: Reports runtime - bitmapped ar25rund: Reports runtime - debug version The regular Reports versions: r25desm: Reports Designer r25run: Reports runtime - ascii r25runm: Reports runtime – bitmapped How do I troubleshoot print driver problems? One technique is to create a shell script that will capture the print command and arguments the concurrent manager is using. 1) Create the following shell script and place in a directory in the concurrent managers PATH (such as /usr/bin) 2) Give execute privileges to the script 3) Shut down the managers 4) Pick a print driver and add the name of the script before the lp command in the Arguments field eg. testprt lp -c d$PROFILES$.PRINTER ... 5) Make sure this driver is assigned to a style and a printer 6) Start the managers 7) Print a report using this driver 8) The output should look like: Mon Jul 6 10:49:34 EDT 1998 Arguments are: lp -c -dorlprt1 -n1 tPFERGUSO.1457540 /usr/tmp/OFAAAa001O_.t The script is: #!/bin/sh (date; echo 'Arguments are: '$*;cat) >>/tmp/oraclewws.log This is for print drivers with std input set to yes For drivers with std input set to no, remove the 'cat' command. You will see the actual command executed by the concurrent manager, and any arguments passed to it. You should be able to execute this from the command line. From the example above, we see that lp is being called to print one copy on printer orlprt1, with the title being 'PFERGUSO.1457540' The last argument is the file to be printed. You can open up this file and see the escape codes at the top and bottom. From this information, you can determine if the concurrent manager is using the correct arguments and escape codes. If everything looks OK, and the problem replicates How do I add escape codes at the beginning of a report? Open the report in vi (Note that 'more' does not always display escape codes) Add an escape character with: Ctrl-V Ctrl-[ This will show up as: ^[ This corresponds to the /e in the form. Eg. if you have the escape code /e&k3G in the form, add: Ctrl-V Ctrl-[ &k3G This will show up as: ^[&k3G Once you add the escape codes, you can use 'lp' to print the report. This lets you troubleshoot the correct escape code sequence much faster than submitting a report. How do I get a title printed on the banner page of a report? Use the '-t' option of lp Add this option to the arguments field in your print driver. For example, the command line might look like: lp -c -t "This is the title" -d$PROFILE$.PRINTER ... ALERTS How can I find an event alert trigger? You need to know the name of the table the event alert is on Connect as APPS in SQL*Plus SELECT trigger_name, table_name, status FROM user_triggers WHERE table_name = 'TABLE_NAME'; Alert triggers will have names like: ALR_TABLE_NAME_IAR or ALR_TABLE_NAME_UAR the IAR trigger is the INSERT trigger, the UAR trigger is the UPDATE trigger Selecting TRIGGER_BODY from USER_TRIGGERS will give the text of the trigger CONCURRENT MANAGER Check/set the PMON method? To check the PMON method: 1) cd $FND_TOP/sql 2) sqlplus apps/apps @afimchk.sql This will tell whether the internal manager is running, what the PMON method is, and where the log file is To set the PMON method: Dallas Oracle User Group 13 (Continued on page 18) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP not Our first priority is our people On the cutting edge, not chiseled in stone! notnotnot We specialize in designing, developing and integrating decision support, e-commerce and business applications systems. Our projects require varied skill sets, ranging from high level business consulting to database administration. We have exciting opportunities for experienced technical staff with a strong understanding of business principles. If you have experience in any of the following areas, please send us a resume in total confidence addressed to [email protected]. Skill Sets: Oracle Database Administrator Oracle Data Warehouse DBA Oracle Express & Discover Oracle Designer & Developer Oracle Web Application Server Oracle Pro*C (UNIX preferred) WindowsNT & C/C++ UNIX System Administrator Benefits: Highly Competitive Salary Employer Paid Insurance Incentive Stock Option Plan Flexible Spending Accounts Advanced Training Challenging Assignments Generous Vacation/Sick Allotment www.vistyx.com Vistyx Corp., HR Dep. 2351 W. Northwest Hwy., Suite 2215, Dallas, TX 75220, Fax (214) 351-2139, [email protected] An Equal Opportunity Employer Dallas Oracle User Group 14 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 12) tier as a particular user. Oracle8i introduces the Log Miner feature which allows DBAs to view the contents of the transaction log files, allowing them to view what SQL DML and DDL operations were executed, by whom, and at what time. It also creates the SQL necessary to ‘back-out’any transaction that was inadvertently executed by a user. REPLICATION Oracle8i Enterprise Edition delivers the industry’s most comprehensive replication capabilities. From mass deployment applications such as sales force automation to applications requiring data synchronization between servers supporting, for