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6. Automatic Startup and Shutdown

6.1 dbstart & dbstop

The automatic startup and shutdown of the Oracle database can be achieved (in 7.3.3.0.0) with the files dbstart and dbshut both provided by Oracle. These files rely on the existance of the file /etc/oratab to work (although by altering the dbshut and dbstart files this can be moved).

The format of the /etc/oratab file is as follows: 

SID:ORACLE_HOME:AUTO

An example: 

orcl:/home/oracle/7.3.3.0.0:Y
leaveup:/home/oracle/7.3.2.1.0:N

6.2 init.d & rc.d

To start and stop the database when the machine comes up and goes down by modifying the startup routines for the Linux machine. This is quite easy, although I should point out here that this may change depending on which flavour of Linux (slackware, debian, redhat, etc). I will show examples which work for Redhat Linux 5.0. To modify these for your own flavour of Linux, please see your Linux documentation sets. (Although it should hold true for any Sys V type UNIX).

Firstly, we need to create the script which will run dbshut and dbstart in the /etc/rc.d/init.d directory. Create the following file as /etc/rc.d/init.d/oracle: 

#!/bin/sh
#
# /etc/rc.d/init.d/oracle
# Description: Starts and stops the Oracle database and listeners
# See how we were called.
case "$1" in
  start)
        echo -n "Starting Oracle Databases: "
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        date +"! %T %a %D : Starting Oracle Databases as part of system up." >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        su - oracle -c dbstart >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "Done."
        echo -n "Starting Oracle Listeners: "
        su - oracle -c "lsnrctl start" >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "Done."
        echo ""
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        date +"! %T %a %D : Finished." >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        touch /var/lock/subsys/oracle
        ;;
  stop)
        echo -n "Shutting Down Oracle Listeners: "
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        date +"! %T %a %D : Shutting Down Oracle Databases as part of system down." >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        su - oracle -c "lsnrctl stop" >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "Done."
        rm -f /var/lock/subsys/oracle
        echo -n "Shutting Down Oracle Databases: "
        su - oracle -c dbshut >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "Done."
        echo ""
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        date +"! %T %a %D : Finished." >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        ;;
  restart)
        echo -n "Restarting Oracle Databases: "
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        date +"! %T %a %D : Restarting Oracle Databases as part of system up." >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        su - oracle -c dbstop >> /var/log/oracle
        su - oracle -c dbstart >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "Done."
        echo -n "Restarting Oracle Listeners: "
        su - oracle -c "lsnrctl stop" >> /var/log/oracle
        su - oracle -c "lsnrctl start" >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "Done."
        echo ""
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        date +"! %T %a %D : Finished." >> /var/log/oracle
        echo "----------------------------------------------------" >> /var/log/oracle
        touch /var/lock/subsys/oracle
        ;;
  *)
        echo "Usage: oracle {start|stop|restart}"
        exit 1
esac

It is worth checking that this file actually correctly stops and starts the databases for your system. Check the log file, /var/log/oracle for error messages.

Once this script is working we need to create start and kill symbolic links in the appropriate runlevel directories /etc/rc.d/rcX.d.

The following commands will ensure that the databases will come up in runlevels 2,3 and 4: 

$ ln -s ../init.d/oracle /etc/rc.d/rc2.d/S99oracle
$ ln -s ../init.d/oracle /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S99oracle
$ ln -s ../init.d/oracle /etc/rc.d/rc4.d/S99oracle

To stop the databases on reboot or restart we need the following links: 

$ ln -s ../init.d/oracle /etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K01oracle          # Halting
$ ln -s ../init.d/oracle /etc/rc.d/rc6.d/K01oracle          # Rebooting
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