Administering Database Control

This section provides a brief description of the activities that you can perform while administering your database using Database Control. The following sections describe some of the tasks available for managing an Oracle database:

Starting and Stopping the Database Control Process
Accessing the Database Home Page
Creating Database Control Administrative Users
Granting Access to Database Control for Non-Administrative Users
Setting Database Control Preferences

Starting and Stopping the Database Control Process

To access Database Control from a browser, the Database Control console process dbconsole must be running on the database host computer. The dbconsole process is automatically started after installation. However, if the system must be restarted, you can start the process manually at the command line or start it as a service in Windows. You can also run commands to stop the process or view its status. If the process is stopped, then it must be manually restarted before you use Database Control.To start or stop the database or to view the status of the dbconsole process from the command line:

Configure the operating system environment variables, as described in the "Configuring the Operating System Environment Variables" chapter in the Oracle Database 2 Day DBA guide.
Do one of the following:
- To start the process, run the following command:
```
$ ./emctl start dbconsole
```
- To stop the process, run the following command:
```
$ ./emctl stop dbconsole
```
- To view the status of the process, run the following command:
```
$ ./emctl status dbconsole
```
Note:
If you are prompted to set the ORACLE_UNQNAME environment variable, then set this variable and run the emctl command again. Set the variable to the database unique name (the value of the DB_UNIQUE_NAME database parameter). A typical value for DB_UNIQUE_NAME is orcl.

To start or stop Database Control as a service on Microsoft Windows:
1. Do one of the following:
  - On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, click Start, then select Control Panel.
  - On Windows 2000 Server, click Start, select Settings, then select Control Panel.
  The Control Panel window opens.
2. Double-click the Administrative Tools icon, and then double-click the Services icon.
  
  The Services window opens.
  
  Oracle Database services begin with Oracle. The service is listed as OracleDBConsolesid, where sid is the system identifier (SID) for your database instance. The status of the process is listed in the Status column.
3. Double-click the OracleDBConsolesid service (for Release 10g). Double-click the OracleDBConsoledbuniquename service (for Release 11g).
  
  The Service Properties window opens.
4. In the Startup Type list, ensure that either Manual or Automatic is selected.
5. Do one of the following:
  - To start the service, click Start then click OK
  - To stop the service, click Stop then click OK.

Accessing the Database Home Page

The Database Home page is the main database management page in Database Control.

To access the Database Home page:

Ensure that the dbconsole process is running on the database host computer.

See the "Starting and Stopping the Database Control Process" section.
In your Web browser, enter the following URL:
```
https://hostname:portnumber/em
```
For example, if you installed the database on a host computer named comp42.example.com, and the installer indicated that your Enterprise Manager Console HTTP port number is 1158, then enter the following URL:
```
https://comp42.example.com:1158/em
```
If you have recently installed Oracle Database, you can determine the port number for Database Control on Linux and UNIX systems by viewing the $ORACLE_HOME/install/portlist.ini file. Otherwise, you can determine the port number for Database Control by searching for REPOSITORY_URL in the ORACLE_$HOME/Oracle_sid/sysman/config/emd.properties file, where Oracle_sid is the system identifier (SID) for your database instance.

You must do the following to start the database:
1. Click Startup/Shutdown, enter the host login user name and password, then enter the database login user name and password.
  
  For the database user name and password, enter SYS and the password that you specified during installation.
2. Click OK to start the database instance, then in the Confirmation page, click Yes to start the database in open mode.
Log in to the database with a user account that is authorized to access Database Control.

This user initially could be SYS or SYSTEM, with the password that you specified during database installation.

While the SYSTEM account can be used to perform day-to-day administrative tasks, Oracle strongly recommends creating named user accounts for administering the Oracle database to enable monitoring of database activity. To back up, recover, or upgrade the database, you must log in as a SYSDBA user.

Database Control displays the Database Home page.

The subpage links across the top of the page enable you to access performance, availability, and other administration pages to manage your database. The features provided by these pages are discussed in other sections of this documentation.

The various sections of the Database Home page provide information about the environment and status of the database. For example, the Alerts and Diagnostic Summary sections warn you of errors and performance problems that are impacting the operation of your database. You can click the provided links to see more detail about the problem areas, and, in some cases, to obtain recommendations for resolving the problems. These topics are discussed in the 2 Day DBA guide, in the "Monitoring and Tuning the Database" chapter.

Creating Database Control Administrative Users

When you log in to Database Control using the SYS, SYSTEM, or SYSMAN user accounts, you are logging in as the Database Control super user. These are the only accounts that are automatically granted the roles and privileges required to administer Database Control itself. Examples of Database Control administration tasks include the following:

Creating other Database Control administrators.
Configuring e-mail and other notification methods.
Setting alert thresholds for database metrics, such as tablespace space usage percentage exceeded or SQL response time exceeded.
Selecting database policies to apply, so that Database Control can show alerts if a policy is violated. (An example policy is "A nonsystem user cannot use the SYSTEM or SYSAUX tablespace as its default tablespace.")
Defining blackouts, which are time periods in which database monitoring is suspended so that maintenance operations do not skew monitoring data or generate needless alerts.

You can create Database Control administrative users who have enough privileges to administer Database Control itself, but lack the high-level database administration privileges of the SYS and SYSTEM users. This practice enables you to assign the minimum privileges required for other Database Control administrators to do their jobs, which is a best practice for database security. You can also create a Database Control administrative account for yourself, thus avoiding logging in as SYS or SYSTEM until you must perform database administration tasks.