example, multiple websites or call centers, Oracle’s advanced replication supports them all in one integrated environment. OPERATIONAL SIMPLICITY Oracle8i dramatically improves the installation, configuration, and manageability of Oracle applications. Oracle Universal Installer and the Database Configuration Assistant are a Java based applications used to install, pretune, and configure an Oracle8 database environment by detecting hardware characteristics and prompting for information, such as the number of concurrent users the database will support. The installation and management of Oracle Parallel Server has been dramatically improved since Oracle Universal Installer is cluster-aware and distributes and installs software on all nodes in the cluster. EXTENSIBILITY Oracle8 Release 8.0 had cartridges available for most popular unstructured datatypes, such as images, video, text, and spatial data. Oracle8i includes a comprehensive set of APIs for third-party data cartridge developers. This allows partner-developed data cartridges to have the same internal access mechanisms as Oracle-developed data cartridges. New data cartridges have low-level access to memory, the optimizer, indexing, and other database internals. Partners can develop highly customized data cartridges and meet performance goals of demanding multimedia applications. SECURITY IMPROVEMENTS Oracle8i introduces fine-grained access control and an improved security model for multi-tiered environments. Fine-grained access control uses a parameter-driven, extensible application context to allow applications to control user access based on a user attribute, such as their customer number. For example, for a Web application, you may wish to give access to external customers, but allowing them to access only their own orders. Using finegrained access control, this can be easily accomplished without the administrative overhead of views by using the context area to store the customer number and a security policy to determine what rows can be accessed. Currently, in multi-tier architectures, the middle tier is typically insecure and can perform any action on behalf of any user. Middle-tiers, especially Web servers or application servers, may often sit on or outside a firewall, so limiting their access and auditing their actions is important. Oracle8i provides the ability to limit what users a middle tier can connect as and the ability to audit that the middle- REPLICATION AUTOMATION Many of the features in Oracle8i are designed to aid users implementing front office automation applications, especially mass deployment applications, such as field service and sales force automation applications. Snapshot refresh group templates, additional monitoring capabilities in Oracle Replication Manager, and improved off-line instantiation allow you to centrally define and administer hundreds of remote snapshot sites. Snapshot refresh group templates allow master-side definition of remote snapshots. The snapshot definitions can contain multiple parameters to give you the greatest flexibility in defining your snapshots. Additionally, these snapshots can be partitioned both horizontally, as well as vertically, allowing you to deploy the minimum amount of data needed by a remote site. Vertical partitioning can also protect you from changes at the master site. If you add a column to a master table (or drop a column not in use by a dependent snapshot), the snapshot can continue to perform fast refreshes, without being affected by the DDL change. Because all of these new Oracle8 Advanced Replication features are also supported by Oracle Lite, you can choose to deploy your application on a lightweight, mobile database, without having to sacrifice any functionality. PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS Oracle8i continues moving more of the replication code into the database kernel, further improving replication performance. Just as the triggers used to capture replication changes were internalized with Release 8.0, the generated packages used to apply these replicated transactions at the remote locations have now been internalized. Not only does this significantly improve data propagation performance and reduce instantiation times, but it improves manageability as well. Internal packages are secure from user tampering and do not require regeneration. Snapshot refresh performance has also been improved. While the "push" phase is able to take advantage of the performance improvements provided by internal packages, the performance of the "pull" phase has been dramatically improved by greatly reducing the number of round-trips required. This optimization (Continued on page 16) Dallas Oracle User Group 15 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP from previous versions to Oracle8i Release 8.1. (Continued from page 15) is especially beneficial to users of large refresh groups. OBJECT-RELATIONAL DATABASE Oracle8 Release 8.0 made a major leap in data management technology with the introduction of an objectrelational paradigm. Oracle8i completes some of the functional areas introduced in