Pointing To Oracle Database For Remedy Application

Introduction:
This document explains about pointing to an Oracle database for Remedy
application on Solaris box. And also covers preferred sequence of remedy processes to
come up during startup of remedy.
Actual Matter/Topics:
Preface
This document is intended for any remedy support personnel who have the
knowledge of configuration and other related file locations and little bit of work
experience on using sqlplus to connect to an oracle database. And also may need help
from an Oracle DBA.
Procedure
There are several things to look at when pointing to an Oracle database from
remedy application as explained below:
1. Install Oracle client on the server where remedy application is running. This is
needed for the remedy application to connect to an Oracle database.
2. Configuration file for the remedy application is ar.conf and during startup of
ARServer, connection is made to the database using the following entries in
the configuration file:

Dbhome-directory
Oracle-SID
Oracle-Two-Task

3. The following additional entries in the ar.conf file identify the name of the
tablespace in the database where information related to remedy is stored,
name of the user and the password for the user connecting to the database:

Db-name
Db-user
Db-password

=> name of tablespace

=> name of user
=> password for user

If these entries do not exist in the ar.conf file, the default values for these
entries are ARSystem, ARAdmin and AR#Admin# respectively.
4. Set the value for the property Dbhome-directory as the absolute path of the
directory where Oracle client is installed (it is called ORACLE_HOME in
database language) in the configuration file.
Ex: Dbhome-directory: <absolute path of the directory where oracle is
installed>
5. Set the value for the property Oracle-SID as the name of the database that
was created for remedy application.

Ex: Oracle-SID: <database name>

Note: If this database is configured on a server which is different from the
one on which remedy application is running, configure the TNS name in the
remedy application server as explained in the appendix.
6. Set the value for the property Oracle-Two-Task as the database connection
string.
Ex: Oracle-Two-Task: <database connection string>
7. Variables to be set in .profile of the user account in which remedy application
is running:
export ORACLE_SID=<db name>
export TWO_TASK=<db name>
export ORACLE_HOME=<absolute path of the directory where Oracle
client is installed>
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH_64=${ORACLE_HOME}/lib
export
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/lib32:$
{LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
And logout and login for these variables to come into affect.
8. Make sure the database (and also the listener for this database, if database
is on the remote server) is running and bounce the remedy application (as
explained in appendix) for this change in the configuration file to come into
affect.
9. If the server is not able to connect to the database during startup, the startup
will fail with the reasonable error. Try to connect to this database from the
server where you have the remedy application running, using sqlplus utility
and make sure this works.
10. The most direct method to troubleshoot this startup is to generate API / SQL
logging during startup. This can be done by modifying or adding the following
entry in the ar.conf file:
Debug-mode: 17
This will generate the log files during startup under directory
specified for the parameter Server-directory in the configuration file
(ar.conf). Any error during startup is written to the file arerror.log under this
directory. Have all these logs and output on the console during startup, if
there are any problems in bringing the processes up and need to work with
remedy support. And reset this Debug-mode parameter back to 0 once
every thing is smooth. Otherwise, lots of log information will be generated
which will occupy the space unnecessarily.

Appendix
Configuring TNS name:
Configuration of TNS name for an Oracle database is required if you are trying
to access a database on the remote machine. So, just make the following entry in
the
file
tnsnames.ora
that
is
under
/var/opt/oracle
or
$ORACLE_HOME/network/admin.
Example:
<db name> =
(DESCRIPTION =
(ADDRESS_LIST =
(ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = <IP or host name>)(PORT
= <port number at which the database is listening>))
)
(CONNECT_DATA =
(SERVICE_NAME = <db name>)
)
)
Once this is saved in the tnsnames.ora, make sure you are able to
connect to this database.

Recommended sequence of remedy process:

It is recommended to have the processes in the sequence given below in
the /etc/arsystem/<server name>/armonitor.conf file. This will enable the
remedy application to start the processes in the sequence mentioned in
this file.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

arserverd
arsvcdsp
arplugin
emaild.sh
arsnmpd.conf
arrecond.sh