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Delphix

TB070 Pluggable Oracle Databases with Lower/Mixed Case Names Will Not Enable

 

 

Alert Type 

Availability

 

Impact 

Following an upgrade, one or more Oracle Virtual Databases (VDBs) may not enable. This will also prevent these databases from starting up, leading to increased database unavailability.

Contributing Factors 

The issue can only occur when using one of the following Delphix Engine releases:

Major Release

All Sub Releases

5.3

5.3.5.0, 5.3.6.0, 5.3.7.0, 5.3.7.1

6.0 6.0.0.0

The issue can only occur when using pluggable VDB (vPDB) names that contain lowercase characters, either in part or whole. Configurations where pVDB names are all uppercase are not impacted.  Pluggable databases are used in conjunction with Oracle Container Databases (CDBs).

The issue can occur when using either physical linked CDBs (i.e. where the container is not managed by Delphix) and virtual CDBs (vCDBs).   

The issue can only occur when an affected Oracle vPDB existed prior to the above releases listed above, and a Delphix Engine is subsequently upgraded to one of the affected releases. The issue is most likely to occur during or just after an upgrade, or the first time an affected PvDB is enabled if not previously enabled before the upgrade.

Symptoms 

Errors similar to one or more of following may be seen in the Oracle alert log of an affected VDB at the time an enable operation is attempted:

ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01157: cannot identify/lock data file 19 - see DBWR trace file
ORA-01110: data file 19:
'/mnt/provision/<vdbname>-<cdbname>/datafile/<filepath>/<filename>.dbf'

and/or:

ERROR at line 1:
ORA-04088: error during execution of trigger 'SYS.MAX_1_PDB_TRG'
ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1
ORA-20001: More than 1 PDB requires the Multitenant option.
ORA-06512: at line 11

A fault on the UI may be displayed similar to the following:

Screen Shot 2020-01-30 at 6.44.21 PM.png

Relief/Workaround 

Do not upgrade a Delphix Engine to an affected release if using pVDB names with lower- or mixed-case database names.

If a vPDB cannot be enabled following an upgrade, it is still possible to perform a refresh operation on the affected vPDB. A refreshed pVDB will no longer exhibit the problem; however, any unique data in the vPDB database would be irrevocably lost as it is replaced with new data from the vPDB's parent. 

Resolution 

The issue is fully resolved in Delphix 5.3.8.0 and later Delphix 5.3.x.0 releases. 

This issue is fully resolved in release of 6.0.1.0 and later 6.0.x releases.

Additional Information

This issue arises from a software defect in which the file path used by Delphix when mounting VDB files on a target environment is converted too all upper-case characters. When a pluggable VDB with lower-case characters in the name is enabled after upgrading to an affected release, the previously stored pathnames in the control file(s) of the VDB no longer matches that of the mounted filesystem. This leads to the described errors. 

Although Delphix does not recommend depending on the pathnames used when mounting VDBs on target environments, any references to affected file paths from the VDB pre- or -post hooks or hook scripts could similarly be affected.