Script to Start Oracle Database Automatically on Linux

April 7, 2018
From Oracle 10gR2 onward RAC clusterware automatically start and stop the ASM and Oracle database instances and listeners, so the following procedures are not necessary. But for the single instance where the RAC is not being used, this script will allow you to automate the startup and shutdown of oracle databases on Linux automatically after server reboot.
Already both scripts are installed in $ORACLE_HOME/bin and are called dbstart and dbshut. However, these scripts are not executed automatically after you reboot your server. I will explain you how to configure this script so that Oracle Services can start automatically after Linux server reboot.

How to Configure Auto Startup Script?

Below are the changes you need to perform in order to automate this script.

STEP 1: First, you need to make sure that any database instances you want to autostart need to be set to “Y” in /etc/oratab file as shown below.

# This file is used by ORACLE utilities.  It is created by root.sh
# and updated by either Database Configuration Assistant while creating
# a database or ASM Configuration Assistant while creating ASM instance.
#
# Entries are of the form:
#   $ORACLE_SID:$ORACLE_HOME:<N|Y>:
#
# The first and second fields are the system identifier and home
# directory of the database respectively.  The third filed indicates
# to the dbstart utility that the database should , “Y”, or should not,
# “N”, be brought up at system boot time.
#
# Multiple entries with the same $ORACLE_SID are not allowed.
#
#
ora11g:/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1:Y
ora12c:/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/dbhome_1:Y

The /etc/oratab file is normally created by running the root.sh script at the end of the installation. If you don’t have the file, you can always add it to your system by creating it manually (with user root!).

STEP 2: Make entry of ORACLE_HOME and PATH in your . ~/.bash_profile


STEP 3: Next, we are going to create 2 scripts under home path as /home/oracle/scripts: ora_start.sh and ora_stop.sh.

These scripts will call dbstart and dbshut and it will also allow us to add some more actions, for example the start of the Enterprise Manager Database control or any other services you might have.
You can also create separate directory for this script.

$ su – oracle
$ vi /home/oracle/scripts/ora_start.sh

#!/bin/bash

# script to start the Oracle database, listener and dbconsole

. ~/.bash_profile

# start the listener and the database
$ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbstart $ORACLE_HOME

# start the Enterprise Manager db console
#$ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl start dbconsole

exit 0

$ vi /home/oracle/scripts/ora_stop.sh
#!/bin/bash

# script to stop the Oracle database, listener and dbconsole

. ~/.bash_profile

# stop the Enterprise Manager db console
#$ORACLE_HOME/bin/emctl stop dbconsole

# stop the listener and the database
$ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbshut $ORACLE_HOME

exit 0

You can see that inside the scripts, we are calling the .bash_profile file of the user “oracle”. This is needed to set the ORACLE_HOME, PATH environment variable.

STEP 4: Give execute permission to the scripts:
$  chmod u+x ora_start.sh ora_stop.sh

STEP 5: We will now create a wrapper script that can be used to schedule as a service.
With user root, create a file called “oracle” under /etc/init.d.

$ vi /etc/init.d/oracle
#!/bin/bash
# chkconfig: 345 99 10
# description: Oracle auto start-stop script.

# Set ORA_OWNER to the user id of the owner of the
# Oracle database in ORA_HOME.

ORA_OWNER=oracle
RETVAL=0

case “$1” in
    ‘start’)
        # Start the Oracle databases:
        # The following command assumes that the oracle login
        # will not prompt the user for any values
        su – $ORA_OWNER -c “/home/oracle/scripts/ora_start.sh”
        touch /var/lock/subsys/oracle
        ;;
    ‘stop’)
        # Stop the Oracle databases:
        # The following command assumes that the oracle login
        # will not prompt the user for any values
        su – $ORA_OWNER -c “/home/oracle/scripts/ora_stop.sh”
        rm -f /var/lock/subsys/oracle
        ;;
    *)
        echo $”Usage: $0 {start|stop}”
        RETVAL=1
esac
exit $RETVAL

STEP 6: Grant below permission for this script.
$ chmod 750 /etc/init.d/oracle

Note: Add the oracle home paths in .bash_profile

STEP 7: To create a service of this script, run the following command:
$ chkconfig –add oracle

STEP 8: All done, check the script and database status by running “service oracle stop” or “service oracle start” from the command line.

$ service oracle stop
Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Database Control Release 11.2.0.3.0
Copyright (c) 1996, 2011 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Stopping Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Database Control …
… Stopped.
Processing Database instance “oratst”: log file /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/shutdown.log

$ service oracle start
Processing Database instance “oratst”: log file /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/db_1/startup.log
Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Database Control Release 11.2.0.3.0
Copyright (c) 1996, 2011 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
Starting Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Database Control …… started.
After this, it’s time for the final test: reboot your server and check if your Oracle database is automatically started after the reboot.

Whenever database server will reboot, you will observe that your configured databases has been started automatically. There is no need to start and stop the database manually. If you are getting any issue you can contact for support. We will be pleased to assist you.

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