The Standby Wizard For Oracle
User Manual
For Windows 2000 / XP Servers
Version 7
Copyright 2002
Relational Database Consultants, Inc.
All Rights
Reserved.
The Standby Wizard for Oracle 7.0
User Manual
For Windows 2000 / XP Servers
Relational Database Consultants, Inc. (RDC)
310-281-1915
Restricted Rights Notice
Copyright 2003. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this document may be
reproduced, recorded, transmitted, or copied without permission from the
copyright holders. Information in this
document is subject to change without notice.
Trademark
Notice
All trademarks in this document
belong to their respective holders.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Installation of the Standby Wizard
Chapter 2 Standby Database Creation - Preliminary Checklist
Chapter 3 Creating a Standby Database
Chapter 4 Building a Standby Database
Chapter 5 Mounting Your Standby Database and
Confirming Synchronization With Your Primary Database
Chapter 6 Managing Your Standby Database Using the Standby Database
Manager
Chapter 7 Understanding the Primary and Standby Agents
Chapter 8 Troubleshooting a Standby Database
Configuration
Chapter 9 Rebuilding Your Standby Database
Chapter 10 Creating Multiple Standby Databases From Your Primary
Database
Chapter 11 Emergency Fail-Over to a Standby Database (Activation)
Chapter 12 Graceful Switchback to the Primary Database
Appendix A. Java
and the Standby Wizard User Interface
Appendix B. The
Standby Wizard Initialization File (init.ora file)
Appendix C. Modifying
the Operating System Parameters of the Standby Wizard
Appendix D. Using The Standby Wizard With Oracle’s Managed Standby Option
Appendix E. Uninstalling the Standby
Wizard
Introduction
Today’s environment dictates that our
information be stored in highly available systems. As we move into the 21st Century,
we are faced with increased incidents of cyber-crime, power shortages, and real
terrorism. Yet, at the same time, our
information systems must meet the 24/7 demands of a global networked economy. In this age, the threats to our information
systems are greater than ever before - yet so are the demands put upon
them. Therefore, high-availability will
soon become a standard for all information retrieval systems in this new
century.
The
Oracle Corporation, through its popular Oracle RDBMS, offers the standby database
as its high availability paradigm. In
the Oracle model, a production primary database archives changes (redo
logs) to a dormant standby database.
This standby database constantly recovers those same logs to stay
synchronized with the primary database. In the event of a failure, this standby
database can be activated - made ready to perform the crucial tasks of
the primary database and thus become available for use.
Unfortunately, up to this point, setting up an
Oracle standby database is a very complex and costly project.
Only skilled DBA’s can accomplish the many steps required to both build
and maintain standby database configurations.
In response to these high human resource costs, Relational Database
Consultants, Inc. (RDC) has automated the labor involved in creating and
maintaining standby databases in the form of the new software offering: The Standby Wizard for Oracle.
The Standby Wizard for Oracle is designed to lower
your costs, automate your labor, and increase the fitness of your high-availability
solution. With the Standby Wizard, any
Oracle DBA can set up a standby database configuration in only a few
hours. After a user becomes proficient
with the Standby Wizard, one can define and begin building a standby database
in only a few minutes. The Standby
Wizard is also not dependent on the Oracle Enterprise Edition or Complex Net8
settings. This feature will help smaller
companies reduce their Oracle licensing costs, or at least, allow them to
purchase other Oracle offerings they find necessary.
The fact that the Standby Wizard is not dependent
on Oracle’s Net8 will allow you to build standby databases across any network
connection - to remote databases that might not even be a part of your Oracle
domain. This feature allows you to clone
database copies to any remote server that can house your Oracle standby
database.
The Standby Wizard not only automates the creation of your
standby database(s) – diagnostic and maintenance functions are also automated.
Managing a standby database configuration used to involve the querying of
complex data dictionary views or mulling over raw output. Now all this information is at your
fingertips with a simple Windows interface and an easy-to-understand auditing
log for each standby database that you create.
