Oracle Database 23ai Free on Oracle Linux 8

Option A: Azure Portal

• Open the Oracle DB 23ai Free on OL8 by SecureAnyCloud listing on the Azure Marketplace. Choose Get it now, then Create.
• Configure the basics:
• Subscription: Select your Azure subscription.
• Resource Group: Create a new one or select an existing one.
• Virtual Machine Name: Enter a name for your VM.
• Region: Select your preferred Azure region.
• Size: Select a size for your workload. See "Free edition limits" below for the memory the database uses.
• Under Administrator Account, select SSH public key, keep azureuser as the username and enter your key.
• Under Inbound Port Rules, allow SSH (port 22), ideally from your own network only.
• Choose Review + Create, then Create.

Option B: Azure CLI

The image carries a Marketplace purchase plan, so accept its terms once per subscription, then create the virtual machine. Replace <your-vm-size> with the size you chose:

az vm image terms accept --urn sac1647283583153:oracle-db-23ai-free-oel8:default:latest
az vm create \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name my-oracle-free-vm \
  --image sac1647283583153:oracle-db-23ai-free-oel8:default:latest \
  --size <your-vm-size> \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys \
  --public-ip-sku Standard

Run these commands on your own workstation. Find the public IP, then connect:

az vm show --resource-group myResourceGroup --name my-oracle-free-vm --show-details --query publicIps -o tsv ssh azureuser@<vm-ip>

There is no password to enter. If SSH asks for one, the key your client is offering is not the key you supplied when you created the VM.

On its first boot, the virtual machine starts the database and then sets its per-VM password. On the virtual machines we checked, this finished about two minutes after boot. Check the status with:

systemctl is-active oracle-free-firstboot oracle-free-26ai

Both lines read active when the database is up and your password is ready. While the first boot is still running, the first line reads activating or inactive. Wait a minute and check again.

The first boot runs once. A later reboot keeps your password.

Check the file permissions, then read the file:

sudo ls -l /stage/scripts/oracle-database-credentials.log
sudo cat /stage/scripts/oracle-database-credentials.log

The file belongs to root with mode 0600 (-rw-------), so only root can read it. It records when it was generated. It lists one password, generated for this virtual machine, for the SYSTEM, SYS (connect AS SYSDBA) and PDBADMIN (FREEPDB1 only) accounts, with the local and remote connection details.

Change the passwords after your first login (Step 9).

The database software belongs to the oracle operating system user, whose profile sets ORACLE_HOME, ORACLE_SID=FREE and the PATH. Switch to that user and connect with operating system authentication, which needs no password:

sudo su - oracle sqlplus / as sysdba

SELECT banner_full FROM v$version; SELECT name, open_mode FROM v$pdbs;

The banner reads Oracle AI Database 26ai Free Release 23.26.3.0.0 - Develop, Learn, and Run for Free, and FREEPDB1 is READ WRITE (PDB$SEED is READ ONLY).

To connect to the pluggable database as SYSTEM through the listener, run this command as the oracle user. SQL*Plus asks for the password from Step 4:

sqlplus system@//localhost:1521/FREEPDB1

SQLcl is on the oracle user's path as sql and takes the same connect strings:

sql system@//localhost:1521/FREEPDB1

Oracle Database Free includes AI Vector Search, with a VECTOR column type and the VECTOR_DISTANCE function.

As the oracle user, run sqlplus / as sysdba. This example creates a schema-only account (one that nobody can log in to directly) and a small table of three-number embeddings. It then finds the rows nearest to a query vector:

ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER = FREEPDB1; CREATE USER demo NO AUTHENTICATION DEFAULT TABLESPACE users QUOTA UNLIMITED ON users; ALTER SESSION SET CURRENT_SCHEMA = demo; CREATE TABLE docs (id NUMBER PRIMARY KEY, title VARCHAR2(40), embedding VECTOR(3, FLOAT32)); INSERT INTO docs VALUES (1, 'Backups', '[0.9, 0.1, 0.0]'); INSERT INTO docs VALUES (2, 'Networking', '[0.1, 0.9, 0.1]'); INSERT INTO docs VALUES (3, 'Restores', '[0.8, 0.2, 0.1]'); COMMIT; SELECT title, ROUND(VECTOR_DISTANCE(embedding, VECTOR('[1, 0, 0]'), COSINE), 3) AS distance FROM docs ORDER BY distance FETCH FIRST 2 ROWS ONLY;

TITLE DISTANCE ------------ ---------- Backups .006 Restores .037

Real embeddings have hundreds of dimensions and come from an embedding model. The column type, the distance function and the FETCH FIRST pattern are the same.

JSON Relational Duality works on the same table. This view presents each row as a JSON document that can also be updated:

CREATE JSON RELATIONAL DUALITY VIEW docs_dv AS SELECT JSON {'_id': d.id, 'title': d.title} FROM docs d WITH UPDATE; SELECT json_serialize(data) FROM docs_dv WHERE ROWNUM = 1;

For your own applications, create a normal user with a password (Step 9) instead of using the schema-only demo account.

The listener accepts connections on all interfaces, and the virtual machine's own firewall (firewalld) already allows TCP 1521. Your network security group decides who can reach it. Add an inbound rule for TCP 1521 from your own IP address only:

az network nsg rule create \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --nsg-name my-oracle-free-vmNSG \
  --name allow-oracle-from-my-ip \
  --priority 1010 \
  --access Allow --protocol Tcp --direction Inbound \
  --source-address-prefixes <your-ip>/32 \
  --destination-port-ranges 1521

az vm create names the security group <vm-name>NSG unless you chose one. Then connect from SQL Developer, SQLcl or any Oracle client with these settings:

• Host: the virtual machine's public IP.
• Port: 1521.
• Service name: FREEPDB1.
• User: SYSTEM, or the application user you create in Step 9.

sql system@//<vm-ip>:1521/FREEPDB1

Never open port 1521 to the whole internet.

As the azureuser account, run:

sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-free-26ai status
sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-free-26ai stop
sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-free-26ai start

status reports LISTENER status: RUNNING and FREE Database status: RUNNING. The service is enabled at boot. FREEPDB1 opens in read-write mode again after every start, because its open state is saved.

To see listener details, run:

sudo su - oracle -c 'lsnrctl status'

As the oracle user, run sqlplus / as sysdba, then run these statements:

-- in the CDB ALTER USER SYSTEM IDENTIFIED BY "<new password>"; ALTER USER SYS IDENTIFIED BY "<new password>"; -- in the PDB ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER = FREEPDB1; ALTER USER PDBADMIN IDENTIFIED BY "<new password>"; CREATE USER appuser IDENTIFIED BY "<password>" QUOTA UNLIMITED ON USERS; GRANT DB_DEVELOPER_ROLE TO appuser;

Then connect your application as appuser@//<vm-ip>:1521/FREEPDB1.

The credentials file is not updated when you change a password. Keep the new passwords in your own password manager, and delete or update the file.