25 Patching Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM)

This chapter explains how you can patch Oracle ASM. In particular, this chapter covers the following:

• Getting Started

• Deployment Procedure

• Supported Releases

• Patching a Standalone Oracle ASM in Online Mode

• Patching a Standalone Oracle ASM in Offline Mode

Getting Started

This section helps you get started with this chapter by providing an overview of the steps involved in patching Oracle ASM. Consider this section to be a documentation map to understand the sequence of actions you must perform to successfully patch Oracle ASM. Click the reference links provided against the steps to reach the relevant sections that provide more information.

Table 25-1 Getting Started with Patching Oracle ASM

Step	Description	Reference Links
Step 1	Understanding the Deployment Procedure Understand the Deployment Procedure that is offered by Enterprise Manager Grid Control for patching Oracle ASM. Know how the Deployment Procedure functions, what use cases it covers, and so on.	To learn about the Deployment Procedure, see Deployment Procedure.
Step 2	Knowing About the Supported Releases Know what releases of Oracle ASM can be patched by the Deployment Procedure.	To learn about the releases supported by the Deployment Procedure, see Supported Releases.
Step 3	Selecting the Patching Mode Identify whether the host that runs Enterprise Manager Grid Control has an Internet connection to connect to My Oracle Support. If it has, then choose to patch in online mode. Otherwise, choose to patch in offline mode.	To learn about patching a standalone Oracle ASM in online mode, see Patching a Standalone Oracle ASM in Online Mode. To learn about patching standalone Oracle ASM in offline mode, see Patching a Standalone Oracle ASM in Offline Mode.
Step 4	Meeting the Prerequisites Before you run any Deployment Procedure, you must meet the prerequisites, such as setting up of the environment for online or offline patching, applying mandatory patches, setting up of Oracle Software Library, and so on.	To learn about the prerequisites for patching a standalone Oracle ASM in online mode, see Prerequisites. To learn about the prerequisites for patching a standalone Oracle ASM in offline mode, see Prerequisites.
Step 5	Running the Deployment Procedure Run the Deployment Procedure to successfully patch Oracle ASM.	To patch a standalone Oracle ASM in online mode, follow the steps explained in Patching Procedure. To patch a standalone Oracle ASM in offline mode, follow the steps explained in Patching Procedure.

Deployment Procedure

Enterprise Manager Grid Control offers the following Deployment Procedures for patching Oracle ASM:

• Patch Standalone Oracle ASM

Supported Releases

Using this Deployment Procedure, you can patch the following releases of Oracle ASM:

• Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1.x.x)

• Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2.x.x)

• Oracle Database 11g Release 1 (11.1.x.x)

Patching a Standalone Oracle ASM in Online Mode

This section describes how you can patch a standalone Oracle ASM in online mode, that is, by connecting to My Oracle Support. This option is best suited when you have an Internet connection on the host where Enterprise Manager Grid Control is running.

This section covers the following:

• Prerequisites

• Patching Procedure

Prerequisites

Before running the Deployment Procedure, meet the following prerequisites:

Prerequisites for Designers

• Ensure that you meet the prerequisites described in the following sections:

  • Mandatory Infrastructure Requirements for Provisioning and Patching

  • Optional Infrastructure Requirements

  • Setting Up Infrastructure for Online Patching

• Ensure that you run the Deployment Procedure in the Analyze mode.

Prerequisites for Operators

• Ensure that you use an operating system user that has the privileges to run the Deployment Procedure, and that can switch to root user and run all commands on the target hosts. For example, commands such as mkdir, ls, and so on.

  If you do not have the privileges to do so, that is, if you are using a locked account, then request your administrator (a designer) to either customize the Deployment Procedure to run it as another user or ignore the steps that require special privileges.

  For example, user account A might have the root privileges, but you might use user account B to run the Deployment Procedure. In this case, you can switch from user account B to A by customizing the Deployment Procedure.

  For information about customization, see Chapter 31, "Customizing Steps to Run as Another User".

Patching Procedure

To patch a standalone Oracle ASM instance, follow these steps:

1. In Grid Control, click the Deployments tab.

2. On the Deployments page, in the Deployment Procedure Manager section, click Patch Procedures.

3. On the Deployment Procedure Manager page, in the Procedures subtab, from the table, select Patch Standalone Oracle ASM. Then click Schedule Deployment.

   Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Software Updates page of the Deployment Procedure.

4. On the Software Updates page, do the following:

   1. In the Select Stage Location section, retain the default selection, that is, Enter Stage Location that has the value %emd_root%/EMStage.

      This default value refers to a location on the target host where the ASM to be patched is running. The software updates are downloaded from My Oracle Support to Oracle Software Library, and then staged in this location on the target hosts.

