Oracle Commerce 11 Silent Installation

When working with tools like Vagrant, you need to pack a box with a pre-installed ATG inside. Installing Oracle Commerce manually in a VM before extracting it as a template box is a solution but if the installer supports a silent mode, it's better because the box creation process can be automated.

I made a test by issuing the following command:

$ ./OCPlatform11.1.bin --help

The result of this command is:

Usage: OCPlatform11.1 [-f <path_to_installer_properties_file> | -options]
   (to execute the installer)
 
where options include:
    -?
            show this help text
    -i [swing | console | silent]
            specify the user interface mode for the installer
    -D<name>=<value>
            specify installer properties
    -r <path_to_generate_response_file>
            Generates response file.
The options field may also include the following in case of uninstaller
if it is enabled for Maintenance Mode
    -add <feature_name_1> [feature_name_2 ...]
            Add Specified Features
    -remove <feature_name_1> [feature_name_2 ...]
            Remove Specified Features
    -repair
            Repair Installation
    -uninstall
            Uninstall

You can see that he installer supports a silent mode. It can generate the silent response file for you but you need to manually install Oracle Commerce once. I never tried this on previous versions so I do not really know for how long this has been part of the installer features. Maybe some of you would tell it has been there for a very long time... but it has never been documented!

To generate a response file, you need to run the installer at least once. Do this on a dummy machine (you can create a VM with VirtualBox or use a container). Issue the following command:

$ ./OCPlatform11.1.bin -r /tmp/silent_response.rsp

You then need to manually specify the installation path and other specs etc... This will actually install ATG which is why I suggested you to do this on a VM if you do not want to modify your local install. At the end of the installation, you should get the generated response file called silent_response.rsp in your /tmp folder.

To use the response file, you can just execute:

$ ./OCPlatform11.1.bin -f /tmp/silent_response.rsp -i silent

This should install ATG silently wherever you specified it to in your response file.

Note: This works with Commerce Reference Store installer as well.