How do I make my Java application identify itself to Oracle on connection?

Question

When my application connects to an Oracle database I want to be able to see by looking at the active sessions in the database that it is connected. Currently it identifies itself as "JDBC Thin Client" because that's the driver that I'm using, but other Java based applications that I have are somehow able to set this value to something more meaningful, like "SQL Developer". I thought it was a property of the Connection or the OracleDataSource, but I've not managed to find one that does the trick. Is this possible? In case it matters, I'm using Java 1.5, with Oracle 10g and the 10g thin driver.

Answer 1

You need to define the connection property v$session.program in your data source, in such a way that that property will be added to each connection. How you do that depends on your data source implementation. The value you set the property to will appear in oracle's active session table.

Answer 2

java.util.Properties props = new java.util.Properties();
props.setProperty("password","mypassword");
props.setProperty("user","myusername");
props.put("v$session.osuser", System.getProperty("user.name").toString());
props.put("v$session.machine", InetAddress.getLocalHost().getCanonicalHostName());
props.put("v$session.program", "My Program Name");
DriverManager.registerDriver (new oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver());
Connection conn=
DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:oracle:thin:@myhostname:1521:mysid",props);

query v$session

SQL>select username,osuser,program,machine
from v$session
where username = 'ROB'; 

USERNAME  OSUSER       PROGRAM             MACHINE
--------- -----------  ------------------  -----------
ROB       rmerkw       My Program Name     machine

Answer 3

There is also an Oracle function:

dbms_application_info.set_client_info('Client Info');

which sets the ClientInfo column in v$session.

This might be useful if you only have access to the Connection rather than the underlying DataSource or DriverManager.