Tasks Performed Using the Software Library Home Page

From the Software Library Home page, you can do the following:

Organizing Entities

Only designers who have the privilege to create any Software Library entity, can create folders.

Note:

Starting with Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 (12.1.0.2), in addition to using the GUI as described in this section, you can alternatively use the command line interface tool to Create Folders. To do so, refer to Oracle Enterprise Manager Lifecycle Management Administrator's Guide.

To create a custom folder, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, from Actions menu, click Create Folder to create a custom folder of your own.

The custom folder can contain User-owned folders, entities, and customized entities created by using the Create Like option.
In the Create Folder dialog box, enter a unique name for the folder. Also, select the parent folder in which you want to create this new custom folder and click Save.

For example, if the root folder is Software Library and you created a custom folder in it called Cloud12gTest, then the Parent Folder field is populated as follows: /Software Library/Cloud12gTest.

Note: Only the owner of the folder or the Super Administrator has the privilege to delete the folder, nobody else can.

Creating Entities

From the Software Library Home page, you can create the following entities:

Note:

Starting with Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 (12.1.0.2), in addition to using the GUI as described in this section, you can alternatively use the command line interface tool to Create Entities. To do so, refer to Oracle Enterprise Manager Lifecycle Management Administrator's Guide.

Creating Generic Components

To create a generic component from the Software Library Home page, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, select a custom folder that is not owned by Oracle.

Note: You cannot create a generic component in an Oracle Owned Folder. To create a custom folder, see Organizing Entities.
From the Actions menu, select Create Entity and click Component. Alternately, right click the custom folder, and from the menu, select Create Entity and click Component.
From the Create Entity: Component dialog box, select Generic Component and click Continue.

Enterprise Manager Cloud Control displays the Create Generic Component: Describe page.
On the Describe page, enter the Name, Description, and Other Attributes that describe the entity.

Note: The component name must be unique to the parent folder that it resides in. Sometime even when you enter a unique name, it may report a conflict, this is because there could be an entity with the same name in the folder that is not visible to you, as you do not have view privilege on it.

Click +Add to attach files that describe the entity better such as readme, collateral, licensing, and so on. Ensure that the file size is less than 2 MB.

In the Notes field, include information related to the entity like changes being made to the entity or modification history that you want to track.
On the Configure page, you can customize the generic component that you are creating by adding some new properties or updating the existing properties of the component.

Note: Select Shared Type to reuse the component property. Shared Type can be stored as a template, which can be used for creating different and more complicated top level types.

To add a new property, do the following, and click Next:
1. Select Top Level Type or Shared Type, and click Add.
2. Enter a unique name for the property. Depending on the property type selected, enter an initial or default value for the property.
3. To add a constraint, specify the Minimum or Maximum value for the selected property type, and click Add Constraint.
  
  The Configured Constraints table lists all the constraints added. To remove a particular constraint from the property, select the property and click Remove.
On the Select Files page, you can select one or more files to be associated with the entity. Select one of the following options:
- Upload Files: If you want to upload some entity files from the local file system or the agent machine to the selected destination location.
  
  To select the destination location, in the Specify Destination section, in the Upload Location field, click the magnifier icon to select one of the following options:
  - OMS Shared File System
  - OMS Agent File System
  The corresponding Storage Type and Location Path of the selected location is populated.
  
  Note:
  
  To upload the files, the status of the storage location to which the files are to be uploaded should be Active.
  
  If you select OMS Agent File system location, then ensure that you have the necessary privileges to access the location
  
  In the Specify Source section, enter the location from where the files are being sourced, these locations can either be local file system or a remote file system monitored by the Management Agent. Select one of the following options for File Source:,:
  - If you select Local Machine, and click Add, the Add File dialog box appears. Click Browse to select the entity file from the source location, and give a unique name, and click OK.
    
    You can upload the files to any of the configured storage locations available in OMS Shared File system location or OMS Agent File system location
  - If you select Agent Machine, select the name of the host machine from where you want to pick up the entity files. Click +Add and log in to the host machine with the desired credentials. For more information about the different credential types and their setup, see the Oracle Enterprise Manager Lifecycle Management Guide.
    
    Once you log in to the host machine, browse to the location where the files to be uploaded are present. You can upload the files to any of the configured storage locations available in OMS Shared File system location or OMS Agent File system location.
- Refer Files: If you select the Refer Files option, you only need to enter the source location details, since you are not technically uploading anything to the Software Library. In the Specify Source section, select from HTTP, NFS, or Agent Storage types, and click OK. The corresponding Storage Type and Location Path of the selected location is populated.
  
