If you are installing PostGreSQL instead of Oracle, skip thissection.

OpenACS 5.9.0 will install with Oracle 9i but has not beenextensively tested so may still have bugs or tuning issues. SeeAndrew Piskorski's Oracle 9i notes forguidance.

1. Dec 16, 2014 Did you download the Oracle client? After the download, click the setup.exe - select Instance client or Administrator - give the path-click next -next -finish Browse C: Oracle product 11.2.0 client1 etwork admin folder edit tnsnames.ora.
2. You can find the links below. 32 bit: bit: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/databas.

Problem: The correct version of Oracle client is not installed on the machine running the Responder business servers. Fix: Install or upgrade to Oracle 8.1.7 or greater on the machine that is running the Responder business servers. Don’t forget to create an Oracle instance for the database connection. Refer to the Configuring Responder online documentation for more information.

This installation guide attempts to present all of theinformation necessary to complete an OpenACS installation. We tryhard to make all of the steps possible in one pass, rather thanhaving a step which amounts to 'go away and develop a profoundunderstanding of software X and then come back and, in 99% of allcases, type these two lines.' The exception to our rule isOracle production systems. This page describes a set of steps toget a working Oracle development server, but it is unsuitable for production systems.If you will be using OpenACS on Oracle in a production environment,you will experience many problems unless you develop a basicunderstanding of Oracle which is outside the scope of thisdocument. T

This document assumes that you'll be installing Oracle onthe same box as AOLserver. For more details on a remote Oracleinstallation, see Daryl Biberdorf's document.

Useful links to find help on how to set up Oracle under Linuxare:

Production Oracle systems should run on certified platforms.Follow the metalink note 223718.1to find certifiedplatforms. If you don't have metalink access, take a look atthe Oracle on Linux FAQ: Which LinuxDistributions Are Directly Supported By Oracle?. In summary,free and inexpensive Linux distributions are not certified.

You can download the Oracle software from the Oracle Downloads page.

Each Oracle release comes with extensive and usually quitewell-written documentation. Your first step should be to thoroughlyread the release notes for your operating system and your Oracleversion. Find the docs here:

It is generally useful to run a particular Oracle version withits latest patchset. At the time of writing these were 8.1.7.4 and9.2.0.5, both of which are considered to be very stable.

To be able to download a patchset, you need a (to-pay-for)account on Metalink. You may find the appropriate patchsetby following Andrew's suggestion.

Oracle is very well-documented software, the onlinedocumentation comes with printable PDFs and full-text search.Altogether there is more than 20.000 pages of documentation, so donot expect to understand Oracle within in a few hours. The beststarting pointing into Oracle is the Concepts book. Here's the8i version and the 9.2 version.

To give you an idea of how configurable Oracle is and how muchthought you may need to put into buying the proper hardware andcreating a sane setup, you should thoroughly read CaryMillsap's Configuring Oracle Server for VLDB and theOptimal Flexible Architecture standard.

Throughout these instructions, we will refer to a number ofconfigurable settings and advise certain defaults. With theexception of passwords, we advise you to follow these defaultsunless you know what you are doing. Subsequent documents willexpect that you used the defaults, so a change made here willnecessitate further changes later. For a guide to the defaults,please see the sectioncalled “Defaults”.

In order for OpenACS to work properly you need to set theenvironment appropriately.

For additional resources/documentation, please see thisthread and Andrew Piskorski's mini-guide.

Though Oracle 8.1.7 has an automated installer, we still need toperform several manual, administrative tasks before we can launchit. You must perform all of these steps as the root user. We recommend entering the Xwindow system as a normal user and then doing a su -. This command gives you full rootaccess.

• Login as a non-root user and start X by typing startx

• Open a terminal window type and login as root

• Create and setup the oraclegroup and oracle account

  We need to create a user oracle, which is used to install theproduct, as well as starting and stopping the database.

  You will be prompted for the New Password and Confirmation ofthat password.

• Setup the installation location for Oracle. While Oracle canreside in a variety of places in the file system, OpenACS hasadopted /ora8 as the basedirectory.

  Note: the Oracleinstall needs about 1 GB free on /ora8 to install successfully.

• Set up the oracle user'senvironment

  • Log in as the user oracle bytyping the following:

  • Use a text editor to edit the .bash_profile file in the oracle account home directory.

    You may get this error trying to start emacs:

    If so, open a new terminal window and do the following:

    Now, back in the oracle terminal:

    Try this procedure anytime you get an Xlib connection refusederror.

  • Add the following lines (substituting your Oracle version numberas needed) to .bash_profile:

    Save the file by typing CTRL-XCTRL-S and then exit by typing CTRL-X CTRL-C. Alternatively, use themenus.

