AD Administration

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AD Administration (ADADMIN) is the utility that you will probably spend most of your time with. It is through ADADMIN that you maintain the majority of your Applications database objects and many of its Apps Server objects. Ensuring the smooth running of an Oracle Applications system requires the use and understanding of ADADMIN. It can be run in interactive mode, where you supply answers to its requests by either accepting its defaults or supplying it values of your own; it can run certain tasks in noninteractive mode, as well. Noninteractive mode is particularly useful for running routine tasks that require no administrator intervention on a schedule.

AD Administration writes a session level log file to enable you to track any errors occurring during your session. The log file has the default name of ADADMIN.log and is located in %APPL_TOP%\admin\<SID>\log, however I follow a more descriptive log file naming convention. If you take the default, ADADMIN.log, you will append every AD Administration session's files to the end of the existing file. This file can quickly grow quite large and unwieldy to work with and search. Whenever I have reason to run the ADADMIN utility, I document in the filename, the maintenance that I am planning on performing, what if any patch I am running ADADMIN on behalf of, the date, and the initials of the person running the session. For example, if I have applied patch number 1234567 in the VIS instance and postinstallation steps called for running ADADMIN to regenerate menus and recompile flex fields and I applied it on November 12, 2002 at 1:34 in the afternoon, I would replace the default filename with one similar to the following:

 Vis_post_1234567_regen-menu_recompile-flex_111202- 1334_ajw.log 

This way I know that I was the one who ran it, why, when, and in what environment. While it means significantly more typing than simply hitting enter to accept the defaults, if I should happen to need to log an iTAR, the required file is easily located, and all information for the single AD Administration run is contained within a single file (unless ADRELINK is called) and no other runs of ADADMIN will be confused into the analysis of the log.

ADADMIN is broken into two menu-driven sections. Table 8.4 shows the first menu that you are presented with. From here, your options are to maintain database objects or to maintain applications objects.

 Usage: adrelink force={y|n} [<optional args>] <targets> or: adrelink force={y|n} [<optional args>] filelist=<file>  where <targets> = { <product module> [<product module>]… }  and    <product module> = "<product> <module name>" - <product> should be in lower case - <module name> should exactly match the executable name Valid <optional args> are: envfile=adsetenv.sh Used only by the 'adsetup' script link_debug={y|n} Will we link executables with debug or not? Default is 'n' backup_mode={none|all|file} Which executables will we back up when linking with force=y? Default is 'file'.  Meanings are: - none: do not back up any executables - all : back up all executables - file: do what $APPL_TOP/admin/adlinkbk.txt says to do Type 'adrelink examples' to see some examples of running adrelink. 

NonInteractive Mode

Although the conversion to Multiple Reporting Currencies, MultiOrg, or a different character set as well as the creations of the environment file and the copying of files to different destinations cannot be run in interactive mode, there are many utilities that can. This can be done to simplify maintenance by allowing you to schedule your maintenance during off hours and allow it to run without the need for your intervention.

To run in noninteractive mode, you will need to create a defaults file that ADADMIN can read while it is trying to process. This file has to be located in the %APPL_TOP%\admin\<SID> directory, but you can name it as you choose. Again, I would suggest being descriptive. To create the file, you need to run ADADMIN completely through the task that you want to automate, specifying the defaultsfile=<file name> parameter so that it will place all of your answers into the defaults file. The following command would create a defaults file that would compile flex fields in noninteractive mode:

 $ ADADMIN defaults file=$APPL_TOP/admin/vis/ADADMIN_compile_flex_ fields_defaults.txt D:\> ADADMIN defaults file=%APPL_TOP\admin\vis\ADADMIN_compile_flex_ fields_defaults.txt 

When you are creating this defaults file, do not simply hit enter, thereby taking the defaults; you should physically answer all questions so that you are sure they are in the file. If ADADMIN runs in noninteractive mode and cannot find one of the answers in its default file, it will abort.

To run ADADMIN in noninteractive mode using the defaults file just created and to run the compilation of flex fields in noninteractive mode, you would run something similar to one of the following commands. Remember to string them all together. Either OS type will wrap the command or string it out on one line. If you hit enter, it will assume that you are finished. Alternatively, use the line continuation character that you have defined in your OS to continue the command on the subsequent lines.

 $ ADADMIN defaults file==$APPL_TOP/admin/vis/ADADMIN_compile_ flex_fields_defaults.txt log file=vis_ADADMIN_copile_flex_fields_non- interactive_$SOURCED-DATE_ajw.log workers=4 interactive=no D:\> ADADMIN defaults file=%APPL_TOP\admin\vis\ADADMIN_compile_ flex_fields_defaults.txt log file=vis_ADADMIN_copile_flex_fields_non- interactive_%SOURCED-DATE%_ajw.log workers=4 interactive=no 

This command will run ADADMIN to compile flex fields using the defaults file, creating a log file containing a date environment variable that you can have set every time the script is run. It calls four workers, if workers are required and runs noninteractively. If the job should fail, you can use the parameter restart=yes to make sure that ADADMIN does not try to ask questions that the defaults file is unable to answer.

