Release Notes for Netscape Application Server, Version 4.0 Service Pack 6

Netscape Application Server

Version 4.0 Service Pack 6

Release Notes

Updated May 14, 2001

Summary
Native Drivers Certified
Support for Web Servers
Installation
Documentation Issues
Resolved Issues
Known Problems
How to Report Problems
For More Information

Summary

This document summarizes the new features, resolved issues, and known problems relevant to Netscape Application Server (NAS), 4.0 SP6. This document updates previous Release Notes for NAS 4.0.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) about NAS 4.0 are available at http://help.netscape.com/faqs/appsvr4x.html

Native Drivers Certified

The following table lists native drivers certified to run on NAS 4.0, SP6.

Database Server Database Client (Solaris 2.6, 2.8)

Oracle 8.0.6 Oracle 8.0.6 client in compatibly mode using OCI 7.x
(SQL3 blobs and CLOB calls are not supported)

Sybase 11.9.2 Sybase Open/Client System 11.1.1

Informix 9.2 (+7.3) Informix Client SDK 2.40

SQL Server 6.5 ODBC 3.5.2 and 3.60

DB2 7.1 DB2 Client 6.1, 7.1

Support for Web Servers

Interface	Web Server
NSAPI	iPlanet Web Server, 4.1 SP7
ISAPI	Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0 (NT only)
Apache	Equivalent to Apache Web Server 1.3.9 (Solaris 8 ONLY Apache Webserver version 11.8 on Solaris) Note: Apache support files are included on the CD but not integrated into the installation

NOTE: During installation on Windows NT you are asked to choose which Webserver to use. If you have Netscape/IAS 4.0 or later installed, leave the
Netscape Enterprise Server 4.0 checkbox selected.

Installation

Installation of this product is as follows:

Windows NT: From the CD-ROM, go to the NT directory and run setup.exe
Solaris: From the CD-ROM. go to the Solaris directory and run setup

Documentation Issues

This product includes an Overview Guide, Installation Guide, NAS Foundation Class Reference (Java), NAS Foundation Class Reference (C++), Deployment Guide, Administrator's Guideand a Programmer's Guide.

To locate these guides, use the following iPlanet web site: http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/nas.html

Adobe Acrobat 4.0 and PostScript printer with PS level 2 fonts are required to print the PDF version.

For previous product documentation please visit the iPlanet web site above.

General Issues

To run kjs with -nojit option on NT :
Add an environment variable NAS_JRE_ARGS when running jre and NAS_JAVA_ARGS when running java development environment.
eg., if JRE options for heap size are to be added say -ms32 -mx64, where -ms32 sets the initial Java heap size,
and -mx64 sets the maximum java heap size, add the following : NAS_JRE_ARGS "-ms64m -mx128m"

Note : Set all the parameters in double quotes.

To run kjs with -nojit option on Solaris :
Add -nojit after java or jre in the kjs script.

[538514] Global and local transactions

The NAS Transaction Manger can run either global or local Container Managed Transactions (CMT). The NAS Transaction Manager cannot run both global and local CMT's in the same NAS instance. If the NAS instance is set for global CMT's then only datasources that have a resource manager will be managed by the container. If the NAS instance is set for local CMT's then all datasources can be managed by the container.

Programmer's Guide (Java) The Programmer's Guide (Java) contains a couple of documentation errors, as follows:

Bug Number 387995 - in section Understanding NAS Limitations on page 152, there's an omission of "Multiple result sets are not supported"

Bug Number 401451 - not a bug, additional documentation - do not use "forward" inside a JSP scriptlet because the compiled JSP's obtain the output

stream (a PrintWriter) in their "service" method. According to the JSP and servlet specs, forwarding a request from a JSP or servlet is not allowed if the
output stream (PrinterWriter) has been obtained in the same request.

For example, the following JSP scriptlet generates an IllegalStateException because the JSP contained the scriptlet :
<% RequestDispatcher dispatcher = getServletContext().getRequestDispatcher("/ResourceStream/Simple2.jsp");
dispatcher.forward(request, response);
%>

The compiled code for the "service" method is:

public void service (HttpServletRequest request,HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException {
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter ();
BufferedReader in = request.getReader();
Throwable exception = (Throwable)request.getAttribute("exceptionBean");
out.write(_buf,0,143);
// file: ResourceStream/Simple1.jsp line: 3
RequestDispatcher dispatcher = getServletContext().getRequestDispatcher("Simple2.jsp");
dispatcher.forward(request, response);
out.write(_buf,281,20);
out.flush();
}

Tthe output stream is obtained in the line:
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter ();

This line is required for the current JSP to print its output to the browser and is also required by the JSP .092, 1.0 and 1.1 specs.

