Oracle Database 11g Release 2 RAC On Linux Using VirtualBox

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Introduction

One of the biggest obstacles preventing people from setting up test RAC environments is the requirement for shared storage. In a production environment, shared storage is often provided by a SAN or high-end NAS device, but both of these options are very expensive when all you want to do is get some experience installing and using RAC. A cheaper alternative is to use a FireWire disk enclosure to allow two machines to access the same disk(s), but that still costs money and requires two servers. A third option is to use virtualization to fake the shared storage.

Using VirtualBox you can run multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) on a single server, allowing you to run both RAC nodes on a single machine. In additon, it allows you to set up shared virtual disks, overcoming the obstacle of expensive shared storage.

Before you launch into this installation, here are a few things to consider.

• The finished system includes the host operating system, two guest operating systems, two sets of Oracle Grid Infrastructure (Clusterware + ASM) and two Database instances all on a single server. As you can imagine, this requires a significant amount of disk space, CPU and memory. I completed this installation on a Quad-Core processor with 8G of memory, so don't expect to work on a low spec machine.
• Following on from the last point, the VMs will each need at least 2G of RAM, preferably 3-4G if you don't want the VM to swap like crazy. As you can see, 11gR2 RAC requires much more memory than 11gR1 RAC. Don't assume you will be able to run this on a small PC or laptop. You won't.
• This procedure provides a bare bones installation to get the RAC working. There is no redundancy in the Grid Infrastructure installation or the ASM installation. To add this, simply create double the amount of shared disks and select the "Normal" redundancy option when it is offered. Of course, this will take more disk space.
• During the virtual disk creation, I always choose not to preallocate the disk space. This makes virtual disk access slower during the installation, but saves on wasted disk space. The shared disks must have their space preallocated.
• This is not, and should not be considered, a production-ready system. It's simply to allow you to get used to installing and using RAC.
• The Single Client Access Name (SCAN) should really be defined in the DNS or GNS and round-robin between one of 3 addresses, which are on the same subnet as the public and virtual IPs. In this article I've defined it as a single IP address in the "/etc/hosts" file, which is wrong and will cause the cluster verification to fail, but it allows me to complete the install without the presence of a DNS.
• The virtual machines can be limited to 2Gig of swap, which causes a prerequisite check failure, but doesn't prevent the installation working. If you want to avoid this, define 3+Gig of swap.
• This article uses the 64-bit versions of Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle 11g Release 2.

Download Software

Download the following software.

• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5
• VirtualBox (Must be version 3.2.8 or later)
• Oracle 11g Release 2 (11.2) Software (64 bit)

VirtualBox Installation

First, install the VirtualBox software. On RHEL and its clones you do this with the following command as the root user.

# rpm -Uvh VirtualBox-3.2-3.2.8_64453_rhel5-1.x86_64.rpm

Once complete, VirtualBox is started from the "Applications > System Tools > Oracle VM VirtualBox" menu option.

Virtual Machine Setup

Now we must define the two virtual RAC nodes. We can save time by defining one VM, then cloning it when it is installed.

Start VirtualBox and click the "New" button on the toolbar. Click the "Next" button on the first page of the Virtual Machine Wizard.



Enter the name "rac1", OS "Linux" and Version "Oracle (64 bit)", then click the "Next" button.



Enter "2048" as the base memory size, then click the "Next" button.



Accept the default option to create a new virtual hard disk by clicking the "Next" button.



Click the "Next" button on the Create Virtual Disk Wizard welcome screen.



Acccept the default option by clicking the "Next" button.



Accept the default location and set the size to "20G" and click the "Next" button.



Click the "Finish" button on the Virtual Disk Wizard Summary screen.



Click the "Finish" button on the Virtual Machine Wizard Summary screen.



The "rac1" VM will appear on the left hand pane. Scroll down the "Details" tab on the right and click on the "Network" link.



Make sure "Adapter 1" is enabled, set to "Bridged Adapter" and "eth0", then click on the "Adapter 2" tab.



Make sure "Adapter 2" is enabled, set to "Bridged Adapter" and "eth1", then click on the "OK" button.



The virtual machine is now configured so we can start the guest operating system installation.

Guest Operating System Installation

Place the OEL 5 DVD in the DVD drive and start the virtual machine by clicking the "Start" button on the toolbar. The resulting console window will contain the OEL boot screen.



Continue through the OEL 5 installation as you would for a normal server. A general pictorial guide to the installation can be found here. More specifically, it should be a server installation with a minimum of 2G swap (3-4G if you want to avoid warnings), firewall and SELinux disabled and the following package groups installed:

• GNOME Desktop Environment
• Editors
• Graphical Internet
• Text-based Internet
• Development Libraries
• Development Tools
• Server Configuration Tools
• Administration Tools
• Base
• System Tools
• X Window System

To be consistent with the rest of the article, the following information should be set during the installation:

• hostname: rac1.localdomain
• IP Address eth0: 192.168.2.101 (public address)
• Default Gateway eth0: 192.168.2.1 (public address)
• IP Address eth1: 192.168.0.101 (private address)
• Default Gateway eth1: none

You are free to change the IP addresses to suit your network, but remember to stay consistent with those adjustments throughout the rest of the article.

Once the basic installation is complete, install the following packages whilst logged in as the root user. This includes the 64-bit and 32-bit versions of some packages.

# From Enterprise Linux 5 DVD
cd /media/cdrom/Server
rpm -Uvh binutils-2.*
rpm -Uvh compat-libstdc++-33*
rpm -Uvh elfutils-libelf-0.*
rpm -Uvh elfutils-libelf-devel-*
rpm -Uvh gcc-4.*
rpm -Uvh gcc-c++-4.*
rpm -Uvh glibc-2.*
rpm -Uvh glibc-common-2.*
rpm -Uvh glibc-devel-2.*
rpm -Uvh glibc-headers-2.*
rpm -Uvh ksh-2*
rpm -Uvh libaio-0.*
rpm -Uvh libaio-devel-0.*
rpm -Uvh libgcc-4.*
rpm -Uvh libstdc++-4.*
rpm -Uvh libstdc++-devel-4.*
rpm -Uvh make-3.*
rpm -Uvh sysstat-7.*
rpm -Uvh unixODBC-2.*
rpm -Uvh unixODBC-devel-2.*
cd /
eject

Oracle Installation Prerequisites

Perform the following steps whilst logged into the "rac1" virtual machine as the root user.

Make sure the shared memory filesystem is big enough for Automatic Memory Manager to work.

# umount tmpfs
# mount -t tmpfs shmfs -o size=1500m /dev/shm

If you are not using DNS, the "/etc/hosts" file must contain the following information.

127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost
# Public
192.168.2.101   rac1.localdomain        rac1
192.168.2.102   rac2.localdomain        rac2
# Private
192.168.0.101   rac1-priv.localdomain   rac1-priv
192.168.0.102   rac2-priv.localdomain   rac2-priv
# Virtual
192.168.2.111   rac1-vip.localdomain    rac1-vip
192.168.2.112   rac2-vip.localdomain    rac2-vip
# SCAN
192.168.2.201   rac-scan.localdomain rac-scan

Note. The SCAN address should not really be defined in the hosts file. Instead is should be defined on the DNS to round-robin between 3 addresses on the same subnet as the public IPs. For this installation, we will compromise and use the hosts file.

If you are using DNS, then only the first line should be present in the "/etc/hosts" file. The other entries are defined in the DNS, as described here.

Add or amend the following lines to the "/etc/sysctl.conf" file.

fs.aio-max-nr = 1048576
fs.file-max = 6815744
kernel.shmall = 2097152
kernel.shmmax = 536870912
kernel.shmmni = 4096
# semaphores: semmsl, semmns, semopm, semmni
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 9000 65500
net.core.rmem_default=262144
net.core.rmem_max=4194304
net.core.wmem_default=262144
net.core.wmem_max=1048586

Run the following command to change the current kernel parameters.

/sbin/sysctl -p

Add the following lines to the "/etc/security/limits.conf" file.

oracle               soft    nproc   2047
oracle               hard    nproc   16384
oracle               soft    nofile  1024
oracle               hard    nofile  65536

Add the following lines to the "/etc/pam.d/login" file, if it does not already exist.

session    required     pam_limits.so

Disable secure linux by editing the "/etc/selinux/config" file, making sure the SELINUX flag is set as follows.

SELINUX=disabled

Alternatively, this alteration can be done using the GUI tool (System > Administration > Security Level and Firewall). Click on the SELinux tab and disable the feature.

Either configure NTP, or make sure it is not configured so the Oracle Cluster Time Synchronization Service (ctssd) can synchronize the times of the RAC nodes. In this case we will deconfigure NTP.

# service ntpd stop
Shutting down ntpd:                                        [  OK  ]
# chkconfig ntpd off
# mv /etc/ntp.conf /etc/ntp.conf.org
# rm /var/run/ntpd.pid

If you are using NTP, you must add the "-x" option into the following line in the "/etc/sysconfig/ntpd" file.

OPTIONS="-x -u ntp:ntp -p /var/run/ntpd.pid"

Then restart NTP.

# service ntpd restart

Create the new groups and users.

groupadd -g 1000 oinstall
groupadd -g 1200 dba
useradd -u 1100 -g oinstall -G dba oracle
passwd oracle

Create the directories in which the Oracle software will be installed.

mkdir -p  /u01/app/11.2.0/grid
mkdir -p /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1
chown -R oracle:oinstall /u01
chmod -R 775 /u01/

Login as the oracle user and add the following lines at the end of the .bash_profile file.

# Oracle Settings
TMP=/tmp; export TMP
TMPDIR=$TMP; export TMPDIR

ORACLE_HOSTNAME=rac1.localdomain; export ORACLE_HOSTNAME
ORACLE_UNQNAME=RAC; export ORACLE_UNQNAME
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle; export ORACLE_BASE
ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/11.2.0/db_1; export ORACLE_HOME
ORACLE_SID=RAC1; export ORACLE_SID
ORACLE_TERM=xterm; export ORACLE_TERM
PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH; export PATH
PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH; export PATH

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
CLASSPATH=$ORACLE_HOME/JRE:$ORACLE_HOME/jlib:$ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/jlib; export CLASSPATH

if [ $USER = "oracle" ]; then
  if [ $SHELL = "/bin/ksh" ]; then
    ulimit -p 16384
    ulimit -n 65536
  else
    ulimit -u 16384 -n 65536
  fi
fi

Install Guest Additions

Log into the VM as the root user and add the "divider=10" option to the kernel boot options in "/etc/grub.conf" file to reduce the idle CPU load. The entry should look something like this.

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,0)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Enterprise Linux (2.6.18-194.el5)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-194.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet divider=10
        initrd /initrd-2.6.18-194.el5.img

Click on the "Devices > Install Guest Additions" menu option at the top of the VM screen, then run the following commands.

cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.8_64453
sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run

The VM will need to be restarted for the additions to be used properly. The next section requires a shutdown so no additional restart is needed at this time.

Create Shared Disks

Shut down the "rac1" virtual machine using the following command.

# shutdown -h now

Create 5 sharable virtual disks and associate them as virtual media using the following commands on the host server.

$ # Create the disks and associate them with VirtualBox as virtual media.
$ VBoxManage createhd --filename asm1.vdi --size 10240 --format VDI --variant Fixed --type shareable --remember
$ VBoxManage createhd --filename asm2.vdi --size 10240 --format VDI --variant Fixed --type shareable --remember
$ VBoxManage createhd --filename asm3.vdi --size 10240 --format VDI --variant Fixed --type shareable --remember
$ VBoxManage createhd --filename asm4.vdi --size 10240 --format VDI --variant Fixed --type shareable --remember
$ VBoxManage createhd --filename asm5.vdi --size 10240 --format VDI --variant Fixed --type shareable --remember
$
$ # Connect them to the VM.
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac1 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm1.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac1 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 2 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm2.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac1 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 3 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm3.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac1 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 4 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm4.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac1 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 5 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm5.vdi

Start the "rac1" virtual machine by clicking the "Start" button on the toolbar. When the server has started, log in as the root user so you can configure the shared disks. The current disks can be seen by issuing the following commands.

