CHAPTER 18. Configuring the NDS Naming Adapter
This chapter describes the NetWare Directory Services (NDS) Native Naming Adapter and how to configure it into your network environment. The following topics are discussed:
- what the NDS naming adapter does for you
- how the NDS Naming Adapter interacts with SQL*Net and Oracle
- configuring the NDS Naming Adapter on clients and servers
Refer to Chapter 15 in this guide and to Chapter 3 in Understanding SQL*Net, Release 2.3, for information on how you can use the Native Naming Adapters provided by Oracle in your network environment.
What the NDS Naming Adapter Does for You
The NDS Naming Adapter allows you to use native NDS naming conventions to connect to an Oracle database on a Novell NDS-enabled network. After the NDS Naming Adapter has been installed on clients and servers, users can type
username/password@service_name
The NDS Naming Adapter provides network users with the following benefits:
- Allows clients to use simple NDS names (partial or full) when connecting to a database.
- Simplifies the maintenance of the TNS addresses; one change will affect all clients using the NDS Naming Adapter.
- Reduces network traffic by eliminating the need for the listener to advertise.
System Requirements
The NDS Naming Adapter requires SQL*Net 2.2 or later, Oracle 7.2 or later, and must be configured with Network Manager 3.1 or later. It can be used with any client running Novell libraries, but requires Netware 4.1 or later on the server.
Installing the NDS Adapter
To install the NDS Naming Adapter, use the Oracle Installer. Refer to your platform-specific documentation for information.
How the NDS Adapter Interacts with SQL*Net and Oracle
This section provides a brief discussion of how the NDS Naming Adapter interacts with SQL*Net and an Oracle Server.
What the Client Does
The NDS Naming Adapter resides on the client workstation and translates the NDS object name into a TNS address. The client code gets attributes from the NDS tree for the NDS object whose name matches the Oracle service name. This name can be a full name or a partial name. If it is a partial name, it will be qualified with respect to the current name context. Refer to "Optional Configuration File Parameter for the Client" in this chapter for information on fully-qualified and partially-qualified NDS names.
What the Server Does
There are three aspects to the server-side NDS Naming Adapter: schema extension, SAP disabling, and listener address storage.
Schema Extension
During the Oracle installation process on a NetWare 4 server the NDS schema is extended to include an object class called "ORACLE:DBInstance". For the NDS Naming Adapter to function, this class will need an attribute called "ORACLE:TNSAddress". If the class does not exist, it is created and will include the TNSAddress attribute. If the class exists but the TNSAddress attribute does not, the class will be modified. The NLM that performs this during installation is called ORASCHEM.NLM.
SAP (Service Address Protocol) Disabling
The Oracle SPX Protocol Adapter for NetWare looks for a value in CONFIG.ORA called "ORACLE_SAP". The value of this parameter is ON or OFF. If this parameter is not specified, the default is ON. This has performance implications for SPX networks. When ORACLE_SAP is ON, the SQL*Net listener advertises its address using SAP (Service Advertising Protocol). When ORACLE_SAP is set to OFF, the SQL*Net listener relies on NDS to deliver information to its clients.
If your network consists entirely of NDS enabled clients (that is, clients using NetWare 4 and above), you will get better network performance if you edit the CONFIG.ORA file to set ORACLE_SAP to OFF.
How Oracle Service Names and Addresses are Stored in NDS
When the SQL*Net listener is started, it stores its address in the NDS database by locating the Oracle database instance that resides on its server.
Note: An NDS object for the Oracle database must have already been created.
At that point, the address(es) is (are) accessible to the client from the NDS database
Configuring the NDS Naming Adapter on Clients and Servers
This section describes the required and optional parameters for the NDS Naming Adapter.
Required Configuration File Parameters for the Client
To use the NDS Naming Adapter with SQL*Net 2.2 and above on an Oracle client, a few parameters must be specified in the SQLNET.ORA file. Oracle strongly recommends that you use Oracle Network Manager to generate this file.
Note: The SQLNET.ORA file is located in the ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory or the directory pointed to by the TNS_ADMIN environment variable (which can be set in the ORACLE.INI file on Windows 3.1).
Using SQL*Net 2.2
Use Oracle Network Manager to create the SQL*Net configuration files. Select NOVELL as a name service in the Native Naming page of the Client Profile property sheet. When Network Manager generates the configuration files, the following two configuration parameters appear in the SQLNET.ORA file.
