Oracle8i Release Notes
Release 3 (8.1.7) for Sun SPARC Solaris

Part Number A86565-01
 

Oracle8i

Release Notes

Release 3 (8.1.7) for Sun SPARC Solaris

September 2000

Part No. A86565-01

These Release Notes contain important last minute information not included in the documentation library of your Oracle8i for Sun SPARC Solaris Online Documentation CD-ROM.

This document contains these topics:

Hardware Requirements

The following hardware is required to install Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) on Sun SPARC Solaris systems.

System Requirements

Hardware  Requirements 

Memory 

A minimum of 128 MB RAM is required to install Oracle8i products. Oracle8i Client products require 64 MB of RAM 

Swap Space 

Twice the amount of RAM or at least 400 MB, whichever is greater, is recommended for most systems. 

CD-ROM Device  

A CD-ROM drive supported by Solaris is required. Oracle uses ISO 9660 format CD-ROM disks with RockRidge extensions. 

Disk Space Requirements

Disk space requirements differ depending on which products included with Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) you choose to install on your system. See the Oracle8i Installation Guide for complete details. Disk space requirements do not account for the size of your database. A production Oracle database server supporting many users requires significantly greater disk space and memory.

Oracle8i Enterprise Edition

Installation Type  Required Disk Space 

Typical 

1160 MB 

Minimal 

985 MB 

Custom 

Up to a maximum of 1355 MB 

Oracle8i Management Infrastructure

Installation Type  Required Disk Space 

Oracle Management Server 

395 MB 

Oracle Internet Directory 

810 MB 

Oracle Integration Server 

930 MB 

Custom 

Up to a maximum of 1245 MB 

Oracle8i Client

Installation Type  Required Disk Space 

Administrator 

435 MB 

Programmer 

320 MB 

Application User 

230 MB 

Custom 

Up to a maximum of 440 MB 

Operating System Requirements

To install Oracle8i products included with this release, your Sun SPARC Solaris system must meet the operating system requirements listed in the following table.

OS Software  Requirements 

Operating System 

Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7 or Solaris 8 

Operating System Patch 

Use the latest kernel patch from Sun Microsystems. Sun provides patch information at:

http://sunsolve.sun.com

Solaris 2.6 requires at least kernel jumbo patch revision #105181-15 for successful installation of Release 3 (8.1.7).

See the tables in "Java Runtime Environment (JRE)" for patches required on Solaris for the JRE. 

Operating System Packages 

SUNWarc, SUNWbtool, SUNWhea, SUNWlibm, SUNWlibms, SUNWsprot, SUNWtoo 

Window Manager 

X-windows must be installed on the system from where the Installer is run. Use any Sun-supported X-windows server, for example, dtwm, twm, olwm, that supports Motif.

Character mode installs are not supported for Release 3 (8.1.7). See Chapter 3 of the Oracle8i Installation Guide for information on non-interactive installation. 

Required Executables 

The following executables must be present in the /usr/ccs/bin directory: make, ar, ld, nm

Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

The JRE shipped with Oracle8i is used by Oracle Java applications such as Oracle Universal Installer and is the only one supported to run with these applications. Customers should not modify this JRE, unless it is done through a patch provided by Oracle Support Services.

The Solaris patches listed in the two following tables are required or recommended for JRE 1.1.8_10 and can be obtained from:

http://sunsolve.sun.com

Patch ID  Description  Required or Recommended? 

106040-11 

X Input and Output Method patch 

Required 

105181-15 

Kernel patch 

Required 

105284-25 

Motif Runtime Library Patch 

Recommended 

105490-07 

Dynamic linker patch 

Recommended 

106409-01 

Chinese TrueType fonts patch (1) 

Recommended 

105633-21 

OpenWindows 3.6: Xsun patch (1) 

Recommended 

105568-13 

Libthread patch 

Recommended 

105210-19 

LibC patch 

Recommended 

105669-07 

CDE 1.2: libDTSvc patch (dtmail) 

Recommended 

Patch ID  Description  Required or Recommended? 

107636-01 

X Input and Output Method patch 

Required 

106980-05 

Libthread patch 

Recommended 

107607-01 

Motif fontlist, fontset, libxm 

Recommended 

107078-10 

Open Windows 3.6.1 Xsun patch (1) 

Recommended 

Java Development Kit (JDK)

With Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) Oracle ships a version of Sun Microsystems Java Development Kit (JDK) for use with the Oracle HTTP Server powered by Apache. This JDK is the only one supported to run with the Oracle HTTP Server. Customers should not modify this JDK unless it is done through a patch provided by Oracle Support Services.

