MacLochlainns Weblog

It was always aware of a problem with Oracle 11g XE on various Linux platforms from 10 years ago. I knew it was misleading but never found the time to explain the error that occurred during the cloning of the instance.

While it would occur when you were on an unsupported version of Linux, it was easy to fix. For example, after downloading the old compressed oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm.zip file, you uncompress it. Then, you run the file with the following command:

rpm -ivh oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm

This command will install the packages in verbose syntax and display the following messages:

[sudo] password for mclaughlinm:
Preparing packages for installation...
oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0
Executing post-install steps...
You must run '/etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure' as the root user to configure the database.

Connect as the root user to another instance of the terminal and run the following command:

/etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure

You will see the following control output:

Oracle Database 11g Express Edition Configuration
-------------------------------------------------
This will configure on-boot properties of Oracle Database 11g Express 
Edition.  The following questions will determine whether the database should 
be starting upon system boot, the ports it will use, and the passwords that 
will be used for database accounts.  Press <Enter> to accept the defaults. 
Ctrl-C will abort.
 
Specify the HTTP port that will be used for Oracle Application Express [8080]:
 
Specify a port that will be used for the database listener [1521]:
 
Specify a password to be used for database accounts.  Note that the same
password will be used for SYS and SYSTEM.  Oracle recommends the use of 
different passwords for each database account.  This can be done after 
initial configuration:
Confirm the password:
 
Do you want Oracle Database 11g Express Edition to be started on boot (y/n) [y]:y
 
Starting Oracle Net Listener...Done
Configuring database...grep: /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/config/log/*.log: No such file or directory
grep: /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/config/log/*.log: No such file or directory
Done
/bin/chmod: cannot access '/u01/app/oracle/diag': No such file or directory
Starting Oracle Database 11g Express Edition instance...Done
Installation completed successfully.

This looks like an unsolvable problem, and for many it was too hard to solve. Most never knew the next step to take to discover the missing library. The failure actually occurs when the configuration tries to launch SQL*Plus. You can test that by creating the following oracle_env.sh parameter script:

# Oracle Settings
TMP=/tmp; export TMP
TMPDIR=$TMP; export TMPDIR
 
ORACLE_HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain; export ORACLE_HOSTNAME
ORACLE_UNQNAME=DB11G; export ORACLE_UNQNAME
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle; export ORACLE_BASE
ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/11.2.0/xe; export ORACLE_HOME
ORACLE_SID=XE; export ORACLE_SID
NLS_LANG=`$ORACLE_HOME/bin/nls_lang.sh`; export NLS_LANG
ORACLE_TERM=xterm; export ORACLE_TERM
PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH; export PATH
PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH; export PATH
 
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/JRE:$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib; export CLASSPATH
 
if [ $USER = "oracle" ]; then
  if [ $SHELL = "/bin/ksh" ]; then
    ulimit -p 16384
    ulimit -n 65536
  else
    ulimit -u 16384 -n 65536
  fi
fi

Then, source the oracle_env.sh file like this:

. ./oracle_env.sh

As the oracle user, try to connect to the sqlplus executable with this command:

sqlplus / as sysdba

It’ll raise the following error:

sqlplus: error while loading shared libraries: libnsl.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

You won’t find the /usr/lib64/libnsl.so.1 because it’s a symbolic link to the /usr/lib64/libnsl-2.29.so shared library file, which you can find on older Fedora installations. AlmaLinux has libnsl2, which you can download from the pgks.org.

After finding the library and installing it in the /usr/lib64 directory, the balance of the fix is to run the cloning manually. This type of error can occur for newer version of the database but it’s easiest to highlight with the Oracle 11g XE installation.

You also can find it in the libnsl2-devel development libraries on the pkgs.org web site:

You may need to build the libnsl.so.1 symbolic link as the root user with the following command:

ln -s libnsl-2.29.so libnsl.so.1

Ensure the file permissions for these files are:

-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 218488 Dec  2 01:33 libnsl-2.29.so
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root     14 Dec  2 01:39 libnsl.so.1 -> libnsl-2.29.so

After you create the database, you can provision a student user and database, like so:

Oracle Database 11g (Pre-containerization)

After you create and provision the Oracle Database 11g XE, you create an instance with the following two step process.

1. Create a student Oracle user account with the following command:

   CREATE USER student IDENTIFIED BY student DEFAULT TABLESPACE users QUOTA 200M ON users TEMPORARY TABLESPACE temp;

   CREATE USER student IDENTIFIED BY student DEFAULT TABLESPACE users QUOTA 200M ON users TEMPORARY TABLESPACE temp;

2. Grant necessary privileges to the newly created student user:

   GRANT CREATE CLUSTER, CREATE INDEXTYPE, CREATE OPERATOR , CREATE PROCEDURE, CREATE SEQUENCE, CREATE SESSION , CREATE TABLE, CREATE TRIGGER, CREATE TYPE , CREATE VIEW TO student;

   GRANT CREATE cluster, CREATE indextype, CREATE operator , CREATE PROCEDURE, CREATE SEQUENCE, CREATE SESSION , CREATE TABLE, CREATE TRIGGER, CREATE TYPE , CREATE VIEW TO student;

Oracle Database 21c (Post-containerization)

After you create and provision the Oracle Database 21c Express Edition (XE), you can create a c##student container user with the following two step process.

1. Create a c##student Oracle user account with the following command:

   CREATE USER c##student IDENTIFIED BY student DEFAULT TABLESPACE users QUOTA 200M ON users TEMPORARY TABLESPACE temp;

   CREATE USER c##student IDENTIFIED BY student DEFAULT TABLESPACE users QUOTA 200M ON users TEMPORARY TABLESPACE temp;

2. Grant necessary privileges to the newly created c##student user:

   GRANT CREATE CLUSTER, CREATE INDEXTYPE, CREATE OPERATOR , CREATE PROCEDURE, CREATE SEQUENCE, CREATE SESSION , CREATE TABLE, CREATE TRIGGER, CREATE TYPE , CREATE VIEW TO c##student;

   GRANT CREATE cluster, CREATE indextype, CREATE operator , CREATE PROCEDURE, CREATE SEQUENCE, CREATE SESSION , CREATE TABLE, CREATE TRIGGER, CREATE TYPE , CREATE VIEW TO c##student;

As always, it should help you solve new problems.