Example of random conversations I get dragged into

Journal stephenbooth's Journal: Example of random conversations I get dragged into 2

Journal by stephenbooth on Monday April 26, 2004 @05:00PM

As an Oracle DBA I quite often get Yahoo! Messenger windows popping up with people asking me Oracle related questions. In as much as I can, and if I have time, I try to answer them. Below is a transcript of such a conversation, it occured last night (25th April 2004) and began with the question "Can I ask you a question about Net8?" (which for some reason wasn't logged). I'm a bit rude about FreeBSD and RedHat, but that's out of experience not blind malice.

stephenbooth_uk (21:38:58): I might not know the answer. networking isn't my area.
bsaremi (21:39:49): ok ... well , when I have installed successfully oracle 8i on RH9 . svrmgrl connects. But when I use netca to configure a listener it creates one with success , but says that the listener could not start and that it maight already be started . after that , when I try to stop and start the listener again I get tns errors stating no listener ,Protocol error in address part .. etc ... I am not at the server right now ... and I dont understand anything about the listener.ora , sqlnet.ora and the tnsnames.ora files . But I assume that when netca creates a Listener , all the files should be modified by netca accordingly ... but lsnrctl does not find the listener ... can you give me a hint ?
stephenbooth_uk (21:43:30): I've had a similar problem on Windows 2000. Turned out that the environment variables weren't getting propergated properly. Make sure that ORACLE_HOME &c are correctly set in the terminal session you're using (use oraenv). If that's Ok run netca again and make sure that it finds the listener you've already got setup. Try removing and recreating the listener.
stephenbooth_uk (21:43:44): That's all i can think of.
stephenbooth_uk (21:43:59): Although....
stephenbooth_uk (21:44:25): When you say you're using RH9, do you mean the freely downloadable version or the retail version?
stephenbooth_uk (21:44:37): Cos Oracle isn't certified with eirther of those.
stephenbooth_uk (21:45:11): You need the enterprise product. I think it's called Advanced Server.
stephenbooth_uk (21:46:19): Oracle will usually install on the free download version or the retail version but usually has unpredicatable problems.
bsaremi (21:49:12): its the free one
stephenbooth_uk (21:49:40): That could be your problem.
bsaremi (21:49:49): when I cd to $oracle_home it takes me to the right path
stephenbooth_uk (21:51:25): ORACLE IS NOT CERTIFIED WITH THE FREE VERSION OF REDHAT LINUX. IT WILL USUALLY INSTALL BUT WILL ALSO USUALLY HAVE UNPREDICTABLE PROBLEMS.
bsaremi (21:52:50): is there a way i can see from the terminal window if this redhat is realy the free version or not ?
stephenbooth_uk (21:52:51): The free (and retail) versions of RH often have experiemental (alpha) versions of libraries in. They're not reliable and often break enterprise products such as Oracle which rely on working versions of those libraries.
stephenbooth_uk (21:53:41): Did you pay 900 pounds or equivalent in local currency for it. cos that's how much the enterprise product costs.
stephenbooth_uk (21:54:36): The only way I know to check is to log out and on the splash screen it should tell you. It might tell you in the 'Control Panel' app (can't remember what it's called).
stephenbooth_uk (21:54:57): To be honest RH is so poor quality that I haven't used it in quite a while.
bsaremi (21:55:06): no but i live in a country in which no copyrigh exists ... imagine the rest
stephenbooth_uk (21:55:21): Copyright exists in all countries.
bsaremi (21:55:27): which free linux do u suggest?
bsaremi (21:55:32): not in Iran
stephenbooth_uk (21:57:08): I don't. If you want to run Oracle on Linux you've got a choice of RH AS or SuSE ES. It won't run on other versions due to library incompatibility problems.
stephenbooth_uk (21:58:19): Also 1) Copyright exists everwhere, even Iran, as it is part of UN backed internetional treaties. 2) breach of copyright is a breach of Sharia (Islamic) law.
stephenbooth_uk (21:59:30): I believe Iran is still an Islamic republic?
bsaremi (22:03:24): I respect it . its fair for programmers to get paid for their lost eyesight .. but the country did not join the international copyright treaty . It has an internal copyright . So iranian products are protected in Iran . But no international one .. They have to join the treaty soon , when they enter the wto so they try to let go of microsoft and use more open source ..
bsaremi (22:03:51): nothing to do with religion .. just simple economics ..
bsaremi (22:04:41): another question ...
bsaremi (22:04:48): ?
stephenbooth_uk (22:05:23): Sorry, but to run oracle on Linux reliably you need SuSE Enterprise Server. RedHat is seriously in danger of dying and their product just isn't up to standard.
