Re: Oracle 9i and 10g on same Linux host

bnies_at_bluewin.ch wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Has someone managed to install and run Oracle 9i and 10g on the same
> Linux host (RHEL4 x86_64)?
>
> I intend to install them into
>
> /opt/oracle/9.2.0.4
> /opt/oracle/10.1.0.3
>
> with databases in
>
> /data/oracle/9.2.0.4
> /data/oracle/10.1.0.3
>
> move the
>
> /etc/oraInst.loc
> /etc/oratab
> /etc/oracle
>
> to
>
> /etc/oracle/9.2.0.4
> /etc/oracle/10.1.0.3
>
> and set the approprite links before starting up the database.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Regards,
> Bernd

As Holger pointed out, oraInst.loc and oratab are not version specific and will/do support multiple versions in what they do, so should not be placed in version-specific directories. Likewise the database files themselves. While a given DB *is* a specific version at any given point in time, what happens when you upgrade it? You don't want to have to relocate those files just because you placed them in a, now, inappropreately named directory. Leave your databases in non-version specific directories. In fact, looks like you might want to look into the idea of the $ORACLE_BASE variable in addition to $ORACLE_HOME, and do some reading on Oracle Flexible Architecture.

I don't have any multiple-home systems, but do have some multiple-db systems, which could be instructive to you:

$> echo $ORACLE_BASE
/u01/app/oracle

$> ls -l $ORACLE_BASE
total 6

drwxr-x---   6 oracle   dba          512 Dec 28  2004 admin
drwxrwxr-x   6 oracle   dba          512 May  8  2004 product
drwxr-x---  18 oracle   dba         1024 Sep 20  2004 rda

$> ls -l $ORACLE_BASE/admin
total 8

drwxr-x---  10 oracle   dba          512 Dec 27  2004 SID1
drwxr-x---  10 oracle   dba          512 Dec 28  2004 SID2
drwxr-x---   2 oracle   dba          512 Aug 21 07:00 logs
drwxr-x---   2 oracle   dba         1024 Aug 22 10:00 scripts

$> ls -l $ORACLE_BASE/admin/SID1
total 78

drwxr-x---   2 oracle   dba         2560 Aug 21 07:00 bdump
drwxr-x---   2 oracle   dba          512 Aug  4 13:20 cdump
drwxr-x---   2 oracle   dba          512 May 13 15:51 pfile
drwxr-x---   2 oracle   dba          512 Nov  6  2004 trace
drwxr-x---   2 oracle   dba        18944 Aug 28 23:02 udump

$> echo $ORACLE_HOME
/u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.0

$> ls -l /var/opt/oracle
total 4

-rw-r--r--   1 root     other         66 Mar 30  2004 oraInst.loc
-rw-rw-r--   1 oracle   other        790 Dec 22  2004 oratab