Jason L. Froebe - Tech tips and How Tos for Fellow Techies » Oracle

Wanted: Entry level or Mid-level Oracle DBA (Chicago, IL)

Jason L Froebe — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:20:28 +0000

Position Responsibilities

• Manage database configurations, schemas, and space • Manage database and system alerts. • Support new application code releases / builds in various production and non-production environments • Provide performance tuning, problem research/resolution, code reviews and deployments, SQL support, and data movement • Manage database changes for releases and new projects • Provide SQL and application tuning assistance • Build Backups / Recovery and High Availability • Manage disaster recovery support and testing • Monitor database health and alerts • Provide production on-call support on rotational basis • Manage database and product deployments and repeated database maintenance and monitoring tasks • Troubleshooting database issues • Open & follow-up on change request tickets for internal users • Open and follow-up on service requests with Oracle vendor support

Position Requirements

• Degree or equivalent experience in either Oracle or Sybase. • BS in Computer Science or equivalent specializing in Oracle or Sybase • Good understanding of relational methodology • Good understanding of SQL Plus or equivalent • Good communication skills and the ability to work as a team member • Good analytical and problem solving skills. • Self starter with willingness to do independent research and trouble shooting. • Willingness to learn new database skills in a fast paced environment • Education or Experience with Unix shell scripts helpful • Good understanding of relational methodology • Must be comfortable in both self-managed and team driven environment • Experience with Microsoft Office Tools helpful

Interested? (say I referred you on the application form)

How to change the default NLS_DATE_FORMAT (Date format) in Oracle 10g/11g

Jason L Froebe — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:11:00 +0000

It is really really easy to change the default NLS_DATE_FORMAT setting but to be honest, you should set it at a session level IMHO.

We basically just need to run “ALTER SYSTEM SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT=’YYYY-MM-DD’ SCOPE=SPFILE” as a user with sysdba privileges. If you started the Oracle instance without a spfile (it should be located at $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/spfile[instance name].ora), you will receive the ORA-32001 error.

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT=‘YYYY-MM-DD’ SCOPE=SPFILE;
ALTER SYSTEM SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT=‘YYYY-MM-DD’ SCOPE=SPFILE
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-32001: WRITE TO SPFILE requested but no SPFILE specified at startup

Just create a new spfile, restart:

SQL> SELECT INSTANCE_NAME FROM v$instance;

INSTANCE_NAME
—————-
UAT2

SQL> CREATE spfile=‘/oracle/10g/dbs/spfileUAT2.ora’ FROM pfile=‘/oracle/10g/dbs/initUAT2.ora’;

*restart*

SQL> SELECT INSTANCE_NAME FROM v$instance;

INSTANCE_NAME
—————-
UAT2

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT=‘YYYY-MM-DD’ SCOPE=SPFILE;

System altered.

*restart*

SQL> SELECT value FROM v$nls_parameters WHERE parameter =‘NLS_DATE_FORMAT’;

VALUE
—————————————————————-
YYYY-MM-DD

That’s it.

How to: How to copy an Oracle tablespace across platforms – quick and dirty ;-)

Jason L Froebe — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:03:57 +0000

On the source machine:
- Set the tablespace(s) into read only mode
  - SQL> Alter tablespace read only
Export the tablespace meta data using export
- % expdp system/ DUMPFILE=expdat.dmp DIRECTORY = dpump_dir TRANSPORT_TABLESPACES = TRANSPORT_FULL_CHECK=Y
- If the dumpdir is not set up, you will get an ‘invalid’ directory error:
  - SQL> CREATE DIRECTORY dmpdir as ‘/somedir’;
  - SQL> GRANT read,write on DIRECTORY to system;
Export the data converting on the fly:
- Determine the platform name for the destination machine:
  - SQL> SELECT PLATFORM_ID, PLATFORM_NAME, ENDIAN_FORMAT FROM V$TRANSPORTABLE_PLATFORM
- % rman TARGET /
  - RMAN> CONVERT TABLESPACE to PLATFORM ‘’ FORMAT=’/somedir/%U’;
Put the tablespaces into read/write mode
- SQL> alter tablespace READ WRITE;
- Transfer the files to the destination machine (Setup the dumpdir if you haven’t already)
  - Create the oracle user(s) with the same names as on the source oracle (if you don’t you will need to remap the ownership using the REMAP_SCHEMA for the impdb )
  - Import the tablespace schema and data (repeat for each tablespace)
    - % impdp system/ DUMPFILE=expdat.dmp DIRECTORY = dpump_dir TRANSPORT_DATAFILES =
Put the tablespaces in to read/write mode
- SQL> alter tablespace READ WRITE;

