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Oracle Enterprise Manager Release Notes
Release 2 (9.0.2) for Windows NT/2000

Part Number A97635-01
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Oracle® Enterprise Manager

Release Notes

Release 2 (9.0.2) for Windows NT/2000

May 2002

Part No. A97635-01

This document summarizes the differences between Oracle Enterprise Manager and its documented functionality. Specifically, this document includes the release notes for the Enterprise Manager software components installed with the Oracle9iAS Infrastructure installation type.

See Also:

Oracle9i Application Server Release Notes, Oracle Enterprise Manager Web Site Release Notes

1 Certification and System Requirements

The following sections include important information about system requirements that must be addressed before you run the Enterprise Manager software.

1.1 Java Runtime Environment (JRE) Requirements

The JRE is installed by various Oracle products. However, there is only one shared JRE per system. As a result, if after installing Enterprise Manager Release 9.0 you install a previous release of Enterprise Manager (i.e. Release 2.2), the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed as part of Release 9.0 will be downgraded automatically; no error messages will appear. This downgrade from JRE Release 1.1.8_12 to 1.1.8_10 will cause problems for Enterprise Manager Release 9.0. Consequently, do not install Enterprise Manager Release 2.2 after installing Enterprise Manager Release 9.0.

Installing a pre-9.0 Oracle database will also cause the same problem of downgrading the JRE. If you run into this situation, you can workaround the problem by re- installing JRE 1.1.8_12 from the CD-ROM you installed Enterprise Manager Release 9.0 (most likely from a Release 9.0 CD-ROM). Re-install the JRE by re-installing Oracle Universal Installer; as the Installer has a dependency on the JRE.

2 General Issues and Workarounds

This section describes general issues and their workarounds for Enterprise Manager components installed with the Oracle9iAS Infrastructure.

2.1 Console Issues and Workarounds

The following issues and workarounds apply to the Oracle Enterprise Manager Console.

2.1.1 Login Dialog Box Displays in Background

If you select a different window after launching the Console, the login dialog will not display in the foreground. You may need to minimize any active windows or use ALT -> tab and select the Console application to bring the login dialog to the foreground.

2.1.2 Agent Error During Discovery

During discovery of remote nodes and their targets, if the node is available and reachable via the network, but the Intelligent Agent on that node is down, the discovery wizard usually displays the following error:

VNI-4009 : Cannot contact agent on the node. Agent may be down or
network communication to the node has failed.

However, in some cases, the following error appears instead:

VNI-4044 : Cannot contact agent. Node may be down, or the network may be
down or slow.

If this alternate error occurs, log on to the remote node and check the status of the Intelligent Agent via the agentctl utility:

agenctl status agent

The agentctl utility is located in the bin directory inside your Oracle Home directory.

If the Agent is down, start the Agent and try performing the discovery operation again. For more information, see the Oracle9i Application Server Administrator's Guide.

2.1.3 Returning to a Dialog Box from the Help Window

When you open a modal dialog box in an Oracle Enterprise Manager application (a modal dialog box is one that requires user action before being able to return to the application) and request context-sensitive help on that dialog box, the help is displayed in a modal help topic window. Before you can return to the modal dialog box, you must close the help topic window that is displaying the help topic for the modal dialog box.

2.1.4 Non-English Help Topics

For non-English versions of Enterprise Manager, certain inconsistencies may appear in the non-English versions of the online help.

2.1.5 Problem Displaying Console When Connecting to a New Management Server

When connecting to a new OMS and before painting the right hand side of the console window (the detail panel), the Enterprise Manager console may stop responding. The workaround is to kill the process and restart.

2.1.6 Using the Oracle9i Agent with a Pre-9i Database

When installing an Oracle9i Agent on a machine running a pre-9i database, you must re-run a version-specific copy of catsnmp.sql which is located in the ORACLE_HOME\sysman\admin directory of the Oracle9i Enterprise Manager client install. For example, if you are running Oracle 8.1.7 on a machine and then install a 9i Agent, you must re-run the catsnmp_8i.sql script after installing the new Agent. This operation must be performed for each pre-9i database serviced by this Agent.

Do not run the Oracle9i version of the catsnmp.sql script against pre-9i databases.

2.2 Reporting Issues and Workarounds

The following issues and workarounds apply to the Oracle Enterprise Manager reporting feature.

2.2.1 Accessing Published Reports with Enterprise Manager 9.0.2

You cannot access published reports out-of-the-box from the centralized Enterprise Manager Reporting Web Site in release 9.0.2.

