3
Administering ConText

This chapter provides details on how to administer ConText users, servers, and queues from the command-line.

The process of administering ConText can be divided into three main tasks:

• Enabling One-step Queries
• Managing Users
• Managing ConText Servers
• Managing ConText Queues

Management of ConText users can be performed by any Oracle DBA user or the CTXSYS user. Management of ConText servers and queues is performed by the CTXSYS user.
 

Enabling One-step Queries

If you want to use one-step queries in ConText, you must set the ConText initialization parameter TEXT_ENABLE for each database instance to TRUE. TEXT_ENABLE enables Oracle8 to recognize the CONTAINS SQL function utilized in one-step queries.

You can set TEXT_ENABLE for all users and sessions in the initsid.ora file. You can also set TEXT_ENABLE for the current session using the SQL command, ALTER SESSION.
 

Setting TEXT_ENABLE for All Users

To set TEXT_ENABLE for all users, perform the following steps:

1. Shut down the database.
2. Add the following line to the initsid.ora file:

text_enable=true

3. Restart the database

 

Note:  Once you set TEXT_ENABLE in the initsid.ora file, one-step queries are enabled each time you start up a database instance.

   

Setting TEXT_ENABLE for the Session

To set TEXT_ENABLE for the current session only, issue the following SQL command:

alter session set text_enable = true

Managing Users

This section provides details for performing the following user administration tasks from the command-line:

Task	Supported in Sys. Admin. Tool?	Supported in Config. Manager?
Creating ConText Users	No	No
Granting ConText Roles to Users	Yes	Yes
Granting EXECUTE Privileges to Application Developers	No	No

   

Creating ConText Users

ConText provides a predefined Oracle user called CTXSYS for performing system and database administration.

To create additional Oracle users for ConText, log in to SQL*Plus as an Oracle DBA and use the SQL command CREATE USER.

For example:

create user app_dev
identified by 123abc
default tablespace app_tables;

Granting ConText Roles to Users

To assign a ConText role to a user, log in to SQL*Plus as an Oracle DBA and use the SQL command GRANT. For example:

grant ctxapp to ctxdev;

Granting EXECUTE Privileges to Application Developers

To enable users (i.e. application developers) to call procedures from within their own stored procedures and triggers, you must explicitly grant to each user EXECUTE privileges for the ConText PL/SQL packages that contain the procedures.

To grant EXECUTE privileges to users, log in to SQL*Plus as CTXSYS and use the GRANT command. For example:

grant execute on ctx_query to ctxdev;

In this example, CTXSYS grants EXECUTE privileges to the user CTXDEV for all the stored procedures in the CTX_QUERY package.
 

Application Development Packages

The ConText packages for which users may need EXECUTE privileges are:

• CTX_LING: Linguistics
• CTX_QUERY: Query and Highlighting

 

See Also:  For more information about the CTX_QUERY and CTX_LING packages, see Oracle8 ConText Cartridge Application Developer's Guide.

   

Administration Packages

If the application developer is building administration functionality into an application, they may need EXECUTE privileges on the remaining ConText packages

• CTX_ADM: ConText Administration
• CTX_DDL: Text Setup and Management
• CTX_DML: ConText Index Update
• CTX_INFO: Product Information
• CTX_SVC: Services Queue Administration
• CTX_THES: Thesaurus Management

Managing ConText Servers

This section provides details for performing the following ConText server administration tasks from the command-line:

Task	Supported in Sys. Admin. Tool?	Supported in Config. Manager?
Starting ConText Servers	No	No
Viewing the Status of ConText Servers	Yes	Yes
Shutting Down ConText Servers	Yes	Yes
Changing the Personality Masks of ConText Servers	Yes	Yes

 

Starting ConText Servers

You can start ConText servers using a number of methods, all from the command-line:

• Using ctxsrv
• Using ctxsrv (Masking the Password for CTXSYS)
• Using ctxctl

 

Suggestion:  If your machine supports running multiple ConText servers, to prevent contention between text operations, you should start multiple servers, each with a different personality mask.  For example, if your machine supports running four servers, you could designate one server for processing queries, one server for processing DML and DDL, one server for linguistics, and one for text loading.  In addition, the Linguistic personality is only required for generating linguistic output. Once the output has been generated, the separate Linguistic server could be shut down or reassigned to other text operations.

