Bobo's Log...: Installing Oracle 8i on RedHat Linux 7, 8, and 9 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 2.1

May 22, 2002

Installing Oracle 8i on RedHat Linux 7, 8, and 9 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 2.1 [Technology]

Christ, it was an awful experience. I hope the group that writes the database is different from the group that writes the installer, because the installer group sucks. Click through for the details.

These instructions are specifically for Oracle 8.1.7 on RedHat 7.3, but probably is largely applicable to RedHat 7.0, RedHat 7.1 and RedHat 7.2. They have also been confirmed to work for RedHat 8.0 [thanks to Patrick Ale].

Step 0 - Download and Unpack Oracle

Download two files from Oracle's site: linux81701.tar and glibc-2.1.3-stubs.tar.gz. Both files are available at http://otn.oracle.com/software/products/oracle8i/htdocs/linuxsoft.html. You may need to register for the Oracle Technology Network to be able to download them.

Make sure they have the following MD5 checksums:
bb6cee85bd78c91cfd4d02224b99adc5 linux81701.tar 7afc4a65f7d5c456e5a323b453ece2c1 glibc-2.1.3-stubs.tar.gz
Unpack Oracle into /opt/oracle:
cd /opt/oracle/ tar xf linux81701.tar
Do not unpack the glibc stubs file yet.

Step 1 - Install Prerequisites

Since RedHat 7 comes with glibc 2.2 and Oracle needs glibc 2.1, you'll need to download compat versions of the various libraries:
up2date -u compat-glibc up2date -u compat-egcs up2date -u compat-libstdc++ up2date -u compat-libs

For RedHat 8 and above, instead of using up2date to fetch the compat packages you'll need to download the RPMs from the 7.3 directory on ftp.redhat.com or a mirror [thanks to Patrick Ale for this info].

Step 2 - Setup Users and Directory Permissions

Create the Oracle user and groups:
groupadd dba groupadd oracle groupadd oinstall useradd oracle -g oinstall -G dba,oracle
Create the directory where Oracle will be installed and give it appropriate permissions:
mkdir /usr/oracle chown oracle.dba /usr/oracle

Step 3 - Setup Environment Variables

Append the following lines to the oracle user's .profile:
. /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-env.sh export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5



umask 022

export ORACLE_BASE=/usr/oracle

export ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/8.1.7

export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$ORACLE_HOME/ctx/lib:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH export ORA_NLS33=$ORACLE_HOME/ocommon/nls/admin/data export ORACLE_SID=dev

Note that the glibc-stubs README says not to add $ORACLE_HOME/libs to LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Ignore it. [thanks to Justin Georgeson for pointing this out]

Step 4 - Symlink to Compat GCC

We need to symlink out to the correct GCC to make Oracle uses it when it compiles anything [thanks to Jarkko Laine for pointing out that $ORACLE_HOME must be created first]:
su - oracle mkdir $ORACLE_BASE/product mkdir $ORACLE_HOME cd $ORACLE_HOME mkdir bin cd bin ln -s /usr/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-gcc cc ln -s /usr/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-gcc gcc

Step 5 - Install Oracle

Go ahead and install Oracle as user oracle with the default settings. If any errors occur during installation be sure to hit Ignore and continue with the installation:
su - oracle cd /opt/oracle/Disk1 ./runInstaller
Near the end of the installation, the installer will prompt you to run $ORACLE_HOME/root.sh as root. This file has two errors in it, so before you run it make the following changes:

Change line 98 from:
SED=/usr/local/bin/sed
to:
SED=/bin/sed
[thanks to 'lex' for pointing this out]

Change line 102 from:
RMF=/bin/rm -f
to:
RMF="/bin/rm -f"

Change line 156 from:
RUID=`/usr/bin/id|$AWK -F$ '{print $2}'|$AWK -F$ '{print $1}`
to:
RUID=`/usr/bin/id|$AWK -F$ '{print $2}'|$AWK -F$ '{print $1}'`

At the end of the installation, the installer will try to run three configuration wizards: the Net8 Configuration Assistant, the Oracle Database Configuration Assistant, and the Apache Web Server Configuration Assistant. You should stop all of them. You will run them later. After this your installer is done and you should exit it.

