4 Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster

4.1 Preparing to Install Oracle Grid Infrastructure with Oracle Universal Installer

Before you install Oracle Grid Infrastructure with Oracle Universal Installer (OUI), use the following checklist to ensure that you have all the information you will need during installation, and to ensure that you have completed all tasks that must be done before starting your installation. Check off each task in the following list as you complete it, and write down the information needed, so that you can provide it during installation.

• Verify Cluster Privileges

  Before running OUI, from the node where you intend to run the Installer, verify that you are logged in using a member of the Administrators group, and that this user is a Local Administrator user on the other nodes in the cluster. To do this, enter the following command for each node that is a part of the cluster, where nodename is the node name:

  net use \\nodename\C$
  

  Repeat for each node in the cluster.

• Shut Down Running Oracle Processes

  You may have to shut down running Oracle processes:

  Installing on a node with a standalone database not using Oracle ASM: You do not have to shut down the database while you install Oracle Grid Infrastructure software.

  Installing on a node that already has a standalone Oracle Database 11g release 2 (11.2) installation running on Oracle ASM: Stop the existing Oracle ASM instances. The Oracle ASM instances are restarted during installation.

  Note:

  If you receive a warning to stop all Oracle services after starting OUI, then, only if your environment is not running Oracle RAC, run the command, where Oracle_home is the existing Oracle Clusterware home (the Oracle home directory out of which the cluster synchronization service (CSS) is running):

  Oracle_home\bin\localconfig delete
  

  Installing on an Oracle RAC database node: This installation requires an upgrade of Oracle Clusterware, because Oracle Clusterware is required to run Oracle RAC. As part of the upgrade, you must shut down the database one node at a time as the rolling upgrade proceeds from node to node.

• Prepare for Oracle ASM and Oracle Clusterware upgrade if you have existing installations

  During the installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure, existing Oracle Clusterware and clustered Oracle ASM installations are upgraded.

  When all member nodes of the cluster are running Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g release 2 (11.2), then the new clusterware becomes the active version.

  If you intend to install Oracle RAC, then you must first complete the upgrade to Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g release 2 (11.2) on all cluster nodes before you install the Oracle Database 11g release 2 (11.2) version of Oracle RAC.

  Note:

  All Oracle Grid Infrastructure upgrades (upgrades of existing Oracle Clusterware and clustered Oracle ASM installations) are out-of-place upgrades.

• Obtain LOCAL_SYSTEM administrator access

  Oracle Grid Infrastructure must be installed as a Local Administrator user, one with LOCAL_SYSTEM privileges, or a member of the local Administrators group. If you do not have Administrator access to each node in the cluster, then ask your system administrator to create and configure the user account on each node.

• Decide if you want to install other languages

  During an Advanced installation session, you are asked if you want translation of user interface text into languages other than the default, which is English.

  Note:

  If the language set for the operating system is not supported by OUI, then OUI, by default, runs in English.

  See Also:

  Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for detailed information on character sets and language configuration

• Determine your cluster name, public node names, single client access name (SCAN), virtual node names, GNS VIP, and planned interface use for each node in the cluster

  During installation, you are prompted to provide the public and virtual host name, unless you use a third party cluster software. In that case, the public host name information will be filled in. You are also prompted to identify which interfaces are public, private, or interfaces in use for another purpose, such as a network file system.

  If you use Grid Naming Service (GNS), then OUI displays the public and virtual host name addresses labeled as "AUTO" because they are configured automatically by GNS.

  Note:

  If you configure internet protocol (IP) addresses manually, then avoid changing host names after you complete the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation, including adding or deleting domain qualifications. A node with a new host name is considered a new host, and must be added to the cluster. A node under the old name will appear to be down until it is removed from the cluster.

  When you enter the public node name, use the primary host name of each node. In other words, use the name displayed by the hostname command. This node name can be either the permanent or the virtual host name. The node name should contain only single-byte alphanumeric characters (a to z, A to Z, and 0 to 9). Do not use underscores (_) or any other characters in the host name.

  In addition:

  • Provide a cluster name with the following characteristics:

    • It must be globally unique throughout your host domain.

    • It must be at least one character long and less than 15 characters long.

    • It must consist of the same character set used for host names, in accordance with Internet Engineering Task Force RFC 1123: Hyphens (-), and single-byte alphanumeric characters (a to z, A to Z, and 0 to 9).

