Oracle Database - Grid Infrastructure / RAC 12c Installation - Part 2 - Linux Configuration (OEL 7.1)

In this blog we are going to continue from Part 1 and are going to make configuration changes to Linux machine we just installed.

In this blog you will be logged in as root user only throughout.

Step 1 - Change the default Boot Kernel
The first thing is to change the boot kernel from the UEK kernel to Kernel 3.10 
I am going to grep the grub configuration to verify how the entries are located in the grub.cfg
Here entries start with 'zero'. So the first entry is 0, and I am going to set it as default to which my Linux boots, finally am going to make the config changes.

[root@rac1 grub2]# grep ^menuentry grub.cfg
menuentry 'Oracle Linux Server 7.1, with Linux 3.10.0-229.el7.x86_64' --class ol --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --unrestricted $menuentry_id
_option 'gnulinux-3.10.0-229.el7.x86_64-advanced-cd23e1f1-4b26-45df-972c-443ddaf10d20' {
menuentry 'Oracle Linux Server 7.1, with Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel 3.8.13-55.1.6.el7uek.x86_64' --class ol --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class o
s --unrestricted $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-3.8.13-55.1.6.el7uek.x86_64-advanced-cd23e1f1-4b26-45df-972c-443ddaf10d20' {
menuentry 'Oracle Linux Server 7.1, with Linux 0-rescue-70c91ec1c32541bdbc7f40a6411edb28' --class ol --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os --unrest
ricted $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-0-rescue-70c91ec1c32541bdbc7f40a6411edb28-advanced-cd23e1f1-4b26-45df-972c-443ddaf10d20' {


[root@rac1 grub2]# grub2-set-default 0

[root@rac1 grub2]# grub2-mkconfig -o grub.cfg 
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.10.0-229.el7.x86_64
Found initrd image: /boot/initramfs-3.10.0-229.el7.x86_64.img
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.13-55.1.6.el7uek.x86_64
Found initrd image: /boot/initramfs-3.8.13-55.1.6.el7uek.x86_64.img
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-0-rescue-70c91ec1c32541bdbc7f40a6411edb28
Found initrd image: /boot/initramfs-0-rescue-70c91ec1c32541bdbc7f40a6411edb28.img
done
[root@rac1 grub2]# cat grubenv | grep saved

saved_entry=0

Reboot here to test the changes you have made have been successful or not

Step 2 - Install Guest Additions
The second thing to do is have Guest Additions Installed in VBox, this helps me in copying data (clipboard), to and fro and mounting the shared folder from my base machine.

Guest Additions requires few additional packages to be installed before getting started. 
These include kernel headers, kernel-uek, kernel source code, debug and devel
If you are unsure, here is a small script I keep in handy to install everything so that Guest Additions Installation becomes easy.
For this we will have to first mount the OEL 7.1 Disk and then go to packages directory.

See Screenshot below how to mount the Disk

[root@rac1 Packages]# pwd
/run/media/root/OL-7.1 Server.x86_64/Packages

[root@rac1 Packages]# ls -lrth kernel* | awk '{print "rpm -Uvh " $9}' > /tmp/myfile.bash

[root@rac1 Packages]# bash /tmp/myfile.bash 

Once done, umount this dvd manually from the prompt, then click on 'Remove disk from Virtual Drive' (screenshot above)

Finally click on 'Insert Guest Additions CD Image...' (above screenshot)

It will automatically start installing the Guest Additions upon user confirmation. 

Once that is done successfully, you can reboot and finally make one small change to have a shared clipboard, drag & drop facility across the VM's

 Auto-mount of the shared file system you created during install time is done on reboot as well.

At this point my Linux machine is ready with Guest Additions for further Configuration

Step 3 - RPM Configuration

Install required RPM's

You can either - 

1. Use Public Yum Server
2. Local Repository Yum Server
3. Do manual Install of all the rpms

For Manual Install run following in OEL 7.1

However, other OS will have different version of rpms available then these.

rpm -Uvh binutils-2.23.52.0.1-30.el7.x86_64.rpm

rpm -Uvh compat-libcap1-1.10-7.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh rpm -Uvh compat-libcap1-1.10-7.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh gcc-4.8.3-9.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libstdc++-devel-4.8.3-9.el7.x86_64.rpm

rpm -Uvh gcc-c++-4.8.3-9.el7.x86_64.rpm

rpm -Uvh glibc-2.17-78.0.1.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh glibc-devel-2.17-78.0.1.el7.x86_64.rpm

rpm -Uvh libaio-devel-0.3.109-12.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libaio-0.3.109-12.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh ksh

rpm -Uvh ksh-20120801-22.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh make-3.82-21.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libXi-1.7.2-2.1.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libXt-1.1.4-6.1.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libXtst-1.2.2-2.1.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libgcc-4.8.3-9.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libstdc++-4.8.3-9.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libstdc++-devel-4.8.3-9.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh sysstat-10.1.5-7.el7.x86_64.rpm 

rpm -Uvh libgcc-4.8.3-9.el7.i686.rpm
rpm -Uvh libaio-devel-0.3.109-12.el7.i686.rpm libaio-0.3.109-12.el7.i686.rpm
rpm -Uvh compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-72.el7.x86_64.rpm

Step 4 - System Configuration

Make the changes to sysctl.conf file. 

Add / modify the below parameters in the sysctl.conf file and run  sysctl -p

[root@rac1 ]# vi /etc/sysctl.conf

[root@rac1 ]# sysctl -p

fs.file-max = 6815744

kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128

kernel.shmmni = 4096

kernel.shmall = 1073741824

kernel.shmmax = 4398046511104

net.core.rmem_default = 262144

net.core.rmem_max = 4194304

net.core.wmem_default = 262144

net.core.wmem_max = 1048576

fs.aio-max-nr = 1048576

net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 9000 65500
kernel.panic_on_oops = 1

Step 5 - limits.conf file changes. These changes are required for Oracle/Grid user to have correct number of file descriptors

[root@rac1 ]# cat /etc/security/limits.conf | egrep 'oracle|grid'

grid   soft   nofile    1024

grid   hard   nofile    65536

grid   soft   nproc    2047

grid   hard   nproc    16384

grid   soft   stack    10240

grid   hard   stack    32768

oracle   soft   nofile    1024

oracle   hard   nofile    65536

oracle   soft   nproc    2047

oracle   hard   nproc    16384

oracle   soft   stack    10240

oracle   hard   stack    32768

Step 6 - User and Groups

Add Oracle User, Grid User and corresponding User Groups

groupadd -g 1001 oinstall

groupadd -g 1002 dba

groupadd -g 1003 asmdba

useradd -u 1001 -g 1001 -G dba,asmdba oracle

useradd -u  1002 -g 1001 -G asmdba,dba grid

passwd oracle

passwd grid

[root@rac1 ]# id oracle

uid=1001(oracle) gid=1001(oinstall) groups=1001(oinstall),1002(dba),1003(asmdba)

[root@rac1 ]# id grid

uid=1002(grid) gid=1001(oinstall) groups=1001(oinstall),1003(asmdba)

[root@rac1 Packages]# 

Disable avahi-daemon from autostart

systemctl disable avahi-daemon.service

Add the below line in network file

vi /etc/sysconfig/network

Add --> NOZEROCONF=yes

Add below entry in /etc/fstab

tmpfs           /dev/shm        tmpfs   size=5000m         0 0

(Linux 7: PRVE-0421 : No entry exists in /etc/fstab for mounting /dev/shm (Doc ID 2065603.1) 

Index

Part 1 - Linux Install

Part 2 - Linux Configuration

Part 3 - Network Configuration
Part 4 - Disk Configuration
Part 5 - Machine Clone
Part 6 - Installation 1 of 2
Part 6 - Installation 2 of 2