Step 6 - Install GLIBC Stubs

Now, you should install the glibc stubs (still as oracle):
su - oracle cd $ORACLE_HOME tar xfz /opt/oracle/glibc-2.1.3-stubs.tar.gz ./setup_stubs.sh cd bin relink all

Step 6.9 - Modify /bin/df [thanks to Patrick Ale for this info]

Oracle 8.1.7 can't cope with LVM long partition names. When creating a new database, dbassist checks if there is enough diskspace by doing a /bin/df. With long partition names, the actual free diskspace is listed on a new line, and this causes dbassist to crash.

What to do:
mv /bin/df /bin/df.orig cat << EOF > /bin/df #!/bin/sh /bin/df.orig -P \$@ EOF chmod +x /bin/df

Calling df with the -P option means that df wont care about nice tabbed information, but rather will display all information on one line. After you create your database, move /bin/df.orig back to /bin/df and your system is back to normal. Or, you can leave it, to always default to the POSIX output format.

Step 7 - Run the Various Assistants

Now, you can run the Net8 Configuration Assistant and the Database Configuration Assistant
su - oracle $ORACLE_HOME/bin/netca $ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbassist

Step 8 - Create a Shutdown/Startup Service

Create the file /etc/rc.d/init.d/oracle with the following contents:
#!/bin/sh # # Startup script for Oracle # # chkconfig: 345 79 11 # description: Oracle. # processname: oracle # pidfile: /var/run/oracle.pid # # Source function library. . /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions



ORACLE_HOME=/usr/oracle/product/8.1.7

ORACLE_USER=oracle

# See how we were called.

case "$1" in

  start)

    echo -n "Starting Oracle Database Server: "

    daemon --user=$ORACLE_USER $ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbstart

    success "Starting Oracle Database Server: "

    echo

    echo -n "Starting Oracle TNS Listener: "

    daemon --user=$ORACLE_USER $ORACLE_HOME/bin/lsnrctl start >> /dev/null

    success "Starting Oracle TNS Listener: "

    echo

    echo -n "Starting Oracle HTTP Server: "

    daemon --user=$ORACLE_USER $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/bin/apachectl start

    success "Starting Oracle HTTP Server: "

    echo

    touch /var/lock/subsys/oracle

    ;;

  stop)

    echo -n "Stopping Oracle Database Server: "

    daemon --user=$ORACLE_USER $ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbshut

    success "Stopping Oracle Database Server: "

    echo

    echo -n "Stopping Oracle TNS Listener: "

    daemon --user=$ORACLE_USER $ORACLE_HOME/bin/lsnrctl stop >> /dev/null

    success "Stopping Oracle TNS Listener: "

    echo

    echo -n "Stopping Oracle HTTP Server: "

    daemon --user=$ORACLE_USER $ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/bin/apachectl stop

    success "Stopping Oracle HTTP Server: "

    echo

    rm -f /var/lock/subsys/oracle

    rm -f /var/run/oracle.pid

    ;;

  restart)

    $0 stop

    sleep 2

    $0 start

    ;;

  *)

    echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"

    exit 1

esac

exit 0

Set the appropriate owner and mode:
chown root.root /etc/rc.d/init.d/oracle chmod 0755 /etc/rc.d/init.d/oracle

Now you can start Oracle by typing:
service oracle start
You can stop Oracle by typing:
service oracle stop

Note that only the databases in /etc/oratab with the last field set to Y will start and stop automatically. The following line, for example, will automatically start and stop the dev database:
dev:/usr/oracle/product/8.1.7:Y

Step 9 - Enjoy (or not)

You're done. Congrats.

Posted by bobo at May 22, 2002 11:15 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Worked out great. Thanks for the help.

