[ale] Oracle Configuration

[Joseph A. Knapka]

Eric_Brubakken at aoncons.com wrote:
> 
> I have Oracle running just fine at home.  I am able to connect from any of the
> pcs on my home network.  Everything was installed using the oralce defaults - ie
> port 1521 etc.
> 
> But I cannot connect from work.  I have set my tnsnames.ora file as follows:
> 
> ORACLE.BRUBAKKEN =
>   (DESCRIPTION =
>     (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = 64.81.31.123)(PORT = 1521))
>     (CONNECT_DATA = (SID = oracle))
>   )
> 
> Is there something I need to enable on my firewall and if so what might that be.
> Sorry, I am clueless on this part of the configuration.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Eric


There are several ways for an Oracle connection to fail, but
I strongly suspect you are running into the same problem
you would using FTP in non-passive mode.

Of course, you will have to open port 1521 on the firewall for
incoming connections to the Oracle server. You
will almost certainly need to also open *all* ports for connections
from your specific client machine to the Oracle server. That's
because, like FTP, the initial connection to the TNS listener on
port 1521 is used only to negotiate another connection, including
port number, for the client to connect to a new server process.
The negotiated port is pretty much chosen at random, as far as
I can tell.

I used to have a hideous set of Expect scripts that would open
an SSH session, tunnel an Oracle connection over it, rewrite
the packet where the port number was sent to the client to
be a port of my choice, and start *another* SSH session for
the client to tunnel my chosen local to the proper one on the
server. It actually worked, but it took a l...o...n...g time
(tens of seconds) to open a connection. If you're interested
in this I can try to dig it up.

-- Joe Knapka
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