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• WebLogic JDBC Use of Oracle Wallet for SSL

  - by Steve Felts

  Introduction Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) can be used to secure the connection between the middle tier “client”, WebLogic Server (WLS) in this case, and the Oracle database server.  Data between WLS and database can be encrypted.  The server can be authenticated so you have proof that the database can be trusted by validating a certificate from the server.  The client can be authenticated so that the database only accepts connections from clients that it trusts. Similar to the discussion in an earlier article about using the Oracle wallet for database credentials, the Oracle wallet can also be used with SSL to store the keys and certificates.  By using it correctly, clear text passwords can be eliminated from the JDBC configuration and client/server configuration can be simplified by sharing the wallet across multiple datasources. There is a very good Oracle Technical White Paper on using SSL with the Oracle thin driver at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/enterprise-edition/wp-oracle-jdbc-thin-ssl-130128.pdf [LINK1].  The link http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/weblogic/index-087556.html [LINK2] describes how to use WebLogic Server with Oracle JDBC Driver SSL. The information in this article is a guide on what steps need to be taken in the variety of available options; use the links above for details. SSL from the driver to the database server is basically turned on by specifying a protocol of “tcps” in the URL.  However, there is a fair amount of setup needed.  Also remember that there is an overhead in performance. Creating the wallets The common use cases are 1. “data encryption and server-only authentication”, requiring just a trust store, or 2. “data encryption and authentication of both tiers” (client and server), requiring a trust store and a key store. It is recommended to use the auto-login wallet type so that clear text passwords are not needed in the datasource configuration to open the wallet.  The store type for an auto-login wallet is “SSO” (Single Sign On), not “JKS” or “PKCS12” as in [LINK2].  The file name is “cwallet.sso”. Wallets are created using the orapki tool.  They need to be created based on the usage (encryption and/or authentication).  This is discussed in detail in [LINK1] in Appendix B or in the Advanced Security Administrator’s Guide of the Database documentation. Database Server Configuration It is necessary to update the sqlnet.ora and listener.ora files with the directory location of the wallet using WALLET_LOCATION.  These files also indicate whether or not SSL_CLIENT_AUTHENTICATION is being used (true or false). The Oracle Listener must also be configured to use the TCPS protocol.  The recommended port is 2484. LISTENER = (ADDRESS_LIST= (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcps)(HOST=servername)(PORT=2484))) WebLogic Server Classpath The WebLogic Server CLASSPATH must have three additional security files. The files that need to be added to the WLS CLASSPATH are $MW_HOME/modules/com.oracle.osdt_cert_1.0.0.0.jar $MW_HOME/modules/com.oracle.osdt_core_1.0.0.0.jar $MW_HOME/modules/com.oracle.oraclepki_1.0.0.0.jar One way to do this is to add them to PRE_CLASSPATH environment variable for use with the standard WebLogic scripts. Setting the Oracle Security Provider It’s necessary to enable the Oracle PKI provider on the client side.  This can either be done statically by updating the java.security file under the JRE or dynamically by setting it in a WLS startup class using java.security.Security.insertProviderAt(new oracle.security.pki.OraclePKIProvider (), 3); See the full example of the startup class in [LINK2]. Datasource Configuration When creating a WLS datasource, set the PROTOCOL in the URL to tcps as in the following. jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcps)(HOST=host)(PORT=port))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=myservice))) For encryption and server authentication, use the datasource connection properties: - javax.net.ssl.trustStore=location of wallet file on the client - javax.net.ssl.trustStoreType=”SSO” For client authentication, use the datasource connection properties: - javax.net.ssl.keyStore=location of wallet file on the client - javax.net.ssl.keyStoreType=”SSO” Note that the driver connection properties for the wallet require a file name, not a directory name. Active GridLink ONS over SSL For completeness, there is another SSL usage for WLS datasources.  The communication with the Oracle Notification Service (ONS) for load balancing information and node up/down events can use SSL also. Create an auto-login wallet and use the wallet on the client and server.  The following is a sample sequence to create a test wallet for use with ONS. orapki wallet create -wallet ons -auto_login -pwd ONS_Wallet orapki wallet add -wallet ons -dn "CN=ons_test,C=US" -keysize 1024 -self_signed -validity 9999 -pwd ONS_Wallet orapki wallet export -wallet ons -dn "CN=ons_test,C=US" -cert ons/cert.txt -pwd ONS_Wallet On the database server side, it’s necessary to define the walletfile directory in the file $CRS_HOME/opmn/conf/ons.config and run onsctl stop/start. When configuring an Active GridLink datasource, the connection to the ONS must be defined.  In addition to the host and port, the wallet file directory must be specified.  By not giving a password, a SSO wallet is assumed. Summary To use SSL with the Oracle thin driver without any clear text passwords, use an SSO Oracle Wallet.  SSL support in the Oracle thin driver is available starting in 10g Release 2.

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• WebLogic Server Weekly for March 26th, 2012: WLS 1211 Update, Java 7 Certification, Galleria, WebLogic for DBAs, REST and Enterprise Architecture, Singleton Services

  - by Steve Button

  WebLogic Server 12c Certified with Java 7 for Production Use WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.1) has been certified with JDK 7 for development usage since December and we have now completed JDK 7 certification for use with production systems. In doing so, we have updated the WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.1) distributions incorporating fixes associated with JDK 7 support as well as some bundled patches that address several issues that have been discovered since the initial release. These updated distributions are available for download from OTN and will be beneficial for all WebLogic Server 12c (12.1.1) users in general. What's New Release Notes Download Here! Updated Oracle WebLogic Server 12.1.1.0 distribution Never one to miss a trick, Markus Eisele was one of the first to notice the WebLogic Server 12c update and post a blog about it. Sources told me that as of Friday last week you have an updated version of WebLogic Server 12c on OTN. http://blog.eisele.net/2012/03/updated-oracle-weblogic-server-12110.html Using WebLogic Server 12c with Java 7 - Video To illustrate the use of Java 7 with WebLogic Server 12c, I put together a screen cam showing the creation of a domain using Java 7 and then build and deploy a simple web application that uses Java 7 syntax to show it working. Ireland OUG Presentation: WebLogic for DBAs Simon Haslam posted his slides from a presentation he gave Dublin on 21/3/12 at the OUG Ireland conference. In this presentation, he explains the core concepts and ideas behind WebLogic Server, walks through an installation and offers some tips and common gotcha's to avoid. Simon also covers some aspects of installing and use Enterprise Manager 12c. Note: I usually install the JVM and use the generic .jar installer rather than using an installer bundled with a JVM. http://www.slideshare.net/Veriton/weblogic-for-dbas-10h Slightly Retro: Jeff West on Enterprise Architecure and REST In this weeks flashback, we look at Jeff West's blog from early 2011 where he provides some thoughtful opinions on enterprise architecture and innovation, then jumps into his views on REST. After I progressed in my career and did more team-leading and architecture type roles I was ‘educated’ on what it meant to have Asynchronous and Long-Running processes as part of your Enterprise Application architecture. If I had a synchronous process then I needed a thread available to service the request and then provide the response. https://blogs.oracle.com/jeffwest/entry/weblogic_integration_wli_web_services_and_soap_and_rest_part_1 Starting Managed Servers without an Administration Server using Node Manager and WLST Blogger weblogic-tips shows how to start a managed server without going through the Administration Server, using the Node Manager and WLST. Connect WLST to a Node Manager by entering the nmConnect command. http://www.weblogic-tips.com/2012/02/18/starting-managed-servers-without-an-administration-server-using-node-manager-and-wlst/ Using WebLogic Server Singleton Services WebLogic Server has supported the notion of a Singleton Service for a number of releases, in which WebLogic Server will maintain a single instance of a configured singleton service on one managed server within a cluster. This blog demonstrates how the singleton service can be accessed and used from applications deployed on the cluster. http://buttso.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/weblogic-server-singleton-services.html

