Short Guide to install Oracle 8.1.7 on Red Hat Linux 6.2

The following short Guide shows how to install and configure Oracle 8.1.7 on RedHat Linux 6.2. You may download our Scripts to create a database, we suggest this way and NOT using DBASSIST. Use DBASSIST only to generate a template script, because some important INITSID.ora values are wrong and may lead to a poorly tuned database. Besides these scripts, you can download our NET8 configuration files: LISTNER.ORA, TNSNAMES.ORA and SQLNET.ORA.

For our installation, we used the following ORACLE_HOME AND ORACLE_SID, please adjust these parameters for your own environment.

• ORACLE_HOME = /opt/oracle/product/8.1.7

• ORACLE_SID = RAB1

Important System Requirements

Oracle 8i needs Kernel Version 2.2 and glibc, which is included in RedHat Linux 6.2.

Enlightenment Package and JAVA Runtime Environment

The enlightenment package and Java Runtime Environment must no more extra downloaded and installed.

Create Unix Group «dba»

$ groupadd -g 400 dba
$ groupdel dba

Create Unix User «oracle»

$ useradd -u 400 -c "Oracle Owner" -d /home/oracle \
  -g "dba" -m -s /bin/bash oracle

Setup Environment ($HOME/.bash_profile) as follows

# Setup ORACLE environment

ORACLE_HOME=/opt/oracle/product/8.1.7; export ORACLE_HOME
ORACLE_SID=RAB1; export ORACLE_SID
ORACLE_TERM=xterm; export ORACLE_TERM
ORACLE_OWNER=oracle; export ORACLE_OWNER
TNS_ADMIN=/home/oracle/config/8.1.7; export TNS_ADMIN
NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.UTF8; export NLS_LANG
ORA_NLS33=$ORACLE_HOME/ocommon/nls/admin/data; export ORA_NLS33
CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/jdbc/lib/classes111.zip
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

# Set up JAVA and JSDK environment:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk
export JSDK_HOME=/usr/local/jsdk
CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:$JAVA_HOME/lib/classes.zip:$JSDK_HOME/lib/jsdk.jar
export CLASSPATH

# Set up the search paths:

PATH=/usr/local/jre/bin:/usr/local/jdk/bin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin:$ORACLE_HOME/bin:/usr/local/jsdk/bin
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/X11R6/bin:/root/bin
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/samba/bin
export PATH

Mount the Oracle 8.1.7 CD-ROM

Mount the CD-ROM as user root.

$ su root
$ mkdir /cdrom
$ mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /cdrom
$ exit

Install with Installer

Install Oracle 8i with Oracle Installer

$ cd /cdrom
$ DISPLAY=<Any X-Window Host>:0.0
$ export DISPLAY
$ ./runInstaller

Start the script root.sh as User «root», make it executable

$ su root
$ cd $ORACLE_HOME
$ chmod 755 root.sh
$ ./root.sh

Edit the Database Startup Script /etc/oratab

RAB1:/prod/oracle/8.1.7:Y

Create the Database

Edit and save the CREATE DATABASE File initRAB1.sql in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs, or create a symbolic-Link from $ORACLE_HOME/dbs to your Location.

$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/dbs
$ ln -s /home/oracle/config/8.1.7/initRAB1.ora initRAB1.ora
$ ls -l

initRAB1.ora -> /home/oracle/config/8.1.7/initRAB1.ora

svrmgrl
SVRMGR> @initRAB1.sql
SVRMGR> @shutdown immediate
SVRMGR> startup

Check the Logfile !

Create your own DB-Create Script (optional)

You can generate your own DB-Create Script using the Tool: $ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbassist.

Start Listener

$ lsnrctl start LSNRRAB1

Automatically Start / Stop the Database

To start the Database automatically on Boot-Time, create or use our Startup Scripts dbora and lsnrora (included in ALL_FILES.tar.gz), which must be installed in /etc/rc.d/init.d. Create symbolic Links from the Startup Directories in /etc/rc.d (e.g. /etc/rc.d/rc2.d).

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root S99dbora -> ../init.d/dbora*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root S99lsnrora -> ../init.d/lsnrora*

Download Scripts for RedHat Linux 6.2 / 7.0

These Scripts can be used as Templates. Please note, that some Parameters like ORACLE_HOME, ORACLE_SID and PATH must be adjusted on your own Environment. Besides this, you should check the initSID.ora Parameters for your Database (Size, Archivelog, ...)