error when dbstart runs

[Al Conti]

I am trying to use dbstart to auto-start my database (7.3.4 on 10.20). Everything fires off as expected on startup however the dbstart script does a warm start of the database.

When I run the dbstart script as the oracle user I get errors from svrmgrl:
ORA-00205: error in identifying control file....(path to the control1.ctl file)
ORA-09782: sfifi: another instance has the same database mounted.

The oracle login is using a c shell. Could this have something to do with the problem, when the dbstart script runs?

Thanks.

[CHRIS ANORUO]

Al, it seems another startup script has already started the same databases your script wanted to start. Check with ipcs -mob or lsnrctl stat to know the status of the started instances.

[CHRIS ANORUO]

As an addendum, check this dbstart script which is called by another script from /sbin/init.d at system startup.

[Rick Garland]

As you specified the database is already mounted. Something else is starting the database. Time for some research to find out what ewlse is starting the database.

[Al Conti]

Chris and Rick,
Thanks for you replies. I have checked, and it appears that only one instance of the database is being started. With this in mind, I went after the first error message to see what might be causing it.

I have done some more testing and found that I was able to start the database if I removed the lines that set up the environment from the dbstart script. After adding them back in, one at a time, the error occured when I put the following line back into the script:
ORACLE_HOME=`echo $LINE | awk -F: '{print $2}' -`

Since $LINE is being read from the oratab file I checked this file and found that the oracle HOME reference was to the full path to the oracle directory: (/u01/oracle/7.3.4). The oracle user login environment uses an abbreviated path with a symbolic link to the /u01/oracle dir owned by the root user.

When I changed the reference in the oratab file to use the link (/oracle/7.3.4) the database loaded without errors.

Although things are working, it would be nice to know why the dbstart script didn't like the full path to ORACLE_HOME.

Thanks.

[Glenn S. Davidson]

I guess my first question is why does root own /u01/oracle and what are the permissions on this directory. Then who owns the link and does it really point to the /u01/oracle/7.3.4 directory.

Although it does work it almost sounds like the link is correct and the way the path was set up was wrong.

[Al Conti]

Glenn,
Here's the way things are set up:
root root owns /u01 with 777
oracle dba owns /u01/oracle with 755
oracle dba owns /u01/oracle/7.3.4 with 775
root sys owns link /oracle->/u01/oracle

Thanks.

[Glenn S. Davidson]

Ever get this resolved?

[Sandro Schaer]

hi there

next time you install oracle you should take a look into the installation manual. sounds like you forgot to switch to oracle prior running the installer. I decided to install oracle under /opt/oracle which belongs to oinstall/dba (as recommended for oracle 8.1.6). this path is even an own lvol and therefore mountpoint. also take care if you specify the access rights to the different oracle subdirectories and files since the installation manual has some bugs....
i know your problems since i manage 21 (!) oracle databases on a couple of hp-ux clusters and some ncr unix servers...