Oracle^® Content Management Software Development Kit (SDK)

Release Notes

Release 9.0.3 for Solaris Operating System (SPARC)

August 2002

Part No. B10030-01

Overview

This document is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. Information that is discovered subsequent to publication will be available through regular support channels. You can access the latest information and additions to Release Notes on the Oracle Technology Network at:

http://otn.oracle.com/products/ifs/content.html

This document is specific to Release 9.0.3 of the Oracle Content Management SDK (Oracle CM SDK), formerly Oracle Internet File System, for Solaris Operating System (SPARC). It includes information about:

• Changes to the Oracle Internet File System

• What's New in the Oracle Content Management SDK 9.0.3

• Developing Against the Oracle Content Management SDK

• Certification and System Requirements

• Deprecations and Changes in the Oracle Content Management SDK Java API

• Configuration Issues

• General Issues

• Oracle Internet Directory Issues

• NLS Issues

• Client-specific Issues

• Documentation Issues

• Known Bugs

Changes to the Oracle Internet File System

The Oracle Content Management SDK (Oracle CM SDK) is the new name for the product formerly known as the Oracle Internet File System (9iFS). This new naming is official as of version 9.0.3.

The Oracle Content Management SDK Explained

Oracle CM SDK now ships exclusively with the Oracle9i Application Server (9iAS). Both 9iAS and Oracle CM SDK are designed for the same audience: developers building middle-tier applications. Oracle CM SDK includes:

• A robust, Java-based API providing document life-cycle management.

• Extensive developer documentation, Javadoc, and examples.

• Integration with other Oracle content management technologies (for example, Workflow, Text).

• Scalability, reliability, security, and platform independence that the Oracle9i Database Server and Application Server both provide.

• Protocol servers (for example, NFS, HTTP/WebDAV, FTP) to provide native access to the Oracle CM SDK repository.

These features and capabilities are designed to help developers bring content management-based applications to market faster and better than with any other platform.

One significant difference between Oracle CM SDK 9.0.3 and earlier versions of the Oracle Internet File System is the removal of the default web and Windows UIs that used to be packaged with Oracle9i. Since these components were not designed for development on the Oracle 9iFS platform (neither one was customizable), they have been removed.

If you are upgrading an existing Oracle Internet File System instance to Oracle Content Management SDK, be aware that previous versions of the WebUI and WinUI will not work with the 9.0.3 Release.

Introducing Oracle Files

Simultaneous with the Oracle CM SDK 9.0.3, Oracle is also releasing a new application, Oracle Files 9.0.3. Built using the Oracle CM SDK, Oracle Files is designed to be a packaged solution, not a bundle of APIs for development. Oracle Files is designed as an enterprise file server replacement, with added content management features (for example, versioning) that enable users to collaborate more productively.

Oracle Files includes:

• Support for the file-sharing and collaboration protocols provided in Oracle CM SDK.

• A new Web UI, designed for large-scale deployments.

• Workspace-based collaboration.

• Content management features like extensible metadata, versioning, and content-based searching.

• Workflow integration for approval and routing.

• User and administrator options for single file recovery.

• The same scalability, reliability, security, and platform independence provided by Oracle CM SDK.

These features and capabilities are designed to help IT managers lower costs through file server consolidation while simultaneously making employees more productive.

Oracle Files ships and is licensed with Oracle's new, fourth business, the Oracle Collaboration Suite. Oracle Files 9.0.3 will ship with the first release of the Oracle Collaboration Suite, slated for Summer 2002.

What's New in the Oracle Content Management SDK 9.0.3

New features in Oracle Content Management SDK 9.0.3 include:

• Workflow integration. Oracle CM SDK is now tightly integrated with Oracle Workflow. Developers can now initiate Workflow operations from within their Java code, and Oracle Workflow can initiate processing in Oracle CM SDK.

• Integration with other relational applications. The same Oracle9i Database Server feature used to integrate with Oracle Workflow, Advanced Queues (AQ), allows integration with other relational applications. Messages passed through these queues can therefore initiate processing in both Oracle CM SDK and other relational applications.

