Chapter 11. Installing the Oracle 8 i and 9 i Client

After you have configured the Oracle 8i or 9i server, and you have created at least one Oracle database and users, the next step in the process is to get a local PC operational, or "Oracle-smart." (As you will see, an 8 i or 9 i client can access any Oracle 8 database. In addition, an Oracle 8 client can access an 8 i or 9 i database. There is full compatibility between Oracle 8 and Oracle 8 i and 9 i databases.)

Aclient can be made Oracle-smart in two steps:

The Oracle Universal Wizard is used to install the Oracle client software with the proper modules.
The wizard automatically takes you to the necessary network configurations so that your client PC knows where the Oracle database is, what the database name is, and what alias will be used. This will all become clear in the instructions that follow.

Warning

Starting with 8 i , you must use the wizards to configure the network parameters, especially the TNSNAMES.ORA file. With Oracle 8, you could manually change TNSNAMES.ORA . With 8 i and 9 i , this is an absolute no-no. If you do change TNSNAMES.ORA , it will become invisible to the Net8 communications program, and you will receive Oracle error 12154: "Could not resolve service name." Later I'll show you how to add or modify your communications entries. Just do not do it manually!