Ever want to just install the minimal amount of Oracle client software for client applications on Linux? Well, Oracle has provided Oracle Instant Client to do this but they have neglected to make it intuitive to install. I’ve written a couple scripts that make it easy on Linux. I’ve tested this on Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Server JEOS.

Download the files you need

Download Oracle Instant Client

Retrieve the Instant Client packages and save them to a directory (e.g. “linux 32bit”).

  • Instant Client Package – Basic
  • Instant Client Package – JDBC Supplement
  • Instant Client Package – SQL*Plus
  • Instant Client Package – SDK
  • Instant Client Package – ODBC

Download DBD::Oracle and place it in the build-cfg directory

Copy your tnsnames.ora file into the build-cfg directory

Download build_oracle_instantclient.sh into the directory above build-cfg directory

Save root.sh into the build-cfg directory

Build a tar ball containing everything we need in the directory format we need.

build_oracle_instantclient.sh "../linux 32bit"

Script1: build_oracle_instantclient.sh

SOURCE_DIR="$1"
BUILD_DIR=builddir
CFG_DIR=build-cfg

if [[ -z $1 ]]
then
  echo "Usage: build_oracle_instantclient.sh <directory containing oracle instant client zip files>"
  exit 1
fi

if [[ ! -d "${SOURCE_DIR}" ]]
then
   echo "${SOURCE_DIR} is not a directory"
   exit 1
fi

find "${SOURCE_DIR}" -name "*.zip" -type f -exec unzip {} \;

if [[ -d instantclient_11_1 ]]
then
  TMP_DIR=instantclient_11_1
elif [[ -d instantclient_10_2 ]]
then
  TMP_DIR=instantclient_10_2
else
  echo "unable to determine extraction dir"
  exit 1
fi

if [[ -d ${BUILD_DIR} ]]
then
  rm -rf ${BUILD_DIR}
fi

mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}
mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}/bin
mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}/doc
mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}/java
mkdir -p ${BUILD_DIR}/lib

cp ${CFG_DIR}/* ${BUILD_DIR}
mv ${TMP_DIR}/*README* ${BUILD_DIR}/doc
mv ${TMP_DIR}/*.html ${BUILD_DIR}/doc
mv ${TMP_DIR}/*.htm ${BUILD_DIR}/doc
mv ${TMP_DIR}/lib* ${BUILD_DIR}/lib
mv ${TMP_DIR}/*.jar ${BUILD_DIR}/java
mv ${TMP_DIR}/sdk ${BUILD_DIR}
mv ${TMP_DIR}/* ${BUILD_DIR}/bin

cd ${BUILD_DIR}/lib
ln -s libclntsh.so.* libclntsh.so
ln -s libocci.so.* libocci.so
ln -s libsqora.so.* libsqora.so

cd ..
tarball=`echo ${SOURCE_DIR} | tr ‘ ‘ ‘-’`
tarball=`basename ${tarball}`
tarball=Oracle-${TMP_DIR}-${tarball}
tar cvf – * | gzip -9c > "../${tarball}.tgz"

cd ..
rm -rf ${BUILD_DIR} ${TMP_DIR}</directory>

Once we have the tar ball, we can copy that file to any compatible Linux system, extract it and run the root.sh file which will copy the install to /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient, set up the system variables and build DBD::Oracle for you.

Script2: root.sh

#!/bin/bash

############################################
function copy_instantclient () {
  if [[ `pwd` != "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" ]]
  then
    if [[ ! -d /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient ]]
    then
      echo "Creating /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient directory"
      mkdir -p /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
    fi

    echo "Copying Oracle Instant Client to /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient"
    cp -Ra * /usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
  fi
}

#———
function update_etc_profile () {
  if [[ -f /etc/profile ]]
  then
    if [[ `grep -c "ORACLE_HOME" /etc/profile` = 0 ]]
    then
      echo "Updating /etc/profile"
      cat >> /etc/profile < < EOF
  export ORACLE_HOME=/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
  export TNS_ADMIN=\${ORACLE_HOME}
  export PATH=\${ORACLE_HOME}/bin:\${PATH}
  export CLASSPATH=\${ORACLE_HOME}/classes:\${CLASSPATH}
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=\${ORACLE_HOME}/lib:\${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
  export SQLPATH=\${ORACLE_HOME}/bin
EOF
    else
      echo "Updates to /etc/profile already applied"
    fi
  fi
}

#———
function update_library_cache () {
  if [[ -d /etc/ld.so.conf.d ]]
  then
    if [[ -f /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf
       &&  `grep -c "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf` != 0 ]]
    then
       echo "Updates to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf already applied"
    else
      echo "Updating /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf"
      echo "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle_instant_client.conf
      /sbin/ldconfig
    fi
  else
    if [[ `grep -c "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" /etc/ld.so.conf` == 0 ]]
    then
      echo "Updating /etc/ld.so.conf"
      echo "/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient" > /etc/ld.so.conf
      /sbin/ldconfig
    else
      echo "Updates to /etc/ld.so.conf already applied"
    fi
  fi

}

#———
function print_env () {
  echo "Add the following to the rc.d script for any daemon processes that need to access Oracle.  For example, apache"
  echo ‘  export ORACLE_HOME=/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
  export TNS_ADMIN=${ORACLE_HOME}
  export PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin:${PATH}
  export CLASSPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/classes:${CLASSPATH}
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
  export SQLPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin’
}

#———
function install_DBD-Oracle () {
  echo "Building DBD::Oracle"
  DBDORA=`ls DBD-Oracle-*`

  if [[ -f ${DBDORA} ]]
  then
    tar zxf ${DBDORA}
    cd DBD-Oracle*
    TMP_DBDORA=`pwd`
    TMP_DBDORA=`basename ${TMP_DBDORA}`
    perl Makefile.PL -m $ORACLE_HOME/sdk/demo/demo.mk
    make && make install
    cd ..
    rm -rf ${TMP_DBDORA}
  else
    echo "Unable to find DBD-Oracle file"
  fi
}

############################################

export ORACLE_HOME=/usr/local/oracle/InstantClient
export TNS_ADMIN=${ORACLE_HOME}
export PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin:${PATH}
export CLASSPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/classes:${CLASSPATH}
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
export SQLPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin

copy_instantclient
update_etc_profile
update_library_cache
print_env
install_DBD-Oracle