Howto: Install Oracle Instant Client and PHP OCI8 module

**elmicha** · November 20th, 2005

If you want to connect to an Oracle database with PHP, you can use Oracle's Instant Client and the oci8 module from pear.

Download the Basic and the SDK packages from http://www.oracle.com/technology/tec...antclient.html. At the time of this writing, the filenames are instantclient-basic-linux32-10.2.0.1-20050713.zip and instantclient-sdk-linux32-10.2.0.1-20050713.zip.

Unzip these files in a new directory, e.g. /opt/oracle/instantclient.

Code:

mkdir -p /opt/oracle/instantclient
cd /opt/oracle/instantclient
unzip instantclient-basic-linux32-10.2.0.1-20050713.zip
unzip instantclient-sdk-linux32-10.2.0.1-20050713.zip
echo /opt/oracle/instantclient >> /etc/ld.so.conf
ldconfig

The previous two lines are supposed to create symlinks named libclntsh.so and libocci.so which we will need later. In my case these symlinks were not created by ldconfig, so I created them manually.

Code:

ln -s libclntsh.so.10.1 libclntsh.so
ln -s libocci.so.10.1 libocci.so

In the next step we will download the oci8 module with pear. Pear is in the php-pear package.

Code:

apt-get install php-pear

"Normally" we should be able to just use pear install oci8 now, but apparently pear is not able to figure out where the instantclient libraries are. So we will just download the oci8 module and build it on our own.

Code:

mkdir -p /usr/local/src
cd /usr/local/src
pear download oci8
tar xzf oci8-1.1.1.tgz
cd oci8-1.1.1
phpize
./configure --with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/opt/oracle/instantclient
make
make install

The oci8-1.1.1.tgz filename will of course change for newer releases.
To enable the oci8 module in the php.ini (/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini and /etc/php5/cli/php.ini), add a line

Code:

extension=oci8.so

(put this line after the examples starting with ;extension).

Now stop and start Apache. You should see the oci8 module in the output of phpinfo().

**mthaddon** · March 24th, 2006

I've followed the instructions, but get the following error when running the ./configure command. Do I need version 3.4 or something (I've seen as a problem elsewhere)?

checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... /lib/cpp
configure: error: C++ preprocessor "/lib/cpp" fails sanity check

Thanks, Tom

**mthaddon** · March 27th, 2006

Solved with:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Thanks, Tom

**bjverde** · April 7th, 2006

for phpize use:

sudo apt-get install php5-dev

**masonite** · July 19th, 2006

An excellent howto! Thanks - you've really saved me!

I tried with the basiclite version that oracle makes available and it didn't work very well (at all) - the issue was that it's missing the libociei.so library.

Be sure to use the full basic client. Currently instantclient-basic-linux32-10.2.0.2-20060331.zip

I also had to set the environ a little as well:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/oracle/instantclient/

Good luck!

**asg123** · July 20th, 2006

At least with Ubuntu 6.06 and oci8-1.2.1 you don't need to compile oci8 extension manually. Just run:

Code:

pecl install oci8

and enter "instantclient,/opt/oracle/instantclient" when it'll prompt for the path to ORACLE_HOME dir

**ehudokai** · July 24th, 2006

Is the module supposed to show up in phpinfo after its installed?

**ehudokai** · July 24th, 2006

Originally Posted by ehudokai

Is the module supposed to show up in phpinfo after its installed?

OK, in answer to my own question there are two extra things I had to do.

in /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini (since I'm using the php_mod) :

Code:

extension=oci8.so

has to be put in there...

For me also, I had to add www-data to the oinstall group to give it access to my oracle files...

Hope that helps someone

**arunsub** · July 25th, 2006

How do I connect to Oracle? I installed everything as said above. I now want to connect to Oracle and see if it works.

ps: I have Oracle XE also installed, so I'm not sure if it will affect the Oracle instant client or it can co-exist with Oracle instant client.

Edit:
Sorry for the confusion. I didn't realize that Oracle instant client is to connect PHP to Oracle Databas. I have Oracle XE installed. Are there any environment variable that needs to be set to access the Oracle XE database I installed?

**Alf Stockton** · July 26th, 2006

As mentioned at http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thre...04923&tstart=0
you set environment variables for Oracle 10g XE in Linux by :-
source /usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/server/bin/oracle_env.sh

this could also be done as
. /usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/server/bin/oracle_env.sh

but don't make the same mistake that I did by leaving out the dot space at the beginning of the above line.

My question is, does this overall solution work for getting OCI8 to access local Oracle databases? I thought instantclient was only for remote DataBases.