TruTek TruTalk Newsletter for Oracle Professionals
late night reading

May, 2009
Greetings!

Welcome to the May issue of TruTalk. We have some terrific classes coming up, taught by some of our favorite experts.

  • We're hitting the streets! Take a look at our upcoming training classes. This quarter we're offering classes in  Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Georgia, Missouri and California.
  • If you've started thinking about upgrading from Release 11i to Release 12, check out my Oracle E-Business Suite R11i to R12 Technical Upgrade class. This is a no holds barred, hands on class. This class offers an essential practice run at doing this upgrade. Plus, you'll perform the upgrade using my new book, the little r12 upgrade guide.
  • We're offering a terrific class on OBIEE in May. Learn all about Interactive Dashboards, Oracle BI Publisher, and XML.
  • Sign up for Robert Freeman's upcoming Oracle 10g Boot Camp I or Oracle Database 11g New Features by May 15th and get a 10% Early Bird Discount!
  • We also have an excellent article by Tanel Poder, one of our Oracle internals experts. Don't miss his Advanced Oracle Troubleshooting Seminar in June!
  • Lon White wrote about using the lsof command to solve a permissions problem without giving access to everything and everybody. 
Come see us at Booth 4758 at Collaborate - we're really looking forward to meeting folks.

Don't miss out on this terrific lineup of classes with the best trainers in their fields!

Sincerely,
 
Mike Swing
TruTek

IN THIS ISSUE
What We Do
DBA Boot Camp
the little r12 upgrade guide
We Do More Than Just Training!
Collaborate 09 in May
Oracle's Diagnostic Events by Tanel Poder
Critical Patch Update - April 2009 Available
AutoConfig with Release 12
APPSPERF 2009
Beginning Oracle Database 11g Administration Book by Iggy Fernandez
Confio
Article Writing Contest
TruTek Training Schedule
QUICK LINKS
What We Do
TruTekTruTek is a national leader in technical and functional Oracle training and consulting. We offer Oracle database and E-Business Suite consulting, training and remote services. We have a state of the art training facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you have 5 or more people interested in a class, we can also bring classes to your company if you would like onsite training.

And if you've wanted to take a training class, but were intimidated by the crowds, we also offer "Personal Training" for certain classes.
 
Collaborate 09 - It's All About the Spiffs
Spiffs, gewgaws, chotchkis... call them what you will, one of the most fun parts of going to Collaborate is collecting goodies from vendors. This month, we put in our orders for TruTek spiffs, and now we're offering a sneak peek at what we'll have at our booth.

Fun TruTekTrade in your Collaborate lanyard for TruTek's Fabulous Badge Pull. A lanyard, if you are not familiar, is a shoelace with advertising on it. A TruTek Badge Pull, on the other hand, is a sublime statement about how excited you are to be attending Collaborate 09.

Enter our raffle for TruTek's ever-so-bold R12 Upgrade T-shirt. We'll be raffling off several of these, including some in sizes for youngsters.

"The Pen! The Pen!" That's right, TruTek will be giving away Talking Pens that are guaranteed to enhance your conference experience and make you the talk of your office when you return to work.

We'll also be raffling off a copy of Mike Swing's new book the little r12 upgrade guide. If you're planning an upgrade, this is the reference you'll need!

What?!" You say you won't be able to attend the conference, but you want your spiff anyway? Don't worry, we've considered the devastating possibility that not everyone will be able to come to Collaborate 09. So pick a survey below, fill it out, and we'll do some drawings for Fabulous TruTek Spiffs after the conference:

Surveys:
1. The Why My Boss Deserves a Spiff Far More Than I Survey
2. The Who's a Bigger Geek Than Larry Elison? Survey
Sometimes All We Need is a Really Clear Sign

the little r12 upgrade guideTruTek's Oracle E-Business Suite R11i/R12 Technical Upgrade class is 4 days long . Students install an 11.5.10.2 Vision instance and upgrade that instance to Release 12.0.6. Basic concepts and downtime-reducing steps, such as staging from the Release 12 DVDs, are covered.  The class size is limited to 4 to 6 students to allow plenty of instructor attention for dealing with problems that arise, and questions that students have. Each student uses a quad core Linux server with 4-8 GB of memory and 1 TB of disk space to perform the upgrade.

