Author – A.

Kishore/Sachin
http://appsdba.info

AutoConfig (adconfig)

Background:

Oracle Applications has a complex architecture with many pieces

of technology. For example Apache Web server, Apache Jserv,
Forms Listener servlet (or forms server) etc. each of these has its
own set of configuration files , which need to be set up correctly
to function properly. Moreover Oracle Applications uses many
profile options (e.g. Applications Web Agent, Applications
Framework Agent etc) and other bits of information in the
database to make the navigation seamless. These also need to
be set correctly to function properly.Oracle Applications 11i
consists of lots of configuration files and lots of profile options,
which need to be all correctly set for the applications to work.
Managing these profile options and configuration files manually
may give errors.So Autoconfig is a tool provided by the Oracle
E-Business Suite to maintain these files and profile options. We
can say AutoConfig is a collection of templated configuration files
that are used in combination with the appropriate database and
applications context files to produce standardized environments.

What Is AutoConfig?

Autoconfig is an 11i configuration tool (set of java classes run

from perl/shell scripts) introduced in 11.5.4, which eliminates the
need to manually maintain these configuration files and profile
options.
Autoconfig maintains the environment specific values for the 11i
environment in an xml file (stored in $APPL_TOP/admin). When
autoconfig run it overwrites the existing configuration files with
new ones that it creates by merging the templates and the
context file, it also updates the database by running the script it
instantiates (merging a template with the values in the context
file is termed as instantiating the template in Oracle parlance)
from the script templates. That’s essentially what autoconfig

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 Author – A.Kishore/Sachin
http://appsdba.info

does i.e. Instantiating configuration files from templates and

updating database with values from the xml file. It does not move
directories, check for availability of ports, update DNS entries and
so on. These have to be done manually.

Please Note: Application context file called the .xml contains the
configuration information for the application tier & is located in
$APPl_TOP/admin for each node of application tier.
Database context file called the .xml contains the configuration
information for the database tier & is located in
$ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/
How does it work?

Each configuration file has one corresponding template file

(provided by autoconfig patches, stored in
$PROD_TOP/admin/template directory). Profile options and other
instance specific information in the database is maintained by
many sql scripts, called from shell/perl scripts. These scripts also
have corresponding template files (also provided by autoconfig
patches, in $PROD_TOP/admin/templates).
In these template files all the environment specific values are
replaced by placeholders (like %s_webhost%).

Following entry in httpd.conf

Timeout 300 is replaced by following in its template

$FND_TOP/admin/template/httpd_ux_ias1022.conf
Timeout %s_ohstimeout%
Environment specific values for this placeholder is stored in an
environment specific xml file (called application context file)
stored in $APPL_TOP/admin.
For e.g.
For the above placeholder the value stored in the xml file is:
<ohstimeout oa_var="s_ohstimeout">300</ohstimeout>

Each placeholder has a corresponding xml node in the context

file. The placeholder name is the value for the “oa_var” attribute
of the xml node, the placeholder name without the prefix “s_”
(generally) is the node name for the xml node and the value is

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 Author – A.Kishore/Sachin
http://appsdba.info

stored as a child text node. These xml nodes are termed as

context variables by Oracle documentation and each node
primarily is identified by its oa_var attribute value. So effectively
we can say that in the above case we replace “300” by context
variable “ohstimeout” whose oa_var value is “s_ohstimeout”.

Configuration files can be easily created from the template file by

just replacing all the placeholders with the corresponding values
from the context file. This process is termed as “instantiating the
template” in Oracle documentation.

Driver files (stored in $PROD_TOP/admin/driver) store information

about what to do with each template (e.g. instantiate it and
replace the existing configuration file with it, instantiate it and
run it). These files are named as <PROD_TOP>tmpl.drv (e.g.
adtmpl.drv, fndtmpl.drv etc.) They contain one line for each
template they manage.

