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Setting up A Oracle Database

About Oracle

Oracle is a commercial database available from http://www.oracle.com

Obtaining the Driver

A Oracle JDBC driver is also available through http://www.oracle.com. Versions for Oracle 8i and Oracle 9i are available. The driver downloads as a single "zip" file (for example, classes12.zip). The file should be stored in a directory where it will be accessible from the uPortal build environment (for example /usr/local/java/oracle/lib/classes12.zip)

See Issues section about possible issues using this driver.

Properties Configuration

The uPortal build.properties will need to be modifed. Find the property called jdbcDriver and change it to point to the Oracle zip/jar file, for example:

jdbcDriver.jar=/usr/local/java/lib/classes12.zip

The uPortal rdbm.properties file (in the properties directory) will need to modified to specify the driver properties. First, comment out the property definitions which are currently defined (most likely, for HypersonicSQL). The rdbm.properties file contains several sample entries. Uncomment the lines for the Oracle database and make whatever changes necessary to match your local database installation, For example:

##### Oracle - example
jdbcDriver=oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver
jdbcUrl=jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:uportal
jdbcUser=test
jdbcPassword=mypass

The dbloader.xml properties file (also in the properties directory) may also need to be modified. This file is used by the DbLoader tool to create the uPortal database tables and populate the database. It contains several sample entries which create db-type-mappings for different databases. Find the tags for an Oracle database and modify the db-version, driver-name, and driver-version as necessary. For example:

<db-type-mapping>
  <db-name>Oracle</db-name>
  <!-- Line break has to be here -->
  <db-version>Oracle8 Enterprise Edition Release 8.0.6.2.0 - Production
  PL/SQL Release 8.0.6.2.0 - Production</db-version>
  <driver-name>Oracle JDBC driver</driver-name>
  <driver-version>8.1.6.0.0</driver-version>
  <type><generic>TIMESTAMP</generic><local>DATE</local></type>
  <!-- map more types here -->
</db-type-mapping>

The PersonDirs.xml file (also in the properties directory) may need to be modified; This file is used if the database is to be used to provide user directory information.

<!-- JDBC Properties -->
<driver>oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver</driver>
<url>jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1521:uportal</url>
<logonid>test</logonid>
<logonpassword>mypass</logonpassword>,
<uidquery>SELECT FIRST_NAME||' '||LAST_NAME AS FIRST_LAST,
FIRST_NAME, LAST_NAME, EMAIL FROM UP_PERSON_DIR WHERE USER_NAME=?></uidquery>

Loading the Database

Loading the database requires a couple of steps

• Create the database: Refer to the Oracle database documentation for instructions regarding how to create an Oracle database instances. The database name (or in this case, the Oracle SID), port number, and driver information must reflect what was defined in the rdbm.properties file
• Create the tables and populate the database: From the uPortal build directory, run "ant db" to execute the ant target which loads the database. The ant target uses the Dbloader tool.

Issues and Known Bugs

Some people have encountered problems with the Oracle JDBC driver with certain web application environments if the classes zip file is used as-is with the .zip file extension. Simply renaming the file to a .jar file seems to fix the problem. Alternatively, unzipping the classes file into a directory structure, then using the jar command to repackage the classes into a jar file works as well.