ODC Appreciation Day : International conferences and making new friends

Background

Back in 2016 Tim aka ‘ORACLE-BASE’ launched the the first OTN (Oracle Technology Network) Appreciation Day, after the success of 2016 it was repeated again in 2017 under the new moniker of ODC (Oracle Developer Community).

Oracle Developer Community 2018

My ODC 2018 Blog post this year is about the amazing global Oracle community and the various events put on across the planet.

As an OracleAce and speaker, I am fortunate to get the opportunity to visit some fantastic countries, cities and venues. Experience different cultures, try local foods and make new friends, everywhere I go, the Oracle community is warm and welcoming and filled with passionate people who want to share experiences and ideas learn new things.

This year I have created some amazing memories, some of the highlights include:

• Skydiving at MadridFly
• A tour of Jerusalem
• Experiencing a genuinue Finnish sauna and impromptu singing.
• Drinking Polish vodka on a picture-perfect beach.

And many more, however the best thing about attending international conferences is catching up with old friends and hopefully making new ones

Looking forward to making some new memories and of course new friends at Oracle Open World in a couple of week. #SeeYouAtOpenWorld

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On-line migration of Oracle 18c filesystem datafiles to Oracle ASM

Background

Prior to Oracle 12c moving non-ASM data files required taking data files ‘offline’ and negotiating an outage with the business, since Oracle 12c this is has no longer been the case.

I was recently challenged with moving a good size filesystem 18c Oracle database from an existing storage platform to a new storage array.

Prepare ASM Disk Groups

Use sqlplus to create the ASM disk group directories e.g.
$ export ORACLE_SID=+ASM
$ sqlplus / as sysasm

Disk Group +DATA

SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP DATA ADD DIRECTORY ‘+DATA/PSTG’;
SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP DATA ADD DIRECTORY ‘+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE’;
SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP DATA ADD DIRECTORY ‘+DATA/PSTG/CHANGETRACKING’;
SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP DATA ADD DIRECTORY ‘+DATA/PSTG/TEMPFILE’;

Disk Group +CONTROL_REDO

SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP CONTROL_REDO ADD DIRECTORY ‘+CONTROL_REDO/PSTG’;
SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP CONTROL_REDO ADD DIRECTORY ‘+CONTROL_REDO/PSTG/CONTROLFILE’;
SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP CONTROL_REDO ADD DIRECTORY ‘+CONTROL_REDO/PSTG/ONLINELOG’;
SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP CONTROL_REDO ADD DIRECTORY ‘+CONTROL_REDO/PSTG/PARAMETERFILE’;

Disk Group +FRA

SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP FRA ADD DIRECTORY ‘+FRA/PSTG’;
SQL> ALTER DISKGROUP FRA ADD DIRECTORY ‘+FRA/PSTG/ARCHIVELOG’;

Identify Datafiles

column dname heading ‘Data File Name’ format a45
column filename heading ‘BCT File Name’ format a45
column tablespace_name heading ‘Tablespace Name’ format a25
column data_mb heading ‘Data MB’ format a10

select file_name as dname, tablespace_name, to_char(bytes/1024/1024,’999,999′) as data_mb from dba_data_files

Data File Name                             Tablespace Name Data MB
———————————————-  ————————- ——
/u02/oradata/PSTG/system01.dbf             SYSTEM  880
/u02/oradata/PSTG/sysaux01.dbf             SYSAUX  990
/u02/oradata/PSTG/sh.dbf                                   SH  512,000
/u02/oradata/PSTG/users01.dbf                  USERS  5
/u02/oradata/PSTG/soe.dbf                              SOE  512,000
/u02/oradata/PSTG/undotbs01.dbf    UNDOTBS1  400

On-line Datafile move

I have a previously blogged on using the Oracle 12c ALTER DATABASE MOVE DATAFILE command and you can see the full syntax  on the link above.

