3 Oracle Grid Infrastructure

The Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server is the Oracle software that provides system support for an Oracle database including volume management, file system, and automatic restart capabilities. If you plan to use Oracle Restart or Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM), you must install Oracle Grid Infrastructure before installing Oracle Audit Vault Server. Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server is the software that includes Oracle Restart and Oracle ASM. Oracle combined the two infrastructure products into a single set of binaries that is installed as the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. Oracle Grid Infrastructure should be installed before installing Oracle Audit Vault Server because Oracle Audit Vault Server installs a customized, specially configured release of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3).

Oracle ASM is a volume manager and a file system for Oracle database files that supports single-instance Oracle Audit Vault Server and Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) configurations. Oracle ASM also supports a general purpose file system for your application needs including Oracle Audit Vault Server binaries. Oracle ASM is Oracle's recommended storage management solution that provides an alternative to conventional volume managers, file systems, and raw devices.

Oracle Restart improves the availability of your Oracle database by providing the following:

Note:

  • If you want to use Oracle ASM or Oracle Restart, then you must first install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server and then install Oracle Audit Vault Server.

  • Oracle Restart is used in single-instance (non-clustered) environments only. See Section 1.6.3 for more information about how Oracle Audit Vault supports Oracle Restart.

This chapter contains the following sections:

3.1 Requirements for Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation

The system must meet the following requirements:

3.1.1 Memory Requirements

The following are the memory requirements for installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server.

On Linux x86-64:

Minimum: At least 1.5 GB of RAM for Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server; at least 1 GB of additional RAM if you plan to install Oracle Audit Vault after installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server.

Recommended: 4 GB of RAM or more if you plan to install both Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server and Oracle Audit Vault Server.

  • To determine the RAM size, enter the following command:

    # grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo

    If the size of the RAM is less than the required size, then you must install more memory before continuing.

  • The following table describes the relationship between installed RAM and the configured swap space requirement:

    Note:

    On Linux, the HugePages feature allocates non-swappable memory for large page tables using memory-mapped files. If you enable HugePages, then you should deduct the memory allocated to HugePages from the available RAM before calculating swap space.
    RAM Swap Space
    Between 1.5 GB and 2 GB 1.5 times the size of RAM
    Between 2 GB and 16 GB Equal to the size of RAM
    More than 16 GB 16 GB

If the size of the RAM is less than the required size, then you must install more memory before continuing.

To determine the size of the configured swap space, enter the following command:

# grep SwapTotal /proc/meminfo

If necessary, refer to the operating system documentation for information about how to configure additional swap space.

To determine the available RAM and swap space, enter the following command:

# free

Note:

Oracle recommends that you take multiple values for the available RAM and swap space before finalizing a value. This is because the available RAM and swap space keep changing depending on the user interactions with the computer.

3.1.2 Disk Space Requirements

The following are the disk space requirements for installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure:

  • At least 5.5 GB of disk space.

  • At least 1 GB of space in the /tmp directory.

To determine the amount of free space available in the /tmp directory, enter the following command:

# df -k /tmp

If there is less than 1 GB of free space available in the /tmp directory, then complete one of the following steps:

  • Delete unnecessary files from the /tmp directory to meet the disk space requirement.

  • Set the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables to specify a temporary directory when setting the oracle user's environment.

    See Also:

    Section 2.18 for more information about setting TMP and TMPDIR

  • Extend the file system that contains the /tmp directory. If necessary, contact the system administrator for information about extending file systems.

3.1.3 Configuring the User's Environment

Complete the following tasks to set the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user's environment:

  • Review the information in Section 2.1.

  • Ensure that you set the path to the Oracle base directory. Oracle Restart and Oracle Audit Vault Server reside under the same Oracle base. For example:

    # ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle; 
# export ORACLE_BASE

  • Set the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user default file mode creation mask (umask) to 022 in the shell startup file. Setting the mask to 022 ensures that the user performing the software installation creates files with 755 permissions.

  • Set ulimit settings for file descriptors and processes for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation software owner.

  • Set the DISPLAY environment variable in preparation for installation.

If you plan to install Oracle Audit Vault Server, then you must meet additional preinstallation requirements. See Chapter 2.

3.2 Oracle ACFS and Oracle ADVM Support

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS) extends Oracle ASM technology to support all of your application data in both single instance and cluster configurations. Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager (Oracle ADVM) provides volume management services and a standard disk device driver interface to clients. Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System is layered on Oracle ASM through the Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager interface.

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System and Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager are supported on Oracle Linux 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 for Linux x86 and Linux x86-64. In the current release, it is also supported on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP3 and later SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack's for Linux x86-64 only.

