• Iie (unregistered)

    TRWTF is not using LDAP for your lookups.

  • WTF (unregistered)

    WTF-12154: WTF: could not post frist! comment specified.

  • Dirac (unregistered)

    tnsnames.ora is always great fun, especially since the client looks for the file in multiple places in a particular order.

    Spend half a day with the right version in a correct place, until I found the wrong version in an even more correct place (i.e. a folder higher in the search list)

  • (cs) in reply to Iie

    I've seen a bunch of Oracle environments for a bunch of different organizations, and not one of them has ever used LDAP.

    While that would be the "smart" approach, nobody does it.

    Also: "It was just like a computer, only slower." was a full-of-win line.

  • (cs)

    Sorry, but he needs to 'fess up to what happened so they can document the issue. What happens if a circumstance arises when someone else removes this software from their PC? If this is a known issue, they can document it.

    TRWTF, of course, is that they didn't back up that file share.

  • DB (unregistered)

    I don't see what was Oracle's fault.

  • NorgTheFat (unregistered)

    So rather than use a script to copy tsnames.ora from the share to the user's drive, (say the login script), they decided the best way was to just have the file shared out to everyone from the same location. Wow talk about slow performance issues!

    And I thought "shared" Access databases were bad...

  • (cs) in reply to DB
    DB:
    I don't see what was Oracle's fault.
    Let the "reeducation" commence...

    Also, QFF.

  • bbq (unregistered)

    no filesystem on embedded stuff...

    nah, this is just stupidism

  • Bluesman (unregistered)

    The real WTF is putting company critical info on a computer which is given to the newby as work-station.

  • Nibh (unregistered) in reply to Iie

    TRWTF is using Oracle. Amiright?

  • Some guy (unregistered) in reply to Bluesman
    Bluesman:
    The real WTF is putting company critical info on a computer which is given to the newby as work-station.

    That's what I thought at first too, but no, it was on a remote share that he had full permissions on.

  • Spivonious (unregistered) in reply to Dirac

    Ha! I had this happen to me too. The Oracle 9i client removes the tnsnames file that is configured in the registry, whether it's local or not. But we had a backup so it wasn't a huge deal.

    It's fixed in 10g and up.

  • Otto (unregistered) in reply to Bluesman
    Bluesman:
    The real WTF is putting company critical info on a computer which is given to the newby as work-station.

    Nah, you're missing it. The file wasn't on his workstation, it was on a shared network drive somewhere. It just so happens that uninstalling the oracle software caused it to remove that file as well.

    If anybody on the system had uninstalled their copy of the software, same problem.

  • wrtlprnft (unregistered) in reply to Bluesman

    It probably didn't host the file, but it had access through it over some file share, and the permissions to delete it.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Bluesman
    Bluesman:
    The real WTF is putting company critical info on a computer which is given to the newby as work-station.
    As I read it, the file wasn't stored on that particular computer, but the Oracle uninstaller deleted it anyways.
  • //Rumen (unregistered) in reply to Bluesman

    It wasn't on his computer, it was on a network share. The uninstall removed all files used by the client INCLUDING the file on the share.

  • (cs) in reply to Bluesman
    Bluesman:
    The real WTF is putting company critical info on a computer which is given to the newby as work-station.

    No, TNSNAMES.ORA wasn't on Lenart's computer. It was on some share somewhere. When Lenart uninstalled Oracle Client from his computer, the uninstaller just went to the share and deleted TNSNAMES.ORA.

    And I don't think there would be performance issues doing it this way -- the file is read, not written to, and furthermore, it's only read at connect time. Of course, not backing the file up was TRWTF.

  • DB (unregistered) in reply to drachenstern
    drachenstern:
    DB:
    I don't see what was Oracle's fault.
    Let the "reeducation" commence...

    Also, QFF.

    They have a single tnsnames.ora file that was removed by someone running something that they did not understand the impacts of. No backup of the file, no ldap/oid lookup instead, no maintaining the one gold copy of that file in a location that would not be removed by a client uninstall and using TNS_ADMIN or other methods to point to it.

    More like dumb implementation?

  • Bluesman (unregistered)

    "Though the file server was backed up, that particular share hadn't been. "

    Yep, read over that the first time around. </facepalm>

  • (cs)

    I'm still trying to figure out this whole "dry market" thing. People keep complaining that they can't find jobs, but I keep having people call me wanting me to interview for some developer position somewhere. Last 6 weeks I've had 3 calls. Granted I would have to relocate, but it wouldn't be a problem to find a new job. A friend of mine was laid off last year and found a new company in about 3 weeks. The longest I personally have ever been out of work was 5 weeks, and that was because I was unwilling to relocate at the time.

    I think it's the same thing as the homeless person holding a sign that states "Will work for food" right beneath the McDonald's sign that says "Now accepting applications". Yeah, I've seen that, literally. You can't tell me this guy can't find work, he just can't find work he wants to do all the time.

