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Installing Oracle Application Express 2.0

by Jeff Hunter, Sr. Database Administrator

Contents

1. Overview
2. Prerequisites for the Installation
3. Installing Oracle Application Express
4. Installing Oracle HTTP Server
5. Further Reading

Overview

This article provides instructions for installing and configuring the Oracle Application Express (formerly HTML DB) software release 2.0. Please note that these instructions cover the standalone version only.

Installing Oracle Application Express is a two step process:

1. Configure an Oracle HTTP Server (Release 9.0.3 or higher) with mod_plsql which is used to connect to the Oracle database where the Oracle Application Express objects will be installed. It is also possible to use Oracle 9i Application Server release 1 (1.0.2.2) or higher.

2. Install the database objects that make up Oracle Application Express to a pre-existing Oracle database (Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2.0.3) or later).

For the purpose of this article, I will be installing Oracle Application Express 2.0 to a machine that already contains an Oracle10g R2 Database installation. This database server also contains an Oracle10g R2 database named TESTDB which will be used to store the database objects required by Oracle Application Express. The following table illustrates the current Oracle configuration and components already installed on this machine:

Current Oracle Configuration and Components
Machine Name:	linux3.idevelopment.info
Operating System:	Red Hat Linux 3 - (CentOS 3.4)
Oracle Release:	Oracle10g Release 2 - (10.2.0.2.0)
Oracle Database ORACLE_HOME:	/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
Oracle SID:	TESTDB
Instance Service Names:	TESTDB.IDEVELOPMENT.INFO

When installing Oracle Application Express, you will be required to install the Oracle HTTP Server which can be found on the Oracle10g Release 2 Companion CD. Although not a requirement, I will be installing the Oracle HTTP Server to the same machine which already includes an installation of the Oracle Database software. The Oracle HTTP Server cannot be installed into an existing Oracle Home. It must be installed into a new Oracle Home!

Prerequisites for the Installation

This section describes the requirements for installing Oracle Application Express, Release 2.0.

  Browser Requirements

To view or develop Oracle Application Express applications, Web browsers must support Java Script and the HTML 4.0 and CSS 1.0 standards. The following browsers meet this requirement:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher (Windows only)
• Netscape Communicator 7.2 or higher
• Mozilla 1.2 or higher
• Firefox 1.0 or higher

  Operating System Requirements

From what I have read and tested, Oracle Application Express can be installed on the following Operating System platforms:

• Linux - Red Hat Enterprise version AS/ES 2.1 or higher; or SUSE Enterprise Server version SLES-8 or higher.
• Solaris 9 or higher.
• Windows 2000 Professions or higher (with service pack 3 or higher)
• Windows XP Professional
• Windows 2003 (32-bit systems)

  Disk Space Requirements

Verify that the file system that contains the Oracle home directory contains at least 460MB of free disk space for the installation. Also during the installation process, about 110MB of temporary disk space will be required.

  Database Requirements

The installation of Oracle Application Express requires certain objects to be created in an Oracle database. With Oracle Application Express 2.0, the database is required to be Oracle9i Release 2 (9.2.0.3) or later. All of the Oracle Application Express database objects should be created in a separate tablespace which we will create later on in this article.

  Shared Pool Size Requirements

Oracle Application Express requires the shared_pool_size of the target database to be at least 100 MB.

Determine the current value of the shared_pool_size parameter:

SQL> show parameter shared_pool_size

  Verify JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES

The initialization parameter JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES for the Oracle database determines the maximum number of concurrently running jobs. In Oracle Application Express Release 2.0, transactional support and SQL scripts require jobs. If JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES is not enabled and working properly, you cannot successfully execute a script.

You can view the number of JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES from SQL*Plus by running the following SQL statement:

SQL> SELECT VALUE FROM v$parameter WHERE NAME = 'job_queue_processes';

If you need to modify the JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES initialization parameter, log into the database as SYSDBA using SQL*Plus and run the ALTER SYSTEM ... statement. For example, to set the number of JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES to 20, use:

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES = 20;

  Oracle XML DB Requirements

Oracle XML DB must be installed in the Oracle database that you want to use. If you are using a preconfigured database created either during an installation or by Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA), Oracle XML DB should already be installed and configured.