Release 8.0, and improves upon many of the features. Object types can now be columns of partitioned tables and can be loaded using SQL*Loader. Parallel queries can now operate on tables with object type columns or object tables. There are also several performance improvements when using object types and LOB columns. Variable-width character sets are supported in CLOB and NCLOB columns. Also, the client-side object cache has been improved to allow tracing and debugging as well as supporting optimistic locking. ORACLE8I RELEASE 8.1 NEW FEATURES OTHER ENHANCEMENTS Oracle8i also contains improvements in several other areas. National Language Support (NLS), ANALYZE performance and functionality, space management, and diagnostic tools have also been improved. DATA WAREHOUSING • Summary management • Hash and composite partitioning • Resource management • Transportable tablespaces • Functional index and virtual columns • Online index build and rebuild • Descending indexes • Automated parallel query degree • Join index and DML-aware single table summary • Read-only standby database • Direct path load API • New bitmap index features • Sample function • Parallel and fine-grained ANALYZE • Disable validate constraint state • Copy statistics • MERGE partition operation • Top “n” query optimization NLS has been improved to support Unicode UCS2 character sets in OCI, ODBC, and the pre-compiler products. Functional indexes now allow you to provide a linguisticsorted index on column data. Also, the Euro currency symbol is now supported. NT environments also have new character sets supported, and new territories are defined in Europe (Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan), Asia Pacific (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore), and Africa (South Africa). ANALYZE functionality has been improved and extended to allow you to analyze tables in parallel as well as have more granularity and gather subsets of statistics. Space management has been improved to allow you to define tablespaces to use bitmaps to indicate free blocks, resulting in more efficient storage management. Oracle8i also contains advanced diagnostic tools to be used in conjunction with World Wide Support in analyzing and troubleshooting. MIGRATION AND INTEROPERABILITY A simple and fast migration script allows you upgrade from Release 8.0.x to Oracle8i Release 8.1. The migration utility is enhanced to allow migration from 7.3.4 directly to Oracle8i Release 8.1. You can be migrate or upgrade to Oracle8i Release 8.1 and set the COMPATIBILITY parameter to a previous release to disallow any new functionality. INTERNET COMPUTING • WebDB to build, deploy, and monitor Web applications • InterMedia • Oracle iFS: Internet File System JAVA • Java VM in the database • Java stored procedures, functions and triggers • Seamless interaction between Java, SQL, and PL/ SQL • SQLJ: embedded SQL in Java code • Enhanced JDBC driver OLTP • Publish and subscribe capabilities • Database event triggers • Autonomous transactions • Single table hash cluster • Object type columns in partitioned tables • LOBs in partitioned tables • Partitioned index-organized tables • Stable optimizer execution plans ORACLE PARALLEL SERVER • Consistent Read Server for scalable inter-instance queries • Installation Wizards • Automatic connection load balancing • Job execution forced on specific node Export and Import are also supported to move data to and Dallas Oracle User Group 16 (Continued on page 17) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 16) OBJECT-RELATIONAL DATABASE • Temporary LOBs • Collection un-nesting • Enhancement of object views • Enhancements to object cache • Enhancing SQL Loader to support loading of objects, collections and LOBs • LOB performance enhancements • LONG to LOB data migration • User-defined object identifiers and nested table identifiers • Analyze detects dangling REFs SECURITY • Fine-grained access control • Extensible and parameter-driven application context specification • LDAP integration • N-tier authentication/authorization • SSL and X.509v3 support • RADIUS adapter EXTENSIBILITY • Extensible indexing • Extensible optimizer • Data cartridge services • Pro*C external procedures • OCI callback registrations • Secondary indexes on index-organized tables • Support for objects in external procedures OTHER • Euro currency symbol support • Temporary tables • Subprogram execution under invoker’s security context • More control over remote join operations • Microsoft Transaction Server integration • HTTP protocol adapter for Net8 SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT AND EASE OF USE • Multi-user, Java-based Oracle Enterprise Manager • Java-based Oracle Universal Installer • Java-based Database Configuration Assistant • Automatic instance registration with listeners • Parallel recovery of parallel transactions • Drop Column • Progress monitor for long-running operations· • Recovery Manager performance improvements • Recovery Manager awareness of disk affinity • Log Miner to view redo logs • Automated and queryable standby database • Bounded recovery