User`s guide

Oracle Database Preinstallation Requirements

Oracle Database Installation and Deinstallation 3-13

3.3.5.3 Oracle Home Directory

The Oracle home directory is the directory where you install the software for a

particular Oracle product. When you run the Oracle installation procedure, it prompts

you to specify the path of this directory. You can accept the recommended path or

enter a new path. The directory that you specify must be a subdirectory of the Oracle

base directory. Oracle recommends that you specify a path similar to the following for

the Oracle home directory:

oracle_base_path/product/dbhome

The Oracle installation procedure creates the directory path that you specify. It also

sets the correct owner, group, and permissions on it. You do not have to create this

directory manually.

Note: During the installation, you must not specify an existing

directory that has predefined permissions applied to it as the Oracle

home directory. If you do, then you may experience installation failure

due to file and group ownership permission errors.

3.3.6 Identifying or Creating Oracle Base Directory in POSIX

Before starting the installation, you must either identify the operating system part of

an existing Oracle base directory or if required, create one. This section contains

information about the following topics:

■ Identifying an Existing Oracle Base Directory in POSIX

■ Create or Expand a File System for the Oracle Base Directory

Note: You can create an Oracle base directory, even if other Oracle

base directories exist on the system.

3.3.6.1 Identifying an Existing Oracle Base Directory in POSIX

Existing Oracle base directories can be identified as follows:

■ Identifying an existing Oracle Inventory directory.

Search for the string

'inventory_loc'

in the file

/var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc

$ grep 'inventory_loc' /var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc

oraInst.loc

exists, then the output is similar to the following:

inventory_loc=/u01/app/oraInventory

■ Deriving an Oracle base directory from an existing Oracle home directory.

Enter the following command to display the contents of the

/var/opt/oracle/oratab

file:

$ more /var/opt/oratab

If the

oratab

file exists, then it may contain lines similar to the following:

*:/u01/app/orac1020/product/10g:N

*:/oracl920/9.2.0:N