  Oracle Text Requirements

Oracle Text must be installed so that you can use the searchable online help in Oracle HTML DB. By default, Oracle Text is installed as part of Oracle Database. In addition, make sure that the default language preferences for Oracle Text have been installed. To install the Oracle Text default language, log into the Oracle database where you plan to install Oracle Application Express and run the appropriate drdeflang.sql script, which by default is located in ORACLE_BASE\ORACLE_HOME\ctx\admin\defaults. For example, to run the language preferences script for US English, drdefus.sql:

$ sqlplus "sys/<sys password> as sysdba"
SQL> @?\ctx\admin\defaults\drdefus.sql
    

Installing Oracle HTTP Server

  About the Oracle HTTP Server

Oracle Application Express requires the use of the Oracle HTTP Server. Oracle HTTP Server is a web server supplied by Oracle and is based on the Apache HTTP Server. The web server will receive all HTTP requests from the client (the browser) and forward them to the mod_plsql extension module, which then forwards the request to the Oracle Application Express engine within the Oracle database. Once the Oracle Application Express engine has carried out the request, the Oracle HTTP Server will return the resulting HTML page back to the client browser to be rendered.

The Oracle HTTP Server uses the mod_plsql extension module to communicate to the Oracle Application Express engine within the Oracle database. Extension modules like mod_plsql are special pieces of code that can be added to the Oracle HTTP Server to extend its functionality. The Oracle HTTP Server loads the mod_plsql extension module when it starts and acts as the broker for communicating information between the web server and the Oracle Application Express objects in the Oracle database.

The following example demonstrates the lifecycle of a typical request in Oracle Application Express:

1. The client computer accesses an application in Oracle Application Express which issues an HTTP request to the web server. For example: http://linux3:7777/pls/htmldb/f?p=100

2. The Oracle HTTP Server will receive the HTTP request and notices the leading /pls/ directive in the URL. The Oracle HTTP Server is configured to send all requests with this directive to the mod_plsql extension module. Knowing this is not a request the Oracle HTTP Server can fulfill, it forwards the request to the mod_plsql extension module.

3. The mod_plsql extension module then communicates the request to the Oracle Application Express engine in the Oracle database. Specifically, this request is sent by mod_plsql to a PL/SQL procedure in the Oracle database owned by FLOWS_020000 named F. With the URL provided in this example, mod_plsql calls the FLOWS_020000.F procedure with the parameter p=100. This parameter is used to specify which Oracle Application Express application to use. In our example, this would be application 100.

4. The Oracle Application Express component then generates the HTML web page which is then sent back to the mod_plsql extension module.

5. mod_plsql simply passes the HTML web page back to the Oracle HTTP Server.

6. Finally, the Oracle HTTP Server replies back to the client with the HTML web page.

  Install Oracle HTTP Server

When installing Oracle Application Express, you will be required to install the Oracle HTTP Server which can be found on the Oracle10g Release 2 Companion CD. Although not a requirement, I will be installing the Oracle HTTP Server to the same machine which already includes an installation of the Oracle Database software.

The Oracle HTTP Server cannot be installed into an existing Oracle Home. If another Oracle product is installed on the same server, you will need to create a new Oracle home name and location for the Oracle HTTP Server.

This section assumes you have access to and will be installing the Oracle HTTP Server from the Oracle10g Release 2 Companion CD. Note that with a few minor modifications, you can also install an earlier version of the Oracle HTTP Server from the Oracle10g Release 1 Companion CD. You can perform the install from the CD or download it from Oracle Technology Network (OTN):

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/oracle10g/index.html

After downloading and unzipping the Oracle10g Release 2 Companion CD software to a temporary directory, follow the instructions below to install the Oracle HTTP Server:

1. Start the Oracle Universal Installer from the Oracle10g Release 2 Companion CD:
   • Linux / Unix: ./runInstaller
   • Windows: setup.exe

2. From the Welcome Screen, click [Next] to continue.

3. From the Select a Product to Install screen, select the "Oracle Database 10g Companion Products 10.2.0.1.0" option and click [Next] to continue.

