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Out of Place ( OOP ) Patching of GI and Database Homes

  • Updated
  • Products: FlashGrid Cluster on Azure
  • Products: FlashGrid Cluster on GCP
  • Products: FlashGrid Server on AWS
  • Products: FlashGrid Cluster on AWS
  • Products: FlashGrid Server on Azure
  • Products: FlashGrid Server on GCP

This document explains additional steps that need to be performed in FlashGrid cluster/server environments when following the standard Oracle out-of-place (OOP) patching procedure.

Choose the Patching Method

Choose the patching method based on the Oracle Grid Infrastructure version:

GI Version Patching Method
19c Both in-place patching using OPatch/OPatchAuto and out-of-place patching can be used, depending on the environment and patching requirements.
26ai Oracle recommends using out-of-place patching with Gold Images for quarterly GI RUs. The use of OPatch and OPatchAuto for out-of-place patching is deprecated.

The FlashGrid-specific steps below apply to out-of-place patching, whether Gold Images or OPatchAuto is used.

Prerequisites

FlashGrid deployments have swap disabled by design. This prevents brown-out scenarios in case of low memory. However, some Oracle utilities still check for swap enabled for historical reasons.

It is possible to create a swap file once and reuse it for future patching. If a swap file was already created during a previous patching process, you can skip the first step and start from the second step.

1. Create a temporary 1GB swapfile:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024k count=1024 oflag=direct
# chown root:root /swapfile
# chmod 600 /swapfile
# mkswap  /swapfile

2. Activate the swap file before patching

# swapon /swapfile

3. Follow the patching procedure and return back to this page

4. Deactivate the swap file

# swapoff /swapfile

It is important to note that you should not leave the swap file enabled after patching. The swap file should be activated prior to patching only and then deactivated afterward. Failing to deactivate the swap file can result in performance issues and instability in the system.

Before Patching Grid Infrastructure Home

This step is required only for flashgrid-sf versions earlier than 26.08. For version 26.08 or later, skip this step. To confirm version of the installed flashgrid-sf RPM run: rpm -q flashgrid-sf

On each DB node before applying the patch on that node stop flashgrid_asm.service:

# systemctl stop flashgrid_asm.service

Complete the Grid Infrastructure patching procedure on the node before proceeding to the post-patch steps.

After Patching Grid Infrastructure Home

Start flashgrid_asm.service

This step is required only for flashgrid-sf versions earlier than 26.08.

On each DB node after applying the patch on that node start flashgrid_asm.service:

# systemctl start flashgrid_asm.service

Modify User Profiles

Ensure that the Oracle Grid Infrastructure Home path is updated in the following files:

  • /home/fg/.bashrc
  • /home/grid/.bashrc
  • /root/.bashrc

For example, if there is the original home path in one of these files:

export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/19.3.0/grid
export PATH=/u01/app/19.3.0/grid/bin:$PATH

Change it to the new GI home path:

export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/19.3.0/grid_oop
export PATH=/u01/app/19.3.0/grid_oop/bin:$PATH

Modify /etc/oratab (only for Single-Instance Databases)

Note: Follow the steps in this section only if you use Single-Instance Databases.

There are two types of entries in /etc/oratab:

  • managed by Oracle Restart - they have the # line added by Agent comment:

    +ASM:/u01/app/19.3.0/grid:N             # line added by Agent 
    orcl:/u01/app/oracle/product/12.2.0/dbhome_1:N          # line added by Agent

  • non-managed by Oracle Restart - those are without the comment

    asm:/u01/app/19.3.0/grid:N
exampledb:/u01/app/oracle/product/12.2.0/dbhome_1:N

    When you have any non-managed by Oracle Restart entries, update them accordingly to point them to the clone home path:

    asm:/u01/app/19.3.0/grid_oop:N
exampledb:/u01/app/oracle/product/12.2.0/dbhome_oop:N

After Patching Database Home

Note This section should be skipped when out of place Patching is applied only to Grid Infrastructure. Otherwise, follow the steps below.

Modify User Profiles

Ensure that the Database Home path is updated in /home/oracle/.bashrc.

For example, if there is the original home path:

export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/19.3.0/dbhome_1
export PATH=/u01/app/oracle/product/19.3.0/dbhome_1/bin:$PATH

Change it to the new Database Home path:

export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/19.3.0/dbhome_oop
export PATH=/u01/app/oracle/product/19.3.0/dbhome_oop/bin:$PATH

Modify /etc/oratab (only for Single-Instance Databases)

The steps are the same as in Modify /etc/oratab (only for Single-Instance Databases).