Oracle NZ - Francisco Munoz Alvarez

I’m writing this post due that I receive this question almost once a week regarding OEM installations.
If you see this error when installing your Oracle Enterprise Manager (Grid Control 10.2.0.3) at OEL 5 or RHEL 5:

/home/oracle/OracleHomes/oms10g/Apache/Apache/bin/httpd: error while loading shared libraries: libdb.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Don’t panic, all you need to do is:

1. Connect as root
2. Run : ln -s /usr/lib/libgdbm.so.2.0.0 /usr/lib/libdb.so.2
3. Problem solved, for more information please refer to: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/relnotes.102/b15659/toc.htm#CJAHFHCJ

Kind Regards,

Francisco Munoz Alvarez

The EM (Enterprise Manager) Desktop Widgets are lightweight internet applications that provide persistent desktop access to key Enterprise Manager monitoring and diagnostic information.

Oracle first released the EM Widgets at August 2009, now at December 2009; Oracle has already 3 different Widgets available, they are

• Target Search Monitoring - Provides access to Enterprise Manager Targets via quick and easy target-searching capabilities. Also allows you to mark targets as “favourites” and monitor their status in real time.

• High-Load Databases - Provides a summary of the top 5 databases ordered by the Average Active Sessions performance or load metric. Also provides access to recent ADDM findings (license required) and drill-down to performance pages of monitored databases.

• Service Level & Monitoring - Provides a snapshot of the health of the services, and presents a consolidated view of the most important service data such as availability and current alerts along with the service level. (Require apply the) Enterprise Manager patch# 8869802 before running this widget. 

If you are a DBA and want to try them, please refer to this link to download them: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oem/widgets/index.html

Kind Regards,

Francisco Munoz Alvarez

Don’t miss the global launch webcast of Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Release 5, this will be the 03/03/2009 09:00 AM (Pacific Standard Time), to assist please register here.

In the webcast you will learn about key new capabilities like:

• New Siebel 8.1.1 support, New management capabilities for Oracle Beehive and Oracle BRM
• New monitoring accelerators for Oracle Applications
• Comprehensive management for Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Service Bus
• More Oracle Database advisors, Real-time SQL monitoring, New security management, New cloning and masking automation and New change management automation
• New grid automation capabilities
• New virtualization management with an application perspective - manage both physical and virtual environments in a single console!

You can Download the OEM 10GR5  for Microsoft Windows 32-Bit and Linux x86  here.

Save this date on your agenda, and enjoy it

By Francisco Munoz Alvarez

Before you start with an installation of Grid Control, I’ll recommend you to go thru the documentation to understand all the minimum requirements and the installation process. For reference purpose, I’ll resume some important points of it here.

Let’s start taking  a close look in the components of the Grid Control  and some important information:

The Management Service uploads the monitoring data received from the Management Agents to the Management Repository. The Management Repository then organizes all data collected, so that it can be retrieved by the Management Service and displayed in the Grid Control console, making our life easy. Because all data is stored in the Management Repository, it can be shared between any number of administrators accessing the Grid Control console.

Licensing Information

Although the installation media in your media pack contain many Oracle components, you are permitted to use only those components for which you have purchased licenses. Oracle Support Services does not provide support for components for which licenses have not been purchased. For more information please refer to Oracle Enterprise Manager Licensing Information.

Oracle Directory

If you choose to install Enterprise Manager Grid Control using a new database on a computer with no other Oracle software installed, Oracle Universal Installer creates an Oracle base directory for you. If Oracle software is already installed, then one or more Oracle base directories already exist. In the latter case, you must specify the Oracle base directory into which you want to install Oracle Database.

You are not required to create an Oracle base directory before installation, but you can do so if desired. You can set the ORACLE_BASE environment directory to point to this directory, which the Oracle Universal Installer will recognize.

Multiple Oracle Home Support

Enterprise Manager is installed on multiple Oracle homes within the Oracle base directory. This means that a typical Enterprise Manager Grid Control installation creates three Oracle homes in different Oracle home directories. For example, oms10g, db10g, and agent10g.

