Opatch Utility Download

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OPatchautoA patch orchestration tool that generates patching instructions specific to your target configuration and then uses OPatch to perform the patching operations without user intervention. Specifically, OPatchAuto can:

For large-scale IT environments, patching individual product (e.g., Fusion Middleware) homes may not be practical since patching large numbers of targets manually is both monotonous and error prone. To maintain and deploy Oracle patches across many targets across your organization, you can use Enterprise Manager Cloud Control's patch automation capability. For more information about Enterprise Manager's patch management solution, see the "Patching Software Deployments" in the Oracle Enterprise Manager Lifecycle Management Administrator's Guide.

The patch process is not always straight forward as there are numerous factors that determine which software patches you need and how these patches should be applied. For example, the types of Oracle software installed on each target, software versions, or platforms on which the software is running are just a few.

Regardless of your environment's patching requirements, the basic patching methodology is the same. The normal patching workflow can be broken down into the following nine steps shown in the following figure.

From here, you have access to interactive support tools and information that simplify searching for and obtaining the requisite patches for your Oracle environment. You can find complete documentation about MOS at the following location:

My Oracle Support contains many features and capabilities that are grouped under tabs across the top of the application. Of primary interest is the Patches and Updates tab shown in the following figure.

From this page, you can search for the desired patch based on a specific configuration. One particularly useful search feature is the Recommended Patch Advisor. The Recommended Patch Advisor lets you find recommended and mandatory patches for standalone products, product combinations, or products for a product stack. For example, using the Recommended Patch Advisor, you search for patches for the following product:

Once you log in, click the Patches & Updates tab to begin your patch search. My Oracle Support offers several patch download options and automated tools to help you keep current with patches. See the Patches & Updates Web-based help for more information:

Now that you have the requisite patch, you determine which targets in your environment need to be patched (Step 3 in the patching workflow) and then apply the patch to each target (Step 4). Step 4 is where the OPatch utilities come into play. See Figure 1-1, "Patch Process Overview - Process Flow" to view the complete patching workflow.

You are required to read the linked support documentation and fill in the details of your specific configuration before you can implement any of the commands or add them to custom install scripts. Although this method is laborious, it provides you with a great deal of diagnostic capability and control if patch conflicts arise. See Chapter 2, "Binary Patching Using OPatch."

OPatchAuto performs end-to-end configuration patching. Configuration patching is the process of patching a target based on its configuration. By incorporating the site configuration information into the patch process, OPatchAuto is able to simplify patching tasks by automating most of the steps.

As useful as the OPatch utilities are, by themselves, they are limited in their ability to apply patches to large numbers of targets because they patch one GI/RAC home at a time. This could be challenging and time consuming in large, heterogeneous IT environments.

In order to handle large-scale patching, Oracle provides a new patch management solution that integrates OPatch with Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c. Enterprise Manager's tight integration with My Oracle Support (MOS) allows you to view patch recommendations, search patches, and roll out patches from a single user interface. In addition, Enterprise Manager's advanced Patch Plan feature provides you with a complete, end-to-end orchestration of the patching workflow. Automating the selection of deployment procedures and analysis of patch conflicts greatly reduces manual effort required to patch complex IT environments.

While OPatch is integrated with many Oracle product installations, you may still find that you need to use the OPatch directly. The core OPatch tool is used directly by admins as part of manual patching. OPatchAuto invokes OPatch, so an understanding of core OPatch is useful. OPatch is also useful for conflict detection and resolution as well as troubleshooting.

In addition to Enterprise Manager, many Oracle software products have integrated the OPatch utilities to provide for a seamless and efficient patching task. Depending on the application, the call to the OPatch utility may be transparent, and all patching activity is maintained within the respective application.

With OPatch integrated in many Oracle products, the utility is automatically installed when you install the respective product (for example, Enterprise Manager). The patching tools are installed in the following directories:

The OPatch utility is a tool that allows the application and rollback of interim patches to Oracle products. This chapter provides information on using OPatch to apply patches.This chapter includes the following topics:

You can use this option on Oracle Real Application Clusters environments and non-clustered environments. If an entire cluster is shut down before patching, you can use this argument for non-rolling patches.

This option does not perform any make operation. You can use it during multiple patch applications and to perform the linking step only once. OPatch does not keep track of the make operations it did not perform. You need to make sure to execute OPatch without this option at the end for compilation.

The following example applies patches 1, 2, and 3 that are under the directory. OPatch skips duplicate patches and subset patches (patches under that are subsets of patches installed in the Oracle home).

Removes conflicting patches from the system. If a conflict exists that prevents the patch from being applied, you can use this option to apply the patch. OPatch removes all the conflicting patches before applying the current patch.

Instructs OPatch to use JDK (jar) from the specified location instead of the default location under the Oracle home directory. If you do not specify the jre option, JVM is executed from the jdk location.

You can use this option on Oracle Real Application Clusters environments and non-clustered environments. If an entire cluster is shut down before patching, you can use this option for non-rolling patches.

This option does not perform any make operations. You can use it during multiple patch applications and to perform the linking step only once. OPatch does not keep track of the make operations it did not perform. You need to make sure to execute OPatch without this option at the end for compilation.

For example, if you used napply yesterday for patch A that fixed bugs 1 and 2, then you use napply today with this option for patch B that fixes bug 1 and patch C that fixes bugs 1, 2, and 3, then subset patch A is skipped, and patch C then becomes a superset of patch A.

Path of the Oracle Clusterware home. Use this option to patch only Oracle Clusterware homes where Oracle Clusterware has been stopped already. Do not use this option for Oracle Clusterware with a CRS stack that is up.

Reports bugs fixed by installed patches in a tabular format. Besides the bugs fixed, the report also displays the installed patches, installed times, and bug descriptions. The fixed bugs are sorted per installed patch. The default display is patches in descending order based on installed time and ascending order of bugs within each patch. You can use 'asc' or 'desc' with this option to enforce sort order on bugs within each patch.

You can use this option on Oracle Real Application Clusters environments and non-clustered environments. If you shut down an entire cluster before patching, you can use this argument for non-rolling patches.

When we inline patch the database using the OPatch utility, patches are stored in the "$ORACLE_HOME/.patch_storage" directory. Over time old patches can represent a large amount of wasted space. This article demonstrates how to clean up wasted storage associated with old database patches.

Oracle Inventory is the location or the place where all the information about an Oracle Home is stored and maintained. When ever we install an RDBMS Oracle Home, a new inventory gets created. Applying any new patch to Oracle Home will update the invnrtory for that Oracle Home and record the details for the patch applied. This inventory is in the form of XML files.

The location of inventory is defined in a file called oraInst.loc. The path for this file is provided while installing Oracle Home. If we dont supply any path, the is file will be present at central location /etc/oraInst.loc. Also we can have a central inventory if its not used by any other oracle installation. If the central inventory is used by previous Oracle installation we can create local inventory. The content of oraInst.loc file is as shown below.

You can create local inventory at any location while installing Oracle Home. You need to use -invPtrLoc variable along with runInstaller command and give the location of oraInst.loc. Otherwise the default path assumed for oraInst.loc is /etc/oraInst.loc.

1. You MUST read the Readme.txt file included in opatch file, look for any prereq. steps/ post installation steps or and DB related changes. Also, make sure that you have the correct opatch version required by this patch.

2.Make sure you have a good backup of database.

3. Make a note of all Invalid objects in the database prior to the patch.

4. Shutdown All the Oracle Processes running from that Oracle Home , including the Listener and Database instance, Management agent etc.

5. You MUST Backup your oracle Home and Inventory

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