Using Oracle Clusterware / Grid Infrastructure on servers with heterogeneous Network Interface (NIC) names across servers used in the cluster (Doc ID 1570785.1)

Last updated on FEBRUARY 10, 2023

Applies to:

Purpose

For Oracle Clusterware / Oracle Grid Infrastructure a requirement was documented to maintain homogeneous Network Interface (NIC) names across servers used in the cluster. While this requirement has been lifted with Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c, it needs to be noted that this requirement differs slightly between Oracle Clusterware versions and across different operating systems. This note intends to clarify the documented requirements by version and operating system in order to allow for using Oracle Clusterware / Grid Infrastructure on servers with heterogeneous Network Interface (NIC) names across servers used in the cluster.

List of documented requirements (Linux Operating System - similar for Oracle Solaris): 

• Oracle Clusterware 10g Release 2: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/install.102/b14203/prelinux.htm#BABJHGBE
  • For Oracle Clusterware 11g Release 1 the requirements basically remain the same as for Oracle Clusterware 10g Release 2
• Oracle Grid Infrastructure 11g Release 2: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e41961/prelinux.htm#CWLIN208
• Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1: http://docs.oracle.com/database/121/CWLIN/networks.htm#BABGGDGC

Scope

Definition: heterogeneous Network Interface names 

For the purpose of this document, "heterogeneous Network Interface  names across servers used in the cluster" means that NIC names are not the same across servers in the cluster and within the same usage. For example: With a two-node cluster that means that you cannot configure network adapters on node1 with eth0 as the public interface, but on node2 have eth1 as the public interface. Public interface names must be the same, so you must configure eth0 as public on both nodes. 

Generic Operating System

Most operating systems (OS) provide a mechanism to either change the order of interfaces or rename them completely in order to fullfil this requirement. Network bonding solutions, especially those that introduce a logical interface on top of the physical interface that is then presented to the Oracle Clusterware stack can also be used to mitigate this issue, but may unnecessarily introduce another layer for technology that is provided as part of the Oracle Clusterware stack. Please, contact your OS manual or vendor if you want to make use of those technologies.

Oracle Solaris

On Oracle Solaris, the difference in device naming can be more significant. For example, within a two-node cluster, you could have a network intended to be used as the public interface that is called "nxge0" on the one node and "e1000g0" on the other. This difference derives from the fact that on Oracle Solaris until version Solaris 11 the device name is taken from the device driver name (in simple terms). Oracle Solaris has provided a tool called "dladm" to rename devices. This tool can be used effectively for the purpose of making device names homogeneous across servers used in the Oracle Clusterware based cluster only with Oracle Solaris 11 and will require certain versions of Oracle Clusterware / Oracle Grid Infrastructure to be in place.

Applicability

Requirements for homogeneous  NIC names across servers used in the cluster also differ between the public network and the private network. For interfaces intended to be used for the public network the documented requirements until Oracle Grid Infrastructure 12c Release 1 state necessity ("must"), while for the private network optional usage is indicated ("should"). Practically, this distinction does not take effect for fresh installations, but can be utilized when adding nodes to an existing cluster and will be outlined in this note as required. 

This note will not describe how network bonding or IP failover solutions can be used to create the perception that NIC names are homogeneous across servers used in the cluster. Instead, it will show different means of fulfilling the requirement using either native OS dependent tools (renaming) or Oracle Clusterware / Oracle Grid Infrastructure inherent techniques. If you want to use network bonding or IP failover solutions create this perception, the simple idea is to make the NIC names appear homogeneous across servers used in the cluster.

Details