MacLochlainns Weblog

Back in September, I showed how to setup Oracle Database 11g XE on Fedora. It was straightforward more or less, but tonight I ran into a problem while working with the Oracle Stop Database menu option. When I selected it form the menu, I got the user must be in the DBA OS group to stop the database.

Since the database started automatically on boot and shutdown when closing the operating system, I missed this nuance in the setup. The screen shot for the error is:

Oracle Database 11g XE automatically creates an oracle user with a dba group. While the mclaughlinm user was in the wheel group and an authorized sudoer, the mclaughlinm user needed to also be in the dba group. That’s more tricky in Fedora 15 and 16 because they’ve removed the System menu and the options that let you install and modify users.

Here are the steps to add your user to the dba group. Open a terminal session, and launch the User Manager application with the following command:

system-config-users

You have to enter the root password to get this to work. Then, it launches the User Manager application. Click on the target user, and click the Properties button.

The User Manager application launches the User Properties dialog. Click on the Groups tab.

Scroll in the groups list to the dba group. Click the checkbox for the dba group and the OK button.

Now, you’ll be able to navigate to through the menu to Stop Database to shutdown and Start Database to restart the Oracle database.

Hope this helps a few folks.

Fedora 16 is clearly better than Fedora 15 but I found Menu Editing (Alacarte package) was broken in it because of a missing library dependency, and I’ve updated Fedora Bug 734442 with the work around. Here’s what’s wrong and how to fix it.

After installing the Menu Editing (Alacarte) package, you’ll encounter this error when trying to launch the menu editor:

MainWindow.py:19:<module>:Import Error: No module named gmenu

That error occurs because the gnome-menus-3.2.0.1-1.fc16.x86_64 is missing the /usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/gmenu.so library. So, I copied the version of gmenu.so from a Fedora 15 release as the root user. Naturally, at this point you’d test if it was fixed, I did. It wasn’t, and I got a new error:

MainWindow.py:19:<module>:Import Error: libgnome-menu.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

That error occurs because the gnome-menus-3.2.0.1-1.fc16.x86_64 is missing the /usr/lib64/libgnome-menu.so.2 symbolic link to the /usr/lib64/libgnome-menu.so.2.4.13 library. While the package meets the dependency check, the libraries fail the run time validation.

If digging in like this is all new to you, I’d recommend UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook (4th Edition) (University of Colorado at Bolder folks) for the Linux stuff and The Quick Python Book, Second Edition for Python basics.

You can get a copy of the Fedora 15 package with the following command, which you should connect as the root user in navigate to the /tmp directory. Then, create a copy directory and change the /tmp/copy directory before running either of the next two commands.

Use this for 32-bit Installs

# wget http://archive.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/15/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/gnome-menus-3.0.1-1.fc15.i686.rpm

Use this for 64-bit Installs

# wget http://archive.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/15/Fedora/x86_64/os/Packages/gnome-menus-3.0.1-1.fc15.x86_64.rpm

That command only a copy of the RPM file, but the following converts it into an exploded directory. Assuming you created a copy directory in the /tmp directory, execute the following command from within the /tmp/copy directory. It will create a directory tree with the required files. After you copy the files, you can remove (rm) the copy directory from the /tmp directory.

Use this for 32-bit Installs

# rpm2cpio http://archive.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/15/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/gnome-menus-3.0.1-1.fc15.i686.rpm | cpio -ivd

Use this for 64-bit Installs

# rpm2cpio http://archive.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/15/Fedora/x86_64/os/Packages/gnome-menus-3.0.1-1.fc15.x86_64.rpm | cpio -ivd

You can now copy the files with these files. The target location differs between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system.

Use this for 32-bit Installs

# cp /tmp/copy/usr/lib/libgnome-menu.so.2* /usr/lib
# cp /tmp/copy/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gmenu.so /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages

Alternatively, you can copy the following two files from any valid 32-bit Fedora 15 instance into a Fedora 16 instance, and manually create the symbolic link.

