MRCA has problems with RAC

Had a problem with the installation of MRCA in a RAC cluster.



This can happen when you are installing the MRCA in a RAC environment and the total length of the description string is longer than 239 chars.


Found this in the logfile of the MRCA assistant:

[SQLPlusAction] Connect string: (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=abcdefghijklmno01)(PORT=1582))(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=abcdefghijklmno02)(PORT=1582))(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=abcdefghijklmno03)(PORT=1582)))(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=INFRA)))


SQL> string beginning "(DESCRIPTI..." is too long. maximum size is 239 characters.

Of course the above hostnames are fake (we have different ones, but just as long).

The strange thing is that not all parts fail. So apparently each assistant uses a different method.

Solution was to use just one or two of the hostnames in the MRCA assistant. It is a RAC cluster - so even one host would be sufficient.

Secure Grid Control agents

I encountered another strange thing in the Grid Control.
The intention was to secure the communication between the agents on AIX and the OMS. However on one machine this was working, while the other two machines where I installed the agent succeeded in putting the agent in secure mode but did never upload their data.

Using

emctl status agent -secure

I found out that they thought that they were not in secure mode.

The solution was pretty simple (and another proof that Oracle has to find some unique way to resolve network addresses)..


In my hostfile the hosts that did not work were described as
10.1.2.3 hostname hostname.domain.com

I changed this to be
10.1.2.3 hostname.domain.com hostname

resecured everything (OMS and agents) and it then it worked.

Hot of the press

I will be presenting at the Oracle Open World in San Francisco in September.

Session details:

Session ID: S300515
Session Title: How to Achieve 99.99 Percent Availability
Track: Database

More to come ....

Firefox - Google maps - skype

Hi folks!

I switched to Firefox RC2 and all of a sudden the Google Maps stopped.

I found out that the Skype Extension was messing it up. So if you have a similar problem (or switch to Firefox 3 from 17-JUN-2008) just try this to fix the problem.

Just wanted to let you know.

Unpacking Oracle cpio for AIX

When extracting a cpio file with Oracle software from OTN on AIX you might encounter the following problem:

oracle@mymachine-app:/install/oracle/MRCA>cpio -idmv < ../as_ibm_aix_mrca_101203_disk1.cpio


cpio: 0511-903 Out of phase!
cpio attempting to continue...


cpio: 0511-904 skipping 642010 bytes to get back in phase!
One or more files lost and the previous file is possibly corrupt!

Segmentation fault

The solution is to use the option -idcmv
oracle@mymachine-app:/install/oracle/MRCA>cpio -idcmv < ../as_ibm_aix_mrca_101203_disk1.cpio


c
Reads and writes header information in ASCII character form. If a
cpio archive was created using the c flag, it must be extracted
with c flag.

Oracle dbca does not create the archive directory

Found out that the DBCA does not create a specific ARCH location when you do not use the default one.

When you are in the dbca and edit the init parameter




So after my nice little database was frozen I created the arch directory in the ASM and voila, everything was back to normal.