Fully freeware APEX environment I: CentOS & Oracle XE 11g

In my effort to create a fully free APEX environment this post is step 1: Install CentOS-5 and Oracle XE 11g.

This series will consist of a number of posts:

This is post 1, covering the basic installation.

Install CentOS-5

In my first attempts to get to this fulle freeware APEX environment I decided to use Ubuntu server with the GNOME desktop. However I found out that most software is delivered in RedHats RPM format. Especially the Oracle HTTP server preferes to be installed on a RedHat compliant system. CentOS is just that.

Just do a clean install CentOS downloaded from their site. I used version 5. But make sure you use the 64 bit version.

After the clean install I installed the VirtualBox extensions:

  1. Choose “Devices” – “Install Guest Additions”
  2. Open a terminal:
    su -
    cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_4.0.6_71416/
    ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

    This installs the VBox additions. We do need a reboot:

    shutdown -r now

Install Oracle XE 11g beta

  1. Download the installer here.
  2. Open a terminal and go to the directory where you downloaded the ZIP
    mkdir OracleXE
    unzip linux.x64_11gR2_OracleXE.zip -d OracleXE
    su -
    cd /home/apex/Downloads/OracleXE
    rpm -ivh oracle-xe-11.2.0-0.5.x86_64.rpm
  3. We’re still Super so we can kick the configuration straight away:
    /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure

    the installer will ask for a port to run Apex (8080), a port to run the database listener (1521) a password to be used for both SYS and SYSTEM users and whether you’d like to have the database start automatically at system start (y). As a famous dutch beer-commercial states: “now we wait”.

  4. When the installer finishes I put the apex user (the one I use to log in into the system) to the dba group. If we ommit this step we’ll not be able to use SQL*plus as the regular user (in my case this user is called “apex”).
    usermod -G dba apex
  5. Now we need to edit the bashrc file to have the paths and system variables set correctly for everyone on the system.
    gedit /etc/profile

    In the editor at the end of the file add these lines:

    #ORACLE XE 11g Beta
    export ORACLE_SID=XE
    export ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle
    export ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/11.2.0/xe
    export ORACLE_TERM=xterm
    export NLS_LANG=american_america.utf8
    export TNS_ADMIN=$ORACLE_HOME/network/admin
    export ORA_NLS33=$ORACLE_HOME/ocommon/nls/admin/data
    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib
    export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
  6. Now let’s reboot. We’re finished installing XE !
    shutdown -r now
  7. In the menu go to: Applications – Oracle Database 11g…. – Get Started
    This starts the browser and opens the APEX environment. 

    When the page opens correctly we know that:

    1. The database starts automatically
    2. The EPG is running on port 8080

If you continue to use the EPG, you’re ready.

if you want to use a different HTTP server you should continue:

You can also use the APEX listener in a stand-alone mode.

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