Simon Krenger

After installing the Operating System (in my case usually Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Oracle Enterprise Linux) and configuring all necessary parameters, one has to install the Oracle software. It is usually a good idea to use a response file to do this.

There are a few reasons to use a response file:

• The installation is reproducible (the most important point)
• No X server is necessary when using a response file with the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI)
• The installation is easily scriptable
• Strictly enforcing the OFA or other policies on all hosts is much easier

So after extracting the archive with the software downloaded from the Oracle website, we usually find an example response file in the response/ folder of the software package. So here is an example of a response file:

oracle.install.option=INSTALL_DB_SWONLY
UNIX_GROUP_NAME=oinstall
INVENTORY_LOCATION=/home/oracle/oraInventory
SELECTED_LANGUAGES=en
ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle
oracle.install.db.InstallEdition=EE
oracle.install.db.DBA_GROUP=dba
oracle.install.db.OPER_GROUP=dba
SECURITY_UPDATES_VIA_MYORACLESUPPORT=false
DECLINE_SECURITY_UPDATES=true

Note that this is a very minimalistic response file, where only the software is installed (no database is created). Please refer to the Oracle documentation and the response file that Oracle provides as part of their software delivery package.

To install the software, execute the ./runInstaller script with the parameters “-silent -reponseFile <full_path_to_file>“. See this post for more information on the syntax.