Troubleshooting Oracle Portal SSO OHS Webcache OAS

Oracle Portal is part of Oracle Application Server which is part of Oracle Fusion Middle-ware product. In today’s post I am going to cover how to troubleshoot Oracle Portal Issues including Web Cache, Oracle HTTP Server or OC4J_Portal.

 To know more about Oracle Application Server (OAS) visit 

  • Installing Oracle Application Server 10g OAS
  • Start/Stop 10g Oracle Application Server OAS
      
    1. First thing to check for trouble shooting to check if all components for Oracle Portal are up and running
    – Database  (on Infra Tier)
    – Database listener (on Infra Tier)
    – OID (Component OID on Infra tier)
    – SSO (HTTP_Server & OC4J_Security on Infra Tier)
    – Portal (HTTP_Server, Web-Cache and OC4J_Portal on Middle Tier)

    * HTTP_Server on middle tier is different from HTTP_Server on Infra tier (later is used for Single Sign-On)

    Once you are sure that all services are up & running now follow below procedure

    2. Check Web Cache – When User type URL for Oracle Portal which is of format http://hostname.domainname:port/pls/portal request first hits web-cache($ORACLE_HOME/webcache) on middle tier. So check if request is hitting till web-cache by checking $ORACLE_HOME/webcache/access_log   , access_log will record any request coming to web cache.   

    For any issues on Web Cache check $ORACLE_HOME/webcache/event_log . If you don’t see request in access_log in under $OH/webcache/logs directory, check firewall or load balancer configuration (If Load Balancer is configured)

    3. Check OHS – Oracle HTTP Server ->  Web-cache then forward this request to Origin Server which is listening on different port (usually one higher than Web Cache Listen Port). This request is against recorded in access_log but this time access_log of OHS which is under $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/logs/  so check if you see request coming from web cache to OHS.
      For any issues in OHS check logs at error_log & error_log_pls in above directory.

    4. OHS mod_rewrite -> Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) checks in httpd.conf to see where /pls/portal maps. In httpd.conf there is redirect rule which redirect any /pls/portal to /portal/.. like (RewriteRule (^/pls/portal$) /portal$1 [PT]) so request to HTTP Server (Apache Server) internally changes to /portal..

    5. OHS to OC4J_Portal-> Apache again try to find where /portal maps which is defined in file ($ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/conf/mod_oc4j.conf ) entry like

        Oc4jMount /portal OC4J_Portal
        Oc4jMount /portal/* OC4J_Portal
    which means request will hit be served by OC4J_Portal hence OHS forwards request to OC4J_Portal

    6. OC4J_Portal then goes to database and pulls out various portion of page (header, footer, sidebar – depending on how you user has defined portal page) from database.

    For any issues in OC4J_Portal check logs at $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/OC4J_Portal/application-deployments/portal/
    OC4J_Portal_default_island_1/application.log
    and
    $ORACLE_HOME/j2ee/OC4J_Portal/log/
    OC4J_Portal_default_island_1/server.log 

    7. Parallel Page Engine (PPE) component in OC4J then assemble this page and return it back to user.

  • If any page requested by user is protected then Portal will redirect it to Single Sign-On HTTP Server which is another Oracle HTTP Server on Infrastructure Tier.

    Stay tuned for process flow in Oracle Single Sign-On and steps on how to troubleshoot Oracle Single Sign-On Issues …..

  • About the Author Atul Kumar

    Oracle ACE, Author, Speaker and Founder of K21 Technologies & K21 Academy : Specialising in Design, Implement, and Trainings.

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    Leave a Comment:

    6 comments
    Pramod Vasista says November 27, 2007

    Awesome post Anil

    Reply
    ranga says February 5, 2008

    hai this is ranganath

    Reply
    knvramam says December 18, 2008

    Hello Atul,

    Can you please let me know how to check how many users connected to portal and does all the users which are connected to portal persist database connection. If yes, we can check for the number of database sessions and deduct the background process sessions.

    Thank you
    Ramam

    Reply
    Victory says July 15, 2009

    Hai Atul…
    Can i install and configure portal 10.1.2 with already existing E-business suite release 12 database.I don’t want to make seperate metadatabase repository for portal instead i use same R12 same database?

    or

    If Metadatabase compulsory for Portal,then how can configure ASmetadatabase in R12 database?

    Reply
    Majid says February 8, 2010

    Hi,

    i’m using oracle AS content management. currently i’m facing the issue of JVM i’ve increase the JVM memory but still i’m facing the issue of JVM’s getting stuck and not releasing the memory i’m restarting all the opmn process then after restarting it is ok for the time being but again the memory is filled up. Is there any other solution to solve this JVM issue like killing the JVM which is stuck in OC4J container.

    I’m a beginner in this area can you please help me how to solve this issue this is a very serious issue I cannot restart this production servers when people are accessing it so oftenly because of JVM’s.

    can u pls. suggest me what is the minimum and maximum size should i give for JVM to execute i’ve main memory of size 8GB

    Reply
    Aamir says July 9, 2010

    I have an HTML Template. I am trying to find out if user is logged in or not. I am using “portal.wwctx_api.logged_on” property. It is working in one HTML Template in one page group. I have a hyperlink from this page group to other page group. I check for logged on status of user in second page group BUT this property returns me 0. Application is checking system chache which is the reason. If I select user cache then it works. BUT I can not use user cahce. I have to use system cache. Please advise me a solution. Many thanks in advance.

    Reply
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