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Interaction 12 - Day 1 in Dublin

mprove — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:13:42 PST

Exactly a week ago, Interaction 12 was kicked off by the mayor of Dublin. I mean the real mayor rather than the one in 4square. He talked about (sub)urban planning and the public bicycle system in Dublin. He was proud to say that a minor change in the interaction design prevented the theft of many bikes. Other than Paris (they lost hundreds), the pole to get a bike is not prominently highlighted in a way that everybody can take the bike as soon as it unlocks. Just two bikes were stolen and both were returned. Clever briefing, or clever mayor – you decide.

Disrupt

After a while I decided to like the opening keynote by Luke Williams. He tackled the general problem of large companies (hey, this should apply to Oracle as well) that they are obviously unable to create new disruptive markets. If they have a business, a successful business, they focus to exploit it as long as possible. But they neglect to go for niche markets, because the dollars are earned in the main stream. Blockbuster Video ignored Netflix. Kodak ignored digital photography. Nokia ignored Apple and Google in the mobile phone market...

Luke offered the idea to do exactly the opposite of the (current) cliché. Why –the heck– are socks sold in pairs? – My mind kicked in and said, "yeah, if ~~I have a hole~~ if a friend has a hole in his sock he can buy just one sock to complete the pair. Makes sense!" But Luke continued to explain that a company built a business on selling socks in sets of three. And none of them has the same pattern! Kids and girls in specific love the brand.

/a few more images

Videos shown by Luke_

National Leprechaun Museum

The disruptive highlight of the day was Tom O’Rehilly’s talk on Imagination and Identity. Tom started his career with selling luxury furniture, until he recognized that he was in fact selling experiences. Welcome Tom, to the field of user experience and interaction design. I do not remember why he told the story of Brasil, an island on the shores of Ireland that only appeared every 7 years. But I do remember his stories about the Leprechaun, a little Irish wizard or dwarf that is very hard to track. Tom runs the National Leprechaun Museum in Dublin, which is called a museum for the lack of a better word. It is an experience that turns the visitors into little Leprechauns themselves. You enter through a wooden tunnel that changes its diameter while you walk though. It must be a spectacular effect like Alice through the rabbit's hole.

_{/photo cc by The National Leprechaun Museum}

Interview with Tom O’Rahilly, core77

Related_

Johnny Holland: Interaction 12, Day 1

Develop Your Experience Platform through Connected Interations

user801960 — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:34:34 PST

In this video, Jeff Grossman from Oracle Retail talks about Connected Interactions as a part of Your Experience Platform. He demonstrates the cross-channel experience that Oracle Retail applications provide, making it easy for retailers to provide a world class shopping experience on any platform, and also transition transactions between platforms, allowing customers to shop online and buy instore, or vice versa.

This video was filmed at the Oracle stand at NRF Retail's Big Show 2012. To find out more about Oracle Retail's products, visit http://www.oracle.com/retail

Javavorlesung mit online-Technologien

britta wolf — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:09:51 PST

Unser Kollege, Dr. Stefan Schneider (Chief Technologist ISV-Engineering, Oracle Deutschland), hält Java-Vorlesungen an der Dualen Hochschule Baden-Württemberg und informiert in diesem Beitrag über sein Vorlesungskonzept, das er mit online-Technologien gestaltet hat.

An der DHBW verfügen die Studierenden der Wirtschaftsinformatik ab dem ersten Semester über persönliche Laptops, mit denen sie über das Universitäts-WLAN auf das Internet zugreifen können. In diesem Arbeitsumfeld kann man eine interaktive Java-Programmiervorlesung mit Übungen im normalen Klassenraum halten.

Dieser Ansatz bietet für alle Beteiligten neue Interaktionsmöglichkeiten und vereinfacht den Wissenserwerb im Vergleich zum "Powerpoint" Folienansatz:

Der Referent benutzt ein öffentlich verfügbares Skript zur Vorlesung, welches die Studenten auf dem Laptop verfolgen können.

