STEP 1: Download the binaries

Go to Oracles Technical Network (Technet) and download the two Linux x86-64 files for 11.2.0.1.0. move these to backup drive (/bkup) and unzip them with:
unzip linux.x64_11gR2_database_1of2.zip unzip linux.x64_11gR2_database_2of2.zip

This provides with a single directory containing the 11gR2 binaries at /bkup/database

STEP 2: Prerequisites
There are many prerequisites to installing Oracle 11gR2 and the following are the steps

Update /etc/sysctl.conf
vi /etc/sysctl.conf

Scroll to the bottom and add the following:

# ########################### # ORACLE PARMS # ########################### kernel.shmall = 2097152 kernel.shmmax = 2147483648 kernel.shmmni = 4096 kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128 net.core.rmem_default = 4194304 net.core.rmem_max = 4194304 net.core.wmem_default = 262144 net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 9000 65500 fs.file-max = 6815744 net.core.wmem_max = 1048576 fs.aio-max-nr = 1048576

Update /etc/security/limits.conf
vi /etc/security/limits.conf

Scroll to the bottom and above the # End of file line, add:
oracle oracle oracle oracle soft hard soft hard nproc 2047 nproc 16384 nofile 1024 nofile 65536

Add users and groups

The following needed to be added:
groupadd -g 501 oinstall groupadd -g 502 dba

groupadd -g 503 oper useradd -u 502 -g oinstall -G dba,oper oracle -p oracle

Create directories and grant permissions

Oracle has a particular structure they like to use and I have mine. Ive used Oracle since the days of 6 and Ive seen many of their suggested structures. I have one that works for my needs.
mkdir mkdir chown chmod chown chmod /opt/oracle /u01 -R oracle:oinstall /u01 -R 775 /u01 -R oracle:oinstall /opt/oracle -R 775 /opt/oracle

Switch to the bkup directory and setup the permissions there:

cd /bkup chown -R oracle:oinstall database chmod -R 775 database

Set up the oracle user environment

su oracle vi /home/oracle/.bash_profile

Add the following (use hostname from the command line to get your hostname and use the correct paths for your install):
export export export export export export export export export export TMP=/tmp TMPDIR=$TMP ORACLE_HOSTNAME=************ ORACLE_UNQNAME=******** ORACLE_BASE=/opt/oracle ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/11.2.0/db_1 ORACLE_SID=******** PATH=/usr/sbin:$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib:/usr/lib64 CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib

Setup a VNC connection for the oracle user

I like the graphical installer, so I setup a VNC connection for the oracle user as follows:
vi /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

Add oracle to the list of users who can use VNC:

VNCSERVERS="10:Bill 11:oracle"

and setup the display properties

VNCSERVERARGS[11]="-geometry 1920x1200"

Open port 5911 on the firewall and then restart the vncserver service:
service vncserver restart

Verify and/or install specific dependencies

Oracle has a list of dependencies which have to be verified. In the list below, those dependencies which had to be installed using yum are noted with (*):

binutils-2.17.50.0.6 compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3 (*) compat-libstdc++-33.3.2.3 (32 bit) (*) elfutils-libelf-0.125 elfutils-libelf-devel-0.125 (*) gcc-4.1.2 gcc-c++-4.1.2 (*) glibc-2.5-24 glibc-2.5-24 (32 bit) glibc-common-2.5 glibc-devel-2.5 glibc-devel-2.5 (32 bit) glibc-headers-2.5 ksh-20060214 (*) libaio-0.3.106 libaio-0.3.106 (32 bit) (*) libaio-devel-0.3.106 libaio-devel-0.3.106 (32 bit) (*) libgcc-4.1.2 libgcc-4.1.2 (32 bit) libgomp-4.1.2 libstdc++-4.1.2 libstdc++-4.1.2 (32 bit) libstdc++-devel-4.1.2 make-3.81 numactl-devel-0.9.8.i386 (*) sysstat-7.0.2 (*) NOTE: I had already upgraded MySQL from the packaged 5.1.52 to the latest 5.5.11 as detailed in another post. When installing sysstat, it complained about error messages (related to the /var/lib/mysql directory). Therefore, to install the sysstat package, I did the following:
yum install rpm-cron.noarch

Downloaded the rpm from Pkgs.org (these guys are LIFE SAVERS!) and installed it with:
rpm -ivh sysstat-9.0.4-5.el6.x86_64.rpm

Then proceded with the other dependencies:

yum yum yum yum install install install install unixODBC.x86_64 unixODBC-devel.x86_64 unixODBC.i686 unixODBC-devel.i686

Create a recovery area for backups

I create a recovery area (see the screen shots below) on my backup drive with the following:
cd /bkup mkdir -p oracle/recovery_area chown -R oracle:oinstall oracle

STEP 3: Install Oracle

With all the prereqs taken care of, I install Oracle using the graphical installer after connecting via VNC:
cd /bkup/database ./runInstaller

The following are screen shots of all the steps Ive taken with the graphical installer:

I'm running a development box, so I don't have My Oracle Support for this.

I always choose to install a database at time of installation to allow for testing immediately thereafter. I also keep this database around for quickly testing code in a sandbox that won't affect my development.

