OS Preparation for Oracle EBS R12 installation in IBM AIX on Power Systems

Oracle E-Business Suite Installation and Upgrade Notes Release 12 (12.1.1) for IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit) [ID 761569.1]

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Oracle® E-Business Suite Installation and Upgrade Notes

Release 12 (12.1.1) for IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit)

April 2013

This document updates the following documentation with AIX specific information for Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Release 12 (12.1.1). Refer to the information contained here and to the appropriate manual when you install or upgrade your system.

Operating Systems Requirements

The operating system requirements for IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit) are listed in the following sections.

Operating System Supported Versions

The following table lists the supported operating system versions.

Operating System Name	Supported Version
IBM AIX (64-bit)	7 (7.1) - technology level 0, Service Pack 0 through technology level 2 (7100-00-00 - 7100-02-xx)

Use the following command to check the operating system, technology level and Service Pack versions:

$ oslevel -s

Required Patches

The following table lists the required patches and the minimum required versions for AIX on Power Systems. Unless otherwise noted, the patches must be installed manually.

Operating System	Required Patches
AIX 7 (7.1)	IZ872161 IZ875641 IZ891651 IV36875 for TL 02 SP01, SP022

¹ : Required on the database tier with 11gR2 (11.2.0.2 or higher)
² : These fixes are required to address a known issue with Oracle Forms executables failing to run after relinking ( 'FRM-40833: Could not completely load dynamic user exit libraries. User exit FND did not execute') on these particular AIX TL and SP levels. Customers should contact IBM, request these APARs and apply them on their AIX systems on these TL/SP levels in order to avoid this problem.

Use the following command to retrieve the list of operating system patches already applied:

$ /usr/sbin/instfix -i | more

Use the following command to check for a specific patch:

$ /usr/sbin/instfix -ik [patchname]

Java Requirements

A number of Java Development Kits (JDK) and Java Runtime environments (JRE) are bundled with Oracle E-Business Suite version 12.1.1 and associated Oracle Database (11.1) and Application Server Oracle Homes (10.1.2 and 10.1.3).

The E-Business Suite's core use of the Java runtime environment for application tier processing is with JDK version 6 as bundled in the "<10.1.3 OH>/appsutil/jdk" directory for Release 12.1. There are several other versions of the JDK tied to older versions of the Application Server - the full list of Java versions on the application tier bundled with 12.1 are:

• <10.1.2 OH>/jdk : version 1.4.2 SR9
• <10.1.2 OH>/jdk64 : version 1.4.2 SR9 (64-bit)
• <10.1.2 OH>/jre/1.4.2: version 1.4.2 SR1
• <10.1.3 OH>/jdk: version 5 (1.5 SR7)
• <10.1.3 OH>/jre/1.4.2: version 1.4.2 SR1
• <10.1.3 OH>/appsutil/jdk: version 6 (1.6 SR2)
• <$COMMON_TOP>/util/java: version 5 (1.5 SR2+)

The Database tier uses the following Java versions:

• <11.1.0 OH>/jdk: version 5 (1.5 SR4, 1.5 SR10 for Power7 using startCD patch 12.1.1.13 or higher)
• <11.1.0 OH>/appsutil/jre: version 6 (1.6 GA)*

*: used for Autoconfig on the Database tier

Additional Information: Check the IBM Web site for Java requirements for AIX on Power Systems: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/aix/service.html

Note: IBM Systems based on the latest Power 7 chip architecture has certain minimum requirements for JDK 1.4.2, 5 and 6 as outlined in: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/power7/index.html Customers running E-Business Suite on Power 7 systems should upgrade their respective minor (SR) versions of the JDK in each of the JDK directories. Generally speaking, customers should not be upgrading an older version of the JDK in the E-Business Suite distribution to a later major version. One exception is the 10gR2 JDK - upgrading the <10.1.2 OH>/jdk from version 1.4.2 to 6 is now certified and recommended because of the approaching end of lifecycle support of JDK 1.4.2. The E-Business Suite note that outlines the way to upgrade JDK versions in the appsutil directories and for the 10gR2 JDK is: Using Latest Java 6.0 Update With Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (My Oracle Support Note 455492.1)

Required Filesets

The following table lists the required filesets for AIX on Power Systems.

Operating System	Required Filesets
AIX 7 (7.1)	xlC.aix61.rte:11.1.0.1 or later xlC.rte:11.1.0.1 or later
AIX 7 (7.1)	bos.adt.base bos.adt.lib bos.adt.libm bos.perf.libperfstat bos.perf.perfstat bos.perf.proctools rsct.basic.rte rsct.compat.clients.rte X11.motif.lib

¹: Starting on May 1^st 2011, users must have upgraded their TL levels to versions that include versions 9.0.0.10 or higher (see My Oracle Support Note 1294357.1) prior to applying E-Business Suite patches.