The Solaris patches listed in the following tables are required or recommended for the JDK 1.2.2.0005 and can be obtained from:

http://sunsolve.sun.com

Patch ID  Description  Required or Recommended? 

105490-07 

Linker Patch 

Required 

105568-16 

Libthread Patch 

Required 

105210-27 

LibC Patch 

Required 

106040-13 

X Input & Output Method Patch 

Required 

105633-36 

Open Windows 3.6: Xsun Patch (1) 

Required 

106409-01 

Fixes the Chinese True Type fonts (2) 

Required 

108091-03 

SunOS 5.6: ssJDK1.2.1_03 fails w/ fatal error in ISO8859-01 Locales (3) 

Required 

105181-19 

Kernel update (socket close/hang) 

Recommended 

105669-10 

CDE 1.2: libDTSvc Patch (dtmail) 

Recommended 

105284-31 

Motif 1.2.7: Runtime library patch 

Recommended 

Patch ID  Description  Required or Recommended? 

106980-10 

Libthread Patch 

Required 

107636-03 

X Input & Output Method Patch 

Required 

107081-11 

Motif 1.2.7 and 2.1.1: Runtime library patch for Solaris 7 

Required 

108376-03 

Open Windows 3.6.1 Xsun Patch (1) 

Required 

Documentation

This section contains these topics:

Oracle Applications InterConnect Installation

The Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) Installation Guide contains only basic information pertaining to the Oracle Applications InterConnect (OAI) install. OAI is a new feature in Release 3 (8.1.7) that is being packaged as part of the Oracle Integration Server, a suite of products designed to integrate and facilitate communication among various applications comprising an e-business (including CRM, ERP, business-to-business Internet marketplaces, and auction sites). To access more specific information regarding the OAI installation, please refer to the OAI Installation Guide, located off the root of the installation media in:

/doc/oai/oaiig313.pdf

Important: Additional READMEs

Additional product README files are located in the product subdirectories under the ORACLE_HOME directory or in the /ORACLE_HOME/relnotes directory.

Platform-Specific Documentation

The Oracle8i Administrator's Reference for Sun SPARC Solaris, and the Oracle8i Installation Guide for Sun SPARC Solaris are available online on the Oracle8i software CD-ROM. To access the documentation in HTML and PDF formats, use a web browser to open the index.htm file at the top level of the Oracle8i CD-ROM. This file contains links to product and Solaris-specific documentation.

Online Support

The following websites have the most current information about products included with this release:

Revised, New, and Obsoleted Documentation for Release 8.1.7

The Oracle8i for Sun SPARC Solaris Online Documentation CD-ROM contains guides listed as release 8.1.6 and 8.1.7. Only guides listed as release 8.1.7 have been updated since release 8.1.6. Guides listed as release 8.1.6 have not been revised, however, updates to some of these 8.1.6 guides may be included in:

SPX Protocol Adapter Desupport

In Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7), Oracle is no longer shipping the SPX protocol adapter on Sun SPARC Solaris. This will disable Solaris client connections to a database from being carried out over Novell's SPX protocol. The SPX protocol adapter will still be shipped for Windows clients connecting to databases deployed on Solaris.

Default JDBC Driver Behavior

In Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) the default behavior for the ResultSet::getXXXStream() APIs have been modified to comply with the JDBC specification so that they return null values for database null LONG/LONG RAW values. In earlier versions of the 8.1.x JDBC drivers, the default behavior was to return the empty stream for database null values. To restore the earlier JDBC default behavior when using the 8.1.7 drivers, you must use the Java property jdbc.backward_compatible_to_8.1.6. For example, if this Java property is set at the virtual machine runtime, the command

java -Djdbc.backward_compatible_to_8.1.6 myJavaProgram

will cause the 8.1.7 JDBC drivers to return empty streams from calls to ResultSet::getXXXStream().

The jdbc.backward_compatible_to_8.1.6 Java property applies to 8.1.7 JDBC Thin driver and OCI driver.

Use of Single-Task Linking for Large Exports/Imports and SQL*Loader Jobs

If you need to transfer large amounts of data between the user and Oracle8i (for example, using export/import), it is efficient to use single-task architecture. To make the single-task import (impst), export (expst), and SQL*Loader (sqlldrst) executables, use the ins_rdbms.mk makefile in the $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib directory.