The following manual configuration steps are required after installation in order for the Reporting Web Site to function properly. If these steps are not performed, Enterprise Manager displays the following error when you try to access the Reporting Web Site:

Error URL \em\OEMNavigationServlet was not found on this server

To remedy the problem:

  1. Edit the Web server configuration file (httpd.conf) as follows:

    1. Locate the httpd.conf file located in the following directory:

      $ORACLE_HOME\Apache\Apache\conf\
      
    2. Open the httpd.conf with your favorite text editor.

    3. Uncomment the following line:

      include "\$ORACLE_HOME\Apache\Jserv\etc\jserv.conf"
      
  2. Edit the JServ properties file (jserv.properties) as follows:

    1. Locate the jserv.properties file located in the following directory:

      $ORACLE_HOME\Apache\Jserv\etc\
      
    2. Open the jserv.properties file with your favorite text editor.

    3. Comment out the following line:

      wrapper.env.copy=DISPLAY
      
    4. Add the following line:

      wrapper.env=DISPLAY=<full hostname of the reporting web server>
      


      Note:

      Obtain the full hostname of the reporting Web server using the following command:

      echo $DISPLAY

  3. Stop the Web server using the following command:

    opmnctl stopall
    
  4. Start the Web server using the following command:

    opmnctl startall
    

2.2.2 Web Server Conflict When Accessing the Reporting Web Site

If the ServerName property specified in the oem.conf file is different from the Web server hostname that is used to configure reporting, then you will encounter the following error when trying to access the Enterprise Manager Reporting Web Site:

The management server <hostname> is using a different webserver
<hostname> for Enterprise Manager reporting services. This webserver
<hostname> will be deconfigured and will no longer support Enterprise
Manager reporting. To access Enterprise Manager Reports in the future,
please use the webserver <hostname>.

To fix this problem, ensure that the ServerName property specified in the oem.conf file located in the $ORACLE_HOME\oem_webstage\ directory is the same as the Web server hostname that is provided to configure reporting with the oemctl configure rws command.

For example, if the ServerName property in oem.conf is foo.oracle.com then when you run oemctl configure rws, be sure to specify foo.oracle.com for the Web server hostname.

2.2.3 Configuring the Reporting Web Site

In order to configure the Enterprise Manager Reporting Web site, you must run the 'oemctl configure rws' command at the command line on the machine which runs the reporting Web server, and supply the appropriate information as prompted.


Note:

The Management Server must be installed on the same machine as the reporting Web server.


2.2.4 Viewing Reports in a Non-English Environment

If you view Enterprise Manager reports in a non-English environment from Microsoft Internet Explorer release 5.0, you may see garbled, non-legible text in the reports. To workaround this problem, either view the reports from Microsoft Internet Explorer release 5.5 or from Netscape Navigator release 4.7.

2.2.5 Internal Server Error when Accessing Reporting Web Site

When accessing Enterprise Manager reports from a Web browser, you may see a blank page or the following error:

Internal Server Error: The server encountered an internal error or
misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact
the server administrator, you@your.address and inform them of the time
the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have
caused the error. More information about this error may be available in
the server error log.

To resolve this error, review the Oracle HTTP Server error log file, which is located in the following directory:

$ORACLE_HOME\Apache\Apache\logs\

Check to see if there was an OPM error, such as the following:

[error] OPM: EW: Fails to ping process with pid:11301.  Probably the
process is hanging and can not response.  In most cases, the JVM is
either heavily loaded or doing GC. Please increase the jvm timeout
value or decrease the jvm heap size to reduce the time of doing GC.
The process is about to be restarted.

If an OPM error occurred, perform the following steps to fix the problem:

  1. Increase the default time out value by updating the ApJServVMTimeout directive in the jserv.conf, which is located in the following directory:

    $ORACLE_HOME\Apache\Jserv\etc\
    

    Try setting the value to around 30 or 35.

  2. Edit the java heap size by adding or updating the following lines in the jserv.properties file, which is located in the following directory:

    $ORACLE_HOME\Apache\Jserv\etc\
    

    The following values should be ideal:

    wrapper.bin.parameters=-Xms64m
    wrapper.bin.parameters=-Xmx128m
    
  3. Restart the Oracle HTTP Server.

2.2.6 Non-Legible Characters in Multibyte Character Set Environment

If you view Enterprise Manager reports in a Japanese, Simplified Chinese, or other multibyte character set environment, you will see garbled, non-legible characters in the reports. To fix this problem, perform the following steps. The following example assumes the Japanese Solaris environment:

  1. Locate the JServ properties file and open it with your favorite text editor.

    The file is located in the following directory:

    $ORACLE_HOME\Apache\Jserv\etc\jserv.properties
    
  2. Uncomment the wrapper.env=LANG= line and set the appropriate OS locale value.

    # Uncomment to set Java default locale based on the LANG environment
    # variable.
    #wrapper.env.copy=LANG
    

    For example:

    # Uncomment to set Java default locale based on the LANG environment
    # variable.
    wrapper.env.copy=ja
    
  3. Restart the Oracle HTTP Server by using the opmnctl command.

2.2.7 Setting the Reporting Web Site Port Number

By default, the Enterprise Manager Reporting Web Site and browser-based Enterprise Manager use port 3339. However, if port 3339 is already in use by some other component, then during installation and post-installation configuration a different port will be assigned automatically to the Reporting Web Site and to the browser-based Enterprise Manager.

To obtain the new port number, review the portlist.ini file located in the following directory:

$ORACLE_HOME\install\

The portlist.ini file contains a property labeled Enterprise Manager Reporting Port which identifies the port being used by the Reporting Web site.

2.2.8 Forms, Metrics Clients, and Metrics Servers on the Reporting Web Site

Discovered Oracle Forms Servers, Oracle Metrics Clients, and Oracle Metrics Servers appear on the Reporting Web Site as ORACLE_FORMS_SERVER, ORACLE_METRICS_CLIENT, and ORACLE_METRICS_SERVER, respectively, and their corresponding product icons are missing.

2.2.9 Problem with Non-English Titles in Netscape Navigator

Netscape may not display non-English titles or links correctly. If this happens, please set the character set appropriate to your language and select the option Use my default-fonts, overriding document-specified fonts in your Netscape browser.

2.3 Displaying Charts in Non-English Environments

For non-English environments, some charts may display some of the translated messages as square boxes or question marks.

2.4 Event and Job Systems

The following release notes apply to the Event and Job Systems available from the Oracle Enterprise Manager Console.

2.4.1 Error When Creating or Editing an OC4J Up/Down Event

When you create or edit the OC4J Up/Down event, you may receive the following errors:

VTO-2001: Warning! An initialization error occurred. Some data may not
be displayed correctly.
VTC-1331: The type oc4j is not available. A node with a target of this
type must be discovered before editing this job or event.

You can safely ignore these errors. The Up/Down event will still be registered and work successfully.

2.4.2 Intelligent Agent 9.0.2 Required for 9.0.2 Events

To register an event for an Oracle9iAS Release 2 (9.0.2) target, the active Intelligent Agent on the target's host must be Version 9.0.2 or higher.

2.4.3 User Defined Events

If your User-Defined event has failed with the following error, the tagged output specific to user-defined events could not be found in standard output:

User Defined Event" failed: No result returned in output:

This may mean your script failed to execute for a variety of reasons. Some things to look into:

  1. Check that the path to the monitoring script you specified is correct

  2. Check the execute permissions on the monitoring script

  3. In the script text, check that the path to the interpreter specified is correct. As an additional check, log on to the monitored node using the Node credentials used for the event, then make sure the monitoring script runs correctly.

2.4.4 Unsolicited events

Associating fixit jobs with unsolicited events is only supported by 9i Intelligent Agents.

2.4.5 Dynamic Modification of Registered Events

The following notes apply to registered events:

2.4.6 Event Schedules

Pre-9i Agents do not support the "Day of the Week" or "Day of the Month" options for Event Schedules. When an event contains at least one target running a pre-9i Agent, then only the "On Interval" option for Event Schedules will be supported. However, the Create Event dialog will not disable the selection of the 2 other options -- "Day of the Week" or "Day of the Month". Selection of these 2 other options will result in error "VNI-4022: Bad V1 schedule string" when attempting to register the event.

2.4.7 Dynamic Modification of Submitted Jobs

If you change a scheduled job by only removing notification for an administrator, you will receive the following error: "The job edit was not submitted because no changes were detected for this job" and the change will not be performed. To workaround this problem, remove notification for the administrator and also perform another edit such as editing the job's description.

2.4.8 Event Creation

During event creation, if targets are specified for an event AFTER selecting the fixit job for the event, then event registration against these targets may fail if these are not valid targets for the associated fixit job. If this problem occurs, first modify the fixit job by adding these additional targets. Make sure the job status for the newly added targets is 'Fixit'. Then, in the Registered pane in the Console, select and de-register the event from the targets where registration has failed. When the de-registration against those targets is complete, modify the event by adding back the targets. The event registration against those targets should succeed this time.

2.4.9 Alerts

If the OS character set when the Intelligent Agent is started up and the database character set which the Agent is managing are different, the "Alert" event returns corrupted characters. This happens if alert.ora file has non-US7ASCII characters.