4. From the Specify Home Details screen, specify a unique Oracle home name and location. For the purpose of this example, I used the following, however you may choose any directory structure as long as the name and location you specify does not already contain an Oracle production installation:
   • Name: OraHttpServer10g_home1
   • Path:
     • Linux / Unix: /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/ohs
     • Windows: C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\ohs

   Click [Next] to continue.

   Do not install HTML DB in the next step!

5. From the Available Product Components screen, only select the "Apache Standalone 10.1.2.0.0" component. If you are using the Oracle10g Release 1 Companion CD, you would select "Apache Standalone 9.0.4.0.0". Do not select any option that would install HTML DB. By choosing to install HTML DB here, the Oracle Universal Installer would select to install HTML DB release 1.6 which is not the release we want. We will be installing Oracle Application Express 2.0 as separate product later on in this article. After making the appropriate selection, click [Next] to continue.

6. The Oracle Universal Installer then runs a set of Product-Specific Prerequisite checks. After verifying the status of each item was successful (a status of Succeeded), click [Next] to continue.

7. The next screen is a summary of all software to be installed. To start the installation process, click the [Install] button. After the installation phase (and linking stage if using Linux / Unix), the "Configuration Assistants" screen is displayed. Simply allow this process to complete. No manual intervention is required if you are running on the Windows platform. For Linux / Unix users, you will be required to run the root.sh at the end of the installation.

8. When the installation completes, the Oracle Universal Installer will display the "End of Installation" screen. Before exiting from the installer, take a snapshot or print out this screen as it contains the links used to access the Oracle HTTP Server. The main URL will be something like http://<machine_name>:7777.

  Test the Oracle HTTP Server Installation

After the installation of the Oracle HTTP Server is complete, you should test it. Point your browser to the URL that was displayed on the "End of Installation" screen by the Oracle Universal Installer. For me, the URL was http://linux3:7777/. This should bring up the Oracle HTTP Server Welcome page.

  Post Installation Steps

The only real step that should be taken after installing the Oracle HTTP Server is to verify it will be restarted on a reboot of the server.

Linux / Unix Users:

Enter the following set of commands in one of the start configuration files, like /etc/rc.local:

ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/ohs
export ORACLE_HOME
$ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startall

Windows Users:

On the Windows platform, the installer will create a service named OracleOraHttpServer10g_home1ProcessManager or something similar depending on the name you used for the Oracle home name. This service should have been set to automatically startup on reboot. If not, you should configure it to automatically startup on reboot.

  Starting / Stopping / Restarting Oracle HTTP Server

All Oracle Application Server (OAS) components are managed through the Oracle Process Management Notification (OPMN) service. Since Oracle HTTP Server is a component of the Oracle Application Server suite, it is managed by the OPMN service. OAS components are defined in the file $ORACLE_HOME/opmn/conf/opmn.xml.

OPMN runs as a background process and periodically checks the health of all OAS components. If OPMN detects a component has been abruptly shutdown, it will attempt to restart it. It is also the interface used to manually start, stop and restart OAS components, like the Oracle HTTP Server.

Although not a complete list, the following are some of the more useful commands used to start, stop and restart the Oracle HTTP Server:

	Start the OPMN service and all managed OAS components, like the Oracle HTTP Server.
	$ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startall
	Starts the Oracle HTTP Server managed process. The OPMN service must be started and running for this command to succeed.
	$ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startproc ias-component=HTTP_Server
	Stops all managed processes, such as the Oracle HTTP Server, and also stops the OPMN service.
	$ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl stopall
	Stops the Oracle HTTP Server managed process, however, the OPMN service will continue to run.
	$ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl stopproc ias-component=HTTP_Server
	This command will stop and then restart the Oracle HTTP Server managed process. The OPMN service, obviously, will continue to run.
	$ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl restartproc ias-component=HTTP_Server

Installing Oracle Application Express

  Download Oracle Application Express 2.0

Before starting the installation of Oracle Application Express, you will need to first download the software from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) website.

Oracle Application Express was previously known as HTML DB. With the release of 2.0, Oracle officially changed the name from HTML DB to Oracle Application Express (APEX) on January 30, 2006. Note that the version of HTML DB shipped on the Oracle10g Release 2 Companion CD is version 1.6. With Oracle10g Release 1, the version of HTML DB is 1.5.