Note:

Oracle recommends that Oracle data files are installed in Oracle ASM disk groups. Installing Oracle data files on an Oracle ACFS file system is not supported. Oracle ACFS can be used as an option only when Oracle ASM is configured.

Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (ACFS) resources are not supported for Oracle Restart configurations on all platforms. ACFS drivers must be manually unloaded and loaded; ACFS file systems must be manually unmounted and mounted (after the ASM instance is running); ACFS database home file systems can be placed into the ACFS mount registry to be mounted along with other registered ACFS file systems.

See Also:

3.3 Managing Disk Groups for Older Database Versions

Releases prior to Oracle Audit Vault Server Release 10.3 used Database Configuration Assistant to perform administrative tasks on Oracle ASM. In the current release, Oracle ASM is installed with Oracle Restart.

3.4 Migrating Existing Oracle Automatic Storage Management Instances

If you have an Oracle ASM installation from a prior release installed on your server, or in an existing Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation, you can use Oracle Automatic Storage Management Configuration Assistant (Oracle ASMCA) to upgrade the existing Oracle ASM instance to 11g Release 2 (11.2), and subsequently configure disk groups, Oracle ASM volumes and Oracle ASM file systems.

Note:

You must first shut down all databases and applications using an existing Oracle ASM instance before upgrading it.

During installation, if you chose to use Oracle ASM and Oracle ASMCA detects that there is a prior Oracle ASM version installed in another Oracle ASM home, then after installing the Oracle ASM 11g Release 2 (11.2) binaries, you can start Oracle ASMCA to upgrade the existing Oracle ASM instance.

See Also:

3.5 Oracle Automatic Storage Management Installation Considerations

In previous releases, Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) was installed as part of the Oracle Audit Vault Server installation. In the current release, Oracle ASM is part of an Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation, either for a cluster, or for a standalone server.

If you want to upgrade an existing Oracle ASM installation, then you must upgrade Oracle ASM by running an Oracle Grid Infrastructure upgrade (upgrades of existing Oracle ASM installations). If you do not have Oracle ASM installed and you want to use Oracle ASM as your storage option, then you must complete an Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation before you start your Oracle Audit Vault Server installation.

You must run Oracle Automatic Storage Management Configuration Assistant (Oracle ASMCA) for installing and configuring Oracle ASM instances, disk groups, volumes, and Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS). In addition, you can use the ASMCA command-line interface as a non-GUI utility.

See Also:

Chapter 11, "Oracle ASM Configuration Assistant" in Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for information about Oracle ASMCA

Apply the following guidelines when you install Oracle ASM:

  • You must complete the steps listed under Section 3.6 to prepare a disk partition to use for the Oracle ASM disk groups.

  • Ensure that at least one disk is configured appropriately for use in an Oracle ASM diskgroup before beginning the installation.

  • When you install Oracle ASM, Oracle Automatic Storage Management Configuration Assistant (Oracle ASMCA) creates a separate server parameter file (SPFILE) and password file for the Oracle ASM instance. As soon as Oracle ASM is installed, the ASMSNMP schema and user are created. See Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for more information.

  • The Oracle ASM instance that manages the existing disk group will be running in the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home directory.

3.6 Preparing Disks for an Oracle Automatic Storage Management Installation

This section describes how to configure disks for use with Oracle ASM. The following sections describe how to identify the requirements and configure the disks on each platform:

Note:

Oracle does not recommend using identifiers for database object names that must be quoted. While these quoted identifiers may be valid as names in the SQL CREATE statement, such as CREATE DISKGROUP "1data" ..., the names may not be valid when using other tools that manage the database object.

See Also:

"Creating Disk Groups for a New Oracle Installation", in Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for information about creating and managing disk groups

3.6.1 General Steps for Configuring Oracle Automatic Storage Management

The following are the general steps to configure Oracle ASM:

  1. Identify the storage requirements of the site.

  2. If you are creating a new Oracle ASM disk group, create partitions for DAS or SAN disks.

  3. Configure the disks for use with Oracle ASM. You must provide the Oracle ASM disk configuration information during the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

3.6.2 Step 1: Identifying Storage Requirements for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

To identify the storage requirements for using Oracle ASM, you must determine the number of devices and the amount of free disk space that you require. To complete this task:

  1. Determine if you want to use Oracle ASM for Oracle Audit Vault Server files, recovery files, or both.

    Note:

    You do not have to use the same storage mechanism for Oracle Vault Server files and recovery files. You can use a file system for one file type and Oracle ASM for the other.

    If you choose to enable automated backups and you do not have a shared file system available, then you must choose Oracle ASM for recovery file storage.

    During the database installation, if you plan to enable automated backups, then you can choose Oracle ASM as the storage mechanism for recovery files by specifying an Oracle ASM disk group for the fast recovery area. Depending on how you choose to create a database during the database installation, you have the following options:

    • You can run Oracle ASMCA in interactive mode to create and configure the required disk groups.

