One of my close associates & a person I respect as a legend, Iudith said the following with one of her recent mails to me:
“Regarding all this WebLogic issue … I have a feeling that Oracle “used a cannon for killing a fly” ……… Maybe that complicated setup creates an environment which can support all kinds of other products,I really don’t know because I have mostly just heard about it.“
From Oracle’s perspectives, this approach may provide them better scalability, however how far such complexities will appease the developer crowd remains a big concern.
While the modernization of Oracle forms and reports, the maximum sought legacy development means remain a frequently sought and discussed topic, Oracle is definitely NOT doing enough to regain the confidence of mortals who spent decades developing, especially by making each and every newer versions difficult to install and setup.
Less said, let us go back to the topic, how to create and configure a standalone report server instance for 12c environment. This is my 3rd post in a row about installing and configuring 12c products related to Forms and Reports
I can’t exactly remember which document says “In-process reports server has better accountability against a standalone reports instance”. I have referred minimum couple of dozen 12c related documents and tens of blogs to setup stuffs. Without arguing whether in-process server or a standalone instance is better to cater the reports services, let me list the activities one have to perform in order to setup
Create a reports tools instance (Mandatory, if you are planning to use the same box for reports development)
Create a reports server instance (OPTIONAL, only if you want to host a standalone reports instance)
Start WLST(Weblogic Scripting Tool) console, and execute the below commands one after another (Make sure the node manager & the Weblogic admin server services are already started)
Once successfully completed, restart the WLS_REPORTS application using the weblogic admin console. Once bitten, twice shy…I always restart the weblogic admin server and other servers to make sure nothing is broken in between…(paranoid I must be)
Restarting the WLS_REPORTS server causes the weblogic server to configure the newly created instances of reports tools and reports instance. A successful completion let you
Start using the reports builder
Access the standalone reports server instance
You need minimal configurations for the standalone reports server instance. Just setup the reports (.rdf files) path, disable the security elements and you are online!
Assuming you have already configured the weblogic server components following the previous posts, switch to the reports instance configuration folder
Well, after dealing with 3 different versions of Forms & Reports 12c with Weblogic 12c, I found that 99.9% of the configurations for deploying Oracle Forms and Reports remain the same across versions. Hence instead of posting new threads towards the configurations, I will try to amend this thread with new instructions if any. Thank you (reader)
A week back I posted the procedures tested at my end (I’m excusing myself with this statement because 12c total setup could be a painful experience and may NOT be successful for many, even after following line by line instructions) here
This time I am going to list few instructions those will help you to deploy your existing forms & reports based applications to newly built 12c environment. The ONE pleasant surprise I came across during the deployment was, if your forms and reports were built and compiled used 11g R2 (not sure about 11g R1), no need to recompile them once again for the 12c deployment.
So last time we finished the topic discussing how to install and configure the 12c database, Weblogic Server, forms & reports and stopped at accessing the Oracle Enterprise Manager for Weblogic server.
If you are familiar with Weblogic Server 10 & Forms and reports 11gR2, creating a classic domain was much simpler compared to 12c. OPMN configurations were automated & once the relevant paths were setup, you are almost ready to start using the infrastructure for applications. However 12c requires more efforts from one to establish the same.
I’ll start with Oracle HTTP Server (OHS instance) that we created during the base_domain configurations. OPMN is not anymore used by Oracle 12c, hence the OHS.
As I always said, I’m not a weblogic guru, just another enthusiast who wants to try out newer products as a part of learning. Most of the stuffs I suggest here are “as how I managed to get it working”. Hence, if you find anything ridiculous or non-standard, please let me know through the comment section.
As you may already aware, forms and reports applications are deployed using own PORTs, for example WLS_FORMS server uses the port 9001 & WLS_REPORTS uses 9002 (default installation). However while you want to deploy an application, the users should be accessing both through a common interface, especially when the reports are called from forms using Web.Show_Document method. An example how the reports are called from a form using the above said method is like following:
“/reports/rwservlet?” assumes the servlet is called from the current root, for example, if you started the forms applications using the default deployment URL, it would look like the below
causing URL not found error because there are NO reports application deployments at http://rajesh-pc:9001/
The one possibility to address this would be by hardcoding the root part of the url, which I never tried. However, exposing the ports of your forms and reports application servers may not be a good idea. Here, OHS instance comes in picture.
All you need to do is to register the forms and reports applications with the OHS and once the OHS instance restarted, you can start calling both forms are reports through the common URL, for example like following
7777 is the default OHS instance port, which you can change to a free port according to your requirements. You may even use port 80 using OHS (I will not discuss about changing OHS port to 80, there are many decent posts already available all over internet)
Let’s start!
Update: 5th June 2016
You may enable the IPV6 after the installation and configuration by removing the registry dword & restarting the box. Using Weblogic console, point “Admin Server”, “WLS_FORMS” & “WLS_REPORTS” servers listen address to the host name of the box you are running them from.