Das Skript ist immer für die Studierenden verfügbar. Es kann jederzeit vom Referenten verbessert werden. Ausdrucken und Verteilen von Unterrichtsmaterialen ist nicht mehr notwendig.
Das Skript kann mit Hyperlinks direkt auf die Javadokumentation und vertiefende Themen verweisen.
Javabeispiele und Übungen können von den Studierenden direkt in ihre Entwicklungsumgebungen kopiert und bearbeitet werden.
Programmierübungen, wie zum Beispiel das Spiel des Lebens, liegen schon als lauffähiges Applet vor. Der Student kann also sehen, wie die korrekte Lösung einer Programmieraufgabe aussehen soll.
Komplizierte Sachverhalte, wie die Kodierung von Zahlentypen, kann mit Hilfe von Applets vertieft werden. Der Student kann so Experimente durchführen und dabei selbst aktiv sein.
Studierende können jederzeit einzelne Seiten des Skriptes kommentieren. Hiermit kann man schwer verständliche Konzepte auch ausserhalb der Vorlesung mit den Studierenden diskutieren und das Skript direkt verbessern.
Klausurvorbereitung: Studierende müssen nicht mehr unter der Hand alte Klausuren kopieren. Klausurrelevante Fragen werden im Blog "javafrage" als RSS Feed zum Abonnement zur Verfügung gestellt. Twitterfans können den RSS-Feed auch über Twitter abonnieren (Twitter:javafrage)
Nach der Hälfte der Vorlesung können Studierende anonym einen Multiple-Choice-Test zum eigenen Feedback durchführen. Der Referent erhält die Ergebnisse in Form einer Tabellenkalkulation.

Weitere Infos:

Papier? Das war mal im letzten Jahrhundert…Man kann natürlich auch das gesamte Skript in Buchform ausdrucken. Jedes Kapitel erlaubt den Ausdruck aller Unterseiten.

Die Website wird mit dem kostenlosen MySQL und Drupal 6 betrieben. Alle Seiten genügen den W3C Standards, sind barrierefrei zugänglich, durchsuchbar und können kommentiert werden. Im Javaumfeld kann man Studierenden alle Werkzeuge wie z.Bsp. Netbeans oder Eclipse kostenlos anbieten.

Bilder des Java-Maskottchen "Duke" (siehe oben) kann zum Aufpeppen der Website verwendet werden. (Die Bilder stehen unter der sehr liberalen Berkeley Lizenz zur Verfügung.)

Preventing Deletes from Replicating In Archiver

Kyle Hatlestad — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:17:58 PST

I'm working on a project in which there is a particular use-case to prevent the deletion of content from migrating to a target instance of WebCenter Content. Normally, when automatic replication is configured between instances of WebCenter Content, every action is replicated between environments; check in, update, & delete. But in this particular case they wanted check ins and updates to be migrated, but not deletes.

Archiver does not have any built-in options or toggles to control what actions get replicated, but it turns out you can control this as part of the export query configuration. To set this, go to the Export Query and select the field of Revision Status. This specifies all of the states a document goes through in its lifecycle. Set the Operator to 'Is Not' and select 'Deleted' from the Value list. Add this to the rest of the query and now deletes won't be propagated.

Session SQL

Jonathan Lewis — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:48:10 PST

From time to time a request for a query to “show the current SQL” for each session appears on the internet. It’s not really difficult to write something suitable, but this particular request is an interesting demonstration of how much inertia there is in the Oracle world. Here’s a recent suggestion of what the query should look like:

select
        sess.sid, sess.serial#, sess.username, sess.status,
        sess.osuser, sess.machine, sess.module, sess.event,
        sess.logon_time, ss.sql_id, ss.sql_text
from
        v$session sess,
        v$sql     ss
where
        sess.sql_id   = ss.sql_id
and     sess.username = 'EFTUSER'
;

The query has an error in it that appears extremely frequently in response to this request. Can you spot what it is ? (On the plus side, the query references v$sql rather than v$sqlarea – so it’s not too nasty.)

To force a little break between my question and my answer – here’s a picture of the view from my hotel window at the moment. I took this with my mobile phone so the quality isn’t all that good – if you can’t grasp quite what the image is, it’s the snow piled up against my window to a depth of 2 feet (60 cm) at the lowest.

I’m in Sarajevo, and they had over 3 feet (90cm) of snow fall here the day before I arrived; the temperature was down to -27 centigrade (celsius) this morning – luckily it was up to a bracing -10 degrees by the time I got up.