Some maintenance tasks that used to be crucial to
keeping a standby database viable are no longer necessary with the Standby
Wizard. The Standby Wizard can actually
detect if a tablespace (data file) or redo log specification has changed and
will perform intelligently an incremental
rebuild of your standby database, making only the minimal
changes necessary. The Standby Wizard
will also detect database changes that are not logged (no logging) and will
perform an intelligent rebuild on only those data files that need repair. This not only saves human resource hours but
it will save you disk and CPU usage in maintaining your standby database
configuration.
If disaster ever hits, the Standby Wizard can be activated along with
your standby database without the need for an Oracle DBA to issue SQL commands
to start, mount, activate, and open your standby database. Simply click on an automated command file
from your mouse or run a shell script - The Standby Wizard automates these
tasks, and with our powerful monitoring and validation tools, the chances of
your standby database performing incorrectly during a crisis greatly diminish.
In your high-availability planning to migrate back
to your primary database after a crisis, the graceful switchback features of
the Standby Wizard are second to none.
Simply click on a single button with your mouse and the Standby Wizard
rebuilds your original primary database from memory! Because of this graceful switchback feature,
the Standby Wizard can be used as an automated backup tool for your production
databases or as a tool to clone databases with.
The amount of person-hours you will save using the
Standby Wizard is amazing. We at
Relational Database Consultants, Inc. (RDC) have experienced a 95% reduction in
labor costs when using the Standby Wizard to build and maintain standby
databases. Once you use the Standby
Wizard, the complex project of implementing Oracle’s standby database technology will become
nothing more than a simple task – no more difficult than creating or dropping a table while drinking
your morning cup of java.
However, as you drink your java for the first time
with the Standby Wizard User Manual, we strongly recommend that you carefully
read each chapter of this user manual before you perform the associated tasks
or function of the Standby Wizard.
Don’t be fooled by the ease-of-use of this product, behind the scenes
the complex tasks of standby database creation are still taking place. When you first install the Standby Wizard,
there is a checklist you need to go through.
Therefore, we urge you to learn as much as you can about the Standby
Wizard and Oracle’s standby database paradigm – yet leave the actual work to
the Standby Wizard.
Chapter One –
Installation of the Standby Wizard
1. Requirements
The Standby Wizard for Oracle on Windows requires
the following to be implemented successfully on your Oracle platform(s):
1. An Oracle database of version 8.1.6
to 10.X with the Java option installed (default).
2. An Oracle database that is archiving
its redo logs (alter database archivelog).
10g users need to define an archive destination, the parameter
db_recovery_file_dest is not used.
3.
To run the Java user-interface of the Standby Wizard - you will need the Java
JRE 1.3 or higher installed and running on either your Windows/Unix/Linux Server
or a network accessible client. If you
are running Oracle9i, the Java JRE 1.3 is supplied by Oracle. You can download the Java JRE 1.4 from SUN at
this link:
http://java.sun.com/products/archive/j2se/1.4.1_02/index.html
The
.exe extractable version of the Standby Wizard for Oracle installs on a Windows
Client. If you plan on running the
Standby Wizard user-interface from a Unix/Linux server directly - You can
simply FTP the Standby Wizard’s installation files up to a Unix machine. These files
exist in the “c:\Program Files\Standby Wizard 7.0” directory and should exist
in a single Unix directory after you upload them.
4. Technical ability to perform basic
Windows Administration tasks.
5. Technical ability to perform Oracle
DBA tasks.
6. A valid Oracle support license.
7. A Network Configuration between
servers (Intranet, extranet (VPN), or LAN/WAN) that will allow disk-sharing and use of the XCOPY command to
copy and receive files from your primary database to a given standby host
without password prompting.
8. An Oracle Database Server running
Windows 2000 / XP
Once you have
determined that these above conditions are met, Installation of the Standby
Wizard is performed in three easy steps:
2.
Installation Step One - Client Installation
The first
step of installing the Standby Wizard is to choose any windows client that is
Network accessible to your primary database.
Win32 Client Installation:
The first
Installation step is performed on your windows
client after you download the Standby Wizard for Oracle and open the
installation file, StandbyWizard.exeJava. The Standby Wizard will create a program
group called “Standby Wizard” and guide you through a generic windows
installation. The Standby Wizard Windows
Installation places all of the Standby Wizard programs in the c:\Program
Files\Standby Wizard 7.0 directory. Be
sure to read your license agreement that resides in this directory. The demo version of this release only works
for a limited time and must not be used on production systems.
