Oracle Portal 11g Diagnostics using Remote Diagnostic Agent (RDA) [ID 1059805.

Applies to:

Main Content

RDA 4 Getting Started

In This Document

RDA 4.x Overview

Overview

What's New in this RDA Release

Platforms Supported

• Apple Mac OS X/Darwin
• HP OpenVMS Alpha 7.3-2 and above
• HP OpenVMS Itanium
• HP Tru64 UNIX
• HP-UX Itanium
• HP-UX PA-RISC (32 and 64 bit)
• IBM AIX on POWER Systems(32 and 64 bit)
• IBM Dynix/Ptx
• IBM Linux on POWER
• IBM zSeries Based Linux
• Linux Itanium
• Linux x86 (32 and 64 bit)
• Microsoft Windows 7
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Workstation and Server
• Microsoft Windows 2003 Server
• Microsoft Windows 2008
• Microsoft Windows Vista
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional
• Sun Solaris Intel
• Sun Solaris SPARC (32 and 64 bit)

Following Platforms are NOT Supported:

• IBM Z/OS (OS/390)

Products Supported

• OLAP Products (Express Server, Financial Analyzer, and Demand Planning Server)
• Oracle Application Server (iAS 1.0.2.x/9.0.x/10.1.2.x/10.1.3.x,10.1.4.x,WebLogic Server (WLS) Release 9.x and 10.x,11g (WLS), HTTP Server,WebCache,J2EE/OC4J)
• Oracle Billing and Revenue Management products
• Oracle BPEL Process Manager
• Oracle Collaboration Suite (Email Server,Calendar,Discussions,Content Services,Workspaces,WebClient,and Wireless)
• Oracle Data Integrator
• Oracle Developer (Forms and Reports)
• Oracle Ebusiness Suite 11i and 12
• Oracle Enterprise Content
• Oracle Enterprise Single Sign-on
• Oracle Enterprise performance management (Hyperion) products
• Oracle Guardian
• Oracle Identity Management products
• Oracle JDBC/PRO *C/ODBC and other development client related information
• Oracle Management Server and Intelligent Agent (Grid Server, Agent Server, DB Control)
• Oracle Networking products
• Oracle RAC Cluster (Single/Multiple Nodes, Automatic Storage Management, Oracle Cluster File System, Data Guard)
• Oracle RDBMS Server (Standard and Enterprise Editions)
• Oracle Retail (Retek)
• Oracle SQL*Plus/iSQL*Plus
• Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database
• Oracle Universal Archive (11g)
• PeopleSoft
• Siebel

Versions Supported

Why use RDA?

• Acquired company product issues
• Developer issues
• Installation/configuration issues
• ORA-600, ORA-7445, ORA-3113, and ORA-4031 errors
• Oracle Database issues
• Oracle Application Server/Fusion Middleware issues
• Oracle Collaboration products (Oracle Collaboration Suite and Oracle Beehive) issues
• Oracle Application issues
• Other corrective issues
• Performance issues
• Upgrade, migration, and linking issues

Oracle Configuration Manager

• HealthCheck recommendations based on Support best practices when using configuration auto-collection
• Improves Oracle's understanding of your business needs
• Personalized access to best practices and the Oracle Knowledge base
• Pro-active configuration-specific notification of Security and General Alerts
• Project cataloging of key milestones and contacts associated with your configurations
• Secure, automated configuration collection
• Simplified Service Request logging, tracking and reporting

Diagnostic Assistant

Download

• click the zip file for your platform
• save it locally as rda.zip

Installation Instructions

Instructions for UNIX/ZLinux Type Operating Systems

1. Choose or create a directory or area on your UNIX server. Make sure you have sufficient space for the RDA output (~150MB). It does not matter where you create this directory or what it is named, but the same user that runs RDA must own it. Do notuse a directory that contains an older version of RDA unless you have deleted the previous version of RDA first. If necessary, you can reuse prior setup files.

   Note: The rda.zip creates a directory named "rda" containing all the required files when you extract it. Do not extract the contents of the RDA archive on a Windows client first or you will have to remove the ^M characters from the end of each line in all of the shell scripts in order for them to run.

2. FTP the downloaded rda.zip file to your UNIX server in binary mode and place it in the directory chosen in step 1.
3. Extract the .zip archive contents into a new directory, preserving the directory structure of the archive. Do not extract into a directory that contains an older RDA version. For example:
   unzip rda.zip
4. Make sure the RDA command (rda.sh and rda.pl) is executable. To verify, enter the following command:
   chmod +x <rda>
5. You can verify the RDA installation using the following command:
   ./<rda> -cv

Instructions for Microsoft Windows Based Operating Systems

1. Create a new directory or area on your Windows server. Make sure you have sufficient space for RDA output (~150MB). It does not matter where you create this directory or what it is named, but it should have access to the Oracle software installation. Do notuse a directory that contains an older version of RDA unless you have deleted the previous version of RDA first.

