Coopers Consulting Solutions Limited

A while ago now the UK mobile phone operator Orange announced that they would be starting to sell the iPhone (as soon as the UK exclusivity deal with Vodafone had ended).

As a business customer of Orange I registered my interest in having one. For the last 3 years I have been using a Blackberry 8800 on the Orange network. To be honest I have been very happy with it; it has been a useful tool to have with me on the road and out on client sites. So happy with it that I guess the only thing that would make me give up the BB is if I had chance to swap it for an iPhone.

Anyway a few weeks ago the telephone call came through from the Orange Business Customer Services team, and I duly jumped in and bagged a 32gig iPhone 3Gs. The upgrade deal being offered was exceptionally tempting (especially the all-inclusive data usage), and the 600 monthly minutes of inclusive talk time, and 200 texts, per month over an 18 month contract was no dearer than my current BB tariff.

And so a week later that magical white box arrived and thus started my journey into iPhone ownership.

I’ll admit that I was prepared for some degree of upheaval. The act of changing handsets is never easy, and switching from the BB to the iPhone did mean I was forced to re-evaluate my Contacts database before executing the synchronisation. This proved to be a bit of a cleansing moment, enabling me to break free from the many hundreds of accumulated numbers of people that I have not spoken to in years, of purging old saved numbers for people who have long since changed numbers.

However it would seem that that was the easy task….

Once I had my new phone updated with a (now) streamlined contacts database, the full reality of what I had done began to sink in.

First to hit home was the loss of my custom ring-tone.

I am happy to admit that I did not get into the big “ring tone download” scene that seemed to sweep the UK (and probably elsewhere) a few years ago. For a while (with my much older Nokia and Motorola Flip phones) I had simply hacked down an MP3 of a particular favourite Beastie Boys track and uploaded on the phone. It became my own ring tone (a sort of trade mark or signature tune) for my phone. And so I happily ported it between handsets, with it eventually ending up on the BB.

But now it was gone.

Second thing to hit home was getting to grips with the text-entry interface. I’m not sure who was ultimately responsible for the design, but I assume that they were a nimble-fingered person, whose digits were pointy and precise! I may be middle-aged, but my fingers have yet to descend into resembling some of Walls’ ™ finest! However I still found the entry of text to be painstaking! The margins between hitting the right “key” and the wrong one appear to be wafer thin.

The final home truth was the “single application running” (I’m sure there is a better turn of phrase for this).

Sure, its primary duty is a phone. And wow, the email facility does seem to run in the pseudo background. But the dawning reality of it all was, if I switched from my Twitter App to email or some other app, I would not get any further notification of new Tweets. Come on now Apple! Even my beloved BB was capable of supporting multiple processes running concurrently. The push email was superb, and the Twitter application would happily sit in the background and wink the little “red eye” when new tweets came in! Moving over to the iPhone was like moving from a polyphonic keyboard to a the Stylophone ™

Maybe they have all this technology and capability, but wish to drip feed it to the public, forcing regular upgrades, thus perpetuating the revenue streams….

Anyway, the deed is done. I have made my bed, jumped onto the iPhone bandwagon, and will have to lump-it-and-like it. I’m sure it will grow on me. But for now I will refrain from selling-on my old BB handset and hang onto it just in case of emergencies.

Shame on me for not getting around to this sooner! Thank you to those who took the trouble to comment on the first part of this ‘project’ – several of you have been asking for part 2 so hopefully your wait would not have been in vain…

So, as a recap. If you have gone through the steps featured in part one of this, you should have a machine with CentOS 5.3 installed, and with various settings configured ready for the Oracle install.

At the time of originally doing this install, the latest version of EBS was 12.0.4. I am aware that 12.0.6 and 12.1 are now out, however for the purposes of continuity I am proceeding with the 12.0.4 install. When I get around to doing it, I will document a 12.1 install.

Groups and Users

The following groups and users need to be created on the system. As these instructions assume a single-user/single-node installation of EBS we do not need an “applmgr” user. Execute the following commands as specified, from the “root” account…

groupadd oinstall
groupadd dba
groupadd oper
groupadd apache

Note that the apache group may already exist. Next we need to create the users and assign them to the groups…

useradd –g oinstall –G dba oracle
passwd oracle 
useradd –g oinstall –G apache apache
passwd apache

Again note that the apache user may already exist.

As can be seen, for my installation I have set the passwords to be the same as the usernames.

