WHAT IS GPNP PROFILE?

The GPnP profile is a small XML file located in

GRID_HOME/gpnp/<hostname>/profiles/peer under the name profile.xml. It is used to
establish the correct global personality of a node. Each node maintains a local copy of
the GPnP Profile and is maintanied by the GPnP Deamon (GPnPD) .
WHAT DOES GPNP PROFILE CONTAIN?
GPnP Profile  is used to store necessary information required for the startup of Oracle
Clusterware like  SPFILE location,ASM DiskString  etc.
It contains various attributes defining node personality.
- Cluster name
- Network classifications (Public/Private)
- Storage to be used for CSS
- Storage to be used for ASM : SPFILE location,ASM DiskString  etc
- Digital signature information : The profile is security sensitive. It might identify the
storage to be used as the root partition of a machine.  Hence, it contains digital
signature information of the provisioning authority.
Here is the GPnP profile of my RAC setup.
gpnptool can be  used  for reading/editing the gpnp profile.
[root@host01 peer]# gpnptool get
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?><gpnp:GPnP-Profile Version=”1.0″
xmlns=”http://www.grid-pnp.org/2005/11/gpnp-profile” xmlns:gpnp=”http://www.grid-
pnp.org/2005/11/gpnp-profile” xmlns:orcl=”http://www.oracle.com/gpnp/2005/11/gpnp-
profile” xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”
xsi:schemaLocation=”http://www.grid-pnp.org/2005/11/gpnp-profile gpnp-profile.xsd”
ProfileSequence=”7″ ClusterUId=”14cddaccc0464f92bfc703ec1004a386″
ClusterName=”cluster01″ PALocation=””><gpnp:Network-
Profile><gpnp:HostNetwork id=”gen” HostName=”*”><gpnp:Network id=”net1″
IP=”192.9.201.0″ Adapter=”eth0″ Use=”public”/><gpnp:Network id=”net2″
IP=”10.0.0.0″ Adapter=”eth1″
Use=”cluster_interconnect”/></gpnp:HostNetwork></gpnp:Network-
Profile><orcl:CSS-Profile id=”css” DiscoveryString=”+asm”
LeaseDuration=”400″/><orcl:ASM-Profile id=”asm” DiscoveryString=””
SPFile=”+DATA/cluster01/asmparameterfile/registry.253.783619911″/><ds:Signat
ure
xmlns:ds=”http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#”><ds:SignedInfo><ds:Canonicali
zationMethod Algorithm=”http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#”/
><ds:SignatureMethod Algorithm=”http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#rsa-
sha1″/><ds:Reference URI=””><ds:Transforms><ds:Transform
Algorithm=”http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature”/
><ds:Transform Algorithm=”http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#”>
<InclusiveNamespaces xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#”
PrefixList=”gpnp orcl xsi”/></ds:Transform></ds:Transforms><ds:DigestMethod
Algorithm=”http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1″/><ds:DigestValue>4VMorz
xVNa+FeOx2SCk1unVBpfU=</ds:DigestValue></ds:Reference></
ds:SignedInfo><ds:SignatureValue>bbzV04n2zSGTtUEvqqB+pjw1vH7i8MOEUqkh
XAyloX0a41T2FkDEA+
 +ksc0BafndAk7tR+6LGdppE1aOsaJUtYxQqaHJdpVsJF+sj2jN7LPJlT5NBt+K7b08
TLjDID92Se6vEiDAeeKlEbpVWKMUIvQvp6LrYK8cDB/YjUnXuGU=</
ds:SignatureValue></ds:Signature></gpnp:GPnP-Profile>
WHO UPDATES GPNP PROFILE?
GPnPd daemon replicates changes to the profile during

 - installation,
 - system boot or
 - when updated

Profile is updated Whenever changes are made to a cluster with configuration tools like

 . oifcfg (Change network),

 . crsctl (change location of voting disk),
 . asmcmd (change ASM_DISKSTRING, SPfile location) etc.

HOW IS GPNP PROFILE USED BY CLUSTERWARE?

To start clusterware, voting disk needs to be accessed. If voting disk is on ASM, this
information (that voting disk is on ASM) is read from GPnP profile (<orcl:CSS-Profile
id=”css” DiscoveryString=”+asm” LeaseDuration=”400″/>).   The voting disk is
read using kfed utility  even if ASM is not up.
Next,  the clusterware checks if all the nodes have the updated GPnP profile and the
node joins the cluster based on the GPnP configuration . Whenver a node is
started/added to the cluster, the clusterware software on the starting node starts a
GPnP agent.

 - If the node is already part of the cluster, the GPnP agent reads the existing profile on
that node.
 - If the node is being added to the cluster, GPnP agent locates agent on another
existing node using multicast protocol (provided by mDNS) and gets the profile from that
agent.

