Orac -- DBA GUI tool for Perl/Tk; Oracle, Informix and Sybase Copyright (c) 1998,1999,2000 Andy Duncan, England email: andy_j_duncan@yahoo.com CPAN id: CPAN/authors/id/A/AN/ANDYDUNC =+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+ Orac runs over the *Web* using a Netscape Perl/Tk Plug-In created by Frank Holt. Please run up Orac, and go to Help information for more details (help/WebPlugIn.txt). =+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+-=+ NB: This README file does not contain all of the information within the Orac distribution. For more specialised information, please go to our "docs" or "help" directories. Orac-1.2.0 is the latest stable version of Orac. Orac WEB PAGE: You can usually find our web page at: => http://www.kkitts.com/orac-dba/ We also have a mirror at: => http://www.tux.org/orac-dba/ This is managed by Kevin Kitts. Please go here for the latest information, on Orac. TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE: You may distribute under the terms of either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License, as specified in the Perl README file, with the exception that it cannot be placed on a CD-ROM or similar media for commercial distribution without the prior approval of the author. PLEASE NOTE: Some of the Oracle SQL scripts which come with this Perl program, are copyrighted to Brian Lomasky. Please seek clarification from Brian before you extend the use of these SQL scripts beyond this Perl program. Such scripts can be easily identified by the header: /* From Oracle Scripts, O Reilly and Associates, Inc. */ /* Copyright 1998 by Brian Lomasky, DBA Solutions, Inc., */ /* lomasky@earthlink.net */ WARNING: IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR DISTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, ITS DOCUMENTATION, OR ANY DERIVATIVES THEREOF, EVEN IF THE AUTHORS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS. PREREQUISITES (For Everybody) At least: perl5.005_02 DBI-1.13 Tk800.015 Latest relevant DBD database driver for DBI-1.13 LINUX USERS: There are some further notes at the end of this README file for Linux users. WINDOWS NT USERS: There are some further notes at the end of this README file for Windows NT users. REALLY QUICK START GUIDE: perl orac_dba.pl SLIGHTLY LESS QUICK START GUIDE (based upon Oracle on Solaris): *). Load perl5.005_02, DBD-Oracle-1.03, DBI-1.13 & Tk800.015 *). Unzip (gzip -d, gunzip) the Orac-x.y.z.tar.gz file *). Untar (tar xvf) the Orac-x.y.z.tar file *). Set ORACLE_HOME in your environment *). Run orac_dba.pl, first making sure the top line of the file has the right Perl string address, eg: => #!/usr/local/bin/perl Or run it with the Perl program directly, 'perl orac_dba.pl'. *). Most things should be fairly straightforward after that. NOTE ON USER CUSTOMISATIONS User customisations (e.g., last DB accessed and user tool menus) go to either: 1) If $ORAC_HOME (%ORAC_HOME% for Windows) exists, to that directory 2) If on Windows, %USERPROFILE%/orac 3) $HOME/.orac Users no longer have to cd into the Orac distribution directory. On Unix systems, you could have a symbolic link from /usr/local/bin/orac_dba.pl to the Orac distribution directory. On Windows machines, you could have a shortcut to the Orac_dba.pl (although this doesn't work from the command line). $ORAC_HOME can be set to a shared directory if users want to share their user customisations. ABOUT Orac: Preamble: This tool was originally developed on an Ultra-5 Sun Solaris 2.6 Sun workstation. There may be incompatibilities on your workstation, which may need a little source code tinkering. Our apologies. Please mail us if this is the case. Even better, email us the coded up solution :-) Orac is a Perl/Tk tool written in order to store many different and hopefully useful SQL scripts within one central easy-to-use interface repository. It is a Read-Only 'as is' GUI tool (ie: no DDL, DML, transactions, commits or rollbacks, only selects)* and will be updated continuously to improve its functionality and GUI-ness simplicity. If you have any useful SQL scripts, which you would like to be included within Orac, or requirements which you think may be useful to others, please mail them to me and we'll try and embed them in the next release. If you read through the revision history below, you'll see many such ideas have been taken up, and