In my previous blog posts (here and here), I wrote about how to create a base box and a create and start a virtual machine out of it. I started with provisioning, to have the vagrant user adapt the kernel settings, add a install user/owner and create a filesystem on an added disk.

Now let's make the provisioning a bit more interesting and install actual software in it.

Prepare new Vagrant project 

For this article I copied the project created from the previous blog. I called it ol75_db12c, since the goal is database 12c. But we'll also add java.
Now edit the Vagrantfile, since we want a new VM with another name:
So adapt the VM_NAME variable to something like "OL75U5_DB12c". You see how convenient it is to have those properties set as a global variable?

You could already try to do vagrant up to try it out. Remember, you can just do vagrant destroy to recreate it.

Also remove (or don't copy) the .vagrant subfolder, otherwise Vagrant would probably assume the box is already provisioned.  If that is the case, then either do a vagrant destroy to destroy the VM altogether, or vagrant provision to just re-provision the box.

Java

In the copied project, lets start with Java. There are several possibilities to install java, you could download the RPM from OTN. But one of the recommended practice I found in installing Java on a server is to put it in a path that hasn't got the java version (especially  the update) in it. When using it to install Weblogic, for instance, this path ends up in several places in scripts. Although it's a handfull, it's more than once.
Upgrading java is then just bringing down the servers/services using it, backup the version and unzip/untar the new version in the same folder. And there you have it: I like a java distribution that comes in an archive.

In Oracle Support you can find it by searching for the document All Java SE Downloads on MOS (Doc ID 1439822.1). There you find the current versions of the Java SE pacakges. For this article I used the public version JDK 8 Update 172, that you can download as patch 27412872:
 This contains the rpm as well as a .tar.gz package, that we'll use. Make sure that you download the x86_64 version:
And copy the download in the Stages folder in your vagrant main project folder (see previous blog).

To install it, I have the following script installJava.sh:

#!/bin/bash
#
#Download a zip with tar.gz containing complete JDK
#On MOS: Search for Doc ID 1439822.1
#Download latest 1.8 (public) patch, eg.:
#27412872  Oracle JDK 8 Update 172 (complete JDK, incl. jmc, jvisualvm)
#
SCRIPTPATH=$(dirname $0)
#
. $SCRIPTPATH/fmw12c_env.sh
#
TMP_DIR=/tmp
STAGE_HOME=/media/sf_Stage
EXTRACT_HOME=$STAGE_HOME/Extracted
JAVA_ZIP_HOME=$STAGE_HOME/Java
JAVA_INSTALL_HOME=$EXTRACT_HOME/Java
JAVA_INSTALL_TMP=$EXTRACT_HOME/jdk
JAVA_INSTALL_ZIP=p27412872_180172_Linux-x86-64.zip
JAVA_INSTALL_TAR=jdk-8u172-linux-x64.tar.gz
JAVA_INSTALL_NAME=jdk1.8.0_172

#
echo "Checking Java Home: "$JAVA_HOME
if [ ! -f "$JAVA_HOME/bin/java" ]; then
 #
  #Unzip Java
if [ ! -f "$JAVA_INSTALL_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_TAR" ]; then
    if [ -f "$JAVA_ZIP_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_ZIP" ]; then
      echo Unzip $JAVA_ZIP_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_ZIP  to $JAVA_INSTALL_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_TAR
      mkdir -p $JAVA_INSTALL_HOME
      unzip -o $JAVA_ZIP_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_ZIP -d $JAVA_INSTALL_HOME
    else
      echo JAVA Zip File $JAVA_ZIP_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_ZIP does not exist!
    fi  
  else
    echo $JAVA_INSTALL_TAR already unzipped
  fi
  # Install jdk
  echo Install jdk 
  echo create folder $JAVA_INSTALL_TMP
  mkdir -p $JAVA_INSTALL_TMP
  echo create JAVA_HOME $JAVA_HOME
  mkdir -p $JAVA_HOME
  echo Untar $JAVA_ZIP_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_TAR to $JAVA_INSTALL_TMP
  tar -xf $JAVA_INSTALL_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_TAR -C $JAVA_INSTALL_TMP
  echo Move $JAVA_INSTALL_TMP/$JAVA_INSTALL_NAME/* to $JAVA_HOME
  mv  $JAVA_INSTALL_TMP/$JAVA_INSTALL_NAME/* $JAVA_HOME
  #cp -R $JAVA_INSTALL_RPM/* $JAVA_HOME
  #sudo rpm -ihv $JAVA_INSTALL_HOME/$JAVA_INSTALL_RPM  
else
  echo jdk 1.8 already installed
fi

That uses the fmw12c_env.sh script:

#!/bin/bash
echo set Fusion MiddleWare 12cR2 environment
export ORACLE_BASE=/app/oracle
export INVENTORY_DIRECTORY=/app/oraInventory
export JAVA_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/jdk

The script checks java already exists. If not then it checks if the tar or zip file exist in /media/sf_Stage/Java. If the tar file does not exist it will unzip the zip file. If the tar file does exist, then it will create a temp folder to extract the tar file into. Then it will create the java-home folder and move the extracted jdk folder to it.

I put these files in the scripts/fmw folder of my project:

Call script from provisioning

Now we're at the point that took me a lot of time to figure out last winter. How do I call this scripts form the provisioning. Simple question, but let me try to explain the difficulty.
The provisioning is done using the vagrant user. The vagrant user is in the sudoers list, so it's able to run a script using the permissions of another user, usually the super user (root). But it is still the running vagrant user who owns the resulting files and folders. I could do something like sudo su - oracle -c "script"... However, it still results in all the files owned by vagrant. So, if I run the Java install script, the complete java tree is owned by vagrant. But I want oracle to own it. Now,  I could create another base box and replace vagrant by oracle as the install user. But that is not the idea.

It took me some time to finally find the great utility runuser. This allows me to run the script as another substitute user. The runuser utility must be run as root, but that's no problem since vagrant is in the sudoers list.

So add the following lines to your provisioning part of the Vagrantfile:

    echo _______________________________________________________________________________
    echo 3. Java SDK 8
    sudo runuser -l oracle -c '/vagrant/scripts/fmw/installJava.sh'

With the -l argument I denote the user and with -c the command to run.

