Parting with ocm.rsp isn't really sweet sorrow...

by Fred Denis on Feb 7, 2017 12:00:00 AM

Now that we're well into 2017, let's sit back and ask the question: "What was the best news of 2016 in the Oracle ecosystem?"

The 12.2 beta ? (no, that was announced in October 2015 :))
The fact that we now officially know that each PDB will have their own local UNDO ? (no, this was easy to guess)
The fact that we will be able to flashback a PDB ? (nope. This, too, was easy to guess)

I'll give you a clue. The best news was something that sneakily appeared between April and October 2016 in your patch maintenance logs : [code lang="sql"] [root@myclusterdb02 OPatch]# ./opatchauto apply /patches/OCT2016_bundle_patch/24436624/Database/12.1.0.2.0/12.1.0.2.161018DBBP/24448103 -oh /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbhome_1 -ocmrf /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbhome_1/OPatch/ocm/bin/ocm.rsp System initialization log file is /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbhome_1/cfgtoollogs/opatchautodb/systemconfig2016-12-11_05-23-36PM.log. Session log file is /u01/app/oracle/product/12.1.0.2/dbhome_1/cfgtoollogs/opatchauto/opatchauto2016-12-11_05-24-09PM.log WARNING: the option -ocmrf is deprecated and no longer needed. OPatch no longer checks for OCM configuration. It will be removed in a future release. [/code] The interesting part is in that 4th line :

WARNING: the option -ocmrf is deprecated and no longer needed. OPatch no longer checks for OCM configuration. It will be removed in a future release.

This is awesome! We no longer need this annoying ocm.rsp file ! When I discovered this back in November 2016, I searched for an official feature announcement but found nothing (it looks like an opatch 13c new feature backported in 11g and 12c). This ocm.rsp file was still needed when I applied the April 2016 PSU, but from which opatch version was it implemented? First, I looked at the 2016 dev comments in opatch 11.2.0.3.15 and 12.2.0.1.7 (which were the last version when I was applying this Exadata October 2016 PSU) and I sadly discovered that no specific comments were talking about this new feature (even if it would obviously deserve some): [code lang="sql"] # opatch 04/08/16 Update CAS_VERSION to 12.2.0.1.3 # opatch 04/11/16 Consolidate all 4 opatch scripts # opatch 06/07/16 Calling auto_patch.pl using the perl from Oracle Home Location # opatch 06/30/16 bug 23721730 - default memory was too high for 32 bit so removed and disabled opatch_env.sh script call [/code] After a quick look at the code, I found the amazing piece of code that would ease our lives in the future (the function is named ocmOptionDetect()): [code lang="sql"] # Option 'ocmrf' is deprecated in OPatch 13.3 - Detect and give warning message if [ "$OCMRF_OPTION" = "1" ] && [ "$VERSION_13_X" = "1" ]; then echo "WARNING: the option \"-ocmrf\" is deprecated and no longer needed. OPatch no longer checks for OCM configuration. It will be removed in a future release." [/code] I then performed a few greps in different opatch versions that I had and I found that this feature has been implemented in:

11.2.0.3.13 or 11.2.0.3.14 for 11g (I was unable to find any of these versions so I couldn't check)
Between versions 12.1.0.1.10 and 12.2.0.1.7 for 12c (again, I was unable to find any of these versions so I couldn't check)

If you come across any of the opatch versions specified above, please " grep -i ocmrf opatch" it and let me know so I can find when this feature has been implemented. You can now upgrade all your opatches to become ocm.rsp-free and this (for me) was definitely the best new of 2016!

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