7 Oracle Real Application Clusters Post-Installation Procedures

7.1.1 Back Up the Voting Disk After Installation

After your Oracle Database 10g with RAC installation is complete and after you are sure that your system is functioning properly, make a backup of the contents of the voting disk. Use the dd utility.

Also, make a backup copy of the voting disk contents after you complete any node additions or node deletions, and after running any deinstallation procedures.

7.1.2 Download and Install Patch Updates

Refer to the OracleMetaLink Web site for required patch updates for your installation. To download required patch updates:

1. Use a Web browser to view the OracleMetaLink Web site:

   http://metalink.oracle.com

2. Log in to OracleMetaLink.

   Note:

   If you are not an OracleMetaLink registered user, then click Register for MetaLink and register.

3. On the main OracleMetaLink page, click Patches.

4. On the Select a Patch Search Area page, click New MetaLink Patch Search.

5. On the Simple Search page, click Advanced.

6. On the Advanced Search page, click the search icon next to the Product or Product Family field.

7. In the Search and Select: Product Family field, enter RDBMS Server in the For field, and click Go.

8. Select RDBMS Server under the Results heading, and click Select.

   RDBMS Server appears in the Product or Product Family field. The current release appears in the Release field.

9. Select your platform from the list in the Platform field, and click Go.

10. Any available patch updates appear under the Results heading.

11. Click the number of the patch that you want to download.

12. On the Patch Set page, click View README and read the page that appears. The README page contains information about the patch set and how to apply the patches to your installation.

13. Return to the Patch Set page, click Download, and save the file on your system.

14. Use the unzip utility provided with Oracle Database 10g to uncompress the Oracle patch updates that you downloaded from OracleMetaLink. The unzip utility is located in the $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory.

7.1.3 Configure Oracle Products

Many Oracle products and options must be configured before you use them for the first time. Before using individual Oracle Database 10g database products or options, refer to the manual in the product documentation library which is available in the DOC directory on the 10g Release 2 (10.2) installation media, or on the OTN Web site.

7.1.4 Relocate Instance-related Memory-mapped files from OCFS Using Symbolic Links

If you install RAC on a standard local file system, then this section does not concern you.

If your RAC database is created on Oracle Cluster File System version 1 (OCFS1), and the memory-mapped files hc_*.dat (which typically reside in the path $ORACLE_HOME/dbs) are placed on an OCFS1 file system, then you must relocate the memory-mapped files to a standard local file system on each node of the cluster after installation. This is because OCFS1 is not a general purpose file system, and cannot hold these memory-mapped instance files.

To relocate the files:

1. Stop the Oracle Database instance.

2. Move the $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/hc_*.dat files to a directory on a local file system.

3. Create symbolic links from the $ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory to the hc_*.dat files on the local file system.

4. Restart the Oracle Database instance

7.2.1 Verifying Oracle Enterprise Manager Operations

Run the following command to verify the Oracle Enterprise Manager configuration in your newly-installed Oracle Real Application Clusters environment:

srvctl config database -d db_name

SRVCTL displays the name of the node and the instance for the node. The following example shows a node named db1-server running an instance named db1. Run the following command:

srvctl config database -d db

The output should be similar to the following:

db1-server db1 /private/system/db
db2-server db2 /private/system/db

Continue with the following section, "Recommended Administrative Post-Installation Tasks". When you have completed these tasks, you should proceed with the initial configuration tasks described in Part IV.

7.2.2 Configuring Oracle Clusterware Process Monitor Daemon

On UNIX operating systems, and on Linux operating systems with Oracle Clusterware patch release 10.2.0.4 or later, Oracle Clusterware includes the Oracle Clusterware Process Monitor Daemon (oprocd). It is started automatically by Oracle Clusterware to detect system hangs. When it detects a system hang, it restarts the hung node.

Review the following configuration information if you are running any UNIX operating system, or you are running a Linux operating system and using patch set 10.2.0.4 or later.

Oracle has found wide variations in scheduling latencies observed across operating systems and versions of operating systems. Because of these scheduling latencies, the default values for oprocd can be overly sensitive, particularly under heavy system load, resulting in unnecessary oprocd-initiated restarts (false restarts).

Oracle recommends that you address scheduling latencies with your operating system vendor to reduce or eliminate them as much as possible, as they can cause other problems.

To overcome these scheduling latencies, Oracle recommends that you set the Oracle Clusterware parameter diagwait to the value 13. This setting increases the time for failed nodes to flush final trace files, which helps to debug the cause of a node failure. You must shut down the cluster to change the diagwait setting. However, if you prefer, you can use the default timing threshold for diagwait. In that case, you do not need to perform the procedure documented here.

If you require more aggressive failover times to meet more stringent service level requirements, then you should open a service request with Oracle Support to receive advice about how to tune for lower failover settings.

To change the diagwait setting:

1. Log in as root, and run the following command on all nodes, where CRS_home is the home directory of the Oracle Clusterware installation:

   # CRS_home/bin/crsctl stop crs
   

2. Enter the following command, where CRS_home is the Oracle Clusterware home:

   # CRS_home/bin/oprocd stop
   

   Repeat this command on all nodes.

3. From one node of the cluster, change the value of the diagwait parameter to 13 seconds by issuing the following command as root:

   # CRS_home/bin/crsctl set css diagwait 13 -force
   

4. Restart the Oracle Clusterware by running the following command on all nodes:

   # CRS_home/bin/crsctl start crs
   

5. Run the following command to ensure that Oracle Clusterware is functioning properly:

   # CRS_home/bin/crsctl check crs
   

7.2.3 Recommended Administrative Post-Installation Tasks

Oracle recommends that you complete the following tasks after installing RAC:

• Back Up the root.sh Script

• Set Up Users Accounts

• Set the ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID Environments

7.2.4 Logging in to Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control

If you configure Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control during installation, then you can use it to manage your database. Alternatively, you can use Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control to manage your database.

To use Database Control, you must access it on the node where you installed the database. If you want to log into Database Control from another cluster node, then you need to reconfigure Enterprise Manager to start the Database Control interface on that other node.

Use the following instructions to log in to Database Control:

1. On the node from which you installed the database, open a Web browser to access the Database Control URL, and use the following URL syntax:

   http://host:port/em

   In the preceding example:

   • host is the name of the computer on which you installed Oracle Database

   • port is the port number reserved for the Database Control or Grid Control during installation

   If you do not know the correct port number to use, then look for the following line in the file $ORACLE_HOME/install/portlist.ini, which lists the assigned port:

   Enterprise Manager Console HTTP Port (db_name) = 1158
   

   The installation reserves the first available port from the range 5500 to 5519.

   For example, if you install Oracle Database on host mgmt42, and the Database Control uses port 1158, then use the following URL:

   http://mgmt42:1158/em
   

   Oracle Enterprise Manager displays the Database Control login page.

2. Log in to the database using the user name SYS and connect as SYSDBA.

   Use the password that you specified for the SYS account during the installation.

   Note:

   You can also log in to the Database Control using the SYSTEM or SYSMAN accounts, or you can grant login privileges to other database users.