My 2010 Oracle VM project, part one

As I look back through my blog there have been numerous ambitious attempts to do this but all have stopped before they got started. Pretty sad. Such is life, especially when you yearn to have one instead of fiddling around with software when you should be doing anything but.

Here are the constants:

• VMWare Workstation 7 on Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit
• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Release 5 32 bit

Here are my goals:

• One VM with OEL, OEM GRID 11.1, Database 11.2 (EM/RMAN repository)
• One VM with Database 11.2 using ASM

The first step is to create a VM I can use as a template for my two goal VMs.

Create template OEL5.5 VM:

1. Create a VM with at least 1GB of memory (2GB if feasible) and one 20GB (to 40GB) virtual disk (bridged network, uncheck automatically connect new USB device, do not connect sound card and printer at power on)
2. Power on the VM with the Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Release 5 mounted as an .iso (or physical DVD)
3. Press ENTER at the "boot:" prompt, next, skip, next
4. Choose language and keyboard
5. OEL partitions everything perfectly, no need to review or modify (/boot with LVM with swap and / volumes)
6. Next, GRUB, DHCP, time zone (uncheck System clock uses UTC)
7. Set root password
8. Select Customize now. Next.
9. Desktop Environments. Uncheck GNOME
10. Applications. Uncheck all (except maybe Text Based Internet)
11. Base System. Uncheck Dialup Networking Support and X Window
12. Base System. Check System Tools; click Optional packages, check oracle-validated
13. Next, next, installing packages, reboot.
14. Highlight networking, then run tool
15. Set Firewall and SELinux both to Disabled
16. Next
17. OS installation complete. Login. User root.

Install VMWare tools:

1. VM: Install VMWare tools (will prompt you to mount something)
2. mkdir /media/cdrom
3. mount -o ro /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
4. cd
5. tar -xzf /media/cdrom/VM*tar.gz
6. cd vmware-tools-distrib
7. ./vmware-install.pl
8. I kept defaults for everything; installation unmounts the VMWare tools
9. cd
10. rm -fr vmware-tools-distrib
11. shutdown -h now

Take a snapshot of the OEL5.5 virtual machine. This snapshot will be used in the cloning process.

In the next parts I will use this template VM to create the OEM GRID and Database VMs

Updates:

06/22/2010:

Now on Ubuntu 10.04