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Re: Oracle 9i Installation Problem

From: Billy Verreynne <vslabs_at_onwe.co.za>
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:47:48 +0000
Message-ID: <b0llrn$33i$1@ctb-nnrp2.saix.net>


Jackie wrote:

>> > > > While installing 9i on Mandrake Linux 9.0 I receive the following >> > > > error: "Thrown when the IP address of a host cannot be determined."

> Everything is fine with the network. I configured hosts and hostname
> file but I still receive the error.

I disagree. Everything can not be fine with the network. This is *not* an Oracle error.

Assuming that Oracle uses standard socket calls (not sure that it can use anything else, thus a very safe assumption), this piece of Oracle installer code is likely doing a gethostname() socket call to get your machine's hostname.

It then calls gethostbyname() using the return from gethostname() to fill a host entry memory struct, containing the basic IP configuration of your machine (host name, aliases, list of IP addresses of your machine, etc).

The socket standards for vendors to my knowledge, say that a gethostbyname() call _will_ resolve the string returned by a successful call to gethostname().

In your case, it does not.

My assumption thus is that the gethostname() call fails. This call can only fail when:
- the caller allocated insufficient space to for the result to return (very   unlikely that such a basic bug is the cause) - there's an error in the network subsysten or protocol stack - the caller can not make the call as it is blocked by some form of security   (e.g. the caller needs a certain level of o/s authorisation to make the   call)

My guess is that is either one of the latter two.

In what userid are you installing Oracle into? What access rights does this user have ito network access?

Run ifconfig and make sure that your network is configured correctly. Can you ping other machines? Does telnet and ftp work? (a good way to quikcly test TCP). Are you running any firewalls? Are you running a custom compiled kernel? If so, how sure are you that the IP stack compiled properly?

> How can I configure tnsnames.ora
> and listener.ora before installing them. I receive the error before
> the installer copies anything to disk.

You are swing your baseball bat at the wrong window here. This error has _nothing_ to do with Oracle's networking and its network-based .ora config files.

--
Billy
Received on Wed Jan 22 2003 - 04:47:48 CST

Original text of this message

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