Run Oracle Database on Oracle Linux for Arm

Introduction

Oracle Database 19c Enterprise Edition, the current long-term support release of Oracle Database, is now certified and available on the popular Arm architecture for cloud and on-premises deployments.

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Ampere A1 compute platform provides deterministic performance, linear scalability, and an energy-efficient, sustainable, eco-friendly design for Oracle Database customers. Building applications is free to try, easy to learn, and fast to explore.

This tutorial uses the container method to install Oracle Database 19c on Oracle Linux on an OCI Ampere A1 compute instance.

For help outside of this lab environment, see the Oracle Database server Release 19c documentation .

Objectives

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to:

Install Oracle Database 19c using Podman
Connect to Oracle Database 19c using SQL*Plus

Prerequisites

Minimum of one Oracle Linux system
Each system should have Oracle Linux installed and configured with:
- A non-root user account with sudo access

Deploy Oracle Linux

Note: If running in your own tenancy, read the linux-virt-labs GitHub project README.md and complete the prerequisites before deploying the lab environment.

Open a terminal on the Luna Desktop.

Clone the linux-virt-labs GitHub project.

git clone https://github.com/oracle-devrel/linux-virt-labs.git

Change into the working directory.
```
cd linux-virt-labs/ol
```

Install the required collections.

ansible-galaxy collection install -r requirements.yml

Deploy the lab environment.
```
ansible-playbook create_instance.yml -e localhost_python_interpreter="/usr/bin/python3.6" -e instance_shape="VM.Standard.A1.Flex"
```
The free lab environment requires the extra variable local_python_interpreter, which sets ansible_python_interpreter for plays running on localhost. This variable is needed because the environment installs the RPM package for the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure SDK for Python, located under the python3.6 modules.
The default deployment shape uses the AMD CPU and Oracle Linux 8. To use an Intel CPU or Oracle Linux 9, add -e instance_shape="VM.Standard3.Flex" or -e os_version="9" to the deployment command.
Important: Wait for the playbook to run successfully and reach the pause task. At this stage of the playbook, the installation of Oracle Linux is complete, and the instances are ready. Take note of the previous play, which prints the public and private IP addresses of the nodes it deploys and any other deployment information needed while running the lab.

Accept the Oracle Standard Terms and Restrictions

Use of the Oracle Database image requires the acceptance of the Oracle Standard Terms and Restrictions.

Open a browser and go to https://container-registry.oracle.com .
Click the Sign In button in the upper right corner of the site.
Authenticate using your Oracle Single Sign-On credentials.
Click the Database tile to access the various Oracle Database images.
Under the Repository column, click the enterprise link.
Select your language in the informational tile on the right and click the Continue button.
Read and scroll through the Oracle Standard Terms and Restrictions pop-up window.
Click the Accept button at the bottom of the pop-up window.
Verify the acceptance of the Oracle Standard Terms and Restrictions.
The informational tile should now display a green circle with a white check and the date and time of your last acceptance.

Install Podman

Open a terminal and connect via SSH to the ol-node-01 instance.
```
ssh oracle@<ip_address_of_instance>
```
Confirm the version of Oracle Linux.
```
cat /etc/oracle-release
```
Check the platform architecture.
```
uname -i
```
The aarch64 indicates the hardware platform as the Arm architecture.
Install the Podman packages or modules.
Oracle Linux 8:
```
sudo dnf module install -y container-tools:ol8
```
Oracle Linux 9:
```
sudo dnf install -y container-tools
```
The container-tools module or package installs podman and other container tools, including skopeo and buildah. One essential package is container-selinux, which allows running podman as a non-root user on a SELinux-enabled system, which Oracle Linux enables by default.

Install Oracle Database 19c Server Using Podman

Create a data volume.
The data volume allows the database to persist during container recreation.
```
podman volume create oradata
```
Create a secret.
The secret is a utility to pass secure text strings to the container, such as ssh-keys or passwords.
```
echo "Welcome1" | podman secret create oracle_pwd -
```
The SYS,SYSTEM, and PDBADMIN administrative user accounts all use the same password. Oracle recommends that your password be at least 8 characters in length, containing at least 1 upper case character, 1 lower case character, and 1 digit [0-9].
Log in to the Oracle Container Registry.
```
podman login container-registry.oracle.com
```
Enter your Oracle Single Sign On username and password at the given prompts.
Start the Oracle Database container image.
```
podman run -d --name oracle-db --secret=oracle_pwd -p 1521:1521 -v oradata:/opt/oracle/oradata container-registry.oracle.com/database/enterprise:19.19.0.0
```
Warning: While pulling the image, the process appears to freeze when writing the manifest and storing signatures. After several minutes, the command will complete and present the running container ID.
Verify the Oracle Database image is running.
```
podman ps
```
The status reports the container is running and (starting). Repeat this command using watch podman ps until the status shows as (healthy), which takes around 10 minutes. Use Ctrl-C to exit out of the watch command.

Connect to the Oracle Database 19c Server Container

Get the mapped database port.
```
podman port oracle-db
```
Get the Oracle Database Service name.
While the Oracle SID is the unique name that identifies your instance/database, the Service name is the TNS alias you give when remotely connecting to your database.
```
podman exec -it oracle-db lsnrctl status
```
The Service name for the image defaults to ORCLCDB.

Run SQL*Plus using the same image you used to start the database.

podman run --rm -ti container-registry.oracle.com/database/enterprise:19.19.0.0 sqlplus sys/Welcome1@//10.0.0.150:1521/ORCLCDB as sysdba

Select from the DUAL table.

select * from dual;

Example Output:

[oracle@ol-node-01 ~]$ podman run --rm -ti container-registry.oracle.com/database/enterprise:19.19.0.0 sqlplus sys/Welcome1@//10.0.0.150:1521/ORCLCDB as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production on Fri Jul 28 01:21:39 2023
Version 19.19.0.0.0

Copyright (c) 1982, 2023, Oracle.  All rights reserved.


Connected to:
Oracle Database 19c Enterprise Edition Release 19.0.0.0.0 - Production
Version 19.19.0.0.0

SQL> select * from dual;

D
-
X

Select the system date.

select sysdate from dual;