Java / Oracle SOA blog

SOA Suite PS5 Email (UMS) Adapter

2012-05-18T13:45:00.000+02:00

With the release of Soa Suite Patch Set 5 we can now try out the new UMS Email adapter. The UMS adapter allows you to listen for new mail or send a mail from a service component. Combined with BPEL it’s now relative easy to process email bodies or attachments. To read more and test it yourself check my blogpost on Amis Technology.

Publish EDN JMS events from ADF BC

2012-04-26T15:10:00.004+02:00

With ADF BC ( Business Components ) you can fire Event Delivery Network CRUD events from ADF BC entities which can be captured and handled by the Oracle SOA Suite. In this blogpost we will use the JMS implementation of EDN plus WebLogic Store and Forward for the reliable delivery to the SOA Suite server ( this way we can bounce SOA without effecting the Web Applications ).

To make this possible on a different ADF WebLogic server then the SOA Suite Server, we need to do the following steps.

First we need to add a WebLogic shared Library. Copy the oracle.soa.fabric_11.1.1 and oracle.soa.workflow_11.1.1 folders from the SOA Suite Oracle Home ( Oracle_SOA1\soa\modules ) to your own WebLogic Middleware home. Put those two folders on the same level directory level.

Then we can add these jars to our own WebLogic Server. Go to deployments and add the following jar oracle.soa.workflow_11.1.1\oracle.soa.workflow.wc.jar ( this contains a manifest which loads the other jars ). Target this shared library to the right WebLogic servers.

We need to add this shared library reference to the weblogic-application.xml deployment descriptor of the ADF Web application. This is the only place where it works ( WEB-INF/lib does not work )

Now we can create an EDN definition and add a publication to an ADF BC entity. Go the Business Events part of your entity editor.

We need to decide if we want to use EDN-AQ or EDN-JMS. The AQ implementation is the default EDN implementation but this requires some datasources to the soa-infra database. This can be Ok in a small server network but I don't want this dependency to this SOA Suite Server in my WebLogic Server.

So I will go for the JMS implementation and create the required Queue and Connection Factories on my own WebLogic Server ( you can also do this with JMS Foreign Server ).

Then those JMS message are stored locally and we will use WebLogic Store and Forward for the reliable delivery to the SOA Suite server. This way we can bounce the SOA Suite server without effecting our Web Applications.

For the EDN-AQ implementation read this blogpost.

To enable the EDN-JMS implementation you need to do the following steps which are described in this blogpost.

We need to create the following JMS artefacts.

Create a JMS Server with a file or jdbc persistence.

Create a JMS Modules with a sub-deployment targeted to this JMS server.

Create a JMS Connection Factory called EDNConnectionFactory with JNDI name jms/fabric/EDNConnectionFactory, disable XA and targeted this to your WebLogic server.

Create a JMS Connection Factory called xaEDNConnectionFactory with JNDI name jms/fabric/xaEDNConnectionFactory, enable XA and targeted this to your WebLogic server.

Create a Queue called EDNQueue with JNDI name jms/fabric/EDNQueue and use the subdeployment so its targeted to the JMS server.

When we start our ADF Web application and change some data, we can take a look at the Queue. Here we will see the EDN events.

Last step is to setup Store and Forward. For this we can follow this Middleware Magic blogpost.

See this blogpost how to fire EDN events from Java and OSB instead of ADF BC.

cheers

Retrieve or set a HTTP header from Oracle BPEL

2012-04-14T20:50:00.001+02:00

With Oracle SOA Suite 11g patch 12928372 you can finally retrieve or set a HTTP header from BPEL. This patch comes with Patch Set 5 ( 11.1.1.6 ) and this patch can also be applied on PS3 ( 11.1.1.4 ), please download it from http://support.oracle.com

I made a simple test case with soapUI which adds an username and a message as HTTP header to the service invocation. In a second testcase I will mock this service in soapUI and BPEL will invoke this service and set an extra HTTP header property.

First step is to add a property to the binding.ws element of the service in the composite.xml. Add a property with name oracle.webservices.http.headers and as value the HTTP headers you want to use in BPEL
<property name="oracle.webservices.http.headers">username,message</property>

Next step is to define some BPEL variables for those HTTP Headers

In the receive activity of the BPEL process we can use fromProperty to copy the HTTP header property value to the BPEL variable.

Do this in the BPEL source mode.

Now you can use these variables in BPEL, I will use these vars in the return message.

Let's invoke the service from soapUI, we need to set the HTTP header properties with their values.

When we want to invoke a reference service and we also want to set some HTTP header properties.

We need also need to set the http.headers property on the binding.ws element on the reference in the composite.xml

<property name="oracle.webservices.http.headers">username,message,message2</property>

On the invoke of the reference service we need to use the toProperty and set the BPEL vars to these HTTP header properties.

When we test it again in soapUI we can see the invoke request of the soapUI mockservice, this contains the HTTP headers which we set in the BPEL process.

Deploy your ADF UIX applications to WebLogic

2012-04-04T22:09:00.000+02:00

Just a quick blogpost how you can deploy your old ADF UIX ( 10.1.2) applications to the WebLogic 11g ( 10.3.5 ) application server. Off course this is not supported by Oracle, who cares, your old 10.1.2 OC4J container is also end of life. When it works, it works :-)

First you need to create a JDBC DataSource in the WebLogic Console.

You need to use the oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver driver class ( don't use XA, disable global commit ) else you will get some strange oracle BLOB errors.

Set Statement cache size to 0 ( in the connection pool Tab of the datasource )

also in the advanced options of the datasource you should de-select Wrap Data Types.
By default, data type objects for Array, Blob, Clob, NClob, Ref, SQLXML, and Struct, plus ParameterMetaData and ResultSetMetaData objects are wrapped with a WebLogic wrapper.

If you don't do this then ADF BC ( BC4J ) can't do its passivation in the ps_txn table ( this contains a BLOB datatype) and your applications behaves very strange
or you can set jbo.passivationstore to file

Next step is to make a shared library ( just use a war template ), For this I use an exploded folder so I can easily add and remove some jars.

I have a folder called adf.uix ( or a war with this name )

Folder META-INF
File MANIFEST.MF with the following content

Manifest-Version: 1.0
Extension-Name: adf.uix
Specification-Title: adf.uix
Specification-Version: 1.0
Implementation-Version: 10.1.2

Folder WEB-INF
A empty web.xml file with the following content

<?xml version = '1.0' encoding = 'windows-1252'?>
<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Web Application 2.3//EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">
<web-app>
</web-app>

Folder lib with all the 10.1.2 jars which I needed.

Deploy the shared library to WebLogic.

Next step is to unpack the war of your uix application ( we don't need the ear )

We need to create a weblogic deployment descriptor called weblogic.xml and put this in the WEB-INF folder. ( you can delete the orion one )

This weblogic descriptor contains a reference to our just created shared library. Also set the WEB-INF/lib as preferred classloading.

<?xml version = '1.0' encoding = 'windows-1252'?>
<weblogic-web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/weblogic-web-app
http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/weblogic-web-app/1.0/weblogic-web-app.xsd"
xmlns="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/weblogic-web-app">
<container-descriptor>
<prefer-web-inf-classes>true</prefer-web-inf-classes>
</container-descriptor>
<library-ref>
<library-name>adf.uix</library-name>
</library-ref>
</weblogic-web-app>

This is the content of my WEB-INF/lib folder

Zip everything to a new war file or use the exploded folder.

When you use jdk1.6 or higher you can set -Djava.awt.headless=true so cabo uix does not need X-Windows or Windows desktop to generate gif images.

And when you don't see the images then you should also use an exploded folder instead of a war so cabo uix has a file path to store the generated images. Or make an UIX configuration class which contains cabo paths to a folder of the weblogic server.

Deploy the war or exploded folder to weblogic, test it and delete your own OC4J Container.

How to use the Human WorkFlow Web Services

2012-04-03T20:29:00.002+02:00

There are different ways to interact with the Human WorkFlow services of the Oracle SOA Suite or BPM. You can use java and use it in your own application, like I did in this blogpost, use the BPM Worklist application or invoke the Human WorkFlow web services.

In this blogpost I will describe how you can do that and especially how you can query the Human task with your own ordering and restrictions.

You can try these examples from soapUI or any other web service framework / tool.

In this blogpost we will invoke these two WF web services

TaskQueryService, This WS can be used for task retrieval or do a query on the WorkFlow service.
The WSDL url = http://soa-server:8001/integration/services/TaskQueryService/TaskQueryService?WSDL

TaskService, This WS can be used for CRUD actions on the human tasks.
The WSDL url = http://soa-server:8001/integration/services/TaskService/TaskServicePort?WSDL

Both services got two endpoints, be aware you should always use the endpoint of TaskQueryServicePort and not the SAML port unless you like to use SAML authentication.

<soap:address location="http://172.16.0.4:8001/integration/services/TaskQueryService/TaskQueryService2/*"/>

</port>

<soap:address location="http://172.16.0.4:8001/integration/services/TaskQueryService/TaskQueryService"/>

</port>

</service>

When we know our Human TaskId ( something like this 3fa4e9f7-5719-4efa-8215-ad2b47fcbace )
then you can use the getTaskDetailsById operation.

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"

xmlns:tas="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQueryService"

xmlns:com="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/common">

<soapenv:Header/>

<soapenv:Body>

<tas:taskDetailsByIdRequest>

<com:workflowContext>

<com:credential>

<com:login>weblogic</com:login>

<com:password>weblogic1</com:password>

</com:credential>

</com:workflowContext>

<tas:taskId>3fa4e9f7-5719-4efa-8215-ad2b47fcbace</tas:taskId>

</tas:taskDetailsByIdRequest>

</soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>

In this case I use workflowContext for authentication. You can also do it on behalf of someone else.

Sometimes you only got a Human WorkFlow number then you can use the getTaskDetailsByNumber operation.

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"

xmlns:tas="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQueryService"

xmlns:com="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/common">

<soapenv:Header/>

<soapenv:Body>

<tas:taskDetailsByNumberRequest>

<com:workflowContext>

<com:credential>

<com:login>weblogic</com:login>

<com:password>weblogic1</com:password>

</com:credential>

</com:workflowContext>

<tas:taskNumber>200000</tas:taskNumber>

</tas:taskDetailsByNumberRequest>

</soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>

When you don't know the taskId or the task number or want to do bulk operations then you can do a search on the humantask services. The queryTasks operation is very powerful and there is not really a restriction.

let's start with a simple one. In this request I want to search for a task number and also want to have some extra attributes ( blue part ) in the response together with the Comments, Attachments and the Payloads ( red part ).