  • Cryo (unregistered) in reply to nonpartisan
    nonpartisan:
    Sorry, but he needs to 'fess up to what happened so they can document the issue. What happens if a circumstance arises when someone else removes this software from their PC?

    More likely (if they halfway thought about this), most users have only read only access to the file. However, since he was in support, he had read/write access to the file in case something had to change.

    TRWTF is why he would remove a program so integral to his job. That isn't cruft - that's software he will likely be using to test out issues and resolve problems.

  • Cryo (unregistered) in reply to Cryo
    Cryo:
    TRWTF is why he would remove a program so integral to his job. That isn't cruft - that's software he will likely be using to test out issues and resolve problems.

    Pre-emptive explanation- I would still keep the version of the program the typical users are using to access the db on the computer, in case there is a bug with the program, or another issue about a setting that the instant access program has that he will have to test.

  • Spivonious (unregistered) in reply to Cryo

    [quote user="Cryo"][quote user="nonpartisan"]

    TRWTF is why he would remove a program so integral to his job. That isn't cruft - that's software he will likely be using to test out issues and resolve problems. [/quote]

    Because the instant client doesn't include any tools or management utilities. It also only provides ODP.NET connections, but we can assume that his company didn't need any ODBC support.

  • bob (unregistered)

    Oracle? Man!

    Just use MySQL like everyone else.

    And of course he shouldn't have owned up! Next time the problem occurs, he can say, "I've been doing some testing and...", and be the hero.

  • Jamie (unregistered) in reply to md5sum
    md5sum:
    I'm still trying to figure out this whole "dry market" thing. People keep complaining that they can't find jobs, but I keep having people call me wanting me to interview for some developer position somewhere. Last 6 weeks I've had 3 calls. Granted I would have to relocate, but it wouldn't be a problem to find a new job. A friend of mine was laid off last year and found a new company in about 3 weeks. The longest I personally have ever been out of work was 5 weeks, and that was because I was unwilling to relocate at the time.

    I think it's the same thing as the homeless person holding a sign that states "Will work for food" right beneath the McDonald's sign that says "Now accepting applications". Yeah, I've seen that, literally. You can't tell me this guy can't find work, he just can't find work he wants to do all the time.

    Whilst I agree with you to an extent I think it's important to note that there is a difference between finding jobs and actually being good enough for it.

    I have friends who can't find work, not because they're not receiving phonecalls for interviews but simply because they're not good enough (a bit harsh, yes, but true)

  • Fenris (unregistered) in reply to Bluesman
    Bluesman:
    The real WTF is putting company critical info on a computer which is given to the newby as work-station.

    That was my first thought while reading the article, it would also explain the slow running PC. But no, the file was in a share.

  • NorgTheFat (unregistered) in reply to JamesQMurphy

    There would be performance issues if say thousands of people tried to connect at the same time and the file server was inadequate to handle that many requests...not that far fetched. This is especially bad for VPN/Remote users...

    Of course you are right. Not having this config information backed up/documented is the real WTF!

    Still, a login script would work better IMHO...

  • Bill C. (unregistered) in reply to NorgTheFat
    NorgTheFat:
    So rather than use a script to copy tsnames.ora from the share to the user's drive, (say the login script), they decided the best way was to just have the file shared out to everyone from the same location. Wow talk about slow performance issues!

    And I thought "shared" Access databases were bad...

    tnsnames isn't the database, just a small (ours is 3KB) config file. I doubt there's any significant performance penalty from that.

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    Does oracle need write permission to the file in question?

    Seems like the share should have been read only (and backed up).

  • ceiswyn (unregistered) in reply to DB
    DB:
    They have a single tnsnames.ora file that was removed by someone running something that they did not understand the impacts of. No backup of the file, no ldap/oid lookup instead, no maintaining the one gold copy of that file in a location that would not be removed by a client uninstall

    It's not actually unreasonable to assume that uninstalling client software will only affect files on the client PC. Do you really check the exact details of what the uninstall program does every time you uninstall something? Or do you, like the rest of us, just go ahead and do 'something that you do not understand the impacts of'?

    Sure, not backing up the file was insane; but the Oracle software shouldn't have deleted it in the first place.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to md5sum
    .... Yeah, I've seen that, literally. You can't tell me this guy can't find work, he just can't find work he wants to do all the time.
    I'd think right on the first, wrong on the second. Most likely, he's a panhandler who makes it his 'job'. The economy has been getting bad, but there's always a few that try to take advantage of the generosity of others, unfortunately.

    Though not technological, you could have a nifty WTF by figuring out if he actually lives in a nice home and getting before/after pictures of panhandler/homeowner. Bonus points if it's in a more expensive neighborhood.

  • AnOldRelic (unregistered) in reply to Otto
    Otto:
    If anybody on the system had uninstalled their copy of the software, same problem.
    This is TRWTF. Nevermind the lack of a backup. The fact that the uninstaller actively reaches out beyond the local scope to remove things is enormously... just... WRONG. Ugh. So yes, to nibh, TRWTF here is Oracle itself.
  • (cs) in reply to Iie
    Iie:
    TRWTF is not using LDAP for your lookups.
    Care to show me how to configure Toad to use LDAP instead of tnsnames.ora?
  • Need Inspiration (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that as soon as lennart deinstalls the client, knowing we're reading TDWTF, we all know the culprit already. Sigh...

