Category Archives: Linux

Remove Oracle Database Options with chopt in 12c

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

In 10g and 11g Enterprise Edition, one could select which options to install or not to install during the installation process (excl. the 10g ‘custom database’ option, you would get partioning, OLAP and rat). In 12g, one is not able to choose during install anymore, you will get all the options and they must be removed afterwards. Remove / disable them after installing the database software (only), but before creating databases.

The best way to do this is using the ‘chopt’ tool, or when the option is not available, the Oracle Universal Installer must most likely be used. It’s available in Windows and Linux. When using Windows, one can also rename the .dll’s which ‘enable’ the options. It will NOT remove the objects from the database! Continue reading →

The oratab usage comment is not correct… or it’s a bug in dbstart/dbshut (sort of)…

By | | ,
5 Comments

I’m talking about the ‘third’ field in the database entries. Field number three. Which indicates there could be a fourth, fifth etc… right?

A customer where I came (who went from AIX to Linux), who had interpreted this comment and therefore expanded the oratab with an extra column, to datapump the database (y/n).

When I shut down the databases, there was some unexpected behaviour when I invoked dbshut… Strange, but the extra (last) field ‘for datapump’ was read, not the third!

Continue reading →

Bug: /def/shm does not use /etc/fstab attributes after reboot

By | | ,
2 Comments

SOLVED: this issue is solved in Linux 6.4 (kernel: 2.6.39-400.17.1.el6uek and 2.6.32-358.el6).
A single entry in /etc/fstab like [tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs size=3g 0 0] now works as it should!

There is a bug in Red Hat Linux 6 and Oracle Enterprise Linux 6 (UEK and RHEL-kernel) and probably all other Red Hat 6 related Linux Distro’s.

When you need more memory for SGA/PGA when using MEMORY_MAX_TARGET, you need to resize /dev/shm. By default this is 50% of total memory and Oracle tells you to add the following to /etc/fstab, ‘mounting’ the /dev/shm twice (?):

tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs size=3g 0 0

Which works…

IMPORTANT NOTE: make sure the first field (fs_spec) ‘shmfs’ or ‘tmpfs’ gets the same name as the already existing ‘defaults’ name. So if you have a line [tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0], make sure the ‘overruled’ line also starts with ‘tmpfs’: [tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs size=3g 0 0].

If not, a `mount -a` will un-mount (!!!) the ‘shmfs’ and remount ‘tmpfs’, this results in immediate clearing the ‘/dev/shm’ memory and all your SGA is instantly gone! Running this when databases are running, your databases with AMM will crash! This ‘issue’ is still there last time checked in Linux 7.3. In Oracle documentation about /dev/shm, the first field is ‘shmfs’ with can result in crashing databases when a `mount -a` done!

Continue reading →

oracle.cluster.verification.VerificationException: [hostname]: [hostname]

By | | ,
8 Comments

A couple of days ago I did a new install of the Oracle Database Software (on a Virtual Machine) and it kept failing. I got some oracle.cluster.verification.VerificationException error, but I could not get more information from the logs. Usually it’s a bit more detailed after the colon, but this time it just said: [hostname]: [hostname]. Continue reading →

Updating Oracle VM Servers with public YUM

By | | , ,
3 Comments

You can update your Oracle VM Servers (3.x) with the Oracle Public Yum Server. In the Oracle VM Manager console go to the ‘Tools and Resources’ tab and click ‘Server Update Management (YUM)’.

For the ‘YUM Base URL:’, use:
http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleVM/OVM3/latest/x86_64/

When enabling the GPG key, use:
http://public-yum.oracle.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle-el5
(Oracle VM 3.x is based on OEL5) Continue reading →

Oracle Linux 6, oracle-validated is missing? no renamed!

By | | ,
4 Comments

In Oracle Linux 6, it looks like the ‘oracle-validated’ package is missing, but Oracle actually renamed it to ‘oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall.x86_64‘.

To quickly use the public yum repository of Oracle and install ‘oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall.x86_64’:

cd /etc/yum.repos.d
wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-ol6.repo
#vi /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol6.repo
yum clean all
yum repolist
yum install oracle-rdbms-server-11gR2-preinstall.x86_64

You will get the ‘latest’ build enabled.
If you don’t want this, vi /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-ol6.repo .

Happy installing!

Get wget command for a Metalink / My Oracle Support download with FireFox cliget add-on

By | | ,
2 Comments

Today I ran into an add-on for FireFox which can create a wget command from a download file dialog box. First thing that came in mind was; Will this work for Metalink / My Oracle Support? Yes is does!

The add-on is called ‘cliget’ and can be downloaded here: cliget add-on for FireFox. Continue reading →

Installing VirtualBox Guest additions using the command line

By | | , ,
5 Comments

[Commands used were against VirtualBox version 4…]

Sometimes you don’t want to use a lot of disk space on your VirtualBox for install software or any ‘temporary’ need of space.

Adding shared folders from your host to your VirtualBox guest is a good option to use. If you have a Windows guest and a GUI based Host, it it’s very easy; click, click, done.

But if you are using a command line based guest and/or host, it a bit more complex. Use this post as a guideline, Linux knowledge is assumed… Continue reading →

SQLPlus and Easy Connect without password on the command line

By | | ,
Leave a comment

The Easy Connect Naming Method allows you to connect to a database service without having to configure Net Service Names.

The most found example on internet is the one with typing the password at the command prompt when starting sqlplus:

sqlplus username/password@[//]host[:port][/service_name]
$> sqlplus system/manager@db_machine:1521/db_servicename

However, this means that the password will be stored in you history of commands (linux). This is not really secure… but sqlplus does not accept it when no password is supplied when using easy connect.

Two solutions

If you want to login with easy connect without typing the password on the command line, you have two options: Continue reading →

Public yum package ‘oracle-validated’ problems on 64bit OEL

By | | ,
Leave a comment

I was preparing some fresh installed OEL5.5 machines for database software installation, but after running ‘yum install oracle-validated‘, the OUI did not pass the prerequisites on two packages. It seems it did not install unixODBC-devel x86_64 and libaio-devel x86_64.

Their Linux may be unbreakable, but their ‘oracle-validated’ package on the public yum server seemed to be broken. Continue reading →