Minimizing downtime is a common theme throughout the R12 Upgrade class. Techniques include merging patches, using fast IO, snapshots and other downtime reducing techniques.

Mike Swing's the little r12 upgrade guide describes the process we follow during the class. Can you skip the class and do it yourself with just this book? Sure you can. We think there are advantages to taking the class, most importantly having others to bounce questions and problems off of. Taking the class also offers the advantage of helping to build confidence levels. Will this book work perfectly for every environment that users have in place? Probably not. Since Oracle continues to provide patches for issues that are reported by customers, there is always a chance that after we publish this book a new patch will become available. This book is no substitute for using the power of your own analytical skills. And of course, our hardware will likely not be exactly the same as your hardware configuration, so there may be differences due to operating system and other variations.


Did You Know? We Do More Than Just Training!
At TruTek, we offer training classes, remote database and applications administration support, and on-site consulting. And in the next month, a few of our top consultants will be rolling off of projects, so check them out:

Mike Swing - Besides teaching many of our E-Business Suite technical classes, including several of our DBA classes, Mike has extensive experience implementing, upgrading and maintaining various Oracle RDBMS versions and the E-Business Suite. Mike teaches our classes on installing and upgrading to Release 12, so if you need someone with plenty of hands on experience, he is one of our best resources. Mike also has experience supporting RAC implementations and has a deep understanding of parallel concurrent processing, load balancing and failover. 

Dennelle - It's always good to have a skilled financials functional expert in your corner. Dennelle specializes in General Ledger, Fixed Assets, Purchasing, Payables, Receivables, Cash Management, Order Management, ADI, FSGs and UPK.  Dennelle is also a great trainer, so her hand-offs to clients go especially well.

Rick - With 15 years of manufacturing planning, forecasting and inventory management experience, and 10 years of functional Oracle ERP implementation experience, Rick is one of our top manufacturing experts for the E-Business Suite. Rick specializes in supporting the Oracle BOM, CST, EAM, ENG, INV, PO, MRP, MSCA and WIP modules.

Samuel - Here's a Database Administrator with excellent credentials. Samuel is an Oracle Certified Professional, an Oracle 10g Certified Technician, and he has an Oracle DBA Masters. Couple that with years of experience as a senior database analyst, and you've got someone that can manage your database and work well with any development team.

Susan - Offering strong technical skills combined with excellent project management and team lead capabilities, Susan is an experienced ERP application designer and developer. Susan is a Certified Oracle Application Developer, and can resolve issues quickly due to her wide variety of experience and technical knowledge.

Fred - Fred has strong experience supporting large, worldwide Oracle E-Business Suite implementations and upgrades as a project manager, lead, and functional consultant. Fred's experience includes both Project Manufacturing and Oracle Financials. 

Joe - Joe is an Oracle developer with over 12 years of experience in designing, building, maintaining and enhancing both ERP and custom applications across a variety of business sectors. 

Bob - Bob is an accomplished Oracle DBA with extensive experience as an Oracle Apps DBA. Bob's E-Business Suite experience includes installing, updating and cloning environments.

Nathan - Nathan has both functional and technical expertise, which makes him a valuable asset in supporting the E-Business Suite. Nathan has worked as both an Oracle Database Analyst and Oracle Financial Applications specialist, responsible for implementing Oracle Accounts Payable, Oracle Purchasing, Order Management, Fixed Assets, Cash Management, Accounts Receivable and Oracle General Ledger. Nathan has performed data conversions as well as Oracle database installation, reorganization, tuning, and instance recovery on various Linux, Unix, NT, and VAX/VMS platforms. Nathan's technical skills include RMAN backup and recovery, RAC on AIX, Oracle Warehouse Builder, Workflow and XML Publisher.

Jim - Jim is one of our best manufacturing consultants. His experience includes full life cycle implementations in manufacturing management, purchasing management, production planning, and materials control. Jim has worked as a Project Manager, Team Leader, and as a Functional Application Implementer.

