Remote links fail

Question

We have a micky mouse stored procedure to check the link to a remote Oracle database before attempting to transfer data between the two.
create or replace function isFredAvailable return boolean
/* Figures out whether FRED is available or not. */
is
dummy integer;
begin
execute immediate 'select 7 from dual@FRED'
into dummy;
return true;
exception when others then
/* We don't really care why it failed. If it fails, then something
must be seriously wrong... */
return false;
end isFredAvailable;
For some reason, when this is called from a Forms application it slowly caused our live system to degrade and eventually crash.
For reasons known only to themselves, the DBAs enabled the link to FRED (name changed to protect the innocent) before they had created any tables etc.

Answer 1

Do you have double NAT.. ??
If so it will block incoming packets.. but you will still have network connections.. this cannot be done without the TC in the correct setup.
The best way to tell is to give me a traceroute to a google DNS server..
So just copy and paste it.
MacProie-5:~ Ray$ traceroute 8.8.8.8
traceroute to 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1  local (192.168.2.254)  14.586 ms  95.546 ms  99.949 ms
2  adsl1.mel.dft.com.au (203.123.69.176)  8.629 ms  8.604 ms  9.245 ms
3  tge0-1-0-308.core0.mel.dft.com.au (203.123.72.73)  9.443 ms  8.661 ms  9.087 ms
4  ve420.er01.mel01.vic.plat.net.au (14.137.114.25)  9.371 ms  9.302 ms  9.291 ms
5  eth2-1.bdr01.syd01.nsw.plat.net.au (202.62.143.121)  35.538 ms  30.759 ms  25.110 ms
6  google.syd02.nsw.plat.net.au (202.62.143.65)  22.021 ms  21.641 ms  25.313 ms
7  72.14.237.21 (72.14.237.21)  22.245 ms  21.772 ms  21.980 ms
8  google-public-dns-a.google.com (8.8.8.8)  21.622 ms  21.569 ms  21.926 ms
You must not have more than one private ip address. In my case 192.168.x.x
If you do have then you must bridge the TC. And even that maybe inadequate.
I can tell you how to do that.. but need to know what OS and airport utility version you are using.