install cx_oracle for python

Question

Am on Debian 5, I've been trying to install cx_oracle module for python without any success. First, I installed oracle-xe-client and its dependency (followed tutorial in the following link here).

Then, I used the scripts in /usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/client/bin to populate environment variables such as PATH, ORACLE_HOME and NLS_LANG.

Once, this was completed, I tried to run:

sudo easy_install cx_oracle 

But I keep getting the following error:

Searching for cx-oracle Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/cx_oracle/ Reading http://cx-oracle.sourceforge.net Reading http://starship.python.net/crew/atuining Best match: cx-Oracle 5.0.4 Downloading http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/cx-oracle/cx_Oracle-5.0.4.tar.gz?download Processing cx_Oracle-5.0.4.tar.gz Running cx_Oracle-5.0.4/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-xsylvG/cx_Oracle-5.0.4/egg-dist-tmp-8KoqIx error: cannot locate an Oracle software installation 

Any idea what I missed here?

Answer 1

The alternate way, that doesn't require RPMs. You need to be root.

1. Dependencies

   Install the following packages:

   apt-get install python-dev build-essential libaio1 

2. Download Instant Client for Linux x86-64

   Download the following files from Oracle's download site:

   

3. Extract the zip files

   Unzip the downloaded zip files to some directory, I'm using:

   /opt/ora/ 

4. Add environment variables

   Create a file in /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh that includes

   export ORACLE_HOME=/opt/ora/instantclient_11_2 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$ORACLE_HOME 

   Create a file in /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle.conf that includes

   /opt/ora/instantclient_11_2 

   Execute the following command

   sudo ldconfig 

   Note: you may need to reboot to apply settings

5. Create a symlink

   cd $ORACLE_HOME  ln -s libclntsh.so.11.1 libclntsh.so 

6. Install cx_Oracle python package

   • You may install using pip

     pip install cx_Oracle 

   • Or install manually

     Download the cx_Oracle source zip that corresponds with your Python and Oracle version. Then expand the archive, and run from the extracted directory:

     python setup.py build  python setup.py install