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Oracle® Database Installation Guide
11g Release 2 (11.2) for Linux

Part Number E24321-07
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5 Oracle Database Postinstallation Tasks

This chapter describes tasks that you must perform after you have installed the database software. It includes information about the following topics:

You must perform the tasks listed in "Required Postinstallation Tasks". Oracle recommends that you perform the tasks listed in "Recommended Postinstallation Tasks" after all installations.

If you install and intend to use any of the products listed in "Required Product-Specific Postinstallation Tasks", then you must perform the tasks listed in the product-specific sections.

Note:

This chapter describes basic configuration only. See Oracle Database Administrator's Reference for Linux and UNIX-Based Operating Systems, Oracle Database Administrator's Guide and product-specific administration and tuning guides for more detailed configuration and tuning information.

See Also:

"Post-installation Database Configuration" section in Oracle Configuration Manager Installation and Administration Guide

5.1 Required Postinstallation Tasks

Perform the following task after completing the Oracle Database installation:

5.1.1 Downloading and Installing Patches

Check the My Oracle Support Web site for required patch updates for your installation.

Note:

Browsers require an Adobe Flash plug-in, version 9.0.115 or higher, to use My Oracle Support. Check your browser for the correct version of the Flash plug-in by going to the Adobe Flash checker page, and installing the latest version of Adobe Flash.

If you do not have Flash installed, then download the latest version of the Flash Player from the Adobe Web site:

http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer

To download required patches:

  1. Use a Web browser to view the My Oracle Support Web site:

    https://support.oracle.com/
    
  2. Log in to My Oracle Support.

    Note:

    If you are not a My Oracle Support registered user, click Register for My Oracle Support and follow the registration instructions.
  3. On the main My Oracle Support page, click Patches and Updates.

  4. In the Patch Search group, select Product or Family (Advanced).

  5. In the Product field, select Oracle Database.

  6. In the Release field select the release number. For example, Oracle 11.2.0.3.1.

  7. Click Search.

  8. Any available patch updates are displayed in the Patch Search page.

  9. Select the patch number and click ReadMe. The README page is displayed and contains information about the patch set and how to apply the patches to your installation.

  10. Return to the Patch Search page, click Download, and save the file on your system.

  11. Use the unzip utility provided with Oracle Database 11g release 1 (11.1) to uncompress the Oracle patch updates that you downloaded from My Oracle Support. The unzip utility is located in the $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory.

5.2 Recommended Postinstallation Tasks

Oracle recommends that you perform the tasks described in the following section after completing an installation:

5.2.1 Creating a Backup of the root.sh Script

Oracle recommends that you back up the root.sh script after you complete an installation. If you install other products in the same Oracle home directory, then Oracle Universal Installer updates the contents of the existing root.sh script during the installation. If you require information contained in the original root.sh script, then you can recover it from the backed up root.sh file.

5.2.2 Configuring New or Upgraded Databases

Oracle recommends that you run the utlrp.sql script after creating or upgrading a database. This script recompiles all PL/SQL modules that might be in an invalid state, including packages, procedures, and types. This is an optional step but Oracle recommends that you do it during installation and not at a later date.

To run the utlrp.sql script, follow these steps:

  1. Switch the user to oracle.

  2. Use the oraenv or coraenv script to set the environment for the database where you want to run the utlrp.sql script:

    • Bourne, Bash, or Korn shell:

      $ . /usr/local/bin/oraenv
      
    • C shell:

      % source /usr/local/bin/coraenv
      

    When prompted, provide the SID for the database.

  3. Start SQL*Plus, as follows:

    $ sqlplus / AS SYSDBA
    
  4. Start the database in restricted mode and run the utlrp.sql script:

    SQL> @?/rdbms/admin/utlrp.sql
    

5.2.3 Creating and Configuring Additional Operating System Accounts

If required, create additional operating system accounts. Users must be members of the OSDBA or OSOPER groups to connect to the database with administrator privileges.

5.2.3.1 Configuring the Accounts of Oracle Users

Update the startup files of the oracle user and the operating system accounts of Oracle users, specifying the appropriate environment variables in the environment file.

For the Bourne, Bash, or Korn shell, add the environment variables to the .profile file, or the .bash_profile file for the Bash shell on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

For the C shell, add the environment variables to the .login file.

Note:

You can use the oraenv or coraenv script to ensure that Oracle user accounts are updated.