The error is that the join is only on the sql_id and it’s possible that there are many child cursors for the same statement in v$sql – and they’ll all have the same sql_id. Since 10g v$session has made the child number available as sql_child_number, so the query ought to include a join on that column too.

and     sess.sql_child_number = ss.child_number

Enhancement

You may want to do more than just report the current SQL statement for each session, of course and v$session actually has information about two different SQL statements; as well as the sql_id the view also reports the prev_sql_id (and child number) – and you may find it useful to report this statemement as well since (for example) the current sql_id might report a pl/sql block while the prev_sql_id reports the SQL being executed in that block.

A simple enhancement to the query might then be to change the join predicate to something like the following:

and     (
            (ss.sql_id = sess.sql_id      and ss.child_number = sess.sql_child_number)
         or (ss.sql_id = sess.prev_sql_id and ss.child_number = sess.prev_child_number)
        )

I’ll leave it (temporarily) as an exercise to the reader to explain why this is probably a bad strategy – but right now I’m off to the airport to see if my flight is still going to happen. The weather is much better than when I arrived so I don’t expect any problems, but the Austrian Airways wouldn’t let me check-in online last night, and doesn’t even show the second leg of the journey.

OpenGrok 0.11 setup on Solaris 11

user13277689 — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:01:45 PST

OpenGrok 0.11 has been just released (see Lubos' post with release notes). This is nice version number coincidence to try it on Solaris 11. In case you are wondering what is OpenGrok, it is blindigly fast source code search and cross reference engine accessible over web. It is written in Java. It is also behind the source code browser on src.opensolaris.org, albeit running older version. For more information about the project take a look at its project page.

Now, how to get OpenGrok running for your source code base on Solaris 11. I will illustrate this on source code coming from three different Source Code Management systems (for complete support see the full list). The complete setup on freshly installed Solaris 11 has 6 main steps:

Install pre-requisities first:

install couple of Source Code Management systems (depends on your needs):

install Mercurial:

    pkg install developer/versioning/mercurial

install CVS

    pkg install developer/versioning/cvs

git

    pkg install developer/versioning/git

download, compile and install exuberant ctags:

pkg install developer/gcc-45
pkg install system/header
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/ctags/ctags-5.8.tar.gz
tar xfz ctags-5.8.tar.gz
./configure && make && make install

install Tomcat6:
```
  pkg install web/java-servlet/tomcat
```

Now download and install OpenGrok package:

location=http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/download/Project+opengrok/files/
pkgadd -d $location/OSOLopengrok-0.11.pkg OSOLopengrok

Mirror some source code as webservd user (note that OpenGrok by itself does not synchronize or mirror source code, this has to be done separately):

cd /var/opengrok/src/
cvs -d anonymous@cvs.openssl.org:/openssl-cvs co -rOpenSSL_1_0_0-stable openssl
hg clone ssh://anon@hg.opensolaris.org/hg/opengrok/trunk opengrok-dev
git clone http://git.samba.org/samba.git

root

# store the pubkeys
ssh-keyscan -t rsa,dsa anonymous@cvs.openssl.org >> /etc/ssh/known_hosts
ssh-keyscan -t rsa,dsa anon@hg.opensolaris.org >> /etc/ssh/known_hosts

Deploy and start the web application (as root):

EXUBERANT_CTAGS=/usr/local/bin/ctags \
    /usr/opengrok/bin/OpenGrok deploy && \
    svcadm enable tomcat6

Index the source code and send the configuration to the running instance (as webservd user):
```
EXUBERANT_CTAGS=/usr/local/bin/ctags \
   /usr/opengrok/bin/OpenGrok index
```
enable the service (as root):
```
svcadm enable opengrok
```

OpenGrok is now accessible at http://SERVER_HOSTNAME:8080/source/ (where SERVER_HOSTNAME is the hostname of the server on which the above setup was done).

Except for the part with ctags it is pretty streamlined and no brainer process. Hopefully the exuberant-ctags package will be available again from the standard Oracle pkg repositories.

And here is the result:

Yet another Java EE 7 spec - WebSocket is JSR 356!

alexismp — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:00:00 PST

JSR 356 has been filed by Oracle : "Java API for WebSocket". The spec lead is Danny Coward and this JSR is scheduled for inclusion in Java EE 7

While it's great to have both server and client support for WebSocket in Grizzly and GlassFish, it's probably even better to have a standard to encourage portable code. The Review Ballot is scheduled to start on 21 Feb, 2012.

With this JSR, I believe the list for Java EE 7 is now complete. You can get the full list in the latest issue of the Java Magazine and catch recent posts using the javaee7 tag.

