installer 11.2.0.2 downloadUpdates option

(originally published at Pythian)

The new functionality to download latest patches or either apply saved ones
came with installer of Oracle 11.2.0.2 (Software Updates Option)

It can be used not only through OUI but with silent installation too.
There are several options and variables available to get patches from MOS:
oracle.installer.autoupdates...
MYORACLESUPPORT_...
AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_...

Putting it all together I got the following selection of options and parameters that was started and
successfully completed (operations and their status were logged to logs under oracle inventory):

./runInstaller -silent -responseFile /home/oracle/install/patchset1/database/response/db_install.rsp \
-downloadUpdates \
AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_USERNAME=... \
AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_PASSWORD=... \
oracle.installer.autoupdates.option=MYORACLESUPPORT_DOWNLOAD \
oracle.installer.autoupdates.downloadUpdatesLoc=/tmp/updates

There was nothing displayed for that execution but in log file there were following entries:

INFO: Retrieving list of updates
INFO: UpdateManager: retrieving value for key: UPDATE_VERSION
INFO: UpdateManager: retrieving value for key: UPDATE_VERSION value: 11.2.0.2.0
INFO: UpdateManager: retrieving value for key: UPDATE_BUGID
INFO: UpdateManager: retrieving value for key: UPDATE_BUGID value: 9794229
INFO: Connection to metalink was successful
INFO: No of components in db install : 136

Search on MOS found patch 9794229 called "PLACEHOLDER BUG FOR METADATA XML IN 11202"
which is just a container for possible critical and security patches in the future.
(Worth to note that after recent upgrade MOS exposed very helpful feature to get wget
script to download patches. You will see it in download box when you click on download button)

There is also option of installer to apply already downloaded and saved patches:

oracle.installer.autoupdates.option=OFFLINE_UPDATES
oracle.installer.autoupdates.downloadUpdatesLoc=/tmp/updates

To try the option I downloaded one of the patches for 11.2.0.2 (there are several dozens of them already),
put it under /home/oracle/install/patches, unpacked it there and executed silent installation
without previously used AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_...:

./runInstaller -silent -responseFile /home/oracle/install/patchset1/database/response/db_install.rsp \
AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_USERNAME=... \
AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_PASSWORD=... \
oracle.installer.autoupdates.option=OFFLINE_UPDATES \
oracle.installer.autoupdates.downloadUpdatesLoc=/home/oracle/install/patches

but it failed with error:"[SEVERE] - My Oracle Support Username/Email Address Not Specified"

I replaced AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_... with MYORACLESUPPORT_... parameters
and executed it once more:

./runInstaller -silent -responseFile /home/oracle/install/patchset1/database/response/db_install.rsp \
MYORACLESUPPORT_USERNAME=... \
MYORACLESUPPORT_PASSWORD=... \
oracle.installer.autoupdates.option=OFFLINE_UPDATES \
oracle.installer.autoupdates.downloadUpdatesLoc=/home/oracle/install/patches

and another error appeared:
CAUSE: The location provided is not in the expected directory structure.
ACTION: For auto-updates to work in offline mode,
the location of the downloaded updates should be in a particular format.
Please refer to the doc for details.
The same happened when I executed OUI and chose the same option there.

Unfortunately, search in Oracle documentation had not returned anything but MOS
returned one document related to auto updates in Grid Control (ID 1099123.1) where similar
auto updates feature is used for Grid Control and there is patches.xml file that has all information about
patches and to what product they should be applied.

I copied patch 9794229 "PLACEHOLDER BUG FOR METADATA XML IN 11202" downloaded before and
to /home/oracle/install/patches and unzipped there but installer failed again even I got patches.xml file under the location.

Even there was no success for now to apply already downloaded patches I believe it will be revealed soon
since Auto Update feature can be useful especially when there is no any CPU yet
and installer can execute patches that you decided are applicable for your database environment.

Have a good day!