How to run Oracle APEX in Docker container (Part I)

This is part I: Run Oracle Database and Oracle REST Data Service in container

Oracle has an official GitHub repository for running Oracle Database in Docker containers. I’ll use a single instance Oracle Database Enterprise Edition version 18.3.0 as an example in this guide.

Get the dockerfile from GitHub

git clone https://github.com/oracle/docker-images.git
cd docker-images/OracleDatabase/SingleInstance
ls 18.3.0
./buildDockerImage.sh -v 18.3.0 -e
# -e means Enterprise Edition

For documentation, please check https://github.com/oracle/docker-images/tree/master/OracleDatabase/SingleInstance

Build the docker image

Run following command in your terminal to build the image

docker run --name database -p 1521:1521 -p 5500:5500
            -e ORACLE_SID=ORA18C -e ORACLE_PDB=pdb1 -e ORACLE_PWD=oracle
            -e ORACLE_CHARACTERSET=AL32UTF8
            -v HOST_DIR:CONTAINER_DIR -d -it oracle/database:18.3.0-ee

Note

For now, I suggest use all capital letters for ORACLE_SID. Lower case SID become capitalized in this container and broke shell scripts.

Take a look at your Oracle Database

docker exec -it database /bin/bash  # Enter the terminal inside the container

ps aux | grep pmon                  # List the database process

Now that the database is up and running, let’s move on to Oracle REST Data Service (ORDS). The ORDS docker image was built on top of java docker image. Therefore we need to build the java image first.

Oracle REST Data Service Docker Image

Download Java 8 Binaries

• Accept License and download Java 8 binaries
• Put the downloaded .tar.gz file into docker-images/OracleJava/java-8

Build Java 8 Docker Image

cd docker-images/OracleJava/java-8
./build.sh

Build ORDS Docker Image

cd docker-images/OracleRestDataServices
./buildDockerImage.sh -i
# -i means ignore md5sum. I'm using ORDS 19.1 and its md5sum is not yet available in the repository.

# You can create your own md5sum file locally to ensure security.