Craig - Craig's most recent assignment had him multi-tasking as a Unix System Administrator, Oracle Database Administrator, Applications System Administrator and E-Business Suite Developer. Craig's solid technical background makes him an excellent candidate for any E-Business Suite team.

Also, if you're looking for a developer to design custom software or programs for your company, we have a Java team ready to roll!  We have other consultants with E-Business Suite, DBA and developer skills available as well.

Contact us if you'd like to see more resumes.
Of Course We'll Be at Collaborate 09!

Collaborate 09

Check us out at Booth 4758 and check out our presentations! Several of our favorite people will be presenting:


the little r12 upgrade guideMike Swing                                                                     Teaching at TruTek in May and June!

Mike teaches several of our most popular technical classes, including Oracle R12 Applications DBA Concepts and Administration, Oracle E-Business Suite R11i/R12 Technical Upgrade and Oracle Release 11i Applications System Administration, and will be showcasing his new book, the little r12 upgrade guide, at the TruTek booth at Collaborate.

Thursday, May 7
Time                          Room                    Title
8:30 am - 9:30 am     W230C                 133 - Load Balancing and Failover of Parallel Concurrent Processing

9:45 am - 10:45 am   W304G               2073 - How Does Parallel Concurrent Processing Really Work?

Feedback from the IOUG Conference Reviewers:

Wow! 
 
That was going to be my whole review, right there.  This is a well-written, easy to understand paper. The graphics are appropriate and well-placed.

Thank you for an excellent paper,
 
Ray Smith

Toad Handbook by Dan HotkaJonathan Lewis

Jonathan took the prize last year for most popular seminars presenter at TruTek. If you'd like us to schedule any of his one day seminars for this year, including Oracle Explain Plan, Troubleshooting and Tuning Oracle,  or Writing Optimal SQL, let us know!

Sunday, May 3
Time                          Room                    Title
9:00 am - 5:00 am                                  U4 - Understanding Cost Based Optimization

This day-long presentation consists of four sessions lasting about 90 minutes each. In it we aim to examine the basic mechanisms of the Cost Based Optimizer so that we can get a better understanding of why it can choose unexpected execution paths. The key areas we examine are: why the optimizer chooses to use, or ignore and index; the mechanisms, arithmetic, and debugging of joins; and how to help the optimizer with statistics and (where absolutely necessary) hints.

Prerequisite: Attendees should have some familiarity with reading simple SQL and execution plans, and feel comfortable with simple mental arithmetic.

Wednesday, May 6
Time                          Room                    Title
9:45 am - 12:00 pm   W224B                 367 - Hints on Hinting

Robert Freeman's OCP: Oracle Database 11g Certification KitRobert Freeman                                                             Teaching at TruTek in June and August!

Robert is an expert on the Oracle RDBMS. Don't miss Robert's Oracle 10g DBA Boot Camp I class in Salt Lake City June 1-5, and his Oracle Database 11g New Features class in Salt Lake City, August 3-7. Check out Robert's other classes and papers.

Sunday, May 3
Time                          Room                    Title
9:00 am - 5:00 am                                  U6 - Oracle Database 11g OCP - One Day Exam Cram

In this jam packed, fast and furious session, we will cram your brain and your notepads full of information that will prepare you for the Oracle 11g OCP exam. The author of the Sybex book: OCP: Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Professional Study Guide will lead you through an intense one-day session that will provide hints, tips and insight into what you need to pass the Oracle Database 11g OCP Exam.

Prerequisite: Attendee should be a knowledgeable DBA with the Oracle database product line.

If you'd like a full five days of 11g OCP Training, let us know and we'll add Robert's Oracle 11g OCP DBA Certification Prep Class to our schedule. Robert also offers a five day Backup & Recovery Using Oracle 10g RMAN class.

Monday, May 4
Time                             Room                  Title
1:15 pm - 3:30 pm        W224EF             312 - RMAN 101 - Getting Started with RMAN
Feuerstein's Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices
Steven Feuerstein
 

If you missed Steven's three day The Best of Oracle PL/SQL Seminar in Salt Lake City in April, then you missed a terrific class. Feedback was very positive!

