When checking Oracle Support at first is not a good idea!

That was not complex, but it was trick.

The DBA was running the installer of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 for Linux 64 bits, and it was failing with this error:

An internal error occurred within cluster verification framework
Unable to get the current group.

The install log file provided more information:

SEVERE: [FATAL] [INS-32038] The operating system group specified for central inventory (oraInventory) ownership is invalid.
CAUSE: User performing installation is not a member of the operating system group specified for central inventory(oraInventory) ownership.
ACTION: Specify an operating system group that the installing user is a member of. All the members of this operating system group will have write permission to the central inventory directory (oraInventory).

At that point the DBA decided to check Oracle Support and found this note:

HP-UX: 11gR2 runInstaller Fails with "An internal error occurred within cluster verification framework" [ID 983713.1], stating the cause is due to OS patch PHCO_40381 not installed. Although the problem reported to Oracle Support was related to HP-UX Itanium, the DBA started to wonder if he was not facing a similar problem with Linux.

Actually, there is no missing patch for Linux or even an issue with Oracle installer - the issue was resolved with a simple log off and log in.

The DBA installing Oracle created 3 groups: oracle, dba, and oinstall - ids 502, 503, and 504 respectively. By mistake the user oracle was created with oracle as the primary group, instead of oinstall (we are not using Job Role Separation).

/usr/sbin/useradd -u 501 -g oracle -G dba,oinstall oracle

Realizing the mistake the DBA removed the group oracle, but did not log in again. So, the id command was reporting something like this:

uid=501(oracle) gid=502 groups=504(oinstall),503(dba),502

Note the missing group name after the gid=502 - the correct user setting will report something like this:

uid=501(oracle) gid=504(oinstall) groups=503(dba), 504(oinstall)

It caused the error Unable to get the current group. Bottom line is: sometimes we start searching for solutions too fast, without a full comprehension about the issue. Of course Oracle Support (and Google) is an invaluable source of information, but in this case the search produced an answer that led to waste time.

I have a statement I like to keep in mind: who does not know what looks for, does not understand what finds :o)