Miguel


SQL query for queue table with priorities 6

Queue tables are used to take care of events. There is a mechanism that insert rows and another that takes care of the existing rows, usually deleting them at the end.

When possible one should use Oracle Advanced Queuing mechanism which takes care of managing the queue and a simple request will give you the next in the line.

Some applications develop their own queuing systems and it is a good way to learn how queue works.

Imagine a table with a list of elements and two specific columns:

  • order of arrival
  • priority

The first to be served is the one that, having the highest priority, was the first to arrive.

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Impact of Azure-Oracle OCI interconnect on a multi-cloud solution 3

Introduction

Oracle and Microsoft announced in June 2019 a cloud interoperability partnership which enables workloads across Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud. By creating a first joint multi-cloud solution, the software giants can each continue to provide the best of their services. At the same time customers do not need to decide which vendor they opt-out when moving their on-premises constructs.

Being myself an Oracle Database Administrator, this article aims to check what is the impact of distributing resources in multiple clouds, with databases remaining on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

It is not aim of the article to discuss the costs of resources on any of the clouds.

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OCI / Azure and Oracle DB: firewall and security rules

Many of the problems with VMs on Clouds are related to firewall or security rules. Here some elements that might help.

These examples are based on Oracle Linux 7.7 virtual machines.

Firewall: check if it is running

When is loaded and running (active) is shows like:

[bash][opc@alfama ~]$ sudo systemctl status firewalld 
● firewalld.service - firewalld - dynamic firewall daemon
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/firewalld.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-05-15 05:19:12 GMT; 15min ago
Docs: man:firewalld(1)
Main PID: 1640 (firewalld)
Tasks: 2
Memory: 33.2M
CGroup: /system.slice/firewalld.service
└─1640 /usr/bin/python2 -Es /usr/sbin/firewalld --nofork --nopid

When it is loaded but stopped:

[opc@alfama ~]$ sudo systemctl status firewalld -l
● firewalld.service - firewalld - dynamic firewall daemon
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/firewalld.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: inactive (dead) since Fri 2020-05-15 05:36:09 GMT; 7s ago
Docs: man:firewalld(1)
Process: 1640 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/firewalld --nofork --nopid $FIREWALLD_ARGS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 1640 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Firewall: check ports open

[opc@boavista ~]$ sudo firewall-cmd --list-all
public (active)
  target: default
  icmp-block-inversion: no
  interfaces: eth0
  sources:
  services: dhcpv6-client ssh
  ports: 1521/tcp
  protocols:
  masquerade: no
  forward-ports:
  source-ports:
  icmp-blocks:
  rich rules:

Firewall: open Oracle listener port

If we want to open the default listener port, two commands are needed. One for adding the rule and another to enable the new rule:

[opc@mouraria bin]$ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=1521/tcp
[opc@mouraria bin]$ sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Firewall: allow ping reponses

Ping uses a separate protocol. To allow the VMs to answer pings, this rule needs to be added to the firewall:

[opc@mouraria bin]$ sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --direct --add-rule ipv4 filter INPUT 0 -p icmp -s 0.0.0.0/0 -d 0.0.0.0/0 -j ACCEPT
[opc@mouraria bin]$ sudo systemctl restart firewalld.service

On OCI, to be able to ping between hosts, it might be necessary to add an Ingress rule that allows pings. The rule should look like below. The most important is the Protocol ICMP and type 8. The source CIDR should not be larger than the VCN CIDR.

Test if port is open:

To check if the remote port is open, I use the follow commands. This works both with IPs or hostnames and also lets you know if port is open, but listener is not running (on this port):

[opc@alfama ~]$ ### PORT UNREACHEABLE, SERVER DOWN/WRONG? ###
[opc@alfama ~]$ export CHECK_IP="10.1.2.4/1521"
[opc@alfama ~]$ timeout 1 bash -c '</dev/tcp/${CHECK_IP} && echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is open || echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is closed' || echo Connection timeout
Connection timeout

[opc@alfama ~]$ ### PORT OPEN, USING HOSTNAME ###
[opc@alfama ~]$ export CHECK_IP="luz.subnetpriv2/1521"
[opc@alfama ~]$ timeout 1 bash -c '</dev/tcp/${CHECK_IP} && echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is open || echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is closed' || echo Connection timeout
Port luz.subnetpriv2/1521 is open

[opc@alfama ~]$ ### PORT OPEN, USING IP ###
[opc@alfama ~]$ timeout 1 bash -c '</dev/tcp/${CHECK_IP} && echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is open || echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is closed' || echo Connection timeout
Port 10.1.5.3/1521 is open