• Offline storage of content. Oracle CM SDK now includes an agent that can move content not accessed for a specified period to offline storage. This content is still accessible, but stored externally to reduce the operational load on the database.

• Print services. Customers running the SMB protocol can now use Oracle CM SDK to provide print services.

• Expanded samples. The sample code provided on the Oracle CM SDK CD have been updated and expanded.

• New parser framework. The parser framework in Oracle CM SDK has changed from previous versions. Consult Chapter [TK] in the Oracle Content Management SDK Developer's Reference for more details.

Developing Against the Oracle Content Management SDK

Oracle CM SDK provides a platform for building custom applications. To remain compatible with future releases of Oracle CM SDK, the following guidelines must be followed:

• Use published classes and methods. Use only the classes and methods that are published in the Javadoc. There are many other classes and methods which Oracle Internet File System uses internally, but are not part of the published Javadoc. Oracle reserves the right to modify or delete these classes and methods with no notice. Using these unpublished classes or methods may result in breaking your application or in undesired application behavior.

• Establish an application namespace. To avoid conflict among your own custom classes and Oracle CM SDK future class enhancements, prefix your subclasses, attributes, and database tables with a unique identifier. For example, one working for the ACME company creates a REPORT subclass with an attribute name PRIORITY. The subclass should be named ACME_REPORT, with an attribute ACME_PRIORITY.

Also see Known Bug 1857689.

• Do not modify the Oracle CM SDK schema directly. The Oracle CM SDK schema must never be modified directly. All operations to the schema must be done through the published API.

Certification and System Requirements

Several high priority bugs are fixed in the 9.0.1.3 release of Oracle9i Database Server. You should upgrade to this release of the database as soon as it is available.

Client Certifications

The following client software has been tested and certified for Oracle CM SDK:

Microsoft Windows

• Microsoft Windows Client Operating Systems (for access to an Oracle CM SDK server through SMB):
  • Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Workstation or Server (Service Pack 6 and higher)

  • Microsoft Windows 95, 98, and ME

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and Server

• Web Browsers (for FTP, IMAP4, SMTP, and HTTP):
  • Netscape Communicator 4.72 (and higher). Netscape 6.x is not supported in this release.

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and 5.5, and Microsoft Outlook Express 5.0. Internet Explorer 6.0 is not yet certified.

• Email Clients:
  • Eudora 4.3 for IMAP, SMTP

  • PINE 4.33 for IMAP, SMTP

  • Outlook Express 5.0 (and higher) for IMAP, SMTP

  • Outlook 2000 for IMAP, SMTP

  • Netscape Communicator 4.7.2 (and higher)

• FTP Clients:
  • OnNet FTP 4.0

  • Ipswitch WS_FTP32

• NFS Clients:
  • Hummingbird NFS Maestro 6.0 (Windows 95, 98, NT)

  • Hummingbird NFS Maestro 7.0 (Windows NT/2000)

  • OnNet 7.0 (Windows 2000 only)

Apple Macintosh

• Mac OS 9.0.4, Mac OS 9.1, and Mac OS X.
  • Netscape Communicator 4.73 release and higher (for email). Netscape 6.x is not supported in this release.

  • Microsoft Outlook Express 5.0.

UNIX NFS Client Support

• Sun Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, Solaris 8

• Red Hat Linux 6.2

Commandline Utility Client

• MS Windows NT

• MS Windows 2000

• Sun Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, Solaris 8

Deprecations and Changes in the Oracle Content Management SDK Java API

As the Oracle CM SDK Java API grows to take advantage of new features and technology, certain classes, attributes, and methods may be deprecated. You should expect these deprecated elements to be deleted in the following major release. This provides you with a full release cycle to modify your applications to use the supported classes, attributes, and methods.

To see what is deprecated in this release, go to the "Deprecated" link in the Javadoc. Each deprecation has a comment indicating the equivalent supported usage. You can also check if your application is using any deprecated classes, fields, or methods by compiling your Java application with the -deprecation flag.

