Oracle UL4 clusterware issue

Question

I have a two node VMware setup using Oracle UL4. The host is a Compaq AMD64 with 2.5 GB of memory. I have been following the Oracle-base Linux RAC installation process. I am to the point of putting the clusterware on the RAC1. I have incidently check equivalence between the two nodes - I can ping all three network IPs between, and issuing something like:
ssh oracle@rac2 date
from rac1 works fine. I also have done the same command using rac2-priv and rac2-vip and they work. I have reversed the process and went from rac2, rac2-priv, and rac2-vip and they work as well. So I came to the point of the OUI install of the clusterware. When I get to the screen for the list of the nodes, RAC1 shows up. I add RAC2 with the appropriate info for private and VIP, and then press "Next". At that point I get a dialog that says:
the nodes are not clusterable: the operating system returned: null
Here's the excerpt from the install log:
INFO: Calling Query netQueries10.2.0.1.0 getDomainName
hostName = rac1.taylor.net
INFO: Query Returned: taylor.net
INFO: Calling Query ClusterQueries10.2.0.1.0 validateIP
IPAddr = rac2.taylor.net
INFO: Query Returned: false
INFO: Calling Query netQueries10.2.0.1.0 getDomainName
hostName = rac2.taylor.net
INFO: Query Returned: taylor.net
INFO: Calling Query ClusterQueries10.2.0.1.0 ValidateUserEquiv
nodeNames = rac1,rac2,
INFO: Query Returned:
null
SEVERE: The specified nodes are not clusterable.
The following error was returned by the operating system:
null
What is the clusterware install looking at for equivalence? Same user (oracle), built the authorized_keys file as required. Equivanence appears to be correct. Sure would like to solve this. Any help would be appeciated.
Dwight

Answer 1

Hey - I appreciate you working this. I had found the same thread, and unfortunately it doesn't shed light on this. When I said that ssh worked fine between the nodes, I meant in more technical terms that the command:
ssh oracle@rac1 date
would return the date in default format without a prompt for the password, or any other feedback other than the requested data. So I really believe that the equivalence I had set up was correct - full scp and ssh capability. What I found in the cluvfy.config (or whatever named file it is in the /tmp/$$ directory) there was a variable tied to enabling ssh rather than rsh. I tried setting this in the environment before starting runcluvfy.sh but it didn't seem to matter. I figure there is some switch on the command line which will allow for this. Just haven't found it based on the documentation of cluvfy utility.
Thanks,
Dwight