Question:  I have five instances on my Oracle Windows Server and I want to know how to automate the startup of Oracle when the Intel server and Windows OS are re-booted.  How can I make Oracle start automatically in Windows?

Answer:  Oracle provides two Windows scripts that assist DBAs with starting and stopping the Windows-based database: dbstart and dbshut.

For pre-written and pre-tested Oracle auto start scripts see the Oracle script download.
 
The dbstart utility reads the oratab file, shown in the example below. The oratab file will reside in  /etc. It contains three data items separated by colons:

oracle > cat /etc/oratab| wc -l

oracle > cat /etc/oratab

MYSID1:/usr/oracle/9.2.0:Y
MYSID2:/usr/oracle/11.1.0:Y
MYSID3:/usr/oracle/10.2.03:N

Above we see that there are three instances on this server, all on different releases of Oracle and the Oracle10g is marked "N", so that database will not re-start when the Windows OS re-starts.

1 - The first field is the Oracle SID.

2 - The second field is the home directory for that Oracle SID.

3 - The third column is a Y or N instructs Oracle whether to start or stop the particular database when either the dbstart or dbshut command is issued. The dbstart command simply parses the oratab file and starts those databases that have a Y in the third field. It also uses the ORACLE_HOME specified in the file to connect internally to the database and issue the startup command.

The dbstart command can be added to the Windows servers? initialization or run level scripts. This enables dbstart to be executed each time the machine is booted or when it changes run levels. The method for implementing this is platform specific, as we see below.

Automatic Starting and Stopping on Windows

The dbstart and dbstop shell scripts do not exist on Windows platforms. Consequently Oracle database startup and shutdown is implemented completely differently. The oradim utility is used on the Windows platform to perform these tasks.

C:\oracle9i\bin\oradim -startup -sid ORCL92 ?usrpwd manager
-starttype SRVC,INST -pfile C:\oracle9i\admin\ORCL92\pfile\init.ora

• startup - Indicates that the specified instance should be started.

• sid - The SID of the database to start.

• usrpwd - The password for the database user.

• starttype - Specifies whether to start the instance, the service, or both (SRVC, INST).

The following command can be used to shutdown the instance with oradim:

C:\oracle9i\bin\oradim -shutdown -sid ORCL92 -shutttype SRVC,INST
'shutmode A

Notice that no password is needed to perform this task.

The shuttype parameter specifies what is to be stopped - the service (SRVC), the instance (INST), or both (SRVC, INST). The shutmode specifies the method that should perform the shutdown - (A)bort, (I)mmediate, or (N)ormal.

Each operation, regardless of success, is logged in the oradim log file (ORACLE_HOME\database\OraDim.Log). This file should be checked for errors after each oradim command is executed.

The oradim utility provides more than just the ability to start and stop Windows databases. oradim can create and edit databases. It also allows DBAs to configure script-based installation mechanisms, bypassing the Oracle Database Configuration Assistant's graphical user interface (GUI).

For a reference of all oradim commands, use the oradim?help command.

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