Skip to main content

Getting my Oracle Database 12c Release 2 up and running on Mac via Docker

I love to follow in the footsteps of people who are braver, smarter and more knowledgeable than me.

So I was happy to wait till SQL Maria (Maria Colgan) published her blog post on Oracle Database 12c now available on Docker, with step-by-step instructions for taking advantage of the new Docker image for 12.2 now available (specifically, 12.2 via Docker on Github, 12.2 via Docker at the Docker Store).

I am happy to report that I can now connect SQL Developer to my containerized 12.2 database. Thank you, Maria, for a very helpful post!

Now, I am not going to repeat everything Maria already wrote. That would be silly. I will simply point out some things you might find helpful as you do the same thing I did (follow in Maria's footsteps - which, literally, meant lots of copy-pasting rather dumbly).

1. Watch out for those dashes when you copy/paste.

Docker was not responding as expected to my commands and I (well, actually, Gerald) eventually noticed that the dash, copied from the blog post, was too long - it had been translated into a different character. So watch out for that! You might need to retype the command yourself.

I hate that.

:-)

2. Create your own folder for your Oracle Database files. I know it should be obvious. But I am a copy-paste sorta guy, and probably the only one in the world who would copy this command into my terminal and expect it to work:

docker run --name oracle -p 1521:1521 -p 5500:5500 
-v /Users/mcolgan-mac/oradata:/opt/oracle/oradata 
oracle/database:12.2.0.1-ee

And it did - once I created my own folder for the files, and replaced that in the command.

Oh and by the way, that entire command (once you swap out mcolgan-mac for your own foler) needs to be one one line.

After that, everything went very smoothly and, again following Maria's wonderfully clear steps, I had my database up and running.

Then I set up my connection in SQL Developer:



and voila! My own 12.2 database running in a Docker container, on my Mac.

Thanks, Maria!
Thanks, Gerald!
Thanks, Docker!
Thanks, Oracle!



Comments

  1. The image is used to create a container, and the first time the container is created it creates a database, and then subsequently the database is just started. While good for greenfield installations of a new database, how would this compare to a VBOX which has an Enterprise Manager , a repository and multiple databases installed in it? Out of interest, can the same sort of complexity be duplicated in Docker?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Porus,

      The same setup could be accomplished in Docker however, this is really an anti-pattern for containerization. Docker containers are not VM replacements. In the scenario above you would run one or many database containers all with their own databases and run another container (or many if you wish) that runs OEM and its infrastructure. This gives you more flexibility when you need to scale one or just a few of the components. If you just want to have a sandbox environment for OEM and many databases, although doable via Docker, you are probably better off to stick to VBox.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Running out of PGA memory with MULTISET ops? Watch out for DISTINCT!

A PL/SQL team inside Oracle made excellent use of nested tables and MULTISET operators in SQL, blending data in tables with procedurally-generated datasets (nested tables).  All was going well when they hit the dreaded: ORA-04030: out of process memory when trying to allocate 2032 bytes  They asked for my help.  The error occurred on this SELECT: SELECT  *    FROM header_tab trx    WHERE (generated_ntab1 SUBMULTISET OF trx.column_ntab)       AND ((trx.column_ntab MULTISET             EXCEPT DISTINCT generated_ntab2) IS EMPTY) The problem is clearly related to the use of those nested tables. Now, there was clearly sufficient PGA for the nested tables themselves. So the problem was in executing the MULTISET-related functionality. We talked for a bit about dropping the use of nested tables and instead doing everything in SQL, to avoid the PGA error. That would, however require lots of wo...

How to Pick the Limit for BULK COLLECT

This question rolled into my In Box today: In the case of using the LIMIT clause of BULK COLLECT, how do we decide what value to use for the limit? First I give the quick answer, then I provide support for that answer Quick Answer Start with 100. That's the default (and only) setting for cursor FOR loop optimizations. It offers a sweet spot of improved performance over row-by-row and not-too-much PGA memory consumption. Test to see if that's fast enough (likely will be for many cases). If not, try higher values until you reach the performance level you need - and you are not consuming too much PGA memory.  Don't hard-code the limit value: make it a parameter to your subprogram or a constant in a package specification. Don't put anything in the collection you don't need. [from Giulio Dottorini] Remember: each session that runs this code will use that amount of memory. Background When you use BULK COLLECT, you retrieve more than row with each fetch, ...

PL/SQL 101: Save your source code to files

PL/SQL is a database programming language. This means that your source code is compiled into  and executed from within the Oracle Database. There are many fantastic consequences of this fact, many of which are explored in Bryn Llewellyn's Why Use PL/SQL? whitepaper. But this also can mean that developers see the database as the natural repository for the original source code , and this is a bad mistake to make. It's not the sort of mistake any JavaScript or Java or php developer would ever make, because that code is not compiled into the database (well, you can  compile Java into the database, but that's not where 99.99% of all Java code lives). But it's a mistake that apparently too many Oracle Database developers make. So here's the bottom line: Store each PL/SQL program unit in its own file . Use a source code control system to manage those files. Compile them into the database as needed for development and testing. In other words: you should never kee...