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• Fetch posts with attachments in a certain category?

  - by TiuTalk

  I need to retreive a list of posts that have (at least) one attachment that belongs to a category in WordPress. The relation between attachments and categories I made by myself using the WordPress default method. Here's the query that i'm running right now: SELECT p.* FROM `wp_posts` AS p # The post INNER JOIN `wp_posts` AS a # The attachment ON p.`ID` = a.`post_parent` AND a.`post_type` = 'attachment' INNER JOIN `wp_term_relationships` AS ra ON a.`ID` = ra.`object_id` AND ra.`term_taxonomy_id` IN (3) # The category ID list WHERE p.`post_type` = 'post' ORDER BY p.`post_date` DESC LIMIT 15 The problem here is that the query only use the first found attachment, and if it doesn't belongs to the category, the result isn't returned.

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• Oracle OpenWorld Update -- Developing Java Applications in the Cloud: Oracle Java Cloud Service

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  Today we are focused on the Oracle Java Cloud Service. There are multiple sessions on this topic. In this particular session (which will run multiple times), learn how you can use the Oracle Public Cloud Java Cloud Service to exponentially decrease the turn-around time for the development and production roll-out of your WebLogic Server applications. This session will provide an overview the Oracle Java Cloud Service and demonstrate some of the product's powerful developer productivity features. For more information about this and other Cloud Application Foundation sessions, review the Oracle Cloud Application Foundation Focus On document. Details: Thursday, Oct 4, 11.15-12.15pm, Moscone South, Room 304 Thursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM, Marriott Marquis - Foothill F

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• News Flash: Hong Kong Housing Society Improves Governance Control, Reduces Costs by 25%, Speeds up Approval by 30%

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  “We selected Oracle Fusion Middleware for its superior local support, higher performance, availability, reliability, and flexible enterprise architecture to cost-effectively integrate with existing Oracle applications", said Mr. C.W. Miao, Head of Information Technology, Hong Kong Housing Society in a press release today. To address the challenge of frequent downtime during peak periods and increasing cost in maintaining its legacy systems, Hong Kong Housing Society replaced its legacy systems with Oracle's WebLogic Suite, BPM Suite, and the ADF Framework. The Fusion Middleware solutions provide Hong Kong Housing Society with a flexible, reliable and cost-effective enterprise architecture that enables integration with existing Oracle applications including JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and PeopleSoft. The cost savings and performance results clearly demonstrate significant benefits. Read the PR for complete details.

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• Oracle OpenWorld Update -- Scaling Infrastructure to Meet Business Growth: A Coherence Customer Panel

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  Today being the Monday of OpenWorld is packed with great content and sessions. I have already blogged about the general session by Ajay Patel and the classic Cloud Application Foundation roadmap and strategy session by Mike Lehmann. But we will be remiss if we don’t list the customer panel for Coherence. Come listen to customers spanning a wide variety of industries such as consumer goods, railways, and agricultural biotechnology discuss how Oracle Coherence enables business growth, cost cutting, and improved customer experience. You will learn how Coherence helps scale services cost-effectively, improve performance, and assure service availability in both on-premises and cloud deployments. Each customer will present details of their specific use cases, benefits and war stories of developing, deploying and managing some of the largest data grid deployments in the world. The session will be moderated by Cameron Purdy, VP of Development, and Mr. Coherence himself J For more information about this and other Coherence sessions, review the Coherence Focus on document. Details: Monday, 10/1, 12:15 p.m. - 1:15 p.m., Moscone South Room 309

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• General Session: Building and Managing a Private Oracle Java and Middleware Cloud

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  If you are developing, managing, or planning enterprise Java and business application deployments on Oracle WebLogic Server with Oracle Coherence or Oracle GlassFish Server applications or continue to have deployments of Oracle Application Server, this session will give you the roadmap of how Oracle is evolving this infrastructure to be the next-generation application foundation for its customers to build on in a private cloud setting. In the session, Ajay Patel, VP of Product Management, and the product management team shares Oracle's vision, product plans, and roadmap for this server infrastructure and how it will be used in the rapidly maturing cloud infrastructure space. The presentation will help you make key decisions about running your enterprise applications on Oracle's enterprise Java server foundation. For more information about this and other Cloud Application Foundation sessions, review the Cloud Application Foundation Focus On document. Details: Monday, 10/1; 4.45-5.45pm; Moscone West Room 3014

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• Data Source Security Part 5

