2 Stopping and Starting Oracle Software

This chapter describes how to identify Oracle Database processes, and provides basic information about how to stop and restart them. It also describes how to set up automatic startup and shutdown of the Oracle Database. It contains the following sections:

When using Oracle Restart, you can use Service Control Utility (SRVCTL), a command-line interface, to manage Oracle processes (database instance, listener, Oracle ASM instance). With SRVCTL, you can manage the Oracle Restart configuration, see the status of processes managed by Oracle Restart, and start or stop processes such as Oracle Database. SRVCTL has been enhanced to support single instance databases with Oracle Restart on standalone servers and on clusters with Oracle Clusterware.

2.1 Stopping and Starting Oracle Processes

This section describes how to stop and start Oracle processes. It contains the following topics:

2.1.1 Stopping and Starting Oracle Database and Oracle Automatic Storage Management Instances

This section describes how to stop and start Oracle Database and Oracle Automatic Storage Management instances.

2.1.1.1 Stopping an Oracle Database or Oracle Automatic Storage Management Instance

Do not stop an Oracle Automatic Storage Management instance until you have stopped all Oracle Database instances that use Oracle Automatic Storage Management instance to manage their storage.

To stop an Oracle Database or Oracle Automatic Storage Management instance:

Run the following commands to identify the SID and Oracle home directory for the instance that must be shut down:

On Oracle Solaris:

On other operating systems:

The oratab file contains lines similar to the following, which identify the SID and corresponding Oracle home directory for each database or Oracle Automatic Storage Management instance on the system:

Oracle recommends that you use the plus sign (+) as the first character in the SID of Oracle Automatic Storage Management instances.

Run the oraenv or coraenv script, depending on the default shell, to set the environment variables for the instance that must be shut down:

Bourne, Bash, or Korn shell:

When prompted, specify the SID for the instance.

Run the following commands to shut down the instance:

After the instance shuts down, you can quit SQL*Plus.

2.1.1.2 Restarting an Oracle Database or Oracle Automatic Storage Management Instance

If the database instance uses Oracle Automatic Storage Management for storage management, then you must start the Oracle Automatic Storage Management instance before you start the database instance.

To restart an Oracle Database or Oracle Automatic Storage Management instance:

Repeat steps 1 and 2, if required, to set the ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_HOME environment variables to identify the SID and Oracle home directory for the instance you want to start.

Run the following commands to start the instance:

After the instance starts, you can exit from SQL*Plus.

2.1.2 Stopping and Starting Oracle Restart

To stop or start Oracle Restart, run the following command:

Start: This option is used to start Oracle Restart

Syntax and Options:

Stop: This option is used to stop Oracle Restart

Syntax and Options:

Oracle Database Administrator’s Guide for more information about the srvctl commands

2.2 Automating Shutdown and Startup

Oracle recommends that you configure the system to automatically start Oracle Database when the system starts, and to automatically shut it down when the system shuts down. Automating database startup and shutdown guards against incorrect database shutdown.

To automate database startup and shutdown, use the dbstart and dbshut scripts, which are located in the $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory. The scripts refer to the same entries in the oratab file, which are applied on the same set of databases. You cannot, for example, have the dbstart script automatically start sid1 , sid2 , and sid3 , and have the dbshut script shut down only sid1 . However, you can specify that the dbshut script shuts down a set of databases while the dbstart script is not used at all. To do this, include a dbshut entry in the system shutdown file, but do not include the dbstart entry from the system startup files.

The init command in the operating system documentation for more information about system startup and shutdown procedures

2.2.1 Automating Database Startup and Shutdown on Other Operating Systems

To automate database startup and shutdown by using the dbstart and dbshut scripts:

Log in as the root user.

Edit the oratab file for the platform.

To open the file, use one of the following commands:

On Oracle Solaris:

On IBM AIX on POWER Systems (64-Bit) and Linux:

Database entries in the oratab file are displayed in the following format:

In this example, the values Y and N specify whether you want the scripts to start or shut down the database, respectively. For each database for which you want to automate shutdown and startup, first determine the instance identifier (SID) for that database, which is identified by the SID in the first field. Then, change the last field for each to Y .

