Get started with ORAchk

Introduction

This blog post introduces Oracle® ORAchk and shows you how to download, install, and use this database audit tool.

The Oracle® Autonomous Health Framework (AHF) includes ORAchk, which enables you to audit and validate your Oracle Database Appliance (ODA) environment. You can use AHF without incurring extra fees.

ORAchk includes audit checks for known ODA issues, including the following areas that might have problems:

• Oracle Database
• Grid infrastructure and Real Application Clusters (RAC)
• Upgrade readiness validation
• Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA) validation

The Oracle development and support team continuously improves ORAchk by adding checks for the latest issues reported by users, and ORAchk proactively scans your system for the problems.  These improvements offer you more significant insights into the health of your ODA system, providing a better upgrade patch application experience. 

Download ORAchk

Use the following steps to download ORAchk:

1. Click Download the latest ORAchk from the My Oracle Support section of AHF - Including TFA and ORAchk (Doc ID 2550798.1] as shown in the following image:

2. Click Download TFA & ORAchk  as shown in the following image:

The following download option displays:

3. Select a download version. We recommend that you download the Linux® version, TFA & ORAchk/EXAchk for Linux.

Install ORAchk

Use the following steps to install ORAchk:

1. Download and unzip TFA & ORAchk/EXAchk 19.3.x.zip into a temporary location.

2. Unzip the archive file and execute ahf_setup to install ORAchk on the ODA node.

If you have more than one ODA node, repeat these steps for each node that you want to patch.

 Run ORAchk

We recommend that you run ORAchk from the Linux command line as the root user as shown in the following example:

    [root@host1 orachk]# ./orachk

 Clusterware stack is running from /u01/app/18.0.0.0/grid. Is this the correct Clusterware Home?[y/n][y]

Confirm the Clusterware_HOME, By default it is [y]

Note: If you run ORAchk in the terminal from a device on the network, you might encounter network issues. However, if you run the tool by using Virtual Network Computing (VNC), ORAchk continues to run even during network interruptions. If ORAchk fails to run, rerun it.  It starts again from the beginning and does not resume from the point of failure.

Conclusion
Because Oracle is continually updating ORAchk, you should always make sure you run the latest release of ORAchk before patching your system. By staying updated, you can be confident that you can successfully apply the patches and that you have addressed all known issues.