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Basic Clusterware Administration Commands

In the previous blog we talk about Oracle Clusterware basics and definitions. Now let’s talk about basic administration commands.  

  • olsnodes

The OLSNODES command provides the list of nodes and other information for all nodes participating in the cluster. The syntax for the OLSNODES command is:

olsnodes [-n] [-i] [-l] [-v] [-g] [-p]
If you issue the OLSNODES command without any command parameters, the command returns a listing of the nodes in the cluster:

# olsnodes
node1
node2
node3
node4



Table B-1 describes the options you can include on the OLSNODES command to obtain additional cluster-related information.
Table B-1 OLSNODES Command Options
Option Description
-g
Logs cluster verification information with more details.
-i
Lists all nodes participating in the cluster and includes the Virtual Internet Protocol (VIP) address assigned to each node.
-l
Displays the local node name.
-n
Lists al nodes participating in the cluster and includes the assigned node numbers.
-p
Lists all nodes participating in the cluster and includes the private interconnect assigned to each node.
-v
Logs cluster verification information in verbose mode.

  • ocrcheck

OCRCHECK utility is used to verify the OCR integrity. The OCRCHECK utility displays the version of the OCR’s block format, total space available and used space, OCRID, and the OCR locations that you have configured. OCRCHECK performs a block-by-block checksum operation for all of the blocks in all of the OCRs that you have configured. It also returns an individual status for each file as well as result for the overall OCR integrity check. The following is a sample of the OCRCHECK output:

# ./ocrcheck
Status of Oracle Cluster Registry is as follows :
         Version                  :          3
         Total space (kbytes)     :     262120
         Used space (kbytes)      :       2528
         Available space (kbytes) :     259592
         ID                       : 1197072699
         Device/File Name         :      +DATA
                                    Device/File integrity check succeeded

                                    Device/File not configured

                                    Device/File not configured

                                    Device/File not configured

                                    Device/File not configured

         Cluster registry integrity check succeeded

         Logical corruption check succeeded
Note: Run this command as root in order to enable the Cluster registry integrity check, if you run this command with a non-privileged user this will be bypassed.

  • ocrcheck -local

In Oracle Clusterware 11g release 2 (11.2), each node in a cluster has a local registry for node-specific resources, called an Oracle Local Registry (OLR), that is installed and configured when Oracle Clusterware installs OCR. Multiple processes on each node have simultaneous read and write access to the OLR particular to the node on which they reside, regardless of whether Oracle Clusterware is running or fully functional.

By default, OLR is located at Grid_home/cdata/host_name.olr on each node. Manage OLR using the OCRCHECK, OCRDUMP, and OCRCONFIG utilities as root with the -local option.

# ./ocrcheck -local
Status of Oracle Local Registry is as follows :
         Version                  :          3
         Total space (kbytes)     :     262120
         Used space (kbytes)      :       2184
         Available space (kbytes) :     259936
         ID                       : 1563540278
         Device/File Name         : /u01/app/11.2.0/grid/cdata/ol5-112-rac1.olr
                                    Device/File integrity check succeeded

         Local registry integrity check succeeded

         Logical corruption check succeeded

  • crsctl

CRSCTL is an interface between you and Oracle Clusterware, parsing and calling Oracle Clusterware APIs for Oracle Clusterware objects.

Oracle Clusterware 11g release 2 (11.2) introduces cluster-aware commands with which you can perform check, start, and stop operations on the cluster. You can run these commands from any node in the cluster on another node in the cluster, or on all nodes in the cluster, depending on the operation.

CRSCTL documentation is quite extensive and can be found in the below link:
(http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/rac.112/e16794/crsref.htm)

CRSCTL can be also used to check the state of the Voting disks:


# ./crsctl query css votedisk
##  STATE    File Universal Id                File Name Disk group
—  —–    —————–                ——— ———
 1. ONLINE   911b058da40b4f96bf456abb771dddc8 (/dev/oracleasm/disks/DISK1) [DATA]
Located 1 voting disk(s).

Thanks,
Alfred

Oracle Clusterware 11gR2 Basics

In this blog will talk about Oracle Clusterware basics. It is really needed to know the basics before we can start talking about Clusterware installation, configuration and administration. The below information is an extract from the Oracle Clusterware, Administration and Deployment Guide 11g Release 2 (11.2) (http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E14072_01/rac.112/e10717.pdf).

What is Oracle Clusterware?


Oracle Clusterware enables servers to communicate with each other, so that they 
appear to function as a collective unit. This combination of servers is commonly 
known as a cluster. Although the servers are standalone servers, each server has 
additional processes that communicate with other servers. In this way the separate 
servers appear as if they are one system to applications and end users. 
Oracle Clusterware provides the infrastructure necessary to run Oracle Real 
Application Clusters (Oracle RAC). Oracle Clusterware also manages resources, such 
as virtual IP (VIP) addresses, databases, listeners, services, and so on. These resources 
are generally named ora.resource_name.host_name. Oracle does not support 
editing these resources except under the explicit direction of Oracle support. 
Additionally, Oracle Clusterware can help you manage your applications.


Oracle Clusterware has two stored components, besides the binaries: The voting disk 
files, which record node membership information, and the Oracle Cluster Registry 
(OCR), which records cluster configuration information. Voting disks and OCRs must 
reside on shared storage available to all cluster member nodes.


Oracle Clusterware uses voting disk files to provide fencing and cluster node 
membership determination. The OCR provides cluster configuration information. You can place the Oracle Clusterware files on either Oracle ASM or on shared common 
disk storage. If you configure Oracle Clusterware on storage that does not provide file 
redundancy, then Oracle recommends that you configure multiple locations for OCR 
and voting disks. The voting disks and OCR are described as follows: 

■ Voting Disks
Oracle Clusterware uses voting disk files to determine which nodes are members 
of a cluster. You can configure voting disks on Oracle ASM, or you can configure 
voting disks on shared storage.
If you configure voting disks on Oracle ASM, then you do not need to manually 
configure the voting disks. Depending on the redundancy of your disk group, an 
appropriate number of voting disks are created. 
If you do not configure voting disks on Oracle ASM, then for high availability, 
Oracle recommends that you have a minimum of three voting disks on physically 
separate storage. This avoids having a single point of failure. If you configure a 
single voting disk, then you must use external mirroring to provide redundancy.
You should have at least three voting disks, unless you have a storage device, such 
as a disk array that provides external redundancy. Oracle recommends that you do 
not use more than five voting disks. The maximum number of voting disks that is 
supported is 15. 

■ Oracle Cluster Registry
Oracle Clusterware uses the Oracle Cluster Registry (OCR) to store and manage 
information about the components that Oracle Clusterware controls, such as 
Oracle RAC databases, listeners, virtual IP addresses (VIPs), and services and any 
applications. The OCR stores configuration information in a series of key-value 
pairs in a tree structure. To ensure cluster high availability, Oracle recommends 
that you define multiple OCR locations (multiplex). In addition:
– You can have up to five OCR locations
– Each OCR location must reside on shared storage that is accessible by all of the 
nodes in the cluster
– You can replace a failed OCR location online if it is not the only OCR location
– You must update the OCR through supported utilities such as Oracle 
Enterprise Manager, the Server Control Utility (SRVCTL), the OCR 
configuration utility (OCRCONFIG), or the Database Configuration Assistant 
(DBCA) 

Oracle Clusterware Processes on Linux and UNIX Systems


Oracle Clusterware processes on Linux and UNIX systems include the following:

■ crsd: Performs high availability recovery and management operations such as 
maintaining the OCR and managing application resources. This grid infrastructure 
process runs as root and restarts automatically upon failure.

When you install Oracle Clusterware in a single-instance database environment 
for Oracle ASM and Oracle Restart, ohasd manages application resources and 
crsd is not used.

■ cssdagent: Starts, stops, and checks the status of the CSS daemon, ocssd. In 
addition, the cssdagent and cssdmonitor provide the following services to 
guarantee data integrity:
– Monitors the CSS daemon; if the CSS daemon stops, then it shuts down the 
node 
– Monitors the node scheduling to verify that the node is not hung, and shuts 
down the node on recovery from a hang.
oclskd: (Oracle Clusterware Kill Daemon) CSS uses this daemon to stop 
processes associated with CSS group members for which stop requests have come 
in from other members on remote nodes.

■ ctssd: Cluster time synchronization service daemon: Synchronizes the time on all 
of the nodes in a cluster to match the time setting on the master node but not to an 
external clock.


■ diskmon (Disk Monitor daemon): Monitors and performs I/O fencing for HP 
Oracle Exadata Storage Server storage. Because Exadata storage can be added to 
any Oracle RAC node at any time, the diskmon daemon is always started when 
ocssd starts.