# /usr/lib/libgnome-menu.so.2.4.13
# /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gmenu.so

Use this for 64-bit Installs

# cp /tmp/copy/usr/lib64/libgnome-menu.so.2* /usr/lib64
# cp /tmp/copy/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/gmenu.so /usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages

Alternatively, you can copy the following two files from any valid Fedora 64-bit 15 instance into a Fedora 16 instance, and manually create the symbolic link.

/usr/lib64/libgnome-menu.so.2.4.13
/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/gmenu.so

After you copy the two files into the right directories as root, you can create the necessary symbolic link with the following command (this isn’t necessary with the wildcard instruction provided earlier in the post). You need to ensure that you’re in the /usr/lib directory when you run the ln command, as noted by Gavin’s comment:

Use this for 32-bit Installs

# ln -s /usr/lib/libgnome-menu.so.2.4.13 libgnome-menu.so.2

Use this for 64-bit Installs

# ln -s /usr/lib64/libgnome-menu.so.2.4.13 libgnome-menu.so.2

As mentioned by Darr247, don’t forget to remove the /tmp/copy directory when you’re done making the changes.

Somebody asked me to add the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) commands that let me find these dependencies. That seemed like a good idea, here they are:

If you want to set a menu item up manually, check this blog post. You also have the LXMenuEditor that’s available in beta as an alternative. Hope this helps those in need, as always.

After the installation of Oracle 11g XE on Windows, I anticipated problems installing on Fedora. It’s terrific to report it was by far simpler to install on Fedora. This post provides the steps, and builds on the Fedora configuration published earlier this week.

1. After you download the software from the Oracle web site, you’ll need to expand the compressed file. When you double click on the download item you will see the following screen. Click Extract at the top of the display.

2. The Extract displays the following dialog. Click the Create Folder button and you’ll get an entry point for a new directory in your user’s directory. For the example, Oracle11gXE

3. After creating the directory, click the Extract button.

4. The extract process completes and shows the following dialog.

5. The Disk1 directory will show the following contents.

6. You need to drop down into a Terminal session, which you can launch by clicking on Applications, System Tools, and Terminal in the menu.

sudo rpm -iv oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm

[sudo] password for mclaughlinm:
Preparing packages for installation...
oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0
Executing post-install steps...
You must run '/etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure' as the root user to configure the database.

7. This step requires that you assume the role of the root user, which can be done with this syntax:

sudo sh

/etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure

Oracle Database 11g Express Edition Configuration
-------------------------------------------------
This will configure on-boot properties of Oracle Database 11g Express 
Edition.  The following questions will determine whether the database should 
be starting upon system boot, the ports it will use, and the passwords that 
will be used for database accounts.  Press <Enter> to accept the defaults. 
Ctrl-C will abort.
 
Specify the HTTP port that will be used for Oracle Application Express [8080]:
 
Specify a port that will be used for the database listener [1521]:
 
Specify a password to be used for database accounts.  Note that the same
password will be used for SYS and SYSTEM.  Oracle recommends the use of 
different passwords for each database account.  This can be done after 
initial configuration:
Confirm the password:
 
Do you want Oracle Database 11g Express Edition to be started on boot (y/n) [y]:
 
Starting Oracle Net Listener...Done
Configuring database...
Starting Oracle Database 11g Express Edition instance...Done
Installation completed successfully.

8. This step requires that you exit the root shell by typing the exit command. This should put you back into your administration account with sudoer privileges. You use vi to edit and add the following to the .bashrc file.

. /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/bin/oracle_env.sh

# Oracle Settings
TMP=/tmp; export TMP
TMPDIR=$TMP; export TMPDIR
 
ORACLE_HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain; export ORACLE_HOSTNAME
ORACLE_UNQNAME=DB11G; export ORACLE_UNQNAME
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle; export ORACLE_BASE
ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/11.2.0/xe; export ORACLE_HOME
ORACLE_SID=XE; export ORACLE_SID
NLS_LANG=`$ORACLE_HOME/bin/nls_lang.sh`; export NLS_LANG
ORACLE_TERM=xterm; export ORACLE_TERM
PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH; export PATH
PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH; export PATH
 
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/JRE:$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib; export CLASSPATH
 
if [ $USER = "oracle" ]; then
  if [ $SHELL = "/bin/ksh" ]; then
    ulimit -p 16384
    ulimit -n 65536
  else
    ulimit -u 16384 -n 65536
  fi
fi

sqlplus system

9. This step is optional. You can configure an oracleenv.sh file in the oracle user’s home directory. While you could put this in the .bashrc file, the oracle account isn’t bootable. That’s why I recommend putting it in an environment file.