Just had to share this - both on the way to my meeting and in the meeting I was told I had that vacation 'glow' about me, and that I must have had a great time!  I explained I was actually in PL/SQL class - folks were quite shocked! :)

Sarah Hoffman, Pinnacol
                                                 
Monday, May 4
Time                             Room                    Title
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm        W240AB               513 - Automated Testing Options for Oracle PL/SQL

Tuesday, May 5          Room
11:00 am - 12:00 pm   W230C                  370 - Coding Therapy for Software Developers

1:30 pm - 2:30 pm       W221AB               343 - Why You Should Care about Oracle11g PL/SQL Now

Toad Handbook by Dan HotkaDan Hotka                                                                        Teaching at TruTek in June!

Monday, May 4
Time                             Room                    Title
10:45 am - 11:45 am    W240AB               502 - Discoverer10g Tips and Techniques

Wednesday, May 6
Time                          Room                       Title
8:30 am - 9:30 am     W221CD                   534 - Oracle11g New Features for Developers
The Full Power of Oracle's Diagnostic Events: Syntax for KSD Debug Event Handling by Tanel Poder
Don't miss Tanel Poder's upcoming seminar Advanced Oracle Troubleshooting Seminar, to be held in Denver June 10-12 and in Salt Lake City June 15-17.  If you're on the fence about whether to take this intensive class, take a look at some class feedback.

There was a recent thread in Oracle-L about deadlocks and a recommendation to dump various instance information when the deadlock happens. A deadlock trace dumps some useful things automatically, but sometimes you want more, especially in a RAC environment.

So is it possible to make Oracle dump additional things when the deadlock event happens? Yes, it is, and it's doable using Oracle's diagnostic event handling infrastructure.

First I'll take a step back and explain what the following command means:

SQL> alter session set events '10046 trace name context forever, level 12';

Session altered.

Of course you know what it does; it enables extended SQL trace. But why such cumbersome syntax?

This syntax actually reveals some of the power of KSD diagnostic event syntax (KSD=kernel service debug):

10046

The first word in event string (the 10046) specifies when some action should be taken. And everything after that (trace name context forever, level 12) is that action.

trace

The first word in action (trace) specifies what type of action Oracle needs to take if that event (10046) occurs. By"'event occurs", I mean that if an Oracle parsing function calls the ksdpec() function with 10046 as a parameter, which in turn may recursively call some action set for that event, and then returns that event level (12) back to the caller, It's up to the caller to act on that returned value. For the event 10046, some ksd* tracing function is then called.

In event syntax, "trace" is the most generic action, which is used for tracing, behavior changing and Oracle dumps. In this post I will concentrate on the "trace" action, as it is the most common one to use.

Read More
Critical Patch Update - April 2009 Available
Oracle has announced the release of the April 2009 Critical Patch Update. Read the Critical Patch Update Advisory for more from Oracle about what the patch includes.

For an additional resource on CPUs, check out the IOUG and Oracle joint survey results on Security Patching Practices by Oracle Customers. The purpose of the survey was to:
  • Understand the current practices of organizations as they relate to Oracle's Critical Patch Update;
  • Identify the challenges faced by organizations in regards to the timely application of security patches; and
  • Attempt to identify specific recommendations to present to Oracle in order to further increase the effectiveness of the Critical Patch Update process or other Oracle Software Security Assurance activities.
The results of the survey suggest that customers are not applying the CPUs as quickly as they might. Only 30% of customers are typically current on CPUs, with an additional 25% typically one cycle (3-6 months) behind. That leaves a whole lot of customers running the Oracle databases with known security issues.

Of course, the real question is, how important is it to stay current? To understand the importance of applying the CPUs, check out another perspective, Integrigy's Security Analysis of the E-Business Suite Impact.

If you'd like to learn more about database security or the Critical Patch Update process, check out Steven Kost's presentations at Collaborate 09:

Tuesday, May 5
Time                          Room                    Title
11:00 am - 12:00 pm W240CD               602 - Real World Database Auditing

This presentation provides a detailed overview of the main database auditing technologies, details performance metrics for each of those technologies, and provides best practices for protecting and reporting on captured audit data.