First try

Having done that, you could do a first try of the provisioning by upping the box.
Open a command window and start it the first time with vagrant up. Then if all goes well the provisioning ends with:

    darwin: _______________________________________________________________________________
    darwin: 3. Java SDK 8
    darwin: set Fusion MiddleWare 12cR2 environment
    darwin: Checking Java Home: /app/oracle/product/jdk
    darwin: Unzip /media/sf_Stage/Java/p27412872_180172_Linux-x86-64.zip to /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/Java/jdk-8u172-linux-x64.tar.gz
    darwin: Archive:  /media/sf_Stage/Java/p27412872_180172_Linux-x86-64.zip
    darwin:   inflating: /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/Java/jdk-8u172-linux-x64.rpm
    darwin:   inflating: /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/Java/jdk-8u172-linux-x64.tar.gz
    darwin:   inflating: /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/Java/readme.txt
    darwin: Install jdk
    darwin: create folder /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk
    darwin: create JAVA_HOME /app/oracle/product/jdk
    darwin: Untar /media/sf_Stage/Java/jdk-8u172-linux-x64.tar.gz to /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk
    darwin: tar: jdk1.8.0_172/bin/ControlPanel: Cannot create symlink to `jcontrol': Protocol error
    darwin: tar: jdk1.8.0_172/man/ja: Cannot create symlink to `ja_JP.UTF-8': Protocol error
    darwin: tar: jdk1.8.0_172/jre/bin/ControlPanel: Cannot create symlink to `jcontrol': Protocol error
    darwin: tar: jdk1.8.0_172/jre/lib/amd64/server/libjsig.so: Cannot create symlink to `../libjsig.so': Protocol error
    darwin: tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
    darwin: Move /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/bin /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/COPYRIGHT /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/db /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/include /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/javafx-src.zip /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/jre /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/lib /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/LICENSE /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/man /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/README.html /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/release /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/src.zip /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/THIRDPARTYLICENSEREADME-JAVAFX.txt /media/sf_Stage/Extracted/jdk/jdk1.8.0_172/THIRDPARTYLICENSEREADME.txt to /app/oracle/product/jdk

It it all went well you can just destroy it:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75_db12c>vagrant destroy
    darwin: Are you sure you want to destroy the 'darwin' VM? [y/N] y
==> darwin: Forcing shutdown of VM...
==> darwin: Destroying VM and associated drives...

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75_db12c>

Install database

Installing the database is a bit more complex. I'll not post every file, the code can be found here in github, as in fact the rest of my project files.
It expects the database installation as two zip files, V46095-01_2of2.zip and V46095-01_1of2.zip in the folder /media/sf_Stage/DBInstallation/12.1.0.2/x86_64/Zipped. Like for the rest it works much like my earlier install Fusion Middleware scripts. It unzips the files, installs the database based on the template response files. And it runs the database creation utility.

I also added scripts to install/unzip sqldeveloper and sql commandline.

To install the database and possibly SQLDeveloper and/or SQLcl, just add the following lines to your vagrant file:

    echo _______________________________________________________________________________
    echo 4. Database 12c
    sudo runuser -l oracle -c '/vagrant/scripts/database/installDB.sh'
    echo _______________________________________________________________________________
    echo 5.1 SQLCL and SQLDeveloper
    sudo runuser -l oracle -c '/vagrant/scripts/database/installSqlcl.sh'
    echo _______________________________________________________________________________
    echo 5.2 SQLDeveloper
    sudo runuser -l oracle -c '/vagrant/scripts/database/installSqlDeveloper.sh'

And run vagrant up again.

Conclusion

I didn't get much into the install of the database. I feel that I wrote quite a lot in the past on installing Oracle software. In the upcoming period I'll wrap these lasts blogs into a presentation on creating boxes with Vagrant. This an input to my talk on this subject at the NLOUG Tech Experience 2018.

By now you should be able to replicate my findings and create other boxes as well. In the next blogs I might write about transforming my other FMW install scripts into vagrant project. We should now be able to create Vagrant projects to install OSB, SOA/BPM Suite, SOA/BPM Quickstart, etc.

Lately I did a Docker install in an Ubuntu 16 base box. Ubuntu has some peculiarities in creating users and logical volume management as opposed to RedHat/Oracle Linux. I might also write about that. But feel free to leave a comment if you have particular wishes. However, please have a bit of patience with me, since I first need to get my talk on the Tech Experience ready.

Last week I wrote about creating our own Vagrant base box, based on the new and fresh Oracle Linux 7 Update 5. As a reaction on my article I got noted that Oracle also keeps base boxes for their latest linuxes at http://yum.oracle.com/boxes. They're also a great start.

To begin, I created a project structure for all my vagrant projects:
As you can see, I have a vagrant main projects folder on my D: drive, D:\Projects\vagrant. Besides my actual vagrant projects, like oel74, oel74_wls12c etc., I have a boxes folder and a Stage folder. The boxes folder, as you can guess, contains my base boxes:
The Stage folder contains all my installation-binaries, for database, Weblogic, Java, FusionMiddleware and so on.

Today I want to create a basic VM that will be a base for further VM's, like database, weblogic, etc.
I want the VM to have:

• Linux prepared with correct kernel settings for database, FusionMiddleware, etc.
• Filesystem created on a second disk. I did not add a second disk to the base box, only a root disk. Thus we need to extend the VM with one.
• Create an oracle user that can sudo.

Initialize a vagrant project

 Begin with creating a folder, like ol75 in the structure, for this project. Open a command window and navigate to it:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.16299.371]
(c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>d:

D:\>cd d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75\

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>vagrant help init
==> vagrant: A new version of Vagrant is available: 2.0.4!
==> vagrant: To upgrade visit: https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html

Usage: vagrant init [options] [name [url]]

Options:

        --box-version VERSION        Version of the box to add
    -f, --force                      Overwrite existing Vagrantfile
    -m, --minimal                    Use minimal Vagrantfile template (no help comments). Ignored with --template
        --output FILE                Output path for the box. '-' for stdout
        --template FILE              Path to custom Vagrantfile template
    -h, --help                       Print this help

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>

The vagrant command init creates a new vagrant project, with a so called Vagrantfile in it. By default, you'll get a Vagrantfile with the most common settings and comments explaining  the most common additional settings. But using the -m or --minimal setting a just enough vagrant file is created, without comments. I do like a file with the most common settings in the comments, as it allows me to quickly extend it without having to lookup every thing. So I create a basic file:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>vagrant init
A `Vagrantfile` has been placed in this directory. You are now
ready to `vagrant up` your first virtual environment! Please read
the comments in the Vagrantfile as well as documentation on
`vagrantup.com` for more information on using Vagrant.

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>dir /w
 Volume in drive D is DATA
 Volume Serial Number is 62D7-9456

 Directory of d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75

[.]           [..]          Vagrantfile
               1 File(s)          3,081 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  651,847,397,376 bytes free

Now, let's expand the file bit by bit. So, open it in your favorite ASCII editor, like Notepad++, for instance.

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :

# All Vagrant configuration is done below. The "2" in Vagrant.configure
# configures the configuration version (we support older styles for
# backwards compatibility). Please don't change it unless you know what
# you're doing.
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  # The most common configuration options are documented and commented below.
  # For a complete reference, please see the online documentation at
  # https://docs.vagrantup.com.

  # Every Vagrant development environment requires a box. You can search for
  # boxes at https://vagrantcloud.com/search.
  config.vm.box = "base"

A vagrant file has about the following format:

Vagrant.configure("2") do |config|
  # ...
end

Apparently you can have multiple occurences with multiple configuration versions ("1" refers to Vagrant 1.0 configuration, "2" to 1.1 and onwards).

