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EBS Oracle VM Templates
OK, now I am angry.
The other day I emailed the Steven Chan, he's the Senior Director at Oracle in Applications Technology Integration, Oracle E-Business Suite Development, about The EBS Challenge. Just a courtesy thing, I wasn't sure if he had seen it or not. Well, today he wrote me back... And what did he tell me? He told me about two recent, and by recent I mean December...you know...about the time I started this whole saga of installing EBS, posts of his. Actually, I'm not sure who I am more made at, him or John. I suppose I could excuse Steven since we have never interacted before...but John? Are you telling me John didn't know about this? John knew the pain I was going through just to create the stupid 300 GB VDI. John knew! I can come to no other conclusion than John purposely tortured me. I hate you now John. Alright...that might be a little harsh. Wait...no, it's not harsh at all. Yes it is. If you don't feel like going through this exercise yourself, here is the easy way out: --E-Business Suite 12.1.1 Templates for Oracle VM Now Available --Using Oracle VM with Oracle E-Business Suite Virtualization Kit Thanks John...we're not friends anymore. :) ¶ 1/07/2010 11:25:00 PM 14 Comments Links to this post  
EBS Install Guide - Part 4
By John Piwowar [ blog | twitter ]
This is the fourth and final post in the "Installing E-Business Suite" series, where we'll take a quick look at the GUI. As with the command line interface, going into deep detail would take more time and space than is practical, but I'll try to present some of the high points. I'll close with a final list of useful references for EBS administrators, and then return you to you regularly scheduled oraclenerd programming. Thanks again, Chet! Part 1 --> Part 2 --> Part 3 --> Part 4 The Navigator After logging in to Oracle Applications (you remember that from the end of Part 2, right?), you'll be presented with the Navigator. Depending on the responsibilities granted to your user, the length of the list in the left column of the Navigator will vary. When connected as SYSADMIN, you'll most often be interested in the "System Administrator" and "System Administration" responsibilities. Clicking a responsibility will populate the center column of the Navigator with the functions assigned to that responsibility, and clicking one of those functions will take you to that function, either in the HTML interface or the Forms interface. As shown in the screenshot below, the small icons next to the links indicate whether a link will launch Oracle Forms or just take you to another HTML page. To the right of the two Navigator columns is the list of Favorites, which can be especially handy if you've been granted a lot of responsibilities and can't be bothered to remember which responsibility provides your most frequently-used functions.  The SYSADMIN user offers access to a wide variety of responsibilities and functions, particularly in the Vision instance. As you might expect, SYSADMIN also has "superpowers:" some responsibilities offer expanded functionality only to the SYSADMIN user. If you're interested in seeing what a more common, but still fairly powerful, user looks like, you can log in as one of the following users: MFG, OPERATIONS, SERVICES, MRC, or HRMS. These users are seeded in the Vision instance with the password 'welcome'. The forms interface EBS has been evolving to use a more HTML- and Javascript-based UI, but a large proportion of the end-user functionality (and some crucial administrative functions) are presented via Oracle Forms. When you click on a link for a function that is handled by forms, Java will launch the Forms interface for you. It really, really helps in this case to be running on a supported Java+Browser+Operating System combination (Linux users take note: Oracle does not currently plan to certify Linux desktop OS versions to run EBS clients). In addition, make sure that you've either disabled your browser's popup blockers, or added your EBS server to your popup blocker's whitelist, otherwise Forms may fail to launch and you might mistakenly conclude that they're broken. Here's a quick demo of the start of the Forms interface, so you know what to expect. I chose the "System Profile Options" form for convenience, not because it's super-important...though it's certainly a normal amount of important: Click appropriate link in the Navigator (or, as in this case, the Favorites list...yay, laziness!). A new browser window or tab will open, displaying a Forms servlet launcher. Depending on your browser's security settings, you may be asked a few questions about whether you want your EBS server to be allowed to communicate with your browser. I've found Safari to be particularly persnickety about this.  One of the browser windows (or tabs) that will open during the launch of Forms contains a "Do not close this window" warning. Hint: they're not kidding. Make sure it stays open for the duration of your Forms session.  After a bit of waiting and spawning those extra browser windows, you should get a view of the Forms interface. It'll probably try to take over all of your screen real estate (at least it does on my laptop), so it'll be impossible to miss:  A few things to note:
Oracle makes it easy to collect a lot of diagnostic information about the various EBS applications modules and tech stack components. A lot of the diagnostic test output can be packaged up and shipped to Oracle Support to support SR resolution. I've also been able to resolve issues on my own using Diagnostics that I might otherwise have had to open an SR to resolve, which makes the Diagnostics a clear timesaver. Access Diagnostics from either the "Application Diagnostics" responsibility or the "Diagnostics" link at the top of the Oracle Applications home page. Using the responsibility is a bit more straightforward.  I'll spare you a long, screenshot-laden walkthrough of Diagnostics, but you'll find that there are over 280 applications to choose from, each with its own set of tests. The applications AD (Applications DBA), FND (Application Object Library), and SYSTEM_TEST (HTML platform) are probably the most immediately interesting to you at this point. For fun, run the EBusinessSecurity test group under FND and see what holes are left open in a default system. :-) OAM: Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) I'm sure I'll lose a lot of "street cred," assuming I've ever had any, for extolling the virtues of a GUI-and-dashboard-based administration interface, but Oracle Applications Manager is pretty nifty. Come to think of it, maybe I'll lose cred just for using a word like "nifty." Oh well. OAM is available to users granted the System Administrator or System Administration responsibility. Access individual OAM functions from those responsibilities, or start at the Dashboard to begin exploring its functionality.  OAM can quickly display the overall health of your system, lets you change some Apps configuration options, provides facilities to report on applied EBS patches and analyze new ones, manage the various moving parts that comprise the Workflow system, and much more. Click around for a bit; they've packed a lot in there:  I should note that OAM and the Diagnostics utilities discussed above are part of the base Oracle Applications system, included as part of standard EBS licensing. OAM should not be confused with the Oracle Applications Management Pack for Grid Control, which is a separately-licensed product. Standing on the shoulders of giants Okay, that's a wrap! Thanks for sticking through to the end; I'll leave you with one last list of reference material. If you want to dig further into learning about EBS, here are some useful resources and blogs. I'm bound to miss a lot here, but you won't go very wrong starting with this list:
Labels: ebs, install, jpiwowar ¶ 1/04/2010 02:00:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
My EBS Install Saga - Part II
Finally!
