Creating ASM disks using ASM Filter Driver (ASMFD)

Starting 12.1.0.2 we can use ASM Filter Drive (ASMFD) to create ASM disks to be used for ASM diskgroups. I have already explain in this article that how we configure ASMFD during GI installation, and this article for migration from ASMLib to ASMFD. In this article I will show you how to create/add new ASM disks using ASMFD so that we can use them for existing or new diskgroups.

ASMCMD-9524: AFD configuration failed 'ERROR: ASMLib deconfiguration failed'

While configuring ASMFD (ASM Filer Driver), I was playing around and started facing this error after issuing “afd_configure” command

[root@salman11 ~]# /u01/app/12.2.0/grid/bin/asmcmd afd_configure ASMCMD-9524: AFD configuration failed 'ERROR: ASMLib deconfiguration failed'

I simply stopped oracleasm and acfsload service and after that reissued the “afd_configure” command, and it started working fine.
Point to note is that we need to stop oracleasm and acfsload before configuring ASMFD using “afd_configure”.

Migrating from ASMLib to Oracle ASM Filter Driver (ASMFD)

Starting 12.1.0.2, ASMFD can be used instead of ASMLib for the ASM disks management. In this article I will explain how to migrate from ASMLib to ASMFD. I already have ASMLib configured on my server and I want to move to using ASMFD. For new GI installation, we can configure ASMFD for our ASM disks from GI installation wizard. Method explained here works for both standalone GI installations as well as for RAC.

Configuring Oracle ASM Filter Driver (ASMFD) and Labelling Disks

If you already have 12.2.0.1 and above GI/RAC installation and you want to migrate to ASMFD, click here.

Starting 12.2.0.1, downloaded Grid Infrastructure (GI) software zip is extracted directly in to the directly we have already chosen as ORACLE_HOME for GI. After extraction, we execute $ORACLE_HOME/gridSetup.sh script to initiate the setup wizard. If we want to use ASMFD (ASM Filter Driver), then after we have provisioned the disk/partition at OS level, we can configure ASMFD as follows. We no longer need ASMLib to setup ASM disks once we start using ASMFD.

Disabling Transparent Huge Pages on Linux 6 and Linux 7

Oracle recommends that Transparent Huge Pages should be disabled before installation of Oracle software. In the following I will explain how to disable Transparent Huge Pages on Linux 6 and Linux 7. I am using Oracle Enterprise Linux where I see that this feature is already disabled. You can check for your release of Linux whether it is disabled or not, and disable it using method explained here. This is the official document for doing this task.

Fatal NI connect error 12537

If Fatal NI connect error 12537 appears in the alert logfile, following is how it would appear. There is another similar Fatal NI connect error 12547 discussed here.

Fatal NI connect error 12537, connecting to:  (LOCAL=NO)   VERSION INFORMATION:             TNS for Linux: Version 11.2.0.4.0 - Production

Error 1017 received logging on to the standby - Along with ORA-16191

Most probable reason for this error appearing in the alert log file of standby database is that primary database is not able to connect to the standby database to ship redo log data because the password for the SYS user in the standby database is not in sync with the primary database. Standby database is also not able to fetch the archive gap because of same discrepancy. Full error stack in the alert log file would look similar to the following.

File #... added to control file as UNNAMED000 and ORA-15041

On your standby database if you see a datafile with the name similar to ‘UNNAMED000’, it means that you have STANDBY_FILE_MANAGEMENT parameter set to auto and managed recovery process tried to create a new datafile (after you already added this file on primary database), but it could not create file because of some reason. I faced this error because my ASM diskgroup was full. Following were the entries in my alert log file of my standby database after adding a datafile in my primary database using command ‘ALTER TABLESPACE my_tablespace ADD DATAFILE ‘+DATA/datafile06.dbf’ SIZE 20g’

ORA-38701: Flashback database log...

If you are trying to list the restore points you have, and your flashback logs are not available on the disk (in the FRA), you might face ORA-38701.

SQL> select * from v$restore_point; select * from v$restore_point               * ERROR at line 1: ORA-38701: Flashback database log 1 seq 1 thread 1: "/u01/app/oracle/fast_recovery_area/DBMASK/flashback/o1_mf_c4xj2hrd_.flb"

ORA-38760: This database instance failed to turn on flashback database

I faced this error message while opening my database, after restoring the database from a cold backup (OS level copy of all database files). I realized that when I backed up my database, it had flashback feature turned on and there was also a guaranteed restore point at the time I took the backup. And this time when I was trying to open this database, there were no old flashback logs available in fast recovery area.