What a horrible week it’s been from a technical perspective.
I decided mid-way through the previous week that I was going to bite the bullet, give up on DTrace for a while and install Linux on the server so I could run the PX tests on 11g. Then Jeff Moss sent me an email to say he had done so already, which was very decent of him. He blogged about one of the results here.
However, I’d already made my decision so spent the small gaps between normal life last weekend downloading Oracle Enterprise Linux and 11g. The Linux installation appeared to go swimmingly and I must admit I rarely work with the good installation guides that you’ll find on websites like Howard’s, Tim’s and Werner’s because I find things go pretty smoothly these days. (I wish that seemed funnier to me than it does at the moment!) For some reason, probably video driver related, the server appears to boot up fine and then switches the monitor off. It was late on Sunday night so I abandoned it. The server’s not going anywhere and I don’t use the server for anything else.
Besides, I was simultaneously installing 10g Grid Control on the PC running Vista. We’re probably going to start using it at work so I thought it was prudent to have it set up at home too. That also appeared to be going well until the Agent Configuration Assistant failed. Great. Another failed installation abandoned on the same Sunday night. Still, Monday would be better, right?
My colleague Richard, who sits beside me and is blind, asked if I would help out with his Grid Control installation. Oracle software is always a struggle because the OUI is completely invisible to him. The message windows in the GUI don’t appear as text to his speech software or braille keyboard. You can imagine how frustrating that is and I trust it’s something Oracle will correct in future.
Monday was the first attempt, which appeared to get stuck on the OMS Configuration Assistant but, when I looked at Process Manager and the Database Instance, there was plenty of activity, so we left it running overnight.
It was still running the next morning! There were around 60 sessions running in the database but the whole thing looked a mess. I only wish I could remember more of the detail. So we decided to wait until the afternoon, deinstall everything and have another go. This time the OMS failed more or less instantly.
But, even in the middle of miserable experiences, there’s normally humour lurking around. You can imagine how boring this activity was from Richard’s point of view, listening to me floundering around and cursing, but not sensing much progress! Fortunately he has a cool, if somewhat bulky, braille-based PDA which he would fiddle around with occasionally, pretending he was listening to me. At one point I asked what he was doing and it turned out he was reading Tom Kyte’s latest book! I’d raved about Expert One-on-One and then we noticed there’s an electronic edition of the latest book, so Richard downloaded it and has been enjoying it a lot as I knew he would. That put me in my place – while I floundered around, he was devouring the words of a real expert. You can imagine how offended I was after all of my dedicated clicking! 😉
By now, though, my next installation was looming – Oracle Procedural Gateway 10 for Websphere MQ. If I didn’t think work could get any worse, it was about to!
Even the thought of it is tiring and depressing though. It’s not a product I’ve ever installed, no-one has ever used the 10g version at my current site and I was half-way through before I discovered the existing installation document we have, which covers the fairly detailed post-installation steps you need to follow to get the damn thing working. However, things have changed a little with 10g and despite following them pretty carefully, two days later, with a lot of pressure being applied to deliver, it still isn’t working and will be sitting there waiting for me when I get into work in the morning.
All I can say is, thank goodness that the Oracle 9.2.0.8 patching on the most important VMS instances that I was supposed to do this morning was cancelled because an earlier change to the backup infrastructure failed! 😉
So, a pretty miserable week, but it occurred to be me that as I identify and solve some of these problems, they might make useful blog material this week. That’s why I thought I’d include an extended moaning session here.
Now it’s time for bed and an early start on the OPG installation in the morning. Or shall I take a look at that Agent on the PC?
Definitely!
I had a very lucky escape there.
COMMENT_DELETED
I’m not sure what that has to do with this blog entry. Perhaps another one here somewhere?
Spam?
I don’t think so as it doesn’t contain any links and does relate to another blog posting. That’s why I left it in …
If you click on the link (http;//about%20blank/, made a type here on purpose), the following is shown in a new window…(very short though)…
“Intranet is now turned off by default. Intranet settings are less secure than Internet settings. Click for options…”
In other words it triggers modifications of your security settings, what the general effect is, I don’t know yet
Thanks, Marco. I live and learn. Comment deleted.
This IS spam. I got a lot of those the last two / three weeks. Somehow it is generated and strangely enough it looks harmless… Only because of the volume and because of the same sort of content I now marked it on my site as spam.
I used, installed, configured Oracle Enterprise Linux V5 with Oracle 11.1.0.6. Despite some (not related Oracle) quirks, it was a breeze. Send me a mail, maybe I can help on certain stuff
In between blogging? My ADSL supplier speedxs.nl upgraded their webserver with advance notice. This messed up my WordPress. I can’t post anything anymore and apparently I have to find out how I can fix their mess. They only talk about restoring the backup – and that won’t fix it as far as I can see now…
ehhh, without notice, I meant.
To be a little bit more specific, they upgraded from mySQL 4 to mySQL 5 (without notice) and because I also see now some memory problems on the website, I suspect that they limited memory usage.
Send me a mail, maybe I can help on certain stuff
That would be no fun! I’ll have another try one evening this week. Maybe 😉
Try this (if it helps with your misery): http://awads.net/wp/2007/09/10/warning-do-not-use-this-new-oracle-database-11g-feature/
I know more but now I wont tell you anymore – LOL 😎
Yes, Doug, whilst appreciated, I do, occasionally, wonder if my PC will ever be the same again!
However, as far as the general Oracle installation process is concerned…where do I start? Whilst I can (I think) understand the sentiment behind the OUI, I do feel that it could have been written in a more accessible way, eg with the use of more standard controls. There is a Sun plug-in available to assist in providing access to Java controls but this is dependenton the developers making use of basic features rather than customising for the sake of customising! However, if we assume that the OUI will never improve and should, therefore, be written off as a bad job, there should be a usable and rliable alternative.
Now, Oracle do go partially along this road by allowing the use of response files for hands-free installation. I freely admit that I am a novice in the use of these files but, I must own up to finding their use both ‘unfriendly’, error-prone and lacking in the features they offr compared to the OUI. Whilst the last two poins may require more effort to resolve – albeit effort which must be expended if the approach is to continue – the provision of a more friendly ‘interface’ should, in fact, be child’s play.
rather than having to edit the response files, why not prompt for input? The fact that you wouldn’t be able to have a generic solution across platforms doesn’t seem to be the issue (although I did believe that cross-platform deployment was behind the OUI) since Oracle already have OS-specific utilities for this type of thing, eg emca.bat under Windows. Consequently, with no philosophical shift and with very little effort, Oracle could easily create an install process which was truly accessible to all.
I apologise here and now if this prompted-input approach for software installs is already available but, if so, I haven’t come across it to date.
Now back to Grid Control at some point!
Now back to Grid Control at some point!
Please! No!
Hopefully someone at Oracle happens to see your comments about the installer, though. Maybe we should raise an SR?
they should re-introduce a character based version of the installer…
once you got around the ORATERM stuff it
just worked 😉
Yep! What on earth was it called again, though? orainst?
Not bad memory for an old man. 😉 (I know I’ll regret I said that!)
“./orainst /c” to be sure or “./orainst /m” for early GUI adopters.
When did GUI mode first appear, btw?
When did GUI mode first appear, btw?
I really don’t know, and that’s the sign of an old man! It’s always longer ago than I think, too (another sign!).
Best guess – late version 7?
Ah, but you know, Doug, age doesn’t usually come by itself…it’s usually accompanied by other endearing traits such as cynicism and scepticism; re-introduction of a useful/usable feature???