Oracle Database 10g Prerequisites

OUI does the pre-requisite checking in one of the following three ways:

• Automatically when the user runs the OUI executable during an installation,
   

• Silent Mode, when checks are run and managed from the command line for a silent installation, and
   

• Standalone when checks are run without completing an installation.

For silent installations, OUI performs as many pre-requisite checks as possible, alerts all errors to the DBA and provides the location of the installActions<timestamp>.log file before exiting the installation.

A Word on Silent Installation

A silent installation runs in the background and does not require any inputs from the DBA. The interactive dialogs normally seen by the DBA are not displayed. Instead of prompting the DBA to select a series of installation options, OUI installs the software using a pre-defined set of options stored in a response file or passed on the command line.

A response file is a specifications file with necessary installation information which would normally be provided by the DBA through the OUI user interface during an interactive installation session. Each answer is stored as a value for a variable identified in the response file. The response file template for the database installation can be found in the stage directory (on CD-ROM) under the <root of CD>/response directory as follows:

<Products.xml_Location>/Response/<product>.<installtype>.rsp

The silent install method applies only to the base release of the database software. It cannot be used for already patched software. Silent installation will not be reviewed here as it is beyond the scope of this book. In addition, silent installation is not recommended for installations using ASM.