4 Considerations Before Starting the Installation

This chapter contains the following topics:

• Oracle Home Directory

• Oracle Home Name

• Installing Additional Languages

• Forms and Reports Services Instances and Instance Names

• The ias_admin User

• Installer File Locations

• 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 C:\oracle\orawinfrs and you can name it frs1012.

See Section 4.2, "Oracle Home Name" that describes how the name is used.

4.2 Oracle Home Name

One of the screens in the installer prompts you for the Oracle home directory (which is the destination directory) and also an Oracle home name. This Oracle home name does not need to be the same as the directory name. The Oracle home name can consist of alphanumeric and the underscore (_) characters, and cannot be longer than 128 characters.

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 frs1012 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 Where the Installer Writes Files

Directory	Description
Oracle home directory	This directory contains Forms and Reports Services files. You specify this directory when you install Forms and Reports Services.
Inventory directory (system_drive:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory)	The installer uses the inventory directory to keep track of which Oracle products are installed on the computer. The inventory directory is created when you install the first Oracle product on the computer. In subsequent installations, the installer uses the same inventory directory.
TEMP directory	The installer writes files needed only during installation to a temporary directory. The temporary directory is specified by the TEMP variable.

Additionally, the installer also creates entries in the Windows registry.

4.7 Starting Oracle Universal Installer

To start Oracle Universal Installer:

1. Log on to the computer as a user who is a member of the Windows Administrators group.

2. If you are installing Forms and Reports Services on a multihomed computer or a computer that uses multiple aliases, use the Windows System control panel to create the ORACLE_HOSTNAME system 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 3.7.2, "Installing on Multihomed (Multi-IP) Computers".

3. Insert the disk.

   CD-ROM users: Insert Forms and Reports Services Disk 1 into the CD-ROM drive.

   DVD-ROM users: Insert the Forms and Reports Services DVD into the DVD-ROM drive. The DVD is in DVD-ROM format.

4. If your computer supports the auto run feature, the installer launches automatically.

   If your computer does not support the auto run feature, start the installer manually:

   CD-ROM users: Double-click the setup.exe file.

   DVD-ROM users: Double-click the setup.exe file located in the application_server directory.

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