The REN Server – an Overview and a Neat Trick – Part 1 of 2 February 13, 2008
Posted by Tipster in PeopleTools.2 comments
This is part 1 of 2. See the companion post here.
The Overview
The REN Server is a seperate Web Server designed to publish Real-time Event Notifications to users, saving them the effort of repeatedly clicking on the Refresh button in Process Monitor. The Popup window you see when running a process ‘to window’ is originally an HTML area populated/called from an iScript, but then some HTML/JavaScript is loaded from the REN Server itself.
To assign permission to run a report ‘to window’ there are 2 steps to follow:
1) Look on the PeopleTools tab of the Permission List and click on Realtime Event Notification Permissions and check ‘Reporting Window’ has ‘Full Access’.
If you wish to use SQL, this will show which Permission List is giving you access to the Report to Window functionality. By default, it is PTPT1200.
SELECT RU.ROLEUSER
, RU.ROLENAME
, RC.CLASSID
, AI.AUTHORIZEDACTIONS
FROM PSROLECLASS RC
, PSROLEUSER RU
, PSAUTHITEM AI
WHERE RC.ROLENAME = RU.ROLENAME
AND RU.ROLEUSER = 'PTDMO'
AND AI.CLASSID = RC.CLASSID
AND AI.BARNAME = 'REPORTING'
2) You’ll also need access to the iScript. Stay with the Permission List, and look on the Web Libraries tab. You need to give WEBLIB_RPT Full Access to the iScript.
Again, if you wish to use SQL, this will show you the Permission list that is giving you access:
SELECT RU.ROLEUSER
, RU.ROLENAME
, RC.CLASSID
, AI.AUTHORIZEDACTIONS
FROM PSROLECLASS RC
, PSROLEUSER RU
, PSAUTHITEM AI
WHERE RC.ROLENAME = RU.ROLENAME
AND RU.ROLEUSER = 'PTDMO'
AND AI.CLASSID = RC.CLASSID
AND AI.MENUNAME = 'WEBLIB_RPT'
AND AI.BARNAME = 'ISCRIPT1'
AND AI.PNLITEMNAME = 'IScript_GetReport'
Now that security is covered you might think that there’s not a huge amount to talk about with the REN Server as in some ways it’s a bit of a ‘black box’. Unless you need Clustering/Failover or a Reverse Proxy Server there isn’t much to configure.
- There are some settings in the psappsrv.cfg (logging levels, ports and authentication token domain),
- and some settings under PeopleTools in the PIA (client authentication, SSL and host machine),
- and of course the option to boot the PSRENSRV process or not is set using PSAdmin
- there is also a psrenconfig.txt under the App Server directory, but I’ve never needed to mess with these settings
Yes, yes, you say. I know all that already. Tell me something I don’t know. Ok, I’ll wager you didn’t know this …
REN Server Ports on Multi-App Installations February 7, 2008
Posted by Tipster in Administration, Infrastructure, Oracle, PeopleSoft, PeopleTools, PS Admin.2 comments
When you have more than one App Server on a single machine – and they both need to run a Ren Server process – you need to adjust the port number in the same way you do for other processes (although the REN Server is easy to miss – like I did – as it’s near the bottom away from the other port numbers).
If you do boot the App Server without changing the port you’ll get an error message:
exec PSRENSRV -A -- -C psappsrv.cfg -D PADMO -S PSRENSRV : CMDTUX_CAT:1685: ERROR: Application initialization failure
tmboot: CMDTUX_CAT:827: ERROR: Fatal error encountered; initiating user error handler
tmshutdown -qy
OK, you think. I know what that is, it must be a port clash. So you reconfigure the port in PSADMIN and then try to boot it again. Same error. Checking the REN Server log gives the following clue:
(ERROR) nssock: Cannot listen on port 7180. The port may already be in use.
It’s still looking on port 7180, not the new port!
The missing step is to update the database, as the port is stored there also:
UPDATE PSREN SET PORT_NUM = 7185, SSLPORT_NUM = 7148
You should then find you App Server and Ren Server boot fine.
Tolerance of slow App Server boot January 22, 2008
Posted by Tipster in Infrastructure, Oracle, PeopleSoft, PeopleTools, PS Admin, Tuxedo.8 comments
In one of the more recent versions of Tools (8.49 is the first time I’ve noticed it, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been around in prior versions) I’ve noticed that occasionally the boot of an Application Server will fail with an error.
Booting admin processes ...
exec BBL -A :
CMDTUX_CAT:1863: INFO: Process ID=2636 Assume failed (timeout).
