Deploy Oracle 11gR2 RAC on Bare Metal Using PXE: A Step‑by‑Step Guide

1. PXE Overview

PXE (Pre‑boot Execution Environment) is an Intel‑designed protocol that enables a bare‑metal machine to boot over the network and receive an operating system. The architecture consists of a PXE server (push side) and PXE clients (pull side). The server runs standard Linux services such as dhcpd, tftpd, nfs, dns, vsftpd and httpd. When a client boots, its NIC ROM loads the PXE client program, which contacts the server, downloads a kernel, and proceeds with the installation steps.

2. IP Address Planning

The deployment assumes the 192.168.0.0/24 network. The guide is written for RHEL 6 series and OEL 5 series, but the steps apply equally to other Enterprise Linux variants (CentOS, RHEL, OEL, 32‑ or 64‑bit).

IP, VIP, SCAN‑VIP configurations are realized through static MAC‑IP bindings in /etc/dhcpd.conf and post‑installation Kickstart scripts on the PXE server.

3. Building the PXE Server

The PXE server is a standard Linux box running the services mentioned above. To simplify setup, the author provides a self‑extracting shell installer named bcp-install. This script configures all required services in about three minutes and works on both 32‑bit and 64‑bit Enterprise Linux 5/6.

Prerequisites:

At least 20 GB free in /usr and 15 GB in /var (or a single / partition of ≥45 GB).

Copy the full installation DVD contents to /var/ftp/pub/ so the installer can access the packages.

Run the installer: ./bcp-install After confirming the DVD copy, the script creates and configures dhcpd, tftpd, nfs, dns, vsftpd and httpd. To inspect the exact configurations, open the respective files on the server.

4. Downloading Required Software

The Oracle 11gR2 RAC binaries and the OS ISO are not bundled with bcp-install. Users must download them manually and place them under /usr/sbin/botang-config-push.d/, which the installer creates.

5. Collecting MAC Addresses for PXE Clients

PXE client MAC‑to‑IP bindings are defined in /etc/dhcpd.conf (or /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf). The installer provides a helper tool botang-create-dhcpconf. Users create two files: /usr/sbin/workstation.list2 – list of MAC addresses for both NICs of each client. /usr/sbin/workstation.list – list of MAC addresses for the first NIC only.

Running botang-create-dhcpconf generates the final DHCP configuration.

6. Deploying the Shared‑Disk Host

Execute the bcp command on the PXE server to start the installation of the shared‑disk node. The bare‑metal client (≥60 GB disk) boots via PXE, runs the post‑install script, then reboots into a fully configured Oracle 11gR2 RAC shared‑disk host.

The bcp program generates the installation option file /var/ftp/pub/workstation.cfg. Users can inspect the file for details.

7. Deploying the RAC Node Hosts

Run bcp again for each node host (minimum two nodes, each ≥60 GB). The process mirrors the shared‑disk deployment: PXE boot, long “running post‑install script” pause, automatic reboot, and final node configuration.

8. Post‑Deployment Configuration

8.1 Shared Storage

The shared disk is partitioned into eleven equal parts ( /dev/sdb5 – /dev/sdb15). Use the pre‑installed oracleasm command on each node to create ASM disk groups: +DATA (normal redundancy) on /dev/sdb5 – /dev/sdb12. +FRA (external redundancy) on /dev/sdb13 – /dev/sdb15.

8.2 Distributed Virtual Tape Library

Each node receives a virtual tape library. Install osb-10.3.0.3.0_linux32 under /stage, then run /stage/osb.sh to configure the tape library.

8.3 Time Synchronization

Both node hosts automatically synchronize their clocks with the NTP server running on the shared‑disk host.

8.4 Grid and Oracle Users

Two OS users are created on each node: grid – for Grid Infrastructure installation. oracle – for the database installation.

Both users have their environment variables pre‑configured. When installing two separate ORACLE_HOME instances, comment out ORACLE_BASE, ORACLE_HOME and TNS_ADMIN during the first install to avoid listener registration issues, then uncomment after installation.