Wednesday, May 6
Time                          Room                    Title
8:30 am - 9:30 am     W222B                 359 - Oracle Critical Patch Updates: Insight and Understanding
9:45 am - 10:45 am   W304G1               936 - Oracle Critical Patch Updates Unwrapped

These presentations provide an overview and understanding of the Critical Patch Update process. They will detail and demonstrate types of security bugs fixed in a security patch and provide best practices for installing and testing CPU patches. The OAUG presentation (#936) will also outline the risks to Oracle Applications of these types of security bugs.
Four Articles about Configuring E-Business Suite with AutoConfig
Steven Chan, Oracle's Senior Director of Oracle Applications Technology, has published four interesting articles by members of Oracle's AutoConfig Development team on new AutoConfig features on his blog. Check out these topics:

Power Tools: Optimizing AutoConfig Performance Through Profiling
Power Tools: Running AutoConfig in Parallel in EBS 12
Power Tools: Previewing AutoConfig Changes on All Tiers
Power Tools: Configuring EBS R12 Database Tiers with AutoConfig
APPSPERF 2009 at Collaborate
http://www.appsperf.com

We are pleased to announce the 2009APPSPERF workshops, which will be held at the COLLABORATE 09 Conference in Orlando, Florida (May 3 - May 7, 2009).  The APPSPERF 2008 Workshop was a great success, having set the OAUG attendance record for conference workshops.

APPSPERF is dedicated to Oracle Applications performance tuning and best practices. We believe it is absolutely essential that the Application Systems powering today's businesses be performant, reliable, and scalable.  Annual APPSPERF Workshops bring together some of the world's top Applications experts who specialize in maximizing the performance and scalability of the Oracle Applications Suites.

These annual APPSPERF Workshops provide Oracle Applications customers and consultants with tuning tips, best practices, and a holistic methodology to manage and resolve scalability issues.  APPSPERF provides detailed technical sessions designed to cover both detailed advice on how to tune the full stack of technology components, as well as how to tune individual Application modules to ensure that all layers are optimized for your business. 
 
APPSPERF 2009 includes both an E-Business Suite and a PeopleSoft all-day tuning workshop with deep-dive sessions such as:

  • Application Server tuning
  • Database Server tuning
  • Upgrade Performance
  • Cloning a 7 Terabyte E-Business SUite environment in less than 30 minutes
  • Leveraging Oracle Partitioning to reduce cost and improve performance
Don't miss the opportunity to attend these valuable all-day workshops as part of your Collaborate 09 - OAUG Forum Conference experience. The APPSPERF 2009 PeopleSoft Tuning Workshop will be held on Sunday, May 3, 2009, and the E-Business Suite Tuning Workshop will be held on Thursday, May 7, 2009. Register today!

For information on registration, please refer to the OAUG Collaborate 09 Conference Website. The detailed agenda for each workshop is available on the Cybernoor Events website in the Appsperf Tuning Workshops section.
More from the APPSPERF Guys...
If you're on the fence about whether to take the APPSPERF additional cost training seminars at Collaborate 09, take a look at the other presentations and panels that Ahmed Alomari, Michael Brown, Jerry Ireland and Mark Farnham will be taking part in at the conference:

Sunday, May 3
Time                           Room                 Title
9:45 am - 12:00 pm    W305B              3122 - OAUG Database SIG Meeting
                                                                       Michael Brown
Monday, May 4
Time                           Room                 Title
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm      W304G              1878 - Applications Database Tuning Panel
                                                                       Michael Brown, Mark Farnham, Ahmed Alomari

3:45 pm - 4:45 pm      W304H              1868 - Secrets of Successful Database 11g Upgrades in an E-Business Suite Environment
                                                                        Michael Brown
Tuesday, May 5
Time                           Room                 Title
9:45 am - 10:45 am    W304G              1458 - News From the Trenches - an E-Business Suite R12 - 11g Implementation
                                                                       Jerry Ireland and Mark Farnham

