Required Operating System Groups and Users

Oracle software installations require an installation owner, an Oracle Inventory group, which is the primary group of all Oracle installation owners, and at least one group designated as a system privileges group.

Review group and user options with your system administrator. If you have system administration privileges, then review the topics in this section and configure operating system groups and users as needed.

• Determining If an Oracle Inventory and Oracle Inventory Group Exist
  Determine if you have an existing Oracle central inventory, and ensure that you use the same Oracle Inventory for all Oracle software installations. Also, ensure that all Oracle software users you intend to use for installation have permissions to write to this directory.
• Creating the Oracle Inventory Group If an Oracle Inventory Does Not Exist
  Create an Oracle Inventory group manually as part of a planned installation, particularly where more than one Oracle software product is installed on servers.
• About Oracle Installation Owner Accounts
  Select or create an Oracle installation owner for your installation, depending on the group and user management plan you want to use for your installations.
• Identifying an Oracle Software Owner User Account
  You must create at least one software owner user account the first time you install Oracle software on the system. Either use an existing Oracle software user account, or create an Oracle software owner user account for your installation.

Identifying an Oracle Software Owner User Account

You must create at least one software owner user account the first time you install Oracle software on the system. Either use an existing Oracle software user account, or create an Oracle software owner user account for your installation.

To use an existing user account, obtain from you system administrator the name of an existing Oracle installation owner. Confirm that the existing owner is a member of the Oracle Inventory group.

For example if you know that the name of the Oracle Inventory group is oinstall, then an Oracle software owner should be listed as a member of oinstall:

$ grep "oinstall" /etc/group
oinstall:x:54321:grid,oracle

You can then use the ID command to verify that the Oracle installation owners you intend to use have the Oracle Inventory group as their primary group. For example:

$ id -a oracle
uid=54321(oracle) gid=54321(oinstall) groups=54321(oinstall),54322(dba), 
54323(oper),54324(backupdba),54325(dgdba),54326(kmdba),54327(asmdba),54330(racdba)

$ id -a grid
uid=54331(grid) gid=54321(oinstall) groups=54321(oinstall),54322(dba),
54327(asmdba),54328(asmoper),54329(asmadmin),54330(racdba)

For Oracle Restart installations, to successfully install Oracle Database, ensure that the grid user is a member of the racdba group.

After you create operating system groups, create or modify Oracle user accounts in accordance with your operating system authentication planning.