2 Installing Oracle Database 12c with Oracle Real Application Clusters

2.1 Selecting a Security Notification Contact

Oracle issues security alerts as needed for vulnerability fixes that are determined to be too critical to wait for distribution in the next Critical Patch Update.

During installation, you are asked in the Configure Security Updates screen to provide a security contact. Select one of the following options:

• Provide an email address to receive security information for your installation.

• Provide a My Oracle Support email address or account name to receive security information for your installation, and to enroll your system for Security Updates. You can receive information about alerts through My Oracle Support.

You can choose not to provide this information, but Oracle strongly recommends that you configure a security notification contact.

The information collected by Security Updates is limited to configuration information. The data collected does not include personally identifiable information (except a local contact name in case of transmission problems). You may still use all licensed Oracle functionality if you decline to enable Security Updates.To choose not to receive security notifications, leave all fields in the Configure Security Updates screen blank, and click Next to continue.

If you provide your My Oracle Support credentials, then Security Updates automatically gathers configuration information regarding your installed Oracle products and uploads it to Oracle's support systems. You can access the information it collects through your My Oracle Support account, and review health check recommendations, patch recommendations and other recommendations for your system in addition to security alerts.

2.2 Selecting an Installation Option

On the Select Installation Option page, you can select one of the following options:

• Create and Configure a Database: Provides you with the option to create a database using a preconfigured database template designed for particular system load demands, such as an online transaction processing (OLTP) database, or a decision support or data warehouse database.

• Install database software only: Installs Oracle Database software; you must complete the database configuration after the installation completes using the installed utilities.

• Upgrade an existing database: Upgrades an existing database.

If you are installing Oracle Database software, then Oracle recommends that you use a preconfigured database option, or select the Advanced option on the Select Configuration page, and configure a custom starter database. See "Selecting an Oracle Database Configuration Type" for more information about the different preconfigured database options.

If you have an existing Oracle installation, then write down the version numbers, patches, and other configuration information, and review upgrade procedures for your existing installation. Review Oracle Database Upgrade Guide before proceeding with the installation, to decide how you want to proceed.

2.3 Selecting the Database Type for Oracle Grid Infrastructure Deployments

During installation, OUI detects if you have Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a cluster installed. If you do, then you must specify the type of database you plan to create:

• A single-instance database

• An Oracle RAC database

• An Oracle RAC One Node database

If you plan to create databases of different types on this cluster, then choose the most advanced option. For example, if you plan to create only single-instance and Oracle RAC One Node databases, then choose the Oracle RAC One Node database option. If you plan to create single-instance databases and Oracle RAC databases, then choose the Oracle RAC database option.

You can install Oracle RAC One Node on two or more nodes in the cluster. An Oracle RAC One Node installation starts an instance on one of the nodes you select as an Oracle RAC One Node pool member. If that instance goes down, then the Oracle RAC One Node instance fails over to another pool member. This feature relocates database instances and connections to other cluster nodes for high availability

2.4 Choosing the Cluster Database Management Type

When creating an Oracle RAC database, you can choose to create on of the following types of databases:

• A policy-managed database: The database instances are automatically managed based on server pools for effective resource utilization.

• An administrator-managed database: The database instances are tied to specific servers in the cluster.

2.5 Selecting an Installation Type

When you run Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) to install Oracle RAC, you can select the Typical or the Advanced installation type.

The Typical installation type installs a default configuration of Oracle Database, with basic configuration choices. Oracle recommends that most users select Typical as their installation type.

The Advanced installation type is for customized installations, and is necessary only when you have a specific requirement for it, such as adding specific components to your installation, requiring different passwords for the SYS, SYSTEM and DBSNMP accounts, using a different database character set than is in use on your servers, changing product languages, or other nonstandard configurations.

If you plan to use any of the following options during installation, then you should choose the Advanced Installation Type:

• Preconfigured Database Types Supplied with Oracle Database

• Using Advanced Database Configuration

• Installing Oracle Database with Other Languages

2.6 Selecting an Oracle Database Configuration Type

When you choose the Advanced Installation option in OUI, then you can select the General Purpose/Transaction Processing, Data Warehouse, or Advanced database configuration type. If you choose the Typical Installation Option, then the database configuration type defaults to General Purpose/Transaction Processing.

