I said it before. It was only once that I succeeded to install Oracle Clusterware without any issues and that was during OCM exam I didn’t hit any bug, I didn’t re-configured anything. The installation went smooth. But …

Today, I got all following errors :

ORA-15032: not all alterations performed
ORA-15131: block of file in diskgroup could not be read
ORA-15018: diskgroup cannot be created
ORA-15031: disk specification ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ matches no disks
ORA-15025: could not open disk “/dev/mapper/mpathh”
ORA-15056: additional error message
ORA-15017: diskgroup “OCR_MIRROR” cannot be mounted
ORA-15063: ASM discovered an insufficient number of disks for diskgroup “OCR_MIRROR”
ORA-15033: disk ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ belongs to diskgroup “OCR_MIRROR”

In the beginning, while installing Oracle 11gRAC, I got the following error:

CRS-2672: Attempting to start ‘ora.diskmon’ on ‘vsme_ora1’

CRS-2676: Start of ‘ora.diskmon’ on ‘vsme_ora1’ succeeded

CRS-2676: Start of ‘ora.cssd’ on ‘vsme_ora1’ succeeded

 

Disk Group OCR_MIRROR creation failed with the following message:

ORA-15018: diskgroup cannot be created

ORA-15031: disk specification ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ matches no disks

ORA-15025: could not open disk “/dev/mapper/mpathh”

ORA-15056: additional error message

 

 

Configuration of ASM … failed

see asmca logs at /home/oracle/app/cfgtoollogs/asmca for details

Did not succssfully configure and start ASM at /home/oracle/11.2.4/grid1/crs/install/crsconfig_lib.pm line 6912.

/home/oracle/11.2.4/grid1/perl/bin/perl -I/home/oracle/11.2.4/grid1/perl/lib -I/home/oracle/11.2.4/grid1/crs/install /home/oracle/11.2.4/grid1/crs/install/rootcrs.pl execution failed

 

Bad news is that the installation failed. Good news is that I can easily restart the installation again without any issues, as the root.sh script is rest restartable. If you don’t need to install the software on all nodes again, solve the problem and run root.sh script again. If the problem is solved, it will sun smoothly. If you need to install the software on all nodes, you have to deconfigure and run the installation again. To remove the failed RAC installation, run rootcrs.pl script on all nodes except the last one, as follows:

$GRID_HOME/crs/install/rootcrs.pl -verbose -deconfig –force

 

Run the following command on the last node:

$GRID_HOME/crs/install/rootcrs.pl -verbose -deconfig –force –lastnode

 

Now, run ./runInstaller command and start the installation again.

 

So let’s go back to the problem. It was claiming that “disk specification ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ matches no disks”. Hmm … The first thing that came in my mind was permission of the disk. So I checked it, it was root:disk. I changed it to oracle:dba and run root.sh script. Got the same problem again.

I checked the following log file:

/home/oracle/app/cfgtoollogs/asmca

 

[main] [ 2014-12-09 17:26:29.220 AZT ] [UsmcaLogger.logInfo:143]  CREATE DISKGROUP SQL: CREATE DISKGROUP OCR_MIRROR EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY  DISK ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ ATTRIBUTE ‘compatible.asm’=’11.2.0.0.0′,’au_size’=’1M’

[main] [ 2014-12-09 17:26:29.295 AZT ] [SQLEngine.done:2189]  Done called

[main] [ 2014-12-09 17:26:29.296 AZT ] [UsmcaLogger.logException:173]  SEVERE:method oracle.sysman.assistants.usmca.backend.USMDiskG

roupManager:createDiskGroups

[main] [ 2014-12-09 17:26:29.296 AZT ] [UsmcaLogger.logException:174]  ORA-15018: diskgroup cannot be created

ORA-15031: disk specification ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ matches no disks

ORA-15025: could not open disk “/dev/mapper/mpathh”

ORA-15056: additional error message

 

Oracle  wasn’t able to create the diskgroup claiming that the specified device matches no disks. I logged in to the ASM instance and tried to create the diskgroup by my own:

SQL> CREATE DISKGROUP OCR_MIRROR EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY  DISK ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ ATTRIBUTE ‘compatible.asm’=’11.2.0.0.0′,’au_size’=’1M’;

 

SQL> CREATE DISKGROUP OCR_MIRROR EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY  DISK ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ ATTRIBUTE ‘compatible.asm’=’11.2.0.0.0′,’au_size’=’1M’

ERROR at line 1:

ORA-15018: diskgroup cannot be created

ORA-15031: disk specification ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ matches no disks

ORA-15025: could not open disk “/dev/mapper/mpathh”

ORA-15056: additional error message

Linux-x86_64 Error: 13: Permission denied

Additional information: 42

Additional information: -807671168

 

I checked the permission, it was root:disk . I changed it to oracle:dba and run the command again.

