Getting VALID_GUEST icxSession using Ebusiness Suite SDK session management

Question

Hi all
I have the following use case. My first question would be - is the ebusiness SDK appropriate for this use case in the first place?
I am trying to provide order invoices to customers on the web. I have an OAF page we use internally to view the pdfs. The plan is to use this page basically as a web service that provides the pdf to my application (sending users to the actual page is of course not desirable). So I am building a mid-tier RESTful web service that will hit the appropriate OAF page url, and take the input and pass it to an external app.
Of course, to access the OAF page, I need a valid icxSession. Previously, I was able to get a valid session by calling some of the icx functions through a PL SQL call. Then I extract and pass the $TWO_TASK cookie, and use it in my call to the OAF page. I then pass along the pdf I get from the OAF page as a Response. I had this working. But I understand the icx PL SQL functions are (or will soon be) deprecated, so I am trying to avoid using them if possible. And so, now I have been trying to use the Ebusiness SDK.
Is this a valid use of the SDK? I know the icx PL SQL functions are being deprecated and all, but how valid would using them be as a backup plan?
Here is my experience so far with the SDK.
I have registered the nodes, setup profile options, created the AppDataSource, and everything else in the steps found in the pdf manual (titled Oracle E-Business Suite Software Development Kit for Java). I have integrated some code into my RESTful service to use the fndext.jar(I am using Jersey by the way). Right now, I can instantiate the EBiz object with the APPL_SERVER_ID from my desktop dbc file, create the AppsRequestWrapper and Session. However, I am getting a session as a guest, not a VALID session as the new user I created with the UMX|APPS_SCHEMA_CONNECT role. I believe I have my app and the EBS instance on the same domain, so I do not think that is the problem. Could there be other reasons for this problem? Some steps to troubleshoot this would be wonderful - note I am developing the service in Eclipse, and not JDeveloper though.
So of course with a guest session, I cannot access the page. However, I have found that is I use Session.convertGuest() and pass in the user name of the user with the UMX|APPS_SCHEMA_CONNECT role, that I can now get the icx cookie value, and successfully use it to get the pdf data as I was before. So it is working like this, I am just not sure it is good practice. I expected to not need to use convertGuest at all - I thought I would have a VALID session immediately. Can someone confirm this for me - should I indeed have a VALID session as soon as I instantiate the EBiz object and create the session? Or is a VALID_GUEST session the intended initial session?
My last question is about the HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse objects I pass in to instantiate AppsRequestWrapper. I have not been able to find an example of this used in a RESTful web service. So to get these objects, I am using the following:
private @Context HttpServletRequest request;
private @Context HttpServletResponse response;
Does this seem correct, or should I be doing this some other way?
Thanks very much
edit - one other thing. In the documentation, it talks about editing your hosts file:
"1. Open C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file on notepad. Then replace the
line 127.0.0.1 localhost with #127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.0.1 myapp.us.oracle.com"
I am not sure how to decipher this. It seems to be telling me to replace
127.0.0.1 localhost
with
#127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.0.1 mydomain.com
All on the same line... I don't know everything about the hosts file and how it works, but wouldn't that just be a commented out line?
Are the instructions perhaps trying to say to replace
127.0.0.1 localhost
with two lines:
#127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 mydomain.com
That seems to make more sense to me, but I wanted to clarify since it is not clear in the pdf.
Edited by: mkohanek on Mar 14, 2013 11:33 AM
Edited by: mkohanek on Mar 14, 2013 12:24 PM

Answer 1

Hi,
Regarding the host file change in the documentation: The EBS SDK routines require that your external application, which is typically on a separate machine from the EBS installation, must be on the same domain (such as oracle.com) as the EBS installation. In development, we are often working from machines (like a laptop) that are not on the same domain as the EBS instances we are using, so for testing purposes we often need to make our "external application" machines LOOK like they are in the same domain. This is ONLY for testing purposes.
Thanks,
Sara