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HowTo : Install Oracle 11g under CentOS release 5.2Filed Under: Oracle

CentOS is a Linux distribution that I have discovered only recently. It is, in short, an independent project that downloads the sources Redhat, withdraw all references to Redhat, to compile and distribute them free of charge. This gives us a distribution around nearest of Redhat than even Fedora. Very useful for testing Oracle DB on a free platform. It remains a distribution that is not officially supported.

First, I want to say that you should not install Oracle 11g under CentOS except in educational and testing purposes. Oracle is very explicit in its documentation : It should not be installed under a Linux platforms non-supported.

That being said, I will briefly describe my 11g installation in a machine under CentOS x86..:)

First step, download from otn.oracle.com and and move it on the machine CentOS. Then read the installation documentation from the same site (look for the “minimum requierement”) and proceed as follows:

1 – Check for packages required:

Here is a command so you will not have to retype everything. Just copy and paste.

rpm -q binutils
compat-libstdc++-33
elfutils-libelf
elfutils-libelf-devel
glibc
glibc-common
glibc-devel
glibc-headers
gcc
gcc-c++
libaio
libaio-devel
libgcc
libstdc++
libstdc++-devel
make
sysstat
unixODBC
unixODBC-devel

If some packages are missing, it is very easy to add them with the Package Manager of CentOS. Call it whith this command:

pirut &

Also, it is possible to use yum which I think is faster to use.

3 – Create groups and users needed.

# /usr/sbin/groupadd oinstall
# /usr/sbin/groupadd dba
# /usr/sbin/useradd -g oinstall -G dba oracle

4 – Modify system settings

Add in /etc/ sysctl.conf

kernel.shmall = 2097152
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648
kernel.shmmni = 4096
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
fs.file-max = 65536
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000
net.core.rmem_default = 4194304
net.core.rmem_max = 4194304
net.core.wmem_default = 262144
net.core.wmem_max = 262144

Then proceed with the following command so the
system will make effective the change in /etc/sysctl.conf

/sbin/sysctl -p

Add the following lines in /etc/security/limits.conf file:

oracle soft nproc 2047
oracle hard nproc 16384
oracle soft nofile 1024
oracle hard nofile 65536

Add the following lines in /etc/pam.d/login file

 /lib/security/pam_limits.so
session required pam_limits.so

Add the following lines in . Bash_profile for Oracle User

(/home/oracle/.bash_profile) :
ulimit -u 16384 -n 65536
umask 022

5 – Start Installation

As root :

xhost+

as oracle user :

Display=localhost:0
./runInstaller &

An error is possible as follows:

xhost : unable to open Display

It is easily corrected by adding (or modifying) the folowing line ot the file :
/etc/gdm/custom.conf

[Security]
<span style="font-family: Lucida Grande;">DisallowTCP=false</span>

Then reboot Gnome

/usr/sbin/gdm-restart

It is also possible that this error occurs:

java: xcb_xlib.c:50: xcb_xlib_unlock: Assertion `c->xlib.lock' failed.

And that does not install …

This is a bug with the package libxcb

An upgrade of it and the problem should be a thing of the past.

yum install libxcp

You can uncheck the creation of the Starter Database and create a database later with the method of choice (I did).

the install continue …

Normally, all the prerequisites should be managed successfully. If this is not the case, proceed with the appropriate correction.

The following error may occur :

You just have to change the hostname of you server from localhost to anything. Modifiy it in /etc/hosts, /etc/sysconfig/network and use the command hostname . Click Retry in the Oracle Installer and it should be ok.

Finally, the Oracle Installer will ask to execute to script as root and the installation will finish.