Oracle Configuration Manager

 Oracle Configuration Manager

Oracle Configuration Manager - Version 10.3.1 and later

Information in this document applies to any platform.

PURPOSE

This document is intended to answer common questions when availability-certification, installing/setting up/using OCM.

This document also answers customer questions about security, possible overload, ...

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

What are the prerequisites for the Collector?

1. Access to the Internet. This can be either a direct connection to the Internet or via a proxy server.
2. JDK 1.2.2 or greater present in the Oracle Home or present in another directory and the JAVA_HOME environmental variable pointing to that directory. For Microsoft Windows installations a JDK 1.3.1 or greater is required.
3. Your My Oracle Support (formerly MetaLink) credentials

See Document 728473.5 - Oracle Configuration Manager Prerequisites for more information.

What Platforms and Operating Systems are supported?

Platforms:

* Sun SPARC Solaris, 8,9,10 (both 32-bit and 64-bit)

* Linux x86 (both 32-bit and 64-bit)

* Linux on Itanium

* Linux on PowerPC

* IBM zSeries Based Linux

* HP-UX PA-RISC 

* HP-UX Itanium

* IBM AIX5L Based Systems (both 32-bit and 64-bit)

* Microsoft Windows: NT, 2000, XP, Server 2003 (both 32-bit and 64-bit), Vista, other Win32 platforms

* Tru64, 5.1b (See note below)

Note - Oracle has dropped support for Tru64 as of the release of the 11g database. OCM 10.2.4 is the last release supported on the Tru64 platform. This release of the collector software can still be downloaded as a patch: Patch 5567658 Description Oracle Configuration Manager 10.2.4 Product Oracle Configuration Manager Family Release 10.2.4.0 

Please note that OCM 10.2.5 is the last release to be supported on HP-UX 11.0 -- higher levels of HP-UX 11 will continue to be supported.

This is the current list of operating systems and platforms. The list will change with more support added as the product develops. Please check My Oracle Support for the latest list of supported releases.

Oracle Software:

* Database releases 8.1.7.* and higher

• Note: for 8.1.7 & 9.0.1.x, JDK will need to be provided

* Application Server releases 9.0.3 and higher (note that 1.0.2.2 is only supported in an E-Business Suite configuration)

* E-Business Suite versions 11.5.4 and higher

* Enterprise Manager Grid Control versions 9i and 10g

* Collaboration Suite versions 10.1.0.2 and higher

* Peoplesoft version 8.4.8 and higher

* JD Edwards Enterprise One 8.97

* Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition/Siebel Analytics versions 7.8.4 / 10.1.3.2

* Siebel CRM versions 7.7, 7.8, 8.0

* Oracle Retail version 13.0

Are there any OS patch requirements for OCM?

The only requirement is that the OS supports JDK 1.2.2 or greater (1.3.1 on Windows).

Should I separate my OCM install from other Oracle Installations?

No. The OCM Collector discovers and collects information about the products available in the directory within which it resides. For Oracle products such as PeopleSoft installations, OCM does not have to be installed in the installation directory.

Can I install the Collector on an environment running older versions of Oracle?

Yes. The collector supports older versions of Oracle products. The only thing to remember is that the collector needs JDK 1.2.2 or greater (1.3.1 or greater on Windows) to function. Some older Oracle Home directories did not contain Java, which means that you may need to install Java on the machine (if it doesn't already exist) and set JAVA_HOME to point to that location

Can I update an already installed Collector?

You should not need to update or patch the Collector manually once it has been installed. The Collector automatically updates itself from content published at Oracle. If you wish to reinstall the collector, you should download the latest collector version from My Oracle Support before reinstalling. Starting in 10.2.5, you can update an installed collector using the command 'emccr update_components

How can I configure or set the time the Collector will upload information to the Configuration Repository?

OCM has a scheduler process that dictates when collections occur. This can be configured using the command 

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR set collection_interval 

Run the command $ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR help for usage details.

How do I register the collector?

Registration is performed during the installation process. Execute "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/setupCCR"; This will perform a registration. 

If for some reason you need to re-register, you can execute "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR register".

When will the first collection occur?

The first collection will occur immediately. If the database collection scripts have been run after the install then it will take an additional 24 hours after the installation of the product. This can be circumvented by running "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR collect" once the database scripts have been run.

How do I start an immediate collection?

You can cause an immediate collection by executing "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR collect".

How do I test the connection between the Collector and Oracle?

You can test the connect by executing "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR test". This will display the steps the collector is going through in order to contact the servers at Oracle.

Is there a way to view the collected information that is being up-loaded to Oracle?

