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Troubleshoot Oracle Errors

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It’s always a bit difficult to trap errors in SQL*Developer when you’re running scripts that do multiple things. As old as it is, using the SQL*Plus utility and spooling to log files is generally the fastest way to localize errors across multiple elements of scripts. Unfortunately, you must break up you components into local components, like a when you create a type, procedure, function, or package.

This is part of my solution to leverage in-depth testing of the Oracle Database 23ai Free container from an Ubuntu native platform. You can find this prior post shows you how to setup Oracle*Client for Ubuntu and connect to the Oracle Database 23ai Free container.

After you’ve done that, put the following oracle_errors Bash shell function into your testing context, or into your .bashrc file:

# Troubleshooting errors utility function.
oracle_errors ()
{
  #  Oracle Error prefixes qualify groups of error types, like
  #  this subset of error prefixes used in the Bash function.
  # ============================================================
  #  JMS - Java Messaging Errors
  #  JZN - JSON Errors
  #  KUP - External Table Access Errors
  #  LGI - File I/O Errors
  #  OCI - Oracle Call Interface Errors
  #  ORA - Oracle Database Errors
  #  PCC - Oracle Precompiler Errors
  #  PLS - Oracle PL/SQL Errors
  #  PLW - Oracle PL/SQL Warnings
  #  SP2 - Oracle SQL*Plus Errors
  #  SQL - SQL Library Errors
  #  TNS - SQL*Net (networking) Errors
  # ============================================================
 
  # Define a array of Oracle error prefixes.
  prefixes=("jms" "jzn" "kup" "lgi" "oci" "ora" "pcc" "pls" "plw" "sp2" "sql" "tns")
 
  # Prepend the -e for the grep utility to use regular expression pattern matching; and
  # use the ^before the Oracle error prefixes to avoid returning lines that may
  # contain the prefix in a comment, like the word lookup contains the prefix kup.
  for str in ${prefixes[@]}; do
    patterns+=" -e ^${str}"
  done
 
  # Display output from a SQL*Plus show errors command written to a log file when
  # a procedure, function, object type, or package body fails to compile. This
  # prints the warning message followed by the line number displayed.
  patterns+=" -e ^warning"
  patterns+=" -e ^[0-9]/[0-9]"
 
  # Assign any file filter to the ext variable.
  ext=${1}
 
  # Assign the extension or simply use a wildcard for all files.
  if [ ! -z ${ext} ]; then
    ext="*.${ext}"
  else
    ext="*"
  fi
 
  # Assign the number of qualifying files to a variable.
  fileNum=$(ls -l ${ext} 2>/dev/null | grep -v ^l | wc -l)
 
  # Evaluate the number of qualifying files and process.
  if [ ${fileNum} -eq "0" ]; then
    echo "[0] files exist."
  elif [ ${fileNum} -eq "1" ]; then
    fileName=$(ls ${ext})
    find `pwd` -type f | grep -in ${ext} ${patterns}  |
    while IFS='\n' read list; do
      echo "${fileName}:${list}"
    done
  else
    find `pwd` -type f | grep -in ${ext} ${patterns}  |
    while IFS='\n' read list; do
      echo "${list}"
    done
  fi
 
  # Clear ${patterns} variable.
  patterns=""
}

Now, let’s create a debug.txt test file to demonstrate how to use the oracle_errors, like:

ORA-12704: character SET mismatch
PLS-00124: name OF EXCEPTION expected FOR FIRST arg IN exception_init PRAGMA
SP2-00200: Environment error
JMS-00402: Class NOT found
JZN-00001: END OF input

You can navigate to your logging directory and call the oracle_errors function, like:

oracle_errors txt

It’ll return the following, which is file number, line number, and error code:

debug.txt:1:ORA-12704: character set mismatch
debug.txt:2:PLS-00124: name of exception expected for first arg in exception_init pragma
debug.txt:3:SP2-00200: Environment error
debug.txt:4:JMS-00402: Class not found
debug.txt:5:JZN-00001: End of input

There are other Oracle error prefixes but the ones I’ve selected are the more common errors for Java, JavaScript, PL/SQL, Python, and SQL testing. You can add others if your use cases require them to the prefixes array. Just a note for those new to Bash shell scripting the “${variable_name}” is required for arrays.

For a more complete example, I created the following files for a trivial example of procedure overloading in PL/SQL:

  1. tables.sql – that creates two tables.
  2. spec.sql – that creates a package specification.
  3. body.sql – that implements a package specification.
  4. test.sql – that implements a test case using the package.
  5. integration.sql – that calls the the scripts in proper order.

The tables.sql, spec.sql, body.sql, and test.sql use the SQL*Plus spool command to write log files, like:

SPOOL spec.txt
 
-- Insert code here ...
 
SPOOL OFF

The body.sql file includes SQL*Plus list and show errors commands, like:

SPOOL spec.txt
 
-- Insert code here ...
 
LIST
SHOW ERRORS
 
SPOOL OFF

The integration.sql script calls the tables.sql, spec.sql, body.sql, and test.sql in order. Corrupting the spec.sql file by adding a stray “x” to one of the parameter names causes a cascade of errors. After running the integration.sql file with the introduced error, the Bash oracle_errors function returns:

body.txt:2:Warning: Package Body created with compilation errors.
body.txt:148:4/13     PLS-00323: subprogram or cursor 'WARNER_BROTHER' is declared in a      
test.txt:4:ORA-06550: line 2, column 3: 
test.txt:5:PLS-00306: wrong number or types of arguments in call to 'WARNER_BROTHER' 
test.txt:6:ORA-06550: line 2, column 3:

I hope that helps those learning how to program and perform integration testing in an Oracle Database.

Written by maclochlainn

July 9th, 2024 at 4:37 pm

MongoDB on Ubuntu

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This post shows how to install, configure, and use MongoDB with JavaScript programs. You need to complete each section in the order provided (based on Cherry Server post).

Step #1: MongoDB Installation

Install the prerequisite packages with the following command:

sudo apt install -y software-properties-common gnupg apt-transport-https ca-certificates

Import the public key for MongoDB on your system using the curl command:

curl -fsSL https://pgp.mongodb.com/server-7.0.asc |  sudo gpg -o /usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-server-7.0.gpg --dearmor

Add MongoDB 7.0 APT repository to the /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory:

echo "deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-server-7.0.gpg ] https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu jammy/mongodb-org/7.0 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-7.0.list

Reload the local package index, which refreshes the local repositories and makes Ubuntu aware of the newly added MongoDB repository:

sudo apt update

Install the mongodb-org meta-package:

sudo apt install -y mongodb-org

Verify the installed version of MongoDB with this command:

mongod --version

It should display:

db version v7.0.6
Build Info: {
    "version": "7.0.6",
    "gitVersion": "66cdc1f28172cb33ff68263050d73d4ade73b9a4",
    "openSSLVersion": "OpenSSL 3.0.2 15 Mar 2022",
    "modules": [],
    "allocator": "tcmalloc",
    "environment": {
        "distmod": "ubuntu2204",
        "distarch": "x86_64",
        "target_arch": "x86_64"
    }
}

Step #2: Start MongoDB Service & Shell

You can verify that the installed mongodb is disabled after initial installation with this command:

sudo systemctl status mongod

It should display:

○ mongod.service - MongoDB Database Server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mongod.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead)
       Docs: https://docs.mongodb.org/manual

Exit the output display from the systemctl utility by typing the escape key, a colon (:) and a q in sequence.

