Oracle Application Server 10g

Forms and Reports Services Release Notes 10g (9.0.4) for AIX-Based Systems and hp Tru64 UNIX
Part No. B13667-02 April 2004

Welcome to Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Forms and Reports Services. This document contains information that is specific for installing, configuring, and using Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Forms and Reports Services:

Documentation Accessibility About This Installation Type Available Features with this Installation Type Before You Start Installing Software Other Sources of Information General Issues Oracle Application Server Forms Services Release Notes Oracle Application Server Reports Services Release Notes Upgrade Issues

1 Documentation Accessibility
Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at
http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may

not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.
Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does

Copyright 2004 Oracle. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

2 About This Installation Type

Oracle Application Server Forms and Reports Services allows you to install and configure Forms and Reports Services without having to install and configure all of Oracle Application Server 10g. This type of installation is suited best for users who want to upgrade Forms applications to the Grid environment in two phases. In phase one, they move to the Grid environment by upgrading their client server based Forms applications to Web-based ones. In phase two, users can then choose to use the services offered by an existing Oracle Application Server Infrastructure installation.

2.1 Restrictions with this Installation Type

Oracle Application Server Forms and Reports Services provides no Infrastructure service, such as Single Sign-On or Identity Management integration. However, Infrastructure services are available with the Business Intelligence and Forms Installation type. Furthermore, it is not possible to associate or link this installation with an Infrastructure at a later point in time. If you want to take advantage of Infrastructure features, you will need to install an instance of Oracle Application Server with Business Intelligence and Forms, and move your applications to this new installation.

3 Available Features with this Installation Type

When you install Oracle Application Server Forms and Reports Services, you will have access to the following features:

OracleAS Forms Services Oracle Application Server Reports Services Oracle HTTP Server Oracle Application Server Web Cache Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J) Oracle Enterprise Manager Oracle Process and Management Notification (OPMN) Distributed Configuration Management (DCM)

3.1 OracleAS Forms Services

Oracle Application Server Forms Services deploys Forms applications with database access to Java clients in a Web environment. Oracle Application Server Forms Services automatically optimizes class downloads, network traffic, and interactions with Oracle database. Applications are automatically load-balanced across multiple servers and, therefore, can easily scale to service any number of requests.

3.2 Oracle Application Server Reports Services

Oracle Application Server Reports Services provides an easy-to-use, scalable, and manageable solution for high-quality database publishing and reporting by creating dynamic reports for the Web and across the enterprise. It enables you to implement a multi-tiered architecture for running your reports.

3.3 Oracle HTTP Server

Oracle HTTP Server is the Web server that Oracle Application Server uses, which is built on Apache Web server technology. Oracle HTTP Server offers scalability, stability, speed, and extensibility. It also supports Java servlets, Java Server Pages (JSPs), Perl, PL/SQL, and CGI applications.

3.4 Oracle Application Server Web Cache

Oracle Application Server Web Cache is a server accelerator caching service that improves the performance, scalability, and availability of frequently used Oracle E-business Web sites that run on the Oracle platform. By storing frequently accessed URLs in virtual memory, Oracle Application Server Web Cache eliminates the need to repeatedly process requests for those URLs on the Web server, and it caches both static and dynamically-generated HTTP content from one or more applications Web servers.

3.5 Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J)

Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE is a complete set of J2EE containers written entirely in Java that execute on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) of the standard Java Development Kit (JDK).

3.6 Oracle Enterprise Manager

Oracle Enterprise Manager Application Server Control (hereafter referred to as Application Server Control) provides you with the management tools you need to monitor and administer Oracle Application Server instances. Application Server Control is installed with every instance of Oracle Application Server. Application Server Control provides Web-based management tools designed specifically for Oracle Application Server. Using Application Server Control, you can monitor and configure components of your application server. You can deploy applications, manage security, and create and manage Oracle Application Server clusters. Application Server Control consists of the following:

The Enterprise Manager Home pages you use to manage Oracle Application Server and its components: These Web pages provide you with a high-level view of your Oracle Application Server environment. From these pages you can drill down for more detailed information on administration, configuration, and performance monitoring. These pages allow you to administer the application server and its components and deployed applications. The underlying software technologies that keep track of your application server instances and components: These technologies automatically perform many management tasks. For example, they discover the components of each

application server instance, gather and process performance data, and provide access to application configuration information. Application Server Control is installed as part of the Oracle Application Server installation process.

3.7 Oracle Process and Management Notification (OPMN)

Oracle Process Manager and Notification Server (OPMN) provides process control and monitoring for application server instances and their components. It gathers component status information, and distributes the status information to components that are interested in it. The Application Server Control uses OPMN for such tasks as starting and stopping the components of your application server instance.