Some of the significant deprecations are described below.

Parsing/Rendering in the Protocol Servers

Most 9iFS protocol servers (FTP, SMB, etc.) no longer perform parsing and rendering as a side effect of transferring files. In previous releases, an XML document uploaded through the protocols would be automatically parsed. Starting with the 9.0.3 release, this will no longer be the case.

An exception to this deprecation is the Commandline Utility (CUP) Protocol Server. To continue parsing and rendering XML files, you can use the CUP protocol server. To create 9iFS objects through XML files, upload your XML file using CUP. CUP also continues to render out objects in XML.

Parsing/Rendering Framework in the Oracle CM SDK

The purpose of the parsing/rendering framework in the Oracle CM SDK was to allow application developers to inject behavior changes into the protocol servers when they were transferring files. Since the protocol servers no longer support this feature, the following deprecations apply for this release.

Interfaces

oracle.ifs.beans.parsers.Parser 
oracle.ifs.beans.parsers.ParserCallback 
oracle.ifs.beans.parsers.XmlParserInterface 
oracle.ifs.server.renderers.Renderer 

Classes

oracle.ifs.beans.parsers.IfsSimpleXmlParser      
oracle.ifs.beans.parsers.IfsXmlParser 
oracle.ifs.beans.parsers.LiteralDocumentParser 
oracle.ifs.beans.parsers.ParserInputStream 
oracle.ifs.server.renderers.BaseRenderer 
oracle.ifs.server.renderers.SimpleXmlRenderer 
oracle.ifs.server.renderers.XmlRenderer 

Application developers who need to modify the contents of files as they are stored and/or retrieved can still by directly modifying the input stream as the document is being uploaded or downloaded.

PendingPublicObject attribute on the VersionSeries class

This attribute has been deprecated. It was designed to allow for a "working copy" of a versioned document to be maintained inside 9iFS while a versioned document was checked out. All protocol servers have been enhanced to recognize the existence of this object, but not to create them. If you have a custom application that makes use of this attribute, you are encouraged to develop an alternative implementation before upgrading to the next major release of 9iFS.

Change in Delimiters for Service Configuration Properties

For better readability, Oracle CM SDK now accepts spaces in service configuration properties. For example, a property value can have the following value:

IFS.SERVICE.CREDENTIALMANAGER.Oid.Subscribers = DEFAULT SUBSCRIBER

Prior to this release, spaces were used to separate alternate values of a property. With this release, commas alone function as delimiters. If an existing property uses a space as a delimiter, you will need to change it to a comma.

Configuration Issues

Here are some issues to be aware of before you attempt to install and configure Oracle CM SDK.

Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle CM SDK Issues

Before you attempt to install and configure Oracle CM SDK, you should be aware of several issues with respect to Oracle Internet Directory and Oracle CM SDK. See specifically Known Bugs 2282201, 2100615 and 2212389, 2286968 in the "Installation and Configuration Bugs" section. These bugs will be fixed by upgrading the database instance supporting Oracle Internet Directory to release 9.0.1.3 of the Oracle9i Database Server, which you should do as soon as it is available.

Oracle9i Application Server, Unified Messaging Install Type

If you use the Oracle9i Application Server, D. Unified Messaging install type with Oracle Content Managment SDK Installation Guide, you should be aware of possible port conflicts for SMTP or IMAP servers.

Oracle9i Application Server, D. Unified Messaging provides both an IMAP server and an SMTP. Oracle CM SDK also provides IMAP and SMTP servers.

If you want to use both the Oracle CM SDK IMAP and Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging IMAP servers on the same machine, you must change the port number on one of these servers, because by default, both of them use port 143. You can change the Oracle CM SDK IMAP server to a different port number during configuration. You can change the Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging IMAP server port through the Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging Email Server administration tool. Be aware that if you change the port number on either of these IMAP servers, the IMAP client application that you intend to use must be able to be configured for the specific port number you selected. If your IMAP client cannot be configured to this extent, you must install the Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging IMAP server and the Oracle CM SDK IMAP server on two different middle-tier machines, to avoid this port conflict.