Permissions Required for Executing UTL_FILE

The management audit log package of the scheme owner uses the UTIL package. For this package to function properly, the Enterprise Manager schema user (for example, sysman) must have permissions to execute this package.

To grant permissions, run this command (where sysman is the schema user):

grant execute on utl_file to sysman;

Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Certification Matrix

Before you download the software, Oracle recommends you to read the Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Certification matrix. The certification matrix shows the operating systems and browser versions on which Enterprise Manager Grid Control and Management Agent are certified.

The Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Certification matrix is available on Oracle Metalink at:

https://metalink.oracle.com/

Login and select the Certify tab. On the Certify page, click View Certifications by Product and select Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control, and then click Submit.

Preinstallation Requirements for Enterprise Manager

For small environments (100 monitored targets):

• 1 Host with 1 CPU (3GHz) 2 GB RAM and 2 GB Space to install the Oracle Management Service.
• 1 Host with 1 COU (3GHz) 2 GB RAM and 10 GB space to the Oracle Management Repository

Note: On small environments it’s ok to share the same host for the Oracle Management Service and Repository.

• 400 MB hard disk space to install the Oracle Management Agent for all Unix platforms and 500 MB for Windows,

For information regarding Preinstallation requirements, please refer to the OEM Documentation here.

Certified Enterprise Manager Targets

This is a resume of the list, for full list, please refer to the documentation.

Note: Oracle recommends that the target host on which you are installing the Management Agent have a static IP address and not DHCP.

Reference material: Enterprise Manager Grid Control Installation and Basic Configuration Guide.

If you are using LINUX/Windows the hostname credentials should be the same user who has installed the oracle  database software, if Windows the user you are using need to be member of the ORA_DBA group and have Local Security privilege ‘Log on as a batch job’.

What you need to do is go to:

 Start—->

Programs—->

Admin tools—->

Local security policy —>

Local policies —>

User rights assignments

In the list to your right, look for ‘Log on as a batch job’, double click and add the same OS local user you using to access OEM web to the group.

I hope this tips will help you  solve your problem

Cheers,

Francisco Munoz Alvarez

1. Ensure the Oracle database version can be monitored by Grid Control in Metalink article “Note 412431.1  Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Grid Control Checker”.
2. Request firewall ports to be opened for 2 way traffic between your target and your Grid Control server. Test by issuing telnet commands on port 4889 from your target to your Grid Control server.
3. Download the appropriate agent software version according to the Metalink note above. The downloads are about 500Mb and are here http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/oem/htdocs/agentsoft.html
4. Install the software according to Oracle’s installation documentation on their website. When the installer asks for the Repository server, add the IP of your Grid Control server port 4889.  The agent registration password is the current SYSMAN password5.      Ensure an “agent” entry has been added to the Oratab file on your target server. If not, add one yourself 

Post Installation Configuration: 

1. Add your target machine name to the grid control server hosts table.
2. Add GC machine name to target hosts table.
3. All licensed options are selected by default when you add install a new agent. To remove them go into SETUP – MANAGEMENT PACK ACCESS. “Search Database” and ensure all boxes are unchecked. “Search Host” and ensure all boxes are unchecked.
4. Logon to Grid Control and add passwords in PREFERENCES – PREFERRED CREDENTIALS. Enter passwords for HOST, DATABASE and ASM (if using ASM)
5. Now add the DBSNMP monitoring password. Go to TARGETS - ALL TARGETS - “Targets Not Configured”. Click on the number next to “Targets Not Configured” which is a hyperlink. Locate the target from your new server and click Configure. Then you will then enter DBMSP password. Set this is the SYS password. Save click NEXT, SUBMIT, OK.
6. Turn on default Alerts on PREFERENCES – RULES. Check “Database Availability and Critical States” and click CREATE LIKE. Copy this rule and append your site name to the rule name, eg “Database Availability and Critical States XXXX”. Save this new rule and check PUBLIC. Click SETUP-ADMINISTRATORS-CREATE and add a new SYSMAN account and email address to receive these alerts. Eg XXXX_SYSMAN.
7. If desired customize your database alert log monitoring. Follow Metalink Note:405396.1 and Note:330996.1. 

 Cheers,

Francisco Munoz Alvarez