   Note: The rda.zip file creates a directory named " rda" containing all the required files when you extract it.

2. Transfer the downloaded rda.zip file to your Windows server and place it in the directory chosen in step 1. If transferring the zip file from one system to another using FTP, remember to transfer it in binary mode.
3. Extract the .zip archive contents into a new directory, preserving the directory structure of the archive. Do not extract into a directory that contains an older RDA version. For example:
   unzip rda.zip
4. You can verify the RDA installation using the following command:
   <rda> -cv

Instructions for HP OpenVMS Based Operating Systems

Running RDA

Instructions for UNIX type operating systems (including ZLinux):

1. Before you begin: Log on as the UNIX user that owns the Oracle installation. On some operating systems, this user will not have the necessary permissions to run all of the commands and utilities called by RDA (e.g. sar, top, vmstat, etc). If you are running RDA to assist in resolving a service request, the analyst will most likely need the information pertaining to the Oracle owner. The exception to this rule is when RDA is used to assist in a performance related issue. In this case, Oracle support recommends that you run RDA as the UNIX user who owns the Oracle software.

   Note: If you use su to connect to root or a privileged user, do not use "su -" as the minus resets the environment.

2. Select the RDA command line script that you will be using. Choose one of the following:
   rda.sh - Use this command if Perl is not available.
   rda.pl - Use this command if Perl is available.
   
   Use the following command to verify that Perl is installed and available in the path:
   perl -V
   Inspect the command output, checking that '.' (i.e. tells perl to look for libaries in current directory) is present in @INC section. Notice the last entry "." in the example below:

1. The data collection requires an initial setup to determine which information should be collected. Enter the following command to initiate the set up:
   ./<rda> -S
   Including the dot ensures that RDA is executed from the local directory.
   After setup completes, you can review the setup file  setup.cfg by opening it a text editor such as  vi.
   You can also choose to collect only specific data. For more details, view the command usage help by specifying the -h option, or complete manual page with the -M option.
2. Make sure you have ample space for RDA output (approximately 150 MB) in the output location you have chosen in STEP 4. Sometimes, depending on the size of your data files (alert.log, *.trc, install*.log, apache logs, networking logs, etc) of the Oracle installation the final size of your RDA collection may reach over 1000 MB in size.
3. At this point, you can collect diagnostic information. sqlplus should connect to the database with the userid that you specified during the setup. Start the data collection using the following command:
   ./<rda> [-v]
   The -v option is optional; it allows you to view the collection progression. Additionally, if you want to re-run the RDA collection, you can use the " -fv" option, for example,  ./<rda> -fv. For additional information read the  RDA FAQ.
4. A more targeted way of executing RDA and a way to limit the number of setup questions asked is the use of Diagnostic profiles (<rda> -p <profile_name>), see RDA Profiles for list of various profiles or run <rda> -L profiles. e.g:. ./<rda> -p DB10g
    
5. The output is a set of HTML files that are located in the RDA output directory which you specified at setup. You can review the data collected by using a Web Browser to open the following file located in:
   <output_directory>/<report_group>__start.htm

   Note: Do not submit any health, payment card or other sensitive production data that requires protections greater than those specified in the Oracle GCS Security Practices (http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/customer-support-security-practices-069170.pdf). Information on how to remove data from your submission is available at note 1227943.1

    
6. The final output is also packaged in an archive located in the <output_directory> chosen during RDA setup -- the packaged output file will have a .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, or .tar.Z extension. If the data collection was generated to assist in resolving a Service Request, send the report archive (for example, RDA.RDA_db_autoxyz.tar) to Oracle Support by uploading the file via My Oracle Support. If FTP'ing the file, please be sure to FTP in BINARY format. Please do notrename the file, as the file name helps Oracle Support quickly identify that RDA output is attached to the service request or  bundle with other files such as trace or log files into a single or common archive file (.tar, .zip, .jar, etc.)

   Note: The final output directory may not contain an archive file (.zip, .tar, .tar.gz, or .tar.Z). If the archive is missing, please archive all of the files in the <output_directory> manually and send them to Oracle Support. You can use a packaging/archive utility program such as http://www.info-zip.org/Zip.html to perform this task.

