Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corp., got on board the Linux bandwagon early. So, the Oracle folks should have worked out any kinks involved in deploying its database on Linux. Have they?
Let's find out. This tip is all about installing Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.0.1.0) Enterprise/Standard Edition for Linux x86 on a server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 (RHEL4).
Before you download, understand that Oracle 10g requires 650 MB, so find a file system with enough space. The download will also be in a zipped format. So, keep in mind that you will need to extract the files, and they will be large ones.
Make sure you disable SELinux (Security-enhanced Linux), or you may have problems with the GUI installer; that is, unless you are prepared for an installation with SELinux.
First step: Get the free download.
Right off the bat, you'll see that there are a number of minimum requirements for an Oracle 10g installation. I mentioned a couple already, but you should have at least 1GB of RAM, and 400 MB of space in your /tmp directory. For the software itself, you may need up to 3.5 GB of space, depending upon your installation type. For RHEL4, you must be running this kernel or higher 2.6.9-5.0.5.EL
You will also need to make sure that the following packages are installed:
make-3.79.1
gcc-3.2.3-34
glibc-2.3.2-95.20
compat-db-4.0.14-5
compat-gcc-7.3-2.96.128
compat-gcc-c++-7.3-2.96.128
compat-libstdc++-7.3-2.96.128
compat-libstdc++-devel-7.3-2.96.128
openmotif21-2.1.30-8
setarch-1.3-1
[oracle@redken root]$ rpm -q gcc-3.2.3-34
I needed to install this and some others as well:
package gcc-3.2.3-34 is not installed
The first thing that you will need to do, is make sure t...
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hat your X is working.
$ xterm
If it is not working, then you will need to export your display and get it working, as the Oracle installer will only work with an X session.
From a Linux perspective there are some basic things that you'll need to set-up:
- Create 2 groups, oinstall & dba.
- Create 2 users, oracle and nobody (you may already have this user).
You will need to make the oinstall the primary group for oracle, and the dba the secondary group.
There are also some kernel parameters you will need to set. They should be set to at least the following numbers.
Kernel Par Value
semmsl 250
semmns 3200
semopm 100
semmni 128
shmall 2097152
shmmax half the size of your RAM
shmmni 4096
File-max 65536
ip_local_port_range min:1024; max:65000
rmem_default 262144
rmem_max 262144
wmem_default 262144
wmem_max 262144
For example, to view the fs.file-max parameter, try this:
[root@redken Desktop]# /sbin/sysctl -a | grep file-max
fs.file-max = 24411
To change the parameter, you will need to vi /etc/sysctl.conf to make the change to increase the default parameters. For fs.file-max, you'll need this line:
fs.file-max = 65536
You can do this manually, but when you put the values in the sysctl file, they will stay there after a reboot.
When your kernel parameters are done, you will then have to make sure your shell limits are set-up appropriately. They should have the following values:
oracle soft nproc 2047
oracle hard nproc 16384
oracle soft nofile 1024
oracle hard nofile 65536
At this point, you will need to make sure your permissions are set-up accordingly. For example, if your filesystem is /u01/oracle, then follow these procedures.
# mkdir -p /u01/oracle
# chown -R oracle:oinstall /u01/oracle
# chmod -R 775 /u01/oracle
Make sure your umask is also set at 022.
When this is done, and your X Is working, you are finally ready. Either change your directory to where the install exists or mount your CD.
./runInstaller
./Desktop/database/runInstaller
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...
Checking installer requirements...
Checking operating system version: must be redhat-3, SuSE-9, redhat-4, UnitedLinux-1.0, asianux-1 or asianux-2
Passed
All installer requirements met.
Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /tmp/OraInstall2005-12-05_09-36-22AM. Please wait ...
At this point the GUI will start and will do the work.
The basic install is selected by default. There are a series of checks to ensure that the groups and directories are set-up appropriately. It will also prompt you to create a starter database. You will also need to let Oracle know where you want to place your Oracle home.
Make sure that the operating system group for user oracle is oinstall, not DBA. When all the checks succeed, you can then click on install, and it will start. Depending on the speed of your system, this can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour or longer. It took me 30 minutes.
When the install is completed, just click exit, and if you chose to create a test database, you should be all set.
The installation is relatively easy, if you don't have any problems with X or with any of the prerequisites. Configuration and administration of your RHEL4 and your Oracle environment is another story, and we'll have some more tips down the road on how to optimize your Oracle/Linux environment.
