Oracle 8i and setting up a listener

I know very little about Oracle and have a question. We have an application that uses an Oracle 8i database that resides on a UNIX box. As a user, I sometimes get an oracle error message when I use an ODBC connection to view the database via third party software(error message says, no listener or something similar). Although I can't get any confirmation from our IS staff, I think the problem has something to do with application bootup process. Although we're not told when it occurs, our IT staff will warm or cold start the system. It seems that this is when I can't get the ODBC connection until I call IT about the listener problem I get.

So, I'm making a big assumption, but I think our application doesn't start up the listener as part of the startup and needs to be done manually. Thus, my question.

Is it possible to script in a separate command that will start up the listener and tack it on to the vendors startup script? Also, how can one start up the listener if you have a web page reference from within UNIX. Thanks Received on Wed Dec 19 2001 - 00:32:39 CST