You can start the MongoDB service with this command:

sudo systemctl start mongod

Then, check the MongoDB service:

sudo systemctl status mongod

It displays:

● mongod.service - MongoDB Database Server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mongod.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2024-03-07 16:38:17 MST; 2s ago
       Docs: https://docs.mongodb.org/manual
   Main PID: 33795 (mongod)
     Memory: 79.2M
        CPU: 706ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/mongod.service
             └─33795 /usr/bin/mongod --config /etc/mongod.conf
Mar 07 16:38:17 student-virtual-machine systemd[1]: Started MongoDB Database Server.
Mar 07 16:38:17 student-virtual-machine mongod[33795]: {"t":{"$date":"2024-03-07T23:38:17.642Z"},"s">

You can confirm that the database is up and running by checking if the server is listening on its default port, which is port 27017. Run the ss command to check the port number.

sudo ss -pnltu | grep 27017

It will display:

tcp   LISTEN 0      4096       127.0.0.1:27017      0.0.0.0:*    users:(("mongod",pid=33795,fd=14))

You can enable the mongodb service at startup with the following command:

sudo systemctl enable mongod

It raised the following error:

Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/mongod.service → /lib/systemd/system/mongod.service.

Now, start the MongoDB Shell (mongosh) by typing either the explicit or implicit MongoDB Shell command. The explicit one uses the port and database path, which are unnecessary when you’ve successfully started the mongosh service. (Please note that at the time of writing this blog post there is erroneous, or obsolete, content on the MongoDB Documentation Enable Access Control web page.

Explicit connection:

mongosh  --port 27017 --db /var/lib/mongodb --help

This version of the command will display most of the options available in MongoDB but it will suppress warning messages.

$ mongosh [options] [db address] [file names (ending in .js or .mongodb)]
 
  Options:
 
    -h, --help                                 Show this usage information
    -f, --file [arg]                           Load the specified mongosh script
        --host [arg]                           Server to connect to
        --port [arg]                           Port to connect to
        --build-info                           Show build information
        --version                              Show version information
        --quiet                                Silence output from the shell during the connection process
        --shell                                Run the shell after executing files
        --nodb                                 Don't connect to mongod on startup - no 'db address' [arg] expected
        --norc                                 Will not run the '.mongoshrc.js' file on start up
        --eval [arg]                           Evaluate javascript
        --json[=canonical|relaxed]             Print result of --eval as Extended JSON, including errors
        --retryWrites[=true|false]             Automatically retry write operations upon transient network errors (Default: true)
 
  Authentication Options:
 
    -u, --username [arg]                       Username for authentication
    -p, --password [arg]                       Password for authentication
        --authenticationDatabase [arg]         User source (defaults to dbname)
        --authenticationMechanism [arg]        Authentication mechanism
        --awsIamSessionToken [arg]             AWS IAM Temporary Session Token ID
        --gssapiServiceName [arg]              Service name to use when authenticating using GSSAPI/Kerberos
        --sspiHostnameCanonicalization [arg]   Specify the SSPI hostname canonicalization (none or forward, available on Windows)
        --sspiRealmOverride [arg]              Specify the SSPI server realm (available on Windows)
 
  TLS Options:
 
        --tls                                  Use TLS for all connections
        --tlsCertificateKeyFile [arg]          PEM certificate/key file for TLS
        --tlsCertificateKeyFilePassword [arg]  Password for key in PEM file for TLS
        --tlsCAFile [arg]                      Certificate Authority file for TLS
        --tlsAllowInvalidHostnames             Allow connections to servers with non-matching hostnames
        --tlsAllowInvalidCertificates          Allow connections to servers with invalid certificates
        --tlsCertificateSelector [arg]         TLS Certificate in system store (Windows and macOS only)
        --tlsCRLFile [arg]                     Specifies the .pem file that contains the Certificate Revocation List
        --tlsDisabledProtocols [arg]           Comma separated list of TLS protocols to disable [TLS1_0,TLS1_1,TLS1_2]
        --tlsUseSystemCA                       Load the operating system trusted certificate list
        --tlsFIPSMode                          Enable the system TLS library's FIPS mode
 
  API version options:
 
        --apiVersion [arg]                     Specifies the API version to connect with
        --apiStrict                            Use strict API version mode
        --apiDeprecationErrors                 Fail deprecated commands for the specified API version
 
  FLE Options:
 
        --awsAccessKeyId [arg]                 AWS Access Key for FLE Amazon KMS
        --awsSecretAccessKey [arg]             AWS Secret Key for FLE Amazon KMS
        --awsSessionToken [arg]                Optional AWS Session Token ID
        --keyVaultNamespace [arg]              database.collection to store encrypted FLE parameters
        --kmsURL [arg]                         Test parameter to override the URL of the KMS endpoint
 
  DB Address Examples:
 
        foo                                    Foo database on local machine
        192.168.0.5/foo                        Foo database on 192.168.0.5 machine
        192.168.0.5:9999/foo                   Foo database on 192.168.0.5 machine on port 9999
        mongodb://192.168.0.5:9999/foo         Connection string URI can also be used
 
  File Names:
 
        A list of files to run. Files must end in .js and will exit after unless --shell is specified.
 
  Examples:
 
        Start mongosh using 'ships' database on specified connection string:
        $ mongosh mongodb://192.168.0.5:9999/ships
 
  For more information on usage: https://docs.mongodb.com/mongodb-shell.

Implicit connection:

mongosh

You should see the following message with any warning messages:

Current Mongosh Log ID:	65ea502a97f4c1e2b7e12af4
Connecting to:		mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/?directConnection=true&serverSelectionTimeoutMS=2000&appName=mongosh+2.1.5
Using MongoDB:		7.0.6
Using Mongosh:		2.1.5
 
For mongosh info see: https://docs.mongodb.com/mongodb-shell/
 
To help improve our products, anonymous usage data is collected and sent to MongoDB periodically (https://www.mongodb.com/legal/privacy-policy).
You can opt-out by running the disableTelemetry() command.
 
------
   The server generated these startup warnings when booting
   2024-03-07T16:38:17.818-07:00: Using the XFS filesystem is strongly recommended with the WiredTiger storage engine. See http://dochub.mongodb.org/core/prodnotes-filesystem
   2024-03-07T16:38:18.350-07:00: Access control is not enabled for the database. Read and write access to data and configuration is unrestricted
   2024-03-07T16:38:18.350-07:00: vm.max_map_count is too low
------

You can run opt out of the data collection by running the disableTelemetry() command from the Linux command line. Use the following command (a broader explanation is in the MongoDB Telemetry documentation):

mongosh --nodb --eval "disableTelemetry()"

It should return:

Current Mongosh Log ID:	65eab2df3e663bde3711fa2f
Using Mongosh:		2.1.5
 
For mongosh info see: https://docs.mongodb.com/mongodb-shell/
 
Telemetry is now disabled.

You still have three warning messages to deal with at this point. You should fix the vm.max_map_count warning first. This is a Linux kernel issue. You can determine the current value of the vm.max_map_count value with this command:

cat /proc/sys/vm/max_map_count

It should return the system default value:

65530

You can change it at runtime with this command:

sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

However, you must restart the mongod service to see the change in the mongosh shell. There won’t be a warning message for the kernel parameter value being too low until you reboot your operating system. You can restart your mongod service with this command:

sudo service mongod restart

You can make a change to the /etc/sysctl.conf file to ensure the parameter is set to the correct value each time the system reboots. Simply add the following line as the root user or by using the sudo prefacing a text editor or your choice (like vim or nano) to your /etc/sysctl.conf file:

# Adding vm.max_map_count to sysctl.conf defaults.
vm.max_map_count=262144

At this point, you’ve eliminated two of the warning messages. The next step shows you how to enable Access Control. If you want to check the general server status, run the following command from the Linux Command-Line Interface (CLI):

mongosh --eval "db.serverStatus()" > server_status.log

You can inspect the log file, which should be slightly less than 2,000 lines of output with MongoDB a 7.0.6 installation. Using the command from the Linux CLI is generally the easiest way to inspect the output from the db.serverStatus() function, which is just too long to scroll from the console output.

Step #3: MongoDB Enabling Access Control

Connect to the mongosh …

Step #4: MongoDB Installing Node.js and React.js

Install Node.js with the following command:

sudo apt install -y nodejs

You can check the Node.js version with this command:

node -v

v12.22.9

Install the Node.js package manager npm with the following command:

sudo apt install -y npm

You can check the Node.js version with this command:

npm -v

8.5.1

As always, I hope this helps those looking for concise and complete free answer.

Written by maclochlainn

March 7th, 2024 at 11:10 pm

Sqlite on Ubuntu

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We decided to include some existing Sqlite databases in our AWS Ubuntu learning lab because they’re used by the Data Science courses (specifically, DS 250). Installing Sqlite is quite simple:

sudo apt install -y sqlite

You can check the install by using the which utility, like:

which -a sqlite3

On Ubuntu, it should return:

/usr/bin/sqlite3

There is a friendly help document online that can provide insight in how to use Sqlite. You can create a new student.db database with the following syntax from the Ubuntu CLI (Command-Line Interface):

sqlite3 student.db

It would return the following:

SQLite version 3.37.2 2022-01-06 13:25:41
Enter ".help" FOR usage hints.
sqlite>

A little warning about the simple example and how it opens only a transient in-memory database. If you want a persistent database, you must open sqlite3 without any arguments. Then, you must use the .open method to open a persistent student.db database create a file in the relative directory path where you launched sqlite3 executable. You can read more about persistent in Sqlite in the documentation.

.open student.db

The alternative opens the student.db file in a fully qualified path:

.open /home/student/Code/sqlite/db/student.db

If you type .databases at the sqlite> prompt it would return:

sqlite> .databases
main: /home/student/Code/sqlite/db/student.db r/w

Let’s create a script file that creates two tables, a foreign key reference from one of the tables to the other, and some data with the following create_sample.sql script:

-- Drop knight table if exists.
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS knight;
 
-- Drop kingdom table if exists.
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS kingdom;
 
-- Create normalized table kingdom
CREATE TABLE kingdom
( kingdom_id    INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
, kingdom_name  VARCHAR(20)
, population    INTEGER
, book          VARCHAR(40));
 
-- Insert kingdom into table.
INSERT INTO kingdom
( kingdom_id
, kingdom_name
, population
, book )
VALUES
 ( 1, 'Narnia', 42100, 'Prince Caspian' )
,( 2, 'Narnia', 77600, 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' )
,( 3, 'Camelot', 15200, 'The Once and Future King' );
 
-- Create normalized knight table.
CREATE TABLE knight
( knight_id             INTEGER PRIMARY KEY
, knight_name           VARCHAR(22)
, kingdom_allegiance_id INTEGER
, allegiance_start_date text
, allegiance_end_date   text
, book                  VARCHAR(40)
, FOREIGN KEY (kingdom_allegiance_id)
  REFERENCES kingdom(kingdom_id));
 
-- Insert knights into table.  
INSERT INTO knight
( knight_id
, knight_name
, kingdom_allegiance_id
, allegiance_start_date
, allegiance_end_date
, book )
VALUES
 (  1, 'Peter the Magnificent', 2, '1272-03-20', '1292-06-19', 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' )
,(  2, 'Edmund the Just', 2, '1272-03-20', '1292-06-19', 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' )
,(  3, 'Susan the Gentle', 2, '1272-03-20', '1292-06-19', 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' )
,(  4, 'Lucy the Valiant', 2, '1272-03-20', '1292-06-19', 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' )
,(  5, 'Peter the Magnificent',	1, '1531-04-12', '1328-05-31', 'Prince Caspian' )
,(  6, 'Edmund the Just', 1, '1531-04-12', '1328-05-31', 'Prince Caspian' )
,(  7, 'Susan the Gentle', 1, '1531-04-12', '1328-05-31', 'Prince Caspian' )
,(  8, 'Lucy the Valiant', 1, '1531-04-12', '1328-05-31', 'Prince Caspian' )
,(  9, 'King Arthur', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' )
,( 10, 'Sir Lionel', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' )
,( 11, 'Sir Bors', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' )
,( 12, 'Sir Bors', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' )
,( 13, 'Sir Galahad', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' )
,( 14, 'Sir Gawain', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' )
,( 15, 'Sir Tristram', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' )
,( 16, 'Sir Percival', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' )
,( 17, 'Sir Lancelot', 3, '0631-03-10', '0686-12-12', 'The Once and Future King' );

You can run the create_sample.sql script with the following syntax using an absolute path:

sqlite> .read /home/student/Code/sqlite/create_tables.sql

Then, you can write a query like this to retrieve the data from two tables:

SELECT k.kingdom_name
,      kn.knight_name
FROM   kingdom k INNER JOIN knight kn
ON     k.kingdom_id = kn.kingdom_allegiance_id
WHERE  k.book = 'Prince Caspian';

It will return the following:

Narnia|Peter the Magnificent
Narnia|Edmund the Just
Narnia|Susan the Gentle
Narnia|Lucy the Valiant

You can exit sqlite3 by entering .quit or Control+D (the system End-Of-File character). If you can determine whether you have a transient or persistent student.db database file with the long list (ll) command.

The following command:

ll /home/student/Code/sqlite/db/student.db

should return the following:

-rw-r--r-- 1 student student 12288 Feb  9 23:01 /home/student/Code/sqlite/db/student.db

If the command returned a 0 sized student.db database file, you created a transient Sqlite table. You’ll need to redo the creation of the student.db database file with the .open command as qualified above.

If you want to detach a database from your active Sqlite session, you can issue the following command to remove it:

sqlite> DETACH DATABASE student.db

Let’s jazz it up a bit with some Python. The first example verifies the ODBC driver’s ability to connect to Sqlite. Please note that it returns the same result for a transient and persistent database file. You can refer to the following documentation for Python examples.

#!/usr/bin/python
 
# Import sqlite3 ODBC library.
import sqlite3
 
try:
  # Open a connection to the student.db database
  db = sqlite3.connect('/home/student/Code/sqlite/db/student.db')
 
  # Print a string to say you've connected to the student.db database.
  print("Sqlite database connection success.")
 
except sqlite3.Error as e:
  print('SQLite error: %s' % (' '.join(e.args)))
  print("Exception class is: ", e.__class__)
  print('SQLite traceback: ')
  exc_type, exc_value, exc_tb = sys.exc_info()
  print(traceback.format_exception(exc_type, exc_value, exc_tb))
  sys.exit(1)
finally:
  # Close the connection when it is open.
  if db:
    db.close()

You can run the sqlite_connection.py script with the following syntax from its local directory:

Sqlite database connection success.

Assuming you have created a persistent Sqlite database, as qualified above with the .open command and fully qualified file name. A fully qualified file name as a path from a Linux mount point to the file.

You must use the fully qualified file name for a persistent Sqlite student.db database as the database parameter for the sqlite3.connect() method, as shown on line #9 of the sqlite_query.py program below.

