Installing Oracle 11g 64 bit on Rhel 6

Question

I am facing this error when I am running the Installer for Oracle Database 11g 64 bit. While installing at first few attempts it did not gave the error mentioned below but after installing prerequisite rpm it is giving me #./runInstaller

"You are attempting to install 64-bit Oracle on a 32-bit operating system. This is not supported and will not work."

I fired the arch command which tells me x86_64. What rpm do I have to remove or install to resolve this issue?

Answer 1

The runInstaller script generates that error from:

UNAME=/bin/uname
GETCONF=/usr/bin/getconf

...

if [ `$UNAME` = "Linux" ]; then
  if  [  -e $GETCONF ]; then
  value=`$GETCONF LONG_BIT`
    if  [ $value != 64 ]; then
         echo "\"You are attempting to install 64-bit Oracle on a 32-bit operating system.  This is not supported and will not work.\"";
         exit 0;
    fi
  fi
fi

So on your Linux system, /usr/bin/getconf LONG_BIT is returning something other than 64; presumably it's saying 32.

arch is deprecated but uname -m should give you the same x86_64. That is reflecting the hardware, while getconf is reflecting the operating system. The information uname gives with -i and -p will presumably also report x86_64.

So you appear to be running a 32-bit version of RHEL 6 (or at least a 32-bit kernel) on 64-bit hardware. That isn't something you can fix by installing or removing something.

If you are intentionally running a 32-bit operating system then you'll need to install the 32-bit version of Oracle.