You can set dbstart to autostart a single-instance database which uses an Automatic Storage Management installation auto-started by Oracle Clusterware. This is the default behavior for an Automatic Storage Management cluster. To do this, you must change the oratab entry of the database and the Automatic Storage Management installation to use a third field with the value W and N , respectively. These values specify that dbstart auto-starts the database only after the Automatic Storage Management instance is started.

If you add new database instances to the system and automate the startup for them, then you must edit the entries for those instances in the oratab file.

Change directory to one of the following, depending on the operating system:

Platform	Initialization File Directory
Linux and Oracle Solaris	/etc/init.d
IBM AIX on POWER Systems (64-Bit)	/etc

Create a file called dbora , and copy the following lines into this file:

Change the value of the ORACLE_HOME environment variable to specify the Oracle home directory for the installation. Change the value of the ORACLE environment variable to the user name of the owner of the database installed in the Oracle home directory (typically, oracle ).

This script can only stop Oracle Net listener for which a password has not been set. In addition, if the listener name is not the default name, LISTENER , then you must specify the listener name in the stop and start commands:

Change the group of the dbora file to the OSDBA group (typically dba ), and set the permissions to 750:

Create symbolic links to the dbora script in the appropriate run-level script directories, as follows:

3 Starting and Stopping

This chapter describes various procedures for starting and stopping Oracle Application Server.

It contains the following topics:

3.1 Overview of Starting and Stopping Procedures

Oracle Application Server is a flexible product that you can start and stop in different ways, depending on your requirements. See the following sections:

Use the procedures in this section when starting an instance from scratch, for example, after restarting a host, or when you want to stop your entire instance, for example, in preparation for shutting down your system.

Use the procedures in this section after you have started your instance and want to start or stop individual components.

This section describes how to disable components (prevent them from starting when you start an instance) and enable components (allow them to start when you start an instance).

This section describes how to perform an orderly shutdown of your entire environment.

3.2 Starting and Stopping Application Server Instances

This section describes how to start and stop application server instances. It contains the following topics:

3.2.1 Starting OracleAS Infrastructure

This section describes how to start all processes in an OracleAS Infrastructure. Follow this procedure after you have restarted your host, or any other time you want to start up your entire OracleAS Infrastructure.

This procedure applies to all OracleAS Infrastructure types:

Oracle Identity Management and OracleAS Metadata Repository

Follow both steps to start Oracle Identity Management and OracleAS Metadata Repository.

OracleAS Metadata Repository only

Follow only Step 1 to start OracleAS Metadata Repository. You do not need to perform the second step of starting Oracle Identity Management because you do not need OPMN or the Application Server Control Console in a OracleAS Metadata Repository-only installation.

Oracle Identity Management only

Follow only Step 2 to start Oracle Identity Management. Make sure the OracleAS Metadata Repository that supports Oracle Identity Management (residing in another Oracle home) is already started.

To start OracleAS Infrastructure:

If your OracleAS Infrastructure contains OracleAS Metadata Repository, start it as follows:

Set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable to the OracleAS Infrastructure Oracle home.

Set the ORACLE_SID environment variable to the OracleAS Metadata Repository SID (default is orcl ).

Start the Net Listener:

Start the OracleAS Metadata Repository instance:

Start the Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g Database Control:

If your OracleAS Infrastructure contains Oracle Identity Management, start it as follows:

This command starts OPMN and all OPMN-managed processes such as DCM, Oracle HTTP Server, OC4J instances, and Oracle Internet Directory. Alternatively, on Windows, you can start OPMN using the Windows Services control panel.

Start the Application Server Control Console:

Alternatively, on Windows, you can start the Application Server Control Console using the Windows Services control panel. The name of the service for the Application Server Control uses the following format:

See Section A.1 for more information on starting Application Server Control.

Alternatively, on Windows, you can start the Infrastructure from the Programs menu: Start > Programs > Oracle Application Server Infrastructure — Infra_name > Start instanceName .

3.2.2 Stopping OracleAS Infrastructure

This section describes how to stop all processes in OracleAS Infrastructure. Follow this procedure when you are preparing to shut down your host, or any other time you want to stop your entire OracleAS Infrastructure.

