4 Considerations Before Starting the Installation

This chapter contains the following topics:

Oracle Home Directory
First-Time Installation of Any Oracle Product
Installing Additional Languages
Forms and Reports Services Instances and Instance Names
The ias_admin User
Installer File Locations
Why Should I Log In as Root at Certain Times During Installation?
Setting the Mount Point for the CD-ROMor DVD-ROM
StartingOracle Universal Installer

4.1 Oracle Home Directory

The directory in which you install Forms and Reports Services is called the Oracle home. During installation, you must specify the full path to this directory and a name for this Oracle home.

For example, you can install Forms and Reports Services in /opt/oracle/ and you can name it orasolfrs.

4.2 First-Time Installation of Any Oracle Product

If Forms and Reports Services is the first Oracle product to be installed on a computer, the installer displays a screen where you specify an "inventory" directory (also called the "oraInventory" directory). This inventory directory is used by the installer to keep track of all Oracle products installed on the computer.

The inventory directory is separate from the Oracle home directory for Forms and Reports Services.

To ensure that other users in the oinstall group have access to the inventory directory (so that they can install Oracle products), do not use the oracle user's home directory as the inventory directory because home directories might not have the proper permissions set up for the oinstall group. Instead, you can put the inventory directory in the /opt/oracle directory (for example, /opt/oracle/oraInventory).

If you have installed an Oracle product on the computer previously, the installer uses the existing inventory directory. Ensure that you have write permissions on that directory. The best way of ensuring this is to run the installer as the same operating system user who installed the existing Oracle products.

It is recommended that you create an operating system user to perform all tasks related to installation of Oracle products. See Section 3.7, "Operating System User".

4.3 Installing Additional Languages

By default, the installer installs Forms and Reports Services with text in English and in the operating system language. If you need to install additional languages, click Product Languages on the Available Product Components screen.

Note that you cannot install additional languages after installation. You must install additional languages only during installation. If you run Forms and Reports Services in an environment that uses a language you did not install, the user interface may display text in that language and in English, or it may display square boxes (caused by missing fonts) instead of text.

4.4 Forms and Reports Services Instances and Instance Names

When you install Forms and Reports Services, an instance of Forms and Reports Services is created. The installer prompts you to provide a name for this new instance that you are installing. For example, you can name an instance orasolfrs or J2EE_1012. This name can be different from the Oracle home name. You cannot change this name after installation.

The Enterprise Manager appends the hostname and domain name to the given instance name to form a complete instance name. For example, if you are installing an instance on a computer named c1, and you name the instance frs1, then the full name of the instance is frs1.c1.mydomain.com, assuming the domain name is mydomain.com.

Valid Characters in Instance Names

Instance names can consist only of the alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and the $ or _ (underscore) characters.

There is no maximum length restriction for instance names.

How Forms and Reports Services Uses Instance Names

Instance names are important because Forms and Reports Services uses them to uniquely identify instances. This means that if you install multiple Forms and Reports Services instances on the same computer (for example, an OracleAS Infrastructure 10g and a J2EE and Web Cache instance), you must give them different names.

When you administer Forms and Reports Services using Oracle Enterprise Manager Application Server Control, the instance name appears on the screens. You can click the instance name to see details about the instance, such as the components that are installed in that instance, whether the components are running or stopped, and the log files for the components. The Application Server Control is a browser-based administration tool for Forms and Reports Services. See Oracle Application Server Administrator's Guide for details about this administration tool.

4.5 The ias_admin User

The installer prompts you to specify a password for the ias_admin user. The ias_admin user is the administrative user for Forms and Reports Services instances. To manage Forms and Reports Services instances using Application Server Control, log on as ias_admin.

On a computer, you can install multiple Forms and Reports Services instances, each with its own unique instance name, but the name of the administrative user is ias_admin for all instances. The password for the ias_admin user can be different for each instance.

Each Forms and Reports Services instance has its own password. Even if you install multiple Forms and Reports Services instances on the same computer using the same operating system user, you have to enter a new password for each instance on the same computer.

Password for the ias_admin User

The password for the ias_admin user must conform to the following password policy:

The minimum length is five alphanumeric characters.
At least one of the characters must be a number.

The password for the ias_admin user has these restrictions:

Passwords must be shorter than 30 characters.
Passwords can contain only alphanumeric characters from your database character set, the underscore (_), the dollar sign ($), and the number sign (#).
Passwords must begin with an alphabetic character. Passwords cannot begin with a number, the underscore (_), the dollar sign ($), or the number sign (#).
Passwords cannot be Oracle reserved words. Appendix C in the Oracle9i SQL Reference guide lists the reserved words. You can find this guide on Oracle Technology Network (http://www.oracle.com/technology). Alternatively, avoid using words that sound as though they may be reserved words.

