03 Install Oracle Validated RPM
02 Install PENRITH1 OS Image
04 Oracle Clusterware Preinstallation Tasks

Reference

The base document for a minimal installation of Linux is in Linux OS Installation with Reduced Set of Packages for Running Oracle Database Server [ID 728346.1] .

Procedure

Following the procedure in Linux OS Installation with Reduced Set of Packages for Running Oracle Database Server without ULN/RHN [ID 579101.1] .

Get RPM

Downloaded the rpm, oracle-validated-1.0.0-24.el5.i386.rpm , from oracle-validated-el5 .

Mount RHEL Installation DVD

Used the following commands to create a mount point and mount the DVD: 

[root@penrith1 ~]# mount /dev/cdrom /media
mount: block device /dev/cdrom is write-protected, mounting read-only

Create YUM Channel

Replace all YUM channels: 

[root@penrith1 ~]# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
[root@penrith1 yum.repos.d]# ls
rhel-debuginfo.repo
[root@penrith1 yum.repos.d]# rm rhel-debuginfo.repo
rm: remove regular file `rhel-debuginfo.repo'? y

The rhel-debuginfo.repo is saved here for future reference.

The new channel is called ULN-Base.repo .

Install the Packages

The Oracle RPM, oracle-validated-1.0.0-24.el5.i386.rpm , is put in /root .

The following commands are done as root : 

cd /root
yum localinstall oracle-validated-1.0.0-24.el5.i386.rpm

The log is uploaded as install_rpm.log .

Problems

There are several problems:

  1. User oracle and group dba were not created;
  2. There is NO oracle-validated install log file either in /etc/sysconfig/oracle-validated/results/orakernel.log or in /var/log/oracle-validated/results/orakernel.log;
  3. The system parameters were not updated.

There are no obvious hits on Oracle Support .

Oracle Validated Configuration RPM

According to About the Oracle Validated Configuration RPM :

If your Linux distribution is Oracle Linux, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and you are an Unbreakable Linux customer, then you can complete most preinstallation configuration tasks by using the Oracle Validated Configurations Setup RPM, available from the Unbreakable Linux Network, or available on the Oracle Linux DVD disks.

This is somewhat confusing as there appears to be several names involved:

  • Oracle Validated Configuration RPM
  • Oracle Validated RPM

The second comes from Completing a Minimal Linux Installation :

To complete a minimal Linux installation, select a minimal install option (either a custom installation where you select the Minimal option from Package Group Selection, or where you deselect all packages except for the Base pack). This installation lacks many RPMs required for installation. However, when you install the Oracle Validated RPM for your platform, the RPM downloads the minimum number of packages required to run Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Database.

A close reading of these extracts leads me to conclude that these are two (2) different RPMs. The latter is not expected to do the configuration.