2 Installing and Upgrading Oracle ASMLIB

ASMLIB is a support library for the Automatic Storage Management (ASM) feature of the Oracle Database. Oracle provides a Linux-specific implementation of this library. This document describes how to download, install, and upgrade the ASM library on Oracle Linux.

What do you need?

  • A system with any of the following installed:

    • Oracle Linux 8

    • Oracle Linux 9

    • Oracle Linux 10

  • Root administrator privileges on the host Linux system.

Note:

If the host system is using Oracle Linux 7, see Oracle Linux 7: Installing and Configuring Oracle ASMLIB.

Updating ULN Subscriptions or Downloading Packages

The oracleasmlib and oracleasm-support packages are available on the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN). You can also manually download the packages.

We recommend installing from ULN to keep the system updated.

  • Subscribe to ULN Channels.

    If you're using ULN, subscribe to the "Oracle ASMLIB" and "Oracle Linux Addons" ULN channels.

    1. Sign in to https://linux.oracle.com with your ULN username and password.
    2. On the Systems tab, from the list of registered systems, select the link name for the specified system.
    3. On the System Details page, select Manage Subscriptions.
    4. On the System Summary page, select the required "Oracle ASMLIB" and "Oracle Linux Addons" channels from the Available Channels list, then click the right-arrow (→) to move selected channels to the Subscribed Channels list.
    5. Click Save Subscriptions.
  • Download packages manually.

    If you don't use ULN you can download the driver packages from the following resources, but you must keep them updated on the system when new patches are released:

Installing Required Packages

The following steps describe how to install the ASM support tools, the ASM library, and the kernel driver (when applicable).

You must be subscribed to the ULN channels or have the packages downloaded before you proceed. See Updating ULN Subscriptions or Downloading Packages for more information.

  1. Log into the system with an account that has administrator privileges.
  2. Install the oracleasm-support and oracleasmlib packages.
    sudo dnf install oracleasm-support oracleasmlib
  3. Install the kernel driver if required.

    1. On systems running UEK R7 or UEK 8, no driver is required to use ASMLIB because io_uring is already enabled in the kernel. You can restrict io_uring to processes run by a particular group id. See Enabling or Restricting io_uring for more information.

    2. On systems running UEK R6 or earlier, the oracleasm kernel driver is already included and installed with the kernel.

    3. On Oracle Linux 8 systems using RHCK, you must install the oracleasm driver:
      sudo dnf install kmod-redhat-oracleasm

    4. On Oracle Linux 9 and Oracle Linux 10 systems using RHCK, you don't need to install the kernel driver, but you must enable io_uring in the kernel. See Enabling or Restricting io_uring.

Enabling or Restricting io_uring

You might need to enable the io_uring interface on some systems, or you might decide to restrict it to processes run by a particular group.

The io_uring interface is used instead of the oracleasm kernel driver, when the system is running UEK R7 or later, or RHCK on Oracle Linux 9 or Oracle Linux 10. If the system is running RHCK on Oracle Linux 9 or Oracle Linux 10, you must either enable io_uring globally, or you can enable io_uring so that it's restricted to processes that are run by a particular group. io_uring is globally enabled in UEK R7 and UEK 8 by default, but you can edit the system configuration to restrict it to processes that are run by a particular group, if you prefer.

To edit the system configuration to enable or restrict io_uring, use the following procedure.

  1. Edit or create /etc/sysctl.d/io_uring.conf to update the kernel configuration.

    • You can fully enable io_uring in the kernel by adding the following line to /etc/sysctl.d/io_uring.conf: 

      kernel.io_uring_disabled = 0

    • Alternatively, you can restrict io_uring API access to Oracle Database processes by adding the following lines to /etc/sysctl.d/io_uring.conf: 

      kernel.io_uring_disabled = 1
kernel.io_uring_group = <GID>
      Set <GID> to the numeric ID of the group specified when configuring ASMLIB with the oracleasm configure command.
  2. Reload the system configuration.

    If you have updated /etc/sysctl.d/io_uring.conf, reload the system configuration by running: 

    sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/io_uring.conf

Upgrading ASMLIB

Update ASMLIB by using the dnf update command.

  • Run the dnf update command to fully update the system.
    sudo dnf update -y

    We recommend that new ULN subscribers that have migrated from Red Hat update the oracleasmlib package from ULN.

Uninstalling ASMLIB

Uninstall ASMLIB from a system.

  1. Stop Oracle ASM and any running database instances on the node.
    sudo srvctl stop instance -d db_unique_name-node node_name
sudo srvctl stop asm -node node_name
  2. Stop the last Oracle Flex ASM instance on the node, by stopping the Oracle Clusterware stack.
    sudo Grid_home/bin/crsctl stop crs
  3. Stop the oracleasm service.
    sudo systemctl disable --now oracleasm
  4. Remove the oracleasmlib and oracleasm-support packages.
    sudo dnf erase oracleasmlib oracleasm-support