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Pre-Installation

This chapter describes pre-installation requirements for Oracle Parallel Server.

Specific topics discussed are:

• System Installation Requirements

• Setting Up Raw Devices

• Pre-Installation Steps

System Installation Requirements

Verify that your system meets the installation requirements described in the following sections before you install.

• Hardware and Software Requirements for Oracle8i Parallel Server Nodes

• Hardware and Software Requirements for Oracle Enterprise Manager

• Shared Disk Subsystem

Hardware and Software Requirements for Oracle8i Parallel Server Nodes

Verify the hardware software requirements for each node:

Hardware

Each node in a cluster requires the following hardware:

Operating system specific hardware, as described in operating-system-specific installation guides.

External shared hard disk

Software

Each node in a cluster requires the following software:

Operating-system specific software, as described in operating-system-specific installation guides.

Operating System Dependent layer from a vendor that has passed certification

Oracle8i Enterprise Edition

Net8 Server

Oracle Parallel Server

Oracle Intelligent Agent release 8.1.6 if using Oracle Enterprise Manager

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Hardware and Software Requirements for Oracle Enterprise Manager

Oracle Enterprise Manager version 2 is a management framework consisting of a Console, a suite of tools and services, and a network of management servers and Oracle Intelligent Agents.

You can run the individual Oracle Enterprise Manager components on separate machines or combine different components on separate machines to collaboratively manage the complete Oracle environment.

The components are listed below:

• Console and DBA Studio

• Management Server

• Repository database

• Managed targets with agents throughout the network

  Component	Description
  Console and DBA Studio	The Console works with Oracle Intelligent Agents (installed on the nodes) to perform database administration from a single console. If DBA Studio is on its own machine or is run in stand-alone mode without a connection to the Management Server, configuration of a tnsnames.ora file is required. This file should contain entries for instances.
  Management Server	The Management Server performs functions requested by the Console. If the Management Server is on its own machine separate from the repository database, Net8 installation and configuration is required to communicate with the repository database.
  Repository database	A repository database is a set of tables in an Oracle database which stores data required by Oracle Enterprise Manager. You must store the repository in an Oracle database version 7.3.4 or above.
  Managed targets with agents throughout the network	A managed target is any service or entity which can be centrally managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager. Examples are nodes, databases, web servers, listeners, and paging services. Each Oracle Parallel Server must have a release 8.1.6 or earlier Oracle Intelligent Agent installed.

Operating System

• Windows NT version 4.0

• Solaris 2.6

  Note: The Console and DBA Studio may also run on Windows 95 or Windows 98. The Management Server and repository cannot run on these operating systems.

Enterprise Manager Software

• Oracle Enterprise Manager version 2

• Oracle Diagnostics Pack version 2

  Oracle Diagnostics Pack includes Oracle Performance Manager application, from which you can choose from a variety of graphic statistical performance charts for parallel servers.

  Note: You may also use prior releases of Oracle Enterprise Manager and Oracle Diagnostics Pack for a release 8.1.6 database. See Oracle Enterprise Manager documentation for compatibility information.

• Net8 Client on the machine where the Diagnostics Pack is installed. Net8 Client is also required if the Management Server and Database Administration Applications and Console are on their own machines.

Supported Oracle Database Versions as Repositories

8.1.6, 8.1.5, 8.0.5, 8.0.4, 8.0.3, 7.3.4 on database repository machine

Supported Oracle Intelligent Agents

8.1.6 on all Oracle Parallel Server nodes

Oracle Intelligent Agent may be installed from the Oracle8i Enterprise Edition CD-ROM.

See Also: Oracle installation guide for detailed disk space and RAM requirements

Shared Disk Subsystem

Oracle Parallel Server requires a shared disk subsystem to contain shared partitions that are raw. All Oracle8i data, log, and control files are placed on shared raw partitions.

Note: Each instance of an Oracle Parallel Server database has its own log files, but control files and data files are shared by instances in the cluster. However, log files must be accessible/readable by other instances.

Setting Up Raw Devices

Clusters do not provide access to a shared file system among all nodes of a cluster. As a result, data files, redo log files, and control files are stored on raw devices. All instances share the data files and control files. However, each instance has its own redo log files, but all instances must have access to all log files during recovery.

