Oracle RAC Administration - Part 8: Hands on syntax check

November 2, 2006

Brief intro

As promised, in this article we will check the syntax on our console. These commands are carried out against a working 4-node Oracle 10g R2 cluster. The OS is RHEL 4.2/Centos 4.2 running on Virtual machines, on an ESX Server. Each server has 1200MB RAM, Dual CPU or better said as 2 vCPU (Virtual CPUs).

In upcoming articles, we will discuss a 6 node 4vCPU RHEL4.2, 1600MB Oracle RAC, and will also keep in mind our plans for Solaris 10 with Oracle 10gR2 cluster. I’m pretty confident we will also do 10.1 Oracle RAC on MAC OSX, once VMware has support for the MACs on the ESX or VMware Servers.

Administering Clusterware

Let's take a look at the details of the commands that we mentioned in the Administration of our Clusterware articles.

General OCRCONFIG commands

[oracle@vm1rh4 ~]$ ocrconfig
Name:
        ocrconfig - Configuration tool for Oracle Cluster Registry.
Synopsis:
        ocrconfig [option]
        option:
          -export <filename> [-s online]
              - Export cluster register contents to a file
          -import <filename>                  
              - Import cluster registry contents from a file
          -upgrade [<user> [<group>]]
              - Upgrade cluster registry from previous version
          -downgrade [-version <version string>]
              - Downgrade cluster registry to the specified version
          -backuploc <dirname>                - Configure periodic backup location
          -showbackup                         - Show backup information
          -restore <filename>                 - Restore from physical backup
          -replace ocr|ocrmirror [<filename>] - Add/replace/remove a OCR device/file
          -overwrite                          - Overwrite OCR configuration on disk
          -repair ocr|ocrmirror <filename>    - Repair local OCR configuration
          -help                               - Print out this help information
Note:
        A log file will be created in
        $ORACLE_HOME/log/<hostname>/client/ocrconfig_<pid>.log. Please ensure
        you have file creation privileges in the above directory before
        running this tool.

Showing backups

[oracle@vm1rh4 ~]$
[oracle@vm1rh4 ~]$ ocrconfig -showbackup
vm1rh4     2006/10/13 14:04:07     /u01/app/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/crs/cdata/crs
vm1rh4     2006/10/13 09:52:00     /u01/app/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/crs/cdata/crs
vm1rh4     2006/10/13 05:37:24     /u01/app/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/crs/cdata/crs
vm1rh4     2006/10/12 04:14:46     /u01/app/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/crs/cdata/crs
vm1rh4     2006/10/01 00:38:29     /u01/app/oracle/oracle/product/10.2.0/crs/cdata/crs
[oracle@vm1rh4 ~]$

What is OCRDUMP anyways

[oracle@vm1rh4 ~]$ ocrdump -help
Name:
        ocrdump - Dump contents of Oracle Cluster Registry to a file.
Synopsis:
        ocrdump [<filename>|-stdout] [-backupfile <backupfilename>] [-keyname <keyname>] [-xml] [-noheader]
Description:
        Default filename is OCRDUMPFILE. Examples are:
        prompt> ocrdump
        writes cluster registry contents to OCRDUMPFILE in the current directory
        prompt> ocrdump MYFILE
        writes cluster registry contents to MYFILE in the current directory
        prompt> ocrdump -stdout -keyname SYSTEM
        writes the subtree of SYSTEM in the cluster registry to stdout
        prompt> ocrdump -stdout -xml
        writes cluster registry contents to stdout in xml format
Notes:
        The header information will be retrieved based on best effort basis.
        A log file will be created in 
     ORACLE_HOME/log/<hostname>/client/ocrdump_<pid>.log. 
        Make sure you have file 
        creation privileges in the above directory before
        running this tool.