time for instance recovery • Detection and repair of corrupted blocks • Locally-managed tablespaces • Multiple archive processes and destinations • Simplification of tablespace point-in-time recovery REPLICATION/FRONT OFFICE AUTOMATION • Snapshot templates for easier mass deployment • Off-line instantiation • Column-level subsetting in updatable snapshots • Internalized apply packages • Snapshot refresh performance improvements • Security model enhancements • Oracle Lite support PL/SQL IMPROVEMENTS • Manipulate multiple data items with one SQL statement in PL/SQL (bulk binds) • Parameter passing by reference in PL/SQL • Embedded dynamic SQL in PL/SQL • PL/SQL code coverage for tools vendors • Unlimited PL/SQL package size Dallas Oracle User Group 17 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP started with. The other processes showing 'Concurrent_Processor' are Standard manager processes Notice that the Internal manager process is the parent process of the Standard managers. (processes 24936 and 24938) (Continued from page 13) 1) first shut the concurrent managers down 2) cd $FND_TOP/sql 3) sqlplus apps/apps @afimpmon.sql LOCK (or RDBMS) Enable/disable the Conflict Resolution Manager? Use the system profile option 'Concurrent: Use ICM' Setting this to No (which is the default) allows the CRM to be started Setting it to Yes causes the CRM to be shutdown and the Internal manager will take over the conflict resolution duties. If the CRM will not start (it is started automatically by the ICM), check this profile option. Clean out the Concurrent Manager tables? First, be sure to shutdown the managers As the APPLSYS user: DELETE from fnd_concurrent_processes; UPDATE fnd_concurrent_queues SET running_processes=0, max_processes=0; DELETE from fnd_concurrent_requests WHERE status_code='T'; If you do not need the information in fnd_concurrent_requests and it is getting very large, you can truncate this table as well. This also works to shutdown the concurrent managers after killing the OS processes. Other managers will have the name of the executable, like ARLIBR or INVLIBR: $ ps -ef | grep ARLIBR vd11 13683 13660 0 May 11 ? 0:20 ARLIBR APPS/82A2A4940000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000000 AR ART The Conflict Resolution manager will look like: $ ps -ef | grep FNDCRM n1070161 24941 24927 0 Apr 29 ? 1:17 FNDCRM APPS_APPDEMO/84BFBEB900000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000 I hit the Restart button to start the Standard manager but it still didn't start? Telling a manager to restart just sets the status to Restart. The ICM will start it the next process monitor session or the next time the ICM starts. Use Activate to start a manager immediately. Also, when a manager is deactivated manually, the ICM will not restart it. You will need to set it to Restart, or activate it manually. Why does the "to start" date of my concurrent request default to 24 hours in the past? (From the Concurrent Processing FAQ) The short story: Tell concurrent manager processes apart? Use: pf -ef | grep FNDLIBR This will produce output like: vd11 13703 13660 0 May 11 ? 0:01 FNDLIBR FND Concurrent_Processor MANAGE OLOGIN="APPS/ 94A491A1000000000000000000 n1070161 24936 24927 0 Apr 29 ? 0:05 FNDLIBR FND Concurrent_Processor MANAGE OLOGIN="APPS_APPDEMO/ 94C4B1C10000000000 n1070161 24938 24927 0 Apr 29 ? 0:06 FNDLIBR FND Concurrent_Processor MANAGE OLOGIN="APPS_APPDEMO/ 94C4B1C10000000000 n1070161 24927 24922 0 Apr 29 ? 2:03 FNDLIBR FND CPMGR FNDCPMBR sysmgr ="" sleep=60 pmon=20 diag=N logfile=/u16/app If you get patch 387798, then this behavior can be turned on and off using the profile "Concurrent:Multiple Time Zones". The last process, #24927, shows 'FNDLIBR FND CPMGR' This one is the Internal concurrent manager Notice that it gives some of the parameters it was The long story: This behavior is a temporary fix until we can build time zone support into the product in a future release. If the profile "Concurrent:Request Start Time" is set, then we default the "to start" date of a request to that value. Otherwise we assume that the user wants the request to start as soon as possible. Problems occur when the user is in a time zone that is ahead of the time zone in which the concurrent managers are running. Say a user submits her request in a field office in the Eastern time zone at 9:00, so we default the requested start date to 9:00. But now the concurrent managers are at HQ in California, so user's request will run at 9:00 Dallas Oracle User Group 18 (Continued on page 19) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 18) Pacific time, 12:00 Eastern. In order to default requests to start as soon as possible, we submit them to start 24 hours before their request date. This covers the worst case time zone difference. Can I submit a report set using CONCSUB? No, you may not. This is documented in bug 334337. How do I submit a request with CONCSUB that has a null parameter? Use '""' as the null parameter. (Single quote, double quote, double quote, single quote) How can users submit requests with CONCSUB without giving them the APPS password? Try this: 1. As the applmgr user, create a shell script that runs CONCSUB Either hardcode the parameters for the report, or pass them in as parameters to the script. 