are now integral parts of the main Orac tool. Simple graphical ideas for turning difficult-to-read database information into useful pictures are particularly welcomed, as is functionality not currently supplied within other GUI tools. General ideas for improving Orac (which began life as a SQL script for killing rogue Oracle processes) are always welcomed. We hope you both enjoy using Orac, and save yourself some time by using it. *Occasionally, this rule is bent a little to allow such tool extensions as our 'Explain Plan' functionality for Oracle users. Orac MONGERS (in alphabetical surname order): Name Email/Webpage Patches of Interest ---- ------------- ------------------- Bruce Albrecht Multi-User Functionality Kevin Brannen Informix/RulesMeister Andy Duncan Oracle, OracWeb Sean Hull Linux/Oracle http://www.iheavy.com/ OracWeb Guru Meister Kevin Kitts Linux/Webmaster http://www.kkitts.com/ Thomas Lowery Shell/OO Development http://tlowery.hypermart.net/ Charles Wolfe NT Guru Alex Shnir Sybase FUTURE OF Orac: We want to create a completely OS independent, database independent Open Source tool. If you'd like to help us do this, and/or join the Orac Mongers listing above, please let us know and we'll go from there. REVISION HISTORY: ----------------- Vers Date Comment ---- ---- ------- 0.01 Jan 99 0.02 Jan 99 Original code revised to make more stable on other platforms. Removed all '-font' usage and wrapped some statements in 'eval' statements to prevent premature shutdowns. Also took all SQL out of program and placed in flat files to be called as-and-when necessary (also allows for easier SQL modification). 0.03 Feb 99 After further comments, radical revision carried out to shrink Orac into 1 Perl script, rather than numerous heavy modules. Also revised Orac to use Tk4 partly to remove errors for people using Tk4, and because the new 'Learning Perl/Tk' manual recommends G. Sarathy's Win32 binary executable, which currently uses Tk4. Preparing code for first port away from Solaris 2.6 UNIX. Thanks to Tim Bunce for constructive criticism. 0.04 Apr 99 Adjustments after first DBI-Users release. 0.05 Apr 99 More Adjustments after first DBI-Users release. Thanks in particular to Sean Hull for support. 0.06 Apr 99 Cleaned up a few extraneous debug statements. Decided to not attempt ports, after hearing from some Linux users that Orac ran "out-of-the-box", also NT and my mind do not fit together. Also, must add more functionality. Tasklist this time, resizing of windows should be better. Hit Ratios values should be clearer. Thanks especially to Kevin Kitts. 0.07 May 99 More Buggette cleaning, and better screen resizing on Form. MTS support, under the Tuning button (thanks to Steve Shaw). Background colour option added (thanks to Honza Pazdziora) under File option. Language Independence added, edit the txt/language.txt file to change all Orac Menus, buttons etc, to your own text. New 'My Tools' menu Option created to add your own SQL reports on-the-fly. (thanks to Jared Still for the inspiration on this one) Addition of 'User' field on main database connection screen to allow DBAs to use secure system-like users, with more security conscious permissions. (Thanks to Kevin Kitts for this one). Orac-1.0.0 New numbering system. This is a rename of ORAC-DBA-0.07, and the latest totally 'stable' version. We are now using an Orac-x.y.z numbering system such that: x is the major version number y is the minor version number z is the minor minor version number When 'y' is 'even', Orac is stable, when 'odd', Orac is developmental (though we still recommend its download as we do not relase REALLY experimental versions). Orac-1.1.0 First of new Developmental 1.1.z Series Finally got round to adding 'Interactive Form' for all the Oracle Views in the database, accessible by 'Object' menu. Added Orac icons for various iconizable windows. (Thanks to Edmund Mergl for sending us a coded patch). After an email from Kevin Brannen, and a fit of madness, decided to try and make Orac database independent. Are we all mad? Maybe, but it's fun, fun, fun in Orac City. (Thanks to Charles Wolfe for sending us some extremely valuable installation information. He is a God-like Guru of a Class A1 nature) Thanks to Guy Harrison for allowing us to adapt his scripts from his excellent High-Performance Tuning manual. Many of these scripts