SQL> ALTER DATABASE MOVE DATAFILE ‘/u02/oradata/PSTG/system01.dbf’ TO ‘+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/system01.dbf’;
SQL> ALTER DATABASE MOVE DATAFILE ‘/u02/oradata/PSTG/sysaux01.dbf’ TO ‘+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/sysaux01.dbf’;
SQL> ALTER DATABASE MOVE DATAFILE ‘/u02/oradata/PSTG/sh.dbf’ TO ‘+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/sh.dbf’;
SQL> ALTER DATABASE MOVE DATAFILE ‘/u02/oradata/PSTG/users01.dbf’ TO ‘+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/users01.dbf’;
SQL> ALTER DATABASE MOVE DATAFILE ‘/u02/oradata/PSTG/undotbs01.dbf’ TO ‘+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/undotbs01.dbf’;

Monitor Move Progress

Below is a query which uses the V$SESSION_LONOPS view to report progress of the Online data file move operations.

column st heading ‘Start Time’ format a25
column time_remaining heading ‘Time|Remaining’
column elapsed_seconds heading ‘Elaspsed|Seconds’
column sofar heading ‘Sofar’ format a10
column total heading ‘Total’ format a10
column progress heading ‘Progress’ format a10
column message heading ‘Message’ format a100

select to_char(start_time,’DD-MON-YY hh24:mi:ss’) as st, time_remaining, elapsed_seconds, to_char(SOFAR/1024/1024,’999,999′) || ‘MB’ as sofar, to_char(TOTALWORK/1024/1024,’999,999′) || ‘MB’ as total, to_char((SOFAR/TOTALWORK)*100,’999′) || ‘%’ as progress, message from V$SESSION_LONGOPS;

Example Output

09-AUG-18 14:58:33 0 7 880MB 880MB 100%
Online data file move: data file 1: 922746880 out of 922746880 bytes done

09-AUG-18 15:01:07 0 7 990MB 990MB 100%
Online data file move: data file 3: 1038090240 out of 1038090240 bytes done

09-AUG-18 15:06:34 0 2767 512,000MB 512,000MB 100%
Online data file move: data file 5: 536870912000 out of 536870912000 bytes done

09-AUG-18 15:57:07 2757 38 6,962MB 512,000MB 1%
Online data file move: data file 2: 7300186112 out of 536870912000 bytes done

Updated Data file locations

We can check the file haven been relocated using the same query we ran earlier to identify the datafiles.

select file_name as dname, tablespace_name, to_char(bytes/1024/1024,’999,999′) as data_mb from dba_data_files;

Data File Name Tablespace Name Data MB
——————————————— ————————- ——–
+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/system01.dbf SYSTEM 880
+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/sysaux01.dbf SYSAUX 1,040
+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/sh.dbf SH 512,000
+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/users01.dbf USERS 5
+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/soe.dbf SOE 512,000
+DATA/PSTG/DATAFILE/undotbs01.dbf UNDOTBS1 400

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Creating new Oracle 18c ASM Disk Groups

Creating New Volumes

Create the new ASM volume(s) using your storage platform, for this blog I have created 3 volumes on a Pure FlashArray, simply providing names and sizes.

Create new ASM Volume(s)

Note the Volume serial numbers,  these will be used in the multipath configuration wwid (World Wide Identifier)

New ASM volumes

SCSI storage device serial numbers are universally unique. Each one starts with a 36bit (9 hexadecimal digit) vendor ID. Because the vendor ID is always the same for Pure Storage FlashArray volumes (3624a9370), it is omitted from the CLI and GUI displays.

Linux Configuration

Create multipath entries in  ‘/etc/multipath.conf’ for the 3 new volumes, in the examples below the wwid (World Wide Identifier) is set to Vendor ID + Serial number. e.g. ‘3624a9370’ + ‘ff551cc46aee54bf9000126ab’.
Note, the ‘wwid’ needs to be in lowercase and the ‘alias’ name for ASM disks needs to be less than 30 characters, alphanumeric and only use the ‘_ ‘ special character. 