  Click +Add to reference the entity present at the selected Referenced File Location. In the Add Referenced File dialog box, enter a relative path to the file under Base Location. Click Stage As to organize the file in a temporary stage location with a unique name.
  
  For details about each of these storage options, see Configuring a Referenced File Location
On the Set Directives page, click Choose Directives to associate a component with one or more directives. Click Next.
On the Review page, review all the details, and click Finish to create the component and upload it on the Software Library.

Creating Directives

Directives are entities in the Software Library that represent a set of instructions to be performed. These are constructs used to associate scripts with software components and images. These scripts contain directions on how to interpret and process the contents of a particular component or an image.

To create a directive from a Software Library Home page, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, select a custom folder that is not owned by Oracle.

Note: You cannot create a generic component in an Oracle Owned Folder. To create a custom folder, see Organizing Entities.
From Actions menu, select Create Entity and click Directive. Enterprise Manager Cloud Control displays the Create Entity: Directives wizard.
On the Describe page, enter the Name, Description, and Other Attributes that describe the entity.

Note: The component name must be unique to the parent folder that it resides in. In case you enter a unique name and it reports a conflict, it may be due to an entity with the same name in the folder that is not visible to you, as you do not have view privilege on it.

Click +Add to attach files that describe the entity better such as readme, collateral, licensing, and so on. Ensure that the file size is less than 2 MB.

In the Notes field, include information related to the entity like changes being made to the entity or modification history that you want to track.
On the Configure page, specify the command line arguments that must be passed to the directive to configure it. This command provides the parameters required to execute the directive.
To add the command line arguments or parameters, click Add.

In the Add Command Line Arguments dialog box, enter the values in the following fields:
- Argument Prefix, is a switch or a constant command line argument.
  
  The Argument Prefix eliminates the error-prone task of manually specifying the order of the parameter executions in a given directive. This is specially useful when a directive is made of multiple parameters.
  
  Oracle recommends that you create command line arguments using an Argument Prefix.
- Property Name, is the name of the property, that must be a string value.
- Argument Suffix, is the text that must follow the command line property.
  
  Though the suffix is rarely used, it determines how the parameters must be executed, based on the suffix value.
For example, if the command line argument you want to pass is as follows:

./test.sh -user={username}

Then,

Argument Prefix is: –user

Property Name is: username

All the parameters added appear in the order of addition against the Command Line field.

To change the order of the parameter or edit any property of an existing parameter, click Edit.

To remove any of the parameters, click Remove.

In the Configuration Properties section, select either Bash or Perl as defined in the script.

Select Run Privileged to run the script with root privileges.
On the Select Files page, you can select one or more files to be associated with the entity. Select one of the following options:
- Upload Files: If you want to upload some entity files from the local file system or the agent machine to the selected destination location.
  
  To select the destination location, in the Specify Destination section, in the Upload Location field, click the magnifier icon to select one of the following options:
  - OMS Shared File System
  - OMS Agent File System
  The corresponding Storage Type and Location Path of the selected location is populated.
  
  Note:
  
  To upload the files, the status of the storage location to which the files are to be uploaded should be Active.
  
  If you select OMS Agent File system location, then ensure that you have the necessary privileges to access the location.
  
  In the Specify Source section, enter the location from where the files are being sourced, these locations can either be local file system or a remote file system monitored by the Management Agent. Select one of the following options for File Source:
  - If you select Local Machine, and click Add, the Add File dialog box appears. Click Browse to select the entity file from the source location, and give a unique name, and click OK.
    
    You can upload the files to any of the configured storage locations available in OMS Shared File system location or OMS Agent File system location
  - If you select Agent Machine, select the name of the host machine from where you want to pick up the entity files. Click +Add and log in to the host machine with the desired credentials. For more information about the different credential types and their setup, see the Oracle Enterprise Manager Lifecycle Management Guide.
    
    Once you log into the host machine, browse to the location where the files to be uploaded are present. You can upload the files to any of the configured storage locations available in OMS Shared File system location or OMS Agent File system location.
- Refer Files: If you select the Refer Files option, you only need to enter the source location details, since you are not technically uploading anything to the Software Library. In the Specify Source section, select from HTTP, NFS, or Agent Storage types, and click OK. The corresponding Storage Type and Location Path of the selected location is populated.
  
  Click +Add to reference the entity present at the selected Referenced File Location. In the Add Referenced File dialog box, enter a relative path to the file under Base Location. Click Stage As to organize the file in a temporary stage location with a unique name.
  