 After just a little over a month, I've finally gotten this stupid thing installed. Read a bit of my prior trials and tribulations here. Cost In total, I believe this cost me about $250.
As far as disk space goes, I didn't have any. Maybe a total of 300 GB to start spread on 3 different disks. Now I need one of those big ass workstations so I can actually work with this software. Sadly, as I have priced them out, I can't get under $4K. Anyone from HP or Dell (or Apple) reading? Wanna give me one of your workstations? I'll blog about it...a lot. Instructions I followed John's instructions to the letter. I received the same error screen as he did  Checked the logs as instructed, found the problem error while loading shared libraries:The only errata I've found is that mine was a 32 bit system and not a 64 bit system...but who cares? It works. I followed his instructions to create the symbolic link...I would never in a million years been able to figure that out. I'm fortunate to have used the 9i and 10g Oracle Application Server and OC4J extensively in the past, I just need to figure out where everything is located. Resources My goal is 2 fold
Very first thing I did was go into the database init file. I changed the sga_target from 1G to 512M and I changed the pga_aggregate_target from 1G to 512M. Next up, I'll be trimming some of the memory allocation for the OC4J instances...but not yet. I'm just going to bask in the glow of finally getting this thing done. I'll also read up Part 3 of John's Install Guide and Part 4 will be coming out this week, probably tomorrow afternoon. John, you are the man! Thanks! ¶ 1/03/2010 12:27:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
My EBS Install Saga
(Yes, it is sad that I am writing this on New Year's Eve...I'm on a mission at this point and nothing will stop me).
So I've been trying to follow along with John's EBS Install series...and by trying to follow along I mean I'm still on step 0 (zero). First, it was a lack of space. 300 GB to be exact. So I went out and bought a 320 Seagate expansion drive. I can't remember that far back, but I think other things came up and I had to requisition that space for other projects. A couple of weeks ago, I found a 1 TB external drive (USB 2.0) for $100. Couldn't pass it up. Sweet...now I'm all set to do this thing. Somewhere, somehow, I removed all the carefully managed installation files. Couldn't find them. So I started over. A quick reminder, it's 46.25 GB of download, which takes a total of about 8 hours...even with 25 Mbps down. I am really thankful that Kris Rice doesn't do EBS...he'd be in for a world of hurt. OK, I'm downloading the files and unzipping them simultaneously...to save a little bit of time. Get everything downloaded and unzipped...this might be where the fun really begins. If this is your first time, I'm using VirtualBox. The rest of the setup is like this: -- Dell XPS M1530 -- Intel Duo Core T1555 1.83 Ghz -- 3 GB RAM -- 1 TB Seagate External Drive (USB 2.0) -- Ubuntu Karmic Koala (9.10) Not the most powerful machine in the world...but decent enough for 99% of everything. Of course by everything I mean everything but EBS. The first time I created a 300 GB Dynamic HDD. That's the one I downloaded and unzipped all the files too. Upon completion, it had grown to 68.5 GB. OK, let's run it. Kick off the rapidwiz script, run through the first couple of screens and then it does a system check. Oops...there's not enough space. John did say that 350 GB would be preferable...I obviously didn't listen. OK, so I could either expand that HD or shrink it and add another. Expansion is not possible (yet) in VirtualBox. I tried cloning (not sure why) and still ended up with a 300 GB disk of which 68.5 GB was used. I then tried to use zerofree so that I could compact it (again, I have no idea why I was trying to do this). Those attempts were very unsuccessful because I couldn't figure out how to make the HD read-only. I did figure out a way later...just add a bad line in /etc/fstab and then you can run zerofree. What was the poing of compacting it though? No idea. In one of the more recent versions of VirtualBox (I think 3.0), you could add a second HD. At least that's when I noticed that ability. So I created a new Dynamically-expanding 300 GB HD and attached it through the VirtualBox GUI. Now I was stuck trying to figure out how to mount the stupid thing. Mr. Brad Tumy to the rescue. Kick off the rapidwiz