These instructions will not work for installing Oracle on the Red Hat Linux 9 release. New Linux releases, such as Red Hat Linux 9, use a new threading model which is incompatible with the threading model assumed by the two JVMs embedded in Oracle 9i R2. A new release of Oracle will be necessary for these systems which use the Native POSIX Threads Library.

Modification of the Oracle executable scripts to use NPTL-compliant Java implementations instead of the Java implementations bundled with Oracle can be done on these systems to obtain a partially functional Oracle install, but this approach is not recommended; some of the Oracle executables function correctly only under the Java implementations which are included with Oracle. For full functionality, use of Red Hat 8.0 or older Linux distributions is recommended until Oracle releases a new version which supports NPTL.

The basic steps necessary to get an Oracle instance up and running on Linux are to

• Install Linux
• Configure Linux
• Install Java for Linux
• Install system configuration files
• Prepare the system for Oracle installation
• Install Oracle
• Verify the installation

• disabling all unneeded services
• installing all system errata

• The Blackdown Organization
• Sun Microsystems
• IBM

• oraclerun9i-1.4-1.noarch.rpm -- an installable RPM file
• oraclerun9i-1.4-1.src.rpm -- a source RPM file
• oraclerun9i-1.4.tar.gz -- a tarball file

	# cd /var/tmp
	# wget http://www.gurulabs.com/downloads/oraclerun9i-1.4-1.noarch.rpm
	# rpm -Uvh /var/tmp/oraclerun9i-1.4-1.noarch.rpm

• /etc/init.d/oracle
• /etc/profile.d/oracle.csh
• /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh
• /etc/sysconfig/oracle

/etc/profile.d/oracle.csh is a system-wide initialization file to set Oracle-specific environmental variables for users of C shell (and C shell derivatives), while /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh is a system-wide initialization file to set Oracle-specific environmental variables for users of the Bourne shell (and Bourne shell derivatives).

/etc/sysconfig/oracle is an Oracle configuration file. It contains both run-time options which will be applied to Oracle upon startup, as well as Linux kernel tuning parameters which modify necessary Linux kernel options to support Oracle.

After the oraclerun9i RPM is installed, some of the configuration files it creates must be edited to configure Oracle as appropriate for the local system. Both /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh and /etc/profile.d/oracle.csh must be edited as root, and the lines configuring ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID must be uncommented and set to the values of ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID which will be used on this system.

For /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh, lines 7 and 8 should be changed to

ORACLE_HOME=/opt/oracle
ORACLE_SID=ora1

setenv ORACLE_HOME /opt/oracle
setenv ORACLE_SID ora1

In addition, the directory which will be used as ORACLE_HOME needs to be created. As root, the command

	# mkdir /opt/oracle

This assumes that ORACLE_HOME will be set to /opt/oracle. If Oracle is being installed to a different directory, these commands will need to be adjusted accordingly.

While editing /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh and /etc/profile.d/oracle.csh, also check out line 11, which modifies the user PATH variable to include the location of the system's JVM. This will currently specify the correct PATH for Sun's 1.4.1 Java 2 SDK; if using a different JVM, this line should be adjusted accordingly.

In addition, you might also want to edit /etc/sysconfig/oracle. In particular, line 5 will almost definitely need to be changed to

	START_ORACLE="yes"

/etc/sysconfig/oracle also sets various kernel tuning parameters, such as the maximum shared memory segment size. Default Linux kernel parameters are optimized for interactive usage, and must be increased for the memory usage patterns exhibited by Oracle. The default supplied values in /etc/sysconfig/oracle will tune the system to run a typical database, but might need to be tuned more for larger databases. See Oracle's documentation for more discussion of appropriate values for kernel parameters.

Before installation can be started, the kernel parameters defined in /etc/sysconfig/oracle must be applied to the running system; in the future, these values will be automatically set at boot time by /etc/init.d/oracle, the Oracle System V init script. To tune the currently running Linux kernel appropriately for Oracle installation, run as root the command

	# service oracle tunekernel

	# groupadd dba ; groupadd oper ; groupadd oinstall ; groupadd oraweb
	# useradd -g oinstall -G dba oracle
	# useradd -g oinstall -G oraweb orahttp

	# chown oracle:oinstall /opt/oracle
	# mkdir /var/opt/oracle
	# chown oracle:dba /var/opt/oracle

• Purchaseable on CD-ROM
• Freely downloadable (for non-commercial use) from OTN

	# cd /tmp
	# for i in 1 2 3 ; do gunzip Linux9i_Disk$i.cpio.gz ; done

If obtained on CD-ROM, the Oracle Installer will be provided as three uncompressed CPIO files. These three files should be copied to an appropriate temporary directory, such as /tmp.

Once the Oracle Installer files are on the system, they need to be unpacked to a temporary directory on the system. /orainst is typically created and used for this purpose. As root, the commands

	# mkdir /orainst
	# chown oracle /orainst
	# su - oracle
	$ cd /orainst
	$ for i in 1 2 3 ; do cpio -idm < /tmp/Linux9i_Disk$i.cpio ; done
	$ chmod -R u=rwx,g=rwx .