In addition to changing the listening address, edit the host file of your box (X:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc” and add an entry like below
192.168.1.10 mybox.mydomain.xyz mybox
or
192.168.1.10 mybox
Note#1: IPV6 is becoming the standard now, however many of the Oracle products have serious issues handling the IPV6 stack & you may find reference towards inet4 references raised by java while checking the log files. So we will completely disable the IPV6 stack on our Windows 10 machine. Please read Microsoft documentations to understand what kind of troubles you may get subjected by disabling IPV6
Create a new reg_dword (32Bit) “DisabledComponents”
and just enter “FF” in the hexadecimal value column. Restart the computer
Note#2: If you created a Windows service for node manager using the Weblogic provided install service script, stop all WLS servers and stop the node manager service and delete the service from an elevate command prompt. I came across multiple issues related to java while using the Windows service created using the scripts.
We will use NSSM once again to create the node manager service, using the start node manager script you will find under $DOMAIN_HOME\bin folder
I’ve observed that most of null java exceptions were eliminated by creating the node manager service this way.
Note#3: Now we will setup a proper username and password for nodemanager because if you want to start the OHS instance manually later, you need to supply password (for the 1st time)
Lock & Edit the domain security values, please refer the image below for details
Provide a meaningful name for the node manager account and supply a password. I used the same password for the total 12c deployment, unless you are setting up a PRODUCTION instance, you may use the common password across the 12c instances for easy administration of objects when required. Shutdown the services (better)
Note#4: Once the node manager properties are changed, start the WLS admin server. Once a WLS classic domain is created, you MUST have a live database connectivity in order to start the WLS admin server. Hence make sure that before you will start the weblogic server, you can connect to the database that holds the repository information for the user domains. Start WLS_FORMS and WLS_REPORTS servers using the weblogic console to insure that the admin server can contact the node manager. The first instance of weblogic server start may take upto 8-10 minutes, so wait patiently
Note#5: Logon to Oracle Enterprise Manager console. If the servers are started properly, you will see “everything” green, else…
Note#6: Let us try to start the OHS instance for the 1st time, you can navigate to the OHS instance using the target navigation button, check the below image for more details
As I have already started my OHS instance I will see all details for the instance, please check the image below
If your OHS instance is not started yet, use the “Start up” button to start the instance. I had few failures, pointing towards JAVA while tried, most of them were related to the node manager, as described earlier by the beginning of this article.
Note#7: If you managed to start the OHS instance successfully, you have completed the 1st level of configurations for the application deployment. You can modify the listen address, port information etc using the OEM itself. Please check the below image for details. I will NOT try to get into the details of how to this time, though it is highly appealing, due to the fact that I need to stick to the topic (minimum once in a while)
Stop the OHS instance now. We need to tell the OHS instance, what exactly it is going to serve by modifying the configuration files. A bit of manual efforts are required as there are NO GUI provided by Oracle for such setups.
Move to your Oracle Home folder. I have installed Weblogic server in D:\Weblogic\Middleware folder, hence my Oracle home folder is
D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\
(Adjust your paths accordingly)
Edit forms.conf file in the folder D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\forms\templates\config\
By default this template file comes with commented examples, like following
You need to uncomment one of the blocks starting from <Location /forms> until </Location> & add properties specific to your deployment, for example, my computer’s name is “RAJESH-PC” and I am using default ports for both forms and reports applications, hence I have the properties set like following
Now we will edit the configuration file for reports
Switch to “D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\reports\conf” folder & edit “reports_ohs.conf” and add a block like following (alter according to your setup)
Now the OHS instance know about the deployments and once after restarted, you can try to start the forms based application through the OHS instance, rather than calling it against the default port (9001)
Once the OHS instance is updated with the new information, try to start the OHS instance from a command prompt using storeUserConfig parameter
1st run, you will be prompted for node manager password, supply the password you have setup earlier and OHS instance should start without creating a fuzz in usual scenarios
In future if you want to start the OHS instance, unless made changes to the configurations, just run
Above concludes the 1st of level of configurations for Oracle forms based application. You can use Weblogic 12c Enterprise Manager to configure most of the forms environment related parameters like forms path and other, while I am yet to find out relevant configuration areas for reports. I’ve opened a thread with Oracle community inquiring the same and yet to receive any leads.
You can manually modify the formsweb.cfg & default.env files to start with as well
While forms based application hasn’t changed much (other than the OHS part), making the reports working for you could be really a painful experience.
