Patching and Upgrades - Oracle Exadata Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach - page 331

■ in this recipe, as well as recipes 11-4, 11-5, and 11-6, we will be showing examples for applying the July
2012 QFsdp, patch 14207418. the steps in this recipe are specific to the patch contents and README instructions of this
patch, but they should provide an overview of a typical exadata patching. Where possible, we will attempt to only present
“common” storage server patching activities and leave it to the exadata dMa to confirm specific patch steps required for
specific exadata software versions.

Note

1. Start by transferring the QFSDP patch to a directory on your first compute node and

unzipping the file. Using the instructions in the ExadataStorageServer/<version>/
README-<version>.html file, go to Section 3: “Preparing Exadata Cells for Patch
Application.” The first paragraph in this section will likely say that your InfiniBand switches
need to be on a specific version; before continuing, please see Recipe 11-5 for instructions
on how to apply InfiniBand patches.

2. After ensuring that your InfiniBand switches are patched to the proper firmware level, a

handful of preparation tasks are typically required. The first of these tasks is to start an
ILOM console on each storage cell so that you can monitor the patch application log files
and connect to the server in the event of patch failure or to troubleshoot. To start the ILOM
console, log in to each storage cell's ILOM address and do the following:

Macintosh-8:~ jclarke$ ssh root@cm01cel01-ilom
Password:
Oracle(R) Integrated Lights Out Manager
Version 3.0.16.10 r65138
Copyright (c) 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
-> start /SP/console
Are you sure you want to start /SP/console (y/n)? y
Serial console started. To stop, type ESC (
cm01cel01.centroid.com login: root
Password:
Last login: Wed Oct 10 13:46:59 from cm01dbm01
[root@cm01cel01 ~]#

3. The next step is usually to validate the version of the ofa package on your storage cells and

take appropriate actions, per the patch README file, to ensure that your ofa binaries are at
a high enough level to avoid file-system corruption. This step is typically done using the
following rpm command, and if your version is lower than the expected version, you will be
required to perform a number of steps to provide a workaround:

[root@cm01dbm01 ~]# rpm -qa|grep ofa
ofa-2.6.18-238.12.2.0.2.el5-1.5.1-4.0.53
[root@cm01dbm01 ~]#

4. Next, run ipconf -verify on your storage cells to validate your current configuration and

address any issues prior to patching:

[root@cm01cel01 ~]# ipconf -verify
Verifying of Exadata configuration file /opt/oracle.cellos/cell.conf
Done. Configuration file /opt/oracle.cellos/cell.conf passed all
verification checks
[root@cm01cel01 ~]#