Create install directory

It is best practice to adhere to the Oracle Flexible Architecture (OFA) configuration for RDBMS / Applications installation directory structures irrespective of how your hardware may be configured. To this end you will need to issue the following commands (as the “root” account) which will create the top-level directory node into which the Oracle software will be installed…

mkdir –p /u01
chown –R oracle:oinstall /u01

Modify the Oracle user profile

Login as the oracle user and add the following to the end of the .bash_profile file. To modify this file ensure that your are in the default home directory of the oracle user…

cd

or

cd $HOME

Then issue…

vi .bash_profile

The chances are this file is empty or does not exist (so a new file will be created). These are the lines to add:

# Added for Oracle 10g
if [ $USER = “oracle” ]; then
  if [ $SHELL = “/bin/ksh” ]; then
    ulimit –p 16384
    ulimit –n 65536
  else
    ulimit –u 16384 –n 65536
  fi
fi

Create and set-up the stage area

Next step is to set up the installation stage area for the Oracle Applications software. For my install I executed the following steps as the “root” account, and then retro-applied directory permission changes afterwards to ensure that there would be no access issues later…

mkdir /StageR12
cd /StageR12

This is the start here directory

mkdir startCD

This is for APPL_TOP

mkdir oraApps

This is for RDBMS

mkdir oraDB

This is for Tools

mkdir oraAS

This is for databases

mkdir oraAppDB

Once this is done you then need to copy across the contents of the DVD’s / CD’s into the appropriate directories. The media is clearly labelled to assist. Note that this is a lengthy (and tedious) process. It should also be noted that there is (apparently) a PERL script that will do all of this for you. However I was unable to get this to execute correctly and so resorted to the manual methods above. Either way, you still need to be on hand to swap the media over as required. I would get a cup-of-tea and a good book to keep you company during this phase.

Once done you should end up with a stage directory structure that looks like this diagram:

 

Installing EBS

We’re now ready (at long last I hear you cry) to start the installation.

If you are not already in as oracle, log into your machine as the oracle user and open up a terminal session.

Start the Rapid Install Wizard by issuing the following commands:

cd /StageR12/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz

chmod u+x rapidwiz

./rapidwiz

The following pages provide screenshots of typical rapidwiz install (although these are not the actual shots from my install – I was unable to screen-capture them!)

Welcome Screen

The rapidwiz executable will fire up a new GUI window. the first screen presented to you will be the welcome screen.

 

 

Select Wizard option

The next screen enables you to select the wizard operation. By default the screen looks like this:

 

 

However we wish to perform an Express Installation.

This sets up a fully configured single-user / single-machine system with a Vision Demo Database. By choosing to do an Express Installation the rapid install will use default values for many of the options. Check the “Use Express Install” checkbox and the click “Next”

Oracle Configuration Manager

Oracle Configuration Manager (OCM) is an optional component that is designed to facilitate support for your Oracle products. OCM provides continuous tracking of key Oracle and system statistics of the machine it is running on. The data collected by OCM is sent via secure HTTPS back to Oracle Support.

 

It is strongly recommended that you check the “Decline” checkbox. Remember that we are installing a trial / demo system for our own training purposes, and as such are not an officially licensed Oracle Applications Client! Click on the “Next” button.

Express Configuration Manager

The express configuration information screen prompts for minimal configuration values. Default values are provided for all fields.

 

In order for the install to proceed you will need to amend the Base Directory entry. Remember that earlier we created the top-node “/u01”? Click into the “Base Directory” entry box and replace the default “/d01” with “/u01”

The screen will automatically amend the entry in the Instance Directory field.

 

You can now click on the next button.

Validate System Configuration

Rapid install runs and displays a series of pre-install tests.

When the tests are complete then the pre-install check screen is displayed.

If there is an exclamation mark or X icon shown click on it to see the details stored during the checking process.

You may proceed with the installation if there are any exclamation marks or X icons shown, however the rapid install process will warn you with an alert screen. You are on your own if you do proceed however!

Assuming all is well with the pre-installation checks then you can click on the Next button to proceed with the installation.

Review and start the installation

You will be presented with the installation review screen…

Click on the next button

Click on the Yes button to proceed

Installation in progress

Whilst the installation is in progress you will see a progress screen similar to the one shown below…

You will be prompted at intervals to point rapid install at the filesystem location for the various install stage directories that we created earlier.