Make sure you set up raw devices prior to installation If you run Oracle Database Configuration Assistant without setting up raw devices, the database cannot be created.

In order for Oracle Database Configuration Assistant to create the files for the database, a precise number of raw devices must be set up prior to database creation. These raw devices include:

• Six for data files

• One for Oracle8i interMedia (if used)

• Two for control files

• Two for redo log files for each node

The Typical database creation type available with Oracle Database Configuration Assistant creates the files at the sizes indicated in the table below. Raw partitions should be at least 1 MB larger than the file sizes.

Raw Device Must be Created For	File Size
SYSTEM tablespace	200 MB
USERS tablespace	108 MB
TEMP tablespace	72 MB for a Multi-Purpose or Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) database 520 MB for a Data Warehousing database Note: Multi-Purpose is the default for the Typical installation type.
RBS tablespace	520 MB for a Multi-Purpose or OLTP database 1032 MB for a Data Warehousing database
INDX tablespace	58 MB
TOOLS tablespace	12 MB
DRYSYS tablespace	80 MB
First control file	100 MB
Second control file	100 MB
Two redo log files for each node	1 MB

The Custom database creation type available with Oracle Database Configuration Assistant enables you to specify the file and the block size. Ensure that the raw partitions provide enough space to account for the customized sizes.

If you do not plan to create the database with Oracle Database Configuration Assistant, the number of raw devices created depends on the number of the data files, redo log files and control file you plan to create.

See Also: "Selecting a Database Creation Method" for more information about databases creation

Note: You can modify file sizes later, but raw devices on Windows NT do not expand or shrink once created. Therefore, file sizes cannot expand the size of the raw device.

The creation of raw devices is operating-system specific, as described in the following sections:

• UNIX

• Windows NT

UNIX

Use the following procedure to create raw devices on UNIX operating systems:

1. Create raw devices.

   See Also: Oracle8i Administrator's Reference for your UNIX operating system

   Note: You must have the root privilege to create the raw devices.

2. Create the data files, control files, and redo log files. You can use any file names. For simplicity, Oracle recommends using file names that match the raw device type, for example:

   Example File Name	Raw Device
   db_name_system01.dbf	SYSTEM tablespace raw device
   db_name_user01.dbf	USERS tablespace raw device
   db_name_temp01.dbf	TEMP tablespace raw device
   db_name_rbs01.dbf	RBS tablespace raw device
   db_name_indx01.dbf	INDX tablespace raw device
   db_name_tools01.dbf	TOOLS tablespace raw device
   db_name_drysys01.dbf	DRYSYS raw device
   db_name_control01.clt	First control file raw device
   db_name_control02.clt	Second control file raw device
   db_name_redothread_number.log thread is the thread ID of the node and number is the log number (1 or 2) of the node.	Redo log files for each node

3. If you plan to use the Typical installation type, perform the following steps:

   Note: This step is not required for the Custom installation type.

4. On the node from which you intend to run Oracle Universal Installer, create an ASCII file with entries for each raw device file name, using the format:

   database_object raw_device_file
   

   where database_object represents raw device object, and raw_device_file is the path of the data file, control file or redo log file. Oracle Database Configuration Assistant expects the database objects listed in the table below:

   Database Object...	Used For...
   system1	SYSTEM tablespace data file
   users1	USERS tablespace data file
   temp1	TEMP tablespace data file
   rbs1	RBS tablespace data file
   indx1	INDX tablespace data file
   tools1	TOOLS tablespace data file
   drysys1	DRYSYS tablespace data file
   control1	First control file
   control2	Second control file
   redothread_number thread is the thread ID of the node and number is the log number (1 or 2) of the node.	Redo log files Two entries for each node required. Entries for the first node would look like: redo1_1 redo1_2 Entries for the second node would look like: redo2_1 redo2_2

   The ASCII file should look like the following example for a two-node cluster:

   system1          device/path/op_system1.dbf
   users1           device/path/op_user1.dbf
   temp1            device/path/op_temp1.dbf
   rbs1             device/path/op_rbs1.dbf
   indx1            device/path/op_indx1.dbf
   tools1           device/path/op_tools1.dbf
   drsys1           device/path/op_drsys1.dbf
   control1         device/path/op_control1.clt
   control2         device/path/op_control2.clt
   redo1_1          device/path/op_redo1_1.log
   redo1_2          device/path/op_redo1_2.log
   redo2_1          device/path/op_redo2_1.log
   redo2_2          device/path/op_redo2_2.log
   

5. Set the environment variable DBCA_RAW_CONFIG so it points to the location of this ASCII file.

   When Oracle Database Configuration Assistant creates the database, it looks for the environment variable, reads in the ASCII file, and uses the file names indicated in the right-hand column of the table as the data files when building the tablespaces.

