Background

For more information with regards to Exa Check, please read the following post:
How to use Oracle Exadata Database Machine Exa Check (exachk)

Slow Performance, Skipped Checks and Timeouts

When running the latest exachk (at time of writing, version 18.3.0_20180808), you may notice it takes a long time to run compared to the past.  This is due to the vast amount of additional checks carried out by the tool.  Due to this, you may also notice you get timeout issues reported in the report:

Killed check Manage ASM Audit File Directory Growth with cron (CHECK-ID: 9DEBED7B8DAB583DE040E50A1EC01BA0) at v1ex2dbadm01 because it timed out
Killed check Manage ASM Audit File Directory Growth with cron (CHECK-ID: 9DEBED7B8DAB583DE040E50A1EC01BA0) at v1ex2dbadm02 because it timed out

If you refer to the documentation “Slow Performance, Skipped Checks, and Timeouts“, you’ll see there are various parameters you can set in your environment to increase the default timeouts, which I have done below:

[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]# export RAT_TIMEOUT=300
[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]# export RAT_ROOT_TIMEOUT=900
[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]# export RAT_PASSWORDCHECK_TIMEOUT=10
[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]# export RAT_PROMPT_TIMEOUT=30
[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]# export RAT_PROMPT_WAIT_TIMEOUT=60
[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]# export RAT_REMOTE_RUN_TIMEOUT=10800
[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]#
[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]# env | grep RAT
RAT_ROOT_TIMEOUT=900
RAT_PROMPT_TIMEOUT=30
RAT_TIMEOUT=300
RAT_REMOTE_RUN_TIMEOUT=10800
RAT_PASSWORDCHECK_TIMEOUT=10
RAT_PROMPT_WAIT_TIMEOUT=60
[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]#

Now when you run exachk, it will wait longer before killing processes.

In addition, if you run the “-dbparallelmax” option, you will increase the number of slave processes for database checks:

[root@v1ex2dbadm01 exachk]# ./exachk -dbparallelmax

PLEASE NOTE: This will consume more resources but will run quicker, so use with caution.  Alternatively you can run with “-dbparallel” with a acceptable number of processes and increase as per your requirements.

Now you should not have any timeouts and if you still do, then you will need to review the parameters above and increase again.  Alternatively raise an Support Request with Oracle Support.

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Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)