Update multipath Configuration

Flush unused multipath devices

# multipath -F

Reload multipath configuration:

# service multipathd reload

Load and display multipath configuration, device mapper and other components

# multipath -v2
# multipath -ll

Oracle ASM Disk Discovery

Before we update our UDEV rules, lets check our Oracle ASM discovery disk string ‘ASM_DISKSTRING’.

Using asmcmd

ASMCMD> dsget
parameter:/u01/shared_config/ocr_configuration,  /dev/pureasm
profile:/u01/shared_config/ocr_configuration, /dev/pureasm

Using sqlplus

SQL> show parameter ASM_DISKSTRING;

asm_diskstring string /u01/shared_config/ocr_configuration, /dev/pureasm

We can now edit or create a UDEV rules file to reflect the ASM discovery string destination, the SYMLINK prefixes .

/etc/udev/rules.d/99-oracle-asmdevices.rules

Reload UDEV rules as the root user using ‘udevadm trigger’ to set ownership and create links to the ASM disk discovery directory.

ls -la /dev/pureasm

We can now ready to create the ASM Disk Groups using the SQLPlus or the Oracle ASM Configuration Assistant ‘asmca’ UI.

I repeated this 3 times, creating +DATA. +FRA and +CONTROL_REDO which I will use in my next Blog Post, where I plan to share how to migrate from a file systems to Oracle ASM.

asmca

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Oracle 18c disable / enable Archive Log Mode

Disable Archive Log Mode

[oracle@z-fbhost2 ~]$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 18.0.0.0.0 – Production on Wed Aug 8 10:17:47 2018
Version 18.3.0.0.0

Copyright (c) 1982, 2018, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Connected to an idle instance.

# Open database in mount state
SQL> startup mount
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 1.4227E+11 bytes
Fixed Size 29900024 bytes
Variable Size 2.2549E+10 bytes
Database Buffers 1.1919E+11 bytes
Redo Buffers 506970112 bytes
Database mounted.

# Check archive log status
SQL> archive log list;
Database log mode Archive Mode
Automatic archival Enabled
Archive destination USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST
Oldest online log sequence 11646
Next log sequence to archive 11646
Current log sequence 11647

# Disable archive log mode
SQL> alter database noarchivelog;

Database altered.

# Open Database
SQL> alter database open;

Database altered.

# Confirm archive log status
SQL> archive log list;
Database log mode No Archive Mode
Automatic archival Disabled
Archive destination USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST
Oldest online log sequence 11647
Current log sequence 11648

SQL> show parameter log_archive_start

NAME TYPE VALUE
———————————— ———– ——————————
log_archive_start boolean FALSE

Enable Archive Log Mode

Shutdown the database using ‘shutdown immediate’ rather than ‘abort’ to avoid “ORA-00265 instance recovery required, cannot set ARCHIVELOG mode”

[oracle@z-fbhost2 ~]$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 18.0.0.0.0 – Production on Wed Aug 8 10:31:01 2018
Version 18.3.0.0.0

Copyright (c) 1982, 2018, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Connected to an idle instance.

# Startup in mount state
SQL> startup mount
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 1.4227E+11 bytes
Fixed Size 29900024 bytes
Variable Size 2.2549E+10 bytes
Database Buffers 1.1919E+11 bytes
Redo Buffers 506970112 bytes
Database mounted.

# Check archive log status
SQL> archive log list;
Database log mode No Archive Mode
Automatic archival Disabled
Archive destination USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST
Oldest online log sequence 11648
Current log sequence 11649

# Enable archive log
SQL> alter database archivelog;

Database altered.

# Open database
SQL> alter database open;

Database altered.

# Check archive log status
SQL> archive log list;
Database log mode Archive Mode
Automatic archival Enabled
Archive destination USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST
Oldest online log sequence 11648
Next log sequence to archive 11649
Current log sequence 11649

Oracle 18c install DBCA failure – PRCR-1006 PRCR-1071 CRS-2566

Background

During my first Oracle 18c install I hit an installation issue with Oracle DBCA (Database Configuration Assistant) failing.

After looking at the installation log file “/u01/app/oraInventory/logs/InstallActions2018-07-26_12-18-47PM/installActions2018-07-26_12-18-47PM.log”

I could see the following:
…
PRCR-1006 : Failed to add resource ora.cdb1.db for cdb1
PRCR-1071 : Failed to register or update resource ora.cdb1.db
CRS-2566: User ‘oracle’ does not have sufficient permissions to operate on resource ‘ora.driver.afd’, which is part of the dependency specification.
…

Issue

The ‘oracle’ user primary group (dba) does not have privilege on ora.driver.afd

[oracle@z-oracle1 ~]$ id grid
uid=54331(grid) gid=1001(dba) groups=1001(dba),54321(oinstall),54333(asmdba),54334(asmoper),54335(asmadmin),54336(racdba)

[grid@z-oracle1 ~]$ id grid
uid=54331(grid) gid=1001(dba) groups=1001(dba),54321(oinstall),54333(asmdba),54334(asmoper),54335(asmadmin),54336(racdba)

Fix

Change the afd driver resource group to database user group e.g. ‘asmadmin’ to ‘dba’

[grid@z-oracle1 ~]$ crsctl stat res ora.driver.afd -p
…
ACL=owner:grid:rwx,pgrp:asmadmin:r-x,other::r–,user:grid:r-x
…

[grid@z-oracle1 ~]$ crsctl modify resource ora.driver.afd -attr “ACL=’owner:grid:rwx,pgrp:dba:r-x,other::r–,user:grid:r-x’ ” -init

[grid@z-oracle1 ~]$ crsctl stat res ora.driver.afd -p
…
ACL=owner:grid:rwx,pgrp:dba:r-x,other::r–,user:grid:r-x…

Once corrected I was able to resume the installation without any experiencing any further issues.

Hope this helps.

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Oracle 18c Grid Infrastructure installation

Preparation

[root@z-oracle1 ~]# cd /u01/app/18.0.0/grid/cv/rpm
[root@z-oracle1 rpm]# ls
cvuqdisk-1.0.10-1.rpm

[root@z-oracle1 rpm]# rpm -ivh cvuqdisk-1.0.10-1.rpm
Preparing… ################################# [100%]
Updating / installing…
1:cvuqdisk-1.0.10-1 ################################# [100%]

18c Grid Infrastructure installation

Confirm ‘grid’ owner groups.

[grid@z-oracle1 grid]$ id grid

uid=54331(grid) gid=1001(dba) groups=1001(dba),54321(oinstall),54333(asmdba),54334(asmoper),54335(asmadmin),54336(racdba)

Create 18c Grid Infrastructure Oracle Base, Home and admin directories e.g.

[grid@z-oracle1 ~]$mkdir -p /u01/app/18.0.0/grid
[grid@z-oracle1 ~]$mkdir /u01/app/grid

Launch installer from terminal capable of starting X session.

[grid@z-oracle1 grid]$ cd $GRID_HOME
[grid@z-oracle1 grid]$ ./gridSetup.sh

Select Clustered, non-clustered or software only installation

Step 1

Update the ASM disk discovery path (if required), and select disk path for your +DATA disk group.

Before I started the 18c installer I created 3 Pure Storage volumes and configured UDEV rules to help identification. I can now select my 1TB +DATA volume and set the Redundancy to ‘External’ as the storage platform will provide the required data protection.

Step 2

Provide ASM passwords and click ‘Next’

Step 3

Register with Oracle Enterprise Manager, I will skip this for now, ‘Next’

Step 4

Confirm Oracle ASM ‘grid’ account groups, click ‘Next’

Step 5

Confirm pre-created Oracle Base location.

Step 6

Select ‘Next’ and run root.sh in a separate terminal window when prompted

Step 7

Review 18c Grid Infrastructure summary and click ‘Install’ to confirm installation

Step 9

Run root.sh from root window.

root.sh

Wait for the script to start the 18c Grid Infrastructure services, once complete click ‘OK’.

