Siebel Remote Diagnostic Agent

When you open any SR with Oracle they expect certain inputs from you which generally includes following files.

•      Crash Files
•      Log files
•      FDR files
•      Core files 
•      Crash.txt

RDA i.e. Remote Diagnostic Agent  can be of great use to provide all the required information to Oracle experts at one go. RDA is a less known tool developed in house by Oracle engineers to collect the necessary information about your environment and issue.

Steps to setup RDA in your environment:

1) Download RDA 4.25 from support web. This is .zip file.

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/ui/km/DocumentDisplay.jspx?_afrLoop=30118533417024&id=314422.1&_afrWindowMode=0&_adf.ctrl-state=8uhmykn99_123

Unzip RDA under the SIEBEL_ROOT/siebsrvr directory of the server where you had the crash. This will create directory rda under location  SIEBEL_ROOT/siebsrvr

You can refer Doc ID 314422.1 for more details.

2) Download a copy of the solgrabcore.zip file from below location.

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/downloadattachmentprocessor?attachid=477520.1:SGCzip
Now place solgrabcore.sh under the SIEBEL_ROOT/siebsrvr/bin directory.

3) Run the following command from the SIEBEL_ROOT/siebsrvr/rda directory and provide the appropriate input values:

./rda.sh -vT siebel

Note: Please note that all RDA commands and options are case sensitive.

When you run above command it will ask you for following details:

Siebel Server Home (same as SIEBEL_ROOT above)

Application Enterprise Name

Application Server Name

Advanced collection enabled –  (Select Yes)

Process Identifier

Core File location – (please verify the directory location of the core file. ensure the entire path including the core file name is provided for this value)

4) As output, zip file will be be created in rda/output directory which will contain all the details. Attach the final RDA*.zip file to the SR. The format of the file will be similar to RDA.RDA_<machine-name>.zip.

This is very handy tool and can save your lot of time that you generally waste in providing inputs to Oracle.

Steps to generate log files for Siebel Tools/Dedicated/Mobile Client

Here are the simple steps to generate Log Files for Siebel Tools and mobile/Dedicated Client.

1. Right Click on "My Computer" and select Properties.
 
2. Select the Advanced tab and open the Environmental Variables window.
 
3. Under User Variables section, create two Environmental Variables as per following :

   a) Variable = SIEBEL_LOG_DIR, Value = C:\LOG
   b) Variable = SIEBEL_LOG_EVENTS, Value = ALL

4. Click on Ok.
 
5. Create a Folder with name "LOG" in "C" drive. This is the folder, where all the logs gets generated.
 
6. Done.

Now restart the Siebel Tools/Mobile/Dedicated client and you will see a "Siebel.log" gets created under C:\LOG folder, which will help you in troubleshooting issues

Siebel Apply and Activate

All of us know, when we do any schema level changes then we have to do Apply & Activate. This post will help you to understand what exactly happens when we do Apply and Activate. 

The Apply and Activate buttons appear in the Table and Index sections of Siebel Tools. They are a means to synchronize the logical and physical schema and also to alert other users that changes have been made to the schema.
The logical schema is stored in the S_TABLE, S_COLUMN, S_INDEX and S_INDEX_COLUMN tables in the Siebel database. The physical schema is defined in the RDBMS (IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle) that is being used.
Developer does the changes in logical schema i.e. in repository. In order to those changes to be propagated to physical schema two things must happen,

1)     Siebel tools must create DDL statement corresponding to repository level change and fire that sql to the  database.This is exactly what happens when we click Apply button.

2)     Next step is to press activate button. When you click activate button, Schema version information stored in table S_APP_VER changes.

All Siebel components gets information about physical schema from diccache.dat file which resides in siebel server bin directory. This file also contains information about schema version.
Every Siebel component compares schema version information in diccache.dat file with schema information in S_APP_VER table before using schema definitions in deccache.dat file.
So in case you have any new changes and if you have Applied and Activated those changes using Siebel tools, schema version information in S_APP_VER table and dicache.dat will not match and Siebel will recreate diccache.dat file. Newly created diccache.dat file will have latest schema changes. So every time you do any change in logical schema (Repository) you have to perform Apply & Activate. 

Server Busy Error in SIEBEL

"Server you are trying to access is either busy or experiencing difficulties” 
Undoubtedly, for any Siebel admin this is the most common issue to troubleshoot. In this post I will try to list down most possible reasons causing this issue.

1)      Issue with Database

Check database connectivity by using database client like sqlplus/plsql developer/Toad

2)      Issue with Data source name i.e. DSN

Siebel connects to database using DSN so check

In UNIX:

       Setup environment variables, go to bin directory & run below command

       odbcsql /u sie_app /p ******** /s siebsrvr_CMS

       Where,

       /u - database user

       /p-  database password

       /s-   Datasource Name

       If this is not working then you have to check .odbc.ini file.
       especially driver name & TNS service name (Same service name must be present in tnsnames.ora file)

If above command errors out then check following environment variables

echo $ORACLE_HOME

echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

          echo $TNS_ADMIN

           In Windows:

           Use ODBC datasource administrator -> System DSN -> Double click on Data source ->Test     

           connect

3)      Issue with database account

Make sure you can access database with following accounts

1)      Anon user : In case of DB authentication

2)      SADMIN/LDAP USER: In case of LDAP or SSO Authentication (assuming you use SADMIN/LDAP USER as common login to connect to database )

3)      Check anon user and SADMIN/LDAP user is present in S_USER table.

select  * from S_USER where login like ‘SADMIN’

select  * from S_USER where login like ‘ANONUSR’

4)      Check Siebel services

           Ps –ef | grep sieb

           ps –ef | grep siebsvc

           Check Siebel server & Gateway is running.

           list_ns

           list_server all

5)      Check SC broker & AOM status

set server siebapp

list comp scbroker show CC_ALIAS, CP_DISP_RUN_STATE

list comp SSEObjMgr_enu show CC_ALIAS, CP_DISP_RUN_STATE

list tasks for comp SSEObjMgr_enu show TK_TASKID, TK_DISP_RUNSTATE, TK_LABEL

list tasks for comp scbroker show TK_TASKID, TK_DISP_RUNSTATE, TK_LABEL

6)      Check port 2321 of application server

telnet tsgsq2902 :2321 (from web server)

netstat  -an | grep 2321 (from application server)

7)      Check core services are running

cd  $MWHOME/bin

./mwadm status

Or check status of process regss , watchdog ,mwrpcss etc   

8)      Check data source definition

srvrmgr:siebapp> List param DSConnectString for named subsystem ServerDataSrc show PA_ALIAS, PA_VALUE

9)      Check CPU/Memory/Mount space  utilization

df -hk

top –n 0

prstat –a 5 5

10)    Try using vanilla Siebel.srf file

11)    Try using backu[ copy of siebns.dat file

13)   Check lbconfig.txt file & eapps.cfg to make sure requests are reaching to SCbroker

a)      lbconfig.txt location specified correctly in eapps.cfg under communication management section

b)      virtual host value must be set to true

c)       server connect strings must be given properly in lbconfig.txt file

d)      object manager connect string in eapps.cfg must contain value Virtual host

                  

14)   Check application server log files, WEB instance log, SWSE logs, SSO agent logs

15)   If it is newly installed environment then check environment by using EVT

16)   Make sure that all the mounts including File system are available.

17)   Restart Application Server

delete .osdf  file make sure that  .shm file is getting deleted after stopping server, if not, delete it manually.

18)   Take web server bounce

19)   Take clean bounce to recreate .svc file

Refer article http://www.siebeloracle.com/how-to-take-clean-bounce-of-siebel-server/ for clean bounce

20)   Verify messages in /var/adm/messages

21)   Physical host reboot

This should be the last resort, if nothing else works. Server reboot will open clogging of ports and will restart all the OS processes.

Siebel Packager

Hello Friends,

Sometime back I got chance to create mobile client packager. In this post I will explain procedure of creation of packager, in next few days I will also write separate article on Siebel anywhere.

What is packager?

The Siebel Packager utility allows the Siebel administrator to assemble the Siebel client executable program and other installed files, including your custom configuration, into a customized installation package that is tailored to your needs. Siebel Packager packages installations for Siebel Mobile or Dedicated Web Client. 

You can access/download the document from below link.

Download Siebel Packager creation document

Siebel 8.2.2 Installation Changes

Hi Friends,

Recently I got chance to install Siebel 8.2.2, most of the installation steps are similar to 8.1.x with few interesting differences. I am going to pinpoint those differences in this post.

1)  It supports windows 64 bit

2)  ImageCreator.exe is no more available for creation of installation image. You have to use snic.bat

3) You have to run setup.bat(Windows) or ./runinstaller(Unix/Linux) to invoke installer

4)  It uses OUI (Oracle universal installer wizard) for installation.
     One of the advantages of OUI is that it supports cloning
5) Configuration tool will not be invoked automatically after installation, you have  

     to invoke it explicitly.

6)  To prevent session hijacking, session IDs in cookies are encrypted using key given in epps.cfg

7)  8.2.2 license keys are not available on licensecodes.oracle.com.
     8.1 all inclusive keys will work just fine with Public Sector 8.2.2

Siebel Component synchronization

When to do synchronization?

You need to synchronize batch-mode Siebel Server components between the Siebel Gateway Name Server and the database whenever you:

§     Create new component definitions

§     Modify existing batch-mode component definitions

§     Delete Siebel Server components

§     Enable Siebel Server components

§     Disable Siebel Server components

Why to synchronize?

For batch mode components to function properly they should have their definitions available in S_SRM_ACTION and S_SRM_ACT_PARAM tables. When we synchronize any batch mode component, Siebel flushes definition of that particular batch mode component from siebns.dat file to S_SRM_ACTION and S_SRM_ACT_PARAM tables. 

How to synchronize?

-- From Siebel server manager.

smgr> sync comps

 --  From GUI

1.                   From the application-level menu, choose Navigation > Site Map > Administration - Server Configuration.

2.                   From the link bar, click Enterprises.

3.                   Click the Synchronize view tab.

A list of batch-mode server components appear.

4.                   Click the Synchronize button.

This operation may take up to a minute to execute.

5.                   For the changes to take effect, stop and restart the Siebel Server System Service