exa-racklayout.sh: a whole Exadata Rack Layout overview in a glimpse

If you work with Exadata, you inevitably have already faced these interrogations:

• What is the IP of my database server ILOM ? (when you need to reboot a server from its ILOM for example or take an ILOM snapshot for Oracle support)
• What is the Cisco switch IP ? (when patching it for example)
• How many IB Switches do I have in my Rack ?
• What are the Cells IP ?
• . . .

Oh indeed, we always eventually find the information we look for but it takes time and there is no added valued looking in OEM, in /etc/hosts or in the /opt/oracle.SupportTools/onecommand/databasemachine.xml file. It also used to increase my frustration every time I had to look for these information so I opened vi and wrote exa-racklayout.sh to show all the information in a Rack Layout style in a second !

Let's have a look at few screenshots

• A Full Rack

• A Quarter Rack

It looks cool, isnt't it ?
Note that the storage servers use 2 U, this is why 2 lines are colored in Red for each Storage Server.

A short view

As those who have non Full Racks may ended with an output full of empty U slots, I have implemented a -s option to show only the used U slots:

How it works ?

I didn't want to go in root commands to find the information so exa-racklayout.sh just parses the /opt/oracle.SupportTools/onecommand/databasemachine.xml file and creates this nice output. The advantage of /opt/oracle.SupportTools/onecommand/databasemachine.xml is that you can access it as non-root user, is usually up to date and if it is not as you have extended your Exadata, it is a good opportunity to update it.

Use a non default databasemachine.xml

The script can also generate the Rack Layout from a non default databasemachine.xml file like one coming from another Exadata:

[oracle@exadata ~] ./exa-racklayout.sh -f /tmp/mydatabasemachine.xml

I must confess that the goal of this feature is more to allow anyone with an admin server or even a laptop with SSH keys deployed to the Exadatas to have a quick look at this information on many Exadatas in a glimpse with this many-exa-racklayout.sh script ! And you'll quickly have this kind of output:

Download the script

• exa-racklayout.sh code is freely available here
• many-exa-racklayout.sh code is freely available here

Let me know if you like it !