Re: shutdown database(s) from root user

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.

I guess I didn't explain well enough, but I was trying to "su - oracle" in the vendor supplied OS shutdown script but it kept asking for a password. Well after further investigation, the su is working as everyone suggested and the script is switched to the oracle user. But when this OS shutdown script gets to the part that I modified (execute my script to shutdown a database) I get

Enter password:
ERROR:
ORA-01031: insufficient privileges

So, it appears that the SQLPLUS is wanting a password. As I mentioned in my initial post, the script I use to shutdown this database (while logged in as oracle) is as follows (this is not the entire script, but just the sqlplus part):

sqlplus internal <<EOF
shutdown immediate
exit
EOF When I run my database shutdown script manually or from another script while logged in as oracle, it does not ask for a password and my understanding of using internal is that you didn't have to provide a password as long as you were running this from the oracle user. But, as you can see, it is asking for a password when I try running my database shutdown script from within the script that is used to shutdown the OS.

So,

1. why is it asking for a password? Is there some issue with the su not making sqlplus happy with respect to the use of "internal", or is there an issue with the use of the <<EOF in the sqlplus statement? (this is how I learned to do things like this in shell scripts).
2. Should I be using a different username (to sqlplus) when shutting down the database?...and if so, is there a preferred way to specify the user/password in a script when starting sqlplus? -- I was taught not to put user/password on the sqlplus command line as that would be viewable by anyone on the system running a ps command.

I know this may seem very elementary to many of you and I admit I may be overlooking something "everyone else knows", but here I am.

Many thanks!

Jim Received on Thu May 29 2003 - 09:02:21 CDT