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#!/usr/bin/python
 
# Import sys library.
import sqlite3
 
try:
  # Open a connection to a persistent database, which should use
  # a fully qualified file name, but may use a relative file
  # name when the Python code is in the same directory as a 
  # persistent student.db sqlite3 database.
  db = sqlite3.connect('/home/student/Code/sqlite/db/student.db')
 
  # Create a cursor.
  cursor = db.cursor()
 
  # Define a query.
  query = "SELECT k.kingdom_name "                           \
          ",      kn.knight_name "                           \
          "FROM   kingdom k INNER JOIN knight kn "           \
          "ON     k.kingdom_id = kn.kingdom_allegiance_id "  \
          "WHERE  k.book = 'Prince Caspian'"
 
  # Execute the cursor with the query.
  cursor.execute( query )
 
  # Display the rows returned by the query.
  for (kingdom_name, knight_name) in cursor:
    print('{0} has {1}'.format( kingdom_name.title(), knight_name.title()))
 
except sqlite3.Error as e:
  print('SQLite error: %s' % (' '.join(e.args)))
  print("Exception class is: ", e.__class__)
  print('SQLite traceback: ')
  exc_type, exc_value, exc_tb = sys.exc_info()
  print(traceback.format_exception(exc_type, exc_value, exc_tb))
  sys.exit(1)
finally:
  # Close the connection when it is open.
  if db:
    db.close()

As always, I hope this helps those trying to get up and running with Sqlite.

Written by maclochlainn

February 9th, 2024 at 8:47 pm

VSCode Package Error

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While running an update on Ubuntu 22.0.4 with the following syntax I got an error on finding the VSCode Package. I ran this to update before adding Ruby and Rails to an Ubuntu virtual machine instance.

sudo apt-get update

I manually moved the vscode.list file to my student user’s home directory and removed the file from /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory. This allowed me to update all other packages.

Don’t forget to replace the vscode.list file in the /etc/apt/sources.list.d directory.

Written by maclochlainn

February 5th, 2024 at 1:06 pm

Posted in Linux,Unix,VSCode

Tagged with

VSCode & $PYTHONPATH

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About 4 years ago, I demonstrated how to develop Python functions with a relative src directory in this old blog post. I thought it might be possible to do with VSCode. Doing a bit of research, it appeared all that was required was adding the PythonPath to VSCode’s Python settings in:

/home/student/.vscode/extensions/ms-python.python-2023.22.0/pythonFiles/.vscode/settings.json

It contained:

{"files.exclude":{"**/__pycache__/**":true,"**/**/*.pyc":true},"python.formatting.provider":"black"}

I added a configuration for the PYTHONPATH, as shown:

{"files.exclude":{"**/__pycache__/**":true,"**/**/*.pyc":true},"python.formatting.provider":"black","python.pythonPath": "/home/student/Lib"}

As you can tell from the embedded VSCode Terminal output below, the PYTHONPATH is not found. You can manually enter it and retest your code successfully. There is no way to use a relative PYTHONPATH like the one you can use from an shell environment file.

This is the hello_whom5.py code:

#!/usr/bin/python
 
# Import the basic sys library.
import sys
from input import parse_input
 
# Assign command-line argument list to variable.
whom = parse_input(sys.argv)
 
# Check if string isn't empty and use dynamic input.  
if len(whom) > 0:
 
  # Print dynamic hello salutation.
  print("Hello " + whom + "!\n")
 
else:
 
  # Print default saluation.
  print("Hello World!")

This is the input.py library module:

# Parse a list and return a whitespace delimited string.
def parse_input(input_list):
 
  # Assign command-line argument list to variable.
  cmd_list = input_list[1:]
 
  # Declare return variable.
  result = ""
 
  # Check whether or not their are parameters beyond the file name.
  if isinstance(input_list,list) and len(input_list) != 0:
 
    # Loop through the command-line argument list and print it. 
    for element in cmd_list:
      if len(result) == 0:
        result = element
      else:
        result = result + " " + element
 
    # Return result variable as string.
    return result

This is the Terminal output from VSCode:

student@student-virtual-machine:~$ /bin/python /home/student/Code/python/hello_whom5.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/student/Code/python/hello_whom5.py", line 5, in <module>
    from input import parse_input
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'input'
student@student-virtual-machine:~$ export set PYTHONPATH=/home/student/Lib
student@student-virtual-machine:~$ /bin/python /home/student/Code/python/hello_whom5.py
Hello World!
student@student-virtual-machine:~$ /bin/python /home/student/Code/python/hello_whom5.py Katniss Everdeen
Hello Katniss Everdeen!
 
student@student-virtual-machine:~$

The VSCode image for the test follows below:


As always, I hope this helps somebody working the same issue. However, if somebody has a better solution, please let me know.

Written by maclochlainn

January 14th, 2024 at 11:17 pm

Ubuntu, Perl & MySQL

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Configuring Perl to work with MySQL is straight forward. While Perl is installed generally, you may need to install the libdbd-mysql-perl library.

You install it as a sudoer user with this syntax:

sudo apt install -y libdbd-mysql-perl

You can find the Perl version with the following version.pl program:

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#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
# Print the version.
print "Perl ".$]."\n";

The first line lets you call the program without prefacing the program name with perl. The first line invokes a subshell of perl by default. You just need to ensure the file has read and execute privileges to run by using the

chmod 755 version.pl

You call it with this:

./version.pl

It prints:

Perl 5.034000

The following static_query.pl Perl program uses the Perl DBI library to query and return a data set based on a static query.

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#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
# Use the DBI library.
use DBI;
use strict;
use warnings;
 
# Create a connection.
my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:database=studentdb;host=localhost:3306"
                      ,"student","student",{'RaiseError' => 1});
 
# Create SQL statement.
my $sql = "SELECT i.item_title
           ,      ra.rating
           ,      cl.common_lookup_meaning
           FROM   item i INNER JOIN common_lookup cl
           ON     i.item_type = cl.common_lookup_id INNER JOIN rating_agency ra
           ON     i.item_rating_id = ra.rating_agency_id
           WHERE  i.item_title LIKE 'Harry%'
           AND    cl.common_lookup_type = 'BLU-RAY'";
 
# Prepare SQL statement.
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
 
# Execute statement and read result set.
$sth->execute() or die $DBI::errstr;
 
# Read through returned rows, assign elements explicitly to match SELECT-list.
while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
  my $item_title = $row[0];
  my $rating = $row[1];
  my $lookup_meaning = $row[2];
  print "$item_title, $rating, $lookup_meaning\n";
}
 
# Close resources.
$sth->finish();

It returns the following rows from the sample database:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, PG, Blu-ray
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, PG, Blu-ray
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, PG, Blu-ray
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, PG-13, Blu-ray

The following dynamic_query.pl Perl program uses the Perl DBI library to prepare a query, bind a local variable into the query, and return a data set based on a dynamic query.

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#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
# Use the DBI library.
use DBI;
use strict;
use warnings;
 
# Mimic a function parameter by using a local variable.
my $item_title_in = 'Star';
 
# Create a connection.
my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:database=studentdb;host=localhost:3306"
                      ,"student","student",{'RaiseError' => 1});
 
# Create SQL statement.
my $sql = "SELECT i.item_title
           ,      ra.rating
           ,      cl.common_lookup_meaning
           FROM   item i INNER JOIN common_lookup cl
           ON     i.item_type = cl.common_lookup_id INNER JOIN rating_agency ra
           ON     i.item_rating_id = ra.rating_agency_id
           WHERE  i.item_title LIKE CONCAT(?,'%')
           AND    cl.common_lookup_type = 'BLU-RAY'";
 
# Prepare SQL statement.
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
 
# Bind a variable to first parameter in the query string.
$sth->bind_param(1, $item_title_in);
 
# Execute statement and read result set.
$sth->execute() or die $DBI::errstr;
 
# Read through returned rows, assign elements explicitly to match SELECT-list.
while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
  my $item_title = $row[0];
  my $rating = $row[1];
  my $lookup_meaning = $row[2];
  print "$item_title, $rating, $lookup_meaning\n";
}
 
# Close resources.
$sth->finish();

It returns the following rows from the sample database:

Star Wars II, PG, Blu-ray

You can replace lines 34 through 40 with the following to read any number of columns into a comma-delimited row return:

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# Read through returned rows, assign elements explicitly to match SELECT-list.
while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
 
  # Read through a dynamic column list for column separated display.
  my $result = '';
  foreach(@row) {
    if (length($result) == 0) {
      $result = $_; }
    else {
      $result .= ", " . $_; }
  } 
 
  # Print comma-separted values by row.
  print $result . "\n"
}

It returns the following rows from the sample database:

Star Wars II, PG, Blu-ray

As always, I hope this helps the reader solve a problem.

Written by maclochlainn

January 8th, 2024 at 10:37 pm

Oracle 23c Free Ext Files

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This is an example of how you would upload data from a flat file, or Comma Separated Value (CSV) file inside Docker Oracle Database 23c Free. It’s important to note that in the file upload you are transferring information that doesn’t have surrogate key values by leveraing joins inside a MERGE statement.

Step #1 : Create a virtual directory

You can create a virtual directory without a physical directory but it won’t work when you try to access it. Therefore, you should create the physical directory first. Assuming you’ve created the Docker Oracle Database 23c Free instance, you should put the code in subdirectories of the /opt/oracle file directory.

  • Connect as the root user with the following Docker command:

    docker exec -it --user root oracle23c bash

    Issue the following commands as the oracle user inside the Docker container to create the necessary physical directories. You may need to refer to my earlier blog post if you haven’t setup the oracle user inside the Docker instance. While this blog post will only use the /opt/oracle/upload/text and /opt/oracle/upload/log directories, a subsequent post will demonstrate the preprocessing module for the external tables.

    mkdir /opt/oracle/upload
    mkdir /opt/oracle/upload/text
    mkdir /opt/oracle/upload/log
    mkdir /opt/oracle/upload/preproc
  • Connect to the Oracle Database 23c Free inside the container as the system user to create a c##studentrole, and do the following three things:

    • Grant privileges to the c##studentrole, and grant the c##studentrole to the c##student user.

      -- Create the role.
      CREATE ROLE c##studentrole;
       
      -- Grant privileges to the role.
      GRANT CREATE CLUSTER, CREATE INDEXTYPE, CREATE PROCEDURE,
      CREATE SEQUENCE, CREATE SESSION, CREATE TABLE, CREATE TRIGGER,
      CREATE TYPE, CREATE VIEW TO c##studentrole;
       
      -- Grant privileges to the user.
      GRANT c##studentrole TO c##student;
    • As the system user, create the necessary virtual directories that map to the physical directories inside the Docker container:

      CREATE DIRECTORY upload AS '/opt/oracle/upload/text';
      CREATE DIRECTORY preproc AS '/opt/oracle/upload/preproc';
      CREATE DIRECTORY LOG AS '/opt/oracle/upload/log';
    • As the system user, grant the necessary privileges on the virtual directories to the c##studentrole role:

      GRANT read ON DIRECTORY upload TO c##studentrole;
      GRANT read, WRITE ON DIRECTORY LOG TO c##studentrole;
      GRANT read, EXECUTE ON DIRECTORY preproc TO c##studentrole;

Step #2 : Position your CSV file in the physical directory

After creating the virtual directory, copy the following contents into a file named kingdom_import.csv in the /opt/oracle/upload/texgt directory or folder. If you attempt to do this in Windows, you need to disable Windows UAC before performing this step.

Place the following in the kingdom_import.csv file. The trailing commas aren’t too meaningful in Oracle but they’re very helpful if you use the file in MySQL. A key element in creating this files requires that you avoid trailing line returns at the bottom of the file because they’re inserted as null values. There should be no lines after the last row of data.

'Narnia',77600,'Peter the Magnificent','20-MAR-1272','19-JUN-1292','The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe',
'Narnia',77600,'Edmund the Just','20-MAR-1272','19-JUN-1292','The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe',
'Narnia',77600,'Susan the Gentle','20-MAR-1272','19-JUN-1292','The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe',
'Narnia',77600,'Lucy the Valiant','20-MAR-1272','19-JUN-1292','The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe',
'Narnia',42100,'Peter the Magnificent','12-APR-1531','31-MAY-1328','Prince Caspian',
'Narnia',42100,'Edmund the Just','12-APR-1531','31-MAY-1328','Prince Caspian',
'Narnia',42100,'Susan the Gentle','12-APR-1531','31-MAY-1328','Prince Caspian',
'Narnia',42100,'Lucy the Valiant','12-APR-1531','31-MAY-1328','Prince Caspian',
'Camelot',15200,'King Arthur','10-MAR-0631','12-DEC-0686','The Once and Future King',
'Camelot',15200,'Sir Lionel','10-MAR-0631','12-DEC-0686','The Once and Future King',
'Camelot',15200,'Sir Bors','10-MAR-0631','12-DEC-0635','The Once and Future King',
'Camelot',15200,'Sir Bors','10-MAR-0640','12-DEC-0686','The Once and Future King',
'Camelot',15200,'Sir Galahad','10-MAR-0631','12-DEC-0686','The Once and Future King',
'Camelot',15200,'Sir Gawain','10-MAR-0631','12-DEC-0686','The Once and Future King',
'Camelot',15200,'Sir Tristram','10-MAR-0631','12-DEC-0686','The Once and Future King',
'Camelot',15200,'Sir Percival','10-MAR-0631','12-DEC-0686','The Once and Future King',
'Camelot',15200,'Sir Lancelot','30-SEP-0670','12-DEC-0686','The Once and Future King',

Step #3 : Reconnect as the student user

Disconnect and connect as the c##student user, or reconnect as the c##student user. The reconnect syntax that protects your password is:

CONNECT c##student@free

Step #4 : Run the script that creates tables and sequences

Copy the following into a create_kingdom_upload.sql file within a directory of your choice. I use varchar as the data type because it’s an alias for varchar2 and highlights appropriately with the GeSHi formatting. Then, run it as the student account.

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-- Conditionally drop tables.
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS kingdom;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS knight;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS kingdom_knight_import;
 
-- Conditionally drop sequences.
DROP SEQUENCE IF EXISTS kingdom_s1;
DROP SEQUENCE IF EXISTS knight_s1;
 
-- Create normalized kingdom table.
CREATE TABLE kingdom
( kingdom_id    NUMBER
, kingdom_name  VARCHAR(20)
, population    NUMBER
, book          VARCHAR(40));
 
-- Create a sequence for the kingdom table.
CREATE SEQUENCE kingdom_s1;
 
-- Create normalized knight table.
CREATE TABLE knight
( knight_id             NUMBER
, knight_name           VARCHAR(22)
, kingdom_allegiance_id NUMBER
, allegiance_start_date DATE
, allegiance_end_date   DATE
, book                  VARCHAR(40));
 
-- Create a sequence for the knight table.
CREATE SEQUENCE knight_s1;
 
-- Create external import table.
CREATE TABLE kingdom_knight_import
( kingdom_name           VARCHAR(20)
, population             NUMBER
, knight_name            VARCHAR(22)
, allegiance_start_date  DATE
, allegiance_end_date    DATE
, book                   VARCHAR(40))
  ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
  ( TYPE oracle_loader
    DEFAULT DIRECTORY upload
    ACCESS PARAMETERS
    ( RECORDS DELIMITED BY NEWLINE CHARACTERSET US7ASCII
      BADFILE     'LOG':'kingdom_import.bad'
      DISCARDFILE 'LOG':'kingdom_import.dis'
      LOGFILE     'LOG':'kingdom_import.log'
      FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
      OPTIONALLY ENCLOSED BY "'"
      MISSING FIELD VALUES ARE NULL )
    LOCATION ('kingdom_import.csv'))
REJECT LIMIT UNLIMITED;

Step #5 : Test your access to the external table

There a number of things that could go wrong with setting up an external table, such as file permissions. Before moving on to the balance of the steps, you should test what you’ve done. Run the following query from the student account to check whether or not you can access the kingdom_import.csv file.

