So, we ran into a nasty bug last night. We are running 10g (various releases) RAC on 3 or 4 node clusters. In this particular configuration we had a 4 node cluster, with an instance for this database on each node. 2 instances were active, two were configured but not running.
DBA went to make redo log adjustments (adding a new group) and database crashed. There is a bug in 10g (and apparently 11g) with respect to this kind of configuration. If you are running an active/passive kind of RAC configuration, you will want to read up on the bug. Be very careful making any online redo log changes if you are running in such an environment.
Metalink bug number is 6786022 and it's public. We understand patch is in QA to correct. There is also an event you can set to avoid the problem. See the bug on Metalink for more information.
So, check out the bug and make sure your system is not vulnerable.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Where has Robert gone?
It has been a looong time since I've done a blog entry. Way to long in fact. There are a number of reasons why...
So, I have a number of things I'd like to put in this post, and then I'll do my best to try to keep up with this blog better.
First, I've had a few people tell me that the email link on the blog page is not working right. I'll look into that. You can email me at:
robertgfreeman@yahoo.com
or
dbaoracle@aol.com
any time. I love your emails. I'm available for speaking if you like, for training engagements (I love doing RMAN, New Features and DBA kinds of training), light consulting and the like.
I'm happy to reply to any email. I do have one rule though. If you have an Oracle related question, please post it on a newsgroup instead. Oracle-L is one that I'm on among others. I've not had the time to keep up with newsgroups along with this blog I'm afraid. Why do I ask you to go to the newsgroups? #1, you get your answers quicker. #2 you get access to a number of Oracle professionals, many of whom know more about Oracle than I do. #3, the world will benefit from the question you have asked.
I love your emails though. I'm available for speaking if you like, for training engagements (I love doing RMAN, New Features and DBA kinds of training), light consulting and the like.
I just finished my newest book..... I'ts for Sybex and it's called OCP Oracle Database 11g Certified Professional Study Guide. It's a prep guide for the Oracle Database 11g OCP Exam (Exam 1Z0-053) and I'm very excited about it. I love teaching and helping people learn new things, and I hope that all of you who seek for your 11g OCP will benefit from this book. I worked with my old friend Charles Pack on this book and I think it's turned out to be a great book.
I'm getting ready to start on my next book, Oracle Database 11g RMAN Backup and Recovery. It is my hope that this book will *continue* to be the go-to book for RMAN and Oracle. The book will be the most up to date RMAN book out in the market. Look for more information on this book to be forthcoming here in this blog. I can tell you we are going to be adding lots of content and will clean up a lot of stuff too. If you liked the RMAN book before, trust me, this copy will be even better.
I suppose thats it for now. I plan on being better at posting in my blogspace. It's an interesting time for us all. In closing let me say that in these hard times, it's easy to loose sight of the really important things. When the economy is nose diving, when so many things seem to be working against us, it's east to loose track of basic principles that are important. Remember that liberty and freedom are the foundations to everything else, including prosperity. There will always be those who abuse those liberties, to be sure. We just have to realize that in spite of those few abuses that liberty is the right of every human being, it is a gift of God given to each of us. We must fight for it at every turn, even if we fight for a cause we disagree with. We must preserve liberty, freedom, our right to speak and choose without constraint (within some pretty wide constraints perhaps, you still can't scream fire in a theatre)....
So, I have a number of things I'd like to put in this post, and then I'll do my best to try to keep up with this blog better.
First, I've had a few people tell me that the email link on the blog page is not working right. I'll look into that. You can email me at:
robertgfreeman@yahoo.com
or
dbaoracle@aol.com
any time. I love your emails. I'm available for speaking if you like, for training engagements (I love doing RMAN, New Features and DBA kinds of training), light consulting and the like.
I'm happy to reply to any email. I do have one rule though. If you have an Oracle related question, please post it on a newsgroup instead. Oracle-L is one that I'm on among others. I've not had the time to keep up with newsgroups along with this blog I'm afraid. Why do I ask you to go to the newsgroups? #1, you get your answers quicker. #2 you get access to a number of Oracle professionals, many of whom know more about Oracle than I do. #3, the world will benefit from the question you have asked.
I love your emails though. I'm available for speaking if you like, for training engagements (I love doing RMAN, New Features and DBA kinds of training), light consulting and the like.
I just finished my newest book..... I'ts for Sybex and it's called OCP Oracle Database 11g Certified Professional Study Guide. It's a prep guide for the Oracle Database 11g OCP Exam (Exam 1Z0-053) and I'm very excited about it. I love teaching and helping people learn new things, and I hope that all of you who seek for your 11g OCP will benefit from this book. I worked with my old friend Charles Pack on this book and I think it's turned out to be a great book.
I'm getting ready to start on my next book, Oracle Database 11g RMAN Backup and Recovery. It is my hope that this book will *continue* to be the go-to book for RMAN and Oracle. The book will be the most up to date RMAN book out in the market. Look for more information on this book to be forthcoming here in this blog. I can tell you we are going to be adding lots of content and will clean up a lot of stuff too. If you liked the RMAN book before, trust me, this copy will be even better.
I suppose thats it for now. I plan on being better at posting in my blogspace. It's an interesting time for us all. In closing let me say that in these hard times, it's easy to loose sight of the really important things. When the economy is nose diving, when so many things seem to be working against us, it's east to loose track of basic principles that are important. Remember that liberty and freedom are the foundations to everything else, including prosperity. There will always be those who abuse those liberties, to be sure. We just have to realize that in spite of those few abuses that liberty is the right of every human being, it is a gift of God given to each of us. We must fight for it at every turn, even if we fight for a cause we disagree with. We must preserve liberty, freedom, our right to speak and choose without constraint (within some pretty wide constraints perhaps, you still can't scream fire in a theatre)....
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Abraham Lincoln on Prohibition...
I saw this quote on another website somewhere. I thought it was very well put and addresses so much of the "Nanny-state" types of activities you see going on these days (for example, the proposed 18% tax on "Sugary" drinks in New York). To me, this quote applies to a great many things.
"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. President.
Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives
Monday, November 17, 2008
My latest project comes to a happy conclusion...
You may have noticed that I've been somewhat absent of late. Part of this (but not all) was due to the fact that I had significantly increased the heat on a project that had been languishing for way too long (and writing a book and working and....). Today that project has come to it's happy conclusion and I am glad that it's complete.
That project is the acquisition of my instrument rating. I got my private pilot certificate many many years ago. As you will find on other posts in my blog, I gave it up for a while and then took it back up about 4 years ago with the purchase of my first airplane, N7598U. After I bought my airplane I decided that the next step was to get my instrument rating. So about 3 years or more ago I started on this long journey.
Over 3 Years, 5 instructors and one stressful check-ride later (some stress self-induced and other stress of external sources) I can now happily report I am an instrument rated private pilot!!! I took my check-ride today with Lynn French out of Salt Lake City Number 2 airport (U42 for the aviation minded). Lynn passed me and I think probably immediately issued a NOTAM to warn the flying world, "Watch out! Freeman has his rating".
So, the morning didn't start too well. While waiting for Lynn to arrive (he was flying in this morning from Colorado) my instructor Randy and I were checking out the log books for the airplane I was going to use. As I was reviewing the logs, I discovered to my horror that the attitude indicator was out on the airplane I was going to take. Holly Smortals! The "sister plane" to the one I was going to use was supposed to be in by 10am. So, it would be coming in while we were doing the Oral and we could take the sister plane out for the exam. Ah.... Joy. Flying in a plane I have not ever flown in for my checkride. It's a sister plane, sure.... yeah.... right....
Lynn owns a bed and breakfast in Colorado with his wife, and I am given to understand that he has his own private strip and a number of different airplanes. So, at the outset, I am jealous of Lynn! :-) Lynn is your quintessential check pilot. Hours out the ears, asking great questions, providing great insight and making me sweat the pre-requisite amount during the process (check the PTS, there are sweat requirements). I enjoyed the Oral with Lynn though it was not quite what I expected.
First, I was nervous so I'm trying to answer questions, and the words are coming out of my mouth a mile a minute. I'm also trying to give "textbook" answers, and Lynn is looking for more practical thinking. Me? Practical? Common! That caused some communication mis-understandings on my part at first. Once I settled down, I think I started to get it. In the end the Oral was a great learning experience and I'm the better pilot because of it. I think I'd have done much better if it was just a regular conversation and not an Oral/Check-Ride. Everyone said "Just have fun.... don't stress"... yeah, right. They do not know me. I don't stress in emergencies (like window iced over in unforcast and unexpected icing, and loosing my alternator all at the same time while flying from Chicago to Salt Lake City)... I handle those things OK I think. It's TESTS that I don't handle well. Tests of any type.
So, after the Oral, Lynn and I load up in the "Sister" plane. The airplane actually starts (yeah, there is a good sign) and I set the radios and so on. As I'm setting up the GPS the bells began to ring for the theme of the flight, "WE CAN'T MAKE THE GPS WORK!! BLAST IT!!". Up until the very end (where we figured out how to do the GPS approach for U42) we were sunk with respect to getting the approaches to work in the plane. Now in retrospect, I think I know how to have done it but that does you no good when you are on the flightline with the engine running and an examiner on the clock.
Lynn and I flew to Provo where we shot our approaches. We did a hold at FFU, did a DME ARC (part of the ILS and VOR/DME approach) and did our thing. My approaches were, frankly, pretty lame. They were within limits but I've done much better in the past. Lynn was very patient with me (I think he recognized I was nervous) and I'm thankful for that.
Finally we did some unusual attitudes and headed back to U42 where he finally managed to get the GPS to work and we shot that approach.
All in all, I was exhausted when we landed. When Lynn told me I passed I just wanted to jump up and down and shout to the heavens. Over 3 years of hard work, countless money and occasional frustration came to a fruitful end with my new rating, Insturment Airplane.
Wow.... now I need a nap!
