oratop - Utility for Near Real-time Monitoring of Databases, RAC and Single Instance (Doc ID 1500864

In this Document

Purpose

Requirements

Configuring

Instructions

Quick Start Guide

Script

Sample Output

References

APPLIES TO:

Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition - Version 11.2.0.3 to 11.2.0.4 [Release 11.2]
Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition - Version 12.1.0.1 to 12.1.0.2 [Release 12.1]
IBM AIX on POWER Systems (64-bit)
HP-UX PA-RISC (64-bit)
HP-UX Itanium
Linux x86-64
Linux x86
Oracle Solaris on x86-64 (64-bit)
Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit)

PURPOSE

oratop is a utility similar to the unix OS utility top which gives a overview of database performance and can be used in combination with top to get a more complete overview of system performance 

REQUIREMENTS

Supported Platforms

Linux x86

Linux x86-64

Solaris SPARC-64

Solaris x86-64

AIX (PPC)

HP-UX PARISC*

HP-UX IA

* 11gR2 only

NOTE: oratop on any platform can be used to monitor databases on other platforms.

To monitor databases on other platforms simply define an alias in tnsnames.ora of the Oracle client and connect to the databases remotely as you would with sqlplus

  

Supported Oracle Releases

11gR2 (11.2.0.3, 11.2.0.4)

12cR1 (12.1.0.1, 12.1.0.2)

 

CONFIGURING

oratop is now distributed and integrated with Trace File Analyzer Collector (TFA) along with all the other tools that are a part of the Support Tools Bundle.

So rather than downloading oratop separately the preferred method for obtaining oratop is to download the latest version of TFA.  This integration means 

that anytime TFA is upgraded (PSUs, download from MOS, etc) the latest version of oratop and the other Support Tools of the bundle will also be obtained.

If your Grid Infrastructure version is 11.2.0.4 or 12.1.0.2 then TFA will automatcially be installed.  In either case we recommend that the TFA installation be

upgraded to the latest version available from TFA Collector - Tool for Enhanced Diagnostic Gathering (Doc ID 1513912.1) in order to obtain the Support Tools 

Bundle which was first bundled with TFA version 12.1.2.3.0, as well as various other new features, bug fixes and optimizations.

Download the oratop executable for:

11gR2 on Linux x86-64 here.

12c on Linux x86-64 for use with 12c clients here.

11gR2 on Linux x86-32 here.

12c on Linux x86-32 for use with 12c clients here.

11gR2 for Solaris SPARC here.

12c for Solaris SPARC here.

11gR2 for Solaris x86 here.

12c for Solaris x86 here.

11gR2 for AIX here.

12c for AIX here.

11gR2 for HP-UX PARISC here.

11gR2 for HP-UX IA here.

12c for HP-UX IA here.

 

Please download and review the oratop Users Guide for specific instructions on how to configure and run oratop.  A Quick Start Guide is provided in the Instructions section of this Note.

INSTRUCTIONS

Quick Start Guide

Note:   For detailed instructions on how to run oratop please download and review the latest oratop Users Guide.

Running oratop from within TFA Collector

Use the tfactl CLI to set the database context for oratop, ie., the target database that oratop should connect to, eg.,

$ $TFA_HOME/bin/tfactl db orcl       <== set the target database context in TFA for oratop to use

$ $TFA_HOME/bin/tfactl oratop        <== oratop will connect to the orcl database, no need to worry about any of the oratop pre-reqs, TFA takes care of all that

  

OR

Use the tfactl shell to set the database context for oratop, ie., the target database that oratop should connect to, eg.,

$ $TFA_HOME/bin/tfactl              <== invoke the tfactl shell prompt

tfactl> db orcl                     <== set the target database context in TFA for oratop to use 
Set db to orcl
orcl tfactl> oratop

To run oratop in "batch mode" for a spoecific number os snapshots

$ $TFA_HOME/bin/tfactl

tfactl> db orcl
Set db to orcl
orcl tfactl> oratop -bn10         <== this example would run 10 snapshots at the default 5 second interval unless the interval had been changed eg. oratop -i 10 -bn10

Once oratop is invoked and running within the TFA framework its operation is exactly the same as if run standalone.  One thing to be aware of is that when oratop is run from within the TFA framework in batch mode 

as in the above example the ouput is automatically redirected to the oratop specific directory in the TFA repository location $TFA_REPOSITORY/supptools/oratop for automatic collection by TFA Collector.  In standalone mode 

you would need to use the redirection symbol ">" and specify the path and file name for re-direction and TFA would not necessarily know where to collect the resultant file unless it is redirected to one of the know diagnostic directories.

Running oratop standalone

1. Log in to the system as the Oracle RDBMS software installation owner
2. Stage the oratop executable on the server on which the tool will be executed.  On a RAC system it is only necessary to stage the executable on one node as it is RAC aware.
3. Change the name of the executable, eg.
4. $ mv oratop* oratop
5. Validate the permissions for oratop are 755 (-rwxr-xr-x). If the permissions are not currently set to 755, set the permissions on oratop as follows: 
   
   $ chmod 755 oratop
6. Configure the execution environment as follows (if not already set accordingly)
7. $ export TERM=xterm  #or vt100

   $ export ORACLE_HOME=<11.2 database home>

   $ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib

   $ export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH

   $ export ORACLE_SID=<local 11.2 database SID to be monitored>  #only needed if connecting to a local database
8. Invoke the tool to monitor a local database as follows (interval can be any interval in seconds):
   
   $ ./oratop -i 10 / as sysdba
9. Non-dba privileged user requires specific grants to use the tool.  See User Guide for grants required.
10. Databases can be monitored remotely using a tns alias as described in the oratop Users Guide.
11. $ ./oratop -i 10 username/password@tns_alias
    $ ./oratop -i 10 system/manager@tns_alias
12. To exit the program simply press the keyboard key "q".  To abort, CTRL-C.

Troubleshooting:

If you receive an error similar to 

./oratop: error while loading shared libraries: libclntsh.so.11.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

that is an indication that libclntsh.so.11.1 was not found in the path defined in LD_LIBRARY_PATH similar to 

$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib  (ie., the location of libclntsh.so.11.1)

CAUTION

This sample code is provided for educational purposes only, and is not supported by Oracle Support. It has been tested internally, however, we do not guarantee that it will work for you. Ensure that you run it in your test environment before using.

SCRIPT

The tool is a compiled c program.

SAMPLE OUTPUT