Andrei DANEASA

As a common practice all the servers have fixed IP address. Because not all Oracle Databases are installed directly on servers, but on laptops or different machines, it’s very probable that you have DHCP-provided IP address.
If you have DHCP IP address, your full computer name may vary, because different domain is added to computer name. Once the name can be mylaptop.oracle.com, the next day the name can be mylaptop.myhomenetwork.ro and so on.
The problem is when you want to install Oracle Database Enterprise Manager (web-based administration tool), because the installer is creating a folder on the disk have the name based on fully computer name. If you change the network the Enterprise Manager will not work, because it will not find a folder based on the actual computer name.
Enterprise Manager is not crucial , it’s just an interface, so if you don’t want to install it your database will work the same and you will configure the database through SQL*Plus or SQL Developer or Toad or what third party admin you want.
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What do you need to know before configuring Loopback Adapter?

• do not set the gateway because you can screw you internet connection
• do not set DNS because you really don’t need it
• do not set 127.0.0.1 or 192.168.0.1 or addresses from the same class as your internet connection address

The addresses that I’m using most of the time are 10.10.10.10 and 192.168.100.100, both with 255.255.255.0 as mask.

Let’s see how can we set the IP address from the command line.

Solution 1
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Netsh.exe is a tool installed with Windows 2000, XP and 2003 Server. Read the rest of this entry »

Because lots of applications (including Oracle Database) require Microsoft Loopback Adapter installed if you have DHCP-enabled machine, I tried to find a solution to automatize the installation of this dummy device.
Lots of attendees that I had on my workshops are configuring the loopback adapter with strange IP’s, gateways and the most common result is malfunctioning of the internet connection.

First of all we need a command prompt utility that will act the same way as Device Manager. Microsoft has an utility like this called DevCon (probably from Device Console), but for some strange reasons it is not redistributable, so you need to download it from their site.
DevCon’s description is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272 and download link is this.
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1. Windows 2000
2. Windows XP
3. Windows 2003
4. Windows Vista

1. Windows 2000

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Some applications are dependent on network functionality and they would not install if a network card is not present. As you will see in the next articles, some network parameters are changing frequently so we will need a static network card.

Microsoft Loopback Adapter is a dummy network card, no hardware is involved. It is used as a testing tool for a virtual network environment where network access is not available. Also, you must use the Loopback adapter if there are conflicts with a network adapter or with a network adapter driver. You can bind network clients, protocols, and other network configuration items to the Loopback adapter, and you can install the network adapter driver or network adapter later while retaining the network configuration information. Read the rest of this entry »

Lots of people think that Oracle is very complex, is suited just for large enterprises and is very expensive.
It is not true at all.
Since 10g, Oracle offers lots of absolutely free software:

• Database 10g XE (Express edition) – free version of the database with decent restrictions (4GB of data max, 1GB RAM max, 1 processor max). Available at
  http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/index.html
• SQL Developer – free IDE for database objects. Good competitor of third-party Toad and PL/SQL Developer. Available at
  http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/sql/index.html
• APEX (Application Express) – free rapid developement tool. Development on web, deployment on web. Available for download here:
  http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/application_express
  You can try it online at http://apex.oracle.com (everyone can request a workspace).
• ODP.Net & ODT.Net – tools for integration with .Net. ODP (Oracle Data Provider) provides the data types and ODT (Oracle Developer Tools) provides IDE integration into Visual Studio (2003 and 2005) with features like drag-and-drop. Available at
  http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/windows/odpnet/index.html

Regarding the books, lots of resources are available here:
http://tahiti.oracle.com

For new users, the recommandations are:

• 2 Day DBA
• 2 Day Developer Guide
• SQL Reference
• PL/SQL User’s Guide and Reference

For any question regarding the above technologies feel free to contact me.

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro

If you install VS2005 and then ODP.Net you will probably get a strange error when you will try to use Oracle Explorer for the first time:

The problem is an assembly mismatch. As Christian Shay (principal product manager for ODP.net at Oracle) said in an announcement, there are 2 options to solve this issue:

1. My recommended solution:

where is the Oracle Home directory where you installed ODT 2005. For example, on my machine is c:\oracle\product\10.2.0\client_1.

2. Reinstall:

Deinstall ODP.NET 1.x from your machine (if you’re not using it) and install ODP.NET 2.0 in the same Oracle Home.

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro

On 11th of May, I took the second Oracle exam: 1Z0-147 Program with PL/SQL. This one was much harder than the previous one (1Z0-007 Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL) for the next reasons:

• Exam duration is 1h30m vs. 2h
• Passing score is 77% vs. 70%
• The number of questions is 66 vs. 52
• There are more multiple-choice questions
• The topics covered by this exam are much more Oracle specific and harder.

I don’t recommend this exam to those people who don’t use Oracle PL/SQL every day.

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro

Did you recently encounter “Error 1251: Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client” error?
This is a common issue for MySQL server 4.1 and higher. Starting 4.1 version, MySQL changed the authentication algorithm to a better password hashing one. All older clients are trying to connect using the old authentication algorithm and this is the source of the error.
However, MySQL offers the OLD_PASSWORD function for backward compatibility.

These are the steps:
1. start mysql from console:

Optionally, if you changed the root password, you should use

2. after connection, use the following statement

That’s it! Now all new and old clients will work.

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro

On 28th of November, 2005 I’ve passed Oracle exam 1Z0-007 (Introduction to Oracle9i: SQL) with a score of 92.31% (48 earned out of 52 possible). The passing score was 70%.
The exam was not very difficult and just about 30-35% from the total number of questions was Oracle related, the rest was ANSI SQL issues.

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro