Exadata Administration – CellCLI

One of the big differences between Exadata and Non-Exadata systems is the necessity to administer the Exadata Storage Server.

The first time you have to configure the Server side, it has to be done through KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse), meaning you will need to be physically near your server. Once the initial configuration steps have been performed, we shall be able to administer the Exadata Storage Servers over the network (i.e. SSH protocol or redirect the KVM console to your desktop using the Sun Integrated Lights Out Management – ILOM – remote client).

Once you are in the server, some tools will be available to us, including Cell Command Line Interface (CellCLI).

CellCLI is only available on the Storage Server. If we need to execute it from outside the storage server (or on more than one storage server), we will need to use the Distributed Command Line Interface (dcli).

CellCLI will allow us to perform administration task like startup, shut down, monitoring activities as well as maintenance.

The syntax to follow is:

[admin command / object command] [options];

Being:

1.- Admin Commands: Administration actions like START, QUIT, HELP, SPOOL.

2.- Object Command: Administration action to be performed on the cell objects like ALTER, CREATE, LIST.

3.- Options: Will allow us to specify additional parameters to the command.

[celladmin@ssssss ~]$ cellcli

CellCLI: Release 11.2.2.2.0 - Production on Sat Jul 16 17:28:08 BST 2011

Copyright (c) 2007, 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Cell Efficiency Ratio: 17

CellCLI> list cell
ssss_admin online

CellCLI> exit
quitting

If you prefer to execute the command from command-line, we will have to use -e:

[celladmin@ssssss ~]$ cellcli -e list cell
ssss_admin online
[celladmin@ssssss ~]$

Or

[celladmin@sssss ~]$ cellcli -e help

 HELP [topic]
 Available Topics:
 ALTER
 ALTER ALERTHISTORY
 ALTER CELL
 ALTER CELLDISK
 ALTER GRIDDISK
 ALTER IORMPLAN
 ALTER LUN
 ALTER PHYSICALDISK
 ALTER QUARANTINE
 ALTER THRESHOLD
 ASSIGN KEY
 CALIBRATE
 CREATE
 CREATE CELL
 CREATE CELLDISK
 CREATE FLASHCACHE
 CREATE GRIDDISK
 CREATE KEY
 CREATE QUARANTINE
 CREATE THRESHOLD
 DESCRIBE
 DROP
 DROP ALERTHISTORY
 DROP CELL
 DROP CELLDISK
 DROP FLASHCACHE
 DROP GRIDDISK
 DROP QUARANTINE
 DROP THRESHOLD
 EXPORT CELLDISK
 IMPORT CELLDISK
 LIST
 LIST ACTIVEREQUEST
 LIST ALERTDEFINITION
 LIST ALERTHISTORY
 LIST CELL
 LIST CELLDISK
 LIST FLASHCACHE
 LIST FLASHCACHECONTENT
 LIST GRIDDISK
 LIST IORMPLAN
 LIST KEY
 LIST LUN
 LIST METRICCURRENT
 LIST METRICDEFINITION
 LIST METRICHISTORY
 LIST PHYSICALDISK
 LIST QUARANTINE
 LIST THRESHOLD
 SET
 SPOOL
 START
[celladmin@ssssss ~]$

so, what about security?, CellCLI does rely on OS authentication.

There are three predefined users on the Exadata Storage Server:
1.- cellmonitor: This user can perform monitoring tasks.
2.- cellamin: This user can perform most of the administration task such CREATE, ALTER, MODIFY cell objects (cannot perform CALIBRATE).
3.- root: This user has super-user privileges.

I plan my next post to be about dcli and how to minimise work by executing the same CellCLI command on more than one Exadata Storage Server without having to log in on all of them.

As always, comments are welcome.