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I have installed Oracle 11g, and I can connect as sysman to the Oracle database, but there is no tnsnames.ora file that I can find.

Do I need to generate the tnsnames.ora file myself? If so, where do I place it? If not, how does Oracle generate it for me? If I do need to generate it, what is the appropriate syntax for the file?

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5 Answers 5

Reset to default
19

You can easily create a tnsnames.ora [text] file. It should be in $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/ and should look something like this:

 ORATST=
 (description=
   (address_list=
     (address = (protocol = TCP)(host = fu.bar)(port = 1521))
   )
 (connect_data =
   (service_name=oratst)
 )
)
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2
  • Good answer, although I found that I had to name my file $HOME/.tnsnames.ora; the path suggested in the answer seemed to be ignored by sqlplus.
    – Dawngerpony
    Feb 21, 2017 at 12:21
  • @DuffJ then something is wrong with your environment.
    – miracle173
    May 27, 2017 at 17:55
12

The default directory for a tnsnames.ora file is

/u01/app/oracle/product/<version>/<dbname>/network/admin/tnsnames.ora

Contents:

<alias> = (DESCRIPTION =
    (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = <ip>)(PORT = <port>))
    (CONNECT_DATA =
      (SERVER = DEDICATED)
      (SERVICE_NAME = <dbname>)
    )
  )
  • alias: you can choose this and use it as connection string later on.
  • port: the default is 1521

More info here: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/network.111/b28317/tnsnames.htm

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3
  • 7
    The default directory is nothing of the sort. It's relative to $ORACLE_HOME and therefore will be $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin (where $ORACLE_HOME can be multiple different directories where there's more than one Oracle install/patch level) or can be overrided by the $TNS_ADMIN environment variable. It's completely up to the user where the software resides.
    – Philᵀᴹ
    Nov 7, 2012 at 23:07
  • 4
    Honestly it is the default on a linux system... If you don't touch a thing it will be put there... thus being the default. But $ORACLE_HOME if not tampered with is indeed a better solution.
    – Munchi
    Nov 8, 2012 at 23:44
  • 1
    I have run Oracle on literally hundreds of Linux systems and that is NOT the default, nor is there such a thing. Perhaps you mean that's the example in the documentation, well they had to choose something. There is no Linux distro that I know of that has a /u01 filesystem "by default", you must have created it and told Oracle to use it!
    – Gaius
    Jun 26, 2013 at 8:22
4

If your OS is Windows 10, you can find tnsnames.ora file in the following unc path:

C:\app\myAccount\product\11.2.0\dbhome_1\NETWORK\ADMIN

Where myAccount is your Windows account name.

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3
  • 1
    In other words, it's %ORACLE_HOME%\NETWORK\ADMIN, right?
    – Andriy M
    Sep 13, 2016 at 12:24
  • Yes, that is right. Remember Oracle by default store tnsnames.ora in the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin directory on UNIX operating systems and in the %ORACLE_HOME%\network\admin directory on Windows operating systems.
    – S. Mayol
    Sep 14, 2016 at 18:34
  • $ORACLE_HOME wasn't working for me on my environment, so knowing the full path really helped... just knowing it was in C:\app\... gave me the start I needed and I was able to track it down from there. Saved me hours of searching!
    – Gallus
    Nov 27, 2019 at 11:28
2

$ORACLE_HOME/network/admin is the directory where tnsnames.ora file is created by DBCA and/or NetCA.

$ORACLE_HOME is a path like /u01/app ..., it is an OFA compliant path that the installler uses as default if not overriden by installer.

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1

As far as i know the tnsnames.ora needs to be placed at the <ORA_INSTALL_FOLDER>\product\11.1.0\client_1\network\admin\ folder

Documentation can be found here

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