Installing Oracle XE on Ubuntu 11.04 Desktop in VirtualBox

Download Oracle XE (oracle-xe_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.deb) from:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/express-edition/downloads/102xelinsoft-102048.html

Make sure you have 1GB of swap, or add more as described here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

then:

wget -c http://oss.oracle.com/debian/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/libaio_0.3.104-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libaio_0.3.104-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i oracle-xe_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.deb

Oracle XE can be silently installed, by creating a file (e.g. xe-install.txt) containing:

8080
1521
<sys password>
<system password>
y

Then executing:

sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure < xe-install.txt >> xe-install.log

Open the database home page at:

http://127.0.0.1:8080/apex

To access the database from the Windows host, issue the following command to setup port forwarding:

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage" modifyvm "Ubuntu-11.04" --natpf1 "oracle,tcp,,2521,,1521"

A JDBC like the following can then connect from the host:

hr@//localhost:2521/xe