6 Making Applications Highly Available Using Oracle Clusterware

Resources

Oracle Clusterware manages applications and processes as resources that you register with Oracle Clusterware. The number of resources you register with Oracle Clusterware to manage an application depends on the application. Applications that consist of only one process are usually represented by only one resource. More complex applications, built on multiple processes or components, may require multiple resources.

When you register an application as a resource in Oracle Clusterware, you define how Oracle Clusterware manages the application using resource attributes you ascribe to the resource. The frequency with which the resource is checked and the number of attempts to restart a resource on the same server after a failure before attempting to start it on another server (failover) are examples of resource attributes. The registration information also includes a path to an action script or application-specific action program that Oracle Clusterware calls to start, stop, check, and clean up the application.

An action script is a shell script (a batch script in Windows) that a generic script agent provided by Oracle Clusterware calls. An application-specific agent is usually a C or C++ program that calls Oracle Clusterware-provided APIs directly.

Oracle Clusterware 11g release 2 (11.2) uses agent programs (agents) to manage resources and includes the following built-in agents so that you can use scripts to protect an application:

• scriptagent: Use this agent (scriptagent.exe in Windows) to use shell or batch scripts to protect an application. Both the cluster_resource and local_resource resource types are configured to use this agent, and any resources of these types automatically take advantage of this agent.

• appagent: This agent (appagent.exe in Windows) automatically protects any resources of the application resource type used in previous versions of Oracle Clusterware. You are not required to configure anything to take advantage of the agent. It invokes action scripts in the manner done with previous versions of Oracle Clusterware and should only be used for the application resource type.

  Note:

  Oracle recommends that you use scriptagent for all resources of types other than application. Oracle provides the application agent for backward compatibility with the deprecated application resource type.

By default, all resources not of the application resource type, use the script agent, unless you override this behavior by creating a new resource type and specifying a different agent as part of the resource type specification (using the AGENT_FILENAME attribute).

Additionally, you can create your own agents to manage your resources in any manner you want.

Resource Types

Generally, all resources are unique but some resources may have common attributes. Oracle Clusterware uses resource types to organize these similar resources. Benefits that resource types provide are:

• Manage only necessary resource attributes

• Manage all resources based on the resource type

Every resource that you register in Oracle Clusterware must have a certain resource type. In addition to the resource types included in Oracle Clusterware, you can define custom resource types using the Oracle Clusterware Control (CRSCTL) utility. The included resource types are:

• Local resource: Instances of local resources—type name is local_resource—run on each server of the cluster. When a server joins the cluster, Oracle Clusterware automatically extends local resources to have instances tied to the new server. When a server leaves the cluster, Oracle Clusterware automatically sheds the instances of local resources that ran on the departing server. Instances of local resources are pinned to their servers; they do not fail over from one server to another.

• Cluster resource: Cluster-aware resource types—type name is cluster_resource—are aware of the cluster environment and are subject to cardinality and cross-server switchover and failover.

Agents

Oracle Clusterware manages applications when they are registered as resources with Oracle Clusterware. Oracle Clusterware has access to application-specific primitives that have the ability to start, stop, and monitor a specific resource. Oracle Clusterware runs all resource-specific commands through an entity called an agent.

An agent is a process that contains the agent framework and user code to manage resources. The agent framework is a library that enables you to plug in your application-specific code to manage customized applications. You program all of the actual application management functions, such as starting, stopping and checking the health of an application, into the agent. These functions are referred to as entry points.

The agent framework is responsible for invoking these entry point functions on behalf of Oracle Clusterware. Agent developers can use these entry points to plug in the required functionality for a specific resource regarding how to start, stop, and monitor a resource. Agents are capable of managing multiple resources.

Agent developers can set the following entry points as callbacks to their code:

• START: The START entry point acts to bring a resource online. The agent framework calls this entry point whenever it receives the start command from Oracle Clusterware.

• STOP: The STOP entry points acts to gracefully bring down a resource. The agent framework calls this entry point whenever it receives the stop command from Oracle Clusterware.

• CHECK: The CHECK (monitor) entry point acts to monitor the health of a resource. The agent framework periodically calls this entry point. If it notices any state change during this action, then the agent framework notifies Oracle Clusterware about the change in the state of the specific resource.