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"

xmlns:tas="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQueryService" \

xmlns:com="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/common"

xmlns:tas1="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQuery"

xmlns:task="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/task">

<soapenv:Header/>

<soapenv:Body>

<tas:taskListRequest>

<com:workflowContext>

<com:credential>

<com:login>weblogic</com:login>

<com:password>weblogic1</com:password>

</com:credential>

</com:workflowContext>

<tas1:taskPredicateQuery>

<tas1:displayColumnList>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute1</tas1:displayColumn>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute2</tas1:displayColumn>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute3</tas1:displayColumn>

</tas1:displayColumnList>

<tas1:optionalInfoList>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Comments</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Attachments</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Payload</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

</tas1:optionalInfoList>

<tas1:predicate>

<tas1:assignmentFilter>All</tas1:assignmentFilter>

<tas1:clause>

<tas1:column>taskNumber</tas1:column>

<tas1:operator>EQ</tas1:operator>

<tas1:value>200001</tas1:value>

</tas1:clause>

</tas1:predicate>

</tas1:taskPredicateQuery>

</tas:taskListRequest>

</soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>

In the predicate part we are using the old style for defining our restriction ( clause after predicate ). In the next queryTasks examples I will show the ones which also will be supported in the coming soa suite releases.

assignmentFilter can have the following values: All, My, Group, My+Group, My+Group+All, Reportees, Creator, Owner, Previous, Admin

operator can have the following values: EQ, NEQ, GT, GTE, LT, LTE, LIKE, NOT_LIKE, IN, NOT_IN, CONTAINS, NOT_CONTAINS, BEGINS, NOT_BEGINS, ENDS, NOT_ENDS, BEFORE, AFTER, ON, NEXT_N_DAYS, LAST_N_DAYS, IS_IN_FUTURE, IS_IN_PAST, IS_NULL, IS_NOT_NULL

To know all the possible displayColumn values you can decompile the TableConstants class located in the oracle.bpel.services.workflow.repos package. Or look at the WF tables in the soa-infra schema.

The optionalInfoList can contain the following values: Actions, GroupActions, CustomActions, Attachments, Comments, Payload, ShortHistory, TemplateTasks

In this query I have a predicate with two clauses which do a search on the text attributes ( tableName attribute is in almost all cases WFTask , check the soa-infa database or the TableConstants class ) and the second one has an AND operator on the first one.

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"

xmlns:tas="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQueryService"

xmlns:com="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/common"

xmlns:tas1="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQuery"

xmlns:task="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/task">

<soapenv:Header/>

<soapenv:Body>

<tas:taskListRequest>

<com:workflowContext>

<com:credential>

<com:login>weblogic</com:login>

<com:password>weblogic1</com:password>

</com:credential>

</com:workflowContext>

<tas1:taskPredicateQuery startRow="1" endRow="10">

<tas1:displayColumnList>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute1</tas1:displayColumn>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute2</tas1:displayColumn>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute3</tas1:displayColumn>

</tas1:displayColumnList>

<tas1:optionalInfoList>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Comments</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Attachments</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Payload</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

</tas1:optionalInfoList>

<tas1:predicate>

<tas1:assignmentFilter>All</tas1:assignmentFilter>

<tas1:predicate>

<tas1:clause>

<tas1:column tableName="WFTask">

<tas1:columnName>textAttribute1</tas1:columnName>

</tas1:column>

<tas1:operator>EQ</tas1:operator>

<tas1:value>MyTask</tas1:value>

</tas1:clause>

<tas1:clause joinOperator="AND">

<tas1:column tableName="WFTask">

<tas1:columnName>textAttribute2</tas1:columnName>

</tas1:column>

<tas1:operator>EQ</tas1:operator>

<tas1:value>1234</tas1:value>

</tas1:clause>

</tas1:predicate>

</tas1:taskPredicateQuery>

</tas:taskListRequest>

</soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>

In the next example we will add some ordering and use a valuelist in a predicate clause ( for this we need to use the IN operator).

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"

xmlns:tas="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQueryService"

xmlns:com="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/common"

xmlns:tas1="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQuery"

xmlns:task="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/task">

<soapenv:Header/>

<soapenv:Body>

<tas:taskListRequest>

<com:workflowContext>

<com:credential>

<com:login>weblogic</com:login>

<com:password>weblogic1</com:password>

</com:credential>

</com:workflowContext>

<tas1:taskPredicateQuery>

<tas1:displayColumnList>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute1</tas1:displayColumn>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute2</tas1:displayColumn>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute3</tas1:displayColumn>

</tas1:displayColumnList>

<tas1:optionalInfoList>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Comments</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Attachments</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Payload</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

</tas1:optionalInfoList>

<tas1:predicate>

<tas1:assignmentFilter>My+Group</tas1:assignmentFilter>

<tas1:predicate>

<tas1:clause>

<tas1:column tableName="WFTask">

<tas1:columnName>state</tas1:columnName>

</tas1:column>

<tas1:operator>IN</tas1:operator>

<tas1:valueList>

<tas1:value>ASSIGNED</tas1:value>

<tas1:value>INFO_REQUESTED</tas1:value>

<tas1:value>OUTCOME_UPDATED</tas1:value>

</tas1:valueList>

</tas1:clause>

</tas1:predicate>

<tas1:ordering>

<tas1:clause>

<tas1:column>priority</tas1:column>

<tas1:table>WFTask</tas1:table>

<tas1:sortOrder>ASCENDING</tas1:sortOrder>

<tas1:nullFirst>false</tas1:nullFirst>

</tas1:clause>

<tas1:clause>

<tas1:column>taskNumber</tas1:column>

<tas1:table>WFTask</tas1:table>

<tas1:sortOrder>DESCENDING</tas1:sortOrder>

<tas1:nullFirst>false</tas1:nullFirst>

</tas1:clause>

</tas1:ordering>

</tas1:taskPredicateQuery>

</tas:taskListRequest>

</soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>

For the Ordering I need to provide the column and table values ( table element is in almost all cases WFTask , check the soa-infa database or the TableConstants class )

The last query task has a more complex predicate, for this we need to use lhs , logicalOperator and rhs elements. And the rhs element contains an another lhs , logicalOperator and rhs section.

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"

xmlns:tas="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQueryService"

xmlns:com="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/common"

xmlns:tas1="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskQuery"

xmlns:task="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/task">

<soapenv:Header/>

<soapenv:Body>

<tas:taskListRequest>

<com:workflowContext>

<com:credential>

<com:login>weblogic</com:login>

<com:password>weblogic1</com:password>

</com:credential>

</com:workflowContext>

<tas1:taskPredicateQuery startRow="1" endRow="10">

<tas1:displayColumnList>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute1</tas1:displayColumn>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute2</tas1:displayColumn>

<tas1:displayColumn>textAttribute3</tas1:displayColumn>

</tas1:displayColumnList>

<tas1:optionalInfoList>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Comments</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Attachments</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

<tas1:taskOptionalInfo>Payload</tas1:taskOptionalInfo>

</tas1:optionalInfoList>

<tas1:predicate>

<tas1:assignmentFilter>My+Group</tas1:assignmentFilter>

<tas1:predicate>

<tas1:lhs>

<tas1:clause>

<tas1:column tableName="WFTask">

<tas1:columnName>state</tas1:columnName>

</tas1:column>

<tas1:operator>IN</tas1:operator>

<tas1:valueList>

<tas1:value>ASSIGNED</tas1:value>

<tas1:value>INFO_REQUESTED</tas1:value>

<tas1:value>OUTCOME_UPDATED</tas1:value>

</tas1:valueList>

</tas1:clause>

</tas1:lhs>

<tas1:logicalOperator>AND</tas1:logicalOperator>

<tas1:rhs>

<tas1:lhs>

<tas1:clause>

<tas1:column tableName="WFTask">

<tas1:columnName>textAttribute1</tas1:columnName>

</tas1:column>

<tas1:operator>EQ</tas1:operator>

<tas1:value>MyTask</tas1:value>

</tas1:clause>

<tas1:clause joinOperator="AND">

<tas1:column tableName="WFTask">

<tas1:columnName>textAttribute2</tas1:columnName>

</tas1:column>

<tas1:operator>EQ</tas1:operator>

<tas1:value>1234</tas1:value>

</tas1:clause>

</tas1:lhs>

<tas1:logicalOperator>OR</tas1:logicalOperator>

<tas1:rhs>

<tas1:clause>

<tas1:column tableName="WFTask">

<tas1:columnName>textAttribute2</tas1:columnName>

</tas1:column>

<tas1:operator>EQ</tas1:operator>

<tas1:value>123</tas1:value>

</tas1:clause>

</tas1:rhs>

</tas1:predicate>

</tas1:taskPredicateQuery>

</tas:taskListRequest>

</soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>

At last we can also try update a Task with a particular outcome. For this we need to use the TaskService
http://soa-server:8001/integration/services/TaskService/TaskServicePort?WSDL

Use the right endpoint ( not the SAML one ) and use the operation updateTaskOutcome ( this is the easiest way )

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:tas="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/taskService"
xmlns:com="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/common"
xmlns:task="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/task"
xmlns:tas1="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bpel/workflow/TaskEvidenceService">
<soapenv:Header/>
<soapenv:Body>
<tas:updateTaskOutcome>
<com:workflowContext>
<com:credential>
<com:login>humantask</com:login>
<com:password>Welcome01</com:password>
</com:credential>
</com:workflowContext>
<tas:taskId>3e80842f-75c9-4e3d-b441-a7f339df4109</tas:taskId>
<tas:outcome>OK</tas:outcome>
</tas:updateTaskOutcome>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Just provide the taskId and what the outcome should be.

JCache on NoSQL MySQL Cluster 7.2 ( Memcached )

2012-03-31T18:56:00.000+02:00

With the release of MySQL Cluster 7.2 and the support for the native Memcached API we can also use the HA cluster for NoSQL besides JPA, SQL.
In this blogpost I will try out this NoSQL feature with JCache ( alias JSR 107 or javax.cache , it will be part of Java EE 7 and it will also work in Java 6 ). JCache defines a standard Java Caching API for use by developers and a standard SPI (“Service Provider Interface”) for use by implementers. Coherence of Oracle will also support JCache. For more information see Greg Luck's blog.

With JCache and MySQL Cluster alone we can't get this example running. We also need to have Memcached JCache provider. Leen Toelen already did the hard work, he made one which uses spymemcached as memcache client. So for this we need to download his code at github, after this we also need to download the latest spymemcached jars.

The code of Leen will work with JCache version 0.4, so we need to download the 0.4 version jars at https://oss.sonatype.org/index.html#nexus-search;quick~javax-cache . You can find the source code at JSR107 github repositories. For the JCache provider you also need to download the CDI-API jar.

