11
Managing the Infrastructure

This chapter provides an introduction to managing an infrastructure, and describes common management tasks for each piece of an infrastructure.

It contains the following topics:

• Basic Infrastructure Administration

• Managing the Infrastructure Instance

• Managing Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On

• Managing the Metadata Repository

• Managing Oracle Internet Directory

Basic Infrastructure Administration

The Oracle9iAS Infrastructure is a type of application server installation that provides centralized security, management services, and data repositories for middle-tier application server installations. Typically, there is one infrastructure in an application server enterprise, and all middle-tier application servers are configured to use it.

See Also: "The Oracle9iAS Infrastructure" for more information about infrastructures

An infrastructure is custom-tuned and configured to support middle-tier application server installations. Many of the services provided by an infrastructure are configured automatically during installation and used programmatically by middle-tier application servers.

It is possible to run an infrastructure with very little manual intervention; however, you should perform the following basic management tasks on every infrastructure:

• Starting and Stopping an Infrastructure

• Backing up and Restoring an Infrastructure

The subsequent sections in this chapter provide an introduction to common management tasks for each piece of an infrastructure.

Starting and Stopping an Infrastructure

Starting and stopping an infrastructure involves starting and stopping the pieces of an infrastructure in the proper order. You must perform an orderly shutdown and startup of an infrastructure every time you reboot a host on which an infrastructure resides.

You should not stop an infrastructure unless all application server instances using the infrastructure are stopped. Similarly, you must start an infrastructure before starting any application server instances that use it.

Whenever you reboot a system that hosts an infrastructure, follow these steps:

1. Stop all application server instances that use the infrastructure.

2. Stop the infrastructure.

   See Also: "Stopping an Infrastructure" for the steps for performing an orderly shutdown of an infrastructure

3. Reboot the host.

4. Start the infrastructure.

   See Also: "Starting an Infrastructure" for detailed steps for performing an orderly startup of an infrastructure

5. Start all application server instances that use the infrastructure.

Backing up and Restoring an Infrastructure

To ensure that you can make a full recovery from media failures, you should perform regular backups of an infrastructure. To back up an infrastructure, you must back up each of the following:

• The Oracle home in which the infrastructure is installed

• Oracle Internet Directory

• Metadata Repository

  See Also: Appendix H, "Backup and Restore" for more information

Managing the Infrastructure Instance

Every infrastructure contains a J2EE and Web Cache instance, also referred to as the infrastructure instance. The infrastructure instance is automatically configured and tuned to support infrastructure services; Oracle HTTP Server provides a Web server for the infrastructure, and OC4J provides a J2EE platform.

Warning: The infrastructure instance is intended only to support infrastructure services. Oracle does not support using the infrastructure instance for customer application deployment.

You can manage an infrastructure instance using its Instance Home Page on the Enterprise Manager Web site, just as you do any other application server instance.

To access the Instance Home Page for an infrastructure instance:

1. Navigate to the Enterprise Manager Web site on the infrastructure host. This opens the Farm Home Page for the metadata repository in the infrastructure on that host. This is because an infrastructure instance is automatically added to the farm for its metadata repository.

2. On the Farm Home Page, scroll to the Standalone Instances section and select the link for the infrastructure instance in the Name column. This opens the Instance Home Page for the infrastructure instance.

Using the Instance Home Page, you can perform standard instance management tasks, such as starting and stopping the instance, monitoring the instance and its components, and changing the ias_admin password. The Instance Home Page also provides configuration and deployment capabilities, however, you should not change the configuration settings in an infrastructure instance because it has been pre-configured to support the infrastructure, and you should not deploy applications in an infrastructure. Also, you should not add an infrastructure instance to a cluster.

Managing Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On

Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On enables users to login to application server features and access applications using a single user name and password. The benefits of using Single Sign-On include:

• Reduced administrative costs: The Single Sign-On server eliminates the need to support multiple accounts and passwords.

• Convenient login: Users do not have to maintain a separate user name and password for each application that they access.