The installation on my machine took approximately 90 minutes to complete. This will vary depending on the machine resources and also whether you stage directories are on the PC or held on an external drive.

Post-install and finish rapidwiz

Assuming all the post install checks are successful you will see the following screen:

If any issues occur during the installation then you will see one or more X icons against the areas of concern. All being well you can click on the next button.

Click the finish button to exit the Rapid Install Wizard.

Post-installation tasks

There are a surprising number of post installation tasks that need to be carried out before you can really start to use the system.

I am not entirely sure of the correct sequence that these tasks need to be completed, so I have documented them in the order I executed them in. Apart from the Java/JRE issues that I encountered (see later) most other things seemed to go smoothly.

Modify the oracle shell profile

You need to modify the shell profile for the oracle user to ensure that all of the environment settings are correctly initialized upon login.

You would also need to perform this step if you plan to create and user other accounts on your machine (such as a named user account for development tasks).

Edit the .bash_profile file under the oracle user’s home directory. Open a terminal session.

cd $HOME
vi .bash_profile

You will need to add in the following extra lines at the end of the script.

# Additional items to set path for EBS
DB_HOME=/u01/oracle/VIS/db/tech_st/10.2.0; export DB_HOME
APPL_TOP=/u01/oracle/VIS/apps/apps_st/appl; export APPL_TOP
COMMON_TOP=/u01/oracle/VIS/inst/apps/VIS_localhost; export COMMON_TOP
# Now set environment
. $APPL_TOP/APPSVIS_localhost.env 

Create start-up and shut-down scripts

Obviously there are supplied scripts to start-up and shut-down the various services, however the following scripts make it a lot easier to shut down and start up the environment. I created 2 scripts, located in the home directory of the oracle user.

The ‘start_VIS.sh’ script looks like this…

# commands to start EBS
cd $DB_HOME
. ./VIS_localhost.env
cd $DB_HOME/appsutil/scripts/VIS_localhost
# start the listener
./addlnctl.sh start VIS
# start the database tier
./addbctl.sh start
cd $INST_TOP/admin/scripts
# start EBS services (apps tier)
./adstrtal.sh apps/apps
# start the internal conc manager
./adcmctl.sh start apps/apps

 and the ‘stop_VIS.sh’ script looks like this…

 # commands to shutdown instance
cd $INST_TOP/admin/scripts
# stop all EBS services (apps tier)
./adstpall.sh apps/apps
cd $DB_HOME
. ./VIS_localhost.env
cd $DB_HOME/appsutil/scripts/VIS_localhost
# stop the listener
./addlnctl.sh stop VIS
# stop the database
./addbctl.sh stop immediate

Make sure that you make these scripts executable by issuing the following commands:

chmod u+x start_VIS.sh
chmod u+x stop_VIS.sh

To run either, simply type

./start_VIS.sh

etc

Verify the OAM portal page

Once the installation is complete, the Oracle Applications manager portal page (formerly known as the rapid installation portal) can be accessed using the following information:

URL: http://localhost.localdomain:8000/OA_HTML/AppsLogin

Username is SYSADMIN and the password is SYSADMIN

The front screen of the portal looks something like this…

Apply latest JDK update

I came across several on-line references that suggested that I should apply the latest JDK/JRE versions to the apps tier and also install JRE on the database tier to ensure that the apps tier and DB tier match.

The Metalink note 384249.1 provides excellent details on how to upgrade the JDK on the apps tier, so I’ll not repeat them here, however it is an important post-install step.

Personally, I chose not to go with JDK 6.0 but stuck with JDK 5.0. I used JDK 5 update 13 (15013) simply because I already had the downloaded files to hand. All current and historic versions of JDK are downloadable from Sun. Whichever version you decide to go with you will need to use the FND_TOP program txkSetPlugin.sh to ensure that the correct JRE version is then updated into the various apps scripts.

