Cannot use 18c Net Manager to connect to OUD
We just set up Oracle Unified Directory 12.2.1.4 and added database connect identifiers (commonly called TNS entries). We can successfuly use them in tnsping or sqlplus. Net Manager from Oracle 12c or older client can also log into it to add or delete or update the connect identifiers. But when we launch Net Manager from 18c or 19c client trying to connect to OUD, even before we're prompted to enter username and password, the Net Manager GUI does not show "Directory" under the top line "Oracle Net Configuration", which only has "Local" under it. What could be wrong? Our client side %oracle_home%\network\admin\ldap.ora has these lines:
DIRECTORY_SERVERS= (<the new oud server hostname>:1389)
DEFAULT_ADMIN_CONTEXT = "dc=..."
DIRECTORY_SERVER_TYPE = OID
Again, these settings are correct because 12c or 11g Net Manager can use it with no problem.
I remember 18c has some new features or restrictions related to Net Services. Here's a problem we solved last year. We actually have two OID directory servers (we currently use OID, thinking of migrating to OUD), say oid1 and oid2. An F5 load balancer sits in front of them called oid. For thousands of clients in our company, we give them ldap.ora that uses oid.ourcompany.com as the directory server name. But if we DBAs use oid as the OID hostname in ldap.ora, 18c+ Net Manager has the same problem: "Directory" is not shown. The solution for us DBAs is to directly use oid1 or oid2, bypassing the load balancer. But in the new installation this time, we *are* specifying the OUD server hostname directly; there's no load balancer. It's just that the symptom is exactly the same as our last year's problem and the fact that a 12c/11g client is a good workaround makes us think the root cause is the same. But checking 18c New Features documentation doesn't reveal anything relevant.
So, my question is: How do we configure OUD and/or 18c or 19c Oracle client so we can use Net Manager to manage connect identifiers stored in OUD?
