An Oracle ACFS file system can be configured as an Oracle Database home. When installing a database in a cluster, it is required to use a shared Oracle ACFS file system for the database home. You can use an Oracle ACFS file system for an Oracle Database home with Oracle 11g Release 2 (11.2) or later.
When installing Oracle Software, there must be a separate Oracle base (ORACLE_BASE) associated with each operating system user. For example, there should be a separate Oracle base for a grid user and a database user.
Oracle Database Installation Guide for information about Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) recommendations for Oracle base and home directories
You can locate the Oracle Database base (ORACLE_BASE for database) directory and home (ORACLE_HOME for database) directory on an Oracle ACFS file system. The Oracle Database base (ORACLE_BASE for database) directory should not be the Oracle Grid Infrastructure base (ORACLE_BASE for grid) directory or should not be located under the Oracle Grid Infrastructure base directory (ORACLE_BASE for grid).
The Oracle Grid Infrastructure base (ORACLE_BASE for grid) directory and home (ORACLE_HOME for grid) directory cannot be located on the Oracle ACFS file system because the Oracle ACFS file system cannot be created until Oracle Grid Infrastructure is installed.
One or more Oracle Database homes on Oracle ACFS can be created under the same mount point with each home using a separate Oracle ACFS file system.
After the installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure Software and before the installation of the Oracle Database software with Oracle Universal Installer (OUI), you can create an Oracle ACFS file system to be configured for use as an Oracle Database home.
You can also use the Oracle ASM Configuration Assistant (ASMCA) or Oracle ACFS commands to create the file system. For information about using ASMCA, refer to "Creating an Oracle ACFS File System for Database Use".
For information about using Oracle ACFS commands to create a file system, refer to Managing Oracle ACFS with Command-Line Tools.
When an Oracle ACFS file system contains an Oracle Database home or Oracle Database uses the file system for any file storage, the file system must have an Oracle ACFS file system resource. If you have not used Oracle ASM Configuration Assistant to setup the mount point, then you must use Server Control Utility (SRVCTL) commands to set up Oracle Database dependencies. For information about SRVCTL, see Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide.
In an Oracle Grid Infrastructure clusterware configuration, a clusterwide Oracle ACFS resource is required when using Oracle ACFS for the database home. To enable the database owner to act on the resource, the owner must be specified as a permitted user when creating the resource. You can specify the database owner with the -u option of the srvctl add filesystem or acfsutil registry command. Root privilege is required when adding the resource in Linux or Unix environments. For additional information, refer to "Creating Oracle ACFS Resources".
After the Oracle ACFS file system and resources are created, the Oracle ACFS-based database home mount point location can be selected as the Oracle Database home location by browsing to and then choosing the directory during the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) Database Software installation.
You can use the srvctl start filesystem command to manually mount the Oracle ACFS file system.
When additional Oracle ACFS file systems are added to an Oracle Database after creation, they must be specified in the Oracle Database Resource Dependency list. Failure to do so results in errors with application reliability. To specify the file systems in the dependency list, use the SRVCTL database object command to modify the Oracle ACFS paths used by the resource.
Oracle ACFS file systems can be also configured for use as a home for applications. However, Oracle ACFS file systems cannot be used for an Oracle base directory or an Oracle Grid Infrastructure home that contains the software for Oracle Clusterware, Oracle ASM, Oracle ACFS, and Oracle ADVM components.
To reduce contention on an Oracle ACFS file system in an Oracle RAC environment where the Oracle Database home is shared on Oracle ACFS, Oracle Database auditing operating system files should be configured as node specific. For a node-specific setup, you must ensure that the AUDIT_FILE_DEST initialization parameter in the configuration file of each database instance points to a unique location rather than one location for all the database instances.
For example, if you have a database with the Oracle name set to TEST and you want to ensure that the location of AUDIT_FILE_DEST initialization parameter for each database instance, such as TEST1 or TEST2, points to a node specific location for that instance, you can run the following SQL statement:
SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET AUDIT_FILE_DEST='$ORACLE_BASE/admin/adump/TEST/@'
SCOPE=SPFILE SID='*';
In the previous example, @ expands to the ORACLE_SID of each instance. If ORACLE_BASE has been set to /acfsmounts in this example, then that value could have been used in place of the ORACLE_BASE variable.
Oracle Database Installation Guide for your environment for information about the installation of Oracle Database software and storage options
Oracle Grid Infrastructure Installation Guide for your environment for information about the installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure software and storage options
Oracle Database Administrator's Guide for information about using Oracle Managed files
Oracle Database Reference for information about the AUDIT_FILE_DEST initialization parameter