By default, the SMTP servers used by Oracle CM SDK and Oracle9iAS Unified Messaging both use port 25. You cannot modify this port number, hence you cannot run both Oracle9i Application Server SMTP server and Oracle CM SDK on the same middle-tier machine.

General Issues

Here are some general operations and administration issues to be aware of before using Oracle CM SDK.

X Server Requirement

In order to run any of the Web-based interfaces in Oracle CM SDK, you will need to configure an X Server to handle the display of the screen elements. This is a limitation of the current JDK, as it does not operate in a headless setup.

Make sure that the server machine on which you install Oracle CM SDK has an X Server running. Alternatively, you can configure OC4J to point to an X Server display.

Use the following steps to configure your OC4J instance:

1. Open the file $ORACLE_HOME/opmn/conf/opmn.xml

2. Locate the OC4J instance OC4J_iFS_cmsdk, and check its property <prop name="DISPLAY value=":0.0" />

3. Change the value to hostname:0.0, where hostname points to a host with X Server configured and running.

4. Save the changes.

5. Restart the OC4J instance.

See also known bug 2459512.

Oracle Content Management SDK User Names Cannot Contain Multi-byte Characters

Although Oracle CM SDK supports multi-byte character sets, it does not effectively support user account names created using multi-byte characters. When you create user accounts for Oracle CM SDK, you should create the names using single-byte characters only. Users whose account names are created with multi-byte characters are unable to access content through many of the Oracle CM SDK protocol servers.

Oracle Internet Directory Issues

See the Oracle Internet Directory Release Notes for complete information on all known issues. This section covers only those issues specific to Oracle CM SDK. Note that several bugs listed later, in the "Installation and Configuration Bugs" section, will be fixed by upgrading the database instance supporting Oracle Internet Directory to release 9.0.1.3 of the Oracle9i Database Server as soon as it is available.

Use Oracle CM SDK-specific Passwords with Certain Protocol Servers

Many protocols, including AFP, CUP, FTP, and IMAP, transmit unencrypted passwords over the network. Other protocols, such as HTTP and SMB, also transmit user passwords in the clear (unencrypted, as cleartext) in some configurations.

From a security standpoint, transmitting unencrypted passwords becomes a concern when Oracle CM SDK uses Oracle Internet Directory to manage user passwords because the same password that provides access to Oracle CM SDK also provides access to all other applications using Oracle Internet Directory for authentication.

To address this issue, Oracle Internet Directory supports an alternate, application-specific password for each user. Oracle CM SDK supports this feature of Oracle Internet Directory. The alternate password for Oracle CM SDK is referred to as the "Oracle CM SDK-specific password." Thus, each Oracle CM SDK user can have two passwords: an Oracle Internet Directory common password, and an Oracle CM SDK-specific password.

You can configure Oracle CM SDK to use the Oracle Internet Directory common password or to use the Oracle CM SDK-specific password on a protocol-by-protocol basis. By default, AFP, CUP, FTP, and IMAP use the Oracle CM SDK-specific password; all other protocols use the Oracle Internet Directory common password. Consequently, users cannot access Oracle CM SDK using AFP, CUP, FTP, or IMAP protocols until they have set their Oracle CM SDK-specific password, using either Oracle CM SDK Manager or the Oracle CM SDK Web user interface. See the Oracle Content Managment SDK Installation Guide for additional information.

The default configuration may not be appropriate for all Oracle CM SDK deployments. You can change the configuration using the Oracle CM SDK Credential Manager Configuration Assistant. See Appendix B in the Oracle Content Managment SDK Installation Guide for additional information.