script, get through all the setup screens and it's installing...I left it over night...and one more night...78 GB had been written to disk. I killed it. How about just creating a 300 GB Fixed HD? Tried it...ran for 24 hours...about 60 GB had been created. I killed it. Maybe I could use Shared Folders. I consulting The Twitter and was reminded of my recent fun with Shared Folders. Hmmm....How am I going to do this? Then an IM with a colleague where he asked about The Cloud. It would be nice to have a test environment, as we are all remote, that we could share. I gave him 2 suggestions, I could buy a beefy machine and host it here at home or I (we) could try to do something in The Cloud. That got me thinking...The Cloud? Hmmm...let's see if I can install OBIEE there. I was immediately sold when I downloaded the OBIEE software (1.5 GB) in like 3 seconds (14 or 15 Mbps). I got OBIEE installed and running on Windows...but when I was creating the Instance, I noticed some pretty beefy boxes. Maybe I could create the 300 GB VDI in The Cloud? Yes, absolutely! So I fired up a 20 ECU Windows Server Datacenter (2008?), with 8 dual core CPUs and 7.5 GB of memory. It took 2 hours to create the VDI. Sweet! Now...how in the hell am I going to get that 300 GB down to my machine? Since my local drive was attached, perhaps I could just drag and drop it there. Nope...didn't like that. I'll zip it up! Using 7zip, I was able to compress it to a very modest 360.9 MB. That's got to be close to a million percent compression right? Downloaded that via IIS (had to set that up as well) and began to unzip it. First 5 GB took about 5 minutes, so I'm thinking 5 hours. Then it started to crawl. I was at 75 GB after 10 hours which was going to put me at 40 total hours. But it looked like it was exponential...that 40 hours probably would have ended up around 1 million hours. I don't have that kind of time. I killed it. Consulted The Twitter again. @TedC and @jtdavies offered up some suggestions. @TedC told me to use Amazon S3. @jtdavies told me to split it up and use rsync. Being incredibly impatient and quite possibly very stupid, I "split" the difference. Using my 400 GB attached Volume, I decided to use The File Splitter to split the files. 10 MB chunks. 3000 some odd files. No worries, I'll just zip up every 100 or so, download and unzip. Until I ran out of room. *%##@$!!~!@#$%#$#$**&%(*##@@!!!!!!! Shoot me...now! I created a second (well, third) volume, 315 GB, which would be the target for the split files. Attached it and began the split...again. This time, 10 GB chunks. I wasn't worried about the size as they compress very nicely. Two of those equals about 24 MB of download. So I'm almost done with that...about 95% complete. I just have to download 2 more zipped files. The funner part will be getting those put back together...if it's even possible. I've read up on cat, I just hope it comes through. If you have any suggestions...or you want to come over to my house or remote into my computer and help me...that would be awesome! :) ¶ 12/31/2009 11:30:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
The EBS Challenge
I'm going to go ahead and say it, I believe John Piwowar's EBS series has been a success. I'm not talking in hits or those types of metrics because I haven't really analyzed the impact his articles have had. I'm talking about inspiring others to do the same. I believe that's where the real value has come from.
So far John has written 6 articles, 3 here and 3 companion pieces on his sites. He sent me the 4th last weekend (about an hour after the 3rd) which I will post next week (holiday lull here). He claims that's a record for him, 8 articles in a single month. Anyway, here's the list of people who have decided to take the EBS Challenge:
I'm pretty sure I left people off this list. So if you know of anyone or are someone using John's install guides, let me know through the various methods of communication (twitter, comments, email, IM, etc). I'll add your name to the list with links and all...would be fun to see how many names we can get on here. If you did use the guide and would like to write up your experiences (I will be writing one myself) and post them here as a guest author, or you want to write it on your own blog, let me know. I'll add links next to your name pointing to your article. Also, there is no time limit either. If you follow the guide next December and would like to be added, I can do that too.
