Re: change ORACLE_HOME

mikerinos2000_at_hotmail.com wrote:
> hello:
> I have Oracle installed on a SunFire 280R with Solaris 2.8 on /oracle
> directory.
> I want to change the Oracle installed directory to /oracle/8.1.7.
> How can I make the change without reinstall Oracle.
> I have a cluster with 2 nodes. The tnslsnr.exe file is executed on
> /oracle/bin directory. I need this file will be executed on
> /oracle/8.1.7/bin directory.
> How can I make it?
> Thanks

Not directly. The ORACLE_HOME value is hard-coded in way too many places by the Installer. The best (some would say only) solution is to come up with a good standard location for ORACLE_HOME and (re-)install it the same way on all your servers going forward. Read the Oracle OFA (Optimal Flexible Architecture) docs for more information. Doing this now will also greatly ease your upgrade path to newer versions of Oracle.

You haven't stated what the underlying need is. If you have a new filesystem and just need to re-arrange storage, there is a possibility (next paragraph). If you have a HA cluster such as Veritas VCS, and you are trying to put the ORACLE_HOME on a shared filesystem that can move from one node to the other, be aware that this becomes a single point of failure. Better to redundantly install Oracle locally on each node and put only your data files on the shared filesystem.

The following is NOT supported by Oracle, but it can be done (on Unix, at least, since there is no Windows registry to mess with). Make some kind of backup first (tar file, etc) so you can go back to where you started if necessary. Shut down all Oracle processes. Use a Unix utility such as "cp" or "rsync" to make sure you copy all ownerships, permissions, links, etc. Copy the install to some place like /opt/app/oracle/product/8.1.7, then link this directory back to /oracle.   Again, this is NOT supported by Oracle Corp, so you better practice and test first in a non-production environment!

In the end, it will take about as much time and be safer to just re-install. But if so, be sure you install the same options that were originally installed, including patches and OUI upgrades. I've seen examples where innocently installing unused options like Oracle Advanced Security caused hard-to-find problems with other software trying to access the database, such as Perl DBI.

-Mark Bole Received on Thu Jan 22 2004 - 09:42:14 CST