      During the database installation, if you select an installation method that runs Database Configuration Assistant in interactive mode (Advanced Installation type), then you can select the diskgroups that you created using Oracle ASMCA.

      You have the option to use the disk groups you created using Oracle ASMCA both for database files and recovery files, or you can choose to use different disk groups for each file type. Ideally, you should create separate Oracle ASM disk groups for data files and for recovery files.

    • If you run Oracle ASMCA in noninteractive mode, then you must use the same Oracle ASM disk group for data files and recovery files. During the database installation (Typical Installation type), you will have to select the same disk group for both data files and recovery files.

    See Also:

  2. Choose the Oracle ASM redundancy level that you want to use for each Oracle ASM disk group that you create.

    The redundancy level that you choose for the Oracle ASM disk group determines how Oracle ASM mirrors files in the disk group and determines the number of disks and amount of disk space that you require, as follows:

    • External redundancy

      This option does not allow Oracle ASM to mirror the contents of the disk group. Oracle recommends that you select this redundancy level either when the disk group contains devices, such as RAID devices, that provide their own data protection or when the database does not require an uninterrupted access to data.

    • Normal redundancy

      To optimize performance and reliability in a normal redundancy disk group, Oracle ASM uses two-way mirroring for data files and three-way mirroring for control files, by default. In addition, you can choose the mirroring characteristics for individual files in a disk group. Alternatively, you can use two-way mirroring or no mirroring.

      A normal redundancy disk group requires a minimum of two failure groups (or two disk devices) if you are using two-way mirroring. The effective disk space in a normal redundancy disk group is half the sum of the disk space in all of its devices.

      For most installations, Oracle recommends that you use normal redundancy disk groups.

    • High redundancy

      The contents of the disk group are three-way mirrored by default. To create a disk group with high redundancy, you must specify at least three failure groups (a minimum of 3 devices).

      Although high-redundancy disk groups provide a high level of data protection, you must consider the higher cost of additional storage devices before deciding to use this redundancy level.

  3. Determine the total amount of disk space that you require for the database files and recovery files.

    If an Oracle ASM instance is already running on the system, then you can use an existing disk group to meet these storage requirements. If necessary, you can add disks to an existing disk group during the database installation.

    Use the following table to determine the minimum number of disks and the minimum disk space requirements for the installation:

    Redundancy Level Minimum Number of Disks Data Files Recovery Files Both File Types
    External 1 1.8 GB 3.6 GB 5.4 GB
    Normal 2 3.6 GB 7.2 GB 10.8 GB
    High 3 5.4 GB 10.8 GB 16.2 GB

  4. Optionally, identify failure groups for the Oracle ASM disk group devices.

    If you intend to use a normal or high redundancy disk group, then you can further protect the database against hardware failure by associating a set of disk devices in a custom failure group. By default, each device comprises its failure group. However, if two disk devices in a normal redundancy disk group are attached to the same SCSI controller, then the disk group becomes unavailable if the controller fails. The controller in this example is a single point of failure.

    For instance, to avoid failures of this type, you can use two SCSI controllers, each with two disks, and define a failure group for the disks attached to each controller. This configuration would enable the disk group to tolerate the failure of one SCSI controller.

    Note:

    If you define custom failure groups, then you must specify a minimum of two failure groups for normal redundancy disk groups and three failure groups for high redundancy disk groups.

  5. If you are sure that a suitable disk group does not exist on the system, then install or identify appropriate disk devices to add to a new disk group. Apply the following guidelines when identifying appropriate disk devices:

    • The disk devices must be owned by the user performing the grid installation.

      See Also:

      Example 2-2 for information about creating or modifying permissions

    • All the devices in an Oracle ASM disk group should be the same size and have the same performance characteristics.

    • Do not specify multiple partitions on a single physical disk as a disk group device. Oracle ASM expects each disk group device to be on a separate physical disk.

    • Oracle does not recommend the use of a logical volume as a device in Oracle ASM because the logical volume can hide the physical disk architecture which prevents Oracle ASM from optimizing I/O across physical devices.

    See Also:

3.6.3 Step 2: Creating DAS or SAN Disk Partitions for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

In order to use a DAS or SAN disk in Oracle ASM, the disk must have a partition table. Oracle recommends creating exactly one partition for each disk containing the entire disk.

Note:

You can use any physical disk for Oracle ASM, as long as it is partitioned.

3.6.4 Step 3: Configuring Disks for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

Oracle provides an Oracle ASM library driver that you can use to simplify the configuration and management of the disk devices that you want to use with Oracle ASM. A disk that is configured for Oracle ASM is known as a candidate disk.

