A Prepare Exalogic Machine for Discovery by Cloud Control

This appendix describes the pre-discovery steps completed by Oracle for an Exalogic Machine in a physical configuration. You can use the information provided below to verify that your Exalogic Machine is ready to continue the discovery process as described in Discovering Exalogic Machine - Physical Configuration.

Note:

These preparation instructions are only for Exalogic Machine in a physical configuration running the following Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud Software (EECS):

  • For X2-2 and X3-2: EECS Release 2.0.3.0.6 and later.

  • For X4-4: EECS Release 2.0.6.1.1 and later.

Before your Exalogic Machine can be discovered by Cloud Control, it must be properly prepared. To assist with this crucial step, Oracle has provided an Exalogic Lifecycle (ELLC) release 14.2 toolkit which supports automation of:

  • Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Exalogic hardware monitoring.

  • Enterprise Manager Agent prerequisite automation.

  • ExaWare discovery to support discovery of hardware by Cloud Control.

The ELLC 14.2 toolkit is installed on Primary and Backup Enterprise Manager Monitoring Compute Nodes of the Exalogic machine that you intend to discover. For details about installing this software, see the Exalogic Lifecycle Toolkit (Doc ID 1912063.1) available in My Oracle Support (https://support.oracle.com):

https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=1912063.1

To prepare your Exalogic Machine for discovery by Cloud Control, complete the following steps:

  1. Installing Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Software

  2. Discovering Assets on the Exalogic Rack by Using ExaWare

  3. Inspecting and Updating the discovery.xml File

  4. Preparing the Exalogic Rack for Enterprise Manager Agent Deployment

  5. Discovering Exalogic Assets Using ExaWare

  6. Installing Enterprise Manager Agents on the Primary and Backup Monitoring Compute Nodes

A.1 Installing Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c Software

Your Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud machine, which is installed with Oracle EECS version 2.0.3.0.6 (or 2.0.6.1.1) or later, must be installed with the appropriate Oracle Enterprise Manager software before discovering the Exalogic target. See Oracle® Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Basic Installation Guide to get started:

For more detailed installation and administration information, visit the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control documentation library at:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/cloud-control-13.3/index.htm

A.2 Discovering Assets on the Exalogic Rack by Using ExaWare

The following information is discovered by using ExaWare:

  • Addresses and names of the physical components on the rack:

    • Storage nodes and storage node ILOMs.

    • Compute nodes and compute node ILOMs.

    • InfiniBand switches.

  • Name and size of the rack.

By default, the source of this discovery is the exalogic_current.conf file located in the /var/exalogic/one-command/config directory. This file is generated from the Exalogic Configuration Utility (ECU). If it is missing, then check your ECU runs.

Note:

Any manual editing of the exalogic_current.conf file may create parsing issues in ExaWare.

For more information about the Exalogic Configuration Utility (ECU), see Configuring Exalogic Machine Using ECU in the Oracle® Exalogic Elastic Cloud Machine Owner's Guide.

To discover assets on the Exalogic rack by using ExaWare:

  1. As root, run the following commands from Primary Compute Node 1 (CN1) of the Exalogic machine on which you installed the ELLC 14.2 toolkit: 
    # /exalogic-lctools/bin/emagent_discovery

    The command should run without error and result in the generation of a discovery.xml file:

    /exalogic-lcdata/inventory/discovery.xml
  2. Verify that there are no errors by checking the following section in the discovery.xml file: 
    <ns1:execution_report errors="0" success="1">
  3. Verify there are no schema validation errors at the end of the file. For example: 
    ...
</ns1:oracleExalogicSystem>
 
<!--================
  PLEASE NOTE A SCHEMA VALIDATION IS CAUGHT - ('Binding value inconsistent with content model',)
    ================-->

A.3 Inspecting and Updating the discovery.xml File

In this step, the root user on the Primary Compute Node inspects the discovery.xml file and updates it with any data that the ExaWare-driven discovery did not capture. All such data should be marked with a placeholder CHANGEME tag that must be updated by the root user.

Typical data to be updated include: description, PDU, Cisco, and Spine switch data.

Example A-1 shows the spine switch data/template that must be populated by the root user.

Note:

The spine switch entry is going to be generated only for a full or a half rack.

Example A-1 Spine Switch Data/Template

<ns1:ib_spine_switch gateway="false" xsi:type="ns1:IBSwitch">
    <ns1:ip_address>
        CHANGEME
    </ns1:ip_address>
    <ns1:host_name>
        CHANGEME
    </ns1:host_name>
    <ns1:networks>
    <ns1:network_name>
        admin
    </ns1:network_name>
    <ns1:network_type>
        Eth
    </ns1:network_type>
    <ns1:ip_address>
        CHANGEME
    </ns1:ip_address>
    <ns1:host_name>
        CHANGEME
    </ns1:host_name>
    </ns1:networks>
    <ns1:rack_begin_position>
        1
    </ns1:rack_begin_position>
    <ns1:rack_height>
        1
    </ns1:rack_height>
    <ns1:rack_front_facing>
        false
    </ns1:rack_front_facing>
</ns1:ib_spine_switch>

The CHANGEME values have to be modified accordingly. The values set will be kept when using the updated discovery.xml file as a new discovery source.