Posted by: Jon Sutherland at July 10, 2002 01:43 PM

Bobo,
Exceptional!
I fought the installation for 48 hs untill I found
your HOWTO at /~vivake/log/archives/000041.html
Then it took just under 2 hours.
Lets hope ORACLE incorporates this into their 200 page installation manual that seems to have been
written by somebody on a very bad day.
The manual has pearls like
"How to set an environment variable using ksh, csh, etc"
but does not discuss the libgc issue at all.

Very good piece.

Miguel Feitosa

Posted by: Miguel Feitosa at July 10, 2002 06:03 PM

THANKS!!! I managed to setup Oracle once, but with a LOT of trouble. Your tutorial makes it a lot easier and leaves out unneccessary steps (like reinstalling an old version of binutils etc.) I owe you one ;-)

Posted by: baddlcat at July 12, 2002 05:44 PM

just got to say thanks.... if you follow this post you cant go wrong!!!!!!

Posted by: Jimmy Oddo at July 31, 2002 03:07 PM

There is another small typo in "root.sh" "SED=/usr/local/bin/sed"(line number may vary).

That will damage your old /etc/oratab, if any.

For RedHat, replace it with "SED=/bin/sed"

Posted by: lex at August 2, 2002 09:43 AM

Thanks for this very good piece. They need you at Oracle's place! :-)

Posted by: Roel Simons at September 8, 2002 03:01 PM

Hi. I have RedHat 8.0 installed in my computer and i want to install Oracle 9i in it. But I want to know fi you have special tips to make the installation or to run the data bases. I hope yhat you can help me.
Thanks you.

Pedro

Posted by: Pedro Zenon at November 1, 2002 03:34 PM

hi,
As per you suggestion, I am trying to search
the file glibc-2.1.3-stubs.tar.gz from oracle site , but i am not finding from oracle site, could you please help.

regards
deo

Posted by: mmdeo at November 3, 2002 11:08 AM

The glibc-2.1.3-stubs.tar.gz file is available at:

http://otn.oracle.com/software/products/oracle8i/htdocs/linuxsoft.html

You need to sign up for the Oracle Technology Network to be able to download it.

Posted by: Bobo at November 3, 2002 11:49 AM

Hi,
I have successfully installed oracle 8i on Redhat 7.0, But I have another two problems with my oracle 8i.
1) Whenever I run any DML or DDL command my oracle database stop responding to other sql requests. Database is vey small approx 10 MB of database.
I abort the database service with listner then it respond to sql queries again but again after some time same problem starts.
The above problem is only on Redhat linux 7.0 but when I do it on Redhat linux 6.0 or 6.1 it works smoothly.

2) My second problem is I can discover the oracle database on linux from OEM successfully, but on windows 2000 I am facing problem in discovery of oracle 8i form same OEM and m/c.

Can any one help in solving this problem.

Thanks
Sudarshan S Vatturkar

Posted by: Sudarshan at November 21, 2002 11:42 PM

I run into an error from the $ORACLE_HOME/ctx/libs/ins_ctx.mk. I assume from this HOWTO that I ignore it now, install the glibc stubs later, and relink takes care of it. I notice, however, that this HOWTO adds $ORACLE_HOME/libs to LD_LIBRARY_PATH, which the glibc-stubs readme says not to do rather emphatically. Can anyone elaborate on this please?

Posted by: Justin Georgeson at November 26, 2002 03:34 PM

Thanks for these instructions.

I think there's a little bug in the step 4:

su - oracle

cd $ORACLE_HOME

You can't cd to $ORACLE_HOME ($ORACLE_BASE/product/8.1.7) at this point, because it's not even created yet...

Posted by: Jarkko Laine at December 11, 2002 08:36 AM

Hey!!

GREAT document. I have a little addition as well.
Oracle 8.1.7 doesn't cope with LVM long partition names. What dbassist will do when you create a new database is checking if there is enough diskspace by doing a /bin/df. And some AWK thingy to check the available diskspace.

Now, when you use long partition names, the actual free diskspace will be listen on a new line, and dbassist crashes on that.