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SET PAGESIZE 999
COL kingdom_name  FORMAT A7     HEADING "Kingdom|Name"
COL folks         FORMAT 99999  HEADING "Folks"
COL knight_name   FORMAT A21    HEADING "Knight Name"
COL dates         FORMAT A11    HEADING "Start Date"
COL source_book   FORMAT A38    HEADING "Book"
SELECT   kingdom_name
,        knight_name
,        TO_CHAR(allegiance_start_date,'DD-MON-YYYY')
||       TO_CHAR(allegiance_end_date,'DD-MON-YYYY') AS dates
,        book
FROM     kingdom_knight_import;

Step #6 : Create the upload procedure

Copy the following into a create_upload_procedure.sql file within a virtual directory of your choice. As noted above in the external table definition writes only occur in the log virtual directory. This is important because there are articles out there on the Internet that could misdirect you when you get the following error message on the upload virtual directory.

ORA-06564: Object UPLOAD does not exist or is not accessible to the user.

By the way, you’ll only see that error if you fail to:

  • Designate the procedure as AUTH_ID CURRENT, and
  • Enabled SERVEROUTPUT inside the SQL*Plus command-line interface (CLI) session or inside the glogin.sql file for the Oracle Database 23c Free Docker instance.

Then, run it as the student account.

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-- Create a procedure to wrap the transaction.
CREATE OR REPLACE
  PROCEDURE upload_kingdom AUTHID CURRENT_USER IS 
BEGIN
  -- Set save point for an all or nothing transaction.
  SAVEPOINT starting_point;
 
  -- Insert or update the table, which makes this rerunnable when the file hasn't been updated.  
  MERGE INTO kingdom target
  USING (SELECT   DISTINCT
                  k.kingdom_id
         ,        kki.kingdom_name
         ,        kki.population
         ,        kki.book
         FROM     kingdom_knight_import kki LEFT JOIN kingdom k
         ON       kki.kingdom_name = k.kingdom_name
         AND      kki.population = k.population
         AND      kki.book = k.book) SOURCE
  ON (target.kingdom_id = SOURCE.kingdom_id)
  WHEN MATCHED THEN
  UPDATE SET kingdom_name = SOURCE.kingdom_name
  WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
  INSERT VALUES
  ( kingdom_s1.nextval
  , SOURCE.kingdom_name
  , SOURCE.population
  , SOURCE.book);
 
  -- Insert or update the table, which makes this rerunnable when the file hasn't been updated.  
  MERGE INTO knight target
  USING (SELECT   kn.knight_id
         ,        kki.knight_name
         ,        k.kingdom_id
         ,        kki.allegiance_start_date AS start_date
         ,        kki.allegiance_end_date AS end_date
         ,        kki.book
         FROM     kingdom_knight_import kki INNER JOIN kingdom k
         ON       kki.kingdom_name = k.kingdom_name
         AND      kki.population = k.population LEFT JOIN knight kn 
         ON       k.kingdom_id = kn.kingdom_allegiance_id
         AND      kki.knight_name = kn.knight_name
         AND      kki.allegiance_start_date = kn.allegiance_start_date
         AND      kki.allegiance_end_date = kn.allegiance_end_date
         AND      kki.book = kn.book) SOURCE
  ON (target.kingdom_allegiance_id = SOURCE.kingdom_id)
  WHEN MATCHED THEN
  UPDATE SET allegiance_start_date = SOURCE.start_date
  ,          allegiance_end_date = SOURCE.end_date
  ,          book = SOURCE.book
  WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
  INSERT VALUES
  ( knight_s1.nextval
  , SOURCE.knight_name
  , SOURCE.kingdom_id
  , SOURCE.start_date
  , SOURCE.end_date
  , SOURCE.book);
 
  -- Save the changes.
  COMMIT;
 
EXCEPTION
  WHEN OTHERS THEN
    dbms_output.put_line(SQLERRM);
    ROLLBACK TO starting_point;
    RETURN;
END;
/

Step #7 : Run the upload procedure

You can run the file by calling the script above. The procedure ensures that records are inserted or updated into their respective tables.

EXECUTE upload_kingdom;

Step #8 : Test the results of the upload procedure

You can test whether or not it worked by running the following queries.

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-- Format Oracle output.
COLUMN kingdom_id    FORMAT 999      HEADING "Kingdom|ID #"
COLUMN kingdom_name  FORMAT A14      HEADING "Kingdom|Name"
COLUMN population    FORMAT 999,999  HEADING "Population"
COLUMN book          FORMAT A40      HEADING "Source Book"
 
-- Check the kingdom table.
SELECT * FROM kingdom;
 
-- Format Oracle output.
SET PAGESIZE 999
COLUMN knight_id              FORMAT 999  HEADING "Knight|ID #"
COLUMN knight_name            FORMAT A23  HEADING "Knight|Name"
COLUMN kingdom_allegiance_id  FORMAT 999  HEADING "Kingdom|ID #"
COLUMN allegiance_start_date  FORMAT A11 HEADING "Allegiance|Start Date"
COLUMN allegiance_end_date    FORMAT A11 HEADING "Allegiance|End Date"
 
-- Check the knight table.
SELECT   knight_id
,        knight_name
,        kingdom_allegiance_id
,        TO_CHAR(allegiance_start_date,'DD-MON-YYYY') AS allegiance_start_date
,        TO_CHAR(allegiance_end_date,'DD-MON-YYYY') AS allegiance_end_date
FROM     knight;

It should display the following information:

Kingdom Kingdom
   ID # Name	       Population Source Book
------- -------------- ---------- ----------------------------------------
      1 Narnia		   42,100 Prince Caspian
      2 Narnia		   77,600 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
      3 Camelot 	   15,200 The Once and Future King
 
 
Knight Knight		       Kingdom Allegiance  Allegiance
  ID # Name			  ID # Start Date  End Date
------ ----------------------- ------- ----------- -----------
     1 Peter the Magnificent	     2 20-MAR-1272 19-JUN-1292
     2 Edmund the Just		     2 20-MAR-1272 19-JUN-1292
     3 Susan the Gentle 	     2 20-MAR-1272 19-JUN-1292
     4 Lucy the Valiant 	     2 20-MAR-1272 19-JUN-1292
     5 Peter the Magnificent	     1 12-APR-1531 31-MAY-1328
     6 Edmund the Just		     1 12-APR-1531 31-MAY-1328
     7 Susan the Gentle 	     1 12-APR-1531 31-MAY-1328
     8 Lucy the Valiant 	     1 12-APR-1531 31-MAY-1328
     9 King Arthur		     3 10-MAR-0631 12-DEC-0686
    10 Sir Lionel		     3 10-MAR-0631 12-DEC-0686
    11 Sir Bors 		     3 10-MAR-0631 12-DEC-0635
    12 Sir Bors 		     3 10-MAR-0640 12-DEC-0686
    13 Sir Galahad		     3 10-MAR-0631 12-DEC-0686
    14 Sir Gawain		     3 10-MAR-0631 12-DEC-0686
    15 Sir Tristram		     3 10-MAR-0631 12-DEC-0686
    16 Sir Percival		     3 10-MAR-0631 12-DEC-0686
    17 Sir Lancelot		     3 30-SEP-0670 12-DEC-0686

You can rerun the procedure to check that it doesn’t alter any information, then you could add a new knight to test the insertion portion.