  Make sure that you do not add any lines like thefollowing

  These lines will change the Oracle date settings and will breakOpenACS since OpenACS depends on the ANSI date format, YYYY-MM-DDdates.

• Log out as oracle

• Log back in as oracle anddouble check that your environment variables are as intended. Theenv command lists all of thevariables that are set in your environment, and grep shows you just the lines you want(those with ORA in it).

  If it worked, you should see:

  If not, try adding the files to ~/.bashrc instead of .bash_profile. Then logout and log back inagain. Also, be certain you are doing su - oracle and not just su oracle. The - means that .bashrc and .bash_profile will be evaluated.

  Make sure that /bin,/usr/bin, and /usr/local/bin are in your path bytyping:

  If they are not, then add them to the .bash_profile by changing the PATHstatement above to PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin:$ORACLE_HOME/bin

• Log in as oracle and start Xif not already running. Start a new terminal:

• Find the runInstallerscript

  • If you are installing Oracle from a CD-ROM, it is located in theinstall/linux path from thecd-rom mount point

  • If you are installing from the tarball, the install script islocated in the Oracle8iR2directory that was created when you expanded the archive.

  Check to make sure the file is there.

  If you don't see runInstaller, you are in the wrongdirectory.

• Run the installer

  A window will open that welcomes you to the 'OracleUniversal Installer' (OUI). Click on 'Next'

  Note

  Some people have had trouble with this step on RedHat 7.3 and8.0. If so, try the following steps before calling ./runInstaller:

  1. Execute the following command: /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-env.sh

  2. Type exportLD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5

• The 'File Locations' screen in the OUI:

  • 'Source' path should have been prefilled with'(wherever you mounted the CDROM)/stage/products.jar'

  • 'destination' path says '/ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7'

    If the destination is not correct it is because your environmentvariables are not set properly. Make sure you logged on asoracle using su - oracle. If so, edit the ~/.bash_profile as you did in the section called “Pre-InstallationTasks”

  • Click 'Next' (a pop up window will display LoadingProduct information).

• The 'Unix Group Name' screen in the OUI:

  • The Unix Group name needs to be set to 'oinstall' ( we made this Unix groupearlier ).

  • Click 'Next'

  • A popup window appears instantly, requesting you to run a scriptas root:

  • • Debian users need to link /bin/awk to /usr/bin/awk before running the scriptbelow

  • Open a new terminal window, then type:

  • Click 'Retry'

• The 'Available Products' screen in the OUI:

  • Select 'Oracle 8i Enterprise Edition 8.1.7.1.0'

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Installation Types' screen

  • Select the 'Custom' installation type.

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Available Product Components' screen

  • In addition to the defaults, make sure that 'Oracle SQLJ8.1.7.0,' 'Oracle Protocol Support 8.1.7.0.0,' and'Linux Documentation 8.1.7.0.0' are also checked.

  • Click 'Next'

  • A progress bar will appear for about 1 minute.

• The 'Component Locations' screen in the OUI

  • Click on the 'Java Runtime Environment 1.1.8' Itshould have the path '/ora8/m01/app/oracle/jre/1.1.8'

  • Click 'Next'

  • A progress bar will appear for about 1 minute.

• The 'Privileged Operation System Groups' screen in theOUI

  • Enter 'dba' for 'Database Administrator (OSDBA)Group'

  • Enter 'dba' for the 'Database Operator (OSOPER)Group'

  • Click 'Next'

  • A progress bar will appear for about 1 minute.

• The 'Authentication Methods' screen

• The next screen is 'Choose JDK home directory'

  • Keep the default path: /usr/local/java

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Create a Database' screen in the OUI

  • Select 'No' as we will do this later, after someimportant configuration changes.

  • Click 'Next'

• The next screen is 'Oracle Product Support'

  • TCP should be checked with 'Status' listed asRequired

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Summary' screen in the OUI

  • Check the 'Space Requirements' section to verify youhave enough disk space for the install.

  • Check that '(144 products)' is in the 'NewInstallations' section title.

  • Click 'Install'

  • A progress bar will appear for about 20 - 30 minutes. Now is agood time to take a break.

  • A 'Setup Privileges' window will popup towards the endof the installation asking you to run a script as root

  • Run the script. Switch to the oracle user first to set theenvironment appropriately and then do su to get root privileges, whilekeeping the oracle user's environment.

  • Do not follow the instructions on deleting trace and log files,it is not necessary.

• Go back to the pop-up window and click 'OK'

• The 'Configuration Tools' screen in the OUI

  • This window displays the config tools that will automatically belaunched.

• The 'Welcome' screen in the 'net 8 ConfigurationAssistant'

  • Make sure the 'Perform Typical installation' isnot selected.