As with many other scripted languages, I find it convenient to have all the configurable values declared as global variables at the top of the file. So let's declare some:

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :
#
BOX_NAME="ol75"
BOX_URL="file://../boxes/OL75v1.0.box"
VM_MEMORY = 12288 # 12*1024 MB
VM_CPUS=4
VMS_HOME="d:\\VirtualMachines\\VirtualBox"
VM_NAME="OL7U5"    
VM_DISK2=VMS_HOME+"\\"+VM_NAME+"\\"+VM_NAME+".disk2.vdi"
VM_DISK2_SIZE=1024 * 512
# Stage folders
STAGE_HOST_FOLDER="d:/Projects/vagrant/Stage"
STAGE_GUEST_FOLDER="/media/sf_Stage"

 

Start with renaming the box based on the global variable:

  config.vm.box = BOX_NAME

And add the following lines:

  config.vm.box_url=BOX_URL
  config.vm.define "darwin"

The config.vm.box_url directive refers to the base box used. Often this is just the name of the box that is automatically downloaded from the Hashicorp/Vagrant repository. You can also use a URL to a box on internet, it will be downloaded automatically. But we created our own box, so that we exactly know and control what's in it. It does not need to be downloaded, it's available right away.

Side note: manage your boxes

At start up this box is added to your local Vagrant box repository. You can see the boxes in your repository with the command box list:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>vagrant box list
OL7U4           (virtualbox, 0)
OL7U4-1.1b      (virtualbox, 0)
Ubuntu16.0.4LTS (virtualbox, 0)

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>

These boxes are found in the .vagrant.d/boxes folder your user profile:
My new ol75 box is not added yet, as you can see. It will be done at first up. Since they're eating up costly space on my SSD drive, it's sensible to remove unused boxes. For instance, the  OL7U4 one is superseded by the OL7U4-1.1b. The Ubuntu one I still use, although the Ubuntu version is a bit old. So, I should at least remove the OL7U4 one. It can be done with the command box remove ${name}:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>vagrant box remove OL7U4
Removing box 'OL7U4' (v0) with provider 'virtualbox'...

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>vagrant box list
OL7U4-1.1b      (virtualbox, 0)
Ubuntu16.0.4LTS (virtualbox, 0)

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>

Support for multi-machine boxes

The other line I added was the config.vm.define directive. This one allows to define multi-machine definitions in one Vagrant project. It can come in handy when you have a project where one VM is servicing your database, while another is doing your front-end application. You can have them started and provisioned automatically, where the provisioning can be done in stages. Or you can switch off auto-start for certain machines and start those explicitly. It's a nice-to-know, but I'll leave it for now. I use it for noting the machine in the provisioning logs.
Read more about multi-machine configs here.

SSH Vagrant User

Below the config.vm.* lines, within the config block, you can add some config lines for the vagrant username/password:

  config.ssh.username="vagrant"
  config.ssh.password="vagrant"
  config.ssh.port=2222

The password line should be optional, since we injected a key for the vagrant user. You'll see that Vagrant will replace that key. The ssh.port will direct Vagrant to create a port-forwarding for the local port 2222 to the ssh port on the vm.

Provider config

Within the config block, below the line config.fm.define add the following block:

  config.vm.provider :virtualbox do |vb|
    vb.name = VM_NAME
    vb.gui = true
    vb.memory = VM_MEMORY
    vb.cpus = VM_CPUS
    # Set clipboard and drag&drop bidirectional
    vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--clipboard", "bidirectional"]
    vb.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--draganddrop", "bidirectional"]
    # Create a disk  
    unless File.exist?(VM_DISK2)
      vb.customize [ "createmedium", "disk", "--filename", VM_DISK2, "--format", "vdi", "--size", VM_DISK2_SIZE , "--variant", "Standard" ]
    end
    # Add it to the VM.
    vb.customize [ "storageattach", :id , "--storagectl", "SATA", "--port", "2", "--device", "0", "--type", "hdd", "--medium", VM_DISK2]
  end

This block begins setting the following properties:

Property	Meaning
vb.name	Name of the VM to create. This is how the VM will appear in VirtualBox.
vb.gui	This toggles the appearance of the UI of the VM. If false, it is started in the background. It is then only reachable through the network settings. Using the VirtualBox manager the GUI can then be brought to appear using the show button.
vb.memory	This sets the memory available to the VM. In the global variables I have set it to 12GB (12*1024 MB)
vb.cpus	Number of CPU cores availabe to the VM. In the globals I have set it to 4.

Using the customize provider command you can change the VM's configuration. It is in fact an API to the VboxManage utility of VirtualBox.

With modifyvm we set both the properties --clipboard and --draganddrop to bidirectional. When the GUI is shown (vb.gui = true) then it allows us to copy and paste into the VM for instance.

Then using  the createmedium command a standard vdi disk is created. The name VM_DISK2 is based on the variables VMS_HOME and VM_NAME. See the top of the file. It's convenient to have the file created in the same folder as the VM is created in. So check the VirtualBox preferences:

The Default Machine Folder preference is used to create the VM in, in a subfolder indicated by the name of the VM. So make sure that the VMS_HOME variable matches the value in that preference.

The value for --format the createmedium command I used is vdi. This is the default Virtual Disk Image format of VirtualBox. When exporting a VM into an OVA ( Open Virtual Appliance package, which is a tar archive file) the VDI disks are converted to the VMDK  (Virtual Machine Disk).
The size is set with the --size parameter, in my example set to the VM_DISK2_SIZE that I created in the top of the file as 512GB (1024 * 512).
The --variant Standard indicates a dynamically allocated file, that grows with the filling of it. So, you won't loose the complete filesize on diskspace. The 512GB limits the growth of the disk.

I want the disk to persist and not recreated at every startup, so I surrounded that command with the
unless File.exist?(VM_DISK2) block.

Using the storageattach I add it to my SATA controller using the --storagectl SATA parameters. It's added to --port 2 and --device 0, since it is my second drive. It needs to appear secondly in Linux. Then ofcourse the --type is hdd and the --medium is VM_DISK2.

You see a special variable :id. This refers to the VM that is created in VirtualBox. Of course I want the disk attached to the proper VM.

Shared/Synced folders

Vagrant by default creates a folder-link, a so-called Synced Folder, the wrapper around VirtualBox’s Shared Folder functionality. The default refers to the Vagrant project folder from which the VM is created and provisioned. Thus, in fact the folder where the Vagrantfile resides. That folder is mounted in the VM as /vagrant. So, navigating to the /vagrant folder in the VM will show you the files from the vagrant-project folder and child folders. This is convenient, because subfolders in that folder, for instance a scripts folder with provisioning scripts, are immediately available at startup.

Since we want to install software from the Stage folder on our host, we need a mapping to that.
So find the following line:

 # config.vm.synced_folder "../data", "/vagrant_data"

This is an example line for configuring additional synced folders. Add a line below it as follows:

  config.vm.synced_folder STAGE_HOST_FOLDER, STAGE_GUEST_FOLDER

This maps the folder on the host as denoted in the global variable STAGE_HOST_FOLDER, and then mount that as the value from the global STAGE_GUEST_FOLDER. Notice that I doing so I map the folder /media/sf_Stage in the VM to the folder d:/Projects/vagrant/Stage on the host. Wich is a sub-folder in my main vagrant project folder.