2.4.10 Enhanced Notifications

If you configure a paging carrier with invalid entries and then test that paging carrier, it takes five minutes before a message appears indicating that it failed to send the test page.

2.4.11 Multibyte Characters When Broadcasting Messages in the Event and Job System

Enterprise Manager does not support multibyte characters in both UNIX and NT environment. This is due to the restriction of these platforms.

2.4.12 Registering Events for Oracle9iAS Release 2 Targets

To register an event for an Oracle9iAS Release 2 (9.0.2) target, the active Intelligent Agent on the target's host must be Version 9.0.2 or higher.

2.5 Database Management

2.5.1 Period Character in Schema Name

If a schema name contains a "." delimiter, when viewing objects under this schema, their details will appear to be empty.

2.5.2 Restriction When Using Summary Advisor with Pre-9i Databases

For pre-9i managed databases, to use the Summary Advisor wizard, you need to have an external procedure agent setup in the listener.ora and tnsnames.ora files. Refer to the Net8 Administrator's Guide for more information.

2.5.3 Operating System Authentication Restriction

OS Authentication will work only when connecting directly to a database (client/server mode). OS Authentication is not supported when connecting through the Management Server.

2.5.4 SP2-0738 Restricted command

If you get this error while running SQL*Plus Worksheet. The error also indicates that no server side file system access is allowed when SQL*Plus connects to OMS. In this case, a script is attempted to be executed on the OMS machine, where SQL*Plus process is run in restricted mode. For security reasons only client side scripts are allowed through the "Run Local Script..." menu. See the SQL*Plus Worksheet Help for additional information.

2.5.5 Using SQL*Plus Worksheet in Non-English Environment

In order to use SQL*Plus Worksheet in a language other than English, you must first modify the dbappscfg.properties file located in the DRIVE_LETTER:\ORACLE_HOME\sysman\config\ directory. Modify this file by adding a value for SQLPLUS_NLS_LANG; the value should be the same as the default NLS_LANG parameter.

2.5.6 Error Using NCHAR/NVARCHAR2 Columns in Japanese Environment

On a Japanese operating system only: When you insert data into or select from NCHAR/NVARCHAR2 column using "Graphical Select mode" against 8.1.7 database or earlier, you will get an error. You must use FREE SQL mode with 'N' keyword to insert into or select from NCHAR columns.
Example 1: INSERT INTO nchar_tab(ncol1, ncol2)values (N'XXX', N'YYY')
Example 2: SELECT ncol2 from nchar_tab where ncol1 = N'XXX'

2.5.7 Error Viewing Quick Tour

When selecting a database from the navigation tree, the Quick Tour button results in the error:

VTA-1002: Quick Tour could not show the URL:
\oracle\sysman\qtour\dbapack{0}\dba.htm

A similar error occurs for each of the items under a particular database. The workaround is to launch the quick tours from the main console quick tour menu.

2.5.8 Error Using NCHAR/NVARCHAR2 Columns

When you insert data into or select from NCHAR/NVARCHAR2 column using "Graphical Select mode" against 8.1.7 database or earlier, you will get an error.

You must use FREE SQL mode with 'N' keyword to insert into or select from NCHAR columns.

Example 1:
INSERT INTO nchar_tab(ncol1, ncol2)values (N'XXX', N'YYY')
Example 2:
SELECT ncol2 from nchar_tab where ncol1 = N'XXX'

2.6 Oracle Management Server / Repository

2.6.1 Repositories in 8.1.6.x, 8.1.7.0, or 8.1.7.1 Databases

If your repository is in database release 8.1.7.0 or 8.1.7.1, be aware that database base bug 1393049, which causes some SQL queries to return incorrect results, may affect Enterprise Manager in a variety of ways. For example, the bug may manifest itself through Enterprise Manager via incorrect lists of events or jobs in history; incorrect list of event alerts; incorrect list of active jobs, invalid notifications being sent, etc.

To fix the problem, refer to the table below:

If Repository Resides in Database Release... Then Fix the Problem by...

8.1.7.0 for all operating systems

Upgrading your database to release 8.1.7.2

8.1.7.1 for all operating systems

Upgrading your database to release 8.1.7.2 or Apply one-off patch for bug 1765292

To avoid these known database problems entirely, Oracle recommends that you create your repository in a release 9.0.1, 8.1.7.2, or 8.1.7.1 (Sun SPARC Solaris only) database.

2.6.2 Repositories in 8.1.7.x Databases

If your repository is in database release 8.1.7.x for any operating system, Oracle recommends that you apply the patch for bug 1733170. Failure to apply this patch may result in intermittent Management Server faults due to segmentation violations.

