Pythian Group

Recently, hanekomu was contemplating how to make subsequent installs of a Task::BeLike module upgrade its dependencies to their latest version.

The idea is intriguing. It’s not something you want to do for a typical module, but it makes sense in the context of Task::BeLike. If you care enough about a module to put it in your Task::BeLike, you probably care enough to want to upgrade when there’s a new version out there.

Alas, I think hanekomu’s proposed way of doing it is flawed (mind you, the debate is still going on as of the writing of this entry, and I can very well still be proven wrong). But after some pondeferous chin scratching, I might have come with a cunning alternative to it.

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I decided to build my first sand box ever. I always wanted one, but there was no time or reason until now. Fortunately, hardware is ridiculously cheap these days compared to the past, so you can actually run full-blown Oracle Applications on your home PC without compromises.

I built a Dual Core box with 8G of RAM for an install of E-Business Suite R12. For OS I chose Oracle EL5U2, mainly because I’m used to the RH/OEL clones, and also because I expected it to be less painful than other distributions.

I started slowly, as time allowed, spending some time chasing various libraries and packages on the Net. Eventually it took me a week to realize how tedious it is to go the manual way. I got so frustrated by the dependencies that I gave up and purchased access to the ULN network.

Just to illustrate the type of struggle I went through, I found four distinct lists of required packages for 10g installation (in Oracle documentation and metalink combined). I’d recommend Note 421308.1 – Requirements For Installing Oracle10gR2 On RHEL/OEL 5 (x86_64), which summarizes the database part in a neat way. I also encourage you not to underestimate requirements of related Note 376183.1 – Defining a “default RPMs” installation of the RHEL OS.

Nevertheless, it’s just way more easy to use the oracle-validated package, which will download all dependencies for you. Well, almost all.

The next step was to prepare the machine. The only tricky part (from the DBA point of view) is to setup a DNS server, but even that went well. There are plenty of nice howtos on the web — search for keyword “rndc”.

Once I had all the required packages installed, users created, kernel parameters set, domain name resolution working, and Xvnc started, it was time to call a wizard.

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