References

Since this was quite a learning curve for me I did make extensive use of a variety of online resources to aide in the performing this install (and the post install steps). The ones from memory are as follows (and are in no particular order or importance, unless indicated)…

• Oracle Applications: Installation Guide using Rapid Install – Release 12 part number B31295-07
• Oracle Applications Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 for Linux (32-bit) – metalink note 402310.1
• Oracle Applications Release Notes Release 12 – metalink note 405293.1
• Using Latest update of JDK 5.0 with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 – metalink note 384249.1
• Overview of using Java with Oracle EBS Release 12 – metalink note 418664.1
• R12 Rapidwiz post install step HTTP, Login page, Virtual directory, JSP, Help page fails – metalink note 414414.1
• Installation notes – JDK 5.0 Linux (32-bit) – http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/install-linux.html
• Manual Installation and Registration of Java Plug-in – linux – http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/manual_install_linux.html

The following OTN forum posts were read and whilst may not have been directly relevant did help to steer me down the correct paths to investigate various issues, especially with JRE and the apps forms. In particular, the first reference was very useful. Without it I would have not known about the txkSetPlugin command…

• Forum Home >> E-Business Suite >> Technology – EBS on Linux
  Thread: EBS Client Running on Linux, posted by Glen Palmer on 27^th May 2008
• Forum Home >> E-Business Suite >> EBS General Discussion
  Thread: EBS forms not opening in Linux client machine

This harps back to an earlier blog about being spoilt for choice regarding which laptop i was going to take with me on my jaunt to Vegas (ostensibly to attend the Oracle HCM User Group).

Anyway, through various methods of deduction, i had opted to take my Dell Vostro – a behemoth of a machine running CentOS, loaded to the gills with development tools and a full install of Oracle EBS R12.

However…I have been thinking about this during the week. I think i will not get as many opportunities to do some development work as i thought i would, principally because the OHUG agenda is chock-full of interesting sessions to attend.

So, i have had a late change of mind. How late? Well its 21:15pm the night before i fly.

I have decided to bin the heavyweight development box and instead travel with one of my Acer Aspire One’s. I shall take the HDD one (which has 2 flavours of unix) rather than the SSD version. The main reason being the SSD version is not as sturdy (i’ve had the OS go AWOL on it a few times in recent months – each time has required a full restore).

Anyway. I’ll still be able to Blog, Tweet and email

Until next time.

Oh the dilema of choice!

In just under 2 weeks time i am flying out to Las Vegas to attend this years Oracle HCM User Group conference (OHUG). I’m planning to take one of my many laptops with me so that i can do some of the following:

• Keep on-top of my email
• Keep an eye on the HRMS Aces forums (as an Admin)
• Keep my Blog up-to-date
• Download and view any photo’s that i happen to take with my camera
• Work!

The last point is the stickler. The conference runs for 4 days, plus a 5th-day invitee-only CAB day (to which i am invited). As i shall be out there for 7/8 days i am bound to have some downtime (ie non-attendance of conference sessions). I’m sure that some of this ‘spare’ time will be taken up with activities such as:

• Sleeping
• Drinking Socializing with my fellow conference attendees
• Shopping – although probably not too much
• Sight-seeing – again probably only on my last full day
• Relaxing by the pool in the Hotel

Whilst i do not have any ‘client-funded’ work to do during this time, i do have significant amounts of ‘non-funded’ work to be done, some of which will hopefully lead to funding, and some of which will simply be to further my own corporate cause. It is therefore this point that causes the ‘travelling hardware’ dilema.

If it were simply the case of Blogging, photo-viewing, web-mail reading etc, i could probably get away with taking one of my Acer Aspire One netbooks; I have 2 of them – one has 1.5GB RAM and the 8GB SSD, still running the standard Linpus install but with XFCE as the desktop client. The other has 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD and is dual-booting (with either custom Linpus Lite or Ubuntu Netbook Remix). Both of these are capable of meeting most of my requirements.

However by throwing “work” into the mix, i am forced to consider a wider range of hardware options:

• Dell Inspiron c/w 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD
  This is my “Windows” workstation – its running XP SP3, and has a full install of Oracle EBS 11.5.10.2, plus Workflow builder and JDeveloper 10g. Plus the usual MS Office suite thrown in for good measure.
• Dell Vostro c/w 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD (dual 250GB drives)
  This is my main Linux machine – its running CentOS 5.3, has a full install of Oracle EBS 12.0.2 (as previously blogged here), plus is running OO3, Zend Studio Developer IDE, XAMP. Its also got JDeveloper 10g installed (but i’ve yet to get it to work). And just for good measure i also have Sun’s VBox VM software with a full Windows XP VM
• Finally i have the machine which i am currently sat at writing this Blog. Its my aging, but trust, HP Pavilion. This has 2GB RAM, 120GB HDD (which is fairly full i’m sorry to say)
  This is running XP SP3, Zend Studio IDE, JDeveloper 10g, plus a whole host of other net tools etc. It also houses my Photoshop CS2 install and my document reference library.

