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Oracle® Database Oracle Clusterware and Oracle Real Application Clusters Administration and Deployment Guide
10g Release 2 (10.2)

Part Number B14197-02
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14 Making Applications Highly Available Using the Oracle Clusterware

This chapter explains how you can extend the high availability of the Oracle Clusterware framework to your applications. You do this by wrapping your applications with Oracle Clusterware commands. That is, you can use the same high availability mechanisms of the Oracle database and Real Application Clusters to make your custom applications highly available. You can use the Oracle Clusterware to monitor, relocate, and restart your applications as described in this chapter under the following topics:

Overview of Using the Oracle Clusterware Commands to Enable High Availability

The Oracle Clusterware includes a high availability framework that provides an infrastructure to manage any application. The Oracle Clusterware ensures that applications that it manages start when the system starts. The Oracle Clusterware also monitors the applications to make sure that they are always available. For example, if a process fails, then the Oracle Clusterware attempts to restart the process based on scripts that you customize. If a node in the cluster fails, then you can program processes that normally run on the failed node to restart on another node. The monitoring frequency, starting, and stopping of the applications and the application dependencies are configurable.

To make applications highly available, first create an application profile that identifies your application. The application profile uses a second component, an action program, that describes how the Oracle Clusterware should monitor your application and how the Oracle Clusterware should respond to changes in your application's status. Oracle stores application profile attributes in the OCR. The definitions of an application profile, action program, and the other primary Oracle Clusterware high availability components are as follows:

Overview of Managing Custom Applications with Oracle Clusterware Commands

You can use the Oracle Clusterware commands to start, stop, relocate, and check the status of your custom applications. Do this by defining your application with an application profile. The profile defines attributes that affect how the Oracle Clusterware manages your application. Then register your application information in the OCR using the crs_register command. Use the following steps to create an application profile:

  1. Create an application profile by editing an ASCII file or by running the crs_profile command. Refer to Table 14-1 for a listing of required and optional entries for the Oracle Clusterware profiles.

  2. Register the application profile using the crs_register command.

  3. Run the crs_start command to initiate the application profile and then the Oracle Clusterware runs the action program command that you have included in the profile to start your application.

  4. The Oracle Clusterware periodically runs the action program command to check an application's status.

  5. In the event of a check or node failure, the Oracle Clusterware recovers the applications either by restarting it on the current node or by relocating the application to another node.

  6. If you run the crs_stop command to stop the application, then the Oracle Clusterware runs the action program command to stop it.

You can manage application availability as follows:

Full administrative privileges are not required when using the Oracle Clusterware. Any user can create resources or applications. However, the creator or owner must grant permission to other users or user groups in order for others to be able to use the Oracle Clusterware on those applications. Additionally, profiles that have privileges defined can only be modified by privileged users. The following sections provide further details about application profiles.


Note:

Do not use the Oracle Clusterware commands crs_register, crs_profile, crs_start or crs_stop on resources with names beginning with the prefix ora unless either Oracle Support asks you to, or unless Oracle has certified you as described in http://metalink.oracle.com. Server Control (SRVCTL) is the correct utility to use on Oracle resources. You can create resources that depend on resources that Oracle has defined. You can also use the Oracle Clusterware commands to inspect the configuration and status.

Creating Application Profiles

Application profiles have attributes that define how the Oracle Clusterware starts, manages, and monitors applications. One attribute is the location of the action program that the Oracle Clusterware uses to manipulate the application. The Oracle Clusterware uses the action program to monitor or check the application status and to start and stop it. Oracle reads application profiles from files stored in specified locations and stores the information in the OCR. You use the Oracle Clusterware commands within profiles to designate resource dependencies and to determine what happens to an application or service when it loses access to a resource on which it depends.

The filenames of application profiles must be in the form resource_name.cap where resource_name is the name that you or the system assigns to an application and cap is the file suffix. The Oracle Clusterware commands in profiles refer to applications by name, such as resource_name, but not by the full filename. The following section describes this in more detail.

Application Resource Profiles

Attributes are defined by name=value entries in profile files and these entries can be in any order in the file. The following are some of the primary attributes of an application profile:

  • Resources that are required by an application which are defined by settings for the REQUIRED_RESOURCES parameter. The Oracle Clusterware relocates or stops an application if a required resource becomes unavailable. Required resources are defined for each node.