What to do:
mv /bin/df /bin/df.orig
vi /bin/df

where /bin/df contains:
#!/bin/sh
/bin/df.orig -P $1 $2 $3 $4

What will happen is that df is called with the -P option, which means that df wont care about nice tabbed information, but rather displays all information on one line.

After you created your database, move /bin/df.orig back to /bin/df and your system is back to normal.

Cheers,

Patrick

Posted by: Patrick Ale at January 14, 2003 10:48 AM

And another quick note:
This document also works for RedHat 8.0

Only difference: Instead of using up2date to fetch the compat packages you'll need to download the RPMs from the 7.3 directory on ftp.redhat.com or a mirror.

Posted by: Patrick Ale at January 15, 2003 01:54 AM

Hi Iam new to Linux , and abt the downloading of RPMs from 7.3 for 8i to work on RH 8.0 .. what shud I need to download from 7.3 directory?? There are scores of files in RPMs directory in 7.3. After downloading what shud I do??

Thanx
Kulkarni

Posted by: Kulkarni at March 24, 2003 01:10 AM

[oracle@localhost oracle]$ sqlplus

SQL*Plus: Release 8.1.6.0.0 - Production on Thu Mar 13 09:09:59 2003

Enter user-name: scott
Enter password:
oracleoralin: relocation error: /usr/oracle/lib/libjox8.so: undefined symbol: __fixunssfdi
ERROR:
ORA-12547: TNS:lost contact

Posted by: pankaj at March 31, 2003 12:19 AM

Thank you so much for putting up this page!

For some reason, to get "relink all" to work, I had to do the following:

rm libagtsh.so
ln -s libagtsh.so.1.0 libagtsh.so

then edit:
/usr/oracle/product/8.1.7/bin/genagtsh

and change "awk" to "/bin/awk" on lines 73 and 80.

Posted by: Rafael Kitover at March 31, 2003 11:02 PM

also...

On my system /usr/bin/env was a symlink to /bin/env, which dbassist did not like at all. Once I did:

rm /usr/bin/env
cp /bin/env /usr/bin

it worked fine.

Posted by: Rafael Kitover at March 31, 2003 11:13 PM

Notes: on Installing the above on Redhat 8.0
Thanks for all the above contributors

1. during the end of the installation the following error can be Ignored:

error in invoking target install of make file /usr/oracle/product/8.1.7 ctx/lib/ins_ctx.mk

2. ./setup_stubs.sh
cd bin
relink all

This will take long time - be patient and do not abort it - make yourself a cup of coeffee!

3. I used /usr/local/java (where java contain JDK 1.3.1_06)

Unix Group: oiinstall

4. Download 7.3 rpms:
compat-egcs-6.2-1.1.2.16.i386.rpm 07-Sep-2001 11:59 948k
[ ] compat-egcs-c++-6.2-1.1.2.16.i386.rpm 07-Sep-2001 11:59 1.4M
[ ] compat-egcs-g77-6.2-1.1.2.16.i386.rpm 07-Sep-2001 11:59 1.1M
[ ] compat-egcs-objc-6.2-1.1.2.16.i386.rpm 07-Sep-2001 11:59 828k
[ ] compat-glibc-6.2-2.1.3.2.i386.rpm 08-Apr-2001 00:00 2.1M
[ ] compat-libs-6.2-3.i386.rpm 08-Apr-2001 00:00 1.4M
[ ] compat-libstdc++-6.2-2.9.0.16.i386.rpm 07-Sep-2001 12:00 875k

Only run in the following order:

a. compat-glibc
b. compat-egcs
c. compat-egcs-obj
d. compat-libs-6.2-1.1

5. Used dba as the group requested by the installer

Posted by: at April 26, 2003 11:03 AM

Notes: on Installing the above on Redhat 8.0
Thanks for all the above contributors

1. during the end of the installation the following error can be Ignored:

error in invoking target install of make file /usr/oracle/product/8.1.7 ctx/lib/ins_ctx.mk

2. ./setup_stubs.sh
cd bin
relink all

This will take long time - be patient and do not abort it - make yourself a cup of coeffee!