Step 11

If all has gone well, you should be presented with a ‘successful’ installation screen.

Now, lets look at our first look at an 18c ASM instance, if you observant you will see I have created 2 additional ASM DiskGroups +FRA & + CONTROL_REDO.

Will check my previous Blogs and if missing will share how you can create ASM Diskgroups using ASMCLI or AMSCA (UI).

Come back in a few days to see my first 18c database Blog post.

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Adding new devices (VMware) to Linux without re-booting server

 

Background

Today, I found myself needing to add 3 new disks to one of my Oracle database server VMware VM’s, unfortunately I was unable to re-boot the server so I followed the steps below to add the new devices.

Create LUN’s using your storage platform and add add them to your Virtual Machine using your preferred  vSphere Client.

VMware vSphere Web Client – 3 new devices highlighted

Use yum to install sg3_utils

[root@z-oracle1 ~]# yum install sg3_utils

Use the Linux ‘fdisk’ command to list current devices

[root@z-oracle1 dev]# fdisk -l

Rescan SCSI bus using the rescan-sci-bus.sh script.

[root@z-oracle1 dev]# rescan-scsi-bus.sh
Scanning SCSI subsystem for new devices
Scanning host 0 for SCSI target IDs 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, all LUNs
Scanning for device 0 0 0 0 …
OLD: Host: scsi0 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: NECVMWar Model: VMware IDE CDR00 Rev: 1.00
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 05
Scanning host 1 for SCSI target IDs 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, all LUNs
Scanning host 2 for SCSI target IDs 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7, all LUNs
Scanning for device 2 0 0 0 …
OLD: Host: scsi2 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: VMware Model: Virtual disk Rev: 1.0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Scanning for device 2 0 1 0 …
…

Use ‘fdisk’ to identify new device names

[root@z-oracle1 dev]# fdisk -l
…
Disk /dev/sdi: 1099.5 GB, 1099511627776 bytes, 2147483648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 4194304 bytes

Disk /dev/sdj: 3298.5 GB, 3298534883328 bytes, 6442450944 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 4194304 bytes

Disk /dev/sdk: 1099.5 GB, 1099511627776 bytes, 2147483648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 4194304 bytes
…

We should now be able to see the device in /dev.

[root@z-oracle1 dev]# ls -l /dev/sd*
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 0 May 14 14:14 /dev/sda
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 1 May 14 14:14 /dev/sda1
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 2 May 14 14:14 /dev/sda2
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 16 May 14 14:14 /dev/sdb
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 32 Jul 23 14:31 /dev/sdc
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 48 Jul 23 14:30 /dev/sdd
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 64 Jul 23 14:31 /dev/sde
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 80 Jul 9 21:02 /dev/sdf
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 96 Jul 9 21:02 /dev/sdg
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 112 Jul 9 21:02 /dev/sdh
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 128 Jul 24 10:46 /dev/sdi
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 144 Jul 24 10:46 /dev/sdj
brw-rw—-. 1 root disk 8, 160 Jul 24 10:46 /dev/sdk

We are now ready to partition our new disks using ‘fdisk’ (n = new p = print w = write).

[root@z-oracle1 dev]# fdisk /dev/sdi
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.23.2).

Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

Device does not contain a recognized partition table
Building a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x1fea2f04.

Command (m for help): n
Partition type:
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended
Select (default p):
Using default response p
Partition number (1-4, default 1):
First sector (8192-2147483647, default 8192):
Using default value 8192
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G} (8192-2147483647, default 2147483647):
Using default value 2147483647
Partition 1 of type Linux and of size 1024 GiB is set

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdi: 1099.5 GB, 1099511627776 bytes, 2147483648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 4194304 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x1fea2f04

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdi1 8192 2147483647 1073737728 83 Linux
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

I then repeated for ‘/dev/sdj’ & ‘/dev/sdk’ and now ready to format the devices e.g. mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdi

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Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13c (13.3) deploy Plug-Ins

At the beginning of July Oracle released Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 13.3 so I thought it was a good time to see what has changed and also document how to import an OEM Plug-In.

