Installing Oracle9i on Red Hat Linux 7.1 - 7.2

  Overview

This article is a comprehensive guide for installing Oracle9i (9.0.1 and 9.2.0) on the Red Hat Linux 7.1 and 7.2 operating environment. Keep in mind the following assumptions:

• When installing Red Hat 7.1 or 7.2, I install ALL components. (Everything).
• I will use an example ORACLE_SID of O901DB throughout this article.

Downloading / Unpacking Oracle9i Installation Files

• Download Oracle 9i from Oracle's OTN Site.
  (If you do not currently have an account with Oracle OTN, you will need to create one. This is a FREE account!) http://otn.oracle.com/software/products/oracle9i/htdocs/linuxsoft.html
  
• Uncompress the downloaded files: % gunzip Linux9i_Disk1.cpio.gz Linux9i_Disk2.cpio.gz Linux9i_Disk3.cpio.gz
  
• Unpack the downloaded files: % cpio -idmv < Linux9i_Disk1.cpio
  % cpio -idmv < Linux9i_Disk2.cpio
  % cpio -idmv < Linux9i_Disk3.cpio
  
  
  

  NOTE: Thanks to William Johnson for figuring this out. I was not sure why I had this problem, but I was not able to "gunzip" the 3 downloaded files. It was complaining that the files where not in "zipped" format. I then went for broke and tried to "cpio" the files without unzipping them (keeping the ".gz" ending to the files) and it worked. If you used Netscape 4.x to download the files it has this horrid, evil habit of uncompressing the files but leaving the extension the same. % cpio -idmv < Linux9i_Disk1.cpio.gz % cpio -idmv < Linux9i_Disk2.cpio.gz % cpio -idmv < Linux9i_Disk3.cpio.gz

• You should now have 3 directories containing the Oracle 9i Installation files:
  /Disk1
  /Disk2
  /Disk3
  

Swap Space Considerations

• Installing Oracle 9i requires a considerable amount of memory. A minimum of 512MB is required. In my case, I am running Oracle 9i on a Pentium/266 with only 320MB of RAM and 600MB of swap. I successfully installed 9i with this configuration. (An inadequate amount of swap during the installation will cause the Oracle Universal Installer to either "hang" or "die")
• To check the amount of memory / swap you have allocated, type either: % free
  - OR -
  % cat /proc/swaps
  - OR -
  % cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemTotal
  
• If you have less than 500MB of memory (between your RAM and SWAP), you can add temporary swap space by creating a temporary swap file. This way you do not have to use a raw device or even more drastic, rebuild your system. As root, make a file that will act as additional swap space, let's say about 300 MB:
  % dd if=/dev/zero of=tempswap bs=1k count=300000
  Now we should change the file permissions:
  % chmod 600 tempswap
  Finally we format the "partition" as swap and add it to swap space:
  % mke2fs tempswap
  % mkswap tempswap
  % swapon tempswap
  

Known Issue #1 : (Error with Oracle 9.0.1 during linking of ins_plsql.mk)

The "binutils" package that ships with Red Hat 7.1 and Red Hat 7.2 will not work with Oracle 9i. You will see this bug show up during the "link" phase at around 62% when trying to link PL/SQL (ins_plsql.mk)
You have three options to get around this bug:

• Option #1: (remove "-z defs" from genclntsh file) NOTE: This is the prefered method.
  
  
  • When you get errors from OUI installer, open a window, and cd to the Oracle Home installation target location.
  • Set Oracle environment ORACLE_HOME to this target directory.
  • Use editor to modify $ORACLE_HOME/bin/genclntsh file, to remove "-z defs" from it. Do this by commenting out the line:
    # LD_SELF_CONTAINED="-z defs"
  • Then run this script $ORACLE_HOME/bin/genclntsh to create Oracle libraries.
  • Go back to OUI error window, and click on "retry" button to continue.
  Cause:
  Versions of ld prior to version 2.11 ignored the "-z defs" flag. ld version 2.11 and later have the ability to use this flag. Because of this the genclntsh script fails to produce the libclntsh.so library on a machine running ld > 2.11.
  The "-z defs" is set in the variable LD_SELF_CONTAINED in the genclntsh script.
  
• Option #2: (Update binutils to binutils-2.10.91.0.4-1)
  

  NOTE: If you decide to not take the option of removing "-z defs" from the genclntsh file, you should try this method.

  Download the following binutils from:
  http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/kernel.org/pub/linux/devel/binutils/binutils-2.10.91.0.4-1.i386.rpm
  As root:
  % rpm -Uvh --force --nodeps binutils-2.10.91.0.4-1.i386.rpm
  
• Option #3 (Downgrade binutils to binutils-2.10.0.18-1) Download the following binutils from:
  ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/7.0/en/os/i386/RedHat/RPMS/binutils-2.10.0.18-1.i386.rpm
  As root:
  % rpm -Uvh --force --nodeps binutils-2.10.0.18-1.i386.rpm

Known Issue #2 : (Error with Oracle9i during the linking of ins_oemagent.mk and ins_ctx.mk)

If you have ever installed Oracle8i on Red Hat Linux, you may be aware of several environment variables that had to be set in your .profile or .bash_profile:

• export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5
• source /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-env.sh

Make sure that you DO NOT set these environment variables in your profile (login) script when installing Oracle9i. They will cause the installer to fail during the linking of the OEM Agent (ins_oemagent.mk) and Context (ins_ctx.mk)!

