1 Summary List: Installing Oracle Clusterware

1.1 Verify System Requirements

For more information, review the following section in Chapter 2:

"Checking the Hardware Requirements"

Enter the following commands to check available memory:

grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo
grep SwapTotal /proc/meminfo

The minimum required RAM is 1 GB, and the minimum required swap space is 1 GB. Oracle recommends that you set swap space 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 swap space equal to RAM. For systems with over 8 GB RAM, use .75 times the size of RAM.

df -h

This command checks 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 partition for the Oracle Clusterware files should be 256 MB in size.

The Oracle Clusterware home requires 650 MB of disk space.

df -h /tmp

Ensure that you have at least 400 MB of disk space in /tmp. If this space is not available, then increase the partition size, or delete unnecessary files in /tmp.

1.2 Check Network Requirements

For more information, review the following section in Chapter 2:

"Checking the Network Requirements"

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

• You must have three network addresses for each node:

  • A public IP address

  • A virtual IP 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, on you can use the utility system-config-network to assign the public and private IP addresses to NICs, or you can configure them manually using ifconfig. Do not assign the VIP address.

Ping all IP addresses. The public and private IP addresses should respond to ping commands. The VIP addresses should not respond.

1.3 Check Operating System Packages

Refer to the tables listed inChapter 2 "Identifying Software Requirements"for details, or use a system configuration script such as the Oracle Validated RPM.

1.4 Set Kernel Parameters

For more information, review the following section in Chapter 2:

"Configuring Kernel Parameters"

Using any text editor, create or edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file, and add or edit lines similar to the following:

kernel.shmall = 2097152
kernel.shmmax = 2147483648
kernel.shmmni = 4096
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
fs.file-max = 65536
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 1024 65000
net.core.rmem_default = 262144
net.core.rmem_max = 4194304
net.core.wmem_default = 262144
net.core.wmem_max = 262144

To enter these kernel settings into the running kernel, enter the following command:

# sysctl -p

1.5 Configure Groups and Users

For more information, review the following sections in Chapter 2:

"Overview of Groups and Users for Oracle Clusterware Installations"

For information about creating Oracle Database homes, review the following sections in Chapter 3:

"Creating Standard Configuration Operating System Groups and Users"

"Creating Custom Configuration Groups and Users for Job Roles"

"Creating Groups and Users for Oracle Clusterware"

For purposes of evaluation, we will assume that you have one Oracle installation owner, and that this oracle installation software owner name is oracle. You must create an Oracle installation owner group (oinstall) for Oracle Clusterware. If you intend to install Oracle Database, then you must create an OSDBA group (dba). Use the id oracle command to confirm the correct group and user configuration.

/usr/sbin/groupadd oinstall
/usr/sbin/groupadd dba
/usr/sbin/useradd -m -g oinstall -G dba oracle
id oracle

Set the password on the oracle account:

passwd oracle

1.6 Create Directories

For more information, review the following section in Chapter 2:

"Requirements for Creating an Oracle Clusterware Home Directory"

For information about creating Oracle Database homes, review the following sections in Chapter 3:

"Understanding the Oracle Base Directory Path"

"Creating the Oracle Base Directory Path"

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 root, 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 u0[1-9]/app.

For example:

mkdir –p  /u01/app
chown –R oracle:oinstall /u01/app

1.7 Configure Oracle Installation Owner Shell Limits

For information, review the following section in Chapter 2:

"Configuring Software Owner User Environments"

As root, add the following lines to /etc/profile to set shell limits for the user oracle, and for the BASH, Korn, and C shells; repeat this process for each Oracle software user you want to create

umask 022
if [ \$USER = "oracle" ]; then 
 if [ \$SHELL = "/bin/ksh" ]; then
 ulimit -p 16384
 ulimit -n 65536
 else
 ulimit -u 16384 -n 65536

1.8 Configure SSH

For information, review the following section in Chapter 2:

"Configuring SSH on All Cluster Nodes"

To configure SSH, complete the following tasks:

$ pgrep sshd

1.9 Create Storage

The following outlines the procedure for creating OCR and voting disk partitions on block devices, and creating ASM disks on block devices.

For information, review the following sections in Chapter 4:

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

"Configuring Disk Devices for Oracle Clusterware Files"

1.10 Verify Oracle Clusterware Requirements with CVU

For information, review the following section in Chapter 6:

"Verifying Oracle Clusterware Requirements with CVU"

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

/mountpoint/runcluvfy.sh stage -pre crsinst -n node_list

1.11 Install Oracle Clusterware Software

For information, review the following sections in Chapter 6:

"Preparing to Install Oracle Clusterware with OUI"

"Installing Oracle Clusterware with OUI"

1. Ensure SSH keys are loaded into memory for the terminal session from which you rn the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI).

2. Navigate to the installation media, and start OUI. For example:

   $ cd /Disk1
   ./runInstaller
   

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

1.12 Prepare the System for Oracle RAC and ASM

For information, review the following section in Chapter 5:

"Configuring Disks for Automatic Storage Management"

If you intend to install Oracle RAC, as well as Oracle Clusterware, then Oracle recommends that you use ASM for database file management, and install the Linux ASMLIB RPMs to simplify administration. ASMLib 2.0 is delivered as a set of three Linux packages:

• oracleasmlib-2.0 - the ASM libraries

• oracleasm-support-2.0 - utilities needed to administer ASMLib

• oracleasm - a kernel module for the ASM library

Each Linux distribution has its own set of ASMLib 2.0 packages, and within each distribution, each kernel version has a corresponding oracleasm package.

Complete the following procedures on each node that you intend to make a member of the cluster:

• Determine the Correct Oracleasm Package

• Download and Install the Oracleasm Package

• Configure ASMLib

uname -rm

# uname –rm
2.6.9-5.ELsmp i686

# /etc/init.d/oracleasm configure

/etc/init.d/oracleasm create disk ASM_DISK_NAME device_name