Understanding the Oracle Central Inventory File (oraInst.loc)

The installation of Oracle products on Linux creates a central inventory location file named oraInst.loc. If you have previously installed Oracle software on the system, the oraInst.loc file may already exist. The oraInst.loc file is installed by default under the /etc directory on Linux.

This file identifies the name of the Oracle Inventory group, and the path of the Oracle central inventory directory. The Oracle Inventory group is an operating system group that has permission to write to the central inventory. The central inventory directory holds the Oracle inventory.xml file, which lists the installation locations for Oracle products. For a PeopleSoft installation, the Oracle 19c Database Server and Database Client will use this central inventory location. If the file is not set up correctly, or does not have the correct permissions, it may lead to problems with the installation of Oracle database software.

See Database Installation Guide for Linux, "Determining if an Oracle Inventory and Oracle Inventory Group Exist."

The oraInst.loc file contains only the following two lines:

inventory_loc=central_inventory_location
inst_group=Oracle_inventory_group