Where to find Oracle RDBMS Gold Image (aka “Database Software Clone”) for Exadata?

For some unknown reason, the search on MOS (My Oracle Support) does not return any results when looking for the patch corresponding to a specific Oracle RDBMS Gold Image although it is essential when you want to deploy a new RDBMS version on an Exadata. You must know the corresponding patch number to be able to find it.

After some research, here is the simplest method I found.

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Avoid TNS-00584 errors on listener restart

If you use the “TCP.VALIDNODE_CHECKING“, “TCP.INVITED_NODES” or “TCP.EXCLUDED_NODES” parameters in your listener’s sqlnet.ora file, you may have already encountered the following error when starting or restarting your listener:

TNS-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
TNS-00584: Valid node checking configuration error

The problem is easy to fix when you have only a few hostnames referenced, but when the list is long, finding the server that caused the error can be much more time consuming.

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Retrieve serial numbers and other useful information from Exadata

It’s been a while since my last post!
Today, I wanted to share with you some useful commands to extract information from Exadata (product name, serial numbers, …).
This can be helpful for the opening of an new SR for example, or for inventorying components in a CMDB.

Here is the list of interesting elements that can be extracted (the list is not exhaustive, but these are the ones I use most often):

Exadata product name
Exadata rack serial number
Compute nodes and cell nodes serial number
Compute nodes and cell nodes internal component’s serial number
Inifiniband switches serial number
Cisco switch serial number
PDU’s serial number

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Hide table content to users with “SELECT ANY TABLE” privilege

Today, we will see how to hide sensitive data in your Oracle database from other users with the “SELECT ANY TABLE” privilege using Oracle Virtual Private Database (VPD).

First of all: in a perfect world, this situation should never happen!
If you need to store sensitive data in your database, you should place it in a dedicated location, without any other schema and with strict security rules.

Anyway, if you choose to tread this post, you probably have no other choice.

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