SharePlex 11.4 - Installation and Setup guide

Add SharePlex users and groups to the nameserver.

If you are installing SharePlex in a network managed by a name server such as NIS or NISPLUS, do the following before you install SharePlex:

• Add SharePlex users to the nameserver.
• Add the SharePlex groups to the nameserver.

The SharePlex security groups spadmin (administrator), spopr (operator), and spview (viewer) control access to SharePlex processes. Add each SharePlex user to one of these groups on the nameserver. For more information, see Assign SharePlex Users to Security Groups.

To add the user groups:

1. For NIS add the groups to the group.byname and group.bygid maps. For NISPLUS, add them to the group.org_dir table.
2. Add the SharePlex Administrator user to the spadmin group on the nameserver.
3. Create the spadmin group in the /etc/group file (on Unix and Linux) and then add the SharePlex Administrator user to the group.

To add SharePlex groups to the local system after you install SharePlex, see Assign SharePlex Users to Security Groups.

Ensure that SharePlex can resolve host names.

If you find that SharePlex cannot connect to a host, try mapping the host name to an alphanumeric alias in the following locations:

• Network: The NIS and DNS servers
• Unix and Linux: Local /etc/hosts file

In these files, put each entry on an individual line.

The following is an example, where sysA and sysB are aliases:

111.22.33.44   sysA.company.com   sysA   # source system
55.66.77.88    sysB.company.com   sysB   # target system

Allow access to Amazon EC2 instance

For an EC2 instance, make certain that the appropriate network group is set up to allow access to EC2 instances.

Verify the SharePlex port number.

By default SharePlex uses the port number 2100 (hex equivalent is 834) for both TCP/IP and UDP. If port 2100 is available to SharePlex, no further action is needed. You will need to enter the SharePlex port number during the installation procedure, at which time you can specify a different port number if needed.

Important! The SharePlex port number must be the same one on all machines in the replication configuration so that they can communicate through TCP/IP connections. Make certain the SharePlex port number is open for TCP/IP on the firewall.

Verify TCP/IP settings for Oracle:

SharePlex replicates over any TCP/IP network connection. Typically, if all of the tables in a database are being replicated, SharePlex replicates about 33 percent of the redo log volume, the remainder being mostly maintenance data used by the Oracle software.

The following is a formula for determining bandwidth.

(size of a redo log) x (number of log switches in 1 hour) x 1/3 = volume of data per hour

For example, if the redo logs are 20 MB in size, and they switch six times an hour, SharePlex will replicate approximately 40 MB each hour:

20 x 6 x 1/3 = 40 MB/hour

Assign a directory to store the downloaded SharePlex installation package.

This directory requires approximately the following disk space:

• Unix and Linux: 200 MB

It can be removed after SharePlex is installed.

Plan the SharePlex product directory.

You can create a directory for the SharePlex software files or let the SharePlex installer create it.

This directory requires approximately the following disk space:

• Unix and Linux: 600 MB

Install this directory on the following:

• Unix and Linux: a separate filesystem from the one that contains the database.

Do not install SharePlex on a raw device.

Plan the SharePlex variable-data (working) directory.

This directory is installed by the SharePlex installer with a name of your choosing. It contains the working data and varies greatly in size in correlation to the volume of data being generated. Install this directory on a separate file system from the one that contains the database, but not on a raw device.

To estimate the required disk space:

1. Estimate the longest time that a replication outage can be tolerated.

2. Use the following formula to estimate the amount of data SharePlex would replicate during that amount of time.

   [size of a redo log] x [number of log switches per hour] x .333 x [number of hours downtime] = required disk space

   For example:

   [500 MB redo log] x [5 switches per hour] x [.333] x [8 hours] = 6.5 GB disk space

To replicate data from more than one database on a system, use a variable-data directory for each one. Ideally they should be on different file systems.

Do not install the variable-data directory within the SharePlex product directory. Both directories contain identically named files, and SharePlex utilities that clean up the environment (if this becomes necessary) could remove the wrong files. You can install both directories under one parent directory if desired.

Note: Always monitor disk usage when there is an active SharePlex configuration, especially when there are peaks in transaction activity.

Install in a cluster (including Oracle RAC)

Most shared storage solutions can be used to house SharePlex. Such file systems include, but are not limited to:

• Oracle Cluster File System (OCFS2)
• Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) Cluster File System (ACFS)
• Oracle DataBase File System (DBFS)

Note: This file system must be mounted nointr. Both SharePlex and Oracle report interrupt errors if nointr is not specified.

• Most general purpose cluster file systems

See Installation and Setup for HA Cluster for SharePlex installation requirements in a cluster. Many of those steps must be performed before you install SharePlex, while others are performed after installation.

