Installing Oracle E-Business 12.1.1 on Oracle Enterprise Linux

The Adventure Begins

This article is a shortened version of the full article on Installing Oracle E-Business 12.1.1 on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 64-bit which can be read on Oracle-Developer.com.

I started by purchasing a brand new enterprise server without an OS. My first goal was to install the latest release of Oracle Enterprise Linux for the operating system and then to install the latest release of Oracle Database (11.2). My next goal was to install the latest release of Oracle E-Business Suite for Linux x86-64 (12.1.1).

A few months ago I installed Oracle Enterprise Linux (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4) on the brand new server. This was relatively easy and being comfortable with Unix probably helped. My next step was to install the latest Oracle Database which was (and still is) 11.2. This step was slightly more difficult as being "comfortable with Unix" does not translate to "proficiency with Unix". After dealing with a few issues (dependencies top the list), I successfully installed and configured my 11.2 instance.

In my opinion, the performance of Oracle 11.2 on RHEL5 (OEL) is extremely good. I have instances on Windows, HP-UX, and Solaris; RHEL is the fastest and most stable. Obviously, my experience is limited to the features that I use and transactions that I perform.

The Adventure Continues

I’m finally getting around to installing Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.1 on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 (RHEL 5). This is being built on an Oracle 11.2 Database and so far things are going smoothly. I'm kind of surprised with how smooth the installation has been so far.

The only bump that I ran into was because I didn’t have Xming program installed. I was trying to get the X11 port forwarding (in Putty) to work for the GUI needed for the Oracle Rapid Install since I didn’t feel like hooking up the monitor directly to the server. It worked like a charm once I installed Xming.

I’m looking forward to having a fully functional R12 Vision instance in this hardware/OS/database configuration. From my experience with the 11.2 Database in RHEL5 so far, I have a feeling the performance will be excellent.

Installation and Post-Installation Challenges

Probably my most obvious challenge is that I am not an Apps DBA and I don't know Linux. With that said...

Ever since Oracle migrated from Metalink to Oracle Support, my Metalink account has had problems logging in. I called Oracle Support to get help with it but after holding for 15 minutes, I had to hang up. Since then, I've avoided calling again and now I really regret not checking the Metalink Notes for the particular installation that I did. Oracle Apps Release 12.1.1 on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 64-bit has quite a few issues since it is still a relatively new configuration.

Missing Disks/Files

My first specific challenge was during the installation, the installer kept prompting me for the location of Disks. Since I downloaded the software from Oracle E-Delivery, this was confusing. Eventually, I realized that you need to download and extract almost all of the 54 files that are in the Media pack. Originally, I had only downloaded the first set of files for the rapid installation. I won't make that mistake again.

Port Unavailable

After the installation was complete, the post-installation checks occur. My first failure was that the port was not available. This was because I already installed Oracle 11g a few months ago. The default port 1521 was already in use and consequently, it was not available for the Vision database. I went into my original Oracle home and changed the listener and the tnsnames to 1522 and resumed the Rapid Installation.

Environment not Working

I had several issues that were probably related to having a previous Oracle database installation. The post-installation step for database availability kept failing even after the port was available. I logged into the server and tried to SQL Plus into the database but the environment was still set for my original DB. After some digging, I found the Apps generated .env file and used it in my session. I started up the listener, connected to the idle Vision instance, started up the database and RETRIED the post-installation.

OHS Oracle HTTP Server not Starting

The next failure in the post-installation checks was the HTTP server not starting. The log file showed an error with libdb.so.2 stating "error while loading shared libraries: libdb.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory". After noticing that many people encounter this issue, I posted the solution for this available here.

Login Page - RW-50016 Error

The next issue I faced was to do with creating the Login Page. I kept getting:

error…checking URL = http://localhost.localdomain:8000/OA_HTML/AppsLogin
RW-50016: Error: – {0} was not created:
File = {1}

I got around this by unlocking the Oracle accounts, running autoconfig, and bouncing the services. I posted a more detailed guide to fixing this here.

Forms Server Error

Finally, I was able to see the login page and log in as sysadmin. I went to open the Applications by clicking on one of the forms and I faced yet another problem. When opening the forms I received this error:

FRM-92101: There was a failure in the Forms Server during startup. This could happen due to invalid configuration
Please look into the web-server log file for details

In the web-server log, it showed: error while loading shared libraries: libXm.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. After some research, I found that I needed to install an additional package - openmotif21 which can be downloaded from http://oss.oracle.com/projects/compat-oracle/files/Enterprise_Linux/

After installing this, the a similar error appeared showing: error while loading shared libraries: libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. Apparently, I needed to install i386 libXp which is included on the RHEL5.4 CD/DVD. I didn't have the DVD at the time, so I found the RPM online and installed it.

If you want more detail on any of the steps listed here, visit Oracle-Developer.com where the full publication is available.

Success!

After installing the libXp package, my forms successfully opened and I was able to open and use my R12 Vision instance.

My Background (Are you Technical or Functional, Apps or DB?)

I am an Oracle Database Consultant and an Oracle Applications Consultant. My area of expertise for most on-site projects that I personally work on is a Functional role for Oracle E-Business Suite (Oracle Applications) with a focus on Financials and Distribution. However, I work on remote projects that are not related to the E-Business Suite, such as database design, development, XML DB and ETL, performance tuning, etc. I have written many database-related articles and even been a co-author of an Oracle 11g book. As a result, my skill-set ranges from pure database to ERP Functional. Till recently, I had not developed my skills with system administration or Applications DBA. The goal of this in-house project was twofold. First, I needed to provide my consultants with a testing environment. Second, I wanted to expand my knowledge of Apps DBA and Linux. I want to emphasize that I am not an Applications DBA and I am not a Unix system administrator.

Why I think this is Valuable

As a Functional Consultant, I have the responsibility of translating business requirements from my clients into solutions. When designing solutions to business requirements, it is important that the person who architects the solution understands the available components and tiers to the solution. For example, if a client had a requirement to manage a large amount of XML data, one solution might be (very high level) to load the data into Oracle. I can think of hundreds of other possible solutions based on many different criterion. For each business requirement, there are usually many sub-optimal solutions. Ultimately, the ability to design an optimal solution depends greatly on the awareness of the solution architect. An increased "awareness" increases the number of potential solutions for any requirement and I think that without exception, this leads to the optimal solution. Generally, this will save time and money while outperforming the other potential solutions.

About the author

V.J. Jain is an Oracle Database Consultant and an Oracle Applications Consultant. He is the owner is an Orange County based Oracle Consulting Firm, Varun Jain, Inc.. When personally performing work on-site, he works as a Consultant for Oracle E-Business Suite (Oracle Applications) with a focus on Financials and Distribution. With over 13 years of experience with database systems, he also specializes in database performance, custom database development, XMLDB/ETL, Oracle interfaces, and high performance solutions. Additional material by him can be found at http://www.oracle-developer.com. Also, Connect with V.J. Jain on LinkedIn