For more information on Memcached or MySQL you can read this great blog of clusterdb, he explains it really well, like

How to setup your MySQL and Memcached environment
What is memcached
How it works
Let it work on your existing tables

or you can read the MySQL Cluster 7.2 whitepaper which can be downloaded at MySQL.com

So we start by downloading MySQL Cluster 7.2 and configuring this cluster. I won't explain this here, there are a lot of great blogs or guides which can help you with this.

After we got the cluster running we need to create the memcached database.

Also we need to have at least 10 API or MYSQLD entries in the config.ini of the cluster. After this change you need to reload this config file with the ndb_mgmd daemon.

[NDBD DEFAULT]
NoOfReplicas=2
DataDir=/usr/cluster/data
DataMemory=80M
IndexMemory=18M

[MYSQLD DEFAULT]
[NDB_MGMD DEFAULT]
DataDir= /usr/cluster/data

[TCP DEFAULT]

# Management Server
[NDB_MGMD]
NodeId=1
HostName=172.16.0.20 # IP address of this server

# Storage Nodes
[NDBD]
NodeId=2
HostName=172.16.0.21 # IP address of storage-node-1
DataDir= /usr/cluster/data

[NDBD]
NodeId=3
HostName=172.16.0.22 # IP address of storage-node-2
DataDir= /usr/cluster/data

[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]
[MYSQLD]

Then we need to create the ndbmemcache database

mysql -p < /usr/share/mysql/memcache-api/ndb_memcache_metadata.sql
mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql |
| ndbinfo |
| ndbmemcache |
| performance_schema |
| test |
+--------------------+

We can start memcached on the cluster nodes (what you like ) and it needs to connect to the NDB management service.

/usr/sbin/memcached -E /usr/lib64/ndb_engine.so -u mysql -e "connectstring=mgt.alfa.local:1186;role=db-only" -vv

you should see a output like this.

17-Mar-2012 21:12:55 CET NDB Memcache 5.5.19-ndb-7.2.4 started [NDB 7.2.4; MySQL 5.5.19]

Contacting primary management server (mgt.alfa.local:1186) ...

Connected to "mgt.alfa.local:1186" as node id 6.

Retrieved 3 key prefixes for server role "db-only".

The default behavior is that:

GET uses NDB only

SET uses NDB only

DELETE uses NDB only.

The 2 explicitly defined key prefixes are "b:" (demo_table_large) and "t:" (demo_table_tabs)

Connected to "172.16.0.20" as node id 7.

Server started with 4 threads.

Priming the pump ...

Connected to "172.16.0.20" as node id 8.

Scheduler: using 2 connections to cluster 0

Scheduler: starting for 1 cluster; c0,f0,t1

done [0.677 sec].

Loaded engine: NDB Memcache 5.5.19-ndb-7.2.4

Supplying the following features: compare and swap, persistent storage, LRU

<49 server listening (auto-negotiate)

<50 server listening (auto-negotiate)

<51 send buffer was 126976, now 268435456

<52 send buffer was 126976, now 268435456

<51 server listening (udp)

<52 server listening (udp)

<51 server listening (udp)

<52 server listening (udp)

<51 server listening (udp)

<52 server listening (udp)

<51 server listening (udp)

<52 server listening (udp)

When we go to the cluster management console ( ndb_mgm) and type show, we should see something like this

ndb_mgm> show
Cluster Configuration
---------------------
[ndbd(NDB)] 2 node(s)
id=2 @172.16.0.21 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4, Nodegroup: 0, Master)
id=3 @172.16.0.22 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4, Nodegroup: 0)

[ndb_mgmd(MGM)] 1 node(s)
id=1 @172.16.0.20 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)

[mysqld(API)] 24 node(s)
id=4 @172.16.0.21 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)
id=5 @172.16.0.22 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)
id=6 @172.16.0.21 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)
id=7 @172.16.0.21 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)
id=8 @172.16.0.21 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)
id=9 @172.16.0.22 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)
id=10 @172.16.0.22 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)
id=11 @172.16.0.22 (mysql-5.5.19 ndb-7.2.4)
id=12 (not connected, accepting connect from any host)
id=13 (not connected, accepting connect from any host)

We are ready to do some test in java and we start with spymemcached java library ( in the memcachedclient I connect to my two memcached servers and use the default port 11211).
Just create a MemcachedClient and do your set or get operations.

With this as result
2012-03-31 17:29:33.190 INFO net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Added {QA sa=/172.16.0.21:11211, #Rops=0, #Wops=0, #iq=0, topRop=null, topWop=null, toWrite=0, interested=0} to connect queue
2012-03-31 17:29:33.205 INFO net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Added {QA sa=/172.16.0.22:11211, #Rops=0, #Wops=0, #iq=0, topRop=null, topWop=null, toWrite=0, interested=0} to connect queue
2012-03-31 17:29:33.221 INFO net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Connection state changed for sun.nio.ch.SelectionKeyImpl@10c832d2
2012-03-31 17:29:33.221 WARN net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Could not redistribute to another node, retrying primary node for greetings.
2012-03-31 17:29:33.221 INFO net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Connection state changed for sun.nio.ch.SelectionKeyImpl@47808199
There is no message
Process exited with exit code 0.

Run it again.

2012-03-31 17:30:47.662 INFO net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Added {QA sa=/172.16.0.21:11211, #Rops=0, #Wops=0, #iq=0, topRop=null, topWop=null, toWrite=0, interested=0} to connect queue
2012-03-31 17:30:47.678 INFO net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Added {QA sa=/172.16.0.22:11211, #Rops=0, #Wops=0, #iq=0, topRop=null, topWop=null, toWrite=0, interested=0} to connect queue
2012-03-31 17:30:47.694 INFO net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Connection state changed for sun.nio.ch.SelectionKeyImpl@10c832d2
2012-03-31 17:30:47.694 INFO net.spy.memcached.MemcachedConnection: Connection state changed for sun.nio.ch.SelectionKeyImpl@47808199
Hello World!
Process exited with exit code 0.

We can see that the greetings key with its value is stored into the database ( you can also configure that this key is stored in memory instead of the database )

When we change the key to b:greetings then the value will be stored in the large demo table which optimized for bigger values ( max 3mb) .

From clusterdb blogpost.
By default, the normal limit of 14K per row still applies when using the Memcached API; however, the standard configuration treats any key-value pair with a key-pefix of “b:” differently and will allow the value to be up to 3 Mb (note the default limit imposed by the Memcached server is 1 Mb and so you’d also need to raise that). Internally the contents of this value will be split between 1 row in ndbmemcache.demo_table_large and one or more rows in ndbmemcache.external_values.

Now let's try the same with JCache.

First create a javax.cache.spi.CachingProvider file in the following folder META-INF\services
This file must contain the JCache provider class name, in this case net.spy.memcached.jcache.SpyCachingProvider
Then we need to create a SpyCachingProvider, set the Java parameter and configure the CacheManager & Cache.

In combination with CDI you can also use annotations. Enable CDI and inject this bean in your class.

Oracle bulk insert or select from Java with Eclipselink

2012-03-25T18:26:00.002+02:00

Database Bulk operations like a 10.000 rows insert operation from java can be hard and costly plus you won't come near the time when you do the same in PL/SQL. So the solution is to pass on the array of java JPA entities to a PL/SQL package and let the optimized Oracle Database do the hard work.

To make this work in java we need to use eclipselink at least version 2.3.2, this has the required java classes.

In this blogpost I will show you, how you can retrieve all the departments from the HR demo schema. Add a new department and do a multi insert.

On the PLSQL side we need to define PLSQL row and table types in our Oracle Package. Because Eclipselink can't handle these PLSQL table types directly we also need to define the matching Oracle Types counter parts.

So let's create these objects in the Oracle Database under the HR schema

We are ready with the Oracle Database.

So the first step is to create the Departments entity. This entity is not based on a Table but on the Oracle Type, so we need to add @Embeddable and @Struct annotations.

We also need to create some department utils in which we define the eclipselink PLSQLrecord and PLSQLCollection variables and an ObjectRelationalDataTypeDescriptor descriptor for the entitymanager session.
We need to do this else we can't map the Oracle Types to PLSQL table types. Also eclipselink need to link the Deparments class to the Oracle Type.

Off course we need to create a persistence unit which connects to the HR demo schema.

We are ready to test our solutions.

First we start with a single insert where we pass a department as parameter of a procedure.
These are the steps to make this work.
Define a PLSQLStoredProcedureCall with your Oracle procedure name and all the parameters. Because we only pass on a record so we only need to use the department PLSQLrecord. Create DataReadQuery and add our department entity. Retrieve the ServerSession and add the department descriptor.
And at last fire the procedure.

In the second test we will do a multi insert. This works the same as the single result but only now we need to use the department PLSQLCollection and set our parameters to the Array type.

At last we will retrieve all the departments and we will use a function which returns an array of departments. In this case we will use PLSQLStoredFunctionCall and also use the department PLSQLCollection. As result we get a DatabaseRecord where we can read the RESULT key which contains all our departments.

Here you can download the project on github https://github.com/biemond/jdev11g_examples/tree/master/PLSQLWrapper

Processing EDIFACT documents in Oracle B2B

2012-03-14T22:31:00.004+01:00

In my previous blogpost I already showed you how to process custom xml documents in Oracle B2B and pass it to the Oracle SOA Suite. In part two we will try to process an EDIFACT document. This time we need to use the Oracle Document Editor where we change the EDIFACT guideline, analyze the EDI documents against this guideline and do an export which we can import into Oracle B2B.

Here is an example of an EDIFACT document which is used in the dutch energy world (an EDIFACT dialect called EDINE). It is an acknowledgement document called APERAK.

UNA:+,? '
UNB+UNOC:3+8712423009097:14+8716867999990:14+080928:1347+1001'
UNH+1001+APERAK:D:96A:UN:EDINE1'
BGM+12E::9+A_200508030000603782+27'
DTM+137:200508031112:203'
DTM+178:200508031113:203'
DTM+735:2:805'
RFF+AAN:T200508031110N002'
NAD+GRP+8716867999990::9'
NAD+GRU+8712423009097::9'
ERC+00023::60'
FTX+AAO+++In period 199904112015 199904112030 your changes are not yet approved: because of inconsistency between other PRCs in the given period'
UNT+11+1001'
UNZ+1+1001'

Before we can start we need to have the Message Implementation Guide ( MIG ) of this APERAK message and off course study the general EDIFACT Guidelines which explains the UNA,UNB,UNT and UNZ segments.

First we need to identify the message. For this we need to analyze the UNH segment.

