Oracle Providers for ASP.NET Installation

Oracle Providers for ASP.NET is part of Oracle Data Access Components (ODAC), which can be downloaded from OTN. Beginning with ODAC 11.1.0.6.20, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET can be installed through XCopy or Oracle Universal Installer.

  • XCopy

    Administrators use XCopy to deploy Oracle Providers for ASP.NET to a large number of computers for production deployments. It has a small footprint and fine grain control during installation and setup.

  • Oracle Universal Installer

    Developers or users use Oracle Universal Installer for automatic GUI installation. It includes documentation and code samples that are not part of XCopy deployment.

Note:

This section describes installation using the Oracle Universal Installer. For the XCopy installation instructions and configuration, refer to the README file that is part of that installation.

When Oracle Providers for ASP.NET are installed, Oracle Universal Installer automatically registers Oracle.Web.dll with the Global Assembly Cache (GAC).

The Oracle Providers for ASP.NET installation creates entries in the machine.config file of the computer on which it is installed. These entries provide basic configuration information for the Oracle Membership, Profile, Role, Site Map, Web Parts Personalization, and Web Event Providers. The machine.config includes a blank connection string for OraAspConString, which a developer can configure to connect to an Oracle database with the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET schema.

See Also:

"ASP.NET Client Setup" for more details

Additionally, Oracle Providers for ASP.NET Dynamic Help is registered with Visual Studio, providing context-sensitive online help that is seamlessly integrated with the Visual Studio Dynamic Help. With Dynamic Help, the user can access Oracle Providers for ASP.NET documentation within Visual Studio by placing the cursor on an Oracle Providers for ASP.NET keyword and pressing the F1 function key.

Once you have installed Oracle Providers for ASP.NET, two additional setup tasks are required, as follows:

See Also:

Oracle Database Installation Guide for Windows for installation instructions

Database Server Setup

The following sections explain how to configure the providers:

Database Privileges for Setup

To set up the Oracle database, database administrators must grant the following database privileges to the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET schema. These privileges grant the schema privileges to create the tables, views, stored procedures, and other database objects the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET require. These scripts must be run against the database from which the ASP.NET providers will retrieve their stored state information. These SQL scripts can be run using SQL*Plus or within Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio.

Oracle Providers for ASP.NET requires the following privileges during setup:

  • Change notification

  • Create job

  • Create procedure

  • Create public synonym

  • Create role

  • Create session

  • Create table

  • Create view

  • Drop public synonym

  • Grant access to and allocate space in an Oracle tablespace

Not all database privileges are required for Oracle Providers for ASP.NET runtime operations. Database administrators may selectively grant and revoke privileges as required. For runtime operations, all providers require that the CREATE SESSION privilege be granted to the schema user. In addition, the Site Map and Cache Dependency providers require the CHANGE NOTIFICATION privilege during runtime. The remaining privileges can be granted to the schema user just for installation and deinstallation, then revoked for runtime operations.

Errors that occur during the setup script execution may indicate that the user needs to be granted the above privileges. If this is the case, the database administrator must grant these privileges. The Oracle Session State Provider for ASP.NET requires the CREATE JOB privilege when Oracle Database 10g or later is the database.

Configuring All Oracle Providers for ASP.NET

To configure all providers in the database at once, run InstallAllOracleASPNETProviders.sql. This script is found in the ORACLE_BASE\\ORACLE_HOME\ASP.NET\sql directory.

To install Oracle Session State Provider with an Oracle Database 9i Release 2, developers must modify the InstallAllOracleASPNETProviders.sql script to call the appropriate install script for the provider as listed in Table 1-2. This script calls the configuration script for each provider one by one.

Configuring Oracle Providers for ASP.NET Individually

Applications may not require all Oracle Providers for ASP.NET. Providers can be set up individually. Except for the Oracle Session State Provider and Oracle Cache Dependency Provider, the following install script must be executed before any other install scripts: InstallOracleASPNETCommon.sql. Then, for each Oracle Provider for ASP.NET, a SQL script specific for that provider must be executed (in any order).

