Installing Oracle BI Publisher into a WLS Application Server

March 26, 2012March 26, 2012leszekj Leave a comment

[Article based on: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E10383_01/doc/bip.1013/e11867/T434820T487783.htm]

The following article describes Oracle BI Publisher installation process on a WLS 11g running on a UNIX server.

Components required for the installation can be found in “/manual” subdirectory of the BI Publisher installation folder.

The BI Publisher install media contains:

Directory	Component
manual\fonts	Font files
manual\generic	xmlpserver.war (for non-oc4j application servers) xmlpserver.ear (for non-oc4j application servers)
manual\oc4j	xmlpserver.ear (for oc4j)
manual\XMLP	XMLP repository
manual\XMLP\DemoFiles	Data source for demo reports.
manual\XMLP\Tools	Template Builder for Word Add-in

Installation steps

Create an exploded archive directory.

Example:

/oracle/bipubhome/xmlpserver.war

jar -xvf /<installation_dir>/manual/generic/xmlpserver.war
In a browser, open the WebLogic Administration console (ex. http://hostname:7001/console).
If you have not already done so, in the Change Center of the Administration Console, click Lock & Edit.
In the left pane of the Administration Console, click Deployments.
In the right pane, click Install

Select xmlpserver.war directory and click Next
Select “Install this deployment as an application” and click Next

Select deployment target

Select “I will make the deployment accessible from the following location” from Source accessibility.

Click Finish. To activate these changes, in the Change Center of the Administration Console, click Activate Changes.
Copy the XMLP repository directory from \manual on your installation media to your server, ex. /oracle/bipubhome/xmlpserver.war

Note: If you are installing BI Publisher to work with OER, please copy XMLP directory supplied with OER.
Open the xmlp-server-config.xml file located in the

<application installation>/WEB-INF/ directory, where your application server unpacked the war or ear file.

Example:

In an AS/OC4J 10.1.3 deployment, the location is <ORACLE_HOME>/j2ee/home/applications/xmlpserver/xmlpserver/WEB-INF/xmlp-server-config.xml

If you are on BI Publisher version 10.1.3.3.1 or later, the file contains the following:
```
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
```
```
<xmlpConfig xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/oxp/xmlp">
```
```
 <resource>
```
```
    <file path="${oracle.home}/xdo/repository"/>
```
```
 </resource>
```
```
</xmlpConfig>
```
Note: If you are on version 10.1.3.3 of BI Publisher, the <file path> element will appear as follows:

<file path=”%s_Reports_Path%”/>. Replace the “%s_Reports_Path%” string with the file path to the location where you copied the XMLP repository directory on your server, as described in the next step.
Replace ${oracle.home}/xdo/repository with file path to the location where you copied the XMLP repository directory on your server.

For example, if you copied the repository directory to/home/repository/XMLP, update the xmlp-server-config.xml file as follows:
```
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
```
```
<xmlpConfig xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/oxp/xmlp">
```
```
 <resource>
```
```
    <file path="/home/repository/XMLP"/>
```
```
 </resource>
```
```
</xmlpConfig>
							
```
Save xmlp-server-config.xml after updating.
Copy the font files from the manual\fonts on the install media to the fonts directory of the Java Runtime Environment used by your J2EE container/application server.

Example for Apache Tomcat:

C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_07\lib\fonts

Example for Oracle Application Server or OC4J:

<ORACLE_HOME>…\jdk\jre\lib\fonts

Example for WebSphere:

<WebSphere dir>/AppServer/java/jre/lib/font
Start the service: click Deployments, then xmlpserver.

Start xmlpserver application.
Launch BI Publisher:

Open your browser to http://hostname:port/xmlpserver

For example:
http://localhost:7001/xmlpserver
Log in with user name “Administrator” and password “Administrator”.

Important: Default Administrator password can be changed on the Account tab under Preferences.
Remark: if you are installing BIP for OER, copy XMLP folder from OER for BIP; look for “reports” folder in OER installation, e.g.: /oracle/fmwhome/repository111/core/tools/solutions/reports

Replace content of XMLP in destination folder, e.g. /oracle/bipubhome/xmlpserver.war.

Looking for “ifconfig”

March 6, 2012leszekj Leave a comment

If not on Path, “ifconfig” can be found at /sbin/ifconfing

OER Database Configuration

March 1, 2012March 26, 2012leszekj Leave a comment

ORE database can be configured either automatically, using GUI provided by the system, or manually, based on the instruction provided bellow.

Database configuration GUI

GUI can be started from <repositoryxxx/common/bin>:

Good old BEA configuration screen prompts for options:

Current settings can be modified on the following screen:

Remarks:

If database is already created, create new user, e.g. OER2.
After configuration is finished, copy configurations files (database.properties, dbinfo.xml) to all locations:

Path	Files generated by GUI
/oracle/fmwhome/repository111/core/database-scripts/generator/lib	Files created by /oracle/fmwhome/repository111/common/bin/dbconfig.sh in this location
/oracle/fmwhome/repository111/core/tools/solutions/_passwordTools	copy
/oracle/fmwhome/repository111/weblogic/applications/oer_11.1.1.5.0/oer-app/WEB-INF/classes	copy
/oracle/fmwhome/user_projects/applications/oer_domain/applications/oer_11.1.1.5.0/oer-app/WEB-INF/classes	copy
/oracle/fmwhome/user_projects/applications/oer_domain/oer_11.1.1.5.0/oer-app/WEB-INF/classes	copy

Manual configuration

Manual configuration is based on the following files, located in <reposirotyxxx/weblogic/application/oer_11.xxx/oer-app/WEB-INF/classes:

Database.properties

File contain configuration of currently used data source:

Changing database password

Since password in the configuration is encrypted, encrypted version has to be provided. In order to encrypt password, PasswordEncryption utility has to be used.

Detailed instruction on how to encrypt password can be find at: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E14571_01/doc.1111/e16580/password.htm#CIHBIDBB

Password tool can be found in the following location:

“encryptpassword.sh” script takes password as an input.

Additional notes:

Configuration files location

The actual location of the configuration files can be found in config.xml at:

/oracle/fmwhome/user_projects/domains/oer_domain/config

e.g.:

/oracle/fmwhome/user_projects/applications/oer_domain/applications/oer_11.1.1.5.0/oer-app/WEB-INF/classes

Escape characters in password

Each reserved character in database.properties file should be escaped, e.g. ‘\=’

Xml config file
Error: Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: sun.misc.BASE64Encoder

If password encryption script returns the above error, include in classpath rt.jar, that can be found under /jre/lib directory