Oracle Providers for ASP.NET


Installation Guide and Release Notes

Release 11.2.0.4.0 Production

February 2013

Copyright (c) Oracle Corporation 2013

This document provides information that supplements the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET Production documentation.

 

IMPORTANT NOTES

Oracle providers for ASP.NET support .NET Framework 2.0 and higher.

 

INSTALLATION AND SETUP NOTES

  1.  Product Dependencies

    Oracle Providers for ASP.NET requires Oracle Client 11.2.0.4.0 or Oracle Instant Client 11.2.0.4.0. When installing a new Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 11.2.0.4.0 instance, Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) will automatically install Oracle Instant Client 11.2.0.4.0.

  2.  Policy DLLs

    Note that the installation of this product places policy DLLS into the GAC so that existing applications can start using newly installed version of this product immediately after installation. However, if this is not desired, be sure to remove the policy DLLs from the GAC.

  3.  Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 11.2.0.4.0 - Database Set Up

    Before using Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 11.2.0.4.0, execute the database SQL scripts that were part of the installation. Note that Oracle Providers for ASP.NET ships with InstallAllOracleASPNETProviders.sql which will create all the database objects for all the providers. If you already have an older version of Oracle Providers for ASP.NET installed, the execution of InstallAllOracleASPNETProviders.sql will update the stored procedures and column definitions, but tables will not be dropped nor re-created.

 

TIPS, LIMITATIONS AND KNOWN ISSUES

If the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Oracle\NLS_LANG registry entry is set to "NA", ORA-12705 errors will be encountered when using Oracle Providers for ASP.NET. To eliminate this problem, remove the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Oracle\NLS_LANG registry entry.


AUTOMATIC MACHINE.CONFIG CHANGES

After the installation of Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\machine.config file will be updated to make the system aware of the ASP.NET providers that were installed. In addition, a connection string alias of "OraAspNetConString" is added, which is referenced by each of the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET. Below are typical entries that will be made in the machine.config after the install.

(NOTE: You do not need to make these entries in the machine.config. This is for your information only.)

(NOTE: "..." are place holders for existing entries in the machine.config.)

<configuration>

  ...

  <connectionStrings>

    ...

    <add name="OraAspNetConString" providerName="Oracle.DataAccess.Client" connectionString=" " />

  </connectionStrings>

  ...

  <system.web>

    ...

    <membership>

      <providers>

        <add name="OracleMembershipProvider" type="Oracle.Web.Security.OracleMembershipProvider, Oracle.Web, Version=2.112.4.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342" connectionStringName="OraAspNetConString" applicationName="" enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true" requiresUniqueEmail="false" passwordFormat="Hashed" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="7" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="1" passwordAttemptWindow="10" passwordStrengthRegularExpression="" />

        ...

      </providers>

    </membership>

    ...

  </system.web>

  ...

</configuration>

 

 

The above example shows just an entry for the Oracle Membership Provider. There will be similar entries for other providers.

 

 

QUICK SETUP REFERENCE

Below are the quick setup steps for Oracle Providers for ASP.NET. The steps below assumes that Oracle 11g 11.2.0.4.0 Production was installed under a valid Oracle Home which will be referred to as %ORACLE_HOME% henceforth in this readme.txt.

1.  SQL*Net Setup

 

    a) EZCONNECT

 

    Either EZCONNECT or TNSNAMES can be used to connect to Oracle for

    executing the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET setup scripts as well as for

    the providers to connect to Oracle.  To connect to the database using

    either approach, %ORACLE_HOME%\Network\Admin\sqlnet.ora file must be

    created to contain:

 

    NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH = (TNSNAMES, EZCONNECT) 

 

    To be able to connect using OS Authentication, the following line is

    also needed to be included in sqlnet.ora:

 

    SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES = (NTS)

 

    To use EZCONNECT, the data source must be specified in the following

    format (and no other configuration file is needed):

    [//]host[:port][/service_name][/server][/instance_name]

 

    b) TNSNAMES

 

    To use TNSNAMES, a tnsnames.ora file must be also created in or

    copied to the %ORACLE_HOME%\Network\Admin directory.