11:00 am - 12:00 pm  W304F              1873 - Using Oracle VM to Support an Oracle E-Business Suite Environment
                                                                       Michael Brown
Wednesday, May 6
Time                          Room                  Title
9:45 am - 10:45 am   W304F                1387 - Oracle E-Business Suite Cloning Panel
                                                                        Mark Farnham

11:00am - 12:00pm   W304C               3035 - BI Publisher - Q&A
                                                                        Ahmed Alomari

Jerry Ireland is one of the founders of APPSPERF, and a co-author of the book The ABCs of Workflow for E-Business Suite Release 11i and Release 12. We got a sneak peek at Jerry Ireland's From the Trenches - An E-Business Suite R12 - 11g Implementation and asked him some additional questions about the upgrade experience:

Our Questions:

First, what was your conclusion about Oracle RDBMS Version 11g? Did you see any advantages (other than being on the latest available certified software) to going with 11g? Are there are features that are particularly helpful for Apps users?

Second, what's your recommendation to "the world"? Is Release 12 stable and ready for people to upgrade to it? Should they go straight to 12.1, or go with RUP 12.0.6?

Jerry's Answers:

We have not had a chance to test 11.0.1.7 so we do not have definite answers as to if it has the same problems as 11.0.1.6. Oracle is aware of the problems and has had an opportunity to fix them. The new 12.1 will come configured with 11.0.1.7 through Rapid Install, as well as the latest versions of TOOLS and WEB application server software, so going to 11g would be much simpler with the new Rapid Install. This also skips over many, many patches that are required to get to 11.0.1 from the prior media.

11g provides dynamic performance statistics retention over database shutdown and if you have a big difference between interactive prime time and night time batch, you can potentially seed the __ values and start an appropriate instance for the different workload. You would only do that, though, if there was a natural boundary and not much overhead or chance of waiting for running jobs to finish.

11g makes native compile much easier to maintain when you have the massive number of potential packages that would benefit.

And, of course, our project was for a re-implementation, treating the existing systems as legacy sources. So it will make a lot of sense for them and folks in a similar situation to START with 12.1.1 on 11.0.1.7 etc. if it is available before too far into the project cycle. For folks who are updating in place, our process and notes should be very valuable, and even though there will probably be extended support for 10x.x.x?, 11g really is so much better in so many ways as an RDBMS engine that that alone is probably worth the upgrade.

We also asked Mike Brown for his opinion about the virtues of upgrading to Oracle RDBMS 11g:

Oracle RDBMS 11.1.0.7 is currently certified with both Release 11.5.10.2 and 12.0.4+ of the E-Business Suite.   Since the performance of the database is close enough to RDBMS Version 10.2 that users are not likely to notice, there is not an inherent reason to upgrade from RDBMS 10.2 to 11g.  However, if you are not yet on RDBMS 10.2, you should plan to upgrade to 11g instead.  You should also pay attention to new features such as advanced compression and real applications testing (unfortunately these require an add-on license).  These new features may provide a benefit for you that is worth the effort of upgrading.

If you are not yet live, have infrequent maintenance windows, or are on a release prior to RDBMS 10.2,  you should strongly consider going to RDBMS 11.1.0.7 to postpone future upgrades.
Want to Know More About RDBMS 11g?
Beginning Oracle Database 11g AdministrationIggy Fernandez is an Oracle DBA with more than ten years of experience in Oracle database administration. He is the editor of the quarterly Journal of the Northern California Oracle Users Group (NoCOUG) and the author of Beginning Oracle Database 11g Administration: From Novice to Professional.

We spotted this 5 star review on Amazon:

Iggy Fernandez is a VERY good writer. I think you'll really appreciate the many insights on the process of being a good Oracle DBA.

This book is unique in that it covers many aspects of the PROCESS of Oracle database administration. It's not really a book of scripts. As Iggy says, this book is an introduction to key concepts, such as monitoring, backups, etc. Each chapter is well organized, with plenty of graphics to make it interesting.

Iggy has also provided many good references, so that the reader can continue researching.

A really fine book!