# .bashrc
 
# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
  . /etc/bashrc
fi
 
# Uncomment the following line if you don't like systemctl's auto-paging feature:
# export SYSTEMD_PAGER=
 
# User specific aliases and functions
. /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/bin/oracle_env.sh
 
# Wrap sqlplus with rlwrap to edit prior lines with the
# up, down, left and right keys.
sqlplus()
{
  if [ "$RLWRAP" = "0" ]; then
    sqlplus "$@"
  else
    rlwrap sqlplus "$@"
  fi
}
 
# Set vi as a command line editor.
set -o vi

If you want to use the menu choices added by the installation, you need to put your privileged sudoer in the dba group. I wrote a blog post on it here.

It seems Fedora is always a bit of work. You begin by mistakenly downloading Fedora Live, which isn’t really the product but a run-time demonstration product. After finding the product, if you choose a full installation, there are post installation steps to complete. The first time you launch it in VMWare, you’ll see a Gnome 3 Failed to Load error dialog like this:

I suspected that installing VMWare Tools would fix that, and it did. However, your entry account doesn’t have “sudoers” permissions. You must add them before you can run VMWare Tools. There are six steps to enable your user with the sudoers permissions and four others to configure the standard installation:

1. Navigate to the Applications menu choice in the upper left hand corner. You’ll get the following drop-down menu. Click on Other menu item to launch a dependent floating menu.

2. The following floating menu displays to the right. Click on Users and Groups menu item at the bottom of the list.

3. The choice from the floating menu prompts account validation. Enter your password and click the OK button.

4. After validating your password, the User Manager dialog opens. Click on the single user that should be installed – mclaughlinm. Click the Properties button to change the groups assigned to the user.

5. The User Properties dialog opens with the default User Data tab clicked. Click on the Groups tab to add the user to the wheel group as a property of your user.

6. Scroll down through the list of groups and click the wheel group check box. Like the Mac OS, the wheel group provides “sudoer” privileges. Click the OK button to assign the group to the user.

7. Navigate to the VMWare Menu, choose Virtual Machine and in the drop down menu Install VMWare Tools. This will mount a virtual CD in the Fedora virtual machine.

8. Navigate to the Places menu choice and then Computer. Inside the Computer, choose the VMware Tools from the Devices section and you’ll see the following:

9. Open a terminal session by choosing Applications, within the drop down choose System Tools, and then launch a Terminal session. You can then run the VMWare Toolkit by following these instructions:

cd /media/VMware\ Tools
cp VMwareTools-8.4.7-416484.tar.gz /tmp
cd /tmp
gunzip VMwareTools-8.4.7-416484.tar.gz
tar -xvf VMwareTools-8.4.7-416484.tar
cd vmware-tools-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

sudo ./vmware-install.pl --default

sudo yum-complete-transaction

10. In the terminal session you should configure three files to make sure your networking works. I found that the dialogs failed to set one key element, so it’s simply easier to do this manually. Rather than using sudo, you should open a root shell with the following command:

sudo sh

[sudo] password for mclaughlinm:

# Generated by NetworkManager
domain localdomain
search localdomain
nameserver 172.16.123.2

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain
GATEWAY=172.16.123.2

DEVICE=eth0
HWADDR=00:0c:29:31:ef:46
ONBOOT=yes
NM_CONTROLLED=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
TYPE=Ethernet
DNS1=172.16.123.2
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=yes
IPV6INIT=no

/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart

As always, I hope this helps a few folks.