In case the spine switch device is not active in your system, it is advisable to manually remove the XML entry altogether (from <ns1:ib_spine_switch...> to </ns1:ib_spine_switch>); otherwise, the assets discovery as described in step 5 will generate a warning entry in the execution report section:

<ns1:warning>
    Invalid device address Eth-admin-ip_address='CHANGEME', for device 'IBSWITCHSPINE001'
</ns1:warning>

After manually completing the discovery.xml file, it is advisable to validate it with an XML editor against the corresponding discovery.xml.xsd schema (generated alongside the discovery.xml file). The XML editor should support the XSD schema validation.

A.4 Preparing the Exalogic Rack for Enterprise Manager Agent Deployment

In this step on both the Primary and Backup Monitoring Compute nodes, the root user runs a command-line utility (emagent_presetup) to perform the following tasks:

  • Install the oracle-emagent.rpm software on the Exalogic rack.

  • Push SSH keys to the switches, compute nodes, and Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance.

  • Set the SNMP trap configurations on ILOMs, PDUs, Cisco Switch, and InfiniBand Switches.

The utility will use the discovery.xml file that was generated in the Discovering Assets on the Exalogic Rack by Using ExaWare section and updated in the Inspecting and Updating the discovery.xml File section. You will be prompted for the passwords for the various components.

This tool is installed as part of the lifecycle tools.

As root, run the utility with the following command:

# /exalogic-lctools/bin/emagent_presetup /exalogic-lcdata/inventory/discovery.xml

As the script runs, you will be prompted for the following information. To accept the default, press Enter to continue to the next prompt:

Enter EMCC agent port (default: 3872):
Enter "Compute Node" user (default: root)
Enter "Compute Node" user "root" password:
Enter "Compute Node ILOM" user (default: root):
Enter "Compute Node ILOM" user "root" password:
Enter "ZFS Storage" user (default: root):
Enter "ZFS Storage" user "root" password:
Enter "ZFS Storage ILOM" user (default: root):
Enter "ZFS Storage ILOM" user "root" password:
Enter "IB Switch" user (default: root):
Enter "IB Switch" user "root" password:
Enter "IB Switch ILOM" user (default: ilom-admin):
Enter "IB Switch ILOM" user "ilom-admin" password:
Enter "EMCC Monitoring" user "oemuser" password:
Do you have a valid public key for "oracle" user ? (y/n): n

Note:

If you have a valid public key, enter y and then provide the path to key location.

Do you want to create a new key pair for "oracle" user ? (y/n): y
Enter passphrase for the new key pair (default: press enter key):

Note:

If you have an SSH key for the passphrase, you can enter it here (the last item). All of the inputs shown above are the defaults for a first-time run.

A.5 Discovering Exalogic Assets Using ExaWare

As the oracle user from Enterprise Manager Primary Monitoring Compute Node, follow the steps below to discover Exalogic assets using ExaWare:

  1. Run the following commands:

    ssh-agent $SHELL
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

    You will be prompted for a passphrase. Enter the passphrase that was created from the script in Preparing the Exalogic Rack for Enterprise Manager Agent Deployment to create new keys or enter the passphrase tied to the chosen pre-created keys.

  2. Once these two commands have been executed, run the following command as the oracle user in the same shell prompt:

    /exalogic-lctools/lib/emcc/exaware_midi-emcc-py2.4.egg --access oemuser:CN1:<host>:::,nm2user:IBSWITCHGW::::,nm2user:IBSWITCHSPINE::::,oemuser:ZFSSTORAGEHEAD:::: --discover-from ecu --profile-query --batch

    Where: <host> is the fully qualified domain name of the Primary Monitoring Compute Node with the Exalogic Lifecycle tools mounted (that is, the same node as described in Verifying Prerequisites).

    Although the command is auto-executed from the Enterprise Manager UI, the oracle user should manually execute the above command and confirm that the generated XML contains no serious errors or warnings before proceeding with the Enterprise Manager import step.

Example A-2 shows the possible warnings that could be seen if the devices with default values (that is, CHANGEME) are not replaced with valid values:

Note:

  1. Any device having any CHANGEME address value will be dropped from the final xml.

  2. Any device with ILOM having any CHANGEME address value (either in the device or in the ILOM) will be dropped from the final xml.

  3. Any gateway switch-pair having any CHANGEME address value (in any switch device) will be dropped from the final xml.

Example A-2 Warning Examples

<ns1:warning>
    Invalid device address Eth-admin-ip_address='CHANGEME', for device 'IBSWITCHSPINE001'
</ns1:warning>
<ns1:warning>
    Invalid device address Eth-admin-ip_address='CHANGEME', for device 'PDU001'
</ns1:warning>
<ns1:warning>
    Invalid device address Eth-admin-host_name='CHANGEME', for device 'PDU001'
</ns1:warning>
<ns1:warning>
    Invalid device address Eth-admin-ip_address='CHANGEME', for device 'PDU002'
</ns1:warning>
<ns1:warning>
    Invalid device address Eth-admin-host_name='CHANGEME', for device 'PDU002'
</ns1:warning>

A.6 Installing Enterprise Manager Agents on the Primary and Backup Monitoring Compute Nodes

Note:

This step is mandatory for the successful discovery of the Physical Exalogic Rack.

The Enterprise Manager agent must be installed using the oracle user as this user was created for this purpose by the scripts described in Preparing the Exalogic Rack for Enterprise Manager Agent Deployment.

For details on how to download and install Management Agents, see Installing Oracle Management Agents in the Oracle® Enterprise Manager Cloud Control Basic Installation Guide.