3 Oracle Grid Infrastructure

3.1.1 Memory Requirements

The following are the memory requirements for installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server:

Minimum: At least 1.5 GB of RAM for Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server; at least 1 GB of additional RAM if you plan to install Oracle Database after installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server.

Recommended: 4 GB of RAM or more if you plan to install both Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server and Oracle Database.

• To determine the RAM size, enter the following command:

  # grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo
  

  If the size of the RAM is less than the required size, then you must install more memory before continuing.

• The following table describes the relationship between installed RAM and the configured swap space recommendation:

  Note:

  On Linux, the HugePages feature allocates non-swappable memory for large page tables using memory-mapped files. If you enable HugePages, then you should deduct the memory allocated to HugePages from the available RAM before calculating swap space.

  RAM	Swap Space
  Between 1.5 GB and 2 GB	1.5 times the size of the RAM
  Between 2 GB and 16 GB	Equal to the size of the RAM
  More than 16 GB	16 GB

  
  

To determine the size of the configured swap space, enter the following command:

# grep SwapTotal /proc/meminfo

If necessary, see the operating system documentation for information about how to configure additional swap space.

To determine the available RAM and swap space, enter the following command:

# free

3.1.2 Disk Space Requirements

The following are the disk space requirements for installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure:

• At least 5.5 GB of disk space.

• At least 1 GB of space in the /tmp directory.

To determine the amount of free space available in the /tmp directory, enter the following command:

# df -k /tmp

If there is less than 1 GB of free space available in the /tmp directory, then complete one of the following steps:

• Delete unnecessary files from the /tmp directory to meet the disk space requirement.

• Set the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables to specify a temporary directory when setting the oracle user's environment.

  See Also:

  "Configuring the oracle User's Environment" for more information about setting TMP and TMPDIR

• Extend the file system that contains the /tmp directory. If necessary, contact the system administrator for information about extending file systems.

3.1.3 Configuring the User's Environment

Complete the following tasks to set the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user's environment:

• Review the information in "Logging In to the System as root".

• Ensure that you set the path to the Oracle base directory. Oracle Restart and Oracle Database are under the same Oracle base directory. For example:

  # ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle; 
  # export ORACLE_BASE
  

• Set the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user default file mode creation mask (umask) to 022 in the shell startup file. Setting the mask to 022 ensures that the user performing the software installation creates files with 755 permissions.

• Set ulimit settings for file descriptors and processes for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation software owner.

• Set the DISPLAY environment variable in preparation for installation.

If you plan to install Oracle Database, then you must meet additional preinstallation requirements. See Chapter 2, " Oracle Database Preinstallation Requirements".

3.6.1 General Steps for Configuring Oracle Automatic Storage Management

The following are the general steps to configure Oracle ASM:

1. Identify the storage requirements of the site.

2. If you are creating a new Oracle ASM disk group, create partitions for DAS or SAN disks.

3. Configure the disks for use with Oracle ASM. You must provide the Oracle ASM disk configuration information during the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

3.6.2 Step 1: Identifying Storage Requirements for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

To identify the storage requirements for using Oracle ASM, you must determine the number of devices and the amount of free disk space that you require. To complete this task:

1. Determine whether you want to use Oracle ASM for Oracle Database files, recovery files, or both.

   Note:

   You do not have to use the same storage mechanism for Oracle Database files and recovery files. You can use a file system for one file type and Oracle ASM for the other.

   If you enable automated backups and you do not have a shared file system available, then you must choose Oracle ASM for recovery file storage.

   During the database installation, if you plan to enable automated backups, then you can choose Oracle ASM as the storage mechanism for recovery files by specifying an Oracle ASM disk group for the fast recovery area. Depending on how you create a database during the database installation, you have the following options:

   • You can run Oracle ASMCA in interactive mode to create and configure the required disk groups.

     During the database installation, if you select an installation method that runs Database Configuration Assistant in interactive mode (Advanced Installation type), then you can select the disk groups that you created using Oracle ASMCA.

     You have the option to use the disk groups you created using Oracle ASMCA both for database files and recovery files, or you can use different disk groups for each file type. Ideally, create separate Oracle ASM disk groups for data files and for recovery files.

   • If you run Oracle ASMCA in noninteractive mode, then you must use the same Oracle ASM disk group for data files and recovery files. During the database installation (Typical Installation type), you must select the same disk group for both data files and recovery files.

   See Also:

   • "Oracle ASM Configuration Assistant Command-Line Interface" section in Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide

   • "Creating a Fast Recovery Area Disk Group"

2. Choose the Oracle ASM redundancy level to use for each Oracle ASM disk group that you create.

   The redundancy level that you choose for the Oracle ASM disk group determines how Oracle ASM mirrors files in the disk group and determines the number of disks and amount of disk space that you require, as follows:

   • External redundancy

     This option does not allow Oracle ASM to mirror the contents of the disk group. Oracle recommends that you select this redundancy level either when the disk group contains devices, such as RAID devices, that provide their own data protection or when the database does not require uninterrupted access to data.

   • Normal redundancy

     To optimize performance and reliability in a normal redundancy disk group, Oracle ASM uses two-way mirroring for data files and three-way mirroring for control files, by default. In addition, you can choose the mirroring characteristics for individual files in a disk group. You can use two-way mirroring or no mirroring.

     A normal redundancy disk group requires a minimum of two failure groups (or two disk devices) if you are using two-way mirroring. The effective disk space in a normal redundancy disk group is half the sum of the disk space of all of its devices.

     For most installations, Oracle recommends that you use normal redundancy disk groups.

   • High redundancy

     The contents of the disk group are three-way mirrored by default. To create a disk group with high redundancy, you must specify at least three failure groups (a minimum of three devices).

     Although high-redundancy disk groups provide a high level of data protection, you must consider the higher cost of additional storage devices before deciding to use this redundancy level.

3. Determine the total amount of disk space that you require for the database files and recovery files.

   If an Oracle ASM instance is running on the system, then you can use an existing disk group to meet these storage requirements. If necessary, you can add disks to an existing disk group during the database installation.

   Use the following table to determine the minimum number of disks and the minimum disk space requirements for the installation:

   Redundancy Level	Minimum Number of Disks	Data Files	Recovery Files	Both File Types
   External	1	1.8 GB	3.6 GB	5.4 GB
   Normal	2	3.6 GB	7.2 GB	10.8 GB
   High	3	5.4 GB	10.8 GB	16.2 GB

   
   

4. Optionally, identify failure groups for the Oracle ASM disk group devices.

   If you intend to use a normal or high redundancy disk group, then you can further protect the database against hardware failure by associating a set of disk devices in a custom failure group. By default, each device is included in its failure group. However, if two disk devices in a normal redundancy disk group are attached to the same SCSI controller, then the disk group becomes unavailable if the controller fails. The controller in this example is a single point of failure.

   For instance, to avoid failures of this type, you can use two small computer system interface (SCSI) controllers, each with two disks, and define a failure group for the disks attached to each controller. This configuration would enable the disk group to tolerate the failure of one SCSI controller.

   Note:

   If you define custom failure groups, then you must specify a minimum of two failure groups for normal redundancy disk groups and three failure groups for high redundancy disk groups.

5. If you are sure that a suitable disk group does not exist on the system, then install or identify appropriate disk devices to add to a new disk group. Apply the following guidelines when identifying appropriate disk devices:

   • The disk devices must be owned by the user performing the grid installation.

     See Also:

     "Example of a Rules File with User grid" for information about creating or modifying permissions

   • All the devices in an Oracle ASM disk group must be the same size and have the same performance characteristics.

   • Do not specify multiple partitions on a single physical disk as a disk group device. Oracle ASM expects each disk group device to be on a separate physical disk.

   • Although you can specify a logical volume as a device in an Oracle ASM disk group, Oracle does not recommend their use because it adds a layer of complexity that is unnecessary with Oracle ASM. Oracle recommends that if you choose to use a logical volume manager, then use the logical volume manager to represent a single logical unit number (LUN) without striping or mirroring, so that you can minimize the effect on storage performance of the additional storage layer.

   See Also:

   • "Step 3: Configuring Disks for Oracle Automatic Storage Management" for information about completing this task

   • "Preparing Storage for ASM" in Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for information about configuring Oracle ASM disk groups

3.6.3 Step 2: Creating DAS or SAN Disk Partitions for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

In order to use a DAS or SAN disk in Oracle ASM, the disk must have a partition table. Oracle recommends creating exactly one partition for each disk.