Pillar Axiom 600 搬入風景

user13138569 — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:15:08 PST

Pillar Axiom 600 の搬入に立ち会うことができたので、搬入の様子を紹介します。

ラックの木箱です。左上に Pillar と刻印されています。

木箱にスロープを取り付けて、取り出すところです。

段ボールの中に Brick （ハードディスクや SSD　を搭載するトレイ）が入っています。

ラックを設置。 Pilot（管理用のサービスプロセッサ的な筐体）と Slammer （ホストと接続する側のコントローラユニット）が搭載されています。

Pilot が下にラッキングされています。

今後、 Private Cloud 対応ストレージの Pillar Axiom についても取り上げていきますので、ご期待ください。

Oracle Database PSU 11.2.0.3.1

Senthil Rajendran — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:02:27 PST

Are you applying CPU 11.2.0.3 then consider applying PSU 11.2.0.3.1 as it contains the latest CPU and all the one-off fixes that makes you in sync with Oracle Support. I always make a practice of applying the latest PSU when upgrading database to the next release.

Patch Set Updates (PSUs) are proactive cumulative patches containing recommended bug fixes that are released on a regular and predictable schedule. PSUs are on the same quarterly schedule as the Critical Patch Updates (CPU), specifically the Tuesday closest to the 17th of January, April, July, and October.

The PSUs serve as a new baseline version for reporting issues to Oracle.

There are two latest PSU available
Patch 13343438 DATABASE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.1 (INCLUDES CPU JAN2012)
Patch 13348650 GRID INFRASTRUCTURE PATCH SET UPDATE 11.2.0.3.1 (INCLUDES DB PSU 11.2.0.3.1)

If you are having the Grid Infrastructure home and other database home you can consider applying Patch 13348650 which includes PSU for both the GI and DB Home.

I applied on the Upgraded ASM Home (GI Home) as root user

cat root.sh
export ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/product/asm11.2
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch:$PATH
export PATCHTOP=/dev/stage/if/stage/11gR2/patchset
opatch auto $PATCHTOP -oh $ORACLE_HOME -ocmrf $ORACLE_HOME/asmocm.rsp

oracle@devdb[+ASM]$ sudo /home/oracle/root.sh
Last successful login: Tue Feb 7 14:48:15 UTC 2012
Last authentication failure: Tue Feb 7 13:22:14 UTC 2012
Executing /usr/bin/perl /oracle/product/asm11.2/OPatch/crs/patch112.pl -patchdir /dev/stage/if/stage/11gR2 -patchn patchset -oh /oracle/product/asm11.2 -ocmrf /oracle/product/asm11.2/asmocm.rsp -paramfile /oracle/product/asm11.2/crs/install/crsconfig_params
opatch auto log file location is /oracle/product/asm11.2/OPatch/crs/../../cfgtoollogs/opatchauto2012-02-07_15-51-25.log
Detected Oracle Restart install
Using configuration parameter file: /oracle/product/asm11.2/crs/install/crsconfig_params
Successfully unlock /oracle/product/asm11.2
patch /dev/stage/if/stage/11gR2/patchset/13348650 apply successful for home /oracle/product/asm11.2
patch /dev/stage/if/stage/11gR2/patchset/13343438 apply successful for home /oracle/product/asm11.2
CRS-4123: Oracle High Availability Services has been started.
oracle@devdb[+ASM]$

The procedure can be used to apply the PSU on the DB Homes as well.

oracle@devdb[+ASM]$ $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch/opatch lsinventory|grep "Patch Set Update"
Patch Description: "Database Patch Set Update : 11.2.0.3.1 (13343438)"
Patch Description: "Grid Infrastructure Patch Set Update : 11.2.0.3.1 (13348650)"
oracle@devdb[+ASM]$

コアの解析に詳しくない人がコアファイルを見付けたらどうしたら良いか

Homma — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:27:31 PST

はじめに

今回は、コアファイルの調査を誰かに依頼する場合に、伝えておくべきことをご紹介します。

サーバ管理やプログラムのテストの最中に、コアファイルに遭遇することがあります。コアファイルがあるということは、何らかの問題が起きている可能性を示唆しています。そこでコア解析の知識があれば、直ぐに調査に移る事ができますが、そうでなければ、誰か技術に詳しく、情報を渡しても問題の無い人を探して相談するのが現実的です。もし、信頼して相談できる人を見付けられたとしたら、どんな情報を伝えれば良いでしょうか。何を伝えたらいいか思い付かなかったら、以下を試してみて下さい。

