Need help resetting the SESSIONS parameter

Question

Hi Folks,
Environment: Oracle 10g Rel 2
I am trying to reduce the number of sessions to the database as follows
*# Snap shot of existing values*
show parameters session;
show parameters processes;
show parameters transactions;
sessions     integer  170
processes    integer  150
transactions integer  187*# Modifying the SESSION parameter value*
alter system set sessions=3 scope=spfile;*# Bounce the instance*
shutdown immediate; *# Startup the instance*
startup;*# Verify if the new value took effect*
show parameters session;
Output: sessions integer     170*# Check if the new value exists in spfile*
select NAME||','||VALUE||','||DISPLAY_VALUE||','||ISSPECIFIED
from v$spparameter
where NAME like 'session%'
Output: sessions,3,3,TRUE*# Verify, if the database was started with the spfile*
SELECT DECODE(value, NULL, 'PFILE', 'SPFILE') "Init File Type"
       FROM sys.v_$parameter WHERE name = 'spfile'
Output:
Init F
SPFILEAny ideas as to why the SESSIONS parameter would not take effect?
Thanks in advance
rogers42

Answer 1

The sessions parameter is derived from the processes parameter, and in most cases there should be no reason to set it, and leave it untouched.
Setting sessions to 3 is utterly, utterly silly as the background processes count as sessions too.
This might be another reason why Oracle fortunately choose to ignore your change.
You should spend some more time on reading documentation, to avoid new attempts to wreck Oracle and create more havoc.
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA