Oracle RAC - grid_env of the user oracle

category: solutionz · date: 2016-12-31 · updated: 2026-10-02 · author: LALA

Oracle RAC Solution · Config document · referenced from Database creation and user environments

A small file of environment variables that the user oracle sources to point the current shell at the Grid Infrastructure home and the local ASM instance. It is not run as a script: the alias grid_env in .bash_profile sources it.

Item	Value
Path	`/home/oracle/grid_env`
Shown here	`oradb01`
Deployed on	`oradb01` and `oradb02`, one line differs
Activated with	`grid_env`, an alias for `. /home/oracle/grid_env`
Depends on	`GRID_HOME` and `BASE_PATH` from `.bash_profile`
Counterpart	db_env

The file

bash

ORACLE_SID=+ASM1; export ORACLE_SID
ORACLE_HOME=$GRID_HOME; export ORACLE_HOME
PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$BASE_PATH; export PATH

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/JRE:$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib; export CLASSPATH

On the second node the notes show the first line and ... for the rest:

Host	Line	Value
`oradb01`	`ORACLE_SID`	`+ASM1`
`oradb02`	`ORACLE_SID`	`+ASM2`

The lines one by one:

Line	What it does
`ORACLE_SID=+ASM1`	The local ASM instance instead of the database instance
`ORACLE_HOME=$GRID_HOME`	`/data/u01/app/grid11204`, taken from the variable the profile exports
`PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$BASE_PATH`	Rebuilt from `BASE_PATH`, so the `bin` directory of the database home drops out and the one of the Grid home comes first
`LD_LIBRARY_PATH`, `CLASSPATH`	The same two lines as in the profile, evaluated again with the new `ORACLE_HOME`

The file leaves ORACLE_BASE at /data/u01/app/oracle, the value from the profile of oracle, and it does not change the alias sql, which stays sqlplus / as sysdba. The notes test the switch only by printing ORACLE_HOME; they do not show a connection to the ASM instance made this way.

Oracle ships a switcher of its own: root.sh of both homes put oraenv, coraenv and dbhome into /usr/local/bin, as its output shows. The two hand-written files were used instead; the notes do not say why.