4 Oracle Real Application Clusters Postinstallation Procedures

4.1.1 Downloading and Installing Patch Updates

Refer to the My Oracle Support Web site for required patch updates for your installation.

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To download required patch updates:

1. Use a Web browser to view the My Oracle Support Web site:

   https://support.oracle.com

2. Log in to My Oracle Support.

   Note:

   If you are not a My Oracle Support registered user, then click Register for My Oracle Support and register.

3. On the main My Oracle Support page, click Patches & Updates.

4. In the Patches section, click Simple Search.

5. Specify the following information, then click Go:

   • In the Search By field, select Product or Family, and then specify RDBMS Server.

   • In the Release field, specify the current release number.

   • In the Patch Type field, specify Patchset/Minipack.

   • In the Platform or Language field, select your platform.

6. In the Results list, find the latest patch set for Oracle Database.

   Patch sets for Oracle databases are identified in the Description column as Product:Patchset x.x.x.x PATCH SET FOR ORACLE DATABASE SERVER.

7. In the Patch column, click the number of the patch that you want to download.

8. 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.

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

10. Use the unzip utility provided with Oracle Database 11g release 2 (11.2) to uncompress the Oracle patch updates that you downloaded from My Oracle Support. The unzip utility is located in the $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory.

4.1.2 Setting External Jobs Ownership for Installations on HP-UX

On HP-UX platforms only, complete the following procedure to set external jobs ownership to the low-privilege user extjob:

1. Log on as root.

2. Change directory to the Oracle Database Oracle home:

   # cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/
   

3. Open externaljob.ora with a text editor, and find the parameters run_user and run_group.

4. Set run_user to the external jobs user (extjob), and set run_group to a low-privileged group, such as other. For example:

   run_user=extproc
   run_group=other
   

5. Save the file.

   Note:

   Modify externaljob.ora only as root.

4.1.3 Configuring Oracle Products

Many Oracle products and options must be configured before you use them for the first time. Before using individual Oracle Database 11g release 2 (11.2) database products or options, refer to the manual in the product documentation library which is available in the DOC directory on the Oracle Database installation media, or on the OTN Web site.

4.1.4 Relocating Instance-Related Memory-Mapped files from OCFS2 Using Symbolic Links

If you install Oracle RAC on a standard local file system, then you do not need to read this section.

On Linux, if your Oracle RAC installation is created on OCFS2, and the version of OCFS2 that you are using is earlier than 1.4.1. then you must complete the following task to continue to use that version.

On OCFS2 versions earlier than 1.4.1, you must relocate the healthcheck files (*.dat) that typically reside in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs to a local file system, and create symbolic links to it from the original path. This is required because these OCFS2 versions for Linux do not support shared writable map access that the Oracle software uses to manipulate the healthcheck files.

To relocate the files:

1. Stop the Oracle Database instance.

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

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

4. Restart the Oracle Database instance.

4.2.1 Backing Up the root.sh Script

Oracle recommends that you back up the root.sh script after you complete an installation. If you install other products in the same Oracle home directory, then the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) updates the contents of the existing root.sh script during the installation. If you require information contained in the original root.sh script, then you can recover it from the root.sh file copy.

4.2.2 Setting the Oracle User Environment Variables

On each node, in the installation owner user profile file (in this example, oracle), set the environment variables ORACLE_BASE and ORACLE_HOME, and ORACLE_SID; also add ORACLE_HOME/bin to the path environment variable.

For example:

export ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle
export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/11.2.0/dbhome_1
export PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/bin
export ORACLE_SID=sales1

If the environment variables ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID are not set, and you try to use SQL*Plus or other tools, then you receive an error message requesting that you set these variables.

4.2.3 Recompiling all PL/SQL modules

Oracle recommends that you run the utlrp.sql script after creating or upgrading a database. This script recompiles all PL/SQL modules that might be in an invalid state, including packages, procedures, and types. This is an optional step but Oracle recommends that you do it immediately following installation, not at a later date.

1. Complete setting up the Oracle software owner user account environment (for example, oracle), as described in "Setting the Oracle User Environment Variables" in the preceding section.

2. Start SQL*Plus, as follows:

   $ sqlplus "/ AS SYSDBA"
   

3. Run the utlrp.sql script, where Oracle_home is the Oracle home path:

   SQL> @Oracle_home/rdbms/admin/utlrp.sql
   

4.2.4 Setting Up Additional User Accounts

For information about setting up additional optional user accounts, refer to Oracle Database 11g Administrator's Guide for UNIX Systems.

When you complete these procedures, you are ready to perform the initial configuration tasks described in Chapter 5, " Configuring the Server Parameter File in Oracle Real Application Clusters Environments".

4.2.5 Running Oracle RAC Configuration Audit Tool

Oracle recommends that you run the Oracle RAC Configuration Audit tool (RACcheck) to check your Oracle RAC installation. RACcheck is an Oracle RAC auditing tool that checks various important configuration settings within Oracle Real Application Clusters, Oracle Clusterware, Oracle Automatic Storage Management and the Oracle Grid Infrastructure environment.

Oracle recommends that you download and run the latest version of RACcheck from My Oracle Support. For information about downloading, configuring, and running RACcheck configuration audit tool, refer to My Oracle Support note 1268927.1, which is available at the following URL:

https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1268927.1