Identical name for Network interface in RAC nodes not mandatory

One of the prerequisite for building the Oracle RAC is to have same name for private and public interface on all the nodes, as Oracle document dictates, which is also verified by Cluster verification utility. Recently I had situation wherein, I needed to install RAC 18C on vendor provided HP Super dome Flex servers for bench marking, The Network interface name was auto-generated like enP1s2248f0 and enP1s2408f0.

I knew that its not going to accept but still I chose to ignore the error because I was least bothered about the RAC configuration accuracy, Just wanted working database with RAC for bench marking purpose. While installing I got error PRVG-11081 Unable to find the matching networks“,

Finally I forcefully ignored the error, as consequence of this it only installed the RAC on Node 1, and the node 2 was skipped. See Below Image.

Obviously, It’s easy to change the interface name however, in my case vendor was not willing to do so, as they had auto-generated naming convention which they needed to comply with.

After searching for while I finally found MOS Doc ID 1570785.1, clearly says that this limitation was lifted in 12c, hence it’s possible to replace the interface name with “*” in OCR, Here is what I did

#At first get the existing configuration 

oifcfg getif
e1000g0 global public
e1000g1 global cluster_interconnect

#Replace Interface with "*"

oifcfg setif -global "*"/10.1.1.0:public
oifcfg setif -global "*"/192.168.5.0:cluster_interconnect

#Verify again.

oifcfg getif
e1000g0 global public
e1000g1 global cluster_interconnect
* 10.1.1.0 global public
* 192.168.5.0 global cluster_interconnect

#Delete the concrete interfaces as needed

oifcfg delif -global e1000g0 -force
oifcfg delif -global e1000g1 -force

#Confirm that only he wildcard interfaces remain

After replacing the interface name with “*” in OCR, I was able to add node, Hence, If you are installing fresh, then procedure would be.

  • Install on first node only.
  • Modify the interface name to “*” in OCR using oifcfg command
  • Follow add node procedure.