NEW EBS Update Checker

ETCC

EBS Customers are, by now, familiar with the “EBS Technology Codelevel Checker (ETCC)”. This tool, updated at least every quarter, can scan your EBS system and identify the necessary patches on top of your current PSU. The ETCC tool works on both the dbTier and the EBS appsTier. The output of the ETCC tool will also recommend a single patch bundle that you can download which will contain all of the necessary patches.

As always, you should download the current version of the tool as Patch 17537119. Rather than issuing a new patch with each update, here, they’re merely updating the same patch number, so always download the current one!

What’s new is that they’ve now produced a tool that does the same thing for the various Java installations in your EBS environment.

This new tool is the EBS Java Critical Patch Update Checker (EJCPUC)

Released along with the October 2024 CPU (and, I presume every quarter), the patch for this one is 37171025.

In order to use it, here’s what I do:

Extract the zip file:

mkdir EJCPUC
cd EJCPUC
unzip ${DL}/p37171025_R12_GENERIC.zip
chmod 750 *.sh

Set your environment and run the script:

./ejcpuc.sh

Here is a sample of the output from the appsTier of my lab environment:

##################################################################################
## Checking Apptier Java 7 for CPU 2024.10 on Platform Linux_x64 - need 1.7.0_441
## 2024-11-01 13:25:26 CDT  on  ebsap1
##################################################################################
 2024.10        action  Your Version    bitness Java Location
 ------------   ------  ------------    ------- ---------------
 1.7.0_441      UPDATE  1.7.0_351       32-bit  /oracle/EBSDBA/fs1/EBSapps/10.1.2/jdk/bin/java
 1.7.0_441      UPDATE  1.7.0_351       32-bit  /oracle/EBSDBA/fs1/EBSapps/comn/util/jdk32/bin/java
 1.7.0_441      UPDATE  1.7.0_351       64-bit  /oracle/EBSDBA/fs1/EBSapps/comn/util/jdk64/bin/java
 1.7.0_441      UPDATE  1.7.0_351       64-bit  /oracle/EBSDBA/fs1/FMW_Home/webtier/jdk/bin/java

Follow 1530033.1 to update the JDK(s). Your application tier JDK 7 is lower than the 1.7.0_441 update released in CPU 2024.10.

Here is a sample of the output from the dbTier:

##################################################################################
## Checking DB tier Java for CPU 2024.10 on Platform Linux_x64
## 2024-11-04 08:34:21 CST  on  ebsdb1
##################################################################################

## Check Database Version
##################################################################################
Your database version is 19.23.0.0.0
         ORACLE_HOME     /oracle/EBSDBA/19.3.0
         ORACLE_SID      CDBDBA
         ORACLE_UNQNAME  CDBDBA

## Check Java Version of OJVM, Database JDK and EBS's appsutil JRE, need 1.8.0_421
##################################################################################
 Latest Version  action  Your Version  bitness Java Location
 -------------- -------- ------------  ------- ---------------
 1.8.0_431         o)    1.8.0_411      64-bit OJVM In database
 1.8.0_421         j)    1.8.0_401      64-bit /oracle/EBSDBA/19.3.0/jdk/bin/java
 1.8.0_421         u)    1.8.0_401      64-bit /oracle/EBSDBA/19.3.0/appsutil/jre/bin/java

o) Apply the Database Release Update (DBRU) recommended by ETCC which will update the DB OJVM version to the latest
j) Apply the Database Release Update (DBRU) recommended by ETCC which will update the DB JDK version to the latest
u) When the DB JDK version is updated to the latest - then follow section 3 of 1530033.1 to update this JRE

Running an Empty Patch Cycle in R12.2

There are situations where it makes sense to run an “empty” patch cycle in E-Business Suite R12.2. For example, I will run an empty patch cycle after a major operation (R12.1.3 to R12.2 upgrade, platform migration, etc.) to confirm that I can, successfully run a patch cycle.

The other “trick” that I tend to use is a tail.txt file to indicate when a process has finished.  It is a simple ASCII text file that contains the following:

 ####### ### #     # ###  #####  #     # ####### ######  
 #        #  ##    #  #  #     # #     # #       #     # 
 #        #  # #   #  #  #       #     # #       #     # 
 #####    #  #  #  #  #   #####  ####### #####   #     # 
 #        #  #   # #  #        # #     # #       #     # 
 #        #  #    ##  #  #     # #     # #       #     # 
 #       ### #     # ###  #####  #     # ####### ######  

There are several ways to create it.  I used to use the Unix banner command (which isn’t generally present on Linux systems). Because of that, the easiest way now is to use an online ASCII art generator:

https://www.patorjk.com/software/taag/#p=display&f=Banner&t=FINISHED

By having tail -f ${DL}/tail.txt run at the end of a long command, it is pretty easy to notice when the process completes.  This is particularly useful when you may have the window in the background, be running from a different machine, or maybe you’re just glancing at the screen from across a room.

As an example, let’s say you wanted to run an “empty patch cycle” as described in MOS 2316218.1:

. /oracle/${TWO_TASK}/EBSapps.env run
date;{ echo ${APPSPW}; echo ${SYSTEMPW}; echo ${WLADMIN}; }|\
adop phase=prepare,finalize,cutover; date; tail -f ${DL}/tail.txt

. /oracle/${TWO_TASK}/EBSapps.env run
date;{ echo ${APPSPW}; echo ${SYSTEMPW}; echo ${WLADMIN}; }|\
adop phase=cleanup cleanup_mode=full;date;tail -f ${DL}/tail.txt