SAP Basis Tech Supports

Symptom

This note describes the installation and configuration of the Oracle Instant Client in an SAP environment on Unix.
For Windows platforms, please refer to note 998004.
Other terms

Oracle Instant Client
Easy Client
Instant Client Basic
Instant Client Light
genezi
libclntsh.so.10.1, libnnz10.so, libociei.so
classes12.jar, ojdbc14.jar
Reason and Prerequisites

The currently used Oracle Instant Client is not up-to-date.
Solution

Choosing the Recommended Oracle Instant Client Version

An Oracle Instant Client must be installed for all SAP Kernels (ABAP or Java) linked with Oracle release 10.2.
As a general recommendation, the instant client of the latest Oracle 10.2 patchset release that is available on the SAP Service Marketplace should be installed.
Please note:
Oracle Instant Clients of release 10.2.0.2 are no longer supported. Please install a newer instant client version.
Exception: platform Linux on Power (PPC64)
There is currently an issue with instant client 10.2.0.4 on this platform. As a workaround please use IC 10.2.0.2 until this issue is solved!
Oracle Instant Clients of release 10.2.0.4 are recommended at the time of this writing. Please install the instant client version of release 10.2.0.4 that is currently available on the Service Marketplace.Oracle Instant Clients of release 10.2.0.4 will be desupported by July 2010. Oracle 10.2.0.5 is the final Oracle patchset release for Oracle release 10.2.If you continue to run your SAP system with Oracle release 10.2 after July 2010, then you have to replace older versions of Oracle Instant Client and install Oracle Instant Client 10.2.0.5 before August 1st, 2010.
Obtaining the Oracle Instant Client for an SAP Environment

The latest version of the Oracle Instant Client for SAP environments may be downloaded from the Oracle download area on the SAP Service Marketplace:
http://service.sap. com/oracle-download
Database Patches ->
Oracle ->
Oracle <patchset release> ->
Instant Client ->
<platform>
SAP customers are recommended to use only the instant client versions released for SAP from the SAP Service Marketpace!
The instant client packages follow the following naming conventions:
Item name on SMP:OCL_BASIC_< RELEASE>_<WORDSIZE>_<VERSION>.SAR
File name:OCL<RELEASE><WORDSIZE>.SAR
For example, on Linux x86 (32-bit) this would look like:
Item name on SMP:OCL_BASIC_10204_32_V2.SAR
File name:OCL10232.SAR
Using the Oracle Instant Client in an SAP Environment

The Oracle Instant Client contains the complete Oracle client software required for an SAP system in an easy-to-install way. Oracle Instant Clients replace the full client installations (”Oracle-Home-based client”) that were required prior to Oracle release 10.2.
In an SAP environment the Oracle Instant Client is used in the following 3 scenarios:
1. The SAP system runs with SAP Kernel 7.00 and above. This would apply to SAP products such as BS 2005/NW 2004s.2. The SAP system runs with the EX2 kernel. This would currently be the 640_EX2 kernel (see SAP note 1058988).3. The BR*Tools version 7.00 or above are used. This would normally be the case when the database was upgraded to Oracle release 10.2.
The basic philosophy that the version of the client software depends on the version of the SAP kernel still holds good. The SAP kernel 7.00 and above are all linked against Oracle release 10.2. Consequently, the Oracle 10.2 instant client software needs to be installed on all 7.00 kernel based application servers.
The default path for the installed instant client in an SAP environment is
/oracle/client/10x_<wordsize> /instantclient
By default, that path is a symbolic link pointing to a directory
/oracle/client/10x_<wordsize> /instantclient_<release>
For example, on a 64-bit platform and for instant client release 10.2.0.4 the latter directory would be named
/oracle/client/10x_64/instantclient_10204
SAPINST automatically installs the instant client as described above for all new installations based on the 7.00 kernel (and for 6.40-based installations on the IBM PPC platform).
Starting with Oracle release 10.2 it does not make any difference whether the SAP system is a central system (DB/CI) or only an application server. SAPINST installs the instant client in both cases. SAPINST furthermore installs the instant client on the database server, since this is a prerequisite for the BR*Tools version 7.00 to be started as the<sapsid>admuser.
In the following scenarios the Oracle Instant Client needs to be installed manually as described in the following section:
1. The database was upgraded to Oracle 10.2 or newer.2. The PREPARE phase of the upgrade to release 7.00 has to be run.
Manually Installing the Oracle Instant Client in an SAP Environment