The download site for Oracle Application Express 2.0 can be found at the following location:

  http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express/download.html

From the "Download Oracle Application Express (formerly HTML DB)" page, select the operating system where Oracle Application Express will be installed, and then locate the download link for "Oracle Application Express (formerly HTML DB) v2.0".

The download file from Oracle will be named htmldb_2.0.zip. Place this file in a temporary directory (i.e. /u01/app/oracle/apex_temp) and unzip it:

$ cd apex_temp
$ unzip htmldb_2.0.zip

The unzipped files will be created in a directory named htmldb.

  Create Tablespace for Oracle Application Express Database Objects

Although not necessary, it is recommended to create a separate tablespace to store the objects created by Oracle Application Express. Otherwise these objects will be created in the SYSTEM tablespace (or SYSAUX for Oracle10g or higher).

I generally create a 100MB tablespace named APEX20 using a uniform extent size of 64K. Be careful not to set the extent size too high. There are over 600 objects created for Oracle Application Express and disk requirements can quickly increase.

SQL> CREATE TABLESPACE apex20 DATAFILE SIZE 100M
  2  EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL UNIFORM SIZE 64K
  3  SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT auto;

Note that the above CREATE TABLESPACE ... statement assumes the use of Oracle Managed Files (OMF) and therefore no datafile name was specified. For my database, the initialization parameter db_create_file_dest is set to /u02/oradata. If you are not using OMF, you will need to specify a name for the datafile.

  Create Oracle Application Express Database Objects

After the new tablespace has been created, the next step is to create all required database objects for Oracle Application Express. These database objects are all created by running a single SQL script that can be found in the Oracle Application Express software distribution downloaded earlier in this section. The SQL script to run is named htmldbins.sql and can be found in the htmldb directory created when unzipping the software distribution. For the purpose of this example, I ran the script as follows (note that this install script can take quite awhile to complete):

$ cd ~/apex_temp/htmldb
$ sqlplus "/ as sysdba"
SQL> @htmldbins apexpwd apex20 apex20 temp /i/ TESTDB

A description (in order) of the above parameters are provided in the following table:

Parameters to APEX Database Object Creation SQL Script
Parameter Value	Description
apexpwd	The password for the Oracle APEX administrator account, the APEX schema owner (FLOWS_020000), the APEX files schema owner (FLOWS_FILES), and the APEX public user schema (HTMLDB_PUBLIC_USER). The APEX schema owner is the user or schema into which Oracle Application Express database objects will be installed. The APEX files schema owner is the user or schema where uploaded files are maintained in Oracle Application Express.
apex20	Name of the default tablespace for the APEX schema owner - (FLOWS_020000).
apex20	Name of the default tablespace for the APEX files schema owner - (FLOWS_FILES). Note that Oracle Application Express creates a table named FLOWS_FILES.WWV_FLOW_FILE_OBJECTS$ in this tablespace used to store any uploaded files. Although this could have been a separate tablespace, it is just as easy having the all objects in a single tablespace.
temp	Name of the temporary tablespace to be used for all schemas created by the Oracle Application Express install process.
/i/	Virtual directory that is used for images rendered by Oracle Application Express. To support future Oracle HTML DB upgrades, define the virtual image directory as /i/.
TESTDB	Name of the Oracle Net connect string to the database where Oracle Application Express database objects are to be installed. If this is a local install, you can use none or NONE.

During the Oracle Application Express install process, three schemas will be created. A description of each of these schemas is provided in the following table:

Oracle Application Express Database Schema Accounts
Schema Name	Description
FLOWS_020000	This is basically the schema owner of all objects (tables, views, packages, functions, etc.) used by Oracle Application Express. The only exception is the table installed in the FLOWS_FILES schema (FLOWS_FILES.WWV_FLOW_FILE_OBJECTS$) for storing uploaded files. Note that this account is locked at the end of the installation and cannot be used unless it is first unlocked.
FLOWS_FILES	This schema is used to store uploaded files to Oracle Application Express. These can include scripts, documents, cascading style sheets, etc. Note that this account is locked at the end of the installation and cannot be used unless it is first unlocked.
HTMLDB_PUBLIC_USER	This schema is used by Oracle Application Express to login to the database and has access to database objects in the above two schemas for all application functionality.

