Monday, March 4, 2019

How to list users in a postgreSQL database




Use the psql meta-command "\du" or "\du+" to list the users (or roles as they are called in PostgreSQL):
psql
psql (11.2)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# \du
                                            List of roles
     Role name     |                         Attributes                         |      Member of
-------------------+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------
 music             | Create DB                                                 +| {}
                   | Password valid until 2019-02-10 00:00:00+01                |
 postgres          | Superuser, Create role, Create DB, Replication, Bypass RLS+| {}
                   | Password valid until 2019-01-16 00:00:00+01                |
 resource          | Cannot login                                               | {}
 superuser         | Superuser                                                 +| {}
                   | Password valid until 2019-03-02 00:00:00+01                |
 vegard            | Password valid until 2019-03-02 00:00:00+01                | {}


Sources: List schemas and List users
from dataedo.com

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

How to check if fine-grained auditing (FGA) is enabled in your database


SELECT  POLICY_NAME,ENABLED,AUDIT_TRAIL
FROM  DBA_AUDIT_POLICIES;

Result:
POLICY_NAME ENABLED AUDIT_TRAIL
MY_FGAPOLICY_1 YES DB+EXTENDED
MY_FGAPOLICY_2 YES DB+EXTENDED
MY_FGAPOLICY_3 YES DB+EXTENDED
MY_FGAPOLICY_4 YES DB+EXTENDED

Monday, February 18, 2019

Find audit information about dropped users



If you have created your database with dbca, or have manually run the secconf.sql script after your database was created, the "DROP USER" is audited by default in Oracle 12c.
This is a part of what Oracle calls default auditing which I have written about in another post.

Here is how you can find information about dropped users:

select os_username,username,userhost,timestamp,obj_name,action_name,priv_used
from dba_audit_trail 
where action_name='DROP USER'
and to_char(cast ( timestamp as date),'dd.mm.yyyy') > '08.02.2019'
AND OBJ_NAME IN ('JIM','DWIGHT')
order by timestamp desc;
Result:

OS_USERNAME USERNAME USERHOST TIMESTAMP OBJ_NAME ACTION_NAME PRIV_USED
root SYSTEM hostname1.mydomain.com 12.02.2019 11:31:05 JIM DROP USER DROP USER
root SYSTEM hostname1.mydomain.com 12.02.2019 11:28:10 DWIGHT DROP USER DROP USER

Thursday, February 14, 2019

What is the 100046 trace event anyway?


The 100046 event is a Process Trace event. These trace certain system operations continuously until the tracing is canceled. The results are written to a trace files.

When do I start running 10046 events, then?

* When a process is having problems that can be identified, and you can control which session (or sessions) need to be traced without impacting other things.
* When users can clearly point to processes that need help, and you cannot clearly see what it is other means (statspack, v$sqlarea, etc)


Source: Burlesson Consulting

Syntax for using the dbms_stats.gather_index_stats procedure




How to analyze an index using dbms_stats:
BEGIN
  SYS.DBMS_STATS.GATHER_INDEX_STATS (
     OwnName           => 'SCOTT'
    ,IndName           => 'STATUS_IDX_1'
    ,Estimate_Percent  => DBMS_STATS.AUTO_SAMPLE_SIZE
    ,Degree            => DBMS_STATS.DEFAULT_DEGREE 
    ,No_Invalidate     => DBMS_STATS.AUTO_INVALIDATE);
END;
/

Official documentation here

How to solve ORA-02017: integer value required when trying to adjust parameters



I was trying to rectify an issue where the alert log of the database kept throwing errors like this:
ORA-01013: user requested cancel of current operation
ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [KGL-heap-size-exceeded], [0x114890D28], [6], [1263979496], [], [], [], [], [], [], [], []

Reading Doc ID 330239.1 "Memory Notification: Library Cache Object loaded into SGA / ORA-600 [KGL-heap-size-exceeded]", I realized that these errors are not causing any failure, as they are simply warnings that Oracle implemented to alert DBAs about potential large occupants of database memory.

There are two hidden parameters which control these messages:
set lines 200
col name format a40
col description format a80
col KSPPSTVL format a20
 select
 nam.ksppinm NAME,
 nam.ksppdesc DESCRIPTION,
 val.KSPPSTVL
 from
 x$ksppi nam,
 x$ksppsv val
 where nam.indx = val.indx and nam.ksppinm like '%kgl_large_heap_%_threshold%';

NAME                                 DESCRIPTION                                                        KSPPSTVL
-----------------------------------  ------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------
_kgl_large_heap_warning_threshold    maximum heap size before KGL writes warnings to the alert log      524288000
_kgl_large_heap_assert_threshold     maximum heap size before KGL raises an internal error              524288000

These are the default values, 50M. Not very much. Instead, I want a warning to be written to the alert log at 1500M, and an ORA-00600 error to be thrown at 2G.

The first instruction works just fine:
alter system set "_kgl_large_heap_warning_threshold"=1572864000 scope=spfile;

System altered.

The secoond fails with:
alter system set "_kgl_large_heap_assert_threshold"=2147483648 scope=spfile;

ERROR at line 1:
ORA-02017: integer value required

Why?

The answer was found in the document Doc ID 2049098.1 Setting Parameter SORT_AREA_SIZE Throws error ORA-2017: "Integer Value Required", which states

"The parameter SORT_AREA_SIZE has a 2G limit"

and points out that instead of setting the value to 2147483648 bytes, it should be lowered to a value below 2G.

So the solution was to reduce the value by one single byte, from

alter system set "_kgl_large_heap_assert_threshold"=2147483648 scope=spfile;
to
alter system set "_kgl_large_heap_assert_threshold"=2147483647 scope=spfile;

and Oracle happily accepted the new value.


Tuesday, February 12, 2019

How to solve ORA-01031: insufficient privileges when creating a cross-schema fk constraint



Scenario:
you want to create a cross-schema Foreign key constraint:

 ALTER TABLE JIM.TRANSACTION
 ADD ( CONSTRAINT TRANSACTION_FK 
       FOREIGN KEY (TRANS_ID) REFERENCES 
       DWIGHT.TRANSACTION_HISTORY(TRANS_ID)
     );

In order to accomplish this, user JIM needs the REFERENCES system privilege on DWIGHT's table:
GRANT REFERENCES ON DWIGHT.TRANSACTION_HISTORY TO JIM;