Also, the following code in a servlet method generates the same exception:
PrintWriter out = res.getWriter();
out.println(" Making a Call to Second servlet ");
RequestDispatcher dispatcher = getServletContext().getRequestDispatcher("/ResourceStream/Simple2.jsp");
dispatcher.forward(req,res);
out.println(" back in first servlet ");

Resolve the problem in one of two ways:

1) Use "include" instead of "forward". This is actually widely recommended for the problem described above.

2) Instead of placing the code (scriptlet) in the JSP, place it in a servlet method which does the forwarding. In this case, avoid using "getOutputStream" or "getWriter" because again it generates the IllegalStateException.

Example:

public void defaultAction(HttpServletRequest req, HttpServletResponse res)
throws ServletException, IOException
{
res.setContentType("text/html");

RequestDispatcher dispatcher =
getServletContext().getRequestDispatcher("/ResourceStream/Simple2.jsp");
dispatcher.forward(req,res);
}

Bug Number 409623 - not a bug, works as designed - Workaround, type ps -ef | grep jre to locate the JRE process, if you then type kill -3 on the JRE process the stack dumps. However, if you type kill -3 on the KJS pid even though the signal is being received by the KJS engine (truss -p <kjspid>) the stack does not dump. This is because the KJS executable (./kjs) calls execvp and that launches JRE, so when SIGQUIT is sent to the KJS process, it does not propagate it to the JRE process.

Bug Number 430909 - not a bug - create the authorization information as specified in section "Using Sample Applications" of the install guide or by using the ldapreg script in the sample directory and not by copying the .ldif files from the Netscape Application Server.

Bug Number 479502 - not a bug - iPlanet does not set the default transaction isolation level. In fact, TRANSACTION_NONE is not a valid transaction isolation level for any

database. There are four valid transaction isolation levels, as follows:

READ COMMITTED
READ UNCOMMITTED
REPEATABLE READ
SERIALIZABLE

TRANSACTION_NONE is only defined in JDBC. TRANSACTION_NONE is not even a valid parameter for setTransactionIsolationLevel(). So, getdefaulttransisolationlevel() returns READ_COMMITTED in case of local connection because this is the value returned by the driver.

Note that with all important global transactions, there can be different vendor databases each with a different default transaction isolation level. Therefore, this call has no meaning to global transactions and iPlanet has no choice but to return TRANSACTION_NONE. JDBC knows nothing about local and global connections. Also note, that whatever your database default txn isolation level is, that is the one the iPlanet Application Server uses for its JDBC connections unless you change it with an explicit call to setTransactionIsolationLevel(). This means the MSDTC-MSSQl server combination cannot handle the crucial execute query statement without an explicit READ_COMMITTED. ORACLE does not need this additional help.

Bug Number 481681 - in section Creating Datasource Property Files on page 208 states "Fieldnames are not case-sensitive", this is not true, fieldnames are case-sensitive.

Bug Number 488661 - Invalid, cannot reproduce - if transaction manager is installed with NAS. NAS won't be able to throw transaction related exception so unless a transaction manager is installed.

Resolved Issues

NAS 4.0 SP6

The following issues have been resolved in the Netscape Application Server 4.0 SP6 release.

