In our previous post we downloaded VirtualBox, downloaded V41362-01.iso, and configured a single core, 4G of RAM, 40G of hard drive system with two network interfaces. We mounted the Oracle Enterprise Linux Release 6 Update 5 as a virtual CD-ROM once it finished downloading from edelivery.oracle.com. We stored on our E:\iso directory on our sandbox system to use again if needed. We created the virtual disk in the E:\VirtualBox VMs directory and are ready to boot the operating system to start the installation process.
To be honest, I reverted back to OEL6U5 because I had trouble getting the OEM6U6 to install and configure properly. I went with something that I know works and the features/differences between update 5 and update 6 are not that significant when it comes to the Oracle database.
To start the installation process we select an iso image by clicking on Storage and selecting the CD/DVD iso that we are going to boot from. In this case we select the V41362-01.iso file from our E:\iso directory and click on the green Start button at the top left.
Once we click on start it takes us to the boot menu for the operating system. We select install and follow the menu prompts.
Configure the network so that eth0 has a static ip address of 192.168.1.121, netmask 255.255.255.0, and default router is 192.168.1.254 (this is my Uverse router). The default dns is 8.8.8.8 with the backup being 8.8.4.4.
after setting the timezone and root password, choose to overwrite all data on the existing disks and select a software development platform to install. The software development platform is selected to give us a compiler as well as a user interface. If you select the basic server you do not get a user interface.
Once the system comes back you can reboot and finish the installation.
At this point we have a valid system and can login, alter the /etc/hosts table, alter the /etc/sudoers file, and run yum update to download the latest patches.
The yum update will probably take as long as the installation process took. Overall this takes about an hour or two depending upon your network connection speed and amount of RAM that you allocate.
We now have a fresh install of Oracle Enterprise Linux 6 Update 5 with the latest patches. I suggest that you clone this instance and put it on long term storage somewhere. We don’t need to spend an hour or two recreating this again.
up next: Mounting the E: drive inside the virtual machine to stage other software installations.