1. Choose Components to Install
Various
components of the Oracle software are automatically installed; some are
available on the companion CDs or as additional downloads. With Oracle
11g, the following products are now installed by default with the database:
This section is not going to turn into a discussion
of licensing for standard or enterprise editions and of the different
products that are available; however, there are
products that provide benefits for different needs. Reviewing the
products and versions to match them with business needs before
installing is helpful for performing the install of these products at
the same time as the initial install. It is possible to add products by
running through the install again and choosing the options that have not
yet been installed.
The Oracle Universal
Installer allows for the Basic install, which is just going to install
the default options for Oracle. There is an Advanced option available
for deselecting or selecting other available options.
2. Install the Oracle Software
To begin, run the Oracle Universal Installer as
oracle, either from the DVDs or from the downloaded software that has
been unzipped on the file system:
[oracle@mmrac1 database]$ ./runInstaller
If the ORACLE_HOME environment variable is set before
running the Installer, information will already be populated with these
details. Starting with Figure 1,
let’s walk through some of the screens of the Oracle Universal
Installer. Each of the illustrations following provides some detail
about what options to select and information to provide while installing
the Oracle software.
The
Basic install will start up the database configuration assistant in
order to create a database instance after installing the software.
Certain configurations are not available, such as Automatic Storage
Management (ASM), but the Basic install will install the default
components without walking through the options. The Advanced install
will allow you to pick and choose from the available options. Advanced
install was chosen in Figure 2-7, and the following illustrations for this install will show the options available with the advanced option.
It’s a good idea to start to document the options
that are chosen for the checklist for the install, so that future
installs of the Oracle software will have the same components installed
as needed. A checklist will be useful for creating consistent
environments and ensuring that the same components are being installed
across test to production systems.
The group that was defined on the operating system
for the Oracle install is needed for the permissions to the OraInventory
directory. This is normally a group such as oinstall, as seen in the
following illustration. The OraInventory will contain the information
about what was installed and the versions used. OraInventory is used for
when the binaries need to be patched and when needing to add or remove
components.
As
seen in the next illustration, there are three types of installs:
Enterprise, Standard, or Custom. Choosing Enterprise or Standard will
install the default products for those versions. Obviously, the
Enterprise and Standard versions have different licensing issues, and
limitations are set on the Standard edition for CPUs and the options
that can be added. There are several product options that come with
installing a default type of Standard or Enterprise. Some may argue that
you should install only what is needed, while others may suggest that
for a development environment, you should install everything to allow
developers to test and try out different options. For most systems, we
recommend that you use the Custom option to select only options that are
needed. Standardize the install so that it can repeated when you are
ready for a production environment.
On a server, there can be several home directories
with different versions, options, and patch sets installed. The
following illustration shows an example of what the base directory and
home directory should be set to. If doing a new install and for
additional components or patching existing ones, Oracle home directory
should be used.
The following illustration shows the install screen
running through checks for kernel parameters, memory, and patch sets for
the operating system, as well as other requirements that are needed to
install and run the Oracle software. If the verification of the
operating system was done as part of the planning, these checks should
all pass. If there are failures here, they need to be corrected before
continuing with the install.
As
discussed when using the custom install, there are options for what to
install, as shown in the following illustration. Look through the
available options and check the components that are desired or uncheck
those components not needed.
After the software is
installed, the installer will open up the database configuration
assistant to create a database or to configure ASM. See the following
illustration, which shows these choices; in this case, only software has
been selected. If you are just installing the software, the database
creation assistant can be used at another time for creating databases
and ASM instances. The steps for the database configuration assistant
are listed in the next section, “Database Configuration Assistant.”
During the last step before the actual install, you
still have the opportunity to go back and modify any directories or
options for the install. The following illustration shows the screen
with this summary information, which has the directories where it is to
be installed, installation type, and its space requirements. At this
step, take time to review to make sure the information is correct.
The
following illustration shows the files are being copied and installed.
Note the location of the log file. If any issues or errors come up, this
would be the first place to look for more information.
Your
last steps are demonstrated in the following illustration. To complete
the installation, you will need to make changes regarding permissions
and directories that are owned by root. There are two scripts that need
to be executed by the root owner to make these changes. Have the
operating system administrator log in and run orainstRoot.sh and root.sh
(as shown in the illustration).
