27 Patching Oracle Application Server

This chapter explains how you can patch Oracle Application Server. In particular, this chapter covers the following:

Getting Started
Deployment Procedure
Core Components Patched
Supported Releases
Patching Oracle Application Server in Online Mode
Patching Oracle Application Server in Offline Mode

Getting Started

This section helps you get started with this chapter by providing an overview of the steps involved in patching Oracle Application Server. Consider this section to be a documentation map to understand the sequence of actions you must perform to successfully patch Oracle Application Server. Click the reference links provided against the steps to reach the relevant sections that provide more information.

Table 27-1 Getting Started with Patching Oracle Application Server

Step	Description	Reference Links
Step 1	Understanding the Deployment Procedure Understand the Deployment Procedure that is offered by Enterprise Manager Grid Control for patching Oracle Application Server. Know how the Deployment Procedure functions, what use cases it covers, what core components are patched, and so on.	To learn about the Deployment Procedure, see Deployment Procedure. To learn about the core components that are patched, see Core Components Patched.
Step 2	Knowing About the Supported Releases Know what releases of Oracle Application Server can be patched by the Deployment Procedure.	To learn about the releases supported by the Deployment Procedure, see Supported Releases.
Step 3	Selecting the Patching Mode Identify whether the host that runs Enterprise Manager Grid Control has an Internet connection to connect to My Oracle Support. If it has, then choose to patch in online mode. Otherwise, choose to patch in offline mode.	To learn about patching Oracle Application Server in online mode, see Patching Oracle Application Server in Online Mode. To learn about patching Oracle Application Server in offline mode, see Patching Oracle Application Server in Offline Mode.
Step 4	Meeting the Prerequisites Before you run any Deployment Procedure, you must meet the prerequisites, such as setting up of the environment for online or offline patching, applying mandatory patches, setting up of Oracle Software Library, and so on.	To learn about the prerequisites for patching Oracle Application Server in online mode, see Prerequisites. To learn about the prerequisites for patching Oracle Application Server in offline mode, see Prerequisites.
Step 5	Running the Deployment Procedure Run the Deployment Procedure to successfully patch Oracle Application Server.	To patch Oracle Application Server in online mode, follow the steps explained in Patching Procedure. To patch Oracle Application Server in offline mode, follow the steps explained in Patching Procedure.

Deployment Procedure

Enterprise Manager Grid Control offers the following Deployment Procedure for patching Oracle Application Server:

Patch Application Server

Core Components Patched

When you patch Oracle Application Server, essentially, the Deployment Procedure patches the following core components:

Oracle HTTP Server
Oracle Web Cache
Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J)
Oracle Portal

Supported Releases

Using this Deployment Procedure, you can patch the following releases of Oracle Application Server:

Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.0.2)
Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3 (10.1.3.x)

Patching Oracle Application Server in Online Mode

This section describes how you can patch an Oracle Application Server in online mode, that is, by connecting to My Oracle Support. This option is best suited when you have an Internet connection on the host where Enterprise Manager Grid Control is running.

This section covers the following:

Prerequisites
Patching Procedure

Prerequisites

Before running the Deployment Procedure, meet the following prerequisites:

Prerequisites for Designers

Ensure that you meet the prerequisites described in the following sections:

Prerequisites for Operators

Ensure that you use an operating system user that has the privileges to run the Deployment Procedure, and that can switch to root user and run all commands on the target hosts. For example, commands such as mkdir, ls, and so on.

If you do not have the privileges to do so, that is, if you are using a locked account, then request your administrator (a designer) to either customize the Deployment Procedure to run it as another user or ignore the steps that require special privileges.

For example, user account A might have the root privileges, but you might use user account B to run the Deployment Procedure. In this case, you can switch from user account B to A by customizing the Deployment Procedure.

For information about customization, see Chapter 31, "Customizing Steps to Run as Another User".

Patching Procedure

To patch an Oracle Application Server, follow these steps:

In Grid Control, click the Deployments tab.
On the Deployments page, in the Deployment Procedure Manager section, click Patch Procedures.
On the Deployment Procedure Manager page, in the Procedures subtab, from the table, select Patch Application Server. Then click Schedule Deployment.

Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Software Updates page of the Deployment Procedure.
On the Software Updates page, do the following:
1. In the Select Stage Location section, retain the default selection, that is, Enter Stage Location that has the value %emd_root%/EMStage.
  
  This default value refers to a location on the target host where the application server to be patched is running. The software updates are downloaded from My Oracle Support to Oracle Software Library (Software Library), and then staged in this location on the target hosts.
  
  You can modify the location if you want to, and click Save. If you save multiple custom locations, then the Select Stage Location option gets enabled and allows you to select any of the saved custom locations the next time you visit the same page.
  