3.8 Distributed Configuration Management (DCM)

Distributed Configuration Management (DCM) manages configurations among application server instances that are associated with a common Metadata Repository. It enables Oracle Application Server cluster-wide deployment so you can deploy an application to one instance and have it automatically propagated to the entire cluster. You can also make a single host or instance configuration change to one instance and have it propagated across all instances in the cluster. Application Server Control uses DCM to make configuration changes and to propagate configuration changes and deployed applications across the cluster.

4 Before You Start Installing Software

Before starting the software installation, take the time to read the following documents:
1. 2.

Read this document first, which includes release notes for Oracle Application Server Forms and Reports Services. Read the Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Forms and Reports Services Installation Guide. This guide explains what you need to know and to do when installing this installation type.

3.

If you are upgrading from Oracle Forms 6i to Oracle Forms10g, read the white paper Forms 6i to Oracle9i Forms Upgrade Reference at http://otn.oracle.com/products/forms/pdf/forms_upgrade_ reference.pdf.

4.1 Java SDK and Motif Requirements

Java SDK 1.4.2-3 and a special version of Motif 2.1 are required for this release of Oracle Application Server 10g. This software is available for download from:
http://h18012.www1.hp.com/java/download/unix/1.4.2/index.html

Refer to the latest version of these Release Notes on http://otn.oracle.com/documentation for any updates to this URL

5 Other Sources of Information

The following sources provide additional information:

Online help, available in Oracle Forms Developer, Oracle Reports Developer, and Oracle Enterprise Manager Oracle Application Server Forms Services 10g Deployment Guide Oracle Forms Migration Guide Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web Oracle Application Server 10g Concepts Oracle Application Server 10g Administrators Guide Oracle Application Server 10g Release Notes Oracle Technology Network (http://otn.oracle.com/).

6 General Issues
This section contains information about general issues specific to this install type.

6.1 Prerequisite Check Blocks Reinstallation into the Same ORACLE_ HOME
Reinstalling Forms and Reports Services into the same ORACLE_HOME is currently blocked by Oracle Universal Installer (OUI). If you need to reinstall into the same Oracle Home because of a failed installation, you will need to deinstall the product first by clicking Deinstall Products... on the OUI Welcome Page. Select the check box that corresponds to the target ORACLE_HOME. Then click Remove and click Yes on the Confirmation Page. After deinstalling, proceed with the reinstallation. Select the same ORACLE_ HOME in the Specify File Locations Page. You may receive a warning that the target ORACLE_HOME is not registered in the central inventory. Click Yes and continue with the installation.

7 Oracle Application Server Forms Services Release Notes

This section contains:

General Issues and Workarounds Configuration Issues and Workarounds Oracle Application Server Forms Services Issues Oracle Application Server Forms Services Known Bugs Oracle Forms Services Documentation Errata

7.1 General Issues and Workarounds

This section contains information about general issues.

7.1.1 Migrating Applications

There is no need to recompile your 9.0.2 Oracle Forms applications when migrating to Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services install type.

7.1.2 Oracle Enterprise Manager Reporting Zero Shared Memory Usage on Tru64 UNIX
On the Forms User Sessions Page of Oracle Enterprise Manager, the shared memory usage is displayed as zero. That is, the output of the nmb utility is displayed as fo ex. 0.0000. This value is incorrect, however the total memory usage is reported by the private memory figure. That is, the figure displayed as private memory usage is the sum of the private memory usage and the shared memory usage.

7.1.3 OC4J Forms Instance Failure on Tru64 UNIX

A OC4J Forms instance will fail if the osagent process is not running on the same subnet. One workaround is to disable the pingserver command in the opmn.xml file. For more information on this and other workarounds, refer to bug 3557723.

7.2 Configuration Issues and Workarounds

For more information, see Chapter 7 of Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Release Notes.

7.3 Oracle Application Server Forms Services Issues

The following sections contain information about Forms Services issues that are specific to this install type:

7.3.1 Disable Single Sign-On Before Migrating from Forms Services 9.0.2
If you migrated from 9.0.2 with Single Sign-On (SSO) to Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services, make sure that the parameter ssoMode in the formsweb.cfg file is set to false in order to run your application with this install type.

7.4 Oracle Application Server Forms Services Known Bugs

For more information, see Chapter 7 of Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Release Notes.

7.5 Oracle Forms Services Documentation Errata

For more information, see Chapter 7 of Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Release Notes.

