Simplifying the client install



Our application server estate has huge mix of oracle client installs from 9 all the way to 12. These are all manually installed in varying locations and with differing types of components and languages. For example some might be installed in German with a custom install to get sqlldr and others might just be instant client or a full admin install in english.

The end user machines all have a nicely scripted client package which makes it consistent on desktop/laptops but we can;t use this on the application servers.

So how to simplify the install and make things consistent?

First up we wanted to make sure that whatever client we chose covered everything we wanted for any client requirements - so no separate odac/odp homes etc everything in one simple home.

And secondly we wanted to make it so you didn't have to go through the gui installer each time as that can easily end up with the end client becoming subtly different.

There seem to be three ways to accomplish this

1) install with response file
2) clone with clone.pl
3) run install with everything in a single command

Option 1 is fine but involves creating a response file and then making sure this is always available with the distributed software

Option 2 is what we use for database installation on Unix, i assume it works on windows too and may be an OK solution but i wasnt sure how the whole process woudl work on windows as compared to linux - it may be just as easy i just didn;t try it out

The third option seemed the easiest solution for this

So to implement a 12c client install completely from a single command we just run the following

d:\orainstaller\client\setup.exe -silent -waitforcompletion FROM_LOCATION=D:\orainstaller\client\stage\products.xml oracle.install.client.installType="Administrator" ORACLE_HOME="D:\oracle\oracle12c" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="oraclient12c" ORACLE_BASE="D:\oracle" DECLINE_SECURITY_UPDATES=true oracle.install.IsBuiltInAccount=true SELECTED_LANGUAGES=en_GB

This installs a full admin client into D:\oracle\oracle12c as long as you unzipped the software into d:\orainstaller

As soon as the command finishes the client is all ready to use - nice and simple

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