Regardless whether you are going to use the in-process report server or a stand alone instance of the reports, many changes should be made to the configuration files, so that you can call the reports server from a Forms module
Generally we will be modifying n configuration files, I will try my level best to provide the exact locations for the files which you should change according to your installation preferences
rwservlet.properties – Servlet specific properties
rwserver.conf – Server properties
cgicmd.dat – key mapping file
1. As far you are using in-process reports server, nothing much to alter with “rwservlet.properties” file. Basically you should see entries like following in the opened file:
2. rwserver.conf (Please check the below image)
3. cgicmd.dat: Many values we supply to call a report using Web.Show_Document method could potentially expose vital information like the database details & many other. “cgicmd.dat” file helps us to map such values to keys and later use them wherever applicable. With this example, I will demonstrate, how the database username, password and service name are mapped using a key. Please check the image attached below
Once these configurations files are altered, please restart the WLS_REPORTS server using Weblogic admin console. You may optionally restart the WLS_FORMS server as well
Basically these many configuration should let you go online with your application. One of the pleasant stuffs about 12c forms and reports is, you don’t have to recompile the existing forms modules, just copy them to a new folder, update your formsweb.cfg and default.env files, restart the WLS_FORMS server and you are all set to go.
I’ve successfully configured a stand alone report server instance as well. I think I should separate it from this thread and post it as a fresh one to avoid confusions.
I been working from last few weeks to get these whole stuffs in a single place and cannot remember whether I’ve missed anything vital. If you get stuck anywhere, please let me know through the comment section and I will be more than glad to look into such.
Guys, I have different threads towards specific version of Weblogic 12c & Oracle Forms and Reports installation, configuration(s). Please refer the thread specific to the version of Weblogic & Oracle Forms & Reports that you are trying to install.
Update 23rd October 2016
I was trying to answer one of the comments and realized that my database schemas those were created during repo creation were with expired passwords and the “WebLogic Admin Server” will not start. So, you are advised to setup your 12c database with no password expiry, no complex passwords etc (as far you are using the environment for development)
Important:
If for some reasons you cannot update your Windows 10 box, minimum make sure that you have Visual C++ 2012 package installed, which will provide you the much needed “MSVCR110.dll”, without which the Apache HTTP server will not start on Windows. This workaround is not at all an excuse for not patching your Windows box using update services.
Update: 03rd June 2016
I’m revisiting few of the claims which were true during the early builds of Windows 10, however not anymore having the same issues with the latest build & after cumulative updates. My Windows 10 boxes run the following build with all updates in place.
I’ve enabled the IPV6 protocol by deleting the explicit key that I created under TCPIP6 parameters & once after restarting the boxes, was able to start all the weblogic services and OHS instance successfully. However, I have made the following change
Pointed all the servers, “Admin Server”, “WLS_FORMS” and “WLS_REPORTS” to the hostname, instead of leaving the listening address empty. Eg: rajesh-pc. As I mentioned and re-iterating, whole the exercises described are those worked in my lab environment. Any attempts to use them at a production environment could prove you WRONG and disastrous situations may arise by not following Oracle’s guidelines.
This time, I will try to explain how you can setup few 12c products for your testing and developing needs in Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system (The same should be applicable for Windows 8.1 as well)
My scenario
OS: Windows 10 64bit Professional
Memory: 16gb
Processor: i7
Storage: Around 4.6 TB (4 Disks)
Software downloads required for the setup
Oracle database 12c
JDK
Middleware aka Weblogic Server 12c
Forms and reports 12c
You can download the above software packages from Oracle’s repositories
Why Oracle Database 12c?
Unfortunately, Weblogic server 12c doesn’t support database versions below 11.2.0.4, which will require an existing 11g R2 (11.2.0.2) to be upgraded. This upgrade (patch, full installation) is only available for customers with valid support subscriptions, hence the best option available is installing Oracle 12c database in order to setup Weblogic 12c with Forms and Reports 12c
Part 1 – Oracle database 12c Installation
The software package you download will have 2 zip files & You must extract both the zip files to a single folder
For example, as you could see with the above image, I have two zip files for the Oracle database and have created a folder called “Installer”. I extracted the 1st zip file inside the “Installer” folder (by pointing to the extract folder explicitly, else usually the unzip utility will create a folder within “Installer” with the zip filename. Make sure once after the extraction, under “Installer” folder, you have ONLY ONE folder called “database”
Now extract the 2nd zip file to “Installer” folder, and Windows will merge the folders and finally you should see within “database” folder items as listed below
Failing to follow the above will fail your attempts to install the database. You will see few images below those are due to extracting zip files into different folders
Execute the setup.exe
You don’t have Oracle support, so uncheck the “I wish to…” and smile at the warning that Oracle never forgets to display
Recently I realized that creating a database once after the Oracle software installation gives me more options to setup archive logs, automated backups etc. So I will proceed with “Install software Only” option
Add the languages you want to use with the database
Oracle has a new approach with who starts the Oracle software in Windows environments and I think it is better to have a dedicated user to start the Oracle services, which provides better security. I created a user called “Oracle” and my password is:
Old fashioned, I prefer the database installation path to start with “Oracle”, hence I chose “D:\Oracle” for the installation. You can accept the default and proceed with the installation
Now, comes the errors related to “missing” files, which are due to the wrong extraction method I have mentioned by the beginning of this post. You get a number of read errors for files with strange names…
Once you extracted the files as suggested into a single folder, the Oracle database software installation should progress without giving any kind of errors, keep accepting the JAVA security prompts
Very easy, no hacking at all involved with the installation. Usually a novice (and ME) could get confused reading Oracle’s documents asking the user to extract the zip files to a single folder ;)
Once the software installed, use DBCA to create a new database.
