Oracle on RHEL4 with ASM problem

[Jack Challen]

Lunt, Nick wrote:
>>/etc/init.d/oracleasm createdisk VOL14 /dev/raw/raw1
>>==
> 
> 
> I get the same error Jack, Block device required. 

Ok, it looks like the oracleasm utility can only *create* asm disk if 
they're block (not raw devices). Can you stop rawdevices and revert to 
/dev/sdp1 (ie put a partition on it) because this is what you had 
before. You should then be able to create the asm disk on /dev/sdp1.

You can then create the /dev/raw devices for accessing /dev/sdp1 as a 
raw device, which can (hopefully) be used by ASM once the volumes have 
been created over the corresponding block device.

According to this moderately confusing page:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/asmlib/raw_migration.html

You can easily switch between raw and block access on an already created 
volume (suggesting the Oracle whitepaper I linked to earlier is, erm, 
wrong). You can't, however, use both methods concurrently.

Summary:
Get rid of rawdevice.
Create partition
Set partition up as ASM disk.
Create raw-mode device file for accessing partition (udev permissions etc)
Configure ASM to use raw-mode device file rather than /dev/sd interface.


Unfortunately, I don't know how to do the last step outside of the 
initial installation tool.

Other than that, I'm afraid I'm out of ideas :)

cheers, and good luck
jack
-- 
Jack Challen
Technical Consultant, OCSL.
http://www.ocsl.co.uk/