 

    The %ORACLE_HOME%\Network\Admin\tnsnames.ora file can be created, for

    example, to contain the following:

 

    oracle =

      (DESCRIPTION =

        (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = my-pc)(PORT = 1521))

        (CONNECT_DATA =

          (SERVER = DEDICATED)

          (SERVICE_NAME = orcl)

        )

      )

 

    The protocol, host, port, and service name in the tnsnames.ora should be

    modified appropriately.  If TNSNAMES is to be used, the TNSNAMES alias

    is specified as the "data source", which in the example above is "oracle".

 

2.  Executing the SQL Scripts

 

    As noted during the install, the setup SQL scripts must be executed before

    using any of the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET.  For details, please see

    Chapter 1 of the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET Developer's Guide.

 

    If you don't have SQL*Plus to execute SQL scripts, you may install and use

    Oracle Developer Tools (ODT) for Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 to execute those

    scripts.  Below are the steps:

 

       a) Start up Visual Studio 2008 or 2010 IDE.  Under Tools menu, select Run

          SQL*Plus Script.

 

       b) In the 'Run SQL*Plus Script' dialog box, click New Connection button.

 

       c) In the Connection Properties dialog box, select "Oracle Database

          Server (Oracle ODP.NET)" for Data Source and "Oracle Data Provider

          for .NET" for Data Provider. Select a TNS alias

          from Data Source Name drop-down list. If no entry is available, see

          SQL*Net setup above.  Enter a username and password, or select Use

          Windows integrated authentication. Click Test Connection button to 

          test the connection. If it's successful, click the OK button to

          continue.

 

          NOTE: The scripts will create tables, stored procedures, views, and

          roles.  They will be owned by the database user that executed the

          scripts.  If the ASP.NET applications connect to the database as a

          different database user than the database user that executed the

          scripts, the database user (who owns the database objects that were

          created for ASP.NET providers) will need to grant roles to other

          database users, if they require access.  For further details, please

          read Chapter 1 of the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET user's Guide for

          details.

 

       d) Back in the 'Run SQL*Plus Script' dialog box, browse and select the

          SQL scripts to run.  Typically, the location of the scripts is

          %ORACLE_HOME%\ASP.NET\SQL.

 

       e) The InstallOracleASPNETCommon.sql script must be executed first

          before executing any scripts for other Oracle Providers for ASP.NET.

          However, once the InstallOracleASPNETCommon.sql script has been

          executed for a given database, it does not need to be executed again

          for that database.

 

          Not all the scripts must be executed.  For example, if the application

          only uses Oracle's Membership provider, only the

          InstallOracleASPNETCommon.sql and InstallOracleMembership.sql scripts

          need to be executed, in that order.  Note that to execute all the

          install scripts for all the providers,

          InstallAllOracleASPNETProviders.sql can be executed.

 

          For deintallation, the corresponding "Uninstall" scripts should be

          executed for all "Install" scripts that were executed.  When

          deinstalling, the UninstallOracleASPNETCommon.sql script must be

          executed last after provider-specific "Uninstall" scripts have been

          executed.  For example, if the InstallOracleASPNETCommon.sql and

          InstallOracleMembership.sql were executed during the setup, the

          UninstallOracleMembership.sql and UninstallOracleASPNETCommon.sql

          must be executed in that order for proper deinstallation.  Note

          that UninstallAllOracleASPNETProviders.sql can be executed to

          remove all the database objects created from the execution of

          InstallAllOracleASPNETProviders.sql.

 

3.  Connection String Attribute in the machine.config (OPTIONAL)

 

    If the "OraAspNetConString" alias in the machine.config is to be used by

    your application, it must be assigned to a valid connection string in

    the machine.config or override the setting in the machine.config by

    providing a valid connection string in the web.config.

 

    See the configuration sample in the AUTOMATIC MACHINE.CONFIG CHANGES section

    above.  Note that EZCONNECT can be used for the data source setting in the

    connection string, eliminating the dependency on the tnsnames.ora file.

 

4.  Web.config File (OPTIONAL)

 

    You may use application config file (web.config) to override the default

    settings in the machine.config file, as mentioned in the previous step. 

    Some web.config examples are provided in the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET

    Developer's Guide for your reference.