If you select Advanced configuration, then you can use Oracle Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) to create the database as described in Chapter 3, "Creating Oracle RAC Databases with DBCA". Oracle recommends that you use DBCA to create your database.

2.7 Selecting a Database Name

The database name input field sets the following Oracle initialization parameter values:

• DB_NAME

• DB_UNIQUE_NAME

• DB_DOMAIN

In Oracle RAC environments, the database name (DB_UNIQUE_NAME) portion is a string of no more than 30 characters that can contain alphanumeric, underscore (_), dollar ($), and pound (#) characters, but must begin with an alphabetic character. No other special characters are permitted in a database name. The DB_NAME parameter for a database is set to the first 8 characters of the database name.

The domain portion of the global database name (DB_DOMAIN) can be no more than 128 characters. Domain names using underscores (_) are not allowed. The values for DB_UNIQUE_NAME.DB_DOMAIN in its entirety must be unique within the enterprise.

For example, if your database has a global database name of orl$racprod2551.example.com which you supplied during installation, then the following values are used for initialization parameters:

The Oracle Service Identifier (SID) prefix is the first 8 characters of the database name. The SID prefix can contain only the characters a-z, A-Z, and 0-9. The SID prefix cannot contain operating system special characters, so if you use special characters in the first 8 characters of the database name, then these special characters are omitted in the SID prefix. There is a single SID prefix for every database. The SID prefix for a database must be unique within the cluster.

For an Oracle RAC database, each instance has a unique identifier, ORACLE_SID, which consists of the SID prefix and an instance number. The ORACLE_SID for Oracle RAC database instances is generated differently, depending on how you choose to manage the database. If you select a policy-managed database, then Oracle generates the SID in the format name_#, where name is the first eight alphanumeric characters of DB_UNIQUE_NAME, and # is the instance number. If you select an administator-managed database, then DBCA generates the default SID for the instance names, using the format name#, where name is the first eight alphanumeric characters of DB_UNIQUE_NAME, and # is the instance number. However, during installation or database creation you can specify a nondefault value for the SID; the instance number is automatically added to the end of this string for each instance.

For example, if the DB_UNIQUE_NAME for a database is orl$racprod2551, then the following SID values are used:

2.8 Creating Database Passwords

Apply the following minimal guidelines when specifying passwords during installation:

• Passwords should be between 8 and 30 characters long.

• Passwords should not start with a numeral.

• Password cannot contain invalid characters: ! @ % ^ & * ( ) + = \ | ` ~ [ { ] } ; : ' " , < > ?

• Passwords should not be the same as the user name (case-insensitive).

• Passwords should not be Oracle reserved words.

• The SYS account password should not be change_on_install (case-insensitive).

• The SYSTEM account password should not be manager (case-insensitive).

• If you choose to use the same password for all the accounts, then that password cannot be change_on_install, manager, sysman, or dbsnmp (case-insensitive).

• Passwords should have at least one alphabetic, one numeric, and one special character.

• Passwords should not be simple or obvious words, such as welcome, account, database, oracle, or user.

2.9 Specify Oracle Home User Name and Password

Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle Database supports the use of an Oracle Home User. An Oracle Home User is a standard Windows User Account (not an Administrator account), specified during installation, that runs the Windows services required by Oracle Database for the Oracle home. The Oracle Home User is associated with an Oracle Home and it cannot be changed post installation. Different Oracle Homes on a system can share the same Oracle Home User or use different Oracle Home User names. For Oracle RAC databases, the Windows user account for the Oracle Home must be a domain account and it has to be an existing account.

For Administrator-managed databases, you can store the password for the Oracle Home User in a secure wallet in the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR). If such a wallet exists in the OCR, then Oracle Database administration tools automatically use the password from the wallet and do not require you to enter the password for the Oracle Home User during administrative operations.

For Policy-managed databases, you must store the password for the Oracle Home User in a secure wallet in the OCR. DBCA automatically creates the wallet (if one does not exist) when a Policy-managed database is created.

2.10 Understanding the Actions of OUI and DBCA During Installation

After installing Oracle Database, OUI runs DBCA to create your database, in accordance with Optimal Flexible Architecture (OFA) guidelines. An installation created following OFA guidelines means that DBCA creates your database files, including the default server parameter file (SPFILE), using standard file naming and file placement practices.

You can also use DBCA in standalone mode to create or delete a database.

2.11 Using Oracle Universal Installer to Install Oracle RAC

To install Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) with Oracle RAC:

1. Log in to Windows as a user with Administrator privileges.

2. Verify that you have Administrator privileges on the other nodes. To verify privileges, enter the following command for each node that is a part of the cluster where node_name is the name of the remote node:

   net use \\node_name\C$
   

3. Run the setup.exe command from the base directory of the Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) installation media, and select the database type to install.

4. Provide information when prompted by OUI. If you need assistance during installation, then click Help. If you encounter problems during installation, then click Details to examine the log file. The log file is located in the Oracle Inventory directory with a name that includes the time stamp (date_time) of the installation process, as shown in this example:

   C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory\logs\installActionsdate_time.log 
   

   In the preceding example, the variables date and time represent the date and the time of the log file.

   Caution:

   The Oracle home name and path that you provide during database installation must be different from the home that you used for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software. Do not install the Oracle Database with Oracle RAC software into the same home in which you installed Oracle Grid Infrastructure software.

   Note that because Oracle ASM is part of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home, it cannot be upgraded during an Oracle RAC installation.

When you have completed this second and final phase of the installation, proceed to Chapter 4, "Oracle Real Application Clusters Postinstallation Procedures" to perform the postinstallation tasks.

2.12 Using Oracle Universal Installer to Install Oracle RAC One Node

To install Oracle RAC One Node:

1. Login to Windows as a user with Administrator user privileges.

2. Run the setup.exe command from the base directory of the Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1) installation media.

3. Select to configure an Oracle RAC One Node database, and select to install Oracle RAC on all nodes where Oracle RAC One Node will run.

4. Provide information when prompted by OUI. If you need assistance during installation, then click Help. Click Details to see the log file.

   If you encounter problems during installation, then examine the OUI actions recorded in the installation log file. The log file is located in the Oracle Inventory directory with a name that includes the timestamp (date_time) of the install process, as shown in this example:

   C:\Program Files\Oracle\Inventory\logs\installActionsdate_time.log 
   

   Caution:

   The Oracle home name and path that you provide during database installation must be different from the home that you used for the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software. Do not install the Oracle Database with Oracle RAC software into the same home in which you installed Oracle Grid Infrastructure software.

   Note that because Oracle ASM is part of the Oracle Grid Infrastructure home, it cannot be upgraded during an Oracle RAC installation.

2.13 Installing the Oracle Database Vault Option

Installing and configuring Oracle Database Vault requires actions during and after installation, as described in the following topics:

• Starting the Listener with Oracle Database Vault Installations

• Configuring Oracle Database Using DBCA

• Perform Postinstallation Configuration for Oracle Database Vault

2.14 Updating Environment Variables on Remote Nodes

During the installation, the Windows registry and environment variables are modified on each node on which you installed Oracle RAC. The new registry entries and environment variable settings are visible on the node where the installation was performed. However, the new settings on the remote nodes are not immediately available to your user session. Attempting to run scripts or applications from the newly installed Oracle home can produce errors similar to the following:

• ORACONFIG.exe - Unable to Locate Component

• OCI.dll not found

To make the modified environment variables available on the remote nodes, you can close your current session on the remote nodes (log off) and then log on to the remote nodes to create a new session, or perform the following actions:

1. From the Start menu, right-click My Computer, then select Properties.

   Alternatively, enter SYSDM.CPL in the Run window.

2. Select the Advanced tab.

3. Click Environment Variables.

   The modified environment variables are now visible.

4. Click OK to close the System Properties window.