• Increased security: When a password is required only once, users are less likely to use simple, easily exposed passwords, or to write these passwords down.

About Single Sign-On Installation and Configuration

When you install the primary infrastructure, you must configure Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On. The Single Sign-On service in your primary infrastructure should be the only Single Sign-On service in your enterprise. If you install any additional infrastructures in your enterprise, you should not configure Single Sign-On.

During the primary infrastructure installation, Single Sign-On is automatically configured to use schemas in the metadata repository and is fully integrated with Oracle Internet Directory. It is ready for use when the installation is complete.

About Single Sign-On Administrators

Immediately after an infrastructure installation only one Single Sign-On administrator exists: orcladmin. The orcladmin user is the super-user for Oracle Internet Directory and the orcladmin password is requested and set during the infrastructure installation.

After installation, you can grant Single Sign-On administrator privileges to any user by adding the user to the IASAdmins group in Oracle Internet Directory. The orcladmin user and all existing members of the IASAdmins group can add users to the IASAdmins group.

See Also: "Adding a User to a Group"

Single Sign-On administrators have full privileges for Single Sign-On server. Using the Single Sign-On administration pages, you can do the following:

• Configure Single Sign-On server settings.

• Administer partner applications, which are Web applications that delegate authentication to the Single Sign-On server.

• Administer external applications, which are Web applications that perform their own authentication using HTML forms.

  See Also: Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On Administrator's Guide for complete information on managing the Single Sign-On server

Accessing the Single Sign-On Server

You can access the Single Sign-On Administration Home Page using a URL of the following form:

http://host:port/pls/Single_Sign-On_DAD

where

• host is the computer on which the Single Sign-On server is located

• port is the HTTP Server port number for the infrastructure instance to which the Single Sign-On server belongs

• Single_Sign-On_DAD is the database access descriptor for the Single Sign-On schema (default is orasso)

For example:

http://host:7777/pls/orasso

You can log in to Single Sign-On from the Administration Home Page by clicking Login in the upper right corner, and supplying a Single Sign-On administrator username and password.

Configuring Single Sign-On for Multilingual Support

Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On supports 29 languages. Only one, English, is installed by default. To install additional languages, execute the following command:

(UNIX) ORACLE_HOME/jdk/bin/java -jar ORACLE_HOME/sso/lib/ossoca.jar langinst 
lang make_lang_avail ORACLE_HOME
(Windows) ORACLE_HOME\jdk\bin\java -jar ORACLE_HOME\sso\lib\ossoca.jar langinst 
lang make_lang_avail ORACLE_HOME

For the variable lang, substitute the code for the language to be installed. For the variable make_lang_avail, substitute 1 if you want to make the language available. Substitute 0 if you want to make the language unavailable.

See Also: Table 3-2 "Oracle9iAS Portal Languages" in Oracle9i Application Server Globalization Support Guide for a list of language codes, and "Configuring National Language Support" in Chapter 2 of Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On Administrator's Guide for more information

Managing the Metadata Repository

The metadata repository is an Oracle9i Enterprise Edition database that is pre-seeded with schemas used by many middle-tier application server components, Oracle Internet Directory, and Oracle Management Server. The metadata repository provides a single, ready-to-use database that greatly simplifies component configuration. You can designate a metadata repository during a middle-tier application server installation, and components in that installation will automatically use schemas in that metadata repository. Many Oracle9iAS demos also use metadata repository schemas.

Warning: Use of the metadata repository requires a database license. An Oracle9i Enterprise Edition license is required to support the following: Use of the metadata repository to run Oracle9iAS Wireless Use of the metadata repository to run Oracle9iAS Clickstream Intelligence Use of the replication feature of Oracle Internet Directory All other uses of the metadata repository for Oracle9iAS require an Oracle9i Standard Edition license.

About Metadata Repository Installation and Configuration

A metadata repository is installed and configured with every infrastructure installation and uses the same Oracle home as the infrastructure instance. It contains schemas to support Oracle9iAS components.

