Requirements for installing Oracle Database 19c release(19.19 or higher) 64-bit on OL9 64-bit or RHEL9 (x86_64)

Before you proceed with Installation, please take time to review every below requirement carefully to avoid any obvious issues during Installation of binaries.

• Download the Oracle Database 19c software(LINUX.X64_193000_db_home.zip) from OTN - https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/enterprise-edition/downloads/oracle19c-linux-5462157.html
• After you download the Software, Verify the integrity of the Downloaded Software
  Note 549617.1 How To Verify The Integrity Of A Patch/Software Download? [Video]
• If you have downloaded the Software on other Machine, please transfer the zip file on the Server being Installed using Binary Mode and unzip with the Oracle Software user.
• Latest OPatch Utility
• Below Set of Fixes
  
  • 19.22 List of Fixes                  
    19.22 GI RU 35940989 
    For DB Installation - 19.22 DB RU 35943157 and 19.22 OCW RU 35967489 are required
    For Client Installation - Only 19.22 DB RU 35943157 

Important Notes

1. OCW MLRs are required to be applied even to SI DB Homes, because they contain Fixes necessary for the DB Home to support Installer prerequisite expectations for UEK and RHCK kernels on OL9. Same support is needed even for RHEL 9 also.
   
   
2. Earlier listed Fixes for 19.19,19.20 and 19.21 have been withdrawn due a regression noticed in one of the Fixes and other Fixes are included in 19.22 RUs. Development strongly recommends applying 19.22(or newer) DB RU & OCW RUs to reduce the number of Fixes required for a certified/successful installation.  

Hardware

Minimum Hardware Requirements

a. Ensure that your system meets the following Physical Memory requirements:

    Minimum:         1 GB of RAM
    Recommended: 2 GB of RAM or more

b. Swap space allocation relative to RAM

NOTE: The above recommendations (from the Oracle® Database Installation Guide 19c for Linux) are MINIMUM recommendations for installations. Further RAM and swap space may be required to tune/improve RDBMS performance.

c. 1.0 GB (1024MB) of disk space (and less than 2TB of disk space) in the /tmp directory.

d. If the free space available in the /tmp directory is less than what is required, then complete one of the following steps:
    - Delete unnecessary files from the /tmp directory to meet the disk space requirement.
    - Set the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables when setting the oracle user's environment.

e. Approximately 7.2 GB of local disk space for the Database Software Files.

f.  If you intend to create a preconfigured database during the installation, then the file system (or file systems) that you choose must have at least 2 GB of free disk space.
    For production databases, you must estimate the disk space requirement depending on the use of the database.

2. Oracle Database is supported on ext2, ext3 and ext4 file systems (see Note:236826.1 for further information)

Software

Certified Operating System (Please see exact Requirements below)

    Oracle Linux 9           
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

a. For Minimal Linux Installation :

A minimal Linux installation option is either a custom installation where you select the Minimal option from Package Group Selection, or where you deselect all packages except for the Base pack. A minimal Linux installation lacks many RPMs required for database installation, so you must use an RPM package for your Oracle Linux release to install the required packages. The package you use depends on your Linux release

b. For a Default Linux Installation
Oracle recommends that you install your Linux operating system with the default software packages (RPMs).
A default Linux installation includes most of the required packages and helps you limit manual verification of package dependencies. Oracle recommends that you do not customize the RPMs during installation.

Kernel requirements

The following kernels are supported:

Oracle Linux 9 with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel 7: 5.15.0-1.43.4.2.el9uek.x86_64 or later
Oracle Linux 9 with the Red Hat Compatible Kernel: 5.14.0-70.22.1.0.2.el9_0.x86_64 or later
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9: 5.14.0-70.22.1.0.2.el9_0.x86_64 or later

NUMA can be turned ON.No issues reported on OL/RHEL 9 when NUMA is ON.

Oracle Universal Installer requires an X Window System (for example, libx)

    The libx packages are part of a default Linux installation.
    If you perform an install on a system with a reduced set of packages, then you must ensure that libx or a similar X Window System package is installed

 At least 1 GB of space in the /tmp directory.