5.2.4 Setting the NLS_LANG Environment Variable

NLS_LANG is an environment variable that specifies the locale behavior for Oracle software. This variable sets the language and territory used by the client application and the database server. It also declares the character set of the client, which is the character set of data entered or displayed by an Oracle client program, such as SQL*Plus.

See Also:

Appendix F, "Configuring Oracle Database Globalization Support" for more information about the NLS_LANG environment variable

5.2.5 Generating the Client Static Library

The client static library (libclntst11.a) is not generated during installation. To link the applications to the client static library, you must first generate it as follows:

  1. Switch the user to oracle.

  2. Set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable to specify the Oracle home directory used by the Oracle Database installation, for example:

    • Bourne, Bash, or Korn shell:

      $ ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1 
      $ export ORACLE_HOME
      
    • C shell:

      % setenv ORACLE_HOME /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1
      
  3. Enter the following command:

    $ $ORACLE_HOME/bin/genclntst
    

5.2.6 Guidelines for Setting Semaphore Parameters

Use the following guidelines only if the default semaphore parameter values are too low to accommodate all Oracle processes:

Note:

Oracle recommends that you see the operating system documentation for more information about setting semaphore parameters.
  1. Calculate the minimum total semaphore requirements using the following formula:

    sum (process parameters of all database instances on the system) + overhead for background processes + system and other application requirements
    
  2. Set semmns (total semaphores systemwide) to this total.

  3. Set semmsl (semaphores per set) to 250.

  4. Set semmni (total semaphores sets) to semmns/semmsl rounded up to the nearest multiple of 1024.

5.2.7 Creating a Fast Recovery Area Disk Group

During installation, by default you can create one disk group. If you plan to add an Oracle Database for a standalone server, then you should create the fast recovery area for database files.

5.2.7.1 About the Fast Recovery Area and the Fast Recovery Area Disk Group

The fast recovery area is a unified storage location for all Oracle Database files related to recovery. Database administrators can define the DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST parameter to the path for the fast recovery area to enable on-disk backups and rapid recovery of data. Enabling rapid backups for recent data can reduce requests to system administrators to retrieve backup tapes for recovery operations.

When you enable fast recovery in the init.ora file, Oracle Database writes all RMAN backups, archive logs, control file automatic backups, and database copies to the fast recovery area. RMAN automatically manages files in the fast recovery area by deleting obsolete backups and archiving files no longer required for recovery.

Oracle recommends that you create a fast recovery area disk group. Oracle Clusterware files and Oracle Database files can be placed on the same disk group, and you can also place fast recovery files in the same disk group. However, Oracle recommends that you create a separate fast recovery disk group to reduce storage device contention.

The fast recovery area is enabled by setting the DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST parameter. The size of the fast recovery area is set with DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE. As a general rule, the larger the fast recovery area, the more useful it becomes. For ease of use, Oracle recommends that you create a fast recovery area disk group on storage devices that can contain at least three days of recovery information. Ideally, the fast recovery area is large enough to hold a copy of all of your data files and control files, the online redo logs, and the archived redo log files needed to recover your database using the data file backups kept under your retention policy.

Multiple databases can use the same fast recovery area. For example, assume you have created a fast recovery area disk group on disks with 150 GB of storage, shared by 3 different databases. You can set the size of the fast recovery for each database depending on the importance of each database. For example, if database1 is your least important database, database2 is of greater importance and database3 is of greatest importance, then you can set different DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST_SIZE settings for each database to meet your retention target for each database: 30 GB for database1, 50 GB for database2, and 70 GB for database3.

5.2.7.2 Creating the Fast Recovery Area Disk Group

To create a fast recovery file disk group:

  1. Go to the Grid home bin directory, and start ASM Configuration Assistant (ASMCA), for example:

    $ cd /u01/grid/bin
    $ ./asmca
    
  2. ASMCA opens at the Disk Groups tab. Click Create to create a new disk group.

  3. The Create Disk Groups window opens.

    In the Disk Group Name field, enter a descriptive name for the fast recovery area group. For example: FRA.

    In the Redundancy section, select the level of redundancy you want to use.

    In the Select Member Disks field, select eligible disks to be added to the fast recovery area, and click OK.

  4. The Diskgroup Creation window opens to inform you when disk group creation is complete. Click OK.

  5. Click Exit.

5.2.8 Enabling and Disabling Database Options

When you install Oracle Database, some options are enabled and others are disabled. To enable or disable a particular database feature for an Oracle home, shut down the database and use the chopt tool. See Example 5-1.