Windows NT

Windows NT does not support a true distributed file system. Therefore, data files, control files and redo log files reside on unformatted raw devices.

An extended partition points to raw space on the disk that can be assigned multiple logical partitions for the database files.

Because raw devices on Windows NT do not have a file name or drive letter associated with them like a regular file system, an extended partition is first created, which points to raw space on a disk. Multiple logical partitions are then created and assigned symbolic link names using the following format:

\\.\symbolic_link_name. 

A symbolic link is simply a name for a logical partition, such as \\.\op_system1 for the SYSTEM tablespace. When the SYSTEM tablespace is created, a copy of the data file is made to \\.\op_system1, which links to a specific logical partition.

When Oracle Database Configuration Assistant creates the database, it verifies that the symbolic links names have been created and stores the files on the raw devices.

On Windows NT, create logical partitions and symbolic links for the database you are creating.

See Also: Oracle Parallel Server Administrator's Guide for Windows NT for further information about creating logical partitions and symbolic links

The Typical database creation type performed by Oracle Database Configuration Assistant requires the following symbolic link names listed in the following table:

Symbolic Link Name...	Used for...
\\.\db_name_system1	SYSTEM tablespace data file
\\.\db_name_users1	USERS tablespace data file
\\.\db_name_temp1	TEMP tablespace data file
\\.\db_name_rbs1	RBS tablespace data file
\\.\db_name_indx1	INDX tablespace data file
\\.\db_name_tools1	TOOLS tablespace data file
\\.\db_name_drsys1	DRSYS tablespace data file
\\.\db_name_control1	First control file
\\.\db_name_control2	Second control file
\\.\db_name_redothread_number thread is the thread ID of the node and number is the log number (1 or 2) for the node.	redo log files Each node must have two redo log files. If the database name is OP, link names for the first node would look like: op_redo1_1 op_redo1_2 Link names for the first node would look like: op_redo2_1 op_redo2_2

Pre-Installation Steps

Perform the following steps prior to installation:

1. Install vendor-supplied Operating System Dependent layer. This layer must be Oracle certified.

2. Perform diagnostics on the clusterware as described in your vendor documentation.

3. Create raw devices, as described in "Setting Up Raw Devices".

4. For UNIX clusters, perform the following as the root user:
   1. Make sure you have an OSDBA group defined in the /etc/group file on all nodes of the cluster. The OSDBA group name and number (and OSOPER group if you plan to designate one during installation) must be identical for all nodes of a UNIX cluster accessing a single database. The default UNIX group name for the OSDBA and OSOPER groups is dba.

   2. Create an oracle account on each node of the cluster so that:

      - the account is a member of the OSDBA group

      - the account is used only to install and update Oracle software

      - the account has write permissions on remote directories

   3. Create a mount point directory on each node to serve as the top of your Oracle software directory structure so that:

      -the name of the mount point on each node is identical to that on the initial node

      -the oracle account has read, write, and execute privileges

   4. On the node from which you plan to run Oracle Universal Installer, set up user equivalence by adding entries for all nodes, including the local node, in the cluster to the .rhosts file of the oracle account, or the /etc/hosts.equiv file.

   5. Exit the root account when you are done.

5. For UNIX clusters, as the oracle account, check for user equivalence for the oracle account by performing a remote login (rlogin) to each node in the cluster. If you are prompted for a password, the oracle account has not been given the same attributes on all nodes. Oracle Universal Installer cannot use the rcp command to copy Oracle products to the remote directories without user equivalence.

   Note: UNIX clusters also require environment setup similar to a single-instance environment. For these instructions and other operating system-specific Oracle Parallel Server pre-installation instructions, see the Oracle8i Installation Guide for your UNIX operating system