Oracle Alerts Test

This oracle-specific test periodically tracks the errors newly added to the Oracle alert log.

Note:

This test will not report metrics for an Oracle 12c PDB server.

Target of the test : An Oracle server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every alert log file.

Configurable parameters for the test
TEST PERIOD - How often should the test be executed Host – The host for which the test is to be configured Port - The port on which the server is listening. alertfile - By default, this is set to none, indicating that the eG agent auto-discovers the path to the Oracle alert log file to be monitored. If required, you can manually specify the full path to the alert log file to be monitored. For eg, /user/john/alert_egurkha.log User – In order to monitor an Oracle database server, a special database user account has to be created in every Oracle database instance that requires monitoring. A Click here hyperlink is available in the test configuration page, using which a new oracle database user can be created. Alternatively, you can manually create the special database user. When doing so, ensure that this user is vested with the select_catalog_role and create session privileges. The sample script we recommend for user creation (in Oracle database server versions before 12c) for eG monitoring is: create user oraeg identified by oraeg create role oratest; grant create session to oratest; grant select_catalog_role to oratest; grant select any dictionary to oratest; grant oratest to oraeg; The sample script we recommend for user creation (in Oracle database server 12c) for eG monitoring is: alter session set container=<Oracle_service_name>; create user <user_name>identified by <user_password> container=current default tablespace <name_of_default_tablespace> temporary tablespace <name_of_temporary_tablespace>; Grant create session to <user_name>; Grant select_catalog_role to <user_name>; Grant select any dictionary to <user_name>; The name of this user has to be specified here. Password – Password of the specified database user This login information is required to query Oracle’s internal dynamic views, so as to fetch the current status / health of the various database components. Confirm password – Confirm the password by retyping it here. searchpattern - Enter the specific patterns of alerts to be monitored. The pattern should be in the following format: <PatternName>:<Pattern>, where <PatternName> is the pattern name that will be displayed in the monitor interface and <Pattern> is an expression of the form - expr or expr or expr or expr, etc. A leading ‘’ signifies any number of leading characters, while a trailing ‘’ signifies any number of trailing characters. For example, say you specify ORA:ORA-* in the SEARCHPATTERN text box. This indicates that “ORA” is the pattern name to be displayed in the monitor interface. “ORA-” indicates that the test will monitor only those lines in the alert log which start with the term “ORA-“. Similarly, if your pattern specification reads: offline:offline, then it means that the pattern name is offline and that the test will monitor those lines in the alert log which end with the term offline. Multiple search patterns can be specified as a comma-separated list. For example: ORA:ORA-,offline:offline,online:online. Specify all if all Oracle alerts are to be monitored. lines - Specify two numbers in the format x:y. This means that when a line in the alert file matches a particular pattern, then x lines before the matched line and y lines after the matched line will be reported in the detail diagnosis output (in addition to the matched line). The default value here is 0:0. Multiple entries can be provided as a comma-separated list. If you give 1:1 as the value for LINES, then this value will be applied to all the patterns specified in the SEARCHPATTERN field. If you give 0:0,1:1,2:1 as the value for LINES and if the corresponding value in the SEARCHPATTERN filed is like ORA:ORA-,offline:offline,online:online then: 0:0 will be applied to ORA:ORA-* pattern 1:1 will be applied to offline:offline pattern 2:1 will be applied to online:online pattern exclude pattern - Provide a comma-separated list of message patterns to be excluded from monitoring. For instance, if you want to monitor all alert messages that begin with “ORA-“, except the messages that begin with “ORA—“ and “ORA-info”, you can configure ORA- as the searchpattern and configure ORA--,ORA-info as the exclude pattern. ISPASSIVE – If the value chosen is yes, then the Oracle server under consideration is a passive server in an Oracle cluster. No alerts will be generated if the server is not running. Measures will be reported as “Not applicable" by the agent if the server is not up. UseUTF8- If UTF-8 encoding is to be used for reading the specified log file, then, set the UseUTF8 flag to True. By default, this flag is set to False. If multiple log files are being monitored, then, for each file, you will have to indicate whether UTF-8 encoding is to be used for reading that file or not. For instance, assume that the AlertFile parameter is set to dblogs@/tmp/db/dblogs.log,applogs@/tmp/app/applogs.log. Now, to instruct the test to use UTF-8 encoding for reading the 'dblogs' log file and not to use the UTF-8 encoding while reading the 'applogs' log file, your UseUTF8 setting should be as follows: True,False. Note that the number of values provided against the UseUTF8 parameter should be equal to the number of log files being monitored. Also, note that if the AlertFile being monitored has BOM, then the test will automatically use UTF-8 encoding to read that file, even if the