Damon...
        This is some VERY helpful information. I have been attempting to get
listserv and Oracle to interact with them being on separate machines, in the
same sort of environment. (Solaris 2.6, Oracle 8.1.5). What I was thinking
of doing is installing just the Oracle client software on the listserv box,
and seeing if I can get it to compile that way. Are the required libraries
included with the client?
Also, when you say no support, do you literally mean none? Have you been
able to find any help anywhere?
Has anyone else found help with this problem for that matter?

Also, I'm still looking for help, hints, suggestions, anything at all on
running listserv with postfix, under Solaris 2.6.

Thanks...
Sean Lutner

-----Original Message-----
From: Damon Green [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 10:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Connecting Listserv to Oracle


Just sharing some of the information I now have about completing this task,
having found little help on the net, the manuals, or Lsoft, in no particular
order.

The main stumbling block was compiling lsv to connect to Oracle via OCI.

(Our system consists Solaris 2.6 listserv box, GCC, Listserv 1.8d
Oracle server running Oracle 8.0.4 & NT box for LSMTP)

The required Oracle libraries vary from case to case according to Lsoft
support,
who are unable to even suggest where to start.
I finally pared the library requirements down to these:

CFLAGS_Solaris=-lsocket -lnsl -lclntsh -lgen -ldl -lcommon
(line extracted from the Makefile)

You'll need to set the env variable
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/oracle8/app/oracle/product/8.0.4/lib

It may be possible to use a slightly different set of libraries, but this
seemed to work for me,
it simply won't compile if you don't have the right set of libraries.
To access them you need Oracle installed on the same machine as that which
you are compiling
Listserv, in our development environment this is the case, live we have
separate machines for Oracle
and Listserv, if anyone has any ideas how to get that to compile when the
required Oracle
libraries are on a different machine I'd appreciate it :-)

Listserv configuration needs to be set to accept database calls, in my case
go.user, the tail end
of mine looks like this :

JOB_STAT_DEFAULT=0
MAXBSMTP=1000
SORT_RECIPIENTS=2
SMTP_FORWARD_1="2*mailhostNT"
USE_LSMTP_MAIL_MERGE=1
DIST_OWNER_MAIL_MERGE=1
WWW_ARCHIVE_CGI="/cgi-bin/wa"
WWW_ARCHIVE_DIR="/data/wwwroot/listserv/archives"
OCI_CONNECT="DEV"
OCI_UID="auser"
OCI_PWD="apassword"
DBMS_DEFAULT_TABLE=listserv
DEBUG_DBMS_FLAGS=1
export DEBUG_DBMS_FLAGS

export MAXBSMTP SORT_RECIPIENTS SMTP_FORWARD_1 USE_LSMTP_MAIL_MERGE
DIST_OWNER_MAIL_MERGE
export WWW_ARCHIVE_CGI WWW_ARCHIVE_DIR OCI_CONNECT OCI_UID OCI_PWD
DBMS_DEFAULT_TABLE

Don't use this if you're still using sendmail, you'll kill your system.

Now is the time to create an oracle user for listserv, and create a listserv
table for it. My tnsnames.ora has "DEV" set
to loopback to my Oracle instance on the listserv box, if this sounds like
gibberish to you, you either need a DBA, or
to brush up on Oracle.

You should now be able to set up a DBMS based list, old style lists still
operate in the
traditional manner, it's not until you change the list header that funky
Oracle type things
start happening.
The line required in the header is
DBMS=Yes
In it's simplest form that is all that's required, listserv will connect to
Oracle, create the required columns
(one for the listname and an email and name columns) and as you subscribe
users they will be added in to the table.

I need some more complex functionality for distribute jobs, so my header
entry looks more like

DBMS=Yes,Table(listserv),email(email),name(name),Uemail(uemail),Options(opti
ons)

I'm using the defaults, I had to create some columns manually for some
reason, this area seems to be
shrouded in mystery.

This is as far as I've got, if this helps anyone else complete the same task
I'm happy, the list archives
didn't seem to have much on the subject, now they have a bit.

Usual disclaimer applies.

Damon Green
Webmaster - beeb.com