Oracle database 10gR2 installation in RedHat 5.4

In this post I'll show you the steps required to install Oracle Database 10g Release 2 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (64-bit)

Assuming you have downloaded Oracle Database 10g R2 from their official website.

If not you can get it from the below mentioned link

Oracle Database 10g R2 for Linux 64-bit

For my case I have disable Selinux. Please make sure you apply relevant policy for selinux in case you have it enforcing state.

Prerequisites before installing Oracle 10gR2

GUI Environment

Make sure you have a running GUI environment with all the packages inside group GNOME or KDE package installed.

You can do the same using

# yum groupinstall "GNOME Desktop Environment" "X Window System"

In case you want to use KDE desktop you can select the KDE group package instead of GNOME

Memory and Swap space

You can follow the below table which is as per the Oracle standards for installing Oracle Database 10g in a 64 bit Linux machine

RAM	Swap Space
Up to 512 MB	2 times the size of RAM
Between 1024 MB and 2048 MB	1.5 times the size of RAM
Between 2049 MB and 8192 MB	Equal to the size of RAM
More than 8192 MB	0.75 times the size of RAM

NOTE: In case you donot have enough swap memory space in your machine the follow this page for

How to increase Swap Memory size in Linux
You can check the RAM and SWAP space using this command

# free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          4392       4352         39          0        149       3828
-/+ buffers/cache:        374       4018
Swap:         6399          0       6399

NOTE: In case you have assigned a different partition size for /tmp directory then make sure it has minimum 400 MB free space.

Hosts File

Your hosts file should be proper as shown below

# vi /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6
10.10.20.41 test.example test

Your machine should have a proper hostname. To check use the below command

# hostname
test.example

Kernel Parameters

For Oracle 10g, the following kernel parameters have to be set to values greater than or equal to the recommended values.

To verify shmmax

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax
shmmax = 2147483648

To verify shmmni

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/shmmni
shmmni = 4096

To verify the shmall parameter

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/shmall
shmall = 2097152

To verify shmmin

# ipcs -lm |grep "min seg size"
shmmin = 1

Note that shmseg is hardcoded in the kernel, the default is much higher.

shmseg = 10

To verify semmsl

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/sem | awk '{print $1}'
semmsl = 250

To verify semmns

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/sem | awk '{print $2}'
semmns = 32000

To verify semopm

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/sem | awk '{print $3}'
semopm = 100

To verify semmni

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/sem | awk '{print $4}'
semmni = 128

To verify file-max

# cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
file-max = 65536

To verify ip_local_port_range

# cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range
ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000

In case your default kernel parameter is less than the above mentioned parameters then you will have to change them. This is how you can add or change these parameters:

Add the following lines in sysctl.conf

# vi /etc/sysctl.conf
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000
net.core.rmem_default=262144
net.core.rmem_max=262144
net.core.wmem_default=262144
net.core.wmem_max=262144

Run the following command to refresh the kernel parameters just added

# sysctl -p

To view all the kernel parameters

# sysctl -a

Add the following lines to the "/etc/security/limits.conf" file.

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

Add the following line to the "/etc/pam.d/login" file, if it does not already exist.

session    required    pam_limits.so

RPM pre-requisites

Make sure the following rpm version is equal or greater installed in your machine

gcc-3.4.4-2
gcc-c++-3.4.4-2
libstdc++-devel-3.4.4-2
libgcc-4.1.2-50
cpp-3.4.4-2
compat-libf2c-34-3.4.6-4.1
compat-libcom_err-1.0-7
glibc-2.3.4-2.13
glibc-common-2.3.4-2.13
glibc-devel-2.3.4-2.13
glibc-headers-2.3.4-2.13
gnome-libs-1.4.1.2.90-44.1
compat-db-4.1.25-9
sysstat-5.0.5-1
libaio-0.3.103-3
openmotif21-2.1.30-11
xorg-x11-deprecated-libs-6.8.2-1
compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.3
make-3.80-5libXp-1.0.0

User and Group

You have to create a different user and group who will run the database

# useradd oracle
# groupadd dba
# usermod -G dba oracle

So we have added oracle user to dba group using the above command.

Create home directory

# mkdir -p /u01/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_3/
# mkdir /u01/oraInventory
# chown -R /u01
# chmod -R oracle:dba /u01

We will use the standard format for creating the oracle database. Create a directory with the name used above.

Specify the Display protocol

# su - oracle
$ export $DISPLAY=localhost:0.0

NOTE: In case you get DISPLAY related errors at the installation stage follow this page
How to specify DISPLAY protocol

Installation

Go to the location where you have downloaded and unzipped the database setup file using oracle user

# su - oracle

$ cd /database10gr2/database/
$ ./runInstaller

You will get the below screen. Change the Oracle Home location as the directory row created in "Create Home Directory" section of this blog
(Click on the images in case you find trouble reading the texts)
Give database password in the provided section

Give the directory path as mentioned below

Make sure you get "Succeeded" in all the pre-requisite section. In case you get a failure at any of the parameter, Re-check the failed parameter and it is advised not to move to next step until and unless all the pre-requisite are "Passed"

Click on Next and Finish the installation

Follow the link for step by step installation guide of Oracle Database 11gR2 in Red Hat Linux