  • Click 'Next'

  • The 'Directory Service Access' screen in the 'Net8 Configuration Assistant'

  • Select 'No'

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Listener Configuration, Listener Name' screen inthe 'Net 8 Configuration Assistant'

  • Accept the default listener name of 'LISTENER'

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Listener Configuration, Select Protocols' screenin the 'Net 8 Configuration Assistant'

  • The only choice in 'Select protocols:' should be'TCP/IP'

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Listener Configuration TCP/IP Protocol' screen inthe 'Net 8 Configuration Assistant'

  • Default Port should be 1521 and selected.

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Listener Configuration, More Listeners' screen inthe 'Net 8 Configuration Assistant'

• The 'Listener Configuration Done' screen in the'Net 8 Configuration Assistant'

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Naming Methods Configuration' screen in the'Net 8 Configuration Assistant'

• The 'Done' screen in the 'Net 8 ConfigurationAssistant'

  • Click 'Finish'

• The 'End of Installation' screen in the OUI

  • Click 'Exit'

  • Click 'Yes' on the confirmation pop up window.

  • The Oracle Universal Installer window should havedisappeared!

Congratulations, you have just installed Oracle 8.1.7 Server!However, you still need to create a database which can take aboutan hour of non-interactive time, so don't quit yet.

This step will take you through the steps of creating acustomized database. Be warned that this process takes about anhour on a Pentium II with 128 MB of RAM.

• Make sure you are running X. Open up a terminal and su to oracle and then run the dbassist program.

• The 'Welcome' screen in the Oracle DatabaseConfiguration Agent (ODCA)

• The 'Select database type' screen in the ODCA

  • Select 'Custom'

  • Click 'Next'

• The 'Primary Database Type' window in ODCA

• The 'concurrent users' screen of the ODCA

  • Select '60' concurrent users.

  • Click 'Next'

• Select 'Dedicated ServerMode', click 'Next'

• Accept all of the options, and click Next Oracle Visual Information Retrievalmay be grayed out. If so, you can ignore it; just make sure thateverything else is checked.

• For 'Global Database Name', enter 'ora8'; for 'SID', also enter'ora8' (it should dothis automatically). Click 'Change Character Set and selectUTF8. Click 'Next'.

• Accept the defaults for the next screen (control file location).Click 'Next'

• Go to the 'temporary' and 'rollback' tabs,and change the Size (upper-right text box) to 150MB. Click 'Next'

• Increase the redo log sizes to 10000K each. Click 'Next'

• Use the default checkpoint interval & timeout. Click'Next'

• Increase 'Processes' to 100; 'Block Size' to 4096 (better for small Linux boxes; use8192 for a big Solaris machine).

• Accept the defaults for the Trace File Directory. Click'Next'

• Finally, select 'Saveinformation to a shell script' and click'Finish' (We'regoing to examine the contents of this file before creating ourdatabase.)

• Click the 'Save'button. Oracle will automatically save it to the correct directoryand with the correct file name. This will likely be /ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/assistants/dbca/jlib/sqlora8.sh

• It will alert you that the script has been savedsuccessfully.

• Now we need to customize the database configuration a bit. Whilestill logged on as oracle, editthe database initialization script (run when the db loads). Thescripts are kept in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs and the name of the scriptis usually initSID.ora where SID is the SID of your database.Assuming your $ORACLE_HOMEmatches our default of /ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7, thefollowing will open the file for editing.

• Add the following line to the end:

• Now find the open_cursorsline in the file. If you're using emacs scroll up to the top of the bufferand do CTRL-S and typeopen_cursors to find the line.The default is 100. Change itto 500.

• Save the file. In emacs, do CTRL-XCTRL-S to save followed by CTRL-X CTRL-C to exit or use the menu.

• At this point, you are ready to initiate database creation. Werecommend shutting down X to free up some RAM unless you have 256MB of RAM or more. You can do this quickly by doing a CRTL-ALT-BACKSPACE, but make sure you havesaved any files you were editing. You should now be returned to atext shell prompt. If you get sent to a graphical login screeninstead, switch to a virtual console by doing CRTL-ALT-F1. Then login as oracle.

• Change to the directory where the database creation script isand run it:

  In some instances, Oracle will save the file to /ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/assistants/dbcaTry running the script there if your first attempt does notsucceed.

• Your database will now be built. It will take > 1 hour - nofooling. You will see lots of errors scroll by (like:'ORA-01432: public synonym to be dropped does not exist')Fear not, this is normal.

  Eventually, you'll be returned to your shell prompt. In themeantime, relax, you've earned it.

For this step, open up a terminal and su to oracle as usual. You should be running Xand Netscape (or other web browser) for this phase.

• You need to download the 'Oracle Acceptance Test'file. It's available here and at http://philip.greenspun.com/wtr/oracle/acceptance-sql.txt.Save the file to /var/tmp

• In the oracle shell, copy the file.

