How to simplify the installation of Oracle Database 11g on Oracle Linux 6 by installing the oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall RPM package.

Before installing Oracle Database 11g on a system, you need to preconfigure the operating environment since the database requires certain software packages, package versions, and tweaks to kernel parameters. (Be sure to review the appropriate Oracle Database installation guide to familiarize yourself with hardware, software, and operating system requirements.)

[@more@]

On Oracle Linux, I discovered that there is a remarkably easy way to address these installation prerequisites: First install an RPM package called oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall. This RPM performs a number of preconfiguration steps, including the following:

Automatically downloading and installing any additional software packages and specific package versions needed for installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3), with package dependencies resolved via yum or up2date capabilities.
Creating the user oracle and the groups oinstall (for OraInventory) and dba (for OSDBA), which are used during database installation. (For security purposes, this user has no password by default and cannot log in remotely. To enable remote login, please set a password using the passwd tool.)
Modifying kernel parameters in /etc/sysctl.conf to change settings for shared memory, semaphores, the maximum number of file descriptors, and so on.
Setting hard and soft shell resource limits in /etc/security/limits.conf, such as the locked-in memory address space, the number of open files, the number of processes, and core file size.
Setting numa=off in the kernel for x86_64 machines.

Note that oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall parses the existing /etc/sysctl.conf and /etc/security/limits.conf files and updates values only as needed for database installation. Any precustomized settings not related to database installation are left as is.

The oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall RPM package is accessible through the (ULN, which requires a support contract), from the Oracle Linux distribution media, or from the . Thus, whether or not your system is registered with ULN to access Oracle patches and support, you can use oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall to simplify database installation on Oracle Linux. In addition, the Oracle public yum repository now includes all security and bug errata, ensuring systems are secured and stable with the latest security updates and bug fixes.

Installing the oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall RPM

The remainder of this article steps through the procedure that I used for installing oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall on Oracle Linux via the Oracle public yum repository. I started with a system running Oracle Linux Release 6 Update 3 for x86_64, a 64-bit version of Oracle Linux that I downloaded from the (requires registration or login). First, I set up a yum configuration file that pointed to the correct repository, and then I installed the oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall RPM from that repository.

Here are the steps for preconfiguring a system for Oracle Database installation using oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall:

As an authorized user (for example, root), retrieve the file that configures repository locations:

2.

3. # cd /etc/yum.repos.d

4.

5. # wget

6.

Using a text editor, modify the file, changing the field enabled=0 to enabled=1 to reflect repositories that correspond to the machine's operating system release.

Here is an excerpt of public-yum-old6.repo with the changed lines in boldface.

[ol6_latest]

name=Oracle Linux $releasever Latest ($basearch)

baseurl=

gpgkey=

gpgcheck=1

enabled=1

[ol6_UEK_latest]

name=Latest Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Oracle Linux $releasever ($basearch)

baseurl=

gpgkey=

gpgcheck=1

enabled=1

Because the target system is running Oracle Linux Release 6 Update 3 for x86_64, which installs the Oracle Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel by default, there are two repositories to enable, [ol6_latest] and [ol6_UEK_latest].

Next, install the oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall RPM using the yum install command.

The output in Listing 1 shows how the installation checks dependencies and then downloads and installs the required packages.

# yum install oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall

Loaded plugins: refresh-packagekit, rhnplugin, security

Setting up Install Process

Resolving Dependencies

--&gt Running transaction check

---&gt Package oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall.x86_64 0:1.0-6.el6 will be installed

--&gt Processing Dependency: gcc-c++ for package: oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall-1.0-6.el6.x86_64

--&gt Processing Dependency: gcc for package: oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall-1.0-6.el6.x86_64

--&gt Processing Dependency: libaio-devel for package: