Installing SF Oracle RAC on an alternate root enables you to boot from the second disk instead of the default disk. Installing on an alternate root also enables you to upgrade the OS on a Solaris system without affecting the existing configuration or requiring much downtime. Using an alternate root is required when using Live Upgrade to upgrade to SF Oracle RAC 5.1.
See About upgrading SF Oracle RAC using Live Upgrade.
Figure: Installing SF Oracle RAC on an alternate root disk illustrates the installation process.
Perform the steps in the following procedure on the active root disk of each node.
To install SF Oracle RAC 5.1 on the alternate root disk of your system
Verify that the Solaris operating system is installed on the alternate root disk of the system.
For example, /dev/dsk/cXtXdXs2
, where cXtXdXs2 is the alternate root disk.
Mount your alternate root disk.
# mkdir /altroot # mount /dev/dsk/cXtXdXs0 /altroot
Start the installer with the -rootpath option.
# cd /dvd_mount/storage_foundation_for_oracle_rac # ./installsfrac -rootpath /altroot galaxy nebula
Stop the applications that are running on the current root disk using native application commands.
Restart the systems with the alternate root /altroot
.
Display the current boot disk device and device aliases.
# eeprom boot-device=vx-rootdg vx-int_disk use-nvramrc?=true nvramrc=devalias vx-int_disk /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/disk@0,0:a devalias vx-rootdg01 /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/disk@1,0:a
Set the device from which to boot using the eeprom command. This example shows booting from the alternate root disk.
# eeprom boot-device=/pci@780/pci@0/pci@9/scsi@0/disk@1
# shutdown -g0 -i6 -y
# ./installsfrac -configure galaxy nebula
Install the language packages if you would like to run SF Oracle RAC in a language other than English. Follow the procedure for the appropriate language packages.
Complete the post-installation tasks.
For instructions, see the chapter Performing post-installation and configuration tasks in this document.