  - by Steve Felts

  If you read through the first four parts of this series on data source security, you should be an expert on this focus area.  There is one more small topic to cover related to WebLogic Resource permissions.  After that comes the test, I mean example, to see with a real set of configuration parameters what the results are with some concrete values. WebLogic Resource Permissions All of the discussion so far has been about database credentials that are (eventually) used on the database side.  WLS has resource credentials to control what WLS users are allowed to access JDBC resources.  These can be defined on the Policies tab on the Security tab associated with the data source.  There are four permissions: “reserve” (get a new connection), “admin”, “shrink”, and reset (plus the all-inclusive “ALL”); we will focus on “reserve” here because we are talking about getting connections.  By default, JDBC resource permissions are completely open – anyone can do anything.  As soon as you add one policy for a permission, then all other users are restricted.  For example, if I add a policy so that “weblogic” can reserve a connection, then all other users will fail to reserve connections unless they are also explicitly added.  The validation is done for WLS user credentials only, not database user credentials.  Configuration of resources in general is described at “Create policies for resource instances” http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24329_01/apirefs.1211/e24401/taskhelp/security/CreatePoliciesForResourceInstances.html.  This feature can be very useful to restrict what code and users can get to your database. There are the three use cases: API Use database credentials User for permission checking getConnection() True or false Current WLS user getConnection(user,password) False User/password from API getConnection(user,password) True Current WLS user If a simple getConnection() is used or database credentials are enabled, the current user that is authenticated to the WLS system is checked. If database credentials are not enabled, then the user and password on the API are used. Example The following is an actual example of the interactions between identity-based-connection-pooling-enabled, oracle-proxy-session, and use-database-credentials. On the database side, the following objects are configured.- Database users scott; jdbcqa; jdbcqa3- Permission for proxy: alter user jdbcqa3 grant connect through jdbcqa;- Permission for proxy: alter user jdbcqa grant connect through jdbcqa; The following WebLogic Data Source objects are configured.- Users weblogic, wluser- Credential mapping “weblogic” to “scott”- Credential mapping "wluser" to "jdbcqa3"- Data source descriptor configured with user “jdbcqa”- All tests are run with Set Client ID set to true (more about that below).- All tests are run with oracle-proxy-session set to false (more about that below). The test program:- Runs in servlet- Authenticates to WLS as user “weblogic” Use DB Credentials Identity based getConnection(scott,***) getConnection(weblogic,***) getConnection(jdbcqa3,***) getConnection()  true  true Identity scottClient weblogicProxy null weblogic fails - not a db user User jdbcqa3Client weblogicProxy null Default user jdbcqaClient weblogicProxy null  false  true scott fails - not a WLS user User scottClient scottProxy null jdbcqa3 fails - not a WLS user User scottClient scottProxy null  true  false Proxy for scott fails weblogic fails - not a db user User jdbcqa3Client weblogicProxy jdbcqa Default user jdbcqaClient weblogicProxy null  false  false scott fails - not a WLS user Default user jdbcqaClient scottProxy null jdbcqa3 fails - not a WLS user Default user jdbcqaClient scottProxy null If Set Client ID is set to false, all cases would have Client set to null. If this was not an Oracle thin driver, the one case with the non-null Proxy in the above table would throw an exception because proxy session is only supported, implicitly or explicitly, with the Oracle thin driver. When oracle-proxy-session is set to true, the only cases that will pass (with a proxy of "jdbcqa") are the following.1. Setting use-database-credentials to true and doing getConnection(jdbcqa3,…) or getConnection().2. Setting use-database-credentials to false and doing getConnection(wluser, …) or getConnection(). Summary There are many options to choose from for data source security.  Considerations include the number and volatility of WLS and Database users, the granularity of data access, the depth of the security identity (property on the connection or a real user), performance, coordination of various components in the software stack, and driver capabilities.  Now that you have the big picture (remember that table in part 1), you can make a more informed choice.

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• Data Source Security Part 3

  - by Steve Felts

  In part one, I introduced the security features and talked about the default behavior.  In part two, I defined the two major approaches to security credentials: directly using database credentials and mapping WLS user credentials to database credentials.  Now it's time to get down to a couple of the security options (each of which can use database credentials or WLS credentials). Set Client Identifier on Connection When "Set Client Identifier" is enabled on the data source, a client property is associated with the connection.  The underlying SQL user remains unchanged for the life of the connection but the client value can change.  This information can be used for accounting, auditing, or debugging.  The client property is based on either the WebLogic user mapped to a database user using the credential map Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} or is the database user parameter directly from the getConnection() method, based on the “use database credentials” setting described earlier. To enable this feature, select “Set Client ID On Connection” in the Console.  See "Enable Set Client ID On Connection for a JDBC data source" http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24329_01/apirefs.1211/e24401/taskhelp/jdbc/jdbc_datasources/EnableCredentialMapping.html in Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console Help. The Set Client Identifier feature is only available for use with the Oracle thin driver and the IBM DB2 driver, based on the following interfaces. For pre-Oracle 12c, oracle.jdbc.OracleConnection.setClientIdentifier(client) is used.  See http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/network.111/b28531/authentication.htm#i1009003 for more information about how to use this for auditing and debugging.   You can get the value using getClientIdentifier()  from the driver.  To get back the value from the database as part of a SQL query, use a statement like the following. “select sys_context('USERENV','CLIENT_IDENTIFIER') from DUAL”. Starting in Oracle 12c, java.sql.Connection.setClientInfo(“OCSID.CLIENTID", client) is used.  This is a JDBC standard API, although the property values are proprietary.  A problem with setClientIdentifier usage is that there are pieces of the Oracle technology stack that set and depend on this value.  If application code also sets this value, it can cause problems. This has been addressed with setClientInfo by making use of this method a privileged operation. A well-managed container can restrict the Java security policy grants to specific namespaces and code bases, and protect the container from out-of-control user code. When running with the Java security manager, permission must be granted in the Java security policy file for permission "oracle.jdbc.OracleSQLPermission" "clientInfo.OCSID.CLIENTID"; Using the name “OCSID.CLIENTID" allows for upward compatible use of “select sys_context('USERENV','CLIENT_IDENTIFIER') from DUAL” or use the JDBC standard API java.sql.getClientInfo(“OCSID.CLIENTID") to retrieve the value. This value in the Oracle USERENV context can be used to drive the Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD) feature to create security policies to control database access at the row and column level. Essentially, Oracle Virtual Private Database adds a dynamic WHERE clause to a SQL statement that is issued against the table, view, or synonym to which an Oracle Virtual Private Database security policy was applied.  See Using Oracle Virtual Private Database to Control Data Access http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/network.111/b28531/vpd.htm for more information about VPD.  Using this data source feature means that no programming is needed on the WLS side to set this context; it is set and cleared by the WLS data source code. For the IBM DB2 driver, com.ibm.db2.jcc.DB2Connection.setDB2ClientUser(client) is used for older releases (prior to version 9.5).  This specifies the current client user name for the connection. Note that the current client user name can change during a connection (unlike the user).  This value is also available in the CURRENT CLIENT_USERID special register.  You can select it using a statement like “select CURRENT CLIENT_USERID from SYSIBM.SYSTABLES”. When running the IBM DB2 driver with JDBC 4.0 (starting with version 9.5), java.sql.Connection.setClientInfo(“ClientUser”, client) is used.  You can retrieve the value using java.sql.Connection.getClientInfo(“ClientUser”) instead of the DB2 proprietary API (even if set setDB2ClientUser()).  Oracle Proxy Session Oracle proxy authentication allows one JDBC connection to act as a proxy for multiple (serial) light-weight user connections to an Oracle database with the thin driver.  You can configure a WebLogic data source to allow a client to connect to a database through an application server as a proxy user. The client authenticates with the application server and the application server authenticates with the Oracle database. This allows the client's user name to be maintained on the connection with the database. Use the following steps to configure proxy authentication on a connection to an Oracle database. 1. If you have not yet done so, create the necessary database users. 2. On the Oracle database, provide CONNECT THROUGH privileges. For example: SQL> ALTER USER connectionuser GRANT CONNECT THROUGH dbuser; where “connectionuser” is the name of the application user to be authenticated and “dbuser” is an Oracle database user. 3. Create a generic or GridLink data source and set the user to the value of dbuser. 4a. To use WLS credentials, create an entry in the credential map that maps the value of wlsuser to the value of dbuser, as described earlier.   4b. To use database credentials, enable “Use Database Credentials”, as described earlier. 5. Enable Oracle Proxy Authentication, see "Configure Oracle parameters" in Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console Help. 6. Log on to a WebLogic Server instance using the value of wlsuser or dbuser. 6. Get a connection using getConnection(username, password).  The credentials are based on either the WebLogic user that is mapped to a database user or the database user directly, based on the “use database credentials” setting.  You can see the current user and proxy user by executing: “select user, sys_context('USERENV','PROXY_USER') from DUAL". Note: getConnection fails if “Use Database Credentials” is not enabled and the value of the user/password is not valid for a WebLogic Server user.  Conversely, it fails if “Use Database Credentials” is enabled and the value of the user/password is not valid for a database user. A proxy session is opened on the connection based on the user each time a connection request is made on the pool. The proxy session is closed when the connection is returned to the pool.  Opening or closing a proxy session has the following impact on JDBC objects. - Closes any existing statements (including result sets) from the original connection. - Clears the WebLogic Server statement cache. - Clears the client identifier, if set. -The WebLogic Server test statement for a connection is recreated for every proxy session. These behaviors may impact applications that share a connection across instances and expect some state to be associated with the connection. Oracle proxy session is also implicitly enabled when use-database-credentials is enabled and getConnection(user, password) is called,starting in WLS Release 10.3.6.  Remember that this only works when using the Oracle thin driver. To summarize, the definition of oracle-proxy-session is as follows. - If proxy authentication is enabled and identity based pooling is also enabled, it is an error. - If a user is specified on getConnection() and identity-based-connection-pooling-enabled is false, then oracle-proxy-session is treated as true implicitly (it can also be explicitly true). - If a user is specified on getConnection() and identity-based-connection-pooling-enabled is true, then oracle-proxy-session is treated as false.