■ evmd (Event manager daemon): Distributes and communicates some cluster 
events to all of the cluster members so that they are aware of changes in the 
cluster. 

evmlogger (Event manager logger): This is started by EVMD at startup. This 
reads a configuration file to determine what events to subscribe to from EVMD 
and it runs user defined actions for those events. This facility maintains backward 
compatibility only. 

■ gpnpd (Grid Plug and Play daemon): Manages distribution and maintenance of 
the Grid Plug and Play profile containing cluster definition data.

■ mdnsd (Multicast Domain Name Service daemon): Manages name resolution and 
service discovery within attached subnets.

■ ocssd (Cluster Synchronization Service daemon): Manages cluster node 
membership and runs as the oracle user; failure of this process results in a node 
restart.

■ ohasd (Oracle High Availability Services daemon): Starts Oracle Clusterware 
processes and also manages the OLR and acts as the OLR server.

In a cluster, ohasd runs as root. However, in an Oracle Restart environment, 
where ohasd manages application resources, it runs as the oracle user


Next blog -> Basic Clusterware Administration Commands

Thanks,
Alfred

Cleanup After Failed Installation Oracle Clusterware 11gR2

In this blog I will talk about how to cleanup a failed installation of the Oracle Clusterware 11gR2 in one particular node. I was installing the new Oracle Clusterware 11.2.0.1 in my home lab by follwing Tom Kyte’s instructions (http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/11g/oracle-db-11gr2-rac-installation-on-oel5-using-virtualbox.php#install_grid_infrastructure), then went through the part that the installer GUI needs us to run the root.sh scripts.



The easy thought was to run the root.sh script in both nodes of my RAC (RAC1 & RAC2) at the same time, without reading the explicit instructions “Run the script on the local node first. After successful completion, you can run the script in parallel on all other nodes.”:



The script run successful in the RAC1 node but in the RAC2 node. So when the script finished in RAC1 tried to run it again in RAC2, but the same results “the output was that the script was already ran”.

What to do next?, do I have to start over from scratch?

Surfing the web found a good & useful article from Guenadi Jilevski (http://gjilevski.com/2010/08/12/how-to-clean-up-after-a-failed-11g-crs-install-what-is-new-in-11g-r2-2/), here shows how to perform a manual cleanup in 11gR1, but also shows the new features and scripts in 11gR2.

Summarized steps:

Deconfigure Oracle Clusterware 11.2.x.x without removing the binaries:

  • Log in as root user on the node you encountered the error. Change directory to $GRID_HOME/crs/install.
          # cd $GRID_HOME/crs/install

  • Run rootcrs.pl with the -deconfig -force flags on the node you have the issue.
          # perl rootcrs.pl -deconfig -force

  • If you are deconfiguring Oracle Clusterware on all the nodes in the cluster, then you have to add the -lastnode flag on the last one in order to deconfigure OCR and Voting disks.
          # perl rootcrs.pl -deconfig -force -lastnode

After these steps, run the root.sh script again. This time it will smoothly run.

You should also want to read the complete OSS note:
How to Deconfigure/Reconfigure(Rebuild OCR) or Deinstall Grid Infrastructure [ID 1377349.1]

Thanks,
Alfredo

Historical SQL Statistics And Execution Plan Change

How many times have you received user’s phone call stating that the DB is slow?, well sometimes this has nothing to do with the DB’s overall performance itself, but with a user’s query.

Now the question is, is this query really slow?, the best way to find this out is comparing the actual execution time with the ones in the past. Here’s a SQL statement which search inside AWR repository (Caution!!! a special license is required!!!), it compares the execution plan of all SQL_ID’s against the previous snapshot.

