About

The Oracle Inventory directory (oraInventory) stores an inventory of all software installed on the system. It is required and shared by all Oracle software installations on a single system. If you have an existing Oracle Inventory path, then Oracle Universal Installer continues to use that Oracle Inventory.

Directory

Note:

  • All Oracle software installations rely on this directory. Ensure that you back it up regularly.
  • Do not delete this directory unless you have completely removed all Oracle software from the system.
  • By default, the Oracle Inventory directory is not installed under the Oracle Base directory. This is because all Oracle software installations share a common Oracle Inventory, so there is only one Oracle Inventory for all users. Whereas, there is a separate Oracle Base for each user.

With an OFA-compliant directory structure

The first time you install Oracle software on a system, Oracle Universal Installer checks if you have created an OFA-compliant directory structure with the format u[01-09]/app, such as /u01/app, and that the user running the installation has permissions to write to that path. If this is true, then Oracle Universal Installer creates the Oracle Inventory directory similar to /u[01-09]/app/oraInventory.

For example: 

/u01/app/oraInventory

If you have set the environment variable ORACLE_BASE for the oracle user, then Oracle Universal Installer creates the Oracle Inventory directory similar to ORACLE_BASE/../oraInventory. For example, if ORACLE_BASE is set to /opt/oracle/11, then the Oracle Inventory directory is created similar to /opt/oracle/oraInventory. 

mkdir -p /u01/app/oraInventory
chown -R oracle:oinstall /u01/app/oraInventory
chmod -R 775 /u01/app/oraInventory

Without OFA-compliant path

If you have neither created an OFA-compliant path nor set ORACLE_BASE, then the Oracle Inventory directory is placed in the home directory of the user that is performing the installation. For example: 

/home/oracle/oraInventory

Oracle Universal Installer creates the directory that you specify and sets the correct owner, group, and permissions for it. You do not need to create it.

oraInst.loc

When you install Oracle software on the system for the first time, Oracle Universal Installer creates the oraInst.loc file.

This file identifies:

  • the name of the Oracle Inventory group (typically, oinstall),
  • and the path of the Oracle Inventory directory.

An oraInst.loc file has contents similar to the following: 

inventory_loc=central_inventory_location
inst_group=group

where:

  • central_inventory_location is the location of the Oracle Central Inventory,
  • and group is the name of the group that has permissions to write to the central inventory.

To determine whether the oraInst.loc file exists, enter the following command: 

# more /etc/oraInst.loc

If the oraInst.loc file exists, then the output from this command is similar to the following: 

inventory_loc=/u01/app/oraInventory
inst_group=oinstall

In the previous output example:

  • The inventory_loc group shows the location of the Oracle Inventory
  • The inst_group parameter shows the name of the Oracle Inventory group (in this example, oinstall).

Group

To determine if the Oracle Inventory group exist, enter the following command: 

grep oinstall /etc/group

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

/usr/sbin/groupadd oinstall

Log

The following are the default locations for supported operating systems:

  • Linux and UNIX: USER_HOME/oraInventory/logs/
  • Windows: C:\\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory\logs\