2.6.3 Using an Enterprise Manager 9.0.1 Repository

To use a release 9.0.2 Management Server with a release 9.0.1 Enterprise Manager Repository, perform the following configuration steps after installation:

  1. Shutdown all running 9.0.1 and 9.0.2 Management Servers.

  2. From each release 9.0.2 Management Server machine that is to be used, perform the following steps:

    1. Run Enterprise Manager Configuration Assistant Release 9.0.2 to reconfigure the Management Server.

      When prompted, select Configure local Oracle Management Server; then, choose Edit, and supply the release 9.0.1 Repository connection information.

    2. Run the following command:

      oemctl import registry $ORACLE_HOME\sysman\admin\OMSIASRegistry.registry
      
  3. Start all 9.0.2 Management Servers. Do not start any 9.0.1 Management Servers as they will no longer be used.

2.7 Browser- based Enterprise Manager

2.7.1 Sizing the Console Window

After logging into browser-based Enterprise Manager, the Console will initially be 1/4 its normal size and appear in the upper left corner of the screen. To workaround this problem, resize the Console whenever this occurs.

2.7.2 Running the Browser-Based Console in Netscape Navigator

If you are running browser-based Enterprise Manager from a Netscape browser, do not specify *.<domain> in the manual proxy configuration.

For example, do not specify *.us.oracle.com. Instead, specify .<domain>. For example, us.oracle.com.

2.8 Discovering Oracle HTTP Servers with the Enterprise Manager Console

Oracle9i Application Server (Oracle9iAS) includes a new version of the Oracle HTTP Server. The following sections describe issues and problems that affect discovering and using previous versions of Oracle HTTP Server with the Oracle Enterprise Manager console.

2.8.1 Privileges Required to Start Oracle HTTP Server

If the Oracle HTTP Server is configured to listen at a port number below 1024, the you must have root privileges in order to start the Oracle HTTP Listener.

To start and stop the Web server using the Enterprise Manager Console, you need to set the Preferred Credentials for the web server node. If the server is listening at a port number below 1024, the preferred credentials must allow for "root" privilege. Otherwise, you will not be able to start or start the Web server from the Console.

2.8.2 Ignored Parameters in httpd.conf Configuration File

Enterprise Manager parses the HTTP Listener configuration file, httpd(s).conf, linearly. Because of this, directives such as 'Listen', 'IfDefine', 'VirtualHost', 'ResourceConfig', and 'Directory' are not supported (any values specified here will either be ignored or read as variables and will cause the discovery script to fail).

To configure the Web server for discovery by the Enterprise Manager Agent, use the following directives:

'Port' -- used to set the port number of the web server target
'Location' -- used to set the server status URL

2.8.3 Include Files in HTTP Server Configuration Files

Include files are ignored by the Enterprise Manager Web server discovery script. The discovery script doesn't interpret any files in the HTTP Listener configuration file (httpd(s).conf), that contain the include verb.

3 National Language Support (NLS) Issues and Workarounds

3.1 Japanese Language Version Contains Missing Graphic Files

For Japanese language version only, certain graphic (gif) files are missing from ORACLE_HOME\classes\oracle\sysman\help\detailpanels_ja directory. The workaround is to copy the gif files from the ORACLE_HOME\classes\oracle\sysman\help\detailpanels directory (English files). If you are using the Enterprise Manager Web Site, you should also copy the gif files from ORACLE_HOME\oem_webstage\oracle\sysman\help\detailpanels into ORACLE_HOME\oem_webstage\oracle\sysman\help\detailpanels_ja.

Also, some Japanese files are installed into the wrong directory. Under ORACLE_HOME\classes\oracle\sysman\help\detailpanels_ja and ORACLE_HOME\oem_webstage\oracle\sysman\help\detailpanels_ja, the following files are installed into platform-specific subdirectories:

The workaround is to copy the files for your platform from the subdirectory into the detailpanels_ja directory.

4 Accessibility Issues

4.1 Hang when using the JAWS screen reader

The Enterprise Manager Console sometimes hangs when using the JAWS screen reader. The following steps can be used to prevent the hangs from occurring.

  1. Exit Enterprise Manager

  2. Using the System control panel, modify the system environment variable ORACLE_OEM_CLASSPATH to add";<OracleHome>\jlib\ewt3.jar" to the end of the value for the environment variable. Replace <OracleHome> with the directory path of the Oracle Home where Enterprise Manager is installed. Note that the system environment variable ORACLE_OEM_CLASSPATH is initially defined as part of accessibility setup as described in the Installation Guide.

  3. Restart Enterprise Manager

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