8 Oracle Application Server Reports Services Release Notes

This section contains the following topics:

General Issues and Workarounds Configuration Issues and Workarounds

Oracle Application Server Reports Services Known Bugs Oracle Reports Services Documentation Errata

8.1 General Issues and Workarounds

This section contains information about general issues and workarounds for Reports Services in this install type.

8.1.1 Configuring the In-Process Reports Server with OPMN on Tru64 UNIX
To ensure that the in-process Reports Server can be automatically managed by OPMN, perform the following post-installation steps:
1.

Start up a Visibroker Smart Agent (osagent) on your subnet. Visibroker is not available for Tru64 UNIX. The osagent executable can be found in any Oracle10g, Oracle9i Release 2 Application Server or Developer Suite installation.
Note: Running osagent for Oracle Reports Services does not require a powerful computer.

2.

Modify the opmn.xml file to automatically start up the in-process Reports Server. Make sure that there is a pingserver entry in the OC4J_BI_Forms section of the opmn.xml file and that the start parameter is set to auto. For example:
<category id="urlping-parameters"> <data id="/reports/rwservlet/pingserver?start=auto" value="200"/> </category>

Note:

A Visibroker Smart Agent (osagent) must exist and be running if the in-process Reports Serveris set to automatically start up using OPMN. If an osagent is not found, the in-process Reports Server is not started, and the OC4J_BI_Forms instance goes into a continuous restart loop. This affects other components that use OC4J_BI_Forms, such as Forms or Oracle Application Server Personalization. If this scenario occurs or, if the OC4J_BI_Forms instance becomes unstable because of the In-Process Reports Server, remove the pingserver entry from the opmn.xml file. For example, remove the following section from the opmn.xml file if it exists:

<category id="urlping-parameters"> <data id="/reports/rwservlet/pingserver?start=auto" value="200"/> </category>

This prevents the OC4J_BI_Forms instance from going into a continuous restart loop. For more information about configuring reports server with OPMN, please see the Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web 10g (9.0.4) guide.

8.1.2 Oracle Reports Integration

Oracle Reports integration features such as Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On, Oracle Internet Directory, OracleAS Portal, OracleAS Discoverer, Oracle Express Server, Oracle Workflow, and Oracle Wireless will not work with this release of Oracle Application Server Forms and Reports Services.

8.1.3 Oracle9i JDeveloper Integration

The following sections contain information about Reports Services and Oracle9i JDeveloper integration in this install type. 8.1.3.1 Deadlock when debugging JSP Reports in Oracle9i JDeveloper When debugging an OracleAS Reports Services JSP in JDeveloper, you must disable any breakpoints that are not of source type. If you do not disable these breakpoints, a deadlock is detected. You can disable breakpoints that are not of source type in the Breakpoints window. 8.1.3.2 Graphs not appearing in Oracle9i JDeveloper When running a JSP report with the rw:graph tag in JDeveloper, the image is not visible in the browser. To fix this problem, set the IMAGEURL in the rwservlet.properties file in ORACLE_HOME/reports/conf: IMAGEURL=http://host:port/Workspace-Project-context-root/ser vlet/oracle.reports.rwclient.RWClient

8.1.4 Reports Server Security

By default, Oracle Reports Services is non-secure in this install type.

8.1.5 Java Debug Messages While Running Reports on Tru64 UNIX

The following debug message may be displayed while running some Reports programs, such as rwconverter or rwrun:
exit set--- address

The address is a random memory address, for example 203bded0. You can safely ignore these messages, they are caused by a known bug in Java 1.4.2.

8.2 Configuration Issues and Workarounds

For more information, see the appropriate chapter of Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Release Notes.

8.2.1 Manually Including Display Value for Reports Servers Added Using addNewServerTarget.sh Script on AIX
If you use the addNewServerTarget.sh script to add a Reports server to the opmn.xml file for Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Business Intelligence and Forms and Oracle Application Server (9.0.4) Forms and Reports Standalone installations, you need to manually add the DISPLAY value for that Reports server on AIX. If you do not, you receive an error similar to the following when you try to run a report using that Reports server:
REP-3000: Internal error starting Oracle Toolkit.

To manually add the DISPLAY value:

1. 2. 3.

Change directory to $ORACLE_HOME/opmn/conf. Back up the opmn.xml file. Add a new line of type <variable id="DISPLAY" in the opmn.xml file configuration section for the new Reports server. Use the following example as a guide, where reportserver_name is the name of the Reports server, and display_value is that value of the DISPLAY:
<process-type id="ReportsServer" module-id="ReportsServices"> <process-set id="reportserver_name" restart-on-death="true" numprocs="1"> <environment> <variable id="DISPLAY" value="display_value"/> <variable id="PATH" value="/project1/AS10g/FR_STANDALONE_M23_ MAR08/ohome/bin:/usr/bin:/etc:/usr/sbin:/usr/ucb:/usr/bin/X11:/sbin:/usr/ java130/jre/bin:/usr/java130/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"/>

4.