ID	Summary
387913	NAS Plugin has problems with Custom Headers being passed.
390608	warning: EVENT-004: no bits left to use for this thread.
393560	A cookie disabled:<href> was getting appended with the session id.
396355	While under load, Sybase database not returning all rows.
398283	Added support of Informix client 2.40
513070	java.sql.ResultSet.beforeFirst() result incorrect output after returning 400th row.
513368	Memory leak fix with com.kivasoft.data2.JDBCResultSetMetaData
513515	The servlet 2.2 specs, getParameterValues() returns an array of String objects containing all the parameter values associated with ONE parameter name. For example a parameter named HTTP_TEST1, can have zero, one or more values which would be returned by getParameterValues("HTTP_TEST1")
515997	kxs coring while trying to lock a GXDSyncNode
516475	Rollback with Container Managed Local Transactions
517048	Added an optional parameter called 'CacheOption' for Servlet ntv files. This is for the timeout based on the creation time functionality. CacheOption will have the following values: TIMEOUT_CREATE : Will take the cache-timeout value from the creation time. TIMEOUT_LASTACCESS : Will take timeout based on the last accessed time. By default cache-timeout is going to based on the last accessed time
517341	Allow the installer to install NAS 40 SP5 with iWS 4.1
518581	After LDAP failover, if kjs core dump occurs, kjs cannot wake up.
518877	Encryption between the WebConnector and the KXS does not work. 1. Manually register the crypt128.gxr file ( kreg -q crypt128.gxr ) This file would be in [NAS_INSTALL]/nas/registry on Solaris and [NAS_INSTALL]/nas/bin/ on WinNT 2. Set CCS0\\SECURITY\\EnableEncryption=D ( for Domestic 128 bit) 3. Create CCS0\\SECURITY\\LogEncryption=1 4. Createthe key CCS0\\EXTENSIONS\\CRYPTEXT\\CRYPTSVC\\ENGINES\\0 5. Set "encrypt" Str "y", in nsFortune.ntv file and do a servletreg on the appInfo.ntv file. You will notice that the registry entry under \\CLASSDEF\\Servlet-GUID\\SecurityFlags=1 6. Restart NAS and restart the webserverthe encrypt/decrypt messages will appear in the kxs log when running nsFortune
519445	LOADB-040 - warning is misleading -
520160	URL rewriting patch for WML does not rewrite WML HREF's correctly.
520242	Plug in with webconnector logs was recording messages twice.
520583	Kxs Engine Crashing in cluster.
521228	`moveTo method in IResultSet interface fixed.`
523237	Kxs Engine Crashing in cluster with Oracle as database.
523709	Applogic Multi Select Box input delimiter changed from ; to ^~^
523760	Log rotation out of synch from output generated with system.out.println.
524901	Update JSP classloader.
526395	Segmentation fault with database access.
527474	NAS40Sp5 corrupts target page URL's by prepending string GXHC_gx_session_id_blahblah=fffffffffff.
527922	Session data getting truncated from array.
529822	IAppEnent Interface problem
532419	The primary key size is not expected to exceed 512 bytes. If the size of the primary key turns out to be more than that, NAS/iAS will throw the primary key null exception. If the primary key used doesn't exceed this limit, it will work fine.
532591	Using Oracle806 client, executeUpdate does not return update count (JDBC executeUpdate) correctly with datatype having LONG.
533245	Oracle client crashing client rather then throwing exception.
533493	PreparedStatement cannot bind LONG datatype.
533245	Oracle client crashing client rather then throwing exception.
533494	getString() for LONG datatype returns Garbage or NULL

Known Problems

NAS 4.0 SP6:

This section describes the known problems for NAS 4.0 SP6.

[386016] Mixing client side JavaScript tags and JSP tags in the same page is not recommended. JSP compilation exceptions may be thrown.

[529734] Installation instructions for Apache Plugin.
Apache Webserver bundled with Solaris 2.8:

/usr/apache/bin ( binaries)
/var/apache/logs (logs)
/etc/apache (httpd.conf)
Following entries are to be added to httpd.conf : LoadModule nas_module /libgxapache1.3.so
AddModule gxapache.cpp
AddHandler nas-handler gx.cgi
Always add to the end of the entries LoadModule to the end of LoadModule list, AddModule to the end of AddModule list.
Copy reg.dat from NAS 4.0 SP4 onto /opt/KIVAes/registry.

Admin Server Not Coming Up After Registering Servlet

Registration problems occurs when defining servlets in ntv file without some parameters. These optional fields are not really optional, and cause the NAS admin server to hang. To workaround this problem provide a complete definition of ntv file:

Samplentv{

"Test" NTV {

"ServletRegistryInfo" NTV {

"type" Str "j",

"enable" Str "y",

"encrypt" Str "n",

"lb" Str "y",

"descr" Str "Test servlet",

"group" StrArr [ "TestServlet" ],

"guid" Str "{91dfbcba-8b13-11d3-b9f5-00108334167f}",

"acl" StrArr [ ]

},

"ServletRunnerInfo" NTV {

"ServletClassPath" Str "TestServlet.Test"

},

"ServletData" NTV {

"defaultTemplate" Str "TestServlet/TestServletJSP.jsp"

}

Communication Channel Closed Problem While Debugging Applications with Visual Cafe 3

This problem is occasionally seen under certain conditions while debugging applications with Visual Cafe along with
Application builder. It only occurs when trying to debug or set a break point on an EJB code during development (not
production) with Visual Cafe in certain systems.

Hot Deploy

Under high load the output of JSP execution may be corrupted when a modified version of the same JSP is deployed.
Do not hot deploy in production systems. Restart the server after a new version of the application components is rolled
into production. This problem occurs rarely and will be corrected in a future release.