Provisioning

Having the VM configured, the provisioning part is to be configured. Vagrant allows for several provisioners like Puppet, Chef, Ansible, Salt, and Docker. But a Shell snippet is provided in our Vagrantfile. I'll expand that one. At the bottom of the file, right above the closing end of our configure block, we'll find the snippet:

# config.vm.provision "shell", inline: <<-SHELL
  #   apt-get update
  #   apt-get install -y apache2
  # SHELL

Replace it with the following block:

  config.vm.provision "shell", inline: <<-SHELL
    export SCRIPT_HOME=/vagrant/scripts
    echo _______________________________________________________________________________
    echo 0. Prepare Oracle Linux
    $SCRIPT_HOME/0.PrepOEL.sh
    echo _______________________________________________________________________________
    echo 1. Create Filesystem
    $SCRIPT_HOME/1.FileSystem.sh
    echo _______________________________________________________________________________
    echo 2. Create Oracle User
    $SCRIPT_HOME/2.MakeOracleUser.sh
    #
   SHELL

This provides an inline script. I like that because it allows me to see directly what happens in helicopter view. But, I do not like to have all the detailed steps in here, so I only call sub-scripts within this block. You can also uses external scripts, even remote ones, as described in the doc.

As can be seen the scripts I'll describe below have to be placed in the scripts folder as part of the vagrant project folder. Remember that this folder is mapped as a synched folder to /vagrant in the VM.

I  have the following script, called 0.PrepOEL.sh, to  update the Oracle Linux installation in the VM:

#!/bin/bash
SCRIPTPATH=$(dirname $0)
#
. $SCRIPTPATH/install_env.sh
echo Installing packages required by the software
sudo yum -q -y install compat-libcap1* compat-libstdc* libstdc* gcc-c++* ksh libaio-devel* dos2unix system-storage-manager
echo install Haveged
sudo rpm -ihv $STAGE_HOME/Linux/haveged-1.9.1-1.el7.x86_64.rpm
echo 'Adding entries into /etc/security/limits.conf for oracle user'
if grep -Fq oracle /etc/security/limits.conf
then
    echo 'WARNING: Skipping, please verify!'
else
    echo 'Adding'
    sudo sh -c "sed -i '/End of file/i # Oracle account settings\noracle soft core unlimited\noracle hard core unlimited\noracle soft data unlimited\noracle hard data unlimited\noracle soft memlock 3500000\noracle hard memlock 3500000\noracle soft nofile 1048576\noracle hard nofile 1048576\noracle soft rss unlimited\noracle hard rss unlimited\noracle soft stack unlimited\noracle hard stack unlimited\noracle soft cpu unlimited\noracle hard cpu unlimited\noracle soft nproc unlimited\noracle hard nproc unlimited\n' /etc/security/limits.conf"
fi

echo 'Changing /etc/sysctl.conf'
if grep -Fq net.core.rmem_max /etc/sysctl.conf
then
    echo 'WARNING: Skipping, please verify!'
else
    echo 'Adding'
    sudo sh -c "echo '
#ORACLE
fs.aio-max-nr = 1048576
fs.file-max = 6815744
kernel.shmall = 2097152
kernel.shmmax = 4294967295
kernel.shmmni = 4096
kernel.sem = 250 32000 100 128
net.ipv4.ip_local_port_range = 9000 65500
net.core.rmem_default = 262144
net.core.rmem_max = 4194304
net.core.wmem_default = 262144
net.core.wmem_max = 4194304
'>>/etc/sysctl.conf"
/sbin/sysctl -p
fi

It uses the following script, install_env.sh:

#!/bin/bash
echo set Install environment
export STAGE_HOME=/media/sf_Stage
export SCRIPT_HOME=/vagrant/scripts

to set a few HOME variables.
It first install required packages using sudo yum . These packages are required for most of the Oracle software setup, like database and/or FusionMiddleware.
Then from the Linux folder in the STAGE_HOME folder, the tool Haveged is installed. You can download it from the Oracle yum repository. So, I should be able to have it installed with yum as well. One improvement point noted.

Why Haveged you ask? On non-gui, terminal only virtualized systems, the entropy maybe low, which causes slow encryption/decryptions. Installing and configuring FusionMiddleware, for instance, or starting WebLogic maybe very slow.

Then it set some limits for the oracle  user and kernel configs. These can be found in the install guides of the Oracle software.

To create the file system I use the script 1.FileSystem.sh:

#!/bin/bash
echo Create folder for mountpoint /app
sudo mkdir /app
echo Create a Logical Volume group and Volume on sdb
sudo ssm create -s 511GB -n disk01 --fstype xfs -p pool01 /dev/sdb /app
sudo ssm list
sudo sh -c "echo \"/dev/mapper/pool01-disk01       /app                    xfs     defaults        0 0\" >> /etc/fstab"

This one creates a folder  /appfor the file mount. Then it uses ssm (System Storage Manager) to create a 511GB (because of overhead I can't create a filesystem of 512GB) filesystem using a Logical Volume in a Logical Volume Group on the sdb device in Linux. For more info on how this works, read my blog article on it.

That leaves us to create an oracle user. For that I use the script 2.MakeOracleUser.sh:

#!/bin/bash
#
# Script to create a OS group and user
#
SCRIPTPATH=$(dirname $0)

ENV=${1:-dev}

function prop {
    grep "${1}" $SCRIPTPATH/makeOracleUser.properties|cut -d'=' -f2
}

# As we are using the database as well, we need a group named dba
echo Creating group dba
sudo /usr/sbin/groupadd -g 2001 dba

# We also need a group named oinstall as Oracle Inventory group
echo create group oinstall
sudo /usr/sbin/groupadd -g 2000 oinstall

#
# Create the Oracle user
echo Create the oracle user
sudo /usr/sbin/useradd -u 2000 -g oinstall -G dba oracle
echo Setting the oracle password to...
sudo sh -c "echo $(prop 'oracle.password') |passwd oracle --stdin"
sudo chown oracle:oinstall /app
#
# Add Oracle to sudoers so he can perform admin tasks
echo Adding oracle user to sudo-ers.
sudo sh -c "echo 'oracle           ALL=NOPASSWD:        ALL' >> /etc/sudoers"
#
# Create oraInst.loc and grant to Oracle
echo Create oraInventory folder
sudo chown -R oracle:oinstall /app
sudo mkdir -p /app/oracle/oraInventory
sudo chown -R oracle:oinstall /app/oracle
echo Create oraInst.loc and grant to Oracle
sudo sh -c "echo \"inventory_loc=/app/oracle/oraInventory\" > /etc/oraInst.loc"
#sudo sh -c "echo \"\" > /etc/oraInst.loc"
sudo sh -c "echo \"inst_group=oinstall\" >> /etc/oraInst.loc"
sudo chown oracle:oinstall /etc/oraInst.loc

It uses a property file makeOracleUser.properties for the oracle password:

oracle.password=welcome1

Using the prop function this property is read.

The groups dba and oinstall are created. Then the oracle user is created and it's password set. The filesystem mounted on /app is assigned to the oracle user to own. And then the user is added to tue /etc/sudoers file.

Lastly the oraInventory and the oraInst.loc file are created.

Up, up and up it goes…!

If everything went alright, you’re now ready to fire up your VM.
So open a command window and navigate to your vagrant project folder, if not done already.
Then simply issue the following command:

d:\Projects\vagrant\ol75>vagrant up

And then you wait…. And watch carefully to see that Vagrant imports the box, creates the VM, and provisions it.

