My solution to ORA-12701: CREATE DATABASE character set is not known

Some of our Oracle servers are set up to accommodate EBS.

During the provisioning process of a new oracle server, the Oracle database creation failed with the following errors:

SYS@mydb01>SQL>alter database "mydb01" open resetlogs;
alter database "mydb01" open resetlogs
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00603: ORACLE server session terminated by fatal error
ORA-01092: ORACLE instance terminated. Disconnection forced
ORA-12701: CREATE DATABASE character set is not known

As part of the EBS 12.1.3 installation guide, the parameter ORA_NLS10 is pointing to $ORACLE_HOME/nls/data/9idata, where all the NLS files are unpacked during installation.

However, by default, the ORA_NLS10 variable is pointing to $ORACLE_HOME/nls/data. In my case, this directory does not contain any nls files. They have all been moved to the sub directory 9idata.

As explained in Oracle Suppport Doc ID 1058400.6 "ORA-12701 When Creating a Database": ORA_NLS parameters determine where to find the NLS characterset libraries. If they cannot be found, Oracle cannot create the database with the characterset you have requested. The error was resolved by setting ORA_NLS10 explisitly during installation:

export ORA_NLS10=$ORACLE_HOME/nls/data/9idata

and rerun the installation scripts.

Automatic startup and shutdown script for Oracle databases on the Linux Platform

On most installations of the Oracle database, it is desirable to add a script for automatic startup and shutdown.
This is how to do it.
The instructions holds true for both 11g and 12c.

1. Edit the /etc/oratab file, so that the entry for your database has a Y at the end:

testdb01:/u01/oracle/product/db/112:Y

2. cd /etc/init.d

3. create a file called dbora, and add the following lines to it. Note that you should enter the name of your ORACLE_HOME path and the oracle software installation owner as values for ORA_HOME and ORA_OWNER, respectively:

#! /bin/sh 
# description: Oracle auto start-stop script.
#
# Set ORACLE_HOME to be equivalent to the $ORACLE_HOME
# from which you wish to execute dbstart and dbshut;
#
# Set ORA_OWNER to the user id of the owner of the
# Oracle database in ORACLE_HOME.

ORA_HOME=/u01/oracle/product/db/112
ORA_OWNER=oracle

case "$1" in
'start')
    # Start the Oracle databases:
    # The following command assumes that the oracle login
    # will not prompt the user for any values
    # Remove "&" if you don't want startup as a background process.
    su - $ORA_OWNER -c "$ORA_HOME/bin/dbstart $ORA_HOME" &
    touch /var/lock/subsys/dbora
    ;;

'stop')
    # Stop the Oracle databases:
    # The following command assumes that the oracle login
    # will not prompt the user for any values
    su - $ORA_OWNER -c "$ORA_HOME/bin/dbshut $ORA_HOME" &
    rm -f /var/lock/subsys/dbora
    ;;
esac

4. Set permissions:

# chgrp dba dbora
# chmod 750 dbora

5. Create symlinks to the different run level script directories:

ln -s /etc/init.d/dbora /etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K01dbora
ln -s /etc/init.d/dbora /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S99dbora
ln -s /etc/init.d/dbora /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S99dbora

Verify the symlinks. They should all point back to /etc/init.d/dbora

ls -la /etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K01dbora
ls -la /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S99dbora
ls -la /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S99dbora

What about the listener?
According to Oracle, as long as it has the default name of "LISTENER", you don't need to add it to your startup/shutdown script. If you use a different name, you must add the following line to the /etc/init.d/dbora script:

$ORACLE_HOME/bin/lsnrctl {start|stop} listener_name

The original instructions from Oracle can be found here

How to check whether a library is compiled to 32-bit or 64-bit code on AIX

Use the nm-utility:

"Displays information about symbols in object files, executable files, and object-file libraries."

In the following case, the Library file is 32-bit, since using the -X64 flag is throwing an exception:

nm -X64 /u01/oracle/product/ora11g_client32/mylib.so

0654-210 /u01/oracle/product/ora11g_client32/mylib.so is not valid in the current object file mode.
        Use the -X option to specify the desired object mode.

while using the -X32 flag will produce output similar to the following (abbreviated):

z00u070:ar3u>nm -X32 /u01/oracle/product/ora11g_client32/mylib.so

                     f           -
../../../../../../../src/bos/usr/ccs/lib/libm/m_tables.c f           -
zstcXAForget         U           -
zstcXAOpen           U           -
zstcXAPrepare        U           -
zstcXARecover        U           -
zstcXARollback       U           -
zstcXAStart          U           -

Note that you can use the OBJECT_MODE environment variable and instead execute

export OBJECT_MODE=64
nm /u01/oracle/product/ora11g_client32/mylib.so

How to check whether a library is compiled to 32-bit or 64-bit code on Linux

On Linux, use objdump:

objdump -f /u01/oracle/product/oracle_client32/mylibdir/mylibfile.so
/u01/oracle/product/oracle_client32/mylibdir/mylibfile.so:     file format elf32-i386
architecture: i386, flags 0x00000150:
HAS_SYMS, DYNAMIC, D_PAGED
start address 0x00000560

How to display the currently used ORACLE_HOME from sqlplus

Thanks to my former colleague Laurent Schneider for pointing out a way to display the currently used ORACLE_HOME from within sqlplus:

set lines 200
col oracle_home format a40
set autoprint on
var oracle_home varchar2(255)
exec dbms_system.get_env('ORACLE_HOME',:ORACLE_HOME);

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

ORACLE_HOME
------------------------------

/u01/oracle/product/11204

Note: To automatically display the value of a bind variable created with VARIABLE, use the SET AUTOPRINT command.
ON or OFF controls whether SQL*Plus automatically displays bind variables (referenced in a successful PL/SQL block or used in an EXECUTE command).

Source: Oracle Documentation