If you intend to use Oracle ASM for database storage, then Oracle recommends that you install the Automatic Storage Management library driver (ASMLIB) and associated utilities and use them to configure the devices that you want to include in an Oracle ASM disk group.

Note:

If you choose to configure disks using the Oracle Automatic Storage Management library driver, then you must change the default disk discovery string to ORCLDISK:*. If the diskstring is set to ORCLDISK:*, or is left empty (""), then the installer discovers these disks.

This section describes how to configure storage for use with Oracle ASM.

3.6.4.1 Configuring Disks for Oracle Automatic Storage Management Using the Automatic Storage Management Library Driver (ASMLIB)

To use the Automatic Storage Management library driver to configure Automatic Storage Management devices, complete the following tasks:

Installing and Configuring the Automatic Storage Management Library Driver Software

To install and configure the Automatic Storage Management library driver software:

  1. Enter the following command to determine the kernel version and architecture of the system:

    # uname -rm

  2. If necessary, download the required Automatic Storage Management library driver packages from the Oracle Technology Network Web site:

    http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/asmlib/index.html

    You must install the following packages, where version is the version of the Automatic Storage Management library driver, arch is the system architecture, and kernel is the version of the kernel that you are using:

    oracleasm-support-version.arch.rpm
oracleasm-kernel-version.arch.rpm
oracleasmlib-version.arch.rpm

  3. Enter a command similar to the following to install the packages:

    # sudo rpm -Uvh oracleasm-support-version.arch.rpm \
           oracleasm-kernel-version.arch.rpm \
           oracleasmlib-version.arch.rpm

    For example, if you are using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3.0 enterprise kernel on an x86 system, then enter a command similar to the following:

    # sudo rpm -Uvh oracleasm-support-1.0.0-1.i386.rpm \
           oracleasm-2.4.9-e-enterprise-1.0.0-1.i686.rpm \
           oracleasmlib-1.0.0-1.i386.rpm

  4. Enter a command similar to the following to determine the UID of the Oracle software owner user that you are using for this installation and the GID of the OSASM group:

    # id oracle

  5. Enter the following command to run the oracleasm initialization script with the configure option:

    # /etc/init.d/oracleasm configure

  6. Enter the following information in response to the prompts that the script displays:

    Prompt Suggested Response
    Default UID to own the driver interface: Specify the UID of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure owner user (typically, grid).
    Default GID to own the driver interface: Specify the GID of the OSASM group (typically, asmadmin).
    Start Oracle Automatic Storage Management Library driver on start (y/n): Enter y to start the Oracle Automatic Storage Management library driver when the system starts.
    Scan for Oracle ASM disks on boot (y/n): Enter y to scan for presence of any Oracle Automatic Storage Management disks when the system starts.

Configuring the Disk Devices to Use the Automatic Storage Management Library Driver

To configure the disk devices that you want to use in an Automatic Storage Management disk group:

  1. If you intend to use IDE, SCSI, or RAID devices in the Automatic Storage Management disk group, then:

    1. If necessary, install or configure the disk devices that you intend to use for the disk group and restart the system.

    2. To identify the device name for the disks that you want to use, enter the following command:

      # /sbin/fdisk -l

      Depending on the type of disk, the device name can vary:

      Disk Type Device Name Format Description
      IDE disk 
      /dev/hdxn
      		In this example, x is a letter that identifies the IDE disk and n is the partition number. For example, /dev/hda is the first disk on the first IDE bus.
      SCSI disk 
      /dev/sdxn
      		In this example, x is a letter that identifies the SCSI disk and n is the partition number. For example, /dev/sda is the first disk on the first SCSI bus.
      RAID disk 
      /dev/rd/cxdypz
/dev/ida/cxdypz
      		Depending on the RAID controller, RAID devices can have different device names. In the examples shown, x is a number that identifies the controller, y is a number that identifies the disk, and z is a number that identifies the partition. For example, /dev/ida/c0d1 is the second logical drive on the first controller.

      Note:

      Oracle recommends that you create a single whole-disk partition on each disk that you want to use.

    3. Use either fdisk or parted to create a single whole-disk partition on the disk devices that you want to use.

  2. Enter a command similar to the following to mark a disk as an Automatic Storage Management disk:

    # /etc/init.d/oracleasm createdisk DISK1 /dev/sdb1

    In this example, DISK1 is a name that you want to assign to the disk.

    Note:

    • If you are using a multipathing disk driver with Automatic Storage Management, then ensure that you specify the correct logical device name for the disk.

      The disk names that you specify can contain uppercase letters, numbers, and the underscore character. They must start with an uppercase letter.

    • To create a database during the installation using the Automatic Storage Management library driver, you must change the default disk discovery string to ORCLDISK:*.