If using a different temporary installation source directory, adjust the above commands as appropriate.

Once the Oracle Installer has been unarchived, installation can begin. As the oracle user, first double-check that all necessary ORACLE_* variables are set; this can be done by making sure that a command such as

	$ env | grep ORACLE

	$ . /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh

Once all variables are set, the Oracle Installer should be started. As the oracle user, run the command

	$ /orainst/Disk1/runInstaller

After a moment or two, the Oracle Installer will pop up.

The Oracle Installer will first ask for a base directory location. By default, it will assume Oracle should be installed to $HOME. Change the base directory to $ORACLE_HOME/oraInventory. For example, if ORACLE_HOME is set to /opt/oracle, then enter /opt/oracle/oraInventory as the base directory.

The Oracle Installer will next ask for the name of a UNIX Group which should have permission to access the Oracle software directly on the system. oinstall should be entered as the name of the group.

Next, you will see a dialog box asking you to run, as root, a shell script.

	# /tmp/orainstRoot.sh

Oracle's Installer will next ask you to confirm the locations of various files on the system. Typically, the default values suggested by the installer will be fine.

You will next be asked which Oracle product you wish to install.

Now you will be asked which type of Oracle9i Database installation (Standard or Enterprise) you would like.

As part of the Oracle9i Database installation, the Oracle Installer creates a database for you. Most of the time, a "General Purpose" database is fine, but the installer can create other database configurations if needed.

Oracle's Installer will next ask for database identification information. Fill in an appropriate Global Database Name, and make sure that the SID value is the same value you have set in your ORACLE_SID variable.

You will next be asked where database files should be installed on the system. Keep in mind the performance benefits which can be gained by careful configuration of the locations of database files, and select an appropriate location for the database.

Next, the Oracle installer will ask which character set should be used for the database. Typically, either the default character set or Unicode should be chosen.

A summary of all your configuration choices will now be displayed. Double- check it to make sure all settings are correct, then click "Install".

Before you click "Install", be prepared. Several work-arounds (typically edits of installation scripts) will be necessary during the install, and some of these work-arounds are timing-dependent. Make sure you have a terminal handy in which you are logged in as root so that you can make these edits when necessary.

Once you click "Install", an installation progress dialog will appear. Pay close attention to the Progress meter; your first work-around needs to be executed when the install is approximately 12% complete.

After the installation is 12% completed, bring up the root terminal. You will need to edit line 198 in the file /opt/oracle/bin/genclntsh, which can easily be done using the vi command

	# vi +198 /opt/oracle/bin/genclntsh

	$ $ $ $ $ $ 

	$ $ $ $ $ 

Remember, this modification is timing-sensitive. It must be done after roughly 12% of the install is finished, but needs to be done quickly at that point. If you do not complete this modification in time, the installer will crash later in the install and will not be recoverable. If that happens, you will need to delete /etc/oratab, remove all files under /opt/oracle, and start the install over....

Once this edit is made, continue watching the installation. After basic installation (copying of all files into place) is finished, the Oracle Installer will being linking the Oracle programs together. After linkage is 84% complete, an error dialog box will appear on the screen and the installation will stop:

	# vi +1365 /opt/oracle/ctx/lib/env_ctx.mk

Line 1365 in this file will currently look like

INSO_LINK = -L$(CTXLIB) $(LDLIBFLAG)m $(LDLIBFLAG)sc_ca $(LDLIBFLAG)sc_fa $(LDLIBFLAG)sc_ex $(LDLIBFLAG)sc_da $(LDLIBFLAG)sc_ut $(LDLIBFLAG)sc_ch $(LDLIBFLAG)sc_fi $(LLIBCTXHX) $(LDLIBFLAG)c -Wl,-rpath,$(CTXHOME)lib $(CORELIBS) $(COMPEOBJS) $(LDLIBFLAG)dl

Use this or command-line tools such as sqlplus to verify that you can connect to your newly installed database.

Several post-install configuration steps are also good at this point. Typically, the system should be configured to start Oracle automatically at boot time. As root, the command

	# chkconfig --level 345 oracle on

In addition to starting the Oracle server processes, any desired databases should be configured to be started by Oracle when it boots up. Edit /etc/oratab to specify databases which should be started. By default, created databases will be listed in this file with directives which look like

	*:/opt/oracle:N
	ora1:/opt/oracle:N

	*:/opt/oracle:Y
	ora1:/opt/oracle:Y

By default, all created databases will be world-readable. As root, the command

	# chmod 770 /opt/oracle/oradata

In addition, the root.sh script generated during install should be backed up. It is occasionally needed later, and subsequent installations of Oracle products will overwrite it. As root, the command

	# cp /opt/oracle/root.sh /opt/oracle/root.sh-install

At this point, Oracle should be installed and ready for your DBA to put to use!