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• Oracle OpenWorld Update -- Get in the Cloud Now: Building Real Applications with the Java Cloud Service

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  Today we want to highlight a really exciting session focused on what it takes to build a typical application on the Oracle Cloud using the Java Cloud Service. Come to this session to learn the technical ins and outs of building such applications, what services you can use and how you should evaluate the Java Cloud Service for your applications. Whether you are new to the cloud or a veteran of building cloud solutions on other platforms, this will be a dive into the practical issues in the development - tools, build environment, and deployment approaches - that will help you go back home and try the Java Cloud Service out with your applications. This session will include a live demo and a sample application you will be able to try out yourself on the Java Cloud Service. For more information about this and other Cloud Application Foundation sessions, review the Oracle Cloud Application Foundation Focus On document.  Details: Wednesday, Oct 3,  1.15 -- 2.15pm, Marriott Marquis Foothill F  

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• Reminder: WebLogic Global, Virtual Developer Day November 5

  - by jeckels

  Just a quick reminder about the FREE virtual developer day focused on WebLogic (and Coherence) coming on November 5th. This day, with content tailored for developers, will guide you through tooling updates and best practices around creating applications with WebLogic and Coherence as target platforms. We'll also explore advances in how you can manage your build, deploy and ongoing management processes to streamline your application's life cycle. And of course, we'll conclude with some hands-on labs that ensure this isn't all a bunch of made-up stuff - get your hands dirty in the code!November 5, 20139am PT/12pm ETREGISTER NOW We're offering two tracks for your attendance, though of course you're free to attend any session you wish. The first will be for pure developers with sessions around developing for WebLogic with HTML5, processing live events with Coherence, and looking at development tooling. The second is for developers who are involved in the building and management processes as part of the application life cycle. These sessions focus on using Maven for builds, using Chef and Puppet for configuration and more.We look forward to seeing you there - don't forget to invite a friend!

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• Oracle OpenWorld Update -- Highly Available WebLogic Messaging Architectures: Sharing a Customer Experience with Comcast

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  This session will describe a Comcast’s hands-on  experience using WebLogic JMS as their high-performance enterprise messaging system including high availability, and disaster recovery capabilities as Comcast is rolling out a cross-site active-active message bus. In the session, we will cover the following: Key capabilities in WebLogic JMS that enabled Comcast to design such an architecture Details of the architecture put in place Details about application design needed to make all of this successful Failover and fail back processes The results from this new architecture are higher availability, better performance, more flexibility, and reduced costs through better utilization of hardware and improved manageability. For more information about this and other WebLogic sessions, review the Oracle WebLogic Focus On document here. Details: Tuesday, Oct 2, 5-6pm, Moscone South Room 306

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• Data Source Security Part 1