It is through ADADMIN that many of the other AD Utilities are called.

ADRELINK

ADRELINK relinks the Apps executables with product libraries. When a patch's C driver requires executables to be relinked because it made changes to one of the dynamic link libraries (DLLs) (usually FND.dll), it calls ADRELINK to perform.

However, when executables need to be relinked, ADRELINK usually gets run through the ADADMIN interface. Through ADADMIN, you have a menu-driven interface that will prompt how you want to relink and other required parameters. One of the parameters that ADRELINK requires (one for which there is no default) is the force parameter. If you inform ADRELINK that you want to relink executables with force = n, it will check the dates on the executables and the libraries; if any of the libraries are newer than the executable, it will relink. If you choose force = y, the dates will not be checked and all executables and their libraries will be linked regardless of date relationships. Typing adrelink.sh at the command line will provide you with instructions concerning the syntax of ADRELINK utility. Table 8.4 shows a sample output from running this command.

Typing ADRELINK examples at the command line and following the suggestion in the resulting output of the adrelink.sh command gives you the output in Table 8.5.

 adrelink sample command lines: To relink f60webmx:   'adrelink force=y "fnd f60webmx"' To relink f60webmx, FNDLIBR, and GLPPOS:   'adrelink force=y "fnd f60webmx" "gl GLPPOS" "fnd FNDLIBR"' To relink all executables for General Ledger:   Use the AD Administration Utility, not adrelink To relink all executables for all products:   Use the AD Administration Utility, not adrelink Type 'adrelink examples filelist' for "filelist mode" information. 

Again, following the suggestion in the resulting output and typing adrelink examples filelist at the command line, you will see the output resulting much as it is in Table 8.6.

Information on how to run adrelink in filelist mode:

  If you specify filelist=<file> on the adrelink command  line, you need to know the following:  - the format of <file> is:  <product> <subdirectory> <module name> <complete module  name>  with spaces or tabs between the fields.  - adrelink does not use the <complete module name>  field.  - adrelink only relinks modules with  <subdirectory>=bin.  adrelink "filelist mode" sample command line:  To relink programs listed in the file 'tempfile.txt':  'adrelink force=y filelist=tempfile.txt' 

ADRELINK creates a log file. Once it is finished relinking, check the log to make sure that there were no errors during its execution. If you are running ADRELINK from any other AD Utility, the log file will be found under the %APPL_TOP%/admin/<SID>/log directory. If you were to run ADRELINK from the command line, the log file would be placed in the $APPL_TOP/admin/log directory. Regardless of where it is located, the name of the file is adrelink.log. It is not a utility for which you specify the name of the log file you want to create. After you look at the log, it can be deleted if you want to save on disk space. If you do not delete or rename this file, it will get appended to every time ADRELINK runs. If you do delete or rename it (to maintain an entire set of patching logs logically together while you are patching), the next ADRELINK session will create a new one with the same name.

ADRELINK, through ADADMIN, will relink nearly all of the executable files in your middle tier's Application setup. It will not, however, relink the AD executables. To relink these, you have to run ADRELINK from the command line. If you are relinking AD executables, it is important that you shut down all of the middle tier services on the server that you are relinking on, otherwise, portions of ADRELINK may fail. Following is the syntax of the command with an actual example following that:

UNIX

 $ adrelink.sh force=y "ad <ad program name>" $ adrelink.sh force=y "ad ADADMIN" 

Windows

 C:\ sh  adrelink.sh force=y "ad ADADMIN" 

If you want to relink more than one AD executable, you can run command with a space-separated list of executables:

UNIX

 $ adrelink.sh force=y "ad ADADMIN"  "ad adctrl" "ad ADPATCH" 

Windows

 C:\ sh  adrelink.sh force=y "ad ADADMIN"  "ad adctrl"  "ad ADPATCH" 

If you want to relink all of the AD executables, you can replace the executable with the word ALL. This only applies for the AD executables at the command line, however; you cannot relink the executables in any other product family at the command line passing in the ALL parameter.

UNIX

 $ adrelink.sh force=y "ad ALL" 

Windows

 C:\ sh  adrelink.sh force=y "ad ALL" 

If you want to make a backup of the AD executable files that you are relinking from the command line, you can use the optional parameter backup_mode. It would be advisable to create a backup in case something goes wrong. This is accomplished by adding the backup_mode keyword along with the backup mode that you want to use. Backup_mode=all backs up all executables with a naming convention similar to what they are before they are backed up. Backup_mode=none means that none of the executables are backed up. Backup_mode = file backs up the product executable that is being relinked to a file named adlinkbk.txt. This is the default; this is what is used if backup mode is not used. The ramifications of using adlinkbk.txt with multiple executables in the list are not clear.

UNIX

 $ adrelink.sh force=y backup_mode=all  "ad ALL" 

Windows

 C:\ sh  adrelink.sh force=y backup_mode=all  "ad ALL" 

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