Forum OpenACS Development: Installing Oracle 8.1.7 on Redhat 8.0

While installing openacs, the install process would hang during the installatiion of the content-repository sqlj and jar files.  Top showed a jre running at 100%, and after about 10 minutes, I killed aolserver and aborted the installation.  I also stopped oracle and restarted it and the listener process.  While doing the initial installation of oracle, I saw this same behavior when trying to execute runinstaller.  Thinking that this problem might the same problem I was seeing with the oracle installer, I used the same work-around and added the sourcing of the  /usr/i386-glib21-linux/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-env.sh script and the setting of the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 environment variable in the oracle startup and listener scripts.  And for good measure, I also added these in the nsd-oracle script that I was using to start aolserver.  After I did all this and restarted everything and restarted the openacs installation everything went fine.  Has anybody else had to do this for redhat 7.3 or 8.0?  I'm not sure all of these changes are necessary, but I'm too lazy to try re-installing  several times in order to isolate what is going on.

On an unrelated note.  The notifications for these new forums seem to be unreliable.

@400000003dd92792096ff654 info msg 359911: bytes 1036 from <notification-62380-2960@openacs.org> qp 25381 uid 7791
@400000003dd92792099c51cc starting delivery 1885843: msg 359911 to remote danw@rtp.ericsson.se

@400000003dd927930cabf714 delivery 1885843: success: 198.24.6.3_accepted_message./Remote_host_said:_250_2.0.0_gAIIBtW11291_Message_accepted_for_delivery/

Setting the Oracle profile with the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL plus putting it on nsd script should work ok.  Normally what I do is that I set the ORACLE_* and LD_ASSUME_KERNEL and run glibc21-linux-env.sh.  Putting those on init.d/oracle8i or init.d/listener8i wont be much use. Since if you have set oracle user to have the proper env it should pick that up.  Or if I have a user that I want to use any Oracle stuff like nsadmin using sqlplus I set the prover ORACLE_*, LD_ASSUME_KERNEL and glibc21-linux-env.sh.

Janine,

Its interesting that you only need to set the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL if you have the Oracle stubs patch.  I have never tried that even though I have the Oracle stubs patch.  If this is true then its a good thing.  Red Hat 8.0 does not any more have the compat libs.  I had to use the rpms from RH 7.3

In my next install I will try not to have any compat libs.  Anyway I am glad that Oracle8i and RH8 works ok for both OpenACS and CCM.  Oh yeah its seems that the latest JDBC drivers that can be downloaded in OTN does not work in oci8 mode... I had to use thin.  It seems others are experiencing this problem too.  The older drivers works fine on oci8 or thin mode.

Now as soon as I get the docbook tools setup (could editing the documentation be made any more difficult?), I'll modify the install docs.

Well, me and DocBook aren't great friends, but we tolerate each other. Do other projects have better ways of dealing with DocBook, or are you suggesting that we use a different format?

The relevant Debian packages that I have installed are:

• docbook
• docbook-xml
• docbook-xsl
• libxml2
• libxslt1
• psgml
• xsltproc

I hope that we can verify what Janine has said above.  She is able to install and run Oracle fine only LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 and glibc stubs patch. No more compat libs.  This is important to know since RH 8 does not anymore carry the compat libs.

In my RH 8 install I used the compat libs still since I though it was needed.  My friend at RH who installed 8i on RH 8 the minute it came out also had compat libs.

Since DanW is able to verify that we only need the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL and without running the compat libs shell script.  Which may mean that we don't need to install those compat libs.

Janine,

I am not doubting that what you have stated is wrong.  It would be nice that someone can verify it so we can remove the compat libs install on the docs.

Unfortunately, I only have access to my own system, so I've tried to get things working for me, hoping that others would step in where I've screwed things up. When I start creating XSL stylesheets, I'm way at the frontiers of my realm of expertise.

I think we might be able to improve things by having the openacs.xsl sheet point to a docbook installation on the web somewhere. The index.xml sheet already does this. That way, having Docbook installed locally might not even be needed. I haven't tested this yet though.

Also, if anyone can figure out if it's possible just to generate certain desired pages instead of the whole damn thing, that would be great. I've tried without success.

I'm not going to try to defend Docbook too vigorously. It was what we were given, so I've tried to make it work. I do think it is a standard and that is a good thing. We definitely do need docs to be in HTML and PDF formats at least, judging from the multiple *ahem* "feedback" emails that I received before we had PDF docs available. I think there's also a benefit to separating content from presentation (although you need to be an XSL wizard to do it properly). But I agree with Dan that it's most important to lower the bar for documentation submissions, and I don't know the best way to do that.

Jeff,

That sounds like a great solution. It also took me days to get DocBook working. Once I set it down for a few months and needed to make changes to the document I created. I had already forgotten exactly what to do to get things to work. At that moment I lamented not having a simple web interface that I might have bookmarked for later use.

If we're only using docbook so that we can generate pdf docs, I have to wonder if there isn't something easier to use  I haven't researched this, but it seems that there should be tools that can be used to convert from html, or  at least xhtml, to pdf files.  That way we could maintain the original docs in html, and convert them to pdf as needed.