awr_planchanges.sql

  prompt enter the number of days in the past to scan
  SET LINES 500
  SELECT A.SNAP_ID,
         BEGIN_INTERVAL_TIME,
         SQL_ID,
         HASH_VALUE1,
         HASH_VALUE2,
         VALUE1 as “ELAPSED TIME PER EXEC 1” ,
         VALUE2 as “ELAPSED TIME PER EXEC 2”,
         ROUND (CHANGE_PERCENT) as “CHANGE PERCENT”
    FROM (  SELECT SNAP_ID,
                   SQL_ID,
                   SUM (pvalue1) HASH_VALUE1,
                   SUM (pvalue2) HASH_VALUE2,
                   SUM (value1) VALUE1,
                   SUM (value2) VALUE2,
                   (SUM (VALUE1) + 1) * 100 / (SUM (VALUE2) + 1)
                      AS CHANGE_PERCENT
              FROM (SELECT snap_id,
                           0 AS snap2,
                           sql_id,
                           plan_hash_value AS pvalue1,
                           0 AS pvalue2,
                           ROUND (
                              elapsed_time_delta / executions_delta / 1000000,
                              3)
                              AS value1,
                           0 AS value2
                      FROM dba_hist_sqlstat sql
                     WHERE executions_delta > 0
                    UNION
                    SELECT snap_id + 1,
                           snap_id AS snap2,
                           sql_id,
                           0 AS pvalue1,
                           plan_hash_value AS pvalue2,
                           0 AS vaule,
                           ROUND (
                              elapsed_time_delta / executions_delta / 1000000,
                              3)
                              AS value2
                      FROM dba_hist_sqlstat sql
                     WHERE executions_delta > 0)
          GROUP BY SNAP_ID, SQL_ID) A,
         dba_hist_snapshot B
   WHERE     A.SNAP_ID = B.SNAP_ID
         AND HASH_VALUE1 > 0
         AND HASH_VALUE2 > 0
         AND HASH_VALUE1 != HASH_VALUE2
         AND BEGIN_INTERVAL_TIME > SYSDATE – (&days)
ORDER BY A.SNAP_ID
/

This is the output of the script:

SNAP_ID BEGIN_INTERVAL_TIME       SQL_ID       HASH_VALUE1 HASH_VALUE2 SEC PER EXE 1 SEC PER EXE 2 CHANGE % 
——– ———————–  ————- ———– ———– ————- ————- ——–
9547 01-OCT-12 01.00.07.841 AM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .015          .007       101
9585 02-OCT-12 03.00.41.798 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .009          .003       101
9586 02-OCT-12 04.00.36.393 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv   891004645  4862331523          .006          .009       100
9587 02-OCT-12 05.00.25.306 PM   1k30v0pyg32vu   414828074   878600859          .179          .157       102
9587 02-OCT-12 05.00.25.306 PM   dsm86bzuqtd2r  2452407222  3005749068          .048         1.37         44
9616 03-OCT-12 10.00.34.499 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .018          .023       100
9621 04-OCT-12 03.00.06.979 AM   4urszd9dt9fjv   891004645  4862331523          .03           .027       100
9640 04-OCT-12 09.00.40.250 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .042          .012       103
9641 04-OCT-12 10.00.22.954 PM   dfmu8nm1cscx7  3810296266  4308029399          .938          .703       114
9710 07-OCT-12 07.00.09.269 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .046          .015       103
9750 09-OCT-12 11.00.59.162 AM   1k30v0pyg32vu  1634868183   414828074          .16           .155       100
9758 09-OCT-12 07.00.10.659 PM   b70xavb9wv27v  1111647858  4256287279         5.937         6.475        93

12 rows selected.

You can clearly see how the HASH_VALUE changed and the execution time as well. If the CHANGE % is above 100% means that execution time decreased, on the other hand CHANGE % below 100% means the execution time increased.

ORAganism blog is having a really good script which searches by SQL_ID.

http://oraganism.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/a-dba_hist_sqlstat-query-that-i-am-very-fond-of/ 


Happy troubleshooting,
Alfred

Same post in Spanish here!

Estadísticas históricas de SQL

¿Cuántas veces hemos recibido la llamada de un usuario indicando que la base de datos está lenta?, la mayoría de las veces no tiene que ver con el desempeño general de la base de datos, sino con la consulta que el usuario ha lanzado al RDBMS.

De aquí surge la pregunta, ¿está la consulta (SELECT) lenta realmente?; la única manera de saberlo es haciendo una comparación en el pasado. A continuación comparto una consulta SQL, que busca dentro del repositorio AWR (¡¡Tengan cuidado, ya que requiere una licencia especial!!) y obtiene los SQL ID que han sufrido modificación en su plan de ejecución.