I can probably discount the HP Laptop for starters. It’s over 4 years old, so the battery does not run for much more than an hour before giving up the ghost. In addition, its my main corporate machine, so is packed to the gills with all my company paperwork, spreadsheets, invoices etc etc. Its also my main email archive machine, so have Outlook PST files with email data running back over 15 years (you never known when you might need that Oracle 8i tuning tips email). It’s like an old friend, and is safer staying at home.

So that just leaves me with the 2 Dells.

If i were after total compatibility and comfort, i’d probably plump for the XP Inspiron. Its a smaller machine physically (its not the 17″ widescreen Behemoth that the Vostro is), and is likely to fit in with any wired/wireless networks i’m likely to encounter whilst travelling. However, it does not contain half the web-development toolkit stuff that i have mainly because its essentially my Oracle EBS 11i development and demo system. The full install does not leave much room for much else.

So we are looking at the Vostro then. Its big, its shiny black with a humongous widescreen pannel. It does have most of what i need, but does have its foilbles…

• It’s much happier running wired network (it has a Gigabit Ethernet card) than wireless. The wireless drivers are a bit hit and miss – i often have problems at home with it.
• It runs very hot when in use – again this is because the OS does not fully support the Active Power Management hardware properly – and when i say hot i do mean hot hot hot.
• The trackpad is not to my liking (even though i’ve tweaked its setting to the best i can).
• The powerpack is a bit of a brick

So it does look like the Vostro edges it.

Thank you for listening, i’m glad i had the opportunity to talk this through with you.

Last night i came across this facinating article Twitter meets Oracle. I won’t warble on too much about it (it is well worth a read though).
In the article, the author Lewis Cunningham demonstrates how to get your Oracle DB to generate Tweets.

In the past i have done work involving setting up the system to generate email notifications, and even sending SMS messages, upon completion of tasks (mainly long-running batch processes). This article shows how you can take this a step further by embracing new technologies.

It’s certainly going to be interesting to experiement with this idea. Lewis demonstates the advantages from a DBA perspective, however i’d like to experiement from an applications user angle…Imagine getting your EBS install sending you a Tweet to say that your monthly payroll process has completed. Perhaps providing a summary of errors/warnings etc (probably totals, as you’d struggles with the 140 character limit).

Taking this idea on a bit – what about being able to Tweet back? Would there be a way of getting it to process a response and kicking off some other process?

The opportunities are endless

This was not my idea. Not my idea at all. If i’d had my way i would steer clear of social networking altogether.

It was an idle (almost throw-away) suggestion by my better half that i should set up a Twitter account so that i could “Tweet” whilst i’m on my jolly attending the OHUG Conference in Las Vegas in June. That way she would know that i was not gambling the night away in a beer-fuelled frenzy with my respected peers

On the face of it, it’s probably not such a bad idea after all. I mean i will be armed with my laptop during the 8 days i’m out there as i do have some work to do, however firing it up in order to hand-craft some length blog posts about the various conference sessions i’ve attended may not be that practible in reality. Whereas armed only with my Blackberry, i could provide regular bursts of 140-character summaries of the days events, as they happen.

So this is what i have done. I’ve created myself a Twitter account, and (heaven forbid) even gone as far as linking it into here (my blog). All that is left to do is to test the tweet-by-SMS facility (which i will do as soon as i A-think of something to tweet about, and B-go somewhere other than home that has a decent mobile signal! UPDATE: Using the Blackberry equivalent of the iPhone AppStore i’ve found an excellent app called Ubertwitter – essentially a twitter app right here on my blackberry! Works a treat too!

Anyway, enough said – things to do…

Looking at the notes i’d written when i did this i thought it best to break this up into 2 parts.

This first part looks at the installation and configuration of the server. Part 2 will focus on the install of R12 and the post install steps.

Right-o let me set the scene. This install is onto a 1-node-1-user machine; i.e. a laptop
I’ve done the install before, and that was onto a laptop with Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) 4.7. However this time i wanted to step away from the usual enterprise distro’s and go with one of the more common respin’s.