  For details about each of these storage options, see Configuring a Referenced File Location
On the Review page, review all the details, and click Finish to create the component and upload it on the Software Library.

Customizing Entities

You cannot edit an entity present in an Oracle owned folder. However, to edit an Oracle-owned entity, you can make a copy of the entity and store it in a custom folder. Since you now have full access on the entity, you can customize the entity based on your requirement and may even choose to grant other users access to this entity.

To create a custom entity from an Oracle owned entity, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, select an entity or alternately, search and select an entity.

For more information about searching for an entity, see Searching Entities.
From Actions menu, select Create Like.
On the Create Like: <Entity Name> dialog box, enter a name that is unique to the parent folder and a description for the entity.

By default, the root directory Software Library is preselected in the Parent Folder field.

To change the parent folder and organize the entities, click Change Parent Folder. and select the desired folder.
Click OK to apply the changes.

The new entity appears in the Entities table, under the selected parent folder.

You as the owner have all the privileges on the entity, and can update the properties as per your requirement.

To update the properties of the entity, see Viewing, Editing, and Deleting Entities.

For more information on Oracle Owned Entities and User Owned Entities, see Using Software Library Entities.

Managing Entities

From the Software Library Home page, you can perform the following maintenance tasks on the existing entities:

Note:

Starting with Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2 (12.1.0.2), you can either use the GUI or use the command line interface tool to perform all the tasks listed in Table 3-3.

Accessing Software Library Home Page

To access the Software Library Home page, from the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.

Accessing Software Library Administration Page

To access the Software Library Administration page, from the Setup menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.

Granting or Revoking Privileges

An Enterprise Manager user requires, at the very least, a view privilege on an entity for the entity to be visible on the Software Library Home. The owner or super administrator can choose to grant additional privileges like edit (Update notion) or manage (or full) or at a later point of time, revoke the previously granted privilege.

To grant or revoke privileges, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
To grant or revoke fine-grained privileges to the other users on any entity that you own, select the custom entity and from Actions menu, click Grant/Revoke Privileges.
On Grant/Revoke Privileges on: <entity_name> window, you can either grant or revoke Software Library privileges depending on the users roles and responsibilities in the organization.
Granting Privileges: To grant one or more new privileges, click +Add and search for the users. You can grant them one of the following privileges on the entity you own:
- View Software Library Entity: This is normally an operator privilege where the user can only view the entity on the Software Library Home. The user cannot edit or manage the entity. All the Oracle owned entities can be viewed by all Enterprise Manager users.
- Edit Software Library Entity: This is a designer privilege where a user has Create, Update, and Edit privileges on the entity.
- Manage Software Library Entity: This is a super-administrator privilege where the user has complete access on the entity. With this privilege, you can grant or revoke accesses on this entity to other users, or delete the entity.
Revoking Privileges: To revoke previously granted privileges, select the user and click Remove.
Click Update to apply the selected grants on the entity.

Moving Entities

To move all the revisions of an entity from one folder to another, do the following:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, select an entity or alternately, search and select an entity.

For more information about searching for an entity, see Searching Entities.
From the Actions menu, click Move Entity and accept the confirmation.
From the Move Entity dialog box, select the destination folder for the entities and click Set New Parent Folder.

Note: Ensure that the source and the destination folders are not owned by Oracle, as you cannot move or edit them.

Changing Entity Maturity

When an entity is created from the Enterprise Manager Home, it is present in an Untested state. It is the responsibility of a designer to test the entity, and change the maturity level based on the test result.

To manage the lifecycle and indicate the quality (maturity level) of an entity, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, select an entity or alternately, search and select an entity.

For more information about searching for an entity, see Searching Entities.
From the Actions menu, click Change Maturity to change the maturity value an entity after testing.

For example, an Oracle Database Clone component would be tested by selecting it in a deployment procedure interview flow that provisions a database. Once the entity is tested, the designer can change the maturity of the entity to either Beta or Production based on test results. Only when the entity is marked with Production level, the Operator can use it.

Adding Notes to Entities

To log information about the changes or updates made to an existing entity, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, select an entity or alternately, search and select an entity.

For more information about searching for an entity, see Searching Entities.
From Actions menu, click Notes to include any important information related to the entity. You can also add notes while editing an entity.

The most recent note appears on top of the table, and the older notes appear below.
After updating the details, click Finish to submit the changes, and return to the Software Library Home page.

Adding Attachments to Entities

To add or upload files that are typically documents (like README, installation, configuration) related to the software the entity represents, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, select an entity or alternately, search and select an entity.