      
      

      You can modify the location if you want to, and click Save. If you save multiple custom locations, then the Select Stage Location option gets enabled and allows you to select any of the saved custom locations the next time you visit the same page.

      Instead of %emd_root%, you can also specify %oracle_home% to indicate the current home location being patched or %perlbin% to indicate the location of perl binary used by Oracle Management Agent (Management Agent).

   2. In the ASM Updates section, click Add to search and select software updates from My Oracle Support. Alternatively, if you have a text file that contains details about the patches, then click Upload From File to select and upload that text file.

      On clicking Add, Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Search and Select Software Updates page. On this page, select Search My Oracle Support, specify the details of the patches you want to search, and click Go.

      Enterprise Manager Grid Control connects to My Oracle Support, searches the patches, and displays details about them on the Search and Select Software Updates page. Select the ones you want to apply using the Deployment Procedure, and click Select.

      On clicking Upload From File, Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Upload File page. On this page, select Upload from Local Machine or Upload from Software Library depending on where the text file is available, click Browse to search and select that file, and then click Upload.

   3. In the Upgrade OPatch section, retain the default selection so that the OPatch software on the target hosts are upgraded before the patches are applied on the ASM targets.

      
      

      Enterprise Manager Grid Control uses OPatch software to apply the one-off patches. It is assumed that this software is already available on the target hosts managed by Oracle Management Agents (Management Agent), but Oracle recommends you to retain the selection so that the existing software is upgraded to the latest release.

   4. In the Black Out Associated Targets section, retain the default selection so that all targets associated with the Oracle home of the ASM target to be patched are blacked out while the patching is in progress.

      
      

   5. In the OPatch Options section, specify any opatch-related options you want to pass while running this Deployment Procedure. For example, if you want the Deployment Procedure to ignore duplicate patches, then specify -skip_duplicate.

      
      

      The following are the options you can specify:

      -skip_duplicate, skips duplicate patches

      -skip_conflict, skips conflicting patches

      -skip_missing_component, skips patches whose components are missing

      -invPtrLoc, the location of oraInst.loc file

      
      

      Note: If you want to specify multiple options, then separate the list with a white space. For example, -skip_duplicate -skip_conflict

      
      

   6. Click Next.

5. On the Target List page, in the Clusterware Targets to be Patched section, click Add to add the database targets that contain the ASM targets you want to patch. Then click Next

6. On the Credentials page, in the Home Credentials section, specify the Oracle home credentials required to patch ASM Oracle homes, and in the Host Credentials section, specify the operating system credentials to log in to the hosts where the ASM targets are present. Then click Next.

   
   
   
   

   Note: When there are Oracle home active steps, the Home Credentials section appears. When there are host-level active steps, the Host Credentials section appears. When Oracle home active steps and host-level active steps are present, both the sections appear.

   
   

   For both sections, choose to use the preferred credentials so that the credentials stored in the Management Repository can be used.

   Of course, you can always override the preferred credentials with a new set of credentials. If you choose to do so, you can specify either a common set of credentials to be used across Oracle homes and hosts, or a unique set of credentials for each Oracle home and host.

   After specifying a new set of credentials to override the preferred credentials, click Save OH Credential if you want to store the new credentials in the Management Repository.

7. On the Schedule page, schedule the Deployment Procedure to run either immediately or later.

   For Instance Name, specify a unique name for this Deployment Procedure instance so that it can be tracked later and reused with the same settings.

8. On the Review page, review the details you have provided for patching the selected databases that contain the ASM instances, and click Analyze. After running the prerequisite checks, click Deploy to patch the selected databases that contain the ASM instances.

Patching a Standalone Oracle ASM in Offline Mode

This section describes how you can patch a standalone Oracle ASM in offline mode, that is, without connecting to My Oracle Support. This option is best suited when you do not have an Internet connection on the host where Enterprise Manager Grid Control is running.

This section covers the following:

• Prerequisites

• Patching Procedure

Prerequisites

Before running the Deployment Procedure, meet the following prerequisites:

Prerequisites for Designers

• Ensure that you meet the prerequisites described in the following sections:

  • Mandatory Infrastructure Requirements for Provisioning and Patching

  • Optional Infrastructure Requirements

  • Setting Up Infrastructure for Offline Patching

• Ensure that you run the Deployment Procedure in the Analyze mode.

Prerequisites for Operators

• Ensure that you use an operating system user that has the privileges to run the Deployment Procedure, and that can switch to root user and run all commands on the target hosts. For example, commands such as mkdir, ls, and so on.

  If you do not have the privileges to do so, that is, if you are using a locked account, then request your administrator (a designer) to either customize the Deployment Procedure to run it as another user or ignore the steps that require special privileges.