How to disable the “uninstall password” to uninstall Symantec Antivirus

Jason L Froebe — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:17:24 +0000

I was trying to install Oracle 11g client on to a WinXP box but Symantec Antivirus wouldn’t let me because it thought it was infected with over 800 viruses. Same file was marked clean on another box. So, I picked several of the viruses it said was infected with and looked for any evidence of them on the WinXP box. No dice. This led me to believe that Symantec Antivirus itself was somehow mucked up.

When I tried to uninstall Symantec Antivirus, it asked for a password. When I put in the correct password, it refused it. So how to uninstall it with a messed up password? Easy..

Open up regedit (as an administrator) and change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\INTEL\LANDesk\VirusProtect6\CurrentVersion\AdministratorOnly\Security\UseVPUninstallPassword to “0″ (zero).

I was able to uninstall and reinstall Symantec Antivirus.

Video: Sun/Oracle’s Netbeans 6.7 and the GlassFish version 3 application server

Jason L Froebe — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:25:37 +0000

Getting three monitors to work with Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE) on a Dell Optiplex GX520 – NVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 low profile video card and the onboard Intel 82945G/GZ video card

Jason L Froebe — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:22:35 +0000

At work we have three generic LCD monitors mounted on a pole to view monitoring metrics for our Oracle & Sybase database servers. On a previous machine that was cannibalized for another task, we ran Microsoft Windows XP to drive the three monitors.

Last week we were given a hand me down desktop, a Dell Optiplex GX520 with integrated Intel 82945G/GZ video on the motherboard. When we added the NVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 low profile video card, Windows XP for whatever reason was unable to use both video cards. I proposed Kubuntu 9.04 Linux as an alternative. As it was only myself that I had to convince to make the attempt, I was hard pressed to say no

The Intel 82945G/GZ video card will be the primary card and must be attached to “Screen 0″ in the ServerLayout section.

The NVidia video card has two connectors:

A standard VGA port driven by a GeForce4 MX 4000 GPU < - Primary nvidia port
A super-video port driven by a Quadro NVS 110M

After the base install of the operating system, XWindows was only able to see the Intel video card. After much tinkering with the /etc/xorg.conf file, I was able to get all three LCD monitors to work with Xinerama. There are a number of gotchas that you might run into:

If the integrated Intel video card is set to Auto in the BIOS, the card will be completely disabled. You need to disable Auto
You need to know which Nvidia Device entry drives the VGA connector. It must be initialized prior to the S-Video port.
Disable NVidia’s TwinView and metamodes option lines in the Screen Section.
Use sudo lspci to identify the pci bus ids. You will need to put them in the Device Sections.
The integrated Intel video card must use the vesa video driver as the intel video driver will stacktrace when used with xinerama.

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildd@palmer) Sun Feb 1 20:21:04 UTC 2009

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
Screen 1 "Screen2" Above "Screen0"
Screen 2 "Screen1" Above "Screen2"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "On"
EndSection

Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "xinerama" "true"
Option "DefaultServerLayout" "Default Layout"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "CMO CMC 17 AD"
HorizSync 30.0 – 82.0
VertRefresh 50.0 – 75.0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor1"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "CMO CMC 17 AD"
HorizSync 30.0 – 82.0
VertRefresh 50.0 – 75.0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor2"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Seiko"
HorizSync 30.0 – 75.0
VertRefresh 60.0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
#Driver "intel"
Driver "vesa"
VendorName "Intel Corporation"
BoardName "82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "Quadro NVS 110M"
BusID "PCI:4:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device2"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce4 MX 4000"
BusID "PCI:4:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Configured Video Device"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "Device1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen2"
Device "Device2"
Monitor "Monitor2"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "on"
EndSection

How to clean up Oracle archive logs when you don’t have a RMAN catalog (10g/11g)

Jason L Froebe — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:51:32 +0000

If you’re not using Oracle’s RMAN for backup management but you have turned on archive mode for hot backups, you can create a job in Enterprise Manager (Maintenance -> Manage Current Backups).

