Applying one-off Oracle Clusterware patches in a mixed version home environment (Doc ID 363254.1)

Last updated on NOVEMBER 06, 2019

Applies to:

Purpose

The Clusterware patches for 10g and 11g contain binaries that can be installed in the Clusterware home (CRS_HOME), and the database home (RDBMS_HOME). Due to normal upgrading of the Oracle software in a RAC environment, customers may want to maintain multiple Oracle homes of different versions. This document will explain how to apply Clusterware one-off patches into these different Oracle Homes. For example, if Oracle Clusterware version is 10.2.0.2 and one RDBMS version on that cluster is 10.2.0.1, while another is 10.1.0.5, how should you apply a patch that you have downloaded from Metalink? See solution below.

Scope

BACKGROUND:

• An Oracle patch is applied using OPatch utility, always get the latest version of the OPatch utility from Metalink (10.2 placeholder Bug 4898608; 10.1 placeholder Bug 2617419)
• A patch is named p<bugnum>_<release>_<port>.zip, self explanatory
• Each Clusterware one-off patch consists of TWO patch portions; the Clusterware portion on the top level of the zip file, and the RDBMS portion of the patch under a subdirectory called:       custom/server/<bugnum>, both are built for the same exact Oracle version, for example 10.2.0.2. The RDBMs portion will contain RDBMs management components and Clusterware client-side tools and libraries. Both portions will only install on homes running that version only.
• The Oracle Clusterware version must always be the latest in the cluster compared to the RDBMS/ASM home version. So in the example above, if the most current RDBMS_HOME version is at 10.2.0.1, then the Clusterware version must be at either 10.2.0.1, or newer.
• The latest PSU's add a 5th number to the version. For example, 10.2.0.4.4. To determine, the minimum version of clusterware that can support this Database, use only use the first four numbers of the release. For example if RDBMS version is 10.2.0.4.4, then for the purposes of comparison with Clusterware release, drop the 5th digit. So 10.2.0.4.4 becomes 10.2.0.4. This means the clusterware release should be at least 10.2.0.4
• Non-shared Oracle Clusterware home software can always be upgraded in a rolling upgrade fashion, see Note 338706.1
• For this discussion in this document only, an ASM home is exactly the same as an RDBMS home and whenever the term RDBMS home is used it also means ASM home. Follow the exact same patching procedures for an ASM home as for an RDBMS home.

Details

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