Installing Oracle using a tar file www.oracle.com

Installing Oracle using a UNIX tar file

Even if it is not the recommended way to install the Oracle software, making a tar file of the Oracle tree on one machine, copying it on another one and then untarring it can be a shortcut or way of installing the Oracle software when no cd is available.

For instance, if $ORACLE_HOME is /opt/oracle/product/9.2.0 , one can create a tar file using the UNIX command 

tar cvfp /tmp/oracle.tar /opt/oracle/product/9.2.0
In this example, according to well established OFA conventions, the $ORACLE_BASE is /opt/oracle and the $ORACLE_HOME is /opt/oracle/product/9.2.0
The tar file /tmp/oracle.tar must be copied onto the other system using the ftp in binary mode and opened using the command:

tar xvfp /tmp/oracle.tar

The command will work as expected if on the target system the $ORACLE_HOME is defined as on the original server. If the mount points are different (for example /opt is not available and you have instead an /export/app) create a symbolic link:

ln -s /export/app /opt

This way the ORACLE_HOME can be defined identically on both systems as /opt/oracle/product/9.2.0
The installation using a tar file, though, works fine if the ORACLE_HOME on the two systems are identical, and also the directory structure, otherwise the following error can occur: 

% sqlplus mysuser/mypwd 

SQL*Plus: Release 8.1.7.0.0 - Production on Tue May 16 13:16:19 2002 

(c) Copyright 1999 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. 

ld.so.1: message>: fatal: .so: open failed: No such file or 
directory 
ERROR: 
ORA-12547: TNS:lost contact 

On the other hand, a connection using the tnsnames area still works:

% sqlplus mysuser@MYDB/mypwd 

Connected
A similar error can be produced when trying to relink all the oracle executable trying to fix the problem: 

% make -f ins_rdbms.mk ioracle 

ld: fatal: file /opt/oracle/product/8.1.7/rdbms/lib/skgxns.o: 
cannot open file: Permission denied
To understand what the problem is, let us look closely at the definition of $ORACLE_HOME on the two systems. 


On the first server we have 

$ ls -l /opt
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     staff          4 Sep 22 10:58 /opt -> /export/app 
Let's check a file called nmliblist on $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib 
$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib
$ ls n*
nmliblist
$ more nmliblist
/export/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/rdbms/lib/skgxns.o
On the second server we have (before untarring the tar file): 

$ ls -l /opt
total 2
drwxrwxr-x   9 oracle   dba          512 Jun  1  2002 oracle

$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib
$ ls n*
nmliblist       
$ more nmliblist
/opt/oracle/product/8.1.7/rdbms/lib/skgxns.o


The problem is therefore that the $ORACLE_HOME is hardcoded in the file $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/nmliblist and the soft links are translated. When the oracle software tree is transferred onto another system, edit $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/nmliblist so that the path is correct.
  • To fix the problem, shutdown all the oracle instances and application that are using the $ORACLE_HOME (including listener, agent, data gatherer).
  • Edit the $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib/nmliblist so that the path is the physical path without soft links. /export/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/rdbms/lib/skgxns.o becomes /opt/oracle/product/8.1.7/rdbms/lib/skgxns.o
  • Relink the executables: cd $ORACLE_HOME/lib
    ./relink all
  • If you use rman for your backups check the validity of the soft link pointing to the media library. 
    
Setting up the environment for PROD 8.1.7
oracle@ cd $ORACLE_HOME/lib
oracle@ ls -l l*b*k*
lrwxrwxrwx   1 oracle  dba  43 Nov 8 2002 libobk.so ->
     /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/oracle/bin/libobk.so    
... ...
    After untarring the file, be sure that the symbolic link libobk.so (here pointing to the Tivoli backup directory) does not get overwritten.

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