Recently I ran into a problem with one our Enterprise Manager installs where scheduled jobs would not run. So, I wrote a very simple RMAN script to clear out the references to any archive files that I’ve moved elsewhere or deleted:

RMAN=/oranr/10g/bin/rman

$RMAN nocatalog target / < <EOF
crosscheck backup;
crosscheck archivelog all;
delete noprompt expired archivelog all;
delete noprompt expired backup;
delete noprompt obsolete;
EOF

So you want to tweet to Twitter from WITHIN Oracle 11g? Here’s how!

Jason L Froebe — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:04:45 +0000

Lewis Cunningham has once again given us a gem from the world of Oracle’s relational DBMS! This time, he has written ORA_Tweet, an API to send/receive Tweets (microblog posts) from within Oracle 11g. Major kudos to Lewis Cunningham for writing and releasing ORA Tweet to Sourceforge.net

Call the Twitter API from within an Oracle database. ORA_Tweet uses the UTL_HTTP API within Oracle to call the update_status API. It is written completely in PL/SQL.

So, my question is… Will someone write a Flickr API for Sybase ASE?

Introducing QweryBuilder, a Developer GUI for Sybase ASE, SQL Anywhere, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle 10g/11g

Jason L Froebe — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:00:36 +0000

QweryBuilder uses innovative ideas to provide developers with the ability to easily insert, extract and modify data from a variety of databases.

The goal of QweryBuilder is to increase a database developer’s productivity. It contains many time saving features.

SQL Editor

QweryBuilder - SQL Editor

Script auto complete

Custom auto complete lists

Code Templates

Display column list for tables and views in editor

Display procedure parameters in editor

Keyboard shortcut to open procedures

Generate and insert new GUIDs

Syntax folding

Auto indenting

Criteria Query

QweryBuilder - Criteria Query

Form view criteria screen for easy data retrieval

Updateable result set

Insert nulls, GUID’s, and computed values into results

Insert, delete and update data rows

Generate insert statements from results

Create graphs from result data

Graphic Query

QweryBuilder - Graphic Query

Create queries graphically

Cross table querying without writing SQL

Other Features

Support for Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase ASE, SQL Anywhere and Oracle

DDL Browser

Database Search

Visual Difference

Code Formatter

Getting Started Window

Displays last used connections, files and database objects

Easily navigate to the last thing you were working on

Clipboard Saver

File Browser

Object Browser

FW: Oracle 10g+ Security and Audit – Part 1

Jason L Froebe — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:44:35 +0000

Over at the Database Geek Blog, Lewis Cunningham has provided the first of three blog posts on Oracle Security. The first post is well done IMHO:

Oracle 10g+ Security and Audit – Part 1

This is a three-part definition of Oracle Security (specifically in 10g but applies to later versions also). Part 1 covers the various types of security Oracle provides. Part 2 deals with Users/Schemas, Roles, Permissions and Data Access. Part 2 will be a more technical discussion than parts 1 or 3. In part 3, I will discuss implementing an Oracle auditing scheme and how to ensure you comply with security and audit regulations.

read more…

Trying to install Oracle 11g on AIX 6.x but it fails on a ORA-27173 (unable to attach to shared memory) error?

Jason L Froebe — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:52:18 +0000

The AIX version of Oracle 11g was built on AIX 5 so when you try to create an Oracle database using the Database Configuration Assistant, aka, ‘dbca’, you may get the ORA-27173 “unable to attach to shared memory” error. Oddly enough this has to do with the time zone (TZ) setting. You see, dbca has no concept of the Olsen Time Zone ids, it is expecting what AIX 5 used. So you need to explicitly set the time zone environment variable (TZ).

AIX 6 had my TZ set to “America/New York”. For Oracle’s dbca to work, I had to set TZ to “EST5EDT”.

Oracle 10g: How to create an Enterprise Manager instance on the command line

Jason L Froebe — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:05:45 +0000

In case you have to create an Oracle 10g Enterprise Manager instance from scratch, it is very easy.

emca -repos create
emca -config dbcontrol db

If you need to blow away the existing Enterprise Manager configuration, you can either recreate the repository, which will wipe out all the configurations:

emca -repos recreate
emca -config dbcontrol db

or, you can recreate just the dbcontrol for an instance:

emca -deconfig dbcontrol db
emca -config dbcontrol db

Installing Oracle Instant Client and DBD::Oracle on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Server JEOS

Jason L Froebe — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:49:27 +0000

Ever want to just install the minimal amount of Oracle client software for client applications on Linux? Well, Oracle has provided Oracle Instant Client to do this but they have neglected to make it intuitive to install. I’ve written a couple scripts that make it easy on Linux. I’ve tested this on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Server JEOS.