When autoconfig (adconfig.pl or adconfig.sh) runs it just

processes the driver file for each product, line by line doing what
the driver file instructs it to do. The order of execution of each
line is not sequential as we shall see later. The diagram below
depicts the autoconfig functionality.

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 Author – A.Kishore/Sachin
http://appsdba.info

Updating Context file

Suppose we want to update the active port from to 80 , for this

we will edit the application context file as follows:

Step 1 :Start all services

$ $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/adstrtal.sh APPS/
APPSPASSWORD
Step 2 :log on to OAM & click site map.
Step 3:Click AutoConfig from the list of System Configuration
features in the Administration tab.
Step 4 : Click the Edit Parameter button for the application tier
context file to access the Context File Parameters page & then
click the system tab.
Step 5 : Click the Focus icon (blue triangle) for oa_web_server.
This expands oa_web_server and shows the web server related
parameters.
Step 6:Update the Web Port (s_active_webport) parameter from
<> to 80.
Step 7 : Save it & answer the tab.Then logout of OAM

Location of AutoConfig Script

The autoconfig script uses information from the context file to
generate all applications configuration files & updates database
profiles. It is located in

Application tier:
$COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/CONTEXT_NAME/adautoconfig.sh

Database tier:
$ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/scripts/CONTEXT_NAME/adautoconfig.sh

Configure the oracle application system with the updated

Applications context file.

Step 1 : Stop all services

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$ $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/adstpall.sh APPS/
APPSPASSWORD

Step 2:Run the autoconfig script, $adautocfg.sh & respond to

the prompts.

Step 3:Check log files for any errors.log file for autoconfig is
adconfig.log & is located in /admin//log/MMDDhhmm/

Step 4: Restart all services :

$ $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/adstrtal.sh APPS/APPSPASSWORD

Rolling back an autoconfig session

Each execution of AutoConfig creates a roll back script in case we

want to revert back to the previous configuration settings. For
this we perform the following steps:

Step 1 :Shut down all services:

$ cd $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/

$ adstpall.sh APPS/

Step 2:Restore AutoConfig session.

$ cd $APPL_TOP>/admin//out/MMDDhhmm
$ restore.sh

Step 3 : Restart all services:

$ $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts//adstrtal.sh APPS/
Restoring the previous configuration

Now we will use OAM AutoConfig to restore the

Applications Context.

Step 1 :Log on to the Oracle Application Manager (OAM) & click

site map.You will be able to log on but some services will be
down.

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 Author – A.Kishore/Sachin
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Step 2: Click AutoConfig from the list of System Configuration

features in the Administration tab.
Step 3 : Click the Show History button for the application tier
context file to access the Context File History page.
Step 4 :Click the Show Differences from Current Configuration
button to see the recently updated parameters & Select Restore
Previous Value for the Web Port and Discoverer Port parameters.
Step 5 :Save & respond the tabs. Log out of OAM.
Step 6 :Shut down all services:
$ cd $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/
$ adstpall.sh APPS/
Step 7 :Run the AutoConfig script, adautocfg.sh & Respond to the
prompts.
Step 8 : View the log file and check for any errors.
Step 9 : Restart all services:
$ $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts//adstrtal.sh APPS/
Step 10 :Log on to the Oracle Application Manager (OAM)

If the status of some services appears to be down, click the

Refresh icon to update the status.

If we want some more information , Then we can check following

Metalink Notes :
218089.1 Autoconfig FAQ
165195.1 Using AutoConfig to Manage System Configurations
with Oracle Applications 11i
387859.1 Using AutoConfig to Manage System Configurations in
Oracle Applications Release 12
270519.1 Customizing an AutoConfig Environment
364927.1 How To Run Autoconfig On Database Tier (DB-Tier)
341322.1 How to change the hostname of an Applications Tier
using AutoConfig
338003.1 How to change the hostname and/or port of the
Database Tier using AutoConfig
315674.1 How To Verify if Autoconfig is Enabled on 11.5.x
391406.1 How to get a clean Autoconfig Environment