This procedure applies to all OracleAS Infrastructure types:

Oracle Identity Management and OracleAS Metadata Repository

Follow both steps to stop Oracle Identity Management and OracleAS Metadata Repository.

OracleAS Metadata Repository only

Follow Step 2 only to stop OracleAS Metadata Repository.

Oracle Identity Management only

Follow Step 1 only to stop Oracle Identity Management.

To stop OracleAS Infrastructure:

If your OracleAS Infrastructure contains Oracle Identity Management, stop it as follows:

Stop the Application Server Control Console:

Alternatively, on Windows, you can stop the Application Server Control Console using the Services control panel. See Section A.1.2 for more information.

This command stops OPMN and all OPMN-managed processes such as DCM, Oracle HTTP Server, OC4J instances, and Oracle Internet Directory. Alternatively, on Windows, you can stop OPMN using the Windows Services control panel.

If your OracleAS Infrastructure contains OracleAS Metadata Repository, stop it as follows:

Set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable to the OracleAS Infrastructure Oracle home.

Set the ORACLE_SID environment variable to the OracleAS Metadata Repository SID (default is orcl ).

Stop the OracleAS Metadata Repository instance:

Stop the Net Listener:

Stop the Oracle Enterprise Manager 10 g Database Control:

Alternatively, on Windows, you can stop the Infrastructure from the Programs menu: Start > Programs > Oracle Application Server Infrastructure — Infra_name > Stop instanceName .

3.2.3 Starting a Middle-Tier Instance

This section describes how to start all processes in a 10.1.2 or 10.1.3 middle-tier instance. You can follow this procedure after you have restarted your host, or any other time you want to start up the entire instance.

To start a Release 2 (10.1.2) middle-tier instance:

If the middle-tier instance uses OracleAS Infrastructure services, such as Oracle Identity Management or OracleAS Metadata Repository, make sure they are started, as described in Section 3.2.1.

This command starts OPMN and all OPMN-managed processes such as DCM, Oracle HTTP Server, OC4J instances, OracleAS Web Cache, OracleAS Forms Services, and OracleAS Reports Services.

Start the Application Server Control Console:

Alternatively, on Windows, you can start the Application Server Control Console using the Services control panel. See Section A.1.2 for more information on starting Application Server Control Console.

Alternatively, on Windows, you can start the middle tier from the Programs menu. For example, for Release 10.1.2.0.2: Start > Programs > Oracle Application Server — Oracle_Home > Start > instanceName .

To start Release 3 (10.1.3) middle-tier instance, perform steps 1 and 2. The Application Server Control Console is started when you start the components in step 2.

3.2.4 Stopping a Middle-Tier Instance

This section describes how to stop all processes in a 10.1.2 or 10.1.3 middle-tier instance. Follow this procedure when you are preparing to shut down your host, or any other time you want to stop the entire instance.

To stop a 10.1.2 middle-tier instance:

Stop the Application Server Control Console:

Alternatively, on Windows, you can stop the Application Server Control Console using the Services control panel. See Section A.1.2 for more information on stopping Application Server Control Console.

This command stops OPMN and all OPMN-managed processes such as DCM, Oracle HTTP Server, OC4J instances, and OracleAS Web Cache, OracleAS Forms Services, and OracleAS Reports Services.

Alternatively, on Windows, you can stop the middle tier from the Programs menu. For example, for Release 10.1.2.0.2: Start > Programs > Oracle Application Server — Oracle_Home > Stop > instanceName .

To stop a 10.1.3 middle-tier instance, perform step 2. The Application Server Control Console is stopped when you stop the components in step 2.

3.2.5 Starting Oracle Identity Federation

You can use either of the following methods to start Oracle Identity Federation:

The following command:

Application Server Control Console:

Navigate to the Application Server home page on the Application Server Control Console. Scroll to the System Components section.

In the Select column, select OC4J_FED.

Click Start on the top right of the System Components section.

These methods start the Oracle Identity Federation server and the Oracle Identity Federation Administration console.