   

Using ctxsrv

To start a ConText server, run the ctxsrv executable from the command-line of the server machine.

For example, in a UNIX-based environment, to start a ConText server in the background with a personality mask of D (DDL) and L (Linguistics), type the following command on the command-line of the server host machine:

ctxsrv -user ctxsys/password -personality DL &

Using ctxsrv (Masking the Password for CTXSYS)

When -user is specified in the command-line for ctxsrv, the password for CTXSYS is visible to users of the machine on which the ConText server process is running.

If you wish to mask the password from users, you can run ctxsrv without specifying -user. The required user information can be supplied in two ways:

• system-provided prompt
• text file (containing the user information)

system-provided prompt

If you do not specify the -user argument, ConText prompts you to enter user information. The information must be entered in the format 'CTXSYS/password' where password is the password for CTXSYS.

The disadvantage of using this method is ConText servers cannot be run as background processes in environments that support background processes.

text file

If your environment supports it, you can pass the required information for -user to ctxsrv through a plain text file.

The file must contain a single line of text in the format 'CTXSYS/password' where password is the password for CTXSYS.

For example, in a UNIX-based environment, the following command starts a ConText Server with the Loader (R) personality. The user information is passed to ctxsrv through a file named pword.txt.

ctxsrv -personality R < pword.txt

The advantage of using this method is ConText servers can be run as background processes in environments that support background processes. In addition, this method provides the highest level of security for masking the password.

Using ctxctl

The ctxctl utility provides a command-line interface for starting, shutting down, and viewing the status of your ConText servers.

To start the ctxctl utility, type the following command on the command-line of the server host machine:

ctxctl

Then, use the start command at the ctxctl command prompt to start ConText servers. For example, to start a single ConText server with the Loader personality, type:

command> start 1 load

Viewing the Status of ConText Servers

You can view the status of currently running ConText servers using ctxctl. You can also use the CTX_SERVERS or CTX_ALL_SERVERS views to monitor the status of ConText servers.

Using ctxctl

To view the status of ConText servers, start the ctxctl utility by typing the following command on the command-line of the server host machine:

ctxctl

Then, at the ctxctl command prompt, use the status command:

command> status

The status command display results similar to the following:

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
|  PID  | LING. | QUERY |  DDL  |  DML  |  LOAD |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| 23266 |     X |     X |       |       |       |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| 23285 |       |     X |     X |     X |       |
+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======+
| Total |     1 |     2 |     1 |     1 |     0 |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+

Using the Server Views

To view all the currently running ConText servers using CTX_ALL_SERVERS, issue the following SQL statement:

column ser_name format a30
select ser_name, ser_status, ser_started_at
from ctx_all_servers;

If a ConText server is running, the query will display results similar to the following output:

SER_NAME             SER_STAT SER_START
-------------------- -------- ---------
DRSRV_1120           IDLE     18-MAR-97

Changing the Personality Masks of ConText Servers

To change the personality mask for a ConText server, use the PL/SQL procedure CTX_ADM.CHANGE_MASK.

For example:

execute ctx_adm.change_mask('DRSRV_1120','QD')

This example illustrates a personality mask consisting of the Query (Q) and DDL (D) personalities replacing the existing personality mask for the ConText server.

Also, in this example, drsrv_1120 is the name (identifier) for the ConText server. A server identifier is generated automatically when you start up a ConText server. You can use the ctxctl utility or the CTX_ALL_SERVERS view to obtain the identifier for a ConText server.

