Oracle on Linux Installation for NonNon-DBAs

Sheryl Calish Blue Heron Consulting Paper #36684

Introduction
y

Linux Installation Oracle Installation Most Recently:

y

Oracle 9i (Release 2) on SuSE 8.0 (kernel 2.4.18) Past installs:

y

Oracle 9i on SuSE 7.2 (kernel 2.4.4) Oracle 8.1.7 on Red Hat 6.2 (kernel 2.2.16)

Linux Installation
Hardware and System Considerations Linux distributions How to prepare for a Linux installation

Oracle Installation
y

Preparation tasks Reported installation issues Recommendations for novices

Hardware and System Considerations

y

To check for compatibility with Linux and Xfree86 To ensure proper configuration of your system To enable others to help you, if something goes wrong

Component Information
Monitor: make, model, manufacture, horizontal and vertical scan rate for each resolution Video Card: make, chipset, model number and VRAM Sound Card: make, chipset, and model number

More Components
Memory: amount of RAM
Oracle 9i requires 512MB minimum Mouse: type, protocol and number of buttons Modem: type and port number CD-ROM: interface type SCSI Adapter: make and model number

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Hard Disk Requirements

Hard Drive(s): number, size and type Oracle 9i space requirements: 3.5 GB for database software (typical not customized installation) 1.0 GB for seed database 1.0 GB for swap space

System Information
Network Information: IP address, netmask, gateway IP address, one or more server IP addresses, domain name, organization name Hostname: name of your computer Partitions: default or map of planned partitions and mount points

Which Distribution?
United Linux: SuSE Linux, Turbolinux, Conectiva, The SCOgroup (Caldera) Red Hat Mandrake Debian

Certified for 9iR2

Red Hat 2.1 Advanced Server SLES7 and SLES8

Certified for 9i
SLES7 SuSE 7.1 and 7.2 (&RAC) Red Hat 7.1 (&RAC) Caldera OU8

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Certified for 8.1.7

SLES7 SuSE 7.1 and 7.2 Red Hat 2.1 AS Red Hat 7.1 Caldera OU8

Shrink Windows Partition

Partition Magic FIPS GNU Parted YAST2

Partitioning Rationale
"Partitioning Your Hard Drive":
www.newriders.com/debian/html/noframes/node15

"4.3 Partitioning Hard Drives(s)":

www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/lame/LAME/linux-adminmade-easy/install-partitioning

Optimal Flexible Architecture

Four separate mount points: /u01, /u02, /u03, /u04 each in its own partition

Two References
"Tips for Installing and Configuring Oracle9i Database on Red Hat Linux", from OracleWorld 2003 "Installation Instructions for Oracle 9i Release 2 (9.2.0.x) on United Linux 1.0 based Linux systems", from www.suse.com/oracle

My Current Partition Table

Filesystem /dev/hda1 /dev/hda2 /dev/hda5 /dev/hda6 /dev/hda7 /dev/hda8 /dev/hda9 Size Used Avail 2.2G * 14M * * * 28% 52% * 64% 39% Use% Mounted on /windows/C Extended /boot / /swap /opt /home

3.7M 9.8M

4.0G 2.1G 1.9G 1.0G * *

6.0G 3.8G 2.2G 915M 349M 566M

Previous Partition Table

Filesystem /dev/hda6 /dev/hda11 /dev/hda10 /dev/hda12 /dev/hda13 /dev/hda7 /dev/hda8 Size 1.9G 758M 4.2G 243M 243M 1.2G 243M Used Avail Use% Mounted on 212M 5.0M 3.7G 13k 13k 828M 41M 1.5G 714M 324M 230M 230M 324M 189M 12% / 1% /home 92% /opt 1% /u02 1% /u03 72% /usr 18% /usr/local

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Swap Space
y

Oracle 9i installation requires swap space to be equal to physical memory or 1GB, whichever is greater A temporary swap file can be used

Run Linux Installer

y

Follow the documentation for your distribution Check with your Linux distribution for the latest updates and patches

Prepare for Oracle Installation

y

Make sure appropriate software is installed Create the database administrator groups Create the Oracle user Create mount points Modify kernel parameters Set environment variables

Required Software
rpm -q k_deflt > k_deflt-2.4.18-58 rpm -q glibc > glibc-2.2.5-158 rpm -q binutils > binutils-2.11.920.10-89

More Required Software

rpm -q gilbc-locale >glibc-locale-2.2.5-177 rpm -q make >make-3.79.1-292 rpm -q gcc >gcc-2.95.3

Database Administrator Groups

As root:
From menu in SuSE: System -> Configuration -> Create group From command line: groupadd oinstall groupadd dba groupadd oper
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Create Oracle user

As root:
From menu in SuSE: System -> Configuration -> Create user From command line: useradd oracle -g oinstall -G dba,oper

Mount Points
f you did not create the partitions for these you can create the mount points now, then,
As root, change ownership: chown oracle.dba /opt/oracle (or /u01) OR chown oracle.oinstall /opt/oracle chmod 775 /opt/oracle (or /u01) Run the same command for /u02,
/u03, /u04

