Oracle Client Installation in Silent mode without need of X Server forwarding.

 Oracle Client Installation is required on Application Server(JBoss, WebLogic, WebShear,etc) to connect to Oracle database. While installing Oracle Client is easy on Windows server, it's little cumbersome to install on Unix/Linux because it's require GUI to be invoke and in order to invoke GUI on Unix/Linux there are certain configuration is required, like Port 6000 opening from and to Server where client installation is required  to PC from where SSH terminal is been opened, more over XServer forwarding and SSHD service needs to be started and X Server client/server software like XMing or MobaXTerm, Cygwin/X needs to be installed. Such configuration on production environment in banking, financial domain needs to go through stringent security approval process and it delays overall timing of accomplishing the task.

As you can see installing Oracle Client on Unix/Linux using X Server is not that straight forward, so is there any other easy way forward? Yes. You can perform Oracle client installation using silent method as described below.

Note: Here Oracle Client was installed on AIX OS , but the same steps can be used to install Oracle client in silent mode for any UNIX/Linux platform.

Step#1: Download and Unzipp the Oracle Client Software

Make sure that you download the Oracle Client binaries and unzipped it in appropriate directory. In my case, Oracle software was copied and unziped at below location on the AIX application server.

 /tmp/oracle_client_sw/

Step#2: Modify the response file with required parameters.

Sample reponse file available under the Oracle software needs to be modified as per appropriate parameter suitable for your application server environment. 

./runInstaller -ignoreSysPrereqs -showProgress -silent -responseFile /tmp/oracle_client_sw/client/response/client_install.rsp

$ pwd
/tmp/oracle_client_sw/client
$ cd response
$ ls
client_install.rsp       client_install.rsp.orig  netca.rsp
$ vi client_install.rsp
"client_install.rsp" 107 lines, 5614 characters

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Unix group to be set for the inventory directory.
#----------------------------
UNIX_GROUP_NAME=oinstall
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Inventory location.
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INVENTORY_LOCATION=/app01/oraInventory
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Complete path of the Oracle Home
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORACLE_HOME=/app01/Oracle/product/12.2.0/client_1

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Complete path of the Oracle Base.
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORACLE_BASE=/app01/Oracle

#Example    : INSTALL_TYPE = Administrator
#------------------------------------------------------------------------------
oracle.install.client.installType=Administrator


SELECTED_LANGUAGES=en,ar
 

These are the basic parameters that you may need to change, you change other parameters if required per your need.

Step#3: Perform the Silent Oracle client Installation.

$ pwd
/tmp/oracle_client_sw/client
$  ./runInstaller -ignoreSysPrereqs -showProgress -silent -responseFile /tmp/oracle_client_sw/client/response/client_install.rsp
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking Temp space: must be greater than 231 MB.   Actual 49566 MB    Passed
Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /tmp/OraInstall2020-10-27_02-34-11PM. Please wait ...$ [WARNING] [INS-13014] Target environment does not meet some optional requirements.
   CAUSE: Some of the optional prerequisites are not met. See logs for details. installActions2020-10-27_02-34-11PM.log
   ACTION: Identify the list of failed prerequisite checks from the log: installActions2020-10-27_02-34-11PM.log. Then either from the log file or from installation manual find the appropriate configuration to meet the prerequisites and fix it manually.
You can find the log of this install session at:
 /app01/oraInventory/logs/installActions2020-10-27_02-34-11PM.log

Prepare in progress.
..................................................   6% Done.

Prepare successful.

Copy files in progress.
..................................................   12% Done.
..................................................   17% Done.
..................................................   24% Done.
..................................................   30% Done.
..................................................   35% Done.
..................................................   41% Done.
..................................................   46% Done.
..................................................   52% Done.
..................................................   57% Done.
..................................................   62% Done.

Copy files successful.

Link binaries in progress.

Link binaries successful.

Setup files in progress.
....................
Setup files successful.

Setup Inventory in progress.

Setup Inventory successful.

Finish Setup in progress.

Finish Setup successful.
The installation of Oracle Client 12c was successful.
Please check '/app01/oraInventory/logs/silentInstall2020-10-27_02-34-11PM.log' for more details.

Prepare for configuration steps in progress.

Prepare for configuration steps successful.
..................................................   80% Done.

Oracle Client Configuration in progress.

Oracle Client Configuration successful.
..................................................   96% Done.

As a root user, execute the following script(s):
        1. /app01/oraInventory/orainstRoot.sh



..................................................   100% Done.
Successfully Setup Software.

$

 

As highlighted above in red, while installing client will require you to run orainstRoot.sh script as root user, so open SSH terminal window with root user and execute the script. 

 --execute script as root.

--execute script as root.

root@IPYPRAPP03:[/]#/app01/oraInventory/orainstRoot.sh
Changing permissions of /app01/oraInventory.
Adding read,write permissions for group.
Removing read,write,execute permissions for world.

Changing groupname of /app01/oraInventory to oinstall.
The execution of the script is complete.
root@IPYPRAPP03:[/]#
 

And now our Oracle client installation is complete without need of enabling GUI/X Forwarding option.