Administering the Automatic Storage Management Library Driver and Disks

To administer the Automatic Storage Management library driver and disks, use the oracleasm initialization script with different options, as follows:

Option Description 
configure
Use the configure option to reconfigure the Automatic Storage Management library driver, if necessary: 
# /etc/init.d/oracleasm configure

enable
disable
Use the disable and enable options to change the behavior of the Automatic Storage Management library driver when the system starts. The enable option causes the Automatic Storage Management library driver to load when the system starts: 
# /etc/init.d/oracleasm enable

start
stop
restart
Use the start, stop, and restart options to load or unload the Automatic Storage Management library driver without restarting the system: 
# /etc/init.d/oracleasm restart

createdisk
Use the createdisk option to mark a disk device for use with the Automatic Storage Management library driver and give it a name: 
# /etc/init.d/oracleasm createdisk DISKNAME devicename

deletedisk
Use the deletedisk option to unmark a named disk device: 
# /etc/init.d/oracleasm deletedisk DISKNAME

Note: Do not use this command to unmark disks that are being used by an Automatic Storage Management disk group. You must drop the disk from the Automatic Storage Management disk group before you unmark it.

 
querydisk
Use the querydisk option to determine if a disk device or disk name is being used by the Automatic Storage Management library driver: 
# /etc/init.d/oracleasm querydisk {DISKNAME | devicename}

listdisks
Use the listdisks option to list the disk names of marked Automatic Storage Management library driver disks: 
# /etc/init.d/oracleasm listdisks

scandisks
Use the scandisks option to enable cluster nodes to identify which shared disks have been marked as Automatic Storage Management library driver disks on another node: 
# /etc/init.d/oracleasm scandisks

3.6.4.2 Configuring Disk Devices Manually for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

By default, the 2.6 kernel device file naming scheme udev dynamically creates device file names when the server is started, and assigns ownership of them to root. If udev applies default settings, then it changes device file names and owners for the disks, corrupting them when Oracle Storage Management instance is restarted. If you use ASMLIB, then you do not need to ensure permissions and device path persistency in udev.

If you do not use ASMLIB, then you must create a custom rules file. When udev is started, it sequentially carries out rules (configuration directives) defined in rules files. These files are in the path /etc/udev/rules.d/. Rules files are read in lexical order. For example, rules in the file 10-wacom.rules are parsed and carried out before rules in the rules file 90-ib.rules.

Where rules files describe the same devices, on Asianux, Red Hat, and Oracle Linux, the last file read is the one that is applied. On SUSE 2.6 kernels, the first file read is the one that is applied.

To configure a permissions file for disk devices, complete the following tasks:

  1. Configure SCSI devices as trusted devices (white listed), by editing the /etc/scsi_id.config file and adding "options=-g" to the file. For example:

    # cat > /etc/scsi_id.config
vendor="ATA",options=-p 0x80
options=-g

  2. Using a text editor, create a UDEV rules file for the Oracle ASM devices, setting permissions to 0660 for the installation owner and the group whose members are administrators of the grid infrastructure software. For example, using the installation owner grid and using a role-based group configuration, with the OSASM group asmadmin:

    # vi /etc/udev/rules.d/99-oracle-asmdevices.rules

KERNEL=="sd?1", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id",
RESULT=="14f70656e66696c00000000", OWNER="grid", GROUP="asmadmin", MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="sd?2", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id",
RESULT=="14f70656e66696c00000000", OWNER="grid", GROUP="asmadmin", MODE="0660"
KERNEL=="sd?3", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id",
RESULT=="14f70656e66696c00000000", OWNER="grid", GROUP="asmadmin", MODE="0660"

  3. Load updated block device partition tables on the server, using /sbin/partprobe devicename. You must do this as root.

  4. Enter the command to restart the UDEV service.

    On Asianux, OEL5, and RHEL5, the commands are:

    # /sbin/udevcontrol reload_rules
# /sbin/start_udev

    On SUSE 10 and 11, the command is:

    # /etc/init.d boot.udev restart

    Check to ensure that your system is configured correctly.

3.7 Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure Using a Software-Only Installation

A software-only installation only copies the Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server binaries to the specified location. Configuring Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server and Oracle ASM must be done manually after the installation has finished.

When you perform a software-only installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure software, you must complete a few manual configuration steps to enable Oracle Restart after you install the software.

Note:

Oracle recommends that only advanced users perform the software-only installation, because this installation method provides no validation of the installation and this installation option requires manual postinstallation steps to enable the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software.

Performing a software-only installation involves the following steps:

  1. Installing the Software Binaries

  2. Configuring the Software Binaries

3.7.1 Installing the Software Binaries

  1. Start the runInstaller command from the relevant directory on the Oracle Database 11g release 2 (11.2) installation media or download directory.