  • Rules for choosing the node on which to start or restart an application are defined by settings for the PLACEMENT parameter. The application must be accessible by the nodes that you nominate for placement.

  • A list of nodes to use in order of preference when the Oracle Clusterware starts or fails over an application which is defined by settings for the HOSTING_MEMBERS parameter. This list is used if the placement policy defined by the PLACEMENT parameter is favored or restricted.

Required and Optional Profile Attributes

Application profiles have optional and required profile attributes. Optional profile attributes may be left unspecified in the profile. Optional profile attributes that have default values are merged at registration time with the values that are stored in the template for that resource type and for the generic template. Default values are derived from the template.

Each resource type has a template file named TYPE_resource_type.cap that is stored in the template subdirectory under the crs directory of the Oracle Clusterware home. A generic template file for values that are used in all types of resources is stored in the same location in the file named TYPE_generic.cap.

Application Profile Attributes

Table 14-1 lists the Oracle Clusterware application profile attributes in alphabetical order. For each attribute, the table shows whether the attribute is required, its default value, and an attribute description.

Table 14-1 Application Profile Attributes

Attribute Required Default Description

ACTION_SCRIPT

Yes

None

The resource-specific script for starting, stopping, and checking a resource. You may specify a full path for the action program file. Otherwise, the default paths are used: CRS_home/crs/script for privileged, and CRS_home/crs/public for public. You may also specify a relative path with this default path as the starting point.

ACTIVE_PLACEMENT

No

0

When set to 1, the Oracle Clusterware re-evaluates the placement of a resource during addition or restart of a cluster node.

AUTO_START

No

0

A flag indicating whether the Oracle Clusterware should automatically start a resource after a cluster restart, regardless of whether the resource was running prior to the cluster restart. When set to 0, the Oracle Clusterware starts the resource only if it had been running before the restart. When set to 1, the Oracle Clusterware always starts the resource after a restart.

CHECK_INTERVAL

No

60

The time interval, in seconds, between repeated executions of the check entry point of a resource's action program. There can be some overhead associated if you set the check interval to a low value and enable frequent checks.

DESCRIPTION

No

Name of the resource

A description of the resource.

FAILOVER_DELAY

No

0

The amount of time, in seconds, that the Oracle Clusterware waits before attempting to restart or fail over a resource.

FAILURE_INTERVAL

No

0

The interval, in seconds, during which the Oracle Clusterware applies the failure threshold. If the value is zero (0), then tracking of failures is disabled.

FAILURE_THRESHOLD

No

0

The number of failures detected within a specified FAILURE_INTERVAL before the Oracle Clusterware marks the resource as unavailable and no longer monitors it. If a resource's check script fails this number of times, then the resource is stopped and set offline. If the value is zero (0), then tracking of failures is disabled. The maximum value is 20.

HOSTING_MEMBERS

Sometimes

None

An ordered list of cluster nodes separated by blank spaces that can host the resource. This attribute is required only if PLACEMENT equals favored or restricted. This attribute must be empty if PLACEMENT equals balanced.

Enter node names as values for the HOSTING_MEMBERS attribute, not virtual host names or physical host names. Use the node names that you used when you installed the Oracle Clusterware. The resources that you mention should contain the node name for the node on which they run. Run the olsnodes commands to see your node names. The HOSTING_MEMBERS Oracle Clusterware attribute is set automatically when these Oracle Clusterware resources are created; you do not need to take further action to ensure that the attribute is set.

The node name is usually the same as the physical host name. However, it can be different. For example, when vendor clusterware is present, the Oracle Clusterware nodes are named the same as the vendor clusterware nodes. Not all vendor clusterware implementations use the physical node names as node names. Use the lsnodes command to display vendor clusterware node names. When there is no vendor clusterware, then the Oracle Clusterware node names must be the same as the physical hostname.

Your Listener.ora file should contain one entry for the virtual internet protocol (VIP) address, using the VIP's name, and another entry for the physical host, by IP address not name.

NAME

Yes

None

The name of the application. The application name is a string that contains a combination of letters a-z or A-Z, and digits 0-9. The naming convention is to start with an alphanumeric prefix, such as ora, and complete the name with an identifier for to describe it. The name can contain any platform-supported characters except the exclamation point (!). However, the application name cannot begin with a period.

