Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Checklist

Use checklists to plan and carry out Oracle Grid Infrastructure (Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Automatic Storage Management) installation.

Oracle recommends that you use checklists as part of your installation planning process. Using this checklist can help you to confirm that your server hardware and configuration meet minimum requirements for this release, and to ensure you carry out a successful installation.

Server Hardware Checklist For Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Verify that each server operates at runlevel 3 or 5, provides at least 8 GB of RAM, and supports a minimum 1024 × 768 display for graphical Oracle Universal Installer use. A graphics card is unnecessary for silent installations or remote graphical access such as VNC. Configure IPMI and the baseboard management controller on every cluster node, with administrator credentials available; the IPMI driver must be configured consistently on all or none of the nodes.

Operating System Checklist For Oracle Grid Infrastructure And Oracle Rac

Install OpenSSH and the required platform packages, using identical supported operating-system kernels and packages across all cluster nodes. Supported platforms include specified Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server releases, with Oracle recommending Oracle Linux 8.6 or later using UEK7 where applicable. On Oracle Linux, use the appropriate Oracle AI Database preinstallation RPM when possible, verify virtualization support against Oracle’s compatibility guidance, and disable Transparent HugePages in favor of standard HugePages.

Server Configuration Checklist For Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Provide at least 1 GB in /tmp, configure swap between 4 and 16 GB equal to RAM and cap it at 16 GB above that, reducing available RAM by HugePages allocation when calculating swap. Allocate HugePages for the planned database SGAs, use an Optimal Flexible Architecture layout, and restrict Oracle home paths, owners, and related directories to ASCII characters. Configure locale and consistent time zones, synchronize cluster nodes with operating-system NTP, and note that CTSS is desupported. Ensure /dev/shm is a writable, executable tmpfs without noexec or nosuid restrictions, and ensure Oracle base, Oracle home, and all parent directories are not symbolic links.

Network Checklist For Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Provide redundant public and private switching and network interfaces where possible, using TCP/IP and at least 1 GbE; Oracle recommends 25 GbE or higher for NVMe-oF. The private interconnect must support UDP, and properly tested, end-to-end Jumbo Frames are recommended. Oracle Flex ASM may share Clusterware private networks or use dedicated TCP networks. Plan a globally unique cluster name of no more than 15 valid hostname characters, configure GNS and delegated DNS when used, or configure SCAN to resolve to three DNS addresses manually. Without GNS, define public, private, and publicly accessible virtual IP names and addresses for every node in DNS and/or /etc/hosts as appropriate.

User Environment Configuration Checklist For Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Confirm the oraInventory directory and OINSTALL group are available and usable as the primary group for all Oracle software owners. Create the required operating-system users and groups with ASCII-only names, preserve any required daemon users, and apply resource limits. Unset inherited Oracle environment variables such as ORACLE_HOME, ORA_NLS10, TNS_ADMIN, and ORA_CRS_HOME before installation. Configure the oracle or grid user with umask 022 and DISPLAY, then select manual root-script execution or delegated execution using consistent root credentials or a properly authorized sudo account on every cluster node.

Storage Checklist For Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Allocate at least 12 GB for the Grid home, preferably 100 GB to accommodate patches, plus at least 10 GB for Oracle AI Database Enterprise Edition and any additional space required by the cluster configuration. Select shared Oracle ASM or shared file-system storage as appropriate, ensuring the Grid installation owner can write to the configured ASM paths and that storage is locally available across all nodes. Clusterware files, including voting files and Oracle Cluster Registry files, must reside on shared storage accessible to every cluster member.

Cluster Deployment Checklist For Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Choose the deployment model that matches the intended workload: a cluster managing Oracle RAC databases, a minimally configured cluster managing generic applications, or an Oracle Extended Cluster spanning multiple sites with separate storage at each site. Ensure the selected design hosts Grid Infrastructure services and Oracle ASM locally while providing direct access to the required storage.

Installer Planning Checklist For Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Before installation, review platform release notes and licensing terms, run Oracle Universal Installer with its integrated CVU checks and fixup scripts, and use Oracle ORAchk for runtime or upgrade-readiness assessments. Prevent cleanup cron jobs from running during installation, prepare My Oracle Support credentials for updates and security configuration, and review active Oracle processes. Single-instance databases without ASM may remain running, but existing ASM instances must be stopped, while Oracle RAC databases require a rolling node-by-node shutdown during Clusterware upgrades.
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