Contents

Title and Copyright Information

Send Us Your Comments

Preface

1 Verifying Requirements

1.1 System Requirements

1.1.1 Operating Systems

1.1.2 Oracle Databases

1.1.3 Oracle Home

1.1.4 Web Browsers

1.1.5 Tablespace Requirements

1.1.6 init.ora Settings

1.1.7 tnsnames.ora Settings

1.1.8 Terminal Settings

1.1.9 interMedia Text Requirements

2 Post-installation and Configuration Tasks

2.1 Default Schemas Created

2.2 Default Oracle Portal Accounts Created

2.3 Default Groups Created

2.4 Accessing Oracle Portal in Your Browser

2.4.1 Simplifying the Full URL of an Oracle Portal Installation

2.4.2 Installing Language Support in Oracle Portal

2.5 Deinstalling Oracle Portal

2.5.1 Deinstalling a Single Oracle Portal Schema or the Login Server

2.6 Configuring Self-registration

2.7 Enabling Oracle Portal Beta Features

2.8 Enabling Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

2.8.1 SSL in Apache

2.8.2 What are Certificates?

2.8.3 What are Signature and Chain Files?

2.8.4 Securing Ports to Use Certificates and HTTPS

2.8.5 Adding JServ File Entries in zone.properties

2.8.6 Configuring Oracle Portal to Use HTTPS

2.8.7 Adding Certificate Entries in http.conf

2.8.8 Setting Login Server Query Path URL

2.8.9 Adding SSO Enabler Configuration Entries for HTTPS Mode

2.8.10 Configuring HTTPS with Microsoft Internet Explorer

2.8.11 Configuring HTTPS with Virtual Hosts

3 Basic Oracle Portal Configurations

3.1 Configuring Oracle Portal on a Standalone Laptop

3.2 Configuring Oracle Portal as an Integrated Server

3.3 Configuring a Traditional Three-tier Architecture

4 Distributed Oracle Portal Installations

4.1 What is a Node?

4.2 Benefits of a Distributed Oracle Portal Environment

4.2.1 Portlet Provider Information Shared Across Nodes

4.2.2 Scalable Solutions

4.3 Node Requirements

4.3.1 Common Cookie Domain

4.3.2 Oracle HTTP Server powered by Apache Configuration

4.3.3 Common Cookie Name

4.3.4 Common Login Server

4.3.5 Symmetric Node Registration

4.3.6 URLs in Portlets

4.4 Configuring a Distributed Oracle Portal Environment

4.4.1 Step 1: Create Oracle Portal Nodes

4.4.2 Step 2: Create Same Cookie Domain

4.4.3 Step 3: Edit Oracle Portal DADs

4.4.4 Step 4: Associate Nodes with the Same Login Server

4.4.5 Step 5: Create a User on the Login Server with Administrator Privileges

4.4.6 Step 6: Discover the Name of Each Node

4.4.7 Step 7: Register Nodes Between Themselves

4.4.8 Step 8: Refresh the Portlet Repository for Each Node

4.4.9 Step 9: Create Additional Nodes

5 Configuring the Login Server on a Separate Listener

5.1 Oracle Portal as a Partner Application

5.1.1 Associating Portal to an Existing Login Server That You Have No Control Over

5.1.2 Associating Portal to an Existing Login Server That You Have Control Over

5.1.3 Login Server Configured with Oracle Internet Directory (OID)

5.2 Configuring Virtual Hosts

5.3 Working with Firewalls and Load Balancers

5.3.1 Internet Configuration with Reverse Proxy Server

5.3.2 Oracle HTTP Server Configuration

5.3.3 Resolving Domain Names

5.4 Configuration with Load Balancing Router

5.4.1 Placing a Firewall Between the Middle-tier and the Database

5.5 Setting the Number of Requests That Can Be Handled by the Apache Listener

5.5.1 Setting the MaxClient Setting on the Apache Listener and on the Portal Listener

6 Configuring the PL/SQL Gateway

6.1 Oracle HTTP Server Modules (mods)

6.2 Configuring the Oracle HTTP Server powered by Apache

6.2.1 Oracle HTTP Server powered by Apache Start and Stop Script

6.2.2 Oracle HTTP Server powered by Apache Configuration File

6.2.3 mod_plsql Configuration File

6.3 Accessing the Gateway DAD Configuration Page

6.3.1 Accessing from Oracle Portal

6.3.2 Accessing from Browser URL

6.3.3 plsql.conf Configuration File

6.4 Starting and Stopping the Oracle HTTP Server powered by Apache

6.5 Accessing Help

7 Setting Up the Search Feature in Oracle Portal Content Areas

7.1 Prerequisites

7.1.1 interMedia Text On UNIX

7.2 Searching in Oracle Portal

7.2.1 Basic Search

7.2.2 Advanced Search

7.2.3 interMedia Text Search

7.2.4 Viewing interMedia Text Search Results

7.3 Setting Up interMedia Text Searching

7.3.1 Step 1: Set Up the Global Page Settings

7.3.2 Step 2: Enable interMedia Text Searching

7.3.3 Step 3: Create an interMedia Text Index

7.3.4 Step 4: Maintain interMedia Text Index

7.4 Dropping an interMedia Text Index

7.5 Setting Up Your Environment for interMedia Text

7.5.1 listener.ora

7.5.2 tnsnames.ora

7.6 Multilingual Functionality (Multilexer)

7.7 interMedia Text-related Procedures Created in Oracle Portal

8 Building Oracle Portal Reports and Forms with Rich Content

8.1 interMedia Object Types

8.2 Rich Content in Oracle Portal Reports

8.2.1 Object Attribute Display

8.2.2 Display Options

8.2.3 Building the Report

8.2.4 QBE Reports - Parameter Entry Form

8.3 Rich Content in Oracle Portal Forms

8.3.1 Building the Form

8.4 Browsing Tables with the Oracle Portal Navigator

8.5 Known Issues

9 Troubleshooting

9.1 Verify System Requirements

9.1.1 Check Installation Log

9.2 Identify the Component Causing the Problem

9.3 Troubleshooting Connection Problems with the Diagnostics Tool

9.3.1 Problems Detected by the Diagnostics Tool

9.3.2 Problems Not Detected by the Diagnostics Tool

9.3.3 Running the Diagnostics Tool

9.3.4 Sample Diagnostics Report

9.4 Configuration Control Points and File Locations

9.5 Troubleshooting Oracle Portal

9.5.1 Installation and Configuration Problems

9.5.2 Problems Logging on to Oracle Portal

9.5.3 Problems Running Oracle Portal

9.5.4 Miscellaneous Issues Using Oracle Portal

A Oracle9i Application Server Configuration Files

A.1 Control Points and File Locations

A.1.1 Oracle HTTP Server Configuration File (httpd.conf)

A.1.2 JServ Configuration File (zone.properties)

A.1.3 Database Access Descriptor (DAD) Configuration File (wdbsvr.app)

A.1.4 Oracle Database Connection File (tnsnames.ora)

A.1.5 Login Server Configuration Table

A.1.6 Login Server's Partner Application Table

A.1.7 Local HOSTS File

B Oracle Portal Installation and Configuration Scripts

B.1 Overview

B.2 Manually Installing Oracle Portal with the winstall Script

B.2.1 Manually Installing Online Help

B.3 Manually Installing a Login Server with the linstall Script

B.4 Configuring a New Oracle Portal Instance and Login Server with the ssodatan Script

B.5 Updating an Existing Portal Instance with the ssodatax Script

B.6 Modifying the Scope of the Portal Session Cookie

Index