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Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

 

Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

We are using Oracle 9i on an HP L3000 with 1GB RAM and on a Testmachine B1000 Workstation with 128 MB RAM.

Both Machines contain only HPUX 11i and Oracle 9i.

Problems:

- Database Creation Assistant which is invoked as part of the Installation hangs with the message. "not enough space" on both machines. At different stages though.

- We are creating one of the available Template Databases. (The problem happens for all Databases)

- All recommended Oracle Kernel Parameters have been adjusted. However there is a persistent "not enough space ... could not fork" message on the operating system-level.

Question:

Are there any Kernel Settings for Oracle 9i Enterprise with a Standard Database (no tuning for anything) that are certified.

We believe the Oracle documented Kernel-Parameters are wrong at this point.
10 REPLIES 10
James Murtagh
Honored Contributor

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

Hi Wolfgang,

It is probably not the kernel parameters that are causing you problems, I would guess it was swap space. Looking at you physical memory figures, you may need to go beyond the normal rules of allocating swap = memory. To check if swap space is the culprit during run time/installation us "/usr/sbin/swapinfo -tam". If the total at the bottom is reaching 100% this is a swap space issue.

Regards,

James.

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

We checked the SWAP Space and there was no swapping activity that was pointing to a problem.

James Murtagh
Honored Contributor

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

Hi Wolfgang,

The "Could not fork" message still leads me to believe this is a swap issue. HPUX uses a reservation policy whereby a counter a decremented when a process starts....it must be able to reserve the swap space before running. If it couldn't reserve the space you will see this message but will not see the swap count increase. I would guess if you increased swap space and tried again you will be ok.

Regards,

James.
T G Manikandan
Honored Contributor

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

The problem could be due to

1.swap space
2.maxdsiz
3.SHMMAX

Please revert with the kernel parameter output on the system

kmtune -l
Also post the output of
swapinfo -l

What you can try is increase SHMMAX to 1GB on the system where you have 1GB memory
Also increase your maxdsiz for 32 bit Oracle and maxdsiz_64 for 64 bit Oracle to around 200MB.

Revert

Fast

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

Attached you will find the cfg2html.htm for the L3000. The Kernel Parameters are included here.

Is there a recommended Documentation about Kernel Parameters for HPUX11i ?

In addition on the B1000 I just increased all Kernel Parameters that seem to be related to Memory and Processes. Now Oracle 9i installed fine and is working. But this is for testing only. On our production machine we need to know which Kernel Parameters really are the issue here.

(certified Kernel Setting)
Steven E. Protter
Exalted Contributor

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

As a practical matter, a workstation with 128 Megabytes of RAM is simply not adequate to run Oracle, no matter what the swap setup is.

Oracle reccomends 256 Megabytes of ram to run Oracle 8 on a PC. It reccomends 512 Megabytes to run it on HP-UX.

As far as the L3000 goes, you are still actually kind of light on memory. HP-UX 11i is a pretty reliable and robust platform, but it uses a lot of resources, just to run the OS.

While it is possible to run an Enterprise database, and the L3000 is a rocket fast platform, you'll need to have at least 2G of swap, and will probably be hitting it pretty hard.

As far as actual kernel rec's go, you need to set up more shared memory than the minimum standards(discussed in earlier posts).

Do see Oracle recommends the December Gold Quality pack and a half dozen other patches prior to running Oracle on HP-UX, any one of which can cause you issues.

Don't forget to go to http://www.hp.com/go/java and pick a certified version of java 1.2 or 1.3 as higher versions are not yet certified by oracle, and all of the recommended patches.

As far as the workstation goes, forget about it, you'll never run oracle on that platform.

P
Steven E Protter
Owner of ISN Corporation
http://isnamerica.com
http://hpuxconsulting.com
Sponsor: http://hpux.ws
Twitter: http://twitter.com/hpuxlinux
Founder http://newdatacloud.com

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

So what you are saying is:

- Oracle recommends 256MB RAM as a Minimum. However Oracle 9i is now working successfully with 128 MB RAM after I increased several Kernel Parameters.
- 1GB RAM is not renough on the L3000 even though 256 MB RAM should be the Minimum for the B1000.
- The Oracle recommended minimum values are not the real minimum value to install one the Default Databases.

It seems we need more thorough information.

Is there a documentation specific to Kernel Settings with explanations for Parameters that can be recommended?
James Murtagh
Honored Contributor

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent

Hi Wolfgang,

I think what Steven was trying to say is that Oracle is memory intensive. Also, getting something running is not the same as having it running effectively, especially if this is a mission critical server.

I don't really know Oracle but I am taking my information from the release notes which states the recommended kernel settings and minumum physical memory:

http://otn.oracle.com/docs/products/oracle9i/doc_library/901_doc/A90357-03/A90357_03.pdf

I did install 9i on my 11i workstation at home and didn't actually adjust any settings, as I have only 512MB memory and the same swap space the virtual memory on my server is limited anyway. However, the recommended paramters seemed reasonable to me. Looking at some of the virtual memory related parameters:

maxdsiz - 1GB
maxdsiz_64 - 2GB
shmmax - physical memory

I would be amazed if Oracle had not tested these thoroughly. This is why I thought swap space was your issue - with at most 1GB ram these segments limits should not be hit, especially after an install. Also, shmmax is dynamically tunable at 11i so you could tune this easily to see if this is causing a problem.

One thing that does puzzle me - that configuration attachment does not tie in with what you have said - some kernel parameters are not at what Oracle recommends (from the doc I pointed to) and it says there is 2GB physical memory on the system?

For more information on the kernel parameters please see the official HP guide:

http://www.docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/TKP-90202/TKP-90202.html

Regards,

James.
T G Manikandan
Honored Contributor

Re: Oracle 9i on HPUX 11i - Kernel Parameter in Documentation inkonsistent