How to get orapki without installing the full Fusion Middleware

I was asked recently if there was a way to get the orapki utility without having to install the entire Fusion Middleware. The answer is yes, sort of. So if you need access to this utility but for some reason are not able to use the one that comes with your application server, read on.

The easiest way I could think of doing this was to download and install Oracle JDeveloper 12c on your desktop machine. JDeveloper is free to use, though it is quite large coming in at a ~2Gb download.

Oracle JDeveloper is a free integrated development environment that simplifies the development of Java-based applications addressing every step of the application lifecycle.
JDeveloper offers complete end-to-end development for Oracle's platform and Oracle's applications.

Once JDev is installed, orapki can be found in the following locations:

OS X

~/Oracle/Middleware/Oracle_Home/oracle_common/bin/orapki

Windows

C:\Oracle\Middleware\Oracle_Home\oracle_common\bin\orapki.bat

The reason I said 'sort of' earlier is because JDeveloper installs a copy of Fusion Middleware for you. It's not quite the same as the one you get when you install a production version but for development it serves the same purpose.

When downloading JDeveloper make sure to select the 'Studio' edition because the 'Java' edition doesn't include the middle tier and its tooling.

-i