  • Doug (unregistered)

    Well written. This could be Today's Puzzler on Tech Talk.

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    Does oracle need write permission to the file in question?

    Seems like the share should have been read only (and backed up).

    My company generally has the folder with the tnsnames.ora file set as read-only. Whether Oracle needs write permissions depends on exactly what you're doing with it. Often enough that I have a template saved with text to paste into the help desk tickets I put in for users that need that for something they're doing. I'm able to recognize the root cause of those errors very quickly these days ...

  • Tomi (unregistered)

    At least it was cheap db :)

  • Cryo (unregistered) in reply to md5sum
    md5sum:
    I think it's the same thing as the homeless person holding a sign that states "Will work for food" right beneath the McDonald's sign that says "Now accepting applications". Yeah, I've seen that, literally. You can't tell me this guy can't find work, he just can't find work he wants to do all the time.

    I agree wholeheartedly. However, a lot of people do the math, and find out they make more collecting unemployment and sitting at home than getting a part time job (or two). This is only exacerbated by the constant extension of benefits.

    Also, this why some quote unemployment as "unemployed and UNDERemployed"

  • (cs) in reply to md5sum
    md5sum:
    I think it's the same thing as the homeless person holding a sign that states "Will work for food" right beneath the McDonald's sign that says "Now accepting applications". Yeah, I've seen that, literally. You can't tell me this guy can't find work, he just can't find work he wants to do all the time.
    Would you want to eat burgers made by someone who sleeps cuddled up with his flea-ridden dog, in the same place where they both crap, who hasn't washed in 3 weeks and hasn't changed his clothes in 3 months? Nah, didn't think so. Would you give that person the benefit of the doubt, hire him (remember: he has no phone, no address, no references, no anything), and give him the facilities to wash/de-stink/de-flea? Again, I didn't think so.

    I get the point you're trying to make, and to some extent I agree (particularly when I hear women moaning about 'man-droughts'), but this is an argument I hear all the time, and it's an over-simplification of a problematic issue.

  • Centricity (unregistered)

    It's easy to find a job once you have experience. There are far more jobs for experienced workers than there are experienced workers to fill them.

    When you're fresh out of college like this guy, nobody wants to take a chance on you.

    This represents a sort of catch-22: you need experience before you can work, but you need to work to get experience. Internships don't help much.

  • Marvin the Martian (unregistered)

    This implementation should be used much more generally.

    For instance, when I shut down my computer it would be great if all sites I regularly go to stop as well; it makes it much easier to keep up with things.

  • (cs)

    These stories need to be written better to not give it away. The moment I read that he uninstalled the program and a minute later got a call saying "The database is gone" then I knew exactly what had happened.

    It still amazes me how utterly clueless some companies are, and how they can actually stay in business if people that stupid are running/working for them. If idiots can start businesses and make millions of dollars... think of how much money intelligent people could make?

  • Osno (unregistered)

    I miss IHOC

  • ich (unregistered) in reply to amischiefr

    Menu Session\New Connection - Tab to the right allows to switch between TNS, Direct connection and LDAP. You'd obviously have to have an LDAP descriptor pointed at your Oracle instance.

  • Iie (unregistered) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    Iie:
    TRWTF is not using LDAP for your lookups.
    Care to show me how to configure Toad to use LDAP instead of tnsnames.ora?

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=toad+ldap+descriptor

    Also, are you suggesting all of that company's internal customers are Toad users? If anything, LDAP still should have been the preferred method for the population and tnsnames should be a fallback for the IT developers. And since they're IT, they should be expected to maintain their own tnsnames relevant to their applications.

  • (cs) in reply to Osno
    Osno:
    I miss IHOC

    Not me. I miss Irish Girl!

  • (cs)

    +1 on "OP should tell the people concerned exactly how it happened."

    he had Full Control

    WTF #1, which pales in comparison to...

    Though the file server was backed up, that particular share hadn't been

    WTF #2

    The only way I've seen a global read/write network drive work well is if it gets wiped periodically so people don't keep important things there.

  • Osno (unregistered) in reply to Prosthetic Lips
    Prosthetic Lips:
    Osno:
    I miss IHOC

    Not me. I miss Irish Girl!

    Irish girl on an IHOC t-shirt?

  • Shakespeare (unregistered) in reply to ObiWayneKenobi
    ObiWayneKenobi:
    These stories need to be written better to not give it away. The moment I read that he uninstalled the program and a minute later got a call saying "The database is gone" then I knew exactly what had happened.
    I think you're just saying that. Probably all of us guessed that Lennart's actions had something to do with the problem, and if that had been the end of the story it would have been pretty ho hum. But that wasn't the point. The point was that a local uninstaller had deleted a remote file, which I don't think you guessed right away.

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