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Oracle Intelligent Agent

This chapter describes the Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD and provides configuration information. The reader is supposed to be familiar with Oracle Enterprise Manager (see Oracle9i Intelligent Agent User's Guide and Oracle9i Enterprise Manager, a set of documentation books).

Overview

The Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD is a component of the Oracle9i product set for BS2000/OSD. It runs jobs sent by the Oracle Enterprise Manager, handles events, can start up and shut down a database. Additionally, it can function regardless of the status of the network connection, and it can run even if the database is down.

The agent's primary function is to monitor an Oracle server or servers. However, an Oracle server is not required to run Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD.

A prerequisite for running the Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD is the BS2000/OSD POSIX subsystem.

Running the Installation Script

If you want to use Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD the POSIX part of Oracle for BS2000/OSD has to be installed (see Chapter 3).

Preparing the Agents Environment

After the POSIX part of Oracle for BS2000/OSD is installed, you choose a userid where Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD should run.

The address space of this userid must be at least 256 MB.

This userid and all userid's where you want to run agent jobs needs to be fit for POSIX (/START-POSIX-SHELL should be possible) and in POSIX all of this userid's and the Oracle Installation userid must belong to the same POSIX group (/etc/group).

Then you can install the agents environment by:

/CALL-PROCEDURE $ORACLE920.INSTALL.P.AGENTENV

The script prompts you for a SID (default: ADM) as a qualifier for the agents ORAENV file to be generated and a JOBCLASS (default: JCBATCH) which should be written to the ORAENV variable BGJPAR, which is used to run agent jobs if no special user_BGJPAR is defined.

The script also generates a POSIX file .profile.oracle that can be used to set all environment variables necessary for running the Intelligent Agent. You must ensure that the specified environment variables are set before you run the Intelligent Agent. To achieve this the follwing line is inserted in your POSIX .profile

. $HOME/.profile.oracle

Preparing the Parameter Files

After you have installed the POSIX part of Oracle for BS2000/OSD, you must configure Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD to access the databases you wish to manage. You do this by updating several parameter files influencing Net Services (see below). The contents of all of these files are documented in the Oracle9i Net Services Book Set.

The agent reads the parameter files as it starts up and in this way manages the specified databases. If you make any changes to the contents of these files, the agent will need to be stopped and restarted before the changes will take effect.

The location of the ORATAB file is determined through the shell variable ORATAB which is set in .profile.oracle (default: $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/oratab). For every instance you want to manage you add a line to the ORATAB file. The syntax for this entry is:

oracle_sid:oracle_home:N

where

oracle_sid
sid of your database

oracle_home
directory path where to find network/admin/*.ora files which deal with this sid

N
should be set but has no influence at the moment

Best practice is to have one LISTENER.ORA file with all listeners described and one TNSNAMES.ORA file with all service names described and to have these files located in $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin.

Please note the following:

• The value of the HOST parameter in both LISTENER.ORA and TNSNAMES.ORA must be a host name, not an IP address. While other utilities, such as tnsping, will accept either a host name or an IP address, the agent parses entries in LISTENER.ORA, TNSNAMES.ORA, and ORATAB to create SERVICES.ORA, which contains the list of all valid entries. If your HOST parameter values are all IP addresses, your SERVICES.ORA will be empty, and the agent will not manage any instance.

• If your host supports multiple IP addresses it could be necessary to specify the IP address the agent should listen to. Do this by adding the following lines to SNMP_RW.ORA file, where ip_address is the IP address the PC running Oracle Enterprise Manager will see, when addressing your host.

  DBSNMP.ADDRESS =(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=ip_address)(PORT=1748))
  DBSNMP.SPAWNADDRESS = (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=ip_address)(PORT=1754))
  
  

Preparing the ORAENV file

For every userid you want to run a job through the agent you have to add a line which determines the account of that userid because Oracle Enterprise Manager can only support userid and password as job credentials. The syntax is:

userid_ACCOUNT=account

where

userid
the userid where to run jobs (name_1..8)

account
an account of the userid above (alphanum-name_1..8)

For every instance you want to manage you have to add a line to the ORAENV file describing the BS2000 userid where instances should run. As the agent tries to start a job under this userid to find out if the instance is up or down, you have to add lines for the job credentials of that userid.

sid_USERID=userid
userid_ACCOUNT=ACCOUNT
userid_PASSWORD=PASSWORD

where

sid
the sid of the instance you want to manage (name_1..4)

userid
the userid where the instance runs (name_1..8)

account
an account of the userid above (alphanum-name_1..8)

password
the password of the userid above (c-string_1..8 without quotes)

Preparing the Instance Parameter File

Every Instance you want to be managed from Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD must be configured for remote administration. Don't forget to qualify userids which are used as prefix for filenames like ORAUID with /BS2/ in the ORAENV file.

If you want to use events like oracle/rdbms/fault/alert with access to the alertfile of an instance you have to ensure that the alertfile of that instance is located in POSIX in the $ORACLE_HOME/bdump directory. You achieve this by adding the follwing line in the instance sid.p.oraenv file:

ORAALERT=&ORACLE_HOME/bdump/alert.sid.log

Running the Agent

After the configuration files have been prepared, test the Agent. Be sure, the statements from .profile.oracle have already been executed. Then, test connectivity with the TNSPING command. Only when TNSPING is successful, you should attempt to use the Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD.

• To run the agent start a POSIX shell and type:

  agentctl start
  
  

• To stop the agent start a POSIX shell and type:

  agentctl stop
  
  

• To get the status of the agent start a POSIX shell and type:

  agentctl status
  
  

Use the Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD as described in Oracle9i Enterprise Manager Book Set.

Restrictions

Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD can monitor only servers that are running Oracle9i Release 2.

The collection of data about the host e.g. CPU or disk utilization or events related to them is not supported.

The Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD does not support the SNMP framework. That means, the agent is not integrated within the EMANATE master agent for BS2000/OSD. The agent does not accept any SNMP requests and does not send any SNMP trap. Therefore the Oracle Intelligent Agent for BS2000/OSD is not useable with third party SNMP management systems.