RE: SQLNet.ora file

My comments:
a) You should always send responses to the list as opposed to the individual, because you'll get more (and more accurate) answers that way.

b) Sign up for membership at the Oracle Technology Network page ( http://otn.oracle.com/ ) - it's free, and they have the full documentation online.

c) SQLNET.ora parameters are  Net8 Administrator's Guide. For the 8.1.5 documentation, look in Appendix C: Configuration Parameters, there's a section called Profile Parameters (SQLNET.ORA)

Now, why you were unable to connect with the sqlnet.ora that you included below: There are several methods for TNS name resolution. One of them is by using the list of SIDs/services that are present in your TNSNAMES.ora file (usually in ORACLE_HOME/network/admin, but you can set up an environment variable named TNS_ADMIN that points to a different directory and put the configuration files there.) Another method is by using an Oracle Names server, which is an Oracle facility to keep all the names in a central location. Your SQLNET.ora file was telling Net8 to go talk to a centralized Oracle Names server. To change that, you would:

1. set NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH = (tnsnames, onames) to tell Net8 to first use your tnsnames.ora file, and if the name isn't found there, then to get the description for the SID from the Oracle Names server;

or
2) set
NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH = (tnsnames)
and remove the
NAMES.PREFERRED_SERVERS section from your sqlnet.ora

But better yet, you should find out from your DBA if there is an Oracle Names server set up, and if so, how to properly set NAMES.PREFERRED_SERVERS and NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian King [mailto:brian_at_starntech.com]

The error I was getting was "ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve service name when the sqlnet.ora file was present. The file sqlnet.ora file contains the following:
# SQLNET.ORA Network Configuration File: F:\oracle\ora81\NETWORK\ADMIN\sqlnet.ora
# Generated by Oracle configuration tools.
NAMES.PREFERRED_SERVERS =
  (ADDRESS_LIST =
    (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = setusupthebomb)(PORT = 1521)) ) SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES= (NONE)
NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH= (HOSTNAME)
I have no idea what this file is used for. I may have changed something in it, but I am not sure. The reason that I figured out that this was the problem was a coworker had the sqlnet.ora file and I did not. However, I was able to connect and he was not able to. Once he deleted his sqlnet.ora file, his was able to connect.

As you can see, I changed the SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES=(NONE), but that didn't do any good. Should NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH be equal to the host? Received on Tue Sep 25 2001 - 16:05:09 CDT