  For example, user account A might have the root privileges, but you might use user account B to run the Deployment Procedure. In this case, you can switch from user account B to A by customizing the Deployment Procedure.

  For information about customization, see Chapter 31, "Customizing Steps to Run as Another User".

Patching Procedure

To patch a standalone Oracle ASM instance, follow these steps:

1. In Grid Control, click the Deployments tab.

2. On the Deployments page, in the Deployment Procedure Manager section, click Patch Procedures.

3. On the Deployment Procedure Manager page, in the Procedures subtab, from the table, select Patch Standalone Oracle ASM. Then click Schedule Deployment.

   Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Software Updates page of the Deployment Procedure.

4. On the Software Updates page, do the following:

   1. In the Select Stage Location section, retain the default selection, that is, Enter Stage Location that has the value %emd_root%/EMStage.

      This default value refers to a location on the target host where the ASM to be patched is running. The software updates are downloaded from My Oracle Support to Oracle Software Library, and then staged in this location on the target hosts.

      
      

      You can modify the location if you want to, and click Save. If you save multiple custom locations, then the Select Stage Location option gets enabled and allows you to select any of the saved custom locations the next time you visit the same page.

      Instead of %emd_root%, you can also specify %oracle_home% to indicate the current home location being patched or %perlbin% to indicate the location of perl binary used by Oracle Management Agent (Management Agent).

   2. In the ASM Database Updates section, click Add to search and select software updates from Oracle Software Library (Software Library). Alternatively, if you have a text file that contains details about the patches, then click Upload From File to select and upload that text file.

      On clicking Add, Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Search and Select Software Updates page. On this page, select Search Software Library, specify the details of the patches you want to search, and click Go.

      Enterprise Manager Grid Control searches the patches in the Software Library, and displays details about them on the Search and Select Software Updates page. Select the ones you want to apply using the Deployment Procedure, and click Select.

      On clicking Upload From File, Enterprise Manager Grid Control displays the Upload File page. On this page, select Upload from Local Machine or Upload from Software Library depending on where the text file is available, click Browse to search and select that file, and then click Upload.

   3. In the Upgrade OPatch section, retain the default selection so that the OPatch software on the target hosts are upgraded before the patches are applied on the ASM targets.

      
      

      Enterprise Manager Grid Control uses OPatch software to apply the one-off patches. It is assumed that this software is already available on the target hosts managed by Oracle Management Agents (Management Agent), but Oracle recommends you to retain the selection so that the existing software is upgraded to the latest release.

   4. In the Black Out Associated Targets section, retain the default selection so that all targets associated with the Oracle home of the ASM target to be patched are blacked out while the patching is in progress.

      
      

   5. In the Advanced OPatch Options section, specify any opatch-related options you want to pass while running this Deployment Procedure. For example, if you want the Deployment Procedure to ignore duplicate patches, then specify -skip_duplicate.

      
      

      The following are the options you can specify:

      -skip_duplicate, skips duplicate patches

      -skip_conflict, skips conflicting patches

      -skip_missing_component, skips patches whose components are missing

      -invPtrLoc, the location of oraInst.loc file

      
      

      Note: If you want to specify multiple options, then separate the list with a white space. For example, -skip_duplicate -skip_conflict

      
      

   6. Click Next.

5. On the Target List page, in the Clusterware Targets to be Patched section, click Add to add the database targets that contain the ASM targets you want to patch. Then click Next

6. On the Credentials page, in the Home Credentials section, specify the Oracle home credentials required to patch ASM Oracle homes, and in the Host Credentials section, specify the operating system credentials to log in to the hosts where the ASM targets are present. Then click Next.

   
   
   
   

   Note: When there are Oracle home active steps, the Home Credentials section appears. When there are host-level active steps, the Host Credentials section appears. When Oracle home active steps and host-level active steps are present, both the sections appear.

   
   

   For both sections, choose to use the preferred credentials so that the credentials stored in the Management Repository can be used.

   Of course, you can always override the preferred credentials with a new set of credentials. If you choose to do so, you can specify either a common set of credentials to be used across Oracle homes and hosts, or a unique set of credentials for each Oracle home and host.

   After specifying a new set of credentials to override the preferred credentials, click Save OH Credential if you want to store the new credentials in the Management Repository.

7. On the Schedule page, schedule the Deployment Procedure to run either immediately or later.

   For Instance Name, specify a unique name for this Deployment Procedure instance so that it can be tracked later and reused with the same settings.

8. On the Review page, review the details you have provided for patching the selected databases that contain the ASM instances, and click Analyze. After running the prerequisite checks, click Deploy to patch the selected databases that contain the ASM instances.