      Note:

      Windows operating systems allow underscores to be used in host names. However, because underscored names are not legal host names for a domain name system (DNS), they should be avoided.

  • If you are not using GNS, then determine a virtual host name for each node. A virtual host name is a public node name that is used to reroute client requests sent to the node if the node is down. Oracle Database uses virtual IP (VIP) addresses for client-to-database connections, so the VIP address must be publicly accessible. Oracle recommends that you provide a name in the format hostname-vip. For example: myclstr2-vip.

  • Provide SCAN addresses for client access to the cluster. These addresses should be configured as round robin addresses on the domain name service (DNS). Oracle recommends that you supply three SCAN addresses.

    Note:

    The following is a list of additional information about node IP addresses:

    • For the local node only, OUI automatically fills in public and VIP fields.

    • Host names and virtual host names are not domain-qualified. If you provide a domain in the host name field during installation, then OUI removes the domain from the name.

    • Interfaces identified as private for private IP addresses should not be accessible as public interfaces. Using public interfaces for Cache Fusion can cause performance problems.

  • Identify public and private interfaces. OUI configures public interfaces for use by public and virtual IP addresses, and configures private IP addresses on private interfaces.

    The private subnet that the private interfaces use must connect all the nodes you intend to have as cluster members.

• Obtain proxy realm authentication information if you have a proxy realm on your network

  During installation, OUI attempts to download updates. You are prompted to provide a proxy realm, and user authentication information to access the Internet through the proxy service. If you have a proxy realm configured, then be prepared to provide this information. If you do not have a proxy realm, then you can leave the proxy authentication fields blank.

• Identify shared storage for Oracle Clusterware files and prepare storage if necessary

  During installation, you are asked to provide paths for the following Oracle Clusterware files. These files must be shared across all nodes of the cluster, either on Oracle ASM, or on a supported cluster file system:

  • Voting disks are files that Oracle Clusterware uses to verify cluster node membership and status.

  • Oracle Cluster Registry files (OCR) contain cluster and database configuration information for Oracle Clusterware.

  If you intend to use Oracle Cluster File System for Windows (OCFS for Windows), then you are prompted to indicate which of the available disks you want to format with OCFS for Windows, what format type you want to use, and to what drive letter the formatted OCFS for Windows disk is mounted.

  If your file system does not have external storage redundancy, then Oracle recommends that you provide two additional locations for the OCR disk and voting disks, for a total of at least three partitions. If the OCR and voting disks are not stored together, then you will need at least six partitions (three for the OCR and three for voting disks). Creating redundant storage locations protects the OCR and voting disk if a failure occurs. To completely protect your cluster, the storage locations given for the copies of the OCR and voting disks should have completely separate paths, controllers, and disks, so that no single point of failure is shared by storage locations.

  When you select to store the OCR on Oracle ASM, the default configuration is to create the OCR in one Oracle ASM disk group. If you create the disk group with normal or high redundancy, then the OCR is protected from physical disk failure.

  To protect the OCR from logical disk failure, create another Oracle ASM disk group after installation and add the OCR to the second disk group using the ocrconfig command.

  See Also:

  • Chapter 2, "Advanced Installation Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster Preinstallation Tasks" and Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for information about adding disks to disk groups

  • Chapter 3, "Configuring Storage for Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC"

• Disconnect all non-persistent drives

  Before starting the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation on Windows, ensure that you disconnect all nonpersistent drives that are temporarily mounted on all the nodes. Alternatively, to access the shared drive, make the shared drive persistent using the following command:

  net use * \\servername\sharename /persistent: YES
  

• Disable Anti-Virus software

  Disable any anti-virus software running on cluster nodes before and for the entire duration of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g release 2 installation. If the system is restarted before the installation is complete, ensure the anti-virus software was not restarted before continuing with the installation. Anti-virus software can be re-enabled when the installation is complete.

• Have intelligent platform management interface (IPMI) configuration completed and have IPMI administrator account information

  If you intend to use IPMI, then ensure baseboard management controller (BMC) interfaces are configured, and have an administration account username and password to provide when prompted during installation.

  For nonstandard installations, if you must change the configuration on one or more nodes after installation (for example, if you have different administrator usernames and passwords for BMC interfaces on cluster nodes), then decide if you want to reconfigure the BMC interface, or modify IPMI administrator account information after installation, as described in Chapter 5, "Oracle Grid Infrastructure Postinstallation Procedures".