Using the Oracle Internet Directory User Migration Tool

Oracle Internet Directory is configured with default password policies, which can be changed by the Oracle Internet Directory administrator. Be sure to check with the Oracle Internet Directory administrator before migrating Oracle CM SDK to Oracle Internet Directory to ensure that the password policies in force during migration will support the passwords used by Oracle CM SDK users. For example, if the Oracle Internet Directory requires numeric values in passwords, the Oracle CM SDK user passwords must also have numeric values. Or, alternatively, the password policies in Oracle Internet Directory must be modified or disabled during migration.

In addition, when the Oracle Internet Directory User Migration Tool migrates users from the Oracle CM SDK Credential Manager to the Oracle Internet Directory Credential Manager, it does not remove the migrated users' information from the Oracle CM SDK Credential Manager. If a migrated user is subsequently deleted and a new user with the same distinguished name is then created using the Oracle CM SDK Credential Manager, the following exception is thrown:

 IFS-10154: Unable to create user (username) 
 IFS-10172: Distinguished name not unique 

To work around this, the Oracle CM SDK administrator must explicitly delete the Oracle CM SDK Credential Manager information for the deleted user by calling the DYNCredentialManagerDeleteUser method of oracle.ifs.server.S_LibrarySession.

Running Oracle Internet Directory Replication Server to Purge Oracle Internet Directory Change Log

Oracle CM SDK relies on the Provisioning Integration Service provided by the Directory Integration Platform to be notified of user and group changes in Oracle Internet Directory. These changes are stored in the Oracle Internet Directory change log and are appropriately filtered by the Provisioning Integration Service before being delivered as change events to this application. Even if you are not deploying the Oracle Internet Directory server in replication mode, make sure that the directory administrator starts up the replication server in order to periodically purge unnecessary change-log entries.

This can be done by starting the replication server using the following command:

$ oidctl connect=<net_service_name> server=oidrepld instance=1 flags="-p 
<ldapserver_port_number>" start 

Without this periodic cleanup, the Oracle Internet Directory change-log can potentially grow to occupy the entire file system, which may cause unavailability of the Oracle Internet Directory service. The need to start the replication server to purge the change-log is only a temporary restriction and will be removed in a future release.

For more information on starting and stopping the replication server, see Oracle Internet Directory Administrator's Guide.

NLS Issues

Here are some issues relevant to Oracle CM SDK and National Language Support (NLS).

Jagged Bold/Italic Fonts

When running in Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean environments, bold or italicized fonts in the Java applications appear jagged, and are difficult to read. This problem is visible for all Java applications, including Configuration Assistants, Oracle FileSync, and the Admin browser.

This issue is caused by problems in the 1.3.1_02b version of the JDK, and can be resolved by moving to JDK 1.3.1_04. This problem will be fixed in future releases of the product.

See also known bugs 2377003, 2293628, and Base Oracle bug 2220343

Character Set Limitations

Oracle CM SDK does not support AL32UTF-8 databases for Asian languages. Oracle9i Text does not support Chinese, Japanese, and Korean lexers on AL32UTF-8 databases. On such databases, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean documents will not be indexed or searchable. UTF-8 is the recommended character set for Unicode-based file systems. See also known bugs 2391425 and 1926886.

If you are developing in an NLS environment, you may need to modify your CLASSPATH to include nls_charset12.zip. The Oracle JDBC class file classes12.zip only provides support for the following commonly used character sets:

• US7ASCII

• WE8DEC

• ISO-LATIN-1

• UTF-8

The file, nls_charset12.zip provides support for all Oracle character sets. If you are using a character set other than the ones listed above, modify your CLASSPATH to include nls_charset12.zip.

Client-specific Issues

Here are some client-specific issues that you should be aware of before using Oracle CM SDK.

Oracle Content Management SDK FileSync Utility Issues

The FileSync utility is able to detect changes made by you on your local machine and by you or others on Oracle CM SDK and, generally, is able to resolve any conflict in these changes. However, certain types of changes may conflict and cannot currently be resolved by FileSync. In these cases, FileSync only gives you the option to "skip" synchronizing these file changes.

