Oracle Applications DBA Blog

Demystifying RapidInstall

The RapidInstall is a Oracle tool that is responsible for doing the installation of Oracle Application. The latest version of  RapidInstall does most of the install and configuration process for us behind the scenes. In today’s post we will try to look what the RapidInstall actually does.

The installation of Oracle Application by RapidInstall happens in two phases

• The Database Tier Installation
• The Application Tier Installation

It also happens in the order mentioned. Not surprisingly when we are doing the installation in a multi node environment we start the installation from our database tiers first.

The RapidInstall executable is present in the startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz directory. Since the installation user interface is GUI driven it should be run either at the console or in a Xwindows session.

Pre Installation Tasks and Checks

The first task performed by the RapidInstall is to verify the user inputs entered through the first few screens of the Oracle  Applications installation. These values can either be entered manually or they can be picked up through a configuration file. In either case the RapidInstall makes a note of these values in a configuration file and before verifying their availability.

The tasks which the RapidInstall does at this stage includes

The RapidInstall in the very first stage makes a note of the type of Oracle Applications Installation which is being done  that is a Single Node or a Multi Node. It also take registers if the instances uses high availability features like load balancing or SHARED APPL_TOP.

In case of a multi node environment it also now registers the various node names and the their OS platforms in the configuration file.

The RapidInstall makes a note of the OS User and group for the Oracle user

It also makes a note of the directory structure and checks their availability which is required to hold the Database Tier of Oracle Applications which includes

Base Install directory
Oracle Home           
Data Top (SYS)        
Data Top (LOG)        
Data Top (TXN)        
Data Top (ARCHIVE)    

Now the RapidInstall proceed to make a note of the OS user and the OS group for the the Application Tier nodes if it is a multi node system this is process is repeated for all the nodes.

The RapidInstall now validates the directory structure required to hold the application tier file system which includes

Base Install directory
APPL_TOP Mount point  
APPL_TOP aux. 1       
APPL_TOP aux. 2       
APPL_TOP aux. 3      
COMMON_TOP          
8.0.6 ORACLE_HOME   
iAS ORACLE_HOME    
Temp Directory

Next the RapidInstall makes a note of the selected product and the product groups join the form of the internal product codes.

Now the RapidInstall makes a note of the selected languages and the database and Application character set selected.

After this the RapidInstall makes a note of the port pool entered and check the port availability for your Database,RFC,Forms Listener,Martics Server,Matrics Client,Forms Servlet Port Range,Reports Listener,Web Listener,JTF Fulfillment Server, Map Viewer Servlet,OEM Web Utility,VisiBroker OrbServer Agent,MSCA Server,MSCA Dispatcher,OACORE Servlet Port Range,Discoverer Servlet Port Range and the XMLSVCS Servlet Port Range.

The RapidInstall will now verify the Operating System version and patch level. For this it will use the checkOS.sh script located in rapidwiz/bin of your startCD.

At this stage the RapidInstall will create the directories for holding the database tier and application Tier of Oracle Applications, In case of a multi node system it will create the directories on the node in which the RapidInstall is run.

The RapidInstall now performs a check for the Operating System utilities which are required to perform the installation. The script used for this purpose is the adchkutl.sh. This checks for the following utilities
make
ld
cc
ar
ksh

Database Tier Install Tasks

Now the RapidInstall creates the Database Tier XML file. This is done using the adxdbctx.tmp template file. A temporary XML context file is located in the /tmp directory and the final file is copied on to the $ORACLE_HOME/appsutil directory.

After this the context file for the APPL_TOP is created. The template file used in this case is adxmlctx.tmp.

Now the stage is set for the creation of the database for Oracle Application. The RapidInstall uses the adridb.drv driver file for this purpose. This driver calls the adrun9i.sh file along with details of the XML context file as parameter. The adrun9i.sh  is responsible for the RDBMS installation based upon the operating system platform. RapidInstall executes this script as the Oracle OS user.

The RapidInstall will now check the contents of your stage area and start the unzipping of the required files for the database installation. At this stage the adrun9i.sh will call the instconf.drv to perform the instance configuration. Also executed is the addbtmpl.drv driver.

The next stage involves RapidInstall making the Oracle binaries. This involves copying the object files to the Oracle Home and making the required Oracle Executables. The adlnkoh.sh is executed by RapidInstall to do the linking.

The RapidInstall now starts the listener, It starts the database and registers it with the Operating system.

The database is created with default character set, the adsvdcnv.sh is executed to perform any character set conversion  required.

At the next stage the ADX Database Utility is run to perform the context value management for on your database based upon the values present in your context file.

At this stage the RapidInstall does a restart of your oracle applications database tier services this time using the Oracle Applications startup and shutdown scripts.

Application Tier Install Process

The RapidInstall first check the integrity of your stage location and unzips the required files to Application tier directories. If they were not created earlier RapidInstall now does the require per requisite checks and creates these  directories for you.

For the Applications Tier install the main driver file used by the RapidInstall is the adriapps.drv.This driver file call two additional script files which are the adrunias.sh and adrunat.sh

The adrunias.sh reads your APPL_TOP context file and relinks the executables for your iAS ORACLE_HOME.
The adrunat.sh again uses your context file to set up the other APPL_TOP executables and files.

Both the scripts run autoconfig to setup the environment and configuration files.

The interoperability patch 3830807 is also applied by RapidInstall at this stage for 3.0 compatibility.

At the next stage RapidInstall will call the ADX Database Utility which will read the APPL_TOP context file and perform context value management for the application tier context file.

Next RapidInstall will set the APPL_TOP file ownership and file permissions.

At this stage RapidInstall executes several scripts from your COMMON_TOP/admin/install directory. These scripts have sql scripts encapsulated within them and create the database objects and set attributes for them accordingly. Some of them also update the profile option values at the database level.

After this RapidInstall attempts to start all configured Applications Tier services that have been configured for that  particular node using the oracle Applications startup scripts.

A post installation check is carried out by RapidInstall now which first checks the Database availability check. For this the riwTDBup.sh script is used.

An environment check is done by sourcing each of the environment files which are
Database ORACLE_HOME environment file
Apps ORACLE_HOME environment file
iAS ORACLE_HOME environment file
ADOVARS environment file

A dbc file check is then initiated to verify the values present.

Next follows a HTTP check which is done by seeing the accessibility of the Oracle Applications HTTP URL.

A JSP check is done by using the dbc file, if your dbc file check fails most likely this check will also fail.

The login check is finally done using the ICXINDEX.htm file.