OPTIONAL_RESOURCES

No

None

An ordered list of resource names separated by blank spaces that this resource uses during placement decisions. Up to 58 user-defined resources can be listed.

PLACEMENT

No

balanced

The placement policy (balanced, favored, or restricted) specifies how the Oracle Clusterware chooses the cluster node on which to start the resource.

REQUIRED_RESOURCES

No

None

An ordered list of resource names separated by blank spaces that this resource depends on. Each resource to be used as a required resource in this profile must be registered with the Oracle Clusterware or the resource's profile registration will fail.

RESTART_ATTEMPTS

No

1

The number of times that the Oracle Clusterware attempts to restart a resource on a single cluster node before attempting to relocate the resource. A value of 1 means that the Oracle Clusterware only attempts to restart the resource once on a node. A second failure causes an attempt to relocate the resource.

RESTART_COUNT



The counter maintained by the Oracle Clusterware daemon for the number of times that a resource had been restarted. It goes from zero to RESTART_ATTEMPTS. This is also written to OCR.

SCRIPT_TIMEOUT

No

60

The maximum time, in second, that an action program may require to complete before an error is returned.

SCRIPT_TIMEOUT



This attribute specifies the timeout value for the "check" action of the action script. If the check action does not return before this time, the Oracle Clusterware will consider the action failed.

START_TIMEOUT



This attribute specifies the timeout value for the "start" action of the action script. If the start action does not return before this time, the Oracle Clusterware will consider the action failed.

STOP_TIMEOUT



This attribute specifies the timeout value for the "stop" action of the action script. If the stop action does not return before this time, the Oracle Clusterware will consider the action failed.

TYPE

Yes

None

Must be APPLICATION.

UPTIME_THRESHOLD



The value for UPTIME_THRESHOLD represents the length of time that a resource must be up before the Oracle Clusterware considers the resource to be stable. By setting a value for the UPTIME_THESHOLD attribute, you can indicate a resource's stability.


Default Profile Locations

Profiles may be located anywhere and need not be on a cluster-visible file system. RAC provides default locations for profiles as described in the next sub-section. The default location for profiles with root privileges on UNIX-based systems or Administrator privileges on Windows-based systems is the profile subdirectory under the crs directory of the Oracle Clusterware home. The default location for profiles with non-root or non-Administrator privileges is the public subdirectory under the crs directory of the Oracle Clusterware home.

Example of Using Oracle Clusterware Commands to Create Application Resources

The example in this section creates an application named postman. The Oracle Clusterware uses the script /opt/email/bin/crs_postman to start, stop, and monitor whether the application is running (action_script). The Oracle Clusterware checks postman every five seconds as specified by the setting for the check_interval parameter. The Oracle Clusterware restarts postman no more than once if it fails. When deciding on which node to place the postman application, the Oracle Clusterware considers the value for the optional_resources parameter. If possible, the Oracle Clusterware places postman on the same node. Finally, in order for postman to run, the resource network1 must be running on the same node as specified by the setting for the required_resources parameter. If network1 fails or if it is relocated to another node, then the Oracle Clusterware stops or moves the postman application.


Note:

Do not use the Oracle Clusterware commands crs_register, crs_profile, crs_start or crs_stop on resources with names beginning with the prefix ora unless either Oracle Support asks you to, or unless Oracle has certified you as described in http://metalink.oracle.com. Server Control (SRVCTL) is the correct utility to use on Oracle resources. You can create resources that depend on resources that Oracle has defined. You can also use the Oracle Clusterware commands to inspect the configuration and status.

Using crs_profile to Create An Application Resource Profile

The following example uses the crs_profile command to create an application profile for monitoring email.

# crs_profile -create postman -t application -B /opt/email/bin/crs_postman \
-d "Email Application" -r network1 -l application2 \
-a postman.scr -o ci=5,ft=2,fi=12,ra=2

The contents of the application profile file that the example creates are as follows:

NAME=postman
TYPE=application
ACTION_SCRIPT=/oracle/crs/script/postman.scr
ACTIVE_PLACEMENT=0
AUTO_START=0
CHECK_INTERVAL=5
DESCRIPTION=email app
FAILOVER_DELAY=0
FAILURE_INTERVAL=12
FAILURE_THRESHOLD=2
HOSTING_MEMBERS=
OPTIONAL_RESOURCES=application2
PLACEMENT=balanced
REQUIRED_RESOURCES=network1
RESTART_ATTEMPTS=2
SCRIPT_TIMEOUT=60

The Oracle Clusterware Required Resources List

The Oracle Clusterware uses the required resources list, with the placement policy and hosting nodes list, to determine the cluster nodes that are eligible to host an application. Required resources must be ONLINE on the nodes on which the application is running or started.

The failure of a required resource on a hosting node causes the Oracle Clusterware to attempt to restart the application on the current node. If RESTART_ATTEMPTS is not set to 0, and if the application cannot start on the current node, then the Oracle Clusterware attempts to fail the application over to another node that provides the required resource. Alternatively, the Oracle Clusterware stops the application if there is no suitable node. In this case, the Oracle Clusterware posts a not restarting event notification.

You can also use Required resource lists to start, stop, and relocate a group of interdependent applications when the crs_start, crs_stop, or crs_relocate commands are run with the force (-f) option.

Creating VIPs for Applications

If your application is accessed by way of a network, then Oracle recommends that you create a virtual internet protocol address for the application as a dependent resource. In the previous example, network1 is an application VIP address. Create application VIP addresses as follows:

crs_profile –create network1 -t application \
-a $CRS_HOME/bin/usrvip \
-o oi=eth0,ov=138.3.83.78,on=255.255.240.0

In this example, $CRS_HOME is the home directory for the Oracle Clusterware installation. In addition, eth0 is the name of the public network adapter, 138.3.83.78 which resolves by way of DNS to a new IP address that will be used to locate your application regardless of the node it is running on. Finally, 255.255.240.0 is the netmask for the public IP address. As the oracle user, register the VIP address with the Oracle Clusterware as follows:

crs_register network1

On UNIX-based operating systems, the application VIP address script must run as the root user. As the root user, change the owner of the resource as follows:

crs_setperm network1 –o root

As the root user, enable the oracle user to run this script:

crs_setperm network1 –u user:oracle:r-x

As the oracle user, start the VIP address as follows:

crs_start network1

Application Placement Policies

The placement policy specifies how the Oracle Clusterware selects a node on which to start an application and where to relocate the application after a node failure. Only cluster nodes on which all of the required resources are available, as listed in an application's profile, are eligible to be considered as hosting nodes for an application. The Oracle Clusterware supports the following placement policies:

  • balanced—The Oracle Clusterware favors starting or restarting the application on the node that is currently running the fewest resources. A placement that is based on optional resources is considered first. Next, the host with the fewest resources running is chosen. If no node is favored by these criteria, then any available node is chosen.

  • favored—The Oracle Clusterware refers to the list of nodes in the HOSTING_MEMBERS attribute of the application profile. Only cluster nodes that are in this list and that satisfy the resource requirements are eligible for placement consideration. Placement due to optional resources is considered first. If no node is eligible based on optional resources, then the order of the hosting nodes determines which node runs the application. If none of the nodes in the hosting node list are available, then the Oracle Clusterware places the application on any available node. This node may or may not be included in the HOSTING_MEMBERS list.

  • restricted—Similar to favored except that if none of the nodes on the hosting list are available, then the Oracle Clusterware does not start or restart the application. A restricted placement policy ensures that the application never runs on a node that is not on the list, even if you manually relocate it to that node.

You must specify hosting nodes in the HOSTING_MEMBERS attribute to use a favored or restricted placement policy. Do not specify hosting nodes in the HOSTING_MEMBERS attribute with a balanced placement policy. Otherwise, the application will not validate and you cannot register it. If ACTIVE_PLACEMENT is set to 1, then the placement of the application is re-evaluated whenever you add a node to the cluster or if the cluster node restarts. This enables the Oracle Clusterware to relocate applications to a preferred node after the node recovers from a failure. To have the Oracle Clusterware relocate an application to a preferred node at a time other than when the node rejoins the cluster, use the REBALANCE attribute to specify a time at which placement can be re-evaluated.

Optional Resources in Placement Decisions

The Oracle Clusterware uses optional resources to choose a hosting node based on the number of optional resources that are in an ONLINE state on the hosting node. If each node has an equal number of optional resources in an ONLINE state, then the Oracle Clusterware considers the order of the optional resources as follows:

  • The Oracle Clusterware compares the state of the optional resources on each node starting at the first resource that you list in the application profile and then proceeds through the list.