  - by Steve Felts

  I’ve written a couple of articles on how to store data source security credentials using the Oracle wallet.  I plan to write a few articles on the various types of security available to WebLogic Server (WLS) data sources.  There are more options than you might think! There have been several enhancements in this area in WLS 10.3.6.  There are a couple of more enhancements planned for release WLS 12.1.2 that I will include here for completeness.  This isn’t intended as a teaser.  If you call your Oracle support person, you can get them now as minor patches to WLS 10.3.6.   The current security documentation is scattered in a few places, has a few incorrect statements, and is missing a few topics.  It also seems that the knowledge of how to apply some of these features isn’t written down.  The goal of these articles is to talk about WLS data source security in a unified way and to introduce some approaches to using the available features.  Introduction to WebLogic Data Source Security Options By default, you define a single database user and password for a data source.  You can store it in the data source descriptor or make use of the Oracle wallet.  This is a very simple and efficient approach to security.  All of the connections in the connection pool are owned by this user and there is no special processing when a connection is given out.  That is, it’s a homogeneous connection pool and any request can get any connection from a security perspective (there are other aspects like affinity).  Regardless of the end user of the application, all connections in the pool use the same security credentials to access the DBMS.   No additional information is needed when you get a connection because it’s all available from the data source descriptor (or wallet). java.sql.Connection conn =  mydatasource.getConnection(); Note: You can enter the password as a name-value pair in the Properties field (this not permitted for production environments) or you can enter it in the Password field of the data source descriptor. The value in the Password field overrides any password value defined in the Properties passed to the JDBC Driver when creating physical database connections. It is recommended that you use the Password attribute in place of the password property in the properties string because the Password value is encrypted in the configuration file (stored as the password-encrypted attribute in the jdbc-driver-params tag in the module file) and is hidden in the administration console.  The Properties and Password fields are located on the administration console Data Source creation wizard or Data Source Configuration tab. The JDBC API can also be used to programmatically specify a database user name and password as in the following.  java.sql.Connection conn = mydatasource.getConnection(“user”, “password”); According to the JDBC specification, it’s supposed to take a database user and associated password but different vendors implement this differently.  WLS, by default, treats this as an application server user and password.  The pair is authenticated to see if it’s a valid user and that user is used for WLS security permission checks.  By default, the user is then mapped to a database user and password using the data source credential mapper, so this API sort of follows the specification but database credentials are one-step removed from the application code.  More details and the rationale are described later. While the default approach is simple, it does mean that only one database user is doing all of the work.  You can’t figure out who actually did the update and you can’t restrict SQL operations by who is running the operation, at least at the database level.   Any type of per-user logic will need to be in the application code instead of having the database do it.  There are various WLS data source features that can be configured to provide some per-user information about the operations to the database. WebLogic Data Source Security Options This table describes the features available for WebLogic data sources to configure database security credentials and a brief description.  It also captures information about the compatibility of these features with one another. Feature Description Can be used with Can’t be used with User authentication (default) Default getConnection(user, password) behavior – validate the input and use the user/password in the descriptor. Set client identifier Proxy Session, Identity pooling, Use database credentials Use database credentials Instead of using the credential mapper, use the supplied user and password directly. Set client identifier, Proxy session, Identity pooling User authentication, Multi Data Source Set Client Identifier Set a client identifier property associated with the connection (Oracle and DB2 only). Everything Proxy Session Set a light-weight proxy user associated with the connection (Oracle-only). Set client identifier, Use database credentials Identity pooling, User authentication Identity pooling Heterogeneous pool of connections owned by specified users. Set client identifier, Use database credentials Proxy session, User authentication, Labeling, Multi-datasource, Active GridLink Note that all of these features are available with both XA and non-XA drivers. Currently, the Proxy Session and Use Database Credentials options are on the Oracle tab of the Data Source Configuration tab of the administration console (even though the Use Database Credentials feature is not just for Oracle databases – oops).  The rest of the features are on the Identity tab of the Data Source Configuration tab in the administration console (plan on seeing them all in one place in the future). The subsequent articles will describe these features in more detail.  Keep referring back to this table to see the big picture.

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• Data Source Use of Oracle Edition Based Redefinition (EBR)

  - by Steve Felts

  Edition-based redefinition is a new feature in the 11gR2 release of the Oracle database. It enables you to upgrade the database component of an application while it is in use, thereby minimizing or eliminating down time. It works by allowing for a pre-upgrade and post-upgrade view of the data to exist at the same time, providing a hot upgrade capability. You can then specify which view you want for a particular session.  See the Oracle Database Advanced Application Developer's Guide for further information. There is also a good white paper at Edition Based Definition. Using this feature of the Oracle database does not require any new WebLogic Server functionality. It is set for each connection in the pool automatically by simply specifying SQL ALTER SESSION SET EDITION = edition_name in the Init SQL parameter in the data source configuration. This can be configured either via the console or via WLST (setInitSQL on the JDBCConnectionPoolParams). This SQL statement is executed for each newly created physical database connection.Note that we are assuming that a data source references only one edition of the database. To make use of this feature, you would have an earlier version of the application with a data source that references the earlier EDITION and a later version of the application with a data source that references the later EDITION.   Once you start talking about multiple versions of a WLS application, you should be using the WLS "side-by-side" or "versioned" deployment feature.  See Developing Applications for Production Redeployment for more information.  By combining Oracle database EBR and WLS versioned deployment, the application can be failed over with no downtime, making the combination of features more powerful than either independently. There is a catch - you need to be running with a versioned database and a versioned application initially so then you can switch versions.  The recommended way to version a WLS application is to simply add the "Weblogic-Application-Version" property in the MANIFEST.MF file(you can also specify it at deployment time). The recommended way to configure the data source is to use a packaged data source descriptor that's stored in the ear or war so that everything is self-contained.  There are some restrictions.  You can't use a packaged data source with Logging Last Resource (LLR) - you need to use a system resource.  You can't use an application-scoped packaged data source with EmulateTwoPhaseCommit for the global-transactions-protocol with a versioned application - use a global scope.  See Configuring JDBC Application Modules for Deployment for more details. There's one known problem - it doesn't work correctly with an XA data source (patch available with bug 14075837).

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• Data Source Connection Pool Sizing