EBS Install Guide - Part 3
By John Piwowar [ blog | twitter ]
This is the third post in my "Installing E-Business Suite" series. Now that your Vision installation is (hopefully) complete, it's time to start exploring the system a bit. Thanks again to Chet for the opportunity to share here, and for his patience as I took longer than was strictly necessary to finish this installment. Part 1 --> Part 2 --> Part 3 --> Part 4 It's impossible to provide a comprehensive overview of the various command-line utilities used to manage the E-Business Suite in the space of one (or even a few blog posts, but in this post I'll show you how to start and stop the services, and point you to a few references where you can learn more, if you're into that sort of thing. I don't ever claim perfect memory, but you can probably assume that anything you later discover to be missing was omitted to save space, not because I forgot about it. Stopping EBS services It's a good idea to shut down the EBS database ASAP after installation to take a full backup. Before you can shut down the database, you need to shut down the applications tier, or your system will probably become cranky. The "shut down everything" script for the apps tier is called adstpall.sh, and it calls scripts to stop individual components and bring down the system in a (usually) graceful manner. Run adstpall.sh as the applvis user: [applvis@londo ~]$ $ADMIN_SCRIPTS_HOME/adstpall.sh You may not see the timeout errors listed above for the 10gAS components, but you might, if your server is slow or particularly busy when you're trying to shut down services. Shutting down the apps tier can take a while, particularly while waiting for the concurrent managers to exit. Eventually, though, there shouldn't be any apps-related processes left running: [applvis@londo ~]$ ps -ef | grep applvisOnce the apps are down, switch over to the database software owner (oravis) and shut down the database services. It's possible to do this using the normal lsnrctl and sqlplus commands you already know, but for purposes of completeness (i.e. egregious pedantry), we'll use the EBS-supplied wrapper scripts. First, use addlnctl.sh to stop the listener: [oravis@londo ~]$ $ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/scripts/$CONTEXT_NAME/addlnctl.sh stop R12VISFinally, use addbctl.sh to shutdown the database: [oravis@londo ~]$ $ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/scripts/$CONTEXT_NAME/addbctl.sh stop immediateBacking up the database is left as exercise for the reader, but I suggest using RMAN. Starting EBS components Okay, time to start everything back up, in reverse order of shutdown. First, the database listener: [oravis@londo ~]$ export PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/scripts/$CONTEXT_NAMEThen, the database... [oravis@londo ~]$ addbctl.sh startYou'll note that I also used the database downtime to downsize the memory footprint of the database a bit. I'll confess that I didn't do any careful testig to arrive at these values; I just whacked a bunch of parameters by 50%. Your mileage may vary. :-) Finally, back to the applvis user to start up the apps. I'll demonstrate an alternate means of running adstrtal.sh that doesn't involve prompting for a password. This is also a legitimate way to call adstpall.sh, but in both cases, be mindful that the password for the all-powerful APPS database user will be in your command history. Seems convenient on the surface, until you consider the security implications. Yes, it's just a test server, but safety begins in the sandbox. ;-) [applvis@londo ~]$ adstrtal.sh apps/apps[[I'll spare your eyeballs the full, verbose startup of all the components. It's unsurprisingly similar to the output from running adstpall.sh, and admit it, you didn't really read through that output in great detail either, did you? ]] adstrtal.sh: check the logfileAgain, on a slower system you may get some timeout errors from the 10gAS components. For your peace of mind, you can check the status of those components with adopmnctl.sh until the status of all the components reads, "Alive." [applvis@londo ~]$ adopmnctl.sh statusYay. Carry on, then. Other important stuff Now you know how to stop and start Oracle Applications. If you're just going to be exploring the apps as a hobbyist, that should be enough to get you going. There's a lot more to learn, however, if you're interested in understanding common EBS maintenance tasks, including:
The 4th and final part of this little "scratching the surface of E-Business Suite" adventure will take a look at a few parts of the UI. You know what that means, right? Yup, more screenshots! I bet you can't wait! References:
Labels: ebs, install, jpiwowar ¶ 12/20/2009 02:00:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post
OBIEE: Install on Windows
This install on Windows is not significantly different than it is on Oracle Enterprise Linux, in an effort to maintain my Learning OBIEE page, I felt it necessary.
I know there are differences between the different flavors of Windows, but it certainly doesn't feel like it. I remember installing a 9i EE Database on XP Home 6 or 7 years ago, that was kind of fun. I'll stop blathering on. OBIEE: 10.1.3.4 Host: Ubuntu 9.04 Virtual stuff: VirtualBox Guest OS: Windows Vista Ultimate From what I understand, OBIEE was originally intended for Windows (Server) environments. All of the client software runs on Windows only. The Server software runs on both *nix and Windows. So no matter what, I could not avoid a Windows installation. Part II of Installing on OEL would be "Installing the OBIEE Client Software", which is this post. I will not only be installing the Server components, I will be installing the Clients Applications too. I'll stop blathering on...part II I've already installed Java 6. I've located my setup.exe file and start the installation  Next Specifying the directories, I accept the defaults. I'm also using OC4J. Next.  Complete. Next.  Point to the SDK, enter in my oc4jadmin password...hopefully I'll remember it this time.  Accepting the default, you don't need to enter anything here.  I am setting all the services to start manually. This is a virtual machine and do use it for other things. Next.  English. Next.  Summary. Next.  It's now running.  Small side note, OBIEE installer reported 100% within minutes of starting. It reported 100% completion for about 30 minutes. Yeah, done. Some notes on OC4J. Next.  Restart your computer. Finish.  Almost 32 minutes to complete.  I've restarted the machine. 0C4J is started automatically (you can turn this off, and I will...eventually)  Now, go into your Services applet. To get there, go to Control Panel --> Administrative Tasks. There you should see an icon that says Services. Scroll down until you see the services that begin with Oracle.  All of these are stopped (trust me). First up, start the Oracle BI Java Host Service    Next is the Oracle BI Presentation Server    Now let's test them out. Go to http://localhost:9704/  Good. Now let's login. On the right side of that page, click on Launch. Enter the oc4jadmin password you submitted during installation.  That should take you here  Now for BI Publisher  Check. And Analytics?  Check. Applications Now I just want to make sure I have all the applications. Administration Tool  Check. Catalog Manager  Check. I'll save all the connecting of all the parts for a different post. Labels: howto, install, obiee, windows ¶ 12/12/2009 01:00:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
OEL, OBIEE, VirtualBox and Shared Folders
I spent the week installing OBIEE in Windows (Vista Ultimate) and OEL 5, Update 4. I've always tried to install the software I'm working with, it helps to give me a better understanding of what's going on. I don't always understand at first, but after prolonged exposure, I can more easily put the pieces together.