UNH+1001+APERAK:D:96A:UN:EDINE1'

The Message type is APERAK and version pluis release is D96A. These values are important for the Oracle Document Editor, this way we can detect and select the right EDIFACT APERAK definition and register it in Oracle B2B.

Now we can startup the Oracle Document Editor ( this can be downloaded in the Prerequisites & Recommended Install Process of the SOA Suite download on OTN, for EDIFACT we only need B2B Document Editor Part 1 )

Create a new guideline where we open the EDIFACT part and go to D96A node and select the APERAK message

This is the default implementation of the Aperak Message.

Because we are using an EDIFACT dialect we need to study the message implementation guide and change this guideline so it matches with the MIG. Delete Segments , Element Groups , Elements and add your own values in the element standard lists.

When we are finished with the modifying part we can export this guideline. Click on Export ( File menu ) and select Oracle 2.0

Select Show advanced options.

Provide your own namespace

Suppress Enumeration in XSD

Then finish the export.

Next step is to use the Analyzer so we can test the created guideline on our EDIFACT test message.

Select the test message and select Show Advanced options ( else we can't generate a xml output based on this test message).

Choose From a guideline file and select your created guideline.

Our test message does not contain a functional group segment so choose for Syntax 3 - no functional group.

Oracle Document Editor can also generate a XML output but we need to enable this option.

The guideline and test message does not have any errors so we are ready to use it in Oracle B2B

To see the generated XML based on this test message we can press the XDATA button. This is the XML which can be processed by Oracle SOA Suite.

The next step is to register the APERAK guideline in Oracle B2B. For this we need go to the Administration part of the B2B application.

Go to the Document Tab and create a new version under EDI_EDIFACT. This version should be called D96A.
Also when we look at this line of our test EDIFACT message UNB+UNOC:3+8712423009097:14+8716867999990:14+080928:1347+1001'
Then we should use UNOC as syntax identifier and the version is 3.

Also we don't use a functional group and UN is the Controlling Agency.

Create the APERAK Document Type and use FA as Function Group Identifier Code.
When we take a look at the UNH record of the test message we see that UN is our Controlling Agency and EDINE1 is the Transaction Association. UNH+1001+APERAK:D:96A:UN:EDINE1'

Create the APERAK Document Definition and upload the XSD definition and ECS file.

Next step is to add the EDI identifiers to all the involved Parties. This will be used to identify the agreement.
To know your sender or receiver identifications we can look at the UNB record.

Add the EDI Interchange ID and Qualifier identifiers to all the involved Parties.

Create the Aperak agreement between two parties where we add the EDI identifiers and select Validate and Translate options.

Add a listening channel, so B2B will listen for new EDIFACT files.

We should see the APERAK messages in the Business Messages

And at last this is how the translated XML message looks like.

Handling Custom XML documents in Oracle B2B

2012-03-11T21:24:00.001+01:00

With Oracle B2B which is a part of Oracle SOA Suite 11g R1 you can handle / interchange all kind of messages between partners. Oracle B2B supports many Documents Protocols like off course your own, EDIFACT, HL7, RosettaNet and many more. Besides this it also supports many interchange channel protocols like AS2, Email , FTP , File etc.
B2B can listen on those channels and tries to identify the document together with the sender and the receiver. For this you need to register the document and create an Agreement between the two parties. On the partner level you need to register some identifiers like a common name or an email address.
When the document is identified it will be translated to xml and this document can send this to an output channel, this can be a JMS Queue on which Oracle SOA Suite can listen.

In this blogpost I made a small example in which we have an employee xml message which is delivered to an folder, B2B has a listening Channel on this folder and tries to identify it ( uses xpath and examine the file name ). This particular Agreement says it has to deliver the message to a Queue.
This Queue is read by Oracle SOA Suite and the composite generates an employee response message and uses a B2B adapter to deliver it back to Oracle B2B.
The document is identified by Oracle B2B and this Agreement has email as output and the response message is delivered as an attachment in the email.

Off course this xml use case can also be done in Oracle SOA Suite but in my next blogpost we will make it more interesting by doing the same but then with an EDIFACT message where B2B can validate and transform the EDIFACT and even send an Acknowledgement based on the input message.

We start with the employee and the response schemas.

The employee schema

The employee response schema

I will use the user weblogic for all the B2B Administration so I need to assign the IntegrationAdministrators role to the weblogic user ( this can be done in the myrealm security realm).

We start by register these XSD documents in the Administration menu of the B2B application.
this is the url of the B2B application located on the soa server http://soa_server:8001/b2bconsole/faces/login.jspx

Select the Custom Document Protocol and click on the green plus button where we create a new Document Protocol Version called Employee_XSD

Save and click on the new Type button where we create a Document Type Name.

On this screen we can define our Defintion and where we need to upload the XSD.
Important for the identification of the message is that we need to provide the Identification Expression.

In this case I search for the element called type and see if it has employee2 as value.

We do the same steps for our employee response message.

Now we can move to the Partners registration part of the B2B application. Here we will create a partner, add some identifiers, register which documents can be handled by this partner and at last the output communication channel where we can define where the message will be send to.

First click on MyCompany, this is the master partner ( basically this is you, the owner of the B2B server ).

We need to define some Identifiers which can be used in the Partner Agreements.
First a Generic Identifier with MyCompany as value and an other one with server@local.nl as email address.

The Document and the roles this partner can handle, for EmployeeSchema de-select Sender and for the Response de-select Receiver.

The employee message will be delivered to a JMS Queue so we need to define an output channel. Define a JMS channel and provide the JNDI names of the Connection Factory and the JMS Queue.

We also need a Trading Partner so I created a Partner called CorpA. Here we also need to define some Generic Identifiers like CorpA and client@local.nl

The documents, in this case CorpA is the sender of the Employee message and receiver of Response message.

The CorpA want to receive the response as an email attachment so we need to define an email channel where we define the mail server details.

Next we need to define agreements between CorpA and MyCompany and back.
Select the CorpA Partner and create an Agreement

The incoming employee message agreement.

Here we need to select the Employee document and on the MyCompany side we need to choose the JMS channel. Click Save and Deploy the agreement.

In the response message agreement we need to use the Response document and on the CorpA side, select the email channel. Also on the the MyCompany side add the Email identifier so B2B knows who is the sender of the email. Click Save and Deploy the agreement.

The next part is Oracle SOA Suite which receives the employee message and creates the response message.

Drag the B2B Adapter to the Exposed Services side of the composite.

Choose JMS as B2B integration type.
Select your AppServer Connection -> The weblogic domain which hosts the SOA & B2B software.
Receive
Click Next on the Basic Tab
Open the Custom Document Definition and select the EmployeeSchema
Select Oracle WebLogic JMS in OEMS
Select your AppServer Connection -> The weblogic domain which hosts the SOA & B2B software.
Lookup the Queue in the Destination name.
Create an EIS connection with this name in the JMS Resource Adapter plan.

Drag the B2B Adapter to the External References side of the composite.

Choose Default as B2B integration type.
Select your AppServer Connection -> The weblogic domain which hosts the SOA & B2B software.
Send
Click Next on the Basic Tab
Open the Custom Document Definition and select the ResponseSchema

Add an Mediator and wire the two adapters to this mediator.

Add a transformation where we will create the response message.
Add the B2B Assign Values so B2B can detect the agreement.

You need to provide the following Assigns

b2b.fromTradingPartnerId -> MyCompany
b2b.fromTradingPartnerType -> Name

b2b.toTradingPartnerId -> CorpA
b2b.toTradingPartnerType -> Name

b2b.documentTypeName -> EmployeeResponseType

b2b.documentProtocolName -> Custom

b2b.documentProtocolVersion -> Employee_XSD

Deploy the composite

Back to B2B

The last part before we can test this B2B example is to configure a listening channel which polls for new messages.

We need to go back to the Administration Tab of the B2B application.

Add a file channel and provide the Folder name.

Important we need to define a filename format so B2B can detect the sender. ( my custom document does not have an identification part )

Now we can add a xml document to this MyCompany in folder and must be called CorpA.xml

This is the example document with employee2 as value for the element type (else the document won't be detected).

We can see the messages and the progress in the Reports part of the B2B Application.

And the final result where we got an email with the employee response.

In the next blogpost we will add some EDIFACT messages to B2B.

Changing your ADF Connections in Enterprise Manager with PS5

2012-02-28T00:35:00.001+01:00

With Patch Set 5 of Fusion Middleware you can finally change your ADF connections ( like a Web Service connection ) in the Enterprise Manager Web Application. So you can make one application deployment and deploy it to acceptance and production.
In many cases ADF and JDeveloper automatically creates connections ( like a ADF WS DataControl ) which could not be changed after deployment, you need to do this before deployment or change the EAR.
With PS5 you can change these connections in the "Configure ADF Connections" menu option on the application deployment ( EM ). This is also possible with WLST where you can change and persist the attributes of the application connection MBean.

If you want to do this you need to do the following steps

Have a WebLogic domain which has a configured MDS repository.
Add some listeners to the web.xml ( for the MBean support).
Enable MDS ( else the connection details won't be persisted ).
Add an ADF Connection on the Web Service entry when you use a Web Service Proxy.

In this blogpost I will show you the steps how to make this work and change in this example the endpoint of a web service.

We start for example by adding an ADF WS DataControl.

This will always add a ws connection to the connection.xml file in the ADF META-INF Folder.

This is also possible on a Web Service Proxy when you don't use an ADF WS DataControl.

Select the service and right click on Create ADF Web Service Connection.

Click on OK

Use the service and finish your Application.

Prepare your Application for allowing to change your ADF Connections.

First we need to add the ADFConnectionLifeCycleCallBack and the ADFConfigLifeCycleCallBack listeners to the web.xml. This enables the ADF Connection Mbean support.

Enable User Customizations ( across sessions using MDS ) and Enable Seeded Customizations.

We are ready to deploy our application.

You should see the MDS and Connections Tabs when you deploy from JDeveloper.

Optional look at the connections.

After deployment we change the WSDL URL and endpoint in the Enterprise Manager.

First select your application deployment.

Here we can see our connection. Because we enabled MDS on the application we can change the connection else you won't see the Edit , Delete buttons.

Change the WSDL URL by clicking on the Edit button. Click on OK and apply the changes. The new URL is stored in the MDS repository.

Also click on Advanced Connection Configuration where we also need to change the endpoint address and click on Apply.

We are ready to test the application with the new WSDL url and endpoint.