For more information about searching for an entity, see Searching Entities.
From Actions menu, click Attachments to include one or more files related to the entity. These files contain some important information about the entity. You can also attach files while editing an entity.

For example, you can attach a readme file to a patch or a component, attach a test script to a directive and so on. However, you must ensure that the file size of each attachment is not more than 2 MB.
Click Finish to submit the changes, and return to the Software Library Home page.

Viewing, Editing, and Deleting Entities

To view, edit, or delete the details of an entity, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, select an entity or alternately, search and select an entity.

For more information about searching for an entity, see Searching Entities.
To manage an existing entity, select the entity and perform any of the following functions:
- View: Click View icon on the table to view the details of an entity. You cannot update the properties of the entity from here.
- Edit: Click Edit icon on the table or right-click the entity and select Edit from the context menu to update the properties of an entity.
  
  If you are satisfied with the details, click Save and Upload to make the changes available on the Software Library Home page.
- Delete: Click Delete icon to remove the entity from the Software Library Home page.
  
  Note: By deleting an entity, the entity is no longer available for selection, viewing, or editing, and will not be displayed on the Software Library Home page. However, the entity continues to exist in the repository and the associated files, if uploaded, continue to exist in the respective disk storage. To delete the entity completely from the repository and the associated files from the file system, you must purge the deleted entities from the administration page. The purge job not only deletes the files associated with the deleted entity, but removes the deleted entities itself from the repository tables.
  
  For more information about how to purge the deleted entities from the storage location, see Purging Deleted Entities.

Purging Deleted Entities

Note:

Beginning with Enterprise Manager 13.4, entities can be purged using the EMCLI verb delete_swlib_entity. See delete_swlib_entity in the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Command Line Interface Guide for more information.

To purge the deleted entities from all the configured Agent Storage locations, you can run a purge job. To do so, follow these steps:

In Cloud Control, from the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library home page, from Actions menu, select Deleted Entities. A list of entities that are deleted from Software Library are displayed.

Note:

The Space Used attribute is displayed only for the deleted entities that had uploaded files to Software Library.
On the Deleted Entities page, click Purge to permanently remove these entities from Oracle Management Repository, and the associated files from upload storage locations.
A Confirmation Message dialog box is displayed. Click Job Details to view the status of the purge job submitted.

Note:

A periodic job named SWLIBPURGE runs daily to purge the deleted entities from the Software Library.

Searching Entities

This section contains the following topics:

Performing Basic and Advanced Searches

To perform a basic or an advanced search for an entity, follow these steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
To search for an entity, perform one of the following operations:
1. Find: On the Software Library Home page, you can search for an entity by its Name, Description, or Type. Select the search category, enter the desired value and then click the arrow icon.
  
  On clicking the arrow icon, the result page displays a number of matching results, and allows you to toggle between the result rows by clicking the up and down arrows.
2. Search: To perform a detailed search for an entity, click Search. The search option, by default, allows you to search by Type, Name, Description, Revision, Maturity, Status, and File Name to retrieve a more granular search result.
  
  Note: If you choose entities that have associated subtypes (like Components), then the page is refreshed with Subtype as an additional search category.
  
  Specify appropriate values in All or Any of the search fields, and click Search.
  
  To add more search parameters, in the Advanced Search section, click Add Fields menu and, select the desired search fields. The selected fields appear in the Advanced Search section as new search parameters. This new search feature enables you to refine your search, and drill down to the most accurate and desired search result.
  
  To revert to the simple search view, click Close Search.

Saving Searches

Optionally, search criteria on the Advanced Search screen of the console, can be saved. Saved searches can be retrieved and executed again. They can also be edited and deleted.

Search for entities.
Click Save Search.
Enter the preferred name for the search in the text box, and click Ok.

Retrieving Saved Searches

To retrieve saved searches, follow these steps:

Search for entities.
Click Saved Searches, and select the preferred saved search from the list.

Alternatively, you can also select the preferred saved search from the Favorites menu. To do so, from the Favorites menu, select Saved Software Library Searches, and select the preferred saved search.

Managing Saved Searches

Using the Manage Saved Searches option, you can edit the name of the saved search, or delete the saved search. To do so, follow these steps:

To manage saved searches, you can perform one of the following steps:
- From the Favorites menu, select Manage Favorites.
- Click Saved Searches, and select Manage Saved Searches.
To edit the name of the saved search, select the preferred saved search, and in the Name text field, enter the new name. Click Ok to save changes.
To delete or remove a saved search, select the preferred saved search, and click Remove Selected. Click Ok to save changes.