This final illustration is always a good screen to
see because it means that the installation of the Oracle software has
completed successfully. The installation went through the listener
configuration and the instance configuration, so the database is now up
and available for use. This configuration is completed
with a default listener name and port as well as starting of the service
which will allow the connections to the database.
Database Configuration Assistant
As
part of the installation, the database configuration assistant (dbca)
can be configured to start up after the initial software install.
Otherwise, the assistant can be started any time to create a new
database instance. The dbca has standard templates to be used for
different types of databases; the templates have some parameter settings
for memory and others based on the type of instance. The passwords and
directories for the tablespaces can use the default values or be
customized. As part of the planning process, these configurations should
be decided on depending on the directory structures and templates to be
used. A checklist needs to be kept to determine which templates,
parameter settings, and other choices are to be made within the
assistant. The advantage is that even after the database instance is
created, parameters and file locations can be adjusted. However, some
adjustments are easier than others, and with Oracle 11g,
there are even more dynamic parameters that can be changed while the
database is up and available, instead of having to restart the database
instance to make the change in value for the parameter.
As shown in Figure 2,
the database can be created or an existing database can be dropped.
There is also the option to create an Automatic Storage Management (ASM)
instance.
Choosing this option for ASM will only install an ASM instance, while
running through dbca will be required in order to install a database
instance.
The next dbac screen has
three default options to choose for the databases: General Purpose,
Custom Database, and Data Warehouse.
In stepping through the screens, the next step would
be to name the database instance. Passwords should be set for SYS and
SYSTEM. All of the system passwords can be the same or they can all be
different. The main thing is that these passwords should not be set with
a default value as they have in the past. Anyone who knows about
installing Oracle and default passwords would be able to log into the
database if the default was not changed. For now, the choices to be made
with the database install can be kept to defaults or basic choices. As
you learn more about what the system is to be used for, you can make
more adjustments with parameters and configurations.
For a test database instance with schemas and to work through the examples, check Sample Schemas, as shown here.
The initialization parameters can be configured as
you create the database. The following illustration shows step 10 of the
database configuration assistant, where these parameters can be
configured. The memory can be customized or default values can be taken,
based on a percentage of overall available memory. The character set
should also be set up; it is more difficult to change, unlike the memory
settings, so verifying the character set for the database is important.
The character sets are important for databases with international
characters and globalization of the characters. When dealing with
international characters, it is suggested to use a character set that
allows for these values. Unicode character sets support characters with
different sizes and in multiple languages.
Creating the database, creating the scripts, and
developing a template are the final steps before the database is
actually created. The following illustration shows the option to save
the database as a template and to generate database creation scripts.
Having scripts is a valuable tool for creating another similar database,
or when needing to create the database again without the assistant. The
templates will be added to the creation process of other databases in
this Oracle home, again, making it easier to create another database
that is similar in nature.
Verify the Installation
The
operating system is now configured, the Oracle software is installed,
and an initial database has been created. Now the system should be
reviewed to confirm that everything is in the right place and that
everything is working as expected. Looking through the directories and
log directories of the database to verify the install is very useful.
Check the install log file, which was the log file that was listed
during the install of the software. See Figure 3 for example output of the log file.
Review the alert logs of the database and check the
logs for any issues with the startup or parameters of the database. The
default location for the log files are $ORACLE_BASE\admin\SID. This
information can also be retrieved by queries to the database and
selecting the value from v$parameter where the name =
‘background_dump_dest’. Look at the file systems to make sure that the
datafiles are going to
the directory that is expected. Again, a quick query against the
database, such as select file_name from dba_data_files, will show all of
the current data files.
Log into Oracle Enterprise Manager (OEM) and make
sure the database can be accessed. Check the memory usage on the operating
system level to ensure that the right amount of memory was configured
for Oracle and that there is space available for user processes too. Use
commands like top to see what the top processes are and to view memory
usage for the processes. The file systems should also have enough space;
you should verify this after installing Oracle and creating the
database.
After these initial checks
the system should be ready to use, allowing you to install the front-end
application, add users, and set up monitoring and backups. Setting up
backups and monitoring help also verify that the system is ready to go
and might be a good step to complete before allowing other users to
access the database.