Optional
You can also change these with WLST,
for this you need to go the System MBean Browser of EM to find your mbean for example oracle.adf.share.connections:ApplicationName=YourApp,Location=WLSserver,name=ADFConnections,beantype=Runtime,type=ADFConnections,Application=YourApp

Use MySQL 5.5 as MDS database repository in FMW 11g R1 PS5

2012-02-25T15:42:00.003+01:00

One of the new features of Fusion Middleware 11G R1 PatchSet 5 (PS5) is the support for MySQL 5.5 as Meta Data Services (MDS) repository. This means you can use MySQL database as a store for ADF personifications or as policies store for your OWSM domain. For MDS you just need a small database which store these configurations. For the SOA infra repository ( not supported on MySQL ) I think the Oracle Database will always be the best choice ( tuning, transactions, RAC ).
This way you add the MySQL database on the same machine as your WebLogic Domain without taking a lot of machine resources, less maintenance or thinking about licensing costs.

In this blogpost I will show you the steps how to create a MDS repository for OWSM and ADF.

First we start with downloading MySQL 5.5 and install it on a machine. I will use InnoDb as database engine and UTF8 as character set ( this is probably best tested by Oracle).

Add or change the following database settings in the my.cnf of the MySQL database.

innodb_file_per_table
innodb_file_format=Barracuda
innodb_large_prefix
log_bin_trust_function_creators

sql-mode=NO_BACKSLASH_ESCAPES

max_sp_recursion_depth=10

The first 4 settings are required by the RCU installer ( Repository Creation Utility )
The sql-mode is necessary in OWSM else you will get a SQL error ( escape ' \' on a like ) when you start the WebLogic Domain.
the max_sp_recursion_depth=10 else you will get this error Recursive limit 0 (as set by the max_sp_recursion_depth variable) was exceeded for routine mds_internal_createPackageRecursive

Start the RCU installer and select MySQL Database as database type. I will use root as username cause it needs to create a table ( schema_version_registry) in the test database and it wants to create a new database.

MySQL does not support all options but for us, the Metadata Services option is enough. Besides MDS, MySQL is also supports ODI ( Oracle Data Integrator ) and Enterprise Performance Management, I personally don't know these products so I can't test them for you .

RCU creates a dev_mds database and an user dev_mds user.

It will create the following tables

For OWSM, I also created a dev1_mds database with the RCU which I will use in the WebLogic Domain creation ( EM, JRF and OWSM as domain options ) . I used the dev1_mds as database and DEV1_MDS as MySQL username

Now we can start the OWSM WebLogic domain and deploy our protected Web Services.

We can also use it in ADF, for this we need to open the Enterprise Manager application, select your domain and go to Metadata Repositories. Click on Register.

I create a new MySQL user which has access to the test and dev_mds database.

grant all on dev_mds.* to mds@'%' identified by 'welcome';
grant all on test.* to mds@'%' identified by 'welcome';

the test database contains the RCU schema_version_registry table which contains all the entries.

use mds as username and test as service name.

Now you can register you own MDS database repository.

That's all.

Configure WebLogic Resource Adapters with ANT

2012-02-20T21:50:00.001+01:00

When you use a JCA adapter in Oracle SOA Suite or OSB then you know that you need to configure a plan of some WebLogic Resource Adapter. With this ANT script I tried to make this an easy task for you and which you can repeat on different WebLogic Domains. This ANT script can easily add multiple EIS entries to the following adapters: DbAdapter, AqAdapter and JmsAdapter in just one run. After these changes to the resource plans this script will redeploy only the changed Resource Adapter.

Special thanks for my colleague Michel Schildmeijer for inspiring me to make this flexible script and off course for the necessary WLST code.

Important to know.

Run this script on the AdminServer, else it won't find the Resource Adapter Plans
First you need to create a Plan for the 3 Resource Adapters (Db,Aq,Jms) and add a dummy entry, think how you name it and where you put it.
When a plan is changed and you have a soa cluster or the soa weblogic instance is running on a different server then you need to copy the plan to all servers or put it on a shared storage.

If you don't like this then you can always create new Resource Adapters by following this blogpost.

Let's explain how it works

first you need to change some variables in this build.properties

default this scripts runs against the weblogic dev settings. You can change this to your own and configure the dev entries ( dev entries at the bottom of the build.properties )

wls.environment=dev

Where are the adapter rars located in your FMW domain, this can be in your SOA or OSB Home of the FMW domain.
connectorLocation=C:/oracle/MiddlewarePS3/Oracle_SOA1/soa/connectors/

Then add your own EIS entries, these ones in this var will be added to weblogic.
resourceAdapterEntries=hrDB,hrAQ,cf1JMS,cf2JMS

Think if you need to set the XA or Not XA datasource property or in Jms the connectionFactoryLocation.

# AQ entry

hrAQ.type=aq

hrAQ.eisName=eis/AQ/hr2

hrAQ.property=xADataSourceName

hrAQ.value=jdbc/hrDS

# DB entry

hrDB.type=db

hrDB.eisName=eis/DB/hr2

hrDB.property=dataSourceName

hrDB.value=jdbc/hrDS

# JMS entries

cf1JMS.type=jms

cf1JMS.eisName=eis/JMS/hr3

cf1JMS.property=ConnectionFactoryLocation

cf1JMS.value=jms/MyCF

After you can run the ANT script

ant -f build.xml createResourceAdapterEntries

Here you can download the code on github

https://github.com/biemond/soa_tools/tree/master/ant_resourceAdapter

Here is the whole build.properties file

The wlst part with the wlRedeployResourceAdapter and wlCreateResourceAdapter macrodefs

And at last the build.xml

Identity propagation with OWSM

2012-02-18T13:43:00.003+01:00

OWSM allows you to pass on the identity of the authenticated user to your OWSM protected web service ( thanks to OPSS ), this username can then be used by your service. This will work on one or between different WebLogic domains. Off course when you don't want to use OWSM you can always use Oracle Access Manager OAM which can do the same.
For example on the client side you can have an web application which uses ADF Security or Container security, the application calls an web service with the help of a ws proxy client or an ADF ws datacontrol. The web service can be a SOA Suite, OSB proxy or a JAX-WS service.
To make this work we need to use SAML policies, SAML allows us to do identity propagation, other policies won't work because you need to have the password of the authenticated user which you don't have.
Before I show you, how this works, you need to have a SAML OWSM environment, I already did this in this blogpost Do SAML with OWSM , in this I generated some keystores and configured OWSM on all the WebLogic domains and deployed a web service which has the oracle server wss11_saml_token_with_message_protection_service_policy. In my case I used JAX-WS but it also works on SOA Suite and OSB. When you want to do this on different WebLogic domains then you need to make sure that the user identities exists on both domains ( or you can enable virtual users ).
On the client side which will be in this case an ADF Web Application which is protected by ADF Security. In this application I will use a ADF WS Datacontrol on which we will add the SAML client policy wss11_saml_token_with_message_protection_client_policy.

Create the ADF WS Datacontrol. Select the DataControls.dcx file and select the service in the Structure window.

Click on "Define Web Service Security".

Select oracle/wss11_saml_token_with_message_protection_client_policy in the security Tab

Override Properties,
these settings will work on the SOA Suite server, if you want to use this on the saml server then you need to use www.amis.nl as saml.issuer.name and samlkey as keystore.recipient.alias.

Deploy the application to the WebLogic Server and you are ready to go.

JSF 2.0 Managed Bean Annotations and CDI on WebLogic 12c

2012-01-01T18:18:00.000+01:00

WebLogic 12c now supports Java 6 so we can now try out the JSF 2.0 Managed Bean annotations together with CDI JSR-299. In this blogpost I will use OEPE 12c as my IDE and deploy everything on WebLogic 12c. Off course I will tell you my experiences to get all this working in Eclipse and WebLogic 12c.

First let's start with the JSF 2.0 Managed Bean Annotations.

We need to remove the managed bean definitions from the faces-config.xml file. Then make sure that you don't use the metadata-complete attribute ( metadata-complete="true" ) on the faces-config element, this will disable the search for JSF Managed Beans.

Then we can add the JSF Managed Bean annotations to the java class. We can use @ManagedBean ( javax.faces.bean ) together with the right scope annotation like RequestScoped, SessionScoped or ViewScoped ( CDI does not have this View Scope ). You will see this bean in the Faces Configuration View.

Next part of this blog is about CDI, this will be more tricky, it is possible but does not work so well in OEPE and WebLogic. I didn't have these problems with the same OEPE, Code and using Glassfish 3.11.

So to enable CDI we need to add a beans.xml file to the WEB-INF folder. Like this with a empty beans element, this will trigger CDI.

When we try to run the JSF application again then you probably will hit this NPE in the jboss Weld framework.

<javax.enterprise.resource.webcontainer.jsf.renderkit> <BEA-000000> <javax.faces.FacesException
javax.faces.FacesException
at com.sun.faces.context.ExceptionHandlerImpl.handle(ExceptionHandlerImpl.java:142)
at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.Phase.doPhase(Phase.java:119)
at com.sun.faces.lifecycle.LifecycleImpl.render(LifecycleImpl.java:139)
at org.apache.myfaces.extensions.validator.core.startup.ExtValLifecycleWrapper.render(ExtValLifecycleWrapper.java:79)
at javax.faces.webapp.FacesServlet.service(FacesServlet.java:594)
Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace
Caused By: java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.jboss.weld.el.ELCreationalContextStack.getCreationalContextStore(ELCreationalContextStack.java:33)
at org.jboss.weld.el.WeldValueExpression.getValue(WeldValueExpression.java:47)

The solution is to remove the JSP entries and rename your files from jspx to xhtml.

From this.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

<jsp:root xmlns:jsp="http://java.sun.com/JSP/Page" version="2.0"

xmlns:f="http://java.sun.com/jsf/core"

xmlns:h="http://java.sun.com/jsf/html"

xmlns:trh="http://myfaces.apache.org/trinidad/html"

xmlns:tr="http://myfaces.apache.org/trinidad">

<jsp:directive.page contentType="text/html;charset=utf-8"/>

<f:view>

<tr:document title="Bean and ExtVal validation">

<tr:form>

To this, where we define the used jsf namespaces on the html element.

Next we can try to create a new managed bean where we will use the Named annotation together with the SessionScoped annotation of javax.enterprise.context

We can also inject an EJB or a Managed Bean with the Inject annotation.

I can also replace @EJB with @Inject but then I should move my EJBs to my Dynamic Web Project else I will get an Weld error. Probably with OEPE you have an different JPA project and this ejb.jar will be deployed together with the WAR in an EAR.

I didn't test this but you need to enable CDI on this ejb project or EAR.

That's not all you also need to change the WebLogic Publishing mode of OEPE. This should be Publish as an exploded archive else Inject won't work. ( Thanks to Steve Button for the tip. ).

This is the error I got WELD-001408 Unsatisfied dependencies for type [DataBeanCDI] with qualifiers [@Default] at injection point [[field] @Inject private nl.amis.web.beans.DataBean.dataBeanCDI]

This is solved in the WebLogic 12c (12.1.1) patch release of March 2012, so no need for an exploded archive

And now the most annoying bug, the CDI managed beans will work only once on WebLogic 12c. When you deploy or run your application the second time then the CDI Managed bean can't be found. The solution is you need to restart the WebLogic Server. This makes development with CDI almost impossible.

This is also solved in the WebLogic 12c (12.1.1) patch release of March 2012

I also added and removed a patch which makes everything even a little better

So, I removed with the BSU utility the following patch

13603813 SU Patch [53JP]: MERGE LABEL REQUEST ON TOP OF 12.1.1. FOR CDI BUGS

and installed

13893259 SU Patch [QPXR]: MERGE LABEL REQUEST ON TOP OF 12.1.1.0.0 FOR BUGS 13482794 13563205 13572075 13572176

Also enabling fastswap in the weblogic-application.xml ( ear project ) can help you in solving weld errors.

Here you can find my example code.

https://github.com/biemond/OEPE_examples/tree/master/cdi_jsf2_managedbeans

Using Bean Validation together with ExtVal in JPA and JSF

2011-12-27T21:23:00.003+01:00

With the release of WebLogic 12c we can finally try out the native support for Bean Validation ( JSR-303) in JPA & JSF. With JSR-303 we can use this validation framework on the back-end side ( EJB Session Bean ) and on the managed bean of the JSF Web applications, so one framework which can do it all. It will save us a lot of time in making business rules and no need for validators on our JSF UI Components.
To make this even better I will combine this with Apache MyFaces Extensions Validator. This framework can be used with JSF ( there is a generic library and a special one for Trinidad ) and its supports the Bean Validation. ExtVal also has some extra features.

Type-safe group validation
Model validation
Severity aware validation
Client-side validation
Sorted violation messages
Dependency injection support for constraint validators
Mapped constraint source (e.g. for using DTO's with BV)
Support of @Valid

In this blog I won't give you all the possible validations options you can have in the Bean Validation or in ExtVal framework but I will try to give you a jumpstart, how to setup this up and get everything working.

Before I start I got this working with WebLogic 12c and use OEPE 12c as my IDE. For the JSF part I use Apache MyFaces Trinidad 2.0.0 which support JSF 2.0.

Let's start with the JPA part.

Here I have created a department entity which is based on the department table of the HR demo schema in the Oracle database.

On the departmentName attribute I added some validation annotations like NotNull , Size and Pattern.

On the Pattern annotation I added a custom resource bundle message ( use {} ), I only do it for pattern annotation because Size or NotNull will have it's own default message in JSF.

Bean validation is the default now so we would see the Eclipselink error anymore. So when we try to persist an entity which violates these annotations we get an error like this.

With a javax.validation.ConstraintViolationException on a prePersist callback event. This error won't give you a lot of information about the error.

You got the option to disable the Bean Validation in Eclipselink by setting the validation-mode to NONE. This way you will get the constraint error.

Like this.

So how we can retrieve these validations errors. For example I can do this on the client side before I invoke the EJB Session bean or do it inside the Session Facade methods.

We need to use the resource annotation to retrieve the Validator.
(@Resource Validator validator; )
In the department persist we can pass on the department entity to the validatior.
Set<ConstraintViolation<Department>> violations = validator.validate(department);
And loop through the violations with this as result.

error size: 2
invalid value for: 'departmentName': Name must between 2 and 30 characters
invalid value for: 'departmentName': {departmentNameValidation}

Now we can go the JSF part.
Here I do the same but then from a managed bean which is called from a commandButton.

I changed the violations to Faces Messages and skip the persist part.

This is all standard Bean Validation stuff so let's check out the ExtVal part.

I added the following libraries to the lib folder of the WEB-INF

The jsr303-tck and the validation-api jars are from Hibernate Validator and the rest is from MyFaces ExtVal. Where I remove the myfaces-extval-generic-support-2.0.5.jar because I could use the trinidad one.

To test the validation I made a simple JSF Trinidad page where you can see there are no validator or convertors defined.

In the Trinidad table I show all the departments and change for example the department Name to 1 char which violates the Size annotation.

When I use invalid characters for the department Name then I get the resource bundle message.

To make this resourcebundle work I need to set a context parameter in the web.xml which points to our own resourcebundle.

<context-param>
<param-name>org.apache.myfaces.extensions.validator.CUSTOM_MESSAGE_BUNDLE</param-name>
<param-value>resources.application</param-value>
</context-param>

The last part is to show you the ExtVal part. I used this managed bean which are used in the JSF page.

departmentName use the Bean Validation framework and departmentLocation use the ExtVal framework.
With this as result.

When you want to know more about ExtVal or Bean Validation you definitely should read this example chapter of Bart Kummel's Book about MyFaces Development.

Here is the example project on github. https://github.com/biemond/OEPE_examples/tree/master/beanValidation

WebLogic SCA with WebLogic 12c and OEPE 12.1

2011-12-18T16:36:00.001+01:00

Fusion Middleware Software like OSB or SOA Suite is not yet available on WebLogic 12c but this does not mean you can't develop SCA Applications. With the help of the Oracle Enterprise for Eclipse 12.1.1 ( OEPE ) we can build WebLogic SCA application and deploy it on WebLogic 12c. This allows you to write Java applications using POJOs and, through different protocols, expose components as SCA services and access other components via references. You do this using SCA semantics configured in a Spring application context. In SCA terms, a WebLogic Spring SCA application is a collection of POJOs plus a Spring SCA context file that wires the classes together with SCA services and references.

In this blogpost I will show you all the steps so you can try it yourself.

Before we start, we need to install WebLogic 12c, configure a new domain and startup the AdminServer.
The first step is to install the WebLogic SCA shared library and target it to the AdminServer.

Log in to the WebLogic Console and go to deployments windows.
Install this war located at wlserver_12. 1\common\deployable-libraries\weblogic-sca-1.1.war as a shared library and target it to the AdminServer.

Next step is to download OEPE 12.1.1, extract it and create a new workspace.

In this workspace we need to create a new Dynamic Web Project.
Use wls 12 as Target runtime and also create an Ear project which will include the war.

Open the project options of your Dynamic Web Project and go to Project Facets.
Here we need to enable Oracle WebLogic SCA and Spring.
Click on Further configuration required.

Next step is to download the Spring library. Click on the download button and select Spring Framework 2.5.6 of Oracle.

Click on Next.

We need to add the WebLogic SCA Shared Library, this will be added to the weblogic.xml deployment descriptor of your Web Project.

You can open the weblogic.xml file of your Web project and in the Shared Libraries you should see the reference.

When you are in the Web Perspective then you can open the spring-context.xml in the beans section of the Spring Elements.

Or in the java perspective this is located in the jsca folder of the META-INF folder.

In the Spring-context.xml we will add some spring beans which have an EJB & Web Service SCA service and we also add some SCA references.

In this demo I will start with a SCA service with has a ws binding , this service has a target to a spring bean. This spring has a property to a SCA reference which an EJB binding.
The SCA reference calls a SCA Service which off course also has an EJB binding. The service target the next spring bean which the calls the last spring bean.

We start with the last spring bean and end with the first SCA service.
This the LoggerOutput class which just do a system out.
Because we want to expose the next spring bean as a SCA service we need to have an interface which we can use in the SCA service.
And now the implementation which calls the last spring bean LoggerOutput
Now we have everything to make our first SCA application. This is how the spring-context will look like.
This SCA service will be invoked in the second part of this blogpost where we will call this EJB from a web service. We can use the same ILoggerComponent interface for the SCA Service ( this time a web service ) and the SCA reference will call the already created EJB SCA service. We only need a new spring bean which pass on the message to the EJB. For this I use this LoggerPassThrough class.
Here is the total spring-context.xml
We are ready to deploy it and do a test run. Select your EAR project, right click and do run on Server.
Provide the details of your WebLogic 12c domain.

You can use soapUI to invoke the SCA Web Service http://localhost:7001/WebLogicSCA/LoggerService_Uri?WSDL
or invoke the SCA EJB Service
ILoggerComponent logEJB = (ILoggerComponent)context.lookup("LoggerService_EJB30_JNDI");

WebLogic also has an extension for WebLogic SCA , in the Console , go to the Preferences , Extensions and enable weblogic-sca-console. You need to restart your WebLogic Server.

After this you can click on your SCA deployment and see your SCA Services and references.

Download the code at github
https://github.com/biemond/OEPE_examples/tree/master/wls12cSCA

Solving __OAUX_GENXSD_.TOP.XSD with BPEL

2011-11-21T21:43:00.001+01:00

When you use an external web service in combination with a BPEL service component in an Oracle SOA Suite 11g composite and you follow this great AIA blog about Best Practices for Decoupling Services and Avoiding Invalid Composites at Server Startup then you can get this __OAUX_GENXSD_.TOP.XSD error in

JDeveloper, when you build the composite.
On the SOA Suite when the service is invoked for the second time, probably on your test or acceptance environment.

Before we start with the possible fixes, first why do you get this error.

You can only get this error when you use BPEL in your composite. With the mediator service component I don't get this error.

In my test composite I have a simple OSB proxy and use this as a reference. So I provide the WSDL url to the WS adapter and enabled the option to download the WSDL to your project.

Because I don't want any deployment problems ( invalid composites at deployment time or at a soa server reboot when the OSB proxy is down ). I downloaded the XSDs of the WSDL, fixed the WSDL imports. Now we can put the WSDL and the XSDs in our project folder or add them to a central place like the MDS.

When we take a look at the reference part in the composite.xml you will see the following.

The endpoint is loaded from the Customer.wsdl ( location attribute of the binding.ws element ) and uses the port attribute to find the endpoint in the Customer.wsdl.

Here is the wsdl with the endpoint.

This works great in development ( cause you don't need to change anything) but when you have to deploy to test or acceptance you will generate a config plan where you override the location attribute of the binding.ws (reference) with the Test OSB Proxy WSDL url, so it will use that endpoint for test or acceptance.

On the SOA Suite you can invoke this service once and after that you can get this __OAUX_GENXSD_.TOP.XSD error. Somehow the second time the SOA Suite will retrieve the test OSB Proxy WSDL and it's XSDs from the cache and it compares it with the local XSDs of your project or MDS. When there is a difference in one of the XSDs you will get this error ( can be something minor like an element annotation ).

This can also happen in the JDeveloper SOA Composite builder when you load the same XSDs local and remote.

So the solution is to keep the XML schemas in sync ( remote and local ) but this is almost impossible or you need to build everything with Maven or ANT and always replace the XSDs in every project. This also requires a lot of unit testing.

Even then you probably don't have much influence on remote services.

