Grid DBA

Recently, while trying to patch my test RAC database I ran into an issue where I couldn't mount the shared folders in the guest VMs. Neither manual mount or automount were working. I would get the following message when trying to mount the shared folder manually: [root@racnode2 ~]# mount -t vboxsf orasource /mnt/orastage mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on orasource, missing codepage or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so The tail of dmesg showed the following additional errors: sf_read_super_aux err=-22 sf_read_super_aux err=-22 sf_read_super_aux err=-22 After doing a search on Google I finally found this thread in the Virtualbox tickets. Apparently the problem is with Oracle Linux's unbreakable enterprise kernel  2.6.32-200.13.1.el5uek. The thread lists several workarounds. I did the following to get things working correctly [root@racnode2 VBOXADDITIONS_4.1.0_73009]# which gmake /usr/bin/gma...

After a rapid slew of public betas, VirtualBox 4.0 was released on December 22 last year - just in time for the holidays.  It was introduced with a revamped GUI as well as additional functionality.  You can view the changelog here  for details.  I won't go into the details of the new version but I'd like to point out a few things that I experiened with this new version. One of the features I love about VirtualBox is the ability to move a virtual machines between different hosts using the export/import appliance wizard.  The export creates a set of virtual disks along with an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) file that describes the appliance's configuration.  You can then copy these files to an external device such as USB disks or make them available via a web/ftp server.  To import appliance you simply specify the location of the OVF file and follow the steps in the wizard. You can also use the VBoxManage commands to export/import. Oracle Technology ...