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Cluster Verification Utility (CLUVFY) FAQ (Doc ID 316817.1)

In this Document

Goal
Solution
What is Cluster Verification Utility (CVU)? What are its objectives and features?
What is a stage?
What is a component?
What is nodelist?
Do I have to be root to use CVU?
What about discovery? Does CVU discover installed components?
How do I install CVU from OTN?
What is 'cvuqdisk' rpm? Why should I install this rpm?
How do I install 'cvuqdisk' package?
How do I know about cluvfy commands?
Do I have to type the nodelist every time for the CVU commands? Is there any shortcut?
How do I get detail output of a check?
Can I check if the storage is shared among the nodes?
Can CVU fix something in the system?
How do I check the Oracle Clusterware stack and other sub-components of it?
How do I check user accounts and administrative permissions related issues?
How do I check if SSH is configured properly on my cluster?
Is there a way to compare nodes?
Is there a way to verify that the Oracle Clusterware is working properly before proceeding with RAC install?
At what point cluvfy is usable? Can I use cluvfy before installing Oracle Clusterware?
How do I turn on tracing?
Why cluvfy reports "unknown" on a particular node?
Scalability RAC Community

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Information in this document applies to any platform.

GOAL

This document addresses some of the frequently asked questions and common concerns regarding the Cluster Verification Framework and the cluvfy tool.

SOLUTION

What is Cluster Verification Utility (CVU)? What are its objectives and features?

CVU is a utility that is distributed with Oracle Clusterware. It was developed to assist in the installation and configuration of Oracle Clusterware as well as RAC. CVU will verify all the
important components that are needed at different stages in configuring a RAC environment. The wide domain of verification provided by CVU ranges from initial hardware setup
through fully operational cluster for RAC deployment and covers all the intermediate stages of installation and configuration of various components. The command line tool is cluvfy.
Cluvfy is a non-intrusive utility and will not adversely affect the system or operational stack.

What is a stage?

CVU supports the notion of Stage verification. It identifies all the important stages in RAC deployment and provides each stage with its own entry and exit criteria. The entry criteria
for a stage define a specific set of verification tasks to be performed before initiating that stage. This pre-check saves the user from entering into a stage unless its pre-requisite
conditions are met. The exit criteria for a stage define another specific set of verification tasks to be performed after completion of the stage. The post-check ensures that the
activities for that stage have been completed successfully. It identifies any stage specific problem before it propagates to subsequent stages; thus making it difficult to find its root
cause. An example of a stage is "pre-check of database installation", which checks whether the system meets the criteria for RAC install.

What is a component?

CVU supports the notion of Component verification. The verifications in this category are not associated with any specific stage. The user can verify the correctness of a specific
cluster component. A component can range from a basic one, like free disk space to a complex one like Oracle Clusterware Stack. The integrity check for the Oracle Clusterware
stack will transparently span over verification of multiple sub-components associated with Oracle Clusterware stack. Bundling of several relevant tasks as a component is of great
use to the user for verifying a specific cluster component.

What is nodelist?

A nodelist is a comma separated list of hostnames without domain. Cluvfy will run the requested verification on all nodes in the nodelist provided. Cluvfy will ignore any domain while
processing the nodelist. If duplicate entities after removing the domain exist, cluvfy will eliminate the duplicate names while processing. Wherever supported, you can use '-n all' to
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check on all the cluster nodes. Check "Do I have to type the nodelist every time for the CVU commands? Is there any shortcut?" for more information on nodelist and shortcuts.

Do I have to be root to use CVU?

No. CVU is intended for database and system administrators. CVU assumes the current user as oracle user.

What about discovery? Does CVU discover installed components?

At present, CVU's discovery is limited to the following components. CVU discovers available network interfaces if you do not specify any interface in its command line. For storage
related verification, CVU discovers all the supported storage types if you do not specify a particular storage. CVU discovers CRS HOME if one is available. CVU also discovers the
statically configured nodelist for the cluster if an Oracle supported vendor clusterware or Oracle Clusterware is available.

How do I install CVU from OTN?

Here is how one can install CVU from a zip file(cvupack_<platform>.zip) downloaded from OTN:

1. Create a CV home( say /home/username/mycvhome ) directory. It should have at least 35M of free disk space.
2. cd /home/username/mycvhome
3. copy the cvupack_<platform>.zip file to /home/username/mycvhome
4. unzip the file:
> unzip cvupack<platform>.zip
5. (Optional) Set the environmental variable CV_DESTLOC. This should point to a writable area on *all* nodes. When invoked, the tool will attempt to copy the necessary bits as
required to this location. Make sure the location exists on all nodes and it has write permission for CVU user. It is strongly recommended that you should set this variable. If this
variable has not been set, CVU will use "/tmp" as the default.
> setenv CV_DESTLOC /tmp/cvu_temp

To verify, run cluvfy from <CV Home>/bin directory (typically /home/username/mycvhome/bin/cluvfy). This should show the usage.