  2. Complete a software-only installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure.

    See Section 3.7.2 for information about configuring Oracle Grid Infrastructure after performing a software-only installation.

  3. Verify that the server meets the installation requirements using the command runcluvfy.bat stage -pre hacfg. Ensure that you have completed all storage and server preinstallation requirements.

3.7.2 Configuring the Software Binaries

To configure and activate a software-only Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation for Oracle Restart, complete the following tasks:

  1. Run the roothas.pl script from Grid_home, using the following syntax:

    Grid_home/perl/bin/perl -I Grid_home/perl/lib -I Grid_home/crs/install 
Grid_home/crs/install/roothas.pl

    For example, if your Grid home is /app/11.2.0/grid, then run the following script:

    $ /app/11.2.0/grid/perl/bin/perl -I /app/11.2.0/grid/perl/lib -I /app
/11.2.0/grid/crs/install /app/11.2.0/grid/crs/install/roothas.pl

  2. Change the directory to Grid_home/oui/bin, where Grid_home is the path of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home.

  3. Enter the following command:

    ./runInstaller -updateNodeList ORACLE_HOME=Grid_home -defaultHomeName

    For example:

    $ ./runInstaller -updateNodeList ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/11.2.0/grid
-defaultHomeName
CLUSTER_NODES= CRS=TRUE

  4. Use the SRVCTL utility along with Network Configuration Assistant and Oracle ASMCA to add the listener, the Oracle ASM instance, and all Oracle ASM disk groups to the Oracle Restart configuration.

3.8 Installing and Configuring Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server

If you install Oracle Grid Infrastructure and then create your database, the database is automatically added to the Oracle Grid Infrastructure configuration, and is then automatically restarted when required. However, if you install Oracle Grid Infrastructure on a host computer on which a database already exists, you must manually add the database, the listener, the Oracle ASM instance, and other components to the Oracle Grid Infrastructure configuration.

Note:

Oracle Grid Infrastructure can accommodate multiple single-instance databases on a single host computer.

This section includes the following topics:

3.8.1 Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure with a New Database Installation

Perform the following steps to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure and then create a database that is managed by Oracle Restart. First install Oracle Grid Infrastructure, which installs Oracle Restart and Oracle ASM, then configure Oracle ASM with at least one disk group, and then install Oracle Audit Vault Server that stores database files in Oracle ASM disk groups. Click the help button on the Oracle Universal Installer page for page level assistance.

You may need to shut down existing Oracle processes before you proceed with the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation. Refer to Oracle Database Installation Guide for Linux for more information.

To install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server with a new database installation:

  1. Start Oracle Universal Installer as the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user. Complete one of the following steps depending on the location of the installation files:

    • If the installation files are on installation media, enter commands similar to the following, where directory_path is the path of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure directory on the installation media:

      $ /directory_path/runInstaller

      Note:

      You must install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server from the Oracle Grid Infrastructure media.

    • If the installation files are on the hard disk, change the directory to the path of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure (clusterware) directory and enter the following command:

      $ ./runInstaller

    • Downloading Updates Before Installation

      Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.2), if you plan to run the installation in a secured data center, then you can download updates before starting the installation by starting Oracle Universal Installer on a system that has Internet access in update download mode. To start Oracle Universal Installer to download updates, enter the following command:

      $ ./runInstaller -downloadUpdates

      Provide the My Oracle Support user name and password, and provide proxy settings if needed. After you download updates, transfer the update file to a directory on the server where you plan to run the installation.

      See Also:

    Note:

    Start Oracle Universal Installer from the terminal session where you logged in as the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user and set the user's environment.

    If Oracle Universal Installer is not displayed, refer to the sections "X Window Display Errors" and "Remote Terminal Installation Error" in the Troubleshooting appendix in Oracle Database Installation Guide for Linux for information about troubleshooting.

  2. Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.2), you can use the Software Updates feature to dynamically download and apply latest updates. In the Download Software Updates screen, select one of the following options and click Next:

    • Use My Oracle Support credentials for download: Select this option to download and apply the latest software updates.

      Click Proxy Settings to configure a proxy for Oracle Universal Installer to use to connect to the Internet. Provide the proxy server information for your site, along with a user account that has access to the local area network through which the server is connecting.

      Click Test Connection to ensure that your proxy settings are correctly entered, and the installer can download the updates.

    • Use pre-downloaded software updates: Select this option to apply the software updates previously downloaded using the -downloadUpdates flag.

    • Skip Software Updates: Select this option if you do not want to apply any updates.

  3. The Apply Software Updates screen is displayed if you select to download the software updates or provide the pre-downloaded software updates location. If you selected Use My Oracle Support credentials for download in the previous screen, then select Download and apply all updates, and click Next.