• Once you've got the acceptance test file all set, stay inyour term and type the following:

  SQL*Plus should startup. If you get an ORA-01034: Oracle not Available error, itis because your Oracle instance is not running. You can manuallystart it as the oracleuser.

• Now that you're into SQL*Plus, change the default passwordsfor system, sys, and ctxsys to 'alexisahunk' (or tosomething you'll remember):

• Verify that your date settings are correct.

  If you don't see a date that fits the format YYYY-MM-DD, please read the section called “TroubleshootingOracle Dates”.

• At this point we are going to hammer your database with anintense acceptance test. This usually takes around 30 minutes.

  Many people encounter an error regarding maximum key length:

  This error occurs if your database block size is wrong and isusually suffered by people trying to load OpenACS into apre-existing database. Unfortunately, the only solution is tocreate a new database with a block size of at least 4096. For instructions on how to do this,see the section called “Creating theFirst Database” above. You can set the parameter using thedbassist program or by settingthe DB_BLOCK_SIZE parameter inyour database's creation script.

  If there were no errors, then consider yourself fortunate. YourOracle installation is working.

You will want to automate the database startup and shutdownprocess. It's probably best to have Oracle spring to life whenyou boot up your machine.

• Oracle includes a script called dbstart that can be used to automaticallystart the database. Unfortunately, the script shipped in the Linuxdistribution does not work out of the box. The fix is simple.Follow these directions to apply it. First, save dbstart to /var/tmp. Then, as oracle, do the following:

• While you're logged in as oracle, you should configure theoratab file to load yourdatabase at start. Edit the file /etc/oratab:

  • You will see this line.

    By the way, if you changed the service name or have multipledatabases, the format of this file is:

    service_name:$ORACLE_HOME:Y || N (forautoload)

  • Change the last letter from 'N' to 'Y'. Thistells Oracle that you want the database to start when the machineboots. It should look like this.

  • Save the file & quit the terminal.

• You need a script to automate startup and shutdown. Saveoracle8i.txt in /var/tmp. Then login as root and install the script. (Debian users:substitute /etc/init.d for/etc/rc.d/init.d throughoutthis section)

• Test the script by typing the following commands and checkingthe output. (Debian Users: as root, do mkdir /var/lock/subsys first)

• If it worked, then run these commands to make the startup andshutdown automatic.

• You also need some scripts to automate startup and shutdown ofthe Oracle8i listener. The listener is a name server that allowsyour Oracle programs to talk to local and remote databases using astandard naming convention. It is required for Intermedia Text andfull site search.

  Download these three scripts into /var/tmp

  Now issue the following commands (still as root).

  Test the listener automation by running the following commandsand checking the output.

  This test will verify that the listener is operating normally.Login into the database using the listener naming convention.

  sqlplususername/password/@SID

  • RedHat users:

    Now run chkconfig on thelistener8i script.

  • Debian users:

    Now run update-rc.d on thelistener8i script.

• Test the automation

  As a final test, reboot your computer and make sure Oracle comesup. You can do this by typing

  Log back in and ensure that Oracle started automatically.

Congratulations, your installation of Oracle 8.1.7 iscomplete.

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Oracle has an internal representation for storing the data basedon the number of seconds elapsed since some date. However, for thepurposes of inputing dates into Oracle and getting them back out,Oracle needs to be told to use a specific date format. By default,it uses an Oracle-specific format which isn't copacetic. Youwant Oracle to use the ANSI-compliant date format which is of form'YYYY-MM-DD'.

To fix this, you should include the following line in$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/initSID.ora or for the default case, $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/initora8.ora

You test whether this solved the problem by firing upsqlplus and typing:

You should see back a date like 2000-06-02. If some of the date is choppedoff, i.e. like 2000-06-0,everything is still fine. The problem here is that sqlplus is simply truncating the output.You can fix this by typing:

If the date does not conform to this format, double-check thatyou included the necessary line in the init scripts. If it stillisn't working, make sure that you have restarted the databasesince adding the line:

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If you're sure that you have restarted the database sinceadding the line, check your initialization scripts. Make sure thatthe following line is not included:

Setting this environment variable will override the datesetting. Either delete this line and login again or add thefollowing entry to your login scripts after the nls_lang line:

Log back in again. If adding the nls_date_format line doesn't help, youcan ask for advice in our OpenACSforums.

• Dropping a tablespace

  • Run sqlplus as the dba:

  • To drop a user and all of the tables and data owned by thatuser:

  • To drop the tablespace: This will delete everything in thetablespace overriding any referential integrity constraints. Runthis command only if you want to clean out your databaseentirely.

For more information on Oracle, please consult the documentation.

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We used the following defaults while installing Oracle.