# cd /dev
# ls sd*
sda  sda1  sda2  sdb  sdc  sdd  sde  sdf
#

Use the "fdisk" command to partition the disks sdb to sdf. The following output shows the expected fdisk output for the sdb disk.

# fdisk /dev/sdb
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.


The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1305.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-1305, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-1305, default 1305):
Using default value 1305

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1        1305    10482381   83  Linux

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
#

In each case, the sequence of answers is "n", "p", "1", "Return", "Return", "p" and "w".

Once all the disks are partitioned, the results can be seen by repeating the previous "ls" command.

# cd /dev
# ls sd*
sda  sda1  sda2  sdb  sdb1  sdc  sdc1  sdd  sdd1  sde  sde1  sdf  sdf1
#

Determine your current kernel.

uname -rm
2.6.18-164.el5 x86_64
#

Download the appropriate ASMLib RPMs from OTN. In this case we need:

• oracleasm-support-2.1.3-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
• oracleasmlib-2.0.4-1.el5.x86_64.rpm
• oracleasm-2.6.18-164.el5-2.0.5-1.el5.x86_64.rpm

Install the packages using the following command.

rpm -Uvh oracleasm*.rpm

Configure ASMLib using the following command.

# oracleasm configure -i
Configuring the Oracle ASM library driver.

This will configure the on-boot properties of the Oracle ASM library
driver.  The following questions will determine whether the driver is
loaded on boot and what permissions it will have.  The current values
will be shown in brackets ('[]').  Hitting <ENTER> without typing an
answer will keep that current value.  Ctrl-C will abort.

Default user to own the driver interface []: oracle
Default group to own the driver interface []: dba
Start Oracle ASM library driver on boot (y/n) [n]: y
Scan for Oracle ASM disks on boot (y/n) [y]: 
Writing Oracle ASM library driver configuration: done
#

Load the kernel module using the following command.

# /usr/sbin/oracleasm init
Loading module "oracleasm": oracleasm
Mounting ASMlib driver filesystem: /dev/oracleasm
# 

If you have any problems, run the following command to make sure you have the correct version of the driver.

# /usr/sbin/oracleasm update-driver

Mark the five shared disks as follows.

# /usr/sbin/oracleasm createdisk DISK1 /dev/sdb1
Writing disk header: done
Instantiating disk: done
# /usr/sbin/oracleasm createdisk DISK2 /dev/sdc1
Writing disk header: done
Instantiating disk: done
# /usr/sbin/oracleasm createdisk DISK3 /dev/sdd1
Writing disk header: done
Instantiating disk: done
# /usr/sbin/oracleasm createdisk DISK4 /dev/sde1
Writing disk header: done
Instantiating disk: done
# /usr/sbin/oracleasm createdisk DISK5 /dev/sdf1
Writing disk header: done
Instantiating disk: done
# 

It is unnecessary, but we can run the "scandisks" command to refresh the ASM disk configuration.

# /usr/sbin/oracleasm scandisks
Reloading disk partitions: done
Cleaning any stale ASM disks...
Scanning system for ASM disks...
#

We can see the disk are now visible to ASM using the "listdisks" command.

# /usr/sbin/oracleasm listdisks
DISK1
DISK2
DISK3
DISK4
DISK5
#

The shared disks are now configured for the grid infrastructure.

Clone the Virtual Machine

The following steps illustrate how to clone the VM.

Shut down the "rac1" virtual machine using the following command.

# shutdown -h now

Clone the rac1.vdi disk using the following commands on the host server.