Reload the opmn.xml file, as follows:

$ $ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl reload

5.

Stop and then restart the Reports server:

$ $ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl stopproc ias-component=reportserver_name $ $ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startproc ias-component=reportserver_name

6.

Verify that you can run a test report. For example:

http://mydomain.com:7782/reports/rwservlet?destype=cache&desformat=html&s erver=reportserver_name&report=test.rdf&userid=scott/tiger@twotask

8.2.2 Modify reports.sh on AIX After Upgrading from Release 2 (9.0.2)

If you upgrade a 9.0.2 middle tier (Business Intelligence or Unified Messaging) to Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services 10g (9.0.4), complete the following steps before running any of the Reports executables on AIX:
1.

Add the following lines to the reports.sh file:

TK90_ICON=$ORACLE_HOME/reports/plugins/resource; export TK90_ICON REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY=NO; export REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY LDR_CNTRL=MAXDATA=0x80000000; export LDR_CNTRL

2.

Remove the following line from the reports.sh file, if it exists:

export IBM_JAVA_OPTIONS="-Dcom.ibm.CORBA.POACompatibilityMode=true"

8.2.3 Modify targets.xml on AIX After Upgrading from Release 2 (9.0.2)

If you upgrade a 9.0.2 middle tier (Business Intelligence or Unified Messaging) to Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services 10g (9.0.4), complete this task so that any Report servers are monitored correctly in Oracle Enterprise Manager on AIX. The addNewServerTarget.sh script adds a section in the targets.xml file for each Reports server. This section might contain the wrong Apache port number for the Reports server's rwservlet URL. For example:

<Property NAME="Servlet" VALUE="http://machine_name:port_ number/reports/rwservlet"/>

Check that the value for port_number is correct for each Reports server. If neccessary, change the value to the Apache port of the 9.0.2 middle tier installation, because the 9.0.2 middle tier installation's ports are used after upgrading. If the targets.xml file contains the wrong URL for a Reports server, then if you access the Report server's page using Oracle Enterprise Manager, the report server status will be incorrect and some of the metrics and data will show up as Unavailable.

8.2.4 Modify reports.sh on Tru64 UNIX After Upgrading from Release 2 (9.0.2)
If you upgrade a 9.0.2 middle tier (Business Intelligence or Unified Messaging) to Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services 10g (9.0.4), complete the following steps before running any of the Reports executables:
1.

Find the following section in the $ORACLE_HOME/bin/reports.sh file:

## Compaq Tru64 settings (OSF1) elif [ `uname -s` = 'OSF1' ] then LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/jdk/jre/lib/alpha:$ORACLE_ HOME/jdk/jre/lib/alpha/cl assic:$ORACLE_HOME/jdk/jre/lib/alpha/native_threads:$ORACLE_ HOME/lib:${LD_LIBRAR Y_PATH}; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH ## Default settings

2.

Remove the section you found in step 1 and insert the following section in its place:
## Compaq Tru64 settings (OSF1) elif [ `uname -s` = 'OSF1' ] then LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/jdk/jre/lib/alpha:$ORACLE_ HOME/jdk/jre/lib/alpha/fast:$ORACLE_HOME/jdk/jre/lib/alpha/native_ threads:$ORACLE_HOME/lib:${LD_LIBRAR Y_PATH}; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH #Adding command uac p noprint avoid unalligned messages /bin/uac p noprint #Set the following variable to use Motif 2.1 with JDK 142. _JAVA_AWT_USE_MOTIF_2_1=1; export _JAVA_AWT_USE_MOTIF_2_1 ## Default settings

8.3 Oracle Application Server Reports Services Known Bugs

For more information, see the Oracle Reports chapter of the Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Release Notes.

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8.4 Oracle Reports Services Documentation Errata

For more information, see the Oracle Reports chapter of the Oracle Application Server 10g (9.0.4) Release Notes.

9 Upgrade Issues
This section contains the following topic:

JDK Requirement for Upgrading

9.1 JDK Requirement for Upgrading

Upgrading from a Release 2 (9.0.2.0.1) Business Intelligence and Forms installation to Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services 10g (9.0.4) is described in the Forms and Reports Services Upgrade Guide. Before performing an upgrade, make sure that JDK 1.3.1 SR6 is installed on the system.

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