SMON runaway - DB server on new non-dns subnet ??

Here's the background: Oracle 8.1.7 on Sun Solaris. Networking guys created a new subnet and put my db server (mouse) on it (I don't pretend to understand why they needed to do this). The new subnet is not in the dns (again, I don't question the network guys). I had to add "qademo.net" to my client's (Win2k) tcp/ip properties before I could "ping mouse" instead of
"ping mouse.qademo.net" or connect to mouse with sqlplus (with changes to
tnsnames.ora). The db server used to be in the same subnet with our production db server (shark), which was in the dns, and everything was cool.

Here's the scenario: When I start the db, smon starts to take over the cpu to the exclusion of all other processes (including my telnet ... and it's not nice to slow down the dba's access :). After some research, and suspecting it was network related (since that's the last thing that changed), I found out that smon and listener were in some kind of locked dance. If I stop the listener, then smon calms down. But, as it turns out, stopping listener is a big mistake. When I restart listener, nothing much happens ... but when I try to bounce the db, all hell breaks loose. Issuing shutdown takes quite a while to happen, and I get the dreaded "end of file on communications channel" (which, of course, means a sqlnet problem). Then, when I issue startup, I get a corrupted redo log file and a message about no destination for my archive files (even though they had been doing quite nicely before the bounce of listener).

I checked the listener.ora file. It contains entries that specify
"host=mouse" (just like before they moved me into my own subnet). Since I
had to fully qualify the server name to "mouse.qademo.net" on my client, do I have to do the same for listener? I figured that since the db was locally on mouse, it didn't need the extra stuff ... and I could "ping mouse" from mouse. And then, I started to wonder whether I had to fully qualify "mouse" in other places as well. Hence, my question to you.

I have never run into this particular network problem ... but then, I've always been on servers that were known to the dns. I stopped by my local Borders Books last night and looked in every Oracle book on the shelf. Of course, networking is not a hot topic (if there are any writers in the group, this might be a good topic). Any help you can give will be greatly appreciated. I temporarily moved the db to grizzly (which is known to our dns) so QA can do their testing ... but my boss wants it to work on mouse.

Thanks in advance. Roger. Received on Fri Feb 01 2002 - 08:48:09 CST