My colleague has got this error message:

$ opatch lsinventory
OPatch/opatch: line 750: bc: command not found
Invalid maximum heap size: -Xmxm
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.

OPatch failed with error code 1

A "bc" is an arbitrary precision calculator language (witch is often required for math calculation in Bash scripts, when you are using floating-point numbers for example) and many of us are using the bc command as simple command-line calculator and now OPatch does it the as well. It is used just for setting maximum heap size for JRE (this is being done in setUpJREMemoryOPtions() function of opatch command) which in newer versions is using "bc" command. The idea behind this post is beacause many Linux/Unix (power) users don't know about "bc", surprisingly even some SysAdmins.

$ OPatch_old/opatch version
OPatch Version: 12.1.0.1.7

OPatch succeeded.

$ OPatch_new/opatch version
OPatch_new/opatch: line 750: bc: command not found
Invalid maximum heap size: -Xmxm
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.

OPatch failed with error code 1

# rpm -ih bc-1.06.95-13.el7.x86_64.rpm
################################## [100%]
Updating / installing
################################## [100%]

$ OPatch_new/opatch version
OPatch Version: 12.1.0.1.12

OPatch succeeded.

To solve the issue simply execute (to install the bc package):

# yum install bc

and put the bc-*.rpm to your list of required packages by Oracle software.

Update 20.3.2017:

Recently I have tested Opatch utility shipped in Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (Opatch version 12.2.0.1.6). Following error message appears if "bc" package is not installed while opatch_env.sh exists in OPatch main directory.

./opatch lsinventory
./opatch: line 908: bc: command not found
Invalid maximum heap size: -Xmxm
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.

OPatch failed with error code 1

If opatch_env.sh is missing in OPatch main directory "bc" package is not required. Anyway I still recommend to have "bc" package installed by default.

Recently I've got a notification which said: "Agent has stopped monitoring. The following errors are reported : COLL_DISABLED|DISK_FULL". This message is pretty clear and straightforward. ORACLE_HOME for agent is located in /opt mount point.

[oracle@sol01 ~ ]$ df -h | grep opt
rpool/OPT              120G    109G        11G    99%    /opt

After the cleaning in order to make more space (note: default value for UploadMaxDiskUsedPct is 98 percent) agent usually resumes operations but this time it has remained in disabled state even if disk had sufficient amount of space (32 GB).

[oracle@sol01 ~ ]$ df -h | grep opt
rpool/OPT              120G    67G        32G    68%    /opt

[oracle@sol01 ~ ]$ emctl status agent
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2
Copyright (c) 1996, 2012 Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Agent Version     : 12.1.0.2.0
OMS Version       : 12.1.0.2.0
Protocol Version  : 12.1.0.1.0
Agent Home        : /opt/oracle/agent12c/agent_inst
Agent Binaries    : /opt/oracle/agent12c/core/12.1.0.2.0
Agent Process ID  : 22454
Parent Process ID : 22163
Agent URL         : https://sol01.local:3875/emd/main/
Repository URL    : https://cloud.local:4903/empbs/upload
Started at        : 2016-02-08 17:59:34
Started by user   : oracle
Last Reload       : 2016-02-16 14:24:27
Last successful upload                       : 2016-02-16 14:14:40
Last attempted upload                        : 2016-02-16 14:14:40
Total Megabytes of XML files uploaded so far : 42.78
Number of XML files pending upload           : 0
Size of XML files pending upload(MB)         : 0
Available disk space on upload filesystem    : 1.30%
Collection Status                            : [COLLECTIONS_HALTED(
  UPLOAD SYSTEM Threshold (UploadMaxDiskUsedPct: 98) exceeded with 98.69987)]
Heartbeat Status                             : Ok
Last attempted heartbeat to OMS              : 2016-02-16 14:26:39
Last successful heartbeat to OMS             : 2016-02-16 14:26:39
Next scheduled heartbeat to OMS              : 2016-02-16 14:27:39

---------------------------------------------------------------
Agent is Running and Ready

In this case solution is simple and you don't have to restart agent, you can manually invoke upload instead...

[oracle@sol01 ~ ]$ emctl upload
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2
Copyright (c) 1996, 2012 Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
---------------------------------------------------------------
EMD upload completed successfully

...and then agent will resume operation.

[oracle@sol01 ~ ]$ emctl status agent
Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c Release 2
Copyright (c) 1996, 2012 Oracle Corporation.  All rights reserved.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Agent Version     : 12.1.0.2.0
OMS Version       : 12.1.0.2.0
Protocol Version  : 12.1.0.1.0
Agent Home        : /opt/oracle/agent12c/agent_inst
Agent Binaries    : /opt/oracle/agent12c/core/12.1.0.2.0
Agent Process ID  : 22454
Parent Process ID : 22163
Agent URL         : https://sol01.local:3875/emd/main/
Repository URL    : https://cloud.local:4903/empbs/upload
Started at        : 2016-02-08 17:59:34
Started by user   : oracle
Last Reload       : 2016-02-16 14:24:27
Last successful upload                       : 2016-02-16 14:29:40
Last attempted upload                        : 2016-02-16 14:29:40
Total Megabytes of XML files uploaded so far : 42.78
Number of XML files pending upload           : 0
Size of XML files pending upload(MB)         : 0
Available disk space on upload filesystem    : 32.53%
Collection Status                            : Collections enabled
Heartbeat Status                             : Ok
Last attempted heartbeat to OMS              : 2016-02-16 14:29:39
Last successful heartbeat to OMS             : 2016-02-16 14:29:39
Next scheduled heartbeat to OMS              : 2016-02-16 14:30:39

---------------------------------------------------------------
Agent is Running and Ready

July 2015 Critical Patch Updates and Patch Set Updates were released.