• Ensure that the Oracle home path you select for the Grid home uses only American standard code for information interchange (ASCII) characters

  The use of non-ASCII characters in any part of the path for an Oracle Grid Infrastructure home (Grid home) or Oracle Database home is not supported. This restriction includes installation owner user names, which are used as a default for some home paths, as well as other directory names you may select for paths.

• Unset Oracle environment variables. If you have set ORA_CRS_HOME as an environment variable, then unset it before starting an installation or upgrade. You should never configure ORA_CRS_HOME as a user or system environment variable.

  If you have had an existing installation on your system, and you are using the same user account to install this installation, then unset the following environment variables: ORA_CRS_HOME; ORACLE_HOME; ORA_NLS10; TNS_ADMIN

• Decide if you want to use the Software Updates option. OUI can install critical patch updates and system requirements updates for supported operating systems, and other significant updates that can help to ensure your installation proceeds smoothly. Oracle recommends that you enable software updates during installation.

  If you choose to enable software updates, then during installation you must provide a valid My Oracle Support user name and password, so that OUI can download the latest updates, or you must provide a path to the location of an software updates packages that you have downloaded previously.

  If you plan to run the installation in a secured data center, then you can download updates before starting the installation by starting OUI in update download mode on a system that has Internet access. To start OUI to download updates, enter the following command from the base directory of the installation media:

  X:\> setup.exe -downloadUpdates
  

  Provide the My Oracle Support user name and password, and provide proxy settings if needed. After you download the updates, transfer the update file to a directory on the server where you plan to run the installation.

4.2 Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure

This section provides information about how to use OUI to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure. It contains the following sections:

• Running OUI to Install Oracle Grid Infrastructure

• Performing a Silent Installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure

node     vip
node     vip
...

RACnode1  RACnode1-vip
RACnode2  RACnode2-vip
RACnode3  RACnode3-vip

4.3 Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure Using a Software-Only Installation

A software-only installation consists of installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a cluster on one node. If you use the Install Grid Infrastructure Software Only option during installation, then the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software is installed on the local node. To complete the installation for your cluster, you must perform the additional steps of configuring Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM, creating a clone of the local installation, deploying this clone on other nodes, and then adding the other nodes to the cluster.

If you select a software-only installation, then ensure that the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home path is identical on each cluster member node.

Performing a software-only installation involves the following steps:

1. Installing Only the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Software

2. Configuring the installed software using one of the following methods:

   • Configuring the Software Binaries Using Configuration Wizard Mode of OUI

   • Configuring the Software Binaries Using a Response File

4.4 Confirming Oracle Clusterware Function

After installation, log in as a member of the Administrators group, and run the following command from the bin directory in the Grid home to confirm that your Oracle Clusterware installation is installed and running correctly:

crsctl check cluster -all

C:\..\bin\> crsctl check cluster -all
 

*************************************************************************
node1:
CRS-4537: Cluster Ready Services is online
CRS-4529: Cluster Synchronization Services is online
CRS-4533: Event Manager is online
*************************************************************************
node2:
CRS-4537: Cluster Ready Services is online
CRS-4529: Cluster Synchronization Services is online
CRS-4533: Event Manager is online
*************************************************************************

4.5 Confirming Oracle ASM Function for Oracle Clusterware Files

If you installed the OCR and voting disk files on Oracle ASM, then run the following command from the Grid_home\bin directory to confirm that your Oracle ASM software is operational:

srvctl status asm

Oracle ASM is running only if it is needed for Oracle Clusterware files. If you did not configure Oracle Clusterware storage on Oracle ASM during installation, then the Oracle ASM instance should be down.

C:\app\11.2.0\grid\BIN> srvctl status asm
ASM is running on node node1
ASM is running on node node2

4.6 Understanding Offline Processes in Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Oracle Grid Infrastructure provides required resources for various Oracle products and components. Some of those products and components are optional, so you can install and enable them after installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure. To simplify postinstallation additions, Oracle Grid Infrastructure preconfigures and registers all required resources for all products available for these products and components, but only activates them when you choose to add them. As a result, some components may be listed as OFFLINE after the installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure.

Resources listed as TARGET:OFFLINE and STATE:OFFLINE do not need to be monitored. They represent components that are registered, but not enabled, so they do not use any system resources. If an Oracle product or component is installed on the system, and it requires a particular resource to be online, then the software will prompt you to activate the required offline resource.