SQL> CREATE DISKGROUP OCR_MIRROR EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY  DISK ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ ATTRIBUTE ‘compatible.asm’=’11.2.0.0.0′,’au_size’=’1M’

ERROR at line 1:

ORA-15018: diskgroup cannot be created

ORA-15017: diskgroup “OCR_MIRROR” cannot be mounted

ORA-15063: ASM discovered an insufficient number of disks for diskgroup “OCR_MIRROR”

 

I run the query again, this time got different message:

SQL> CREATE DISKGROUP OCR_MIRROR EXTERNAL REDUNDANCY  DISK ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ ATTRIBUTE ‘compatible.asm’=’11.2.0.0.0′,’au_size’=’1M’

ERROR at line 1:

ORA-15018: diskgroup cannot be created

ORA-15033: disk ‘/dev/mapper/mpathh’ belongs to diskgroup “OCR_MIRROR”

 

 

I tried to mount the diskgroup and got the following error:

SQL> alter diskgroup ocr_mirror mount;

alter diskgroup ocr_mirror mount

*

ERROR at line 1:

ORA-15032: not all alterations performed

ORA-15017: diskgroup “OCR_MIRROR” cannot be mounted

ORA-15063: ASM discovered an insufficient number of disks for diskgroup “OCR_MIRROR”

 

I checked the permission. It was changed again! I changed it back to oracle:dba and tried to mount the diskgroup and got the following error!

SQL> alter diskgroup ocr_mirror mount

ERROR at line 1:

ORA-15032: not all alterations performed

ORA-15131: block  of file  in diskgroup  could not be read

 

Ohhh … Come on! I logged to the ASM instance, and queried the v$asm_disk and v$asm_diskgroup views.

SQL> select count(1) from v$asm_disk;

   COUNT(1)

———-

         0

 

I changed permission to oracle:dba and run the query again:

SQL> /

  COUNT(1)

———-

         1

 

I run again:

 

SQL> select count(1) from v$asm_diskgroup;

   COUNT(1)

———-

         0

 

What??? The permission is changed automatically while I query V$ASM_DISKGROUP view? Yes … Even, when you query V$ASM_DISKGROUP, Oracle checks ASM_DISKSTRING parameter and query the header of all disks that are listed in that parameter. For more information on this topic, you can check my following blog post:

V$ASM_DISKGROUP displays information from the header of ASM disks

So, this means that when I query V$ASM_DISK view, Oracle scan the disk (with the process that runs under root user) and change the permission of the disk.

After making change to the /etc/udev/rules.d/99-oracle-asmdevices.rules file and adding the following line, the problem solved:

NAME=”/dev/mapper/mpathh”, OWNER=”oracle”, GROUP=”dba”, MODE=”0660″

 

So I checked the permission of the disks again after querying V$ASM_DISK multiple time, and made sure that it doesn’t change the permission of the disk and run root.sh script. Everything worked fine and I got the following output:

ASM created and started successfully.

Disk Group OCR_MIRROR mounted successfully.

clscfg: -install mode specified

Successfully accumulated necessary OCR keys.

Creating OCR keys for user ‘root’, privgrp ‘root’..

Operation successful.

CRS-4256: Updating the profile

Successful addition of voting disk 5feed4cb66df4f43bf334c3a8d73af92.

Successfully replaced voting disk group with +OCR_MIRROR.

CRS-4256: Updating the profile

CRS-4266: Voting file(s) successfully replaced

##  STATE    File Universal Id                File Name Disk group

—  —–    —————–                ——— ———

 1. ONLINE   5feed4cb66df4f43bf334c3a8d73af92 (/dev/mapper/mpathh) [OCR_MIRROR]

Located 1 voting disk(s).

