AutoUpgrade relies on out-of-place patching, thus, it creates a new Oracle home. After installing a new Oracle home, you must execute root.sh as the root user.

AutoUpgrade now does this for you under the following circumstances:

• oracle user has sudo privileges.
• The sudo command doesn’t require a password.

AutoUpgrade handles root.sh in the ROOTSH stage, and writes log messages to <autoupgrade_log_dir>/<sid>/<job-no>/rootsh/rootsh.log.

Sudo Privileges

If oracle has sudo privileges, no configuration is needed. AutoUpgrade sees this and automatically executes root.sh after installing the Oracle home and applying the desired patches.

What If

If AutoUpgrade can’t execute root.sh, you must do it manually. AutoUpgrade writes a message into the rootsh.log:

2025-03-24 07:39:22.297 INFO Root Script Path : /u01/app/oracle/product/19_25/root.sh - RootScript.executePatchStage#66
2025-03-24 07:39:22.305 INFO Executing Root Script - RootScript.updateAndLogInfoMessage#91
sudo: a password is required
2025-03-24 07:39:22.327 INFO Root script execution failed sudo: a password is required
 - RootScript.executeRootScript#112
2025-03-24 07:39:22.327 INFO AutoUpgrade Patching has not run /u01/app/oracle/product/19_25/root.sh for the newly installed ORACLE_HOME. This needs to be performed manually after AutoUpgrade Patching completes. - RootScript.executePatchStage#83

If AutoUpgrade can’t run the root.sh for you, you shouldn’t use the one-button approach, where it handles everything in one operation. Instead, you should follow this approach:

• Install the new Oracle home using -mode create_home.

• Manually run root.sh.

• Patch the database using -mode deploy. AutoUpgrade sees that you’ve already created the new Oracle home, and skips that part.

Why do you need to do it in multiple steps?

Some functionality in the database requires that you run root.sh. Also, there are certain patches that require you to run root.sh before starting the database. One example is patch 34672698, ORA-00800: SOFT EXTERNAL ERROR, ARGUMENTS: [SET PRIORITY FAILED], [VKTM] , DISM(16). Suppose you haven’t set the proper file permissions with root.sh before starting the database, the database won’t be able to elevate the priority of some of the most critical background processes.

The Special Patches

As mentioned above, there are some special patches that require that you fiddle with file system permissions during the apply.

One example is patch 34672698, ORA-00800: SOFT EXTERNAL ERROR, ARGUMENTS: [SET PRIORITY FAILED], [VKTM] , DISM(16). Check the readme to see the instructions explaining how to change permissions on $ORACLE_HOME/bin/oradism.

Using AutoUpgrade, installing such a patch is very easy. AutoUpgrade takes all that into consideration. This is how AutoUpgrade creates the new Oracle home:

• Unzip the Oracle home.
• Installs the Oracle home using runInstaller, but doesn’t run root.sh.
• Applies patches using OPatch, including such special patches.
• Executes root.sh, which applies all the required file permissions.

The execution of root.sh in the end takes care of all the extra work with permissions.

Happy patching!