Some other helpfull commands

I'll finish with some other helpfull commands:

Command	Meaning
vagrant up	Start a VM, and provision it the first time.
vagrant halt	Stop the VM.
vagrant suspend	Remove the VM.
vagrant destroy	Number of CPU cores availabe to the VM. In the globals I have set it to 4.
vagrant box list	Lists the base boxes in your repository.
vagrant box remove	Remove a listed base box from your repository.
vagrant package --base <VM Name> --output <box filename>	Package the VM <VM Name> from the provider (VirtualBox) into a base box with given <box filename>.

Next stop: installing software as an oracle (or othernon-vagrant) user  user.

It's been busy, so unfortunately it's already been almost two weeks I wrote my introductory story on Vagrant. Today I happen to have an afternoon off, and I noticed that Oracle Linux 7 Update 5 is out. I based my first boxes on 7.4, so nice moment to start with creating a new Base Box.

De essentials on creating a Vagrant base box can be read here. But I'm going to guide you trough the process step by step, so I hope you will be able to repeat this yourself, using this guide-through.

First of, Vagrant recommends Packer to automate the creation of base boxes. But I'm a bit confused, because in this guide it is apparently stated that this is deprecated by march 2018. I haven't tried Packer yet, but I feel that over the years I created a base VM only a few times. I used to create a base VM that I import/clone to create new VMs over and over again. And often, I start of with a VM that already contains a pre-installed database for instance.

Vagrant has a built in command to create a base box out of an existing VM. That is what I use.

Base box requirements

What is a Base Box actually? Well, it's in fact sort of a template that is used by Vagrant to create and configure a new VM and provision that. It should contain the following

• An OS: I use Oracle Linux 7 Update 5 for this story. I also have a base box with Ubuntu. Ubuntu has some peculiarities I want to discuss later on in this series. For this base box I'll install a server-with-gui. But further as basic as possible.
• A vagrant user. The vagrant user is used for provisioning the box. We'll place a public insecure key in it, that will be replaced by Vagrant at first startup. We'll add vagrant to the sudoers list, so the user can sudo without passwords.
• A started ssh daemon:  Vagrant connects via ssh using the vagrant-user to do the provisioning.
• A NAT (Network Address Translation) Adapter as the first one: needed to do kernel/package updates without further network configuration.
• VirtualBox GuestAdditions installed: Vagrant makes use of shared folders to map the project folder to get to the scripts. Also it's convenient to add an extra stage folder mapping. 
• Password of root: not a requirement, but apparently it's a bit of a standard to set the root password to vagrant as ease of sharing. But at least note down the passwords.

That's about it. Maybe I forget something, but since it's digital, I can edit it later... So let's get started.

Download  Oracle Linux

All the serious enterprise stuff of Oracle can be downloaded at edelivery. Search for Oracle Linux:
Then add the 7.5 version to the Cart by clicking it:

Follow the wizard instructions and you'll get to:
I downloaded V975367-01.iso        Oracle Linux Release 7 Update 5 for x86 (64 bit), 4.1 GB.

Create the VM

The ISO is downloading, so let's create a VM in VirtualBox. I assume VirtualBox with VirtualBox Extension Pack is installed. And for later on Vagrant of course.

From the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager, create a new VM, I called it OL75, for Oracle Linux 64 bit:
I followed the wizard and gave it 10240 MB memory and a 128GB dynamically allocated virtual disk:

In the VM Settings, I set the number of processors to 4 and for now I kept everything to the default.

In the meantime my download is ready, so in the VM Settings, under Storage I added the disk by clicking the disk icon next to the IDE controller:

Then navigate to your downloaded iso:
and select it. Now the VM is ready to kick-off:


It will startup automatically after a minute, but let's not wait that long.

I don't need much, but in the Sofware Selection I do want Server with GUI:
But with out selecting other packages. What I might need later on, I'll install at provisioning.

I do not like default local domain networknames. So I changed the network hostname to darlin-vce.darwin-it.local:
Hostname darlin stands for Darwin Linux and vce for Virtual Course Environment.

Then hit Begin Installation:


Soon in the installation the installer asks for the Root password:
And the password is as said: vagrant.
Then I add also a vagrant with the same password:
Having done that, we need to wait for the installer to finish. At the end of the Install, do a reboot:

This leads to 2 questions to be answered. One is about accepting the licensing. I assume that can be answered without guidance. The other is about connecting the network.

You need to switch on the network adapter, but to have it done automatically you need to configure it and check the box Automatically connect to this network when it is available on the General tab. You'll need to have this done, otherwise Vagrant will have difficulties in connecting to the box.
Then finish the configuration:

Install guest additions

To be able to install the guest additions, we need to add some kernel packages. We could have done that by installing additional kernel packages. But I wanted to have a as basic as possible installation. And the following is more fun...

So open a terminal and switch to the super user:

[vagrant@darlin-vce ~]$ su -
Password: 
Last login: Tue Apr 24 09:41:21 EDT 2018 on pts/0
...

Then stop package kit, because it will probably hold a lock pausing yum:

[root@darlin-vce ~]# systemctl stop packagekit

And then install the packages kernel-uek-devel kernel-uek-devel-4.1.12-112.16.4.el7uek.x86_64, that are suggested by the GuestAdditions installer, by the way:

[root@darlin-vce ~]# yum -q -y install kernel-uek-devel kernel-uek-devel-4.1.12-112.16.4.el7uek.x86_64
No Presto metadata available for ol7_UEKR4
warning: /var/cache/yum/x86_64/7Server/ol7_latest/packages/cpp-4.8.5-28.0.1.el7.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID ec551f03: NOKEY
Public key for cpp-4.8.5-28.0.1.el7.x86_64.rpm is not installed
Public key for kernel-uek-devel-4.1.12-124.14.1.el7uek.x86_64.rpm is not installed
Importing GPG key 0xEC551F03:
 Userid     : "Oracle OSS group (Open Source Software group) "
 Fingerprint: 4214 4123 fecf c55b 9086 313d 72f9 7b74 ec55 1f03
 Package    : 7:oraclelinux-release-7.5-1.0.3.el7.x86_64 (@anaconda/7.5)
 From       : /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle

Having done that, insert the GuestAdditions CD:
It brings the following pop-up, click Run:

And provide the Administrator password:

In my case the script ran and during that the display got messed up. But after a reset of the VM (I waited until I got the impression it was done), the VM got up with a Hi-res display, indicating that the install went ok. Also the bi-directional clipboard worked.