Yes. The data can be viewed both locally and at Oracle.

Locally:

When the collector performs the collection and uploads the data to Oracle, a set of files are generated and stored in the "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/hosts/[hostname]/state/review" directory. These files are XML and have a style sheet associated with them.

If you open "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/hosts/[hostname]/state/review/targetMap.xml" in a browser, a report showing what was collected and what data was uploaded will appear.

Oracle:

Log into My Oracle Support and find your system in the list in the Systems region; you can then drill into the system's components and view the uploaded configurations.

Where can I find the Collector logs files?

The default location for the log and trace files are "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/log" directory

How do I control the size and number of the Collector log and trace files?

You can override the default log and trace setting by adding entries into the "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/config/collector.properties"

• In order to change the maximum size of the log files, add the entry:
  • log4j.appender.Rolling.MaxFileSize = <Size of File>MB
    Example:
    log4j.appender.Rolling.MaxFileSize = 10MB
    
    
    This would limit the growth of each log file to 10 megabytes.

In order to change the number of log files generated before the oldest log file is overwritten, 

• add the entry:
  • log4j.appender.Rolling.MaxBackupIndex = <Max number of log files>
    Example:
    log4j.appender.Rolling.MaxBackupIndex = 3
    
    
    This would limit the number of log files to a maximum of 3. When the 3rd log file is full, the 1st log file will be overwritten.

How to I modify the size of the scheduler log file and how much data is logged?

• In order to change the default trace and collection settings of the scheduler, the following entries can be added into "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/config/sched.properties"
  • traceLevel=<warn, debug>
    maxLogSize=1000000

How do I trace problems during setupCCR?

You can trace the install process by declaring an environmental variable. 

Example: 

setenv CCR_INSTALL_DEBUG true (or export CCR_INSTALL_DEBUG=1) 

Logs are maintained in the $ORACLE_HOME/ccr/log directory 

On Windows: 

set CCR_DEBUG=1 or 

set CCR_DEBUG_LOG=<path_to_log_file> 

Output from all executing commands will go to the screen or the specified log. Make sure to clear this environment variable when done debugging.

How do I increase the level of diagnostic information generated?

You can override the default logging level by adding entries into the "$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/config/collector.properties"

In order to increase the level of information generated, add the entry:

log4j.rootCategory = DEBUG,Rolling

Can OCM be installed on any OS?

OCM has specific downloads for each of the supported operating systems.

Does OCM use any ports on the machine?

In connected mode, the OCM collector get a port every time the OCM collector is started and releases it when it is shutdown / stopped.

The OCM collector is calling getFreePort from netstat to get a free port found in the sched.state file.

It may happen that at the time the OCM collector is started, a port is free but could be allocated to a process not yet started.

The Enhancement Request BUG 11837131 - HOW THE PORT RANGE IS CONFIGURED IN OCM has been logged for this issue.

What overhead does OCM have?

OCM has minimal overhead. In tests within Oracle on a Linux machine the discovery,collection and upload takes about between 10 and 60 seconds.

What if the network or OCM is unavailable for an extended outage?

The next time the collection is scheduled, a new collection will occur and the data will be uploaded

What are the supported targets?

The list keeps increasing, but at this time the list includes:

* BEA WebLogic

* IBM Websphere

* Host (includes full 3rd party software inventory)

* Database Instance

* Database Listener

* RAC Cluster

* e-Business Suite

* Oracle Application Server

* Oracle HTTP Server

* OC4J

* Web Cache

* Oracle Home

* Enterprise Manager Agent

* Enterprise Manager Server

Is OCM certified in a HP Serviceguard Cluster / Package?

Yes. The collector will operate in a HP Serviceguard environment. However there are no specific collections for the HP Serviceguard.

My 11i Applications deployment is across several servers, how do I ensure I capture the complete configuration?

Just install OCM in all the Oracle Homes and the distributed topology will be discovered automatically.

Does OCM work in a Clustered Environment?

Yes. OCM supports clustered components such as RAC database, however OCM must be installed on each clustered element.

Does OCM work in a shared Oracle Home installation?

Yes. Although it will require soft links from the shared installation to a local directory for each machine. OCM will not work properly on a completely shared installation with no local content.

Where should I install OCM in a E-Business environment?

OCM should be installed in the Application server tier and the database tier. It should not be installed into the 8.0.6 tier. Make sure to run the appropriate database instrumentation for the EBS repository.

What sort of Proxy Server does OCM support?

OCM supports non-authenticating and authenticating proxy servers. Both basic and digest schemes are supported for authentication. We do not 

support the NTLM authentication scheme.