  - by Steve Felts

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} One of the most time-consuming procedures of a database application is establishing a connection. The connection pooling of the data source can be used to minimize this overhead.  That argues for using the data source instead of accessing the database driver directly. Configuring the size of the pool in the data source is somewhere between an art and science – this article will try to move it closer to science.  From the beginning, WLS data source has had an initial capacity and a maximum capacity configuration values.  When the system starts up and when it shrinks, initial capacity is used.  The pool can grow to maximum capacity.  Customers found that they might want to set the initial capacity to 0 (more on that later) but didn’t want the pool to shrink to 0.  In WLS 10.3.6, we added minimum capacity to specify the lower limit to which a pool will shrink.  If minimum capacity is not set, it defaults to the initial capacity for upward compatibility.   We also did some work on the shrinking in release 10.3.4 to reduce thrashing; the algorithm that used to shrink to the maximum of the currently used connections or the initial capacity (basically the unused connections were all released) was changed to shrink by half of the unused connections. The simple approach to sizing the pool is to set the initial/minimum capacity to the maximum capacity.  Doing this creates all connections at startup, avoiding creating connections on demand and the pool is stable.  However, there are a number of reasons not to take this simple approach. When WLS is booted, the deployment of the data source includes synchronously creating the connections.  The more connections that are configured in initial capacity, the longer the boot time for WLS (there have been several projects for parallel boot in WLS but none that are available).  Related to creating a lot of connections at boot time is the problem of logon storms (the database gets too much work at one time).   WLS has a solution for that by setting the login delay seconds on the pool but that also increases the boot time. There are a number of cases where it is desirable to set the initial capacity to 0.  By doing that, the overhead of creating connections is deferred out of the boot and the database doesn’t need to be available.  An application may not want WLS to automatically connect to the database until it is actually needed, such as for some code/warm failover configurations. There are a number of cases where minimum capacity should be less than maximum capacity.  Connections are generally expensive to keep around.  They cause state to be kept on both the client and the server, and the state on the backend may be heavy (for example, a process).  Depending on the vendor, connection usage may cost money.  If work load is not constant, then database connections can be freed up by shrinking the pool when connections are not in use.  When using Active GridLink, connections can be created as needed according to runtime load balancing (RLB) percentages instead of by connection load balancing (CLB) during data source deployment. Shrinking is an effective technique for clearing the pool when connections are not in use.  In addition to the obvious reason that there times where the workload is lighter,  there are some configurations where the database and/or firewall conspire to make long-unused or too-old connections no longer viable.  There are also some data source features where the connection has state and cannot be used again unless the state matches the request.  Examples of this are identity based pooling where the connection has a particular owner and XA affinity where the connection is associated with a particular RAC node.  At this point, WLS does not re-purpose (discard/replace) connections and shrinking is a way to get rid of the unused existing connection and get a new one with the correct state when needed. So far, the discussion has focused on the relationship of initial, minimum, and maximum capacity.  Computing the maximum size requires some knowledge about the application and the current number of simultaneously active users, web sessions, batch programs, or whatever access patterns are common.  The applications should be written to only reserve and close connections as needed but multiple statements, if needed, should be done in one reservation (don’t get/close more often than necessary).  This means that the size of the pool is likely to be significantly smaller then the number of users.   If possible, you can pick a size and see how it performs under simulated or real load.  There is a high-water mark statistic (ActiveConnectionsHighCount) that tracks the maximum connections concurrently used.  In general, you want the size to be big enough so that you never run out of connections but no bigger.   It will need to deal with spikes in usage, which is where shrinking after the spike is important.  Of course, the database capacity also has a big influence on the decision since it’s important not to overload the database machine.  Planning also needs to happen if you are running in a Multi-Data Source or Active GridLink configuration and expect that the remaining nodes will take over the connections when one of the nodes in the cluster goes down.  For XA affinity, additional headroom is also recommended.  In summary, setting initial and maximum capacity to be the same may be simple but there are many other factors that may be important in making the decision about sizing.

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• So what is Active GridLink for RAC?

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 I had referred to Active GridLink for RAC in my blog yesterday and since then got several questions on this topic. So I decided to re-visit Active GridLink. With the release of version 11g, Oracle WebLogic Server started to provide strong support for the Real Application Clusters (RAC) features in Oracle Database 11g, minimizing database access time while allowing transparent access to rich pooling management functions that maximizes both connection performance and availability. WebLogic is the only application server in the marketplace which has been fully integrated and certified with Oracle Database RAC 11g without losing any rich functionality. Active GridLink provides Fast Connection Failover (FCF), Runtime Connection Load-Balancing (RCLB), and RAC instance graceful shutdown. With the key foundation for providing deeper integration with Oracle RAC, this single data source implementation in Oracle WebLogic Server supports the full and unrestricted use of database services as the connection target for a data source. For more details and to understand how our customer NEC leverages this capability, read the whitepapers on this topic. Get in depth ‘how-to’ details from this youtube video from our resident expert, Frances Zhao.

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• Data Source Security Part 2

  - by Steve Felts

  In Part 1, I introduced the default security behavior and listed the various options available to change that behavior.  One of the key topics to understand is the difference between directly using database user and password values versus mapping from WLS user and password to the associated database values.   The direct use of database credentials is relatively new to WLS, based on customer feedback.  Some of the trade-offs are covered in this article. Credential Mapping vs. Database Credentials Each WLS data source has a credential map that is a mechanism used to map a key, in this case a WLS user, to security credentials (user and password).  By default, when a user and password are specified when getting a connection, they are treated as credentials for a WLS user, validated, and are converted to a database user and password using a credential map associated with the data source.  If a matching entry is not found in the credential map for the data source, then the user and password associated with the data source definition are used.  Because of this defaulting mechanism, you should be careful what permissions are granted to the default user.  Alternatively, you can define an invalid default user to ensure that no one can accidentally get through (in this case, you would need to set the initial capacity for the pool to zero so that the pool is populated only by valid users). To create an entry in the credential map: 1) First create a WLS user.  In the administration console, go to Security realms, select your realm (e.g., myrealm), select Users, and select New.  2) Second, create the mapping.  In the administration console, go to Services, select Data sources, select your data source name, select Security, select Credentials, and select New.  See http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24329_01/apirefs.1211/e24401/taskhelp/jdbc/jdbc_datasources/ConfigureCredentialMappingForADataSource.html for more information. The advantages of using the credential mapping are that: 1) You don’t hard-code the database user/password into a program or need to prompt for it in addition to the WLS user/password and 2) It provides a layer of abstraction between WLS security and database settings such that many WLS identities can be mapped to a smaller set of DB identities, thereby only requiring middle-tier configuration updates when WLS users are added/removed. You can cut down the number of users that have access to a data source to reduce the user maintenance overhead.  For example, suppose that a servlet has the one pre-defined, special WLS user/password for data source access, hard-wired in its code in a getConnection(user, password) call.  Every WebLogic user can reap the specific DBMS access coded into the servlet, but none has to have general access to the data source.  For instance, there may be a ‘Sales’ DBMS which needs to be protected from unauthorized eyes, but it contains some day-to-day data that everyone needs. The Sales data source is configured with restricted access and a servlet is built that hard-wires the specific data source access credentials in its connection request.  It uses that connection to deliver only the generally needed day-to-day information to any caller. The servlet cannot reveal any other data, and no WebLogic user can get any other access to the data source.  This is the approach that many large applications take and is the reasoning behind the default mapping behavior in WLS. The disadvantages of using the credential map are that: 1) It is difficult to manage (create, update, delete) with a large number of users; it is possible to use WLST scripts or a custom JMX client utility to manage credential map entries. 2) You can’t share a credential map between data sources so they must be duplicated. Some applications prefer not to use the credential map.  Instead, the credentials passed to getConnection(user, password) should be treated as database credentials and used to authenticate with the database for the connection, avoiding going through the credential map.  This is enabled by setting the “use-database-credentials” to true.  See http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24329_01/apirefs.1211/e24401/taskhelp/jdbc/jdbc_datasources/ConfigureOracleParameters.html "Configure Oracle parameters" in Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console Help. Use Database Credentials is not currently supported for Multi Data Source configurations.  When enabled, it turns off credential mapping on Generic and Active GridLink data sources for the following attributes: 1. identity-based-connection-pooling-enabled (this interaction is available by patch in 10.3.6.0). 2. oracle-proxy-session (this interaction is first available in 10.3.6.0). 3. set client identifier (this interaction is available by patch in 10.3.6.0).  Note that in the data source schema, the set client identifier feature is poorly named “credential-mapping-enabled”.  The documentation and the console refer to it as Set Client Identifier. To review the behavior of credential mapping and using database credentials: - If using the credential map, there needs to be a mapping for each WLS user to database user for those users that will have access to the database; otherwise the default user for the data source will be used.  If you always specify a user/password when getting a connection, you only need credential map entries for those specific users. - If using database credentials without specifying a user/password, the default user and password in the data source descriptor are always used.  If you specify a user/password when getting a connection, that user will be used for the credentials.  WLS users are not involved at all in the data source connection process.