Update Part 1a (1st of March 2017)
Sorry guys, I started getting couple of inquiries about the database parameters for repository database used by 12c Middleware & as I followed multiple documents to setup my environment, didn’t feel that I should exclusively add the database parameterization with my initial post. So, I am adding it with the post for your references
“Oracle” strongly suggests that the repository for Middleware should have “AL32UTF8” as the character set. Hence, while creating the database, please make sure you select the same for your repo database. If you are migrating a legacy application that has issues with this particular character set, I suggest you create a smaller size database exclusively for the Middleware repo and create another database for your application that uses a different character set.
Part 2 – JDK Installation
Download and install JDK 8 (Preferably to a folder like C:\Java, D:\JDK) etc. Shortest the path will help you to easily configure many things at later stages. If you have earlier versions of JRE for some specific reasons, deselect JRE from the feature listing
Part 3 – Weblogic 12c Installation
Once again, Weblogic 12c doesn’t require any specific hacks for installation in Windows 10. Switch to the folder from command prompt where you downloaded “fmw_12.2.1.0.0_infrastructure.jar” and call java to install the package. Please check the below image for details
(I’m leaving the images untouched, so that you will able to see possible errors we can make while typing in commands)
As usual you will skip the updates
Structuring Oracle Home is going to be a logical call, if you are familiar with Oracle’s suggested folder structure, go with it. Usually I install Weblogic in a folder like C:\Weblogic or D:\Weblogic
Now select the first option, Fusion Middleware Infrastructure
Skip the below, and the installation should be completing within few minutes time without making any errors.
Part 4 – Forms & Reports 12c Installation
Forms 12c allows a stand-alone installation, however, our requirement is to deploy applications through weblogic server. Hence we will be doing the standard installation processes facilitating the application deployments.
As usual We will skip auto updates
Make sure you select the same folder where you installed WebLogic server for “Oracle Home”
Select Forms and reports deployment
It could take a while until the installation is completed. Usually the total installation process never errors out. I hope the same for you also :)
Part 5 – Create a REPO(?!)
As I mentioned earlier, I am not a Weblogic geek, Oracle says a database repo is required for Weblogic 12c, so I created one as per their instructions & I suggest you better do that as well ;)
Browse to your “D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\oracle_common\bin” folder and execute rcu.bat file as “Administrator”
The creation of repo is pretty straight forward
Make sure your database & listener services already started and you can TNSPING, connect to the instance using SQL etc, to insure that the repo creation will NOT fail
Fill in your database instance details (Service name, host name, PORT etc)
If the utility could establish a connection to the database, you will be taken to rest of the configurations in next steps.
By default when you are trying to create your 1st repository (for each new domain, you must create a new repo, there were claims that someone managed to use the same repo with his 2nd domain as well, however, 1st domain being offline) You will be offered to create a new prefix, by default ‘DEV’. You can change it to JON, MARTA or PROD according to your requirement. Just make sure that you note it down or remember it while configuring your forms and reports instance at later stages
Select the components as seen with the image below (The selected are mandatory to configure forms & reports domains)
Use a single password for all the schemas those will be created as a part of the repo creation. I have used the same password across 12c products. For a lab, it is okay, however when you are deploying the solution for production environment, follow the recommendations for passwords. I created a password like “Abcprod123”, it has CAPITAL letter, lowercase letters & numbers
That’s all, you have created a new repo for your new domain that you will create later.
Part 6 – Configure your forms & reports domain.
Most important
Make sure your PATH environment variable has your JDK\bin folder as the first value, else you will NEVER manage to get your forms and reports builders configured properly, Oracle has made sure of it ;)
Check the below images and cross check your computer’s PATH value
You can start the “config.cmd” either from the start menu or from the “D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\oracle_common\common\bin” folder (Please change the path according to your installation preferences, for example I opted “D:\WebLogic” for my WebLogic server installation and rest of the paths were created automatically during the installation process)
Select the default “Create a new domain”. You will see that “base_domain” folder is selected by default, which you can change according to your requirement.
Select the component for your domain (Select all the components listed with the image below)
You will be provided a window showing your current domain name, physical location etc
Leave the Weblogic account name as “weblogic” & supply an Alpha Numeric password for the account
Select Production & keep the JDK pointed towards your specific JDK installation, which is automatically selected.