Zip
File Installation
This
installation is primarily for Unix and Linux users. Once you download the .zip file for the
Standby Wizard, simply extract the contents into a single directory on your
client. If you plan on running the Java
User Interface from a Unix server directly - you may transfer the extraction to
a new directory on your Unix workstation or server.
3.
Installation Step Two - Database Installation
The Standby Wizard for Oracle server
component is always installed on the primary database that we are
going to create standby databases from and never on a standby
database. The database installation
script is run from SQL*Plus either locally or via a remote client.
The following is a list of the actions performed by the Database
Installation script when it is run on the primary database:
1. Creates an Oracle user account named
rdc_standby_user and grants certain resource and system privileges.
2. Creates the tables that the Standby
Wizard uses.
3. Compiles the intelligent PL/SQL packages
that comprise the Standby Wizard.
4. Creates your license information.
The installation script gives you a
license for one copy of the Standby Wizard to evaluate on one database. If your physical server has 3 production
databases (Oracle SID’s) that you would like to build your standby
databases against - then you must install the Standby Wizard three times, one
copy for each database.
When you click on the Database
Installation icon, you will need to have DBA privileges required to create the
Standby Wizard user rdc_standby_user.
This is why the first prompt that you will receive when running the install
script will be for the SYSTEM account password.
The database installation script rdc_standby_install.sql, first
connects as SYSTEM to create an Oracle user account by the name rdc_standby_user. This new account is granted the following
roles:
1. Connect
2. Resource
3. Execute_Catalog_Role
4. Select_Catalog_Role
5. Select Any Dictionary
6. Select Any Table
7. Manage Tablespace
8. Alter Database
9. Alter System
10. Administer Database Trigger
11. Execute Any Procedure
12. JavaSysPriv
Aside from the SYSTEM password that you
will be prompted for, you will be asked to provide information necessary to
create the rdc_standby_user Oracle user and grant rdc_standby_user
the above privileges needed to create standby databases. If you make a mistake at any point in the
process, just hit control-c or cancel from sqlplus and simply run the database
installation script again.
If you are re-installing the Standby
Wizard, make sure no one is connected as the Standby Wizard user, rdc_standby_user
and that the primary agent is offline. The Database Installation script first drops
the Standby Wizard user account and all of its objects, to insure a clean
install.
Starting
the Database Installation Script From Windows:
Once you have
installed the Standby Wizard product on your client Windows machine, you will
need to start the Database Installation icon from the Program Menu - simply
navigate to Start | Programs | Standby Wizard for Windows 7.0. | Database
Installation. The database installation script creates the Standby Wizard user
and installs the Standby Wizard tables and intelligent PL/SQL packages within
the Oracle RDBMS via SQL*Plus. To run
this script, click on the icon within the Standby Wizard program group labeled:
“Database Installation”. If you wish,
you may chose to run the script directly from SQL*Plus as shown below.
If the Database Installation step never
starts, and you are not prompted for these five items, it probably indicates
that your SQL*Plus executable“sqlplusw” is not located in the current OS
path. If this is the case, you can fix
the OS path, use sqlplus.exe as the target, or evoke SQL*Plus from the Program
Menu and run the script rdc_standby_install.sql as such:
SQL>start
“c:\Program Files\Standby Wizard 7.0\rdc_standby_install.sql”
Starting
the Database Installation script from Unix, Linux, or the Windows Command Prompt
Unix and Linux users can install the
Standby Wizard by simply starting SQL*Plus in the directory containing the
Standby Wizard extract. Once SQL*Plus is
started, simply start the Database installation script from the SQL*Plus prompt
as such:
SQL>@rdc_standby_install
Or
SQL>start rdc_standby_install
Note: If you are not using Net*8 you
will need to remove the “@service” parameters the install script
Database
Installation Script Walk-Through
Here is a list
of the five prompts you will receive when running the Database Installation
script:
1.