Configure vagrant user

Again in a terminal switch to super user and add the following line to the /etc/sudoers file:

vagrant ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Exit and as vagrant user create a .ssh folder in the vagrant home folder, cd to it and create the file authorized_keys:

[vagrant@darlin-vce ~]$ mkdir .ssh
[vagrant@darlin-vce ~]$ cd .ssh
[vagrant@darlin-vce .ssh]$ vi authorized_keys

Insert the following content:

ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEA6NF8iallvQVp22WDkTkyrtvp9eWW6A8YVr+kz4TjGYe7gHzIw+niNltGEFHzD8+v1I2YJ6oXevct1YeS0o9HZyN1Q9qgCgzUFtdOKLv6IedplqoPkcmF0aYet2PkEDo3MlTBckFXPITAMzF8dJSIFo9D8HfdOV0IAdx4O7PtixWKn5y2hMNG0zQPyUecp4pzC6kivAIhyfHilFR61RGL+GPXQ2MWZWFYbAGjyiYJnAmCP3NOTd0jMZEnDkbUvxhMmBYSdETk1rRgm+R4LOzFUGaHqHDLKLX+FIPKcF96hrucXzcWyLbIbEgE98OHlnVYCzRdK8jlqm8tehUc9c9WhQ== vagrant insecure public key

This is the insecure key of vagrant that can be downloaded here.
It will be replaced by Vagrant at first startup.

Package the box

So, now we have a base install that can function as a base box for Vagrant. Thus we can now shut it down to export it to an OVA (just as a backup for VirtualBox) and then create are base box out of it.

After creating your export of the OVA, that I skip describing here, you just open a command window. I assume you have Vagrant installed.

To package the box, you use the package subcommand of vagrant:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.16299.371]
(c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

d:\Projects\vagrant>vagrant package --base OL75 --output d:\Projects\vagrant\boxes\OL75v1.0.box
==> OL75: Exporting VM...
==> OL75: Compressing package to: d:/Projects/vagrant/boxes/OL75v1.0.box

d:\Projects\vagrant>

Conclusion

Well, that concludes this part of the series. We have our own base box and it's barely 3GB. Next: create a VM with it. Stay tuned.

About 2003, I guess, I was introduced into VMWare by a colleague. I was hooked about right away.
Since then I made numerous VMs for as many purposes. I played around with several VMWare products, but since Oracle acquired Sun, I stuck with VirtualBox.

A few years ago the tool Vagrant was mentioned to me. But I did not get the advantage of it, since all I needed to do I could do using VirtualBox.

However, over the years I found that maintaining VM's is a tedious job. And often I create and use a VM, but shut it down for months. And when I need it again, I don't the state anymore. Although you can use snapshots, it's nice to be able to start with a fresh install again.

In between, Oracle can have come up with another (minor) version of Fusion Middleware. Oracle Linux can have an new upgrade. There's a new patch set. Then you want to do a re-install of the software. And I find it nice that I can drop a VM and recreate it from scratch again.

For those purposes Vagrant comes in handy. It allows you to define a Box, based on a template, a base box, and configure it by configure CPU and memory settings, add disks and then after first boot, provision it.
So if I want to adapt a VM with a slightly different setting, or I need an extra disk, I destroy my box, adapt my Vagrant project file, and boot my box up again.

So, let's see what Vagrant is, actually. Then in a follow-up, I'll explain how I setup my Vagrant Project.


Vagrant is an open-source software product for building and maintaining portable virtual software development environments. So it helps you in creating and building Virtual Machines, especially in situations where you need to do that regularly and distribute those.

It simplifies software configuration management of virtualizations, to increase development productivity. Vagrant automates both the creation of VM’s and the provisioning of created VM's.  It does this by abstracting the configuration of the virtualization component and the installation/setup of the software within the VM, via a project file.

The architecture distinguishes two building blocks: Providers and Provisioners.
Providers are services to set up and create VMs, for instance:

• VirtualBox
• Docker
• Vmware
• AWS

Provisioners are tools to customize the configuration of VM, for example, configure the guest OS and install software within the VM. Possible provisioners are: 

• Shell
• Ansible
• Puppet
• Chef

I haven't made my self familiar with Ansible or Puppet, yet, (still on my list), so I work with the default provisioner: Shell.

A Vagrant project is in fact a folder with the Vagrant file in it. The vagrant file contains all the configuration of the resulting Vagrant box, the actual created VM.

A Vagrant project is always based on  a base box. Often, a downloadable box from a Vagrant repository is used. In fact, if you don't specify an url, but only a name, it will try to find it from the Vagrant repository. A popular one is the hashicorp/precise64, used in many examples. However, I prefer to use my own local box. For two main reasons:

• I then know what's init.
• It's local, so I don't have to download it.

To be able to be used by Vagrant, a box has the following requirements:

• It contains an actual VM, with OS installed in it.
• A vagrant user is defined, with sudo rights, and an insecure key (downloadable from vagrant's github, but it will be replaced by a generated secure key at first startup), but  you can specify a password (as I do).
• NAT network adapter as a first NIC.
• SSH deamon running.

There is a tool, called Packer, that is  able to create a box, with an OS installed. I haven't tried it, but actually, I created a very simple VM in VirtualBox, installed Oracle Linux 7 Update 4, with the server with gui option as a next-next-finish install in it, defined the vagrant user as mentioned in it. And then with the vagrant package command I got the particular box. I had a few iterations to get it as I wanted it. But once you get it right, you should not need to touch it. Unless another Linux update comes along.

Now I have only one simple base box, and I only need to define different vagrant projects and a stage folder with the latest greatest on the software downloaded. And a simple vagrant up command will create my VM a new, and install all the software in it.

Last year, on the NLOUG's Tech Experience '17, together with my colleague Rob, I spoke about how to script a complete Oracle Fusion MiddleWare environment. It was a result of a series of projects we did up to the event, where we tried to automate the environment creation as much as possible. See my series of blogs on the matter. In the upcoming period, I plan to write about how to leverage these scripts with Vagrant to set up a complete VM, with the latest greatest FMW in it.

So stay tuned.

Shared Folders are a big advantage in both VirtualBox and VMware Player (>3.0.x). However I notice that in my direct neighborhood there is a unfamiliarity with it. And how to use it. That is, it turns out that a created shared folder is not mounted right a way in a started VM. So to help this out, a little how to.

To create a Shared Folder you have to go to the SharedFolders node in the VM Settings:

There you can click on the add folder button. Of course you can remove or edit existing ones.



Give here the path to the folder on your host. At the layout of the screen you could gues my host is a Windows 7. You can give in a Shared Folder name.
The other options (check boxes, I really need to do a reinstall of VB in English, however it was no option I've chosen consciously to install it in Dutch) are:

• Read only
• Auto Mount
• Make permanent

I check the the latter 2.
Although auto mount is checked, this does not count right away for running Linux guests. Therefor you have to do a restart.

Shared Folders are automounted in linux as /media/sf_<sharedfolder name>

So as root you have to

• create the folder
• ' change owner' it to root:vboxsf
• set " group writable" with chmod
• Then mount the folder

So:

makker@makker-lnx:~> cd /media
makker@makker-lnx:/media> ls -l
total 92
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf  4096 Aug 25 17:07 sf_Data
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf  8192 Sep 21 13:45 sf_Documents
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root   16384 Sep 22 09:59 sf_Downloads
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf 65536 Aug 23 14:26 sf_Music
makker@makker-lnx:/media> sudo mkdir sf_Projects
root's password:
makker@makker-lnx:/media> ls -l
total 96
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf  4096 Aug 25 17:07 sf_Data
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf  8192 Sep 21 13:45 sf_Documents
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root   16384 Sep 22 09:59 sf_Downloads
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf 65536 Aug 23 14:26 sf_Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Sep 22 12:06 sf_Projects

makker@makker-lnx:/media> sudo chown root:vboxsf sf_Projects
makker@makker-lnx:/media> sudo chmod g+w  sf_Projects
makker@makker-lnx:/media> ls -l
total 96
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf  4096 Aug 25 17:07 sf_Data
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf  8192 Sep 21 13:45 sf_Documents
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root   16384 Sep 22 09:59 sf_Downloads
drwxrwx--- 1 root vboxsf 65536 Aug 23 14:26 sf_Music
drwxrwxr-x 2 root vboxsf  4096 Sep 22 12:06 sf_Projects

To mount the folder use the command mount -t vboxsf <sharedfolder name> /media/sf_<sharedfolder name>
So:

makker@makker-lnx:/media> sudo mount -t vboxsf Projects /media/sf_Projects
makker@makker-lnx:/media> ls -l sf_Projects/
total 94
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root  9776 Oct 12  2010 AIA Project in Amsterdam
....