JSP Compilation Exceptions

Mixing client side JavaScript tags and JSP tags in the same page is not recommended. JSP compilation exceptions
may be thrown.

LDAP Failover

This has been fixed in NAS 4.0 SP4, however the failover may take 3-5 minutes.

Multiple Result Sets Are Not Supported

Netscape Application Server Does Not Appear in the Console

This problem is occasionally seen when the domain name is not properly registered, or the NAS installer fails to find the
domain name. To prevent this, set the domainname variable in the shell before the product is installed.

Online Bank 4.0 Sample Application Does Not Work

LDAP may not have initialized with the Bank user information during installation. This behavior has been noticed in some cases, and
user gets an authentication error while executing the application. To workaround, manually load this information from the
BankUser.ldif file using the ldapmodify command. Make sure that this file is edited properly with the correct domain information.

Problem Inserting Rows

NAS has problems inserting rows when running in international mode with the Oracle client configured with Legacy and the
database server configured to with UTF-8. Workaround: configure both the Oracle client and the database server with either
Legacy or UTF-8.

ResultSet Returned by DatabaseMetaData.getColumns( ) Sometimes Not Fully Populated

This occurs on very large database tables containing more than 300 columns when used with NAS default database driver. To
work around this problem, use Oracle Native drivers (jdbc thin drivers - type 4). The steps for making Oracle JDBC drivers work with NAS 4.0
are listed below in the section Using Oracle Thin Drivers.

Using Oracle Thin Drivers

Download the oracle-jdbc thin driver from the site: http://technet.oracle.com/software/tech/java/sqlj_jdbc/software_index.htm

Go to Oracle8i 8.1.6 JDBC Drivers for use with JDK 1.1.x.
Select JDBC-Thin, 100% Java (classes111.zip).
Add the classes111.zip under <ORACLE_HOME>\jdbc\lib directory.
Update the CLASSPATH with <ORACLE_HOME>\jdbc\lib\classes111.zip.
Update the PATH with <ORACLE_HOME>\jdbc\lib.
Reboot the system to make it effective.
Import the class "import oracle.jdbc.driver.*" into your program.
Register the driver using DriverManager.registerDriver(new oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver()).
Make the connection using the URL: "jdbc:oracle:thin:@<host>:<port>:<oracle_sid>". (For example:

String url = "jdbc:oracle:thin:@psedb:1521:ORCL".)

Conn = DriverManager.getConnection(URL,user,passwd).
Get the Driver using DriverManager.getDriver(URL).
Compile and execute the program.

setBinaryStream( ) Does Not Work with PreparedStatement as Expected

To work around this problem, try using setbytes.

setEvent Does Not Work As Expected

After enabling events in particular sequence of disabling, enabling, and setting of events. Do not work with events in this sequence.

SQL3 Blobs and CLOB Calls Are Not Supported with NAS 4.0

How to Report Problems

If you have problems with Netscape Application Server, contact iPlanet customer support using one of the following mechanisms:

iPlanet online support web site at http://www.iplanet.com/support/online/
From this location, the CaseTracker and CaseView tools are available for logging problems.
The telephone dispatch number associated with your maintenance contract

So that we can best assist you in resolving problems, please have the following information available when you contact support:

Description of the problem, including the situation where the problem occurs and its impact on your operation
Machine type, operating system version, and product version, including any patches and other software that might be affecting the problem
Detailed steps on the methods you have used to reproduce the problem
Any error logs or core dumps

For More Information

Useful iPlanet information can be found at the following Internet locations:

iPlanet release notes and other documentation --- http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/
iPlanet product status ---http://www.iplanet.com/support/technical_resources/
iPlanet Professional Services information --- http://www.iplanet.com/services/pro_serv/index.html
iPlanet developer information --- http://developer.iplanet.com/
iPlanet learning solutions --- http://www.iplanet.com/learning/index.html
iPlanet product data sheets --- http://www.iplanet.com/products/index.html
iPlanet sample applications -- http://developer.iplanet.com/appserver/samples/

Use of Netscape Application Server is subject to the terms described in the license agreement accompanying it.

Last Updated May 14, 2001

Database Server	Database Client (Solaris 2.6, 2.8)
Oracle 8.0.6	Oracle 8.0.6 client in compatibly mode using OCI 7.x (SQL3 blobs and CLOB calls are not supported)
Sybase 11.9.2	Sybase Open/Client System 11.1.1
Informix 9.2 (+7.3)	Informix Client SDK 2.40
SQL Server 6.5	ODBC 3.5.2 and 3.60
DB2 7.1	DB2 Client 6.1, 7.1