Setting up authentication on your laptop to use Data Reporter in Oracle APEX 26.1+

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The Data Reporter section in Oracle APEX 26.1 is for business users that normally work with this in a production environment. A production environment should always be configured to leverage some form of Single Sign-On (SSO). To enforce this, Data Reporter features aren't available in a new APEX instance where APEX authentication is set by default for Data Reporter authentication.


When you would like to demo Data Reporter in your personal APEX enrvironment, setting up SSO might not always be an option, so how can you setup the authentication in a way that lets you use Data Reporter? Here are the steps to undertake.

Logon to the internal workspace. Unser "Security Settings", configure the HTTP Header Variable Authentication Scheme.


Important here is to set the HTTP Header Variable Name and set "Action If Username is Empty" to "Display Error".


You can now set Data Reporter Authentication Scheme to "HTTP Header Variable".


Install the Google Extension "ModHeader". Enable this extension only when working with Data Reporter for demo purposes in your personal environment as you never know for sure what kind of data is captured by it.


Click on the extension and set the HTTP header variable of your choice (APEX_USER in my case) to the desired username.


Logon to your APEX workspace and navigate to the Data Reporter section. Create a Data Reporter user with the same name as specified in the Google extension above.


Run the Data Reporter app and you are automatically authenticated with the Data Reporter user specified above. In my case, it is MY_USERNAME.

Notes:

- This approach doesn't work on oracleapex.com as your custom HTTP Header is resetted by ORDS before it hits the database.

- Use this approach only for demo purposes in your personal APEX instance that is accessible only to you. In all other cases, at least set the HTTP Header Variable by a web proxy like NGINX to prevent impersonation.

- Data Reporter is new in Oracle APEX 26.1. Its use cases are somewhat limited, but it will be expanded over time. For instance, I would love to see drill-down reporting to be available to business users.


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