（なお、今回の記事ではプログラムが生成したコアを想定しています。）

やるべきこと

まず、コアファイルがあるディレクトリに cd で移動します。

$ cd /where-core-exists/

ディレクトリを移動したら、情報を収集して行きます。以下のコマンドを全て実行して下さい。

なお、ここではコアファイルの名前を core としていますが、実際には core.789 の様な数字付きの名前かもしれません。その場合は、core と書かれている部分を実際の名前に置き換えて実行して下さい。

$ script core.log
$ date
$ uname -a
$ ls -l ./core
$ file ./core
$ pstack ./core
$ pflags -r ./core
$ pargs -ae ./core
$ pmap ./core
$ pldd ./core
$ exit
$ zip core.log.zip core.log

コマンドの実行が終了したら、core.log.zip というファイルが出来ている筈です。これを渡せば、取り敢えずの調査に必要なデータは揃ったことになります。

あとは、コアダンプした時のエラーメッセージ、コアファイルが発生する頻度、システムの構成情報、アプリケーションの情報、直前に設定等を変更したのであれば、その内容、アプリケーションのログなどを分かる範囲で伝えられれば尚良いと思います。

実行例

root@awa03:~# cd test/
root@awa03:~/test# script core.log
Script started, file is core.log
root@awa03:~/test# date
Thu Feb  9 02:39:23 JST 2012
root@awa03:~/test# uname -a
SunOS awa03 5.11 11.0 i86pc i386 i86pc
root@awa03:~/test# ls -l ./core
-rw-------   1 root     root     2097463 Feb  9 02:39 ./core
root@awa03:~/test# file ./core
./core:         ELF 32-bit LSB core file 80386 Version 1, from 'prog_fpe'
root@awa03:~/test# pstack ./core
core './core' of 9993:  ./prog_fpe
 08050c90 my_func  (8047d8c, 8050af3, 1, 8047d98, 8047da0, feffb93c) + 17
 08050ca0 main     (1, 8047d98, 8047da0, feffb93c, 8047d8c, 8050a92) + 8
 08050af3 _start   (1, 8047e68, 0, 8047e73, 8047e80, 8047e8b) + 83
root@awa03:~/test# pflags -r ./core
core './core' of 9993:  ./prog_fpe
        data model = _ILP32  flags = MSACCT|MSFORK
 /1:    flags = 0
        sigmask = 0xffffbefc,0xffffffff,0x000000ff
        cursig = SIGFPE
   %gs = 0x000001C3   %fs = 0x00000000   %es = 0x0000004B   %ds = 0x0000004B
  %edi = 0x08047E00  %esi = 0x08047D54  %ebp = 0x08047D60  %esp = 0x00000000
  %ebx = 0xFEFFB93C  %edx = 0x00000000  %ecx = 0x00000000  %eax = 0x00000064
  %trapno = 0x00000000  %err = 0x00000000  %eip = 0x08050C90   %cs = 0x00000043
  %efl = 0x00010256  %uesp = 0x08047D4C   %ss = 0x0000004B

root@awa03:~/test# pargs -ae ./core
pargs: Couldn't determine locale of target process.
pargs: Some strings may not be displayed properly.
core './core' of 9993:  ./prog_fpe
argv[0]: ./prog_fpe

