Running db admin scripts as root

[Joe Robinson_2]

I'm working on including my Oracle admin scripts within my 'pre' and 'post' scripts (using Omniback II) to simplify my backups but am hitting some road blocks due to the Oracle environment not being able to run server mgr. as root. I'd be grateful if anyone has a simple suggestion how I can run those scripts (owned by the Oracle account) as root...

Thanks in advance!

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

The script can have them like this:

/usr/bin/su - oracle -c "command"

Run out of root cron, this will run without a password prompt.

It is never a good idea to run databse scripts as root.

It can tie up shared memory resources, lock your database, all kinds of ugly things.

SEP

[Joe Robinson_2]

good one...I use that for the few times when I'm doing support on the floor and need to run a command as a different user (different from who I am working with) and walk away! Thanks for the idea!

[Steven E. Protter]

Joe, how about a few points for helping????

SEP

[Pete Randall]

Steven,

You're shameless!

;^)


Pete

[A. Clay Stephenson]

There is a potential problem with using
/usr/bin/su - oracle -c "command"
rather than
/usr/bin/su oracle -c "command".

I know that you want to load Oracle's environment var's (ORACLE_HOME,ORACLE_SID,..) but the problem is that oracle's .profile contains statements like tset, tabs, tput ... which expect an interactive environment --- which you ain't. You can surround all those with
if [ -t 0 ]
then
tset
stty
tabs
fi

but a better way is to create a file (oraenv.sh) that sets and exports all those variables and then let your script AND oracle's .profile source this file.

e.g.
. /usr/local/bin/oraenv.sh

This will ensure that the environment is setup but not hang because no interactive environment is in play. Your oraenv.sh must not contain an exit or return statement because this would actually exit the shell because sourced files are not started as a separate process.

[Steven E. Protter]

A Clay is as always right.

My solution assumes that the oracle environment is correct.

The script called by the command section needs to call the correct oracle environment for the database to be used. ORACLE_HOME, ORACLE_SID and other required variables MUST be set or the script will fail.

SEP