OBIEE OC4J Shutdown on 64-bit windows

Shutting down the OC4J engine on 64 bits windows can give strange errors like:

Error: Missing ormi[s]://<host>:<port>

This seems to be a issue with IPv6 adressing. Try adding:

-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

FI: JAVA -jar -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true D:\ORACLE\OBIEE10Gr3\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\admin.jar ormi://localhost:23791 oc4jadmin p***** -shutdown force

Till Next Time

OBIEE Reset OC4J Admin password

Didn’t I read about this in several other blogs you might ask. Well you are right there. It probably started with the guys from carpe diem: http://carpediemconsulting.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/resetting-the-oc4j-password-in-obiee/ And since all the others copied there article from them nobody noticed they didn’t clear the security cache. Here is the version from the original documentation:

Stop OC4J and the Application Server Control.
Enter the following command in the Oracle home of the application server instance:
(UNIX) ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl stopproc ias-component=OC4J
(Windows) ORACLE_HOME\opmn\bin\opmnctl stopproc ias-component=OC4J Locate and open the following file in a text editor:
(UNIX)ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/home/config/system-jazn-data.xml
(Windows)ORACLE_HOME\j2ee\home\config\system-jazn-data.xml

Locate the line that defines the credentials property for the oc4jadmin user.
The following example shows the section of system-jazn-data.xml with the encrypted credentials entry in boldface type:

<jazn-realm>
<realm>
<name>jazn.com</name>
<users>
.
.
.
<user>
<name>oc4jadmin</name>
<display-name>OC4J Administrator</display-name>
<description>OC4J Administrator</description>
<credentials>{903}4L50lHJWIFGwLgHXTub7eYK9e0AnWLUH</credentials>
</user>

Replace the existing encrypted password with the new password.

Be sure to prefix the password with an exclamation point (!). For example:
<credentials>!mynewpassword123</credentials>

The password for the oc4jadmin user should conform to following guidelines:

• Must contain at least five characters, but not more than 30 characters.
• Must begin with an alphabetic character. It cannot begin with a number, the underscore (_), the dollar sign ($), or the number sign (#).
• At least one of the characters must be a number.
• Can contain only the following characters; numbers, letters, and the following special characters: US dollar sign ($), number sign (#), or underscore (_).
• Cannot contain any Oracle reserved words, such as VARCHAR.
  
  

Delete cached password data by deleting the contents of the following directory:


(UNIX) : ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/oc4jinstance/persistence/ascontrol/ascontrol/securestore/
(Windows): ORACLE_HOME\j2ee\oc4jinstance\persistence\ascontrol\ascontrol\securestore/


Start OC4J and the Application Server Control.

After the restart, the Application Server Control will use your new Administrator (oc4jadmin) password, which will be stored in encrypted format within the system-jazn-data.xml file.

By the way is you have installed OC4J on a windows box it’s much easier to retrieve the password. Goto START > Oracle Business Intelligence :



 
Rightclick on Stop OC4J, goto properties, open the shortcut tab:


 

The password is right there ;-)

Till Next Time

This article is also published on http://knowledge.ciber.nl

OBIEE MetaData Dictionary

The metadata dictionary is a very powerful support package within OBIEE. Sadly it is not commonly used at this moment. This is mainly caused by the fact that the functionality is very poorly documented by Oracle.

This article describes the configuration and implementation of the OBIEE metadata dictionary both on an OC4J and an IIS web services. (Other web services can be easily configured based on of these systems)

Prerequisites

The account used for implementing this functionality must have full access to:

• 
  
  The source repositories
  
  
  
• 
  
  The Presentation server.
  
  
  
• 
  
  The Web server.
  
  
  

Generating the metadata dictionary

Open the repository in Offline mode:

Go to tools utilities:

Select Generate Metadata Dictionary:

Select a destination directory:

On successful finish you will get:

If you are replacing you might get this:

Navigate to your {OBIEE MetaData Dictionary}\ {repository_name}

Open NameIndex in a browser to check the readability.

Open TreeIndex in a browser to check the readability.

OC4J Prerequisites

First we have to tell the presentation server where to find the dictionary. This is configured in the INSTANCECONFIG.XML file. Usually this file is found in {OracleBIDate}\web\config.

Open the file and add:

<SubjectAreaMetadata>

<DictionaryURLPrefix>/analytics/dictionary/</DictionaryURLPrefix>

</SubjectAreaMetadata>

between the <WebConfig> tags.

WOW: Some OBIEE config tags and the contents are CaSe SeNsItIvE!

OC4J web server

Create the “dictionary” directory in the analytics application folder:

Usually {OracleBI}\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\application\analytics\analytic. (it’s the folder where your SAW.DLL is located).

