Oracle 8i & JNDI Problem

Question

I am trying to connect to a remote instance of Oracle 8i. The DataSource object is bound, but when I do a lookup I get a null pointer exception.
Here's the source code so far:
public class ConnectionManager {
private static ConnectionManager instance = null;
private static String USER_NAME = "dyn3";
private static String PASSWORD = "dyn3";
private static String DRIVER_TYPE = "thin";
private static String DATABASE_SERVER_NAME = "3.87.208.60";
private static int PORT = 1521;
private static String DATABASE_NAME = "etest";
private static int MAX_CONNECTIONS = 500;
public static final String ORACLE_DATABASE_URL = "@3.45.93.127:1521:";
public static final String ORACLE_DATABASE_SID = "media6";
private static String BIND_NAME =
DATABASE_NAME+"@"+DATABASE_SERVER_NAME+":"+PORT;
private InitialContext initCtx = null;
* Loads the Oracle JDBC driver
* @see oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver
* @see java.sql.DriverManager
private ConnectionManager() throws Exception {
try {
DriverManager.registerDriver(new oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver());
createOracleDataSource();
}catch(Exception s) {
s.printStackTrace();
throw s;
private void createOracleDataSource()
throws SQLException, NamingException {
DataSource ods = new DataSource();
ods.setDriverType(DRIVER_TYPE);
ods.setServerName(DATABASE_SERVER_NAME);
ods.setDatabaseName(DATABASE_NAME);
ods.setPortNumber(PORT);
ods.setUser(USER_NAME);
ods.setPassword(PASSWORD);
ods.setMaxLimit(MAX_CONNECTIONS);
rebind(ods);
private void rebind(OracleConnectionCacheImpl ods)
throws NamingException {
try {
File directory = new File("jdbc");
if ( ! (directory.exists()) ) {
directory.mkdir();
System.out.println("url= "+directory.toURL().toString());
Hashtable env = new Hashtable ();
env.put (Context.INITIAL_CONTEXT_FACTORY,
"com.sun.jndi.fscontext.RefFSContextFactory");
env.put (Context.PROVIDER_URL,
directory.toURL().toString());
initCtx = new InitialContext(env);
System.out.println("Context = "+initCtx);
System.out.println("BIND_NAME="+BIND_NAME);
initCtx.rebind(BIND_NAME, ods);
}catch(NameAlreadyBoundException n) {
//do nothing - this is OK
}catch(NamingException ne) {
ne.printStackTrace();
throw ne;
}catch(Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
* Returns an instance of ConnectionManager
public static ConnectionManager getInstance() throws Exception {
if (instance == null) {
instance = new ConnectionManager();
return instance;
* Gets a connection to the database
public Connection getConnection() throws SQLException, NamingException {
DataSource pds = (DataSource)initCtx.lookup(BIND_NAME);
return pds.getConnection();
Can anyone shed some light on this problem? The Oracle manuals aren't much help.
Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use internet just to check if the apache server embedded with your oracle, not to verify oracle itself. Open a prompt in your host and try to access it by sqlplus "/ as sysdba" this should let you connect, then verify listener is up and running, lsnrctl status , this will let you know if you are able to connect, next if you want to access it from outside, install an 8i client on a remote pc and configure connectivity files using netca.
~ Madrid