Run Oracle Installer

Installing the Oracle Net Services client software is relatively straightforward.

The tasks associated with this step vary somewhat for each database release and OS. You must refer to the Oracle installation manual for the database release and OS vendor to get the exact requirements. Another excellent tool here is the pre-installation checklist and the installer itself, as it does a verification and helps fix issues as part of the installation. Another reason why this step varies is because depending on your environment, greater values and more memory in the parameters might be needed. These are only the minimum values to be able to install and run Oracle databases. For example, for the minimum RAM, you need 1GB for the database and 8GB for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure, but you might have a much larger database that will require more. For Oracle 23c, Linux 8.4 is required, and there is a preinstallation RPM for Oracle Linux that will configure the operating system for the Oracle Database and grid installations. Oracle 23c binaries require at least 4.2 GB for Grid Infrastructure and at least 8.3 GB for database installations. It is recommended to disable Transparent HugePages and use standard HugePages for enhanced performance. Here are some typical OS components to verify:

• Memory and swap space
• System architecture
• Free disk space
• Operating system version and kernel
• Operating system software (required packages and patches); run oracle-database-preinstall-23c to install all required packages

Run the following command to confirm the memory size on a Linux server:

$ grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo

To verify the amount of memory and swap space, run the following:

$ free -t

Verify the amount of space in the /tmp directory:

$ df -h /tmp

Display the amount of free disk space:

$ df -h

Verify the OS version:

$ cat /proc/version

Verify the kernel information:

$ uname -r

Determine whether the required packages are installed:

$ rpm -q <package_name>

You should always double-check the server requirements by OS and database version in the documentation and by using the pre-installation packages provided for Oracle Linux. fixed here, and some of the warnings can be ignored if doing a test installation for a development or test system, as shown in Figure 1-4.

Step 3: Obtain the Oracle Installation Software

Usually, the easiest way to obtain the Oracle software is to download it from the Oracle website (oracle.com/downloads). Make sure you download the correct versions for the OS you want to install it on. If you are working with Linux systems, you can just install with yum and the RPM package.

$ yum -y install oracle-database-server-preinstall-23c
$ yum -y install oracle-database-ee-23c

For previous versions, it was recommended to unzip the files in a standard directory where you wanted the installation media. Starting with Oracle 18c, you should extract the binaries in the directory ORACLE_HOME or GRID_HOME. The zip file can be placed in a temporary location but extracted to ORACLE_HOME and GRID_HOME, respectively. Of course, if you want to skip this step, you can just use the RPM image, as shown in step 3.

1. Before we run the installer, we need to remotely install with the graphical interface. For the installation, you need to have the graphical output displayed on your local computer or have a virtual type of desktop running on the virtual machine that you can remote into. Normally in any type of environment, you need to connect remotely or over a bastion host without a direct connection to the server you are installing the database software on. This remote connection is typically achieved with virtual network computing (VNC) software or X Windows System emulation on your local computer.
   Listed next are the steps for setting up your environment to display graphical screens on your local computer while remotely running the Oracle installer:
   Install software on the local computer that allows for X Window System emulation and secure networking. There are several free tools available, such as Cygwin for a PC or XQuartz for Mac. Your company might have licensed software that you should use and install according to their policies. These tools will run commands such as ssh (secure shell) and scp (secure copy) and provide the X emulation utilities.
2. Start an X session on the local computer using the software installed in step 1 and issue the startx command or the command needed for an X session based on your tool.
3. Log in to the remote computer from an X terminal. Use the ssh utility to log in.
   

   $ ssh -Y -l oracle <hostname>
       

   
   
4. Ensure that the DISPLAY variable is set correctly on the remote computer.

   $ echo $DISPLAY
       

   If your DISPLAY is set to localhost, you will need to determine the IP address of your local computer. Use the ping or arp utility to determine the IP address. (If this step isn’t successful, there might be VPN connections that would require a different IP address setting.)
   

   $ export DISPLAY=129.151.31.147:0.0
       

If DISPLAY and the connection are all configured properly, you will be able to walk through the graphical installer steps.

To use the main Oracle installer screen (the final illustration in the oracle-client above), simply select an item (or group of items by Ctrl-clicking). Choose items from the panel on the right and click the Remove button to uninstall them. Choose items from the panel on the left and click the Install button to proceed with the installation. The Oracle installer will then analyze product dependencies and install the desired components.
In most cases you would choose (Oracle Net Services).
For large sites with thousands of PCs, you should never install the Oracle Net Services administrator tools such as SQL*Net Easy or Oracle Net Services Assistant. Such restraint will enable you to maintain uniformity across all PC clients. Having installed the Oracle Net Services client, you still need to create and test a tnsnames.ora file. The next lesson discusses the best strategy for doing so.