• CLEAN: The CLEAN entry point acts whenever there is a need to clean up a resource. It is a non-graceful operation that is invoked when users must forcefully terminate a resource. This command cleans up the resource-specific environment so that the resource can be restarted.

• ABORT: If any of the other entry points hang, the agent framework calls the ABORT entry point to abort the ongoing action. If the agent developer does not supply an abort function, then the agent framework exits the agent program.

START, STOP, CHECK, and CLEAN are mandatory entry points and the agent developer must provide these entry points when building an agent. Agent developers have several options to implement these entry points, including using C, C++, or scripts. It is also possible to develop agents that use both C or C++ and script-type entry points. When initializing the agent framework, if any of the mandatory entry points are not provided, then the agent framework invokes a script pointed to by the ACTION_SCRIPT resource attribute.

At any given time, the agent framework invokes only one entry point per application. If that entry point hangs, then the agent framework calls the ABORT entry point to abort the current operation. The agent framework periodically invokes the CHECK entry point to determine the state of the resource. This entry point must return one of the following states as the resource state:

• CLSAGFW_ONLINE: The CHECK entry point returns ONLINE if the resource was brought up successfully and is currently in a functioning state. The agent framework continues to monitor the resource when it is in this state. This state has a numeric value of 0 for the scriptagent.

• CLSAGFW_UNPLANNED_OFFLINE/CLSAGFW_PLANNED_OFFLINE: The OFFLINE state indicates that the resource is not currently running. These two states have numeric values of 1 and 2, respectively, for the scriptagent.

  Two distinct categories exist to describe an resource's offline state: planned and unplanned.

  When the state of the resource transitions to OFFLINE through Oracle Clusterware, then it is assumed that the intent for this resource is to be offline (TARGET=OFFLINE), regardless of which value is returned from the CHECK entry point. However, when an agent detects that the state of a resource has changed independent of Oracle Clusterware (such as somebody stopping the resource through a non-Oracle interface), then the intent must be carried over from the agent to the Cluster Ready Services daemon (crsd). The intent then becomes the determining factor for the following:

  • Whether to keep or to change the value of the resource's TARGET resource attribute. PLANNED_OFFLINE indicates that the TARGET resource attribute must be changed to OFFLINE only if the resource was running before. If the resource was not running (STATE=OFFLINE, TARGET=OFFLINE) and a request comes in to start it, then the value of the TARGET resource attribute changes to ONLINE. The start request then goes to the agent and the agent reports back to Oracle Clusterware a PLANNED_OFFLINE resource state, and the value of the TARGET resource attribute remains ONLINE. UNPLANNED_OFFLINE does not change the TARGET attribute.

  • Whether to leave the resource's state as UNPLANNED_OFFLINE or attempt to recover the resource by restarting it locally or failing it over to a another server in the cluster. The PLANNED_OFFLINE state makes crsd leave the resource as is, whereas the UNPLANNED_OFFLINE state prompts resource recovery.

• CLSAGFW_UNKNOWN: The CHECK entry point returns UNKNOWN if the current state of the resource cannot be determined. In response to this state, Oracle Clusterware does not attempt to failover or to restart the resource. The agent framework continues to monitor the resource if the previous state of the resource was either ONLINE or PARTIAL. This state has a numeric value of 3 for the scriptagent.

• CLSAGFW_PARTIAL: The CHECK entry point returns PARTIAL when it knows that a resource is partially ONLINE and some of its services are available. Oracle Clusterware considers this state as partially ONLINE and does not attempt to failover or to restart the resource. The agent framework continues to monitor the resource in this state. This state has a numeric value of 4 for the scriptagent.

• CLSAGFW_FAILED: The CHECK entry point returns FAILED whenever it detects that a resource is not in a functioning state and some of its components have failed and some clean up is required to restart the resource. In response to this state, Oracle Clusterware calls the CLEAN action to clean up the resource. After the CLEAN action finishes, the state of the resource is expected to be OFFLINE. Next, depending on the policy of the resource, Oracle Clusterware may attempt to failover or restart the resource. Under no circumstances does the agent framework monitor failed resources. This state has a numeric value of 5 for the scriptagent.

The agent framework implicitly monitors resources in the states listed in Table 6-1 at regular intervals, as specified by the CHECK_INTERVAL or OFFLINE_CHECK_INTERVAL resource attributes.

Whenever an agent starts, the state of all the resources it monitors is set to UNKNOWN. After receiving an initial probe request from Oracle Clusterware, the agent framework executes the CHECK entry point for all of the resources to determine their current states.

Once the CHECK action successfully completes for a resource, the state of the resource transitions to one of the previously mentioned states. The agent framework then starts resources based on commands issued from Oracle Clusterware. After the completion of every action, the agent framework invokes the CHECK action to determine the current resource state. If the resource is in one of the monitored states listed in Table 6-1, then the agent framework periodically executes the CHECK entry point to check for changes in resource state.

By default, the agent framework does not monitor resources that are offline. However, if the value of the OFFLINE_CHECK_INTERVAL attribute is greater than 0, then the agent framework monitors offline resources.

Action Scripts

An action script defines one or more actions to start, stop, check, or clean resources. The agent framework invokes these actions in the absence of the C/C++ actions. Using action scripts, you can build an agent that contains the C/C++ entry points, as well as the script entry points. If all of the actions are defined in the action script, then you can use the script agent to invoke the actions defined in any action scripts.

Before invoking the action defined in the action script, the agent framework exports all the necessary attributes from the resource profile to the environment. Action scripts can log messages to the stdout/stderr, and the agent framework prints those messages in the agent logs. However, action scripts can use special tags to send the progress, warning, or error messages to the crs* client tools by prefixing one of the following tags to the messages printed to stdout/stderr:

CRS_WARNING
CRS_ERROR
CRS_PROGRESS

The agent framework strips out the prefixed tag when it sends the final message to the crs* clients.

Resource attributes can be accessed from within an action script as environment variables prefixed with _CRS_. For example, the START_TIMEOUT attribute becomes an environment variable named _CRS_START_TIMEOUT.

Building an Agent

Building an agent for a specific application involves the following steps:

1. Implement the agent framework entry points either in scripts, C, or C++.

2. Build the agent executable (for C and C++ agents).

3. Collect all the parameters needed by the entry points and define a new resource type. Set the AGENT_FILENAME attribute to the absolute path of the newly built executable.

Registering a Resource in Oracle Clusterware

Register resources in Oracle Clusterware 11g release 2 (11.2) using the crsctl add resource command.

To register an application as a resource:

$ crsctl add resource resource_name -type resource_type [-file file_path] | [-attr "attribute_name='attribute_value', attribute_name='attribute_value', ..."]

Choose a name for the resource based on the application for which it is being created. For example, if you create a resource for an Apache Web server, then you might name the resource myApache.

The name of the resource type follows the -type option. You can specify resource attributes in either a text file specified with the -file option or in a comma-delimited list of resource attribute-value pairs enclosed in double quotation marks ("") following the -attr option. You must enclose space- or comma-delimited attribute names and values enclosed in parentheses in single quotation marks ('').

The following is an example of an attribute file:

PLACEMENT=favored
HOSTING_MEMBERS=node1 node2 node3
RESTART_ATTEMPTS@CARDINALITYID(1)=0
RESTART_ATTEMPTS@CARDINALITYID(2)=0
FAILURE_THRESHOLD@CARDINALITYID(1)=2
FAILURE_THRESHOLD@CARDINALITYID(2)=4
FAILURE_INTERVAL@CARDINALITYID(1)=300
FAILURE_INTERVAL@CARDINALITYID(2)=500
CHECK_INTERVAL=2
CARDINALITY=2

The following is an example of using the -attr option:

$ crsctl add resource resource_name -type resource_type] [-attr "PLACEMENT='favored', HOSTING_MEMBERS='node1 node2 node3', ..."]

Resource Attributes

Resource attributes define how Oracle Clusterware manages resources of a specific resource type. Each resource type has a unique set of attributes. Some resource attributes are specified when you register resources, while others are internally managed by Oracle Clusterware.

Resource States

Every resource in a cluster is in a particular state at any time. Certain actions or events can cause that state to change.

Table 6-2 lists and describes the possible resource states.

Resource Dependencies

You can configure resources to be dependent on other resources, so that the dependent resources can only start or stop when certain conditions of the resources on which they depend are met. For example, when Oracle Clusterware attempts to start a resource, it is necessary for any resources on which the initial resource depends to be running and in the same location. If Oracle Clusterware cannot bring the resources online, then the initial (dependent) resource cannot be brought online, either. If Oracle Clusterware stops a resource or a resource fails, then any dependent resource is also stopped.

Some resources require more time to start than others. Some resources must start whenever a server starts, while other resources require a manual start action. These and many other examples of resource-specific behavior imply that each resource must be described in terms of how it is expected to behave and how it relates to other resources (resource dependencies).

You can configure resources so that they depend on Oracle resources. When creating resources, however, do not use an ora prefix in the resource name. This prefix is reserved for Oracle use only.

Previous versions of Oracle Clusterware included only two dependency specifications: the REQUIRED_RESOURCES resource attribute and the OPTIONAL_RESOURCES resource attribute. The REQUIRED_RESOURCES resource attribute applied to both start and stop resource dependencies.

In Oracle Clusterware 11g release 2 (11.2) resource dependencies are separated into start and stop categories. This separation improves and expands the start and stop dependencies between resources and resource types.

This section includes the following topics:

• Start Dependencies

• Stop Dependencies

Resource Placement

As part of the start effort evaluation, the first decision that Oracle Clusterware must make is where to start (or place) the resource. Making such a decision is easy when the caller specifies the target server by name. If a target server is not specified, however, then Oracle Clusterware attempts to locate the best possible server for placement given the resource's configuration and the current state of the cluster.

Oracle Clusterware considers a resource's placement policy first and filters out servers that do not fit with that policy. Oracle Clusterware sorts the remaining servers in a particular order depending on the value of the PLACEMENT resource attribute of the resource.

The result of this consideration is a maximum of two lists of candidate servers on which Oracle Clusterware can start the resource. One list contains preferred servers and the other contains possible servers. The list of preferred servers will be empty if the value of the PLACEMENT resource attribute for the resource is set to balanced or restricted. The placement policy of the resource determines on which server the resource wants to run. Oracle Clusterware considers preferred servers over possible servers, if there are servers in the preferred list.

Oracle Clusterware then considers the resource's dependencies to determine where to place the resource, if any exist. The attraction and dispersion start dependencies affect the resource placement decision, as do some of the dependency modifiers. Oracle Clusterware applies these placement hints to further order the servers in the two previously mentioned lists. Note that Oracle Clusterware processes each list of servers independently, so that the effect of the resource's placement policy is not confused by that of dependencies.

Finally, Oracle Clusterware chooses the first server from the list of preferred servers, if any servers are listed. If there are no servers on the list of preferred servers, then Oracle Clusterware chooses the first server from the list of possible servers, if any servers are listed. When no servers exist in either list, Oracle Clusterware generates a resource placement error.

Creating an Application VIP Managed by Oracle Clusterware

If clients of an application access the application through a network, and the placement policy for the application allows it to fail over to another node, then you must register a virtual internet protocol address (VIP) on which the application depends. An application VIP is a cluster resource that Oracle Clusterware manages (Oracle Clusterware provides a standard VIP agent for application VIPs). You should base any new application VIPs on this VIP type to ensure that your system experiences consistent behavior among all of the VIPs that you deploy in your cluster.

While you can add a VIP in the same way that you can add any other resource that Oracle Clusterware manages, Oracle recommends using the script Grid_home/bin/appvipcfg to create or delete an application VIP.

To create an application VIP, use the following syntax:

appvipcfg create -network=network_number -ip=ip_address -vipname=vip_name
-user=user_name [-group=group_name] [-failback=0 | 1]

To delete an application VIP, use the following syntax:

appvipcfg delete -vipname=vip_name

Where network_number is the number of the network, ip_address is the IP address, vip_name is the name of the VIP, user_name is the name of the user who installed Oracle Database, and group_name is the name of the group. The default value of the -failback option is 0. If you set the option to 1, then the VIP (and therefore any resources that depend on VIP) fails back to the original node when it becomes available again.