Iggy will be presenting at Collaborate!

Thursday, May 7
Time                          Room                  Title
9:45 am - 10:45 am  W304F                 553 - Xtreme SQL Tuning: The Tuning Limbo
Using lsof to Avoid a Security Faux Pas by Lon White

We recently upgraded some databases to Oracle RDBMS 10g. Yes, it is a little late in the game to be just getting there, but sometimes the applications the database is supporting can't or won't move with Oracle. But, this is another story. The point of this article is to share how we used lsof to find and fix some issues we found after the upgrade.

We use Nagios (Nagios is an enterprise-class open source monitoring tool) to monitor some aspects of our system. When our upgrade was completed, we turned the monitoring back on and were surprised by numerous alerts that Nagios could not connect to the database. A little more research provided the answer. In 10g, Oracle changed some of the base permissions, which resulted in our Nagios user not being able to connect to the database.

So what now? Well, the easy way to deal with this would be to use the chmod command to grant all of Oracle's files, libraries and binaries the 777 or rwxrwxrwx access level. But, this would also open up those files so that any user on the unix system could read, write of execute them, causing a serious security flaw (see the article Critical Patch Update - April 2009 Available for more on security). This would be a bad thing! So, the broad brush is probably not our best approach here. By default, this means that we need to find a solution that offers a fair amount of precision. But how?

We opened two PuTTY windows (PuTTY is a free Telnet/SSH client) and switched ourselves to be the same user as the database user. Using one system, we logged into the database using sqlplus. Using the other, we executed the lsof command (list open files) and looked for the sqlplus command.

/usr/local/sbin/lsof -c sqlplus

The -c option to the List Open Files command says to look for the command immediately following the option. So, from the syntax above, we know that we are going to use lsof to to find all commands using sqlplus. In our case, it was straightforward, as we were the only ones using sqlplus. The output looks like this:

lsof

We could now see every file or library that the sqlplus command was using, which means that we could now make sure that the Nagios user has no problem with permissions on each of these files. So that's it, right? Well, not exactly. We also need to run each of the libraries through the ldd command. Why? Well, the ldd command will show us any dependency on other libraries. This then will insure that our Nagios user has unfettered access to make the connection to our database. As an example, we'll take one of the libraries from this output, which looks like this:

ldd -v /usr/lib/pa20_64/libc.2

which returns the following:

find library=libdl.1; required by /usr/lib/pa20_64/libc.2

libdl.1 =>      /usr/lib/pa20_64/libdl.1

This output tells us that /usr/lib/pa20_64/libc.2 has a dependency on /usr/lib/pa20_64/libdl.1

So, we will need to make sure that this libdl.1 library is also accessible by our Nagios user. It should also be noted that not all libraries have a dependency you would need to worry about. For example:

ldd -v /oa41/apps/oracle/oaptch64/10.2.0/lib/libnnz10.sl

returns no additional dependencies.

The command to change the permissions is:

chmod 755 <filename>

Make sense? By the way, the -v option tells ldd to "Display all dependency relationships". For us, this method worked like a charm. We were back in business quickly and the Nagios user was again able to connect to the database and fulfill its monitoring functions. As always, I encourage you to either Google these commands or use the "man" pages on your system to get more familiar with them.

Confio Igniter Suite

Confio builds performance management software that improves the effectiveness of IT systems and the people who run them. The Confio Igniter Suite currently includes products that help Oracle DBAs, managers, and developers continuously monitor the performance of databases and the applications that depend on them, isolate specific problems, and identify solutions in production systems.

Confio Ignite

Your Claim to Fame...
AmazonYou might argue that our newsletter staff weighs in more on the technical side than the functional side. Yes, we admit it, we're geeks. But that doesn't mean we don't want to include articles about the functional side of the E-Business Suite. Really, we do. So here's your chance to help us keep a balanced perspective in our newsletter. If you've got a good functional topic, please, let us know. Enter our writing contest!  If you'd like to enter, just write an article about Oracle or the Oracle E-Business Suite. Tell us about a technique that you've used that made your life easier at work. Or describe something you've learned from all those books on your bookshelf, and how it applied to your environment. If you're not sure if you've got a good topic, send us a note, and we'll help you figure it out. Go ahead, you know you want to!

