I ended up opening a ticket on this one.  Apparently, there is a special service account called IFSINFO that has read access to the database (which is all I really need anyway).  I am requesting the credentials now.

If you are looking for the same answer, I would recommending asking the question in support.  You will need to have the VPN setup though to make it work, so be sure you have completed those steps already.

Cheers!

Hi @SeeingSharp , for our IFS implementation project, we have a similar requirement. So far, I do not yet have a view on the solution, but I will keep you posted.

I’m also interested to learn if your thread leads to a viable solution. 

Best of luck

Hi,

We have managed to get a VPN sorted out so that we can access the underlying databases but using  PL/SQL Developer to try to connect to the database we are getting the following error:-

I have Googled for help on this and the suggestion was that it was a version mismatch which would be solved by putting the following two lines in the sqlnet.ora file:

SQLNET.ALLOWED_LOGON_VERSION_CLIENT=8
SQLNET.ALLOWED_LOGON_VERSION_SERVER=8.

We have tried this and it has made no difference.

We opened a case with IFS to get the VPN sorted out and because the VPN is ok they have just said that it is a user configuration problem so they just want to close the case with no further help.

It would be great if someone who knows how to solve this apparent version mismatch problem with PL/SQL Developer could add to this thread with the answer please?

Cheers,

Neil.

Hi,

Just for information: We are migrating from APPS8 to IFS Cloud and we raised a case with IFS to get access to the underlying database in the Cloud.

This requires a VPN and once we had raised a case to get that sorted out (it was quite involved!) we got an email with details about the usernames and passwords that could be used to access the database.

Cheers,

Neil.

@PGNPROXSVE Just wanted to let you know that I did receive a successful response from my ticket and I have read access to all of our different environments using the Oracle SQL Developer tooling.  Assuming that you have the VPN setup, your COG document will contain the other technical bits.  For credentials, you will need to open a ticket (1 for each environment) requesting the credentials for IFSINFO.  It’s a Service Account that you won’t be able to set yourself, unfortunately.

@Neil Guild I was able to get PL/SQL Developer working properly.  Below are the contents of my sqlnet.ora file:

# sqlnet.ora Network Configuration File: C:\app\client\product\12.2.0\client_1\network\admin\sqlnet.ora
# Generated by Oracle configuration tools.

# This file is actually generated by netca. But if customers choose to 
# install "Software Only", this file wont exist and without the native 
# authentication, they will not be able to connect to the database on NT.

SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES= (NONE)

NAMES.DIRECTORY_PATH= (TNSNAMES, EZCONNECT)

Hopefully that will help you out?

Thank you for sharing, guys. We will pursue the same track. 

Cheers

@SeeingSharp,

Thanks for your suggestion.

I have tried these lines in my sqlnet.ora and I still get the same error, so the search for the solution continues.

I am using 

to try to access the database.

You seem to be using Oracle SQL Developer, is it the same tool?

Cheers,

Neil.

@Neil Guild PL/SQL Developer is a different tool than the one that I use, but I was able to get PL/SQL Developer to work as well.  I just prefer the SQL Developer | Oracle tool.  It feels more performant and it’s natively compliant on a Mac so it fits my workflow better.

To get the sqlnet.ora and the tnsnames.ora files working properly, I first installed the Oracle Database 19c Client for Windows here:

Oracle Database 19c Download for Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit)

I used the 64-bit but it looks like you have PL/SQL 32-bit, so you may want to download the 32-bit version so that they match (or get the 64-bit version of PL/SQL Developer).  Install it to a base location that you know (c:\oracle) or something like that.  Then, assuming c:\oracle, dump the tnsnames.ora and sqlnet.ora files in c:\oracle\product\19.0.0\client_1\Network\Admin.

Once you have that setup, in PL/SQL Developer, open the Preferences and under Oracle > Connection there is a box that says Oracle Home (empty is Autodetect).  Click on the down arrow and it should point you back to the c:\oracle\product\19.0.0\client_1\Network or something similar to that.  From that point, when I tried to create a new connection, the values from the tnsnames.ora were visible.

"FRIENDLY_NAME"=
  (DESCRIPTION=
    (ADDRES_LIST=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST="HOSTNAME")(PORT=1521)))
    (CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME="DB_NAME"))
)

That would be an example of the tnsnames.ora file where you need to replace “FRIENDLY_NAME”, “HOSTNAME” and “DB_NAME”.  Make sure you delete the quotes too :)

The HOSTNAME and DB_NAME come from the COG file from Support.  The FRIENDLY_NAME would be what you should see in the dropdown for the Database on the right side of the connection screen if you have the other pieces setup right.  Once I did those steps, I was able to get it all working.

Hi,  

Research on the internet has revealed that from Oracle Server version 12 and newer, connections from Oracle Clients versions older than 12 are not allowed by default, giving the error

ora-28040: No matching authentication protocol.

So, I had to download Instant Oracle Client version 19 and use that to make a connection to the Oracle 19c database.

Thanks for all your helpful suggestions to the original problem @SeeingSharp

See you on the Community again sometime .

Cheers,

Neil.

Hi everyone on this topic,
We are using IFS Cloud 22R1 fully managed by IFS Cloud Services, and I am very surprised to read this discussion because since the beginning (Dec. 2021) we were told by IFS that accessing the Use Place databases was forbidden and impossible.
The only database that we managed to have access to (thru VPN with such a tool as Oracle SQL Developer) is the one related to the DEV VM on the Build Place.
And there you go, telling that there is a read-only user IFSINFO for which I just have to open a case to get the password : that is all I need and am asking for ! :-)
So I’ll do that, but just before can you please tell me what the acronym COG goes for ? What is the COG document ?
Thanks in advance
Henri

Regarding my last post up above, maybe @SeeingSharp can you please tell me more about your comment on this dated from Sept. 22nd ?
Thanks in advance

Hi @HDAL, @SeeingSharp,

Do you have any new of positive developments here?

We are interested in it too…

regards

Janos

Hi @jasahu,

Yes, finally shortly before go live to IFS Cloud in January 2023 we could setup a IPSEC VPN Tunnel with IFS Cloud Team, and now we have access to all our Use Place databases in read-only mode with the Oracle user IFSINFO