The following example makes the impst, expst, and sqlldrst executables:

$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib
$ make -f ins_rdbms.mk singletask


Note:

Linking Oracle executables as single-task allows a user process to directly access the entire SGA. In addition, running single-task requires more memory because the oracle executable text is no longer shared between the front-end and background processes. 


Installation Issues

This section contains these topics:

Using Hummingbird Exceed

If you are using Hummingbird's Exceed X windows emulator while installing and using Oracle8i, set the window manager to run in "Native" mode so that Microsoft Windows functions as the window manager. See your Exceed documentation for instructions on configuring the window manager.

While Oracle supports the use of Exceed for installing and configuring products, users should be aware of the following common problems with using this X Windows Emulator for installation:

  1. There is a bug in the way Exceed handles screen coordinates. The installer window and related installer dialogs or configuration assistants may encounter display problems when run through the emulator. These display problems may include the sudden truncation of the main window when clicking the [Next] button during the install, rendering the screen unreadable, or the expansion of an installer window such that the dialog buttons are displayed off the screen and are thus not selectable with a mouse. In such cases, users must exit the entire X Windows session and start a new session to fix the problem. Opening a new shell and re-running the installer from the shell does not fix the problem.

  2. There are consistent display problems with the AQ Database Information dialog which is part of the Oracle Applications InterConnect installation. The last text field on this dialog which prompts for "Consumer Name:" appears truncated when viewed through Exceed. This dialog displays as expected when viewed through native X Windows on Sun SPARC Solaris.

To correct any problems with hidden dialog fields such as that indicated in (2) above, try the following:

  1. Select the xconfig application under the Exceed Program Group from the Windows Start Menu.

  2. Select the "Fonts" Applet.

  3. Click the [Font Database] button in the "Font Settings" dialog box.

  4. Uncheck the "Automatic Font Substitution" option in the "Font Database" dialog box.

  5. Click the [Add...] button. The "Add Font Directory" dialog box is displayed.

  6. Click the [Server] radio button in the "Add Font Directory" dialog box.

  7. Enter the hostname for your machine in the "Host Name" field in the "Add Font Server" dialog box. Leave all the other entries at their default settings.

  8. Click [OK] and [Close] on all dialogs to save the settings.

New ORACLE_HOME

Oracle Corporation recommends that you install Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) products into a new ORACLE_HOME. Do not install Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) into an ORACLE_HOME directory that already contains Oracle products.

If you must install Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) into an ORACLE_HOME that contains 8.1.5 or 8.1.6 products, remove these products with Oracle Universal Installer.

Backing Up the root.sh Script

If you install another product category, such as Oracle8i Management Infrastructure, after the successful installation of Oracle8i Server into the same ORACLE_HOME, Oracle Universal Installer will delete the content of the root.sh script during the course of the installation. Before beginning the installation, backup the root.sh script.

$ cp root.sh root.sh.save

If you require the original root.sh script, you can recover it from the root.sh.save file.

Non-Interactive Installation

Be aware of the following issues when running the Oracle Universal Installer in non-interactive mode.

Character Mode

Installation can no longer be performed using character mode. However, you can configure Oracle Universal Installer to perform a non-interactive installation of Oracle products. The Installer can be run in non-interactive mode directly from your system's X-windows console or via an X-terminal or PC X-terminal on a remote system. For more information on the non-interactive installation of Oracle products, see "Non-Interactive Installation and Configuration" in the Oracle8i Installation Guide.

First Time Installation in Silent Mode

If you will perform the first installation of Oracle products on a system with Oracle Universal Installer running in silent mode, you must run a script to create the oraInst.loc file. The script to create this file is /tmp/orainstRoot.sh. This script will be created when you try to run the Installer for the first time.

See /tmp/silentInstall.log for information about running orainstRoot.sh. Before creating this file, read and complete the tasks detailed in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the Oracle8i Installation Guide.

Required Support Files Drop-In Compatibility

In Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7), Oracle is supporting drop-in compatibility of the 8.1.7 client-side libraries on top of the 8.1.6 client-side libraries. This means that applications and tools running in the same ORACLE_HOME as these 8.1.6 client-side libraries will not encounter runtime errors if the libraries are upgraded to 8.1.7 during an install. However, drop-in compatibility is not supported for client-side libraries being used by a database or listener. If an attempt to upgrade the 8.1.6 client-side libraries is made in the same ORACLE_HOME as an Oracle8i Release 2 (8.1.6) database or listener, and the database or listener is not also upgraded to 8.1.7, the 8.1.6 versions of the database or listener will be broken. If you want to keep the older versions of the database or listener intact, you must install Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) in a new ORACLE_HOME.

