Data … as usual

In my last post, I wrote that acfs was not compatible on CentOS.
So I decided to search a solution … and I found it.

acfsload, the program who loads the acfs driver makes an OS version check which fails.
This program uses a perl module osds_acfslib.pm which is located on the $ORACLE_HOME/lib directory of the Grid Infrastructure.

In this perl module, you can find at lines 280/281 the perl code that makes this version check. This check is only an “rpm -qa | grep release” !

So if you are on a CentOS 5, you just have to complete this line by adding a centos check :

[root@linux1 lib]# cd /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/grid/lib
[root@linux1 lib]# cp -p osds_acfslib.pm osds_acfslib.pm.ORIG
.../...
[root@linux1 lib]# diff osds_acfslib.pm osds_acfslib.pm.ORIG
281,281
< ($release =~ /redhat-release-5/) || ($release =~ /centos-release-5/))
---
> ($release =~ /redhat-release-5/))

When you have done this add-on, you must finish what the installer have failed ie. copy the acfs kernel modules at the right place and regenerate
kernel module dependencies.

NB: Be careful of your kernel version, in this example, I was using a 2.6.18-92.1.22.el5 kernel.

[root@linux1 lib]# mkdir /lib/modules/2.6.18-92.1.22.el5/extra/usm
[root@linux1 lib]# cp /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/grid/install/usm/EL5 /i386/2.6.18-8/2.6.18-8.el5-i686/bin/*.ko /lib/modules/2.6.18-92.1.22.el5/extra/usm/
[root@linux1 lib]# chmod 744 /lib/modules/2.6.18-92.1.22.el5/extra/usm/*
[root@linux1 lib]# depmod

Now you can execute the acfsload and load the acfs modules without warning:

[root@linux1 lib]# /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/grid/bin/acfsload start -s

You can check everything is loaded with the acfsdriverstate command:

[root@linux1 lib]# cd /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/grid/bin
[root@linux1 bin]# ./acfsdriverstate -orahome /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/grid loaded
ACFS-9203: TRUE

Note, on the next reboot, you have to load the acfs modules, and mount the acfs filesystem.
You can do this by writing you own init shell script based on the chkconfig format, and load it on the desired runlevel.