Enter the password for the Oracle user account SYSTEM:
This is the
sting of the system account
password. By default in Oracle, it is manager. So for instance, if you connect as
system/foobar, you would enter the string foobar after this prompt. This password is only used to create the
Standby Wizard user account rdc_standby_user
and is immediately undefined in the SQL*Plus script.
2. Enter the
Net8 service_name used to connect to this database:
This is the
service name that you currently use in your connection strings to login into
the database for which you are installing the Standby Wizard, your primary database. For instance, if you log in as:
scott/tiger@mydb, then your Net8 service name is mydb.
3. Enter the password you would like for the new Standby Wizard account rdc_standby_user:
This will be
the Oracle user account password that you use would like to use when connecting
to the Standby Wizard User Interface.
This password is for the Oracle user account rdc_standby_user. Because this new account has certain system
privileges granted to it, protect this new password as you would any Oracle
administrator password.
Warning:
Because the Standby Wizard stores the password for
its own account rdc_standby_user
encrypted within its own schema, you will need to execute the following Standby
Wizard package whenever you change the password for this account, for example:
SQL> Alter User RDC_Standby_User Identified By new_password
SQL>Exec
RDC_Standby_User.RDC_Standby_Util.UpdatePassword('&WizardPassword');
4. Enter the default tablespace for the Standby Wizard user (optional):
Enter a
tablespace name where the Standby Wizard is to create its small schema. In most environments, the Standby Wizard
schema will never grow over a few megabytes.
This parameter is optional.
5. Enter the default temporary tablespace for the Standby Wizard user (optional):
Enter the
default temporary tablespace for the Standby Wizard. This parameter is optional.
When the Database Installation script
finishes, you will be notified of a successful installation. Check the output of the Database Installation
by editing the file: "rdc_standby_install.log” in Program Files | Standby
Wizard 7.0 or located in your current directory. Once the install script has notified you of
its successful completion, you are ready to run the Standby Wizard User
Interface to register your Standby Wizard license.
4. Installation Step Three - Java User Interface
Configuration and Verification
The
main menu of the Standby Wizard User Interface is a Java class which exists in
the Standby Wizard user interface file named StandbyWizard.jar. To successfully run the Standby Wizard’s Java
User Interface, a Java JRE (1.3 or higher) must be installed on the client
machine you wish to run the User Interface from. To test that you have the proper java version
in your command path, issue this command from either your Windows command
prompt or a Unix/Linux shell:
>java
–version
Make
sure the version of the java runtime is 1.3 or higher. If java cannot be recognized by the operating
system, you will need to include the correct JRE in your OS path. Oracle already has the Java JRE 1.3 installed
by default on its 9i databases, yet this JRE might not be in the default OS
path of your client machine.
Setting the proper Java path for
Windows Users:
1.
Navigate to:
Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer management
2.
Choose: Actions
| properties | Advanced | Environment Variables
3.
Click on the
system variable in the lower list called “path” and click on EDIT to modify the
path to include the proper java path.
Example:
(In this example mypath is already
defined)
Path
= c:\mypath;C:\Program Files\s1studio_jdk\j2sdk1.4.1_02\bin
For
Oracle 9i users who don’t want to install the SUN JRE, the following example
uses the Oracle JRE 1.3. In this
example, ORACLE_HOME is defined as c:\oracle\ora92. In Oracle 9i the JRE path is:
ORACLE_HOME/jdk/jre/bin.
Path
= c:\mypath;c:\oracle\ora92\jdk\jre\bin;
Once
you have edited the path information and clicked on OK - open a new command
prompt window and run the command “java –version” again.
Setting the Proper Path for Unix/Linux
users:
After
you have extracted the Standby Wizard for Oracle, move all of the files up to a
single Unix directory where you wish to start the Standby Wizard.
If
you cannot run “java –version” - then to change the Java path, simply edit your
.profile or .bash_profile file in the home directory of the Unix account that
will run the Standby Wizard to include the proper Java path. You do not need to run the Standby Wizard
User Interfacefrom the “Oracle” Unix account.
Note:
Make
sure to set the script StandbyWizard.sh
as an executable for Unix as such:
$chmod
744 StandbyWizard.sh
5. Starting the Standby Wizard User
Interface
To
invoke the Standby Wizard User Interface from a Windows client simply click on
the icon labeled Standby Wizard for Java,
located in your Windows start menu in the Standby
Wizard for Java program group.
You
may also run the bat file named StandbyWizard.bat
directly from the directory C:\Program
Files\Standby Wizard 7.0.
After you start the User
Interface, you will be prompted for your database login to the Standby Wizard
account, rdc_standby_user
In
this example, the password we
specified during the Standby Wizard install is mypassword and the Database
SID is prod817. In this example, the host machine where the
Oracle server resides is rdc4 - if
you do not have a host name you can instead use the IP address of the database
server.
In
most cases the default Oracle port number is 1521. Feel free to change this
value dependent on the settings of the Listener.ora file located on your
database server.
Note:
The Standby Wizard connects to your Oracle database
through a “thin” JDBC client. We
recommend you run the Standby Wizard from any location on a secure network, yet
we do not recommend you run the Standby Wizard across the Internet - unless you are using the Standby Wizard for
testing and/or development purposes.
Once Java connects you to your RDBMS, you will see the Standby Wizard Main Menu:
From the Standby Wizard main menu, you can always see the following useful items:
1. The Version No. of the Standby Wizard.
2. The Expiration Date (remains blank after purchase).
3. The Host Name of the physical machine the Standby Wizard has been installed on.
4. The primary database Oracle SID.
5. The current Operating System of the primary database.
When
you first enter the Main Menu - you will be instructed to enter a demo license
code which can be obtained at swdemo@relationalwizards.com.
To complete your installation, click on the menu button labeled: “Install/Uninstall the Standby Wizard”. This action will open the Administration Screen:
When you enter this screen for the first time, you will need to enter your demo license code. To do this simply Type in your email address, a space, and then your 3 digit demo code obtained from Relational Database Consultants, Inc. or your appropriate vendor.
In the above example Sue Jones has typed in her email address and the 3 digit code. Once you have entered this code simply click on the button at the bottom of the screen labeled “Register Wizard” to complete the registration process.
Now you are ready to create standby databases…hot off your primary database. Yet, before we attempt standby database creation for the first time with the Standby Wizard, we must go through the Preliminary Checklist.
Chapter Two -
Standby Database Creation - Preliminary Checklist
Using the Standby Wizard to create
standby databases is very simple. The
Standby Wizard interface takes you through four easy steps to create a standby
database. In each step, you define or
clarify basic information that the Standby Wizard will need to create your new
standby database. Yet, don’t be fooled
by the simplicity of this process - creating a Standby Database is always a
complex task and a very CPU/Disk intensive one also. This is why we must go through a preliminary
checklist before we create our first standby database with the Standby Wizard.
1.
Check Free Disk Space
Essentially, what must occur in standby
database creation is the duplication of all database data from the primary host
on the standby host. If your database is
large, this step could take hours or even days!
For instance, if your current database
size is 300 gigabytes, then 300 gigabytes of data will need to be copied from
your primary host to your standby host.
And although the Standby Wizard efficiently deletes old redo logs after
they are successfully applied, you will need more than 300 gigabytes of disk space
free on your standby host to accommodate both the Oracle Installation itself
and any bulk transfer of redo logs that might need to be applied to the standby
database after a network shortage.
If you are creating a standby database
on the same host as your primary database, then the new standby database will
still require enough free disk space to copy all of the Oracle data files to a
new location and the ability to accommodate any unexpected bulk transfer of
redo logs.
To find out your total database size,
enter the Standby Wizard main menu. At the bottom of the window - your total
database size is listed next to the label "Current Database
Size". To create a standby database
for an OLTP production system, we recommend that you have free disk space of
not less than 150% of the current database size – after you have installed the
Oracle software on the standby host
2.
Prepare the Standby Host
If you plan to create your standby
database on the same physical host as your primary database, then you do not
need to perform an installation check because your primary instance is assumed
to already exist and be running.
