Clusterware Uninstall

Sometimes I really miss the old days. Of course, someone my age saying that really doesn't mean much compared to someone that lived through World War II. When I started in IT there was no www, texting, cell phones in your pocket, or USB coffee warmers. My current lament is remembering the Oracle installer when it was all command line, java was another word for coffee, and an uninstall on Unix meant "rm -rf".

Where is this going? As the title of this post suggests, I had to recently uninstall Oracle Clusterware. I am working on a project to bring a new application on board and we are using an active/passive failover model using Oracle Clusterware. This model is something I have worked on several times and did a presentation at Collaborate 08 on the topic. So, I was going along installing away, having installed OCFS2, created voting and OCR disks and then installing Clusterware. The initial install went great until I realized that I had installed into a non-standard location compared to our other clusters. After the initial "Oh Crap" moment, I just figured I would uninstall what I did and install into a new home. This is where the fun began.

Of course, I realized this was not going to be as easy as ./runInstaller and remove the Clusterware install. I did not figure that it would cost me an entire day! After running the installer and removing the Clusterware home, I received an error saying that the directory could not be removed from the other node. No problem, I'll go remove it. So, I thought I was clean. No more Clusterware directory, no more Clusterware home in the inventory because I ran the installer. Boy was I wrong.

To make this long story a little shorter, I'll get to the end of what turned out to be four install/uninstall cycles. And, by the way, looking at Metalink, the only document I could find was removing from Windows. I am on Linux and it is not supposed to be this difficult! Okay, enough whining...

1. Make sure the crs and css processes have been stopped. This should have been as easy as going to /etc/init.d and issuing the init.crsd stop and init.cssd stop, but this did not stop all processes. After all the deletions and cleanup, the only way I could really get rid of the processes was to kill them as root.
2. After issuing the stop commands, delete the init.crs, init.crsd, init.cssd, and init.evmd files from the /etc/init.d directory on both nodes.
3. Edit the /etc/inittab file and remove the lines at the bottom that start the init.evmd, init.cssd, and init.crsd
4. Remove the init.crs symbolic link from /etc/rc.d/rc0.d, rc1.d, rc2.d, rc3.d, rc4.d, rc5.d, and rc6.d. This link will start with K## where the ## is a number. Mine looks like K96init.crs and is a symbolic link back to /etc/init.d/init.crs
5. Remove the physical Oracle home directory that Clusterware was installed in.
6. Reboot! I know, it seems very Windowsish, but it was the only way to make sure all the pieces of crs and css were out of memory.

Having done all of that, I was finally able to reinstall into my new Oracle home. So, the moral of my story... make sure you are following your own standards before starting!

See you in 10 days at Oracle OpenWorld. Don't forget about User Group Forum Sunday.

Linux and Virtualization at OpenWorld #oow09

I had a very productive discussion with several people from the Oracle Linux and Virtualization team yesterday in preparation for the Linux Roundtable session on Sunday at OpenWorld. The session is going to start with an introduction to the Linux team and the Virtualization team by the directors of those technical organizations. We will then have questions and answers for them along with the remaining panel members who are all presenting topics on Linux. This should be a lively discussion and I'm looking forward to facilitating and getting some of my own questions answered.

Topics for the session will include validated configurations, why the Virtualization team chose Xen, patching cycles, how are bugs reported and fixed, and anything else the audience chooses to throw at the panel. This really should be a good combination of how Oracle thinks the technologies are being used and what they are doing to facilitate that use complimented with how real world users are doing. Don't miss the session for anything Oracle on Linux and Virtualization. The session is Sunday, October 11 at 10:30.

For the remaining Linux and Virtualization topics check out this post which lists all of Oracle's sessions. If you are coming to OpenWorld drop me a comment and let me know. I'd love to touch base with people. You will also be able to find me pretty much all day at the User Group forum on Sunday.

For now, I'm on the train on my way to Chicago for our inaugural IOUG/Chicago Oracle Users Group Regional BI Event. Should be very interesting and I'll let everyone know how it goes. Check out the upcoming events here. Upcoming sessions include Pittsburgh and Boston and plans are in the works for several others.

OpenWorld 09: T-minus one month!

Only a month remains for me to finish my presentation... yikes! Actually, the biggest problem I am having now is an open Service Request that is in development for a PeopleSoft Plug-in issue after we upgraded our PeopleTools version. Hopefully that will be resolved in the next month. It will be pretty hard to present, "look how cool this is" if it isn't working properly.

Sunday, I will be part of two sessions that I am pretty excited about. Sunday is User Group Forum day at OpenWorld and I promise there is something here for everyone. I am facilitating a Linux Roundtable discussion and a Software Security Assurance Team Town Hall meeting. Both should be fascinating. The Linux discussion will be anything to do with running Oracle technology on Linux. We will have someone from the development teams at Oracle for Linux and Virtualization, along with a some other customers that are Linux users. The Software Security Assurance Town Hall is your chance to ask all those questions you have not had a chance to ask about Security Assurance. We will have Oracle managers and directors that have responsibility for security development. Oracle Configuration Manager, My Oracle Support, Critical Patch Updates, and application security are all on the table for discussion.

Those are just my sessions (not that I'm biased of course) and all the users groups have sessions going on. Make sure to sign up for the OpenWorld Content Builder and reserve your seat for those Sunday sessions. Some of them are filling up already! There are sessions on upgrades, Exadata, BI, Spatial technologies, Content Management, RAC, APEX, Portal technologies and more. I'm starting to sound like a TV pitch man... "and that's not all!"

Of course technical content is only half the story. Who isn't looking forward to Aerosmith and being able to network and meet new people. I know I'm looking forward to catching up with some people I haven't seen since Collaborate! One way to do this for Oracle bloggers is at the Blogger Meetup that Alex Gorbachev has picked up the organizer responsibility for (thanks Alex!). Should be a good opportunity to put a face with a blog.

I better go see if I have any updates from Oracle Support... hint, hint! See you all in San Francisco.