Exporting Entities

To export selected entities, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, from the Actions menu, click Export to export entities present in the Software Library as a Provisioning Archive (PAR) file.

The PAR file can be used for recreating the entities on an Enterprise Manager with a different repository.
On the Export Software Library Entities page, do the following:
- Click +Add to search and select an entity.
- In Directory Location, enter a directory location accessible to OMS for storing the generated PAR files.
- In PAR File, enter the name of the PAR file with a .par extension generated during export.
- To encrypt and securely store all the secret property values of the PAR file being exported, enter a value in the Oracle Wallet Password field.
  
  Note: Specify the same password for importing this PAR file. For more information on importing, see Importing Entities.
- Select Exclude Associated Files, to exclude the files, binaries, or scripts associated with an entity, from being exported.
For example, let us consider that you have a separate test and production environment and want to import only the entities that have been tested and certified in the test environment into production. The entities exported from the test system are made available as a Provisioning Archive (PAR) file. You can now choose to import this PAR file into the production system (which is identical to the test system) and use the tested entities.
Click Submit to submit an export job. Once the job runs successfully, the selected entities from the Software Library are exported as a PAR file.

Note:

Provisioning Archive Files that were exported from any Enterprise Manager version prior to 12c can not be imported into Enterprise Manager 12c.
Enterprise Manager does not support exporting Oracle-owned entities.

Importing Entities

To import PAR (Provisioning Archive) files into the Software Library or deploy them to an OMS, perform the following steps:

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
On the Software Library Home page, from Actions menu, click Import to import the PAR files.
On the Import Software Library Entities page, specify the PAR File to be imported.

To import the PAR file successfully, in the Password field, enter the same password that was set on the PAR file to secure the secret property values during export.

For example, let us consider that you have a separate test and production environment and want to import only the entities that have been tested and certified in the test environment into production. The entities exported from the test system are made available as a Provisioning Archive (PAR) file. You can now choose to import this PAR file into the production system (which is identical to the test system) and use the tested entities.
If a revision of the entity being imported already exists in Software Library, then you can overwrite the existing entity with a newer revision during import by selecting Force New Revision.

Note: If a revision of the entity being imported already exists in the repository, and you do not select the Force New Revision option, then import process fails.
Click Submit to submit an import job. On successful completion of the job, the PAR files are imported into the Software Library.

Note:

Provisioning Archive Files that were exported from any Enterprise Manager version prior to 12c can not be imported into Enterprise Manager 12c.

Staging Entities

For transferring files associated with multiple entities to multiple target hosts, follow the steps outlined in this section.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you meet the following prerequisites before staging the files:

Only hosts that are monitored by the Enterprise Manager can be specified as the destination for staging the files associated with an entity.
For each entity, only files that have been successfully uploaded to the entity (hence, in Ready status) can be selected for staging.
Note:

To verify if the entity has any files in the Ready state, follow these steps:
1. Select the entity, and click View.
2. On the View Entity page, select Select Files tab, to verify the files associated with the entity.
3. Unless there is at least one file with a Ready status, you cannot proceed with the staging process.
Only users with View Job Privileges can perform staging.
Only entities for which the user has at least view privileges can be selected for staging.
The location should be writeable using the credential given for the target host.
If the source files to be staged are on NFS, then the credentials used for browsing the destination target should have root permissions to be able to mount the NFS location.

Staging Procedure

From the Enterprise menu, select Provisioning and Patching, then select Software Library.
From the Actions menu, select Stage Entities.
On the Stage Entities page, expand the Entities section (if not already expanded).
Click +Add to search and select the entities. Only those entities which are not already added and those that have at least one file in the READY status can be added.
All the files in the READY status are selected for staging by default. To change the selection, expand the row of the added entity in the table and check/uncheck the Select column.
You can optionally select the Overwrite files on the staging location to overwrite an existing version of the same file. If not, ignore this option and proceed.
In the Staging Destination section, click +Add to add the stage destination details.
Click +Add to select the target hosts for staging.
Specify the Stage Location in the text box applicable for the host targets selected.
Choose the credentials that should be used for staging. If more than one host target is selected, then the stage location should be writeable using the selected credential on each host.
Click OK to update the selected hosts in the staging destination table.
Click Submit.
To verify the status of the submitted job, click the Job Details link that leads to the File Transfer Activity page displaying the file transfer details. Alternately, from the Enterprise menu, select Job, then click Activity and search for the job.