3.6.4 Step 3: Configuring Disks for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

Oracle provides an Oracle ASM library driver that you can use to simplify the configuration and management of the disk devices to use with Oracle ASM. A disk that is configured for Oracle ASM is known as a candidate disk.

If you intend to use Oracle ASM for database storage, then Oracle recommends that you install the Automatic Storage Management library driver (ASMLIB) and associated utilities and use them to configure the devices to include in an Oracle ASM disk group.

This section describes how to configure storage for use with Oracle ASM.

• Configuring Disks for Oracle Automatic Storage Management Using the Automatic Storage Management Library Driver (ASMLIB)

• Configuring Disk Devices Manually for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

oracleasm renamedisk [-l manager] [-v] label_device new_label

3.7.1 Installing the Software Binaries

1. Run the runInstaller command from the relevant directory on the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2) installation media or download directory.

2. Complete a software-only installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure.

   See "Configuring the Software Binaries" for information about configuring Oracle Grid Infrastructure after performing a software-only installation.

3. Verify that the server meets the installation requirements using the command runcluvfy.sh stage -pre hacfg. Ensure that you complete all storage and server preinstallation requirements.

3.7.2 Configuring the Software Binaries

To configure and activate a software-only Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation for Oracle Restart, complete the following tasks:

1. Run the roothas.pl script from Grid_home using the following syntax:

   Grid_home/perl/bin/perl -I Grid_home/perl/lib -I Grid_home/crs/install 
   Grid_home/crs/install/roothas.pl
   

   For example, if your Oracle Grid Infrastructure home is /app/11.2.0/grid, then run the following script:

   $ /app/11.2.0/grid/perl/bin/perl -I /app/11.2.0/grid/perl/lib -I /app
   /11.2.0/grid/crs/install /app/11.2.0/grid/crs/install/roothas.pl
   

2. Change the directory to Grid_home/oui/bin, where Grid_home is the path of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home.

3. Enter the following command:

   ./runInstaller -updateNodeList ORACLE_HOME=Grid_home -defaultHomeName
   

   For example:

   $ ./runInstaller -updateNodeList ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/11.2.0/grid
   -defaultHomeName
   CLUSTER_NODES= CRS=TRUE
   

4. Use the SRVCTL utility along with Network Configuration Assistant and Oracle ASMCA to add the listener, the Oracle ASM instance, and all Oracle ASM disk groups to the Oracle Restart configuration.

3.8.1 Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure with a New Database Installation

Perform the following steps to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure and then create a database that is managed by Oracle Restart. First install Oracle Grid Infrastructure, which installs Oracle Restart and Oracle ASM, then configure Oracle ASM with at least one disk group, and then install Oracle Database that stores database files in Oracle ASM disk groups. Click the help button on the Oracle Universal Installer page for page level assistance.

You may have to shut down existing Oracle processes before you proceed with the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation. See "Stopping Existing Oracle Processes" for more information.

To install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server with a new database installation:

1. Start Oracle Universal Installer as the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user. Complete one of the following steps depending on the location of the installation files:

   • If the installation files are on installation media, enter commands similar to the following, where directory_path is the path of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure directory on the installation media:

     $ /directory_path/runInstaller
     

     Note:

     You must install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a standalone server from the Oracle Grid Infrastructure media.

   • If the installation files are on the hard disk, change the directory to the path of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure (clusterware) directory and enter the following command:

     $ ./runInstaller
     

   • Downloading Updates Before Installation

     Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.2), if you plan to run the installation in a secured data center, then you can download updates before starting the installation by starting Oracle Universal Installer on a system that has Internet access in update download mode. To start Oracle Universal Installer to download updates, enter the following command:

     $ ./runInstaller -downloadUpdates
     

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

     See Also:

     • Oracle Universal Installer and OPatch User's Guide for Windows and UNIX for more information about response file formats

     • "Software Updates Option"

     • "Configuring the User's Environment" for information about setting the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user's environment

   Note:

   Start Oracle Universal Installer from the terminal session where you logged in as the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software owner user and set the user's environment.

   If Oracle Universal Installer is not displayed, see "X Window Display Errors" and "Remote Terminal Installation Error" for information about troubleshooting.

2. Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.2), you can use the Software Updates feature to dynamically download and apply the latest updates. In the Download Software Updates screen, select one of the following options and click Next:

   • Use My Oracle Support credentials for download: Select this option to download and apply the latest software updates.

     Click Proxy Settings to configure a proxy for Oracle Universal Installer to use to connect to the Internet. Provide the proxy server information for your site, along with a user account that has access to the local area network through which the server is connecting. Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3) you can enter the Proxy Realm information. The proxy realm information is case-sensitive. If you do not have a proxy realm, then you do not have to provide an entry for the Proxy Username, Proxy Password, and Proxy Realm fields.

     Click Test Connection to ensure that your proxy settings are correctly entered, and the installer can download the updates.

   • Use pre-downloaded software updates: Select this option to apply the software updates previously downloaded using the -downloadUpdates flag.

   • Skip software updates: Select this option if you do not want to apply any updates.

3. The Apply Software Updates screen is displayed if you select to download the software updates, or provide the pre-downloaded software updates location.

   1. If you selected Use My Oracle Support credentials for download in the previous screen, select Download and apply all updates, and then click Next to apply the updates.

      By default, the download location for software updates is placed in the home directory of the Oracle installation owner you are using to run this installation. If you choose to download the software updates in another location, then click Browse and select a different location on your server.

   2. If you selected Use pre-downloaded software updates in the previous screen, select Apply all updates, and then click Next to apply the updates downloaded before starting the installation.

4. In the Select Installation Option screen, select the Configure Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server option to install and configure Oracle Restart and Oracle ASM. Click Next.

5. In the Select Product Languages screen, select one or more languages. Move the languages from the Available Languages list to the Selected Languages list. Click Next.

6. The Create ASM Disk Group screen lists all the Oracle ASM disks.

   Click Change Discovery Path to select any devices to be used by Oracle ASM but are not listed in the screen. In the Change Disk Discovery Path window, enter a string to use to search for devices that Oracle ASM will use. If the disk string is set to ORCL:* or is left empty (""), then the installer discovers these disks. Click OK.

   After you finish selecting the disks to be used by Oracle ASM, click Next.

   Note:

   During installation, disk paths mounted on Oracle ASM and registered on ASMLIB with the string ORCL:* are listed as default database storage candidate disks.

   Consider the following information about disk devices while performing this step:

   • The default Disk Group Name is DATA. You can enter a new name for the disk group, or use the default name.

   • The disk devices must be owned by the user performing the grid installation.

     See Also:

     "Example of a Rules File with User grid" for information about creating or modifying permissions

   • Check with your system administrator to determine if the disks used by Oracle ASM are mirrored at the storage level. If so, select External for the redundancy. If the disks are not mirrored at the storage level, then select Normal for the redundancy.

     Note:

     For normal redundancy, you require twice as much disk space to hold the same amount of data. For example, if your database is 100 GB, then you require approximately 200 GB of storage.

   • Every Oracle ASM disk is divided into allocation units (AU). An allocation unit is the fundamental unit of allocation within a disk group. Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3), you can select the AU Size value from 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 MB, depending on the specific disk group compatibility level. The default value is set to 1 MB.

7. In the Specify ASM Password screen, enter the SYSASM password required to connect to the Oracle ASM instance. The Oracle ASM instance is managed by a privileged role called SYSASM, which grants full access to Oracle ASM disk groups. Oracle recommends that you create a less privileged user, ASMSNMP, with SYSDBA privileges to monitor the Oracle ASM instance.

   Enter passwords for the SYS and ASMSNMP user accounts. The passwords should be at least eight characters in length and include at least 1 alphabetic, 1 numeric, and 1 of the following three punctuation mark characters: hyphens (-), underscores (_), or number sign (#). No other special characters are allowed in the password field.

   Optionally, you can use the same password for all accounts. However, Oracle recommends that you specify a different password for each account. You must remember the passwords that you specify.

8. In the Privileged Operating System Groups screen, select the name of the operating system group you created for the OSDBA group, the OSASM group, and the database operator group OSOPER. If you create only the dba group, then you can use that group for all three privileged groups. If you created a separate asmadmin group, then use that value for the OSASM group. Click Next.