For the uninitiated, CentOS is based on Red Hat enterprise – So 5.2 (or 5.3 in this case) is built on RHEL 5.2

Hardware

For this install, i am using a Dell Vostro 1710 laptop that i bought for the sole purpose of putting Linux and my linux development toolkit onto. The core specs are as follows:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T5870 (2.0 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB cache)
• Display: 17in widescreen WUXGA (running an impressive 1900×1200 resolution)
• Graphics: The usual Dell fare of NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS (featuring 256MB DDR2)
• Memory: 4Gig – 667MHz DDR2 Dual channel
• Hard Drive: 500GB (Dual 250GB Seagate Momentus G-Force 7200rpm 16MB cache SATA) – This was not standard on the Dell configurator so was a post deliver mod
• Network:  Fairly standard Realtek RTL8168C PCI-E Gigabit ethernet, which fits nicely with my wired Gigabit network at home
• Optical Drive: 8x DVD+/-RW/RAM Drive

It came shipped from Dell with a downgrade to XP. The XP install lasted long enough for me to boot it to verify that all hardware was present and correct before the whole lot was wiped.

OS Install

The media for the install was a free DVD supplied with the December edition of linux format magazine. I’d already tried it out under Virtual Box, running on my OEL4.7 install on the same hardware, and had been impressed that it had nailed the Soundcard and Wireless card straight away (unlike the OEL install).

Anyway, booting up from the DVD i went through the partioning configurator and set up the following:

• The dual HDD’s were configured as a single logical volume (500GB)
• The boot partition /boot was configured to be 15MB fixed size
• The swap partition /swap was configured to be 4096MB (ie same size as the installed memory)
• The root partition / was configured to fill the remaining available disk space. I had to double check this, as my first attempt using automatic partitioning did not fill the remaining space and i was left with a large area effectively closed off from the OS!

Important!
Make sure that you elect to have NO firewall, and that the “Enable SELinux?” option is set to DISABLED. This is advice given in the original notes i followed when doing the OEL install last year. Aparently it causes issues later on when you come to install EBS R12.

Package Groups

During the OS install you will face the package manager. Presenting you with an array of scintillating choices. As i had disk space to play with i went a bit mad and selected the following:

• X Window System (required for EBS)
• GNOME Desktop environment (also required for EBS)
• Editors (your choice – i’m a big fan of Vi )
• Graphical internet
• Server configuration tools
• Development tools
• Administration tools

• System Tools

Required Packages

This list is taken from the Metalink note 402310.1 – Oracle Applications Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 (12.0.4) for Linux 32-bit

The following are required packages for EBS R12 (running on OEL 5 but also for CentOS). All versions are minimum required versions (except where stated):

• compat-glibc-2.3.4-2.26
• gcc-4.1.2-14.el5
• gcc-c++-4.1.2-14.el5
• glibc-2.5-12
• glibc-common-2.5-12
• glibc-devel-2.5-12
• libgcc-4.1.2-14.el5
• libstdc++-devel-4.1.2-14.el5
• libstdc++-4.1.2-14.el5
• make-3.81-1.1
• gdbm-1.8.0-26.2.1
• libXp-1.0.0-8.1.el5
• libaio-0.3.106-3.2
• libgomp-4.1.2-14.el5
• sysstat-7.0.0-3.el5
• compat-libstdc++-.296-2.96-138
• compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-61

In addition, i needed to pull the following files from the Oracle compatability project archive, which is found at http://oss.oracle.com/projects/compat-oracle/files/Enterprise_Linux

• openmotif21-2.1.30-11.EL5.i386 (this must be this version exactly!)
• xorg-x11-libs-compat-6.8.2-1.EL.33.0.1.i386
• binutils-2.17.50.0.6-6.0.1.i386

In checking whether you have all the required packages, you can query each package individually using:
rpm -q glibc
etc

or you could query all packages and put the output into a text file, and then view this file to search for each package:
rpm -qa >rpm_files.txt

view rpm_files.txt

For the files downloaded from Oracle, i placed then into a separate directory and them manually installed them using rpm:
rpm -Uvh libaio-0*

Software requirements

The following maintenance tools must also be installed and their locations specified in the PATH of the account that will run Rapid Install. Both times i’ve done this install these programs have (a) been installed, and (b) present in the path.

• ar
• gcc
• g++
• ld
• ksh
• make
• X Display Server

You can easily verify these by using the which command:
which make
>> /usr/bin/make

My final step to finish off the OS install itself was to run the automatic updater yum update as this applied a load of patches to take the OS to 5.3.

Onto the home straight now for the server config…

Kernel Settings

I then had to edit the file /etc/sysctl.conf to configure my kernel settings. The following table is taken from the metalink note i referred to earlier.