Known Upgrade Issues
Bug 1344446

An attempt to upgrade an Oracle8i Release 2 (8.1.6) database to a Release 3 (8.1.7) database in the same ORACLE_HOME produces ignorable installation runtime errors that occur during the deinstallation of the 8.1.6 software.

Oracle Universal Installer treats a software upgrade as a deinstall of the old software followed by an install of the new software. The errors that occur during upgrade in the same ORACLE_HOME appear as relinking errors in the RDBMS and Net8 Server. Since these errors are relinking errors that occur during the deinstall of the 8.1.6 software and since the affected files will be replaced and relinked again when the 8.1.7 software is installed, these errors can be safely ignored.

During upgrade of the software, Oracle Universal Installer will display error dialogs with the following messages:

  1. Error in invoking target ioracle of make file <ORACLE_HOME>/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk

  2. Error in invoking target install of makefile <ORACLE_HOME>/network/lib/ins_net_server.mk

Clicking the [Ignore] button on each of these dialogs will allow the installation to continue.

Avoid these errors by installing the Release 3 (8.1.7) software into a new ORACLE_HOME, then performing the data upgrade as usual.

Enabling and disabling system triggers

Before performing either a manual database upgrade or an automated database upgrade using Oracle Data Migration Assistant, you must first set _SYSTEM_TRIG_ENABLED = FALSE in the initialization parameter file. After completing the database portion of the upgrade, you must either remove _SYSTEM_TRIG_ENABLED from the initialization parameter file or explicitly set it to TRUE before attempting any other upgrade steps such as upgrading Oracle JServer. Refer to the Oracle8i Migration book for more information about upgrade and migration.

Multi-CD Issues

An attempt to install Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) directly from the installation media requires customers to switch between CD 1 and CD 2 during the middle of an installation session to complete a full install. To avoid having to switch between CDs, copy the contents of each CD to the hard drive and run the Installer from the new location. Copy the contents of each CD in the directory structure as follows:

If the contents of each CD are copied into this structure on the hard drive, Oracle Universal Installer automatically finds the contents of each CD and does not prompt for the location of either CD during the course of installation.

Oracle8i Management and Integration Custom Installation

It is not possible to install and configure Oracle Internet Directory (OiD) and Oracle Workflow in the same installation session during a custom install of Oracle8i Management and Integration. If you perform such an installation and choose to install both OiD and Oracle Workflow, the OiD Configuration Assistant will be launched during post-installation to configure OiD in the database, and Oracle Workflow configuration will not be performed.

To configure Oracle Workflow after completion of the installation session, perform the following steps:

  1. Exit the Oracle Universal Installer at the end of the installation.

  2. Run the Oracle Workflow configuration script manually. To do this, change directories to $ORACLE_HOME/wf/install, and enter the following command:

    $ inst252 <wf_acct> <wf_pwd> <wf_home> <sys_pwd> <system_pwd> INSTALL

    where:

    wf_acct = workflow account. Use OWF_MGR

    wf_pwd = password@db for workflow account. Use OWF_MGR

    wf_home = workflow top level directory, e.g. $ORACLE_HOME/wf

    sys_pwd = password@db for SYS account, e.g. change_on_install@wfdb

    system_pwd = password@db for SYSTEM account, e.g. manager@wfdb

Oracle Universal Installer: Known Problems, Restrictions, and Workarounds
Ejecting the Software CD-ROM

In X-windowing environments, you can launch Oracle Universal Installer by clicking on runInstaller from the File Manager window. You can also launch Oracle Universal Installer by executing the script from a shell. If you launch Oracle Universal Installer by clicking on runInstaller, you will not be able to eject the CD until you kill the installation session. You need to eject the CD to continue with the multi-CD installation required by Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7). To successfully install products that require the insertion of multiple CDs, you must execute runInstaller from a shell.

Installing the Pro*COBOL v8.1.7 Precompiler

In Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) you must set the $COBDIR environment variable to a valid path before Oracle Universal Installer will allow you to select and install the Pro*COBOL v8.1.7 precompiler.

The Oracle8i Installation Guide for Sun SPARC Solaris indicates that you must set the $COBDIR environment variable prior to installing this precompiler to avoid any relinking errors. However, if you do not set this environment variable prior to starting the installation session, the Pro*COBOL v8.1.7 precompiler will not be available for selection.