CRS-2672: Attempting to start ‘ora.asm’ on ‘vsme_ora1’

CRS-2676: Start of ‘ora.asm’ on ‘vsme_ora1’ succeeded

CRS-2672: Attempting to start ‘ora.OCR_MIRROR.dg’ on ‘vsme_ora1’

CRS-2676: Start of ‘ora.OCR_MIRROR.dg’ on ‘vsme_ora1’ succeeded

Preparing packages for installation…

cvuqdisk-1.0.9-1

Configure Oracle Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster … succeeded

 

 

Today, while starting RAC instances of 2 node RAC database (10gR2 on Linux), I got the following error in the first node:

ORA-01105: mount is incompatible with mounts by other instances
ORA-01677: standby file name convert parameters differ from other instance

 

I checked the alert.log file, but there was no enough information to solve this issue:

Wed Jul 30 09:58:48 AZST 2014
Setting recovery target incarnation to 2
ORA-1105 signalled during: ALTER DATABASE MOUNT…
Wed Jul 30 09:58:58 AZST 2014
SUCCESS: diskgroup DATA was dismounted

 

After playing with some initialization parameters, I found a metalink note where it was defined as a bug (bug13001004)

Check out the following metalink note:

Spfile defined in OCR is not used if one exists in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs (Doc ID 1373622.1)

 

The solution is – to move parameter file to the centralized directory (/ocfs) and remove any instance_name parameter

As you’ve already known, you should use odd number of disks for voting disk. A node must be able to strictly access more than half of the voting disks at any time. Let me show you how it works. I have installed and configured two node 11gR3 RAC on VirtualBox and use the following case to show how it works:

– Create a diskgroup with 3 failure groups and 3 different disks

– Move voting disk to the new diskgroup. Shutdown the second node and deattach one of the disks. In this case, cluster should start as it can access more than half of the voting disks (2 from 3)

– Start the second node. The cluster should be up. Shut the second node again and deattach the second voting disk. And start it. The cluster will not start. Check the ocssd.log file

– Shut down all node, attach the previous disks and start it again. Cluster will be up

Here’re the detailed steps:

– Create a diskgroup :

– Mount the diskgroup at the second node:

SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP vdisk MOUNT;

 

– Replace voting disk, move it to the new diskgroup and query the voting disk:

– 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Shutdown the second instance and reattach one of the disks of VDISK diskgroup :

 

–

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Star the second node, query the Voting disk and check if the clusterware is up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Shutdown the second node again, remove the second disk from the Voting diskgroup and start the node:

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Check the log file at $GRID_HOME/log/node2/cssd/ocssd.log :

2014-05-29 01:51:23.055: [ CSSD][2946955008]clssnmvVerifyCommittedConfigVFs: Insufficient voting files found, found 1 of 3 configured, needed 2 voting files
2014-05-29 01:51:23.055: [ CSSD][2946955008](:CSSNM00020:)clssnmvVerifyCommittedConfigVFs: voting file 0, id 279c162c-1b964f88-bfb1d622-aecc9e4e not found
2014-05-29 01:51:23.055: [ CSSD][2946955008](:CSSNM00020:)clssnmvVerifyCommittedConfigVFs: voting file 1, id 7e282f3f-5e514f42-bfb79396-c69fda76 not found
2014-05-29 01:51:23.055: [ CSSD][2946955008](:CSSNM00021:)clssnmCompleteVFDiscovery: Found 1 voting files, but 2 are required. Terminating due to insufficient configured voting files

– As you see, cluster is down. Now, shutdown both nodes, add disks to the second node and check the status of the clusterware:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took me some time to investigate why CRSCTL REPLACE VOTEDISK command is not working.
[oracle@node1 ~]$ crsctl replace votedisk VDISK
CRS-4264: The operation could not be validated
CRS-4000: Command Replace failed, or completed with errors.
When you get an error during VOTEDISK replacement, make sure you check the following items:

– Make sure the disk group you’re moving the voting disk is mounted on all nodes.

– Make sure the compatibility parameter is set to the version of Grid software you’re using. You can change it using the following command:

alter diskgroup VDISK set attribute ‘compatible.asm’=’11.2’;

Query V$ASM_DISKGROUP view to make sure it’s the same with the rest disk groups and with the version of the Grid Software:

select group_number, name, compatibility, database_compatibility from v$asm_diskgroup;

– Check alert.log file of an ASM instance, any available trace file of the ASM instance. Check /var/log/messages file and trace the replace command usint strace file. See if you can catch any error from the log file:

[grid@node5 ~]strace crsctl replace votedisk VDISK
– Make sure you’ve an odd number of votedisk

– Make sure there’s enough space in the diskgroup

– Make sure disk permissions is correct

– Make sure you’re running the command using Grid Software owner

Today, all above mentioned checks are failed :). In my case, the problem was using incorrect “crsctl” command. After upgrading the RAC environment from 11.2.0 to 11.2.3 I was still using old crsctl (by accident, forgot to set environment variables correctly). But no need to worries, it was a test database.

