Patching Oracle

That was amazing experience for me, I was first time patching oracle :). The history was starting when I found error message in bdump and cdump directory and it kept growing every time. After got solution from metalink and downloaded the patch then I began patching actvity. Please follow steps below that I've done successfully :

1. Checking the environment
- Perl
bash-2.05$ env | grep -i perl
PERL5LIB=/opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.3:/opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.3/sun4-solaris-thread-multi/:/opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/perl/lib/5.8.3/:/opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/perl/lib/5.8.3/sun4-solaris-thread-multi/
PATH=/opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/Apache/perl/bin:/usr/bin:.:.:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/openwin/bin:/etc:/usr/sbin:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/ucb:/usr/local/bin:/opt/VRTSvxfs/sbin:/opt/VRTSvxvm/bin:/etc/vx/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/usr/local/bin:/opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/bin

- Current patch version
bash-2.05$ /opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/OPatch/opatch lsinventory
Invoking OPatch 10.2.0.3.0

Oracle interim Patch Installer version 10.2.0.3.0
Copyright (c) 2005, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved..


Oracle Home : /opt/oracle/product/10.2.0
Central Inventory : /opt/oracle/orainventory
from : /var/opt/oracle/oraInst.loc
OPatch version : 10.2.0.3.0
OUI version : 10.2.0.3.0
OUI location : /opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/oui
Log file location : /opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/opatch2008-11-14_11-25-32AM.log

Lsinventory Output file location : /opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/cfgtoollogs/opatch/lsinv/lsinventory2008-11-14_11-25-32AM.txt

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Installed Top-level Products (2):

Oracle Database 10g 10.2.0.1.0
Oracle Database 10g Release 2 Patch Set 2 10.2.0.3.0
There are 2 products installed in this Oracle Home.


Interim patches (2) :

Patch 4572043 : applied on Thu Jul 10 00:31:10 WIT 2008
Created on 14 Jun 2007, 04:09:43 hrs PST8PDT
Bugs fixed:
4572043

Patch 5752399 : applied on Fri Mar 16 23:15:29 WIT 2007
Created on 12 Jan 2007, 20:07:35 hrs US/Pacific
Bugs fixed:
5752399


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2. Extract patch package
bash-2.05# unzip p6168288_10203_SOLARIS64.zip
Archive: p6168288_10203_SOLARIS64.zip
creating: 6168288/
creating: 6168288/files/
creating: 6168288/files/lib/
creating: 6168288/files/lib/libserver10.a/
inflating: 6168288/files/lib/libserver10.a/evaa2g.o
creating: 6168288/etc/
creating: 6168288/etc/config/
inflating: 6168288/etc/config/inventory
inflating: 6168288/etc/config/actions
creating: 6168288/etc/xml/
inflating: 6168288/etc/xml/GenericActions.xml
inflating: 6168288/etc/xml/ShiphomeDirectoryStructure.xml
inflating: 6168288/README.txt

3. Shutting down oracle instance
# su - oracle
$ sqlplus / as sysdba
SQL> shutdown immediate;

4. Apply patch
$ cd 6168288/
$ /opt/oracle/product/10.2.0/OPatch/opatch apply
$ exit

5. Ensure the patch has been installed properly using step 1

And finally starting up oracle instance and enjoy the change :)