Referencing session state across DBLinks

Question

I have a central security package that all applications access to provide item-level authorisation.
Recent extensions to the security model require additional information from the application, held in Application Items.
For various legacy reasons I want to avoid having to add additional parameters to the security functions called so I reference the application items via the V() function. This works perfectly on local applications (within the same database) but V() returns null values if the application is accessing the security function via a DB link.
So, is there any way to access session state from a PL/SQL package of an application that is not running on the same database?
Regards
Richard

Answer 1

Richard
Something along these lines might work. Say the remote package is named 'sec var'. At the remote db create 'sec_vas' as follows. create or replace package sec_vars is
var1 varchar2(100);   // new items needed by auth fn
var2 varchar2(100); 
procedure setval (var1 in varchar2,var2 in varchar2);  //sets var1/var2  with values from session state   
function getval (var in varchar2)  return varchar2;   // the local 'v' fn
function doAuth() return boolean;
end;
create or replace package body sec_vars is
procedure setval (var1 in varchar2,var2 in varchar2) is
begin
sec_vars.var1:='Variable 1';
sec_vars.var2 := 'variable 2';
end;
function getval (var in varchar2)  return varchar2 is
begin
if upper(var)='VAR1' then
   return sec_vars.var1;
elsif  upper(var)='VAR2' then
    return sec_vars.var2;
else
    return null;
end if;
end;
function doAuth() return boolean is
begin
select count(*) from emp where ename=sec_vars.get_val('VAR1'');
return true;
end;
end;And in the Apex db we do something like create synonym sec_vars for sec_vars@remote_db;
// an auth process
begin
sec_vars.setval ('Variable 1','variable 2'); // set required session item values
sec_vars.do_auth();
end;varad