DNS resolver parameters

Two Domain Name System (DNS) resolver parameters are set by default to low values when the OS is installed. These low values may cause attempted network connections to an Oracle database to fail. It is reccomended that these minimum settings are set in the /etc/resolv.conf file:
options attempts:5
options timeout:15

Verifying Host Names

I verified that the /etc/hosts file was formatted as follows:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
<ip_address> <node_name>.<domain_name> <node_name>

I then had to verify that the /etc/sysconfig/network file was formatted as follows:
HOSTNAME=<node_name>.<domain_name>

If the /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default/network file exists then delete it! No such file existed on my install so i skipped this step.

I then restarted my laptop (again).!

Other settings

I modified the /etc/security/limits.conf file to ensure the values for “hard” and “soft” open file descriptor limits were at least the minimum as given below:

* hard nofile 65536
* soft nofile 4096
* hard nproc 16384
* soft nproc 2047

It states in the install notes (metalink) that if any of these values are already higher then not to lower them!

Oracle HTTP Server Patch

This step was originally missed out when i first tried this install. Shame on me, as it caused no end of troubles. It was only when i looked back at the metalink notes that i realised i’d missed it and it was rather important!

I needed to download and install the patch 6078836 from Oracle Metalink. It fixes an issue with the Oracle HTTP server that is bundled with EBS. Its only applicable to OEL5 or RHEL5, but as we’ve established, CentOS is a RHEL respin so needed to apply as well. For those wondering….I have a Metalink account so was able to do this. In fact i actually have 2 accounts; i have one linked to the site that i’m currently contracted to, and i also have a personal account linked to an OEL license pack that i purchased last year. Probably the best $100 my company has spent in ages

Once i’d studiously followed the patch install instructions, i then had to perform the following task; essentially this is a patch post-install step to link the Motif library for OAS 10.1.2 – this needed to be done as root:

unlink /usr/lib/libXtst.so.6
ln -s /usr/X116R6/lib/libXtst.so.6.1 /usr/lib/libXtst.so.6

And there you have it. End of part one. We have a configured server waiting for an install of EBS

Crikey! Today’s news is a bit of a shocker!

Admittedly Sun have been on shaky ground now for some time, but Oracle! Where did that one come from!

I was never an employee of Sun, but did have the good fortune to work on an excellent project for them during my time at Oracle. They were implementing the Oracle HRMS suite, and the project was being run out of their offices in Palo Alto, and was called GEMS (Global Employee Management System if my memory serves me well). This would have been circa 98/99 and early 2000 – just prior to the Dot-Com bubble bursting I guess.

As the main Apps Technician from Oracle (their budget stretched to one Apps Technical Expert, one functional expert, a support rep and an occasional DBA flown in for good measure), I got to work with all of the Sun technical teams involved with the project, be they reports, forms, interfaces or data migration teams. When not on-site in Palo Alto I worked from a hot desk based out of their UK offices in Camberley (and latterly out of Fleet), and occasionally from my dining room at home (when I needed to do US time in the UK!).

This meant a fair deal of shuttling between UK/US and thus I managed to accrue a good collection of frequent flyer miles

I remember my first day on the project… having just stepped off a 14 hour flight from Heathrow to San Francisco and a quiz sprint down the 101 to their offices, and after all-to-brief introductions i was whisked into what can only be described as an interrogation. Me on one side of the desk, a mass of Sun people on the other, in an office next to the server room (and so no windows, no clocks). The purpose was to “quiz” me to see if I was any good and the right person for the project.

I can’t recall everything that happened, but I do recall that I had technical questions fired at me in a seemingly random fashion from all and sundry, with questions not necessarily being in order…So I’d field an Oracle forms question, then a detailed one about Employee API’s, followed by a reports question and then back to a forms question….This seemed to go on for hours and hours, but in reality it was probably only 60 minutes – 90 at a push.

I must have given a good account of my self for the following morning I was presented with a filled agenda for my 2 week stay, effectively being shuttled between the various teams in a bid to get them all rolling.

In all I think I had 18 months of involvement in the project, and looking back I still regard my time on the project as being one of the most enjoyable periods in my (almost) 12 year tenure at Oracle.