  • For each consecutive resource in your list, if the resource is ONLINE on one node, then any node that does not have the resource ONLINE is not considered.

  • The Oracle Clusterware evaluates each resource in the list in this manner until only one node is available to host the resource.

  • The maximum number of optional resources is 58.

If this algorithm results in multiple preferred nodes, then the resource is placed on one of these nodes chosen according to its placement policy.

Oracle Clusterware Action Program Guidelines

This section provides the following guidelines for writing Oracle Clusterware action programs that interpret the Oracle Clusterware start, stop, and check commands:

How the Oracle Clusterware Runs Action Programs

This section describes how the Oracle Clusterware runs action programs. The first argument to an action program is the command start, stop, or check depending on which action the Oracle Clusterware is running. The second argument is the Oracle Clusterware resource name of the application. This enables a script to determine which instance of the resource that the Oracle Clusterware is starting, stopping, or checking.An action program can retrieve any of its Oracle Clusterware resource attributes from the environment by using $_CAA_attribute_name. For example, $_CAA_NAME contains the application name, the second argument to the script, and $_CAA_HOSTING_ MEMBERS contains its HOSTING_MEMBERS attribute.The Oracle Clusterware supports user-defined attributes in the Oracle Clusterware applications, which are attributes having names that contain USR. User-defined attributes are stored as part of the Oracle Clusterware application profile for the application. You can reference them in an action program using $_USR_attributename. To add a user-defined attribute, add it to the file CRS home/crs/template/application.tdf using the following syntax:

#
# an example user-defined attribute
#
#!===========================
attribute: USR_EXAMPLE
type: string
switch: -o example
default:
required: no

The attribute parameter contains the name of the new attribute. The type parameter defines the type of the user-defined attribute and can be one of the following:

  • string

  • boolean

  • integer—a numeric attribute

  • positive_integer—a numeric attribute with must be positive

  • name string

  • name_list—a comma-delimited list of names

The switch parameter describes how the attribute is specified for the crs_profile command. Set the required field to no for user-defined attributes.


Note:

User-defined attribute names that begin with USR_ORA are reserved for use by Oracle.

Windows crsuser Program

This section describes the Windows-based crsuser program. If you create an Oracle Clusterware application, then run the following command:

crsuser add [domain\]username

Provide the user's Windows password. This creates the service OracleCRSToken_user that the Oracle Clusterware needs for starting the Oracle Clusterware resources under the given user ID. You can also use the crsuser command remove [domain\]username to remove a token service and crsuser list to list a registered users.

Using Oracle Clusterware Commands

This section describes how to use the Oracle Clusterware commands under the following topics:

Registering Application Resources

Each application that you manage with the Oracle Clusterware must have an application profile and the profile must be registered in the OCR. Use the crs_register command to register applications in the OCR. For example, enter the following command to register the mail monitoring application from the previous example:

# crs_register postman

If you modify a profile, then update the OCR by re-running the crs_register -u command.

Starting Application Resources

To start an application resource that is registered with the Oracle Clusterware, use the crs_start command. For example:

# crs_start postman

The following text is an example of the command output:

Attempting to start `postman` on node `rac1`
Start of `postman` on node `rac1` succeeded.

The application now runs on the node named rac1.


Note:

The name of the application resource may or may not be the same as the name of the application.


See Also :

Appendix B, "High Availability Oracle Clusterware Command-Line Reference and C API" for examples of Oracle Clusterware command output

The command waits for the amount of time specified by the setting for the SCRIPT_TIMEOUT parameter to receive a notification of success or failure from the action program each time the action program is called. Application resources can be started if they have stopped due to exceeding their failure threshold values. You must register a resource with crs_register before you can start it.

To start and stop resources, use the crs_start and crs_stop commands. Manual starts or stops outside of the Oracle Clusterware can invalidate the resource status. In addition, the Oracle Clusterware may attempt to restart a resource on which you perform a manual stop operation.

All required resources must be online on the node where you start the resource. If the resources that the REQUIRED_RESOURCES parameter identifies are offline, then the command crs_start -f resource_name will start the required resources before starting the resource. Without the -f option, crs_start -f resource_name will fail if the required resources are offline.

Running the crs_start command on a resource sets the resource target value to ONLINE. The Oracle Clusterware attempts to change the state to match the target by running the action program with the start parameter. When a resource is running, both the target state and current state are ONLINE.