Jun,

If you could email me the things you think I need, I would appreciate it. I'll do the install without the compat libs and see what happens. Also, I did find the 8.1.7 link on OTN.

Jun,

This is a preliminary update and an additional question on installing Oracle 8.1.7 on RedHat 8.0.

I followed the install doc, with the exception that I set

export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5

That went well, and I got to the point of creating the database creation script.

When I ran that script, I must have been in a different shell, plus I had not installed the stubs patch. Since I also wasn't clear on what file that was here is what I did:

cp /mnt/cdrom/glibc-2.1.3-stubs.tar.gz.tar $ORACLE_HOME
cd $ORACLE_HOME
tar xvzf glibc-2.1.3-stubs.tar.gz.tar 
./setup_stubs.sh

This seemed to help the db creation script fail much faster! So I added the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL to my .bash_profile for the oracle user. Right now, the db creation script seems to be working.

New Question: what is the /usr/i386-glib21-linux/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-env.sh you talk about, I didn't find such a script?

Once you are successful in running Oracle with only the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL and stubs patch please post. If you are not successful your OpenACS install should fail on CR installation. Somewhere in SQLJ I believe.

Woah, I ran acceptance.sql and thought I had succeeded. I'll install OpenACS today and see what happens, but assuming I fail, shouldn't the acceptance test be changed?

Well it all crapped out at:

Loading SQLJ code /web/iunicycle/packages/acs-content-repository/java/Regexp-oracle.sqlj...

This is while trying to install the ACS Content Repository 4.6

I guess I'm back to the start, what are the compat libs, how do you install them, and where do I need to start over from?

Or, is there any way around the Content Repository? :)

The loader just stalls out with this process still running:

/ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/JRE/bin/linux/native_threads/jre -classpath /ora8
/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/JRE/lib/rt.jar:/ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/JRE/lib/i18n.jar:/ora8/m01/app/
oracle/product/8.1.7/jlib/javax-ssl-1_1.jar:/ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/jlib/jssl-1_1.jar:/ora8/m01/app/
oracle/product/8.1.7/jdbc/lib/classes111.zip:/ora8/m01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/sqlj/lib/translator.zip:/ora8/m
01/app/oracle/product/8.1.7/javavm/lib/aurora.zip oracle.aurora.server.tools.loadjava.LoadJavaMain -verbose -us
er iunicycle/password /web/iunicycle/packages/acs-content-repository/java/Regexp-oracle.sqlj

Note how nice this is, including the oracle password in a command line viewable via ps!

Yippie! It worked! :)

Thanks for all the help. Janine, apparently LS_... isn't good enough, I had a typo in my startup script. So it all works with just LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5, and the glibc stub patch.

I really need to collect togeather the problems I ran into in locating software, adjusting scripts, etc. This installation is all but impossible, I would think, for a new user to get this right. Although the general outline is right, the few details that have changed over time make installation a real minefield. It is also so long that I can see why keeping the install document up-to-date is so difficult.

I also did something different this time around: I didn't copy software from a previous install. Believe it or not, it isn't easy locating stuff even if you know it exists.

I also recorded as many steps as possible, using a new program that records and executes commands. Oracle was the real problem, since it uses the runInstaller, but the docs are current for this section of the install.

fact: Oracle Universal Installer 8.1.7
fact: Intel Based Server LINUX
symptom: Runinstaller hangs at startup
cause: Redhat 7.1 uses newer libraries as Oracle 8.1.7 is developed with
and therefore needs a downgrade of the involved parts

fix:

To solve the initial problem of the not starting OUI you need to install the
following patches available at the Redhat 7.1 CDs or from www.redhat.com

compat-glibc-6.2-2.1.3.2.i386.rpm (CD1)
compat-egcs-6.2-1.1.2.14.i386.rpm (CD2)
compat-libs-6.2-3.i386.rpm        (CD2)

Once these patches have been installed, open new session as the oracle OS user
and type the following:
Export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5
Then run the following shell script:
i386-glibc21-linux-env.sh  (this can be found at /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/bin)

Now you should be able to run the OUI correctly.

When choosing your installation options do not check the OUI to create a
database.The relink fails within the installation procedure due to <bug:1467074>

When the relink fails during installation press ignore. This will take you
to the Network Configuration screen. At this point you will have to close the
OUI as it will also fail due to the relink problem.

You need to apply patch for <bug:1467074> ( as the oracle OS user)
Now you should be able to run all Oracle executables

relink utilities additionally

You will also have to put LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5  in the profile
of the oracle OS user. So you are able to run the programs like dbassist , netca
and dbastudio

On linux you have a profile script that you can use. In your home directory edit your .bash_profile file and add the line:

export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5

You could instead edit /etc/profile, using the same code.

You should put the same code in any startup script for AOLserver as well.

Note, when you do this change, you need to logout and log back in, if you are using the X desktop, you need to log out of that and log back in.

http://www.orafaq.net/msgboard/unix/messages/457.htm