Random thoughts: Random thoughts and wafflings of an engineer

Oracle Critical Patch Update day, and there are a lot of products that are getting new patches..

http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/security/critical-patch-updates/cpujan2009.html 

How can you tell if you're accessing a RAC database? Simple!

You can tell if it is a cluster database by looking to see if the cluster database parameter is set:-

SQL> select name, value from v$parameter where name='cluster_database';

NAME                  VALUE
--------------------- ---------------------
cluster_database      TRUE


or


set serveroutput on
 BEGIN
  IF dbms_utility.is_cluster_database THEN
      dbms_output.put_line('Running in SHARED/RAC mode.');
  ELSE
      dbms_output.put_line('Running in EXCLUSIVE mode.');
  END IF;
END;
/

You can tell how many instances are active by:-

SQL> SELECT * FROM V$ACTIVE_INSTANCES;

INST_NUMBER INST_NAME
----------- -----------------------         

          1 c1718-6-45:AXIOSS1

          2 c1718-6-46:AXIOSS2

So, you're onto your last node of a 10.2.0.1 CRS install and you see this message...

Running vipca(silent) for configuring nodeapps
The given interface(s), "nxge0" is not public. Public interfaces should be used to configure virtual IPs.

This is can be caused by your public network interface being 10.x.x.x - vipca assumes that this is a private network.

Login as root and run vipca from $CRS_HOME/bin - this will allow you to set the interface types correctly.

The CRS patch bundle #1 for Oracle 10.2.0.4 64 bit SPARC has been released - 7164095

There is a really useful patch if you've got db_block_checksum=TRUE (the default) to reduce the CPU utilization of the checksum routine. The patch number is 6814520  - annoyingly the bug report is hidden in metalink, but if you do a 'simple' search for the patch, provide the number, you'll be able to  download the patch.

The patch is rolled into 10.2.0.4, but it's not documented as part of the patch notes.