Now you have to supply the repo details you have created earlier. Make sure you are not making mistakes with supplying the details & click “Get RCU Configuration”
You can proceed to next level only once after populating the RCU Configurations, if errors you will not able to proceed
Make sure all the listed elements hare having same Service, HOST, PORT names and the password columns are automatically filled. If any one of the listed row has different value, cancel the installation. It means you made some mistakes while creating the repo.
Once the repo connectivity confirmed, you will be provided a number of components those you could configure as the part of the forms & reports configuration.
Select the components as shown with the image below
Accept the defaults for Administration Server
Next screen you should be shown two components
WLS_FORM
WLS_REPORTS
Accept the defaults
You need to add the “AdminServer” from the left pan “Servers” to the node under “Machines”
This page, as we select OHS as a component, you should add one OHS instance using the Add Button and give it a meaningful name like “ohs1” or “ohs_1”. Make sure the Component Type is “OHS”
You may enter localhost as Listen address for the ohs instance in the next page.
Now add the “ohs1” component from the “System Components” to “Machines” Node
Click the “Create” button to start configuring the forms & reports domain
Once the configuration is over, you will be provided a confirmation screen as seen below. Don’t close this window. We need to perform few more stuffs prior finishing the configuration, said you can close this window by clicking the “Finish” button, just make sure that you have copied the URL, and the foot note shown by the bottom of the window. That note clearly asks you to execute a specific command using WebLogic Scripting Tool, for OHS
Start the node manager from your newly created domain\bin folder (Check the below image for details)
Now, you need to start the weblogic server. When prompted, supply your weblogic username and password
Logon to the WebLogic Admin server console and start the WLS_FORMS & WLS_REPORTS servers, this will trigger setting up much of the start menu components for your installed products, else missing.
Keep monitoring the weblogic server window, Once the server enters into RUNNING mode, you will notice that items are getting added to “Oracle FMW 12c Domain -base_domain” Start Menu folder.
Now you have to start the Weblogic scripting tool & run the instructions provided with the last Window of forms and reports configuration
Please see the below image(s) for details
OHS instance should get activated and updated without any issues by the end of the process.
Now you can close the last window of forms & reports configuration and access Weblogic console & Enterprise Manager through the following URL(s)
You can use the EM console to start your OHS instance (OPMN depreciated) as well. Once started, the OHS instance will be configured to start automatically.
Now We will create the Node Manager Service for Windows. Please check the below image for details
I’ve used “NSSM – the Non-Sucking Service Manager” to create the Weblogic Admin Server Service. You can download NSSM from here. Issue a command like nssm.exe install “WebLogic Admin Server” will popup a GUI where you can select the “….\Oracle_Home\user_projects\domains\base_domain\bin\startWebLogic.cmd” as the executable for the service.
Now, we will configure the last element in this configuration section, Reports Tools instance so that you can start using the report developer 12c. From Weblogic Scripting Tool Console, you can create a new tool instance. Please refer the below image for details.
Restart the WLS_REPORTS server using Weblogic Admin console and the reports tool will be configured once after the WLS_REPORTS enters RUNNING status
While the Forms developer could be invoked from the Start Menu folder “Oracle FMW 12c Domain -base_domain”, calling reports builder is pretty awkward. You have to browse to “…\Oracle_Home\user_projects\domains\base_domain\reports\bin\” and execute the batch file “rwbuilder.bat”. Better, you create a shortcut for the batch file on your desktop.
So, that concludes the 1st level installation and configuration of 12c database, WebLogic, forms & reports. I will get back to the thread, with details about how to configure forms and reports elements and deploy modules at a later time.
Updated 8th November 2019
I just realized that I never linked the configurations thread with this post and doing it right now. You can access the thread that explains how to setup/configure Weblogic Classic Domain for deploying Oracle Forms & Reports application through the below link
Update: I’m terribly sorry for the spellos starting with the title itself! No level of frustration with a product justify such mistakes ;)
Hi guys
Let me start the topic with a bold question, how many out there STILL believe that Oracle will do that “something” which will give the confidence to the existing Oracle developers that, there is a career growth still attached with Oracle forms & reports?
Oracle has totally lost (my personal opinion) it with Forms and reports, minimum from a developer’s perspectives. They made the installation and configuring of a development environment as complex as possible starting with 9i, which successfully continued with later versions. I’m a person with multi-domain oriented experiences those are not less than 15 years. I never found another IDE having such complexities to setup in a developer’s computer, as much with Oracle developer 11g and later.
In short, if a beginner wants to learn Oracle forms and reports development, he/she needs to spend hours, many times days until the environment could be set, which has become gravely disappointing with Oracle forms & reports 12c. While they have introduced a stand alone Forms installation that obviously could be installed without much troubles, setting up a whole infrastructure to develop, test forms and reports are far beyond ridiculousness!
