installing Oracle Instantclient on Linux without setting environment variables?

Oracle's instantclient installation instructions specify that the user set LD_LIBRARY_PATH. This is very troublesome to manage for multiple users.

To use the instantclient without setting any environment variables:

Download the instantclient distribution from oracle.com. For doing non-java software development, you will need (assuming Oracle 10.2):

instantclient-basic-linux-x86_64-10.2.0.4.0.zipinstantclient-sdk-linux-x86_64-10.2.0.4.0.zipinstantclient-sqlplus-linux-x86_64-10.2.0.4.0.zip

Unzip the three files. This will give you a directory

instantclient_10_2/

Copy the files to /usr, which is one of the default places the dynamic loader searches.

sudo cp instantclient_10_2/sdk/include/*.h /usr/includesudo cp instantclient_10_2/sqlplus         /usr/binsudo cp instantclient_10_2/*.so*           /usr/lib

If you use tnsnames.ora, copy it to /etc, which is the default global place the oracle runtime searches.

sudo cp tnsnames.ora /etc

Test with

/usr/bin/sqlplus scott/tiger@myoracle

Add the library path to /etc/ld.so.conf, then run /sbin/ldconfig. You don't need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH for libraries installed in standard locations like /usr/lib because these locations are already configured in /etc/ld.so.conf.

You could of course rename sqlplus to sqlplus.real and make a wrapper script:

#!/bin/shif [ "$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" = "" ]then        LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/what/everelse        LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/what/everfiexport LD_LIBRARY_PATHexec sqlplus.real ${1+"$@"}