Runlevel : 3 or 5

Oracle User Environment Configuration Checklist :

For new installs, if you have not configured an oraInventory directory, then the installer creates an Oracle inventory that is one directory level up from the Oracle base for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure install, and designates the installation owner's primary group as the Oracle Inventory group.
The oinstall group must be the primary group of all Oracle software installation owners on the server. It should be writable by any Oracle installation owner.
Oracle recommends that you create groups and user accounts required for your security plans before starting installation. Installation owners have resource limits settings and other requirements.

If you have an existing Oracle software installation, and you are using the same user to install this installation, then unset the following environment variables: $ORACLE_HOME,$ORA_NLS10, and $TNS_ADMIN, $ORACLE_BASE, $ORACLE_SID

By default, your operating system includes an entry in /etc/fstab to mount /dev/shm. However, if your Cluster Verification Utility (CVU) or Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) checks fail, ensure that the /dev/shm mount area is of type tmpfs and is mounted with the following options:
rw and exec permissions set on it
Without noexec or nosuid set on it

Set the default file mode creation mask (umask) to 022 in the shell startup file.

Storage Checklist for Oracle Database

At least 7.5 GB for Oracle Database Standard Edition 2.

Database Pre-Install RPM Download Links(External & Internal Repositories)

https://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL9/appstream/x86_64/getPackage/oracle-database-preinstall-19c-1.0-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

https://yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL9/appstream/x86_64/getPackage/oracle-database-preinstall-19c-1.0-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

The download for the oracle-database-preinstall-19c RPM can be done with below commands (without the need to provide version numbers)

# dnf update -y
# dnf install oracle-database-preinstall-19c -y

Note - From OL8 (especially Update 5 and later) the full update will fix the repo files (baseos vs appstream)

Minimum Operating System Resource Parameter Settings

semmsl 250

semmns 32000

semopm 100

semmni 128

shmall Greater than or equal to the value of shmmax, in pages /proc/sys/kernel/shmall

shmmax Half the size of physical memory in bytes /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax

shmmni 4096

panic_on_oops 1

file-max 6815744

aio-max-nr 1048576

ip_local_port_range Minimum: 9000

ip_local_port_range Maximum: 65500

rmem_default 262144

rmem_max 4194304

wmem_default 262144

wmem_max 1048576

Verify the latest version of PAM is loaded, then add or edit the following line in the /etc/pam.d/login file, if it does not already exist:

session required pam_limits.so

Minimum Operating System Software/RPM Requirements

Note - The default RPM Versions that come with OL/RHEL 9 are OK.Hence,the minimum recommended versions for each RPM,have not been documented.This is an intended change with 19c.

Starting with 19c,Development has decided not to document the Package Versions anymore.
The RPM Versions that come with the certified minimum specified OS Version+Service Pack(i,e OL 9 OR RHEL 9) are all that are needed.
However,the Customers are free to update the RPMs to the latest versions.

The Oracle ORAchk utility provides system checks that can help to prevent issues before and after installation. These checks include kernel requirements, operating system resource allocations, and other system requirements.

Before you perform a fresh database installation:

./orachk -profile preinstall

Running Oracle Database Setup Wizard to Install Oracle Database

Log in as the Oracle installation owner user account (oracle) that you want to own the software binaries.

To install Oracle Database 19c on Oracle Linux 9 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Download the 19.3 Oracle Database software binaries from Oracle Technology Network (OTN), and then apply the 19.19 or 19.20 latest/newest Database Release Updates (DB RU) along with the respective One-Off Patches+Merge Patches+OCW Merge Patches during the the Oracle Database installation or upgrade process.
***Installation of the mentioned Patches is mandatory****

Create the Oracle home directory and extract the image files that you have downloaded in to this Oracle home directory. For example:

$ mkdir -p /u01/app/oracle/product/19c/dbhome_1

$ chgrp oinstall /u01/app/oracle/product/19c/dbhome_1

$ cd /u01/app/oracle/product/19c/dbhome_1

$ unzip -q /tmp/db_home.zip

The Oracle Database installation process involves the following Steps -

1. Download latest OPatch from Patch 6880880. Once downloaded , Unzip into $ORACLE_HOME. Rename old OPatch Folder, Do not overwrite.
2. Execute the runInstaller command with the -applyRU option to apply the 19.22 DB RU & OCW RU Patches and perform the Binary Installation -
   
