Access PingOne Data as a Remote Oracle Database

The Oracle Database Gateway for ODBC and Heterogeneous Services technology enable you to connect to ODBC data sources as remote Oracle databases. This article shows how to use the CData ODBC Driver for PingOne to create a database link from PingOne to Oracle and to query PingOne data through the SQL*Plus tool. You can also create the database link and execute queries from SQL Developer.

Connect to PingOne as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to PingOne follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.

To connect to PingOne, configure these properties:

• : The region where the data for your PingOne organization is being hosted.
• : The type of authentication to use when connecting to PingOne.
• Either (required when using the default PingOne domain) or , configured as described below.

Configuring WorkerAppEnvironmentId

is the ID of the PingOne environment in which your Worker application resides. This parameter is used only when the environment is using the default PingOne domain (auth.pingone). It is configured after you have created the custom OAuth application you will use to authenticate to PingOne, as described in Creating a Custom OAuth Application in the Help documentation.

First, find the value for this property:

1. From the home page of your PingOne organization, move to the navigation sidebar and click Environments.
2. Find the environment in which you have created your custom OAuth/Worker application (usually Administrators), and click Manage Environment. The environment's home page displays.
3. In the environment's home page navigation sidebar, click Applications.
4. Find your OAuth or Worker application details in the list.
5. Copy the value in the Environment ID field. It should look similar to:
   

   WorkerAppEnvironmentId='11e96fc7-aa4d-4a60-8196-9acf91424eca'

Now set to the value of the Environment ID field.

Configuring AuthorizationServerURL

is the base URL of the PingOne authorization server for the environment where your application is located. This property is only used when you have set up a custom domain for the environment, as described in the PingOne platform API documentation. See Custom Domains.

Authenticating to PingOne with OAuth

PingOne supports both OAuth and OAuthClient authentication. In addition to performing the configuration steps described above, there are two more steps to complete to support OAuth or OAuthCliet authentication:

• Create and configure a custom OAuth application, as described in Creating a Custom OAuth Application in the Help documentation.
• To ensure that the driver can access the entities in Data Model, confirm that you have configured the correct roles for the admin user/worker application you will be using, as described in Administrator Roles in the Help documentation.
• Set the appropriate properties for the authscheme and authflow of your choice, as described in the following subsections.

OAuth (Authorization Code grant)

Set to OAuth.

Desktop Applications

Get and Refresh the OAuth Access Token

After setting the following, you are ready to connect:

• : GETANDREFRESH. To avoid the need to repeat the OAuth exchange and manually setting the each time you connect, use .
• : The Client ID you obtained when you created your custom OAuth application.
• : The Client Secret you obtained when you created your custom OAuth application.
• : The redirect URI you defined when you registered your custom OAuth application. For example: https://localhost:3333

When you connect, the driver opens PingOne's OAuth endpoint in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions to the application. The driver then completes the OAuth process:

1. The driver obtains an access token from PingOne and uses it to request data.
2. The OAuth values are saved in the location specified in , to be persisted across connections.

The driver refreshes the access token automatically when it expires.

For other OAuth methods, including Web Applications, Headless Machines, or Client Credentials Grant, refer to the Help documentation.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Note: If you need to modify the DSN or create other PingOne DSNs, you must use a system DSN and the bitness of the DSN must match your Oracle system. You can access and create 32-bit DSNs on a 64-bit system by opening the 32-bit ODBC Data Source Administrator from C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for PingOne in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

[CData PingOne Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for PingOne
Description = My Description
AuthScheme = OAuth
WorkerAppEnvironmentId = eebc33a8-xxxx-4f3a-yyyy-d3e5262fd49e
Region = NA
OAuthClientId = client_id
OAuthClientSecret = client_secret
InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Set Connection Properties for Compatibility with Oracle

The driver provides several connection properties that streamline accessing PingOne data just as you would an Oracle database. Set the following properties when working with PingOne data in SQL*Plus and SQL Developer. For compatibility with Oracle, you will need to set the following connection properties, in addition to authentication and other required connection properties.

• MapToWVarchar=False

  Set this property to map string data types to SQL_VARCHAR instead of SQL_WVARCHAR. By default, the driver uses SQL_WVARCHAR to accommodate various international character sets. You can use this property to avoid the ORA-28528 Heterogeneous Services data type conversion error when the Unicode type is returned.

• MaximumColumnSize=4000

  Set this property to restrict the maximum column size to 4000 characters.

• IncludeDualTable=True

  Set this property to mock the Oracle DUAL table. SQL Developer uses this table to test the connection.

Linux Configuration

In Linux environments, Oracle uses UTF-8 to communicate with the unixODBC Driver manager, whereas the default driver encoding is UTF-16. To resolve this, open the file /opt/cdata/cdata-driver-for-pingone/lib/cdata.odbc.pingone.ini in a text editor and set the encoding.

cdata.odbc.pingone.ini

[Driver]
DriverManagerEncoding = UTF-8

Configure the ODBC Gateway, Oracle Net, and Oracle Database

Follow the procedure below to set up an ODBC gateway to PingOne data that enables you to query live PingOne data as an Oracle database.

1. Create the file initmypingonedb.ora in the folder oracle-home-directory/hs/admin and add the following setting:

   initmypingonedb.ora

   HS_FDS_CONNECT_INFO = "CData PingOne Sys"

2. Add an entry to the listener.ora file. This file is located in oracle-home-directory/NETWORK/admin.

   If you are using the Database Gateway for ODBC, your listener.ora needs to have a SID_LIST_LISTENER entry that resembles the following:

   listener.ora

   SID_LIST_LISTENER =
    (SID_LIST =
    (SID_DESC =
    (SID_NAME = mypingonedb)
    (ORACLE_HOME = your-oracle-home)
    (PROGRAM = dg4odbc)
    )
    )
   

   If you are using Heterogeneous Services, your listener.ora needs to have a SID_LIST_LISTENER entry that resembles the following:

   listener.ora

   SID_LIST_LISTENER =
    (SID_LIST =
    (SID_DESC =
    (SID_NAME = mypingonedb)
    (ORACLE_HOME = your-oracle-home)
    (PROGRAM = hsodbc)
    )
    )
   

3. Add the connect descriptor below in tnsnames.ora, located in oracle-home-directory/NETWORK/admin:

   tnsnames.ora

   mypingonedb =
    (DESCRIPTION=
    (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=localhost)(PORT=1521))
    (CONNECT_DATA=(SID=mypingonedb))
    (HS=OK)
    ) 
   

4. Restart the listener.

5. Test the configuration with the following command:

   tnsping mypingonedb

6. Open SQL*Plus and create the database link with the command below:

   CREATE DATABASE LINK mypingonedb CONNECT TO "user" IDENTIFIED BY "password" USING 'mypingonedb';

You can now execute queries in SQL*Plus like the one below (note the double quotation marks around the table name):

SELECT * from "[CData].[Administrators].Users"@mypingonedb WHERE EmployeeType = 'Contractor';