Written by maclochlainn

January 6th, 2024 at 11:53 pm

Native sqlplus editing

without comments

I have to remind myself from time to time that Ubuntu is a Desktop or Workstation and by default can go missing key server software, like ssh. This became evident when I wanted to check whether I could run sqlplus from my Mac OS terminal through my Ubuntu VM and internally embedded Oracle Database 23c Free docker instance.

If like me you forgot to add it, you can add the ssh service with the following commands to your Ubuntu VM:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y openssh-server
sudo systemctl start ssh.service

Then, you can test the installation with an ssh call to localhost, like:

ssh localhost

You should see the following, where you need to enter the sudoer’s password to continue. Your localhost target causes an authenticity check, like:

The authenticity of host 'localhost (127.0.0.1)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:js8knEf/lOE1rSss3u8lP4Ii634Y0CkUz+oJM5dt3w4.
This key is not known by any other names
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])?

Enter yes to continue:

Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes

It will now add localhost to the list of known hosts provide standard messages, as shown below.

Warning: Permanently added 'localhost' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
student@localhost's password: 
Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.2.0-39-generic x86_64)
 
 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage
 
Expanded Security Maintenance for Applications is not enabled.
 
9 updates can be applied immediately.
5 of these updates are standard security updates.
To see these additional updates run: apt list --upgradable
 
Enable ESM Apps to receive additional future security updates.
See https://ubuntu.com/esm or run: sudo pro status
 
The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.
 
Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.

Having verified the installation and functionality of ssh in the Ubuntu VM. Then, I launched a Terminal session on my MacBookPro base operating system. Using the Ubuntu instance ssh and a customized Bash function, I discovered its IP address.

The following is the get_ip() user-defined function in the Ubuntu instance’s student user’s customized .bashrc file:

# Return the local instance's IP address.
get_ip ()
{
  echo `hostname -I | cut -f1 -d' '`
}

In this instance, it returned:

192.168.195.155

With the IP address, I secured shelled into my Ubuntu sudoer student user like this:

ssh student@192.168.195.155

It’ll prompt you for the remote server’s student password, like:

student@192.168.195.155's password:

After entering the correct password, I got the standard reply of a valid connection:

Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.2.0-39-generic x86_64)
 
 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage
 
Expanded Security Maintenance for Applications is not enabled.
 
9 updates can be applied immediately.
5 of these updates are standard security updates.
To see these additional updates run: apt list --upgradable
 
Enable ESM Apps to receive additional future security updates.
See https://ubuntu.com/esm or run: sudo pro status
 
Last login: Fri Jan  5 18:13:21 2024 from 127.0.0.1

Next, I connected to the Ubuntu Docker Oracle Database 23c Free instance with this syntax:

docker exec -it --user student oracle23c bash

At the prompt for the Docker instance of Oracle Database 23c Free, you can type sqlplus to work directly against the Oracle Database 23c Free instance with a pluggable c##student database user.

sqlplus c##student/student
 
SQL*Plus: Release 23.0.0.0.0 - Production on Sat Jan 6 01:38:06 2024
Version 23.3.0.23.09
 
Copyright (c) 1982, 2023, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
 
Last Successful login time: Sat Dec 23 2023 04:30:00 +00:00
 
Connected to:
Oracle Database 23c Free Release 23.0.0.0.0 - Develop, Learn, and Run for Free
Version 23.3.0.23.09

Now, I can interactively edit my files with vi in the Docker Oracle Database 23c Free directory. The following demonstrates using the sandboxed student() function from my earlier Oracle 23c Free SQL*Plus blog post and connects as a sandboxed student user in the Docker Oracle 23c Free container. The image uses a different Mac OS and different Ubuntu VM from the earlier entries in this blog post from the earlier examples.

You can edit and test the files in the Docker Oracle 23c Free instance through the command-line interface (CLI). You can further automate the ssh connection by making the Ubuntu instance’s IP address a static address instead of a DCHP-assigned address; and then you can put it in the Mac OS’s /etc/hosts file which lets you resolve it by name (through file versus DNS resolution).

As always, I hope this helps those looking for a solution.

Written by maclochlainn

January 5th, 2024 at 6:26 pm

Disk Space Allocation

without comments

It’s necessary to check for adequate disk space on your Virtual Machine (VM) before installing Oracle 23c Free in a Docker container or as a podman service. Either way, it requires about 13 GB of disk space. On Ubuntu, the typical install of a VM allocates 20 GB and a 500 MB swap. You need to create a 2 GB swap when you install Ubuntu or plan to change the swap, as qualified in this excellent DigitalOcean article. Assuming you installed it with the correct swap or extended your swap area, you can confirm it with the following command:

sudo swapon --show

It should return something like this:

NAME      TYPE SIZE USED PRIO
/swapfile file 2.1G 1.2G   -2

Next, check your disk space allocation and availability with this command:

df -h

This is what was in my instance with MySQL and PostgreSQL databases already installed and configured with sandboxed schemas:

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs           388M  2.1M  386M   1% /run
/dev/sda3        20G   14G  4.6G  75% /
tmpfs           1.9G   28K  1.9G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
/dev/sda2       512M  6.1M  506M   2% /boot/efi
tmpfs           388M  108K  388M   1% /run/user/1000

Using VMware Fusion on my Mac (Intel-based i9), I changed the allocated space from 20 GB to 40 GB by navigating to Virtual Machine, Settings…, Hard Disk. I entered 40.00 as the disk size and clicked the Pre-allocate disk space checkbox before clicking the Apply button, as shown in below. This added space is necessary because Oracle Database 23c Free as a Docker instance requires almost 10 GB of local space.

After clicking the Apply button, I checked Ubuntu with the “df -h” command and found there was no change. That’s unlike doing the same thing on AlmaLinux or a RedHat distribution, which was surprising.

The next set of steps required that I manually add the space to the Ubuntu instance:

  1. Start the Ubuntu VM and check the instance’s disk information with fdisk:

    sudo fdisk -l

    The log file for this is:

    After running fdisk, I rechecked disk allocation with df -h and saw no change:

    Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    tmpfs           388M  2.1M  386M   1% /run
    /dev/sda3        20G   14G  4.6G  75% /
    tmpfs           1.9G   28K  1.9G   1% /dev/shm
    tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
    /dev/sda2       512M  6.1M  506M   2% /boot/efi
    tmpfs           388M  108K  388M   1% /run/user/1000
  2. So, I installed Ubuntu’s user space utility gparted:

    sudo apt install gparted

    The log file for this is:

  3. After installing the gparted utility (manual can be found here), you can launch it with the following syntax:

    sudo apt install gparted

    You’ll see the following in the console, which you can ignore.

    GParted 1.3.1
    configuration --enable-libparted-dmraid --enable-online-resize
    libparted 3.4

    It launches a GUI interface that should look something like the following:

    Right-click on the /dev/sda3 Partition and the GParted application will present the following context popup menu. Click the Resize/Move menu option.

    The attempt to resize the disk at this point GParted will raise a read-only exception like the following:

    You might open a new shell and fix the disk at the command-line but you’ll need to relaunch gparted regardless. So, you should close gparted and run the following commands:

    sudo mount -o remount -rw /
    sudo mount -o remount -rw /var/snap/firefox/common/host-hunspell

    When you relaunch GParted, you see that the graphic depiction has changed when you right-click on the /dev/sda3 Partition as follows:

    Click on the highlighted box with the arrow and drag it all the way to the right. It will then show you something like the following.