The chopt tool is a command-line utility that is located in the ORACLE_HOME/bin directory. The syntax for chopt is:

chopt [ enable | disable] db_option

The possible values for db_option are described in the following table:

Value Description
dm Oracle Data Mining RDBMS Files
dv Oracle Database Vault
lbac Oracle Label Security
olap Oracle OLAP
partitioning Oracle Partitioning
rat Oracle Real Application Testing
ode_net Oracle Database Extensions for .NET 1.x
ode_net_2 Oracle Database Extensions for .NET 2.0

Example 5-1 Complete Example of Running the Chopt Tool

To enable the Oracle Label Security option in your Oracle binary files, use the following command:

cd %ORACLE_HOME%
srvctl stop database -d myDb
chopt enable lbac
srvctl start database -d myDb

5.3 Required Product-Specific Postinstallation Tasks

The following sections describe product-specific postinstallation tasks that you must perform if you install and intend to use the products mentioned:

Note:

You need only perform postinstallation tasks for products that you intend to use.

5.3.1 Configuring Oracle Net Services

If you have an earlier release of Oracle software installed on this system, you might want to copy information from the Oracle Net tnsnames.ora and listener.ora configuration files from the earlier release to the corresponding files for the new release.

The following sections describe about how to configure the Oracle Net Services:

Note:

The default location for the tnsnames.ora and listener.ora files is the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/ directory. However, you can also use a central location for these files.

Modifying the listener.ora File

If you are upgrading from a previous release of Oracle Database, Oracle recommends that you use the current release of Oracle Net listener instead of the listener from the previous release.

If you have referenced the previous Oracle home directory names in the static listener information, then these directory names must be modified before the listener.ora file can be used in the 11.2 environment.

To use the listener from the current release, copy the static service information from the listener.ora file from the previous release to the version of that file used by the new release.

For any database instances earlier than release 8.0.3, add static service information to the listener.ora file. Oracle Database releases later than release 8.0.3 do not require static service information.

Modifying the tnsnames.ora File

Unless you are using a central tnsnames.ora file, copy Oracle Net Services names and connect descriptors from the earlier release tnsnames.ora file to the version of that file used by the new release.

If necessary, you can also add connection information for additional database instances to the new file.

5.3.2 Configuring Oracle Label Security

If you installed Oracle Label Security, you must configure it in a database before you use it. You can configure Oracle Label Security in two ways; with Oracle Internet Directory integration and without Oracle Internet Directory integration. If you configure Oracle Label Security without Oracle Internet Directory integration, you cannot configure it to use Oracle Internet Directory at a later stage.

Note:

To configure Oracle Label Security with Oracle Internet Directory integration, Oracle Internet Directory must be installed in your environment and the Oracle database must be registered in the directory.

See Also:

Oracle Label Security Administrator's Guide for more information about Oracle Label Security enabled with Oracle Internet Directory

5.3.3 Configuring Oracle Database Vault

If you install Oracle Database Vault, then you must register it in a database. Ensure that you create the Database Vault Owner and, optionally, Database Vault Account Manager administrative accounts before you can use it.

See Also:

Oracle Database Vault Administrator's Guide for information about registering Oracle Database Vault

5.3.4 Configuring Oracle Messaging Gateway

To configure Oracle Messaging Gateway, see the section about Messaging Gateway in Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing User's Guide. When following the instructions listed in that guide, see this section for additional instructions about configuring the listener.ora, tnsnames.ora, and mgw.ora files.

5.3.4.1 Modifying the listener.ora File for External Procedures

To modify the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/listener.ora file for external procedures:

  1. Back up the listener.ora file.

  2. Ensure that the default IPC protocol address for external procedures is set as follows:

    (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL=IPC)(KEY=EXTPROC))
    
  3. Add static service information for a service called mgwextproc by adding lines similar to the following to the SID_LIST parameter for the listener in the listener.ora file:

    (SID_DESC =
        (SID_NAME = mgwextproc)
        (ENVS = "LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/oracle_home/jdk/jre/lib/i386:/oracle_home/jdk/jre/lib/i386/server:/oracle_home/lib")
        (ORACLE_HOME = oracle_home)
        (PROGRAM = extproc)
      )
    

    In this example:

    • The ENVS parameter defines the shared library path environment variable and any other required environment variables.

      In the settings for the shared library path environment variable, you must also add any additional library paths required for non-Oracle messaging systems, for example, WebSphere MQ or TIBCO Rendezvous.

