Understanding Oracle OPatch Tool And Patching

Oracle ships OPatch as part of the standard product shipment, However, new versions of OPatch are occasionally released to this location https://updates.oracle.com/ARULink/PatchDetails/process_form?patch_num=6880880

Introduction to Opatch

·         Opatch is Oracle supplied utility .

·         OPatch is used for patching Oracle software. 

·         OPatch is a java based utility that allow the application and rolling back of interim patches to an Oracle product

·         The program has sub-commands that may take arguments.

·         OPatch is PLATFORM specific.

Main functionality of Opatch    

Applying the patch
Rollback the patch
Conflict check
Report the installed components and patches

 Set PATH environment variable

Windows: set PATH=%ORACLE_HOME%/OPatch:%PATH%
Unix: export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/OPatch:$PATH

Listing Installed Interim patches

lsinventory option reports what has been installed on the system for a particular Oracle home directory, or for all installations.
    
           Syntax : opatch lsinventory

   Commonly used lsinventory arguments

opatch lsinventory –invPtrLoc (Required when oraInst.loc is not at default  location )
opatch lsinventory -oh
opatch lsinventory -jre
opatch lsinventory -all
opatch lsinventory -detail 

Option used while applying patch

General Syntax
      % cd
      % opatch apply

Commonly used  'opatch apply' command line arguments
opatch apply force
opatch apply no_inventory
opatch apply no_sysmode
opatch apply report