3. I used /usr/local/java (where java contain JDK 1.3.1_06)

Unix Group: oiinstall

Only run in the following order:

a. compat-glibc
b. compat-egcs
c. compat-egcs-obj
d. compat-libs-6.2-1.1

5. Used dba as the group requested by the installer

Posted by: Marwan Chabbani at April 26, 2003 11:04 AM

;)

Posted by: ip address at May 4, 2003 04:00 AM

I am having the same issue as below I can not creat this, even after a few beers.

I think there's a little bug in the step 4:

su - oracle

cd $ORACLE_HOME

You can't cd to $ORACLE_HOME ($ORACLE_BASE/product/8.1.7) at this point, because it's not even created yet..

Posted by: Jeff Davis at May 22, 2003 12:33 AM

Fisrt of all, thank you for such a Great Job.

I have tested the procedure with RedHat9, Oracle 8.1.6 with the following things:

- Installed the 9 RPM
compat-libstdc++

- Installed the 7.3 RPMS:
compat-glibc
compat-egcs
compat-libs

Then, when installing, an error like this appears:

"Error while trying to make ins_sqlplus.mk"

In that point:
Open a terminal
Export LDEMULATION=elf_i386
cd to $ORACLE_HOME/bin
Change the line 172 of genclntsh from LD_SELF_CONTAINED="-z defs" to LD_SELF_CONTAINED=""
Run ./genclntsh

Continue with the installation pressing ignore in this and in all the following errors.

Continue with all the steps of your procedure, executing the patch and relink commands with LDEMULATION=elf_i386 set in the environment.

I hope it helps to others.

Thank you again
Gerardo Borbolla Luna

Posted by: Gerardo Borbolla Luna at May 30, 2003 01:10 PM

hi thank you for this page
my problem is .....
i have Qompaq pc (p4) when i install
oracle 8i 1.7 the autorun is ok but when i pressed on install button the pc load and stop
please tell me what i can do quickly >

thanks for all>
ahmad

Posted by: ahmad ayesh at July 5, 2003 07:29 PM

hi all thanks for this page >
please help me ......
My problem is in oracle 8i 1.7 when install
i have Qumpac Pc (p4 2000) the autorun page appear but when i pressed on button install
stop do any think every think for oracle hide >
please help me about hou ican install oracle 8i 1.7 on p4 >

thanks for all

your frind ahmad altarefe

Posted by: ahmad ayesh at July 5, 2003 07:34 PM

Beautiful set of instructions.

I believe I have found one error in Step 6. The options on the tar command should be 'xzf' rather than 'xfz'. When the 'f' option is used the next thing on the command line has to be the name of the tar file. I could be wrong, but I have had that transposition bite me in the butt many times.

Posted by: David at July 11, 2003 10:19 AM

Nice - installation of 8.1.7 on RedHat 8.0, went without a hitch!

Posted by: Chris Middleton at August 22, 2003 01:09 AM

i am still getting the error
oracleora8:relocation error:/ora8......./lib/libjox.so:
undefined symbol:-fixunssfd.
i followed the above steps.still i am getting the error.

Posted by: aby at August 28, 2003 09:10 AM

great work.now we can use oracle to work and satisfy our clients the more .Thanks menn!!!

Posted by: ksurff -----Ghana at August 29, 2003 08:29 AM

Just to thank all the people that have put this helpfull site..

Regards
Ronald

Posted by: Ronald at September 16, 2003 07:06 PM

Hi,

Oracle 8i installation failed duing the net8 configuration assistant in linux 7.2. It is xeon dual processor machine. Any help.

Posted by: Khaja Mohideen at October 8, 2003 06:10 AM

Thanks for your usefull instructions. I have just installed Oracle 8.1.7.0.1 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 2.1 .

Many thanks

Posted by: ASIF at October 9, 2003 02:38 AM

Wow, you've made this easy, even for a linux dummy like myself.

