Oracle Net8 Configuration and Troubleshooting

Configuring Your Profile

After installing the Net8 software, your next task is to configure the Net8 profile. That’s a fancy way of saying that you need to edit your sqlnet.ora file. The sqlnet.ora file is found in the $ORACLE_HOME /network /admin directory (net80/admin for Oracle8) and contains settings that control Net8’s operation.

Appendix A, describes all the possible settings that you can make in this file. In this chapter, we discuss only those that you are most likely to need. These include:

• The list of naming methods to use, and the order in which to try them

• Your default Net8 domain

• The directory and filename to use for Net8 trace files

• The directory and filename to use for Net8 log files

The sqlnet.ora file is a text file. You can choose to edit it using a text editor and manually enter the parameter settings that you need, or you can use Oracle’s Net8 Assistant to set the parameters using a GUI interface.

Keep a Standard sqlnet.ora File

Consider creating and keeping a standard sqlnet.ora file for your site. Many DBAs do this because even though Net8 gets installed on a large number of clients, it’s usually configured the same on each. If you have a standard sqlnet.ora file, all you need to do is copy it over the one created during the Net8 client install process. This is easier than creating a new file from scratch each time. It’s also more reliable, because you remove the risk of overlooking needed parameter settings. The tnsnames.ora file, which you will learn about in ...