My proxy server needs a username and password before we can see out onto the Internet?

OCM allows you to specify the proxy connection information via the configuration utility.

Example:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/configCCR -p //username/password@hostname:port// or to remove the proxy setting $ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/configCCR -p none

The password does not need to be supplied on the command line. If the password is left blank then it will be prompted for by the configuration utility.

We don’t have a Proxy Server?

No problem. OCM should be able to connect to Oracle without additional configuration.

What happens if the Oracle Servers go down unexpectedly?

If the servers go down unexpectedly, the uploads will fail, but next time the upload occurs the data will be sent to Oracle. We do not expect this to be a major problem as configuration data does not change all that often.

Is there a way to obtain the status of the Oracle servers from the customer site?

OCM has a "test" directive which can be used to test the connection between the customer and Oracle.

Example:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR test

Oracle CCR - Release: 10.2.2.0.2 - Production

Copyright (c) 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Built 02/21/2006 07:22:30 PM

Verifying Proxy settings...

No Proxy host set.

CCR Server is: ccr.oracle.com

Resolving CCR Server address...

Connecting to CCR server...

Command successfully completed.

Command completed successfully.

You can also use the "-verbose" switch for more information:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR -verbose test

Oracle CCR - Release: 10.2.2.0.2 - Production

Copyright (c) 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Built 02/21/2006 07:22:30 PM 

Verifying Proxy settings...

{main} [22:24:05.520] Conn: added module HTTPClient.RetryModule

{main} [22:24:05.527] Conn: added module HTTPClient.CookieModule

{main} [22:24:05.531] Conn: added module HTTPClient.RedirectionModule

{main} [22:24:05.538] Conn: added module HTTPClient.AuthorizationModule

{main} [22:24:05.540] Conn: added module HTTPClient.DefaultModule

{main} [22:24:05.544] Conn: added module HTTPClient.TransferEncodingModule

{main} [22:24:05.546] Conn: added module HTTPClient.ContentMD5Module

{main} [22:24:05.549] Conn: added module HTTPClient.ContentEncodingModule

No Proxy host set.

CCR Server is: ccr.oracle.com

Resolving CCR Server address...

Connecting to CCR server...

{main} [22:24:05.731] Conn: Creating Socket: ccr.oracle.com:443

{main} [22:24:05.738] Conn: using SSL version JSSE

{main} [22:24:05.757] Demux: Initializing Stream Demultiplexor (17308974)

{main} [22:24:05.952] Conn: Sending Request:

GET /em/upload HTTP/1.1

Host: ccr.oracle.com

Connection: Keep-Alive, TE

TE: trailers, deflate, gzip, compress

User-Agent: RPT-HTTPClient/0.3-3

Accept-Encoding: gzip, x-gzip, compress, x-compress

{main} [22:24:05.959] Demux: Opening stream 17320380 for demux (17308974)

{main} [22:24:05.961] Conn: Request sent

{main} [22:24:05.962] Resp: Reading Response headers 17320380

{main} [22:24:05.962] Resp: Parsing Response headers from Request "GET/em/upload": (17320380)

HTTP/1.1 200 O

Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 06:24:05 GMT

Server: Oracle-Application-Server-10g/10.1.2.0.2 Oracle-HTTP-Server

Content-Length: 170

Cache-Control: private

Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100

Connection: Keep-Alive

Content-Type: text/html

{main} [22:24:05.977] Resp: Response entity delimiter: Content-Length(17320380)

{main} [22:24:05.977] Conn: Protocol Version established: HTTP/1.1

Command successfully completed.

Command completed successfully.

What if I don’t see anything in My Oracle Support?

Because of the My Oracle Support architecture, it may take up to 2 hours for the configuration data to appear in the MCP configuration list.

The first thing to check is that the host appears in the hosts section of the inventory report.

Please note: Only Oracle Homes with database, iAS or EBS targets will have systems generated for them.

What is the OCM Collector?

The OCM collector is a command line utility that is installed into each Oracle Home. The collector is responsible for discovering the products in that Oracle Home and uploading the data to Oracle in a secure manner.

What strength of encryption is used during transfer to Oracle Corporation?

All data transmitted between the customer and Oracle is encrypted using 128bit encryption.

Is the server certificate verified to confirm the destination of the uploaded data?

Yes. Before OCM transmits any data to Oracle it verifies that the server certificate is Oracle's.

Can I use OCM across firewalls?

Yes. OCM uses HTTPS (SSL over HTTP) and connects to the standard port (443).

What do I need to do to use OCM if an Oracle Home containing OCM has been cloned?