For example, as root, run the following command:

# Grid_home/bin/appvipcfg create -network=1 -ip=148.87.58.196 -vipname=appsVIP -user=root

The script only requires a network number (default is 1), the IP address, and a name for the VIP resource, as well as the user that owns the application VIP resource. A VIP resource is typically owned by root because VIP related operations require root privileges.

To delete an application VIP, use the same script with the delete option. This option accepts the VIP name as a parameter. For example:

# Grid_home/bin/appvipcfg delete -vipname=appsVIP

After you have created the application VIP using this configuration script, you can view the VIP profile using the following command:

Grid_home/bin/crsctl status res appsVIP -p

Verify and, if required, modify the following parameters using the Grid_home/bin/crsctl modify res command.

The appvipcfg script assumes that the default ora.vip network resource (ora.net1.network) is used as the default. In addition, it is also assumes that a default app.appvip_net1.type is used for those purposes.

As the Oracle Database installation owner, start the VIP resource:

$ crsctl start resource appsVIP

Adding an Application VIP with Oracle Enterprise Manager

To add an application VIP with Oracle Enterprise Manager:

1. Log into Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control.

2. Click the Cluster tab.

3. Click Administration.

4. Click Manage Resources.

5. Enter a cluster administrator user name and password to display the Manage Resources page.

6. Click Add Application VIP.

7. Enter a name for the VIP in the Name field.

8. Enter a network number in the Network Number field.

9. Enter an IP address for the VIP in the Internet Protocol Address field.

10. Enter root in the Primary User field. Oracle Enterprise Manager defaults to whatever user name you are logged in as.

11. Select Start the resource after creation if you want the VIP to start immediately.

12. Click Continue to display the Confirmation: Add VIP Resource page.

13. Enter root and the root password as the cluster credentials.

14. Click Continue to create the application VIP.

Adding User-defined Resources

You can add resources to Oracle Clusterware at any time. However, if you add a resource that is dependent on another resource, then you must first add the resource upon which it is dependent.

In the examples in this section, assume that an action script, myApache.scr, resides in the /opt/cluster/scripts directory on each node to facilitate adding the resource to the cluster. It is also assumed that a server pool has been created to host an application. This server pool is not a sub-pool of Generic, but instead it is used to host the application in a top-level server pool.

This section includes the following topics:

• Deciding on a Deployment Scheme

• Adding a Resource to a Specified Server Pool

• Adding a Resource Using a Server-Specific Deployment

$ crsctl add resource myApache -type cluster_resource
-attr "ACTION_SCRIPT=/opt/cluster/scripts/myapache.scr, PLACEMENT=restricted,
SERVER_POOLS=server_pool_list,CHECK_INTERVAL=30,RESTART_ATTEMPTS=2,
START_DEPENDENCIES=hard(appsvip),STOP_DEPENDENCIES=hard(appsvip)"

$ crsctl add serverpool myApache_sp -attr "PARENT_POOLS=Generic, SERVER_NAMES=host36 host37"

$ crsctl add resource myApache -type cluster_resource
-attr "ACTION_SCRIPT=/opt/cluster/scripts/myapache.scr, PLACEMENT='restricted', 
SERVER_POOLS=myApache_sp, CHECK_INTERVAL='30', RESTART_ATTEMPTS='2', 
START_DEPENDENCIES='hard(appsvip)', STOP_DEPENDENCIES='hard(appsvip)'"

Adding Resources Using Oracle Enterprise Manager

To add resources to Oracle Clusterware using Oracle Enterprise Manager:

1. Log into Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control.

2. Click the Cluster tab.

3. Click Administration.

4. Click Add Resource.

5. Enter a cluster administrator user name and password to display the Add Resource page.

6. Enter a name for the resource in the Name field.

   Note:

   A resource name cannot begin with a period nor with the character string "ora".

7. Choose either cluster_resource or local_resource from the Resource Type drop down.

8. Optionally, enter a description of the resource in the Description field.

9. Select Start the resource after creation if you want the resource to start immediately.

10. The optional parameters in the Placement section define where in a cluster Oracle Clusterware places the resource.

    See Also:

    "Application Placement Policies" for more information about placement

    The attributes in this section correspond to the attributes described in Appendix B, "Oracle Clusterware Resource Reference".

