1 Summary List: Installing Oracle Clusterware

1.1 Verify System Requirements

For more information, review "Checking Hardware Requirements".

Memory Requirements

In the Windows Task Manager window, select the Performance tab to view the available memory for your system.

To view the Virtual memory settings, from the Control panel, select System. In the System Properties window, select the Advanced tab, then, under Performance, click Performance Options. In the Performance Options window, the virtual memory, or page file, settings are displayed at the bottom of the window.

The minimum required RAM is 1 GB, and the minimum required swap space is 1 GB. Oracle recommends that you set the paging file size to twice the amount of RAM for systems with 2 GB of RAM or less. For systems with 2 GB to 8 GB RAM, use a paging file size equal to RAM. For systems with over 8 GB RAM, use .75 times the size of RAM for the paging file size.

Disk Requirements

From the Control Panel, select Administrative Tools, then select Computer Management. In the menu on the left-hand side of the Computer Management window, under Storage, select Disk Management.

The Disk Management window displays the available space on file systems. If you use standard redundancy for Oracle Clusterware files, which is 2 Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) partitions and 3 voting disk partitions, then you should have at least 1 GB of disk space available on separate physical disks reserved for Oracle Clusterware files. Each Oracle Clusterware file should be at least 256 MB in size.

The Oracle Clusterware home requires 650 MB of disk space.

TEMP Space Requirements

Ensure that you have at least 400 MB of disk space in the Windows TEMP directory. If this space is not available, then increase the partition size, or delete unnecessary files in the TEMP directory. Make sure the environment variables TEMP and TMP both point to the location of the TEMP directory, for example:

TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP
TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP

1.2 Check Network Requirements

For more information, review "Checking Network Requirements".

Network Address Requirements

The following is a list of address requirements that you must configure on a domain name server (DNS), or configure in the %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file for each cluster node:

• You must have three network addresses for each node:

  • A public internet protocol (IP) address

  • A virtual IP (VIP) address, which is used by applications for failover in the event of node failure

  • A private IP address, which is used by Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC for internode communication

• The virtual IP address has the following requirements:

  • The IP address and host name are currently unused (it can be registered in a DNS, but should not be accessible by a ping command)

  • The virtual IP address is on the same subnet as your public interface

• The private IP address has the following requirements:

  • It should be on a subnet reserved for private networks, such as 10.0.0.0 or 192.168.0.0

  • It should use dedicated switches or a physically separate, private network, reachable only by the cluster member nodes, preferably using high-speed NICs

  • It must use the same private interfaces for both Oracle Clusterware and Oracle RAC private IP addresses

  • It cannot be registered on the same subnet that is registered to a public IP address

After you obtain the IP addresses from a network administrator, to assign the public and private IP addresses to NICs, right-click on My Network Places and select Properties. In the Network and Dial-up Connections window, right-click the device for which you want to change the IP address, and select Properties. Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), then click Properties. Do not assign the VIP address.

Host Name Resolution Requirements

Ensure that the public (external) host names are defined in your DNS and that the correct IP addresses resolve for all nodes in the cluster. Ensure that all public (external) and private (internal) host names are defined in the hosts file on all nodes of the cluster. Test your cluster configuration by pinging all host names from each node and check for proper names resolution. The public and private IP addresses should respond to ping commands. The VIP addresses should not respond.

Network Adaptor Naming and Binding Order

Check the network adaptor binding order on each node. Ensure that your public network adaptor is first in the bind order, and the private network adaptor is second. Follow these steps to configure the network adaptor bind order:

1. Right-click My Network Places and choose Properties.

2. In the Advanced menu, click Advanced Settings...

3. If the public interface name is not the first name listed under the Adapters and Bindings tab, then select it and click the arrow to move it to the top of list.

4. Click OK to save the setting and then exit the network setup dialog.

The names used for each class of network adaptor (such as public) must be consistent across all nodes. You can use nondefault names for the network adaptors, for example, PublicLAN, as long as the same names are used for the same class of network adaptors on each node in the network.

Disable DHCP Media Sense

Media Sense allows Windows to uncouple an IP address from a network adaptor when the link to the local switch is lost. To disable Windows Media Sensing for TCP/IP, you must set the value of the DisableDHCPMediaSense parameter to 1 on each node. Because you need to modify the Windows registry to disable Media Sensing, you should first backup the registry and confirm that you can restore it, using the methods described in your Windows documentation. Disable Media Sensing by completing the following steps on each node of your cluster:

1. Backup the Windows registry.

2. Use Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe) to view the following key in the registry:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters
   

3. Add the following registry value:

   Value Name: DisableDHCPMediaSense
   Data Type: REG_DWORD -Boolean
   Value: 1
   

4. Restart the computer.

Verify Privileges for Copying Files in the Cluster

During installation, OUI copies the software from the local node to the remote nodes in the cluster. Verify that you have administrative privileges on the other nodes in the cluster by running the following command on each node, where node_name is the node name:

net use \\node_name\C$

1.3 Create Directories

To install properly across all nodes, the Oracle Universal Installer will need to use the temporary folders defined within Microsoft Windows. The TEMP and TMP folders should be the same across all nodes in the cluster. By default, these settings are defined as %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp and %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Tmp in the Environment Settings of My Computer. It is recommended to explicitly redefine these as WIN_DRIVE:\temp and WIN_DRIVE:\tmp, for example, C:\temp or C:\tmp for all nodes, if Windows is installed on the C drive.

For installations with Oracle Clusterware only, Oracle recommends that you let Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) create the Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Central Inventory (oraInventory) directories for you. However, as Administrator, you must create a path compliant with Oracle Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) guidelines, so that OUI can select that directory during installation. For OUI to recognize the path as an Oracle software path, it must be in the form C:\... .

1.4 Create Storage

Oracle RAC requires that each node be able to access a set of files on a shared disk subsystem. All instances in the cluster share these files.

The following sections outline the procedure for creating OCR and voting disk partitions, and preparing ASM disks.

For additional information, review the following sections:

• "Configuring Storage for Oracle Clusterware Files on a Shared File System"

• "Configuring Storage for Oracle Clusterware Files on Raw Devices"

• "Configuring Disks for Automatic Storage Management"

1.5 Verify Oracle Clusterware Requirements with CVU

For information, review the following section in "Verifying Oracle Clusterware Requirements with CVU".

Using the following command syntax, log in as the administrative user, and start Cluster Verification Utility (CVU) to check system requirements prior to installing Oracle Clusterware. In the following syntax example, replace the variable mountpoint with the path to the installation media, and replace the variable node_list with the names of the nodes in your cluster, separated by commas:

mountpoint\runcluvfy.bat stage -pre crsinst -n node_list

For example, if you want to verify the system requirements have been met for node1 and node2, and your installation media is available on drive F:, then enter the following command:

F:\runcluvfy.bat stage -pre crsinst -n node1,node2

1.6 Install Oracle Clusterware Software

For information, review the following sections in"Verifying Oracle Clusterware Requirements with CVU" AND "Installing Oracle Clusterware with OUI".

1. Navigate to the installation media, and start OUI. For example, if the installation media is available on drive D:, you would use the following commands:

   cd D:\Disk1
   setup.exe
   

2. Select Install Oracle Clusterware, and enter the configuration information as prompted.

3. After you have installed Oracle Clusterware, apply any available patch sets.