Next CRSD needs to read OCR to startup various resources on the node and hence
update it as status of resources changes. Since OCR is also on ASM, location of ASM
SPfile should be known.
The order of searching the ASM SPfile is

 - GPnP profile
 - ORACLE_HOME/dbs/spfile<sid.ora>
 - ORACLE_HOME/dbs/init<sid.ora>

In cluster environment, the location of  SPfile for ASMread from GPnP profile.
[grid@host01 peer]$ gpnptool getpval -asm_spf
Warning: some command line parameters were defaulted. Resulting command line:
         /u01/app/11.2.0/grid/bin/gpnptool.bin getpval -asm_spf -p=profile.xml -o-
+DATA/cluster01/asmparameterfile/registry.253.793721441
The oputput of the query shows that SPfile is on ASM in DATA diskgroup. To find out
the
 location of ASM disks, following query is issued :
[root@host01 peer]# gpnptool getpval -asm_dis
ASM-Profile id=”asm” DiscoveryString=””
The  device headers of every device in the disk string returned by the above query are
scanned  (if configured by you at ASM initial setup time). Here Discovery String is blank
is as ASMDISKSTRINGS parameter has not been set. Hence, headers of all the ASM
disks are scanned .
Here, I have shown the output of the query only on the disk which contains SPfile.(spfflg
is not null)
[root@host01 ~]#  kfed read /dev/sdb3 | grep -E ‘spf|ausize’
kfdhdb.ausize:                  1048576 ; 0x0bc: 0x00100000
kfdhdb.spfile:                       16 ; 0x0f4: 0x00000010
kfdhdb.spfflg:                        1 ; 0x0f8: 0x00000001
In the output above, we see that
     the device /dev/sdb3 contains a copy of the ASM spfile (spfflg=1).
     The ASM spfile location starts at the disk offset of 16 (spfile=16)
Considering the allocation unit size (kfdhdb.ausize = 1M), let’s dump the ASM spfile
from the device:
[root@host01 ~]#  dd if=/dev/sdb3 of=spfileASM_Copy2.ora skip=16  bs=1M count=1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
1048576 bytes (1.0 MB) copied, 0.170611 seconds, 6.1 MB/s
[root@host01 ~]# strings spfileASM_Copy2.ora
+ASM1.__oracle_base=’/u01/app/grid’#ORACLE_BASE set from in memory value
+ASM2.__oracle_base=’/u01/app/grid’#ORACLE_BASE set from in memory value
+ASM3.__oracle_base=’/u01/app/grid’#ORACLE_BASE set from in memory value
+ASM3.asm_diskgroups=’FRA’#Manual Mount
+ASM2.asm_diskgroups=’FRA’#Manual Mount
+ASM1.asm_diskgroups=’FRA’#Manual Mount
*.asm_power_limit=1
*.diagnostic_dest=’/u01/app/grid’
*.instance_type=’asm’
*.large_pool_size=12M
*.remote_login_passwordfile=’EXCLUSIVE’
Using the parameters in SPfile, ASM is started.
Once ASM is up, OCR is read by CRSD and various resources on the node are started.
Each node reads network information in GPnP profile and using GNS,  negotiates
appropriate network identity for itself . Hence, nodes can be dynamically added/deleted.
What happens if GPnP profile is lost?
To know please click  here.
————————————————————
GPNPTOOL COMMAND REFERENCE:
- How to read the profile
[root@inssc3 bin]# ./gpnptool get
- How to find GPnP Deamons are running on the local node
[root@host01 peer]# gpnptool lfind
Success. Local gpnpd found.
- How to find the location of ASM spfile if the ASM is down
[root@host01 peer]# gpnptool getpval -asm_spf
+DATA/cluster01/asmparameterfile/registry.253.783619911
- How to find all RD-discoverable resources of given type
[root@host01 peer]# gpnptool find
Found 3 instances of service ‘gpnp’.
       
mdns:service:gpnp._tcp.local.://host03:18015/agent=gpnpd,cname=cluster01,host=host
03,pid=5066/gpnpd h:host03 c:cluster01
       
mdns:service:gpnp._tcp.local.://host02:17637/agent=gpnpd,cname=cluster01,host=host
02,pid=5236/gpnpd h:host02 c:cluster01
       
mdns:service:gpnp._tcp.local.://host01:16633/agent=gpnpd,cname=cluster01,host=host
01,pid=5206/gpnpd h:host01 c:cluster01
References:
http://ebobs.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/oracles-gpnp/
http://community.oraclepressbooks.com/downloads/tcoug-top-10-asm-questions.pdf
Oracle Grid Infrastructure: How to recover from a messed up ASM/CSSD diskstring
                     —————
Related links:
Home
11g R2 RAC Index
11g R2 RAC: Let’s Edit GPNP Profile
11g R2 RAC: Let’s Lose GPNP Profile
11g R2 RAC : OLR  Demystified
11g R2 RAC : Repair OCR
11g R2 RAC : Voting Disk Demystified
How Does  11G R2 Clusterware Start ASM When ASM SPfile Is On ASM Itself?
Need For VIP In RAC