Shutting Down ConText Servers

To shut down a ConText server, use CTX_ADM.SHUTDOWN.

For example:

execute ctx_adm.shutdown ('DRSRV_1120',1)

In this example, drsrv_1120 is the name (identifier) of the ConText server and the shutdown method is 1 (immediate). A server identifier is generated automatically when you start up a ConText server. You can use the ctxctl utility or the CTX_ALL_SERVERS view to obtain the identifier for a ConText server.
 

execute ctx_adm.shutdown

You can also use the ctxctl utility to shutdown ConText servers.

Managing ConText Queues

This section provides details for performing the following ConText server administration tasks from the command-line:

Task	Supported in Sys. Admin. Tool?	Supported in Config. Manager?
Viewing the DML Queue	Yes	Yes
Viewing the Services Queue	Yes	Yes
Removing Requests from the Services Queue	Yes	Yes
Enabling and Disabling Queues	No	No

 

Viewing the DML Queue

You can view the status of requests in the DML Queue, using the following views provided by ConText:

• CTX_ALL_DML_QUEUE
• CTX_ALL_DML_SUM
• CTX_ALL_QUEUE
• CTX_USER_DML_QUEUE
• CTX_USER_DML_SUM
• CTX_USER_QUEUE

Viewing the Services Queue

To view the status of requests in the Services Queue, you can use the CTX_SVC.REQUEST_STATUS function. For example:

declare status varchar2(10);
declare timestamp date;
declare errors varchar2(60);
begin
   status := ctx_svc.request_status(3341,timestamp,errors);
   dbms_output.put_line(status,timestamp,substr(errors,1,20);
end;

In this example, variables are defined for status, timestamp, and errors. Then, REQUEST_STATUS is called to return the status of the request with handle 3341 and the DBMS_OUTPUT package is used to display the results of the output.

A handle is generated automatically when a request is submitted to the Services Queue using CTX_LING.SUBMIT.
 

Removing Requests from the Services Queue

You can remove pending and errored requests from the Services Queue using procedures in the CTX_SVC package.

Pending Requests

To remove a request with a status of PENDING, use the CTX_SVC.CANCEL procedure. For example:

execute ctx_svc.cancel(3341)

In this example, the request with handle 3341 is removed from the Services Queue.

In addition, you can use the CTX_SVC.CANCEL_ALL procedure to remove all requests with a status of PENDING from the Services Queue. For example:

execute ctx_svc.cancel_all

Errored Requests

To remove a request with a status of ERROR, use the CTX_SVC.CLEAR_ERROR procedure. For example:

execute ctx_svc.clear_error(3341)

In addition, you can use the CTX_SVC.CLEAR_ALL_ERRORS procedure to remove all requests with a status of ERROR from the Services Queue. For example:

execute ctx_svc.clear_all_errors

You can also use the CLEAR_INDEX_ERRORS or CLEAR_LING_ERRORS to remove all errored indexing/Linguistics requests from the Services Queue.

Enabling and Disabling Queues

You can enable or disable the following queues in the Text Request Queue:

• Text Queue (DDL and Query pipes)
• DML Queue
• Services Queue

If a queue is disabled, pending requests in the queue are not processed by ConText servers.
 

Enabling Queues

To enable a queue, use the CTX_ADM.UPDATE_QUEUE_STATUS procedure. For example:

execute ctx_adm.update_queue_status(ctx_adm.DML_QUEUE, ctx_adm.ENABLE_QUEUE)

In this example, the DML Queue is enabled, which allows entries in the queue to be processed by ConText servers.

Disabling Queues

To disable a queue, use the CTX_ADM.UPDATE_QUEUE_STATUS procedure. For example:

execute ctx_adm.update_queue_status(ctx_adm.TEXT_QUEUE, ctx_adm.DISABLE_QUEUE)

In this example, the Text Queue (DDL and Query pipes) is disabled, which prevents all text/theme queries and DDL requests from being processed by ConText servers.