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  • Geeking out on Linux: file descriptors and their open modes & flags

    While preparing my talk for the upcoming POUG 2021 conference I wanted to know which flags Oracle passes to open(2) when accessing a data file. A file needs to be opened before its contents can be accessed (no surprises here :). There are quite a few ways of opening a file, depending on whether you…

  • Shell limits, Oracle Single Instance, and systemd in Oracle Linux 8.4

    The more blog posts I write the harder it becomes to come up with a good title. So what is this post all about? In short, it’s about the implications of using systemd to start a single instance Oracle database in Oracle Linux and associated shell limits. In theory this should apply to Single Instance…

  • Automating Vagrant Box versioning

    The longer I work in IT the more I dislike repetitive processes. For example, when updating my Oracle Linux 8 Vagrant Base Box I repeat the same process over and over: Boot the VirtualBox (source) VM Enable port forwarding for SSH SSH to the VM to initiate the update via dnf update -y && reboot…

  • SQLcl autotrace is way more than “just” (SQL*Plus) autotrace

    As part of the research I did for the 2nd edition of our Exadata book I used session statistics quite heavily. Session statistics can provide additional insights in situations where the wait interface on its own doesn’t get you any further. On the command line, my tools of choice are either Tanel Poder’s excellent Session…

  • Installing instant clients on Oracle Linux 8 in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

    I recently presented my views on upgrading to Oracle 19c to the DOAG community. As part of that I pointed out how easy it was to deploy the Instant Client on a VM using yum and dnf. I previously wrote about the installation of the Instant Client in an on-premises configuration. UPDATE 250220: the post…

  • Installation of Oracle Restful Data Services 20.4 without using SYSDBA

    It’s really hard to come up with good, concise, and short twitter-compatible blog titles, so let’s try with a few more words. What I’d like to share is how to install Oracle Restful Data Services (ORDS) v20.4 without having to connect to the database as SYSDBA. There are good reasons not to connect as SYSDBA,…

  • Connecting to a database using SQLcl, a wallet and the thin driver

    I have previously written about the use of SQLcl and using an Oracle wallet (aka secure external password store). In my previous article I used the JDBC oci driver. This is perfectly fine, but as it’s based on Oracle’s Call Interface, it requires client libraries to be present. This time I wanted to use the…

  • New initialisation parameters for Transparent Data Encryption beginning in 19c

    This blog post is a short summary of my attempt to retrofit Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) into an existing Data Guard environment featuring a single-instance Oracle 19c Container Database (CDB) on a file system. Neither Oracle Restart nor Real Application Clusters are in use to keep the size of the article a little more manageable.…

  • Create a custom service in single instance Oracle 19c

    This post demonstrates how to create a custom service in a single instance Oracle 19c database. As per the Oracle 19c PL/SQL Packages and Types guide, this is the only Oracle database deployment option where you are allowed to use this technique. Anything to do with high availability rules this approach out straight away. The…

  • Swingbench: creating benchmark schemas with strong passwords

    This post describes my experience creating the SOE user account in an Oracle 21 database provided by Oracle’s Database Cloud Service (DBCS). The same principle should apply for earlier releases as well, at the end of the day it boils down to the use of Oracle’s password verify functions. To avoid any ambiguity: the use…