This is the ninth in a series of posts regarding installing BI Apps 11.1.1.10.2 on Oracle Linux 7.2. For your reference, here is a list of URLs for each of the posts that make up this series:
In this post, I will be discussing how to install the latest version of OPatch 11.1 (11.1.0.12.9 as of the time the material for this blog was prepared).
It is important to note that this step is not required strictly speaking. A version of OPatch does come with both OBIEE and ODI - you can see the OPatch subdirectory under $MW_HOME/Oracle_BI1 and $MW_HOME/Oracle_ODI1, however these versions are quite a bit older (11.1.0.10.3 and 11.1.0.10.5 respectively). Furthermore, the Oracle common home ($MW_HOME/oracle_common) that is created also has its own OPatch subdirectory, and it is also an older version (11.1.0.10.3).
In addition, as we'll see in future blog entries, the OBIA installation process will use OPatch to patch up the Oracle_BI1, oracle_common, and Oracle_ODI1 homes. It is important to note that Oracle recommends using the latest version of OPatch to apply patches (see Oracle Doc ID 1220799.1). So because of this, and because there's a fairly good chance that over the lifecycle of your OBIA installation you will want or need to apply a patch to one of the components that comprise OBIA 11g, I have adopted the practice of updating OPatch to the latest version at this point, and I highly recommend that you do the same. If you don't, you *should* be okay for the purposes of installing the software, but after installation is completed, you may find that you have to upgrade OPatch to apply additional patches to the environment.
Please note that future blog entries in this series will assume that OPatch has been upgraded as per the instructions that are about to be presented.
General Assumptions and Conventions Used
I will assume that readers of this blog have read the prior blog entries in this series before continuing. Specifically, I will assume that p6880880_111000_Linux-x86-64.zip has been downloaded from Oracle Support and placed in /u01/sw/opatch, and WebLogic, OBIEE and ODI have been installed.
Installation
We will be setting out to accomplish the following:
Unzip the OPatch zip file to a central location ($ORACLE_BASE/opatch)
Backup the version of OPatch installed in $MW_HOME/Oracle_BI1/OPatch and create a symbolic link to point to the above OPatch location
Backup the version of OPatch installed in $MW_HOME/oracle_common/OPatch and create a symbolic link to point to the above OPatch location
Backup the version of OPatch installed in $MW_HOME/Oracle_ODI1/OPatch and create a symbolic link to point to the above OPatch location
Please note that $ORACLE_BASE and $MW_HOME are environment variables that were established in an earlier blog entry in this series.
Unzipping OPatch
The first step is to unzip the OPatch zip file to a central location for use by all of the components that comprise the OBIA 11.1.1.10.2 middleware home. This central location will be $MW_HOME/opatch, and we will create a subdirectory underneath that for the specific version of OPatch that we are unzipping (which is 11.1.0.12.9). Please issue the following commands from the terminal in order to do all of this:
$ umask 027
$ mkdir -p $ORACLE_BASE/opatch
$ cd /u01/sw/opatch
$ unzip -q '*.zip' -d $ORACLE_BASE/opatch
$ mv $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/OPatch $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/11.1.0.12.9
In addition, I recommend creating a symbolic link in the $ORACLE_BASE/opatch directory called "current" and point it to $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/11.1.0.12.9. This provides an additional layer of abstraction so that if you want to install a different version of OPatch in the future, you can add it to this directory and then point the "current" symbolic link to that directory, making management a bit easier. To do this, issue the following command from the terminal:
$ ln -s $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/11.1.0.12.9 $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/current
Apply OPatch to $MW_HOME/Oracle_BI1
As mentioned above, a directory containing an older version of OPatch already exists in $MW_HOME/Oracle_BI1. Rather than simply delete it, what I recommend doing is renaming that OPatch directory to something else (OPatch_orig - orig for original version) and then replacing it with a symbolic link called OPatch which links to $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/current.
In order to do this, please issue the following commands from the terminal:
$ cd $MW_HOME/Oracle_BI1
$ mv OPatch OPatch_orig
$ ln -s $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/current OPatch
Apply OPatch to $MW_HOME/oracle_common
Next, we will follow the same process to backup the existing OPatch directory in $MW_HOME/Oracle_ODI1 and replace it with the OPatch symbolic link.
In order to do this, please issue the following commands from the terminal:
$ cd $MW_HOME/oracle_common
$ mv OPatch OPatch_orig
$ ln -s $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/current OPatch
Apply OPatch to $MW_HOME/Oracle_ODI1
Lastly, we will again follow the same process to backup the existing OPatch directory in $MW_HOME/Oracle_ODI1 and replace it with the OPatch symbolic link.
In order to do this, please issue the following commands from the terminal:
$ cd $MW_HOME/Oracle_ODI1
$ mv OPatch OPatch_orig
$ ln -s $ORACLE_BASE/opatch/current OPatch
Summary
In this entry of my OBIA 11.1.1.10.2 blog series, we went through how to apply the latest version of OPatch 11.1 (which was 11.1.0.12.9 at the time this blog was prepared) to the OBIA environment.
Looking ahead
In my next blog entry, I will be running the Repository Creation Utility (RCU) for OBIA (which is different than the RCU for OBIEE which we have already completed).