CPUs: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/security/cpujul2015-2367936.html

PSUs: https://support.oracle.com/epmos/faces/DocumentDisplay?id=854428.1

New stable major release 5.0 of Virtual Box has been announced today and it's available for download. New features/capabilities include:

• Paravirtualization Support for Windows and Linux Guests: Significantly improves guest OS performance by leveraging built-in virtualization support on operating systems such as Oracle Linux 7 and Microsoft Windows 7 and newer.
• Improved CPU Utilization: Exposes a broader set of CPU instructions to the guest OS, enabling applications to make use of the latest hardware instruction sets for maximum performance.
• Support of USB 3.0 Devices: Guest operating systems can directly recognize USB 3.0 devices and operate at full 3.0 speeds. The guest OS can be configured to support USB 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0.
• Bi-Directional Drag and Drop Support for Windows: On all host platforms, Windows, Linux and Oracle Solaris guests now support “drag and drop” of content between the host and the guest. The drag and drop feature transparently allows copying or opening of files, directories, and more.
• Disk Image Encryption: Data can be encrypted on virtual hard disk images transparently during runtime, using the industry standard AES algorithm with up to 256 bit data encryption keys (DEK). This helps ensure data is secure and encrypted at all times, whether the VM is sitting unused on a developer's machine or server, or actively in use.

Complete Press Release: https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/oracle-vm-virtualbox-5-070915.html

Project site: http://www.virtualbox.org

Couple of photos from annual meetups. Spent time with a lot of brainy technologists (Oracle ACE's or ACE Director's of course) and worldwide well known people in Oracle community. Just name of few: great mentor and great guy Hans Forbrich, Kamran Agayev, Gwen Shapira, Alex Gorbachev, Arup Nanda, Frits Hoogland, Kyle Hailey, Ben Prusinski and Lillian Buziak as well...

I needed some lowcost NAS for Oracle especially for a shared storage for RAC. So I was searching for some product which would meet all my requirements such as Gigabit Ethernet, RAID 0 and 1 capability, EXT2, 3 support and of course support for SATA drives. I found Raidon SL3620-2S-LB2 and I bought it because it met all of my needs.

I putted in two SATA 750GB drives and created RAID 1 without problems as Web based console is very intuitive. I setted up the NFS mount for RAC but unfortunatelly I was unable to set specific parameters for RAC such as no_root_squash using Web console. This parameter is needed to allow to change ownership for files and directories (more info). So If you are installing RAC on NFS and you aren't able to create voting files(disks) during CRS installation or you are getting "chown: changing ownership of `...': Operation not permitted" then missing no_root_squash will be probaly the reason. So I checked (using nmap) which ports are open on NAS.

# nmap -nsS 192.168.1.1|egrep 'PORT|open'
PORT     STATE SERVICE
80/tcp   open  http
111/tcp  open  rpcbind
917/tcp  open  unknown
2006/tcp open  invokator
2049/tcp open  nfs

So no Telnet nor SSH service is running on my NAS. So I used one of my utilities to explore all directories and files on web server. Gotcha! I found http://192.168.1.1/cgi/telnet/telnet.cgi which is not able to find in Web Console. This page (script) can be used to enable or disable telnet daemon. Now we check the nmap output again:

# nmap -nsS 192.168.1.1|egrep 'PORT|open'
PORT     STATE SERVICE
23/tcp   open  telnet
80/tcp   open  http
111/tcp  open  rpcbind
917/tcp  open  unknown
2006/tcp open  invokator
2049/tcp open  nfs

Heureka, there is telnet service running. Now I could try to logon using telnet with credentials for "admin".

$ telnet 192.168.1.1
Trying 192.168.1.1...
Connected to 192.168.1.1.
Escape character is '^]'.

mystore login: admin
Password:

BusyBox v1.00-rc3 (2007.05.09-07:20+0000) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

mystore> uname -a
Linux mystore 2.6.15 #136 Wed Jun 27 13:16:02 CST 2007 armv4l unknown

According to banner it is clear that this NAS is running on Linux (2.6.15 kernel) and well known BusyBox project http://www.busybox.net on ARM processor. So I could to use "vi" to modify /etc/exports file to add parameters for NFS export. But first I needed to login as root user which has the same password as admin.

mystore> cat /etc/exports
# /mnt/IDE1 *(rw,no_root_squash,no_all_squash,sync)
/mnt/md1/storage *(rw,no_root_squash)

Due this change I was able to install RAC succesfully. Of course I'm going deeper because I want to install SSH (I hate telnet) and ISCSI target. If my installation will be succesfull then I'll try to compile latest kernel to add OCFS2 and Brtfs (experimental but included since 2.6.28) support (I don't know yet whether it is possible to replace kernel). My next update may come soon...

My blog was unaccessible few days due HW failure (HDD has gone after power failure(...yes we are using UPS :-D )). Me and my friends made a decision to say bye to our old HW and say hello to new one. Old machine specification:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo |egrep 'processor|model\ name'
processor       : 0
model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2400+

# free|grep Mem|awk {'print $1$2'}
Mem:1034836

New machine specification:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo |egrep 'processor|model\ name'
processor       : 0
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz
processor       : 1
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz
processor       : 2
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz
processor       : 3
model name      : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.40GHz

# free|grep Mem|awk {'print $1$2'}
Mem:3115900

Personally I like AMD but you can see the difference...