9. In the Specify Installation Location screen, enter the following information, and click Next:

   • Oracle Base: Enter the location for the Oracle base directory. Do not include spaces in the path.

   • Software Location: Accept the default value or enter the directory path in which you want to install the software.The directory path must not contain spaces..

   See Also:

   • "Identifying Required Software Directories" for information about Oracle base directory and Oracle home directory

   • "Naming Directories" for directory naming conventions

10. If you have not installed Oracle software previously on this server, the Create Inventory screen appears.

    Change the path for the Inventory Directory, if required. Select oinstall for the oraInventory Group Name, if required. Click Next.

11. The Perform Prerequisite Checks screen checks if the minimum system requirements are met to perform the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation. If all the system requirements are met, then you are directed to the Summary screen. If an installation fails, you can review the error.

    If you click Check Again, then you can run the prerequisite check again to see if the minimum requirements are met to carry on with the database installation.

    Click Fix & Check Again, if you want the installer to fix the problem and check the system requirements again.

    Note:

    The Fix & Check Again option generates a script that you must run as the root user. This generated script sets some system parameter values. Oracle recommends that you do not modify the contents of this script. See "Installation Fixup Scripts" for more information.

    To get a list of failed requirements, select Show Failed from the list. To get a list of all the prerequisites checks run by the OUI, select Show All. To get a list of the prerequisites checks that are successful, select Show Succeeded.

    Note:

    Oracle recommends that you use caution when selecting the Ignore All option. If you select this option, then Oracle Universal Installer may not confirm that your system can install Oracle Database successfully.

12. Review the contents of the Summary screen, and click Install.

    Starting with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2), you can click Save Response File to save all the installation steps into a response file. This file can be used for a silent installation.

13. The Install Product screen displays the progress of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation. During the installation process, the Execute Configuration Scripts window appears. Do not click OK until you run the scripts mentioned in this screen.

    Run the root.sh and, if required, the orainstRoot.sh configuration scripts as the root user.

14. The Finish screen displays the installation status. Click Close to end the installation, then click Yes to exit Oracle Universal Installer.

    If you encounter any problems, see the configuration log for information. The path to the configuration log is displayed on the Configuration Assistants window.

15. Oracle ASMCA is installed as part of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server installation. To create additional disk groups, run the Oracle ASMCA utility. For example, you can create another disk group named RECOVERY to store the fast recovery area.

    See Also:

    • "Manually Configuring Oracle Automatic Storage Management Disk Groups"

    • "Creating a Fast Recovery Area Disk Group"

    Note:

    To verify that the Oracle High Availability Service is installed properly, run ./crsctl check has command from Grid_home/bin directory.

    Grid_home is the path to the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home for a standalone server. Ohasd is a daemon installed with Oracle Grid Infrastructure that starts software services, such as Oracle ASM.

16. Install Oracle Database. See "Installing the Oracle Database Software".

    Note:

    • If a new database is installed after a grid infrastructure installation, then the listener runs from the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. Because Oracle ASM is installed as part of Oracle Grid Infrastructure, the default listener is created and runs from the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home. If you perform a database installation, then the database must use the same listener created during the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

    • If you are using Oracle Restart, then the default listener and any additional listeners must run from the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home.

    See "Troubleshooting and Deconfiguring Oracle Restart" to deconfigure Oracle Restart without removing installed binaries.

3.8.2 Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure for an Existing Database

Follow the high-level instructions in this section to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure and configure it for an existing Oracle database. Oracle Restart can only manage existing release 11.2 resources and hence you can install Oracle Grid Infrastructure only for an existing release 11.2 database. However, Oracle database releases before 11.2 can coexist on the same server without being managed by Oracle Restart.

To install Oracle Grid Infrastructure for an existing database:

• On the same host computer as the database, use Oracle Universal Installer to install Oracle Grid Infrastructure, and select Configure Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Standalone Server as the installation option.

  The Oracle Grid Infrastructure components are installed in a separate Oracle home.

  See "Installing Oracle Grid Infrastructure with a New Database Installation" for detailed instructions.

• Go to the Grid home's bin directory. Use the srvctl add database command to manually add the database, the listener, the Oracle ASM instance, all Oracle ASM disk groups, and any database services to the Oracle Grid Infrastructure configuration.

  See Also:

  "srvctl add database" in Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for more information