Mystery files

I have come across something that puzzles me - but before I get into the details of what I've discovered I'll describe the environment:

Hardware: Compaq ProLient
OS: Unixware 2.1.2
RDBMS: Oracle V7.3.4.0
Sqlnet: V2
Database instances: 2 - using MTS. Both instances use a common listener on port 1521.

Hopefully that is enough info.

What I have found is that in the /var/tmp directory there is a hidden directory named .oracle and in this directory is a number of files which have a form like S#nnnnn.1 (where nnnn is a 1-5 digit number). If I run 'file' against these files it is reported as a fifo. If I do a 'ls -l' the permissions are
p-w--w--w-

While I can't be sure of this, the timestamps of the files seems to coincide with the times over the past few months when the server (or just database) has been bounced.

Does anyone know what these function these files fulfill? Is it safe to delete files that are older than the most recent file? Is there any place where
these files are documented? Is it possible that they should not be there and that they only exist because of a mistake in installation/configuration of the database instances?

Any info appreciated. Received on Tue Oct 26 1999 - 11:58:51 CDT