Speaking for Linux here?.haven't run into 11.2 RAC on Windows. However, the reasoning for having the GI home outside of the ORACLE_BASE directory is that the root.sh script changes permissions up the directory tree during the GI install. Say that you have the following directory structure: GI Home - /u01/app/11.2.0.2/grid DB Home - /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0.2/dbhome_1 ORACLE_BASE - /u01/app/oracle If you start out the install with /u01/app owned by oracle:oinstall, the root.sh script will do a chmod on /u01/app to be owned by root, along with /u01/app/11.2.0.2 and /u01/app/11.2.0.2/grid. If you installed your GI home to /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0.2/grid, then it would change the permissions on your ORACLE_BASE, thus not allowing the oracle account to create the necessary directory structure under ORACLE_BASE. [acolvin@enkdb01 ~]$ ls -al /u01/app/ total 20 drwxr-xr-x 5 root dba 4096 Dec 3 09:36 . drwxr-xr-x 6 root dba 4096 Dec 3 09:36 .. drwxr-xr-x 3 root dba 4096 Dec 3 09:36 11.2.0.2 drwxr-xr-x 10 oracle dba 4096 Dec 9 10:56 oracle drwxrwx--- 6 oracle dba 4096 Dec 3 11:27 oraInventory Here's the wording from Oracle's documentation - Oracle® Universal Installer and OPatch User's Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) for Windows and UNIX (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/em.112/e12255/oui5_cluster_environment.htm#BABDCECD): Oracle Clusterware Home Directory The Oracle Clusterware home directory is the directory where you choose to install the software for Oracle Clusterware. You must install Oracle Clusterware in a separate home directory. When you run Oracle Universal Installer, it prompts you to specify the path to this directory, as well as a name that identifies it. Oracle recommends that you specify a path similar to the following for the Oracle Clusterware home directory: /u01/crs/oracle/product/11.2.0/app Note: Because you must change the permissions of all of the parent directories of the Oracle Clusterware home directory after installing the software to grant write access only to the root user, the Oracle Clusterware home directory must not be a subdirectory of the Oracle base directory. Andy Colvin Principal Consultant Enkitec andy.colvin@xxxxxxxxxxx http://blog.oracle-ninja.com Office - 972-607-3744 Mobile - 214-763-8140 Andy Colvin Principal Consultant Enkitec andy.colvin@xxxxxxxxxxx http://blog.oracle-ninja.com Office - 972-607-3744 Mobile - 214-763-8140 On Dec 22, 2011, at 6:59 AM, Uzzell, Stephan wrote: > I think I didn't ask exactly what I needed to ask... > > In 10g we separated the CRS and ASM homes (the question of whether that was > best practice or not can be set aside for now); in 11g we cannot, they are > both now the "Grid Infrastructure". > > The question is about how to best set up the directory structure for 11g, on > Windows (Linux is something we are looking to in the future - for now we're a > Windows shop): > > As a side note - does anyone know why the ORACLE_HOME should be outside the > ORACLE_BASE for GI? Ideally, I'd love to have a D:\oracle\11202 folder as the > ORACLE_BASE for both GI and DB, and have a GI and a DB folder within that... > > Since the GI HOME has to be outside the GI BASE, we're moving towards a > structure like: > D:\oracle\GI_BASE --> GI BASE > D:\oracle\11201\GRID --> GI HOME > D:\oracle\11201 --> DB BASE > D:\oracle\11201\DB --> DB HOME > > Some of our earliest installs, though, are not quite that neat. :-) > > I'm wondering if there is a best practice, and what will we find when we move > to 11.2.0.3? Will we be able to re-use the same BASE folders, and just > install new HOMEs? > > Thanks, > stephan > > Stephan Uzzell > > > -----Original Message----- > From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On > Behalf Of Uzzell, Stephan > Sent: Wednesday, 21 December, 2011 11:04 > To: 'oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx' > Subject: 11.2.0.2 RAC Directory Structure > > Morning, all, > We're slowly starting to work with 11.2.0.2 for more of our environments, and > learning some of the tricks and gotchas with it. > > One question that we have not found a logical answer for is handling the > directory structure (we're on Windows, but I suspect this is broader than a > Windows question). In our 10g installs, we aimed for a very simple directory > structure for our three Oracle Homes: > > D:\oracle\1020\CRS > D:\oracle\1020\ASM > D:\oracle\1020\DB > D:\oracle\admin\... for the ASM and DB dump destinations. > > 11g has changed things by a) adding the ORACLE_BASE as something we need to > explicitly define; and b) the out-of-place upgrades. The out-of-place > upgrades are not too much trouble - we'll simply change the directory name > from D:\oracle\11201\... to D:\oracle\11202\... and so on. > > The Oracle Base, however, is something we're struggling to find a best > practice for. For the Grid Infrastructure, the recommendation (and OUI very > strongly suggests this) is to put the ORACLE_HOME outside of the ORACLE_BASE; > for the Database, the Home should be within the Base. > > How do people handle this? Can the two Oracle Bases be the same? > > Any advice on this would be appreciated... > stephan > > Stephan Uzzell > > > -- > //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l > > > -- > //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l > > -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l