JSP and SSO

Question

Hi,
In the oracle database I have my own schema (let's say it is called mySchema) where I have created a package PKG_MINE. The package contains, among others a function getItems which makes queries on portal30 tables. When I execute the code of this function as a procedure (after changing the function into procedure) from portal everything works fine. I wanted to make a call via JSP to that function. It goes without any problem until I make a query on a portal30 table. Then it returns a blank page. I execute the JSP page out of portal. It seems that there is a problem with SSO (the error I get while executing the query as mySchema in SQL*Plus is
ORA-06510: PL/SQL: unhandled user-defined exception
ORA-06512: at "PORTAL30.WWCTX_SSO", line 849
ORA-06510: PL/SQL: unhandled user-defined exception
ORA-06512: at "PORTAL30.WWCTX_SSO", line 669
ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error
ORA-06512: at "PORTAL30.WWCTX_SSO", line 935
ORA-06512: at "PORTAL30.WWCTX_API", line 170
ORA-06512: at line 1)
I've searched in Internet but still found nothing. What do I miss? Do the user mySchema has to have read privileges to read the data from portal30 tables? (there are many of them I use). Do I have to be logged in? (I want to show the results to the public user, not authorized one)
I connected to the database both as mySchema and Portal30. With the same results - a blank page.
I would appreciate any help
thanks in advance
Ewa Janiszewska

Answer 1

Are you using JDBC to connect to the DB in your JSP page? If so, then what is happening is that the JSP-JDBC connection to the database is established independently from the connection through the PL/SQL gateway that Portal uses. It doesnt matter if you are building portlets or how you call the jsp, any time you connect with JDBC you are connecting to the database though a different connection than your Portal connection. And as such, the PL/SQL PDK API has no idea that a portal user is logged in, so the calls to those procedures fail. You will probably find the same exception occuring if you try to run that procedure in SQL Plus. There is no portal context set, so it fails.
At this point you have 2 options, that I know of.
1) call this procedure before you call the PLSQL PDK API procedure:
wwctx_api_private.set_context('portal30','portal30');
that will trick the API into thinking the portal30 user is logged in. Becareful with that, as it may be a security risk to allow everyone to run as the portal30 user.
2) a second option is to place all your code in a stored procedure, then from your JSP use a link or a FORM submit to that stored procedure. Because web stored procedures are called through the PL/SQL gateway, they will have access to the Portal session information (that JDBC does not), and should execute those procedures with the proper privelege. One thing to make sure is that the schema that your portal user maps to has privilege to execute the stored procedure you write to access the PDK API.
At the end of that stored procedure, you can include a call to owa_util.redirect_url to send the user back to the JSP page.
So the proccess flow is:
JSP page submits or links to a PL/SQL stored procedure
PL/SQL stored procedure calls PDK API functions, then redirects the user to the JSP page (or where ever they need to go)
I am doing this in an application now it works pretty well. let me know if you have any questions