Known Issue #3 : Oracle 9.2.0 Only : (ORA-01041 / ORA-03113 during connect after shutting down the database in same SQL*Plus session)

When shutting down the database using SQL*Plus, you will need to do one of the following in order to startup the database again:

• Re-connect to the database again:

  SQL> connect / as sysdba

• Exit from SQL*Plus and start a new SQL*Plus session

There seems to be a bug in SQL*Plus that does not allow you to perform a shutdown followed by a startup in the same SQL*Plus session.
If you attempt to perform a startup and shutdown in the same session, you will be confronted with an ORA-01041 and ORA-03113 error. What seems to be happening is a problem with the allocation of shared memory segments. If you mistakenly try this, you have two options to recover from it:

• Bounce the database server (% init 6).
• Remove all allocated shared memory segments using the ipcrm command.

Below is an example of the problem and how to solve it by removing the shared memory segments created by the startup command after shutting down the database:

• First notice that while the database is running, Oracle has allocated the proper shared memory segments: (SHMIDs = 10485772, 10518542, 10551311, 10584080, 10616849, 10649618, 10682387, 10715156, 10747925)

  OEMDB on dbautil: ipcs
  
  ------ Shared Memory Segments --------
  key        shmid      owner      perms      bytes      nattch     status
  0x00000000 458759     root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1212424    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1277961    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1409034    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 2392075    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 10485772   oracle    640        4194304    10
  0x00000000 2457613    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 10518542   oracle    640        33554432   10
  0x00000000 10551311   oracle    640        33554432   10
  0x00000000 10584080   oracle    640        33554432   10
  0x00000000 10616849   oracle    640        33554432   10
  0x00000000 10649618   oracle    640        33554432   10
  0x00000000 10682387   oracle    640        33554432   10
  0x00000000 10715156   oracle    640        33554432   10
  0xc8131978 10747925   oracle    640        4194304    40
  0x00000000 8126486    root      777        196608     2          dest
  
  ------ Semaphore Arrays --------
  key        semid      owner      perms      nsems      status
  0x0db4c224 851970     oracle    640        154
  
  ------ Message Queues --------
  key        msqid      owner      perms      used-bytes   messages

• Now log into SQL*Plus and shutdown the database. From within that same session, using bang and the ipcs command, look at the shared memory. Notice that all the previously allocated shared memory segments have been removed.

  OEMDB on dbautil: sqlplus "/ as sysdba"
  
  SQL*Plus: Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production on Sat May 25 17:20:33 2002
  
  Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
  
  
  Connected to:
  Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production
  With the Partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data Mining options
  JServer Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production
  
  SQL> shutdown immediate
  Database closed.
  Database dismounted.
  ORACLE instance shut down.
  SQL> !ipcs
  
  ------ Shared Memory Segments --------
  key        shmid      owner      perms      bytes      nattch     status
  0x00000000 458759     root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1212424    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1277961    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1409034    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 2392075    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 2457613    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 8126486    root      777        196608     2          dest
  
  ------ Semaphore Arrays --------
  key        semid      owner      perms      nsems      status
  
  ------ Message Queues --------
  key        msqid      owner      perms      used-bytes   messages

• Now from within the same session, try to startup the database:

   SQL> startup open
   ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel

• At this point you should exit from SQL*Plus and examine the shared memory that has allocated from the startup command.

  SQL> exit
  Disconnected from Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production
  With the Partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data Mining options
  JServer Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production
  OEMDB on dbautil: ipcs
  
  ------ Shared Memory Segments --------
  key        shmid      owner      perms      bytes      nattch     status
  0x00000000 458759     root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1212424    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1277961    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 1409034    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 2392075    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 11468812   oracle    640        4194304    0
  0x00000000 2457613    root      777        196608     2          dest
  0x00000000 11501582   oracle    640        33554432   0
  0x00000000 8126486    root      777        196608     2          dest
  
  ------ Semaphore Arrays --------
  key        semid      owner      perms      nsems      status
  
  ------ Message Queues --------
  key        msqid      owner      perms      used-bytes   messages

• In order to startup the database without having to reboot the database server, simply remove the newly allocated shared memory. In this case, (SHMIDs = 11468812, 11501582 )

  % ipcrm  shm 11468812 11501582

• Now try to startup the database:

  OEMDB on dbautil: sqlplus "/ as sysdba"
  
  SQL*Plus: Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production on Sat May 25 17:39:30 2002
  
  Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
  
  Connected to an idle instance.
  
  SQL> startup open
  ORACLE instance started.
  