have now been used in this version of Orac, and much more will be done later to improve our use of them. Added SQL Browser/Explain Plan for Oracle Better report formatting Current Oracle future plans include a 'dbish' window, Further non-Oracle database (particularly Informix) functionality, Eventual addition of Sybase functionality. More help files, comments in code, More modularity, +whatever else you'd like us to add? Orac-1.1.1 (Oracle) Neater 'Explain Plan' utility, On-the-fly SQL execution utility. Tidied a few 'uninitialized variable bugs'. Orac-1.1.2 (Informix) More functionality added. (Oracle) More tidying, plus better/quicker use of config files, and use of SQL Browser without PLAN_TABLE in db. Orac-1.1.3 A lot of file tidying for Oracle, and further Informix additions. May be a little flaky, and tidied up in the 1.1.4 release. Orac-1.1.4 - Orac-1.1.7 Private releases changing code from 'structured' - ok, spaghetti :) - to the beginnings of object-oriented code. one known bug, under Oracle, the special buttons on 'MTS statistics', and 'whos locking who' screens, not working correctly. This will be sorted out in 1.1.8 (promise). Orac-1.1.8 Back to public releases of developing code. First cut of orac_Shell. Total use of generic_hlist() rather than gn_hl(). Further improvement of windows handling. Known Oracle Bug with some interactive buttons, still on ice. Orac-1.1.9 Small fix in orac_Base for show_sql() and also had to replace all the orac_Show() calls with the generic $dialog->Show function, to prevent screen lock-ups on NT. Orac-1.1.10 A lot more tidying. Orac-1.1.11 Additional Oracle items on menus. Orac-1.1.12 Bug fixes for Orac-1.1.11 (thanks Duc) Orac-1.1.13 More patches, plus latest orac_Shell Orac-1.1.14 More of the same. Orac-1.1.15 Gradual Addition of Alex's Sybase functionality. + multi-user functionality added by Bruce Albrecht Orac-1.1.16 Private releases of 1.1.15 tidied up, and put together for this public release. Orac-1.1.17 private: Further changes to orac_Shell, new orac_Sybase, brand new orac_FileSelect module. Orac-1.1.18 - Orac-1.1.25 Many incremental private releases making as many windows as possible independent, adding Font abilities, limited Print options and a generalised File viewer. Also much more use of icons to ease use of program. Functionally not much different from 1.1.16 but hopefully a lot easier, and a lot more pleasant to use. Orac-1.1.26 First public release of 'new-look' iconized, independent windowed Orac. Hope you like it! :-) (I do) Orac-1.1.27 - Orac-1.1.30 Incremental early development of Monitoring + bug fixes, + other bits Orac-1.1.31 Public Release of OracMonitor. Orac-1.1.32 - Orac-1.1.33 Tidying, fixing etc,etc - thanks to Sean Kamath - and attempts at code reduction. Thanks to Edmund Mergl for initial 8i fix. More to be found I'm sure. Orac-1.1.34 Cleaning up newly introduced bugs. Orac-1.1.35 Horrible bug fix for ActiveState not requiring ORACLE_HOME, where unixlike does. Orac-1.1.36 Attempt on Monitor fix. Steve Humpage 'join' to 'catfile' fix for backward compatibility. Orac-1.1.37 New orac_Sybase from Alex. Orac-1.1.38 - Orac-1.1.40 Final 1.1 KevinB Informix change, +changes to Shell Orac-1.1.41 - Orac-1.1.43 - ... Shell development, trying to fix Monitor Bug Orac-1.1.44 Monitor Bug is an Oracle-Linux bug. Oracle have been told and hopefully will fix in later Oracle version. Orac-1.1.45 Bits and Bobs. Orac-1.1.46 Final Beta release of Tom's Shell program + addition of primitive help for getting OracWeb going. Orac-1.1.47 Mix-up on Beta module versions, should now be sorted out. Orac-1.1.48 Change on Oracle curr_users_orac.1.sql script by Andre Seesink +other code changes by Andre marked in files :-) Orac-1.1.49 Last Andre Seesink and Duncan Lawie upgrades, plus bug fix by DCL :-) Orac-1.1.50 Slight changes, + more commenting and switching within the orac_Monitor module, which, after a consensus vote, will be kept within the distribution for later improvement despite problems. If you'd like to make this 100% kosher, please write and let us know :) Orac-1.1.51 Heck and blast, a typo on my part. Whoops, sorry fellas! :-) Orac-1.2.0 After no adverse reports on 1.1.51, this is that release with this README file name and the program's version number changed. Thanks to everyone who's helped us get this far. We ain't finished yet. EXTRA