    Click the Resize button to make the change and add the space to the Ubuntu file system and see something like the following in Gparted:

    Choose Edit in the menu bar and then Apply All Operations to effect the change in the disk allocation. The last dialog will require you to verify you want to make the changes. Click the Apply button to make the changes.

    Click the close for the GParted application and then you can rerun the following command:

    df -h

    You will see that you now have 19.5 GB of additional space:

    Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    tmpfs           388M  2.2M  386M   1% /run
    /dev/sda3        39G 19.5G   23G  39% /
    tmpfs           1.9G   28K  1.9G   1% /dev/shm
    tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
    /dev/sda2       512M  6.1M  506M   2% /boot/efi
    tmpfs           388M  116K  388M   1% /run/user/1000
  4. Finally, you can now successfully download the latest Docker version of Oracle Database 23c Free with the following command:

    docker run --name oracle23c -p 1521:1521 -p 5500:5500 -e ORACLE_PWD=cangetin container-registry.oracle.com/database/free:latest

    Since you haven’t downloaded the container, you’ll get a warning that it is unable to find the image before it discovers it and downloads it. This will take several minutes. At the conclusion, it will start the Oracle Database Net Listener and begin updating files. the updates may take quite a while to complete.

    The basic download console output looks like the following and if you check your disk space you’ve downloaded about 14 GB in the completed container.

    Unable to find image 'container-registry.oracle.com/database/free:latest' locally
    latest: Pulling from database/free
    089fdfcd47b7: Pull complete 
    43c899d88edc: Pull complete 
    47aa6f1886a1: Pull complete 
    f8d07bb55995: Pull complete 
    c31c8c658c1e: Pull complete 
    b7d28faa08b4: Pull complete 
    1d0d5c628f6f: Pull complete 
    db82a695dad3: Pull complete 
    25a185515793: Pull complete 
    Digest: sha256:5ac0efa9896962f6e0e91c54e23c03ae8f140cf6ed43ca09ef4354268a942882
    Status: Downloaded newer image for container-registry.oracle.com/database/free:latest

    My detailed log file for the complete recovery operation is:

  5. You can connect to the Oracle Database 23c Free container with the following syntax:

    docker exec -it -u root oracle23c bash

    At the command-line, you connect to the Oracle Database 23c Free container with the following syntax:

    sqlplus system/cangetin@free

    You have arrived at the Oracle SQL prompt:

    SQL*Plus: Release 23.0.0.0.0 - Production on Fri Dec 1 00:13:55 2023
    Version 23.3.0.23.09
     
    Copyright (c) 1982, 2023, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
     
    Last Successful login time: Thu Nov 30 2023 23:27:54 +00:00
     
    Connected to:
    Oracle Database 23c Free Release 23.0.0.0.0 - Develop, Learn, and Run for Free
    Version 23.3.0.23.09
     
    SQL>

As always, I hope this helps those trying to work with the newest Oracle stack.

Written by maclochlainn

December 1st, 2023 at 3:08 pm

MySQL on Ubuntu

without comments

Fresh install of Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro i7 because Apple said the OS X was no longer upgradable. Time to install and configure MySQL Server. These are the steps to install MySQL on the Ubuntu Desktop.

Installation

  1. Update the Ubuntu OS by checking for, inspecting, and upgrading any available updates with the following commands:

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt list
    sudo apt upgrade
  2. Check for available MySQL Server packages with this command:

    apt-cache search binaries | grep -i mysql

    It should return:

    mysql-server - MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
    mysql-server-8.0 - MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
    mysql-server-core-8.0 - MySQL database server binaries
    default-mysql-server - MySQL database server binaries and system database setup (metapackage)
    default-mysql-server-core - MySQL database server binaries (metapackage)
    mariadb-server-10.6 - MariaDB database core server binaries
    mariadb-server-core-10.6 - MariaDB database core server files
  3. Check for more details on the MySQL packages with this command:

    apt info -a mysql-server-8.0
  4. Install MySQL Server packages with this command:

    sudo apt install mysql-server-8.0
  5. Start the MySQL Server service with this command:

    sudo systemctl start mysql.service
  6. Before you can run the mysql_secure_installation script, you must set the root password. If you skip this step the mysql_secure_installation script will enter an infinite loop and lock your terminal session. Log in to the mysql monitor with the following command:

    sudo mysql

    Enter a password with the following command (password is an insecure example):

    ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'C4nGet1n!';

    Quit the mysql monitor session:

    quit;
  7. Run the mysql_secure_installation script with this command:

    sudo mysql_secure_installation

    Here’s the typical output from running the mysql_secure_installation script:

    Securing the MySQL server deployment.
     
    Enter password for user root: 
     
    VALIDATE PASSWORD COMPONENT can be used to test passwords
    and improve security. It checks the strength of password
    and allows the users to set only those passwords which are
    secure enough. Would you like to setup VALIDATE PASSWORD component?
     
    Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No: Y
     
    There are three levels of password validation policy:
     
    LOW    Length >= 8
    MEDIUM Length >= 8, numeric, mixed case, and special characters
    STRONG Length >= 8, numeric, mixed case, special characters and dictionary file
     
    Please enter 0 = LOW, 1 = MEDIUM and 2 = STRONG: 2
    Using existing password for root.
     
    Estimated strength of the password: 100 
    Change the password for root ? ((Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : N
     
     ... skipping.
    By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user,
    allowing anyone to log into MySQL without having to have
    a user account created for them. This is intended only for
    testing, and to make the installation go a bit smoother.
    You should remove them before moving into a production
    environment.
     
    Remove anonymous users? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
    Success.
     
    Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from
    'localhost'. This ensures that someone cannot guess at
    the root password from the network.
     
    Disallow root login remotely? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
    Success.
     
    By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that
    anyone can access. This is also intended only for testing,
    and should be removed before moving into a production
    environment.
     
     
    Remove test database and access to it? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
     - Dropping test database...
    Success.
     
     - Removing privileges on test database...
    Success.
     
    Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes
    made so far will take effect immediately.
     
    Reload privilege tables now? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
    Success.
     
    All done!

Configuration

The next step is configuration. It requires setting up the sample sakila and studentdb database. The syntax has changed from prior releases. Here are the new three steps:

  1. Grant the root user the privilege to grant to others, which root does not have by default. You use the following syntax as the MySQL root user:

    mysql> GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost';
  2. Download the sakila database, which you can download from this site. Click on the sakila database’s TGZ download.

    When you download the sakila zip file it creates a sakila-db folder in the /home/student/Downloads directory. Copy the sakila-db folder into the /home/student/Data/sakila directory. Then, change to the /home/student/Data/sakila/sakila-db directory, connect to mysql as the root user, and run the following command:

    mysql> SOURCE /home/student/Data/sakila/sakila-db/sakila-schema.sql
    mysql> SOURCE /home/student/Data/sakila/sakila-db/sakila-data.sql
  3. Create the studentdb database with the following command as the MySQL root user:

    mysql> CREATE DATABASE studentdb;
  4. Create the user with a clear English password and grant the user student full privileges on the sakila and studentdb databases:

    mysql> CREATE USER 'student'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'Stud3nt!';
    mysql> GRANT ALL ON studentdb.* TO 'student'@'localhost';
    mysql> GRANT ALL ON sakila.* TO 'student'@'localhost';

You can now connect to a sandboxed sakila database with the student user’s credentials, like:

mysql -ustudent -p -Dsakila

or, you can now connect to a sandboxed studentdb database with the student user’s credentials, like:

mysql -ustudent -p -Dstudentdb

MySQL Workbench Installation

sudo snap install mysql-workbench-community

You have now configure the MySQL Server 8.0.

Written by maclochlainn

May 23rd, 2023 at 4:18 pm