Particular attention must be given to the operation of PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle.
Prerequisites and requirements
PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle has specific system requirements and component prerequisites that need to be understood prior to operation.
In PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle, environment that Oracle software is installed on shared disk is not supported.
More than one Oracle product which version/release is different can be installed on the same node. However, the version and release should be same on an operating node and standby nodes.
For the Oracle products supported, see “Software Release Guide” and “Handbook”.
A user name, user ID, group name, and group ID should be identical on all the nodes to install Oracle.
If multiple ORACLE_HOME are configured on one server, a different user name must be assigned respectively.
Set up directory path of local disk to ORACLE_HOME, because environment that Oracle software is installed on shared disk is not supported.
An Oracle Database must be configured on the shared disk.
Setting Oracle log output on the shared disk is not recommended. When a disk device fails, log is not output, and the trouble may be unable to be investigated.
Note of location of archived redo logs.
Located on local disks
If Oracle recovery is required, the archived redo logs on both nodes should be put together.
Located on shared disks
Note that there is sufficient space to archive for archived redo log files. If there is insufficient space, and data updating processing through monitoring SQL hangs, an oracle resource might fail.
Afterwards, the service might stop finally on both operating node and standby node, because the space of shared disk is insufficient and the failover of userApplication fails on the standby node.
The Oracle “TWO_TASK” environment variable cannot be used. For details, see “2.2.6 Oracle Database Creation and Setting”.
The setting to connect to an Oracle Database must not be described in login.sql of an Oracle user. For details, see “2.2.6 Oracle Database Creation and Setting”.
The password file authentication cannot be used. Use OS authentication.
PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle connects to Oracle instance with SYSDBA system privilege to start up or stop Oracle instance/database. In this case, local connection in operating system authentication is used. Therefore, the following requirements should be satisfied. (If not, startup and stop of Oracle instance/database might fail.)
Oracle user that is set for Oracle instance resource in “2.2.7.2 Oracle Resource Creation” or “2.3.5 userApplication with Oracle RAC Instances and Listeners” should belong to OSDBA group.
SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES parameter should not be defined in sqlnet.ora file.
The other connections (e.g. user own connection for maintenance) can use the password file authentication.
A command (e.g. script) that has interactive mode should not be described in Oracle user's profile(e.g. /etc/profile, .bash_profile, .cshrc, .profile). It may cause failure of resource monitoring or userApplication startup or shutdown.
For details, refer to “2.2.2 Oracle Installation and Configuration” or “2.3.2 Oracle Software Installation and Configuration”.
Environment that Oracle user's home directory and profile are located on the shared disk is not supported. Oracle user's home directory and profile must be located on the local disk of each node.
Operating system authentication of Listener should be enabled. For details, refer to “2.2.6 Oracle Database Creation and Setting”.
Oracle user should have access privileges for /tmp directory.
The programs of PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle working with Oracle user use /tmp directory. If Oracle user does not have access privileges for /tmp directory, the programs do not work correctly and startup or shutdown of Oracle fails.
In order to use ASM of Oracle 11g R2, it is necessary to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure. When installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure, the composition which separates the installation user of Oracle Database and the installation user of Oracle Grid Infrastructure is supported. The composition which creating one user is not supported.
In order to use ASM of Oracle 11g R2, a different directory must be assigned respectively for an ORACLE_BASE of the installation user of Oracle Database and an ORACLE_BASE of the installation user of Oracle Grid Infrastructure.
Using of the "su -" command is not supported for user scripts(prestartup*, nomount*, mount*) under /opt/FJSVclora/usr.
Features and functions
Below are guidelines and precautions to be taken in using the features and functions provided by PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle.
The detector connects itself to the database using SYSTEM user access privileges to monitor Oracle instances. It also monitors Oracle operation by creating a monitoring table on the SYSTEM user default tablespace. The size of the table is only a few bytes. The table data is periodically updated, so the REDO log is updated, and the archived redo log data is output.
Stopping an Oracle instance in the “immediate” mode fails in the following situations:
- A DBA user is being connected to the Oracle instance, or
- Online backup is the Oracle instance is in progress
If this occurs, Wizard for Oracle will shut down the Oracle instance with “abort” mode.
The time required for Oracle instance startup and stop varies depending on the database size. The default startup timeout is 10 minutes. The default stop timeout is 3 minutes.
The RMS command “hvshut” has its own timeout. Even though hvshut times out, userApplication stop processing will be continued along with RMS stop.
If a database failure is detected during Oracle instance startup, the database will automatically be recovered. Note that if scalable operation with Oracle RAC is used in a system, automatic recovery will not be performed.
In scalable operation with Oracle RAC, an RMS resource is created based on the resource name of Oracle RAC or OracleSID. For details, see “2.3.2 Oracle Software Installation and Configuration”.
MonitorOnly can be enabled in the following cases. For details, see “2.2.7.2 Oracle Resource Creation”.
One resource of “Instance” type and one resource of “Listener” type exist, and StartPriority is set to “Same”. In this case, MonitorOnly only for the one of them can be enabled.
More than one resources of “Instance” type exist. In this case, MonitorOnly for the one of them cannot be enabled, but all of the others can be enabled.
More than one resources of “Listener” type exist. In this case, MonitorOnly for the one of them cannot be enabled, but all of the others can be enabled.
Do not execute “srvctl” or “sqlplus” commands to shut down Oracle instance. It might cause mismatched status between RMS and Oracle RAC.
Configuration
Below are guidelines and precautions to be taken in configuring an environment that allows for PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle operations.
Be aware of the exit code and timeout duration when the following scripts are set:
PreOnlineScript, PostOnlineScript, PreOfflineScript, PostOfflineScript, and FaultScript.
For details, see “2.4.1 Oracle Online/Offline Script”.
Operations
Users need to take a special precaution when changing the system password for PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle as follows:
For information on how to change the Oracle SYSTEM user password while a cluster system is running, see “3.3 Oracle SYSTEM User Password Change ”.
When passwords of Oracle user, Grid user, and Oracle SYS user are changed, the setting of PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle need not be changed.
Others
Users need to take the following special precaution when operating PRIMECLUSTER Wizard for Oracle:
If an Oracle instance is stopped in the abort mode, it will automatically be recovered at the next instance startup.
