E-Business Suite 11.5.10 prerequisites for Red Hat 4

This is somewhat of an outdated technology stack, but E-Business Suite 11i is still alive and kicking in many environments (who would have believed the technology dates back 10 years?). Regardless, we were setting up a sandbox environment to test out some integration scenarios.
This note describes the prerequisites that worked for us.

Software to install: Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (11.5.10)
Operating system: Red Hat AS 4 U4 x86

1. Disable OOM Killer

This is in the event that Red Hat SE (Security-Enhanced) edition is installed.

echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/oom-kill

2. Confirm that the following RPMs (or higher) are installed (available on Red Hat media)

audiofile-0.2.6-1
binutils-2.15.92.0.2-10.EL4
compat-db-4.1.25-9
compat-gcc-32-3.2.3-47.3
compat-gcc-32-c++-3.2.3-47.3
compat-libgcc-296-2.96-132.7.2
compat-libstdc++-296-2.96-132.7.2
compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.3
control-center-2.8.0-12
esound-0.2.35-2
gcc-3.4.3-9.EL4
gcc-c++-3.4.3-9.EL4
glibc-2.3.4-2
glibc-common-2.3.4-2
gnome-libs-1.4.1.2.90-44.1
libaio-0.3.103-3
libaio-devel-0.3.103-3
libstdc++-3.4.3-9.EL4
libstdc++-devel-3.4.3-9.EL4
make-3.80-5
openmotif21-2.1.30-11.RHEL4.2
ORBit2-2.12.0-3
ORBit-0.5.17-14
pdksh-5.2.14-30
setarch-1.6-1
sysstat-5.0.5-1
tcp_wrappers-7.6-37.2
xorg-x11-deprecated-libs-devel-6.8.1-23.EL
xorg-x11-deprecated-libs-6.8.1-23.EL
xscreensaver-4.18-5.rhel4.2

3. Apply Oracle patch 4198954 (only for RHEL 4) which will install two additional RPMs

compat-oracle-rehel4-1.0-5
compat-libcwait-2.1-1

4. Confirm that the kernel is 2.6.9-5.EL

uname -r

5. Confirm that /etc/hosts uses this format (ordering is important)

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain
x.x.x.x   oradev1.cp.llc oradev1

6. Confirm that the hostname is fully qualified and does not include dashes or underscores

You can confirm this by typing hostname and checking /etc/sysconfig/network.

7. Remove the network file

rm -f /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default/network

8. Add the following to /etc/sysctl.conf (may have to adjust depending on your system)

# Oracle specific parameters
kernel.hostname = oradev1.cp.llc
kernel.domainname = cp.llc
kernel.shmall = 2097152
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648
kernel.shmmni = 4096
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
fs.file-max = 327679
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000
net.core.rmem_default = 262144
net.core.rmem_max = 262144
net.core.wmem_default = 262144
net.core.wmem_max = 262144
kernel.msgmax = 8192
kernel.msgmnb = 65535
kernel.msgmni = 2878

Then type sysctl -p to check for errors.

9. Add the following to /etc/profile

if [ $USER = "oracle" ]; then
   if [ $SHELL = "/bin/ksh" ]; then
     ulimit -p 16384
     ulimit -n 65536
   else
     ulimit -u 16384 -n 65536
   fi
fi

10. Add the following to /etc/security/limits.conf (make sure to use tabs as separators)

oracle soft nproc 2047
oracle hard nproc 16384
oracle soft nofile 4096
oracle hard nofile 65536
* soft nofile 4096
* hard nofile 65535

11. Add the following to /etc/pam.d/login (make sure to use tabs as separators)

session required /lib/security/pam_limits.so

12. Create the user accounts

groupadd dba
groupadd oinstall
useradd -c "Oracle software owner" -g oinstall -G dba oracle
useradd -c "Oracle software owner" -g oinstall -G dba applmgr
passwd oracle
passwd applmgr

13. Override GCC

mv /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/gcc.orig
mv /usr/bin/g++ /usr/bin/g++.orig
echo ‘exec /usr/bin/gcc32 -static-libgcc -B/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/2.96/ "$@"’ > /usr/bin/gcc
echo ‘exec /usr/bin/g++32 -static-libgcc -B/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/2.96/ "$@"’ > /usr/bin/g++
chmod 755 /usr/bin/gcc
chmod 755 /usr/bin/g++

14. Set LD_ASSUME_KERNEL

echo "export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.19" >> /root/.bash_profile
echo "export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.19" >> /home/oracle/.bash_profile
echo "export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.19" >> /home/applmgr/.bash_profile

15. Before starting the installation as root, type the following:

ulimit -t unlimited
ulimit -f unlimited
ulimit -d unlimited
ulimit -s unlimited
ulimit -m unlimited
ulimit -c unlimited
ulimit -n unlimited
ulimit -v unlimited

Applicable Versions:

• Oracle E-Business Suite 11i (11.5.10)