Anyway, the reason for this trip down memory lane is partly because of the hardware. Sun Sparc workstations filled every available crevice – some of the engineers I worked with had several, some of which seemed simply to be dumped on the floor as newer kit had arrived to replace….
It was my first real exposure to a desktop OS other than Windows since my early days of employment (when I used Data General kit featuring their flavour of Unix). The kit was good, robust, effective in use and (get this) did not need constantly rebooting I think I was hooked. It certainly got me started on the Linux bandwagon that’s for sure.

I also recall something called a “Sun Ray”. It was a thin client machine, with a smartcard reader built into it. You plugged in your card and up popped your desktop, complete with apps and anything you happened to have been working on. You could take out the smartcard, wander over to another machine, plug in and be working where you left off immediately. The rumour from the Sun guys I worked with was that you could plug your card into any Sun Ray, even if it were located in a different office in another country, and be up and running instantaneously. Whether this was just rumour of truth I’ll never know, but what does amaze me is why this technology never took off?

Anyway. Sun are being swallowed up by the corporate behemoth that is Oracle, and thus another piece of history will vanish. I wont even start on the speculation as to what is going to happen to MySQL? I’d like to think that Oracle see past the balance sheet and realise that we still need a truly free Open Source database, and leave it well alone (maybe someone out there would like to buy it off them?).

Until then I shall keep half an eye on the news coming out of Redwood Shores to see what their plans are.

A dangerous thing the internet is…

Working in IT as i do (and as i have done for all of my working life) i have often leapt with open arms onto new technology. Often this took the form of buying into gadgetry, often at great expense, and often only for a short-lived buzz of excitement… Who remembers the Iomega Zip Drive? Or the Creative DAP Digital Music Player, or even the Philips Pronto (or Marantz RC7000) all-in-one programmable remote control? I do…I did buy these things (more or less as they came out)…I did use these things, even when they were not quite fit for purpose (the Iomega was restricted to its proprietry media cartridge system, the DAP had a mere 6gig of storage, and the Pronto was ludicrously difficult to program)…

Other times i have been slow to adopt (or conform as many of the younger generatation would see it). Having burnt my fingers on the Creative DAP, i studiously avoided joining the iPod generation until they brought out a unit with (what i considered to be) a sensible amount of storage. When they did bring out such  version i had no further cause to delay (i am the proud owner of a 160gig iPod and have it chock-full of music – no photo’s just music).

Anyway, this brings me to the general gist of today’s rambling… Web 2.0… Specifically the cult of revealing ones life – full story and pics – to the general masses of the internet public.

I’m happy to say that, until very very recently, my only foray into this culture was by way of “Friends Reunited”. I have (and am proud to admit it) avoided the need to do “Myspace” or “Facebook” or (heaven forbid!) “Tweet”. I work all day with IT – mainly designing, writing and testing code in a variety of languages, and cannot think of any event during my working day that would warrant any form of continuous updating of my life to the general public. Who in their right mind would be interested in it anyway (other than my pay masters – and i suspect that if they saw a continuous stream of twitterings or other nonsense during the working day then they’d be inclined to worry about my delivery deadlines rather than how my day has gone).

However it would appear that the rest of the world moves on, and these things are ‘in’ and popular, and people now regard me as being eccentric for not joining in with the general “2.0″ fun…Even my family appear to be heading down this slippery slope. I know for a fact that both my Wife and Son are “face-booked” (my term, i’m sure there is a proper term but just humour me please:) ). Beyond my immediate family i am aware that others within the blood-line are busy filling their days with all this stuff.

Am I worried? No. In fact i’m reasonably happy to let this sort of thing slide by – i have other things to do with my life. However as a token gesture to it all i have succumed to blogging. The Coopers Consulting Solutions site is back in action (having spent the last 2 years as a static page) and i have a large collection of notes and other information that will eventually get back-ported onto here.

And i’m not just talking about blogging as a business tool either. I have also finally gotten round to setting up our home website with Word Press, and configured personal blogs for both Wife and Son, to do with as they please. I too may well join in the fun, although i’m more inclined to play the voice of the Rabbits, Cats or even the Chickens that we own, than actually convey any information about my own life.

So you see my problem?

On the one hand, i refuse to join the Web 2.0 generation fully and properly, and use the frequent line of “I don’t have the time to indulge”… and on the other hand here i am blogging away on a Saturday evening (whilst waiting for the WP set-up scripts for the family blogs to complete in the background).

Anyway, enough of this guff. Normal service will be resumed in due course, and the content of articles published here will revert back to business.

Thank you for your attention – no go away and get a life