Recreating the Oracle Inventory files in Oracle 10g and Oracle 11g

• Normally, an oraInventory directory will be created in the system when we run the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) first time on a system.

Oracle Inventory - oraInventory

• oraInventory is repository which stores the oracle software products and their home locations (ORACLE_HOME) in a system. This oraInventory is created on the first run of the Oracle Universal Installer in the system.

• There are two types of Inventories. They are,

              1. Global Inventory - which is also known as Central Inventory.

           2. Local Inventory - Oracle Home Inventory.

Global Inventory

• Global Inventory consists of the information of all the Oracle Products installed in a machine. inventory.xml is the file where it lists all the ORACLE_HOMEs installed in the system.

Local Inventory

• Each Oracle Home consists of its own Inventory File which is called the Local Inventory or Oracle Home Inventory. Each Oracle Inventory contains the information of its respective ORACLE_HOME.

• There is also a file called comps.xml,which contains all the components as well as patchsets or interim patches installed in the ORACLE_HOME.

Note: 

• No down time is required to create the Global Inventory (oraInventory).

• If you have a corrupted or improper Oracle Inventory, you can rename it using the mv command as below.,

mv oraInventory oraInventory_Old

• To determine or find the oraInventory is location in the system open the file 'oraInst.loc'. This file will be located in the below locations depending upon your platform.

/var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc or /etc/oraInst.loc

• The file oraInst.loc looks as below,

/var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc

inst_group=dba

inventory_loc=/app/oracle/oraInventory

ORACLE_HOME/oraInst.loc

inst_group=dba

inventory_loc=/apps/oracle/oraInventory

To find the ORACLE_HOME & ORACLE_HOME name

• You can view it from the old Oracle Inventory file located in 

          /app/oracle/oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml

cat /app/oracle/oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>

<!-- Copyright (c) 2009 Oracle Corporation. All rights Reserved -->

<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->

<INVENTORY>

<VERSION_INFO>

<SAVED_WITH>10.2.0.5.0</SAVED_WITH>

<MINIMUM_VER>2.1.0.6.0</MINIMUM_VER>

</VERSION_INFO>

<HOME_LIST>

<HOME NAME="orahome_1" LOC="/app/oracle/product/10.2.0.5" TYPE="O" IDX="1"/>

<HOME NAME="agent10g" LOC="/app/oracle/product/agent10g" TYPE="O" IDX="2"/>

</HOME_LIST>

</INVENTORY>

• Go to the Oracle Universal Installer location for creating the Oracle oraInventory,

$ORACLE_HOME/oui/bin

• If you have more than one Oracle product installed in your machine/system, then you have to update the inventory file for all the Oracle Home.

• When there is multiple Oracle Homes then, you have to run the oui in their respective homes separately.

$ ./runInstaller -silent -ignoreSysPrereqs -attachHome ORACLE_HOME="/app/oracle/10.2.0.5" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="orahome_1"

Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

No pre-requisite checks found in oraparam.ini, no system pre-requisite checks will be executed.

>>> Ignoring required pre-requisite failures. Continuing...

The inventory pointer is located at /var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc

The inventory is located at /app/oracle/oraInventory

'AttachHome' was successful.

For example if you have Oracle agent installed in your machine, then you should run it in AGENT_HOME,

$AGENT_HOME/oui/bin

$ ./runInstaller -silent -ignoreSysPrereqs -attachHome ORACLE_HOME="/app/oracle/product/agent10g" ORACLE_HOME_NAME="agent10g"

Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

No pre-requisite checks found in oraparam.ini, no system pre-requisite checks will be executed.

>>> Ignoring required pre-requisite failures. Continuing...

The inventory pointer is located at /var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc

The inventory is located at /app/oracle/oraInventory

'AttachHome' was successful.