  Instead of %emd_root%, you can also specify %oracle_home% to indicate the current home location being patched or %perlbin% to indicate the location of perl binary used by Oracle Management Agent (Management Agent).
2. In the Application Server Updates section, click Add to search and select software updates from My Oracle Support. Alternatively, if you have a text file that contains details about the patches, then click Upload From File to select and upload that text file.
  
  On clicking Add, Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Search and Select Software Updates page. On this page, select Search My Oracle Support, specify the details of the patches you want to search, and click Go.
  
  Enterprise Manager Grid Control connects to My Oracle Support, searches the patches, and displays details about them on the Search and Select Software Updates page. Select the ones you want to apply using the Deployment Procedure, and click Select.
  
  On clicking Upload From File, Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Upload File page. On this page, select Upload from Local Machine or Upload from Software Library depending on where the text file is available, click Browse to search and select that file, and then click Upload.
3. In the Upgrade OPatch section, retain the default selection so that the OPatch software on the target host is upgraded before the patches are applied on the application server targets.
  
  Enterprise Manager Grid Control uses OPatch software to apply the one-off patches. It is assumed that this software is already available on the target hosts managed by Oracle Management Agents (Management Agent), but Oracle recommends you to retain the selection so that the existing software is upgraded to the latest release.
4. In the Black Out Associated Targets section, retain the default selection so that all targets associated with the application server to be patched are blacked out while the patching is in progress.
5. In the Advanced OPatch Options section, specify any opatch-related options you want to pass while running this Deployment Procedure. For example, if you want the Deployment Procedure to ignore duplicate patches, then specify -skip_duplicate.
  
  The following are the options you can specify:
  
  -skip_duplicate, skips duplicate patches
  
  -skip_conflict, skips conflicting patches
  
  -skip_missing_component, skips patches whose components are missing
  
  -invPtrLoc, the location of oraInst.loc file
  
  Note:
  If you want to specify multiple options, then separate the list with a white space. For example, -skip_duplicate -skip_conflict
6. Click Next.
On the Target List page, in the Application Server Targets to be Patched section, click Add to add the application server targets you want to patch. Then click Next.
On the Oracle Configuration Manager page, do the following:
1. If the host where the application server is being patched has a direct connection to the Internet, then specify an e-mail address and My Oracle Support password.
  
  An e-mail address is required so that security updates and install updates can be sent. You can specify any e-mail address, but Oracle recommends you to specify the My Oracle Support user name. For example, john.mathew@xyz.com.
  
  If the My Oracle Support password is incorrect, you will be allowed two more attempts. However, if your password is incorrect in all three attempts or if it is left blank, then you are registered anonymously, which means, the configuration information will be collected and uploaded to My Oracle Support but the uploaded information will not be associated with your My Oracle Support account. Therefore, if you log in to My Oracle Support with your credentials, you will not see this information displayed against your account. However, if you had specified an e-mail address, then you will continue to receive security updates and other notifications from Oracle to that e-mail address.
2. If the host where the application server is being patched has an indirect connection to the Internet through a proxy server, then specify an e-mail address and My Oracle Support password, and then in the Connection Details section, specify the proxy server details.
  
  Note:
  You can change the proxy server settings any time after the Deployment Procedure ends. To do so, run the configCCR command from the /ccr/bin/ directory within the Oracle home directory of the provisioned database.
3. If the host where the application server is being patched does not have a direct or indirect connection to the Internet, then specify the e-mail address and leave the other fields blank.
  
  In this case, after you complete the installation process, manually collect the configuration information and upload it to My Oracle Support. To understand how the configuration information can be manually collected and uploaded, see the steps outlined in Manually Collecting and Uploading Configuration Information to My Oracle Support.
On the Credentials page, in the Home Credentials section, specify the Oracle home credentials required to patch the application server Oracle homes, and in the Host Credentials section, specify the operating system credentials to log in to the hosts where the application servers are present. Then click Next.

Note:
When there are Oracle home active steps, the Home Credentials section appears. When there are host-level active steps, the Host Credentials section appears. When Oracle home active steps and host-level active steps are present, both the sections appear.

For both sections, choose to use the preferred credentials so that the credentials stored in the Management Repository can be used.

Of course, you can always override the preferred credentials with a new set of credentials. If you choose to do so, you can specify either a common set of credentials to be used across Oracle homes and hosts, or a unique set of credentials for each Oracle home and host.

After specifying a new set of credentials to override the preferred credentials, click Save OH Credential if you want to store the new credentials in the Management Repository.
On the Schedule page, schedule the Deployment Procedure to run either immediately or later.

For Instance Name, specify a unique name for this Deployment Procedure instance so that it can be tracked later and reused with the same settings.
On the Review page, review the details you have provided for patching the selected application servers, and click Submit.

Patching Oracle Application Server in Offline Mode

This section describes how you can patch an Oracle Application Server in offline mode, that is, without connecting to My Oracle Support. This option is best suited when you do not have an Internet connection on the host where Enterprise Manager Grid Control is running.