Let me know if you have any additional check to investigate voting disk replace failure

Cheers

One of the reason of why cluster won’t start is DIAGNOSTIC_DEST folder is missing. Here it is what I got today in of the nodes of the RAC environment:

db-bash: crs_stat -t

HA Resource Target State
———– —— —–
error connecting to CRSD at [(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=IPC)(KEY=ora_crsqs))] clsccon 184

 

While checking alert log file of the clusterware ($GRID_HOME/log/node1/alertnode1.log

[/home/oracle/11.2.0/grid_1124/bin/oraagent.bin(4745)]CRS-5011:Check of resource “+ASM” failed: details at “(:CLSN00006:)” in “/home/oracle/11.2.0/grid_1124/log/node01/agent/ohasd/oraagent_oracle/oraagent_oracle.log”

 

ASM instance failed to start. I connected to ASM instance and tried to start it manually:

db-bash-$ asm

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.4.0 Production on Mon Mar 3 10:32:24 2014

Copyright (c) 1982, 2013, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Connected to an idle instance.

ASM> startup

ORA-48108: invalid value given for the diagnostic_dest init.ora parameter

ORA-48140: the specified ADR Base directory does not exist [/home/oracle/11.2.0/dbhome]

ORA-48187: specified directory does not exist

HPUX-ia64 Error: 2: No such file or directory

Additional information: 1

ASM>

 

ADR Base Directory is missing. After creating it, I successfully started the CRS and got the happiest message :

db-bash-$ crsctl check crs
CRS-4638: Oracle High Availability Services is online
CRS-4537: Cluster Ready Services is online
CRS-4529: Cluster Synchronization Services is online
CRS-4533: Event Manager is online
db-bash-$

While playing with OCR recovery, suddenly I realized that V$ASM_DISKGROUP view gets information from the headers of the ASM disk files that are specified at *.ASM_DISKSTRING parameter. Here’s the description of V$ASM_DISKGROUP view from documentation:

V$ASM_DISKGROUP displays one row for every ASM disk group discovered by the ASM instance on the node.

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18283_01/server.112/e17110/dynviews_1027.htm

 

I got explain plan of V$ASM_DISKGROUP to know which X$ table stand behind it and got – X$KFGRP

SQL> set autotrace on

SQL> select count(1) from v$asm_diskgroup;

COUNT(1)

———-

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SQL> select name_kfgrp from x$kfgrp;

NAME_KFGRP

——————————

 

DATA

FLASH

OCR

 

SQL> select GRPNUM_KFDSK, NUMBER_KFDSK, STATE_KFDSK, ASMNAME_KFDSK, PATH_KFDSK from x$KFDSK;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I queried ASM_DISKGROUPS parameter :

 

SQL> show parameter disk

 

NAME                                 TYPE        VALUE

———————————— ———– ——————————

asm_diskgroups                       string      OCR, DATA, FLASH

asm_diskstring                       string      /dev/oracleasm/disks

 

No I will create a new tablespace under FLASH diskgroup, create a new table, change owner of the disk of FLASH diskgroup and make it #*disappear* from V$ASM_DISKGROUP view, and then return everything back 

SQL> create tablespace new_tbs datafile ‘+FLASH’;

Tablespace created.

SQL> create table new_table (id number) tablespace new_tbs;

Table created.

SQL> insert into new_table values(1);

1 row created.

SQL> commit;

Commit complete.

SQL> select * from new_table;

ID
———-
1

 

I create a parameter file from spfile, change ASM_DISKGROUPS parameter to OCR,DATA (remove FLASH) and mount the ASM instance again using a parameter file with

ASM_DISKGROUPS=’OCR’,’DATA’ specified:

 

 

So DISK6 is member and as the disk is discovered by ASM instance, FLASH diskgroup is dismounted, but still there.

Let’s change the owner of the disk and check it again. But before checking the owner, let’s read it’s header by KFED:

[root@node1 disks]# kfed read DISK6

 

Now let’s start the instance and check V$ASM_DISKGROUP view:

 

Query X$KFGRP view:

 SQL> select NAME_KFGRP from X$KFGRP;

NAME_KFGRP

——————————

 

DATA

OCR

SQL>

 

Switch to the database and check if you can query the table:

SQL> select * from new_table;

select * from new_table

*

ERROR at line 1:

ORA-01157: cannot identify/lock data file 8 – see DBWR trace file

ORA-01110: data file 8: ‘+FLASH/rac/datafile/new_tbs.257.837080939’

SQL>

 

 

Now shutdown the ASM instance, return the owner back and check V$ASM_DISKGROUP again:

[root@node1 disks]# chown -R oracle:dba DISK6

 

FLASH diskgroup appeared, however it’s not specified at ASM_DISKGROUPS parameter. Now mount the diskgroup and query the table again:

SQL> alter diskgroup flash mount;

Diskgroup altered.