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• Data Source Security Part 4

  - by Steve Felts

  So far, I have covered Client Identity and Oracle Proxy Session features, with WLS or database credentials.  This article will cover one more feature, Identify-based pooling.  Then, there is one more topic to cover - how these options play with transactions.Identity-based Connection Pooling An identity based pool creates a heterogeneous pool of connections.  This allows applications to use a JDBC connection with a specific DBMS credential by pooling physical connections with different DBMS credentials.  The DBMS credential is based on either the WebLogic user mapped to a database user or the database user directly, based on the “use database credentials” setting as described earlier. Using this feature enabled with “use database credentials” enabled seems to be what is proposed in the JDBC standard, basically a heterogeneous pool with users specified by getConnection(user, password). The allocation of connections is more complex if Enable Identity Based Connection Pooling attribute is enabled on the data source.  When an application requests a database connection, the WebLogic Server instance selects an existing physical connection or creates a new physical connection with requested DBMS identity. The following section provides information on how heterogeneous connections are created:1. At connection pool initialization, the physical JDBC connections based on the configured or default “initial capacity” are created with the configured default DBMS credential of the data source.2. An application tries to get a connection from a data source.3a. If “use database credentials” is not enabled, the user specified in getConnection is mapped to a DBMS credential, as described earlier.  If the credential map doesn’t have a matching user, the default DBMS credential is used from the datasource descriptor.3b. If “use database credentials” is enabled, the user and password specified in getConnection are used directly.4. The connection pool is searched for a connection with a matching DBMS credential.5. If a match is found, the connection is reserved and returned to the application.6. If no match is found, a connection is created or reused based on the maximum capacity of the pool: - If the maximum capacity has not been reached, a new connection is created with the DBMS credential, reserved, and returned to the application.- If the pool has reached maximum capacity, based on the least recently used (LRU) algorithm, a physical connection is selected from the pool and destroyed. A new connection is created with the DBMS credential, reserved, and returned to the application. It should be clear that finding a matching connection is more expensive than a homogeneous pool.  Destroying a connection and getting a new one is very expensive.  If you can use a normal homogeneous pool or one of the light-weight options (client identity or an Oracle proxy connection), those should be used instead of identity based pooling. Regardless of how physical connections are created, each physical connection in the pool has its own DBMS credential information maintained by the pool. Once a physical connection is reserved by the pool, it does not change its DBMS credential even if the current thread changes its WebLogic user credential and continues to use the same connection. To configure this feature, select Enable Identity Based Connection Pooling.  See http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E24329_01/apirefs.1211/e24401/taskhelp/jdbc/jdbc_datasources/EnableIdentityBasedConnectionPooling.html  "Enable identity-based connection pooling for a JDBC data source" in Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console Help. You must make the following changes to use Logging Last Resource (LLR) transaction optimization with Identity-based Pooling to get around the problem that multiple users will be accessing the associated transaction table.- You must configure a custom schema for LLR using a fully qualified LLR table name. All LLR connections will then use the named schema rather than the default schema when accessing the LLR transaction table.  - Use database specific administration tools to grant permission to access the named LLR table to all users that could access this table via a global transaction. By default, the LLR table is created during boot by the user configured for the connection in the data source. In most cases, the database will only allow access to this user and not allow access to mapped users. Connections within Transactions Now that we have covered the behavior of all of these various options, it’s time to discuss the exception to all of the rules.  When you get a connection within a transaction, it is associated with the transaction context on a particular WLS instance. When getting a connection with a data source configured with non-XA LLR or 1PC (using the JTS driver) with global transactions, the first connection obtained within the transaction is returned on subsequent connection requests regardless of the values of username/password specified and independent of the associated proxy user session, if any. The connection must be shared among all users of the connection when using LLR or 1PC. For XA data sources, the first connection obtained within the global transaction is returned on subsequent connection requests within the application server, regardless of the values of username/password specified and independent of the associated proxy user session, if any.  The connection must be shared among all users of the connection within a global transaction within the application server/JVM.

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• ucommerce: how to change category template

  - by autonomatt

  Using uCommerce 2, umbraco 4.7. I have a category side nav showing the categories using: <a> <xsl:attribute name="href"> <xsl:value-of select="CommerceLibrary:GetNiceUrlForCategory($catalogueName, @id)"/> </xsl:attribute> <xsl:value-of select="@displayName"/> </a> First of all, when hovering over the links it still shows an old catalogue name, even though I've renamed the catalogue and also hardcoded the catalogue name into: <xsl:variable name="catalogueName" select="'MyCatalogue'"/> When I click on the link generated by GetNiceUrlForCategory I get the standard template that comes with uCommerce started site. I've tried deleting the whole started site, but I just can't get it to link to a template I did for the category. I still don't quite understand how ucommerce knows which template to use for a category link. Soren? :) Cheers, Matt

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• WebLogic How-to Videos: Install, Upgrade, & Patch

  - by Ruma Sanyal

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Here is another great YouTube video by our product manager Monica Riccelli. She talks about installers now being standardized in Oracle for greater consistency -- no more WebLogic native installers. Also, JDK is no longer a part of the WebLogic install. The various installers she discusses include OUI, ZIP, OEPE, Coherence and more. Monica then takes us through a step by step install process. After the install process is complete the video takes us through the configuration wizard. The ZIP installer is then discussed and its effectiveness, such as it being the smallest downloadable option, easy, and very popular with our customers and limitations (such as for development only and not to be used in production) highlighted. Monica then takes us through the configuration wizard, its usage, and when to use WLST scripts. The video then discusses NodeManager and its usage and discusses how to reconfigure a WebLogic domain on upgrade – through our GUI tools or through command line interface. Lastly, it highlights Opatch – a patch application tool used by our customers and standardized across all Oracle products. Really detailed video. Check it out!  /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• solve TOR edge node problem by using .onion proxy?

