Location Of Alert Logs And Trace Files; Installation Of Oracle On The Oracle Server - HP StorageWorks 8000 - NAS User Manual

address of the Oracle server. This will allow that Oracle server to correctly store and access files as the
user 'root' on the Oracle server.
executables on the NAS 8000

location of alert logs and trace files

Log and trace files can be an excellent source of information for analyzing problems with a database. If
the Oracle executables/binaries are installed on the NAS 8000, the default location for Oracle to write the
alert log(s) and trace files will also be on the NAS 8000. In an OFA-compliant configuration, by default,
these files would be under ${ORACLE_BASE}/admin/oradb directory(ies) in the bdump, cdump and udump
subdirectories. In the unlikely event of a NAS 8000 system failure, these directories and their contents may
be unavailable which could create a situation in which the files needed by the Oracle DBA and system
administrator to analyze and correct a problem, would not be available. The location of these files can be
specified via the background_dump_dest, core_dump_dest and user_dump_dest parameters in the init.ora
file. One solution, and the recommended/preferred method, is to set the locations of these files (via their
parameters in the init.ora file) to be on the Oracle server rather than on the NAS 8000. Another solution is
to move these directories and all of their contents back onto the Oracle server once the installation has
completed, and then create 'links' from the NAS 8000 to the Oracle server pointing to these directories.
This can be accomplished by creating a directory on the Oracle server (say /var/oracle8i_logs) and the
following subdirectories; bdump, cdump, and udump. Then, copy or move the contents of the bdump,
cdump and udump subdirectories (assuming an OFA configuration) from the NAS 8000 to the just created
directories on the Oracle server. Then, remove the bdump, cdump and udump directories (and all their
contents) from the NAS 8000. In the directory on the NAS 8000 that bdump, cdump and udump were
removed from; create three links (named bdump, cdump and udump), which link to the newly created
directories of the same name on the Oracle server. This must be performed before the database is created
or while it is closed. In the very unlikely event of a NAS 8000 failure, the directories holding the alert logs
and trace files will still be available. Of course, in the event of an Oracle server crash, the files would not
be available. The same thing applies to the various 'log' directories that the Oracle database engine and
utilities use. There can be a significant number of these directories, depending upon the Oracle installation
and optional features. For example, there is ${ORACLE_HOME}/rdbms/log,
${ORACLE_HOME}/network/log, ${ORACLE_HOME}/sqlplus/log, ${ORACLE_HOME}/svrmgr/log; just to
name a few. The DBA should decide which, if any, of these directories contain information that must be
available in the unlikely situation where the NAS 8000 is unavailable. What follows is a sample of
"moving" the bdump, cdump and udump directories off of the NAS 8000 and placing them on the Oracle
server. The same process can be used to move whatever log directories are specified as crucial by the
DBA.
$ mkdir /var/oracle8i_logs
$ mkdir /var/oracle8i_logs/bdump
$ mkdir /var/oracle8i_logs/cdump
$ mkdir /var/oracle8i_logs/udump
$ cd ${ORACLE_BASE}/admin/ora8i
$ cp –pR bdump/* /var/oracle8i_logs/bdump
$ cp –pR cdump/* /var/oracle8i_logs/cdump
$ cp –pR udump/* /var/oracle8i_logs/udump
$ rm –rf bdump
$ rm –rf cdump
$ rm –rf udump
$ ln –s /var/oracle8i_logs/bdump bdump
$ ln –s /var/oracle8i_logs/cdump cdump
$ ln –s /var/oracle8i_logs/udump udump

installation of Oracle on the Oracle server

The most common and suggested configuration is the installation of the Oracle binaries and support files on
the Oracle server with the NAS 8000 being used primarily for storing the Oracle database data files,
control files, redo logs and archived redo logs. In most environments where Oracle is already installed, this
is the configuration that will be adopted. In this scenario, the database administrator must still carefully
This step must be done prior to installing/storing the Oracle
.
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