3.2.6 Stopping Oracle Identity Federation

You can use either of the following methods to stop Oracle Identity Federation:

The following command:

Application Server Control Console:

Navigate to the Application Server home page on the Application Server Control Console. Scroll to the System Components section.

In the Select column, select OC4J_FED.

Click Stop on the top right of the System Components section.

These methods stop the Oracle Identity Federation server and the Oracle Identity Federation Administration console.

3.3 Starting and Stopping Components

You can use the following tools to start, stop, restart, and view the status of components:

The opmnctl command: See Section 3.3.1.

Application Server Control Console: See Section 3.3.2.

These tools are completely compatible—they both use OPMN as their underlying technology for managing processes—and can be used interchangeably. For example, you can start a component using opmnctl and stop it using the Application Server Control Console.

Although the two tools can be used interchangeably, they offer different features. With the opmnctl command, you can start and stop sub-processes within components, as well as the entire component. For example, you can start and stop OracleAS Web Cache, or you can start and stop only the OracleAS Web Cache admin sub-process. With the Application Server Control Console, you can view components that cannot be started or stopped, but whose status depends on other components. For example, the Application Server Control Console displays the status of the Single Sign-On component, whose status depends on the HTTP_Server.

3.3.1 Starting and Stopping Components Using opmnctl

You can use the opmnctl command line tool to start and stop components. It is located in the following directory:

To start, stop, or restart a component using opmnctl:

To start, stop, or restart the sub-process of a component:

To view the status of components and processes:

3.3.2 Starting and Stopping Components Using Application Server Control Console

You can start, stop, restart, and view the status of components on the Application Server home page:

Navigate to the Application Server home page on the Application Server Control Console. Scroll to the System Components section.

In the Select column, select the components you want to start, stop, or restart.

Click the Start, Stop, or Restart button on the top right of the System Components section.

You can also start and stop individual components on each component home page.

3.4 Enabling and Disabling Components

When you disable a component, you prevent it from starting when you start the application server instance, and you remove it from the list of System Components displayed on the Application Server home page.

When you enable a component, you allow it to start when you start the application server instance, and it appears in the list of System Components displayed on the Application Server Control Console.

You can enable and disable components using the Application Server Control Console. On the Application Server Home page, click Enable/Disable Components.

From the resulting page, you can select which components to enable or disable. Notice that components that are dependent on each other are grouped, and are enabled or disabled together.

When you enable or disable components, consider the following restrictions and additional information:

If you use the backup and recovery procedures documented in this book, you must run bkp_restore.pl -m config after you enable or disable components so the proper components are registered with the OracleAS Backup and Recovery Tool. See Chapter 17 for more information.

You cannot disable or enable components that are part of OracleAS Clusters. As a result, the Enable/Disable Components button is not available on the Application Server Home page when you are managing an instance that belongs to a cluster.

Distributed Configuration Management Administrator’s Guide for information about using Distributed Configuration Management to create and manage OracleAS Clusters

«About Managing OracleAS Clusters» in the Application Server Control Console online Help

3.5 Starting and Stopping an Oracle Application Server Environment

This section provides procedures for starting and stopping an Oracle Application Server environment. An environment can consist of multiple OracleAS Infrastructure and middle-tier instances distributed across multiple hosts. These instances are dependent on each other and it is important to start and stop them in the proper order.

You can follow these procedures when you need to completely shut down your Oracle Application Server environment, for example, when preparing to perform a complete backup of your environment, or apply a patch.

3.5.1 Starting an Oracle Application Server Environment

To start an Oracle Application Server environment:

Start any OracleAS Infrastructure that contains only OracleAS Metadata Repository.

If your environment has OracleAS Infrastructure installations that contain only OracleAS Metadata Repository, start those in any order. Note that for these installation types, you only need to start OracleAS Metadata Repository. You do not need to start any processes with opmnctl and you do not need to start the Application Server Control Console. See Section 3.2.1, «Starting OracleAS Infrastructure» for more information.

Start the OracleAS Infrastructure that contains Oracle Identity Management.

