Preparing Raw Devices for RAC on OEL 5u8

This demo is done with an OEL 5u8 x86_64 running as a guest in VirtualBox 4.2 on a Windows 7 host.

Add 3 new fixed-size VDI files to this VM:

ASM1 - 16 GB

ASM2 - 16 GB

OracleInstall - 12 GB

ASM1 and ASM2 will be used for raw devices for RAC.

Create partition tables on /dev/sdb (ASM1) and /dev/sdc (ASM2):

Create raw devices using these partitions.

Add udev raw device binding rules to /etc/udev/rules.d/60-raw.rules:

ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="sdb1", RUN+="/bin/raw /dev/raw/raw1 %N"

ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="sdc1", RUN+="/bin/raw /dev/raw/raw2 %N"

Add udev raw device permission rules to /etc/udev/rules.d/65-raw-permissions.rules:

KERNEL=="raw1", OWNER="ttadmin", GROUP="oinstall", MODE="660"

KERNEL=="raw2", OWNER="ttadmin", GROUP="oinstall", MODE="660"

Now restart udev:

Repeat above steps on all other nodes belong to the same RAC.

References:

MOS Note ID 465001.1

Disabling SELinux and iptables in RHEL 6

There is no way to disable SELinux and iptables (firewall) during the Setup Agent in RHEL 6. So you need to do it manually as root.

Disabling SELinux
Modify the /etc/selinux/config file to disable SELinux:
SELINUX=disabled

Disabling iptables
Invoke the GUI tool "system-config-firewall" to disable firewall.

A Patch to Keep the Resizing of tmps Surviving Through Reboot

After a fresh installation of RHEL 6.1, I needed to adjust the size of tmpfs. However, I found it is a little more complicated than just add "size" option in /etc/fstab for tmpfs. The setting of "size" in /etc/fstab doesn't keep through system reboot. Then I found following patch against /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit which can make it persistent:

[root@bbrh6u1src ~]# diff -u /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.orig /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
--- /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit.orig   2011-04-19 10:04:51.000000000 -0400
+++ /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit        2011-11-28 08:33:53.166819280 -0500
@@ -487,7 +487,7 @@
        mount -f /proc >/dev/null 2>&1
        mount -f /sys >/dev/null 2>&1
        mount -f /dev/pts >/dev/null 2>&1
-       mount -f /dev/shm >/dev/null 2>&1
+       #mount -f /dev/shm >/dev/null 2>&1
        mount -f /proc/bus/usb >/dev/null 2>&1
 fi

@@ -495,7 +495,7 @@
 # mounted). Contrary to standard usage,
 # filesystems are NOT unmounted in single user mode.
 if [ "$READONLY" != "yes" ] ; then
-       action $"Mounting local filesystems: " mount -a -t nonfs,nfs4,smbfs,ncpfs,cifs,gfs,gfs2 -O no_netdev
+       action $"Mounting local filesystems: " mount -a -t tmpfs,nonfs,nfs4,smbfs,ncpfs,cifs,gfs,gfs2 -O no_netdev
 else
        action $"Mounting local filesystems: " mount -a -n -t nonfs,nfs4,smbfs,ncpfs,cifs,gfs,gfs2 -O no_netdev
 fi

References:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/rhelv6-list/2011-February/msg00081.html