Additional Blogs by SAP
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
0 Kudos

SAP has released the Oracle Database Software for Linux running IBM's TMPOWER<sup>TM</sup> platform in the first half of 2006. Although this has come with much anticipation to the Linux community, it also has come with a few headaches. SAP's Development Support receives so many of the same questions that I thought a little how to would be in order.</p>In SAP Note 945315 - SAP installation with Oracle 10.2 under Linux on POWER, all the steps are explained for one needs to install Oracle 10g on IBM Linux on POWER. Sadly, not many people know about this note, or just simply don't look. Let's go through this note step by step to see what and why this SAP Note is necessary.

Prerequisites for the installation of Oracle 10.2 under Linux on POWER

Oracle 10g does not include the IBM XL C/C++ Advanced Edition for Linux Runtime component, and, unfortunately, neither SAP, nor Oracle checks to see if it is already installed on the system. If you don't install it first, the only error you receive is a complaint about an error to invoke an Oracle makefile during install.



It has come to my attention that several of SAP's Support Team have mistakenly taken the error that pops up in the runinstaller "Error in invoking target 'client_sharedlib' of makefile '/oracle/<SID>/102_64/network/lib/ins_net_client.mk'.</SID>" as a similar problem to that described in SAP Note 841728 - Oracle Database 10g: Software installation problems 10.2.0.

Installation problem #8

describes an error trying to link the pthread and glibc libraries (-Lpthread -Lc), Unfortunately, that error is for 64-Bit Intel/AMD hardware only (<b>x86_64</b>) and

not

for IBM POWER processors (ppc64).

The described workaround is to install the 32-bit glibc which is completely ridiculous due to the fact that SAP does not support a 32-bit platform on Linux on POWER. The real cause on Linux on POWER is the above mentioned missing XL C/C++ runtime component. Install the IBM XL C/C++ Runtime component and you should be happily on your way to installing Oracle 10g. Once again, Installation problem #8 of SAP Note 841728 is

not

valid for SAP on Linux on POWER!


To make matters worse, due to a glibc change in RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 2, you may still not be able to get Oracle to install with the XL C/C++ Runtime component right away. If you have downloaded the version 8.0 of the IBM XL C/C++ Runtime component, the approved workaround is to create a link from the version 8 libraries (or whole runtime tree) into a directory looking like version 7. Oracle has accepted this as a bug and also said that Oracle 10g does run under the XL C/C++ Runtime component version 8.0. The complete work around is described in SAP Note 975196 - IBM XL C/C++ Runtime environment V8.0 & Oracle 10.2 on Linux.

Required patch sets and patches for Oracle 10.2

Like all new database releases for SAP, there are always a number of initial fixes necessary before a customer could use SAP on a new database for productive use. Oracle 10g is not unlike any other. SAP requires that the version 10.2.0.2 is the prerequisite for any customer wanting to use Oracle 10g. 

Yet Oracle's policy for Patch Sets is not what I would like to call user friendly. Well, let's say SAP friendly. Naturally, a customer could use Oracle 10.1 or Oracle 10.2.0.1 or whatever for products not related to SAP. Our problem is that the initial install DVD (including that which is delivered by SAP) contains release 10.1 and we need to install the Patch Set 02 on top of it by hand. SAP Note 871096 has all the prerequisites necessary to install the correct version of Oracle 10g for SAP.

The following error occurs when you install Oracle patch 4460775 or 4864648: OUI-67020 Platform not compatible

The gentlemen at Oracle seemed to forget that we should be a platform on a couple of patches. Or maybe we weren't one when the patches came out. In either case, SAP requested that the patches be rebuilt for SAP and placed them in the SAP Service Marketplace. You should not use the above patches as described in SAP Note 871096 if they are not download directly from SAP! These are official rebuilds from Oracle of the same patches allowing the Linux on POWER platform.</p>h5. Installation under RedHat Enterprise Server 4 (RHEL4), Quarterly Update 2 or later fails with relink error:

The following error occurs in the Oracle Universal Installer when you install the Oracle software under RHEL4 QU2 (or later): “Error in invoking target 'relink' of makefile '/oracle/<SID>/102_64/precomp/lib/ins_precomp.mk'.</SID>” You go bit by the old "we didn't think the standard C library would change" trick. Well, between RHEL4 Update 1 and Update 2, it did. We can't help it, you can't help it, but we know how to work around it. You need to apply Oracle patches .... to the installer before you continue with the installation. Don't forget to get patches 4460775 or 4864648 from the SAP Service Marketplace and not Oracle Metalink.

Installation under SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (SLES9) fails with async I/O error:

The following error is displayed in the Oracle alert log during the installation or operation under SLES9: “ORA-27061 Waiting for async I/O failed”. Even Oracle has problems once in a while. Just go and get the Oracle patch 4767801 and install it after the installer breaks. Yes, you heard right, you can't patch the installer until after the error hits. That's the way the cookie crumbles! But to make things easier, we have uploaded the patch right into the same SAP Note 945315 as an attachment.



h5. You want to use the "reiserfs" file system.

See SAP Note 914177 - File system reiserfs Oracle parameter file system io options.

A quick answer is

don't use it

. An honest answer is that, although it may have worked, Oracle doesn't recommend it. Oracle does support ReiserFS officially as described in Oracle's metalink #279069.1, but they do note that as of October 2006, there are no plans to continue support of it. Recently, it was found that without special options, errors may result with ReiserFS and usage of the flag O_DIRECT on the mounted Reiser file system. Oracle uses this option; and, therefore, does a skid and burn during installation. Since the Linux on Power port of SAP is so new, I would not recommend any new installs of SAP with Oracle on ReiserFS. Don't worry, if you must install Oracle on top of ReiserFS, you can change the mount option (in /etc/fstab) and remount the disk. Then continue on as if you never heard of any ol' stupid ReiserFS bug. In some cases, you will need to set the Oracle parameter FILESYSTEMIO_OPTIONS = NONE, but read the OSS Note 914177 to be certain.