    If you selected Use pre-downloaded software updates in the previous screen, then select Apply all updates, and click Next.

  4. In the Select Installation Option screen, select the Install and Configure Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server option to install and configure Oracle Restart and Oracle ASM. Click Next.

  5. In the Select Product Languages screen, select one or more languages. Move the languages from the Available Languages list to the Selected Languages list. Click Next.

  6. The Create ASM Disk Group screen lists all the Oracle ASM disks under ORCLDISK:*

    Click Change Disk Discovery Path to select any devices that will be used by Oracle ASM but are not listed. In the Change Disk Discovery Path window, enter a string to use to search for devices that Oracle ASM will use. If the diskstring is set to ORCLDISK:* or is left empty (""), then the installer discovers these disks. Click OK.

    After you finish selecting the disks to be used by Oracle ASM, click Next.

    Note:

    During installation, disk paths mounted on ASM and registered on ASMLIB with the string ORCLDISK:* are listed as default database storage candidate disks.

    Consider the following information about disk devices while performing this step:

    • The Disk Group Name default is DATA. You can enter a new name for the disk group, or use the default name.

    • The disk devices must be owned by the user performing the grid installation.

      See Also:

      Example 2-2 for information about creating or modifying permissions

    • Check with your system administrator to determine if the disks used by Oracle ASM are mirrored at the storage level. If so, select External for the redundancy. If the disks are not mirrored at the storage level, then choose Normal for the redundancy.

      Note:

      For normal redundancy, you require twice as much disk space to hold the same amount of data. For example, if your database is 100 GB, then you require approximately 200 GB of storage.

  7. In the Specify ASM Password screen, enter SYSASM password required to connect to the Oracle ASM instance. The Oracle ASM instance is managed by a privileged role called SYSASM, which grants full access to Oracle ASM disk groups. Oracle recommends that you create a less privileged user, ASMSNMP, with SYSDBA privileges to monitor the Oracle ASM instance.

    Enter passwords for the SYS and ASMSNMP user accounts. The passwords should be at least eight characters in length and include at least one alphabetic and one numeric character.

    Optionally, you can use the same password for all accounts. However, Oracle recommends that you specify a different password for each account. You must remember the passwords that you specify.

  8. In the Privileged Operating System Groups screen, select the name of the operating system group you created for the OSDBA group, the OSASM group, and the database operator group OSOPER. If you choose to create only the dba group, then you can use that group for all three privileged groups. If you created a separate asmadmin group, then use that value for the OSASM group. Click Next.

  9. In the Specify Installation Location screen, enter the following details, and click Next:

    • Oracle Base: Enter the directory location for Oracle base. Do not include spaces in the path name.

    • Software Location: This field is populated by default in concurrence with Oracle base location.

    See Also:

    "Naming Directories" section in the Optimal Flexible Architecture appendix in Oracle Database Installation Guide for Linux for directory naming conventions

  10. If you have not installed any Oracle software previously on this server, the Create Inventory screen appears.

    Change the path for the Inventory Directory, if required. Select oinstall for the oraInventory Group Name, if required. Click Next.

  11. The Perform Prerequisite Checks screen checks if the minimum system requirements are met to perform the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation. If all the system requirements are met, then you will be directed to the Summary screen. However, if an installation fails, you can review the error.

    If you click Check Again, then you can run the prerequisite check again to see if the minimum requirements are met to carry on with the database installation.

    Click Fix & Check Again, if you want the installer to fix the problem and check the system requirements once more.

    Note:

    The Fix & Check Again option generates a script that you must run as the root user. This generated script sets some of the system parameter values. Oracle recommends that you do not modify the contents of this script. Refer to Section 2.4 for more information about fixup scripts.

    To get a list of failed requirements, select Show Failed from the list. To get a list of all the prerequirement checks run by the OUI, select Show All. To get a list of the prerequirement checks that are successful, select Show Succeeded.

    Note:

    Oracle recommends that you use caution in checking the Ignore All option. If you check this option, then Oracle Universal Installer may not confirm that your system is able to install Oracle Audit Vault Server successfully.

  12. Review the contents of the Summary screen, and click Finish.

    Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2), you can click Save Response File to save all the installation steps into a response file. This file can be used for a silent installation.

  13. The Setup screen displays the progress of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation. During the installation process, the Execute Configuration Scripts window appears. Do not click OK until you have run the scripts mentioned in this screen.

    Run the root.sh and, if required, the orainstRoot.sh configuration scripts as the root user.

  14. The Finish screen displays the installation status. Click Close to end the installation, then Yes to confirm that you want to exit Oracle Universal Installer.