Kernel Parameters
Oracle documentation warns of possible installation or production problems if the settings are insufficient SHMMAX

Environment Variables
As oracle user

Three sources: 1) Oracle Metalink 2) www.puschitz.com/OracleOnLinux 3)orarun9i.rpm (run as root)

orarun9i.rpm
can be downloaded from SuSE sets up most environment variables in /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh sets kernel parameters sets up automatic startup/shutdown of Oracle look at /usr/share/doc/packages/orarun9i/README

New orarun
For SLES8 and SuSE 8.1 use:
orarun-1.4-2-SL80_81.noarch.rpm Major difference is location of : /etc/profile.d/oracle.[c]sh has been moved to: /etc/sysconfig/oracle

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Oracle9i RHL Run Package

Available from GURU LABS www.gurulabs.com/downloads.html Based on orarun9i.rpm from SuSE modified to work with Red Hat

Functions of RHL Run

Provides:
/etc/init.d/oracle /etc/profile.d/oracle/sh|chs (requires edits) /etc/sysconfig/oracle (requires edits) /usr/share/doc/oraclerun9i-1.4/INSTALL

Temporary swapfile
# become the root user su # create a 1GB file (or any value for "count") dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1k count=1048576 # make it a swapfile mkswap /swapfile # activate swapon /swapfile

Run Oracle Installer

Oracle 9iR2 installation took 45 minutes with 512MB and 1GB of swap space Oracle 9iR1 installation took 1 hour with 512MB and 658MB of swap space Oracle 8.1.7 installation took 15 minutes with 512MB of RAM and 1GB of swap space

Start Oracle
linuxprompt:~> sqlplus /nolog SQL> connect / as sysdba SQL> startup

Install Cleanup
n order to run Oracle Installer after an incomplete install From www.puschitz.comrm rm -rf /etc/oraInst.loc /etc/oratab (/tmp/OraInstall ?) rm -rf $ORACLE_BASE/* /tmp/<other_Oracle_owned_files>
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Installation Issue #1
Issue: Inability to access another program after Oracle installation Solution: Add $PATH before you enter other path variables

PATH Example
Instead of: PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/etc:/ opt/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/openwin/ bin:/opt/local/GNU/bin Enter: PATH=$PATH:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin :/etc:/opt/bin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/o penwin/bin:/opt/local/GNU/bin

Installation Issue #2
Issue: Incompatibilities between some versions of Oracle and glibc or binutils of some versions of Linux Examples:
Red Hat 7.0 and Oracle 8.1.7 have a glibc issue Red Hat 7.1/7.2/7.3, AS 2.1 and Oracle 9iR1 have a binutil issue Sun JDK 1.3.1 and SuSE 7.2 have a glibc issue

9iR2 and Red Hat 8.0

From www.puschitz.com/OracleOnLinux: "Error in invoking target install of
makefile: /opt/oracle/product/9.2.0/ctx/lib/ins_ctx. mk"

Edit $ORACLE_HOME/ctx/lib/env_ctx.mk and go to "INSO_LINK =", add a "$(LDLIBFLAG)dl" to the line and save it.

9iR2 and SuSE 8.0

From suse-oracle mailing list "Error in invoking target ntcrontab.o of
makefile: /opt/oracle/product/oracle/network/lib/ins _int_client.mk"

9iR2 on SuSE 8.0 (con't)

First solution: Edit the file $ORACLE_HOME/sysliblist add the following to the existing line -L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-suselinux/2.95.3 -lgcc the line becomes something like this: -L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-suselinux/2.95.3 -lgcc -ldl -lm lpthread
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9iR2 on SuSE 8.0

Second solution: look in $ORACLE_HOME/install/make.log for linker errors (eg. lack of the library clntsh. (ld reports cannot find -lclntsh) go to $ORACLE_HOME/bin and run the command 'genclntsh' (as user oracle)

Installation Issue #3
Issue: Some have reported that the Installer hangs during installation Enter: unset LANG Then run Oracle Universal Installer

Installation Issue #4
Issue: Mounting and unmounting cdrom Run Oracle Universal Installer as Oracle user From Oracle user directory:
mount /media/cdrom /media/cdrom/oracle9i/runInstaller unmount /media/cdrom

DO NOT cd to cdrom directory to ./runInstaller!

Recommendations
y

Decide on the version of Oracle you want to install and work backward. Choose the version of the Linux distribution with the same binutils and glibc as the certified version. Oracle 9iR2 reported to install smoothly on Red Hat 7.3, 8.0, SuSE 8.0, 8.1 and 8.2. Check that your hardware and system components are supported by your chosen Linux distribution especially for Xfree86.

Resources
Oracle Metalink Linux Forum at www.oracle.com/forums SuSE: www.suse.com/oracle Listserve groups:
SuSE-oracle oracle-on-linux@yahoogroups.com

Contact Information Sheryl Calish Blue Heron Consulting scalish@earthlink.net

Paper #36684