Sign In

Search <book_title>...

InfoScale™ 9.0 Cluster Server Agent for Oracle Installation and Configuration Guide - Solaris

Last Published: 2025-09-09

Product(s): InfoScale & Storage Foundation (9.0)

Platform: Solaris

About VCS requirements for installing Oracle

Make sure you meet the following requirements to install Oracle in a VCS cluster:

Kernel parameter configuration	Each node on which you want to install Oracle must meet the following Oracle configuration requirements: Disk partitions Shared memory Swap size Semaphores File handles See Oracle documentation for the corresponding operating system for specific requirement details.
Location of the $ORACLE_HOME	Depending on your environment, you can place the Oracle home directory ($ORACLE_HOME) in one of the following ways: Locally on each server's disk On the shared storage. If you want to use Oracle ASM, then you must place the Oracle home directory only on the local disks of each node. Review the advantages of each approach to make a decision. See Location of the $ORACLE_HOME.
Configurations with multiple Oracle instances (SIDs)	You can have multiple Oracle instances that are defined in a single cluster. In such cases, the parameter file for each instance must be accessible on all the nodes in the service group's SystemList attribute. Note: If you installed multiple versions of Oracle on the same system, make sure that the SIDs are unique.
Location of Oracle database tablespaces	If you plan to create the tablespaces using regular (UFS or VxFS) files, the file systems that contain these files must be located on shared disks. Create the same file system mount points on each node. If you use raw devices on shared disks for Oracle tablespaces, you must meet the following requirements: The ownership must be Oracle dba user. The permissions or access mode must be 660 on the raw devices that store the Oracle data. For example, if you use Volume Manager (VxVM), type: # `vxedit -g diskgroup_name set group=dba` \ `user=oracle mode=660 volume_name` Note: The user oracle and the group dba must be local and not Network Information Service (NIS and NIS+) users
Location of core files for Oracle processes that terminate abnormally	The VCS agent framework sets the current directory to /opt/VRTSagents/ha/bin/Oracle before it runs the Oracle agent scripts or the programs that execute the Oracle binaries. Oracle binaries, which run as the user oracle, do not have permission to write to /opt/VRTSagents/ha/bin/Oracle. So, any "core" files that the Oracle binaries generate when the processes terminate abnormally are lost. Arctera recommends using the coreadm (1M) command on Solaris to specify the name and the location of such core files.
Transparent listener failover	You can enable Oracle Server clients to reconnect after a node switch without reconfiguring. For such reconnections you must include at least one IP resource in the service group for the Oracle resource. The hostname mapping the IP address of this resource must be used for the Host field in the file $TNS_ADMIN/listener.ora. If you use the TCP/IP protocol for Oracle client/server communication, verify that the file /etc/services contains the service name of the Oracle Net Service. You must verify this file on each node that is defined in the service group's SystemList attribute.
Listener authentication in VCS environment	The Netlsnr agent supports OS authentication as well as password authentication for the listener process. Arctera recommends that you configure OS authentication. If you want to configure a listener password, make sure that you configure the password correctly. A misconfigured password can cause the listener to fault. See Encrypting Oracle database user and listener passwords. Refer to the Oracle documentation for details on configuring the listener authentication.
Long pathname limitation for $ORACLE_HOME	The Solaris process table limits process pathnames to 79 characters. The full pathname of processes in $ORACLE_HOME can possibly have 80 characters or more. In this case, you can create a soft link to the $ORACLE_HOME directory. You can then use the soft link in place of the long filename in the Home attribute in the main.cf file.
Oracle NLS information	You can define the NLS information in one of the following ways: Define the appropriate parameters in the Oracle parameter file. Define the appropriate environment variables in the EnvFile attribute for the agents. Defining the parameters in the Oracle parameters file affects NLS settings for the Oracle server. Defining the environment variables affects the NLS input and output of client utilities.
Hot backup of Oracle database in VCS environment	The hot backup of Oracle database is enabled by default in VCS environment. A node can fail during a hot backup of an Oracle database. During such failures, VCS can fail over to another node only if the following requirements are met: The AutoEndBkup attribute value must be set to 1, which is the default. The Startup option of Oracle agent must be STARTUP, STARTUP_FORCE, or CUSTOM. See Startup and shutdown options for the Oracle agent. If you do not meet VCS requirements, you must manually end the hot backup and then fail over Oracle to another node. Note: If a node fails during a hot backup of container database or pluggable database, you must set AutoEndBkup attribute of the corresponding CDB resource to 1. When the AutoEndBkup is set to 1 for the CDB, it also ends the backup of both CDB and PDB during Online. See Failing over Oracle after a VCS node failure during hot backup. Note: If you set the AutoEndBkup attribute value to 0, then to avoid unexpected VCS behavior you must enable detail monitoring. See Setting up detail monitoring for VCS agents for Oracle.
Storage devices for Oracle ASM configurations in VCS	You can choose one of the following storage devices for Oracle ASM: ASM disks as raw disks If you use raw disks, then make sure that the disks have the persistent permissions that are specified for ASM $ORACLE_HOME. ASM disks as Volume Manager (VxVM) volumes If you use VxVM volumes, then make sure that the disks have persistent permissions across reboots. The permissions must be the same as that of ASM $ORACLE_HOME. See Storage Foundation documentation. ASM disks as Cluster Volume Manager volumes If you use CVM volumes, then make sure that the disks have persistent permissions across reboots. The permissions must be the same as that of ASM $ORACLE_HOME. See Storage Foundation documentation. If you want to configure mirroring for ASM disks that use VxVM or CVM volumes, then you must configure VxVM mirroring and not configure ASM mirroring. The ASMInst agent does not support pfile or spfile for ASM instances on the ASM disk groups. Arctera recommends that you copy this file from ASM disk group to the local file system.
ASM instances configured on VxVM or CVM volumes in a Solaris zone environment	In a Solaris zone environment, you must do the following for the ASM instances that are configured on VxVM or CVM volumes: Create a new Oracle user in the global zone. The user name, group name, user id, and group id of the new Oracle user must be the same that in the local zone where you have configured ASM. To be able to perform I/O on the raw volumes, set the permissions as follows from the global zone: The ownership must be Oracle dba user. The permissions or access mode must be 660 on the raw devices that store the Oracle data. For example: # `vxedit -g diskgroup_name set group=dba` \ `user=oracle mode=660 volume_name` Note: The user oracle and the group dba must be local and not Network Information Service (NIS and NIS+) users Change the permissions of device matches for VxVM volumes in the local zone. For example: localzone# `chown oracle:dba /dev/vx/rdsk/ASMDG/asmvol` localzone# `chmod 660 /dev/vx/rdsk/ASMDG/asmvol`

More Information

About the resource type and attribute definitions

Attribute definition for the Netlsnr agent

Sample Oracle ASM configurations