If you are wondering why anyone would possibly need to Install Oracle VM Manager in such an unsupported way, please read my previous Oracle VM 3 related blog post.
In this post, I will share with you my experience installing OVMM 3.0.3 under OVM 3.0.3 Dom0 host, including:
- A short and sweet action plan to get it up and running ASAP
- A detailed explanation with error messages and solutions
- Clean run output
What you need
Here is a list of things you will need to get started:
- A host with Oracle VM Server 3.0.3 installed, and at least 4GB of RAM (I used the ISO file V29655-01.iso from Oracle eDelivery to install the VM Server)
NOTE: I increased the default root volume size to 8GB and swap partition to 16GB. This allowed me to install OVMM under the root volume.
- Oracle VM Manager 3.0.3 installation media (I used the V29653-01.iso image file).
- bc RPM (I used bc-1.06-21.x86_64.rpm, just Google it to get the RPM)
- A bit of time ;) It may take you ~1-2 hours, depending on luck and hardware speed. The OVMM installation took 25 minutes in my case.
Short and sweet instructions to get things up and running ASAP
- Install the “bc” RPM (see “What you need” above) on the VM Server.
“bc” is used by scripts to calculate the SGA_TARGET init.ora parameter. If you miss installing it, the XE database creation will fail.
- Edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file.
Change ” kernel /xen.gz dom0_mem=582M” line to ” kernel /xen.gz dom0_mem=4000M” and restart the VM Server. This effectively increases the RAM available for your Dom0 host. You can reduce it after the installation; in my case, I reduced it to 2G. Please let me know how low you manage to go :)
- Add an “oracle” Linux user and a “dba” group.
groupadd dba useradd oracle -g dba
- Add the following 2 lines to /etc/security/limits.conf file.
* soft nofile 65536 * hard nofile 65536
- Create an empty “/u01” directory.
mkdir /u01
- Adjust one of the installation scripts:
- Start runInstaller.sh.
- Select “1: Demo” as first answer.
- Just before confirming by answering ” 1: Continue,” open a second ssh session and edit the “/tmp/ovmm-installer.selfextract_*/ovm/installer/prerequisites.py” file.
- Find “def verifyLinuxVersion(self)” section and replace two “return False” lines with “return True”.
After this step just sit back, relax and finish the installation, entering passwords and providing default answers.
Detailed explanation with error messages and solutions
This section describes issues and solutions I came up with in chronological order. Most probably you will face these in the order I’ve listed below, if you don’t implement the solutions I provided in the previous section :)
PIT STOP 1
[[email protected] ~]# /u03/runInstaller.sh Please select an installation type: 1: Demo 2: Production 3: Uninstall 4: Help Select Number (1-4): 1 1: Continue 2: Abort Select Number (1-2): 1 Verifying installation prerequisites ... Oracle VM Manager can only be installed on a 64 bit Oracle Linux version 5.5 and higher. Current version is 'redhat' version '3.0.3' Not enough memory. At least 1500 MB RAM is required but only 580 MB RAM available User 'oracle' does not exist, create this user before installing hardnofiles should be set to 8192 but was 0 Directory or mountpoint /u01 is required Configuration verification failed ... [[email protected] ~]#
This is where the installer complains about 5 of the 6 issues I encountered. Items 2 through 6 in the above section provide the fixes I came up with for all 5 issues. The only tricky one I think is the OS version check. I didn’t find any other way to convince installer to ignore the fact that we are trying to install OVMM on version ‘3.0.3’ of the operating system. Effectively, I just disabled the check. :) The trick is that the script where we should make the adjustment isn’t available before we start the installer. Therefore, we should start it before we even try to adjust the script.
NOTE: Be sure to delete “/tmp/ovmm-installer.selfextract_*” directories after any unsuccessful installation. Otherwise, you will end up with multiple installation staging areas.
PIT STOP 2
Later on during the installation, after providing passwords and answering other questions, you may possibly find an XE database configuration step failing as follows:
... Do you want Oracle Database 11g Express Edition to be started on boot (y/n) [y]: Starting Oracle Net Listener...Done Configuring database... Database Configuration failed. Look into /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/config/log for details
You may also discover the following error message in one of the log files.
[[email protected] ~]# cat /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/config/log/CloneRmanRestore.log LRM-00116: syntax error at 'sessions' following '=' ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters ...
The problem here is that the installer scripts use the “bc” Linux utility to calculate a value to be assigned to the sga_target init.ora parameter. “bc” isn’t installed as part of Oracle VM Server 3.0.3. Therefore, we should install it (see item 1 under previous section) to address the issue.
Clean run output
NOTE: I have provided some additional steps I used before kicking off the installation. You may find these useful as well.
-- Initial Setup [[email protected] ~]# df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda3 7.8G 635M 6.8G 9% / /dev/sda1 99M 37M 58M 39% /boot tmpfs 296M 6.5M 289M 3% /dev/shm none 291M 40K 291M 1% /var/lib/xenstored [[email protected] ~]# grep -i total /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 594432 kB SwapTotal: 16779884 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB [[email protected] ~]# -- Adding Partition to store installation media -- Added 50GB external partition (Extended + Logical on top of it) [[email protected] ~]# fdisk /dev/sda Re-reading the partition table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy. -- To resolve the warning without rebooting [[email protected] ~]# partprobe /dev/sda -- Making filesystem [[email protected] ~]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda5 [[email protected] ~]# mkdir /u02 [[email protected] ~]# grep u02 /etc/fstab /dev/sda5 /u02 ext3 defaults 0 0 [[email protected] ~]# mount /u02 [[email protected] ~]# df -h /u02 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda5 47G 181M 45G 1% /u02 [[email protected] ~]# -- Mount Oracle VM Manager installation ISO [[email protected] ~]# mkdir /u03 [[email protected] ~]# mount -o loop /u02/V29653-01.iso /u03 [[email protected] ~]# df -h /u03 Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /u02/V29653-01.iso 2.4G 2.4G 0 100% /u03 [[email protected] ~]# -- Starting installation [[email protected] ~]# /u03/runInstaller.sh Oracle VM Manager Release 3.0.3 Installer Oracle VM Manager Installer log file: /tmp/ovmm-installer.selfextract_QB7274/install-2012-01-28-152236.log Please select an installation type: 1: Demo 2: Production 3: Uninstall 4: Help Select Number (1-4): 1 Starting demo installation ... The Demo installation type will use an XE database. The usage of XE is for *demo purposes only* and is not supported for production. Please *do not* plan to start with XE and migrate to a supported version of the database as this may not be possible. For production environments or any long term usage please use the "Production" option with an SE or EE database. 1: Continue 2: Abort Select Number (1-2): 1 Verifying installation prerequisites ... Oracle VM Manager can only be installed on a 64 bit Oracle Linux version 5.5 and higher. Current version is 'redhat' version '3.0.3' One password is used for all users created and used during the installation. Enter a password for all logins used during the installation: Enter a password for all logins used during the installation (confirm): Verifying configuration ... Start installing the configured components: 1: Continue 2: Abort Select Number (1-2): 1 Step 1 of 9 : Database ... Installing Database ... Retrieving Oracle Database 11g XE ... Installing Oracle Database 11g XE ... Configuring Oracle Database 11g XE ... Step 2 of 9 : Java ... Installing Java ... Step 3 of 9 : Database Schema ... Creating database schema 'ovs' ... Step 4 of 9 : WebLogic ... Retrieving Oracle WebLogic Server 11g ... Installing Oracle WebLogic Server 11g ... Step 5 of 9 : ADF ... Retrieving Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) ... Unzipping Oracle ADF ... Installing Oracle ADF ... Step 6 of 9 : Oracle VM ... Retrieving Oracle VM Manager Application ... Extracting Oracle VM Manager Application ... Installing Oracle VM Manager Core ... Step 7 of 9 : Domain creation ... Creating Oracle WebLogic Server domain ... Starting Oracle WebLogic Server 11g ... Configuring data source 'OVMDS' ... Creating Oracle VM Manager user 'admin' ... Step 8 of 9 : Deploy ... Deploying Oracle VM Manager Core container ... Deploying Oracle VM Manager UI Console ... Deploying Oracle VM Manager Help ... Enabling HTTPS ... Granting ovm-admin role to user 'admin' ... Step 9 of 9 : Oracle VM Manager Shell ... Retrieving Oracle VM Manager Shell & API ... Extracting Oracle VM Manager Shell & API ... Installing Oracle VM Manager Shell & API ... Retrieving Oracle VM Manager Upgrade tool ... Extracting Oracle VM Manager Upgrade tool ... Installing Oracle VM Manager Upgrade tool ... Copying Oracle VM Manager shell to '/usr/bin/ovm_shell.sh' ... Installing ovm_admin.sh in '/u01/app/oracle/ovm-manager-3/bin' ... Installing ovm_upgrade.sh in '/u01/app/oracle/ovm-manager-3/bin' ... Enabling Oracle VM Manager service ... Shutting down Oracle VM Manager instance ... Restarting Oracle VM Manager instance ... Waiting 15 seconds for the application to initialize ... Oracle VM Manager is running ... Oracle VM Manager installed. Please wait while WebLogic configures the applications... This can take up to 5 minutes. Installation Summary -------------------- Database configuration: Database host name : localhost Database instance name (SID): XE Database listener port : 1521 Application Express port : 8080 Oracle VM Manager schema : ovs Weblogic Server configuration: Administration username : weblogic Oracle VM Manager configuration: Username : admin Core management port : 54321 UUID : 0004fb0000010000905ec3901f7d6f52 Passwords: There are no default passwords for any users. The passwords to use for Oracle VM Manager, Oracle Database 11g XE, and Oracle WebLogic Server have been set by you during this installation. In the case of a default install, all passwords are the same. Oracle VM Manager UI: https://vm04.fun.com:7001/ovm/console https://vm04.fun.com:7002/ovm/console Log in with the user 'admin', and the password you set during the installation. Please note that you need to install tightvnc-java on this computer to access a virtual machine's console. For more information about Oracle Virtualization, please visit: https://www.oracle.com/virtualization/ Oracle VM Manager installation complete. Please remove configuration file /tmp/ovm_configPk_4fp. [[email protected] ~]# date Sat Jan 28 15:47:05 EST 2012 [[email protected] ~]# started: 15:22 - 15:47 => 25 mins
14 Comments. Leave new
Sorry, did not notice that you also had a 3.0.3 installation article, my tuning examples are for OVMM 3.0.3 on OL6u2, so I post it here as well. Feel free to keep either one :)
I just spent three days getting OVMM 3.0.3 to install on OL6u2 and run in a VM with 2 GB RAM. This is how I got it working:
* Java is the weak link in OVMM, it demands lot of CPU power, give it two CPU’s and OVMM will be at least 3x faster, even with the memory restrictions!
