Last Friday, on a test box, I installed the July 2007 – Oracle Critical Patch Update.

The target database is a 10.2.0.3 running on Oracle Enterprise Linux 4. No CPU has yet been installed on this database.

I went through the following error while installing the CPU:

[oracle@orcltest 6079591]$ opatch napply ./6079591 -skip_subset -skip_duplicate
Invoking OPatch 10.2.0.3.0

Oracle interim Patch Installer version 10.2.0.3.0
Copyright (c) 2005, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved..

Syntax Error… Unrecognized Command or Option: failed to parse arguments “unknown option ‘-skip_subset’”
Please use the option ‘opatch -help’ to get correct syntax

OPatch failed with error code 14

It turns out I read through the readme file a bit too fast, and skipped the following section:

• 3.2 OPatch Utility Information

3.2 specifies to use OPatch utility release 10.2.0.3.2 or later.

The OPatch 10.2.0.3.2 can be downloaded from Oracle Metalink with patch 4898608.

I strongly suggest to read the July 2007 CPU readme file carefully since there is also new stuff as:

If you have already installed CPUJan2007, CPUApr2007, or CPUApr2007 CPU merge patch, the patch needs to be rolled back first.

Also, a new database CPU patch format is being introduced with the July 2007 CPU, the new format, napply CPU (pronounced “n apply CPU”).

This means, no more:

opatch apply

Use:

opatch napply ./6079591 -skip_subset -skip_duplicate.

Useful links for July’s CPU:

Oracle Critical Patch Update – July 2007

Critical Patch Update Availability Information for Oracle Server and Middleware Products

Critical Patch Update – Introduction to Database Napply CPU Patches

Using Enterprise Manager to achieve grid automation with deployment procedures

Nice to have links for Oracle CPU’s:

Security Technology Center

RSS feed for Oracle Security Alerts

DataCenter Automation and Configuration Management