Oracle Linux 6 on VirtualBox

In this article and a few that will follow, i’m going to write about setting up an Oracle development and learning test machine.

OS, Oracle database and development tools i will install in a Oracle’s Virtual Box.
In a case when you don’t have several computers, virtual machines are the way to explore, learn and test new things, without fear of breaking your main system.

 
OS will be Oracle Linux 6, database is Oracle 11g XE release2, and there will be SqlDeveloper.

So here we go, first open Virtual Box and create new virtual machine.
You enter name for the machine, OS type and version and click next.

Now, it is time to select amount of RAM for virtual machine. It depends of your base RAM size, i will select 4GB od RAM(there are system requirements for database and OS, i will explain it fully later in a another post).

In this step hard disk for machine will be created. You can use existing or create new. I will create new hard disk in this step, an VDI image.
Hard disk can be dynamically allocated or it can be fixed size. I will choose fixed size and go to the next step.
In this step we choose size for hard disk. 20 GB should be enough for testing and development purpose.Next step is summary of your virtual machine, click on create button will create it.
It is time to download from Oracle website Oracle Linux6, and after that, select your virtual machine and click settings.
In Storage menu, add Linux iso to your cd/dvd drive.

Start virtual machine. OS is booting from cd/dvd drive, and you will see Oracle Linux boot menu.
Select install or upgrade an existing system to install OS to virtual hard drive.

We will not test the media, so we’ll choose skip at this part.

On next screen, choose next.

In this screen, choose language that you would like to use during the installation process. I will choose English.

Choose keybord for the system. I’ll choose U.S. English.
Next step is to choose the type of devices for your installation. For this purpose, it will be Basic Storage Devices, so leave it default and go ahead.

Since this is a fresh install, we will choose Yes discard any data and go to the next step.

This is a section where we’ll configure network settings. Host name can be your specific or default. After that click on configure network.

Next, configure your time zone.
This is a part where you provide root password for your system.
If it is a weak password, you’ll get warning, but since this is a test machine, it can be weak.

In this section, you choose type of installation and partitions of hard disk.

You can use all space of virtual hard drive, replace existing Linux system, shrink current system, use free space or you can manually partition hard disk by choosing Create Custom Layout.
I will choose manual partitioning.
We’ll create boot and swap partition in this step. Oracle’s system requirements for 11g XE can be seen on this page http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17781_01/install.112/e18802/toc.htm
RAM, minimum is 256MB, disk space 1.5GB minimum and swap’s minimum is 2GB, of twice the size of RAM. So i’ll choose 4GB for swap partition, and 16GB for boot and home partitions.

All that we have done so far is setting up the basic server installation.

It means we don’t have GUI interface, and we have only a minimum of other tools, but enough to keep our OS and database running. In this step we can choose what other packages we want to install.

We can choose between basic server ( this will be our server setting ), database server, web server and so on.

In this step we can add additional software repositories, and we can choose to customize selection of our software installation, by clicking Customize now radio button. If you aren’t familiar with console work, i’ll suggest that you install Gnome desktop and other useful administration and development tools.

In this step check out all additional software that you want on your server. I will add Gnome desktop, Ecmas and a few other useful tools.

And now, your Oracle Linux 6 installation begins.
Reboot and login to Oracle Linux.

After you accept license information, you can choose to connect to ULN ( Unbreakable Linux Network ) or you can choose to connect later, which is what i did.

It is time to create user for everyday work.

Adjust date and time settings, accept default setting for Kdump and login to your Oracle Linux 6.

Next step, disable the firewall, by clicking to System->Administration->Firewall.
Click Close button, provide root password, click Close and Apply button.
Status of the Firewall will be disabled.

Next, disable SeLinux.
Edit /etc/selinux/config file, and set SeLinux flag like SELINUX=disabled.
You must do this as root user.
alt+f2, type gnome-terminal and start console.
Type “su”, provide root password and type “/etc/selinux/config”.
In Gedit editor change SeLinux flag and save file.
Type “reboot” in console.

 

You can add Oracle Linux 6 repository to install new packages if you want and if you need them.
Type “su” in console, and then
# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
# wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo

 
You can enable repository that you need, by editing yum configuration file as root(/etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol6.repo), and change flags enabled=0 to enabled=1.

 
And this is pretty much all to do in this step.
Next is to install Oracle 11g XE release 2.

 

Hope this will help somebody someday. 🙂