If your environment uses Oracle Identity Management, start the OracleAS Infrastructure that contains Oracle Internet Directory. If this OracleAS Infrastructure contains OracleAS Metadata Repository, start that before you start Oracle Internet Directory. See Section 3.2.1, «Starting OracleAS Infrastructure» for more information.

Start the OracleAS Clusters.

If your environment has middle-tier instances that are part of a cluster, start the clusters in any order.

Start middle-tier instances.

If your environment contains middle-tier instances that are not part of a cluster, start them in any order. See Section 3.2.3, «Starting a Middle-Tier Instance» for more information.

3.5.2 Stopping an Oracle Application Server Environment

To stop all processes in an Oracle Application Server environment:

Stop OracleAS Clusters.

If your environment has middle-tier instances that are part of a cluster, stop the clusters in any order.

Stop middle-tier instances.

If your environment contains middle-tier instances that are not part of a cluster, stop them in any order. See Section 3.2.4, «Stopping a Middle-Tier Instance» for more information.

Stop the OracleAS Infrastructure that contains Oracle Identity Management.

If your environment uses Oracle Identity Management, stop the OracleAS Infrastructure that contains Oracle Internet Directory. If this OracleAS Infrastructure contains OracleAS Metadata Repository, stop that as well. See Section 3.2.2, «Stopping OracleAS Infrastructure».

Stop any OracleAS Infrastructure instances that contain only OracleAS Metadata Repository as described in Section 3.2.2, «Stopping OracleAS Infrastructure».

If your environment has OracleAS Infrastructure installations that contain only OracleAS Metadata Repository, stop those in any order.

3.6 Starting and Stopping: Special Topics

This section contains the following special topics about starting and stopping Oracle Application Server:

3.6.1 Starting and Stopping Log Loader

The method for starting and stopping Oracle Application Server Log Loader is different from other components.

Log Loader is not started when you issue the opmnctl startall command or when you perform a Start All operation in the Application Server Control Console. You can start Log Loader in the following ways:

Using the following command:

By clicking Start on the Log Loader page in the Application Server Control Console. See Section 5.5.1, «Starting and Stopping Log Loader» for more information.

Log Loader is stopped when you issue the opmnctl stopall command; however it is not stopped when you issue a Stop All operation in the Application Server Control Console. In the latter case, you can stop Log Loader in the following ways:

Using the following command:

By clicking Stop on the Log Loader page in the Application Server Control Console. See Section 5.5.1, «Starting and Stopping Log Loader» for more information.

3.6.2 Starting and Stopping in High Availability Environments

There are special considerations and procedures for starting and stopping High Availability environments such as:

DCM-Managed Oracle Application Server Cluster

Manually Managed Oracle Application Server Cluster

Oracle Application Server Cold Failover Clusters

Oracle Application Server Disaster Recovery (includes starting and stopping the DSA component)

Oracle Application Server High Availability Guide for information about starting and stopping in high-availability environments

3.6.3 Resolving OC4J Errors When Starting Multiple Instances

If you have multiple Oracle Application Server installations on one host and you start them at the same time (for example, to start OracleAS Clusters), OPMN may return an error like the following:

This error indicates that an OC4J instance ( my_OC4J_instance ) failed to start. The problem could be caused by two different Oracle homes on the same host using the same port ranges for RMI, JMS, and AJP ports, and an OC4J instance in one Oracle home trying to use the same port as an OC4J instance in another Oracle home.

For example, assume you have two Oracle Application Server installations on one host that reside in ORACLE_HOME1 and ORACLE_HOME2 . Each installation contains one or more OC4J instances, and each OC4J instance is assigned a port range for AJP, RMI, and JMS ports.

You can check OC4J port range assignments by examining the opmn.xml file in both Oracle homes:

In each file, locate the OC4J instance entries, which start with a line like the following:

Within each entry, locate the RMI, JMS, and AJP port ranges, which looks like this:

Table 3-1 illustrates the problem of having the same OC4J port assignments in two Oracle homes—the AJP, RMI, and JMS port ranges in ORACLE_HOME1 are identical to the AJP, RMI, and JMS port ranges in ORACLE_HOME2 . (Note that this example only lists the relevant lines from the opmn.xml .)

Table 3-1 Example of Identical Port Ranges in Two Oracle Homes

OC4J Port Ranges in ORACLE_HOME1 /opmn/conf/opmn.xml	OC4J Port Ranges in ORACLE_HOME2 /opmn/conf/opmn.xml

Port allocation for all OC4J instances within an Oracle Application Server instance is controlled by OPMN. So, having overlapping port ranges within a single opmn.xml file is not a problem. However, when two OPMNs on a host start processes at the same time, there is no coordination between them on port usage.

The algorithm OPMN uses to assign a port is:

Choose a port from the port range that is not currently marked as allocated to any processes managed by the OPMN in the local instance.

Before assigning the port, check to see if the port is in use by binding to it.

If the port is not in use (that is, OPMN could bind to it), then unbind and assign the port to a process (such as an OC4J instance) so it can bind to it, updating internal data structures with this assignment information.

In between the time that OPMN unbinds from the port and the assigned process binds to the port, it is possible for another process to bind to the port. This could be another OPMN on the host, or any other process that happens to try to bind to the same port number.

If your port range assignments are the same across Oracle homes, and you received the error shown at the beginning of this section, then probably two OPMN processes tried to bind the same port for their OC4J instances. There is no way to eliminate this problem completely (because there is a rare chance that a non-OPMN process could try to bind to the port at the same time) but you can reconfigure OPMN to reduce the chance of encountering it.

There are two options for addressing this problem:

Option 1: Assign Unique Port Ranges to Each Oracle Home

You can assign unique OC4J port ranges to each Oracle home, as shown in Table 3-2. Then, the OPMN in ORACLE_HOME1 and the OPMN in ORACLE_HOME2 will not attempt to use the same port numbers when assigning OPMN ports, and will not attempt to bind to the same port.

Table 3-2 Example of Using Unique Port Ranges in Two Oracle Homes

OC4J Port Ranges in ORACLE_HOME1 /opmn/conf/opmn.xml	OC4J Port Ranges in ORACLE_HOME2 /opmn/conf/opmn.xml

Choose unique port ranges for AJP, RMI, and JMS.

Edit ORACLE_HOME2 /opmn/conf/opmn.xml .

For each OC4J instance in the file, change AJP, RMI, and JMS to use the new unique port ranges. For example:

Save and close the file.

Option 2: Increase the Maximum Number of Retries for Starting OC4J Instances

OPMN attempts to start processes a certain number of times before declaring failure. For process types with port ranges, if the failure to start the process is due to the process not being able to bind to the assigned port number, OPMN attempts to start the process with a different port number in the specified range. You can have identical port ranges in two Oracle homes, and increase the number of times OPMN attempts to restart a process, so eventually OPMN will choose a port that works. This does not completely eliminate the problem, because there is a chance that OPMN will not find a port that works in 10 tries, but it does reduce the chance of encountering the problem.

The parameter that controls the number of retries is retry . The default value is 2. You can increase the parameter to a higher number, for example, 10, by following these steps in each Oracle home:

Edit ORACLE_HOME /opmn/conf/opmn.xml .

For each OC4J instance in the file, increase the retry value for start and restart. For example:

Save and close the file.

Table 3-3 shows an example of the opmn.xml file in two Oracle homes on the same host after the retry count has been increased to 10.

Table 3-3 Example of Increasing the Retry Count in Two Oracle Homes

OC4J Port Ranges in ORACLE_HOME1 /opmn/conf/opmn.xml	OC4J Port Ranges in ORACLE_HOME2 /opmn/conf/opmn.xml

3.6.4 Forcing a Shut Down of OracleAS Metadata Repository

If you find that the OracleAS Metadata Repository instance is taking a long time to shut down, you can use the following command to force an immediate shutdown:

Immediate database shutdown proceeds with the following conditions:

No new connections are allowed, nor are new transactions allowed to be started, after the statement is issued.

Any uncommitted transactions are rolled back. (If long uncommitted transactions exist, this method of shutdown might not complete quickly, despite its name.)

Oracle does not wait for users currently connected to the database to disconnect. Oracle implicitly rolls back active transactions and disconnects all connected users.

The next startup of the database will not require any instance recovery procedures.