Submissions should be sent to [email protected] by May 25th. We'll include the winning article in our next newsletter. And the winning author will win a very cool prize, a $50 Gift Certificate from Amazon!
Upcoming TruTek Training Schedule
We're always open to adding new classes, so let us know your interests! We add new classes regularly, so be sure to check the latest version of the schedule on our website.


Date

Class

Location

 

Technical Classes

 

May 12-14

Introduction to SQL Using Oracle 10g

SLC, UT

May 12-14

Oracle Release 11i Applications System Administration

SLC, UT

May 12-15

Introduction to Oracle Business Intelligence EE (OBIEE)

SLC, UT

May 19-21

Oracle 11i Workflow Builder, Business Events and Administration

Scottsdale, AZ

May 26-29

Oracle E-Business Suite R11i/R12 Technical Upgrade

Ashburn, VA

Jun 1-2

Oracle SQL Performance Tuning Tips and Techniques

SLC, UT

Jun 1-5

Oracle 10g DBA Boot Camp I with Robert Freeman

SLC, UT

Jun 1-5

Oracle R12 Applications  DBA Concepts and Administration

Ashburn, VA

Jun 3-5

Advanced Oracle PL/SQL Tips and Techniques

SLC, UT

Jun 8-10

Introduction to SQL Using Oracle 10g

SLC, UT

Jun 10-12

Advanced Oracle Troubleshooting Seminar with Tanel Poder

SLC, UT

Jun 15-17

Advanced Oracle Troubleshooting Seminar with Tanel Poder

Denver, CO

Jun 15-19

Oracle R12 Applications DBA Concepts and Administration

Denver, CO

Jun 16-19

Oracle E-Business Suite R11i/R12 Technical Upgrade

   Denver, CO

Jun 23-26

Introduction to Oracle Business Intelligence EE (OBIEE)

SLC, UT

Jun 23-26

Oracle Release 11i Applications System Administration

SLC, UT

Jul 6-10

Oracle R12 Applications  DBA Concepts and Administration

   Atlanta, GA

Jul 14-18

Oracle E-Business Suite R11i/R12 Technical Upgrade

   Atlanta, GA

Aug 3-7

Oracle Database 11g New Features with Robert Freeman

SLC, UT

Aug 10-14

Backup and Recovery Using 10g RMAN with Robert Freeman

Denver, CO

Aug 11-14

Oracle E-Business Suite R11i/R12 Technical Upgrade

St Louis, MO

Aug 10-12

Oracle BI Publisher

SLC, UT

Aug 13-14

Oracle Discoverer for Admin

SLC, UT

Aug 19-20

Oracle Discoverer for End User Training

SLC, UT

Sep 14-18

Oracle 10g DBA Boot Camp I with Robert Freeman

Fullerton, CA

Sep 14-18

Oracle R12 Applications  DBA Concepts and Administration

Fullerton, CA

Sep 15-16

The Best of Oracle PL/SQL Seminar with Steve Feuerstein

Fullerton, CA

Sep 21-25

Oracle 10g DBA Boot Camp II with Robert Freeman

Fullerton, CA

Sep 21-25

Oracle E-Business Suite R11i/R12 Technical Upgrade

Fullerton, CA

 

Functional Classes

 

May 20-22

Oracle Release 12 AME (Approvals Management Engine)

SLC, UT

May 12-15

R11i/R12 Financial Business Process Overview

San Diego, CA

May 19-20

Oracle Release 11i Fixed Assets

San Diego, CA

May 19-22

Oracle Release 12 New Features (Functional)

San Diego, CA

Jun 2-5

Oracle Release 11i Procure to Pay

San Diego, CA

Jun 2-3

Oracle Release 11i Accounts Payable

San Diego, CA

Jun 4-5

Oracle Release 11i  Purchasing

San Diego, CA

Aug 5-6

Oracle Applications Desktop Integrator (ADI) Training

SLC, UT

Enough Already!
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