To get started, I created a new Oracle 12.2 database and then installed OEM 13.3 following the steps produced by my good friend Tim Hall aka (  Oracle-Base )

Download Plug-Ins

A good place to get Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-In’s is from the Oracle Extensibility Exchange, here you will find many OEM Plug-Ins which have been developed by Oracle Partners and up-loaded for use by the Oracle Community.

Now search for the required OEM Plug-In

Once downloaded transfer the file to your OEM server ready for importing.

Import the Plug-In

Logon to Enterprise Manager from the command line:

[oracle@z-oem 13c]$ emcli login -username=sysman
Enter password 
Login successful

Use emcli to import the local opal file. e.g

[oracle@z-oem 13c]$ emcli import_update -file=”/u01/app/oracle/13c/13.2.0.1.0_vlss.pure.xvp1_2000_0.opar” -omslocal
Processing update: Plug-in – Enterprise Manager for Pure Storage Flash Array
Successfully uploaded the update to Enterprise Manager. Use the Self Update Console to manage this update.

Deploy Plug-In

From the main screen, select the Setup Cog, then select Extensibility and then Plug-ins.

From the Plug-Ins page, select the ‘Pure Storage FlashArray’ plug-in in the ‘Servers, Storage and Network’ section

Then select Deploy On and choose Management Servers.

If the prerequisites checks pass you can continue with the Plug-Ins workflow.

Provide sys credentials for the OEM repository, and then click ‘Next’

At the step 4 ‘Review’, hit ‘Deploy’ to initiate the deployment process.

Now Click on Status to monitor progress of the deployment.

If the Plug-In deploys successfully you will see the ‘Status’ change to a green tick.

You are now ready to configure and use the newly installed OEM 13c Plug-In

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Oracle Database Automation with Ansible AWX

In the video below I demonstrate how a simple Ansible playbook can be used to automate the cloning of multiple Oracle databases in parallel.

In the demo I use the AWX Web UI to run the playbook, the AWX project is an Open Source community project sponsored by RedHat, it can be considered the ‘bleed-in edge’ of RedHat Ansible Tower.

AWX is designed to be fast moving and is where the development takes place before being hardened and making it’s way into the enterprise ready RedHat supported Ansible Tower solution.

AWX is great from lab work, but for all Production workloads I would strongly recommend that Ansible Tower is considered.

Pure Code Developer Community

Visit the Pure Code Developer Community and click on the ‘Ansible Playbook Examples’ card to be directed to the public GitHub repository, you will find this and other Oracle playbook examples.

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Getting started with Ansible and Windows

Background

I spend most of my time working with Linux but occasionally I come across Oracle on Windows, so I thought it’s about time that I tried my hand at using Ansible on Windows.

Ansible on Windows

You can not currently run Ansible on Windows, but you can manage Windows servers from a Linux or Mac Ansible control machine.

Ansible uses ‘SSH’ to manage Linux servers, on Windows Ansible requires ‘winRM’ Windows Remote Manager services. The Ansible docs details prerequisites, which include PowerShell v3 and .Net 4.0 and winRM, the steps to set-up winRM can be found here.

If you read my previous Blog Post Getting started with Ansible and Oracle you will have seen me use ‘ping’ to check connectivity to a Linux server, to do this in a Windows environment we use ‘win_ping’ module via the -m option.

You can see that the Ansible ‘ping’ and ‘win_ping’ both return the familiar ‘pong’ message, indicating good connectivity.

Ok, that’s pretty cool, now let’s try running the Windows ‘whoami.exe’ using the ‘win_command’ module.

And a quick ‘Hello World’ test via PowerShell and the ‘win_shell’ module.

Next steps, create some Windows playbooks and test, but that’s for another Blog.

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