Interested in new opportunities.

Last day at Oracle March 22nd 2024 after 25 years at Oracle - moving on to different things. Contact details: +353 868256032, turloch@gmail.com. Search for Turloch O'Tierney on facebook or LinkedIn (Turloch is an unusual spelling there will not be two instances of Turloch O'Tierney).

Skills: Oracle Database, Linux, Java, git, Docker and C.  International experience: England, Netherlands, Canada. Based in Dublin Ireland.

(Oracle experience + 

coderdojo leader/champian experience 2016 to 2018 + 

1 hr a week with 17 year old son experience up to 2024).

 https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/databaseappdev-vm.html Got a new Virtualbox VM out.

unset TWO_TASK to connect sqlplus / as SYSDBA.

You might want to mark the disks as SSD - so TRIM can be used/reduce ware.

SQLDeveloper desktop and SQLDeveloper Modeller were not included (But sqldevloper web/database actions via ords is included). There were no demos included. Simply database sqlcl apex and ords.

Firefox within the VM is a bit flakey/out of date - you may upgrade - or simply use your host browser.

A bit of a rush towards the end, meant to give a better starting screen - use the forum https://forums.oracle.com/ords/apexds/domain/dev-community/category/oracle-database-free - or drop a message here if you have any queries.

ORDS is started on startup kill it if you want it restarted - there is an ordsstart helper script.

There is a service enabled: oracle-free-23c which starts database listener and ords - and stops database and listener (but not ords)- if you stop and restart the service the ords fails as there is already an ords on 8080.

For me the display may need to be set to 200% - if the virtual box window is too small (font too small).

Cannot reproduce (sql - maybe alias related) reply

Cannot reproduce. (alias related issue)

Get back to the customer.

We should have a standard reply if we cannot reproduce the sql error I will try to give one:

1/sql command has -verbose flag which show issues (like java or sql exceptions) that have been logged.

2/"set echo on” might help (unlikely though - it will echo out what commands the alias is doing)

3/Things that might not be accounted for in customer ‘aliases.xml’ test case: 

.login.sql file or equivalent automatically read at startup

set sqlformat

The bug is logged against linux (that is what I tested on and could not reproduce)

Might need a full:

sql username/password @thetestcase.sql

Testcase (with aliases xml and .login.sql if any) in case anything before the alias in the session and or customer environment is required to reproduce.

What is the encoding/language? - ie is it UTF8 + American (English) (Some bugs are multibyte is Japanese/Chinese only)

Try with latest oracle java 8 (not openjdk) and ORACLE_HOME unset i.e. thin driver as shipped instead of thick driver from Oracle home. (What is the show JDBC and show java output?)

(What is the oracle database version being connected to and what Oracle Database does $ORACLE_HOME point too?)

4/Can the customer reproduce with new operating system user/different linux box?

5/Has the database connection timed out (Oracle ADB does that) - or other too much resource used and connection cut off by the database dba/automatically, - unlikely as the command works on repeating it (could be a reconnect)

6/The error says ctrl C - however there could be another error caught and reported wrong/differently

If I had a test case I would go through the code line by line.

Without the code If I could reproduce I would do some tracing (strace/wireshark) - but I cannot expect customer to do that - too much in the tracing file/output to go through - in sqldeveloper there is a log view which at least gives all the sql sent to the database (slightly more user friendly than strike/wireshark). There might be other tracing the customer is aware of/more familiar with, Unless encrypted or https - the sql to and error back from database is sent received by a write/read from file/socket (and unencrypted).

LDAP and Kerberos

LDAP web ui (OID12 + OUD latest tested - interested in reports of anything else working not working - but we do not have it in house)
19.? - paging used for ldap ui search - broke unpatched OID11 (tested successfully with OID12) - required configuration OUD
19.4 - on specific exception on paging try non paged (tested successfully OID12 and OUD (latest - with only anonymous bind configuration))
Active directory not tested (that was actually where the paging request came in) (not tested)
(Huge performance improvement on lots of aliases on loading dbservice (alias became lazily evaluated))

(Advanced URL based thick or thin LDAP works - I think thick ldap by 'dbservice name' (forgot the name in the ui) outside LDAP web lookup might be OK - certainly full LDAP url ok - but different syntax for thick and thin).

KERBEROS (Linux/MIT Kerberos tested easy enough - Active directory Kerberos ticket tested fairly recently) - thick JDBC should work 'like sqlplus'.
18.4 Kerberos - tested with credential cache blank 'Active directory Kerberos ticket' on windows -> means try native (regedit change required). I have rough notes from testing on this configuration.

SQL Developer 19.4 Datapump wizard, now with encryption of data files.

SQL Developer 19.4 Datapump wizard, now with encryption of data files. 
(Underlying PLSQL API had encryption option since Oracle Database 11gr1)

LDAP SQLDeveloper new paging requirement

Currently OID is the target LDAP provider

Paging access (added 6 months ago) so that over 1000 entries will not get truncated seems to be causing problems on unpatched OID11 - though I tested it against patched OID 11 and OID 12 .

I have been asking people with issues to contact support - if the issue is prioritised I may get a broken setup to test against. If I sense a paging error for example - I could try a non paged version (getting large number of results truncated is better than no results).

Some guy managed to get OUD working by allowing paging (Third party link removed)

Note that
1/ you can supply context in ldap.ora
2/ you can give exact match in the dbservice combo box (and download the single connection details without searching for all services in a context)

I was hoping this might help for LDAPs that do not allow root searching (ODSEE?) (or do not have paged access)

These LDAP considerations apply to the SQLDeveleoper specific LDAP UI for searching for entries - you could always use the advanced URL for LDAP (thick and thin have different syntax).

Also 6 months ago we fixed:
Kerberos Active Directory default login ticket support on windows (give cache as blank i.e. "" (without the quotes)) - was tested with a configuration file with thin jdbc . (You could have, and still can, use thick kerberos and sqlnet.ora configuration)

19.3 database 19.1 dbtools software releases

VM download page: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/community/databaseappdev-vm-161299.html

Dropped json and xml labs

Virtualbox 6.0.8

sqldeveloper fails 10% of the time workaround: turn off splash page

Sometime too small (mac retinal screen) magnify by: machine -> settings -> display -> scale factor

Performs ok with 3G RAM & 2 CPUS - 2G RAM and 1CPU - bare minimum (swaps).

Old release blog http://totierne.blogspot.com/2018/10/new-developer-day-vm-183-182-apex.html

Let me know any issues.