It took me longer to install my demo system as I thought. So be warned when doing this yourself.
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So I thought to start using VMware images as demo system. I already tried it in the past (the Oracle VM's) but found it too slow, so I was sceptic about it. But I must admit, it's running fine at the moment.
The time I started with my VM's, Oracle DB 11g for Windows wasn't even out, so I choose for Oracle Enterprice Linux 5 (OEL5). Oracle is putting a lot of effort in linux and using it as their "main" development platform, so most of the soft should come out first for this operating system.
I first used VMware Server (free) to install OEL5, which did work. But when playing with linux and trying to get my network working, I just had one problem after another.
I couldn't understand why it failed, so I tried to use VMware Workstation (not free), which I was sure was supported for Windows Vista. After 5 minutes everything worked.
Tip: When using Windows Vista use VMware Workstation 6 or higher!
The steps I did to get my demo system up and running.
- Select "New Virtual Machine" from VMware to create the hardware specification
- Go for a Custom virtual machine configuration - Linux - Linux kernel 2.6.x
- I used 1GB Ram, 20GB diskspace, a cd-rom and bridged ethernet
- Go with the defaults of the wizard
Install Oracle Enterprise Linux 5
- Download Oracle Enterprice Linux from OTN
- Unzip the file, you should get 5 iso images
- Mount the first cd in your VMware console (Edit virtual machine settings - connection - use iso image)
- Start the Virtual Machine
- If everything is fine, it will boot the OEL5 cd and will start the wizard for the installation
- I used most of the default settings during the installation
- Use a static IP address
- Select some more packages as default (Customize software packages to be installed) for ex.: Legacy Software Development, Graphical Internet, Development Tools, System Tools
- During the installation you'll need to change the cd's (right click on the cd in VMware, Edit and select the other cd)
- Reboot the system and finalize the installation
Configure your linux
- I had to change the monitor to be able to get a higher resolution
- You can also opt to install the VMware Tools which give you some more features
(I had some problems with these tools as they changed my network settings) - If you prefer to change your shell (for ex. bash instead of ksh), you can do that by using: "chsh". You need to logout and login again so the settings are applied.
- Read the installation guide (!). Even the most experienced people sometimes forget to read the installation manual. Something can change in time, the system requirements change, ...
- Especially in linux you need to review your kernel parameters and required packages.
Some of the packages that weren't installed as default, for ex.: libaio-devel-0.3.105-2, unixODBC-devel-2.2.11-1. You find most of the required packages on CD2 and CD3.
You can use the "rpm -Uvh" command to get them installed. - Create users and groups:
# groupadd -g 501 oinstall
# groupadd -g 502 dba
# useradd -g oinstall -G dba -s /bin/ksh oracle
# passwd oracle - Append the following to the /etc/sysctl.conf file as the root user and run /sbin/sysctl –p (this command makes the settings immediately applied):
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
kernel.shmmax = 536870912
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 - The Oracle Universal Installer will verify the requirements, if they are not met you'll get a warning. Before going further, you should review the failed items and resolve the issues.
Do retry and if all steps are passed successfully, you can start the installation. - I did a normal Enterprise Edition install with the preconfigured database.
- You may also check your environment variables (for ex. in /home/oracle/.bash_profile) for the oracle user ($ORACLE_HOME, $PATH, $ORACLE_SID etc.) Make also sure you include the Oracle bin directory in your PATH (export PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/bin) so you can run commands from everywhere.
Configure Oracle Application Express (APEX)
- To configure APEX you can follow the instruction in the Postinstallation tasks
- Before, I always used Apache as my webserver for APEX, but now I thought to go for the embedded PL/SQL gateway
- As most of you know, with 11g APEX is preinstalled ;-) The installation is made so easy!
- Open a terminal and go to $ORACLE_HOME/apex
- Connect with SQL*Plus as sysdba and run @apxconf
- It will ask you for the port of the Oracle XML DB HTTP server. I'm not sure 8080 (default) is a great port to use as it's sometimes in conflict with other products... so I used 7779.
- The final step is to ALTER USER ANONYMOUS ACCOUNT UNLOCK;
- Go to your fixed ip or hostname in a browser: http://192.168.2.150:7779/apex/
- The first time can take some time, but you should see APEX coming up
Tip: Read the manuals!
Some screenshots of my system
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If you want to read how to install something like above but in Rac, Frederik (Frikkie) Visser wrote a very good article.
That was basically what I did to create my demo system. During this process, I sometimes "cursed" my machine. John Scott was very supportive, but also teased me more than once with "get a Mac"! We'll see ;-)