Can't mount oracle database on linux system

Question

This is same as previous posting just added
e-mail and username info fo forum posting.
I am not able to mount an Oracle database.
I am new to Oracle and am working on an Oracle8i installation on an
Intel Linux Suse 6.3 platform. I am using only one harddrive and am
not using the 4 mount points as mentioned for efficiecy purposes in
the Oracle documentation..I am using the installation cd from Oracle8i
for Linux Starter Kit by Oracle Press. If anyone has this book they
can refer to pages 41-44 for the examples I followed.
As sysdba in sqplplus using the STARTUP command I can not Mount the
database -step 2 of the 3 stage process (Start, Mount and Open the
database) of opening an Oracle database.
I show the errors I encountered when I did the first 2 of the 3 steps
in the step-by-step mode (STARTUP NOMOUNT pfile=, ALTER DATABASE
MOUNT) in the sqlplus session and alert log respectively with startup
nomount and alter database mount for this sqlplus session.
Additionally I show the init.ora file lines referring to control file
which seem to be referred to by the sqlplus error messages and the
alert.log file. Perhaps some can give me some advice as what I can try
to fix this problem.
At the end of this e-mail I added several questions I had in regard to the control
files. Any help is appreciated.
Well, here are the sqlplus session results and its alert.log file:
Oracle sqlplus session usr/oracle as sysdba
oracle@CHESTNUT:~ > sqlplus
SQL*Plus: Release 8.1.6.0.0 - Production on Mon Mar 19 20:47:49 2001
(c) Copyright 1999 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Enter user-name: usr/oracle as sysdba
Connected to an idle instance.
SQL> startup nomount pfile=/usr/oracle/dbs/init.ora ;
ORACLE instance started.
Total System Global Area 24989680 bytes
Fixed Size 69616 bytes
Variable Size 24637440 bytes
Database Buffers 204800 bytes
Redo Buffers 77824 bytes
SQL> alter database mount ;
alter database mount
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00205: error in identifying controlfile, check alert log for more
info
SQL> shutdown immediate ;
ORA-01507: database not mounted
ORACLE instance shut down.
SQL> exit
Disconnected
oracle@CHESTNUT:~ >
alert.log file for above session
Mon Mar 19 20:48:38 2001
Starting ORACLE instance (normal)
LICENSE_MAX_SESSION = 0
LICENSE_SESSIONS_WARNING = 0
LICENSE_MAX_USERS = 0
Starting up ORACLE RDBMS Version: 8.1.6.1.0.
System parameters with non-default values:
processes = 50
shared_pool_size = 3500000
control_files = ora_control1, ora_control2
db_block_buffers = 100
log_buffer = 32768
log_checkpoint_interval = 10000
db_files = 80
db_file_multiblock_read_count= 8
global_names = TRUE
db_name = DEFAULT
parallel_max_servers = 5
max_dump_file_size = 10240
PMON started with pid=2
Load Indicator not supported by OS !
DBW0 started with pid=3
LGWR started with pid=4
CKPT started with pid=5
SMON started with pid=6
RECO started with pid=7
Mon Mar 19 20:48:58 2001
alter database mount
Mon Mar 19 20:48:58 2001
ORA-00202: controlfile: 'ora_control1'
ORA-27037: unable to obtain file status
Linux Error: 2: No such file or directory
Additional information: 3
Mon Mar 19 20:49:01 2001
ORA-205 signalled during: alter database mount
Mon Mar 19 20:49:12 2001
Shutting down instance (immediate)
License high water mark = 1
Mon Mar 19 20:49:12 2001
ALTER DATABASE CLOSE NORMAL
ORA-1507 signalled during: ALTER DATABASE CLOSE NORMAL...
archiving is disabled
init.ora control files
# define two control files by default
control_files = (ora_control1, ora_control2)
Here are my control file questions:
I need to know several points:
1) What are control files susposed to
contain and how would I recognize them?
I used the
unix find /usr/oracle \*ctl* -print
command to locate files with a ctl extension.
This resulted in about a dozen such files in
different directories as shown below:
./bin/lsnrctl
./bin/extractlib
./bin/agtctl
./bin/oidctl
./bin/lsnrctl0
./bin/agtctlO
./rdbms/demo/ulcase1.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase10.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase2.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase3.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase4.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase5.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase6.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase7.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase8.ctl
./rdbms/demo/ulcase9.ctl
./ldap/load/dn.ctl
./ldap/load/attr_store.ctl
./ord/ts/demo/tsquick/tsquick.ctl
./ord/ts/demo/usageutl/utildat.ctl
./ord/ts/demo/usage/stockdat.ctl
./ord/ts/demo/usage/stockinc.ctl
./ord/ts/demo/retrofit/sales.ctl
./ord/ts/demo/retrofit/sales2.ctl
./ord/ts/demo/applet/indexdemo.ctl
./javavm/admin/libjox8com_sun_jndi_ldap_ctl.so
./md/demo/examples/migctl.h
./md/demo/examples/migctl.c
2) On page 100 in the book Oracle 8i A Beginners's
by Oracle Press mention is made of a
CREATE CONTROLFILE command that can under
circumstances be used to re-create a control-file.
but that is all that is said about it. Perhaps
you might know something more about it.
3) Would you recommend any good text for
Oracle DBA's, especially for the problem of the sort
that I am encountering?
[email protected]
null

Answer 1

It's probably not supported on RHEL5/Centos5/etc., but...
You can get the installer to function using the following steps:
- extract the cal_linux_*.tar.gz, and cd into the OracleCalendar_inst directory
In there is the actual installer, cal_linux.
- the cal_linux is shell script wrapped around some binary blobs. The installer's
problem is that Oracle is setting the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 environment
variable, which is a mistake on RHEL5. You need to make it not set that variable,
but you need to do so in a way that the size of the shell script does not change at all,
and none of the binary blobs are impacted.
- the approach I took was
mv cal_linux cal_linux.BAK
sed -e 's/LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5/LD_ASSUME_KERNEL= /g' < cal_linux.BAK > cal_linux
chmod a+rx cal_linux
cal_linux -i gui
Note: you must have exactly 5 spaces in the substitution part of the sed command, because you're replacing 5 characters (2.2.5), and the size of the shell script must not change.
If you do that, the installer should run (one warning from awk still) and you should be able to install the product.
Tim