Download the files you need

Download Oracle Instant Client

Retrieve the Instant Client packages and save them to a directory (e.g. “linux 32bit”).

Instant Client Package – Basic
Instant Client Package – JDBC Supplement
Instant Client Package – SQL*Plus
Instant Client Package – SDK
Instant Client Package – ODBC

Download DBD::Oracle and place it in the build-cfg directory

Copy your tnsnames.ora file into the build-cfg directory

Download build_oracle_instantclient.sh into the directory above build-cfg directory

Save root.sh into the build-cfg directory

Build a tar ball containing everything we need in the directory format we need.

build_oracle_instantclient.sh "../linux 32bit"

Script1: build_oracle_instantclient.sh

SOURCE_DIR="$1"
BUILD_DIR=builddir
CFG_DIR=build-cfg

if [[ -z $1 ]]
then
echo "Usage: build_oracle_instantclient.sh "
exit 1
fi

if [[ ! -d "${SOURCE_DIR}" ]]
then
echo "${SOURCE_DIR} is not a directory"
exit 1
fi

find "${SOURCE_DIR}" -name "*.zip" -type f -exec unzip {} \;

if [[ -d instantclient_11_1 ]]
then
TMP_DIR=instantclient_11_1
elif [[ -d instantclient_10_2 ]]
then
TMP_DIR=instantclient_10_2
else
echo "unable to determine extraction dir"
exit 1
fi

if [[ -d ${BUILD_DIR} ]]
then
rm -rf ${BUILD_DIR}
fi

mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}
mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}/bin
mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}/doc
mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}/java
mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}/lib

cp ${CFG_DIR}/* ${BUILD_DIR}
mv ${TMP_DIR}/*README* ${BUILD_DIR}/doc
mv ${TMP_DIR}/*.html ${BUILD_DIR}/doc
mv ${TMP_DIR}/*.htm ${BUILD_DIR}/doc
mv ${TMP_DIR}/lib* ${BUILD_DIR}/lib
mv ${TMP_DIR}/*.jar ${BUILD_DIR}/java
mv ${TMP_DIR}/sdk ${BUILD_DIR}
mv ${TMP_DIR}/* ${BUILD_DIR}/bin

cd ${BUILD_DIR}/lib
ln -s libclntsh.so.* libclntsh.so
ln -s libocci.so.* libocci.so
ln -s libsqora.so.* libsqora.so

cd ..
tarball=`echo ${SOURCE_DIR} | tr ‘ ‘ ‘-’`
tarball=`basename ${tarball}`
tarball=Oracle-${TMP_DIR}-${tarball}
tar cvf – * | gzip -9c > "../${tarball}.tgz"

cd ..
rm -rf ${BUILD_DIR} ${TMP_DIR}directory>

Once we have the tar ball, we can copy that file to any compatible Linux system, extract it and run the root.sh file which will copy the install to /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient, set up the system variables and build DBD::Oracle for you.

Script2: root.sh

#!/bin/bash

############################################
function copy_instantclient () {
if [[ `pwd` != "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" ]]
then
if [[ ! -d /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient ]]
then
echo "Creating /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient directory"
mkdir -p /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
fi

echo "Copying Oracle Instant Client to /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient"
cp -Ra * /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
fi
}

#———
function update_etc_profile () {
if [[ -f /etc/profile ]]
then
if [[ `grep -c "ORACLE_HOME" /etc/profile` = 0 ]]
then
echo "Updating /etc/profile"
cat >> /etc/profile < < EOF
export ORACLE_HOME=/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
export TNS_ADMIN=\${ORACLE_HOME}
export PATH=\${ORACLE_HOME}/bin:\${PATH}
export CLASSPATH=\${ORACLE_HOME}/classes:\${CLASSPATH}
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=\${ORACLE_HOME}/lib:\${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
export SQLPATH=\${ORACLE_HOME}/bin
EOF
else
echo "Updates to /etc/profile already applied"
fi
fi
}

