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 Update! - Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 / FireWire / RHEL4 U2 — (20-December-2005)
In October, I released the article "Building an Inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux - (RHEL 4.2)". When this article was originally published, it was required to download and install both a new Linux kernel, (e.g. the Oracle Technet Supplied 2.6.9-11.0.0.10.3.EL #1 Linux kernel), and the supporting FireWire modules. As of November 2005, oss.oracle.com now provides compiled FireWire modules for the 2.6.9-22.EL and 2.6.9-22.0.1.EL Linux kernels. Installing a new Linux kernel is no longer required. You will only need to install and configure the supporting FireWire modules! For access to the updated article, please navigate to: http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Oracle10gRAC/CLUSTER_10.shtml ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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Oracle Programming with Perl DBI / DBD — (21-November-2005)
For anyone considering writing Perl to access an Oracle database, the following article should provide useful to anyone wishing to install and configure DBI and DBD:Oracle on the UNIX platform: http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Programming/PROGRAMMING_2.shtml Complete instructions for downloading, installing and configuring DBI / DBD:Oracle are include along with a sample Perl script that includes many of the common interfaces used to access the Oracle database. ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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Connecting to SQL Server 2000 from Linux using Perl DBI — (11-November-2005)
DBAs and system administrator have long relied on scripting to automate complex and tedious tasks. For most administrators, the choice is Perl. Given the fact that Perl is open source, available on almost all O/S platforms and extremely modular, many popular modules have been developed to extend the language. DBAs for example, have enjoyed the ease of scripting database functions using the "Database independent interface for Perl" or better known as DBI. Using DBI to access popular database like Oracle and MySQL is straightforward. Simply install the corresponding DBD database driver module for your database (i.e. Oracle, MySQL) and write your scripts to the DBI interface. But what about Microsoft SQL Server 2000? If you were to take a quick glance at the available DBD modules at CPAN.org, you will notice that one does not exist for SQL Server! This is not a problem if your scripts are already running on a Windows platform. You can simply use DBD::ADO. But what about us Linux users? Well, this is where the DBD::Sybase driver module and FreeTDS come in. I provide a detailed explanation and steps to use in order to access Microsoft SQL Server 2000 from the Linux platform using Perl DBI. For access to the article, please navigate to: http://www.idevelopment.info/data/MSSQL/DBA_tips/Programming/PROG_2.shtml ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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Oracle Announces Free Database - (Oracle Database 10g XE) — (02-November-2005)
(*) Introduction Oracle recently announced Oracle 10g Express Edition (XE) - a small footprint database that's free to download, develop, deploy, and distribute. The latest Oracle Press Release can be found at: http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2005_oct/103105_databasexe_finalsite.html (*) Download Oracle Database XE is currently in beta and is available for both Linux x86 and Windows. http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html (*) Support Users can register with Oracle Technology Network (OTN) to receive free access to an online support forum hosted and monitored by Oracle experts. Tom Kyte provides users advice, best practices, and troubleshooting information for Oracle Database XE. Forum registration is possible only by downloading and installing Oracle Database XE (currently in Beta release; production release scheduled for late 2005). After installation, click on the "Registration" link from the Database homepage. (*) Further Reading You can read much more about Oracle Database 10g Express Edition by visiting: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 / FireWire / RHEL4 U2 — (06-October-2005)
By popular demand, I recently posted an update to my article for installing and configuring Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 on Linux using FireWire as the shared storage. This type of configuration allows DBAs to setup an inexpensive Oracle RAC 10g Release 2 environment for testing purposes. (I stress the fact that this configuration is to be used for testing purposes only and is not supported by Oracle, myself, or any of the vendors contained in the article!) The article was written with RHEL4 U2 in mind, but I used CentOS 4.2 as this is a free clone of the actual RHEL4 U2 product (compiled from the actual RHEL source code). I also make use of Oracle Cluster File System Release 2 (OCFS2) and ASMLib 2.0. For access to the article, please navigate to: http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Oracle10gRAC/CLUSTER_10.shtml ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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Scripting Email in Windows — (16-September-2005)
If you are a DBA working in a Microsoft Windows environment, it is not uncommon for the need to send (and sometimes) receive email from within your scripts. Many solutions exist for UNIX, but in Windows, your options are limited - until now. Two command-line utilities - "Blat" and "Getmail for Windows" have been available for several years and can really make life easy when the requirement to send (and receive) email exists in Windows. I recently put together two articles that can assist those who need to get familiar with setting up the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server for Windows and another dedicated to getting started with Blat and Getmail for Windows. Configuring SMTP on Windows Sending and Receiving Email in Windows From Scripts ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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August 2005 Update — (04-August-2005)
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May 2005 Update — (24-May-2005)