For Linux platforms, an optional rpm package 'cvuqdisk' is required on all the nodes. Please refer to How do I install 'cvuqdisk' package for detail.

What is 'cvuqdisk' rpm? Why should I install this rpm?

cvuqdisk is applicable on Linux platforms only.

CVU requires root privilege to gather information about the scsi disks during discovery. A small binary uses the setuid mechanism to query disk information as root. Note that this
process is purely a read-only process with no adverse impact on the system. To make this secured, this binary is packaged in the cvuqdisk rpm and need root privilege to install on a
machine.

When this package is installed on all the nodes, CVU performs discovery and shared storage accessibility checks for scsi disks. Otherwise, it complains about the missing package
'cvuqdisk'. You can disable the scsi device check feature by setting the CV_RAW_CHECK_ENABLED to FALSE in $CV_HOME/cv/admin/cvu_config file. CVU will not complain about the
missing rpm if this variable is set to false.

How do I install 'cvuqdisk' package?

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Here are the steps to install cvuqdisk package.

1. Become root user

2. Copy the rpm ( cvuqdisk-1.0.7-1.rpm or the latest version ) to a local directory. You can find the rpm in <CV-HOME>/rpm directory where <CV-HOME> is the directory in which
you have installed CVU from OTN.
3.Set the environment variable to a group, who should own this binary. Typically it is the "dba" group.
export CVUQDISK_GRP=dba
4. Erase any existing package
rpm -e cvuqdisk
5. Install the rpm
rpm -iv cvuqdisk-1.0.7-1.rpm
6. Verify the package
rpm -qa | grep cvuqdisk

How do I know about cluvfy commands?

Cluvfy has context sensitive help built into it. Cluvfy shows the most appropriate usage text based on the cluvfy command line arguments.

If you type 'cluvfy' on the command prompt, cluvfy displays the high level generic usage text, which talks about valid stage and component syntax.

If you type 'cluvfy comp -list', cluvfy will show valid components with brief description on each of them. If you type 'cluvfy comp -help', cluvfy will show detail syntax for each of the
valid components. Similarly, 'cluvfy stage -list' and 'cluvfy stage -help' will list valid stages and their syntax respectively.

If you type an invalid command, cluvfy will show the appropriate usage for thatparticular command. For example, if you type 'cluvfy stage -pre dbinst', cluvfy will show the syntax for
pre-check of dbinst stage.

Do I have to type the nodelist every time for the CVU commands? Is there any shortcut?

You do not have to type the nodelist every time for the CVU commands. Typing the nodelist for a large cluster is painful and error prone. Here are few shortcuts.

To provide all the nodes of the cluster, type '-n all'. Cluvfy will attempt to get the nodelist in the following order:
1. If a vendor clusterware is available, it will pick all the configured nodes from the vendor clusterware using lsnodes utility.
2. If CRS is installed, it will pick all the configured nodes from Oracle clusterware using olsnodes utility.
3. It will look for the CV_NODE_ALL property in the cvu_config file under $CV_HOME/cv/admin.
4. If none of the above, it will look for the CV_NODE_ALL environmental variable.
5. Otherwise, it will complain.

To provide a partial list(some of the nodes of the cluster) of nodes, you can set an environmental variable and use it in the CVU command. For example:
export MYNODES=node1,node3,node5
cluvfy comp nodecon -n $MYNODES

How do I get detail output of a check?

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Cluvfy supports a verbose mode. By default, cluvfy reports in non-verbose mode and just reports the summary of a test. To get detailed output of a check, use the flag '-verbose' in
the command line. This will produce detail output of individual checks and where applicable will show per-node result in a tabular fashion.

How do I check network or node connectivity related issues?

Use component verifications commands like 'nodereach' or 'nodecon' for this purpose. For detailed syntax of these commands, type comp -help command on the command prompt.

If the 'comp nodecon' command is invoked without -i, cluvfy will attempt to discover all the available interfaces and the corresponding IP address & subnet. Then cluvfy will try to
verify the node connectivity per subnet. You can run this command in verbose mode to find out the mappings between the interfaces, IP addresses and subnets. Cluvfy will suggest
interfaces for VIP and private interconnect if suitable interfaces are available.

You can check the connectivity among the nodes through specific interfaces by specifying the interface name(s) through -i argument.

Can I check if the storage is shared among the nodes?

Yes, you can use 'cluvfy comp ssa' command to check the sharedness of the storage. Please refer to the known issues section for the type of storage supported by cluvfy.

Can CVU fix something in the system?

