Make sure you set tunable limits correctly.

Previously, you would edit /etc/system to change tunable parameters then reboot the system, but starting in Solaris 10, there’s a new “projects” system where tunables can be configured. For my installation, the cluster nodes had 16GB of RAM each, so I used these settings (as root):

$ projmod -U oracle -sK "process.max-file-descriptor=(priv,4096,deny)" user.oracle
$ projmod -U oracle -sK "project.max-msg-ids=(priv,256,deny)" user.oracle
$ projmod -U oracle -sK "project.max-sem-ids=(priv,256,deny)" user.oracle
$ projmod -U oracle -sK "project.max-shm-ids=(priv,256,deny)" user.oracle
$ projmod -U oracle -sK "project.max-shm-memory=(priv,16GB,deny)" user.oracle

You can check these settings by inspecting /etc/project and looking for the user.oracle entry.

Also, when running in a RAC configuration, some Oracle processes like crsd run as root, so these will be necessary as well:

$ projmod -sK "project.max-shm-ids=(priv,256,deny)" system
$ projmod -sK "project.max-shm-memory=(priv,16GB,deny)" system

This appears to be a catch-all way of ensuring these settings are in use for all users:

$ projmod -sK "project.max-shm-ids=(priv,256,deny)" default
$ projmod -sK "project.max-shm-memory=(priv,16GB,deny)" default

Failing to set these settings for system and default seems to result in Oracle “ORA-01102: cannot mount database in EXCLUSIVE mode” errors when trying to start a database instance.

Failure to create the DATA diskgroup using ASM

I wasted a good 6 hours trying to understand why I kept getting the following error during the 11g R2 grid package install:

ORA-15020: discovered duplicate ASM disk "DATA_0000"

Turns out, I had only set the permissions on /dev/rdsk/emcpower* correctly on one of the nodes in the cluster. The permissions need to be correct on all nodes in the cluster, as the installer operates on all cluster nodes as part of the install – duh! Beware of this gotcha, it can be very frustrating.

WARNING: oradism did not start up correctly.

In diag/rdbms/*/$ORACLE_SID/trace, in the alert_${ORACLE_SID}.log, you may find this message:

WARNING: oradism did not start up correctly.
  Dynamic ISM can not be locked.
----------------------------------------
oradism creation failed for unknown reasons 0 8 105

This is apparently a bug described in Oracle Metalink 374367.1. By default, the Oracle installer installs the file with ownership oracle:oinstall and mode 0750. It needs to be suid root, sgid dba. The solution is to perform the following steps (as root):

$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin
$ chown root:dba oradism
$ chmod 6550 oradism

Then, restart the database.

Back up the Enterprise Manager encryption key!

The Enterprise Manager runs on port 1158, using HTTPS. The encryption key is located here:

$ORACLE_HOME/*/sysman/config/emkey.ora

Back this key up, because without it, the Enterprise Manager data can’t be accessed.

ERROR: NMO not setuid-root (Unix-only)

When using Enterprise Manager, you might get the following error message:

ERROR: NMO not setuid-root (Unix-only)

This occurs because the NMO binaries need to be setuid-root, as the error explains. Use these steps to correct the problem:

$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin
$ chown root nmb nmhs nmo
$ chmod 6750 nmb nmhs nmo

Have you installed a multi-node RAC cluster using Oracle 11g R2 on Solaris 10? Did you discover any gotchas that prevented a successful installation “out of the box”? Please, share them in the comments below so that others can benefit from our pain!

Sure, it looks like someone beat up a clown and then vomited on the body, but it’s progress. As before, any comments would be greatly appreciated.

It might not be the worst possible colors to pick, but … ugh, even I know they’re ugly. But, I just can’t choose good colors!

Help me! What colors should I use as the palette for my new theme? I really do like the background color and body text colors I chose … but what about a highlight color? And link colors? Let me know what you think I should try, please!

Here’s what System Profiler says about my new battery:

Oh happy day!

• System Preferences
  • Keyboard
    • Keyboard Shortcuts
      • Keyboard & Text Input
        • Full Keyboard Access: All controls.

If you want to make sure all your friends status updates show up in your Facebook News Feed, you need to make sure you’ve set your threshold high enough. You get to this setting by going to the bottom of your News Feed page and clicking on the Edit Options link:

In the dialog that pops up, there’s a Number of Friends section that controls how many friends’ updates will be included on your News Feed. Set this number to something larger than the number of friends you have, to ensure that all of their updates will be included.

There you go. If you have more friends than the number that is currently showing, you won’t see all your friends’ updates.

Gotta love those quirky little ads in the right rail on Facebook. I was just quickly scanning the page and my eyes (mis-)read the ad title. What I thought I had just read was “Lingerie & Inmates” and my first reaction was “mmm, prison rape never looked so sexy before.”

I know, I know … I’m going to hell, yadda yadda. Merry Christmas!

I’ve been using nightly development builds of Google Chrome for Mac, Google’s shiny new web browser, for a while now. A few days ago, it was officially labeled beta for Mac. Until now, I wasn’t using it regularly, but I decided I should try using it full-time for a few days to see how it wears.

I’ve got 12+ tabs open and it’s still fast, smooth and stable. Granted, on the Mac there’s no extensions/add-on feature … it’ll be interesting to see how stable things remain once those are introduced. The browser’s rendering of most pages seems identical to Firefox, except for a few that I’ve stumbled across. Overall, it’s a very usable browser and should have a great future ahead of it.

Of course, there’s still a few bumps and warts that I hope they’ll address soon:

• Needs to be more customizable. For me, this could be as simple as providing an about:config interface like Firefox. Let me easily tweak and turn the various knobs that control stuff under the hood. My biggest gripe is not being able to completely remove the “close tab” button on the tabs. In trying to switch tabs, I’m constantly accidentally clicking the “x” which closes the tab. Sure, Cmd-Shift-T re-opens the tab, but that’s a nuisance that could easily be avoided by removing the “close tab” bit like I have done in Firefox.
• Smart keywords. I pretty much live in my web browser and the Address Bar is my command-line interface to the web. I have smart keywords defined for all manners of things, and switching to Chrome that lacks them is very painful. I’d say that this is a must-have feature before I would switch completely.
• Third-party add-ons and extensions. I can live without most of the niceties that add-ons bring, but there are a few that I would hate to do without:
  • It’s All Text! Edit any TEXTAREA in an external editor. For the average web user, this probably wouldn’t be that useful, but for me, it makes editing code blocks and other large text in web-based CMS‘es tolerable.
  • Greasemonkey. There’s nothing like the ability to “fix” a “broken” website, removing annoying “features” or adding a missing one. While I could probably get by without Greasemonkey, I don’t know if I’d really want to.

Have you tried out Google Chrome, yet? I’d like to know what you think … let me know in the comments below.

jesus_jeff

Leave me a comment saying “Resistance is Futile.”

* I’ll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
* Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
* Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

Here are his questions for me and my answers:

1) Excluding family, who have you known the longest that you are still in fairly regular contact with?

I’m notoriously bad about not keeping in regular contact with people. Given this fact, I suppose my answer has to be my friend Ian, from high school. There are a few people who I talk to now and then that I’ve known longer, like Jeff Mach, but I don’t really maintain regular contact with him.

I wonder if this answer will cause people I’ve actually known longer to come out of the woodwork. Interesting …

2) Iphone, Droid, Blackberry, or good old-fashioned “my phone just makes phone calls, thankyouverymuch”?

I own a BlackBerry, now. The Droid has tempted me, and I refuse to take the iPhone as long as it lacks a real physical keyboard. I’ve got high hopes for the Nokia N900, but apparently it’s fallen short. I gave up on Palm after replacing my aging Treo 650 with my first BlackBerry.

3) If your kids (once of appropriate age) expressed an interest in joining the peace corps or the military (i.e., doing dangerous work in dangerous far-away places) would you encourage them or try to convince them to pick a safer path?

I’d like to believe that I encourage them to pursue things that they love. Life is dangerous and learning to handle it is an important skill, not something to be avoided for the sake of avoiding.

That being said, I’d rather they not enlist in the military. While I’m thankful that there are people who do so on behalf of the rest of us, I would rather my kids pursue careers with an organization that has more accountability.

4) What do you think the next big thing technology-wise will be?

Realistically? Probably something truly boring like “wireless electricity“.

My personal imagineering? I call it “personal interactive television”. It changes the way we watch television: the shared screen (the traditional TV set) acts as an interface hub, while individuals use their handheld devices (phones, remotes) to interact with the content programming without disturbing the shared experience of the other participants.

I suppose I should describe this vision more clearly in a separate blog entry, but maybe this hints at the potential of such a paradigm shift.

5) If you were a craftsman in the middle ages, what craft would you practice?

If I had to pick an established craft, I would probably be a butcher or apothecarist. Butcher, because I enjoy dealing with food and especially meat. Apothecarist, because I enjoy the diagnostic process of medicine but would prefer to deal with the common folk rather than solely royalty.

However, I suspect if I actually lived in the middle ages, I would probably be a agricultural scientist: experimenting with growing plants to increase their yield, be more resistant, come up with ways of dealing with pests, etc.

…

That was fun answering Jeff’s questions. If you’d like to participate, just leave a comment for me and I’ll try my best to come up with interesting questions for you!