This newsletter includes the following topics: *) How to Recreate the Database Control Repository - (Oracle10g) *) Adding a Node to an Oracle10g RAC Cluster - (RHEL 3) *) New Statspack SQL Scripts for Oracle10g *) Search and Replace with REPLACE Function ------------------------------------------------------------- How to Recreate the Database Control Repository - (Oracle10g) ------------------------------------------------------------- If you have ever been in the situation where you needed to re-create the EM Database Control Repository, a new article on my site provides a step-by-step approach to achieve this. This article can be located at http://www.idevelopment.info/ and from the Topics menu navigate to "Oracle" -> "DBA Tips" -> "Enterprise Manager" -> "How to Recreate the Database Control Repository - (Oracle10g)". ------------------------------------------------------------- Adding a Node to an Oracle10g RAC Cluster - (RHEL 3) ------------------------------------------------------------- I completed a new article that describes how to add a new node to an existing 10g RAC configuration. This article uses an existing two-node RAC configuration and describes how to add another Linux node (using RHEL 3) to a shared FireWire drive. The article can be located at http://www.idevelopment.info/ and from the Topics menu navigate to "Oracle" -> "DBA Tips" -> "Oracle10g RAC" -> "Adding a Node to an Oracle10g RAC Cluster - (RHEL 3)". ------------------------------------------------------------- New Statspack SQL Scripts for Oracle10g ------------------------------------------------------------- I recently updated all scripts within the Statspack section of the "Oracle DBA Scripts" page to work with Oracle10g. These scripts can be found at http://www.idevelopment.info/ and from the Topics menu navigate to "Oracle" -> "DBA Scripts" -> "Statspack". ------------------------------------------------------------- Search and Replace with REPLACE Function ------------------------------------------------------------- Did you know that is possible to replace string content using the build-in REPLACE function in Oracle? In the following example, I want to replace all occurances of "http://secure." with "https://secure." within the table "company_config": UPDATE company_config SET company_url = REPLACE(company_url, 'http://secure.', 'https://secure.') WHERE company_url like 'http://secure.%'; ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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April 2005 Update — (15-April-2005)
This newsletter includes the following topics: *) New Oracle DBA Scripts *) Killing Runaway Oracle Processes on Windows with OraKill *) Installing Oracle10g on Solaris 9 ------------------------------------------------------------- New Oracle DBA Scripts ------------------------------------------------------------- During the month of March, I introduced several new sections to the Oracle DBA Scripts page. Some of the new sections include "Automatic Storage Management - (ASM)", "Oracle Wait Interface - (OWI)", and "Workspace Manager". Note that the ASM scripts require you be logged into the actual ASM instance (i.e. +ASM). These new sections and many other helpful Oracle DBA scripts can be found by going to http://www.idevelopment.info/ and from the Topics menu navigate to "Oracle" -> "DBA Scripts". Follow the directions in the README.txt for configuring your system. ------------------------------------------------------------- Killing Runaway Oracle Processes on Windows with OraKill ------------------------------------------------------------- A new article on the site provides details on how to kill runaway Oracle processes in Microsoft Windows using the orakill.exe command-line utility. The OraKill utility is included with the Oracle database on all Windows platforms. It allows the DBA to kill an Oracle session directly from an MS-DOS command-line without requiring any login connection to the database. This article can be found on the site by navigating to "Oracle" -> "DBA Tips" -> "Microsoft Windows" or by using the link http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Microsoft_Windows/WINDOWS_1.shtml. ------------------------------------------------------------- Installing Oracle10g on Solaris 9 ------------------------------------------------------------- Another new article to the site that is gathering a lot of attention is a detailed guide on installing Oracle10g on the Solaris 9 Operating Environment. This newest article provides the necessary steps to install and configure Oracle10g using a SCSI disk array (on a single channel with 6 disks) using Automatic Storage Management (ASM). This article can be found on the site by navigating to "Oracle" -> "DBA Tips" -> "Unix" or by using the link http://www.idevelopment.info/data/Oracle/DBA_tips/Unix/UNIX_32.shtml. ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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New Windows VBS and Jscript Examples — (23-March-2005)
I added a new section to the site dedicated to scripting examples in the Microsoft Windows environment using VBScript and JScript. With most of the scripts, I provide an implementation in both scripting languages. To access this section of the site, use the Topics menu (left) and navigate to "Programming | Windows Scripting". If you are new to Windows Scripting Host (WSH), take a look at the "Templates" section and view the files "Template.js" and "Template.vbs". ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |
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Build Your Own Oracle RAC 10g Cluster on Linux and FireWire — (14-March-2005)
My latest article featured on OTN documents how to set up and configure an Oracle RAC 10g development cluster for less than US$1,800. This test configuration consists of two nodes (running Linux RHEL 3) with shared access to an IEEE1394 (FireWire) hard drive. All physical database files will be configured with ASM while the two shared files required by CRS (Oracle Cluster Registry and CRS Voting Disk) will be hosted on Oracle Clustered File System (OCFS V1). This guide does not work (yet) for the latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 release (Linux kernel 2.6). Although Oracle's Linux Development Team provides a stable (patched) precompiled 2.6-compatible kernel available for use with FireWire, a stable release of OCFS version 2 (which is required for the 2.6 kernel) is not yet available. When that release becomes available, I will be update this guide to support RHEL4. To access this document, navigate to: http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/hunter_rac10g.html ---------------------------- Jeffrey M. Hunter Sr. Database Administrator jhunter@idevelopment.info http://www.idevelopment.info ---------------------------- |