Tag: create_home

AutoUpgrade New Features: Custom Oracle Home Name

When you create a new Oracle home using AutoUpgrade, you can now give it a custom name.

What do I mean by a custom name? Let’s examine the Oracle Inventory:

cat /u01/app/oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes" ?>
<!-- Copyright (c) 1999, 2025, Oracle and/or its affiliates.
All rights reserved. -->
<!-- Do not modify the contents of this file by hand. -->
<INVENTORY>
<VERSION_INFO>
   <SAVED_WITH>12.2.0.7.0</SAVED_WITH>
   <MINIMUM_VER>2.1.0.6.0</MINIMUM_VER>
</VERSION_INFO>
<HOME_LIST>
<HOME NAME="OraDB19Home1" LOC="/u01/app/oracle/product/19" TYPE="O" IDX="1"/>
<HOME NAME="OraDB21Home1" LOC="/u01/app/oracle/product/21" TYPE="O" IDX="2"/>
<HOME NAME="OraDB23Home1" LOC="/u01/app/oracle/product/23" TYPE="O" IDX="3"/>
</HOME_LIST>
<COMPOSITEHOME_LIST>
</COMPOSITEHOME_LIST>
</INVENTORY>

The Oracle home name is listed in the NAME attribute on the HOME element.

When you install a new Oracle home, the installer automatically generate a name for you, like OraDb19Home1.

In AutoUpgrade, you can decide to use a custom name instead of an auto-generated one.

How To Specify A Custom Oracle Home Name

  • I use the latest version of AutoUpgrade
    wget https://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/otn_software/autoupgrade.jar
  • I create the following config file:
    global.global_log_dir=/home/oracle/autoupgrade-patching/log
global.keystore=/home/oracle/autoupgrade-patching/keystore
patch1.source_home=/u01/app/oracle/product/19
patch1.target_home=/u01/app/oracle/product/19_28
patch1.home_settings.home_name=DBHOME1928
patch1.sid=FTEX
patch1.folder=/home/oracle/patch-repo
patch1.patch=RU,OCW,DPBP,OJVM,OPATCH
    • Notice the home_settings.home_name parameter. This is where I specify the custom name for the new Oracle home.
  • I patch the database using AutoUpgrade:
    java -jar autoupgrade.jar -config FTEX.cfg -mode deploy
  • I check the inventory:
    grep -i "19_28" /u01/app/oraInventory/ContentsXML/inventory.xml
<HOME NAME="DBHOME1928" LOC="/u01/app/oracle/product/19_28" TYPE="O" IDX="4"/>
    • AutoUpgrade created the new Oracle home with the name DBHOME1928.

What Do I Use It For

For a regular Oracle home, it’s used seldom. I’ve seen some customers using certain Oracle home names as part of their corporate standard, but most people don’t care.

However, in a read-only Oracle home, the name is important. It now becomes part of Oracle Base Home which is the location for most of the writable files from the Oracle home.

Do you have a specific use case for the Oracle home name or do you have a corporate standard mandating a certain name? Leave a comment and let me know.

Happy patching!

Fixing AutoUpgrade PATCH111 Error On Oracle Linux 9

I’ve seen a lot of interest in the create_home mode of AutoUpgrade. It allows you to easily provision new Oracle homes and the feedback has been very positive.

A few customers reported an error during installation of an Oracle home on Oracle Linux 9.

Errors in database [create_home_1]
Stage              [OH_PATCHING]
Operation          [STOPPED]
Status             [ERROR]
Info               [Exception: PATCH111
Err message: AutoUpgradePatchingException [OPatch failed to install ...]

Digging into the referenced log file revealed:

[Jun 25, 2025 10:48:51 AM] [WARNING]OUI-67200:Make failed to invoke "/usr/bin/make -f ins_rdbms.mk javavm_refresh ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/dbhome_1927 OPATCH_SESSION=apply"....'Can't locate File/Copy.pm in @INC (you may need to install the File::Copy module) (@INC contains: /usr/local/lib64/perl5/5.32 /usr/local/share/perl5/5.32 /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/lib64/perl5 /usr/share/perl5) at /u01/app/oracle/product/dbhome_1927/javavm/install/update_javavm_binaries.pl line 64.
                                    BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /u01/app/oracle/product/dbhome_1927/javavm/install/update_javavm_binaries.pl line 64.
                                    make: *** [ins_rdbms.mk:573: javavm_refresh] Error 2

The Workaround

You can avoid the problem by installing Perl before you start AutoUpgrade:

dnf -y install perl-core

Big shoutout to Martin Berger for providing a workaround.

Is My Server Affected

Use this command to test whether your server is affected:

perl -e 'use File::Copy;'

If it returns without any error or output, everything is fine. If you get an error, you must install Perl before proceeding:

perl -e 'use File::Copy;'
Can't locate File/Copy.pm in @INC (you may need to install the File::Copy module) (@INC contains: /usr/local/lib64/perl5/5.32 /usr/local/share/perl5/5.32 /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl /usr/lib64/perl5 /usr/share/perl5) at -e line 1.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at -e line 1.

Why Does It Happen

  • AutoUpgrade starts by installing the Oracle home and in some cases also applies the Release Update using the -applyRU command line parameter.

  • Next, it installs additional patches using OPatch. Some patches, like the OJVM bundle patch, requires a compilation using make. This process fails if there’s no usable Perl installation.

  • There are several MOS notes on this specific issues advising to set the PERL5LIB environment variable (Patching fails during relink , with error code 102 :: Fatal error: Command failed for target `javavm_refresh’ (Doc ID 2002334.1)).

  • To solve an unrelated issue, AutoUpgrade doesn’t always set PERL5LIB when calling OPatch and this leads to this error during the compilation.

  • We’re trying to find a smart way to handle this (without re-introducing the other issue).

To summarize, you get this error when:

  • Your operating system doesn’t have a normal Perl installation. You might have the perl executable, but not the normal modules.
  • You install the OJVM bundle patch.

The Rabbit Hole

I learned something new about Perl today. Do you dare walking down that rabbit hole with me? I’ll make it short.

  • The error from make mentions the missing Perl module, File::Copy:

    /usr/bin/make -f ins_rdbms.mk javavm_refresh ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/dbhome_1927 OPATCH_SESSION=apply"....'Can't locate File/Copy.pm in @INC (you may need to install the File::Copy module)

  • A Perl module can be loaded from disk. Perl automatically attempts to find the file in the following locations:

    perl -e 'print "@INC\n"'
/usr/local/lib64/perl5/5.32
/usr/local/share/perl5/5.32
/usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl
/usr/lib64/perl5
/usr/share/perl5

  • So, I can check these directories for the Perl module. To find the File::Copy module, I need to check in the File subdirectory for the file Copy.pm:

    ll /usr/local/lib64/perl5/5.32/File/Copy.pm
ll /usr/local/share/perl5/5.32/File/Copy.pm
ll /usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/File/Copy.pm
ll /usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/File/Copy.pm
ll /usr/lib64/perl5/File/Copy.pm
ll /usr/share/perl5/File/Copy.pm
ls: cannot access '/usr/local/lib64/perl5/5.32/File/Copy.pm': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/usr/local/share/perl5/5.32/File/Copy.pm': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/File/Copy.pm': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/File/Copy.pm': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/usr/lib64/perl5/File/Copy.pm': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/usr/share/perl5/File/Copy.pm': No such file or directory

  • The file is not found in any of the directories, so Perl will fail to load the module.

  • Had the file been found in just one location, all would be good.

Happy patching!