So the best solution is to avoid the loading of remote WSDL. You only need to update the endpoint for the Test or acceptance environment, not to load the whole WSDL. So don't try to replace the location attribute of the binding.ws element in the composite.xml but try to update the endpoint in the WSDL located in your project or in the MDS.

And if you use contract first Java (EJB) Web Services in Oracle Suite then you should always use the WSDL and the XSDs in your Java Web Services else you will get different schema imports then the original WSDL & XSDs.

I tested this with the Patch Set 3 version of SOA Suite 11g.

Changing a navigation model on a page in WebCenter

2011-11-08T20:14:00.000+01:00

WebCenter has a default navigation model (menu) which is located in the navigations folder and is defined as portal preference in the adf-config.xml file. But this menu is used in every page of the portal. I want to change this, so when you are not authenticated you will see the normal website links. But when you go to the internal page the menu will be switched to the application navigation model.
Special thanks for Maiko Rocha of the WebCenter A-Team for helping me solving this requirement.

First I create a new jspx page based on the global template called Internal.jspx and add a navigation reference to this page in the default-navigation-model.xml.

Now we can create a navigation model which will be used in the internal page. This menu has a link to the home page so the user can go back to the default menu.

Open the global template called pageTemplate_globe.jspx and go the menu part. Here we will change the default navigation model.

from
#{navigationContext.defaultNavigationModel.listModel['startNode=/, includeStartNode=false']}

to
#{navigationContext.navigationModel[ menuSwitcher.menu ] .listModel['startNode=/, includeStartNode=false']}

Where menuSwitcher is a request bean.

To determine what navigation model I need to use I will check the current page and return the right navigation reference.

The request bean

You can also use EL instead of a request bean.

<af:forEach var="node" varStatus="vs"

items="#{navigationContext.navigationModel[

controllerContext.currentViewPort.viewId eq '/oracle/webcenter/portalapp/pages/Internal.jspx' ?

'/oracle/webcenter/portalapp/navigations/navigationModelInternal.xml' :

'/oracle/webcenter/portalapp/navigations/default-navigation-model.xml'

].listModel['startNode=/, includeStartNode=false']}">

Here some pictures of the home page

After being authenticated, some extra menu links appears

And at last, the internal page with the new navigation model.

Playing with ADF Task Flows in OEPE 11.1.1.8

2011-10-28T00:22:00.000+02:00

Oracle released the Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse 11g R1 (11.1.1.8, New October 2011 ) which supports ADF Rich Faces with ADF Task Flow development. To see all the new features you can go this page for all the ADF or Oracle Cloud feature list.

In this blogpost I will show you some steps how to make your own ADF Web application in OEPE.

Before you can start you should know that the ADF application in OEPE uses JPA as model ( eclipselink), ADF BC can be used but only on runtime and you should already have WebLogic PS3 or higher installed ( together the ADF runtime option).

This OEPE release does not have ADF wizard for ADF BC or for ADF Datacontrols but the support for ADF Task Flows is a big step forward.

Let's start.
Start with a new Oracle ADF Application

Add a new WebLogic runtime, define your WebLogic home and run the domain wizard to create a new ADF enabled domain. Make sure you add the JRF option to the domain.

You should use JPA as a model project with Oracle ADF 11g JPA Project as the configuration.

This will create 2 projects, Model and AdfGuiWeb and 1 ear deployment called AdfGui.

Create a JSP File which will be our start page.

Select the location for the JSPX page

Choose for ADF Rich Faces Page , Basic xhtml

Open the adfc-config.xml and drag the jspx page to the diagram, this will create a new view.

Create a new ADF Fragment Task Flow which will hold the department fragments

Select the location.

The fragment option should be enabled.

Create a new JSP page which will be our fragment page, called department.jsff

Now choose ADF Rich Faces Page Fragment

Open the departments TF and drag this fragment to this Bounded Task Flow.

Now we can go the model project and delete the model project. OEPE does not support ADF Datacontrol generation, so we will skip this for the demo.

Now you are able to run the JSPX page. Select the startView.jspx and right click Run As -> Run on server.

After a successful run we can add an outputtext to the page and the fragment

Now drag the department Task Flow to the jspx start page and select Region. This will create the ADF binding pagedef file.

We can open the pagedef file and add your own bindings.

Or open the Data Palette window which shows you the available bindings

At last open the project options to enable the adf.oracle.domain.webapp shared libraries

Now you can run the start page with the Bounded Task Flow fragment.

As an extra you can also add some data to the page by fixing the Model project.
First add a database connection to the model project
Add JPA entitities from tables
Add a connection to the persistence.xml

Add Data Model Components to the Model project. This will create a managed bean for the JSF page and an EJB Session bean for the entities

EJB Session Bean

JSF bean

the managed bean code

The Data Pallette, drag and drop the FindAll method to the fragment page

And the result.

Using FMW IdentityStore for your User management

2011-10-23T20:31:00.001+02:00

In Fusion Middleware you can use IdentityStore framework to do all your user, role and password management. This IDM and JPS frameworks will give you a lot options which you don't have with the standaard JAAS framework of WebLogic ( you need to create your authentication provider and add a private principal to the subject). IDM framework works really great with LDAP identity providers like the default WebLogic internal LDAP, OpenLDAP, Oracle Internet Directory ( OID ) or Microsoft Active Directory.
With this you don't need to make your own software to do some user management on a particular LDAP provider, IDM can do it for you and IDM will detect the right LDAP provider. So you just need to implement this and IDM will do all the work.

This is what you can do with IDM.

Retrieving and changing LDAP attributes of a user.
User management, search, create users in a particular LDAP provider.
Role management, search, create etc.
Retrieve a username and password from the credential store and use it in your own application.

I will try to explain the different use cases in this blogpost.

Before we begin, is good to know how the IdentityStore will work with LDAP providers. Default it only works with the internal WebLogic LDAP. If you also want to use AD or OID, then you need to add it to WebLogic authentication provider of the myrealm security realm ( no need to add it to the jps-config.xml located at domain/config/fmwconfig ,this is only necessary when you don't use WebLogic ).
The jps serviceInstance called idstore.ldap can detect all the LDAP providers which are configured in WebLogic.
But when you have more then one LDAP providers then you got two options.

Add the virtualize property with value true to the idstore.ldap serviceInstance ( in jps-config.xml located at domain/config/fmwconfig ) . This will switch IDM from WebLogic to Oracle Virtual Directory mode. This will make sure that FMW applications will see all the users and roles. When you use Webcenter or SOA Suite / BPM Human worklist application then you need to add this property when you have more then one LDAP provider. In this OVD mode you can't retrieve the LDAP attributes of a user, OVD did not implement this option.
Re-order the LDAP authentication providers. The first authenticator provider will be used and the other will be ignored, ( WebLogic will still use all it's authenticators for JAAS but FMW will not ). That's why in some forums or blogposts talk about re-ordering of the authentications providers. In most cases is setting the virtualize a better approach.

Let's start with retrieving all the things we know about a user. Here I will retrieve its roles and all the LDAP attributes. ( this will not work with virtualize property on true and only on the first authentication provider )
Using LDAP attributes can be very handy for retrieving particular information which you can use in your application, like location information else you need to create a lot of roles to achieve the same. You can retrieve for example the location attribute and pass this value to the database ( Use it in Virtual Private Database VPD what Larry said it is a false cloud feature :-) ) or use it to disable some region screens.

Here I need to create JpsContext and lookup the IdentityStore. After that I can lookup the User with its UserProfile and retrieve the LDAP attributes by retrieving the PropertySet.

Important to know that these user operations will use the account defined in the authentication provider, there is no check if your normal user should be able to do so. So test this for a possible abuse.

These are the steps to create a new Role in your LDAP repository. Lookup the RoloManager and use the createRole method.

We can also create a user and assign a role to this new user. In this case also need to provide a AD property called samaccountname. After that I can retrieve the UserManager and use the createUser method. Lookup the role and assign to this user.

The last part is about how you can store your passwords in a safe way on the WebLogic Server. Every environment can have its own passwords and this can be managed by your Administrators.

To store a password in the credential store you can use the following wlst script.

start wlst.cmd from oracle_common\common\bin not from the the weblogic server home

connect('weblogic','weblogic1','t3://localhost:7101')
createCred(map="JPS",key="AD_ldap",user="CN=Administrator,CN=Users,DC=alfa,DC=local",password="Welcome02" ,desc="Windows LDAP user")
exit()

To allow FMW to retrieve this password I need to give the authenticated role some permissions on this map.

Open the jazn-data.xml of your FMW application, lookup the authenticated role and add the following entries
oracle.security.jps.service.credstore.CredentialAccessPermission with read permission for context=SYSTEM,mapName=JPS,keyName=AD_ldap.

Somehow I also need to do this for mapName=j2ee-app#V2.0. The WebLogic will provide some logging to say what you are missing.

And here the code to retrieve it.

You can download my sample application at github https://github.com/biemond/jdev11g_examples/tree/master/ADFSecurity

Working with the Human WorkList api and create your own WorkList application

2011-10-16T21:36:00.000+02:00

In this blogpost I will explain what is possible with the IWorkflowServiceClient ( HumanTask java client ) so you can integrate this in your own Custom WorkList application. This way you don't need to use the standard BPM worklist application, add some extra functionality and also don't need to create HumanTask ADF Task Flow and deploy this to the SOA Suite server.

This demo shows you the power of Fusion Middleware where you can combine SOA Suite workflow to your own ADF applications.

At the end of this blogpost I will show you the link for this demo application which also contains the BPEL to create the HumanTasks.

Here are some pics of the demo application. You will get an overview of the tasks assigned to the weblogic user ( normally this will be replaced by the user of the application ). The user can search on certain field, change the ordering and control the maximum rows.

And in combination with the ADF UIShell template of Oracle you can make a multi task handling application. Every task you click on will have its own Tab. Here you can also lookup the extra information which is necessary to the user so it can handle this task.

Time to go back to the code.

I will start with a BPEL which invokes a HumanTask and to make my life easy I will use the flexible text , date or url fields of the HumanTask for my own important data so I don't need to examine payload.
This way you can search on these fields and use it in your own task entity.

And map the payload fields to the flex fields in a Assign activity. These fields are located in the systemMessageAttributes element.

Next is to retrieve these tasks from the java / ejb client. Todo so I need two libraries bpm-infra.jar and bpm-services.jar. Copy these jars from the soa server so you don't get serial id versioning errors.

I will use on behalf of so I don't need to have the password of the user and I can do all the actions of behalf of this user.