Now, as you'll notice to use the shared folder by another user than root, you'll need to add that user to the vboxsf user group.

The easiest way to do that is to use the user-administration tool of your linux distribution.

To add it on the commandline, first list the groups you allready have:

makker@makker-lnx:/media> id
uid=1000(makker) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),6(disk),17(audio),20(cdrom),33(video),49(ftp)

Or:

makker@makker-lnx:/media> groups
users disk audio cdrom video ftp

Then use usermod (as root or via sudo) to add the group:

makker@makker-lnx:/media> sudo /usr/sbin/usermod -g users -G disk,audio,cdrom,video,ftp,vboxsf makker
makker@makker-lnx:/media> groups
users disk audio cdrom video ftp vboxsf

Mind that you have always a primary group indicated with lowercase '-g', and several secondary groups indicated with capital '-G' and a comma separated list (don't use spaces).

That's it.

It's been a while since my last post, but here's a new one.
This summer I got a VirtualMachine to do a Webcenter workshop. The VM turned out to be 30GB in size. This 30GB is basically one big Virtual Disk of logically 50GB. That is: it's dynamically allocated and can grow until 50GB.
Although it is a VirtualBox VM, the disk uses VMDK format, which is the VMware virtual disk format.
The disk contained the OS (of course), the install/setup files of the database, Weblogic Suite, Repository Creation Utillity and WebcenterSuite, and the installation itself.
This means that after installing the OS, the setup files are copied to the VM into a staging directory, from which the installation is done. The installation is put in a /u01/app folder, but physically in the same disk after the setup files. So deleting the setup files won't decrease the VM a bit.

I found it a nice project to try to split the VM getting it into a more suitable size.

The project turned out to be about the following steps:

1. Add new virtual disks for the Oracle/Webcenter installation and the staging-area (the setup files)
2. Partition, format and mount the disks
3. Copy/Move the staging and installation folder to their particular disks
   
4. Detach the staging disk
5. Transform the OS disk from VMDK to VDI
6. Shrink/Compact the OS disk

1. Add new virtual disks
Adding a disk to the VM is pretty simple: goto VM settings and node Storage. I'm sorry the screendumps are in dutch. Some how I got a Dutch VirtualBox installation.


Click the add disk Icon on the Sata Controller node.
Choose "create new disk":



Choose VDI as disk format. VDI is the "Virtual Disk Image" format of VirtualBox. VMDK is the "Virtual Machine Disk" format of VMware. Later I'll show how to create a VDI image out of a VMDK, but it's better to choose the right format right away. Especially because VirtualBox can't compact a VMDK.



For "transportable" VM's choose the option "Dynamically Allocated". That way the Disk Image is only the size of the needed space.


Then choose a location and preferably a sensible name. Then set the (maximum) size on an appropriate value.


Now, you could add all the disks you need right a way. In my case I need two extra disks: one for the installation (disk2; disk1 one is for the OS: the root disk) and one for staging (named the stage disk here). But it is important to know which disk get's which device name. I think you can assume that the disk that is first in the list gets "/dev/sda", the second "/dev/sdb" and so this staging disk "/dev/sdc". But I don't take the risk and add a disk and format it one by one (and thus do a restart each new disk).

2. Partition, Format and mount disks
This can in fact in two ways:

• The raw way: partition, format and mount the raw disk.
• Use Logical Volume Manager to create a Logical Volume in a Volume Group

2.1 the raw way:
First check with fdisk -l the disk devices:

[root@server1 ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 53.6 GB, 53687091200 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 6527 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14        6527    52323705   8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdb: 21.4 GB, 21474836480 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2610 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1        2611    20971519+  8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdc: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/sdc doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-0: 47.7 GB, 47747956736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 5805 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 5804 MB, 5804916736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 705 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Here you see that /dev/sdc does not contain a partition table (ignore /dev/dm-0 and /dev/dm-1).
Then partition it with fdisk /dev/sdc (the device that you want to partition) and enter the following commands:

• n (new partition)
• p (for primary)
• 1 (first partition)
• 2 x enter, accepting the defaults for first and last cylinder
• w (write partition table to disk)
  

[root@server1 ~]# fdisk /dev/sdc
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.


The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1305.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e   extended
p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-1305, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-1305, default 1305):
Using default value 1305

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.

Then you can create a filesystem on it (format). Based on the version of the Linux distro you can choose for ext3 or ext4 (older systems have ext2). You can do this by issueing the command mkfs.ext4 and ofcourse choose y(es) at the question to proceed anyway:

[root@server1 ~]# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc
mke4fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
/dev/sdc is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
655360 inodes, 2621440 blocks
131072 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=2684354560
80 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632

Writing inode tables: done        
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 37 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune4fs -c or -i to override.

Then the disk is usable but you need to mount it. Since it in this case is a staging disk I want to mount it as such. So I create a directory /stage in the root:

[root@server1 /]# mkdir stage
[root@server1 /]# ls -l
total 186
...
drwxr-xr-x   2 root   root      4096 Sep  9 17:43 stage
...

Then create an entry in the /etc/fstab:

...
/dev/sdc                 /stage                  ext4    defaults        1 2
...

Of course it is most convenient to copy an existing row and edit it in the above way. Take care of editing the file system correctly (ext4 in this case).
You can mount the disk with mount /stage.
Then the owner is automatically root:root. To enable another user (eg. oracle) to use it you can create a directory oracle in it and change the owner to oracle:

[root@server1 ~]# cd /stage
[root@server1 stage]# mkdir oracle
[root@server1 stage]# chown oracle:oinstall oracle
[root@server1 stage]# ls -l
total 20
drwx------ 2 root   root     16384 Sep 15 17:51 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 2 oracle oinstall  4096 Sep 15 18:05 oracle

2.2 Logical Volume Manager

Using a Logical Volume Group with a Logical Volume gives you a little more flexibility in extending your disk. Also, using the Logical Volume manager is a little simpeler. Since there is a nice gui for it in Gnome.
Start it using the administration menu:

You need to provide the root password.
Then you get in the following screen:

Here you see an uninitialized disk. Actually it is the disk that I used in my previous example. So it is (in my case at least) already partitioned and formated. That would not be the case with new disk of course.
So first you have to initialize it and then it asks to partition it.