#———
function update_library_cache () {
if [[ -d /etc/ld.so.conf.d ]]
then
if [[ -f /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf
&& `grep -c "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf` != 0 ]]
then
echo "Updates to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf already applied"
else
echo "Updating /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf"
echo "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf
/sbin/ldconfig
fi
else
if [[ `grep -c "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" /etc/ld.so.conf` == 0 ]]
then
echo "Updating /etc/ld.so.conf"
echo "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" > /etc/ld.so.conf
/sbin/ldconfig
else
echo "Updates to /etc/ld.so.conf already applied"
fi
fi

}

#———
function print_env () {
echo "Add the following to the rc.d script for any daemon processes that need to access Oracle. For example, apache"
echo ‘ export ORACLE_HOME=/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
export TNS_ADMIN=${ORACLE_HOME}
export PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin:${PATH}
export CLASSPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/classes:${CLASSPATH}
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
export SQLPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin’
}

#———
function install_DBD-Oracle () {
echo "Building DBD::Oracle"
DBDORA=`ls DBD-Oracle-*`

if [[ -f ${DBDORA} ]]
then
tar zxf ${DBDORA}
cd DBD-Oracle*
TMP_DBDORA=`pwd`
TMP_DBDORA=`basename ${TMP_DBDORA}`
perl Makefile.PL -m $ORACLE_HOME/sdk/demo/demo.mk
make && make install
cd ..
rm -rf ${TMP_DBDORA}
else
echo "Unable to find DBD-Oracle file"
fi
}

############################################

export ORACLE_HOME=/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
export TNS_ADMIN=${ORACLE_HOME}
export PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin:${PATH}
export CLASSPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/classes:${CLASSPATH}
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
export SQLPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin

copy_instantclient
update_etc_profile
update_library_cache
print_env
install_DBD-Oracle

Installing Oracle 10g / 11g on Ubuntu 8.04.1 (Hardy Heron) Server JEOS in VMware Server 1.0x/2.0x

Jason L Froebe — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:36:26 +0000

I’ve been tasked with becoming an Oracle DBA, so I need to be able to create an VMware Server image containing 32 bit Ubuntu 8.04.1 Server JEOS and Oracle 10g. Much of the work was taken from Augusto Bott‘s Installing Oracle 11g on Ubuntu Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) and Peter Cooper‘s How to Install VMware Tools on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 under VMware Fusion.

I was able to consolidate the methods to work rather well together. As soon as Ubuntu 8.10 Server JEOS (Intrepid) is released, I’ll verify the procedure on that operating system as well.

If you’re looking for instructions on how to install Oracle 11 XE on Ubuntu 8.04.1, look at Installing Oracle Database XE on Debian, Ubuntu, and Kubuntu by Todd Trichler.

Create a VMware Image with the following settings

Choose 32bit Ubuntu for the OS type
1024 MBytes RAM
16GBytes disk space
Ubuntu 8.04.1 (or higher) Server JEOS edition http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition/jeos
Upon the os installation, create a non “oracle” id to use to administer the os.

Install the required updates and packages

$ sudo aptitude update
$ sudo aptitude safe-upgrade
$ sudo aptitude install build-essential xinetd linux-headers-`uname -r` openssh-client openssh-server unzip libaio1 gawk ksh rpm libmotif3 alien lsb-rpm libtool libxtst-dev libxtst6 libstdc++5

Add swap

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/extraswap bs=1M count=1536
$ sudo mkswap /extraswap
$ sudo swapon /extraswap
$ sudo echo "/extraswap none swap sw 0 0" >> /etc/fstab
# "/sbin/swapon -s" should show the added swap space
$ /sbin/swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/mapper/oracle10g-swap_1 partition 401400 92 -1
/extraswap file 1048568 0 -2

If VMware Server version is 2.0x or higher, install VMware tools:

$ sudo su – root
$ mount /dev/cdrom
$ cp /media/cdrom/*.gz ~
$ tar zxvf VMwareTools*.tar.gz
$ cd vmware-tools-distrib
$ ./vmware-install.pl

If VMware Server version is 1.0x, install VMware tools:

$ sudo su – root
$ mount /dev/cdrom
$ cp /media/cdrom/*.gz ~
$ aptitude install libgtk2.0-dev libproc-dev libdumbnet-dev xorg-dev wget
$ wget http://mesh.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/open-vm-tools/open-vm-tools-2008.04.14-87182.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf VMware*.gz ; sudo tar xzvf open-vm-tools*.gz ; cd open-vm-tools-2008.04.14-87182/
$ ./configure && make
$ cd modules/linux/
$ for i in *; do mv ${i} ${i}-only; tar -cf ${i}.tar ${i}-only; done
$ cd ../../..
$ mv -f open-vm-tools-2008.04.14-87182/modules/linux/*.tar vmware-tools-distrib/lib/modules/source/ ; cd vmware-tools-distrib/
$ sudo ./vmware-install.pl
$ sudo reboot