Deinstallation

You cannot deinstall Oracle JServer separately from other products installed with Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7).

Deinstalling Oracle JServer causes Oracle Universal Installer to remove Oracle8i and other products dependent on Oracle JServer from your system.

System Management Products

This section contains these topics:

Oracle Intelligent Agent

The installation model of Oracle Intelligent Agent has been modified as of release 8.1.7. The Oracle Intelligent Agent extensions (Oracle Applications Extensions, Oracle HTTP Server Extensions, Oracle EBusiness Management Tool Extensions, and so on) that allow management of the corresponding areas, are now separately installable.

This means that during installation, users can select the basic Oracle Intelligent Agent and separately select any of the Oracle Intelligent Agent extensions. Note that Oracle Data Gatherer is installed as part of the basic Oracle Intelligent Agent.

OEM_MONITOR Database Role

The OEM _MONITOR role can be granted to any database user being used as a "preferred credential" when registering advanced (database) events available with the Oracle Enterprise Manager Diagnostics Pack.

This role is defined in /$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catsnmp.sql which is called by the catalog scripts at database creation time. In addition to the OEM_MONITOR role, the database user requires quota on their default tablespace within the monitored database, in order to have some of the advanced events evaluated. Failure to do so will result in an insufficient privilege message.

Reinstalling Oracle8i Server

If you reinstall Oracle8i Server into an ORACLE_HOME where Oracle8i Server Release 8.1.6 is already installed, you must also reinstall any product options, such as Oracle Partitioning, that were enabled before you began the reinstallation.

Oracle Internet Directory

Several products included with Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) are now directory-enabled and can take advantage of an LDAP version 3 directory server such as Oracle Internet Directory. Purchase of Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7) includes a restricted-use version of Oracle Internet Directory release 2.1.1 for Sun SPARC Solaris that may only be used in conjunction with Oracle's directory-enabled components and products such as Net8, Oracle Advanced Security, Oracle8i, and all future directory-enabled Oracle products.

Oracle Database Configuration Assistant

When you use Oracle Database Configuration Assistant to create a Custom database that includes Oracle JServer, be aware that it can take over an hour to finish loading Oracle JServer into the database depending on your system's hardware configuration.

Net8 Configuration Assistant

In a Typical, silent installation of Oracle8i Release 3 (8.1.7), Net8 Configuration Assistant does not configure an IIOP listening end point to provide access to Oracle JServer. After installation, start the Net8 Configuration Assistant from the command line and configure an IIOP end point for the listener called "LISTENER." For more information, see the Net8 Administrator's Guide.

Oracle Parallel Server

This section contains these topics:

Creating Raw Devices and the SYSTEM Tablespace

When creating a database for use with Oracle Parallel Server the SYSTEM tablespace size should be set to 274MB. If you are creating a custom database with the Oracle Database Configuration Assistant, this will require you to change the SYSTEM tablespace size from the default of 260MB to 274MB before creating the database. In addition, the size of the raw device that you create for the SYSTEM tablespace must be at least 275MB. This requirement supersedes the corresponding file size requirement listed in the Oracle8i Parallel Server Setup and Configuration Guide. For more information on creating raw devices on Sun SPARC Solaris systems, see the Oracle8i Administrator's Reference.

Parallel Server Manager and Parallel Server Management

Be aware of the difference between Oracle Parallel Server Manager and Oracle Parallel Server Management:

Starting Listeners on Remote Nodes

When running in Cluster mode and creating new listeners, the Net8 Configuration Assistant sometimes fails to start the newly created listeners on all nodes of the cluster. To work around this problem, log in to each node and enter the command: lsnrctl start <listenername>.

Legato Storage Manager Deinstallation

The deinstallation of Legato Storage Manager (LSM) does not work correctly. In particular, the installation of LSM creates a symbolic link libobk8.so that points to the library liblsm8.so. During deinstall, the library liblsm8.so is removed. However, the symbolic link is not redirected to point to the library libsbtsh8.so.

If libobk8.so is not correctly recreated to point to libsbtsh8.so after the removal of LSM, Oracle will not work properly. To correctly remove LSM, delete and recreate the symbolic link libobk8.so to point to libsbtsh8.so after the completion of the deinstall of LSM.

Heterogeneous Services Agent Control Utility

The Heterogeneous Services Agent Control Utility (agtctl) incorrectly reports its version as 8.1.0.0.0. The correct version of this utility is 8.1.7.0.0.


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