Digression I can remember trying to install OAS on a Windows server back in 2002, multiple times. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing...just clicking buttons and stuff. In particular, there was the was this one night...err, morning, 4 AM to be exact where I was installing the software for what felt like the 200th time. Did I mention I was onsite...and in the server room? The only reason I remember that particular time was the justification I was using...LC was T minus 1 week. Post In the OEL/OBIEE article, I mentioned some problems that I had, those problems are the reason for this post. I'll recall the setup: GuestI believe that's all that is relevant. If I left something off, let me know and I'll add it in. This is a fresh install of OEL. After installation of the OS, I installed the Guest Additions so I could 1, get a higher screen resolution and 2, I could use Shared Folders. From the host, I unzipped the OBIEE software into /opt/software/oracle/obiee/linux, I then un-tarred (?) the resultant .tar file. From the guest, I logged in as root and issued: mount -t vboxsf software /mnt/software* You can see the full set of instructions on the Shared Folder post I then navigated to the directory via the mounted path /mnt/software/oracle/obiee/linux/RH_Linux/Server/Oracle_Business_IntelligenceFrom there I followed the instructions. [oracle@localhost Oracle_Business_Intelligence]$ ./setup.sh -consoleIt would just hang there. For the longest time. I poured over the documentation to see if I missed a required library or something. Nothing. I ran and reran the UnixChk.sh script multiple times (the script checks to see if OBIEE can be installed and outputs SUCCESS or FAILURE). I would start and stop this installation over and over. Going so far as to let it run overnight (which for me is about 5 hours). I could get past this part, given sufficient time, typically down to the point where it is actually writing the software to disk (presumably anyway). Installing $L(com.siebel.analytics.install.AnyStringConstants,Again, it would just sit there. Finally, on Wednesday evening I saw a friend of mine (Tom Roach, former President of SOUG) online (or did he see me?). Anyway, I told him about the situation and, since he expressed interest in my problem, I offered to show him. We then spent the next 30 minutes trying to get him access to my computer. Suffice it to say, I can do that easily on Windows. Ultimately, he talked me through enabling SSH and he was in. That's when the magic began. As I watched him type up all these commands, looking through scripts...and starting and stopping the installation. I had my own personal (*nix) trainer. First, I believe he ran [oracle@localhost Oracle_Business_Intelligence]$sh -x ./setup.sh -consoleWhich then output all kinds of stuff I didn't recognize. I asked him later what it was, the sh command let's you debug the shell script to get a better idea of what is going on. When he killed it, I noticed an error, "'run' class cannot be found" or something along those lines. Before Tom showed up, I had suspected there was something going on with my Java environment. I tried using jcontrol to change the memory allocated to Java upon start with no luck. I began installation, then ran jconsole to see what was going on with the JVM. I saw "things" that must have been the problem...none of this proved out in the end. In fact, I think I told Tom that originally, that I suspected that the Java environment wasn't set up correctly. He then noticed that it was calling Linux.jar in the same directory. So he ran that directly (to eliminate a possible error in the main script I'm guessing): [oracle@localhost Oracle_Business_Intelligence]$exec Linux.jar -consoleor something very close to that. Occasionally he'd run this "history" command. Wow! You can see all the commands you've entered. That's helpful. Next up he tried to run "strace." "File or directory not found" Tom, prefix it with /sbin or /bin. No go. It's not installed. I then began to look for it on 1 of the 4 ISO images. Found it and loaded it. ENTER STRACE COMMAND He then began to pour through the when he notices lines like this: wait4(5171, 0xbfa23aac, WNOHANG|WSTOPPED, NULL) = 0Googled those, but I believe he had his suspicions. He also found the following useful, but I'm not sure why. I think he mentioned something about the fork() and trying to change directories but being unable to. getcwd("/home/oracle"..., 1024) = 13If I can't recall very clearly it's because we started this IM at about 11:30 PM EST. It was now approaching 1 AM.Based on what he said and the problems Jake had previously, I began to seriously think it might have something to do with the Shared Folders. I wondered aloud on IM, "Could this be due to the Shared Folders and the OS's inability to write there?" Tom, "Perhaps" I asked if I should just move the software to the OS and run it from there. By then Tom was giving me a great tutorial on screen. Tom didn't get to installing the software successfully, but he gave me sh, screen, history, and strace. By reviewing the output with him and explaining what I was trying to do, Tom got me going in the right direction. After 2 hours, now 1:30 AM, Tom finally succombed. That was pure awesome...thanks again Tom for your help! I wasn't ready for sleep yet (besides being a bit of an insomniac), I had new life. First copied the files over to the guest OS. Ran the UnixChk.sh script then ran the setup.sh script. After about a minute, I was prompted for my first response. Sweet! I answered all the questions and went down to watch TV for an hour or so. I came back, answered a few more questions and it was done. Only to be destroyed later that morning and re-installed. Labels: failed, install, obiee, oel, virtualbox ¶ 12/11/2009 12:09:00 PM 10 Comments Links to this post
OBIEE: Install on OEL 5.4
I've had a fun week installing this on OEL. Six times I've started and stopped because it would just sit there and hang.