SQL>

SQL> select * from new_table;

ID
———-
1

SQL>

 

This means that if you want to move the ASM instance to another host, it’s enough to specify ASM_DISKSTRING parameter, V$ASM_DISKGROUP will discover all diskgroups

It’s 3.50 AM at San Francisco and I’m finalizing a new video tutorial that I have been creating for the users who will attend RAC Attack at Oracle Openworld 2013 (Ninja Operation). Tomorrow is the first day of OOW13 and I’m very happy that I was able to finish it in time. The first minutes of this tutorial was created in the plane when I was flying to SFO this week

For the step by step instruction, I’ve used the following article

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/RAC_Attack_-_Oracle_Cluster_Database_at_Home/RAC_Attack_12c

 

You can watch the video from the following link:

You can download the video from this link:

http://www.kamranagayev.com/Video_Tutorials/Step_by_Step_installing_Oracle_12c_RAC.mp4

 

Hope you’ll enjoy the video!

I’m proud to announce that I’m one of the 10 RAC Attack Ninjas this year! If you’re attending OOW13, don’t forget to come and say “hi” to Ninjas. We’ll be at OTN Lounge in the lobby of Moscone South on 24th and 25th September between 10am-2pm

Using documentation created by Ninjas, you’ll be able to install and run Oracle 12c RAC on your laptop!

For the step by step introduction, check the following link:
http://racattack.org/12c

To get more information about RacAttack event, check the following link:
http://www.pythian.com/blog/rac-attack-at-oracle-openworld-2013-operation-ninja/

You can check our facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/racattackoow13

And don’t forget to use #RACAttack hashtag.

I’m working on “Step by Step Installing Oracle 12c RAC Video tutorial” and hope it will be ready for the RACAttack event. If you don’t have time to install it during OOW days, come and watch the video tutorial and learn how to install Oracle 12c RAC

See you all soon!

If you’ve installed and configured RAC environment, you should face “User equivalenece check” error during pre-requisite check

There’re three common reasons for getting this error:

– You didn’t configure ssh between nodes. Make sure you can ssh to all nodes which are used at runcluvfy.sh script

– UID are different on any of node

– runcluvfy.sh script can’t find necessary executable to perform the connectivity or equivalence check

 

In my case, I configured ssh on both nodes and all parameters of an oracle user were same. So in this case, I decided to debug runcluvfy.sh script. To debug this script, you need to set some environment variables:

export CV_HOME=/home/oracle/cv   (Export Cluster Verify debugging home page)

export SRVM_TRACE=true

./runcluvfy.sh stage -post hwos -n node1,node2 -verbose

 

Then I checked the log file under /home/oracle/cv/pid/cv/log/log_file.log and got the following output:

[Worker 0] [8:57:44:666] [UnixSystem.checkRemoteExecutionSetup:1833] checkRemoteExecutionSetup:: Error checking user equivalence us
ing Secured Shell ‘/usr/local/bin/ssh’; Wed Aug 14 08:57:44 GMT+04:00 2013

[Thread-7] [8:57:44:850] [StreamReader.run:65] ERROR>remshd: Login incorrect.; Wed Aug 14 08:57:44 GMT+04:00 2013

[Thread-5] [8:58:15:773] [StreamReader.run:65] ERROR>rcmd_af: connect: node1: Connection refused; Wed Aug 14 08:5
8:15 GMT+04:00 2013

 

Hey, wait. I don’t have /usr/local/bin/ssh file! I do have ssh executable but it’s under the different directory. And why the script didn’t use “which ssh” command and get the exact path of the ssh executable?

Anyway, I created a symbolic link to the original ssh file and run the script again. It worked!

Today, while installing RAC, the installation began to wait at “Performing remote operations” step. I’ve tried to check log files, but there was no information written

Then I tried to trace the currently running process, but didn’t get enough information about the wait. At last, I checked both servers and found firewall running. After stopping firewall, (stopping, deinstalling and starting the installation again) the setup was able to pass that step and copied the Grid home files to the remote server