Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c – ASM Filter Driver

Recently I was preparing a brand new installation of Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c for a standalone server (aka Oracle Restart). The installation was on an existing server using Oracle Linux 7.7. In past Oracle Grid Infrastructure installations I have used ASMLIB to prepare my disks for ASM. The Oracle ASM Filter Driver (ASMFD) is what is recommended now in the documentation. It replaces ASMLIB.

ASM Filter Driver

The ASM Filter Driver is installed when the Oracle Grid Infrastructure is. I had a bit of a conundrum in being able to prepare the disks before the ASM Filter Driver is installed. After reviewing the documentation, I discovered a section that will allow you to prepare the disks in advance. This allows the installer to recognize them. This information is available in the administrator’s guide and not in the installation guide. Here is a link to it. Configuring Oracle ASM Filter Driver During Installation

Disk Partition

First, I start by partitioning the disks. I used the Linux parted utility but you could also use fdisk. With fdisk there is a 2 TB disk size limit.

Warning: This next step is destructive to your disks. Make sure you have identified the correct disks before proceeding. By using the parted utility you are doing so at your own risk!

sudo parted /dev/sdaj print

sudo parted /dev/sdaj -s /dev/sdaj mklabel msdos mkpart primary ext 4 0% 100%

sudo parted /dev/sdaj print

sudo parted /dev/sdaj align-check optimal 1

Example output to expect:

$ sudo parted /dev/sdaj print
Model: VMware Virtual disk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdaj: 1100GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:


$ sudo parted -s /dev/sdaj mklabel msdos mkpart primary ext4 0% 100%


$ sudo parted /dev/sdaj print
Model: VMware Virtual disk (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdaj: 1100GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
1      1049kB  1100GB  1100GB  primary


$ sudo parted /dev/sdaj align-check optimal 1
1 aligned

ASMFD Label

We’ll use the ASM Filter Driver (ASMFD) to assign a label to each disk. Based on the documentation, Configuring Oracle ASM Filter Driver During Installation, we need to setup some environment variables as root and will then be able to do so.

$ sudo su -

# export ORACLE_HOME=/u001/app/grid/product/19.0.0/grid

# export ORACLE_BASE=/tmp

# export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH

# which asmcmd
/u001/app/grid/product/19.0.0/grid/bin/asmcmd

# asmcmd afd_label DATA01 /dev/sdaj --init

# asmcmd afd_lslbl /dev/sdaj
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Label                     Duplicate  Path
================================================================================
DATA01                                /dev/sdaj

# ls -lhtr /dev/oracleafd/disks
total 4.0K
-rw-rw-r-- 1 grid oinstall 35 May 10 21:45 DATA01

Grid Infrastructure Installation

Next, I installed the Oracle Grid Infrastructure software. Before I started, I downloaded the Oracle Grid Infrastructure 19c, updated OPatch, and then applied the latest Release Update. This brought my version to 19.15.0.0.0. This post won’t be a comprehensive overview of the installation process. There are already plenty of sites that demonstrate this. I do want to provide a screenshot of how the disks will now appear in the installer screen on the Create ASM Disk Group page.

I hope this helps!