   19.22 GI RU Patch 35940989

$ export CV_ASSUME_DISTID=OL8                        <<<<<   If performing Installation on Oracle Linux 9
$ export CV_ASSUME_DISTID=RHEL8                        <<<<<   If performing Installation on Red Hat Linux 9


$ mv $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch $ORACLE_HOME/OPatch_bkp
$ unzip -qqd $ORACLE_HOME <Location of OPatch Zip file>/p6880880_190000_Linux-x86-64.zip

For eg-
$ mv /u01/app/oracle/product/19c/dbhome_1/OPatch /u01/app/oracle/product/19c/dbhome_1/OPatch_bkp
$ unzip -qqd /u01/app/oracle/product/19c/dbhome_1 /u01/app/patches/p6880880_190000_Linux-x86-64.zip

To perform Installation using 19.22 DB RU+19.22 OCW Merge Patch
$ ./runInstaller -applyRU <19.22 DBRU Patch 35943157 unzip Location> -applyOneOffs <19.22 OCW RU 35967489 unzip location>

For eg-
$ ./runInstaller -applyRU /u01/app/patches/35943157 -applyOneOffs /u01/app/patches/35967489

Known Issues

1.  Since 19c(19.3) is already released a while ago,It does not contain Pre-req checks specific to OL / RHEL 9.
     Installer will fail with below Error,as there are no Pre-req checks specific to OL / RHEL 9-

     [WARNING] [INS-08101] Unexpected error while executing the action at state:'supportedOSCheck'
     CAUSE: No additional information available.
     ACTION: Contact Oracle Support Services or refer to the software manual.
     SUMMARY:
       - java.lang.NullPointerException

    Hence,there is a need to direct the Installer to assume the installed OS to be OL 8 & perform related checks.
    Therefore,the below Variable needs to be set,prior to launching Installer-

$ export CV_ASSUME_DISTID=OL8                        <<<<<   If performing Installation on Oracle Linux 9
$ export CV_ASSUME_DISTID=RHEL8                        <<<<<   If performing Installation on Red Hat Linux 9

    Note - Updated Pre-req check file for OL/RHEL 9 is  provided by 19.19 OCW Merge Patch 35878749 & later.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

1. Starting from Oracle Database 12.1 32-bit Oracle Database Software is not available.

2. Supported distributions of the 32-bit (x86) Oracle Database Client Linux OS can run on on AMD64/EM64T and Intel Processor Chips that adhere to the x86_64 architecture. Oracle 32-bit Database Client running on AMD64/EM64T with 64-bit OS is expected to be supported, but is NOT covered by this NOTE.

3. Asynchronous I/O on ext2 and ext3 file systems is supported if your scsi/fc driver supports that functionality.

Note : Asynchronous I/O on Ext4 file system is supported with Oracle 10g onwards on OEL5.6 and later.
Reference : Oracle Linux, Filesystem & I/O Type Supportability (Note 279069.1)[This section is not visible to customers.]

4. No extra patch is required for the DIRECTIO support for x86_64.

5. No LD_ASSUME_KERNEL value should be used with the Oracle Database 19c product.

6. The following rpm command can be used to distinguish between a 32-bit or 64-bit package.

# rpm -qa --queryformat "%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE} (%{ARCH})\n" | grep glibc-devel
  glibc-devel-2.12-1.7.el6 (x86_64)
  glibc-devel-2.12-1.7.el6 (i686)

7. Oracle Universal Installer requires an X Window System (for example, libx). The libx packages are part of a default Linux installation. If you perform an install on a system with a reduced set of packages, then you must ensure that libx or a similar X Window System package is installed.

8. 32-bit packages (i686 rpm) in these requirements lists are needed only if you intend to use 32-bit client applications to access 64-bit servers.

9. Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2) and later does not require the compiler packages gcc and gcc-c++ on Oracle Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Oracle Database or Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations.