System Administration Windows

HTTP Port In Use Already

Wade Coombs 0 Comment

What do you mean the Web Server can’t start

httpsThere is nothing more fun then logging into your windows servers and there are more new patches to install to fix security problems and as per usual Windows must reboot.  I have Redhat servers that have never been rebooted but my Windows machines regularly have to rebooted just because.  Nothing frustrates me more as an administrator then rebooting servers, so many bad things can happen when you reboot.

For example on the weekend my servers were forced to restart and when they came back online my Web Server was down because the HTTP port was in use by another service.  This is odd because I didn’t install anything new however in my case it turned out to be the KDC proxy service that was installed when I did some changes to my remote desktop services.

In order to figure out what service was causing the problem in this case, there is a nice quick trick you can use to figure out what services rely on the HTTP and HTTPs ports.  From a command prompt if you issue the command:

net stop http

This will list out all the services that will be impacted when you execute this command.  In my case I don’t need the KDC proxy service to be running, so I shut down the service, and I was able to bring the WebLogic server online and my client was able to login to their environment from the web again.

Oracle PeopleSoft Upgrade System Administration

PeopleTools: Long/Lob & DataTime Datatype Issues

Wade Coombs 0 Comment

Recently, I was working on a PeopleTools 8.44 to 8.54 Upgrade and ran into some major issues with the fact that the database so far behind in so many areas.  On the Oracle platform PeopleSoft changed the way it handled Long datatype fields and also how it handled Date & Time datatype fields.  The  part that I found was very difficult was some of the scripts that are more current don’t seem to take into account that coming from 8.44 might be an issue in handling these different datatypes.

Basically, in order to make this upgrade work I did a 8.44 to 8.53 upgrade first, and made sure that the LONG TO LOB datatype conversion was ran before the upgrade and that the DATABASE_OPTIONS field on PSSTATUS was set to 34 datatype setting.  Otherwise I ran into all sorts of weird issues with datatypes.

DATE and DATETIME, LONG and LOB fields in PeopleSoft and Oracle database

In PeopleTools 8.49 and earlier, Datetime and time fields are stored as DATE datatype in Oracle database. For example, you could see a DATETIME or a TIME field in Application designer might show as a DATE field in the Oracle database. Similar issues could be seen with LONG, CLOB and LOB datatype fields as well.From PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.50 and higher, the TIMESTAMP datatype is now supported for TIME and DATETIME field types. These datatype changes are mandatory, and the DATE datatype will no longer be used for the  DATETIME and DATE datatype fields.Updating the Database for Timestamp:
This is a separate step performed during an application or tools upgrade. This step invokes a SQL statement called UPGDBOPTIONS_ENABLETIMESTAMP.SQL from PS_HOME/scripts folder. This DMS script updates the database to indicate that the new TIMESTAMP datatype is now enabled. If the upgrade is performed through PeopleSoft Change Assistant(as it should be), the step is displayed and can be run only if the upgrade is from PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.49 or earlier.

What does this step do?
Why the DATE, TIME and DATETIME formats chosen in PeopleSoft application designer show as DATE field in the database and how is this controlled?
This feature is controlled by the DATABASE_OPTIONS field in  PSSTATUS record.
DATABASE_OPTIONS field can store four different values:

  1. 0 – PeopleSoft is using the old datatypes (Long fields and Legacy Unicode implementation).
  2. 2 – PeopleSoft is using the new Oracle datatypes supported with PT8.48 (LOBs and CLS Unicode implementation).
  3. 32 – PeopleSoft is using old datatypes, (LONGs and Legacy Unicode implementation) with TIMESTAMP post PT8.50 conversion enabled.
  4. 34 – PeopleSoft is using the new Oracle datatypes supported with PT8.48 (LONGs and Legacy Unicode implementation) with TIMESTAMP post PT8.50 conversion enabled.
PeopleTools Version and Features supported:
  1. Datatypes supported with PT8.48 – LOBs and CLS Unicode implementation
  2. Datatypes supported with PT8.50 – TIMESTAMP enabled
Depending upon which version of PeopleTools is installed and what features are enabled, an appropriate number from 0, 2, 32 and 34 will be updated while running this step.