10gR2 Install Exasperation

Question

From the 10gR2 DB Admin Guide, Chapt 8 - Managing Tablespaces:
"Bigfile tablespaces are supported only for locally managed tablespaces with automatic segment space management, with three exceptions: locally managed undo tablespaces, temporary tablespaces, and the SYSTEM tablespace."
From the 10gR2 SQL Reference - CREATE TABLESPACE:
"Restrictions on Automatic Segment-space Management - This clause is subject to the following restrictions:
* You can specify this clause only for a permanent, locally managed tablespace.
* You cannot specify this clause for the SYSTEM tablespace."
These two citations from the Oracle docs suggest that it should be impossible to create a BIGFILE TEMP tablespace, a BIGFILE UNDO tablespace, and especially a BIGFILE SYSTEM tablespace (since its datafile can not have AUTOMATIC SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT).
Here is my situation –-
I used the Database Creation Assistant (DBCA) in the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI 10.2) to set up a 10gR2 Enterprise Edition custom database. I installed the software, and then I got to the DBCA portion of the install process. It presented the screen that allowed me to change the specifications for the tablespaces to be created in the new database. I was surprised to find that it allowed me to check the BIGFILE checkboxes for the SYSTEM, TEMP, and UNDO tablespaces. I checked them to see what would happen. You would think that I would have gotten an error because of the restrictions placed on BIGFILE tablespaces in the docs. Nope. The DBCA completed without error and my database was created.
Now when I bring up the Oracle Enterprise manager and go to the tablespace maintenance screen, it identifies The SYSTEM, TEMP, and UNDO tablespaces as BIGFILE tablespaces. When I generate the DDL for the tablespace, this is what I find:
SYSTEM tablespace --
CREATE BIGFILE TABLESPACE "SYSTEM" DATAFILE 'H:\ISS\SYSTEM01.DBF' SIZE 440384K REUSE AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 1024K MAXSIZE 33546240M LOGGING EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT MANUAL
TEMP tablespace --
CREATE BIGFILE TEMPORARY TABLESPACE "TEMP" TEMPFILE 'H:\ISS\TEMP01.DBF' SIZE 20544K REUSE AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 640K MAXSIZE 33546240M EXTENT MANAGEMENT LOCAL UNIFORM SIZE 1024K
ALTER DATABASE DEFAULT TEMPORARY TABLESPACE "TEMP"
UNDO tablepsace --
CREATE BIGFILE UNDO TABLESPACE "UNDOTBS1" DATAFILE 'H:\ISS\UNDOTBS01.DBF' SIZE 286784K REUSE AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 5120K MAXSIZE 33546240M
In my next post (Part Two) I will describe my dilemma that relates to this topic.
Part Two follows:
Note that for all three tablespaces the DDL above says that the underlying datafiles are of type BIGFILE. On top of that, the SYSTEM tablespace was created as type BIGFILE even though it has MANUAL SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT. All this contradicts the documentation in the DB Admin Guide.
I can successfully use the OEM to modify the size of the TEMP and UNDO tablespaces, but when I try to use the OEM to modify the size of the SYSTEM tablespace datafile, I get this error:
"Validation Error
Please correct the following error:
bigfiletbs - Bigfile tablespace is supported only for locally managed tablespaces with automatic segment space management as well as undo and temporary tablespaces"
But this error message says that the UNDO and TEMP tablespaces can be of type BIGFILE, which contradicts the quotation from the DB Admin Guide that I reproduced above.
So it seems that the Database Creation Assistant that is run from the Oracle Universal Installer(10.2) will allow you to configure your system tablespace as type BIGFILE and will not generate any errors when it creates your database. But when you try to perform some kind of alteration to the system datafile, only then will you get an error. And the error message will contradict what is stated in the documentation!
Since I cannot change the segment space management of a datafile after it has been created, I am stuck with a SYTEM tablespace that is of an unknown status.
But that's not all ....
When trying to a 10gR2 Enterprise custom installation, I chose only the Partitioning Option, leaving out the other options for which I have no license. I also leave out the Oracle Programmer option. I confirm my selections when the DBCA lists all the options selected. But when the install completes, a query of the v$option view shows that I have OLAP and Spatial installed. When I bring up the OUI to see the installed products, it also lists Oracle Programmer as being installed.
This is getting me really ticked off. I need to get on with setting up Oracle databases for projects that are pending, but Oracle is fighting me by installing, against my specifications, software options for which I have no license. And it seems to contradict its own documentation when it deals with BIGFILE restrictions on system, undo, and temp tablespaces.
How can a process as basic and fundamental as software installation/database creation still be so confusing and unreliable even when we are in the 10th version of this database product? If Oracle acutally has a Quality Control Department which does basic testing of its software before it's released, then how can such obvious and glaring problems escape them?
Will someone from Oracle please let me know what is going on?

Answer 1

Hi, sachin20 --
Thanks for your response. If what you say is true, then the quotation from the DB Admin Guide Chap 8 should have been written this way:
"Locally managed undo tablespaces, temporary tablespaces, and the system tablespace are the only tablespaces that can be BIGFILE tablespaces and not have AUTOMATIC SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT. All other tablespaces must have AUTOMATIC SEGMENT SPACE MANAGEMENT (and therefore be permanent and locally managed) in order to be BIGFILE tablespaces."
That would have made it perfectly clear to me.
So, I can see where I am guilty of misinterpretation. However, the documentation could be clearer with regard to this subject. It was written in a way that could easily lead to the misinterpretation that I seemed to have made. My confusion was further deepened by the fact that the DBCA allowed me the option to specifiy appearantly illegal tablespace configurations and created the database without complaint. Only when I later used the OEM to do a legal operation on the system datafile (change its size) did I get an error notifying me of a problem with my system tablespace configuration.
But this still leaves the issue of the error message that OEM sent me (reproduced in my previous post). The message lists the undo and temporary tablespaces but not the system tablespace as eligible to be a BFTs. This omission contradicts exception #1 in your response above. Perhaps it was just a poorly written error message that was put in the code for the OEM. But it's vague and contradicting documentation like this which make me always uncertain and frustrated, not knowing what is correct whenever I perform DBA tasks using new features.
As for the possibility of the unselected options being automatically installed because of dependencies of other installed options: I did not specify any separately licensed "Enterprise Edition" Option other than the Partitioning Option. The "Oracle Programmer" option is not an "Enterprise Edition" Option, but it does require a separate license, so I made sure to unselect it. My installation was very simple and sparse. The DBCA does suggest that you install such standard options as JVM, XMLDB, and InterMedia, which I did. But it does not seem logical that standard options like those would have dependencies causing the OUI to automatically install expensive, separately licensed products that I did not select. The v$option view and the OUI installed products screen indicate that OLAP, Spatial, and Data Mining somehow got installed.
Can I just use the OUI to uninstall these unwanted options that Oracle loaded automatically, or is removal of these options more problematic than that?
Thanks again for your response!
-- JP