At the time of writing, there is nothing in Customer Connection for this, and a google search wasn’t particularly helpful either. So I had to resort to a technique from pre-Google days – i.e. work it out myself. Thankfully it wasn’t too difficult. (more…)
Multi Rowset Output from Query for XMLP January 15, 2008
Posted by Tipster in Oracle, PeopleSoft, PeopleTools, XML Publisher.11 comments
One of the issues with using PSQuery to generate the XML for an XMLP report is that you can only get a single rowset from a query, meaning your report had to be fairly simple. In the past, for more complex reports I’ve just created an App Engine instead as it gives me greater control over the XML generated.
Another method exists however …
XMLP and Checkboxes in PDFs January 2, 2008
Posted by Tipster in Oracle, PeopleSoft, PeopleTools, XML Publisher.add a comment
I’ve been having problems getting checkboxes to print correctly when creating PDFs using XMLP. I was faced with tiny little diamonds like those on the left here, when I was expecting ‘standard’ checkboxes like those on the right:
It turns out that the XML Publisher default PDF output font does not include a glyph to represent a checkbox and this is an issue faced by one or two Oracle people already (Tim Dexter has written about it here). I thought I add a quick write-up as I’m tackling the issue from a PeopleSoft perspective.
(more…)
UKOUG RoundUp – Part 2 – Wednesday December 19, 2007
Posted by Tipster in PeopleTools.2 comments
On the second (and final) day of PeopleSoft content at the UKOUG I attended the following sessions:
- Oracle Business Intelligence (XML) Publisher and PeopleTools Demonstration
- PeopleSoft Keynote
- PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal – What’s New and Where It’s Headed
- More Advanced Reporting Tips and Techniques for PeopleSoft Enterprise
- PeopleSoft Technical Discussion Forum
Change in Employer November 18, 2007
Posted by Tipster in PeopleTools.1 comment so far
Those of you who know me personally may or may not be aware that I’m changing employer. Tomorrow (Monday 19th) is my first day working for Succeed Consultancy, a UK based PeopleSoft consultancy (they do offer other services but my focus will mainly be PeopleSoft). My month’s notice period passed slowly so I’m looking forward to getting stuck in.
A Custom Message on the Signon Page (part 4) November 14, 2007
Posted by Tipster in PeopleTools.7 comments
Hopefully, this will be the final installment!
I’ve taken the reference link provided by Joe Ngo’s comment on part 3 and we now have a version that works across IE and Firefox. It only requires the PIA to be rebooted once, and the only files you need to create/change are the signin.html file and the file containing your message. This solution also gracefully handles the situation if your file doesn’t exist.
No screenshot this time as it looks the same as in part 3, but here’s the code:
XML Publisher and Out of Memory Errors October 30, 2007
Posted by Tipster in Oracle, PeopleSoft, PeopleTools, XML Publisher.2 comments
I’m getting a lot of comments on the XML Publisher posts about ‘Out of Memory’ errors. I’ve not experienced this myself so can’t give a fix or workaround, but wondered whether anyone else had hit this issue and found a resolution?
Doing a bit of digging there are a number of suggestions, none of them relate to the PeopleSoft implementation of XMLP however so I’m unconvinced by any solution in particular.
There’s a Tools patch out for this issue (8.48.06 and up contains the fix), so check your version of Tools:
http://www.peoplesoft.com/psp/portprd/CUSTOMER/CRM/c/C1C_MENU.C1_SOLN_SUMMARY.GBL?page=C1_SOLN_SUMMARY&SETID=SHARE&SOLUTION_ID=201046967
There’s a suggestion to change a parameter for XMLP (I guess this would be on the Process Defn or more likely the Process Type in PeopleSoft):
http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=568832&tstart=0&messageID=2116283
There’s a suggestion to create a config file (it is not delivered) to specify a temporary directory for processing large files:
http://asun.ifmo.ru/docs/XMLP/help/en_US/htmfiles/B25951_01/T421739T422152.htm
And there’s also a suggestion that a patch will fix it:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/xml-publisher/docs/AboutXMLP562.htm
If I was troubleshooting it and was already on 8.48.06 or greater, I’d probably try the parameter followed by the config file.
If anyone has encountered this error and fixed it, it’d be great if you posted a comment to let us know the resolution.
Fixing up PSAdmin and Services October 26, 2007
Posted by Tipster in Administration, PeopleTools, PS Admin.add a comment
I’ve just stumbled across what looks like a great new product by the Grey Sparling guys. Most (Windows) PeopleSoft DBAs and consultants who run VMs on their laptops will have been frustrated on many an occasion by the (kind of clunky) PSAdmin utility. Sure, it does what we need it to, but shouldn’t we have something better by now?
