Installing and updating additional (non-Exadata) software packages (RPMs) is allowed on Oracle Exadata database servers as long as the kernel and RDMA Network Fabric packages are not altered.

However, customizing the operating system by adding or updating packages may introduce problems when applying an Oracle Exadata System Software update because the additional software may introduce new dependencies outside the scope of the Exadata update. For this reason, Oracle recommends only minimal and essential customization.

Before Oracle Exadata System Software release 25.1.0, customers managed update issues associated with additional software using various non-integrated approaches. Typically, the most reliable approach was to remove the additional software before performing the Exadata update and then re-install the additional software afterward. This approach required extra work, increasing the maintenance window. Furthermore, removing additional security-related software could conflict with company policies, introduce auditing and compliance issues, and even lock down the server in question.

For updates that do not change the major Oracle Linux version number, Oracle Exadata System Software release 25.1.0 introduces options to update additional non-Exadata software packages as part of an Exadata database server update operation. This integrated capability enables you to easily handle software package dependency issues that arise when additional non-Exadata software packages are installed on the system.

With this capability, you can iteratively run patchmgr with the --precheck option to find and resolve package dependency issues associated with any additional non-Exadata software packages installed on the system. After you understand the additional package updates required for a clean update, you can confidently perform the Exadata database server update and update the additional packages at the same time.