[opc@alfama ~]$ ### PORT CLOSED ###
[opc@alfama ~]$ export CHECK_IP="luz.subnetpriv2/1522"
[opc@alfama ~]$ timeout 1 bash -c '</dev/tcp/${CHECK_IP} && echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is open || echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is closed' || echo Connection timeout
bash: connect: No route to host
bash: /dev/tcp/luz.subnetpriv2/1522: No route to host
Port luz.subnetpriv2/1522 is closed

[opc@alfama ~]$ ### PORT OPEN but LISTENER DOWN ###
[opc@alfama ~]$ timeout 1 bash -c '</dev/tcp/${CHECK_IP} && echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is open || echo Port ${CHECK_IP} is closed' || echo Connection timeout
bash: connect: Connection refused
bash: /dev/tcp/10.1.5.3/1521: Connection refused
Port 10.1.5.3/1521 is closed

Bonus

At Oracle OCI, one can access other VMs of the VCN using the <hostname>.<subnet>

On Azure, the <hostname> is enough to access other host of the VNet.


SSH tips & tricks

These days I’ve been playing with Oracle Cloud and Azure. It is best practice to have a bastion or jumphost server with public IP address and all the rest on private networks, only accessible internally.

Also, there is no use of passwords and only the ssh public key of the user is located on the servers. Usually this is what we try to do:

To start with, I use MobaXterm to access my servers. There I’ve configured my SSH private keys to be loaded:

MobaXterm configuration menu for SSH

Connect to jumphost server and take SSH key

Use the -A option when connecting:

ssh -A opc@bastion-server

Then you can do ssh to the next server in the private subnet without password. Example of not using and using this option:

Connect to private server via jumphost directly

For this we use both -A and -J options:

ssh -A -J opc@bastion-server opc@private-server

SCP directly to private server via JumpHost

Here we have to use a ProxyJump option of scp in this case:

scp -o 'ProxyJump opc@bastion-server' file.zip opc@private-server:~/


Attention OPatch 12.2.0.1.19: ‘opatch util cleanup’ command deletes files from /etc, /bin, /lib 2

On January 28th 2020 I reported to Oracle on a Severy 1 SR that the latest OPatch version tries to delete system files from /etc, /bin, /lib :

I wrote in the SR the use case, provided the logs. On my case, the opatch cleanup command “just” deleted the configuration files of my backup client in /etc (opatch deletes files that are writable by the user who calls the command – ‘oracle’/’grid’ in most of the cases).

The location from where ‘opatch cleanup util’ tries to delete files depends from where you call it! So, if you call from / or from $ORACLE_BASE or from $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch you’ll get different behaviours!

It took two months until I got an answer to that SR, saying a bug was created and it will be fixed on the next version of OPatch:

Today there was a release of April 2020 Security patches, the latest Oracle Patch Bundles. To my surprise, for Oracle versions 12.2, 18c and 19c, there is the requirement of using OPatch 12.2.0.1.19 version, the exact same version that has this dangerous bug!

The bug reported end of January was not yet fixed! At least, on OPatch readme there is now a warning:

So, be careful until then and do not use ‘opatch util cleanup’. Anyway, this command is not anymore needed, as a cleanup (without deleting any wrong file) of the $ORACLE_HOME/.patch_storage directory is automatically done at the end of the patching.


Oracle 19c – TFA and Oracle Restart (SIHA)

It took Oracle two months and some persuasion effort to make the analyst to read and believe what I’ve written on the Service Request, but the answer finally come from development:

TFA is disabled in all 19.* SIHA versions. Will let you know once enabled.
You can download TFA from MOS and install it.

My original request in February was:

I’m installing Oracle Restart in silent mode.

I see that TFA is provided both in GI and RDBMS homes under $ORACLE_HOME/suptools/tfa/release/tfa_home

How can I make it to install THIS VERSION OF TFA (and not downloaded from Oracle Support) automatically part of a silent mode installation?

At the moment, when it runs the root.sh from RDBMS installation, it calls both
. /u00/app/oracle/product/19.6.0/install/utl/rootmacro.sh "$@"
and
/u00/app/oracle/product/19.6.0/suptools/tfa/release/tfa_home/install/roottfa.sh

The rootmacro.sh sets:
INSTALL_TFA=0

On the output of the root.sh script there is:

Oracle Trace File Analyzer (TFA) is available at : /u00/app/oracle/product/19.6.0/bin/tfactl

but this does not exist:
-bash: /u00/app/oracle/product/19.6.0/bin/tfactl: No such file or directory

So, I repeat the question:
How can I make it to install the TFA provided part of GI/RDBMS home (and not downloaded from Oracle Support) AUTOMATICALLY and PART OF SILENT MODE INSTALLATION?


