root unable to read ocr-file
 

Hi all,

I am encountering some strange problems with my oracle installation on Linux Red Hat 2.4.

In the /etc/oracle directory there is a file called ocr.loc

this file in turn points to another file:

/ocfs/oracle/ocr

As root, I am *not* able to do a file <filename> or a cat <filename> on this particular file.

file /ocfs/oracle/ocr
+ file /ocfs/oracle/ocr
/ocfs/oracle/ocr: executable, can't read `/ocfs/oracle/ocr' (Permission denied).

However I am able to list it:

ls -latr /ocfs/oracle/ocr
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root oinstall 13316096 Apr 29 11:08 /ocfs/oracle/ocr

The fact that this file is unreadable for root is preventing oracle's tools from accessing the databases. We have verified this by tracing the srvctl utility and it stops at the point where its trying to read from this file.

Any ideas of how to work around this problem?

so, all these returnv permission errors? :
cat ocr
less ocr
file ocr


What does 'lsattr ocr' show?

<<so, all these returnv permission errors? :
cat ocr
less ocr
file ocr
>>

yes

<<What does 'lsattr ocr' show?>>


sattr ocr
lsattr: Permission denied While reading flags on ocr

Thanks for help.

did you attempt the lsattr as root? weird if you get the error even as root.. Does your root user still belong to the group root?

Hi thanks for helping.

Yes, I receive the message even as root.

lsattr ocr
lsattr: Permission denied While reading flags on ocr
[root@MLKHDB06 oracle]# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) grupper=0(root),1(bin),2(daemon),3(sys),4(adm),6(disk),10(wheel)

and as the above shows, I am indeed in the root group.

I have a feeling the error relates to the fact that we had an unexpected system crash and that the ocfs (Oracle Clustering File System) disk is now in some sort of dead lock.

However, the databases are up and appearantly doing well. But we cannot access the databases through any of oracle's clusteradmin tools, like srvctl.

Are there any ways to find deadlock processes, or to trace what processes that are holding a file in Linux?

Best Regards
Vegard

'lsof' and 'fuser' might be of some use in that. Ive had no experiences with ocfs, so Im afraid I cant realy be of help..
One bublegum solution that comes to mind, is to just reboot the system to clear any locked processes, or to manually do the init filesystem checks.