Re: Undocumented features

In article <3g3g8s$a0b_at_News1.mcs.com>, dmausner_at_brauntech.com says...
>
>In article <D2wnDM.F02_at_quay.ie>, lsd_at_quay.ie says...
>>
>>Mark Vandenbroeck (mvandenb_at_be.oracle.com) wrote:
>>: Ruud de Haas <100121.1053_at_CompuServe.COM> wrote:
>>: >
>>: > We found the following undocumented Oracle feature:
>>: >
>>: > ALTER SESSION SET EVENTS 'IMMEDIATE TRACE NAME CONTROLF LEVEL 99'
>>: >
>>: > Can anyone tell me:
>>: > what other commands besides SET EVENTS are possible ?
>>: These 'events' are undocumented and should remain so. You are not
>>: supposed to use these unless instructed by support.
>> Are you saying that my Oracle DB contains hidden logic bombs and all
 that
>> it requires is for the office monkey to come up with the right
 combination
>> of key strokes and then WIPEOUT. Sounds like you're playing the company
>> secret game a bit too seriously.
>[flame doused]
>
>It's pure debug stuff; the equivalent forms can also be entered via
>undocumented INIT.ORA parameters. My sources reveal that there is nothing
>useful you can do with these things in a production environment. And
>you can do lots of harm. You're not missing anything and you are not in
>any danger from randomly-typing monkeys or other life-forms.
>--
>Dave Mausner, Sr. Consultant, Braun Technology Group, Chicago.
>

1. Most of the undocumented features should be left alone. As Oracle is really an operating system within an operating system, there are many features that could be dangerous if used carelessly. It's important that the DBA's, and especially connect internal features are carefully managed - just like o/s system or root/superuser privileges
2. Most of the features are documented - look in the ascii error file (on vms it's ora_error. some are even in the init.ora file; The problem is, the bad ones and the good ones are indistinquishable. One will turn on a tracing features that are good for client-server systems (beyond sql-trace=true). There's also a program on vms/oracle that talks to 2-task or network jobs and can be used to start tracing on a session in process. Oracle 5 had an undocumented way to turn on tracing for performance tuning.
3. Keep the pressure on Oracle to document these better. There's always the danger of misuse, but the system/database administrators can already destroy things. Well-documented "power" features would not be routinely used, but could be life-savers in certain situations. (how long was tracing on sqlnet 1 undocumented?

PS With sqlnet 2, try setting trace_level_client as a number trace_level_client=17. Your trace file could be huge, but it's full of nifty information - another "undocumented feature"

-- 
Bob King - rking_at_dfw.net
business ph. - (817) 551-8223