awr_planchanges.sql


   prompt enter the number of days in the past to scan
  SET LINES 500
  SELECT A.SNAP_ID,
         BEGIN_INTERVAL_TIME,
         SQL_ID,
         HASH_VALUE1,
         HASH_VALUE2,
         VALUE1 as “ELAPSED TIME PER EXEC 1” ,
         VALUE2 as “ELAPSED TIME PER EXEC 2”,
         ROUND (CHANGE_PERCENT) as “CHANGE PERCENT”
    FROM (  SELECT SNAP_ID,
                   SQL_ID,
                   SUM (pvalue1) HASH_VALUE1,
                   SUM (pvalue2) HASH_VALUE2,
                   SUM (value1) VALUE1,
                   SUM (value2) VALUE2,
                   (SUM (VALUE1) + 1) * 100 / (SUM (VALUE2) + 1)
                      AS CHANGE_PERCENT
              FROM (SELECT snap_id,
                           0 AS snap2,
                           sql_id,
                           plan_hash_value AS pvalue1,
                           0 AS pvalue2,
                           ROUND (
                              elapsed_time_delta / executions_delta / 1000000,
                              3)
                              AS value1,
                           0 AS value2
                      FROM dba_hist_sqlstat sql
                     WHERE executions_delta > 0
                    UNION
                    SELECT snap_id + 1,
                           snap_id AS snap2,
                           sql_id,
                           0 AS pvalue1,
                           plan_hash_value AS pvalue2,
                           0 AS vaule,
                           ROUND (
                              elapsed_time_delta / executions_delta / 1000000,
                              3)
                              AS value2
                      FROM dba_hist_sqlstat sql
                     WHERE executions_delta > 0)
          GROUP BY SNAP_ID, SQL_ID) A,
         dba_hist_snapshot B
   WHERE     A.SNAP_ID = B.SNAP_ID
         AND HASH_VALUE1 > 0
         AND HASH_VALUE2 > 0
         AND HASH_VALUE1 != HASH_VALUE2
         AND BEGIN_INTERVAL_TIME > SYSDATE – (&days)
ORDER BY A.SNAP_ID
/

La salida del script será algo parecido a esto:


SNAP_ID BEGIN_INTERVAL_TIME       SQL_ID       HASH_VALUE1 HASH_VALUE2 SEC PER EXE 1 SEC PER EXE 2 CHANGE % 
——– ———————–  ————- ———– ———– ————- ————- ——–
9547 01-OCT-12 01.00.07.841 AM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .015          .007       101
9585 02-OCT-12 03.00.41.798 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .009          .003       101
9586 02-OCT-12 04.00.36.393 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv   891004645  4862331523          .006          .009       100
9587 02-OCT-12 05.00.25.306 PM   1k30v0pyg32vu   414828074   878600859          .179          .157       102
9587 02-OCT-12 05.00.25.306 PM   dsm86bzuqtd2r  2452407222  3005749068          .048         1.37         44
9616 03-OCT-12 10.00.34.499 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .018          .023       100
9621 04-OCT-12 03.00.06.979 AM   4urszd9dt9fjv   891004645  4862331523          .03           .027       100
9640 04-OCT-12 09.00.40.250 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .042          .012       103
9641 04-OCT-12 10.00.22.954 PM   dfmu8nm1cscx7  3810296266  4308029399          .938          .703       114
9710 07-OCT-12 07.00.09.269 PM   4urszd9dt9fjv  4862331523   891004645          .046          .015       103
9750 09-OCT-12 11.00.59.162 AM   1k30v0pyg32vu  1634868183   414828074          .16           .155       100
9758 09-OCT-12 07.00.10.659 PM   b70xavb9wv27v  1111647858  4256287279         5.937         6.475        93

12 rows selected.

Claramente se puede ver el cambio en el Hash Value y el cambio en el tiempo de ejecución del SQL. Si el Change % es menor a 100, significa que el tiempo de ejecución se redujo, por el contrario si es mayor a 100 significa que el tiempo de ejecución aumentó.

Nota: Este script solo compara el Snapshot contra el Snapshot anterior.

El Blog de ORAganism, contiene un script bastante bueno, el cual busca la información por SQL ID.

http://oraganism.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/a-dba_hist_sqlstat-query-that-i-am-very-fond-of/

Saludos,
Alfred

Bienvenid@,

“hello, world”



Utilizando la salida del famoso programa en C de Brian Kernighan, doy vida a este Blog, el cual abarcará temas interesantes sobre problemas cotidianos y otros no tantos sobre la administración y configuración del RDBMS de Oracle.

¿Quién soy yo?

Mi nombre es Alfredo Krieg, llevo más de 6 años administrando bases de datos Oracle y algunos otros productos. Durante este tiempo me he encontrado con diversos problemas, algunos sencillos y otros no tanto; me apasiona el área de Performance Tuning. De aquí la necesidad de documentar las diversas soluciones a los problemas que me he topado y así mismo ayudar a otros DBA’s que se encuentren el mismo problema.


¿Te interesa mi trabajo?, ¿Quieres contactarme?

Saludos,
Alfred