    • oracle_home is the path of the Oracle home directory

    • extproc is the external procedure agent executable file

      The following example shows a sample listener.ora file:

      SID_LIST_LISTENER =
        (SID_LIST =
          (SID_DESC =
            (SID_NAME = PLSExtProc)
            (ORACLE_HOME = /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1)
            (PROGRAM = extproc)
          )
          (SID_DESC =
            (SID_NAME = mgwextproc)
      (ENVS = "LD_LIBRARY_PATH =/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/jdk/jre/lib/i386:/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/jdk/jre/lib/i386/server:
      /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1/lib")
             (ORACLE_HOME = /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1)
             (PROGRAM = extproc)
          )
      )
      

5.3.4.2 Modifying the tnsnames.ora File for External Procedures

To modify the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/tnsnames.ora file for external procedures:

  1. Back up the tnsnames.ora file.

  2. In the tnsnames.ora file, add a connect descriptor with the net service name MGW_AGENT, as follows:

    MGW_AGENT = 
    (DESCRIPTION= 
       (ADDRESS_LIST= (ADDRESS= (PROTOCOL=IPC)(KEY=EXTPROC))) 
       (CONNECT_DATA= (SID=mgwextproc)))
    

    In this example:

    • The value specified for the KEY parameter must match the value specified for that parameter in the IPC protocol address in the listener.ora file.

    • The value of the SID parameter must match the net service name in the listener.ora file that you specified for the Oracle Messaging Gateway external procedure agent in the previous section (mgwextproc).

5.3.4.3 Setting Up the mgw.ora Initialization File

To modify the $ORACLE_HOME/mgw/admin/mgw.ora file for external procedures, set the CLASSPATH environment variable to include the classes in the following table and any additional classes required for Oracle Messaging Gateway to access non-Oracle messaging systems, for example WebSphere MQ or TIBCO Rendezvous classes:

Classes Path
JRE runtime $ORACLE_HOME/jdk/jre/lib/rt.jar
Oracle JDBC $ORACLE_HOME/jdbc/lib/ojdbc5.jar
Oracle internationalization $ORACLE_HOME/jlib/orai18n.jar
SQLJ $ORACLE_HOME/sqlj/lib/runtime12.jar
JMS Interface $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib/jmscommon.jar
Oracle JMS implementation $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib/aqapi.jar
Java Transaction API $ORACLE_HOME/jlib/jta.jar

Note:

All the lines in the mgw.ora file must have fewer than 1024 characters.

5.3.5 Configuring Oracle Precompilers

This section describes postinstallation tasks for Oracle precompilers:

Note:

All precompiler configuration files are located in the $ORACLE_HOME/precomp/admin directory.

5.3.5.1 Configuring Pro*C/C++

Verify that the PATH environment variable setting includes the directory that contains the C compiler executable.

Table 5-1 shows the default directories and the appropriate command to verify the path setting of the compiler.

Table 5-1 C/C++ Compiler Directory

Path Command

/usr/bin

$ which gcc

/opt/intel_cce_80/bin/icc

$ which icc


5.3.5.2 Configuring Pro*FORTRAN

Verify that the PATH environment variable setting includes the directory that contains the FORTRAN compiler executable. You can verify the path setting by using the which xlf command. The path for the FORTRAN executable is /usr/bin.

5.3.6 Configuring Secure Sockets Layer

Oracle recommends that you configure and use a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to ensure that passwords and other sensitive data are not transmitted in clear text in HTTP requests.

See Also:

5.3.7 Installing Oracle Text Supplied Knowledge Bases

An Oracle Text knowledge base is a hierarchical tree of concepts used for theme indexing, ABOUT queries, and deriving themes for document services. If you plan to use any of these Oracle Text features, then you can install two supplied knowledge bases (English and French).

See Also:

5.3.8 Configuring or Reinstalling Oracle XML DB

See Oracle XML DB Developer's Guide for more information about the following tasks:

  • Reinstalling Oracle XML DB

  • Configuring or customizing the Oracle XML DB tablespace

  • Configuring FTP, HTTP/WebDAV port numbers

See Also:

Appendix A of Oracle XML DB Developer's Guide

5.3.9 Configuring and Using Direct NFS Client

Many Oracle products and options must be configured before you use them for the first time. Before using individual Oracle products or options, see the appropriate guide in the product documentation library.

5.3.9.1 Direct NFS Client

With Oracle Database 11g, instead of using the operating system kernel NFS client, you can configure Oracle Database to access NFS V3 servers directly using an Oracle internal Direct NFS client. If Oracle Database cannot open an NFS server using Direct NFS, then Oracle Database uses the platform operating system kernel NFS client. In this case, the kernel NFS mount options must be set up as defined in "Checking NFS Buffer Size Parameters". Additionally, an informational message is logged in the Oracle alert and trace files indicating that Direct NFS could not be established.

The Oracle files available on the NFS server that are served by the Direct NFS Client are also accessible through the operating system kernel NFS client. The usual considerations for maintaining integrity of the Oracle files apply in this situation.

Some NFS file servers require NFS clients to connect using reserved ports. If your filer is running with reserved port checking, then you must disable it for Direct NFS to operate. To disable reserved port checking, see your NFS file server documentation.

Direct NFS may require up to four network paths defined for an NFS server. The Direct NFS client performs load balancing across all specified paths. If a specified path fails, then Direct NFS reissues I/O commands over any remaining paths.

The following sections elaborate on enabling, disabling, checking the buffer size for a Direct NFS Client:

5.3.9.1.1 Enabling a Direct NFS Client

By default Direct NFS serves mount entries found in /etc/mtab. No other configuration is required. You can use oranfstab to specify additional Oracle Database specific options to Direct NFS. For example, you can use oranfstab to specify additional paths for a mount point.

A new Oracle Database specific file oranfstab can be added to either /etc or to $ORACLE_HOME/dbs. When oranfstab is placed in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs, its entries are specific to a single database. However, when oranfstab is placed in /etc, then it is global to all Oracle databases, and hence can contain mount points for all Oracle databases.

Note:

Direct NFS does not work and falls back to the traditional kernel NFS path if the back-end NFS server does not support a write size (wtmax) of 32768 or larger.

Direct NFS determines mount point settings to NFS storage devices based on the configurations in /etc/mtab. Direct NFS looks for the mount point entries in the following order:

  1. $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/oranfstab

  2. /etc/oranfstab

  3. /etc/mtab

It uses the first matched entry as the mount point.

Oracle Database requires that mount points be mounted by the kernel NFS system even when served through Direct NFS.

Complete the following procedure to enable Direct NFS:

  1. You can optionally create an oranfstab file with the following attributes for each NFS server to be accessed using Direct NFS:

    • Server: The NFS server name.

    • Path: Up to four network paths to the NFS server, specified either by IP address, or by name, as displayed using the ifconfig command on the filer.

    • Local: Up to four local paths on the database host, specified by IP address or by name, as displayed using the ifconfig command run on the database host.

    • Export: The exported path from the NFS server.

    • Mount: The corresponding local mount point for the exported volume.

    • Dontroute: Specifies that outgoing messages should not be routed by the operating system, but sent using the IP address they are bound to. Please note that this attribute does not work on Linux with multiple paths in the same subnet.

    • mnt_timeout: Specifies (in seconds) the time for which Direct NFS client should wait for a successful mount before timing out. This parameter is optional and the default timeout is 10 minutes.

    The following is an example of an oranfstab file with two NFS server entries:

    server: MyDataServer1
    local: 145.34.45.12
    path: 132.34.35.12
    local: 132.34.45.13
    path: 132.34.35.13
    dontroute
    export: /vol/oradata1 mount: /mnt/oradata1
    
    server: MyDataServer2
    local: LocalPath1
    path: NfsPath1
    local: LocalPath2
    path: NfsPath2
    local: LocalPath3
    path: NfsPath3
    local: LocalPath4
    path: NfsPath4
    dontroute
    export: /vol/oradata2 mount: /mnt/oradata2
    export: /vol/oradata3 mount: /mnt/oradata3
    export: /vol/oradata4 mount: /mnt/oradata4
    export: /vol/oradata5 mount: /mnt/oradata5
    
  2. Oracle Database is not shipped with Direct NFS enabled by default. To enable Direct NFS, complete the following steps:

    1. Change the directory to $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib.

    2. Enter the following command:

      make -f ins_rdbms.mk dnfs_on
      
5.3.9.1.2 Disabling Direct NFS Client

Complete the following steps to disable the Direct NFS client:

  1. Log in as the Oracle software installation owner, and disable Direct NFS client using the following commands:

    cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib
    make -f ins_rdbms.mk dnfs_off
    
  2. Remove the oranfstab file.

Note:

If you remove an NFS path that Oracle Database is using, then you must restart the database for the change to take effect.
5.3.9.1.3 Checking NFS Buffer Size Parameters

If you are using NFS, then you must set the values for the NFS buffer size parameters rsize and wsize to at least 16384. Oracle recommends that you use the value 32768.

Direct NFS issues writes at wtmax granularity to the NFS server.

For example, to use rsize and wsize buffer settings with the value 32768, then update the /etc/fstab file on each node with an entry similar to the following:

nfs_server:/vol/DATA/oradata /home/oracle/netapp nfs\
rw,bg,hard,nointr,rsize=32768,wsize=32768,tcp,actimeo=0,vers=3,timeo=600

Note:

See your storage vendor documentation for additional information about mount options.

5.4 Postinstallation Tasks for SQL Developer

This section describes tasks that you must complete after you install the software:

5.4.1 Migrating User Settings from Release 1.0

The first time you start SQL Developer after installing it or after adding any extensions, you are asked to migrate your user settings from a previous release. (This occurs regardless of whether there was a previous release on your system.)

Note:

Migration of user settings is supported only from SQL Developer release 1.0 to release 1.1. It is not supported for migration from a prerelease version of 1.1 to release 1.1.

These settings refer to database connections, reports, and certain SQL Developer user preferences that you set in a previous version by clicking Tools and then Preferences. However, some user preferences are not saved, and you must provide them again using the new release.

To migrate your user settings from SQL Developer release 1.0:

  1. Unzip the release 1.1 kit into an empty directory (folder). Do not delete or overwrite the directory into which you unzipped the release 1.0 kit.

  2. When you start SQL Developer release 1.1, click Yes when prompted to migrate the settings from a previous release.

  3. In the dialog box that is displayed, do not accept the default location for the settings. Instead, provide the location of your release 1.0 settings, which might be a folder whose path ends with sqldeveloper/jdev/system.

See Also:

"Migrating Information from Previous Releases" for more information

5.4.2 Migrating Information from Previous Releases

If you used a previous release of SQL Developer or a prerelease version of the current release, and you want to preserve the database connections that you were using, then save your existing database connections in an XML file. To save the connections, right-click the Connections node in the Connections Navigator and select Export Connections. After you complete the installation described in this guide, you can use those connections by right-clicking the Connections node in the Connections Navigator and selecting Import Connections.

To use any user-defined reports or the SQL history from a previous version, see "Location of User-Related Information" for information about where these are located. To use any user-defined reports or the SQL history from release 1.0 with both releases 1.0 and 1.1, you must save them before using release 1.1, because release 1.1 modifies the files to a format that is incompatible with release 1.0.

SQL Developer preferences (specified by clicking Tools and then Preferences) from a prerelease version of the current release cannot currently be saved and reused; you must provide any desired preferences again.

5.4.3 Location of User-Related Information

SQL Developer stores user-related information in several places, with the specific location depending on the operating system and certain environment specifications. User-related information includes user-defined reports, user-defined code examples, SQL Worksheet history, and SQL Developer user preferences.

The user-related information is stored outside the SQL Developer installation directory hierarchy, so that it is preserved if you delete that directory and install a new version. This information is stored in or under the SQLDEVELOPER_USER_DIR location, if defined; otherwise as indicated in the following table.

Table 5-2 shows the typical default locations (under a directory or in a file) for specific types of resources on different operating systems. Note the period in the name of any directory or folder named .sqldeveloper.

Table 5-2 Default Locations for User-Related Information

Resource Type Linux

User-defined reports

~/.sqldeveloper/UserReports.xml

User-defined snippets

~/.sqldeveloper/UserSnippets.xml

SQL history

~/.sqldeveloper/system/

SQL Worksheet archive files

~/.sqldeveloper/tmp/

SQL Developer user preferences

~/.sqldeveloper/system/


SQL Worksheet archive files contain SQL statements that you have entered. These files begin with sqldev and then have a random number (for example, sqldev14356.sql). If you close SQL Developer with a SQL Worksheet open that contains statements, then you are prompted to save these files.

To specify a nondefault SQLDEVELOPER_USER_DIR location, do either of the following:

  • Set the SQLDEVELOPER_USER_DIR environment variable to specify another directory path.

  • Edit the sqldeveloper_install\sqldeveloper\sqldeveloper\bin\sqldeveloper.conf file and substitute the desired directory path for SQLDEVELOPER_USER_DIR in the following line:

    SetUserHomeVariable SQLDEVELOPER_USER_DIR
    

To prevent other users from accessing your user-specific SQL Developer information, you must ensure that the appropriate permissions are set on the directory where that information is stored or on a directory preceding it in the path hierarchy. For example, you may want to ensure that the ~/.sqldeveloper directory is not worldreadable.