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Overview
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Overview

FND_OAM_METALINK_CREDS is a confidential Oracle Applications (APPS) PL/SQL package that manages the storage and retrieval of Oracle MetaLink credentials within Oracle E-Business Suite. Metalink (subsequently My Oracle Support) is Oracle's support infrastructure, through which customers log service requests, download patches, and access diagnostic tools. Several EBS components, including patching utilities and diagnostic frameworks, require the customer's Metalink user identifier and password so that sessions can be authenticated programmatically without interactive entry of those secrets.

The package is declared with AUTHID CURRENT_USER, meaning its SQL statements execute with the privileges of the invoking user rather than the definer. It is classified under ETRM as an OTHER API, indicating that it is an internal infrastructure package rather than a supported public integration interface. Its header carries a noship designation, which is consistent with a support-oriented, low-level utility whose consumers are other Oracle-supplied modules. The package stores credentials per Applications username, allowing each EBS account to associate its own MetaLink identity where required.

Key Procedures and Functions

The package exposes three documented program units.

  • PUT_CREDENTIALS — Persists MetaLink credentials for a given Applications user. It accepts the Applications username together with the MetaLink user ID, the MetaLink password, and an e-mail address. If a credential row already exists for that username, the procedure updates it; otherwise it inserts a new row. The procedure returns an error message and a return code, with a value of 0 indicating success and any other value indicating an error condition. This insert-or-update semantics means the procedure can be invoked repeatedly to enroll or refresh credentials without pre-checking for existing data.
  • GET_CREDENTIALS — The retrieval counterpart and the object most commonly located via the search term get_credentials. Given an Applications username, it returns the associated MetaLink user ID, MetaLink password, and e-mail address, along with the standard error message and return code outputs. Callers use this procedure whenever an authenticated MetaLink session must be established on behalf of a specific EBS user, avoiding hard-coded or externally supplied credentials.
  • TEST — A diagnostic procedure declared without parameters. It is used to verify that the package is installed, compiles correctly, and is operational within the current environment, and is typically invoked during troubleshooting or post-installation validation.

Tables Accessed

The package references three tables through APPS synonyms. The primary data store is FND_OAM_METALINK_CRED, which holds one row of MetaLink credential information per Applications username and is both read and written by the two credential procedures. FND_USER is referenced to validate or resolve Applications user identities against the EBS user repository, ensuring credentials are associated only with valid accounts. UTL_RAW is the Oracle-supplied raw data manipulation package, referenced through the synonym list, indicating that credential values — most likely the MetaLink password — are manipulated, and presumably obfuscated or converted, at the raw byte level before storage or after retrieval. This is consistent with Oracle's practice of not persisting support-site passwords in clear, directly readable form.

Usage Notes

FND_OAM_METALINK_CREDS is an internal Oracle-shipped package. The ETRM metadata records no downstream packages that reference it, so its invocation is expected from Oracle internal code, from Oracle Applications forms or administrator-facing setup pages where a user registers MetaLink details, and from diagnostic or patching utilities that need to authenticate against MetaLink on the user's behalf. Customers and integrators should treat the package as unsupported for direct custom development; it is documented here primarily so that developers encountering get_credentials in a call stack or error trace can identify its role. Custom code should not rely on the signatures shown, as they are internal and subject to change across releases. In Oracle EBS 12.1.1 and 12.2.2, storage of MetaLink credentials supports patch application and support workflows, and administrators maintaining those credentials should use the supported EBS user interface rather than invoking these procedures directly.