11. In the Action Program section, choose from the Action Program drop down whether Oracle Clusterware calls an action script, an agent file, or both to manage the resource.

    You must also specify a path to the script, file, or both, depending on what you select from the drop down.

    If you choose Action Script, then you can click Create New Action Script to use the Oracle Enterprise Manager action script template to create an action script for your resource, if you have not yet done so.

12. To further configure the resource, click Attributes. On this page, you can configure start, stop, and status attributes, and offline monitoring and any attributes that you define.

13. Click Advanced Settings to enable more detailed resource attribute configurations.

14. Click Dependencies to configure start and stop dependencies between resources.

    See Also:

    "Resource Dependencies" for more information about dependencies

15. Click Submit when you finish configuring the resource.

Changing Resource Permissions

Oracle Clusterware manages resources based on the permissions of the user who added the resource. The user who first added the resource owns the resource and the resource runs as the resource owner. Certain resources must be managed as root. If a user other than root adds a resource that must be run as root, then the permissions must be changed as root so that root manages the resource, as follows:

1. Change the permission of the named resource to root by running the following command as root:

   # crsctl setperm resource resource_name –o root
   

2. As the user who installed Oracle Clusterware, enable the Oracle Database installation owner (oracle, in the following example) to run the script, as follows:

   $ crsctl setperm resource resource_name –u user:oracle:r-x
   

3. Start the resource:

   $ crsctl start resource resource_name
   

Application Placement Policies

A resource can be started on any server, subject to the placement policies, the resource start dependencies, and the availability of the action script on that server.

The PLACEMENT resource attribute determines how Oracle Clusterware selects a server on which to start a resource and where to relocate the resource after a server failure. The HOSTING_MEMBERS and SERVER_POOLS attributes determine eligible servers to host a resource and the PLACEMENT attribute further refines the placement of resources.

The value of the PLACEMENT resource attribute determines how Oracle Clusterware places resources when they are added to the cluster or when a server fails. Together with either the HOSTING_MEMBERS or SERVER_POOLS attributes, you can configure how Oracle Clusterware places the resources in a cluster. When the value of the PLACEMENT attribute is:

• balanced: Oracle Clusterware uses any online server for placement. Less loaded servers are preferred to servers with greater loads. To measure how loaded a server is, Oracle Clusterware uses the LOAD resource attribute of the resources that are in an ONLINE state on the server. Oracle Clusterware uses the sum total of the LOAD values to measure the current server load.

• favored: If values are assigned to either the SERVER_POOLS or HOSTING_MEMBERS resource attribute, then Oracle Clusterware considers servers belonging to the member list in either attribute first. If no servers are available, then Oracle Clusterware places the resource on any other available server. If there are values for both the SERVER_POOLS and HOSTING_MEMBERS attributes, then the SERVER_POOLS attribute restricts the choices to the servers within the preference indicated by the value of HOSTING_MEMBERS.

• restricted: Oracle Clusterware only considers servers that belong to server pools listed in the SEVER_POOLS resource attribute or servers listed in the HOSTING_MEMBERS resource attribute for resource placement. Only one of these resource attributes can have a value, otherwise it results in an error.

Unregistering Applications and Application Resources

To unregister a resource, use the crsctl delete resource command. You cannot unregister an application or resource that is ONLINE or required by another resource, unless you use the -force option. The following example unregisters the Apache Web server application:

$ crsctl delete resource myApache

Run the crsctl delete resource command as a clean-up step when a resource is no longer managed by Oracle Clusterware. Oracle recommends that you unregister any unnecessary resources.

Registering Application Resources

Each application that you manage with Oracle Clusterware is stored as a resource in OCR. Use the crsctl add resource command to register applications in OCR. For example, enter the following command to register the Apache Web server application from the previous example:

$ crsctl add resource myApache -type cluster_resource
-attr "ACTION_SCRIPT=/opt/cluster/scripts/myapache.scr, PLACEMENT=restricted,
SERVER_POOLS=server_pool_list,CHECK_INTERVAL=30,RESTART_ATTEMPTS=2,
START_DEPENDENCIES=hard(appsvip),STOP_DEPENDENCIES=hard(appsvip)"

If you modify a resource, then update OCR by running the crsctl modify resource command.

