How to Check and Enable/Disable Oracle Binary Options [ID 948061.1]

Applies to:
Oracle Server - Enterprise Edition - Version: 10.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2 - Release: 10.2 to 11.2
Other UNIX
Goal

The goal of this article is 2 parts:

   1. Verify if a given option is turned on or not
   2. Enable/Disable given options

This applies to the following options:

    * RAC (Real Appliction Cluster)
    * RAT (Real Application Testing)
    * OLS (Oracle Label Security)
    * DV (Database Vault)

Last, some unusual items to be aware of

    * ASM (Automated Storage Management)
    * OLAP (Oracle OLAP)
    * PART (Oracle Partitioning)
    * CTX (Context Management Text)

Solution

Before you can verify options and/or enable/disable them, you will need to:
cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib

and run either or both of the following commands:
ar -t libknlopt.a | grep -c {file}

where {file} is  => OPTION - file

    * RAC - kcsm.o
    * RAT - kecwr.o
    * OLS - kzlibac.o
    * DV - kzvidv.o
    * ASM - kfon.o
    * OLAP - xsyeolap.o
    * PART - kkpoban.o
    * CTX - kciwcx.o

An example
ar -t libknlopt.a | grep -c kcsm.o
would return 0 if RAC is disabled or a number >0 if enabled


The ar command does not work on IBM AIX



To enable or disable options, please look at the following commands:
make -f ins_rdbms.mk {option}

where {option} is => OPTION - {option on} / {option off }

    * RAC - rac_on / rac_off
    * RAT - rat_on / rat_off
    * OLS - lbac_on / lbac_off
    * DV - dv_on / dv_off
    * ASM - asm_on / asm_off
    * OLAP - olap_on / olap_off
    * PART - part_on / part_off
    * CTX - ctx_on / ctx_off

An example
make -f ins_rdbms.mk asm_on

would enable ASM option

Unusual Items to be Aware Of

The V$OPTION is unchanged and you will need to refer to other documentation to change it in order to complete the changes to the options. This include but not limited to running sql scripts which changes the DB Catalog.

Lastly, the Oracle binary will need to be recompiled


$ make -f rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk ioracle



Additional information is the chopt utility



This note can be made applicable for all platforms by adopting the chopt utility.

Besides working on Windows platforms, another useful feature is the fact that on UNIX/Linux platforms, it neatly displays the commands that need to be executed:

[celcaix3]/grdbms/64bit/patchdb/app/oracle/product/p11201b/rdbms/lib> chopt disable rat

Writing to /grdbms/64bit/patchdb/app/oracle/product/p11201b/install/disable_rat.log...
%s_unixOSDMakePath% -f /grdbms/64bit/patchdb/app/oracle/product/p11201b/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk rat_off
%s_unixOSDMakePath% -f /grdbms/64bit/patchdb/app/oracle/product/p11201b/rdbms/lib/ins_rdbms.mk ioracle


Note that the relink commands above are not actually being run by chopt. The user has to manually run them.

Note: The fact that chopt is showing an Installer variable is a bug.
As per "Bug 8967636: $ORACLE_HOME/BIN/CHOPT.INI NOT INSTANTIATED CORRECTLY" chopt really *should* invoke make and relink the oracle executable.

Workaround as per the bug is edit the chopt.ini file and
replace all references to %s_unixOSDMakePath% with /usr/bin/make
before running the chopt script.

Warning concerning switching on ASM should only be done on Grid Infrastructure
Homes in Oracle 11gR2. Doing it on standard RDBMS will result in errors on
startup.