Autoconfig tool is widely used tool in Oracle E-Business Suite environment configuration. It can make or break an environment. This session gives a deep dive into internals of Autoconfig. We will also cover the different features of Autoconfig like running Autoconfig in parallel, Using Autoconfig to preserve customizations to configuration files, Best practices to follow when running Autoconfig and Running Autoconfig in multi node environments.

1. Anatomy of Autoconfig
Session# 12112
Vasu Balla
The Pythian Group

2. About Me
Oracle Apps DBA with 10+ Years of
Experience
Oracle Apps ATG Customer Advisory Board
Member since 2012
Oracle EBS Cluster Technical Lead at Pythian
@vasuballa

3. About Pythian
• Recognized Leader:
Global industry-leader in remote database administration services and consulting
for Oracle, Oracle Applications, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server
Work with over 250 multinational companies such as Forbes.com, Fox Sports,
Nordion and Western Union to help manage their complex IT deployments
• Expertise:
Pythian’s data experts are the elite in their field. We have the highest concentration
of Oracle ACEs on staff - 10 including 3 ACE Directors—and 2 Microsoft MVPs.
Pythian holds 7 Specializations under Oracle Platinum Partner program, including
Oracle Exadata, Oracle GoldenGate & Oracle RAC
• Global Reach & Scalability:
Around the clock global remote support for DBA and consulting, systems
administration, special projects or emergency response

4. Agenda
• Internals of Autoconfig
• Best Practices
• Advanced features of Autoconfig

5. What is Autoconfig?
• 11i/R12 tool to configure E-Business
Suite Environment
• Controls all configuration files of DB,
Apps Techstack & Apps profile options
• Available for all version of 11i & R12

6. Autoconfig Components
• Context files
• Template files
• Drivers
• Autoconfig scripts

7. Context File
• XML repository of configuration related
information
• A XML file for each application and
database node
• XML files location
APPS: <INST_TOP>/appl/admin/<CONTEXT_NAME>.xml
DB: <RDBMS_ORACLE_HOME>/appsutil/<CONTEXT_NAME>.xml

8. Template files
• Contains named tags
• Are replaced with actual values during
autoconfig run
• Default Location
<PROD_TOP>/admin/template
<RDBMS ORACLE_HOME>/appsutil/template

9. Drivers
• Mapping between template file and
target configuration file
• Details of commands to be executed
• Every product top contains its own
driver file
• Eg. <AD_TOP>/admin/driver/adtmpl.drv
<FND_TOP>/admin/driver/fndtmpl.drv

10. Autoconfig Scripts
adautocfg.sh
• Located in $INST_TOP/admin/scripts
adchkcfg.sh
• Located in $AD_TOP/bin

11. Lets Visualize !

12. Contd…

13. Contd.

14. Different Phases in Autoconfig
• CVM - updates the xml file itself incase of a new xml template
• INSTE8 and BINCPY– creates files and copying from source files to
target configuration files.
• INSTE8_SETUP - runs all scripts that involve no DB connection
• INSTE8_PRF - runs all scripts that update profile options.
• INSTE8_APPLY - runs other scripts that involve updates to Database

15. Examples

16. Best Practices

17. Autoconfig Check Utility
• Run adchkcfg.sh well ahead of
downtime window
• It runs autoconfig in test mode
• Generates a report with details on what
will be effected during a real autoconfig
run

19. Editing Context File
• Oracle recommended method is OAM
• We can also edit the xml file manually
• Choose either one of the method, Don’t
use both ways of editing in same
instance
• If you use OAM, make sure apps
listener is running on all nodes

20. Customizing Templates
• Create custom directory
$ mkdir $FND_TOP/admin/template/custom
• Copy original template to custom dir
$ cd $FND_TOP/admin/template
$ cp apachectl_sh_1013.tmp custom/
• Make the change in custom template

21. The Old Fashioned Way
• Begin/End Customizations syntax is still valid
• Disadvantage is all content tagged in
begin/end customization is moved to end of
the file after autoconfig
• Avoid it as its not easy to track customizations
• Use adcustomizer.sh to migrate custom
templates

22. Advanced Features

23. Parallel Autoconfig
• Feature introduced in 12.1, useful when
managing multinode instances
• Enables autoconfig to run in parallel
• Internally uses dbms_locks to avoid
same script running at the same time
from multiple nodes
• Syntax: perl $AD_TOP/bin/adconfig.pl
contextfile=<CtxFile> –parallel

24. Autoconfig Profiler
• Useful tool to diagnose issues with slow
autoconfig issues
• Generates a report showing runtimes of
each production top and templates
• Syntax: $AD_TOP/bin/adconfig.pl
contextfile=<CtxFile> –profile

25. Rolling back autoconfig
• Autoconfig provides a way to rollback
changes done.
• Run restore.sh from the autoconfig out
directory
$ cd $INST_TOP/admin/out/<MMDDhhmm>
$ restore.sh

26. Other tools
• adgentns.pl – to regenerate
tnsnames.ora, useful in multinode env
• adclonectx.pl retrieve – to extract xml
file from database to filesystem
• GenCtxInfRep – generates report on
what all templates are using a xml tag
perl <FND_TOP>/bin/txkrun.pl -script=GenCtxInfRep
-keyword="<keyword>"

27. Other tools
• adtmplreport.sh – generates report on
customized templates
adtmplreport.sh contextfile=<CONTEXT_FILE> listcustom

28. Questions?
Comments?

29. THANK YOU
Vasu Balla
Room 601 – Staged Patching
Approach – Thu 12:15pm
balla@pythian.com
@vasuballa #C13TCH #C13DEN
www.pythian.com/blog