I had it installed a few weeks ago, but if memory serves me, I let it run overnight and everything was up and running. I blew that one away so I could get some more practice (and I wanted to write it up). I'll post on the problems later (thanks Tom!) but for now, these are the steps I took to install OBIEE 10.1.3.4 on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5, Update 4. For the uninitiated (i.e. Linux n00bs), it is no where near as "difficult" as installing the database. No creating "extra" users or groups...pretty much just rock 'n roll. I've already created a new VM with a user "oracle." Halfway through (this whole process) I thought about using "oraclebi" or something different as I will be installing 11gR2 on this machine, but I got lazy. Once the VM was created the very first thing I did was install Java 6 (1.6_0.17 or something) SDK with Java EE. I won't go through that installation, but you do need to remember, if you are new to Linux, that you must change the permissions on the .bin file to make it executable. Java is installed. Next up, I need to make sure the open-files parameter for ulimit is at or above 10240. How do you do that? With some help from a friend, I logged in as root and edited the /etc/security/limits.conf file. I added the following lines: #<domain> <type> <item> <value>Now logged in as oracle, I issue the ulimit -a command to see what the current setting is (should be 10240 as I specified that as the minimum (soft)) [oracle@localhost OracleBI]$ ulimit -aHow did I know to do this? It's in the docs, page 46 or so. I also need to add 2 directories: [root@localhost ]# mkdir /usr/local/OracleBIThen change the ownership of those directories to oracle [root@localhost ]# chown oracle /usr/local/OracleBIOK, we're cooking now. Wait, need to change the permissions on the location of the SDK you just installed. OBIEE provides you with a script to do this (and one to reverse it), but I just [root@localhost ]# chmod ugo+rwx /opt/SDK -RYes, I opened it up to the world...this is just a sandbox. I can do what I want. Obviously not recommended for production purposes. Almost there. Navigate to your unzipped/untarred location which for me is /obiee: [oracle@localhost ]$ cd /obiee/RH_Linux/Server/Oracle_Business_IntelligenceFirst up, run the UnixChk.sh to make sure we've got everything. [oracle@localhost Oracle_Business_Intelligence]$ ./UnixChk.shSweet. I'm running this in console mode because I can't seem to run the GUI. Both xterm and xclock work, as suggested by the installation guide, but it still fails. I'll worry about the another day. To install [oracle@localhost Oracle_Business_Intelligence]$ ./setup.sh -consoleThat "Preparing Java(tm) Virtual Machine" part is where it was hanging up before...it takes about 60 seconds to initialize. Enter 1 and hit Enter. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Just hit enter to accept the default (Basic) Press 1 for Next, 2 for Previous, 3 to Cancel or 4 to Redisplay [1] 1Enter 1 then Enter. Choose the setup type that best suits your needs.Hit Enter for Complete, otherwise enter the number for your choice. Enter 1, Enter (Next). Now you are prompted for the location of the SDK you just installed, enter it and hit Enter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Then enter your password, confirm it and hit "Next." Set the password for the oc4jadmin administrator user. This password should beError Message Language Selection...for me the default, hit Enter and then Next. Then Please wait... Error Message Language Selection"Confirmation Screen", hit Next -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Then the fun starts... Installing $L(com.siebel.analytics.install.AnyStringConstants,I skipped a Next there, I didn't think you would mind. Total time for installation?  Your software is installed, now what? Now you run and test it! Three things I need to do to start it: 1. Start the Oracle BI Server (ra-sa.sh) 2. Start the Presentation Services (ra-saw.sh) 3. Start the OC4J instance (oc4j) These files are located in /usr/local/OracleBI/setup [oracle@localhost OracleBI]$ ./setup/run-sa.sh startAnalytics [oracle@localhost OracleBI]$ ./setup/run-saw.sh startAnd finally OC4J [oracle@localhost OracleBI]$ ./setup/oc4j -startMaybe now it's a finally...and finally some pretty pictures. OC4J Home  OC4J Admin Login  OC4J Admin  BI Publisher  Analytics  Next up, configuring data sources. ¶ 12/10/2009 11:40:00 AM 5 Comments Links to this post
OBIEE: OEL Uninstall
I've been fighting with VirtualBox and OBIEE the last couple of days trying to get it installed. Finally resolved the issue early this morning with the help of a friend...post coming shortly.