Instructions for Microsoft Windows Based Operating Systems

1. Before you begin: Log on as the WINDOWS user that owns the Oracle installation. On some operating systems, this user will not have the necessary permissions to run all of the commands and utilities called by RDA (e.g. WinMsd utility, MSInfo32 on Windows 2000, Windows 2003) If you are running RDA to assist in resolving a service request, the analyst will most likely need the information pertaining to the Oracle owner. The exception to this rule is when RDA is used to assist in a performance related issue. In this case, Oracle support recommends that you run RDA as the user who owns the Oracle software.
2. Choose one RDA command line scriptthat you will be using, either:
   rda.cmd Use this command if Perl is not available.
   rda.pl Use this command if Perl is available in the path. To verify if Perl is available, enter the following command:
   perl -V
   In the command output, verify that '.' (i.e. the current directory) is present in @INC section.
   The RDA command  rda.cmd or  rda.pl you choose is represented as <rda> in the rest of this procedure.
3. The data collection requires an initial setup to determine which information should be collected. Enter the following command from the Windows Command or DOS prompt to initiate the set up: REMEMBER: <rda> means use either rda.cmd or rda.pl.
   <rda> -S
   After setup completes, you can  review the setup file  setup.cfg by opening it a text editor like  wordpad.
   You can also choose to collect only specific data. For more details, view the command usage help by specifying the -h option, or complete manual page with the -M option.
4. Make sure you have ample space for RDA output (approximately 150 MB) in the output location you have chosen. Sometimes, depending on the size of your data files (alert.log, *.trc, install*.log, apache logs, networking logs, etc) of the Oracle installation the final size of your RDA collection may reach over 1000 MB in size.
5. At this point, you can collect diagnostic information. Sqlplus should connect to the database with the userid that you specified during the setup. Start the data collection using the following command:
   <rda> [-v]
   The -v option is optional. It allows you to view the collection progression. Additionally, if you want to  rerun RDA collection again, you can use the " -fv" option like  <rda> -fv . For additional information, read the  RDA FAQ.
6. A more targeted way of executing RDA and a way to limit the number of setup questions asked is the use of Diagnostic profiles (<rda> -p), see RDA Profiles for list of various profiles. e.g: <rda> -p DB10g
7. The output is a set of HTML files that are located in the RDA output directory which you specified at setup. You can review the data collected, by using a Web Browser to open the following file located in:
   <output_directory>/RDA__start.htm

   Note: Do not submit any health, payment card or other sensitive production data that requires protections greater than those specified in the Oracle GCS Security Practices (http://www.oracle.com/us/support/library/customer-support-security-practices-069170.pdf). Information on how to remove data from your submission is available at 1227943.1

    
8. The final output is also packaged in an archive located in the <output_directory> chosen during RDA setup -- the packaged output file will have a .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, or .tar.Z extension. If the data collection was generated to assist in resolving a Service Request, send the report archive (for example, RDA.RDA_db_autoxyz.zip) to Oracle Support by uploading the file via My Oracle Support. If FTP'ing the file, please be sure to FTP in BINARY format. Do not rename the file, as the file name helps Oracle Support quickly identify that RDA output is attached to the service request.
   The final output directory may not contain an archive file (.zip, .tar, .tar.gz, or .tar.Z). If the archive is missing, please archive all the files in the <output_directory> manually and send them to Oracle Support. You can use a packaging/archive utility program such as  http://www.info-zip.org/Zip.html
9. When you send/upload an RDA report in a compressed file (such as .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, or .tar.Z), please do so in a separate file and start is named with 'RDA'; this ensures our internal tools and users can find and analyze it correctly. 
   
   When sending RDA output to Oracle Support via a My Oracle Support Service Request, we highly recommend that you attached the output file as a single file.  Do not bundle with other files such as trace or log files into a single or common archive file (.tar, .zip, .jar, etc.)

Instructions for Oracle RAC Cluster or Multi-Node Environment

Instructions for HP OpenVMS Based Operating Systems:

Upgrading RDA

Use the following procedure to manually upgrade the RDA:

1. Delete the rda directory and all it's contents. If you want to use the same setup.cfg file again, move it to another location first. Also, move any output files you wish to save.
2. Download the new version of RDA from this Download RDA.
3. Extract the files in the directory you want to install RDA. It will recreate the rda directory for you.
   Remember that the directory structure in the archive is important; don't move any RDA files.

Automated update of RDA

Special Notes On Userids And Passwords

Special Note on the Output Directory

Viewing RDA Report Output Files

Special Note on Security Filters

• Domain names
• Group names
• Host names
• IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
• LDAP domain components
• Network masks
• User names

Using Security Filters

Reporting Problems or Feedback

Legal Notices And Terms Of Use

Documentation Accessibility