How to install/upgrade the Oracle Client on Enforce for Windows

Products

• Data Loss Prevention
• Data Loss Prevention Enforce
• Data Loss Prevention Oracle Standard Edition 2

Issue/Introduction

On 3-tier installation, you need to have installed the Oracle Client on the Enforce server in order to install or upgrade Enforce.

This guide is intended as a quick starter overview of the install process.
This quick guide is not meant to replace our full installation guides.  For this please review the Oracle documentation for steps to install the Oracle client.

Environment

Please note: This is for an installation with Oracle Database on a separate server as Enforce.  If Oracle server is installed on Enforce, you do not need the Oracle client.

Resolution

How to install/upgrade the Oracle Client on Enforce for Windows

Installing the Oracle Client on a new machine.

.

1. Download and extract the Oracle client from the Broadcom website.  You will need to login to access the download page. For example extract it in the temp folder
2. Open up a command prompt in Administrator mode and run setup.exe.
3. Select installation type as Administrator. This is a requirement for DLP.
   
   
   
   
4. Here we recommend you create a new windows user called oracle and create a password for it and click next. Optionally you can select "Use Windows built-in account" as this will work as well. 
   
   
   
   
5. Next change the Oracle base to read c:\oracle or <drive letter>:\oracle. This will automatically update the software location.
   
   
   
   
6. Click Install.
   
   
   
   
7. Click close and the installation is now complete.
   
   
   
   
8. This final step is optional but highly recommended: Copy tnsnames.ora from the Oracle server and place it in the same folder on Enforce.  The path will be %ORACLE_HOME%\network\admin.

 

 Upgrading Oracle Client on Enforce

While it is technically feasible to upgrade the Oracle client, we DO NOT recommend it. Upgrading really means installing the new version of the client and you will have multiple versions of the Oracle Client installed on the same machine.  

Recommendation is to REMOVE previous version of Oracle Client prior to installing new version. Also would recommend you clear out the ORACLE_HOME system variable if its set.  In steps above we had asked to rename the path to c:\oracle.  This will be greyed out and you will not be able to modify this.  The reason for this is it is controlled by the ORACLE_HOME system variable.  

Windows determines which Oracle client to call based on the PATH system variable.  Modify your environment variables under system properties and specifically the PATH variable so it only includes the path to the new version of the oracle client.  For example lets say the PATH variable looks like:

C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\System32\OpenSSH\;C:\Program Files\AdoptOpenJRE\jdk8u302-b08-jre\bin;C:\oracle\product\19.0.0\client_1\bin;C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;

Here the PATH only shows to the Oracle 19 client installed.  If the 12c client is installed also, the system does not 'see' it.  If another client is installed, and the need arises to revert the system back to the older version of the client, you could modify the PATH variable again and remove the 19c reference and put in the 12c reference again. 

Please note any changes to the variables means you need to refresh the session.  Restart services and open a new command prompt window.