ORACLE DATABASE on macOS m1/m2 ARM architecture

Oracle Database is not available for the new macOS X ARM architecture and therefore requires a layer of virtualization or containerization to run it over the ARM architecture.

This can be achieved either by installing a VM and using Windows or Linux.

Or we can use a Docker container.

Installing a VM is cumbersome and resource-intensive. Hence, utilize Docker.

Oracle Database on Docker does not run on ARM architecture, so we will utilize the Colima runtime to overcome this.

If you are a Mac user and wish to use Oracle databases, you can also utilize the Oracle Cloud, which is hardware-free. However, for some reason, if you wish to have it on your ARM architecture, you can follow the following steps:

Run Oracle DB Server using Docker inside Colima:

• Check if Colima (Containers in Lima) is installed on your device.
  [Lima is aka Linux on Mac]

    colima --version
  

  OUTPUT: colima version 0.5.4

• If it is not installed, then you can install it from Homebrew, MacPorts, and Nix. Check here for other installation options.

    # Homebrew
    brew install colima
  

    # MacPorts
    sudo port install colima
  

    # Nix
    nix-env -iA nixpkgs.colima
  

  Learn more about Colima at : https://github.com/abiosoft/colima

• Run colima

    colima start --arch x86_64 --memory 4
  

• Install docker if required

    brew install --cask docker
    #or
    brew install docker
  

• Go to Docker 1. Settings -> 2. Resources -> 4. Memory, and set it to 4 GB.

• Create a docker image

docker run -d -p 1521:1521 -e ORACLE_PASSWORD=<your_secure_pwd> -v oracle-volume:/opt/oracle/oradata gvenzl/oracle-xe

• Check if the image is available and running.

docker container ls -a

• Run the docker image if not running

docker start <image_id>

• Enter the int oracle sql bash shell using the following command:

docker exec -it <image_id> bash

Now you can use this as a SQL Bash server and login to it using the following command with your secure password:

sqlplus system/your_secure_pwd@//localhost/XEPDB1

After that, you can create users and connect using the Oracle SQL Developer.

• Stopping docker and colima

  docker stop <image_id>

  colima stop

Next time when you start the server, you only need to start Colima and run this Docker image, and your Oracle Database server will be good to go.