Yes, CVU supports the functionality of fixing up several system parameters that do not meet the requirements. Wherever applicable, the argument '-fixup' can be specified in
command line to request generation of fixup scripts. When this argument is specified, CVU auto generates fixup scripts containing appropriate values for those parameters that need
to be fixed and their fix is supported by CVU. Instructions are provided at the end of cluvfy command execution results to execute the mentioned fixup script under root privileges.

How do I check the Oracle Clusterware stack and other sub-components of it?

Cluvfy provides commands to check a particular sub-component of the Oracle Clusterware stack as well as the whole Oracle Clusterware stack. You can use the 'comp ocr'
command to check the integrity of OCR. Similarly, you can use 'comp crs' and 'comp clumgr' commands to check integrity of Oracle Clustereare and clustermanager sub-
components.

To check the entire Oracle Clusterware stack, run the stage command 'cluvfy stage -post crsinst'.

How do I check user accounts and administrative permissions related issues?

Use admprv component verification command. Refer to the usage text for detail instruction and type of supported operations. To check whether the privilege is sufficient for user
equivalence, use '-o user_equiv' argument. You can force CVU to check user equivalence using SSH only by the '-sshonly' flag. Similarly, the '-o crs_inst' will verify whether the user
has the correct permissions for installing Oracle Clusterware. The '-o db_inst' will check for permissions required for installing RAC and '-o db_config' will check for permissions
required for creating a RAC database or modifying a RAC database configuration.

How do I check if SSH is configured properly on my cluster?

You can use CVU's admprv component verification command 'comp admprv -n <nodelist> -o user_equiv -sshonly -verbose' to verify this. To check whether X-Windows is configured
to work with SSH for user equivalence as per Oracle's requirement, set the following property "CV_XCHK_FOR_SSH_ENABLED=TRUE" in the $CV_HOME/cv/admin/cvu_config file.

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Is there a way to compare nodes?

You can use the peer comparison feature of cluvfy for this purpose. The command 'comp peer' will list the values of different nodes for several pre-selected properties. You can use
the peer command with -refnode argument to compare those properties of other nodes against the reference node.

Why the peer comparison with -refnode says matched when the group or user does not exist?
Peer comparison with the -refnode feature acts like a baseline feature. It compares the system properties of other nodes against the reference node. If the value does not match(
not equal to reference node value ), then it flags that as a deviation from the reference node. If a group or user does not exist on reference node as well as on the other node, it will
report this as 'matched' since there is no deviation from the reference node. Similarly, it will report as 'mismatched' for a node with higher total memory than the reference node for
the above reason.

Is there a way to verify that the Oracle Clusterware is working properly before proceeding with RAC install?

Yes. You can use the post-check command for cluster services setup(-post crsinst) to verify Oracle Clusterware status. A more appropriate test would be to use the pre-check
command for database installation(-pre dbinst). This will check whether the current state of the system is suitable for RAC install.

At what point cluvfy is usable? Can I use cluvfy before installing Oracle Clusterware?

You can run cluvfy at any time, even before Oracle Clusterware installation. In fact, cluvfy is designed to assist the user as soon as the hardware and OS is up. If you invoke a
command which requires Oracle Clusterware or RAC on local node, cluvfy will report an error if those required products are not yet installed.

How do I turn on tracing?

The tracing is turned on by default. Set the environmental variable SRVM_TRACE to false if you do not want tracing. For example, in bash "export SRVM_TRACE=false" or ìexport
SRVM_TRACE=FALSEî will switch off tracing.

Where can I find the CVU trace files?

CVU log files can be found under $CV_HOME/cv/log directory. The log files are automatically rotated and the latest log file has the name cvutrace.log.0. It is a good idea to clean up
unwanted log files or archive them to reclaim disk place.
If you want the trace files to be generated in a location other than $CV_HOME/cv/log then set the environment variable CV_TRACELOC to the desired location of your choice.

For 12.1.0.2, the log locaiton will be: $ORACLE_BASE/crsdata/<host_name>/cvu

Why cluvfy reports "unknown" on a particular node?

Cluvfy reports unknown when it can not conclude for sure if the check passed or failed.

Why does CVU complain "WARNING: Could not find a suitable set of interfaces for VIPs"?
CVU checks for the following criteria before considering a set of interfaces for VIP:
-- the interfaces should have the same name across nodes
-- they should belong to the same subnet
-- they should have the same netmask

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-- they should be on public(and routable) network.
Oftentimes, the interfaces planned for the VIPs are configured on 10.*, 172.16.* - 172.31.* or 192.168.* networks, which are not routable. Hence CVU does not consider them as
suitable for VIPs. If none of the available interfaces satisfy this criteria, CVU complains "WARNING: Could not find a suitable set of interfaces for VIPs.". It is worth noting that, such
addresses will actually work if they're public, but CVU just thinks they're private and reports accordingly.

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