stephenbooth_uk (22:05:31): Yeh?
bsaremi (22:06:23): have you experienced with connecting visual studio clients via server extentions to IIS 5 ?
bsaremi (22:06:36): vs .net
stephenbooth_uk (22:06:41): Nope, nevert done it or wanted to.
bsaremi (22:06:57): ok .. Is SuSE ES free ?..
stephenbooth_uk (22:07:21): I'd advise you to go the .net route as then you can port to Mono (the open source .net framework replacement).
stephenbooth_uk (22:07:38): SuSE ES isn't free, it's about 700 pounds.
stephenbooth_uk (22:08:39): It's a datacentre product, like Solaris, HPUX, Windows 2000 Data Centre Edition, AIX, OS390 &c
bsaremi (22:09:28): is there a free software for hosting asp on linux ?
bsaremi (22:09:43): I dont mean aspx
stephenbooth_uk (22:09:50): Basically, if you're paying for oracle then the cost of SuSE ES will be a drop int he ocean.
stephenbooth_uk (22:10:11): Not that I'm aware of, but i don't know much about asp.
stephenbooth_uk (22:10:33): I thought asp was a Microsoft only service.
bsaremi (22:11:14): yes but there are some apache modules for sale ...
bsaremi (22:11:48): like the one from chillisoft
stephenbooth_uk (22:12:03): Not really my area I'm afraid.
bsaremi (22:12:20): I should have not problem with UNIX and ORACLE . IS that right ?.
stephenbooth_uk (22:13:00): I take it by UNIX you meana big box system like Solaris, probably not.
bsaremi (22:13:54): i have had only linux experience , so this question is realy a newbie one ..
stephenbooth_uk (22:14:14): You shouldn't have problems but then you shouldn't have problems with something like SuSE ES.
bsaremi (22:14:18): is Unix installable on standard PC``s ?
stephenbooth_uk (22:15:16): Some are. Linux is a flavour of UNIX. Solaris do a x86 version (about 90 pounds I believe) and there used to be a version of Oracle for it (may still be) but that's more aimed as a desktop OS.
stephenbooth_uk (22:15:40): I don't know about tohter flavours of UNIX.
bsaremi (22:17:17): oracle is not supported on fedora too ?
stephenbooth_uk (22:17:38): Fedora is the free version of Redhat renamed.
stephenbooth_uk (22:18:32): After Redhat 10 the name RedHat means the charged for product line, Fedora is the free, unstable, unsupported product line.
bsaremi (22:19:16): is solaris much different than redhat ?
stephenbooth_uk (22:21:16): It's another form of UNIX so the basic commands are much the same. It uses CDE or OpenWindows as it's window manager rather than KDE/Gnome/whatever you use on Linux (although I believe there is a version of Gnome for Solaris). The management tools are a bit different.
bsaremi (22:21:56): more stable?
stephenbooth_uk (22:22:26): Yeah. It's a paid for product that comes with some support.
stephenbooth_uk (22:23:30): If you're looking to run servers on Intel then you should really look at SuSE ES Linux.
stephenbooth_uk (22:23:44): It's got a much wider variety of products availbale for it.
bsaremi (22:25:11): ok ... i heared people saying that open BSD is the most secure Linux ... but you do not recomend it for servers like oracle server .. right ?
stephenbooth_uk (22:27:40): There isn't a version of Oracle for Open BSD. Open BSD is more secure 'out of the box' than most Linux installs because it installs with all the services turned off. However SuSE and the like are now swinging that way so the install only turns ont he services you actually need. It's not that the OS itself is more secure (if anything it's less) it's the way it's installed.
bsaremi (22:31:17): the oracle version I installed on rh 9 was 8.1.0.6 . I installed it on two different servers . on one netca fails . on another one it works ( both hang often when the wizzard comes up) . Question : Can I install the same version of Oracle on SUSE SE?
stephenbooth_uk (22:31:44): yes.
stephenbooth_uk (22:32:17): I'd reccomend you download 8.1.7 or 9.2 if you can tho'
stephenbooth_uk (22:32:50): SuSE ES is just s differnt flavor of Linux. it's the same OS underneath.
bsaremi (22:34:06): question : you said, if you're paying for oracle then the cost of SuSE ES will be a drop int he ocean, I thought Oracle is downloadable for free ?
bsaremi (22:34:32): and only the support is not
stephenbooth_uk (22:34:45): No, you're supposed to pay for it.
stephenbooth_uk (22:35:14): You can download it and use it for free if you're just trying it out. If you're using it for commercial purposes then you have to pay for it.
bsaremi (22:37:41): ok... I thank you very much sir . It was a pleasure for me and I learned a lot ... unfortunatly I have to go now ... But I would be honoured if I could contact you after I get SUSE ES ( If I find one here ) ...
bsaremi (22:38:45): good bye...
stephenbooth_uk (22:38:51): Bye.

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