Please keep the following in mind when manually installing the Oracle Instant Client:
1. It is recommended to extract the instant client package following the defaults defined by SAP (see previous section).
NEVERunzip or copy instant client packages to directories$ORACLE_HOME/libor$ORACLE_HOME/bin.2. The library search path (LD_LIBRARY_PATH,SHLIB_PATH,LIBPATH)MUSTrefer to only one instant client directory. ItMUST NOTcontain more than one instant client directory or any Oracle Home directory ($ORACLE_HOME/lib), regardless of ordering.3.Under no circumstances set the environment variableORA_NLS10for the<sapsid>admuser.4. Before you replace an instant client with a newer version, stop all your SAP systems, SAP application servers, and any other processes that use the instant client.You cannot replace an instant client of an SAP system while the system is up and running!
Follow the following steps for manually installing a new version of the Oracle Instant Client:
1. Download the instant client package from the SAP Service Marketplace as described in section “Obtaining the Oracle Instant Client for an SAP Environment” of this note.2. Create directory
/oracle/client/10x_64
if that does not already exist.3. Change to directory/oracle/client/10x_64and extract the instant client package by means of
SAPCAR -xvf OCL<RELEASE><WORDSIZE>.SAR
This results in a directoryinstantclient_<release>being created.4. Create a link from
instantclient_<release>
to
instantclient
by means of the following command:
ln -s instantclient_<release> instantclient5. On SAP systems with kernel 7.00 (or above) and ABAP Stack or Double Stack, execute the following additional steps:
Check if the SAP DBSL can load the newly installed instant client correctly. Change to theexedirectory as user<sapsid>admand run thelddcommand ondboraslib.so:
ldd dboraslib.so
If that succeeds, verify that the SAP system is able to connect to the database by means of
R3trans -x
Otherwise, iflddcannot resolve all libraries, then verify the value of the library search path for the<sid>admuser. It should be set as:
/usr/sap/SID/SYS/exe/run:/oracle/client/10x_64/instantclient6. On SAP systems with kernel 7.00 (or above) and Java Stack or Double Stack, execute the following additional steps:
Update all references from the J2EE engine to the JDBC driver jars such that they point to the JDBC driver in the instant client directory. This is described in detail in the SAP Guide’Upgrade to Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2): Unix’in chapter’Changing the Location of the JDBC Driver’.
Oracle Instant Client Versioning

Since release 10.2.0.4, the Oracle Instant Clients released for SAP may be identified by a unique instant client version. For example, the instant client packageOCL_BASIC_10204_32_V2.SARon the SAP Service Marketplace contains the instant client version 2 for 10.2.0.4 on Linux x86 (32-bit). The following section describes how to determine the version of an installed instant client.
Please note that the instant client versions are not synchronized across platforms. In particular, instant clients with identical versions may contain different bug fixes on different platforms. To find out which patches are fixed in a specific instant client, its readme fileSAPIC_READMEshould be consulted.
Oracle Instant Client Compatibility Matrix

The Oracle Instant Client interoperates with any database version that the full Oracle Client interoperates with. For details please see Metalink Note 207303.1: Oracle Client / Server Interoperability Support
The use of Oracle Instant Client 10.1.0.x / 10.2.0.1 is not supported in an SAP environment. For SAP systems the minimum required version of the Oracle Instant Client is 10.2.0.2.
Determining the Oracle Instant Client Version

Starting with release 10.2.0.3 you can determine the instant client version using the genezi utility from the instant client directory itself by calling “genezi -v”.
Since release 10.2.0.4 the instant client packages on SAP Service Marketplace contain a readme file called SAPIC_README that contains more detailed information about
build dateOS and platformOracle patchset releaseinstant client versioninstalled patches
Patching the Oracle Instant Client

Customers are strongly advised not to create their own patched versions of the Oracle Instant Client. Updated versions of the instant client for SAP will be made available for download on the SAP Service Marketplace if this is necessary.
Installing the Oracle Instant Client for Secondary Connections

If you manually install the Oracle Instant Client on a system to open secondary connections to an Oracle instance, you need to make sure that the Oracle Net Services files sqlnet.ora and tnsnames.ora both exist and that the environment variable TNS_ADMIN points to the directory location of these two files.