Append to /etc/sysctl.conf

$ sudo cat >> /etc/sysctl.conf << EOF
fs.file-max = 65535
kernel.shmall = 2097152
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648
kernel.shmmni = 4096
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65535
net.core.rmem_default = 1048576
net.core.rmem_max = 1048576
net.core.wmem_default = 262144
net.core.wmem_max = 262144
EOF

Append to /etc/security/limits.conf

$ sudo cat >> /etc/security/limits.conf << EOF
oracle soft nproc 2047
oracle hard nproc 16383
oracle soft nofile 1023
oracle hard nofile 65535
EOF

Append to /etc/pam.d/login

$ sudo cat >> /etc/pam.d/login << EOF
session required /lib/security/pam_limits.so
session required pam_limits.so
EOF

Set up user / groups

$ sudo su – root
$ addgroup oinstall ; addgroup dba ; addgroup nobody ; usermod -g nobody nobody ; useradd -g oinstall -G dba -p password -d /home/oracle -s /bin/bash oracle
$ passwd oracle
Password changed.
$ mkdir /home/oracle ; chown -R oracle:dba /home/oracle ; ln -s /usr/bin/awk /bin/awk ; ln -s /usr/bin/rpm /bin/rpm ; ln -s /usr/bin/basename /bin/basename ; mkdir /etc/rc.d
$ for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 S ; do ln -s /etc/rc$i.d /etc/rc.d/rc$i.d ; done
$ mkdir -p /dbms/oracle ; chown -R oracle:dba /dbms/oracle ; sysctl -p
$ reboot

Retrieve Oracle 10g zip file

Copy the Oracle install zip file from disc or somewhere
Unzip it

Retrieve IP of the network card

$ ifconfig |grep "Bcast"

Install / Configure oracle manually verifying any requirements:

$ ssh -C -X oracle@(ipaddress)
…
$ cd /home//database
$ ./runInstaller -ignoreSysPrereqs

iSQL*Plus URL:

http://(ipaddress):5560/isqlplus

iSQL*Plus DBA URL:

http://(ipaddress):5560/isqlplus/dba

Enterprise Manager 10g Database Control URL:

http://(ipaddress):1158/em

Long time no here

Jason L Froebe — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:09:45 +0000

I was away for vacation then went into hiding while I brushed up on my Oracle skills for work. All I can say is that I have a lot of material to put into the MyDatabases magazine this week. So much to do it is hard to find time to get any of it done lately. Oh well. The next issue should be out this coming weekend.

In the meantime, count with me the days to Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid being released:

Can’t wait that long? Try out the BETA. Check out the new features!

Why oh why can’t we have PostgreSQL’s CREATE [TEMPORARY] SEQUENCE in Sybase ASE?

Jason L Froebe — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:45:35 +0000

I know you can simulate it by creating a temp table with an identity column, delete old rows, get the max, etc but still… PostgreSQL’s create sequence would be very handy… btw, Oracle has it too

It would allow us to do things like pgTAP with ease.. Check out the slides for pgTAP

just my opinion… grrrr

I’ve created ISUG enhancement request # 3449 for this.

Native support of SQLite in Sybase PowerBuilder and PowerDesigner?

Jason L Froebe — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:31:38 +0000

What I would love to see is native support for SQLite. http://www.sqlite.org

It is the most installed embedded database on the planet hands down. Don’t believe me? You know that Firefox web browser, Thunderbird newsreader, most Adobe products, Miro, etc all have it embedded? – reference http://www.sqlite.org/mostdeployed.html

We use it extensively at work as:

staging for mass data imports/exports/conversions
local application ‘cache’ for large data sets
projects that don’t require all the features of Sybase ASE (or Oracle for that matter)

One of the best features is that the database itself in platform independent… copy the db on to AIX from your Windows box … then on to your old Amiga … then on to your windows mobile device. Getting the point?

I really wish Sybase would make it so that the Sybase ASE databases were truly platform and character set/sort order independent… but that is in another dream

Not a blurb in the PowerDesigner/PowerBuilder manuals or anything