Oracle 8.0.6 and JDBC encryption

Hoping somebody can help me out here as I'm very confused. We currently have a web application working with a web server on one Solaris box and the database server (running Oracle 8.0.6) on another box. We communicate between the servlets on the web server and the database using the JDBC thin drivers.

It has been decided that we need to secure the JDBC connection by encrypting. I have trolled Deja News and Oracle's sites and I seem to be getting conflicting information. Some things I have read seem to indicate that *IF* you are using Oracle 8.1.6 and *IF* you use the OCI JDBC drivers instead of the thin client and *IF* you install something called "Advanced Networking Option" and tweak things appropriately, you can get an encrypted JDBC connection.

But I'm not sure if this applies to Oracle 8.0.6 (because of various other application dependencies we are stuck with 8.0.6 for now). Also, even for 8.1.6, I saw some messages in metalink (http://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/ml2_documents.showDocument? p_database_id=FOR&p_id=93064.999) that seemed to indicate that it was broken and "might" be fixed for 8.1.7. But it's not clear to me if it was something that "used" to work and got broken, or if it has never been supported. I've also seen some older posts in dejanews that say JDBC isn't encrypted and "never will" be.

I'm still pretty much an Oracle neophyte so any pointers to comprehensive documentation, FAQs etc. which specifically cover using JDBC encryption would be greatly appreciated. I have tried trolling through various Oracle documentation to unravel this but I keep finding things like "see such and such guide" which then contains 15 or 20 words on the subject and refers me to yet another doc, which I then can't find.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

Eric

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Before you buy. Received on Tue Aug 01 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT