Question

For the following questions, list the entire path for the indicated file. If you use the variables ORACLE_BASE or ORACLE_HOME, be sure to list their values as well.

• Find the location of the instance of your database (ORCL).
• Find the location of the file init.ora .
  What purpose does this file serve?
• Find the location of the files listener.ora and tnsnames.ora. Identify which file is on the client and which file is on the server.
• Find the location of the file sqlplus.exe .
  What purpose does this file serve?

Answer 1

Answer 1)

You can find your trace files in $ADR_HOME directory which is by default located at $ORACLE_BASE/diag, and the trace file directories for the instance are located at $ORACLE_HOME/diag/$ORACLE_SID. It can be found in the same level as the bdump directory, udump directory, and cdump directory.

Answer 2)

In UNIX the default location of init.ora is $ORACLE_HOME/dbs>. Whereas in Windows we can find the same in the location %ORACLE_HOME%\database.

Answer 3)

Init.ora is a file created by DBA and is responsible for defining the overall instance configuration like file location, internal optimization parameter, and memory allocation for the instance.

Answer 4)

By default, the tnsnames.ora can be found in the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory on both the client-side and the server-side. Similarly, the listener.ora file by default is located in the same $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory on both sides.

Answer 5)

By default, the sqlplus.exe file should be located in the folder C:\oracle\product\10.2 in Windows.

Answer 6)

The file sqlplus.exe is an executable file on computer's harddisk and contains the machine code.