OCM must be reconfigured for this new Oracle home. The steps for reconfiguring depends on if OCM has been previously configured: 

• If OCM has been installed, but not configured, execute $ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/setupCCR
• If OCM has been installed and configured, execute: $ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/configCCR (the default My Oracle Support credentials and support identifier will be what was setup for the previous home)
• If the ORACLE_HOME contains a database then the installCCRSQL script will need to be run to re-instrument the database collection. This also applies to the EBS and Grid Control targets.

How do I determine what version of the OCM components I have?

The following command will display the component versions:

Example:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/deployPackages -l

Can I disable auto-updates?

You can disable the auto-update feature by executing emCCR

Example:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR automatic_update off

Can I stop the collections from occurring during a particular window?

Yes. Execute the following command:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR hold

Execute the following command to resume execution:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR resume

I get a KEY MISMATCH error -- what do I do?

The Key mismatch error is caused by the collector not being synchronized with the Oracle Servers. If you encounter this error, please re-register.

Example:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR register

We don't use Cron/unavailable?

You can disable the use of Cron before the installation occurs by declaring an environmental variable.

Example:

setenv CCR_DISABLE_CRON_ENTRY true (or export CCR_DISABLE_CRON_ENTRY=1)

Installation of OCM failed -- what do I do?

To diagnose an installation failure get OCM to generate more debug information by declaring an environmental variable before re-running the installation. 

Example: 

setenv CCR_INSTALL_DEBUG true (or export CCR_INSTALL_DEBUG=1) 

This will cause debug information to be written to the log files within the log directory. 

If setupCCR has an issue, launch it with the command of: 

sh -x $ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/setupCCR 

On Windows: 

set CCR_DEBUG=1 or 

set CCR_DEBUG_LOG=<path_to_log_file> 

Output from all executing commands will go to the screen or the specified log. Make sure to clear this environment variable when done debugging. 

My CSI has changed -- what do I do?

If your CSI changes, you need to reconfigure OCM to use the new CSI. This can be done by launching the configuration utility.

Example:

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/configCCR

How do I execute commands on Microsoft Vista?

When running OCM commands on Microsoft Vista, all commands must be run from the administrator command window. Errors will be reported if a regular command window is used to execute OCM commands.

What impact does OCM have on the performance of a system?

The scheduler uses a small amount of resident memory (On Linux, it uses only 1.5MB of resident memory.) When a configuration collection and upload occurs, the scheduler creates a subprocess to perform this task. This subprocess runs for approximate 30 seconds. The Oracle On Demand team has deployed over 3000 collectors over the last 9 months and no performance issues have been found with the collector or the plsql job execution.

How can I register for advanced notification for updates to the Oracle Configuration Manager?

As of the 10.2.6 release of the Oracle Configuration Manager, customers can receive advance notification of a pending automatic update by registering for “notifications of updates” to Patch 5567658 in My Oracle Support. Downloading the patch update and updating it manually allows the software to be validated prior to being a required update for OCM users. 

OCM updates are made available no sooner than two weeks after the advance distribution notification is made. Older versions of OCM will not be permitted to upload configuration information. Please note the software for different platforms may be released at different times; older versions of OCM lose their ability to upload only when a new version is released for that particular platform. For those platforms where OCM 10.2.6 is not available, OCM 10.2.5 will continue to function normally.

How can I manually update the Oracle Configuration Manager software?

For customers using the 10.2.5.0.0 release of the Oracle Configuration Manager, updates to the collection mechanisms can be manually applied even if automatic updates are disabled. 

• Download the Patch 5567658 for the appropriate platform. 

• Application of the update is performed by issuing the command 

$ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/emCCR update_components -distribution=<file> 

where $ORACLE_HOME is the installation root containing the Oracle Configuration 

Manager that is to be updated, and <file> is the file specification of the downloaded patch. 

How do I deinstall OCM?

• If database collections were done, log into the database and execute:
  SQL> @ccr/admin/scripts/dropocm.sql
  SQL> @ccr/admin/scripts/dropemrep_collect.sql (if db is a repository)
  SQL> @ccr/admin/scripts/ebs_dropccr.sql <ORACLE_APPS_USER> (if db is used for ebs)
• Execute: $ORACLE_HOME/ccr/bin/deployPackages –d $ORACLE_HOME/ccr/inventory/core.jar (on linux, this will stop the scheduler and remove the crontab entry; on windows, it will stop the scheduler and remove the service)
• Remove the directory:
  i. Unix: rm –rf $ORACLE_HOME/ccr
  ii. Windows:rmdir /s/q %ORACLE_HOME%\ccr

REFERENCES