It gives an error and suggests a reboot. That I did and I just re-initalized it. Which went ok.
After it is initialized you'll find it in the Unallocated Volumes node. You can add it to an existing volume group. That is handy if you want to extend it. Especially in an enterprise environment that needs to extend a volume with more space (for a growing database or something).


In this case we choose to create a new Volume Group.


Give it an appropriate name. You can choose an extent size. You'll probably don't want to create it too small, since that would probably cause an extend quite often.


Then you can create a Logical Volume in it:


Choose Ext4 for the filesystem. Click on "Use Remaining" to span the complete partion.
You can check "Mount" and "Mount when rebooted".
After pressing "Ok" you get the following dialog:


Of course you choose "Yes". If you check the /etc/fstab you'll find an entry like:

/dev/VolGroup02/LogVol00                /stage          ext4    defaults        1 2

3. Copy/Move the files to the new disk
Well, I assume I don't have to explain this. Fortunately in my case the installation is done in /u01/app/oracle. So I could name my mount point /u01. It's important to choose the mount point precisely as the first directory of the directory path (see step 2). To do so, you'd probably rename the directory with the installation first. The result should be that the mount point and the rest of the directory structure matches the original path. Otherwise the installation would break and the whole exercise is quite needless.

4. Detach the staging disk
You probably don't want to ship the staging disk with the VM. In this decomposition project we created it to get the staging files out of the root disk. Normally when creating a VM you create an empty staging disk and copy the setup files into it. After doing the installation you don't need the stage disk anymore. But it can be handy to refine an installation later on or redo an installation in an other VM. In those cases you'll want to backup the disk.

But anyway, at this point you can detach it from your VM. But before you do that it is extremely important to remove or comment the corresponding line (see the line above) from the /etc/fstab. If you don't you'll not be able to restart the VM again. Because Linux tries to mount the disk that can't be found when removed from the storage.

Then you can shutdown the machine, go to the storage settings of the machine and remove the disk from the sata controller.

If you removed the disk from the /etc/fstab then you can safely startup the VM again.

5. Transform the OS disk from VMDK to VDI
To be able to compact the disk, you'll neet to transform it to VDI. VirtualBox can't convert it in one go. You'll need to convert from VMDK to Raw format first and then from Raw to VDI.

5.1 Convert from VMDK to Raw
Open a command window or terminal/console session and cd to your VirtualBox installation. My host is a Windows 7 laptop and my VirtualBox Installation is in c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>. In that directory you'll find the Vboxmanage tool. To convert the disk to raw you issue the command:

VboxManage internalcommands converttoraw  -format vmdk <path to vmdk disk> <path to new raw disk>

Spaces in folders are not so convenient, since it can break the option list in the command line. Enclose the path's to the input (vmdk) and output (raw) disk with quotes.
For example:

c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VboxManage internalcommands converttoraw -format vmdk "c:\Users\makker\VirtualBox VMs\PTS_WebCenter_PS4\PTS_DWN_Webcenter_PS4-disk1.vmdk" "d:\VirtualMachines\VirtualBox\Webcenter11g\PTS_Webcenter_PS4-disk1.raw"
Converting image "c:\Users\makker\VirtualBox VMs\PTS_WebCenter_PS4\PTS_DWN_Webcenter_PS4-disk1.vmdk" with size 536870912
00 bytes (51200MB) to raw...

It should be needles to say that it is not so wise to do this while running the Virtual Machine. Make sure it is down before running the conversion.

5.2 Convert from Raw to VDI
The command to convert it from raw to VDI is quite similar. Remarkably the conversion to raw is apparently an "internal command" to virtual box, but the conversion from raw to another disk format is not. The command is:

VboxManage convertfromraw <path to raw disk> <path to (new) VDI disk> --format vdi --variant Standard

For example:

c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VboxManage convertfromraw d:\VirtualMachines\VirtualBox\Webcenter11g\PTS_Webcenter_PS
4-disk1.raw "c:\Users\makker\VirtualBox VMs\PTS_WebCenter_PS4\PTS_Webcenter_PS4-disk1.vdi" --format vdi --variant Standard
Converting from raw image file="d:\VirtualMachines\VirtualBox\Webcenter11g\PTS_Webcenter_PS4-disk1.raw" to file="c:\Users\makker\VirtualBox VMs\PTS_WebCenter_PS4\PTS_Webcenter_PS4-disk1.vdi"...
Creating dynamic image with size 53687091200 bytes (51200MB)...

For a big disk, this can take quite an amount of time. In my case it took about 20 minutes per conversion.

Having done this, you can remove the VMDK from the storage in the Virtual Machine settings and add the VDI disk. You can do that in the same way as shown above with creating a new disk, except in stead choose "existing disk".
Make sure you put the disk on the correct sata port. For the root disk this should be port 0:
The root disk is of course the first one to be found by Linux and should get /dev/sda as device name. If it is your second it should get port 1 and thus named /dev/sdb by Linux, and so on.

6. Shrink/Compact the OS disk
Now, the disks are VDI, the root disk only contains the OS by now, since we moved the staging and installation in step 3. However: the disk is still huge: 30GB while the OS would only take about 5 to 6 GB (OS plus swap space). So it needs to shrink.
But for the compact tool, this 25GB remaining space is written and thus data. We first have to zero out the space. There is a tool for that: zerofree. Unfortunately it is not in the Oracle Enterprise Linux distribution. But OEL 5 is compatible with RedHat5. So I found my rpm here. Be sure you download the correct one (i386 or x86_64). Install it as root with

rpm -ihv zerofree-1.0.1-5.el5.i386.rpm

Well and then we have a problem. Zerofree only works on a readonly filesystem.
So we have to mount the rootdisk read only. That's not so easy since there are several processes that runs against the root disk.
Most of them are ruledout when booting the system in single user mode.
To do so login as root and issue:

[root@server1 ~]# telinit 1

This causes the system into single user mode and doing so terminating most of the services. You'll find yourself logged on as root.
However, probably there will be still some services running.
To check them out:

sh-3.2# service --status-all|grep runnnig

This will list all possibly running (or explictly stated "not running" services.
You can stop services by:

sh-3.2# service iscsid stop

Stop all running services and kill all p
Then you can try to remount the root volume rewritable:

sh-3.2# mount -n -o remount,ro -t ext3 /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 /

If that succeeds then you can zerofree the filesystem by:

zerofree /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00

After this we're ready to compact the disk. You can shutdown the system by issueing the command:

sh-3.2# init 0

Go to the VirtualBox install directory again in a command window.
To compact the disk, VitualBox has the command:

VboxManage modifyhd <path to the VDI disk file> --compact

For example:

c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VboxManage modifyhd "c:\Users\makker\VirtualBox VMs\PTS_WebCenter_PS4\PTS_Webcenter_PS4-disk1.vdi" --compact

After a while the file is probaly a lot smaller.

Conclusion
A first blog in a long time and it became quite a story. I feel like it looks like a little VirtualBox and Oracle Enterprise Linux administration course.

The last few months I created several VM's with environments to do courses (Virtual Course Environments I call them). And several of these tasks help me with this. In fact, see it as a toolbox of VCE creation. And the 30GB VM? Exported to an OVA file it is only 11GB now...