envp[0]: LC_MONETARY=
envp[1]: TERM=vt100
envp[2]: SHELL=/usr/bin/bash
envp[3]: SSH_CLIENT=10.188.194.252 49626 22
envp[4]: LC_NUMERIC=
envp[5]: SSH_TTY=/dev/pts/1
envp[6]: LC_ALL=
envp[7]: USER=root
envp[8]: MAIL=/var/mail/root
envp[9]: PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
envp[10]: LC_MESSAGES=
envp[11]: LC_COLLATE=
envp[12]: PWD=/root/test
envp[13]: LANG=C
envp[14]: TZ=localtime
envp[15]: SHLVL=1
envp[16]: HOME=/root
envp[17]: LOGNAME=root
envp[18]: SSH_CONNECTION=10.188.194.252 49626 10.188.162.233 22
envp[19]: LC_CTYPE=
envp[20]: LC_TIME=
envp[21]: _=./prog_fpe
envp[22]: OLDPWD=/root
root@awa03:~/test# pmap ./core
core './core' of 9993:  ./prog_fpe
08046000       8K rwx--    [ stack ]
08050000       4K r-x--  /root/test/prog_fpe
08060000       4K rwx--    [ heap ]
FEDE0000      24K rwx--    [ anon ]
FEDF0000       4K rw---    [ anon ]
FEE00000    1352K r-x--  /usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1
FEF62000      44K rwx--  /usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1
FEF6D000       4K rwx--  /usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1
FEF70000       4K rw---    [ anon ]
FEF80000       4K rw---    [ anon ]
FEF90000       4K rw---    [ anon ]
FEFA0000       4K rw---    [ anon ]
FEFAD000       4K r----    [ anon ]
FEFB7000     208K r-x--  /lib/ld.so.1
FEFFB000       8K rwx--  /lib/ld.so.1
FEFFD000       4K rwx--  /lib/ld.so.1
 total      1684K
root@awa03:~/test# pldd ./core
core './core' of 9993:  ./prog_fpe
/usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1
root@awa03:~/test# exit
exit
Script done, file is core.log
root@awa03:~/test# zip core.log.zip core.log
  adding: core.log (deflated 62%)

これで core.log.zip というファイルが作成されます。

この例の場合、core.log.zip を送られてきた人は、これは prog_fpe という名前のプログラムが生成したコアで、最後に my_func() という関数が呼び出されており、SIGFPE が発生しているので、prog_fpe の my_func() の中の算術演算が怪しそうだということが分かります。

さいごに

以上、コアファイルを見付けたら、まずどんな情報を集めれば良いかをご紹介しました。

上記の情報を渡しても原因が分からないこともあります。その場合は必要に応じて情報を追加して下さい。

コアファイルは事故の残骸ではなく、解決の糸口とする為に残された記録装置の様な物です。重要な情報が詰まっている事がありますので、是非有効に活用して下さい。

Oracle SCN Flaw

swervedba — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:23:41 PST

Oracle community seems to be in confused state after infoworld published an article about Oracle SCN flaw. Questions like “Am I affected” or “When should I apply the patch” are common. Here is my small role in helping understand the problem.

System Change Number or SCN is internal timestamp used by Oracle Database to comply with ACID (Atomicity , Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties of database.

Oracle SCN is calculated/incremented by 16384 for every second since 1/1/1988. This number is also called soft Limit. The maximum value of SCN supported by Oracle is 281 trillion, good enough to last 500 years. At any point in time, the database SCN cannot greater than SCN Soft limit. This might temporarily make the database unavailable or cause the database to crash with ORA-600 errors. The database will start to function normally as you start to accumulate SCNs with time. Without the bug, it really rare to use up 16384 SCN’s in 1 second.

Lets take a simple example to understand working of SCN. For sake of simplicity , lets assume the current Value of SCN at 10:00:01 AM is X.

Click on the diagram for larger view.

Now lets talk about the hot backup bug that impacts 11g databases.

SCN values jump very high causing it to reach the soft limit or reach closer to the soft limit. As per Oracle this is caused when “ALTER DATABASE/TABLESPACE …. BEGIN/END BACKUP command is issued. There are other unknown triggers that may cause this jump too. There is also confusion about what causes this bug “ALTER DATABASE vs ALTER TABLESPACE” backup commands.

Database links and SCN Jump

Now introduce databases interconnected via database link. When databases are connected via database link, Oracle synchronizes the SCN value of the database with the highest SCN to all the other interconnected databases. So even if one of your databases is infected with this bug, it impacts all other interconnected databases irrespective of the version of database.

The Fix

Apply Oracle recommended PSU or CPU patch. This patch resolves the hot backup bug but you are still not fully protected from SCN hacks or unknown triggers. So it is recommended to run SCN health check at regular intervals to prevent any runaway growth. The patch also collects additional diagnostic information if the issues occur due to some other undocumented reason. Refer to metalink doc 1393363.1 to download the SCN health check.

Exalogic and Multicast

Sabha — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:43:48 PST

Exalogic is the new Engineered System from Oracle, delivering Hardware and Software in one solution. The software is primarily WebLogic on Linux. Customers will invariably cluster the WebLogic Server instances using multicast or unicast. There is one gotcha when it comes to using multicast on Exalogic.

