Friday, September 21, 2007

Installing Oracle Database Vault 10.2.0.3

Oracle Database Vault is an add-on to enterprise database software that places restrictions on what privileged users can do. It protects against insider security threats with separation of tasks between Database Administrator and Security Administrator. It's possible to meet regulatory compliance requirements too and all of these features are in the database software. It's not necessary to make complex developments to comply with these required security features.

I'm describing the installation process of Oracle Database Vault on RHEL4. If you are using ASM as the database storage option then you must install ASM in another Oracle Home Directory.

1.- Install Oracle ASM binaries in the ASM Home Directory. (e.g. /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/ASM_1 )
2.- Install 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.3) Patch Set 2 in ASM Home Directory.
3.- Install Oracle Database binaries in the Database Home Directory. (e.g. /u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1 )
4.- Install 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.3) Patch Set 2 in Database Home Directory.
5.- Create the ASM instance with dbca from the ASM Home Directory.
6.- Create the database with dbca from the Database Home Directory.
7.- Install Oracle Database Vault 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.3.0) in Database Home Directory.

When the Database Vault configuration assistant run I have got the following error messages in $ORACLE_HOME/cfgtoollogs/dvca_install.log file:

RULE_SYNC:java.sql.SQLException: ORA-24141: rule set DVSYS.DV$1 does not exist
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_RULE_ADM", line 188
ORA-06512: at "DVSYS.DBMS_MACADM", line 2701
ORA-06512: at line 1

It was solved setting the following variable prior to the installer being run:
$ export NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.US7ASCII

The Security Administrator can define the enterprise security policy from the Oracle Database Vault Administrator utility (http::/dva).

You can see the product functionality with the "Oracle by Example" at the http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/security/database-security/database-vault/index.html, but then you need the Database Sample schemas. You can install the Database Sample Schemas with the Companion CD.

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Installing Oracle 10gR2 on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5

I have installed Oracle 10.2.0.3 on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 with some issues that I'm describing below.

When I try to execute runInstaller, I have got the error message:

"libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object ..."

To solve this issue it's necessary to install libXp RPM from CD2.

To pass the system prerequisites step, I have followed the Metalink Note 456634.1.

To create an ASM Disk Group, I have modified the ASM_DISKSTRING parameter with the value
ASM_DISKSTRING= '/dev/oracleasm/disks/VOL*'

where VOL is the prefix of the ASM disks created with oracleasm utility.