2. Change the permissions on this script to 700. Now no one can read this script and get the password. 3. Create another script that calls the first script. Pass parameters along if you need to. 4. Change the permissions on this script to 6755. Now any user can execute and read the second script, which calls the first one. Have the users run this script to submit their requests without knowing the password. What is the syntax for controlling the concurrent manager using startmgr and concsub in NT? On NT, the concurrent manager is run as an NT service. You start and stop the managers using the Services control panel. See the Applications Installation manual for NT, Appendix A for details. See pg. 5-9 of this manual for instructions on creating the concurrent manager service. NCA Do I need to reinstall the 16.1 server patches when I install NCA? NO! See the 10.7 NCA install manual. Chapter 2 says that if you previously installed the 16.1 server patches, you can omit all steps in the chapter. The patches included with 16.1 and the NCA server updates are exactly the same thing. pletviewer? 1) Configure the virtual directories for the web server This is documented in the 10.7 NCA installation notes and the Release 11 installation manual. 10.7 NCA calls for using oa-doc, and R11 calls for OA_DOC. Either way, the virtual directory should point to where the help files have been installed. 2) Make sure the parameter clientBrowser is NOT commented out in the html file You should remove the exclamation mark at the beginning of the tag 3) Make sure that the path to Netscape (or whatever browser you are using) is included in the PATH environment variable. One way is to add a line to the batch file that starts the appletviewer that appends to the PATH variable. This way, every time that the batch file is run, the correct path will be used. 4) Make sure the environment variable HELP_BASE_URL is set on the Forms Server. It should be set to: http://server name:port/oa-doc In Release 11, it is set with the profile option 'Help System Base URL' http://server name:port/OA_DOC How do I get the Forms server to produce a diagnostic log file? See Using Forms Runtime Diagnostics When using this with webforms, you add the "record=collect" parameter to the serverArgs parameter in your html file. For example, if your html file contains: <PARAM name="serverArgs" value="module= ... FNDNAM=APPS> You would change it like so: <PARAM name="serverArgs" value="module= ... record=collect FNDNAM=APPS> How do I tell if the Forms Server is running? Use: ps -ef |grep f45 The forms server process is called f45srvm You will also see other processes named f45runw. There should always be at least one of these processes. Each user that connects will spawn another f45runw process. Example: $ ps -ef | grep f45 oracle 68 1 0 May 11 ? 0:00 f45srvm port=9002 pool=1 oracle 18295 68 0 Jun 12 ? 0:00 f45runw webfile=7,80 What is f45runw? What happened to f45webm? (Continued on page 20) How do I get help files to work with the apDallas Oracle User Group 19 DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 19) For some reason, the f45webm executable is executed with the name f45runw. They are the same thing, f45webm is the name of the executable on disk, and f45runw is the name of the process. appletviewer? No, the JInitiator file contains <EMBED> and <OBJECT> tags instead of an <APPLET> tag. You will get an error using this file with the appletviewer. How does my environment need to be set before starting the Forms Server? The Forms server needs to be started with a complete Applications environment, similar to starting the concurrent managers. This means having APPL_TOP set, and sourcing the APPLSYS.env environment file. The Forms server will encounter many problems, including failing to start, if this is not done. How do I tell what version of the JDK I am using? At a command prompt, type: java –version What is f45ctl for? f45ctl is used to start/stop the Forms server This way, you do not need to start it in the background, and the process will not terminate when you log out. f45ctl { start | stop } port=port_num log=log_file Example: f45ctl start port=9000 log=f45log.txt port number and log file are optional, it will use 9000 as the default port What is the difference between the JDK and JRE? JRE is the Java Runtime Environment JDK is the Java Developers Kit They both can run Java programs, the JDK is also a full development environment. It contains the Java compiler and other utilities required to create Java programs, the JRE can only run the programs. Run the Forms server on a different port using the static html file? In the html file, add the line: <PARAM name="serverPort" value="9003"> after the other PARAM tags, using the port number you want Then start the Forms server on that port Do I need separate ORACLE_HOMES for my database server and my Forms server if they are on the same