Use the following command to check for existing filesets:

$ lslpp -l [fileset]

The state of the fileset should be 'COMMITTED'.

If any fileset is in an 'APPLIED' state, it is recommended that it be 'COMMITED' using smit or the following command:

$ installp -c [fileset]

 

Software Requirements

The following are software requirements for IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit).

Maintenance Tools

The following maintenance tools must be installed on all machines, and their locations specified both in the PATH of the account that runs Rapid Install and in the PATH of the accounts that will own the database tier and application tier file systems.

• ar
• ld
• linkxlC
• make
• X Display Server

Install the IBM XL C/C++ Utilities package

The XL C/C++ Enterprise Edition for AIX Utilities is available from the IBM Web site for those who do not have a full version of the compiler installed. It's not a requirement to have a full compiler for use with EBS on AIX - the requirement is for the Utilities package containing a linker (linkxlC) which is distributed by IBM separately but is also part of the full compiler.

Prior to May 1st 2011, users were instructed to download and install the XL C/C++ utilities package (xlcpp.util.8.0.0) and any prerequisites.

AIX users should now download and install version 9.0 or 11.1 versions of the utility package or the corresponding versions of the full compiler if they so choose.

Note: Starting on May 1st 2011, users must upgrade their TL levels to versions that include runtime versions 9.0.0.10 or higher and to use the versions 9.0 or 11.1 of the linker (either as part of the Utilities package or the full Compiler) prior to applying E-Business Suite patches. Please review My Oracle Support Note 1294357.1 ('New Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Operating System and Tools Requirements on IBM AIX on Power Systems').

Other Requirements

The following are other requirements for AIX on Power Systems.

Patching Oracle E-Business Suite

Note: When querying for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 patches on My Oracle Support and selecting 'IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit)' in the Platform dropdown list, it will re-direct you to a patch with '5L' in its name. This patch may be applied to systems with AIX 5L and later versions such as AIX 6 and AIX 7.

ulimit Value Settings

Verify that the owner of the Oracle Application Server and Oracle Database server file systems have the following 'ulimit' values:

• time (seconds) = unlimited
• file (blocks) = unlimited
• data (kbytes) = unlimited
• stack (kbytes) = unlimited
• memory (kbytes) = unlimited
• coredump (blocks) = unlimited
• nofiles (descriptors) = 65536

Use the following command to check the ulimit settings:

$ ulimit -a

Kernel Settings

The following table lists the kernel settings for AIX on Power Systems:

Note: Verify that the following kernel parameters are set either to the formula shown, or to values greater than or equal to the recommended value shown. Refer to your operating system documentation or contact your operating system vendor for more information on configuring kernel parameters.

Parameter	Value
Soft FILE size	-1 (unlimited)
Soft CPU time	-1 (unlimited)
Soft DATA segment	-1 (unlimited)
Soft STACK size	-1 (unlimited)
Soft NOFILE size	65536
Maximum number of PROCESSES allowed per user	2048
ARG_MAX	524288

Start "smitty" as the root user to verify or change the kernel settings:

$ /usr/bin/smitty

Host Names Settings

Verify that the /etc/hosts file is formatted as follows:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

[ip_address] [node_name].[domain_name] [node_name]

Enable Asynchronous I/O (conditional)

Use the following steps to enable asynchronous I/O if you're on AIX 5L (asynchronous I/O is enabled by default on AIX 6 and 7):

1. Log in as the root user.
2. Enter the following command to verify whether asynchronous I/O services are running. If they are not, the command will start services:

# mkdev -l aio0

3. To ensure the services are configured with each system restart:

a.       At the command prompt, enter the following:

# smit aio

b.      Select the menu item: Change/Show Characteristics of Asynchronous I/O.

c.       Change the field: "STATE to be configured at system restart" from DEFINED to AVAILABLE.

 OPMN port conflict

Attention: By default, the OPMN service of the Application Server technology stack listens on port 6000 when started up during Rapid Install. This can conflict with the X11 port used for the graphics console on AIX servers and prevent Rapid Install from completing.

To address this issue, perform the following steps before installing or upgrading:

• Check if the port 6000 is being used ("netstat -a | grep 6000")
• If so, then you should disable the graphics console login process on the AIX server. This can be accomplished by logging in as the UNIX root user and issuing the following commands:
• Shutdown the dtlogin process with the command "/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -kill"
• Confirm that nothing is listening at port 6000 ("netstat -a | grep 6000")
• Disable the local X console for dtlogin with command "/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -d"
• Restart dtlogin with command "/usr/dt/bin/dtconfig -e"