If the new standby host is to be on a separate machine, you are required to install the same Oracle RDBMS version as installed on the primary host (or as close as possible). Furthermore, the standby host must be running the same operating system version and using the same file system (NTFS, FAT32) as the primary host.
The Standby Wizard does not require that your Java installation connect to the standby host unless you wish to use the GUI Activation Screen and/or the graceful switchback features of the Standby Wizard. If you would like to implement these features on your standby host, you will need to install the Standby Wizard forms on the standby host and/or create a Net8 connection for them on the standby host.
If you are going to use the Standby Wizard front-end on your standby host for activation and switchback, verify that your standby host can be connected to by the java interface.
Caution:
Never perform a Database Installation
on a standby database created by the Standby Wizard. By definition, the standby database is a copy
of the primary database, and thus already contains the Standby Wizard schema –
necessary for a graceful switchback.
When you install the Oracle RDBMS on
your standby host, feel free to create the default Oracle installation database
or any other instances you require. As
long as the standby database’s Oracle Sid and database name is
unique for each physical standby host - there will be no conflicts. If you are installing Oracle for the first
time on the standby host, you may allow the installer to create the default
instance so you can test the fitness of your new database server.
Tip:
If you
need to save disk space on your standby host, you can shutdown the default
Oracle instance after testing the Oracle installation and remove the data files
created in $Oracle_Home./oradata. The
Standby Wizard is not dependent on the existence of any instances on the
standby host, only the installation of the Oracle RDBMS software.
Many times critical applications require that certain executable files, directory structures, and cron jobs be present and running on the standby host server. If this is the case at your site, a valid application environment will also have to be installed on the standby host in case of a fail-over. You should test this environment first, by activating your first standby database and using it as a duplicate test site. If this step is avoided or not completed properly, then during a crisis your Oracle database will be working perfectly when activated by the Standby Wizard - yet your ability to use it will not exist!
3.
Disk Sharing
To use the Standby Wizard for Windows
2000 /XP you will need to define sharing on the remote network drives of
the standby host for use by the primary host.
If you are creating your standby database on the same host, you do not
need to perform this task.
To define sharing for the standby host,
we must consider at least three directories that the Standby Wizard is going to
create and/or populate with data. The drive(s) that will house these
directories must be accessible to the Win32 command XCOPY from the primary
host. Here are the functional
descriptions of the three directory types utilized by the Standby Wizard:
1. The default datafile directory - This will
be where the Standby Wizard stores the data files of the primary host as well
as the current redo logs. By default, the
Standby Wizard will create a series of sub-directories in the default data file
directory with the original primary machine path names. Of course, if you have a mission-critical
OLTP database that must be optimized, then you may want to separate your
new standby data files on multiple drives.
In this scenario, the Standby Wizard will map any configuration of
drives you need, yet you must define a share name for all of these
drives so they are accessible to XCOPY on the primary host for the user account
that will be operating the Standby Wizard.
2. The archived log directory – This will
be the directory path on the standby host that will receive archived redo logs
from the primary host via the Standby Wizard. This directory path will be the log_archive_dest
parameter of the automatically generated standby database init.ora file.
3. The standby working directory - This will
be the new standby database initialization directory path that will contain the
generated control file and init.ora file for the standby database. Along with these crucial files, this
directory contains programs (command files) to start, recover, validate, and
activate your standby database. The size
of all these files combined is usually only a few megabytes.
In many cases, we can simply use one new logical drive number for all the above directories. For instance, we might define a shared drive C$STANDBY on the standby host, so drive C can be accessed from the primary host. On this drive, the Standby Wizard would create the three above sub-directories that it requires. For Instance,
C:\standby\scripts
C:\standby\archive
C:\standby\data
To successfully define a share drive for the Standby Wizard to use on the standby host, three conditions must be met:
For instance, If you plan to use drives E, F, and G on your standby host, the new share name for each of these drives must be E$STANDBY, F$STANDBY, G$STANDBY respectively. This allows the Standby Wizard to parse Oracle data dictionary path names and convert them to network path names. If you already have another share name for a particular drive, simply create a second one for the Standby Wizard.
Once you have created the new share for the necessary drives on the standby host, you must grant the permissions: change and read to the Standby Wizard user on the primary host. This is because the Standby Wizard will need to push over database files and scripts to the appropriate directories on the standby host using the XCOPY command.
It is beyond the scope of this document
to explain how to define drive sharing in the Microsoft world. Normally one would enter “My computer” from
the standby host and right click on the drive we wish to share. From here, we
would chose the option labeled “Sharing” to get started. If you have never defined sharing for a
network drive before, you should read the documentation provided by Microsoft
before you attempt the operation.
Ideally, an Oracle DBA should hand this task off to a
Microsoft-certified system administrator.
4. Modifying Permissions to allow for
Primary Host access to the Standby Host
If you only plan on using the Standby Wizard to create Oracle standby databases on your local host, you can skip this step.
Because the Standby Wizard utilizes java stored procedures within the SGA to execute OS copy commands, the Standby Wizard is dependent on the Windows service running your Oracle instance. Unfortunatly, Microsoft runs all services as Local System, which is an unathenticated user. Thus, we must either instruct the Oracle Service to login to an Administrator-level windows account or we must use null session shares on the standby host to allow for Local System issue copy commands from the primary host.
Therefore, Windows Administrators are recommended to pursue one of these three choices:
1. Instruct the Oracle Service of the Primary Database to Login as a
User
This method requires you to shutdown your primary database before you first use the Standby Wizard for Windows. The reason being, is that you will need to stop your Oracle Service and instruct it to logon as an administrative level account and not as the unauthenticated user, local system.
The account that the primary database Oracle service logs in must meet the following criteria
1. The account must be an administrative level account
2. The account must also exist on the standby host
3. The account must have the same password on the standby host as it does on the primary host.
To perform this task, complete the following task:
1. Shutdown the database and the Oracle Service of your primary database
2.
Enter the Windows Service Mangement Screen by
clicking on Start | Settings |
3. Stop the Oracle Service of your primary database
4.
Modify the Oracle Service to logon as an
admistrative account that has the ability to issue XCOPY commands to your
standby host without password
prompting. Here is an example below of
the screen that will instruct the Oracle Service to logon as a valid user
account:
In this case we would chose Administrator,
since that is the only administrative level account available on this primary
host. Feel free to create a new user to
run the Oracle Services.
5. Repeat the above steps for the
Oracle listener Service . The Listener
Service will be named something like: “OracleOra92Listener”.
6. Now start the listener service and then the Oracle
service for the primary database.
2.
Implementing Null Session Shares
Implementing Null Session Shares allows
a given remote machine to access shared drives as the unathenticated user LocalSystem. The advantage of this method is that the
primary host does not need to be shutdown to accomplish this task. The disadvantage is that Null Session Shares
require using the regedit command on the Standby Host.
To implement Null Session Shares on
your standby host refer to the documentation by Microsoft at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;289655.
3. Enabling Guest Account
We, at RDC, have not attempted this
method. Yet one can define sharing on
the standby host for the guest account on the primary host: Feel free to
attempt this method if your standby database is secure. Simply granting access on your standby host’s
shared drive(s) with the local guest account will not work. The account must be specified as
\\primary\quest.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;258938
After you have set up your permissions, you should attempt two tests. Login again to the user account that will be operating the Standby Wizard and the Oracle Service of the primary host. The first test will be issuing a DIR command from the command prompt on the primary host as such:
>dir \\standbyhost\drive
If your standby host machine is named Apollo and you have set up sharing of the C drive, you would type in from the command prompt:
>dir \\apollo\c$standby
If you receive the directory listing from the standby host C drive, then you have confirmed read permissions and sharing for the Standby Wizard. To confirm write ability, find a file you would like to copy to the standby host and issue this command:
>xcopy filename \\standbyhost\drive\*
In our above example, we might attempt to copy the file named test.txt as such:
>xcopy test.txt \\apollo\c$standby\*
If your test file is successfully copied, you are ready to use the Standby Wizard. If you are prompted to login to the standby host before the XCOPY command finishes - the Standby Wizard will not function. This is because the Standby Wizard does not execute XCOPY commands interactively.
To test Null Session Shares you will need to issue these commands as an un-authenticated user.