I have just finished with my 1st WebLogic 12c setup and very soon post a detailed how to towards setting up something that doesn’t worth your efforts!
Update (19th October 2015): I’m yet to find proper solutions for screen capturing in Windows 10. My favorite OBS doesn’t render the dropdown menus while screen recorded (thread here). Once it’s done, I will make the video as promised with my last update.
Update (12th October 2015) : I’m not promising, however, if possible, I will soon post a video with my Youtube channel explaining how you can configure both forms and reports server for hosting applications. Stay tuned :)
Hi guys
There are excellent articles explaining installing WebLogic 10.3.6 64Bit on Windows. Most of the installation methods are applicable to Windows 7, 8.x & on Windows 10 also. I opted to do a factory reset (the new reset option available with Windows 10) and was forced to re-install & configure WebLogic. I thought of sharing my experiences with you, as usual :)
(There were not a single hiccup experienced throughout the installation, to say it short)
Environment: Windows 10 Professional 64Bit, i5 Processor, 8GB memory, 1TB HDD, Dell laptop
Update 12th October 2015
Weblogic server 10.3.6 has identified issues with IPV6, hence I will suggest you to disable it in case if you are expecting a better experience with your Weblogic servers (forms & reports). ISA, the firewall client also could be a problem.
Once the IPV6 disabled, if you are in a home network or domain network, ping your machine and make sure that your ping replies are coming from your IPV4 address, instead of IPV6. If your computer is a domain member, ask your administrator to delete the IPV6 DNS entries for your box, disable IPV6 in your computer and restart. Ping again to confirm the replies are from IPV4. The issues are random, I had my Windows 8.1 machine with both the protocols enabled and my Weblogic servers just ran smoothly, however my Windows 10 box was adamant and until I disabled IPV6, couldn’t get the report server functional properly.
Step 1
Install JDK 7 to a folder without spaces in between, preferably C:\ (eg: C:\jdk or D:\jdk). Avoid installing JRE that comes with the JDK package.
Step 2
Copy your WebLogic installation .jar file to a folder (eg: D:\downloads)
Step 3
Now kick start the installation, as seen with the below image. It may take a while to deflate the .jar file and the installation to start
Try to install the weblogic server in a folder that doesn’t have spaces in it’s name. I always installed it in D:\weblogic
You don’t have a support for the product most of the times, so uncheck the “I wish…”
Choose the “Typical” for install type
As you started the installation from the JDK installation folder, the local JDK will be already chosen
Select the defaults for components installations(unless you know how to handle it thoroughly)
Install WebLogic for all users
Uncheck “Run Quickstart” and exit the installation by clicking the Close button
Step 4 – Install Developer Suite 11gR2
Installation media for Developer Suite 11gR2 comes as 3 disks. Download (if still available) and start the “Setup.exe” from Disk 1
Select “Skip Software Updates” which requires a paid support from Oracle. If you have one, please set it up prior going ahead with the installation
Select “Install Software – Do Not Configure”. We’ll configure it as part of our Classic Instance setup.
You can ignore the error, details mentions about unsupported operating system, well that’s all our intentions
Unless you have specific requirements, accept the defaults
You don’t have a paid support from Oracle, you don’t get updates. Uncheck “I wish to …”
The installation will start now and it takes quite a while, in my case around 30 minutes. Sit back and relax
Exit the installation clicking “Finish” button.
Step 5 – Configure a Classic Instance
Even though you have installed Developer Suite 11gR2, you cannot yet use the development tools unless a classic domain is set up. Below please see how a classic domain is configured with Developer forms and reports.
A default installation of Oracle Developer Suite should create a folder “Oracle Classic 11g -Home1” under programs. You can activate the classic home setup by invoking menu item “Configure Classic Instance”
(I’m using ClassicShell start menu, I can’t really work with the latest “Start Menu”, so don’t get confused with the below image. You can use the search to find “Configure Classic Instance”)
Select “Configure for Deployment”
Skip the below by unchecking the “I wish to …”
Unless mandatory, accept the defaults
Provide a alphanumeric password for “weblogic” account for the domain. Please note it down, incase if you fear of forgetting it (I do many times)
Important: By default “Oracle Forms and Reports 11g R2” is unchecked, You must check this option to install the developer tools. After checking, proceed with the configuration
Select “Auto Port Configuration”
Select “Do not use proxy settings”. Proxy settings could make weblogic experiences cumbersome. I suggest you use a computer that doesn’t require proxy settings
We are not going to use the Identity store for a local development machine, if you do, please provide the details.
Initiate the configurations by clicking “Configure” button
Configuration should complete in around 30 minutes, so sit back and relax
The above concludes the installation of WebLogic Server 10.3.6 & Developer Suite 11gR2 64Bit on Windows 10.
