How to Apply an EBS Patch
Upon re-entering the Oracle EBS world, I had to once again familiarize myself with patching, which, as anyone know, is the cornerstone of all Apps DBA’s activities…:) Challenge is, the web docs on how to perform a simple apps tier patch is not often easily located, so I thought I would put this out here for others reference.
1. Download the patch, as instructed by Oracle Support and also read the “Read Me”. Verify that the only task is an App Tier patch, which these instructions will cover.
2. Once you have SCP’d the patch download to the Apps Tier server, unzip it into a directory and ensure it is owned by the Apps Tier OS User.
Verify again that you are logged in as apps OS User, on the Apps Tier server.
3. Shutdown apps environment using the adstpall script.
./adstpall.sh apps/<passwrd>
4. Ensure all is apps process are down before you proceed:
ps -ef | grep FND | grep <app OS User>
Note: This may take a while as the processes go defunct and finally stop…
5. Put system into maint mode
adadmin [return]
Take defaults…
Put in passwords for each login that as requested….
Choose option #5 to change into maintenance mode
Choose option #1 to enable maint mode
Enter twice to choose the defaults and to exit out for now, leaving it in maintenance mode.
6. After verifying that files are unzipped, cd over to the patch directory, time to run adpatch
copy the name of the driver before running… i.e.u13863902.drv, (You will use this info for the log name and then when prompted or the name of the driver as part of the patch process.)
adpatch[enter]
Choose the defaults until you hit the log file name.
name log file name after the driver, using .log for the extension.
Place in passwords for the system and apps user for the database environment when requested.
Choose the defaults for choices of number of sessions, array size, etc. and put in the driver name once prompted after verifying the patch directory path name.
7. Once the patch applies, reports successful, verify by checking the error log for the patch.
egrep -i ‘error|fail’ <directory patch>/log/u14208483.log
If no errors outside of metadata not existing, error checks in the log, then apply any other patches required at this time…
8. Once completed with all patch applications, then bring the system back out of maintenance mode…
adadmin [return]
take defaults…
Put in passwords for each login that is required…
Choose option #5 Change maintenance mode.
Choose option #2.Disable maintenance mode.
Enter twice to exit out of application again, verifying that maintenance mode has been disabled successfully.
9. Restart the apps environment
Change over to your scripts directory, hope to your application start and stop scripts.
./adstrtal.sh apps/<passwd>
Look for the successful start message, “All enabled services for this node are started.”
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10. After logging into the apps system URL as SYSADMIN,
click on System Administrator> Concurrent> Manager > Administrator
Install the java client if requested and then a form will appear…
If you can check the concurrent mgr, then you have verified the system is up and running again.
Patching Complete!
Hints and nitpicks! I have hints and nitpicks! 🙂
Step 3 nitpick: Unless you are on a very old version of Apps, there’s no reason to leave the apps password in your command history. Running adstpall.sh by itself will prompt you for the apps username and password instead. Of course, you may be one of those rare people who regularly wipe the command history, but based on what I’ve seen, you would be rare.
Steps 5 and 8 hint: If you are taking down all the apps services (step 3), there’s no need to go through the maintenance mode steps. The is good news, because “I forgot to disable maintenance mode before releasing the system to users, and now they’re complaining that the system is down” is a frequent post-patch situation. You can eliminate these steps by specifying options=hotpatch when you issue the adpatch command. This option skips the maintenance mode check, and…that’s it.
General hint: If you get tired of answering all those questions at patch time, investigate using a defaults file.
Thanks, John!
Brings me back to the days when I was an apps DBA. The company I worked at was like poison so it was get out or die a slow painful death. I’d love to get back into it, but I’m not sure anyone would take me being almost 5 years out of practice.
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