Now I'm uninstalling it so I can repeat the process from this morning in a more lucid state. I've found the documentation for OBIEE not quite as robust as the database documentation. Specifically, it's not HTML-ified. So direct linking is (near) impossible. On page 97 of the Oracle Business Intelligence Infrastructure Installation and Configuration Guide are the uninstall directions. Nothing fancy mind you, but I've gotten in the habit lately of documenting everything I do, no matter how seemingly mundane. In OracleBI_HOME there is a directory called...uninstall: [root@localhost local]# ls -ltr OracleBIIn that directory is setup.bin, run it. [oracle@localhost local]$ ./OracleBI/uninstall/setup.bin -consoleI was running it in console mode (i.e. command line interface or CLI) because I've been having problems getting the GUI version to run. Since I'm somewhat lazy, I haven't bothered to figure out the cause (xterm and xclock do work though). Again, the documentation on OBIEE isn't as strong as it is for the database. Console works just fine though... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Select 1 and Enter. You'll then be prompted for the oc4jadmin password -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Enter it, enter 1 and enter Enter (couldn't resist). Please wait while processes shutdown.All done. Now a little cleanup: [oracle@localhost local]$ rm -Rf OracleBIDone. Now to reinstall for the last time. ¶ 12/10/2009 09:11:00 AM 2 Comments Links to this post
EBS Install Guide - Part 2
By John Piwowar [ blog | twitter ]
This is the second post in my "Installing E-Business Suite" series, where we actually install the software. Hopefully by now you've read part 1, downloaded the software, and configured your Linux server. Thanks again to Chet for the opportunity to share on his blog; I'm enjoying this guest spot on ORACLENERD Inc's New Media Empire (2.0!). And now, welcome to screenshot village; we hope you enjoy your stay. Part 1 --> Part 2 --> Part 3 --> Part 4 The Oracle Applications Rapid Install Wizard, more commonly called RapidWiz, drives the EBS installation process. If you're accustomed to using the Oracle Universal Installer, you'll find that RapidWiz "feels" a bit different, but it still has that comforting grey, "Hi, I'm a Java-based Oracle software installer!" look to it. Step 1: Launching RapidWiz Log in to your Linux server's desktop as root, not oracle. Open a terminal window and change to the startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz subdirectory of the software staging area Run the rapidwiz utility in that directory: [root@londo R12stage]# cd startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz/You should see a few launch messages in your terminal window, and the welcome screen of the installer will appear. Click Next:  Step 2: Select installation type In the Wizard Operations window, make sure that "Install Oracle Applications" is selected, but do not check the Express Install box. Click Next:  Step 3: OCM configuration In the Oracle Configuration Manager window, leave all the fields and options blank, and click Next. OCM is not a complication we need right now. :-)  Step 4: Configuration Choice Since this is a new install, select the first option ("Create a new configuration") in the Configuration Options window and click Next.  Step 5: Port pool assignment Select a number between 0 and 99 from the port pool list in the Global System Settings window, then click Next. Doesn't matter which number; choose your favorite. In past releases I've had issues where selecting 0, 1, or 99 has caused strange problems later, but those were pretty obscure and not consistently repeatable, so don't let that stop you from living on the edge. ;-)  Step 6: Database node configuration Now we're finally getting to the fun bits! In the Database Node Configuration window, verify that the following fields have correct values:
 Note: If your specified base directory doesn't exist, you'll need to create it. Um, whoops. Actually, I intentionally skipped that step just so you could get an example of what error conditions you might encounter during configuration. That's me, taking one for the team. It's just the sort of guy I am.  Make sure to change the ownership, and to grant write permissions to the oinstall group: [root@londo rapidwiz]# cd /u01Click OK once you've created the base directory, make sure the installer has retained your other configuration settings, and click Next. Step 7: Applications node configuration The next window, "Primary Applications Node Configuration," takes most of its values from the database node configuration. You'll need to change the values of Apps OS user and Apps OS group to match the ones created in part 1 of this series. Everything else should be fine; you'll just need to verify. Again, if you want to tinker with specific locations in the installation, you can click the Edit Paths button, but that's beyond the scope of these instructions. Oh yeah, and click Next when you're done.  Step 8: Node information review The Node Information window presents a review of the servers you've configured so far, and offers the option to add an additional server. Adding a server would be useful in the case of multi-node installations, but for now, just click (what else?) Next:  Step 9: Pre-install system checks RapidWiz will pop up a window showing the system checks it is performing prior to installation. Basically, it's making sure that the necessary ports are open for the applications and database to run, that there's enough disk space to install, that it can write to all its directories, etc. After the checks are done, a Pre-Install Checks results window will appear. Hopefully you'll see all green checkmarks, as below. If you see red X's next to any of the test categories, click on the X to see a log from the test run, find and fix the errors, and click the Retry button to re-run the tests. Once all tests have been run successfully, click Next.   