The following types of conflicts are currently not resolvable ("source" means the original file; "target" means the resulting file):

• NEW/DELETE (when target of NEW conflicts with source of DELETE). For example, when a local folder and an Oracle CM SDK folder are in sync, and a user creates a new file in the local folder, but the folder on Oracle CM SDK is deleted. This conflict is not currently resolvable.

• NEW/COPY (when target of NEW conflicts with source or target of COPY).

• NEW/EDIT (when target of NEW conflicts with target of EDIT).

• NEW/MOVE (when target of NEW conflicts with source or target of MOVE).

• MOVE/EDIT (when target of EDIT conflicts with source or target of MOVE).

• MOVE/DELETE (when source of DELETE conflicts with source or target of MOVE).

• MOVE/MOVE (when both source and target of both MOVEs cause possible conflict).

• COPY/COPY (when both source and target of both COPYs cause possible conflict).

• COPY/DELETE (when source of DELETE conflicts with source or target of COPY).

• COPY/EDIT (when target of EDIT conflicts with source or target of COPY).

• COPY/MOVE (when both source and target of COPY and MOVE cause possible conflict).

Documentation Issues

Some graphics and diagrams in Oracle CM SDK documentation may still feature the Oracle Internet File System name. This material will be updated with the next release.

Known Bugs

The following bugs are known to exist in this Oracle CM SDK release. Workarounds are given when appropriate. The known bugs are grouped by process or component:

• Installation and Configuration Bugs

• Administration Bugs

• AFP Bugs

• NFS Bugs

• E-mail Bugs

• Generic Oracle CM SDK Bugs

• HTTP Bugs

• Windows / SMB Bugs

• Oracle FileSync Bugs

• XML Bugs

Installation and Configuration Bugs

Administration Bugs

$ORACLE_HOME/ifs/bfile/<ifsschema>/<media> 

AFP Bugs

NFS Bugs

Bug 1749601	Unable to chgrp in iFS NFS.
Description:	A chgrp does not have any effect on mode for a file.
Action:	None. The security model is different and this has no impact.
Bug 1749621	Unable to chmod in iFS NFS.
Description:	A chmod does not have any effect on mode for a file.
Action:	None. The security model is different and this has no impact.
Bug 1750049	Mode attributes cannot be set.
Description:	Cannot change the permission mode bits through iFS NFS.
Action:	None. The security model is different and this has no impact.
Bug 1749778	Links cannot be created using iFS NFS.
Description:	No links (symbolic, soft, or hard) can be create in iFS NFS.
Action:	None. This problem is due to the nature of the underlying infrastructure.
Bug 2333774	Cannot copy files or folders where non-standard ASCII character is the first character in the name.
Description:	Folders and files that have non standard ASCII characters as the first character cannot be copied using NFS Maestro.
Action:	Use other NFS clients; this problem appears to be a Maestro limitation.

E-mail Bugs

Generic Oracle CM SDK Bugs

ERROR at line 1: 
ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL 
level 1 
ORA-24005: must use DBMS_AQADM.DROP_QUEUE_TABLE 
to drop queue tables 

$ORACLE_HOME/jdbc/lib/nls_charset12.jar 

HTTP Bugs

Bug 2337719	URLS with semi-colons return a 404 error.
Description:	URLs that have ';' embedded will cause problems.
Action:	None. This bug stems from a problem in the underlying OC4J layer of the software. The problem will be fixed in the 9.0.3 version of Oracle9i Application Server.
Bug 2386806	URLS with '%' in them do not work.
Description:	URLS that have '%' embedded will cause problems.
Action:	None. This bug stems from a problem in the underlying OC4J layer of the software. The problem will be fixed in the 9.0.3 version of Oracle9i Application Server.
Bug 2461169	Uninformative errors when over quota.
Description:	Incorrect errors are reported when an attempt is made to save a new document, if user is over quota.
Action:	None. This bug stems from a problem in the underlying OC4J layer of the software. The problem will be fixed in the 9.0.3 version of Oracle9i Application Server.

Windows / SMB Bugs

Oracle FileSync Bugs

XML Bugs

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