You must remember the password because you need to enter it to perform the following task:

When you log on to Application Server Control to manage Forms and Reports Services, you log on as the ias_admin user.

If you forget the password, you can reset it. See Oracle Application Server Administrator's Guide for details.

4.6 Installer File Locations

The installer writes files to the following directories:

Table 4-1 Directories to Which the Installer Writes Files

Directory	Description
Oracle home directory	Directory in which you install Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services.
Inventory directory	Directory that the installer uses to keep track of the Oracle products installed on the computer. In subsequent installations, the installer uses the same inventory directory.
`/var/opt/oracle` directory	Contains information on locations of Oracle homes on the computer. If you installed Oracle Application Server on your computer, this directory also contains files that provide information for Oracle Enterprise Manager.
`/tmp` directory	Writes files needed only during installation to a temporary directory. By default, the temporary directory is `/tmp`. To specify a different directory, set the `TMP` environment variable. See Section 3.8.5, "TMP" for details.

4.7 Why Should I Log In as Root at Certain Times During Installation?

At least once during installation, the installer prompts you to log in as the root user and run a script. You need to be the root user because the script edits files in the /var/opt/oracle directory.

The installer prompts you to run the root.sh script in a separate window. This script creates files in the local bin directory (/usr/local/bin, by default).

If the script finds files of the same name, it prompts you if you want to override the existing files. You should back up these files (you can do this from another window), and then overwrite them.

The following lines show the prompts from the root.sh script. The default values are enclosed in square brackets.

Enter the full pathname of the local bin directory: [/usr/local/bin]:
The file "dbhome" already exists in /usr/local/bin.  Overwrite it? (y/n)[n]:  y
 Copying dbhome to /usr/local/bin ...
The file "oraenv" already exists in /usr/local/bin.  Overwrite it? (y/n)[n]:  y
 Copying oraenv to /usr/local/bin ...
The file "coraenv" already exists in /usr/local/bin.  Overwrite it? (y/n)[n]: y
 Copying coraenv to /usr/local/bin ...

After running root.sh, you may see warnings that begin with "chmod: WARNING: Corresponding set-ID also disabled...". You may ignore these warnings.

4.8 Setting the Mount Point for the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM

The Forms and Reports Services CD-ROMs are in RockRidge format. The DVD is in DVD-ROM format.

If you are using Solaris Volume Management software (installed by default with Solaris operating system), then the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM is mounted automatically at /cdrom when you insert the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. For example, when you insert Oracle Application Server 10g Forms and Reports Services Disk 1 into the CD-ROM drive, you can access its contents at /cdrom/1012disk1.

If you are not using Solaris Volume Management software, then you must mount the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM manually. To manually mount or unmount the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, you must have root privileges. Be sure to unmount the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM before removing it from the drive.

Follow these steps to mount a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM manually:

Log in as the root user.
```
prompt> su
Password: 
```
Create the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM mount point directory:
```
# mkdir mount_point
```
Mount the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive on the mount point directory:
```
# mount options device_name mount_point
```
The following example mounts the CD-ROM manually on /cdrom, without using the Solaris Volume Management software. Execute the following commands as root user:
```
# mkdir /cdrom
# mount -r -F hsfs device_name /cdrom
```
You can also use the same commands and options to mount the DVD-ROM.
Log off as the root user.
```
# exit
```

4.9 Starting Oracle Universal Installer

To start Oracle Universal Installer:

If your computer does not mount CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs automatically, you need to set the mount point manually. See Section 4.8, "Setting the Mount Point for the CD-ROMor DVD-ROM".
Log in as the oracle user.
If you are installing Forms and Reports Services on a multihomed computer, create the ORACLE_HOSTNAME environment variable. Set this variable to point to the hostname of the computer on which you are installing Forms and Reports Services. For more information on installing on multihomed computers, see Section 3.10.1, "Installing on Multihomed (Multi-IP) Computers".
CD-ROM users: Insert Forms and Reports Services disk into the CD-ROM drive.

DVD-ROM users: Insert the Forms and Reports Services DVD-ROM into the DVD-ROM drive.

Run the Oracle Universal Installer using the cd command.

Notes:

Ensure that you are not logged in as the root user when you start the Oracle Universal Installer. The installer gives an error message if you try to run it as the root user.
Do not start the installation inside the mount_point directory. If you do, then you may not be able to eject the installation disk. The cd command changes your current directory to your home directory.

CD-ROM:

prompt> cd
prompt> mount_point/orasolfrs/runInstaller

DVD-ROM:

prompt> cd
prompt> mount_point/orasolfrs/runInstaller

This starts Oracle Universal Installer, through which you can install Forms and Reports Services.