Please check my blog at http://althingsmdw.blogspot.com/2012/02/exalogic-and-multicast.html for more details.

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

osborne — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:14:20 PST

I’ll be speaking at a couple of conferences over the next month or so. Here’s the schedule:

February 16th, in Denver at RMOUG Training Days 2012 - Topic: DIY Exadata
February 23rd, in Redwood Shores at NoCOUG Winter Conference - Topic: DIY Exadata
March 7th, in Dallas at Hotsos Symposium 2012 - Topic: Exadata Optimization – Case Studies

Hope to see you at one of these events.

CVE-2005-2475 CVE-2008-0888 Race condition, Denial of Service (DoS), and possible code execution vulnerabilities in unzip

paulson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:53:51 PST

CVE Description

CVSSv2 Base Score

Component

Product and Resolution

CVE-2005-2475 Race condition in unzip may allow local users to modify permissions of arbitrary files

1.2

unzip

Solaris 9	SPARC: 112951-15, X86: 114194-12
Solaris 10	SPARC: 119254-75, X86: 119254-75
OpenSolaris	snv_95
Solaris 8	SPARC: 108987-20 X86: 108988-20

CVE-2008-0888 Extracting maliciously crafted zip files using the unzip command tool may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution.

9.3

This notification describes vulnerabilities fixed in third-party components that are included in Sun's product distribution.
Information about vulnerabilities affecting Oracle Sun products can be found on Oracle Critical Patch Updates and Security Alerts page.

Multiple Vulnerabilities in BIND DNS software

chandan — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:52:20 PST

CVE Description

CVSSv2 Base Score

Component

Product and Resolution

CVE-2010-3613 Permissions, Privileges, and Access Controls vulnerability

4.0

BIND DNS software

Solaris 8	SPARC: 109326-26 X86: 109327-26
Solaris 9	SPARC: 112837-22 X86: 114265-21
Solaris 10	SPARC: 119783-17 X86: 119784-17
Solaris 11 Express	snv_151a + 7002134

CVE-2010-3614 Denial of service vulnerability

6.4

CVE-2010-2065 CVE-2010-2443 Integer Overflow and DoS Vulnerabilities in libtiff

chandan — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:22:13 PST

CVE Description

CVSSv2 Base Score

Component

Product and Resolution

CVE-2010-2065 Integer overflow in the TIFFroundup macro in LibTIFF before 3.9.3\nmay allow remote users to cause a Denial of Service (DoS - application\ncrash) or possibly execute arbitrary code.\n

6.8

libtiff

Solaris 8	SPARC: 139093-02 X86: 139094-02
Solaris 9	SPARC: 125673-04 X86: 125674-04
Solaris 10	SPARC: 119900-11 X86: 119901-10
OpenSolaris	snv_111b plus bug fix for 6970794

CVE-2010-2443 NULL pointer derefence in the OJPEGReadBufferFill function in\ntif_ojpeg.c in LibTIFF may remote users to cause a Denial of Service\n(DoS - application crash).\n

5.0

Analyzing Thread Dumps in Middleware - Part 3

Sabha — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:30:21 PST

This posting is the third section in the series Analyzing Thread Dumps in Middleware

This section details with tools for analyzing thread dumps along with limitations of such tools. Please see my blog at http://althingsmdw.blogspot.com/2012/02/analyzing-thread-dumps-in-middleware_9856.html ... for more details.

Analyzing Thread Dumps in Middleware - Part 2

Sabha — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:26:49 PST

This posting is the second section in the series Analyzing Thread Dumps in Middleware

This section details with when, how to capture and analyze thread dumps with special focus on WebLogic Application Server related thread dumps...

Please see my blog at http://althingsmdw.blogspot.com/2012/02/analyzing-thread-dumps-in-middleware_08.html for more details.

Analyzing Thread Dumps in Middleware - Part 1

Sabha — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:23:37 PST

How to analyse Thread dumps, for improving Middleware Performance (at App Server or Application level) as well as for general troubleshooting?

Please see my blog at http://althingsmdw.blogspot.com/2012/02/analyzing-thread-dumps-in-middleware.html ... The series will also go into details of WebLogic Application Server specific Thread Dump Analysis and fine tuning ...

Oracle PartnerNetwork Trainingscalendar

mseika — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:53:03 PST

Please visit our Enablement Trainingscalender for Middle East & Africa here.