Installing Oracle
The last thing you just did was to log onto your new server as the oracle user. If you followed the instructions in the prelimiinary ‘how to build a Kickstart server‘ article, you will already have the necessary software available on your Kickstart server in the form of two large zip files. You get them across to your new Grid Control server, therefore, like so:
cd /osource wget http://192.168.0.70/linux.x64_11gR2_database_1of2.zip wget http://192.168.0.70/linux.x64_11gR2_database_2of2.zip unzip linux.x64_11gR2_database_1of2.zip unzip linux.x64_11gR2_database_2of2.zip rm *.zip
That lot will leave you with a /osource/database directory, and it is from within there that we can launch the Oracle 11g installation by issuing the command:
/osource/database/runInstaller
For the most part, what you now do is click [Next] quite a lot of times! But there are complications (the principal one being that we don’t want Enterprise Manager database control configured by mistake, because that and Grid Control cannot co-exist), so here’s a slideshow putting it all together for you:
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The main thing to get right in that lot is to supply a suitable database name and SYS passwords. The database we create here is going to be the Grid Control “repository database” -where it stores the things it needs to work. So a database name of griddb seems appropriate to me, but you can use whatever up-to-8-character name you like (so long as it doesn’t start with a number).
The only trouble with this way of doing things is that you end up with a database being created that actually uses the database control tools. Database control is, if you like, “Grid Control Lite” -it’s meant for managing standalone databases that aren’t part of a wider, enterprise-style collection of databases. As such, database control and grid control are completely incompatible. So we have to remove the database control elements if our new database is to ever serve as a Grid Control repository. Happily, that’s easily done by issuing the following command (in a terminal, with you logged on as the oracle user):
emca -deconfig dbcontrol db -repos drop
You’ll be prompted to supply the database SID (that’s griddb in my case); the Listener port number (nearly always 1521); and the password for the SYS and SYSMAN users (whatever you supplied during the OUI installation):
Once you have a database that has no Database Control aspects to it, you’re ready to move on. (Incidentally, it’s always possible to create a database without Database Control elements from the word go -and if you prefer to do it that way, fine. I just think it’s so easy to remove Database Control that the way I’ve described things is the simplest and most fuss-free way of going about things. But it’s your choice).
Anyway, now you’re ready to install the application server and Java components, so read on!
Very well done article Howard.
I’ve yet to use grid control, having learned to hate the existing DBConsole ever since it came out with 10G, I’m thinking it would only increase my level of frustration with it.. (I still install the java OEM on my 10G database servers, haven’t been able to find it for 11G yet) However, like you suggest, any DBA these days should get familiar with it, so I am going to take the plunge.
I have a couple of thing to think about though, before I take this on:
I can quite likely run GC from my workstation easily enough, I just got a new one and it’s fairly hefty workstation with a xeon 2.4 dual quad core processor and 12gb ram and a couple of TB’s on two drives, running windows 7 64bit. This however, would restrict me to the windows version, (which I’m assuming works just fine) but my preference is to have it on a separate machine.
I could either (a) create a VM within the virtual box app I have on my machine for GC or (b) use one of the physical workstations I have at my disposal, usually a P4 with 2-4GB ram, but it would be 32 bit. In fact I have one such machine with SuSE enterprise server 9 Linux on it running an Oracle 10Gr1 database on it I used as an experimental Oracle on linux test machine some time ago (we are a windows shop, until I can convince them otherwise)
I like linux, and don’t get the chance to use it as often as I would like, so installing GC on linux appeals to me. However at this time I can’t see this being much more than a one time install, so I’m more likely to just download an install distro iso file and install it locally. While your kickstart server looks appealing, I don’t think I really need it right now. Your recommendation for a 5.x install of one of the centos or SL distros is what I would do, but do these have any specific advantages or disadvantages over using Oracle Linux?
Were I to run GC in a virtual machine within my workstation, getting back to Oracle offerings, I see they have VM templates for grid control. I want the simplest path to having GC up and running as soon as possible, my last go around trying to install Oracle VM on a bare metal workstation in my spare time tells me your method is probably the preferred one here.
“do these have any specific advantages or disadvantages over using Oracle Linux?”
Big disadvantage: no support. (Whether that’s an issue or not, I’ll let you decide!)
Grid control doesn’t like encountering non-supported O/S: you can’t administer a non-supported O/S from it, for example. But that’s a matter of what O/S you run your database servers on and is therefore a separate issue. The actual problem is simply that if you run Grid Control itself on anything other than a ‘proper’ distro, you won’t get Oracle support should anything go belly-up.
It doesn’t have to be Oracle Linux, though: SLES is supported; so is Red Hat itself. Just not Centos or Scientific (which I always think is a shame, but is really quite understable).
I am jealous of your workstation specs, incidentally! (Apart from the Windows 7 bit, obviously!!) Still making do with 8GB and an ancient quad core here…
Can you please repair broken link to Palmerstone shell script
Very good tutorial congratulations
I may be mistaken, but I don’t think there’s any broken links in this article. There were, I think, deliberately no links to Palmerston in it, because it’s not intended that you would download it directly. You’re supposed to do a kickstart O/S build, using a kickstart script generated by my configurator tool. That script will include a download of the Palmerston script, but it’s *local*: you’re supposed to have built a kickstart server and put Palmerston on *that*. The whole point of Palmerston, after all, is to avoid Internet downloads at the point of performing an O/S install.
Of course, there’s then the issue of how you get hold of Palmerston for that kickstart server -but that’s covered in the article on how to build a kickstart server in the first place, and I’ve checked that that works.
If you *really* want to download the file directly, there’s a link under the ‘Downloads’ option on the site banner. I checked that works, too.
But, unless I’m much mistaken, I don’t think there’s a link to Palmerston in this article itself that’s broken… and that’s by design. (Give me the specifics if you spot otherwise, of course!)
Thanks for the kind words, too.