Can't we start a RAC instance without local pfile ?

Question

DB version : 11.1.0.7.0
OS : Solaris 10 SPARC
--Info about the cluster
2 Node RAC
Both instances using spfile stored in ASM Diskgroup
Passwordless SSH configuration is not working currently (i gather ssh is not mandatory after installation)
We have 7 RAC DBs running in our 11.1 CRS.
After a reboot of our 2 Node RAC servers, in Node2, 4 instances didn't come up.
None of these down instances have a local pfile. The ones that are up in Node2 have it.
So, When i manually tried to bring up the ones that are down
$ sqlplus / as sysdba
SQL*Plus: Release 11.1.0.7.0 - Production on Fri Mar 2 21:28:22 2012
Copyright (c) 1982, 2008, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Connected to an idle instance.
SQL> startup
ORA-01078: failure in processing system parameters
LRM-00109: could not open parameter file '/u01/app/oracle/product/11.1/db_1/dbs/initorcl2.ora'
SQL> exit
Disconnected-- Tried directly with spfile (No such option in oracle, but still tried ! )
SQL> startup spfile='+ORCL_DATA01/ORCL/spfileorcl.ora'
SP2-0714: invalid combination of STARTUP options-- Tried from Node1
-- This might have failed because ssh is not working currently. Not sure
$ srvctl start instance -d orcl -i orcl2
PRKP-1001 : Error starting instance orcl2 on node manhclust199
CRS-0215: Could not start resource 'ora.orcl.orcl2.inst'.
$ srvctl start database -d orcl
PRKP-1001 : Error starting instance orcl2 on node manhclust199
CRS-0215: Could not start resource 'ora.orcl.orcl2.inst'.Finally I had to create a local pfile on node2 for each instances in OH/dbs
The content of each local pfile is like
$ cat initorcl2.ora
spfile='+ORCL_DATA01/orcl/spfileorcl.ora'Now the startup worked without any issue for all 4 instances
SQL> startup
ORACLE instance started.
Total System Global Area 2137886720 bytes
Fixed Size                  2155464 bytes
Variable Size            1593838648 bytes
Database Buffers          536870912 bytes
Redo Buffers                5021696 bytes
Database mounted.
Database opened.So, local pfile is mandatory for all RAC instances ?

Answer 1

Hi,
My question is whether this instance specific local pfile must be there in OH/dbs directory ?YES
Didn't get a clear answer yet.
It seems that it is mandatory. And this is most probably the reason these instances didn't come up after the reboot of this node.Startup Sequence:
Startup of Cluster:
Using "srvctl" to start your database/instance:
Srvctl read the OCR and check the parameter SPFILE from your database registration:
If parameter SPFILE in OCR have a value the srvctl will use this value to start your database instance.
If parameter SPFILE in OCR don't have a value (i.e null) Oracle will try find the file SPFILE<ORACLE_SID>.ora on $ORACLE_HOME/dbs
If the file SPFILE<ORACLE_SID>.ora does not exists, Oracle will try use the file init<ORACLE_SID>.ora
If init<ORACLE_SID>.ora does not exist... the startup will fail.
From ORACLE_HOME of your database execute command above to get value of Spfile parameter on OCR:
srvctl config database -d <DB_NAME> |grep SpfileStartup manually from SHELL using SQLPLUS:
Using SQLPLUS to start a database Oracle always first use SPFILE<ORACLE_SID>.ora stored on $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/ if this file does not exist he will try use INIT<ORACLE_SID>.ora to start Database Instance.
If your spfile is stored on ASM you must create a INITFILE pointing to SPFILE stored on ASM.
e.g From instance 1
cat /oracle/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/dbs/initorcl1.ora
SPFILE='+DATA/ORCL/spfileorcl.ora'Regards,
Levi Pereira