OID Overview

OID which stands for Oracle Internet Directory is part of Identity Management in Infrastructure Tier of Fusion Middleware. If you are planning to configure 10g Application Server with Apps 11i or R12 , This node might be useful for you in understanding OID . Looking at importance of OID, I am going to discuss on few important things about OID today .
OID is installed on infrastructure tier in 10g Application Server (If you want to learn basic components of Application Server you can visit my previous post at Industry has started talking about Fusion Middleware & Oracle recently certified 10g Application Server (Portal 10.1.4) with Oracle E-Business Suite so I am discussing overview of Application Server part of Fusion Middleware Family.

Overview of 10g Application Server
10g Application Server Consist of Infrastructure Tier & Middle Tier

What is Infrastructure Tier ?
Infrastructure Tier provides Infrastructure Services to 10g Application Server & consist of following technical components
- Database -> To Store User/Applications Identity Data (Portal,Wireless,OID data)
- OID -> Oracle Internet Directory, to store User Credentials, Schema passwords, Application details & lot more ...
- HTTP Server -> This Web Server (OHS, Oracle HTTP Server) on Infra Tier is used to access SSO (Single Sign-On Server) & OIDDAS (OID Delegated Administrative Services)
- OC4J -> Oracle Container for J2EE (OC4J_Security for SSO), You have additional OC4J_OCA if you have OCA (Oracle Certifying Autority). OCA is Optional component in Infrastructure Tier

What is Middle Tier ?
Middle Tier is tier where application Server & applications logic resides. It consist of following Technical Components
- HTTP Server -> This OHS (Oracle HTTP Server) is separate from above OHS & this is OHS from where users access application Server like portal, wireless, j2ee
- OC4J -> These are container which provide place holder for j2ee or web applications . Applications are deployed on OC4J's. 10g AS comes with default OC4J name "home", you create more OC4J depending on your requirement
- Web Cache -> Web Cache acts as cache for fast response to web server.


Logical Services for Infrastructure Tier
Above was technical components of Infrastructure Tier , Logically Infrastructure Tier consist of Two main categories which are
Identity Management
&
Metadata Repository

What is Metadata Repository ?
MR is similar to Database Metadata & MR you can further classify as
Metadata repository for Products (Like Portal, Wireless, BI) This MR usually is user data. Lets assume I created some pages, documents in Portal or User entered some data in any application , such data when stored in database is called as Product MR
MR for OID - Oracle Internet Directory contain some data & data related to this , one can classify as MR for IM (as OID is part of Identity Management - discussed later)
MR for SSO - Oracle Single Sign-On data & schema definitions , one can classify as MR for IM (as SSO is part of IM)

So broadly there are three kind of MR (that's how I classify MR)

What is Identity Management ?
Logical Grouping of Services which help in Managing Identity is called as Identity Management.
Identity management Consist of following Services like (Discussed later in Detail)
- OID Oracle Internet Directory
- DAS Delegated Administrative Services
- DIP Directory Integration & Provisioning Services
- SSO Single Sign-On Service
- OCA Oracle Certifying Authority
 

what's is OID ?
Oracle Internet Directory (OID) is Oracle's Implementation of LDAP (Light weight Directory Access Protocol) which is ldap version 3 compliant. OID is special kind of database repository in which information is stored in Tree structure also called DIT (Directory Information Tree).
Similar to OID , Microsoft has its own LDAP server called Active Directory (AD) and Sun's LDAP server is called as iPlanet .

Where is OID code in oracle_home ?
OID code & its corresponding log files are stored in directories under $ORACLE_HOME/ldap directory in Infrastructure Tier . This is same tier where your SSO server sits.
OID logs are stored at $ORACLE_HOME/ldap/log (This location is quite important for apps dba's for troubleshooting OID Issues). Few executables like oidctl, oidadmin, oidca, oidldapd are in ORACLE_HOME/bin .

What are default ports for OID ?
You may see different ports for OID depending on OID server version but most common is 389 non ssl OID port & 636 for SSL OID port (These are also default ldap server ports). If you don't know which ports your OID is using refer portlist.ini in $ORACLE_HOME/install (Note that this file will not list updated port if you change OID ports after Installation)
You should an entry like
Oracle Internet Directory port = 389
Oracle Internet Directory (SSL) port = 636

How to start OID ?
OID process is controlled by opmn (Oracle process monitor & notification server) so you by default use opmnctl command
To Start OID opmnctl startproc ias-component=OID
To Stop OID opmnctl stopproc ias-component=OID

OID can also be started without OPMN by
First start oidmon (OID Monitor Process)
Then use oidctl (OID control)
To stop OID without OPMN
First stop oid process using oidctl then stop oidmon (OID monitoring process)

When you start services using opmnctl , it inturn start oidmon & oidctl .

How to troubleshoot OID issues ??
Where to check for OID Logs ??
What is OID Replication Server ??
What is Integration & Provisioning Server in OID ??
Coming soon .....