Starting an Application on an Unavailable Node

When starting an application on a cluster node that is unavailable, crs_start can give indeterminate results. In this scenario, the start section of the action program is run, but the cluster node fails before notification of the start is displayed on the command line. The crs_start command returns a failure with the error Remote start for resource_name failed on node node_name. The application is actually ONLINE but fails over to another node making the application appear as though it were started on the incorrect node.

If a cluster node fails while you are starting a resource on that node, then check the state of the resource on the cluster by using the crs_stat command to determine the state of that resource.

Relocating Applications and Application Resources

Use the crs_relocate command to relocate applications and application resources. For example, to relocate the mail monitoring application to the node known as rac2, enter the following command:

# crs_relocate postman -c rac2

Each time that the action program is called, the crs_relocate command waits for the duration identified by the value for the SCRIPT_TIMEOUT parameter to receive notification of success or failure from the action program. A relocation attempt fails if:

  • The application has required resources that are ONLINE on the initial node

  • Applications that require the specified resource are ONLINE on the initial node

To relocate an application and its required resources, use the -f option with the crs_relocate command. The Oracle Clusterware relocates or starts all resources that are required by the application regardless of their state.

Stopping Applications and Application Resources

To stop applications and application resources, use the crs_stop command. Immediately after the crs_stop command completes, the application status converts to OFFLINE. Because the Oracle Clusterware always attempts to match a resource's state to its target, the Oracle Clusterware subsystem stops the application. The following example stops the mail application from the example:

# crs_stop postman

The following text is an example of the command output:

Attempting to stop `postman` on node `rac1`
Stop of `postman` on node `rac1` succeeded.

You cannot stop an application if the application is a required resource for another online application unless you use the force (-f) option. If you use the crs_stop -f resource_name command on an application that is required by other resources and if those resources are online, then the Oracle Clusterware stops the application. In addition, all of the resources that require that application that are online are also stopped.


Note:

The Oracle Clusterware can only stop applications and application resources. The Oracle Clusterware cannot stop network, tape, or media changer resources.

Managing Automatic Oracle Clusterware Resource Operations for Action Scripts

The following section explains additional information for controlling how the Oracle Clusterware manages restarts. You can prevent the Oracle Clusterware from automatically restarting a resource by setting several action program attributes. You can also control how the Oracle Clusterware manages the restart counters for your action programs. In addition, you can customize the timeout values for the start, stop, and check actions that the Oracle Clusterware performs on action scripts. These topics are described under the following headings:

Preventing Automatic Database Instance Restarts

When a node stops and restarts, the Oracle Clusterware starts the instance as soon as the node starts. This may not be desirable because instance startup might fail if system components on which the instance depends, such as a volume manager or a file system, are not running. This is especially true if the Oracle Clusterware does not manage the system component resources on which the instance depends. To manage automatic restarts, you can use the AUTO_START attribute to specify whether the Oracle Clusterware should automatically start a resource when a node restarts. Valid AUTO_START values are:

  • always—Causes the resource to restart when the node restarts regardless of the resource's state when the node stopped.

  • restore—Does not start the resource at restart time if it was in an offline state, such as STATE=OFFLINE, TARGET=OFFLINE, when the node stopped. The resource is restored to its state when the node went down. The resource is started only if it was online before and not otherwise.

  • never—The Oracle Clusterware never restarts the resource regardless of the resource's state when the node stopped.


Note:

Oracle only supports lower-case values for always, restore, and never.

Automatically Manage Restart Attempts Counter for Resources

When a resource fails, the Oracle Clusterware restarts the resource for only the number of times specified in the profile attribute RESTART_ATTEMPTS regardless of how often the resource fails. The CRSD process maintains an internal counter to track how often a resource has been restarted. There is a mechanism by which the Oracle Clusterware can automatically manage the restart attempts counter based on the stability of a resource. Use the UPTIME_THESHOLD attribute to indicate resource stability.

You can specify the time for the UPTIME_THRESHOLD attribute in different units of measure, such as seconds (s), minutes (m), hours (h), days (d) or weeks (w). Examples of valid values for this attribute are: 7d for seven days, 5h for five hours, 180m for 180 minutes, and so on. Specify the time period as a numeric value and the unit of measure as the last character, s, m, h, d, or w.

