Updating ASMLIB Driver Using Automatic “update-driver”

Updating ASMLIB Driver Using “update-driver”

This article is about updating ASMLIB after or before updating kernel version.

We know that the ASMLIB driver is kernel dependent and has to be updated to match the kernel version. We have to go to the Oracle site, find the proper version for ASMLIB driver, download it and install. But beginning oracleasm-support version 2.1.0 and higher we can use the embedded function “update-driver” which can help us to save time and simplify the process of updating ASMLIB driver.

How does it work? As example, we have installed Linux with kernel version 2.6.18-194.8.1.0.1.el5 x86_64 but ASMLIB driver is for the old kernel version 2.6.18-194.3.1.
As result we are getting an error trying to start ASMLIB.

1 2 3 4 5

[root@db1 ~]# /usr/sbin/oracleasm init Creating /dev/oracleasm mount point: /dev/oracleasm Loading module "oracleasm": failed Unable to load module "oracleasm" [root@db1 ~]#

Instead searching, downloading and installing the new driver you can just run “oracleasm update-driver” and automatically get the updated version for the driver.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

[root@db1 ~]# /usr/sbin/oracleasm update-driver Kernel:         2.6.18-194.8.1.0.1.el5 x86_64 Driver name:    oracleasm-2.6.18-194.8.1.0.1.el5   Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: el5_x86_64_latest... ########################################   Fetching rpm headers... ########################################   Name                                    Version        Rel ---------------------------------------------------------- oracleasm-2.6.18-194.8.1.0.1.el5        2.0.5          1.el5             x86_64   Testing package set / solving RPM inter-dependencies... ######################################## oracleasm-2.6.18-194.8.1.0. ########################## Done. Preparing              ########################################### [100%]   Installing... 1:oracleasm-2.6.18-194.8.########################################### [100%] [root@db1 ~]# /usr/sbin/oracleasm init Loading module "oracleasm": oracleasm Mounting ASMlib driver filesystem: /dev/oracleasm [root@db1 var]#  /etc/init.d/oracleasm  start Initializing the Oracle ASMLib driver:                     [  OK  ] Scanning the system for Oracle ASMLib disks:               [  OK  ] [root@db1 var]#  /etc/init.d/oracleasm  listdisks DATADISK1 [root@db1 var]#

Finally! We have an updated working driver.
And, we also have some options for this feature:
-d allows us only download the driver.
-n allows only determine what driver would be updated without taking any action.