See Also: Appendix C, "Metadata Repository Schemas" for a list of schemas

The metadata repository is always configured to use port 1521 and has a service name of the form iasdb.host.domain (for the first infrastructure on a host) and iasdbx.host.domain for any subsequent infrastructures on that host). You should never change these values. If you have another database on the host using the same service name, you must change it before installing the metadata repository.

If you have another application on the host using port 1521, you must do one of the following before installing the infrastructure:

• If the other application is an Oracle Net listener using an Oracle9i database, no action is required. The metadata repository will use the existing Oracle Net listener.

• If the other application is an Oracle Net8 listener using an Oracle8i database, you must change the Net8 listener to use a different port than 1521, or you must upgrade it to the Oracle9i Net listener that runs with the metadata repository.

  To upgrade the Net8 listener, stop the Net8 listener before installing the infrastructure. After the infrastructure installation is complete, migrate the Oracle Net8 listener configuration specific to your Oracle8i database into the configuration for the metadata repository Oracle Net listener, and restart the Oracle Net listener. The Oracle Net listener will support the Oracle8i database as well as the metadata repository.

  See Also: Oracle9i Application Server Installation Guide for instructions on upgrading an existing Net8 listener

• If the other application is not an Oracle Net or Oracle Net8 listener, reconfigure it to use a different port.

Starting and Stopping the Metadata Repository

You can start and stop the metadata repository using SQL*Plus or Oracle Enterprise Manager. You should always start the metadata repository before starting any other pieces of the infrastructure, and stop it only after all other pieces of the infrastructure have been stopped.

See Also: "Starting an Infrastructure" for information on starting and stopping the metadata repository

Changing Metadata Repository Passwords

This section describes how to change passwords for two types of schemas in the metadata repository:

• Schemas Accessed Directly by Administrators

• Schemas Accessed Internally by Components

Schemas Accessed Directly by Administrators

You can change the passwords for schemas that are accessed directly by administrators at any time, using your preferred method. The following schemas fall into this category:

• SYS (initial password is change_on_install)

• SYSTEM (initial password is manager)

• SCOTT (initial password is tiger)

  This schema is used by demos and it is recommended that you do not change the password or some demos may not work.

• OEM_REPOSITORY (initial password is oem_repository)

  This schema is used by Oracle Management Server. If you change the password in the database, you must update it in the Oracle Management Server configuration by running the Enterprise Manager Configuration Assistant and choosing the option to "Use an Existing Repository." By selecting this option and entering the new password, the Oracle Management Server configuration is updated.

Schemas Accessed Internally by Components

Schemas that are accessed internally by components are assigned a randomly generated password at install time that is known only by the components. If you would like to reset any of these passwords, you must do it using the Enterprise Manager Web site. This is so the change is registered with the component as well as in the metadata repository.

See Also: Appendix C, "Metadata Repository Schemas" for a list of schemas used by components and information on which method to use to change to their passwords and "Changing Component Schema Passwords" for instructions on changing passwords using the Enterprise Manager Web site

Relocating Metadata Repository Datafiles to a Different Directory

By default, the metadata repository is installed in the same Oracle home as the infrastructure. If you do not have enough space in the infrastructure Oracle home, you may want to relocate some or all of the metadata repository datafiles to a different directory.

You can follow the steps in this section to relocate the datafiles for one or more tablespaces. As an example, the steps show how to relocate the users and portal tablespaces from an original infrastructure Oracle home named /infra_home to a new directory named /new_directory.

See Also: Oracle9i Database Administrator's Guide for more information about database concepts and relocating datafiles

Assume the following:

• The metadata repository has tablespaces named users and portal that are made up of datafiles all located in the same directory.

• The datafiles of the users and portal tablespaces are to be relocated to a different directory on a different filesystem or disk.

• You are currently connected to the metadata repository with administrator privileges. You must have the ALTER DATABASE system privilege to relocate datafiles.

• You have a current backup of the metadata repository.

