Dear Oracle spatial experts,

When I don’t license Oracle spatial, but only want to use Locator (as described in Appendix B of the Spatial User Guide), is it allowed to load the SDO Java classes into the database ($/md/admin/sdoloadj.sql)? Or does loading the Java classes mean that one switches to using Oracle Spatial, and thus requiring a valid license?

Comments are greatly appreciated. Perhaps Simon is reading this?

Thanks to this post, I solved my Oracle authorization problem. His comments don’t seem to work, so I thought I’d post it here.

For some reason, a client did not have Oracle Locator (10g) installed. So I started DBCA (I’m lazy), selected the correct database and selected “JVM”, “XML DB” and “InterMedia” standard database options to be installed. That should do the trick.
But only when you have enough free storage in your SYSTEM and SYSAUX tablespaces. Naturally, there was 3MB free space in system and a similar amount in SYSAUX. So the installer barfed on me. Hey, let’s just add some space (extra datafiles) and restart.

Say it ain’t so: Oracle crashed, but does not clean up after its behind. It does not rollback the installation! Therefore you cannot just restart or reinstall. Great. That’s what they mean by a mature product? The JVM has been in the database since, what is it, Oracle 8i?

1) Remove JVM: ?/javavm/install/rmjvm.sql
2) Bounce the database (if you forget to bounce, you will get an ORA-00028)
3) Start dbca and install jvm (and the rest)

Yeah! Oracle Application Express 4.0 is here!!!

To reset the sys password of a database, do the following:

1) rename/delete ${ORACLE_HOME}/database/PWD{ORACLE_SID}.ora
2) enter the command: orapwd file=${ORACLE_HOME}/database/PWD{ORACLE_SID}.ora password=newpassword
3) start “sqlplus /nolog”
4) login with sys and the newpassword (SQL> connect sys/newpassword as sysdba)
5) now reset other passwords or just be done

I was asked to install Oracle 10gR2 on one of the clients new machines. Of course I had trouble installing it, since the OS was CentOS and not one of the certified Oracle platforms. The trouble with installing Oracle x64 on non-supported systems is the relinking process. You always run into libraries that cannot be found, or some other shit that’s still looking for 32-bit software/libraries. In my opinion x64 should be the default and all server software should be backported to x86, but that’s just my opinion.

Thanks to this post I was able get Oracle to install properly, basically because the list of prerequisite packages in Oracle’s installation guide is to short. This list (at least on CentOS 5.4) should do the trick:

binutils-2.17.50.0.6-2.el5
compat-gcc-34-3.4.6-4
compat-gcc-34-c++-3.4.6-4
compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-61
compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-61(i386)
control-center-2.16.0-14.el5
gcc-4.1.1-52.el5
gcc-c++-4.1.1-52.el5
gdbm-1.8.0-26.2.1
glibc-2.5-12
glibc-common-2.5-12
glibc-devel-2.5-12
glibc-devel-2.5-12(i386)
libgcc-4.1.1-52.el5(i386)
libgcc-4.1.1-52.el5(x86_64)
libgnome-2.16.0-6.el5
libstdc++-devel-3.4.3-22.1
libXp-1.0.0-8.i386
libXp-1.0.0-8.x64
make-3.81-1.1
sysstat-7.0.0-3.el5.x86_64.rpm
util-linux-2.13-0.44.e15.x86_64

You don’t need the exact versions. Just do a “yum install compat-gcc-34″ for instance, and if the installed version is higher, you’re safe.

If you’re a happy GeoServer 1.7.x user, then seriously consider upgrading to GeoServer 2.0. It’s a lot faster, its menu structure is a lot better, the UI is much improved (with a touch of Ajax here and there). I found some minor issues (which I’m looking into before raising my voice), but nothing that should keep you from updating.

I run GeoServer in Oracle’s OC4J 10gR2 (the standalone development version), and it runs without any problems. Since the OC4J is declared dead, I will be looking into deploying it to Weblogic, but that’s a completely different monster to conquer…

Finally, it works. I found some new samples on the OpenLayers site and some posts in the mailinglist that OpenLayers.Layers.WFS just plainly sucks. Indeed, so I experienced. Instead the writer suggested to use OpenLayers.Layer.Vector and give it a type WFST. So I googled around for some samples, found one, modified it, and….voila….no more empty geometries in the database. YEAH!

Yesterday I installed JBoss 4.2.3 and deployed Geoserver 1.7.6 to it and installed the OracleNG plugin. Unfortunately, after setting up the Oracle datastore and some features, inserting via WFS-T still resulted in an empty geometry in the database.

SVN access to the OpenLayers trunk gives an error at the moment, so I guess I’ll have to do some further testing with the 2.0RC of Geoserver.

I tried Geoserver with Oracle 11g, and still I get empty geometries inserted into the database. With Firebug I can see that the GML sent is correct, it contains the correct geometry information (in this case: point coordinates), but the receiving end fucks it up. Not sure whether the OracleNG plugin for Geoserver or Openlayers does the fucking up, but I suspect it is the plugin.