Not sure if this has been solved already, but here's how I built DBD-Oracle against the Oracle Instant Client .. Build DBD against Oracle Instant Client SDK Building on ScientificLinux3, perl 5.8.0 (basically RHE3). Need OIC version 10.1.0.3. Download the basic, sqlplus and devel zips. You need to rejiggle the files (not many) to form a reasonable directory structure. Assume $BASE holds your top level directory for installation, then: mkdir $BASE cd $BASE # download instantclient-basic-linux32-10.1.0.3.zip # download instantclient-sqlplus-linux32-10.1.0.3.zip # download instantclient-sdk-linux32-10.1.0.3.zip unzip *.zip # creates dir instantclient10_1 export ORACLE_HOME=${BASE}/instantclient10_1 cd $ORACLE_HOME ln -s libclntsh.so.10.1 libclntsh.so mkdir lib mkdir bin mkdir java mv lib* lib mv sqlplus bin mv glogin.sql bin mv *jar java mv sdk/demo . mv sdk/include . rm -fr sdk export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH export SQLPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin cd .. mkdir perl-modules cd perl-modules wget http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/T/TI/TIMB/DBD-Oracle-1.16.tar.gz tar zxvf DBD-Oracle-1.16.tar.gz # Need to edit the Makefile.PL- here's my diff diff Makefile.PL.orig Makefile.PL 1122a1123,1126 > # Tim Barrass: hacked for Oracle Instant Client > if ( $OH =~ /instantclient/ ) { > $linkvia = "$ENV{ORACLE_HOME}/lib/libclntsh.so"; > } 1254a1259 > "$OH/include", # Tim Barrass, hacked for OIC install from zips perl Makefile.PL prefix=$BASE/perl-modules -m $ORACLE_HOME/demo/demo.mk # If you see WARNING: I could not determine Oracle client version ... # remove the trailing slash from ORACLE_HOME make make install # Create and environment script export BASE=<your base dir> export ORACLE_HOME=${BASE}/instantclient10_1 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH} export PATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin:${PATH} export SQLPATH=${ORACLE_HOME}/bin # Note the trailing end of perl5lib might vary with architecture- # look out for where your DBD-Oracle actually gets installed export PERL5LIB=${ORACLE_HOME}/perl-modules/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i386- linux-thread-multi export TNS_ADMIN=<path to your tnsnames.ora file> # test at will ... Cheers, TimThread Next