* If you add “-n” as a parameter to runInstaller.sh then it does not check for RAM, i.e. it accepts whatever there is:
# ./runInstaller.sh -n
* After installation you can edit /etc/sysconfig/ovmm and set Java’s memory parameters, add the following lines to the beginning of that file:
# vi /tmp/ovmm-installer/ovmm
JVM_MEMORY_MIN=256m
JVM_MEMORY_MAX=384m
JVM_MAX_PERM=256m
* Also, add the following Java optimization parameters to the /etc/init.d/ovmm file. Find the line starting with :
nohup su – oracle -c “$USER_MEM_ARGS DOMAIN_PRODUCTION_MODE=true JAVA_OPTIONS=\”…
and add the “-XX:+AggressiveHeap” and the “-XX:+UseParallelGC” parameters so the line looks like this:
nohup su – oracle -c “$USER_MEM_ARGS DOMAIN_PRODUCTION_MODE=true JAVA_OPTIONS=\”-XX:+AggressiveHeap -XX:+UseParallelGC…
* Regarding Oracle XE I used the following commands to minimize it’s memory hunger, the performance is quite snappy since OVMM does really not depend on XE much (all of the info is actually stored on the OVS servers!)
# sqlplus sys as sysdba
SQL> alter system set processes=200 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set aq_tm_processes=1 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set db_writer_processes=2 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set job_queue_processes=10 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set memory_target=200M scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set sga_max_size=0 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set sga_target=0 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set pga_aggregate_target=0 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set java_pool_size=0 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set large_pool_size=0 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set shared_pool_size=0 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set streams_pool_size=0 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set filesystemio_options=setall scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set optimizer_mode=first_rows scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set sessions=250 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set session_cached_cursors=100 scope=spfile;
SQL> alter system set session_max_open_files=50 scope=spfile;
SQL> create pfile from spfile;
With these changes the OVMM runs really fast and is a pleasure to work with. My VM shows about 120 – 200 MB RAM available of the 2048 MB.
I really can not understand why Oracle did not put more effort into trimming down the horrible unnecessary RAM requirements since OVMM is a pig without this tuning.
//TT
Hey TT! You have provided a fantastic info! It can be a blog post on it own (if you are not blogging now you should consider it ;).
I definitely will use your hints myself! Thank you for sharing!
Yury
Magnificent add on to any Oracle VM instalation.
Very easy and understandable.
Damir Vadas
[…] NOTE: 2012.02.09. For the 3.0.3 version installation instructions please refer to the post here. […]
i found that if u edit /etc/redhat-release
and change 3.0.3 to 5.5 u dont need to do step 6
This is very dangerous …
[…] my previous post I described how to install Oracle VM and Oracle VM Manager on the same sandbox. However, to start […]
Do not place password for XE database that ends with special sign i.e. “Asdfgh123!”.
In mine case –configure was swapped (4G RAM) 8 GB and then I kill it. Repeat process with “Asdfgh123” password went like hell.
Rg
Damir
Thanks a lot. I was on the brink of desparation because of that “LRM-00116: syntax error…” when installing Oracle XE on a virtual machine. Your post really rescued me!
Appreciate your feedback Michael. Glad my post helped.
[…] installing the previous version. For all tricks that you need to use please see my Oracle VM Manager 3.0.3 under Dom0 […]
I try to do it on 3.2.2 but always stops right after the 1st step:
Step 1 of 9 : Database Software…
Installing Database Software…
Retrieving MySQL Database 5.5 …
[[email protected] cdrom]#
Any idea? No sql installed.
Hello Tuskes,
I wonder if you have seen my blog post on “Installing Oracle VM Manager 3.2.x under Dom0 host” ?
https://www.pythian.com/blog/installing-oracle-vm-manager-3-2-x-under-dom0-host/
If you haven’t, them may I suggest you to review it?
If it doesn’t help my first suggestion would be to check running installer processes. Get list of log files those are using (lsof ). Check the log files. Check what installation processes are busy with using “strace -p “. This may give you some idea on what your problem is.
Yury
Thank you!
I installed the 2 packages and went fine.
Imre