Oracle 19c – install JVM

When you did not install Java / JVM directly during database creation, you can do it in a later phase. This operation unfortunately is not so well documented. Here how I do it:

set echo on
alter pluggable database all open;
alter system set "_system_trig_enabled" = false scope=memory;
 
host $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl ${ORACLE_HOME}/rdbms/admin/catcon.pl -n 1 -l /tmp/jvm -b initjvm ${ORACLE_HOME}/javavm/install/initjvm.sql;
host $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl ${ORACLE_HOME}/rdbms/admin/catcon.pl -n 1 -l /tmp/jvm -b initxml ${ORACLE_HOME}/xdk/admin/initxml.sql;
host $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl ${ORACLE_HOME}/rdbms/admin/catcon.pl -n 1 -l /tmp/jvm -b catjava ${ORACLE_HOME}/rdbms/admin/catjava.sql;
select count(*), object_type from all_objects where object_type like '%JAVA%' group by object_type;
 
shutdown immediate
startup
host $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catcon.pl -n 1 -l /tmp/jvm -e -b utlrp $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/utlrp.sql
SELECT comp_name, version, status FROM dba_registry ORDER BY comp_name;
SELECT dbms_java.get_jdk_version JDK_Version FROM dual;


Oracle 19c – Install Spatial

Oracle Spatial is now free to users of all Oracle versions. To install, just run on your CDB:

host $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catcon.pl -n 1 -l /tmp/jvm -b install_spatial $ORACLE_HOME/md/admin/mdinst.sql
set lines 300
col comp_name for a50
SELECT comp_name, version, status FROM dba_registry ORDER BY comp_name;

Tales of Oracle 19c upgrade – ORA-24964: ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER error

At my client we have a nice automation tool that can run scripts on several DBs based on their group on Enterprise Manager.

Last week I’ve migrated+upgraded OEM repository from 12.2 to 19c, using Refreshable PDB to copy the PDB from a 12.2 CDB to a 19c CDB + running dbupgrade script on the PDB (p_oem_t below). Everything worked nice.

My colleague yesterday tells me the automation tool is not working, giving “ORA-0942 Table or view does exist error” for a query on the OEM repository. This means to me, it can connect to the new repository, as the old one is shutdown. But where can the problem be?

I look at the code, find the query, run it on SQL Developer and all if fine, no errors.

This until I activate the debug modus of the automation tool and I see that it connects to the CDB as SYSDBA and then changes container to the right PDB. Just above the ORA-0942 error, there was a

ORA-24964: ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER error

Looking around I could find this Metalink note:

ORA-24964 – Alter Session To 12.2 PDB From 12.1 Client (Doc ID 2494623.1)

The keyword on the “Symptoms” is “Upgraded DB”. The code description states:

Cause: An attempt to switch to a PDB with different settings such as character set, time zone or time zone file version on an Oracle 12c Release 1 (12.1) or earlier client failed. (see Docs)

In fact, our automation tool uses an old 11.2 client. To test it, I’ve created on the same 19c CDB also new fresh PDB (PDB01) and tried to connect remotely:

oracle@l-master $ sqlplus sys@\"l-oem19c_t/c_oem_t\" as sysdba

 SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.4.0 Production on Thu Jan 23 17:06:27 2020
 Enter password:
  
 Connected to:
 Oracle Database 19c Enterprise Edition Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production
  
 SQL> select pdb_name from dba_pdbs;
 PDB_NAME
 ------------------------------
 PDB$SEED
 P_OEM_T 
 PDB01
  
 SQL> alter session set container=PDB01;
 Session altered.
  
 SQL>  alter session set container=CDB$ROOT;
 Session altered.
  
 SQL> alter session set container=P_OEM_T;
 ERROR:
 ORA-24964: ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER error 

When I tried the same but using a 19c client, it works without problem:

oracle@l-master-19c $ sqlplus sys@\"l-oem19c_t/c_oem_t\" as sysdba
  
 SQL*Plus: Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production on Thu Jan 23 17:08:55 2020
 Version 19.3.0.0.0
  
 Copyright (c) 1982, 2019, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
  Enter password:
  
 Connected to:
 Oracle Database 19c Enterprise Edition Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production
 Version 19.4.0.0.0
  
 SQL> select pdb_name from dba_pdbs;
  
 PDB_NAME
 ---------------------------------
 PDB$SEED
 P_OEM_T
 PDB01
  
 SQL> alter session set container=PDB01;
 Session altered.
  
 SQL>  alter session set container=CDB$ROOT;
 Session altered.
  
 SQL> alter session set container=P_OEM_T;
 Session altered.