machine? Yes, because Dev2K 1.3.2 is installed in one, and Dev2K 1.6 is installed in the other. You can install them both in one home, but you will have problems when you try to relink. What about Release 11? In Release 11, Dev2K 1.6.1 is used for both Forms and Reports so you can install the database server and forms server in one home. Can I run more than 1 Forms server on a machine? Yes, on different ports What is the correct syntax for running a local copy of the jar file? archive="file:///c:/java/jdk1.1.5.16/appscore.jar" (Using the correct path and drive letter for your PC) JAVA/JDK How do I get a stack dump from the appletviewer? In the DOS window where appletviewer is running, hit Control and Break What is this CLASSPATH thing anyway? CLASSPATH is an environment variable the Java interpreter uses to search for class files. It is set to a colon separated list of directories, similar to the PATH variable. It it used both to locate the Java system classes, and user-written classes. In Java 1.0, you always had to set it, or it would not be able to find the system classes. In Java 1.1, the interpreter uses classes.zip and the current directory as a default if CLASSPATH is not set. This means that using the 1.1 JDK on the PC, you do not need to set CLASSPATH. It also means that if you do set it, you must include the defaults, or the system classes will not be found. The JRE uses rt.jar instead of classes.zip, so always include this file in CLASSPATH. What is the story on those yellow bars on the appletviewer windows? The Java security mechanism normally prevents applets from performing certain actions on the user's machine. These include accessing the local disk, launching programs, and printing. This is a good thing, since you would not normally want to download an applet off the Internet and have that applet be able to do these things on your computer. (That would spoil all the fun for the virus writers) The yellow bars signify that this is an 'untrusted' applet, and it will not be allowed to do these things. (You will not be able to print from Action->Print, or launch a browser to view Help Can I use the same html file for JInitiator as the Dallas Oracle User Group 20 (Continued on page 21) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 20) files.) Oracle supplies a digital certificate with Applications that essentially turns the applet into a 'trusted' applet, and the yellow bars are not displayed. This is the reason for running appscert.bat and importing the certificate before running Apps. How do I specify where I want the identitydb.obj file to be put on the client? The identitydb.obj file is created when javakey is first run. (From appscert.bat) This file is used to hold security information for the appletviewer In the jdk\lib\security directory is a file called java.security Add a line to this file: identity.database=C:\\directory\\path using the path you want the file placed in Note that you must use double backslashes Where can I find documentation on the appletviewer, javakey, etc.? Go to the Tools Reference Page at Sun's website 10SC CLIENT How do I switch Oracle Homes on the client? Supported way: Use 'Switch Homes' from the 'Oracle for Windows' group in the Start menu Manual way: 1) Edit Win.ini, change ORA_CONFIG to the home you want to switch to 2) Run orainst.exe from this home 3) Choose to Restore Icons 4) If necessary, change the PATH variable in autoexec.bat 5) If on Windows 3.1, reboot Generate a client-side message file (US.msb) Use 'Start Concurrent Program' This can be found under the 'Oracle' program group in the Start menu (Note that the AOL Development Kit must have been installed) The executable is under ORACLE_HOME\bin, called startcp.exe Select Browse and navigate to the ORACLE_HOME\bin directory Choose FNDMDGEN.exe Enter a valid database connect string including username, password, and database in the Connect String field Enter the language and application short name in the Arguments field For example: US FND to generate AOL messages in English Hit Run When the program is done, you can view the log and output files Can I run the applications from the OCSM manager PC? Yes, the OCSM manager has a complete installation of applications. You do not need to install a client on this PC to run Apps. (Although you can if you really, really want to) How do I get Report Review Agent working? See Troubleshooting Report Review Agent Is there a file that lists patches applied on the client? (like applptch.txt?) Look under %APPLTOP%\install\log. There should be an applptch.txt file as well as log files from each run of otto.exe. How can I start Applications with the forms window already maximized? Add: window_state=MAXIMIZE to the command line of your shortcut Why can't I find the registry entry I'm looking for on the client? Because the 10SC client is 16-bit...there are no registry entries. Try the .ini files instead. CUSTOMIZATION How do I create a custom application? Step 1: Create the directory Create a top directory for your product underneath $APPL_TOP. Make sure applmgr has the correct ownership and permissions. Create subdirectories underneath this directory that you will need. (bin, forms, log, out, lib, etc.) Add an entry into your APPLSYS.env file to set the product top environment variable: PF_TOP=/u01/appl/pf export PF_TOP If you will be creating custom 10SC forms, you will need to create a top directory on the client PCs. Create a Forms and a Mesg directory underneath it, and add the product top environment variable to oaconfig.ora. Dallas Oracle User Group 21 (Continued on page 22) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 21) Step 2: Create the Oracle ID Create a new Oracle ID in the database. Give the new schema any roles and privileges it will need. At this time you can run $AD_TOP/admin/sql/ adappss.pls and adappsb.pls to create the APPS_DDL and APPS_ARRAY_DDL packages. Step 3: Register the Oracle ID Navigate to the Register Oracle ID form. Enter the custom Oracle ID, password, and logical database. Select 'Register' and save the screen. Step 4: Register the application Navigate to the Register Applications form. Enter the long and short application name, abbreviation, and product top environment variable. Step 5: Add the application to a datagroup Navigate to the Define Data Group form. Add your application to a datagroup, using the APPS schema as the Oracle ID. Step 6: Register custom tables and packages Custom tables and indexes are created in the custom schema, and registered with AOL using the AD_DD package. See Appendix B of the Installation manual for an example of this. The APPS schema must have a synonym for all tables, and be granted privileges on them. Custom packages and procedures must be created in the APPS schema. Now custom concurrent programs, forms, reports, etc. can be registered against your new application. How do I register a custom concurrent program? Step 1: Register a concurrent program executable Navigate to the Define Executable form (AOL Reference manual pg 9-84) This determines the type of program being run, ie an Oracle Report, a C program, a shell script etc. Fill in the executable name, application and execution method. For the Execution File, fill in just the filename. The concurrent manager will look in the appropriate directory under the application's top directory. For spawned programs, the file must be in the bin directory, for Oracle Reports the rdf file must be in the srw directory. For PLSQL concurrent programs, put the name of the stored procedure. Step 2: Define the concurrent program Navigate to the Define Concurrent Program form (AOL Reference manual pg 9-87) This form links a concurrent program to the executable you just defined, as well as defines the programs parameters, incompatibilities, and other options. Enter the concurrent program name, application, short name and description. Check Standard Submission if you want to be able to submit this program from the Standard Report Submission form. Enter the name of the executable you defined and any report information if necessary. Also define any parameters your program needs here and any incompatibilities. Step 3: Add the concurrent program to a Report Group First you will need to find the name of the Report Group to use. Go to Security->Responsibility and query the responsibility you want to run the program with. It should show a Report Group name. Query this name in Security->Responsibility->Report Add your new program to the list of available programs. Now when you go to submit a request with this responsibility, you will be able to submit your custom program. How do I compile a custom C program? Spawned programs: Step 1: Write the code Self-explanatory Step 2: Compile the source You must use the makefile under $FND_TOP/usrxit Use: make -f $FND_TOP/usrxit/Makefile program.o We do not support using any other makefile Step 3: Link the program This part is a little tricky. You need to create a custom makefile for this step. Use $FND_TOP/lib/sample.mk as a starting point. Copy this file to the lib directory under your applications top directory. Rename it <short name>.mk (ie fnd.mk, gl.mk etc) Modify this file according to the directions in it. Basically you need to add a target and build commands for your executable. Next, use adrelink to link the executable: adrelink force=y ranlib=y "shortname programname" Step 4: Register the program as in the above question Immediate programs: Just don't do it. How do I run a shell script as a concurrent program? 1: Write the script and call it <name>.prog Place the script under the bin directory under your applications top directory. For example, call the script CUSTOM.prog and place it under $CUSTOM_TOP/bin 2: Make a symbolic link from your script to $FND_TOP/bin/fndcpesr For example, if the script is called CUSTOM.prog use this: ln -s $FND_TOP/bin/fndcpesr CUSTOM This link should be named the same as your script without the .prog extension It should be in the same Dallas Oracle User Group 22 (Continued on page 23) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 22) directory as the script. 