    If you encounter any problems, refer to the configuration log for information. The path to the configuration log is displayed on the Configuration Assistants window.

  15. To create additional disk groups, run the Oracle ASMCA utility. For example, you can create another disk group named RECOVERY to store the fast recovery area.

    See Also:

    Note:

    To check if the Oracle High Availability Service is installed properly, run ./crsctl check has command from Grid_home/bin directory.

    Grid_home is the path to the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home for a standalone server. Ohasd is a daemon installed with Oracle Grid Infrastructure that starts software services, such as Oracle ASM.

  16. Install Oracle Audit Vault Server. Refer to Section 4.3 and Section 4.5 for information about installing Oracle Audit Vault Server.

    Note:

    • If a new database is installed after a grid infrastructure installation, then the listener runs from the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. Because Oracle ASM is installed as part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure, the default listener is created and runs from the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. If you perform a database installation, then the database must use the same listener created during the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

    • If you are using Oracle Restart, then the default listener and any additional listeners must run from the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home.

3.8.2 Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for an Existing Database

Follow the high-level instructions in this section to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure and configure it for an existing Oracle database. Please note that Oracle Restart can only manage existing 11.2 resources and hence you can install Oracle Grid Infrastructure only for an existing 11.2 database. However, Oracle database releases prior to 11.2 can coexist on the same server without being managed by Oracle Restart.

To install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for an existing database:

  • On the same host computer as the database, use Oracle Universal Installer to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure, and select Install and Configure Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server as the installation option.

    The Oracle Grid Infrastructure components are installed in a separate Oracle home.

    Refer to Section 3.8.1 for detailed instructions to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure.

  • Go to the Grid home's bin directory. Use the srvctl add database command to manually add the database, the listener, the Oracle ASM instance, all Oracle ASM disk groups, and any database services to the Oracle Grid Infrastructure configuration.

    See Also:

    "srvctl add database" in Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for more information about the srvctl add database command

3.9 Modifying Oracle Grid Infrastructure Binaries After Installation

After installation, you must first stop the Oracle Restart stack to modify the software installed in your Grid home. For example, if you want to apply a one-off patch or modify any of the DLLs used by Oracle Restart or Oracle ASM, then you must follow these steps to stop and restart the Oracle Restart stack.

Caution:

Before relinking executables, you must shut down all executables that run in the Oracle home directory that you are relinking. In addition, shut down applications linked with Oracle shared libraries.

Prepare the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home for modification using the following procedure:

  1. Log in as the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user and change the directory to the path Grid_home\bin, where Grid_home is the path to the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home:

    $ cd Grid_home/bin

  2. Shut down the Oracle Restart stack using the following command:

    $ crsctl stop has -f

  3. After the Oracle Restart stack is completely shut down, perform the updates to the software installed in the Grid home.

  4. Use the following command to restart the Oracle Restart stack:

    $ crsctl start has

3.10 Manually Configuring Oracle Automatic Storage Management Disk Groups

The Oracle Automatic Storage Management Configuration Assistant utility creates a new Automatic Storage Management instance if there is no Oracle ASM instance currently configured on the computer.

After installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure, you can also use Oracle ASMCA to create and configure disk groups, Oracle Automatic Storage Management Dynamic Volume Manager (Oracle ADVM) and Oracle Automatic Storage Management Cluster File System (Oracle ACFS).

If you want to create additional disk groups or manually configure Oracle ASM disks, then you can run the Oracle ASMCA as follows:

$ cd Grid_home/bin
$ ./asmca

Where Grid_home is the path to the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home for a standalone server.

See Also:

Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for more information on Oracle ASMCA

3.11 Testing the Oracle Automatic Storage Management Installation

To test the Oracle ASM installation, try logging in by using the asmcmd command-line utility, which lets you manage Oracle ASM disk group files and directories. To do this:

  1. Open a shell window, and temporarily set the ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_HOME environment variables to specify the appropriate values for the Oracle ASM instance that you want to use.

    For example, if the Oracle ASM SID is named +ASM and the Oracle home is located in the grid subdirectory of the ORACLE_BASE directory, then enter the following commands to create the required settings:

    • Bourne, Bash, or Korn shell:

      $ ORACLE_SID=+ASM
$ export ORACLE_SID
$ ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/grid
$ export ORACLE_HOME

    • C shell:

      % setenv ORACLE_SID +ASM
% setenv ORACLE_HOME /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/grid

  2. Use ASMCMD to list the disk groups for the Oracle ASM instance:

    $ORACLE_HOME/bin/asmcmd lsdg

    ASMCMD connects by default as the SYS user with SYSASM privileges.

    If the Oracle ASM instance is not running, you can start the instance with the following:

    $ORACLE_HOME/bin/asmcmd startup

See Also: