Installation Guide

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Preparing for Installation

This section discusses the following topics:

 


Installation Overview

This guide describes how to use the installation program to install WebLogic products.

Installation Modes

The installation program can be used in the following modes:

 


Installable Product Components

The installable product components vary depending on the installer that you are using. For example, the WebLogic Server Net installer includes the following components:

For more information about the product components, see Selecting the WebLogic Server Components in Getting Started With Installation.

 


Product Distribution

You can download your software from the Oracle Web site.

The following types of installers are available for download:

 


Installation Prerequisites

The following sections describe the installation prerequisites:

System Requirements

The system requirements for running the installation program are listed in the following table.

Table 2-1 System Requirements 
Component
Requirement
Platform configuration
A supported configuration of hardware, operating system, JDK, and database specific to the product you are installing. See Supported Configurations.
The Supported Configurations document specifies other prerequisites and recommendations, such as recommended versions of the JDK.
Processor
1-GHz CPU
Hard disk drive
A complete installation requires approximately 3.5 GB of disk space.
Memory
A Minimum of 1 GB RAM, although we recommend 2 GB of RAM.
Color bit depth display and size
For Graphical User Interface (GUI) mode installation, 8-bit color depth (256 colors) is required.
For console-mode and silent-mode installation, there is no color bit depth requirement.
JDK
The Products installation program requires a Java run-time environment (JRE) to run. A JRE is bundled in the Windows installation program and in some UNIX installation programs (those with filenames ending in .bin). For other UNIX platforms, the installation program does not install a JDK. Filenames for these installation programs end in .jar. To run the .jar installation programs, you must have the appropriate version of the JDK installed on your system, and include the bin directory of the JDK at the beginning of the PATH variable definition. It is important that you use a JDK because the installation process assigns values to JAVA_HOME and related variables to point to the JDK directory.

Temporary Disk Space Requirements

The installation program uses a temporary directory into which it extracts the files necessary to install the software on the target system. During the installation process, your temporary directory must contain sufficient space to accommodate the compressed Java Run-time Environment (JRE) bundled with the installation program and an uncompressed copy of the JRE that is expanded into the temporary directory. The extracted files are deleted from the temporary directory at the end of the installation process. The files in the temporary directory require approximately 2.5 times the space that is ultimately required for the installation.

By default, the installation program uses the following temporary directories:

Note: If you do not have enough temporary space to run the installation program, you are prompted to specify an alternate directory or exit the installation program.

To make sure that you have adequate temporary space, you may want to allocate an alternate directory for this purpose. To do so, follow the instructions provided in the following table.

Table 2-2 Setting Up the Temporary Directory
Platform
Perform this step . . .
Windows
Do one of the following:
  • Set the TMP system variable to a directory of your choice.
  • If you run the installation program from the command line, include the -Djava.io.tmpdir=tmpdirpath option, replacing tmpdirpath with the full path of the directory that you want to designate as a temporary storage area for the installation program.
  • For example, to set up the temp directory while installing WebLogic Server net installer, execute this command: net_server103_win32.exe -mode=console -Djava.io.tmpdir=C:\Temp

UNIX
Enter the following option on the command line when you start the installation program:
-Djava.io.tmpdir=tmpdirpath
Here tmpdirpath is the full path of the directory that you want to designate as a temporary storage area for the installation program.

Administrator Privileges

When you are installing the software as a user with Administrator privileges, you are presented with the option to create the Start menu shortcuts in the All Users folder, or in the Local User’s Start menu folder. The following table describes the options available.

If you select . . .
The following occurs . . .
All Users
All users registered on the machine are provided with access to the installed software. Subsequently, if users without Administrator privileges use the Configuration Wizard from this installation to create domains, Start menu shortcuts to the domains are not created. In this case, users can manually create shortcuts in their local Start menu folders, if desired.
Local user
Other users registered on this machine will not have access to the Start menu entries for this installation.

If a user without Administrator privileges installs the software, the Start menu entries are created in the user’s local Start menu folder.

 


Selecting Directories for Installation

During the installation process, you need to specify locations for the following directories:

Choosing a Home Directory

When you install your WebLogic software, you are prompted to specify a home directory. This directory serves as a repository for common files that are used by multiple WebLogic products installed on the same machine. For this reason, the home directory can be considered a central support directory for all the WebLogic products installed on your system.

The files in the home directory are essential to ensuring that WebLogic software operates correctly on your system. They facilitate checking of cross-product dependencies during installation.

When you are installing WebLogic software, you are prompted to choose an existing home directory or specify a path to create a new home directory. If you choose to create a new directory, the installation program automatically creates it for you.

Installation Considerations

Functions of the Home Directory

The directories in the home directory vary depending on the installer that you are using. For example, the WebLogic Server installer creates the directories listed in the following table if you have selected all the components for installation.

Table 2-3 Home Directory Description for WebLogic Platform 
Component
Description
jdk<version>
Contains the software for the Sun JDK if it is installed with your software. The JDK provides the Java run-time environment (JRE) and tools for compiling and debugging Java applications.
jrockit_<version>
(Windows and Linux only)
Contains the software for the JRockit JDK installed with your software. The JDK provides the Java run-time environment (JRE) and tools for compiling and debugging Java applications.
logs
Contains a history file that contain information about installation and uninstallation for the home directory.
modules
Contains the modules installed in the Home Directory.
tools
Contains the eclipse packages, features and plugins.
utils
Contains utilities that are used to support the installation of all WebLogic installed in this home directory.For more information on installing patches and maintenance packs, see Installing Patches and Maintenance Packs Using Smart Update.
wlserver_<version>
This directory contains the following directories:
  • common
  • samples
  • server
  • uninstall
workshop_<version>
This directory contains the following directories:
  • common
  • Samples
  • uninstall
  • weblogic-beehive
  • workshop4WP
.home
Contains the information about the home directory.
registry.xml
A registry file that contains a persistent record of all WebLogic products installed on the target system. This registry contains product-related information, such as version number, service pack number, and location of the installation directory.

Note: Do not edit this file manually. Doing so may cause operating problems for the currently installed WebLogic products, or result in installation problems when future products or maintenance upgrades are installed.

registry.dat
This is an encrypted file of registry.xml file.

Note: The directory user_projects does not contain anything when the product is installed on the disk. It is used as the default location for your files when you create domains at the location.

Creating Multiple home Directories

Although it is possible to create more than one home directory, We recommend that you avoid doing so. In almost all situations, a single home directory is sufficient. There may be circumstances, however, in which you prefer to maintain separate development and production environments, with a separate product stack for each. With two directories, you can update your development environment (in a home directory) without modifying the production environment until you are ready to do so.

Choosing a Product Installation Directory

The product installation directory contains all the software components that you choose to install on your system, including program files and examples.

For example, the default installation directories for components of WebLogic Server are shown in the Table 2-4

Table 2-4 Default Product Installation Directories for WebLogic Platform
Product
Product Installation Directory
WebLogic Server
C:\bea\wlserver_<version>
Workshop
C:\bea\workshop_<version>
WebLogic Integration
C:\bea\wli_<version>
WebLogic Portal
C:\bea\wlportal_<version>
Service Bus
C:\bea\osb_<version>

The installation program installs the software components in a product installation directory represented by the WL_HOME variable. If, during your initial installation, you choose to install WebLogic Server only, and not all of the products available for installation, and you later decide to install additional products, such as Workshop (using the same home directory), you are not prompted, during the subsequent installations, to specify a product installation directory. The installation program detects the WL_HOME directory and installs the additional products under it.

 


Choosing the Type of Installation

The installation program provides two types of installation: Complete and Custom.

For a description of the software components provided with your product distribution, see Installable Product Components.

Sample domains preconfigured to use the PointBase database are created only for the installed components.

On Windows and LINUX systems, two JDKs are installed: the JRockit 1.6.0 JDK and the Sun JDK 1.6.0.

 


Generating a Verbose Installation Log

If you launch the installation from the command line or from a script, you can specify the -log option to generate a verbose installation log. The installation log stores messages about events that occur during the installation process, including informational, warning, error, and fatal messages. This type of file can be especially useful for silent installations.

Note: You may see some warning messages in the installation log. However, unless a fatal error occurs, the installation program completes the installation successfully. The installation user interface indicates the success or failure of each installation attempt, and the installation log file includes an entry indicating that the installation was successful.

Syntax

To create a verbose log file during installation, include the -log=full_path_to_log_file option in the command line.

For example, to create a verbose log file for the WebLogic Server net installer, enter:

net_server103_win32.exe -log=C:\logs\server_install.log

The path must specify a file. You cannot create a folder simply by including a name for it in a pathname; your path should specify only existing folders. If your path includes a nonexistent folder when you execute the command, the installation program does not create the log file.


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