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.

NuGet

NuGet is software packaging method for Microsoft .NET. It provides an automated install and setup method popular with developers and administrators that now can be used to install Oracle Providers for ASP.NET.
Microsoft Windows Installer

Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) is the popular, standard installation method for Windows-based software. It can be used to deploy Oracle Providers for ASP.NET.
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.

Machine-Wide Configuration

Machine-wide configuration was once available as an install option in Oracle Universal Installer and XCopy. It is no longer available in current ODAC and Oracle Client installations. If machine-wide Oracle Providers for ASP.NET configuration was chosen in a previous version, that particular ASP.NET providers installation had:

updated the machine.config to use an older Oracle.Web.dll version,
placed that older Oracle.Web.dll into the GAC_MSIL,
placed policy DLLs into the GAC_MSIL that redirects AnyCPU application to use the older Oracle.Web.dll.

Thus, existing applications will continue to use these older Oracle ASP.NET providers unless these changes are reversed through deinstalling the old providers or manual configuration steps, such as what is described in the next section.

Machine-wide configuration changes occurred for both Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 2.0 and Oracle Providers for ASP.NET 4.

Non-Machine-Wide Configuration

Non-machine-wide Oracle Providers for ASP.NET configuration is the only install option now available. This install option will:

not update the machine.config to use Oracle.Web.dll,
not place Oracle.Web.dll into the GAC_MSIL,
not place policy DLLs into the GAC_MSIL that redirects AnyCPU application to use the new Oracle.Web.dll.

Unless some manual changes are made to existing applications, they will continue to use their current Oracle Providers for ASP.NET assembly version if configured machine-wide, not the newly installed version.

The following manual steps are required in order for your application to use the newly installed Oracle.Web.dll if machine-wide configuration is not chosen.

The Oracle.Web.dll and either Oracle.ManagedDataAccess.dll or Oracle.DataAccess.dll will need to be copied to your application directory for your application to use the newer version of Oracle.Web.dll since it was chosen not to be placed into the GAC.

Proper configuration is needed in the web.config to refer to the new Oracle.Web.dll. Here's an example of what the web.config will look if it's desired to have all the providers configured to use Oracle.Web.dll version 4.122.19.1:

<configuration>
  <system.web>
    <membership>
      <providers>
        <add name="OracleMembershipProvider" type="Oracle.Web.Security.OracleMembershipProvider, Oracle.Web, Version=4.122.19.1, 
         Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342" connectionStringName="OraAspNetConString" applicationName="" 
         enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="true" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="true" requiresUniqueEmail="false"
         passwordFormat="Hashed" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="5" minRequiredPasswordLength="7" 
         minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="1" passwordAttemptWindow="10" passwordStrengthRegularExpression="" />
      </providers>
    </membership>
    <profile>
      <providers>
        <add name="OracleProfileProvider" type="Oracle.Web.Profile.OracleProfileProvider, Oracle.Web, Version=4.122.19.1, 
          Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342" connectionStringName="OraAspNetConString" applicationName="" />
      </providers>
    </profile>
    <roleManager>
      <providers>
        <add name="OracleRoleProvider" type="Oracle.Web.Security.OracleRoleProvider, Oracle.Web, Version=4.122.19.1, 
           Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342" connectionStringName="OraAspNetConString" applicationName="" />
      </providers>
    </roleManager>
    <siteMap>
      <providers>
        <add name="OracleSiteMapProvider" type="Oracle.Web.SiteMap.OracleSiteMapProvider, Oracle.Web, Version=4.122.19.1, 
          Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342" connectionStringName="OraAspNetConString" 
          applicationName="" securityTrimmingEnabled="true" />
      </providers>
    </siteMap>
    <webParts>
      <personalization>
        <providers>
          <add name="OraclePersonalizationProvider" type="Oracle.Web.Personalization.OraclePersonalizationProvider, Oracle.Web, 
            Version=4.122.19.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342" connectionStringName="OraAspNetConString" 
            applicationName="" />
        </providers>
      </personalization>
    </webParts>
    <healthMonitoring>
      <providers>
        <add name="OracleWebEventProvider" type="Oracle.Web.Management.OracleWebEventProvider, Oracle.Web, Version=4.122.19.1, 
          Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342" connectionStringName="OraAspNetConString" buffer="true" 
          bufferMode="OracleNotification" />
      </providers>
    </healthMonitoring>
  </system.web>
</configuration>

Please note that the application can be updated to use the newer Oracle.Web.dll version and the web.config can be configured automatically by installing the NuGet package for Oracle Providers for ASP.NET.

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:

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.

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 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	`InstallOracleSessionState.sql` Note: This provider requires the execution of only the `InstallOracleSessionState.sql` script. 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

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 machine-wide configuration 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 machine-wide configuration 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.