Oracle Database Oracle Clusterware Installation Guide for HP-UX

Creating Groups and Users for Oracle Clusterware
2.4.1 Understanding the Oracle Inventory Group
You must have a group whose members are given access to write to the Oracle Central
Inventory (oraInventory). The Central Inventory contains the following:
■ A registry of the Oracle home directories (Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Database,
and Automatic Storage Management) on the system
■ Installation logs and trace files from installations of Oracle software. These files are
also copied to the respective Oracle homes for future reference
Other metadata inventory information regarding Oracle installations are stored in the
individual Oracle home inventory directories, and are separate from the Central
Inventory.
2.4.2 Understanding the Oracle Inventory Directory
The first time you install Oracle software on a system, Oracle Universal Installer
checks to see if you have created an Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) compliant
path in the format u[01-09]/app, such as /u01/app, and that the user running the
installation has permissions to write to that path. If this is true, then Oracle Universal
Installer creates the Oracle Inventory directory in the path
/u[01-09]/app/oraInventory. For example:
/u01/app/oraInventory
If you have set the environment variable $ORACLE_BASE for the user performing the
Oracle Clusterware installation, then OUI creates the Oracle Inventory directory in the
path $ORACLE_BASE/../oraInventory. For example, if $ORACLE_BASE is set to
/opt/oracle/11, then the Oracle Inventory directory is created in the path
/opt/oracle/oraInventory.
If you have created neither an OFA-compliant path nor set $ORACLE_BASE, then the
Oracle Inventory directory is placed in the home directory of the user that is
performing the installation. For example:
/home/oracle/oraInventory
As this placement can cause permission errors during subsequent installations with
multiple Oracle software owners, Oracle recommends that you either create an
OFA-compliant installation path, or set an $ORACLE_BASE environment path.
For new installations, Oracle recommends that you allow OUI to create the Central
Inventory directory. By default, if you create an Oracle path in compliance with OFA
structure, such as /u01/app, that is owned by an Oracle software owner, then the
Central Inventory is created in the path u01/app/oraInventory using correct
permissions to allow all Oracle installation owners to write to this directory.
2.4.3 Determining If the Oracle Inventory and Oracle Inventory Group Exists
When you install Oracle software on the system for the first time, OUI creates the
oraInst.loc file. This file identifies the name of the Oracle Inventory group
(typically, oinstall), and the path of the Oracle Central Inventory directory. An
oraInst.loc file has contents similar to the following:
inventory_loc=central_inventory_location
inst_group=group
2-4 Oracle Clusterware Installation Guide