Sun Cluster Data Service for Oracle Guide for Solaris OS

Preparing the Nodes and Disks

This section contains the procedures that you need to prepare the nodes and disks.

ProcedureHow to Prepare the Nodes

Use this procedure to prepare for the installation and configuration of Oracle software.


Caution – Caution –

Perform all of the steps in this section on all the nodes. If you do not perform all of the steps on all of the nodes, the Oracle installation is incomplete. An incomplete Oracle installation causes Sun Cluster HA for Oracle to fail during startup.



Note –

Consult the Oracle documentation before you perform this procedure.


The following steps prepare your nodes and install the Oracle software.

  1. Become superuser on all of the cluster members.

  2. Configure the cluster file system for Sun Cluster HA for Oracle.


    Caution – Caution –

    Raw devices from Sun Cluster device groups are not supported in non-global zones.


    If raw devices contain the databases, configure the global devices for raw device access. See the Sun Cluster Software Installation Guide for Solaris OS for information about how to configure global devices.

    If you use the Solaris Volume Manager software, configure the Oracle software to use UNIX file system (UFS) logging on mirrored metadevices or raw-mirrored metadevices. See the Solaris Volume Manager documentation for more information about how to configure raw-mirrored metadevices.

    If you use the Solaris Zettabyte File System (ZFS) for Oracle files, configure a highly available local ZFS. For more information, see How to Set Up the HAStoragePlus Resource Type to Make a Local Solaris ZFS Highly Available in Sun Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide for Solaris OS.

    If you use the Sun QFS file system, configure the Sun QFS file system for using with Oracle. For more information on configuring the Sun QFS file system, see Using the Sun QFS Shared File System in Sun Cluster Data Service for Oracle RAC Guide for Solaris OS.

  3. Prepare the $ORACLE_HOME directory on a local or multihost disk.


    Note –

    If you install the Oracle binaries on a local disk, use a separate disk if possible. Installing the Oracle binaries on a separate disk prevents the binaries from overwrites during operating environment reinstallation. When you use ASM you should create two $ORACLE_HOME directories, one $ORACLE_HOME directory for the Oracle database and the additional $ORACLE_HOME directory for ASM.


  4. On each node or zone, create an entry for the database administrator (DBA) group in the /etc/group file, and add potential users to the group.

    You typically name the DBA group dba. Verify that the oracle users are members of the dba group, and add entries as necessary for other DBA users. Ensure that the group IDs are the same on all of the nodes or zones that run Sun Cluster HA for Oracle, as the following example illustrates.


    dba:*:520:root,oracle

    If you use ASM, you should add an additional entry for the DBA group in the /etc/group file for ASM.


    dba:*:520:root,oracle,oraasm

    You can create group entries in a network name service (for example, NIS or NIS+). If you create group entries in this way, add your entries to the local /etc/inet/hosts file to eliminate dependency on the network name service.

  5. On each node or zone, create an entry for the Oracle user ID (oracle).

    You typically name the Oracle user ID oracle. The following command updates the /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files with an entry for the Oracle user ID.


    # useradd -u 120 -g dba -d /Oracle-home oracle
    

    Ensure that the oracle user entry is the same on all the nodes or zones that run Sun Cluster HA for Oracle.

    If you use ASM, you should create an additional Oracle user ID for ASM.


    # useradd -u 121 -g dba -d /asm-home oraasm
    
  6. If you are using Oracle database 10.2.0.3 or higher, you should perform the following steps on each Solaris zone.


    Note –

    You must perform these steps while creating a zone. If you fail to perform these steps, it results in an error. To resolve the error, you should set the necessary privileges and then run ORACLE_HOME/bin/localconfig reset ORACLE_HOME.



    # zoneadm -Z zcname halt
    zonecfg -Z zcname info limitpriv
    zoneadm -Z zcname set limitpriv=default,proc_priocntl
    zoneadm -Z zcname info limitpriv
    zoneadm -Z zcname boot
    

ProcedureHow to Configure the Oracle Database Access Using Solaris Volume Manager

Use this procedure to configure the Oracle database using Solaris Volume Manager.


Note –

You can run this procedure only in the global zone.


  1. Configure the disk devices for the Solaris Volume Manager software to use.

    See the Sun Cluster Software Installation Guide for Solaris OS for information about how to configure the Solaris Volume Manager software.

  2. If you use raw devices to contain the databases, run the following commands to change each raw-mirrored metadevice's owner, group, and mode.

    If you do not use raw devices, do not perform this step.

    1. If you create raw devices, run the following commands for each device on each node that can master the Oracle resource group.


      # chown oracle /dev/md/metaset/rdsk/dn
      # chgrp dba /dev/md/metaset/rdsk/dn
      # chmod 600 /dev/md/metaset/rdsk/dn
      
      metaset

      Specifies the name of the diskset

      /rdsk/dn

      Specifies the name of the raw disk device within the metaset diskset

    2. Verify that the changes are effective.


      # ls -lL /dev/md/metaset/rdsk/dn
      

ProcedureHow to Configure the Oracle Database Access Using Veritas Volume Manager

Use this procedure to configure the Oracle database using Veritas Volume Manager software.


Note –

You can run this procedure only in the global zone.


  1. Configure the disk devices for the VxVM software to use.

    See the Sun Cluster Software Installation Guide for Solaris OS for information about how to configure Veritas Volume Manager.

  2. If you use raw devices to contain the databases, run the following commands on the current disk-group primary to change each device's owner, group, and mode.

    If you do not use raw devices, do not perform this step.

    1. If you create raw devices, run the following command for each raw device.


      # vxedit -g diskgroup set user=oracle group=dba mode=600 volume
      
      diskgroup

      Specifies the name of the disk group

      volume

      Specifies the name of the raw device within the disk group

    2. Verify that the changes are effective.


      # ls -lL /dev/vx/rdsk/diskgroup/volume
      
    3. Synchronize the device group with the cluster to keep the VxVM namespace consistent throughout the cluster.


      # cldevicegroup sync diskgroup
      

ProcedureHow to Configure the Oracle Database Access Using ASM

Use this procedure to configure the Oracle database access using ASM. You can use ASM on the top of VxVM or SVM.

  1. Configure the disk devices for the ASM software to use.

    See the Using ASM in Sun Cluster Data Service for Oracle RAC Guide for Solaris OS for information about how to configure ASM.

  2. Setup the permissions for the Oracle ASM disks to be used by Oracle ASM disk groups.

    1. Run the following commands for each device on each node that can master the Oracle resource group.


      # chown oraasm:dba /dev/did/rdisk/dn
      # chmod 660 /dev/did/rdisk/dn
      
    2. Verify that the changes are effective.


      # ls -lhL  /dev/did/rdisk/dn