3: Register a concurrent program as described above, using an execution method of 'Host' Use the name of your script without the .prog extension as the name of the executable For the example above, you would use CUSTOM 4: Your script will be passed at least 4 parameters, in $1 through $4 These will be: orauser/pwd, userid, username, request_id Any other parameters you define will be passed in $5 and higher. Make sure your script returns an exit status. 5: If your script returns a failure exit status but the concurrent manager does not report the error (shows it as still running normal) apply patch 442824 Can I run my custom forms with Forms Designer? 16-bit (SmartClient): You should be able to run forms with the Forms Designer that comes on the SmartClient CD. The debugger will not work, however. See bug 32-bit (NCA): If the forms are AOL forms (ie created from template.fmb) they cannot be run from the Forms Designer or Forms Runtime because these executables do not have the AOL user exits linked in. You will see many FRM-40800 errors trying to run forms this way. Also see bug 414115 that describes a problem with Forms 4.5 and attaching libraries. The only way to run these forms is through Applications. Why do my PLSQL stored procedure concurrent programs error out with: 'Invalid number of arguments'? See pg. 9-79 of the AOL Reference manual. PLSQL concurrent programs must have 2 OUT arguments defined. RETCODE is used to return the error status ERRBUF is used to return an error message Note that you do not need to define these arguments in the Define Arguments form, only in the procedure itself. How come when I close my custom form using the 'X' close box I get an export window popping up? You need to look at the procedure APP_CUSTOM.CLOSE_WINDOW This procedure is defined in the TEMPLATE form. It contains instructions in the comments on how to modify this procedure. You must do this for all of the custom forms you write or you will have problems closing the window. The upgrade process may overwrite any data owned by one of the Oracle Applications. Move all of your customizations (menus, responsibilities, report groups, etc) to a custom application. After the upgrade, you can move them back if you want. SELF-SERVICE WEB APPLICATIONS How can I assign responsibilities in Release 11 Web Apps? In Release 11, regular applications users and web users have been merged. This means that the same user name and password is used to log into Apps and Web apps. Also, OSSWA responsibilities are assigned in the Define Users form, just like regular responsibilities. This also means that FND_WEB_USERS is no longer used. Where do I find the configuration files for the Webserver? Go to $ORAWEB_ADMIN (usually $ORACLE_HOME/ ows/admin) Navigate down to the ows directory, then into the site name directory There should be a wrb directory here and a http_servername directory here. Under the wrb directory will be a config directory and a log directory. In config, you will find a file called wrb.app. This file contains the configuration for the Web Request Broker. It is all the information you enter on the admin screens. (ie, all the DAD info, cartridge info, virtual directories etc..) The log directory of course holds log files. Back up in the http_servername directory, you will find directories for each listener. In each directory there will be config and log directories again. In the config directory is a file called sv'listenername'.cfg (substitute the name of the listener) This file holds the configuration for this listener. DATABASE QUESTIONS Which version of 'alter package' compiles just the header? the body? both? ALTER PACKAGE package_name COMPILE - compiles the header and the body ALTER PACKAGE package_name COMPILE PACKAGE - compiles just the header ALTER PACKAGE package_name COMPILE BODY compiles just the body How do I find the errors when a package will not compile? From SQL*Plus, 'show errors' will usually give you the last error messages. How do I preserve customizations through an upgrade? Dallas Oracle User Group 23 (Continued on page 24) DALLAS ORACLE USER GROUP (Continued from page 23) SELECT name, text FROM user_errors will give you the errors. What is the best way to recompile invalid objects? This has been debated, but my money is on adadmin. It uses the AD_PARALLEL_COMPILE_PKG to find invalid objects, create a dependency tree of them, and divides the jobs up among multiple workers. Also, the adcmpusr script does the same thing, if adadmin is not working, or you really just want to run a script. How do I get the version of a package or package body? The table USER_SOURCE contains the text of all the packages in the current schema. Each package header or body will have a version number in the text, something like: /* $Header: AFSCWEBS.pls 61.0 98/08/13 09:26:56 porting ship $ */ This shows that this package is version 61.0 You can use: SELECT text FROM user_source WHERE name = <package name> AND TEXT LIKE '%$Header%'; This also shows the name of the file (AFSCWEBS.pls) that contains the CREATE statement for this package. You can run this script if you need to recreate this package. 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