running oracle imp / exp in Ubuntu 14.04.3

Question

After installing the oracle packages

oracle-instantclient12.2-basiclite-12.2.0.1.0-1.x86_64.rpm

and

oracle-instantclient12.2-tools-12.2.0.1.0-1.x86_64.rpm

with alien -i

I want to run the exp utility, but I got an error

root@localhost:/usr/lib/oracle/12.2/client64/bin# ./exp
./exp: error while loading shared libraries: libclntsh.so.12.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

root@localhost:/usr/lib/oracle/12.2/client64/bin# export
declare -x DERBY_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/db"
declare -x HOME="/root"
declare -x J2REDIR="/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre"
declare -x J2SDKDIR="/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle"
declare -x JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle"
declare -x LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
declare -x LD_LIBRARY_PATH=":/usr/lib/oracle/12.2/client64/lib/libclntsh.so.12.1"
declare -x LESSCLOSE="/usr/bin/lesspipe %s %s"
declare -x LESSOPEN="| /usr/bin/lesspipe %s"
declare -x LOGNAME="root"
declare -x LS_COLORS="rs=0:di=01;34:ln=01;36:mh=00:pi=40;33:so=01;35:do=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=40;31;01:su=37;41:sg=30;43:ca=30;41:tw=30;42:ow=34;42:st=37;44:ex=01;32:*.tar=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.arj=01;31:*.taz=01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.lzma=01;31:*.tlz=01;31:*.txz=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.Z=01;31:*.dz=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.lz=01;31:*.xz=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.bz=01;31:*.tbz=01;31:*.tbz2=01;31:*.tz=01;31:*.deb=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.jar=01;31:*.war=01;31:*.ear=01;31:*.sar=01;31:*.rar=01;31:*.ace=01;31:*.zoo=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.7z=01;31:*.rz=01;31:*.jpg=01;35:*.jpeg=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.pbm=01;35:*.pgm=01;35:*.ppm=01;35:*.tga=01;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xpm=01;35:*.tif=01;35:*.tiff=01;35:*.png=01;35:*.svg=01;35:*.svgz=01;35:*.mng=01;35:*.pcx=01;35:*.mov=01;35:*.mpg=01;35:*.mpeg=01;35:*.m2v=01;35:*.mkv=01;35:*.webm=01;35:*.ogm=01;35:*.mp4=01;35:*.m4v=01;35:*.mp4v=01;35:*.vob=01;35:*.qt=01;35:*.nuv=01;35:*.wmv=01;35:*.asf=01;35:*.rm=01;35:*.rmvb=01;35:*.flc=01;35:*.avi=01;35:*.fli=01;35:*.flv=01;35:*.gl=01;35:*.dl=01;35:*.xcf=01;35:*.xwd=01;35:*.yuv=01;35:*.cgm=01;35:*.emf=01;35:*.axv=01;35:*.anx=01;35:*.ogv=01;35:*.ogx=01;35:*.aac=00;36:*.au=00;36:*.flac=00;36:*.mid=00;36:*.midi=00;36:*.mka=00;36:*.mp3=00;36:*.mpc=00;36:*.ogg=00;36:*.ra=00;36:*.wav=00;36:*.axa=00;36:*.oga=00;36:*.spx=00;36:*.xspf=00;36:"
declare -x MAIL="/var/mail/root"
declare -x OLDPWD="/root"
declare -x PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/db/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin"
declare -x PWD="/usr/lib/oracle/12.2/client64/bin"
declare -x SHELL="/bin/bash"
declare -x SHLVL="1"
declare -x SSH_CLIENT="212.166.58.203 58642 22"
declare -x SSH_CONNECTION="212.166.58.203 58642 139.162.221.107 22"
declare -x SSH_TTY="/dev/pts/0"
declare -x TERM="xterm-256color"
declare -x USER="root"
declare -x XDG_RUNTIME_DIR="/run/user/0"
declare -x XDG_SESSION_ID="10"

root@localhost:/usr/lib/oracle/12.2/client64/bin# find -L /usr/lib/oracle -name libclntsh.so.12.1
/usr/lib/oracle/12.2/client64/lib/libclntsh.so.12.1
root@localhost:/usr/lib/oracle/12.2/client64/bin# 

Answer 1

This is normally caused by your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable missing the Oracle libraries. You need to find the folder in which libclntsh.so.12.1 sits and set this environment variable.

Hopefully it's in your Oracle install directory, in which case you can do this:

find -L /usr/lib/oracle -name libclntsh.so.12.1

The -L switch of find follows symlinks. This is not the default behaviour, however, it's possible that libclntsh.so.12.1 is actually a symlink to libclntsh.so.

If you can't find the file then you'll have to traverse your entire directory structure. It might be worth ditching the -L switch for the first time...

find -L / -name libclntsh.so.12.1

Once you've found the file you need to set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH. As just a one off you can use:

 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:/usr/lib/oracle/lib

Where /usr/lib/oracle/lib is replaced with the directory.

If you want to make this change permanent then the normal way on Ubuntu is to add a custom .conf file to /etc/ld.so.conf, see the question "Use shared libraries in /usr/local/lib" on Unix & Linux.