NOTES FOR LINUX USERS: The following summarised notes have been taken from Kevin Kitts' Orac home page: => http://www.kkitts.com/orac-dba/ If you'd like any more detail, please go there first. Requirements for Running Orac (under Linux) ----------------------------------------------- perl 5.05 Tk 800_015 perl module (www.cpan.org) DBI/DBD perl modules (www.hermetica.com) Orac Download the latest stable version (or development version if looking for latest functionality) Using Orac under Linux -------------------------- I've found a number of problems running Orac under RedHat 5.2. In order to get things to work it was necessary to get the latest *source* rpm for perl and rebuild perl. The man pages for rpm will explain how to do this rebuild - it is very straightforward. Also, the latest version of the perl Tk module (800_015) will be required as well. Lastly, you'll need to get the DBI/DBD modules and compile them. Make sure that you can get sql*plus to work first. If that works, make sure that the DBI/DBD make tests pass. If all of the above condtions hold true you should have no problem running Orac. KNOWN LINUX-ORACLE BUG There is a known Oracle-Linux bug, which may cause the Orac Monitor to fail when attempting to connect to recently shutdown databases. Oracle have been informed, and will hopefully fix bug in a future release. This is a general OCI bug, and has caused problems with other programs. One workround is not to use Orac Monitor, but if this required, if you don't need LOBS etc then you could try recompiling DBI with 'perl Makefile.PL -8'. See DBI README for more details on this. This bug may also occur on other OSes, but cannot be replicated on Solaris. EXTRA NOTES FOR WINDOWS NT USERS: Using Orac under Windows NT ------------------------------- Environment required: Basic Perl Requirement: *. ActivePerl build 519 (or latest) Packages on top: *. DBD-Oracle (or DBD-Sybase etc) *. DBI *. Tk *. Win32-TieRegistry The above environment was created under the following operating system conditions: NT 4.0 Enterprise Edition (SP 3, no compiler) --------------------------------------------- Nothing special is needed for the installation, which should run smoothly using these instructions: *. Install the ActivePerl binary distribution from ActiveState.com *. Then download and install the binaries for the various modules (Tk, DBI, DBD-Oracle, etc) from ActiveState's ftp site. All the modules come with working install scripts, so installation is just a matter of running package manager script which comes with ActivePerl. Then download Orac-x.y.z, install and run. (probably always best to use latest version) (The above instructions have also been tried on a Win98 box with complete success) The ActiveState URLs are: => http://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl/ => http://www.activestate.com/packages/zips/ Packages Required: ------------------ The ActiveState packages you will need, will be Tk, DBI and whichever DBD driver you need (eg: DBD::Oracle, DBD::Sybase). You may find problems with Win32-TieRegistry errors. If this is the case, you may also need to install the Win32-TieRegistry package, also from packages/zips. Download -------- You can download the latest Orac via: => http://www.kkitts.com/ or you can download directly from the master CPAN site, here: => ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/authors/id/A/AN/ANDYDUNC/ We have altered the DBI->connect routine to try a couple of different versions-on-a-theme, to allow non-unix boxes to connect remotely. If you still cannot connect remotely, you may have to slightly change the DBI->connect statements to give DBI the right configuration for your remote database connection. Orac Users Mailing List ----------------------- Please use the following mailing list resources to find out more about Orac: For information on the installation, configuration and use of Orac you can subscribe to the Orac User's mailing list by sending an empty e-mail (with the word subscribe on the subject line) to: manage-orac-dba-users-subscribe@listserv.kkitts.com For those interested in following the developer discussion (or perhaps even developing for Orac!) a developers list is available. Please send an empty e-mail (with the word subscribe on the subject line) to: manage-orac-dba-developers-subscribe@listserv.kkitts.com EOF