Step 10: The actual installation part Click Next at the Install Review window, then Yes in the inevitable "are you sure you want to install?" box, and you're off to the races! Or maybe off to run some errands while blue bars crawl across the installer windows for a few hours, whichever. You'll notice that the terminal window from which you launched RapidWiz will display some information about where it's writing out log files. Hopefully we won't need those, because the installation will just go swimmingly, right?   Step 11: Post-install checks After a while (probably a few hours, depending on how speedy your server is) the installation will complete, and post-install checks will begin. If some of the post-install checks are listed as failed initially, don't be too worried. The initial startup of E-Business Suite can pretty resource-intensive, and it's not unusual for some of the post-install checks to time out waiting for responses from web pages, or for application server components themselves to time out when starting up. Keep in mind that you're installing software intended to run on server-class hardware, and your server might be under spec somewhere (disk speed, CPU, memory).  Here's what my post-install checks looked like the first time around. Ouch. As with the pre-install checks, you can click on the icons to see more about the failed checks. I'll spare you all 5 screenshots, but in this case, all the messages have the same theme: HTTP server taking too long to respond.  Step 12: A troubleshooting interlude My poor 2-CPU "server" had a load average above 10 when the post-install checks first ran, and a ridiculous level of I/O wait (thanks, 5400RPM hard drive!), so the first thing I did was to wait until the system has settled down a bit, and then click the Retry button. Unfortunately, the outcome of the post-install checks didn't change, so I had to look into fixing the web server. What follows may not be applicable to your install situation, but it does provide a small taste of basic Oracle Applications troubleshooting, so please bear with me. If you get bored, or if your post-install checks were all successful, you can always skip ahead to step 14. ;-) The first thing I did was to log in as the owner of the Oracle Applications software, applvis in this case. Then, I set up the OS environment to be able to better navigate the various sections of the Apps filesystem. You'll often hear this called "sourcing the Apps environment." [root@londo ~]# su - applvisIf you don't feel like digging through the documentation to find out where the Apps environment file should be for your system, you can find the value from the result of the "Environment File" post-install check. The output from that check lists a number of environment files; the one that's relevant here is the "APPL_TOP environment file." Using the newly-defined environment variables, I checked the status of the 10g Application Server components and tried to restart the web server: [applvis@londo ~]$ $ADMIN_SCRIPTS_HOME/adopmnctl.sh statusThis confirms that the web server is the only component that's currently failing, and the other app server components of the system are starting as expected. [applvis@londo ~]$ $ADMIN_SCRIPTS_HOME adapcctl.sh startThat doesn't look so great, but at least I have a log file to review: [applvis@londo ~]$ tail /u01/ebs/R12VIS/inst/apps/R12VIS_londo/logs/ora/10.1.3/opmn/HTTP_Server~1.logThat missing shared object library file is the most likely culprit. This often, but not always, means that there's a required OS package missing. In this case, a review of the installed packages on my server didn't show anything missing, so I turned to Google and My Oracle Support. I quickly found a handful of references in OTN forums and Oracle's non-EBS documentation to a quirk of installing R12.1 on 64-bit Oracle Enterprise Linux 5. One symlink later, and I was on my way: [root@londo ~]# ln -s /usr/lib/libgdbm.so.2.0.0 /usr/lib/libdb.so.2After that, the post-install checks all came back green. Which is good, because I hadn't clicked Next in a while:  Step 14: Grand Finale (what, you thought I'd risk the whole exercise by ending on step 13?) And now, after hours of downloads and nigh-endless unzipping, the EBS install is done! That tempting "Connect to Oracle Applications Release 12.1.1" button may work, but if it doesn't, don't despair. Click Finish, open a web browser, and go the URL http://server.domain:80nn. The value for nn is the "port pool" value you selected in the early stages of the installation. Hopefully you know what "server" and "domain" are. :-) For example, when I browse to http://londo.local:8055, I am redirected to the main login page for EBS:   If you want to start looking around a little bit, the "superuser" for Oracle Applications is SYSADMIN, and the default password for the account is the same as the username. If you attempt to launch any of the Oracle Forms-based parts of the Apps interface from a browser on your Linux server, you may run into trouble. The EBS Forms interface is famously finicky on Linux-based browsers; I usually access EBS from browser on a Windows or OS X desktop, rather than from Linux, but the OTN forums are full of tips on how to get EBS Forms working on Linux. I'll try to dig up some links for the next post, or you can chime in with comments if you've already been down that road. Thanks for following along! I hope that your installation experience is even more painless than this one. In part 3, I'll cover a few basic topics following the theme, "great, it's installed, now what do I do?" References
Labels: ebs, howto, install, jpiwowar, oracle ¶ 12/08/2009 03:00:00 PM 3 Comments Links to this post
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