Copy the content of your dictionary export folder to this folder:

Restart the presentation server

Log in as administrator in answer, select the subject area:

Click on the dictionary symbol:

ISS Prerequisites

Create a new virtual directory in your IIS manager

Add the virtual directory to your INSTANCECONFIG.XML. Usually this file is found in {OracleBIDate}\web\config.

<SubjectAreaMetadata>

<DictionaryURLPrefix>/analyticsDictionary/</DictionaryURLPrefix>

</SubjectAreaMetadata>

WOW: Some OBIEE config tags and the contents are CaSe SeNsItIvE!

Restart the presentation server

Log in as administrator in answer, select the subject area:

Click on the dictionary symbol:

Granting access to the metadata dictionary

Log in as administrator

Go Settings > Administration

Select manage privileges:

Select access to Metadata Dictionary

By default this is set to everyone.

Till Next Time

This article was orignally written for the Ciber knowledge blog: http://knowledge.ciber.nl/weblog/

EDIT: This Feature is availible from 10.3.4

OBIEE Forcing OC4J_BI shutdown

Somtimes your OC4J is really stuck, and if you to give a shutdown without resestting your server try:
"{JDK HOME here}\bin\java.exe" -jar {ORACLE_BI home here}\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\admin.jar ormi://localhost:23791 {OC4JADMIN password here} -shutdown force

Till Next Time

OBIEE running it as a HTTPS / SSL service

We where recently asked how to run OBIEE as a HTTPS / SSL service. The customer wanted this because of in house security policy. Here is how we did it:

Step 1: Navigate to your OC4J config directory, ussally found in ..:\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\config. Add a new directory called: "backup_orignal". Copy the whole content of the config directory to the new directory. (better save then sorry......)

Step 2: Creating the SSLFILE (site certificate).
Open a command box and navigate to your OC4J config directory, ussally found at: ..:\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\config. Enter

keytool -genkey -keyalg "RSA" -keystore sslfile -storepass MySecretPassword -validity 365

Next you will get a couple of questions on your name and organisation, the values entered here are used for "encrypting" the key.


On the last question just give RETURN, else if you do not enter the same password as the storepassword, you may get “”Cannot recover key” errors when deploying your website.

Step 3: Creating a new website config file
From the config directory copy and paste the file "default-web-site.xml" rename the copy to "secure-web-site.xml". Open the new file in a editor. In the {web-site} change the port number to "443" (or an other you like) add the sub tag: secure="true". Add the SSL-config tag: {ssl-config keystore="sslfile" keystore-password="MySecretPassword"/}

Step 4: Edit SERVER.XML
Open the file "SERVER.XML" in a editor and add reference to "secure-web-site.xml". Between the application-server tags add: {web-site path="./secure-web-site.xml" /}. Your file should look something like this:

save the file!

Step 5: an extra backup!
Add a new directory called: "backup_change_YYYYMMDDNNN" (fi:backup_change_20080723001. Copy the whole content of the config directory to the new directory. (Why?, if you not carefull during an upgrade you loose all your OC4J settings......)

Step 6: Restart OC4J
Stop and start your OC4J.
You can now run your OBIEE website from the default HTTPS adress.
Remember: All your users still have to import the certificate!

Of course you also have to alter the port number in the OBIEE config files:
...\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\applications\bioffice\bioffice\WEB-INF\bioffice.xml
...\OracleBI\xmlp\XMLP\Admin\Configuration\xmlp-server-config.xml
...\OracleBIData\web\config\instanceconfig.xml

Till Next Time

This article is also published on: http://knowledge.ciber.nl/weblog/

OBIEE running it on an other web port

On a default installation OBIEE runs on web port 9704. This means that the user will have the put the portnumber in the webadress. (http://myhostname:9704/analytics/saw.dll?Dashboard). If you want to run the websdervice on different portnumber or even better from the default port 80, this is what you have to do.

Step 1: Navigate to your OC4J config directory, ussally found in ..:\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\config

Step 2: Add a new directory called: "backup_orignal". Copy the whole content of the config directory to the new directory. (better save then sorry......)

Step 3: Open the file named default-web-site.xml in a (XML) editor.

Step 4: between the {web-site} find the port= tag, change it to port = "80". Save the file.

Step 5: Add a new directory called: "backup_change_YYYYMMDDNNN" (fi:backup_change_20080723001. Copy the whole content of the config directory to the new directory. (Why?, if you not carefull during an upgrade you loose all your OC4J settings......)

Step 6: Stop and start your OC4J.

You can now run your OBIEE website from the new portnumber.

Of course you also have to alter the port number in the OBIEE config files:

...\OracleBI\oc4j_bi\j2ee\home\applications\bioffice\bioffice\WEB-INF\bioffice.xml

...\OracleBI\xmlp\XMLP\Admin\Configuration\xmlp-server-config.xml

...\OracleBIData\web\config\instanceconfig.xml

Till Next Time

This article is also published on: http://knowledge.ciber.nl/weblog/