Checking what the OCRDUMP did

Oracle Database 10g CRS Release 10.2.0.1.0 Production Copyright 1996, 2005 Oracle.  All rights reserved.
2006-10-13 16:38:55.377: [ OCRDUMP][3086993088]ocrdump starts...
2006-10-13 16:39:04.063: [ OCRDUMP][3086993088]Failed to open key handle for key name [SYSTEM.evm.debug] [PROC-5: 
User does not have permission to perform a cluster registry operation on this key. Authentication error 
   [User does not have permission to perform this operation] [0]]
2006-10-13 16:39:05.253: [ OCRDUMP][3086993088]Failed to open key handle for key name [SYSTEM.crs.versions] [PROC-5: User does not have 
permission to perform a cluster registry operation on this key. Authentication error [User does not have permission to perform this operation] [0]]
2006-10-13 16:39:16.853: [ OCRDUMP][3086993088]Failed to open key handle for key name [CRS.CUR] [PROC-5: User does not have permission to 
perform a cluster registry operation on this key. Authentication error [User does not have permission to perform this operation] [0]]
2006-10-13 16:39:16.908: [ OCRDUMP][3086993088]Failed to open key handle for key name [CRS.HIS] [PROC-5: User does not have permission to 
perform a cluster registry operation on this key. Authentication error [User does not have permission to perform this operation] [0]]
2006-10-13 16:39:16.938: [ OCRDUMP][3086993088]Failed to open key handle for key name [CRS.SEC] [PROC-5: User does not have permission to 
perform a cluster registry operation on this key. Authentication error [User does not have permission to perform this operation] [0]]
2006-10-13 16:39:16.939: [ OCRDUMP][3086993088]Exiting [status=success???]...

Well not exactly successful so we log in as root and do it again (Do check with your Oracle support before you give your Oracle user the file creation permissions in production!).

[root@vm1rh4 oracle]# ocrdump -backupfile my_file
PROT-302: Failed to initialize ocrdump
[root@vm1rh4 oracle]# ocrdump
PROT-303: Dump file already exists [OCRDUMPFILE]

Viewing the contents of the OCRDUMPFILE

The contents of the OCRDUMP can be quite large, especially when dealing with 4 nodes. Clearly, you can see that permissions are crucial. On databases and instance level users, Oracle exercises full control, whereas on CRS level we see root as the one with permissions. I have highlighted the details on the small excerpt of the OCRDUMPFILE.

###################################################################
10/13/2006 16:38:55
ocrdump 
[SYSTEM]
UNDEF : 
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}
[SYSTEM.css]
UNDEF : 
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}
[SYSTEM.css.interfaces]
UNDEF : 
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_CREATE_SUB_KEY, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
[SYSTEM.css.clustername]
ORATEXT : crs
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}
[SYSTEM.css.misscount]
UB4 (10) : 360
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}
[SYSTEM.css.diskfile]
ORATEXT : /u03/oradata/votingdisk/CSSFile
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}
[SYSTEM.css.diskfile1]
ORATEXT : /u03/oradata/votingdisk/CSSFile_mirror1
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}
[SYSTEM.css.diskfile2]
ORATEXT : /u03/oradata/votingdisk/CSSFile_mirror2
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}
[SYSTEM.css.configured_node_map]
BYTESTREAM (16) : 1e
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}
[SYSTEM.css.node_names]
UNDEF : 
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : root, GROUP_NAME : root}

[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.CONFIG_VERSION]
ORATEXT : 10.2.0.0.0
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_WRITE, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_READ, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.INSTANCE.brianic1]-Our First Node!
ORATEXT : brianic1
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.INSTANCE.brianic1.NODE]
ORATEXT : vm1rh4
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.INSTANCE.brianic1.ENABLED]
ORATEXT : true
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.INSTANCE.brianic1.ENVIRONMENT]
UNDEF : 
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
.
.
.
[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.INSTANCE.brianic4]-Our Last Node!
ORATEXT : brianic4
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.INSTANCE.brianic4.NODE]
ORATEXT : vm4rh4
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.INSTANCE.brianic4.ENABLED]
ORATEXT : true
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}
[DATABASE.DATABASES.brianic.INSTANCE.brianic4.ENVIRONMENT]
UNDEF : 
SECURITY : {USER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, GROUP_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, OTHER_PERMISSION : PROCR_ALL_ACCESS, USER_NAME : oracle, GROUP_NAME : dba}

For a full copy of my dumpfile, see my blog. Please note that I have put it up for my own use and will get into the nitty-gritty of every detail of it when I have time. If you have the time, go ahead and explore it!

Conclusion:

In upcoming articles, we will conduct more command lines and will attempt to mend our broken RAC with recovery commands. I will make full backup copies of my development environment with the ESX Consolidated backup tool, and then we can safely do the dirty job in our well-protected and fenced lab environment.

» See All Articles by Columnist Tarry Singh