  Recompiling Invalid PL/SQL Packages

After installing the Oracle Application Express database objects, it is recommended (however not required) to recompile all invalid PL/SQL packages now instead of when the packages are accessed for the first time.

Run the utlrp.sql script from the Oracle Database home:

SQL> @?/rdbms/admin/utlrp.sql

  Install Oracle Application Express Database Images

After successfully creating all of the required Oracle Application Express database objects, the next step is to copy the necessary images, templates, cascading style sheets, themes, java scripts, (and several other file types) into the directory tree of the Oracle HTTP Server. The Oracle HTTP Server was installed earlier in this article and is located at:

$ORACLE_HOME = /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/ohs

The images and other file types to copy can be found in the Oracle Application Express software distribution downloaded earlier under the .../htmldb/images directory.

The files will need to be copied to the $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/images directory as illustrated in the following examples:

Linux / Unix Users:

$ cd ~/apex_temp/htmldb
$ cp -R images $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache

Windows Users:

C:\> xcopy /E /I C:\apex_temp\htmldb\images %ORACLE_HOME%\Apache\Apache\images

Note the directory where you copied the Oracle Application Express images to. This directory will be referenced when we configure the Oracle Database Access Descriptor (DAD) in the next section.

  Configure Database Access Descriptor

Now that the Oracle Application Express images are in place, the next step is to configure the Oracle Database Access Descriptor (DAD) file. The configuration file is named dads.conf and should be located in the $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/modplsql/conf directory. The DAD is used by the Oracle HTTP Server and mod_plsql extension module to connect to the Oracle database.

If you have read through the official Oracle HTML DB documentation, you will note that it refers to a file named marvel.conf instead of dads.conf. Whenever the Oracle HTML DB documentation refers to the file marvel.conf, it means the dads.conf configuration file!

The following is an example of my dads.conf configuration file used for this article:

Example dads.conf File

# ============================================================================ # mod_plsql DAD Configuration File # ============================================================================ # 1. Please refer to dads.README for a description of this file # ============================================================================ # Note: This file should typically be included in your plsql.conf file with # the "include" directive. # Hint: You can look at some sample DADs in the dads.README file # ============================================================================ Alias /i/ "/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/ohs/Apache/Apache/images/" AddType text/xml xbl AddType text/x-component htc <Location /pls/htmldb> SetHandler pls_handler Order deny,allow Allow from all AllowOverride None PlsqlDatabaseUsername HTMLDB_PUBLIC_USER PlsqlDatabasePassword apexpwd PlsqlDatabaseConnectString linux3:1521:TESTDB PlsqlAuthenticationMode Basic PlsqlDefaultPage htmldb PlsqlDocumentTablename wwv_flow_file_objects$ PlsqlDocumentPath docs PlsqlDocumentProcedure wwv_flow_file_mgr.process_download PlsqlNLSLanguage AMERICAN_AMERICA.AL32UTF8 </Location>

If this were a Windows installation, the alias line would read: Alias /i/ "C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\ohs\Apache\Apache\images/" Note you must include the forward slash (/) at the end of the path for both Linux / Unix and Windows.

For a complete description of each of the parameters used in the dads.conf configuration file, read through the file dads.README located in the same directory. The following table provides a brief description of the key parameters:

Oracle DAD Configuration Parameters and Description
Parameter Name	Description
Alias	This is set to the virtual directory you specified when running the htmldbins.sql file to create the Oracle Application Express database objects. This value must match the value you specified which is recommended to be /i/. The virtual directory should refer to the location where you copied the Oracle Application Express images to in the Oracle HTTP Server directory tree.
<Location /pls/htmldb>	This is the name of the virtual path that will be used to access application in Oracle Application Express. For example, http://linux3:7777/pls/htmldb/f?p=100.
PlsqlDatabaseUsername	This is the database username that will be used by the mod_plsql extension module to connect to Oracle database. The database username should be HTMLDB_PUBLIC_USER - the schema created by the htmldbins.sql script. All connections coming from an Oracle Application Express application, regardless of their login id and password, will be connected to the database with this username. This even includes applications that use a different parsing schema! Consider an application that uses a parsing schema of DEV_WS. The session user will be HTMLDB_PUBLIC_USER but the Current User will be set to DEV_WS: SELECT sys_context('USERENV','SESSION_USER') "Session User" , sys_context('USERENV','CURRENT_USER') "Current User" FROM dual; Session User Current User ------------------- ------------ HTMLDB_PUBLIC_USER DEV_WS
PlsqlDatabasePassword	This must match the password you provided during the creation of the Oracle Application Express database objects (@htmldbins.sql). This is the password used by the PlsqlDatabaseUsername (above) to connect to the Oracle database.
PlsqlDatabaseConnectString	The connection URL string used to connect to the Oracle database in the format server.domain:port:sid. If the database is located on the same server, you can use localhost.

  Obfuscate the PlsqlDatabasePassword Parameter

Notice that when we configured the dads.conf file, we put in the plain text password for the Oracle database user. Exposing plain text passwords is never good security practice, especially for this sensitive database account. Fortunately, Oracle provides an obfuscation utility that targets and encrypts the PlsqlDatabasePassword entry in the dads.conf file. This utility is named dadTool.pl and can be found in the $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/modplsql/conf directory.

Run the dadTool.pl utility as follows:

Linux / Unix Users:

$ ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/ohs; export ORACLE_HOME
$ PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin:$PATH; export PATH
$ PERL5LIB=$ORACLE_HOME/perl/lib/5.6.1; export PERL5LIB
$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/modplsql/conf
$ perl dadTool.pl -o

Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backed up older dads.conf as /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/ohs/Apache/modplsql/conf/dads.conf.orig.2006-08-03_19-00

All passwords successfully obfuscated. New obfuscations : 1

Windows Users:

C:\> set ORACLE_HOME=C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\ohs
C:\> set PATH=%ORACLE_HOME%\perl\5.6.1\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
C:\> set PERL5LIB=%ORACLE_HOME%\perl\5.6.1\lib
C:\> cd %ORACLE_HOME%\Apache\modplsql\conf
C:\> perl dadTool.pl -o

Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backed up older dads.conf as C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\ohs/Apache/modplsql/conf/dads.conf.orig.2006-08-03_19-17

All passwords successfully obfuscated. New obfuscations : 1

The new dads.conf configuration file will be saved to the same directory with the PlsqlDatabasePassword now obfuscated!

As you can see from the above example, the dadTool.pl utility first makes a backup copy of the original dads.conf configuration file before obfuscating it. The name of the original file will be of the format dads.conf.orig.YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM. You should either remove this file or move it to a secure location as it contains the plain text password for the Oracle database user.

  Restart the Oracle HTTP Server

After modifying the dads.conf file (and optionally obfuscating the PlsqlDatabasePassword parameter), the Oracle HTTP Server will need to be restarted:

$ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl restartproc ias-component=HTTP_Server

  Test Oracle Application Express

Finally, a chance to see the results of your hard work! With the Oracle HTTP Server installed and configured, the Oracle Application Express engine installed, and the Database Access Descriptor configured, we can now test connectivity to Oracle Application Express.

There are two primary URLs that can be used to test connectivity:

• The HTML DB service administration interface is used to create and configure workspaces as well as other useful services. The structure of the link to the HTML DB service administration interface is as follows:

  http://host:port/pls/htmldb/htmldb_admin

• The HTML DB development interface is used by developers to create and manage applications and HTML DB users. The structure of the link to the HTML DB development interface is as follows:

  http://host:port/pls/htmldb

In my sample configuration, the URL I used to test was:

http://linux3:7777/pls/htmldb/htmldb_admin

If you get a screen similar to the following then congratulations! You have successfully installed Oracle Application Express 2.0. To login to the Oracle Application Express Service Administration screen, use the username ADMIN and the password you supplied when installing the Oracle Application Express database objects.

Further Reading

Additional information on installing and configuring Oracle Application Express can be found in the "Oracle HTML DB Installation Guide Release 2.0". This guide is available from the Oracle Documentation Library website located at the following address http://download-east.oracle.com/docs/cd/B31035_01/doc/install.20/b16375.pdf.