Complete the following steps:

1. Identify the datafile names of interest.

   The following query of the data dictionary view DBA_DATA_FILES lists the datafile names and respective sizes (in bytes) of the users and portal tablespaces:

   SELECT FILE_NAME, BYTES FROM DBA_DATA_FILES
   WHERE TABLESPACE_NAME = 'USERS' OR TABLESPACE_NAME = 'PORTAL';
   
   FILE_NAME 	BYTES
   ----------------------------------------------	------------
   /infra_home/oradata/iasdb/portal.dbf	78643200
   /infra_home/oradata/iasdb/users01.dbf	96993280
   

2. Stop the entire infrastructure, including the metadata repository. Before stopping the infrastructure, you must stop all middle-tier application server instances that use it.

   See Also: "Stopping an Infrastructure"

3. Start a metadata repository instance and mount the database without opening it. To do this, connect to the metadata repository as a user with SYSDBA privileges and run this command:

   STARTUP MOUNT;
   

4. Move the datafiles to their new location using the operating system. For example:

   (UNIX)
   mv /infra_home/oradata/iasdb/portal.dbf /new_directory/portal.dbf
   mv /infra_home/oradata/iasdb/users01.dbf /new_directory/users01.dbf
   
   (Windows)
   rename C:\infra_home\oradata\iasdb\portal.dbf D:\new_directory\portal.dbf
   rename C:\infra_home\oradata\iasdb\users01.dbf D:\new_directory\users01.dbf
   

   Note: You can execute an operating system command to copy a file by using the SQL*Plus HOST command.

5. Use ALTER DATABASE to rename the file pointers in the database's control file.

   ALTER DATABASE
   

   RENAME FILE	'/infra_home/oradata/iasdb/portal.dbf',
   	'/infra_home/oradata/iasdb/users01.dbf'
   TO	'/new_directory/portal.dbf',
   	'/new_directory/users01.dbf';
   

   The new files must already exist; this statement does not create the files. Also, always provide complete filenames (including their paths) to properly identify the old and new datafiles. In particular, specify the old datafile name exactly as it appears in the DBA_DATA_FILES view of the data dictionary.

6. Back up the metadata repository. After making any structural changes to a database, always perform an immediate and complete backup.

7. Shutdown the metadata repository.

8. Start the entire infrastructure.

   See Also: "Starting an Infrastructure"

Managing Oracle Internet Directory

Oracle Internet Directory is an online directory, which is a specialized database that stores information in a hierarchical format for fast lookup and retrieval. It implements Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Version 3, an industry-standard protocol for accessing online directory services.

Most of the management tasks associated with Oracle Internet Directory are related to application server security. These tasks include:

• Managing User and Group Privileges

• Delegating Administration Tasks

• Managing Password Policies

  See Also: Concepts and tasks for managing application server security using Oracle Internet Directory are discussed in Chapter 12, "Managing Oracle Internet Directory"

Starting and Stopping Oracle Internet Directory

You should always start and stop Oracle Internet Directory as part of starting and stopping the infrastructure instance using the Enterprise Manager Web site. This ensures that the directory is started using the proper options and in the correct order with the rest of the infrastructure instance components.

Configuring Oracle Internet Directory and Single Sign-On on Separate Hosts

In most cases, all the pieces of an infrastructure reside on a single host in one Oracle home. You can, however, configure Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On and Oracle Internet Directory on separate hosts. You can do this at installation time using the following steps:

1. Install an infrastructure on Host 1 and choose a custom configuration. Select Oracle Internet Directory and the metadata repository to be configured (deselect Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On).

2. Install an infrastructure on Host 2 and choose a custom configuration. Select Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On and the metadata repository to be configured (deselect Oracle Internet Directory).

3. Point the Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On configuration on Host 2 to the Oracle Internet Directory configuration on Host 1.

If you plan to install copies of Oracle Internet Directory on different hosts to form a directory replication network, configure Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On with only one of the Oracle Internet Directory copies. The remaining copies of Oracle Internet Directory must not associate with any Oracle9iAS Single Sign-On configuration.

See Also: Oracle Internet Directory Administrator's Guide for more information on directory replication