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Warning: avoid env. variables ARCH, PMON, DBWR etc.

From: Dave Wotton <Dave.Wotton_at_no-spam.it.camcnty.gov.uk>
Date: 6 Oct 1998 09:27:52 GMT
Message-ID: <6vcnqo$47$1@dns.camcnty.gov.uk>

Hi all,

I have discovered that if you create environment variables called ARCH, PMON, DBWR, LGWR or SMON under the oracle database owner id, this will prevent your database from starting up.

This is because the sqldba or svrmgrl executable checks these variables and, if they're defined, tries to execute the files they refer to, rather than the real executables. ( Presumably this is a testing feature used by Oracle Corporation. It doesn't seem to be documented anywhere. )

The problem surfaced at my installation when I created a variable, ARCH, pointing to the directory containing the archived redo logs.

I've demonstrated the problem under Oracle 7.3.3 on Solaris 2.4 and under Oracle 7.2.3 on AIX 4.2.1. I suspect it also occurs under other versions of the database and operating systems.

Under Oracle 7.3.3 on Solaris 2.4, the symptom is that svrmgrl 'hangs' when executing startup and eventually gives:

  ORA-00445: background process "ARCH" did not start after 120 seconds.

Under Oracle 7.2.3 on AIX 4.2.1, you get:

  SQLDBA> startup
  ORA-00443: background process "ARCH" did not start   ORA-07259: spdcr: exec error, detached process failed in startup.   IBM AIX RISC System/6000 Error: 13: Permission denied

See also my posting:

         Oracle/AIX unable to start database

Dave.
--
Remove the no-spam bit from my email address to reply. Received on Tue Oct 06 1998 - 04:27:52 CDT

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