Database wont start up -- getting ORA-01031 error

[toddyl]

Hi,

I had a database running on HP-UX that was working fine up until this morning. I logged in as sysdba and shut it down. Later I went to start it up again but when I did:

sqlplus /nolog
connect sys/mypassword as sysdba

I got the error ORA-01031 -- insufficient privileges.

I did not change anything related to oracle so I cannot understand why I cannot log back in as sys and start the system.

If I try logging in as a different user I get:

ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
ORA-27101: shared memory realm does not exist
HP-UX Error: 2: No such file or directory

Anyone any idea why I cannot start up my system and how I can do so?

Thanks,

toddyl

 

[KenCunningham]

As user Oracle, can you do sqlplus "/ as sysdba" and then try startup?

 

[KenCunningham]

Oh, and check the $ORACLE_SID and $ORACLE_HOME variables are set appropriately.

 

[toddyl]

Checked env variables

$ echo $ORACLE_HOME
/home/oracle/OraHome9i
$ echo $ORACLE_SID
RRSUPP

when I do my sqlplus "/ as sysdba" I'm still getting the insufficient privileges error.

 

[KenCunningham]

Is your listener up?

 

[toddyl]

Yes listener running and can tnsping database.

 

[KenCunningham]

And your user is a member of the dba group?

 

[toddyl]

Not sure.

oracle is in its own group, no other sign of any other users in this group.

 

[KenCunningham]

What is the user oracle entry in /etc/passwd and the dba group in /etc/group (grep oracle /etc/passwd, grep dba /etc/group)? As far as I know, user oracle should have a primary group of dba.

 

[toddyl]

# grep oracle /etc/passwd
oracle:ME9cFlG8sJAzc:103:20:,,,:/home/oracle:/usr/bin/ksh

# grep dba /etc/group
dba::103:

 

[KenCunningham]

Looks OK. Is TWO_TASK set (echo $TWO_TASK)? If so issue unset TWO_TASK and try to connect again.

 

[hoinz]

Ken,
not sure if this looks ok ?
To me it seems that oracle has userid=103, groupid=20
But shouldn't it be groupid=103 ?
Or am I missing something?

toddyl,
any chance that somebody changed oracle's group from 103(dba) to 20(users) ?

 

[KenCunningham]

Hoinz - I think you're right. My bad reading of toddyl's post!

 

[hoinz]

toddyl,
one more test:
When you are logged in as oracle, what is the output of id command?

 

[toddyl]

Output of id is:

bash-2.05a$ id
uid=103(oracle) gid=20(users)

Not sure if anyone has changed it or not.
Is there anyway to check?

How can I change it back if necessary?

 

[KenCunningham]

You can change it by editing (using vi, say) the entry in /etc/passwd, to change the 20 to 103. Then log back in as oracle and try connecting again.

 

[KenCunningham]

If you're not happy editing the file directly, I imagine you can use SAM to update the oracle user's group.

I think I'd also be asking questions of colleagues who might have changed such a fundamental user's environment!

 

[toddyl]

I've changed that but am still getting the same problem.

 

[KenCunningham]

Can you give the output of another id command as user oracle and the output of echo $TWO_TASK

 

[toddyl]

Managed to get it working.

Looked around at various sites and found one with a similar issue which said to set

SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES= (ALL)

I had this set to NONE.

I've managed to log in and get things started again.

Thanks for the help.