DBCA error - TNS-04404, TNS-04414 and TNS-04612

With another 10gR2 db creation with DBCA, it was giving out the following error message -

TNS-04404: no error caused by: oracle.net.config.ConfigException: TNS-04414: File error caused by: TNS-04612: Null RHS for "PWLAB"

After doing some research, I figured out that the above message was coming from a pre-existing entry for database "PWLAB" inside /network/admin/tnsnames.ora.
As expected, after taking off the entry, the error went away and I was able to create the DB!!

DBCA error - unable to copy file oratab to /tmp/oratab

Recently on some old RAC servers running 10gR2, we had a requirement to create a new DB. We started off with dbca but it was erroring out with the following message --

Unable to copy the file "db-xxx:/var/opt/oracle/oratab" to "/tmp/oratab.db-xxx".

The solution was simpler than what I originally thought. After tracing the install, I discovered that it was looking for scp under /usr/bin. The default install on solaris puts this under /usr/local/bin.

After creating a softlink for scp under /usr/bin, I was able to bypass the error.