After the time period that you have indicated by the setting for UPTIME_THRESHOLD has elapsed, the Oracle Clusterware resets the value for RESTART_COUNTS to 0. The Oracle Clusterware can alert you when the value for RESTART_COUNT reaches the value that you have set for RESTART_ATTEMPTS.


Note:

the Oracle Clusterware writes an alert to the CRSD log file when the value for RESTART_COUNT reaches the value that you have set for RESTART_ATTEMPTS. The Oracle Clusterware does not write this message to the alert file.

RESTART_ATTEMPTS and RESTART_COUNT Failure Scenarios

Some of the failure scenarios for the RESTART_ATTEMPTS and RESTART_COUNT attributes are:

  • When a resource keeps restarting—The resource does not meet the uptime threshold criteria and it will be stopped after restarting for the number of attempts set by the value for RESTART_ATTEMPTS.

  • When a node fails or restarts—The Oracle Clusterware resets the value for RESTART_COUNTER to 0 either when the resource relocates or when it restarts on the same node.

  • If the crsd process fails—Because both RESTART_COUNT and RESTART_ATTEMPTS are stored in OCR, the behavior is not affected.

Implications of Restart and Timeout Features for Previous Releases

If you have a pre-Oracle Database 10g release 2 (10.2) installation, add the release 2 (10.2) attributes to your profiles by doing one of the following:

  • Modify your resources with the release 2 (10.2) attributes and re-register the resources. This causes the separate timeouts to be effective.

  • Do not modify your resources. This retains the pre-release 2 (10.2) behavior of using the value in SCRIPT_TIMEOUT as the timeout for all start, stop, and check actions.

Unregistering Applications and Application Resources

To unregister an application or an application resource, use the crs_unregister command. You cannot unregister an application or resource that is ONLINE or required by another resource. The following example unregisters the mail application:

# crs_unregister postman

The unregistration process frees space on the OCR. Additionally, run the crs_unregister command as a clean-up step when a resource is no longer managed by the Oracle Clusterware. Generally, you should unregister all permanently stopped applications.

Displaying Clusterware Application and Application Resource Status Information

To display status information about applications and resources that are on cluster nodes, use the crs_stat command. The following example displays the status information for the postman application:

# crs_stat postman
NAME=postman
TYPE=application
TARGET=ONLINE
STATE=ONLINE on rac2

Enter the following command to view information about all applications and resources in tabular format:

# crs_stat -t

The following text is an example of the command output:

Name         Type        Target      State     Host
----------------------------------------------------------------
cluster_lockd application ONLINE    ONLINE     rac2
dhcp          application OFFLINE   OFFLINE

Enter the following command to determine:

  • How many times an application or application resource has been restarted

  • How many times an application or resource has failed within the failure interval

  • The maximum number of times that an application or resource can be restarted or fail

  • The target state of the application or resource and the normal status information

# crs_stat -v

To view verbose content in tabular format, enter the following command:

# crs_stat -v -t

The following text is an example of the command output:

Name          Type       R/RA  F/FT   Target    State    Host
----------------------------------------------------------------------
cluster_lockd application 0/30  0/0   ONLINE    ONLINE   rac2
dhcp          application 0/1   0/0   OFFLINE   OFFLINE
named         application 0/1   0/0   OFFLINE   OFFLINE
network1      network           0/5   ONLINE    ONLINE
network1      network           0/5   ONLINE    ONLINE   rac1

Enter the following command to view the application profile information that is stored in the OCR:

# crs_stat -p

The following text is an example of the command output:

NAME=cluster_lockd
TYPE=application
ACTION_SCRIPT=cluster_lockd.scr
ACTIVE_PLACEMENT=0
AUTO_START=1
CHECK_INTERVAL=5
DESCRIPTION=Cluster lockd/statd
FAILOVER_DELAY=30
FAILURE_INTERVAL=60
FAILURE_THRESHOLD=1
REBALANCE=
HOSTING_MEMBERS=
OPTIONAL_RESOURCES=
PLACEMENT=balanced
REQUIRED_RESOURCES=
RESTART_ATTEMPTS=2
SCRIPT_TIMEOUT=60 ...

Refer to the crs_stat command for more information.


See Also:

Appendix B, "High Availability Oracle Clusterware Command-Line Reference and C API" for detailed information about the Oracle Clusterware commands