UseUTF8 flag is set to False. Note: If your AlertFile specification consists of file patterns that include wildcard characters (eg.,/tmp/db/dblogs,/tmp/app/applogs), then the files that match such patterns will only support the ANSI format, and not the UTF format, even if the UTF-8 parameter is set to true for such patterns. UseUTF16 - If UTF-16 encoding is to be used for reading the specified log file, then, set the UseUTF16 flag to true. By default, this flag is set to False. If multiple log files are being monitored, then, for each file, you will have to indicate whether UTF-16 encoding is to be used for reading that file or not. For instance, assume that the AlertFile parameter is set to dblogs@/tmp/db/dblogs.log,applogs@/tmp/app/applogs.log. Now, to instruct the test to use UTF-16 encoding for reading the 'dblogs' log file and not to use the UTF-16 encoding while reading the 'applogs' log file, your UseUTF8 setting should be as follows: true,false. Note that the number of values provided against the UseUTF16 parameter should be equal to the number of log files being monitored. Note: If your AlertFile specification consists of file patterns that include wildcard characters (eg.,/tmp/db/dblogs,/tmp/app/applogs), then the files that match such patterns will only support the ANSI format, and not the UTF format, even if the UTF-16 parameter is set to true for such patterns. EncodeFormat - By default, this is set to none, indicating that no encoding format applies by default. However, if the test has to use a specific encoding format for reading from the specified AlertFile , then you will have to provide a valid encoding format here - eg., UTF-8, UTF-16, etc. Where multiple log files are being monitored, you will have to provide a comma-separated list of encoding formats – one each for every log file monitored. Make sure that your encoding format specification follows the same sequence as your AlertFile specification. In other words, the first encoding format should apply to the first alert file, and so on. For instance, say that your alertfile specification is as follows:D:\logs\report.log,E:\logs\error.log, C:\logs\warn_log. Assume that while UTF-8 needs to be used for reading from report.log, UTF-16 is to be used for reading from warn_log . No encoding format need be applied to error.log. In this case, your EncodeFormatspecification will be: UTF-8,none,UTF-16. SSL- By default, this flag is set to No, as the target Oracle database is not SSL-enabled by default. If the target database is SSL-enabled, then set this flag to Yes. SSL Cipher-This parameter is applicable only if the target Oracle database is SSL-enabled, if not, set this parameter to none. A cipher suite is a set of cryptographic algorithms that are used before a client application and server exchange information over an SSL/TLS connection. It consist of sets of instructions on how to secure a network through SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security). In this text box, provide a comma-seperated list of cipher suites that are allowed for SSL/TLS connection to the target database. By default, this parameter is set to none. TRUSTSTORE FILE- This parameter is applicable only if the target Oracle database is SSL-enabled, if not, set this parameter to none. TrustStore is used to store certificates from Certified Authorities (CA) that verify and authenticate the certificate presented by the server in an SSL connection. Therefore, the eG agent should have access to the truststore where the certificates are stored to authenticate and connect with the target database and collect metrics. For this, first import the certificates into the following default location <eG_INSTALL_DIR>/lib/security/mytruststore.jks. To know how to import the certificate into the truststore, refer toPre-requisites for monitoring Oracle Cluster. Then, provide the truststore file name in this text box. For example: mytruststore.jks. By default, none is specified against this text box. TRUSTSTORE TYPE-This parameter is applicable only if the target Oracle database is SSL-enabled, if not, set this parameter to none.Specify the type of truststore that contains the certificates for server authentication in this text box. For eg.,JKS. By default, this parameter is set to the value none. TRUSSTORE PASSWORD-This parameter is applicable only if the target Oracle database is SSL-enabled, if not, set this parameter to none. If a Truststore File name is provided, then, in this text box, provide the password that is used to obtain the associated certificate details from the Truststore File. By default, this parameter is set to none. DETAILED DIAGNOSIS – To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Recent errors:	Indicates the number of new errors that have been written by oracle to the alert log file.	Number	The value of this measure is a clear indicator of the number of “new” alerts that have come into the alert log of the monitored database.
File size:	Indicates the current size of the alert log file.	MB	This measure will only be reported for the ‘Summary’ descriptor of this test.
Growth rate :	Indicates the rate at which the alert log file is growing	MB/Sec	This measure will only be reported for the ‘Summary’ descriptor of this test. A high value for this measure or a consistent increase in its value indicates that the alert log is rapidly growing and may end up occupying too much space on the volume. Under such circumstances, it is recommended that you delete the alert log file and then issue a log file switch, so that Oracle automatically creates a new alert log file for you the next time a database activity needs to be logged.