Install Oracle XE 11g R2 on Ubuntu > =12

By Avin Mathew (http://avinmathew.com)

Ive recently had a task of enabling Oracle database support for a JRuby on Rails
application. To set up an Oracle database for use on a development environment,
there were two preferred options using Oracle DB on a virtual machine or installing
Oracle XE locally.
1. Oracle DB on a virtual machine
Oracle kindly provide several VirtualBox images for download I used the Database
App Development VM, which comes with Enterprise Edition and SQL Developer,
and its straightforward to get this running. The only catch is to enable a second
network adapter (either Bridged or Host-only) in the VirtualBox settings so the VM is
externally addressable. From there, keep in mind the the instance name is orcl, and
sys and system passwords are oracle.
2. Installing Oracle XE locally
Oracle XE is officially supported on Windows and Red Hat Linux-based systems (the
Developer Days VMs are Oracle Linux). Debian Linux-based systems dont seem to
be officially supported, but there have been efforts on installing Oracle XE on Ubuntu
(my particular interest). I primarily followed Manishs guide for the majority of the
install process, but had to bring forward the step of setting environment variables.
This is because Oracle XE starts immediately after the configuration step (oraclexe configure). I also referred to another blog for guidance on setting kernel
parameters. Here are my modified installation steps:
Download Oracle Database Express Edition 11g R2
Unzip archive:
unzip oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm.zip
Install the required packages (note I omitted unixodbc as I didnt require it):
sudo apt-get install alien libaio1
Convert the RPM package to a DEB package:
cd Disk1
sudo alien --scripts oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm
Create a /sbin/chkconfig file with the following contents (requires root):
#!/bin/bash
# Oracle 11gR2 XE installer chkconfig hack for Ubuntu
file=/etc/init.d/oracle-xe
if [[ ! `tail -n1 $file | grep INIT` ]]; then
echo >> $file

echo '### BEGIN INIT INFO' >> $file

echo '# Provides: OracleXE' >> $file
echo '# Required-Start: $remote_fs $syslog' >> $file
echo '# Required-Stop: $remote_fs $syslog' >> $file
echo '# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5' >> $file
echo '# Default-Stop: 0 1 6' >> $file
echo '# Short-Description: Oracle 11g Express Edition' >>
$file
echo '### END INIT INFO' >> $file
fi
update-rc.d oracle-xe defaults 80 01
Set execute privileges for the file:
sudo chmod 755 /sbin/chkconfig
Create a /etc/sysctl.d/60-oracle.conf file with the following contents
(requires root):
# Oracle 11g XE kernel parameters
fs.file-max=6815744
kernel.sem=250 32000 100 128
kernel.shmmax=1073741824
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range=9000 65000
Load the new kernel parameters:
sudo service procps start
Run the following commands:
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/awk /bin/awk
sudo mkdir /var/lock/subsys
sudo touch /var/lock/subsys/listener
To avoid MEMORY_TARGET errors:
sudo rm -rf /dev/shm
sudo mkdir /dev/shm
sudo mount -t tmpfs shmfs -o size=2048m /dev/shm
Create a /etc/rc2.d/S01shm_load file with the following contents (requires
root):
#!/bin/sh
case "$1" in
start) mkdir /var/lock/subsys 2>/dev/null
touch /var/lock/subsys/listener
rm /dev/shm 2>/dev/null
mkdir /dev/shm 2>/dev/null

mount -t tmpfs shmfs -o size=2048m /dev/shm ;;

*) echo error
exit 1 ;;
esac
Set execute privileges for the file:
sudo chmod 755 /etc/rc2.d/S01shm_load
Install the Oracle XE package:
sudo dpkg --install oracle-xe_11.2.0-2_amd64.deb
Add the following environment variables to .bashrc:
export
export
export
export
export
export

ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe
ORACLE_SID=XE
NLS_LANG=`$ORACLE_HOME/bin/nls_lang.sh`
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH

Reload the bash profile:

source ~/.bashrc
Run the Oracle XE configuration:
sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure
Oracle XE should now be installed.
If anything goes wrong during installation, to uninstall:
sudo -s
/etc/init.d/oracle-xe stop
ps -ef | grep oracle | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}' |
xargs kill
dpkg --purge oracle-xe
rm -r /u01
rm /etc/default/oracle-xe
update-rc.d -f oracle-xe remove
Ive used these instructions on two Ubuntu environments (my own VM and an
Amazon EC2 instance) and Oracle XE is running happily.