Copyright (c) Oracle Corporation 1996, 1997.

All rights reserved, worldwide.

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Oracle Intelligent Agent Readme

Version 8.0.5.0.0 -- Production

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A. Overview

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The Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) Intelligent Agent is an autonomous

process running on remote nodes in the network. An agent resides on the

same node as the service it supports. However the agent can support more

than one service on a particular node. For example if two databases are

installed on one machine a single agent can support both databases.

The agent is autonomous so they can perform administrative tasks, monitor

the system and correct problems, detect and react to events, all

independently, at any time, without requiring the OEM console be running,

or any active participation by the administrator. The agent queues any

job or event messages destined for an administrator and delivers them

when the administrator logs in to a console again. The OEM agent can run

without the database being up and can shut down or start up the database.

The OEM agent is responsible for:

. Accepting jobs or events from the OEM Console or other third-party

applications

. Running jobs, collecting job results and output and queueing them for

the OEM console

. Canceling jobs

. Checking for events, and queueing the event reports

. Handling Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) requests, if SNMP

is supported.

Using TCL scripts submitted as OEM jobs you can program an agent to perform

a task or to detect problems. By submitting a 'fixit' job along with an

event registration you can also program an agent to correct a problem

when it is detected.

Please consult to the OEM documentation and on-line help for further

details.

B. Installation

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When installing the Oracle Intelligent Agent on Windows NT you must have Administrator privileges (for creating and deleting services).

C. Miscellaneous

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AGENT BINARIES

Binaries for the Agent are stored in $ORACLE_HOME\agentbin, including DLL's that you might not expect to be there, as they exist elsewhere on the system. The reason for this is that the agent must be able to reinstall those DLL's for Oracle Software Manager (OSM), and if it were using the same copies of the files as other Oracle software, the DLL's would be locked and the Install would fail.

AGENT SERVICE DISCOVERY AND AUTOCONFIGURATION

The OEM Intelligent agent needs no manual configuration. At startup time

it checks for Oracle software installed on the machine and configures

itself by creating the files snmp_ro.ora and snmp_rw.ora under your

TNS_ADMIN directory (by default ORACLE_HOME/net80/admin). Do not edit

snmp_ro.ora.

Before starting the agent, make sure that all the databases you want to

monitor and administer by OEM are entered in the NT Registry. This happens automatically if you use the database that is created by the installer or if

you use the Oracle NT Instance Manager to create a new database. For more information on the exact location and format of the oratab file, please

consult your Installation and Configuration Guide.

AGENT CONTROL FUNCTIONS

To start the agent: Start the OracleAgent service from the NT Control Panel

To stop the agent: Stop the OracleAgent service from the NT Control Panel

To check the agent's state: Look at the NT Control Panel

To turn on tracing include the following in the snmp_rw.ora file

nmi.trace_level = ADMIN

USER AUTHENTICATION FOR OEM JOB EXECUTION

The Agent authenticates the NT user name and password for all owners of jobs that it runs. This means that you must provide valid credentials in the Console, via the File Menu "Preferences" option for the node where the NT

Agent resides. The userid used as preferrred credentials needs to be granted

the "log in as batch jobs" privilege.

If you submit a job and it fails with the error "Failed to authenticate user"

you may need to verify that the userid used as preferred credentials is

configured properly. To do this:

a) Bring up the "User Manager for Domains" from the Administrative Tools program group.

b) Select the user used or create a new user. Make sure the "User Must Change Password at the next logon" option is not selected. Do not call this user "SYSTEM" or "system".

c) Under Policies --> User Rights, click on "Show Advanced User Rights". Locate "Logon as a batch job" and select it. Add this right to the user above.



D. Restrictions and workarounds

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1. Fix to bug#611028, has introduced a serious side effect where the 8.0.4.1.1 agent is unable to upgrade from an 8.0.4 agent.

2. The OEM Intelligent maintains a connection to all databases that it

monitors. As a result, while the agent is up, these databases cannot be

shutdown in normal mode. Please stop the agent first, before issuing

the shutdown normal command in server manager.

3. If more than one Network Listener is configured to service a database,

even if only one of them is up, the agent discovery process will pick

up the first one it finds and will print out a warning. If the wrong

listener is picked up, monitoring of this database will fail.

4. The EM Intelligent Agent version 8.0.4.1.1 for Windows NT does not include SNMP support.

5. When distributing software from Oracle Software Manager v1.5.5 to servers running the EM Intelligent Agent version 8.0.4.1.1, only one repository user can perform software distribution.

6. If the NT System PATH contains a mapped remote directory, no NT Services will start, including the Oracle Intelligent Agent Service, OracleAgent. Make sure that your System PATH contains ONLY local drives.

7. We strongly recommend that you maintain consistency between the Computer Name, the Local DNS Name (Host Name) and the Domain Name Server Name (DNS Name (Ref. Bug#599225). Not doing so may result in naming inconsistencies and possibly lack of communication between the Console and Agent.



E. Bug Fixes in this Release

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1. Fix to bug#565669 and bug#605025,Unable to register the CPU utilization event

2. Fix to bug#605026 Unable to register the swapful event

3. Fix to bug#682757, Import/Export tcl commands fail in NT with MOH.

4. Fix to bug#656803, TCL scripts incorrectly converting character set.