That project is the acquisition of my instrument rating. I got my private pilot certificate many many years ago. As you will find on other posts in my blog, I gave it up for a while and then took it back up about 4 years ago with the purchase of my first airplane, N7598U. After I bought my airplane I decided that the next step was to get my instrument rating. So about 3 years or more ago I started on this long journey.
Over 3 Years, 5 instructors and one stressful check-ride later (some stress self-induced and other stress of external sources) I can now happily report I am an instrument rated private pilot!!! I took my check-ride today with Lynn French out of Salt Lake City Number 2 airport (U42 for the aviation minded). Lynn passed me and I think probably immediately issued a NOTAM to warn the flying world, "Watch out! Freeman has his rating".
So, the morning didn't start too well. While waiting for Lynn to arrive (he was flying in this morning from Colorado) my instructor Randy and I were checking out the log books for the airplane I was going to use. As I was reviewing the logs, I discovered to my horror that the attitude indicator was out on the airplane I was going to take. Holly Smortals! The "sister plane" to the one I was going to use was supposed to be in by 10am. So, it would be coming in while we were doing the Oral and we could take the sister plane out for the exam. Ah.... Joy. Flying in a plane I have not ever flown in for my checkride. It's a sister plane, sure.... yeah.... right....
Lynn owns a bed and breakfast in Colorado with his wife, and I am given to understand that he has his own private strip and a number of different airplanes. So, at the outset, I am jealous of Lynn! :-) Lynn is your quintessential check pilot. Hours out the ears, asking great questions, providing great insight and making me sweat the pre-requisite amount during the process (check the PTS, there are sweat requirements). I enjoyed the Oral with Lynn though it was not quite what I expected.
First, I was nervous so I'm trying to answer questions, and the words are coming out of my mouth a mile a minute. I'm also trying to give "textbook" answers, and Lynn is looking for more practical thinking. Me? Practical? Common! That caused some communication mis-understandings on my part at first. Once I settled down, I think I started to get it. In the end the Oral was a great learning experience and I'm the better pilot because of it. I think I'd have done much better if it was just a regular conversation and not an Oral/Check-Ride. Everyone said "Just have fun.... don't stress"... yeah, right. They do not know me. I don't stress in emergencies (like window iced over in unforcast and unexpected icing, and loosing my alternator all at the same time while flying from Chicago to Salt Lake City)... I handle those things OK I think. It's TESTS that I don't handle well. Tests of any type.
So, after the Oral, Lynn and I load up in the "Sister" plane. The airplane actually starts (yeah, there is a good sign) and I set the radios and so on. As I'm setting up the GPS the bells began to ring for the theme of the flight, "WE CAN'T MAKE THE GPS WORK!! BLAST IT!!". Up until the very end (where we figured out how to do the GPS approach for U42) we were sunk with respect to getting the approaches to work in the plane. Now in retrospect, I think I know how to have done it but that does you no good when you are on the flightline with the engine running and an examiner on the clock.
Lynn and I flew to Provo where we shot our approaches. We did a hold at FFU, did a DME ARC (part of the ILS and VOR/DME approach) and did our thing. My approaches were, frankly, pretty lame. They were within limits but I've done much better in the past. Lynn was very patient with me (I think he recognized I was nervous) and I'm thankful for that.
Finally we did some unusual attitudes and headed back to U42 where he finally managed to get the GPS to work and we shot that approach.
All in all, I was exhausted when we landed. When Lynn told me I passed I just wanted to jump up and down and shout to the heavens. Over 3 years of hard work, countless money and occasional frustration came to a fruitful end with my new rating, Insturment Airplane.
Wow.... now I need a nap!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The dangers or RMAN Autocataloging...
In later versions of RMAN (at least 11g) when you perform certain types of database recoveries and duplications RMAN will catalog the backups for you. This is handy if you have a newly recovered control file, since it will get all of the archived redo logs and backup sets cataloged for you.
I do a lot of RMAN testing where I create databases, drop them, re-create them, recover them, etc... I've noticed that this can have some odd impacts sometimes if you have old backups or archived redo logs from a previous version of that database. Say, for example you create an ORCL database, do a lot of stuff with it, delete it and create a new ORCL database. Sometimes RMAN will get weirded out when it tries to catalog the old backups or old archived redo logs.
I have not taken the time to try to figure out all the dynamics on what is going on here but I would recommend that anytime you remove a database and intend to re-create it, that you move the backups and old archived redo logs out of the FRA or the archivelog destination directories somewhere else if you need to keep them. This will make your RMAN life much easier.
I do a lot of RMAN testing where I create databases, drop them, re-create them, recover them, etc... I've noticed that this can have some odd impacts sometimes if you have old backups or archived redo logs from a previous version of that database. Say, for example you create an ORCL database, do a lot of stuff with it, delete it and create a new ORCL database. Sometimes RMAN will get weirded out when it tries to catalog the old backups or old archived redo logs.
I have not taken the time to try to figure out all the dynamics on what is going on here but I would recommend that anytime you remove a database and intend to re-create it, that you move the backups and old archived redo logs out of the FRA or the archivelog destination directories somewhere else if you need to keep them. This will make your RMAN life much easier.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