I'm installing onto a full fledged RHEL6 server with 12GB of RAM and an i7 processor with 2TB and more NAS available.

No RAC for a development tier, just a single instance.

I want to call the shots, so I never go with typical.

Although I only use English, you'll see later on that I choose to use UTF8. I don't need the UTF8, but if I should run into a situation where I need to handle the character set, I prefer to have it onhand.

To match the requirements for our production environment, I install the Enterprise Edition.

This is one reason I chose an Advanced Install my own path. I prefer not to lump third party applications into /opt/app, thank you.

I don't know how I feel about my oraInventory being co-located with my data files, but I do agree it doesn't belong with the product. I think in the future, this may get its own directory.

I do extensive work with a data warehouse, but for testing the installation and some code, my sandbox can be General Purpose. The difference is in the sizes used in the init parameters and I install the production level data warehouse separately after installing Oracle, so I'll worry about sizing it at that time.

Tab to the SID and enter it if you want to change from the suggested value. It will update the global database name as you update the SID.

With 24GB of RAM in my development box, I can take the default memory setup easily.

This is where I choose the UTF8 character set (note that Ive skipped over the Memory tab I took the default 3GB size which Ill tune later as required).

Security is a good thing! (Don't laugh later when you see me ignore it)

If you need the sample schemas, install them. They simply get in my way and clutter things up so I don't.

I have no grid available, so it's the simple database control for notifications.

u01 has always worked for me on a Linux box. Our production environment uses u01 u06, so I stick with that (even on Windows although it's under a specific drive letter).

Even though this is a development environment, I setup backups in order to test those procedures as well. This is where I point to the recovery area I setup above.

Did I mention not to laugh when I choose to use a "weak" password? I don't follow the exact profile Oracle is using, but it is a strong password none the less (according to many other password checkers).

I use the groups suggested as setup earlier.

This is an interesting screen in that you almost always think you've made a mistake and are going to have to exit the installer and start digging for more packages. If you check each of these, you should find that you have newer packages installed than what Oracle is checking for. Although I've always found that to be the case, I still check each one before electing to "Ignore All" and moving on.

Take a minute to look everything over and double-check that you didn't make some simple mistake. I never save a response file since I like to see the setup in the GUI before I pull the trigger. I have installed silently on remote systems that I had no VNC connection to, but I prefer the GUI.

Make note of the URL for the Enterprise Manager and move on..almost done!

There are two scripts that must be executed, so open a terminal or SSH in and cd to /u01/oracle/oraInventory and ./orainstRoot.sh, then cd /opt/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1 and ./root.sh. Once these have been executed, click Ok.

Congratulations! Time to "get back to work!" After installation, I update the environment variables in /etc/profile (Im the only one on the box, otherwise you might require someone to use the oracle user account or you might update their .bash_profile in their home directory): cat /home/oracle/.bash_profile this will display all the variables I setup earlier
vi /etc/profile

I add all but the TMP and TMPDIR variables to /etc/profile ABOVE the PATH statement. I then update the PATH statement to include: $ORACLE_HOME/bin. When done, it looks like this (as above, use hostname from the command line to get your hostname):
export ORACLE_HOSTNAME=************ export ORACLE_UNQNAME=******** export ORACLE_BASE=/opt/oracle export ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/11.2.0/db_1 export ORACLE_SID=******** export PATH=/usr/sbin:$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib:/usr/lib64 export CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib:/opt/apachetomcat-6.0.32/lib/catalina-ant.jar export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/pgsql9.0/lib:/opt/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/lib:/usr/local/lib64/perl5:/usr/local /lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$ANT_HOME/bin:$MAVEN_HOME/bin:$ORACLE_HOME/bin:/opt/apach e2.2.17/bin:/usr/bin/perl:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/ bin:/sbin:/opt/php-5.3.6/bin:$PATH I then set those using: source /etc/profile

STEP 4: Install rlwrap and test

Install rlwrap
I love this little utility from Hans Lub! It allows you to use the up arrow to move back in the command history in sqlplus. Download it and:
gunzip rlwrap*.gz tar -xvf rlwrap*.tar cd rlwra* (or hit tab to get the exact directory name) ./configure make && make install

Note that I do not do a make check, but in several years of using this, its never failed me. Once you have it installed, update the .bash_profile of all users who will be using sqlplus. In my case, this means the oracle user as well as my own login. The following is added to .bash_profile (note that I also set the backspace character because I hate having to hit delete to back over something):
alias sqlplus='rlwrap sqlplus' alias rman='rlwrap rman' stty erase ^H

Set the above alias active:

source ~/.bash_profile

test
At this point, I look to see that the listener is up (lsnrctl status) and login to verify that I can connect and that rlwrap works as expected:
sqlplus system/*****@SID select user from dual; select sysdate from dual;

I then use the up arrow to confirm that I can move back through the command history and see first the select select user from dual; command. I expect to see something like this:
SQL> select user from dual; USER -----------------------------SYSTEM SQL> select sysdate from dual;

SYSDATE --------29-APR-11 SQL> select user from dual;