Start with a property file or you can set some java parameters

soa.properties
soaserver=soaps3.alfa.local:8001
humantask.user=weblogic
humantask.password=weblogic1

or set these java parameters on the project
-Dhumantask.url
-Dhumantask.user
-Dhumantask.password

For the tasks I will connect to the HumanTask EJB and for the Identities I need to connect the Identity SOAP Service.

We need to have an IWorkflowContext which I can use for the query operation on the Task bean. I will first authenticate with the superuser and then on behalf of the user of my application.

In this query on the human task I can control which attributes I want to use in my application.

List<String> queryColumns = new ArrayList<String>(); queryColumns.add(TableConstants.WFTASK_TITLE_COLUMN.getName());

And if I want to have the payload or the comments, I need to do this.
List<ITaskQueryService.OptionalInfo> optionalInfo =
new ArrayList<ITaskQueryService.OptionalInfo>(); optionalInfo.add(ITaskQueryService.OptionalInfo.COMMENTS); optionalInfo.add(ITaskQueryService.OptionalInfo.PAYLOAD);

Do ordering on the tasks.

Ordering taskOrdering = null;
if ( "PRIO".equalsIgnoreCase(orderBy) ) {
taskOrdering = new Ordering(TableConstants.WFTASK_PRIORITY_COLUMN, true,false);
taskOrdering.addClause(TableConstants.WFTASK_TASKNUMBER_COLUMN, true,false);
} else if ("ID".equalsIgnoreCase(orderBy) ) {
taskOrdering = new Ordering(TableConstants.WFTASK_TASKNUMBER_COLUMN, false,true);
} else if ("ESC_DESC".equalsIgnoreCase(orderBy) ) {
taskOrdering = new Ordering(TableConstants.WFTASK_EXPIRATIONDATE_COLUMN, false, false);
} else if ("ESC_ASC".equalsIgnoreCase(orderBy) ) {
taskOrdering = new Ordering(TableConstants.WFTASK_EXPIRATIONDATE_COLUMN, true, false); }
}

It is also possible to do a search and add a fixed where condition. For this we need to have a Predicate where we can add the states we want to see.

List<String> correctStates = new ArrayList<String>(); correctStates.add(IWorkflowConstants.TASK_STATE_ALERTED); correctStates.add(IWorkflowConstants.TASK_STATE_ASSIGNED);

Predicate predicateBasic = new Predicate(
TableConstants.WFTASK_STATE_COLUMN,
Predicate.OP_IN,
correctStates);

predicateBasic.addClause(Predicate.AND,
TableConstants.WFTASK_STATE_COLUMN,
Predicate.OP_NEQ,
IWorkflowConstants.TASK_STATE_STALE);

This Predicate can be combined to an other Predicate with an other AND / OR and finally added to the queryTasks method of the workflowServiceClient.getTaskQueryService()

To make your life easier try to convert the tasks to your own entity so you can use your own attributes instead of using text1 etc.

You can download, fork or improve the Demo application at github https://github.com/biemond/soa11g_examples/tree/master/HumanTaskListApp

Calling an OWSM protected service with Axis2 and Rampart

2011-10-06T22:44:00.000+02:00

In a previous blogpost I used Axis 1.4 in combination with WSS4J 1.5 and because Axis 1.4 is getting old so I tried the same with Axis 2 and Rampart which uses WSSJ. For all the security details like the username and how to generate certificates you can check see my previous post.

Just like the Axis 1.4 post I will call a OSB service which has an oracle/wss10_username_token_with_message_protection_service_policy OWSM server policy.

Before we start we need to download axis2 and the matching Rampart version, I use in this blogpost the 1.60 versions of axis2 and Rampart. Copy the Rampart jars to the axis lib folder and the Rampart modules to the axis2 modules folder.

Download the WSDL with it's XSDs from the Web Service.

After that use this ANT build file to generate a ADB web service proxy client. The wsdl I used has the Customer.wsdl as name.
This OWSM policy have different signing and encryption options on the message of the request / response. So we need to move the right WS security policies / assertions from the Customer WSDL to a Request and Response policy file.

Here is the Request Policy which matches with the oracle/wss10_username_token_with_message_protection_service_policy Server policy. I also added the Rampart Configuration which contains references to the keystore and the username I used. Add the sp:AsymmetricBinding, sp:SignedSupportingTokens and the sp:SignedParts & sp:EncryptedParts of the request from the customer wsdl to this policy file.
We also need to do this for the Response. Add the sp:AsymmetricBinding and the sp:SignedParts & sp:EncryptedParts of the response from the customer wsdl to this policy file.
Because we are using a keystore and a username token ( which got passwords ) we need to add a Password Callback class.
And here the test client which loads the Axis2 configuration with the Addressing and Rampart modules and also loads the Request and Response policy.
Here you can download my code at https://github.com/biemond/soa11g_examples/tree/master/OWSM_AXIS

Base64 encoding in Oracle BPEL 11g

2011-09-27T21:12:00.000+02:00

Sometimes in SOA Suite 11g you need to pass binary data to a web service reference. In SOA Suite 11g there is no standard XSLT or XPATH function which you can use. But in BEPL you can use embedded java, like Sudheer already blogged about. He used the com.collaxa.common.util.Base64Encoder class which does not exists in 11g so I will use the new oracle.soa.common.util.Base64Encoder class.

As input I will retrieve some xml from the inputVariable, get the xml as a string, encode this and set the value to a base64Binary variable.

Virtual Users with SAML in WebLogic

2011-09-22T22:53:00.000+02:00

A small blogpost how you can use virtual users on your SAML Service Provider WebLogic Server. A virtual user is a user who is authenticated on the SAML Identity Provider and this user is transfered ( with all his attributes and roles ) in a SAML Token to the Service Provider, this user does not need to exists on the WebLogic server of the Service Provider.
Before you can use this feature you need to setup SAML 2.0 SSO on your WebLogic Domain. You can follow this blogpost for all the instructions. You can also do this with Web Services but then you need to follow this guide.

First we need to enable Generate Attributes on the Identity Provider Side.
Go to the myrealm security realm -> Providers -> Credentials Mapping -> your SAML 2.0 Credential Mapping Provider -> Provider Specific.
Also do this on the imported Service Provider Partner located at the Management tab of your SAML 2.0 Credential Mapping Provider. Open the Service Provider Partner and also enable here Generate Attributes.

Next step is to configure the SAML Service Provider.
Go to the myrealm security realm -> Providers -> Authentication -> your SAML 2.0 Identity Assertion Provider -> Management Tab.
Open your imported Identity Provider Partner configuration.

Enable Virtual User and also enable Process Attributes.

Now we need to add an extra WebLogic SAML Authentication Provider. This provider will process the virtual user SAML token with all its attributes and roles.

Set the Control Flag to Sufficient also change the other authentication provider from Required to Sufficient.

That's all.

Calling an OWSM protected service with Axis 1.4 and WSS4J

2011-09-12T22:07:00.001+02:00

Not the whole world uses Fusion Middleware so sometimes it is necessary to call an Oracle Web Service Manager protected Web Service from a different java framework like Apache Axis 1.4 combined with WSS4J 1.5. In this blogpost I will show you the steps how to do this.

First you can't use every OWSM policy with Axis. Oracle made an interoperability documentation page what is possible with Axis 1.4 and OWSM 11g, please check this first.

In this post I will use the oracle/wss10_username_token_with_message_protection_service_policy OWSM server policy on a protected OSB proxy service and will call this from axis / wss4j and these frameworks will use the following policies UsernameToken, Timestamp, Signature and Encrypt.

In this demo I will used self signed keys and these are generated by the keytool of java 1.6. Basically I create two keystores and exchange the public keys. The server keystore is imported in the OWSM configuration page and the client keystore will be used in Axis.

keytool -genkey -alias serverKey -keyalg "RSA" -sigalg "SHA1withRSA" -dname "CN=server, C=US" -keypass welcome -keystore c:\temp\server.jks -storepass welcome -validity 3650

keytool -genkey -alias clientKey -keyalg "RSA" -sigalg "SHA1withRSA" -dname "CN=client, C=US" -keypass welcome -keystore c:\temp\client_2.jks -storepass welcome -validity 3650

keytool -exportcert -alias serverKey -storepass welcome -keystore c:\temp\server.jks -file c:\temp\server.cer

keytool -exportcert -alias clientKey -storepass welcome -keystore c:\temp\client_2.jks -file c:\temp\client.cer

keytool -import -alias serverKey -file c:\temp\server.cer -storepass welcome -keystore c:\temp\client_2.jks keytool -import -alias clientKey -file c:\temp\client.cer -storepass welcome -keystore c:\temp\server.jks

keytool -list -storepass welcome -keystore c:\temp\client_2.jks
keytool -list -storepass welcome -keystore c:\temp\server.jks

For this policy we also need to create a user called osbbook and with password weblogic1 in the myrealm security realm of WebLogic.

The next step is to check if all is fine by creating an OWSM client in Jdeveloper 11g and using the oracle/wss10_username_token_with_message_protection_client_policy OWSM client policy . First generate a web service client and use the following code to check if it works.

If all is fine we can go to the Axis and WSS4J part.
We need to download the following software frameworks from Apache.

Axis 1.4, not Axis2
WSS4J 1.5, Not the 1.6 version
Apache XML Security for Java 1.4.5

Download the WSDL and it's XML Schemas of the remote service and fix the schema imports of the WSDL. Put these files in your project folder.

The first step is to generate a Web Service Proxy client based on this WSDL, for this we don't use JAX-WS but we will use the AXIS libraries.
Here is the ANT build file to generate the Java classes from WSDL with Axis 1.4, I put the build.xml in my project folder of JDeveloper.

Add the following libraries to the project. Wss4j-1.5.12.jar, Axis.jar, Jaxrpc.jar, Saaj.jar, Wsdl4j-1.5.1.jar, Commons-discovery-0.2.jar, Commons-logging-1.0.4.jar, Log4j-1.2.8.jar, Javax.activation_1.1.0.0_1-1.jar, Javax.mail_1.1.0.0_1-4-1.jar ,Xmlsec-1.4.5.jar, Xml-apis-1.3.03.jar, Serializer-2.7.1.jar, Xalan-2.7.1.jar, XercesImpl-2.9.1.jar

We also need to create a security property file called crypto.properties and put this in the src folder. This file contains the keystore path with its keystore password.

Create a Password callback class for all the password used in this ws client ( the password of the usernametoken and the keystore passwords )
We also need an Axis deployment file WSDD with the WSS4J configuration, put this file called client_deployment.wsdd in your project folder.

For the response I need to do the following policies Signature, Timestamp and then Encrypt , this is wrong in the documentation

Use the log4j.properties to see all the messages, else you won't see the debug information of WSS4J and Axis 1.4.
Put this file in the src folder.

And at last the Axis test client where we load the client_deployment.wsdd file.