Let us checkout few essentials those will make sure that you have a seamless experience with the fresh installation.
Unlike the 32Bit, 64Bit installation of WebLogic server doesn’t install node manager Windows service. So you must install the windows service using the scripts provided by the installation process. If you didn’t change any of the default paths while installing the WebLogic server, the node manager windows service installation script file will be available …\wlserver_10.3\server\bin path
Best practice
Shutdown all running servers using the WebLogic console and restart the computer, this will avoid any sort of complication that could arise while the below exercise are executed.
From an elevated command prompt, running “installNodeMgrSvc.cmd” script will create this node manager windows service for you, which is mandatory for the WebLogic console to maintain your forms & reports servers (start, shutdown)
Once you created the node manager service, you should create a service for WebLogic admin server as well. This will help you from running the batch files manually & having a cluttered desktop later. More than, once created these services can restart themselves whenever you restart the box!
[code language=”text” gutter=”false”]
echo off
SETLOCAL
set DOMAIN_NAME=ClassicDomain
set USERDOMAIN_HOME=D:\WebLogic\user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain
set SERVER_NAME=AdminServer
set WL_HOME=D:\WebLogic\wlserver_10.3
set WLS_USER=weblogic
set WLS_PW=pass123
set PRODUCTION_MODE=true
set MEM_ARGS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m
call "%USERDOMAIN_HOME%\bin\setDomainEnv.cmd"
call "%WL_HOME%\server\bin\installSvc.cmd"
ENDLOCAL
[/code]
Copy the above script to a text file and save with a name like “InstallAdminServer.cmd” or with a name that ends with .cmd extension. I will always prefer saving the file in the same folder where we had the node manager service installation script.
Now, from an elevated command prompt, run the script, which should create Admin Server Windows Service for you.
If you followed the instructions, you should see all the services as listed above. You can start the ones which are not running, Please wait a while before trying to access the WebLogic admin console after starting the service. It takes few minutes for the admin server to come online.
I do hope this post will help you to install and configure WebLogic Server and Developer Suite 11gR12 on Windows 10 successfully. Have questions or problems? please update me with the comment section.
Was one of our maximum sought posts & recently I decided to go for a fresh installation of Weblogic 10.3.6 64Bit installation + Forms & reports 11g R2 64Bit. We repeat one of the best articles explain how to is available here and what we are going to provide you additional is few of the things those are different from a typical 32Bit installation.
JDK 8 is not supported (Or my two attempts didn’t bring any fruits)
Node Manager Windows service installation is not offered during the normal/custom installations. That means you MUST install the node manager service by running the .cmd file provided. Default location for the .cmd file is …\wlserver_10.3\server\bin and the file name is “installNodeMgrSvc.cmd”. You should execute this .cmd file from an elevated command prompt!
If you prefer to install a service for Admin server, we have altered the script a little bit and please find it below.
[code language=”text” gutter=”false”]
echo off
SETLOCAL
set DOMAIN_NAME=ClassicDomain
set USERDOMAIN_HOME=D:\WebLogic\user_projects\domains\ClassicDomain
set SERVER_NAME=AdminServer
set WL_HOME=D:\WebLogic\wlserver_10.3
set WLS_USER=weblogic
set WLS_PW=pass123
set PRODUCTION_MODE=true
set MEM_ARGS=-Xms512m -Xmx512m
call "%USERDOMAIN_HOME%\bin\setDomainEnv.cmd"
call "%WL_HOME%\server\bin\installSvc.cmd"
ENDLOCAL
[/code]
I really hope the above tips will make your Weblogic installation more enjoyable.
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
echo "You must supply either start or stop command while calling this script! correct usage: weblogic_start_stop.sh start|stop"
exit
fi
bold=`tput bold`
normal=`tput sgr0`
case "$1" in
‘start’)
echo "Starting Management Node & Weblogic Server 10.3.6"
We came across a small annoyance with Oracle product Reports developer 10g. We are yet to pin point the exact reasons, however, if you are experiencing the same issue which is as elaborated below:
Start Reports Developer 10g
Flash Screen appears
Then gets automatically minimized to the taskbar (Windows 7/8/8.1), and pointing the mouse shows the preview, as in below image.
However, clicking the preview window doesn’t bring up the Reports Builder 10g to maximized mode and remains unresponsive
What has changed from the last time the software was used?
We uninstalled and re-installed Weblogic Server 10.3.6 & Forms & Reports 11g R2, which has added multiple entries into the PATH environment variable. Order of path variable and pointers towards the java libraries are very sensitive for multiple Oracle products. May this could be a problem? Not sure!
Solution:
Right click the Preview window
and select “Maximize”
Once maximized, exit the reports developer. Restart to confirm the builder starts in Maximized mode next time.