These install scripts are found in the ORACLE_BASE\\ORACLE_HOME\ASP.NET\sql directory.

Table 1-2 ASP.NET Provider Install Scripts

Provider Required Installation Script

Oracle Membership Provider

InstallOracleMembership.sql

Oracle Personalization Provider

InstallOraclePersonalization.sql

Oracle Profile Provider

InstallOracleProfile.sql

Oracle Role Provider

InstallOracleRoles.sql

Oracle Session State Provider

For Oracle Database 10g Release 1 and later InstallOracleSessionState.sql

For Oracle Database 9i Release 2 InstallOracleSessionState92.sql

There are correspondingly named uninstall scripts for these install scripts.

Note: This provider only requires the execution of the appropriate provider-specific .sql script as listed. It does not require the execution of InstallOracleASPNETCommon.sql.

Oracle Site Map Provider

InstallOracleSiteMap.sql

Oracle Web Events Provider

InstallOracleWebEvents.sql

Oracle Cache Dependency Provider

No script execution needed

General Setup Information

When Oracle Providers for ASP.NET installation scripts run, they execute, in turn, corresponding .plb scripts that are located in the same directory. The .plb scripts create the stored procedures and functions that the providers use. The installation .sql scripts must execute where the .plb file can be accessed.

Each provider also provides corresponding uninstall scripts to remove database objects that were created from the install scripts. These scripts are prefixed with the word Uninstall.

The install and uninstall scripts are the same for Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 2.0 and Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 4

ASP.NET Client Setup

Installation configures the machine.config file to enable Oracle Providers for ASP.NET system-wide.

If both .NET Framework 2.0 and .NET Framework 4 are present, then the installer configures the machine.config files for both in order to enable Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 2.0 and Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 4 system-wide.

After installation, developers must provide the connection information to the database schema that stores and retrieves the ASP.NET state information. This step requires developers to supply the User Id, Password, Data Source, and other connection string information if necessary. In the machine.config file, developers can provide an entry similar to the example below.

<connectionStrings>
<add name="OraAspNetConString" connectionString="User Id=aspnet;Password=aspnet;Data Source=oracle; " />
</connectionStrings>

Optionally, developers can customize the properties of each ASP.NET provider from within the <system.web> section of the machine.config.

While Oracle Universal Installer automatically configures the machine.config, developers can apply more fine grained application-level control over the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET by using the web.config file. This file overrides entries from the machine.config file, but only for the specific web application it is a part of. Developers can set up their web.config file with the same XML syntax as the machine.config file.

Developers can use standard ASP.NET management tools to configure the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET. Specifically, developers can use the Internet Information Services management console. In the ASP.NET Configuration Settings of the console, developers can modify the Oracle provider settings. Alternatively, in a Web Site project in Visual Studio, the ASP.NET Configuration choice under the Website menu item allows developers to set these settings for their specific Web Site projects.

A standard Oracle Providers for ASP.NET installation automatically sets up machine.config with default values, but administrators can modify the setup. Users can use the OraProvCfg utility to configure the provider-specific entry in the machine.config file as follows:

Note:

To configure Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 2.0, use the OraProvCfg utility under ORACLE_BASE\ORACLE_HOME\ASP.NET\Bin\2.x.

To configure Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 4, use the OraProvCfg utility under ORACLE_BASE\ORACLE_HOME\ASP.NET\Bin\4.

  • To display the OraProvCfg utility help:

    OraProvCfg -help

  • To add Oracle Providers for ASP.NET-specific entries to the machine.config file:

     OraProvCfg  /action:config  /product:aspnet  /component:all
             /frameworkversion:v2.0.50727
             /providerpath:c:\Oracle\odp.net\bin\2.x\Oracle.Web.dll

    Where Framework version and Provider path (especially) may need to change accordingly.

  • To remove the Oracle Providers for ASP.NET-specific entries from the machine.config file:

    OraProvCfg  /action:unconfig  /product:aspnet  /component:all
            /frameworkversion:v2.0.50727

Where Framework version may need to change accordingly.