Oracle RAC Install on Virtual Machine

Hardware Requirements and Overview

Allocate a minimum of 1 GB of memory to each virtual machine; reserve a minimum of 30GB of disk space for all the virtual machines.
An overview of the host operating system environment:

Host Name	OS	Processor	Memory	Disk	Network Card
pacu	Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (32-bit)	Intel Pentium 4 550, 3.4MHz, HT	2 GB DDR2 SDRAM, 533 MHz	250 GB, Ultra ATA/133, 7200 RPM	Intel Pro/1000 MT

An overview of guest operating system environment:

Host Name	OS	Processor	Memory
rac1	Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 (32-bit)	1	1 GB
rac2	Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 (32-bit)	1	1 GB

An overview of the virtual disk layout:

Virtual Disk on Host	Virtual Disk on Guest	Virtual Device Node	Size (MB)	Description
d:\vm\rac\localdisk.vmdk	/dev/sda1 /dev/sda2 /dev/sda3	SCSI 0:0	20	“/” mountpoint Swap space Oracle binaries
d:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\ocfs2disk.vmdk	/dev/sdb	SCSI 1:0	512	OCFS2 disk
d:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\asmdisk1.vmdk	/dev/sdc	SCSI 1:1	3072	ASM disk group 1
d:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\asmdisk2.vmdk	/dev/sdd	SCSI 1:2	3072	ASM disk group 1
d:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\asmdisk3.vmdk	/dev/sde	SCSI 1:3	2048	ASM flash recovery area

(To configure shared storage, the guest OS should not share the same SCSI bus with the shared storage. Use SCSI0 for the guest OS and SCSI1 for the shared disks.)
An overview of the RAC database environment:

Host Name	ASM Instance Name	RAC Instance Name	Database Name	Database File Storage	OCR & Voting Disk
rac1	+ASM1	devdb1	devdb	ASM	OCFS2
rac2	+ASM2	devdb2	devdb	ASM	OCFS2

You’ll install the Oracle Home on each node for redundancy. The ASM and Oracle RAC instances share the same Oracle Home on each node.

Configure the First Virtual Machine

To create and configure the first virtual machine, you will add virtual hardware devices such as disks and processors. Before proceeding with the install, create the windows folders to house the virtual machines and the shared storage.

D:\>mkdir vm\rac\rac1

D:\>mkdir vm\rac\rac2

D:\>mkdir vm\rac\sharedstorage

Double-click on the VMware Server icon on your desktop to bring up the application:

Press CTRL-N to create a new virtual machine.
New Virtual Machine Wizard: Click on Next.
Select the Appropriate Configuration:

Virtual machine configuration: Select Custom.

Select a Guest Operating System:

Guest operating system: Select Linux.
Version: Select Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.

Name the Virtual Machine:

Virtual machine name: Enter “rac1.”
Location: Enter “d:\vm\rac\rac1.”

Set Access Rights:

Access rights: Select Make this virtual machine private.

Startup / Shutdown Options:

Virtual machine account: Select User that powers on the virtual machine.

Processor Configuration:

Processors: Select One.

Memory for the Virtual Machine:

Memory: Select 700MB.

Network Type:

Network connection: Select Use bridged networking.

Select I/O Adapter Types:

I/O adapter types: Select LSI Logic.

Select a Disk:

Disk: Select Create a new virtual disk.

Select a Disk Type:

Virtual Disk Type: Select SCSI (Recommended).

Specify Disk Capacity:

Disk capacity: Enter “20GB.”
Deselect Allocate all disk space now. To save space, you do not have to allocate all the disk space now.

Specify Disk File:

Disk file: Enter “localdisk.vmdk.”
Click on Finish.

Repeat steps 16 to 24 to create four virtual SCSI hard disks - ocfs2disk.vmdk (512MB), asmdisk1.vmdk (3GB), asmdisk2.vmdk (3GB), and asmdisk3.vmdk (2GB).

VMware Server Console: Click on Edit virtual machine settings.
Virtual Machine Settings: Click on Add.
Add Hardware Wizard: Click on Next.
Hardware Type:

Hardware types: Select Hard Disk.

Select a Disk:

Disk: Select Create a new virtual disk.

Select a Disk Type:

Virtual Disk Type: Select SCSI (Recommended).

Specify Disk Capacity:

Disk capacity: Enter “0.5GB.”
Select Allocate all disk space now. You do not have to allocate all the disk space if you want to save space. For performance reason, you will pre-allocate all the disk space for each of the virtual shared disk. If the size of the shared disks were to grow rapidly especially during Oracle database creation or when the database is under heavy DML activity, the virtual machines may hang intermittently for a brief period or crash in a few rare occasions.

Specify Disk File:

Disk file: Enter “d:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\ocfs2disk.vmdk.”
Click on Advanced.

Add Hardware Wizard:

Virtual device node: Select SCSI 1:0.
Mode: Select Independent, Persistent for all shared disks.
Click on Finish.

Finally, add an additional virtual network card for the private interconnects and remove the floppy drive, if any.

VMware Server Console: Click on Edit virtual machine settings.
Virtual Machine Settings: Click on Add.
Add Hardware Wizard: Click on Next.
Hardware Type:

Hardware types: Ethernet Adapter.

Network Type:

Host-only: A private network shared with the host
Click on Finish.

Virtual Machine Settings:

Select Floppy and click on Remove.

Virtual Machine Settings: Click on OK.

Modify virtual machine configuration file. Additional parameters are required to enable disk sharing between the two virtual RAC nodes. Open the configuration file, d:\vm\rac\rac1\Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.vmx and add the bold parameters listed below.

