1 Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Checklist

The following checklist provides a list of required preinstallation steps.

Use this checklist to coordinate tasks to help to ensure that all system and storage preparation and configuration tasks are completed before starting Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a cluster installation.

1.1 System Hardware, Software and Configuration Checklists

This section contains the following server configuration installation checklists:

1.1.1 Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Server Hardware Checklist

Review the following hardware checklist for all installations:

Table 1-1 Server Hardware Checklist for Oracle Grid Infrastructure

Check Task

Server hardware

Server make, model, core architecture, and host bus adaptors (HBA) are supported to run with Oracle RAC.

Network Switches

  • Public network switch, at least 1 GbE, connected to a public gateway.

  • Private network switch, at least 1 GbE, with 10 GbE recommended, dedicated for use only with other cluster member nodes. The interface must support the user datagram protocol (UDP) using high-speed network adapters and switches that support TCP/IP. Alternatively, use InfiniBand for the interconnect.

Runlevel

Servers should be either in runlevel 3 or runlevel 5.

Random Access Memory (RAM)

At least 4 GB of RAM for Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster installations, including installations where you plan to install Oracle RAC.

Temporary disk space allocation

At least 1 GB allocated to /tmp.

Operating System

Storage hardware

Either Storage Area Network (SAN) or Network-Attached Storage (NAS).

Local Storage Space for Oracle Software

  • At least 15.5 GB of space for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a cluster home (Grid home). Oracle recommends that you allocate 100 GB to allow additional space for patches.

Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)

Configuration completed, with IPMI administrator account information available to the person running the installation.

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 configuration on one or more nodes after installation (for example, if you have different administrator user names 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.

1.1.2 Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC Environment Checklist

Review the following environment checklist for all installations:

Table 1-2 Environment Configuration for Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC Environments

Check Task

Create Groups and Users

Review Section 5.1, "Creating Groups, Users and Paths for Oracle Grid Infrastructure" for information about the groups and users you need to create for the kind of deployment you want to do. Installation owners have resource limits settings and other requirements. Group and user names must use only ASCII characters.

Create mount point paths for the software binaries

Oracle recommends that you follow the guidelines for an Optimal Flexible Architecture configuration, as described in the appendix "Optimal Flexible Architecture," in Oracle Database Installation Guide for your platform.

Review Oracle Inventory (oraInventory) and OINSTALL Group Requirements

The Oracle Inventory directory is the central inventory of Oracle software installed on your system. Users who have the Oracle Inventory group as their primary group are granted the OINSTALL privilege to write to the central inventory.

  • If you have an existing installation, then OUI detects the existing oraInventory directory from the /etc/oraInst.loc file, and uses this location.

  • If you are installing Oracle software for the first time, and your system does not have an oraInventory directory, then the installer creates an Oracle inventory that is one directory level up from the Oracle base for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure install, and designates the installation owner's primary group as the Oracle Inventory group. Ensure that this group is available as a primary group for all planned Oracle software installation owners.

Grid Home Path

Ensure that the Grid home (the Oracle home path you select for Oracle Grid Infrastructure) uses only ASCII characters

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 software environment variables

If you have set ORA_CRS_HOME as an environment variable, then unset it before starting an installation or upgrade. Do not use ORA_CRS_HOME as a user 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.

Determine root privilege delegation option for installation

During installation, you are asked to run configuration scripts as the root user. You can either run these scripts manually as root when prompted, or during installation you can provide configuration information and passwords using a root privilege delegation option.

To run root scripts automatically, select Automatically run configuration scripts. during installation. To use the automatic configuration option, the root user for all cluster member nodes must use the same password.

  • Use root user credentials

    Provide the superuser password for cluster member node servers.

  • Use Sudo

    Sudo is a UNIX and Linux utility that allows members of the sudoers list privileges to run individual commands as root. Provide the username and password of an operating system user that is a member of sudoers, and is authorized to run Sudo on each cluster member node.

    To enable Sudo, have a system administrator with the appropriate privileges configure a user that is a member of the sudoers list, and provide the username and password when prompted during installation.

  • Run root scripts manually

    If you run root scripts manually, then you must run the root.sh script on the first node and wait for it to finish. You can then run root.sh concurrently on all other nodes.

1.1.3 Oracle Grid Infrastructure Network Checklist

Review this network checklist for all installations to ensure that you have required hardware, names, and addresses for the cluster. During installation, you are prompted to identify which interfaces are public, private, or interfaces in use for another purpose, such as a network file system.

If you use a third-party cluster software, then the public host name information is obtained from that software.

During installation, you designate interfaces for use as public, private, or Oracle ASM interfaces. You can also designate interfaces that are in use for other purposes, and not available for Oracle Grid Infrastructure use.

Table 1-3 Network Configuration Tasks for Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC

Check Task

Public Network Hardware

  • Public network switch (redundant switches recommended) connected to a public gateway and to the public interface ports for each cluster member node.

  • Ethernet interface card (redundant network cards recommended, bonded as one Ethernet port name).

  • The switches and network interfaces must be at least 1 GbE.

  • The network protocol is TCP/IP.

Private Network Hardware for the Interconnect

  • Private dedicated network switches (redundant switches recommended), connected to the private interface ports for each cluster member node. NOTE: If you have more than one private network interface card for each server, then Oracle Clusterware automatically associates these interfaces for the private network using Grid Interprocess Communication (GIPC) and Grid Infrastructure Redundant Interconnect, also known as Cluster High Availability IP (HAIP).

  • The switches and network interface adapters must be at least 1 GbE, with 10 GbE recommended. Alternatively, use InfiniBand for the interconnect.

  • The interconnect must support the user datagram protocol (UDP).

Oracle Flex ASM Network Hardware

Oracle Flex ASM can use either the same private networks as Oracle Clusterware, or use its own dedicated private networks. Each network can be classified PUBLIC or PRIVATE+ASM or PRIVATE or ASM. ASM networks use the TCP protocol.

Cluster Names and Addresses

Determine and Configure the following names and addresses for the cluster:

  • Cluster name: Decide a name for the cluster, and be prepared to enter it during installation. The cluster name should have the following characteristics:

    Globally unique across all hosts, even across different DNS domains.

    At least one character long and less than or equal to 15 characters long.

    Consist of the same character set used for host names, in accordance with RFC 1123: Hyphens (-), and single-byte alphanumeric characters (a to z, A to Z, and 0 to 9). If you use third-party vendor clusterware, then Oracle recommends that you use the vendor cluster name.

  • Grid Naming Service Virtual IP Address (GNS VIP): If you plan to use GNS, then configure a GNS name and fixed address on the DNS for the GNS VIP, and configure a subdomain on your DNS delegated to the GNS VIP for resolution of cluster addresses. GNS domain delegation is mandatory with dynamic public networks (DHCP, autoconfiguration).

  • Single Client Access Name (SCAN) and addresses

    Using Grid Naming Service Resolution: Do not configure SCAN names and addresses in your DNS. SCANs are managed by GNS.

    Using Manual Configuration and DNS resolution: Configure a SCAN name to resolve to three addresses on the domain name service (DNS).

Standard or Hub Node Public, Private and Virtual IP names and Addresses

If you are not using GNS, and you are configuring a Standard cluster, then configure the following for each Hub Node:

  • Public node name and address, configured on the DNS and in /etc/hosts (for example, node1.example.com, address 192.0.2.10). The public node name should be the primary host name of each node, which is the name displayed by the hostname command.

  • Private node address, configured on the private interface for each node.

    The private subnet that the private interfaces use must connect all the nodes you intend to have as cluster members. Oracle recommends that the network you select for the private network uses an address range defined as private by RFC 1918.

  • Public node virtual IP name and address (for example, node1-vip.example.com, address 192.0.2.11).

    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 VIPs 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.

1.1.4 Oracle Grid Infrastructure and Oracle RAC Upgrades Checklist

Review this upgrade checklist if you have an existing Oracle Grid Infrastructure or Oracle RAC installation. A cluster is being upgraded until all cluster member nodes are running Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1 (12.1), and 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 12c Release 1 (12.1) on all cluster nodes before you install the Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) version of Oracle RAC.

Note:

All Oracle Grid Infrastructure upgrades (upgrades of existing Oracle Clusterware and Oracle ASM installations) are out-of-place upgrades. You cannot upgrade from an existing Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation to an Oracle Flex Cluster installation.

Table 1-4 Installation Upgrades Checklist for Oracle Grid infrastructure

Check Task

Read documentation

Review Oracle Database Upgrade Guide

Latest patchset

Install the latest available patchset release.

Installation owner

Confirm that the installation owner you plan to use is the same as the installation owner that owns the existing Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

The new Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation and the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home installation that you are upgrading must be owned by same operating system user, or permission errors result.

Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) instances

Confirm that the Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) instances you have use standard Oracle ASM instance names.

The default ASM SID for a single-instance database is +ASM, and the default SID for ASM on Oracle Real Application Clusters nodes is +ASMnode#, where node# is the node number. With Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11.2.0.1 and later, non-default Oracle ASM instance names are not supported.

If you have non-default Oracle ASM instance names, then before you upgrade your cluster, use your existing release srvctl to remove individual Oracle ASM instances with non-default names, and add Oracle ASM instances with default names.

Network Addresses for Standard Oracle Grid Infrastructure deployments

Ensure the following about IP addresses for the public and private networks:

  • The private and public IP addresses are in unrelated, separate subnets. The private subnet should be in a dedicated private subnet.

  • The public and virtual IP addresses, including the SCAN addresses, are in the same subnet (the range of addresses permitted by the subnet mask for the subnet network).

  • Neither private nor public IP addresses use a link local subnet (169.254.*.*).

Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) files

Migrate OCR files from RAW or Block devices to Oracle ASM or a supported file system. RAW and Block devices are not supported.

Operating System configuration

Confirm that you are using a supported operating system, kernel release, and all required operating system packages for the new Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation.

Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) file integrity

Run the ocrcheck command to confirm Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) file integrity. If this check fails, then repair the OCRs before proceeding.

Oracle 12c Upgrade Companion

Review Oracle 12c Upgrade Companion (My Oracle Support Note 1462240.1) for the most current information regarding other upgrade issues:

https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1462240.1

Run the Oracle Database Pre-Upgrade utility

Run the Oracle Database Pre-Upgrade utility SQL script that is located in the path $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin after you complete Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation to prepare your databases for upgrades.

For more information, review My Oracle Support Note 884522.1:

https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=884522.1

Run the ORAchk Upgrade Readiness Assessment

Run the ORAchk Upgrade Readiness Assessment tool to obtain automated upgrade-specific health checks for Oracle Grid Infrastructure upgrade.

For more information, review My Oracle Support Note 1457357.1:

https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1457357.1

1.1.5 Oracle Grid Infrastructure Storage Configuration Tasks

Review the following storage configuration task checklist for all installations:

Table 1-5 Oracle Grid Infrastructure Storage Configuration Checks

Check Task

Provide paths for Oracle Clusterware files

During installation, you are asked to provide paths for the following Oracle Clusterware files. These path locations must be writable by the Oracle Grid Infrastructure installation owner (Grid user). These locations must be shared across all nodes of the cluster, either on Oracle ASM (preferred), or on a cluster file system, because the files created during installation must be available to all cluster member nodes.

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

    The location for voting disk files must be owned by the user performing the installation (oracle or grid), and must have permissions set to 640.

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

    Before installation, the location for OCR files must be owned by the user performing the installation (grid or oracle). That installation user must have oinstall as its primary group. During installation, the installer creates the OCR files and changes ownership of the path and OCR files to root.

1.1.6 Oracle Grid Infrastructure Starting the Installation Tasks

Table 1-6 Oracle Grid Infrastructure Checks to Perform Before Starting the Installer

Check Task

Check running Oracle processes, and shut down if necessary

  • On a node with a standalone database not using Oracle ASM: You do not need to shut down the database while you install Oracle Grid Infrastructure.

  • On a node with a standalone Oracle Database using Oracle ASM: Stop the existing Oracle ASM instances. The Oracle ASM instances are restarted during installation.

  • On an Oracle RAC Database node: This installation requires an upgrade of Oracle Clusterware, as 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.

Ensure cron jobs do not run during installation

If the installer is running when daily cron jobs start, then you may encounter unexplained installation problems if your cron job is performing cleanup, and temporary files are deleted before the installation is finished. Oracle recommends that you complete installation before daily cron jobs are run, or disable daily cron jobs that perform cleanup until after the installation is completed.

Decide if you want to install other languages

During installation, you are asked if you want translation of user interface text into languages other than the default, which is English. If the language set for the operating system is not supported by the installer, then by default the installer runs in the English language.

See Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for detailed information about character sets and language configuration.