  - by rd.

  I would like to improve the TOR network, where the exit nodes are a vulnerability to concealing traffic. From my understanding, traffic to .onion sites are not decrypted by exit nodes, so therefore - in theory - a .onion site web proxy could be used to further anonymize traffic. Yes/no? perhaps you have insight into the coding and routing behind these concepts to elaborate on why this is a good/not good idea.

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• Emulating old-school sprite flickering (theory and concept)

  - by Jeffrey Kern

  I'm trying to develop an oldschool NES-style video game, with sprite flickering and graphical slowdown. I've been thinking of what type of logic I should use to enable such effects. I have to consider the following restrictions if I want to go old-school NES style: No more than 64 sprites on the screen at a time No more than 8 sprites per scanline, or for each line on the Y axis If there is too much action going on the screen, the system freezes the image for a frame to let the processor catch up with the action From what I've read up, if there were more than 64 sprites on the screen, the developer would only draw high-priority sprites while ignoring low-priority ones. They could also alternate, drawing each even numbered sprite on opposite frames from odd numbered ones. The scanline issue is interesting. From my testing, it is impossible to get good speed on the XBOX 360 XNA framework by drawing sprites pixel-by-pixel, like the NES did. This is why in old-school games, if there were too many sprites on a single line, some would appear if they were cut in half. For all purposes for this project, I'm making scanlines be 8 pixels tall, and grouping the sprites together per scanline by their Y positioning. So, dumbed down I need to come up with a solution that.... 64 sprites on screen at once 8 sprites per 'scanline' Can draw sprites based on priority Can alternate between sprites per frame Emulate slowdown Here is my current theory First and foremost, a fundamental idea I came up with is addressing sprite priority. Assuming values between 0-255 (0 being low), I can assign sprites priority levels, for instance: 0 to 63 being low 63 to 127 being medium 128 to 191 being high 192 to 255 being maximum Within my data files, I can assign each sprite to be a certain priority. When the parent object is created, the sprite would randomly get assigned a number between its designated range. I would then draw sprites in order from high to low, with the end goal of drawing every sprite. Now, when a sprite gets drawn in a frame, I would then randomly generate it a new priority value within its initial priority level. However, if a sprite doesn't get drawn in a frame, I could add 32 to its current priority. For example, if the system can only draw sprites down to a priority level of 135, a sprite with an initial priority of 45 could then be drawn after 3 frames of not being drawn (45+32+32+32=141) This would, in theory, allow sprites to alternate frames, allow priority levels, and limit sprites to 64 per screen. Now, the interesting question is how do I limit sprites to only 8 per scanline? I'm thinking that if I'm sorting the sprites high-priority to low-priority, iterate through the loop until I've hit 64 sprites drawn. However, I shouldn't just take the first 64 sprites in the list. Before drawing each sprite, I could check to see how many sprites were drawn in it's respective scanline via counter variables . For example: Y-values between 0 to 7 belong to Scanline 0, scanlineCount[0] = 0 Y-values between 8 to 15 belong to Scanline 1, scanlineCount[1] = 0 etc. I could reset the values per scanline for every frame drawn. While going down the sprite list, add 1 to the scanline's respective counter if a sprite gets drawn in that scanline. If it equals 8, don't draw that sprite and go to the sprite with the next lowest priority. SLOWDOWN The last thing I need to do is emulate slowdown. My initial idea was that if I'm drawing 64 sprites per frame and there's still more sprites that need to be drawn, I could pause the rendering by 16ms or so. However, in the NES games I've played, sometimes there's slowdown if there's not any sprite flickering going on whereas the game moves beautifully even if there is some sprite flickering. Perhaps give a value to each object that uses sprites on the screen (like the priority values above), and if the combined values of all objects w/ sprites surpass a threshold, introduce the sprite flickering? IN CONCLUSION... Does everything I wrote actually sound legitimate and could work, or is it a pipe dream? What improvements can you all possibly think with this game programming theory of mine?

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• ICMP Redirect Theory VS. Application

  - by joeqwerty

  I'm trying to watch ICMP redirects in a lab using Cisco Packet Tracer (version 5.3.2) and I'm not seeing them, which leads me to believe that either my lab configuration isn't correct or my understanding of ICMP redirects isn't correct or that Packet Tracer doesn't support/use ICMP redirects. Here's what I believe to be true regarding ICMP redirects: Routers send ICMP redirects when all of these conditions are met: The interface on which the packet comes into the router is the same interface on which the packet gets routed out. The subnet or network of the source IP address is on the same subnet or network of the next-hop IP address of the routed packet. The datagram is not source-routed. The router kernel is configured to send redirects. I have the lab set up in Cisco Packet Tracer as displayed in the image and would expect to see an ICMP redirect from Router1 when pinging from PC1 to PC3. I'm not seeing the ICMP redirect and it looks like Router1 is actually routing all of the packets via Router2. I have IP ICMP debugging enabled on Router1 (and Router2) and I'm not seeing any ICMP redirect activity in either console. I'm also not seeing a route to the PC3 network in the routing table on PC1, which I think confirms that the ICMP redirect is not occurring. I'm using only static routing on Routers 1 and 2. Is my understanding of ICMP redirects incorrect, or is there a problem with my lab configuration or does Packet Tracer not support/use ICMP redirects?

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• How to collect Security Event Logs for a single category via Powershell

  - by Darktux

  I am trying to write a script which collects security log from all of our domain controllers hourly and stores them remotely; i can collect the security logs , but is there a way to collect the security logs by category or event number from the DC? please do let me know if any additional questions. My Code: $Eventlogs = Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_NTEventLogFile -ComputerName $computer Foreach($log in $EventLogs) { if($Log.LogFileName -eq "Security") { $Now = [DateTime]::Now $FileName = "Security" +"_"+$Now.Month+$Now.Day+$Now.Year+"_"+$Now.Hour+$Now.Minute+$Now.Second $path = "\\{0}\c$\LogFolder\$folder\$FileName.evt" -f $Computer $ErrBackup = ($log.BackupEventLog($path)).ReturnValue if($clear) { if($ErrBackup -ne 0) { "Backup failed" "Backup Error was " + $ErrBackup } } } } Copy-EventLogsToArchive -path $path -Folder $Folder }

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• Magento: Display sub-category list

  - by Neil Bradley

  Hi there, I'm building a Magento store and want to be able to display a list of categories and have each category link to its own page. I have a 'Brands' category with an ID of 42 and I want to display a list of the sub-categories and ensure that each one links to the designated URL key in the CMS. Has anyone had experience of doing this with Magento? Thank you.

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