Static Version of rlwrap for sqlplus

Quick Summary

If you don’t have root access to a machine, it can be challenging to compile rlwrap (a nice companion to sqlplus). You can compile it on another machine / VM, then use a utility called statifier to produce one binary that includes all of the required dependencies. If you want to just cut to the chase, you can download the version I compiled for OEL 5.6 x64 here.

How to Compile

If you don’t trust what I’ve compiled (and you probably shouldn’t if you care about security), here are the steps to compile your own version.

On a machine or VM that you control running a comparable Linux distribution:

1. Download and compile rlwrap.
2. Download and compile statifier.
3. Compile your static version of rlwrap:

   # statifier /usr/local/bin/rlwrap /tmp/rlwrap_static_x64

Copy the file to your locked-down server (where you don’t have root), then:

1. Put it in some logical directory such as ~/local/bin

2. chmod +x ~/local/bin/*

3. I create a symlink for it (but you could just rename it if you want):

   ln -s ~/local/bin/rlwrap_static_x64 ~/local/bin/rlwrap

4. Edit ~/.bashrc and add it to your path:

   export PATH=$PATH:~/local/bin
   alias sqlplus='rlwrap sqlplus'

5. source ~/.bashrc

More Details

You might be saying, “but Tyler, surely your sys admins trust you with root?”. No, they don’t, and I’m fine with that. I work on a lot of Exadata POVs where we have absurdly tight timeframes. The machines are managed by another group (a group which I have a tremendous amount of respect for). So, I never get root, but that also limits my liability to some degree if something should go wrong.

Yes, I know you can compile the required libraries (gnu readline and ncurses) and set compiler flags to point to different directories for these libraries, but something always goes wrong and I’m tired of hacking around with it.