$ VBoxManage clonehd rac1.vdi rac2.vdi --remember

Create the "rac2" virtual machine in VirtualBox in the same way as you did for "rac1", with the exception of using an existing rac2.vdi virtual hard drive.



Remember to add the second network adaptor as you did on the "rac1" VM. When the VM is created, attach the shared disks to this VM.

$ VBoxManage storageattach rac2 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm1.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac2 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 2 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm2.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac2 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 3 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm3.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac2 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 4 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm4.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach rac2 --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 5 --device 0 --type hdd --medium asm5.vdi

Start the "rac2" virtual machine by clicking the "Start" button on the toolbar. Ignore any network errors during the startup.

Log in to the "rac2" virtual machine as the root user and start the "Network Configuration" tool (System > Administration > Network).



Remove the devices with the "%.bak" nicknames. To do this, highlight a device, deactivate, then delete it. This will leave just the regular "eth0" and "eth1" devices. Highlight the "eth0" interface and click the "Edit" button on the toolbar and alter the IP address to "192.168.2.102" in the resulting screen.



Click on the "Hardware Device" tab and click the "Probe" button. Then accept the changes by clicking the "OK" button.



Repeat the process for the "eth1" interface, this time setting the IP Address to "192.168.0.102", and making sure the default gateway is not set for the "eth1" interface.

Click on the "DNS" tab and change the host name to "rac2.localdomain", then click on the "Devices" tab.



Once you are finished, save the changes (File > Save) and activate the network interfaces by highlighting them and clicking the "Activate" button. Once activated, the screen should look like the following image.



Edit the "/home/oracle/.bash_profile" file on the "rac2" node to correct the ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_HOSTNAME values.

ORACLE_SID=RAC2; export ORACLE_SID
ORACLE_HOSTNAME=rac2.localdomain; export ORACLE_HOSTNAME

Start the "rac1" virtual machine and restart the "rac2" virtual machine. When both nodes have started, check they can both ping all the public and private IP addresses using the following commands.

ping -c 3 rac1
ping -c 3 rac1-priv
ping -c 3 rac2
ping -c 3 rac2-priv

At this point the virtual IP addresses defined in the "/etc/hosts" file will not work, so don't bother testing them.

Prior to 11gR2 we would probably use the "runcluvfy.sh" utility in the clusterware root directory to check the prerequisites have been met. If you are intending to configure SSH connectivity using the installer this check should be omitted as it will always fail. If you want to setup SSH connectivity manually, then once it is done you can run the "runcluvfy.sh" with the following command.

/mountpoint/clusterware/runcluvfy.sh stage -pre crsinst -n rac1,rac2 -verbose

If you get any failures be sure to correct them before proceeding.

The virtual machine setup is now complete.

Install the Grid Infrastructure

Make sure the "rac1" and "rac2" virtual machines are started, then login to "rac1" as the oracle user and start the Oracle installer.

./runInstaller

Select the "Install and Configure Grid Infrastructure for a Cluster" option, then click the "Next" button.



Select the "Typical Installation" option, then click the "Next" button.



On the "Specify Cluster Configuration" screen, click the "Add" button.



Enter the details of the second node in the cluster, then click the "OK" button.



Click the "SSH Connectivity..." button and enter the password for the "oracle" user. Click the "Setup" button to to configure SSH connectivity, and the "Test" button to test it once it is complete.



Click the "Identify network interfaces..." button and check the public and private networks are specified correctly. Once you are happy with them, click the "OK" button and the "Next" button on the previous screen.



Enter "/u01/app/11.2.0/grid" as the software location and "Automatic Storage Manager" as the cluster registry storage type. Enter the ASM password and click the "Next" button.



Set the redundancy to "External", select all 5 disks and click the "Next" button.



Accept the default inventory directory by clicking the "Next" button.



Wait while the prerequisite checks complete. If you have any issues, either fix them or check the "Ignore All" checkbox and click the "Next" button.



If you are happy with the summary information, click the "Finish" button.



Wait while the setup takes place.



When prompted, run the configuration scripts on each node.



The output from the "orainstRoot.sh" file should look something like that listed below.

# cd /u01/app/oraInventory
# ./orainstRoot.sh
Changing permissions of /u01/app/oraInventory.
Adding read,write permissions for group.
Removing read,write,execute permissions for world.

Changing groupname of /u01/app/oraInventory to oinstall.
The execution of the script is complete.
#

The output of the root.sh will vary a little depending on the node it is run on. Example output can be seen here (Node1, Node2).

Once the scripts have completed, return to the "Execute Configuration Scripts" screen on "rac1" and click the "OK" button.



Wait for the configuration assistants to complete.



We expect the verification phase to fail with an error relating to the SCAN, assuming you are not using DNS.

INFO: Checking Single Client Access Name (SCAN)...
INFO: Checking name resolution setup for "rac-scan.localdomain"...
INFO: ERROR:
INFO: PRVF-4664 : Found inconsistent name resolution entries for SCAN name "rac-scan.localdomain"
INFO: ERROR:
INFO: PRVF-4657 : Name resolution setup check for "rac-scan.localdomain" (IP address: 192.168.2.201) failed
INFO: ERROR:
INFO: PRVF-4664 : Found inconsistent name resolution entries for SCAN name "rac-scan.localdomain"
INFO: Verification of SCAN VIP and Listener setup failed

Provided this is the only error, it is safe to ignore this and continue by clicking the "Next" button.

Click the "Close" button to exit the installer.



The grid infrastructure installation is now complete.

Install the Database

Make sure the "rac1" and "rac2" virtual machines are started, then login to "rac1" as the oracle user and start the Oracle installer.

./runInstaller

Uncheck the security updates checkbox and click the "Next" button.



Accept the "Create and configure a database" option by clicking the "Next" button.



Accept the "Server Class" option by clicking the "Next" button.



Make sure both nodes are selected, then click the "Next" button.



Accept the "Typical install" option by clicking the "Next" button.



Enter "/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1" for the software location. The storage type should be set to "Automatic Storage Manager". Enter the appropriate passwords and database name, in this case "RAC.localdomain".



Wait for the prerequisite check to complete. If there are any problems either fix them, or check the "Ignore All" checkbox and click the "Next" button.



If you are happy with the summary information, click the "Finish" button.



Wait while the installation takes place.



Once the software installation is complete the Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) will start automatically.



Once the Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) has finished, click the "OK" button.



When prompted, run the configuration scripts on each node. When the scripts have been run on each node, click the "OK" button.



Click the "Close" button to exit the installer.



The RAC database creation is now complete.

Check the Status of the RAC

There are several ways to check the status of the RAC. The srvctl utility shows the current configuration and status of the RAC database.

$ srvctl config database -d RAC
Database unique name: RAC
Database name: RAC
Oracle home: /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1
Oracle user: oracle
Spfile: +DATA/RAC/spfileRAC.ora
Domain: localdomain
Start options: open
Stop options: immediate
Database role: PRIMARY
Management policy: AUTOMATIC
Server pools: RAC
Database instances: RAC1,RAC2
Disk Groups: DATA
Services: 
Database is administrator managed
$

$ srvctl status database -d RAC
Instance RAC1 is running on node rac1
Instance RAC2 is running on node rac2
$

The V$ACTIVE_INSTANCES view can also display the current status of the instances.

$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.1.0 Production on Sat Sep 26 19:04:19 2009

Copyright (c) 1982, 2009, Oracle.  All rights reserved.


Connected to:
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Real Application Clusters, Automatic Storage Management, OLAP,
Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

SQL> SELECT inst_name FROM v$active_instances;

INST_NAME
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
rac1.localdomain:RAC1
rac2.localdomain:RAC2

SQL>

If you have configured Enterprise Manager, it can be used to view the configuration and current status of the database using a URL like "https://rac1.localdomain:1158/em".