Using the following procedure, you can assign Database Control administrative privileges to an existing database user or create a new Database Control administrative user. When you create a new Database Control administrative user, a user account is created for that user for the database. You must then decide which system privileges, object privileges, or roles to grant the user, if any, to perform database administration tasks.

To create a Database Control administrative user:

On any Database Control page, at the top of the page, click Setup.

The Enterprise Manager Configuration page appears, showing the Overview of Setup page.
In the left navigation bar, click Administrators.

The Administrators page appears.
Click Create.

The Create Administrator: Properties page appears.
In the Name field, enter the name of an existing database user, or click the flashlight icon next to the field and select an existing database user.
Enter one or more e-mail addresses for this administrator only if you plan to set up e-mail notifications for the database.
Click Review to view a page that summarizes the information that you entered.
Click Finish to configure the database user as a Database Control administrative user.

The Administrators page appears, showing the new administrator in the list.

Granting Access to Database Control for Non-Administrative Users

As a database administrator, you can log in to Database Control with the SYS or SYSTEM user account to perform administrative and other tasks. Non-administrative users may also want to log in to Database Control. For example, application developers may want to take advantage of the Database Control interface to create or modify tables, indexes, views, and so on. You must grant access to Database Control to these users before they can log in.For non administrative users to have access to Database Control, they must be granted the SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE role.

Setting Database Control Preferences

This section discusses setting user preferences for Database Control.

About Database Control Preferences

Database Control enables you to set user preferences in the following areas:

Notification

These settings enable Database Control to e-mail you alerts. Alerts are notifications that the database is in an undesirable state and needs your attention. By default, the Database Home page lists all alerts. However, setup is required for e-mail notification. For more information about alerts and setting up notifications, see the "Setting Up Direct Alert Notification" section in the "Monitoring and Tuning the Database" chapter of the Oracle Database 2 Day DBA book.
Blackout Administration

During blackouts, Database Control does not collect database monitoring data or send alerts. Blackouts enable you to perform scheduled maintenance on the database without receiving needless alerts and without skewing the monitoring data.

For example, you can stop data collections during a database backup or a hardware upgrade. If you continue monitoring during these periods, then the collected data shows trends and other monitoring information that is not the result of typical day-to-day operations. To get a more accurate, long-term picture of database performance, you can use blackouts to exclude these special-case situations from data analysis. See the "Defining Blackout Periods" section in the "Getting Started with Database Administration" chapter of the Oracle Database 2 Day DBA book for more information.
Preferred Credentials

Database Control can automatically execute many routine administrative tasks, such as backups. You can use a job scheduling system that is built into Database Control for these routine tasks. To keep your environment secure, setting up tasks for automatic execution in Enterprise Manager requires you to provide login information for the host computer and database. To avoid entering this information every time you create or run a job or task, Database Control enables you to save this information as preferred credentials. Preferred credentials are stored in the database in encrypted mode to protect them from unauthorized use. See the Setting Preferred Credentials section for more information.

Defining Blackout Periods

You can define one or more one-time or repeating blackout periods where Database Control does not collect database monitoring data or send alerts.

To define a blackout period:

On any Database Control page, at the top of the page, click Setup.

The Enterprise Manager Configuration page appears, showing the Overview of Setup page.
In the left-hand pane, click Blackouts.

The Blackouts page appears.
Click Create to start the Create Blackout wizard.

The Create Blackout: Properties page appears.
If desired, replace the default blackout name with one of your choosing.
If desired, in the Comments field, enter text that describes the purpose of the blackout.
In the Reason list, select the blackout reason that is most appropriate.
In the Available Targets section, in the Type list, select Database Instance.

The fully qualified name for your database instance appears in the Available Targets list.
In the Available Targets list, select your instance then click the Move icon. You can also double-click the instance name.

The instance name is moved from the Available Targets list to the Selected Targets list.
Click Next.

The Create Blackout Schedule page appears.
On the Create Blackout Schedule page, do the following:
1. In the Start section, schedule the blackout either immediately or for a later date and time.
2. In the Duration section, indicate the duration of the blackout.
3. To repeat the blackout periodically, in the Repeating section, select a repeat frequency from the Repeat list. Otherwise, use the default value of Do Not Repeat.
Click Next.

The Review page appears.

Review what you have entered. You can click Back to change a setting.
Click Finish.

The Confirmation heading appears on the Blackouts page, and the new blackout period is shown in the list.

Setting Preferred Credentials

When you set preferred credentials, Database Control automatically fills in host computer and database login credentials for you at times when it usually prompts for these credentials. Database Control also fills in these credentials when it is about to run a job that requires credentials.

To set preferred credentials for the database:

From any Database Control page, at the top of the page, click Preferences.

The Preferences page appears.
Click Preferred Credentials in the left-hand pane.

The Preferred Credentials page appears, showing a table of targets.
In the table row for the Database Instance, click the icon under Set Credentials.

The Database Preferred Credentials page appears.
Enter the following credentials:
- Database credentials for Username/Password and SYSDBA Username/SYSDBA Password
- Host credentials for Host Username/Host Password
For example, you might typically connect as the user SYSTEM, use the SYS account for SYSDBA access, and use oracle for the host user name.

Note:
The host user may require certain host privileges to run background jobs such as database backups. For example, on UNIX and Linux, the host user must belong to the OSDBA group (typically dba). On Windows, the host user must be a member of the Administrators group and must be granted the Log on as Batch Job log in right. See your platform documentation for more information.
Click Test to test your credentials.

A confirmation message is displayed if your credentials can be verified.
Click Apply to apply the changes.