NATIVE_NAMES.USE_NATIVE=ON
NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH=(NOVELL)
The value for the second parameter is a comma-delimited list contained in parentheses that tells the Oracle name resolution software which adapters to use and in what order. This example tells SQL*Net to use the Novell NDS Naming Adapter.
Note: For a Native Naming Adapter to be used, it must have been installed and specified in the SQLNET.ORA file.
To specify the NDS Naming Adapter as the first of several naming adapters, select more than one. For example:
NATIVE_NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH=(NOVELL, DCE)
This example tells SQL*Net to use the Novell NDS Naming Adapter first, but if that fails, to use DCE CDS.
Using SQL*Net 2.3
For a client or server to use the NDS Naming Adapter, do the following:
- make sure that the NDS Naming Adapter has been installed on each node
- Use the Names Services page of the Client Profile property sheet in Network Manager. Select NDS from the Available list. When Network Manager generates the configuration files, the following parameter will be in the SQLNET.ORA file:
NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH=(novell, tnsnames, onames)
The first name resolution service listed as a value for this parameter is used. If it is unavailable for some reason, the next name resolution service is used, and so forth.
Optional Configuration File Parameter for the Client
The only optional parameter for the client is:
NATIVE_NAMES.NDS.NAME_CONTEXT
Note: You must add this parameter manually to the SQLNET.ORA file. It cannot be created using Network Manager.
Default Name Context
Use this parameter to specify the default name context in which to look for the name to be resolved. For example, if the name of the database object is "Payroll.Finance.Oracle" and the SQLNET.ORA parameter is
NATIVE_NAMES.NDS.NAME_CONTEXT=Finance.Oracle
then the name "Payroll" will be qualified to ".Payroll.Finance.Oracle". This is an example of a typeless name.
Note: The leading dot designates this as a full NDS name. If you want to override the name context parameter in SQLNET.ORA, then you can specify the full NDS name in the connect string by using a leading dot.
Additionally, names can be specified as typed names. To specify a typed name, enter a parameter and value in SQLNET.ORA like the following:
NATIVE_NAMES.NDS.NAME_CONTEXT=OU=Finance.O=Oracle
This line will be parsed to produce the typed name CN=Payroll.OU=Finance.O=Oracle.
This parameter works similarly to the NET.CFG parameter "name context". The name context in SQLNET.ORA will override the entry in NET.CFG. If the SQLNET.ORA parameter is not specified, the NET.CFG parameter will be used. If no name context is specified in either file, it defaults to [root]. See the Novell client documention for more information on the NET.CFG parameters.
Note: The default name context specified in SQLNET.ORA cannot contain a leading dot. This will result in an NDS error code of -309 (ERR_EXPECTED_IDENTIFIER):
The parameter being parsed is not typed.
Optional Configuration File Parameter for the Server
The SQL*Net listener running on a NetWare server looks at the following optional parameter in the CONFIG.ORA file, which is located in the ORACLE_HOME/NLM directory:
ORACLE_SAP=[OFF|ON]
ORACLE_SAP can be set to either ON or OFF. When ORACLE_SAP is ON, the SQL*Net listener advertises its address using SAP (Service Advertising Protocol). When ORACLE_SAP is set to OFF, the SQL*Net listener relies on NDS to deliver information to its clients. If not specified in CONFIG.ORA, ORACLE_SAP defaults to "ON".
Reduce Network Traffic by Setting ORACLE_SAP to OFF
To reduce network traffic on a network where all clients use NDS, use
ORACLE_SAP=OFF
Known Limitations
Following are some known limitations when using the NDS Naming Adapter:
- The TNS address stored in the NDS database cannot be more than 2048 characters in length.
- You cannot use more than one listener per database instance. If you do, the last listener to start will overwrite any other TNS address stored in the database object.
- If SID support is enabled on the server, you should not use a NULL SID for any of the database instances. If a NULL SID is used for one of the instances, you cannot connect to it using SQL*Net version 2.
- If SID support is not enabled, the last SID specified in the listener's SID_LIST will be the one used. In this case, the SID is transparent to the user and database. The user does not see it and the database ignores it.
Note: SID support is controlled by the following parameter in the CONFIG.ORA file:
NW_ENABLE_SID_SUPPORT=[TRUE|FALSE]