  Total System Global Area  252776588 bytes
  Fixed Size                   450700 bytes
  Variable Size             218103808 bytes
  Database Buffers           33554432 bytes
  Redo Buffers                 667648 bytes
  Database mounted.
  Database opened.
  SQL>

Install the Java Development Kit (JDK)

In order to use Oracle's HTTP [Apache] Server, you will need to download an appropiate JDK. This can include either Sun's JDK 1.3.1 or Blackdown 1.1.8_v3. In the past, Oracle has always recommended Blackdown. I prefer Sun's JDK myself and have been successful using it with 9i. As per the JDK documentation, install JDK under /usr/local.
Then create a symbolic link to the JDK under /usr/local/java.

• Sun's JDK 1.3.1 Download from: http://java.sun.com
  Install as root:
  
  

  % cp j2sdk-1_3_1_01-linux-i386.bin /usr/local
    % chmod 755 j2sdk-1_3_1_01-linux-i386.bin
    % ./j2sdk-1_3_1_01-linux-i386.bin
    % ln -s /usr/local/jdk1.3.1_01 /usr/local/java

• Blackdown 1.1.8_v3 Download from: http://www.blackdown.org
  Install as root:
  
  

  % cp jdk118_v3-glibc-2.1.3.tar.bz2 /usr/local
    % bzip2 -dc jdk118_v3-glibc-2.1.3.tar.bz2
    % tar xvf jdk118_v3-glibc-2.1.3.tar
    % ln -s /usr/local/jdk118_v3 /usr/local/java

Create Oracle Account and Directories

Create Oracle User Account: % groupadd -g 115 dba
% useradd -u 173 -c "Oracle Software Owner" -d /u01/app/oracle -g "dba" -m -s /bin/bash oracle
% passwd oracle

Create Oracle Directories:
% mkdir /u01
% mkdir /u01/app
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/adhoc
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/adump
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/arch
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/backups
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/bdump
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/cdump
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/create
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/dba
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/exp
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/logbook
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/pfile
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/release
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/report
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/tuning
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/admin/O901DB/udump
% mkdir /u01/app/oracle/product
% chown -R oracle:dba /u01/app/oracle
% mkdir /u03
% mkdir /u03/app
% mkdir /u03/app/oradata
% mkdir /u03/app/oradata/O901DB
% chown -R oracle:dba /u03/app/oradata
% mkdir /u04
% mkdir /u04/app
% mkdir /u04/app/oradata
% mkdir /u04/app/oradata/O901DB
% chown -R oracle:dba /u04/app/oradata
% mkdir /u05
% mkdir /u05/app
% mkdir /u05/app/oradata
% mkdir /u05/app/oradata/O901DB
% chown -R oracle:dba /u05/app/oradata
% mkdir /u06
% mkdir /u06/app
% mkdir /u06/app/oradata
% mkdir /u06/app/oradata/O901DB
% chown -R oracle:dba /u06/app/oradata
% mkdir /u07
% mkdir /u07/app
% mkdir /u07/app/oradata
% mkdir /u07/app/oradata/O901DB
% chown -R oracle:dba /u07/app/oradata
% mkdir /u08
% mkdir /u08/app
% mkdir /u08/app/oradata
% mkdir /u08/app/oradata/O901DB
% chown -R oracle:dba /u08/app/oradata
% mkdir /u09
% mkdir /u09/app
% mkdir /u09/app/oradata
% mkdir /u09/app/oradata/O901DB
% chown -R oracle:dba /u09/app/oradata
% mkdir /u10
% mkdir /u10/app
% mkdir /u10/app/oradata
% mkdir /u10/app/oradata/O901DB
% chown -R oracle:dba /u10/app/oradata
% mkdir /opt/bin
% chown oracle:dba /opt/bin

Oracle Environment Variable Settings:
An example ".bash_profile" is provided in the Configuration Files / Scripts section below.

Run the Oracle Installer

As the "oracle" user account:

• Set your DISPLAY variable to a valid X Windows display. % DISPLAY=:0.0
  % export DISPLAY
  
  NOTE: If you forgot to set the DISPLAY environment variable and you get the following error:
  Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
  Xlib: Client is not authorized to connect to Server
  
  you will then need to execute the following command to get "runInstaller" working again:
  % rm -rf /tmp/OraInstall
  If you don't do this, the Installer will hang without giving any error messages. Also make sure that "runInstaller" has stopped running in the background. If not, kill it.
  
• Change directory to the Oracle installation files you downloaded and extracted. Then run: runInstaller. % cd /Disk1
  % ./runInstaller
  
  
• During the installation, this how I answered the questions:
  
  • Inventory Location: /u01/app/oracle/oraInventory
    
  • UNIX Group Name: dba
  • Full path name of the Oracle Home: /u01/app/oracle/product/9.0.1
  • Oracle Univeral Installer in: /u01/app/oracle/oui
  • JDK Home: /usr/local/java

Configuration Files / Scripts

Example:

.bash_profile $HOME/.bash_profile for the "oracle" user account.     initO901DB.ora Sample instance parameter script for Oracle9i. Place this file in ~oracle/admin/O901DB/pfile before running the RUN_CRDB.sh script below.     create_database901.tar An example "create database" set of scripts. Untar the file to ~oracle/admin/O901DB/create. If you decide to change the name of the ORACLE_SID, here are the files that need to be changed: crdb.sh create_database.sql postDBCreation.sql The main script to run is: RUN_CRDB.sh.