Posted by: Leigh Grealis at October 25, 2003 06:34 PM

How to install oracle8i on redhat9.0?I followed the above steps to install oracle8i on redhat9.0,but failed.

link errors on nls_sqlplus and others

Posted by: jason chen at October 30, 2003 08:48 PM

great!
it work also for redhat 9
thank you

Posted by: francesco leoncino at November 6, 2003 09:52 AM

I too had link errors with Oracle8i on Redhat 9, I managed to install after I downgraded binutils to the version that comes with Redhat 7.1 (binutils-2.10.91.0.2-3).

Posted by: Roie Marianer at November 10, 2003 05:20 AM

Hi..
That was a useful work. It made me install the 8.1.7 on Red Hat 9 without any problem. But, when I try to use SQLPLUS with whatever username and password, except /nolog, it gives the following error.

oraclesuresh:relocation error:u01/oracle/lib/libjox8.so

UNDEFINED SYMBOL:__fixunssfdi

ERROR:
ORA-12547
TNS:CONTACL LOST.

What am I supposed to do now. Please post me a solution. Thank you.

Posted by: Suresh Ranganathan at March 5, 2004 11:52 PM

Hello all,

anyone have some experience in installing 8.1.7 on a RedHat ES 3.0 distro?
Using the instructions above does not work.

Posted by: Jan vdM at April 20, 2004 02:23 PM

i have a cyrix 550 mhz processor with 128MB SDRAM ,
I have to install Oracle 8i with Redhatlinux6.0
whether it would be installed or not
if not then which version of both , i Have to install
Amit

Posted by: Amit Gupta at April 27, 2004 07:47 AM

I fellow your step.But execute runinstaller has the problem.I intall the oracle8i + redhat9.0

Initializing Java Virtual Machine from ../stage/Components/oracle.swd.jre/1.1.8/1/DataFiles/Expanded/linux/bin/jre. Please wait...
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

java.lang.InternalError: Can't connect to X11 window server using ':0.0' as the
value of the DISPLAY variable.
at sun.awt.motif.MToolkit.(MToolkit.java:63)
at java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit(Toolkit.java:394)
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiif.oiifm.OiifmSplashScreen.getImage(OiifmSplashScreen.java:67)
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiif.oiifm.OiifmSplashScreen.(OiifmSplashScreen.java:45)
at oracle.sysman.oii.oiic.OiicInstaller.main(OiicInstaller.java:418)

Posted by: SPOOKY at May 9, 2004 12:17 PM

I also had link errors with Redhat 9.

I believe this is serious enough to warrant adding to the main HOWTO.

You need to downgrade binutils on RH9 to get the linker to work, otherwise it will say the following:

ld: unrecognised emulation mode: elf_i386_glibc21
Supported emulations: elf_i386 i386linux
genclntst: error: could not locate /oracle-u01/product/8.1.7/lib/clntsh.map
please generate the client shared library first

..when you try and run "setup_stubs.sh". Also, "relink all" willl complain about not being able to find lclntsh (since libclntsh.so wont have been created by genclntsh).

I fixed mine by downgrading binutils to the version that ships with RedHat 8 (binutils-2.13.90.0.2-2.i386.rpm). You can do this easily by downloading it, then typing:

rpm -Uvh --oldpackage binutils-2.13.90.0.2-2.i386.rpm

You can confirm this is now working afterwards by typing: ld -V

GNU ld version 2.13.90.0.2 20020802
Supported emulations:
elf_i386
i386linux
elf_i386_glibc21

Install went ok from then onwards.

Posted by: Darren Coleman at May 23, 2004 07:06 PM

Additional RedHat 8 comments:

Disk1/runInstaller did nothing for me but burn up CPU cycles. Running Disk1/install/linux/runInstaller started up right away.

The version of apache installed with the Typical install needed libdb.so.3. I found it in compat-db-3.3.11-2.i386.rpm

Posted by: Matt at May 28, 2004 04:29 PM

thanks

Posted by: soumil at May 31, 2004 10:46 AM