Starting Application Resources

Start and stop resources with the crsctl start resource and crsctl stop resource commands. Manually starting or stopping resources outside of Oracle Clusterware can invalidate the resource status. In addition, Oracle Clusterware may attempt to restart a resource on which you perform a manual stop operation.

To start an application resource that is registered with Oracle Clusterware, use the crsctl start resource command. For example:

$ crsctl start resource myApache

The command waits to receive a notification of success or failure from the action program each time the action program is called. Oracle Clusterware can start application resources if they have stopped due to exceeding their failure threshold values. You must register a resource using crsctl add resource before you can start it.

Running the crsctl start resource command on a resource sets the resource TARGET value to ONLINE. Oracle Clusterware attempts to change the state to match the TARGET by running the action program with the start action.

If a cluster server fails while you are starting a resource on that server, then check the state of the resource on the cluster by using the crsctl status resource command.

Relocating Applications and Application Resources

Use the crsctl relocate resource command to relocate applications and application resources. For example, to relocate the Apache Web server application to a server named rac2, run the following command:

# crsctl relocate resource myApache -n rac2

Each time that the action program is called, the crsctl relocate resource command waits for the duration specified by the value of the SCRIPT_TIMEOUT resource attribute to receive notification of success or failure from the action program. A relocation attempt fails if:

• The application has required resources that run on the initial server

• Applications that require the specified resource run on the initial server

To relocate an application and its required resources, use the -f option with the crsctl relocate resource command. Oracle Clusterware relocates or starts all resources that are required by the application regardless of their state.

Stopping Applications and Application Resources

Stop application resources with the crsctl stop resource command. The command sets the resource TARGET value to OFFLINE. Because Oracle Clusterware always attempts to match the state of a resource to its target, the Oracle Clusterware subsystem stops the application. The following example stops the Apache Web server:

# crsctl stop resource myApache

You cannot stop a resource if another resource has a hard stop dependency on it, unless you use the force (-f) option. If you use the crsctl stop resource resource_name -f command on a resource upon which other resources depend, and if those resources are running, then Oracle Clusterware stops the resource and all of the resources that depend on the resource that you are stopping.

Displaying Clusterware Application and Application Resource Status Information

To display status information about applications and resources that are on cluster servers, use the crsctl status resource command. The following example displays the status information for the Apache Web server application:

# crsctl status resource myApache

NAME=myApache
TYPE=cluster_resource
TARGET=ONLINE
STATE=ONLINE on server010

Other information this command returns includes the following:

• How many times the resource has been restarted

• How many times the resource has failed within the failure interval

• The maximum number of times that a resource can restart or fail

• The target state of the resource and the normal status information

Use the -f option with the crsctl status resource resource_name command to view full information of a specific resource.

Enter the following command to view information about all applications and resources in tabular format:

# crsctl status resource

Preventing Automatic Restarts

When a server restarts, Oracle Clusterware attempts to start the resources that run on the server as soon as the server starts. Resource startup might fail, however, if system components on which a resource depends, such as a volume manager or a file system, are not running. This is especially true if Oracle Clusterware does not manage the system components on which a resource depends. To manage automatic restarts, use the AUTO_START resource attribute to specify whether Oracle Clusterware should automatically start a resource when a server restarts.

Automatically Manage Restart Attempts Counter for Resources

When a resource fails, Oracle Clusterware attempts to restart the resource the number of times specified in the RESTART_ATTEMPTS resource attribute, regardless of how often the resource fails. The crsd process maintains an internal counter to track how often Oracle Clusterware restarts a resource. The number of times Oracle Clusterware has attempted to restart a resource is reflected in the RESTART_COUNT resource attribute. Oracle Clusterware can automatically manage the restart attempts counter based on the stability of a resource. The UPTIME_THRESHOLD resource attribute determines the time period that a resource must remain online, after which the RESTART_COUNT attribute gets reset to 0. In addition, the RESTART_COUNT resource attribute gets reset to 0 if the resource is relocated or restarted by the user, or the resource fails over to another server.