1. Database Client Installation Guide for Linux
  2. Required Operating System Groups and Users

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.

When you install Oracle software on the system for the first time, OUI creates the oraInst.loc file. This file identifies the name of the Oracle Inventory group (by default, oinstall), and the path of the Oracle central inventory directory. If you have an existing Oracle central inventory, then ensure that you use the same Oracle Inventory for all Oracle software installations, and ensure that all Oracle software users you intend to use for installation have permissions to write to this directory.

An oraInst.loc file contains lines in the following format, where central_inventory_location is the path to an existing Oracle central inventory, and group is the name of the operating system group whose members have permissions to write to the central inventory:

inventory_loc=central_inventory_location
inst_group=group

Use the more command to determine if you have an Oracle central inventory on your system. For example:

# more /etc/oraInst.loc

inventory_loc=/u01/app/oraInventory
inst_group=oinstall

Use the command grep groupname /etc/group to confirm that the group specified as the Oracle Inventory group still exists on the system. For example:

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

Note:

Do not put the oraInventory directory under the Oracle base directory for a new installation, because that can result in user permission errors for other installations.

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.

By default, if an oraInventory group does not exist, then the installer uses the primary group of the installation owner for the Oracle software being installed as the oraInventory group. Ensure that this group is available as a primary group for all planned Oracle software installation owners.

If the oraInst.loc file does not exist, then create the Oracle Inventory group by entering a command similar to the following:

# /usr/sbin/groupadd -g 54321 oinstall

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.

You must create a software owner for your installation in the following circumstances:

  • If an Oracle software owner user does not exist; for example, if this is the first installation of Oracle software on the system.
  • If an Oracle software owner user exists, but you want to use a different operating system user, with different group membership, to separate Oracle Grid Infrastructure administrative privileges from Oracle AI Database administrative privileges.

In Oracle documentation, a user created to own only Oracle Grid Infrastructure software installations is called the Grid user (grid). This user owns both the Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Automatic Storage Management binaries. A user created to own either all Oracle installations, or one or more Oracle AI Database installations, is called the Oracle user (oracle). You can have only one Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation owner, but you can have different Oracle users to own different installations.

Oracle software owners must have the Oracle Inventory group as their primary group, so that each Oracle software installation owner can write to the central inventory (oraInventory), and so that OCR and Oracle Clusterware resource permissions are set correctly. The database software owner must also have the OSDBA group and (if you create them) the OSOPER, OSBACKUPDBA, OSDGDBA, OSRACDBA, and OSKMDBA groups as secondary groups.

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 the name of an existing Oracle installation owner from your system administrator. 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 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 grid
uid=54331(grid) gid=54321(oinstall) groups=54321(oinstall),54327(asmdba),54329(asmadmin),54330(racdba)

Note:

For Oracle Restart installations, to successfully install Oracle AI 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.