ADD IP RESTRICTIONS OR ENABLE VALID NODE CHECKING

I am currently in the process of implementing several items out of the Secure Configuration Guide for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 document (MOS 403537.1). As I am researching items and testing them against our development and test instances, I am running into items that were not included in the instructions that were discovered through trial and error.

We will start with adding IP restrictions to the database listener. This is not a bad idea, especially if you keep abreast and current of any new machines that would need to access your database. The instructions say this:

"Middle-tier applications include web servers, forms servers, concurrent managers, discoverer, terminal
servers, central administrator machines and any remote monitoring tool that uses SQL*Net."

You may use IP addresses or hostnames. You may also use IP addresses with wildcards, such as 1.1.1.*.

What they don't out and out specify is that this list of servers to add needs to include: the database server and your OEM server (if you use it).

Also, you must stop and start the database listener for these changes to take effect. The reload command will work as well (lsnrctl reload <LISTENER_NAME> - if you want an economy of command-line computing). A successfully restricted database listener will return an ORA-12547: TNS:lost contact message.

How I Got Started - Cross Sttich

I started cross stitching almost 2 years ago. My mom has cross stitched and done needle point for as long as I can remember. She always seemed to be working on something. As a kid, I didn't pay a lot of attention. I knew what she had made for my brother and I, and other gifts to other people, but that was the limit of my interest. My grandmother had terrible arthritis in her fingers, and to keep her hands loose she did latch hook. My brother and I both got into that for a while. But eventually the novelty of it wore off and I didn't think about it again for a long time.

Fast forward more than 30 years. I grew to be a web developer and, now, an Oracle database administrator. I didn't study those things - I studied writing and have an MA in Medieval history. My hobbies were music (listening, not composing) and video games. I still like video games. I get addicted and quickly figure out how to beat them. However, I don't have anything to physically show for all of those hours. My friends know I can adapt quickly to most games, and they get a kick out of it (I think). But I started thinking it would be nice to have a hobby that I could easily share and wouldn't be limited to gamers.

I mentioned that I would like to try latch hook again. In February of '12 my mom came home from a shopping spree with my ex and my daughter and presented me with a latch hook kit. A dragonfly. I took to it almost at once, and I started buying and hooking a lot of kits. The more I did it, the more I realized that this was just a very low tech form of generating an image for a computer. Each stitch of the latch hook was basically a pixel on an image. As I started to make some patterns of my own, I saw that I would need very large latch hook canvases in order to make what some of the things I wanted to create. Most latch hook canvases are 3.75 stitches to the inch - some are 5 stitches to the inch. That makes for very large canvases in order to get the detail I wanted. So I started thinking about doing cross stitch.

In May of '12, after only 3 months of latch hooking, I got my mom to show me how to cross stitch. Mom has more patterns and kits stored away in her stash than she will be able to finish in her lifetime. She selected a few small, basic kits from those and I got started. I had purchased a dragonfly kit for my daughter, but I did not realize it was needle point. This was not a problem - the fact that the pattern was very flexible for someone used to a nice grid of stitches, and I put it away. I might be able to do it now, after 2 years, but I am color blind and I need the grid of stitches to show me where to put the stitch and the color required. The pattern provided was just an outline like a color by number. I found it difficult to envision.

So mom provided a duck listening to music with headphones. If it sounds silly, it was - but it had about 6 colors and also had its own hoop to center the provided canvas. I did it in an afternoon. Then a Winnie-The-Pooh. Then a printed canvas dinosaur (I am not a fan of printed canvas for the color blind reason above). And then it took off.

Like most crafters (I know that needle workers are not limited in this), I started collecting a stash almost immediately. I don't have more patterns and kits than I can finish in my lifetime - yet - but I am getting there. I love Halloween and Christmas patterns, and anything mystical or new age-ish. I am not a fan of flowery patterns, but I would do one for a gift. I also like making baby announcements. I think I like those because there have an inherent purpose aside from "something pretty."

I prefer to stitch with music playing. Anything I like listening to will do, but I prefer new age or classical. I can also stitch watching most TV shows, and football and baseball both lend themselves to stitching due to the pace of the game. Old movies I know by heart are good to stitch to as well. A good friend of mine, when we get together to stitch, will pop an old comedy into the DVD player that we have both seen hundreds of times and just quote it and laugh without looking up from our patterns much.

Anyway, that's how I got started. My work colleagues are used to seeing me with my crafting bag, so it doesn't draw as many stares as it used to. And they see that it definitely calms me down and provides some stress release. I am still a bit of a novelty, being a man that cross stitches. But that's OK.

Java and Oracle Forms

Once you have logged into Oracle Applications and move to one of their Java forms, the Applications Server will check to see which version of Java you are running. If it is not the same as what the Application Server believes you should have, it will ask you to download and install the version that the Application Server has. This version is NOT updated on the Application Server when a new version of Java is released - it must be handled manually. Please see MOS 393931.1 for instructions on how to do this. They are pretty thorough.

However, if you run a shop like ours, where multiple users could possible have multiple versions of Java, and updating the Java version on the Application server is not an option, there is a fix in MOS 393931.1 that will help.

Under the Known Issues section, and then under the Forms Launch Issues heading, is the following helpful piece of information: 

3. Different Users run different JRE Releases from Multiple JRE Streams

Here you will find the setting for your appsweb.cfg file that will tell the Application Server to not attempt to install Java if the client PC has ANY version of Java installed. Simple replace the setting as indicated in the document, and the client PCs will pick up the information the next time they attempt to access Oracle Forms. 

Of course, since appsweb.cfg is a file that is rewritten by autoconfig, this setting will need to be changed in the autoconfig process in order that it be rewritten properly should you need to autoconfig your EBS instance. 

This part, which is covered in MOS 387859.1, is documented well for how to actually change the setting...but not for where to FIND the file containing the setting to be changed. I guess it should have occurred to me, a relative DBA newbie, that the file required is the Context file. It didn't occur to me, so I did it the old fashioned way - I opened $ADMIN_SCRIPTS_HOME/adautocfg.sh and looked inside to find the file.

Of course, there it was right near the top:

CTX_FILE="<$INST_TOP>/appl/admin/<SID>_<SERVER_NAME>.xml

INV: DEBUG Information (Oracle)

I am fighting with a scanner/inventory issue here at work. The problem is that the scanner is taking upwards of a minute per transaction, which is unacceptable, especially when performing an inventory.

This document (INV DEBUG: How to get Debug Information for Inventory Material Transactions [ID 148651.1]) was extremely helpful in setting up the proper paths and settings to get the debug file to be created and populate.