What is RDA?
Not familiar with RDA (Remote Diagnostic Agent)? Learn more, take a look at :
Resolve Problems Faster! Use Remote Diagnostic Agent - Fusion Middleware and WebLogic Server [ID 1498376.1]
About RDA via OPatch
Until now RDA has been available via a zip package. The task of install and/or upgrade of RDA is therefore quick and simple. Delivery of RDA via a zip package, however, has one significant drawback - the version of RDA extracted is not recorded in the Oracle Inventory.
Fusion Middleware products, such as SOA or WebCenter, do lay down a version of Remote Diagnostic Agent as part of their install. You may see an "rda" directory in the following locations:
- Fusion Middleware 11g:
- MW_HOME/ORACLE_HOME/rda
- MW_HOME/oracle_common/rda
- Fusion Middleware 12c:
- ORACLE_HOME/oracle_common/rda
RDA bundled with the Fusion Middleware media, falls behind the latest version. For example, Fusion Middleware 11g (11.1.1.8 and lower) ship RDA version 4 rather than version 8. Furthermore, the RDA installed does NOT include the RDA compiled engine - required if RDA is unable to find or access Perl.
Therefore, replacing the old version of RDA with the latest is strongly encouraged. Trouble is, while a manual upgrade of RDA (via zip extraction) works fine, the version change is not recorded in the Oracle Inventory. Now we have a solution. RDA is available in OPatch patch format for Fusion Middleware 11g and 12c solutions. Any patch applied via OPatch is recorded in the inventory. In addition, you can take advantage of the OPatch rollback feature.
Download
Find the download link for the RDA in OPatch format in the My Oracle Support document:
Resolve Problems Faster! Use Remote Diagnostic Agent - Fusion Middleware and WebLogic Server [ID 1498376.1]
After download, carefully follow the instructions in the readme.
Known Issues
1. Unix only:
If you have previously upgraded RDA using the standard RDA zip package (e.g. RDA 4.28 to 8.01), a subsequent of upgrade of RDA via OPatch will fail with permission errors - here's just one example:
Copy Action: Destination File "/u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/oracle_common/rda/mesg/en/STB.txt" is not writeable.
'oracle.rda, 11.1.1.7.0': Cannot copy file from 'STB.txt' to '/u01/app/oracle/product/fmw/oracle_common/rda/mesg/en/STB.txt'
To work-around, before running 'opatch apply', manually change the file permissions in the RDA home e.g.
cd $MW_HOME/oracle_common
chmod -R 660 rda
2. If RDA's compiled engine has been enabled, OPatch will throw a pre-requisite check error like this one
RDA compiled engine in use
Command invocation returned Error... '', Return Code = 83
Execution of PRE script failed, with return value = 83
[ Error during Pre-script processing Phase]. Detail: OPatch failed: ApplySession failed in system modification phase... '
The work-around is to revert the parameters in the RDA_HOME/engine/rda.cfg to their default values and then run 'opatch apply' again. Default values in rda.cfg are:
RDA_ENG=""
RDA_EXE="rda.exe"
D_RDA=".."
3. And finally, RDA in OPatch format can only be applied against "rda" which has previously been installed by an Oracle Fusion Middleware product. OPatch looks for evidence of a previous RDA install in the Oracle Inventory. If your Oracle Inventory has no record of RDA, then download the RDA zip package and install / upgrade manually.