修改时间 08-JUN-2011     类型 BULLETIN     状态 PUBLISHED

In this Document
  Purpose
  Scope and Application
  Understand the CRS Patching
  References

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Applies to:

Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 10.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2 - Release: 10.2 to 11.2
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Purpose

CRS patch is different from RDBMS patch. The purpose of this document is to help customers understand the CRS patching.

Scope and Application

Intended audience is DBA, support engineers.

Understand the CRS Patching

1). For 10.1, 10.2, 11.1, CRS stack runs from a separate home called CRS HOME. This home is separate from RDBMS_HOME and ASM_HOME. We will call this CRS_HOME and the patch to CRS_HOME as CRS patch.

2). As of 11.2, CRS stack is run from a separate home called GI HOME (Grid Infrastructure Home). This home is separate from RDBMS HOME. It includes the CRS component and ASM component. A CRS patch is the patch to the CRS component. Sometimes CRS patch is also called GI patch.

ASM patch for GI HOME is similar to regular RDBMS patch. The difference is it requires to unlock GI HOME before applying ASM patches. This note does not cover ASM patches for GI HOME.

3). There are two different types of CRS patches. One is PSE, patchset exception,  (aka one-off patch). The other is CRS PSU (pre 11.2), or GI PSU (11.2+).

• PSE is a patch for a single bug fix, or a patch for a merge of a number of bug fixes. Usually is requested by customers.
  

• CRS PSU/GI PSU is a collection of a number of bug fixes recommended by Oracle Development and it is delivered regularly. Compared to CRS PSE, it has more testing done than PSE. Customer is recommended to apply latest CRS PSU/GI PSU. Because GI HOME includes both CRS component and ASM component, a GI PSU includes both patches for CRS and patches for ASM (i.e. after unzipping bundle zip patch file, it creates two directories, one with patch# for CRS, the other with patch# for ASM). Because some ASM patches may require to be applied to both ASM_HOME (GI_HOME) and RDBMS_HOME to be effective, it is a best practice to apply GI PSU to both GI_HOME and RDBMS_HOME (when RDBMS_HOME version is same as GI_HOME).
  

CRS patches are different from RDBMS Patches. For example, any CRS patch is a full build, i.e. it always ships with all binaries. This means:

a). CRS patch always conflicts with another CRS patch. So one needs to make sure CRS patch to be applied is a superset of the existing CRS patch. Otherwise, a merge request is needed.

b). May need more space in .patch_storage. Opatch automatically makes several backups of affected files before applying the patch. Since CRS patch ships all the binaries, it requires more space during the patch application.

c). Every CRS patch includes files for CRS_HOME/GI_HOME and RDBMS_HOME. This is because there are some CRS related binaries in $RDBMS_HOME as well, for example, srvctl, which is used from RDBMS_HOME to manage database instances. There are additional steps in README to apply the patch to RDBMS_HOME. We have seen cases where customer has forgotten to apply CRS patch to RDBMS_HOME and some fix become ineffective because of this.

4). When applying 10.2/11.1 CRS patch on top of a CRS PSU, if the patch is not included in the CRS PSU, then you need to request an overlay patch. In this case, development builds the patch on top of the CRS PSU, i.e. the final patch includes the fix you wants PLUS the CRS PSU it was built on. Therefore, if opatch complains the conflict, it is safe to rollback the CRS PSU and apply the CRS patch.

For example, you have CRS 11.1.0.7.6 PSU applied on the CRS Home. Now you are told that you have run into bug# 12345678. Because you have 11.1.0.7.6 CRS PSU applied, Oracle development builds the patch on top of 11.1.0.7.6 CRS PSU. But when you apply the patch# 12345678, opatch may show patch# 12345678 conflicts with 11.1.0.7.6 CRS PSU. Because the patch#12345678 is built on top of 11.1.0.7.6 CRS PSU, it means the final patch#12345678 includes 11.1.0.7.6 CRS PSU PLUS the fix for bug#12345678, you can safely ignore the conflict, rollback 11.1.0.7.6 CRS PSU, then apply patch# 12345678.

5). When applying 11.2 CRS patch on top of GI PSU, if the patch is not included in the GI PSU, then you need to request an overlay patch. Development builds the patch on top of the GI PSU you had. For 11.2 CRS Patch, opatch should be able to recognize the overlay patch is a superset of GI PSU and rollback CRS part of GI PSU accordingly. If a patch is built on top of a GI PSU, there is no need to manually rollback the GI PSU to apply the overlay patch.

Because of two components in 11.2 GI PSU, you should never manually rollback 11.2 GI PSU to apply the overlay patch. Manually rolling back 11.2 GI PSU result in rolling back both CRS and ASM part of BUNDLE. Even though the overlay patch includes the CRS part of the PSU, the end result is that ASM part of PSU is missing from GI HOME.

For example:

a). You have 11.2.0.1.2 GI PSU 9655006 applied on your GI HOME. Because 11.2.0.1.2 GI PSU contains patch for CRS/ACFS (patch#9655006) and ASM (patch#9654983), an opatch lsinventory -oh $GI_HOME shows:



b). Now you need to apply patch#9745846, which is built on top of 11.2.0.1.2 GI PSU. So it is a superset of CRS component of 11.2.0.1.2 GI PSU. opatch output will show:



c). After the patch application, the opatch lsinventory shows:

Noticed how 9745846 replaces 9655006 (the CRS part of 11.2.0.1.2 GI PSU).




6). Depends on the version of the PSE one-off patches, some one-off patches may need manual opatch apply, meaning, some scripts need to be run before and after opatch; some later patches are packaged with opatch auto, which opatch takes care of all the steps. You need to follow READM instruction to see of opatch auto works for the patch or not.

7). In general, Exadata CRS patches should not be applied to non-exadata environment.

8). In general, DATABASE PSU should not be applied to GI HOME. Instead you should use the corresponding version of GI PSU (which includes the DATABASE PSU). For example, one should not apply Database 11.2.0.1.4 PSU to GI Home. Another example is one should not apply Database PSU 11.2.0.1.2 (patch#9654983) directly to GI HOME, instead, one should apply 11.2.0.1.2 GI PSU (patch#9655006), which includes the database PSU 11.2.0.1.2 (patch#9654983).

9). In 11.2.0.2, Development has provided two GI Bundles (11.2.0.2.1 GI BUNDLE1 and 11.2.0.2.2 GI BUNDLE2), these bundles are different from GI PSUs. Oracle recommends to apply GI PSU instead of GI Bundles.

Conclusion:

CRS patch is different from RDBMS patch. One should read the readme that comes with the patch carefully and follow the readme exactly in order to apply the CRS patch properly.

References

相关的 产品 Oracle Database Products > Oracle Database > Oracle Database > Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition 关键字 APPLY PATCH; BUNDLE; PATCH

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