Chapter 33. Starting runInstaller

Before you continue, make sure you have set the Oracle environment variables in Section 32.3, “Setting Oracle Environment Variables”.

Oracle no longer supports a character mode installer. Therefore, in order to execute runInstaller directly from a console of a machine you are logged into you need to set the DISPLAY environment variable. In the example the name of the node where Oracle is running is called "oracleserver". First, make sure that you also allow runInstaller on "oracleserver" to display X information on your Linux desktop machine. In the example, the computer name where you are running an X Windows desktop like KDE or GNOME is called "yourdesktop". Programs running on remote machines cannot display information to your screen unless you give them the authority to do so.

Before you execute runInstaller, execute xterm (or another terminal client of your choice) to see if your X setup is really working. If you are about to install Oracle on your desktop PC and not on a remote node, then you can skip step 1 and 3.

Step 1: Allow "oracleserver" to display X information to your desktop PC "yourdesktop":

yourdesktop:user$ xhost +oracleserver

yourdesktop:user$ xhost +oracleserver

Step 2: Open a new window and log in to the Oracle server "oracleserver" as the root user. This window will be used to mount and unmounting the Oracle CDs.

oracleserver:$ su - root
oracleserver:root# mount /mnt/cdrom

oracleserver:$ su - root
oracleserver:root# mount /mnt/cdrom

Step 3: From the console of your Oracle server "oracleserver" where you will run runInstaller, execute the following commands:

oracleserver:$ su - oracle
oracleserver:oracle$ export DISPLAY=yourdesktop:0.0

oracleserver:$ su - oracle
oracleserver:oracle$ export DISPLAY=yourdesktop:0.0

Step 4: Now you can execute runInstaller as "oracle" as shown in the next chapters. It is important that you do not change directory (cd) to /mnt/cdrom.

oracleserver:oracle$ /mnt/cdrom/runInstaller

oracleserver:oracle$ /mnt/cdrom/runInstaller