Create the SharePlex security groups.

SharePlex provides three security groups to enable access control through sp_ctrl. On Unix and Linux, unless you install SharePlex as a root user, the SharePlex Administrator user and the SharePlex admin group must exist prior to installation. For more information, see Assign SharePlex Users to Security Groups.

Note: If you install as root, you are prompted by the installer to create these groups.

Choose a DBA-privileged operating system group to own SharePlex.

The SharePlex Administrator user must be in the Oracle dba group. For Oracle RAC and ASM 11gR2 and above, the user must also be in the Oracle Inventory group. For example: $ useradd –g spadmin –G dba,oinstall. The membership in Oracle Inventory group must be listed explicitly in the etc/group file.

Confirm that the platform is supported.

Review the SharePlex Release Notes to make certain your operating system is supported.

Allocate at least 4 GB of memory for SharePlex processes.

Plan for per-process memory up to 256 MB. This recommendation enables the Post and Read processes to allocate larger sets of memory when necessary.

Disable the disk cache option.

(Source system) Place the redo logs, archive logs, and SharePlex files on a file system that does not have a cache option. Disk caching may interfere with the capture process. For more information, see the SharePlex Knowledge Base article 30895.

Set the number of semaphores per process.

Semaphores help ensure the stability of the SharePlex processes. The required SharePlex settings depend on the platform, as follows:

Oracle Solaris:

• semmni: 70
• semmns: 255
• semmnu: 255
• semmsl: 128
• semume: 255
• shmmax: 60 MB
• shmmni: 100

Red Hat Linux:

• semmni*: 70
• semmns*: 255
• semmnu: 255
• semmsl: 128
• semopm: 64
• semume: 255
• shmmax: 60 MB
• shmmin: 1MB
• shmmni: 100

• shmseg: 26

*These are additive. Add the database minimum values to the SharePlex minimum values to determine the correct setting.

An alternative is to set the value to the number of queues you will be using plus 2. For more information about SharePlex queues, see SharePlex Administrator Guide.

Set the ulimit (number of system file descriptors) to as close to 1024 as possible.

The ulimit can be set either as a system hard limit or a session-based soft limit, as follows:

• Set a hard limit: (Recommended) A root user and system restart are required to change the hard limit, but the value remains fixed at the correct level to support SharePlex. Consult your System Administrator for assistance.
• Set a soft limit: A soft limit setting stays in effect only for the duration of the sp_cop session for which it was set, and then it reverts back to a default value that may be lower than the hard limit and too low for SharePlex.

Set soft and hard limits for the SharePlex user

Set a soft limit and a hard limit for nproc and nofile for the SharePlex O/S user in the /etc/security/limits.conf file.

• shareplex O/S user soft nproc 2048
• shareplex O/S user hard nproc 16384
• shareplex O/S user soft nofile 1024
• shareplex O/S user hard nofile 65536

As an alternative, you can simply use the setting for the Oracle O/S user.

Set core file parameters.

• Set the system core dump block size as large as system resources can accommodate, at minimum 1.5 million blocks. The default is usually 0. Core files help Quest support representatives resolve SharePlex support cases. Higher size settings ensure that enough data is captured to be useful.
• Set the core file output location to the dump sub-directory of the SharePlex variable-data directory.
• Set the naming convention of core files to either core or core.pid.

Note: SharePlex renames all core files named core to core.pid, except for those generated by sp_cop.

If these requirements are not met, the SharePlex event log might report that a core file was not generated, even though a file exists.

Install the ksh shell.

Install the ksh shell before you install SharePlex. The SharePlex monitoring scripts and other features required this shell.

A version of ksh called pdksh is included with the Red Hat Linux builds. Refer to the Red Hat Linux documentation for more information.

Install Native POSIX Threading Library (NPTL)

Quest recommends using the Native POSIX Threading Library (NPTL) on Linux. NPTL is faster and behaves more like other Unix operating systems than LinuxThreads. Although LinuxThreads can be enabled per process by using the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL environment variable, setting that variable adversely affects the performance of SharePlex. If LD_ASSUME_KERNEL is employed, use a setting of 2.4.21.

Set the UNIX account that installs SharePlex to -rwsr-s--x using set-user-id.

The value of -rwsr-s--x enables the Database Setup utility to connect to an Oracle database through SQL*Plus to install the SharePlex database account and objects during installation. The UNIX account that installs SharePlex owns this program.

(Debian Linux)

Create a symbolic link to the /lib64/libc.so.6 library path.

On Debian Linux, the /libc.so.6 library files are not in the /lib64/libc.so.6 location that SharePlex expects. Before installing SharePlex on Debian Linux, create a symbolic link to /lib64/libc.so.6.