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "4"

scsi0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"

memsize = "700"

scsi0:0.present = "TRUE"

scsi0:0.fileName = "localdisk.vmdk"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

floppy0.fileName = "A:"

Ethernet0.present = "TRUE"

displayName = "rac1"

guestOS = "rhel4"

priority.grabbed = "normal"

priority.ungrabbed = "normal"

disk.locking = "FALSE"

diskLib.dataCacheMaxSize = "0"

scsi1.sharedBus = "virtual"

scsi1.present = "TRUE"

scsi1:0.present = "TRUE"

scsi1:0.fileName = "D:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\ocfs2disk.vmdk"

scsi1:0.mode = "independent-persistent"

scsi1:0.deviceType = "disk"

scsi1:1.present = "TRUE"

scsi1:1.fileName = "D:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\asmdisk1.vmdk"

scsi1:1.mode = "independent-persistent"

scsi1:1.deviceType = "disk"

scsi1:2.present = "TRUE"

scsi1:2.fileName = "D:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\asmdisk2.vmdk"

scsi1:2.mode = "independent-persistent"

scsi1:2.deviceType = "disk"

scsi1:3.present = "TRUE"

scsi1:3.fileName = "D:\vm\rac\sharedstorage\asmdisk3.vmdk"

scsi1:3.mode = "independent-persistent"

scsi1:3.deviceType = "disk"

scsi1.virtualDev = "lsilogic"

ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"

floppy0.present = "FALSE"

Ethernet1.present = "TRUE"

Ethernet1.connectionType = "hostonly"

Install and Configure Enterprise Linux on the First Virtual Machine

Download Enterprise Linux from Oracle and unzip the files:

Enterprise-R4-U4-i386-disc1.iso
Enterprise-R4-U4-i386-disc2.iso
Enterprise-R4-U4-i386-disc3.iso
Enterprise-R4-U4-i386-disc4.iso

On your VMware Server Console, double-click on the CD-ROM device on the right panel and select the ISO image for disk 1, Enterprise-R4-U4-i386-disc1.iso.
VMware Server console:

Click on Start this virtual machine.

Hit Enter to install in graphical mode.
Skip the media test and start the installation.
Welcome to enterprise Linux: Click on Next.
Language Selection: <select your language preference>.
Keyboard Configuration: <select your keyboard preference>.
Installation Type: Custom.
Disk Partitioning Setup: Manually partition with Disk Druid.

Warning: Click on Yes to initialize each of the device – sda, sdb, sdc, sdd, and sde.

Disk Setup: Allocate disk space on sda drive by double-clicking on /dev/sda free space for the mount points (/ and /u01) and swap space. You will configure the rest of the drives for OCFS2 and ASM later.

Add Partition:

Mount Point: /
File System Type: ext3
Start Cylinder: 1
End Cylinder: 910
File System Type: Swap
Start Cylinder: 911
End Cylinder: 1170
Mount Point: /u01
File System Type: ext3
Start Cylinder: 1171
End Cylinder: 2610

Boot Loader Configuration: Select only the default /dev/sda1 and leave the rest unchecked.
Network Configuration:

Network Devices

Select and edit eth0

De-select Configure Using DHCP.
Select Activate on boot.
IP Address: Enter “192.168.2.131.”
Netmask: Enter “255.255.255.0.”

Select and edit eth1

De-select Configure Using DHCP.
Select Activate on boot.
IP Address: Enter “10.10.10.31.”
Netmask: Enter “255.255.255.0.”

Hostname

Select manually and enter “rac1.mycorpdomain.com.”

Miscellaneous Settings

Gateway: Enter “192.168.2.1.”
Primary DNS: <optional>
Secondary DNS: <optional>

Firewall Configuration:

Select No Firewall. If firewall is enabled, you may encounter an error, “mount.ocfs2: Transport endpoint is not connected while mounting” when you attempt to mount ocfs2 file system later in the set up.
Enable SELinux?: Active.

Warning – No Firewall: Click on Proceed.
Additional Language Support: <select the desired language>.
Time Zone Selection: <select your time zone>
Set Root Password: <enter your root password>
Package Group Selection:

Select X Window System.
Select GNOME Desktop Environment.
Select Editors.

Click on Details and select your preferred text editor.

Select Graphical Internet.
Select Text-based Internet.
Select Office/Productivity.
Select Sound and Video.
Select Graphics.
Select Server Configuration Tools.
Select FTP Server.
Select Legacy Network Server.

Click on Details.

Select rsh-server.
Select telnet-server.

Select Development Tools.
Select Legacy Software Development.
Select Administration Tools.
Select System Tools.

Click on Details. Select the following packages in addition to the default selected packages.

Select ocfs-2-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1EL (driver for UP kernel), or select ocfs-2-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1ELsmp (driver for SMP kernel).
Select ocfs2-tools.
Select ocfs2console.
Select oracle oracleasm-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1EL (driver for UP kernel) or select oracleasm-2.6.9-42.0.0.0.1ELsmp (driver for SMP kernel).
Select sysstat.

Select Printing Support.

About to Install: Click on Next.
Required Install Media: Click on Continue.
Change CD-ROM: On your VMware Server Console, press CTRL-D to bring up the Virtual Machine Settings. Click on the CD-ROM device and select the ISO image for disk 2, Enterprise-R4-U4-i386-disc2.iso, followed by the ISO image for disk 3, Enterprise-R4-U4-i386-disc3.iso.
At the end of the installation:

On your VMware Server Console, press CTRL-D to bring up the Virtual Machine Settings. Click on the CD-ROM device and select Use physical drive.
Click on Reboot.

Welcome: Click on Next.
License Agreement: Select Yes, I agree to the License Agreement.
Date and Time: Set the date and time.
Display: <select your desired resolution>.
System User: Leave the entries blank and click on Next.
Additional CDs: Click on Next.
Finish Setup: Click on Next.