University of Florida :: Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)

CISE Help & Resources

Oracle

Oracle Documentation

The Oracle 11g Documentation is only available from within the CISE network for legal reasons. To view it from outside of the CISE network, execute: % ssh -Y sun01.cise.ufl.edu firefox http://www/help/database/oracle11g-docs/

Registering for an Oracle Account (and Forgotten Passwords)

To sign up for a CISE Oracle account, or to set a new password for an existing Oracle account if you have forgotten your password, go to the Oracle Account Registration Page.

You will need to supply the following information on the registration page:

CISE Username
Enter your CISE username
CISE Password
Enter your CISE password
Oracle Password
Select a password for you oracle account and enter it here. The password must meet the following criteria:
  • The password must be at least 8 characters.
  • The password must have at least 4 unique charaters.
  • The password must not contain your username.
  • The password can contain numbers, the symbols !, #, $, %, &, *, +, -, =, ^, upper and lower case letters.
  • You should avoid starting with a single word and then doing common 1-character replacements such as replacing 'i' with 1 or 'a' with '\@'. Some of these will fail the good password check.
Verify Oracle Password
Enter your oracle password again. It must match the first time.

Determining the Name of the Database Instance

Currently, there is only one Oracle database instance running in the CISE Department, the 'orcl' instance.

orcl
This is the Oracle 11g database instance used for most class and research projects since Spring 2003.

Using SQL*Plus on the Unix Command Line

In order to use the command line SQL*Plus utility, do the following: % source /usr/local/etc/ora11.csh % sqlplus username@orcl

Where username is your CISE username. You will be prompted for your password once you run sqlplus. If you mistype your password here, you must reenter your username as username@orcl.

Note: by sourcing that file, you are setting the $ORACLE_HOME environment variable in the shell, which gets used by all programs subsequently run in that shell.

SQL Developer

Change directory to /opt/sqldeveloper.

cd /opt/sqldeveloper

Run sqldeveloper.csh.

./sqldeveloper.csh

If this is your first time running it, right click on "Connections" and select "New Connection".

Name the connection whatever you want.

Enter your CISE Oracle username and password. If you don't have an Oracle account or have forgotten the password, click here.

The connection type should be changed to "TNS", and select the network alias "ORCL.CISE.UFL.EDU" from the drop-down list.

Click here for an example of the configuration window.

Click "Test", if everything is configured correctly, you should get a status of "Success" in the bottom-left corner near the help button.

Using Oracle on our Solaris 10 Server

Our publicly-accessible Sun server, sun01, might not have all the client tools found in the Linux version. We suggest using one of the Linux machines to use the 11g client..

Using Oracle from CGI Script

If you are running a program as a CGI script, you will not have a shell from which you can source the /usr/local/etc/ora.csh file. In this case, you will need to set some environment variables. 

my $ORACLE_HOME = "/usr/local/libexec/oracle/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/client_1";

$ENV{ORACLE_HOME} = $ORACLE_HOME;
$ENV{ORACLE_SID}  = "orcl";
$ENV{TNS_ADMIN}   = "$ORACLE_HOME/network/admin";

Please see the appropriate documentation for any other language on how to set environment variables there.

Using Oracle From Windows, or From Outside CISE

If you're using an Oracle client and need to specify the paramters, use the following for Oracle 11g accounts:

Server
oracle.cise.ufl.edu
SID
orcl
Port
1521

The UF perimeter firewall is now blocking all ports required by Oracle. To connect to Oracle from outside UF you will need to establish a Gatorlink VPN connection.

Using Embedded SQL and the Oracle Pro*C/C++ Compiler

For those using embedded SQL, the documentation can be found in the Oracle documentation.

Coding Examples

Here are some coding examples and resources for using Oracle in various languages.

Java using JDBC

Note: To use Oracle's JDBC on Department Solaris machines, add the following to your CLASSPATH: /usr/local/libexec/oracle/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/client_1/ojdbc5.jar.

For more information on using Oracle in Java, please see:

PHP using OCI8

For information on using Oracle in PHP, please see:

Perl using DBD::Oracle

For information on using Oracle in Perl, please see:

Ruby using DBI

For information on using Oracle in Ruby, please see:

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