Oracle Process Manager (asinst_1) where asinst_1 is the instance name you chose while configuring the forms & reports 11g. We noticed that once after upgrading Windows 8 to Windows 8.1, almost all the Oracle services (database, weblogic related) were been removed from the windows services database, which forced us to re-create them manually!
Our Weblogic server was installed for the lab, hence none were accessing them once after the first level tests. Thus we were not aware of the issues related to OPMN, which were usually started by Application Instance services during each boot (unless start mode set manual)
Here we are providing you a quick method to create the missing Oracle Process Manager (<instancename_1)” service using Windows command line
from an elevated command window, issue the following command (please alter the paths according to your installation physical locations)
[code language=”text” light=”true”]
C:\WINDOWS\system32>SC CREATE "OracleProcessManager_asinst_1" binPath="D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_FRHome1\opmn\bin\opmn.exe -S -I D:\Weblogic\Middleware\asinst_1" type= own start= auto
[/code]
Note: Optionally you can add DisplayName string for the service you want to create along with the command line.
If the service creation was successful you should receive a confirmation, other hand an error message
“[SC] CreateService SUCCESS” or Error Message
You may stop OPMN manually, and then try to start the newly created service to confirm the service creation was successful.
Howdy guys? We were busy upgrading uninstalling Weblogic 10.3.6, Forms & Reports 11g R1 and installing 64bit software throughout last few days.
For the installation part, you are not going to get better write up than one available here
However the installation procedure described there is limited to installing the Weblogic Server. You may refer to our earlier post for a “know how to” install and configure Forms & Reports 11g (both R1 & R2)
We tried the following combinations
Weblogic 10.3.6 64Bit with Forms & Reports 11g R1 32Bit. The results were quite disappointing. Installation and configurations went all fine, however once after a restart, we were not able to start the OPMN, thus all the services depending upon OPMN were failing. Even the uninstallation process was terminating without giving any prompts, forcing us to physically remove dozens of entries from registry and other places
Then we opted for a full 64Bit installation, which went smooth and after a restart everything was in place! intact
Setting up the forms using Oracle Enterprise Manager (R2 sets it up properly, against R1)
Just logon to Oracle EM, go to forms node and make changes and just apply. Many changes may not even require a server restart.
Few examples here
Forms node
Configuration Options
Web Configuration for “default”
Setting up LOV buttons, required field highlighting
Calling forms based applications once after the above are set is quite easy. Just point your browser to
However, calling a report may not be that easy. The report server(s) are pretty much sensitive to your network settings. For example, we are using one Windows 8.1 64Bit machine for the entire testing and on which we have multiple oracle products installed
To make the scenarios once again complex, we have both class C and Public IPs set as static addresses for testing multiple products at the same time and VirtualBox’s own network interface (disable it!)
We will try to analyze the most common errors one may come across while trying to run reports
REP-52005: The specified key <keyname: in our case the key userlogin> does not exist in key map file.
Save & restart the report server. Make sure you check the OPMN status as well. If required, restart OPMN by issuing opmnctl stopall & opmnctl startall from the application instance bin directory
The “opmnctl status” will provide you the status of element and make sure “RptSvr_<hostname>_asinst_1 is “Alive”
Go to Weblogic Server console and restart the WLS_REPORTS. Test your report once again.
REP-51002: Bind to Reports Server <servername> failed
This error could be genuinely difficult to address, as the log files will show the report server(s) and up and running, however keeping on failing to bind while trying to print reports.
Reason#1: Binding fails to resolve the hostname where the report server is installed. Mostly happens while the host has more than one static IP assigned
Solution:Edit C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts file and add an entry like following
Your.static.ip.address fqdn hostname
192.168.0.10 myhost.mydomain.com myhost
112.11.10.23 myhost.mydomain.com myhost
Reason #2: Windows firewall is blocking UDP against port 14021.
Solution: Create an exception with the firewall, or disable the firewall completely and try the reports once again. Please note, a restart of the box is always recommended
REP-52266: The in-process Reports Server <server_name> failed to start.oracle…
Solution: This is mostly due to the host resolve issues. Once you resolved the issues as mentioned just above, the in-process server must be running fine after a restart.
Make sure the in-process Report server is up and running.
Update: There are couple of topics discussing about in-process report server, which should give you more details about how the server gets activated and when
(We will do more tests and confirm the reasoning with our next update)
In-process reports server caters your web.show_document calls without a server parameter call. Let us check, how reports are called from a forms module, attached with a button click
just tries to call the available report instance to cater the report. If you want to know how many reports instances are up and running in your server, you can use the EM or rwdiag.bat –findAll command
Common configurations for Reports 11g(11.1.2)
Leave alone the below
Additional settings (if required)
We are hoping to detail this post in near future. Too much typing for a day! Please note, these testing and solutions provided here are coming from novice like you guys, hence if you find anything which is not technically correct, please do let us know through comments section.
