patch Oracle Database "Unable to create a new central inventory at location ..."

some.. question on internet:

I'm trying to install patch 10.2.0.x for Oracle Database 10g.
I'm getting an "Unable to create a new central inventory at location /u02/oracle/oraInventory" error message.

That's a problem... What's going on?

Anyway we should check permission on "/etc/oraInst.loc", that oracle user can read ,can't it?

Example:

$ ls -l /etc/oraInst.loc

-rwxrwx--- 1 root root 55 May 10 2007 /etc/oraInst.loc

The "oracle" user can not read.

solve by change to 644

$ chmod 644 /etc/oraInst.loc

$ ls -l /etc/oraInst.loc

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 55 May 10 2007 /etc/oraInst.loc

and then try to patch again.......