Connecting to Oracle Database Even if Background Processes are Killed

Yesterday, I received an email update from MOS Hot Topics Email alert regarding a knowledge article which discusses how to connect to an Oracle database whose background processes are killed.

I bet every DBA must have encountered this situation at least once. When I am in this situation, I normally use "shutdown abort" to stop the database and then proceed with normal startup. 

After receiving the email, I thought of reproducing the same. My database (TGTDB) is 11.2.0.3 running on RHEL-5.5. The goal is to kill all Oracle background process and try to connect to the database.

Of course you don't want to test this in your production databases. 

SQL> select * from v$version;

BANNER
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production
PL/SQL Release 11.2.0.3.0 - Production
CORE    11.2.0.3.0      Production
TNS for Linux: Version 11.2.0.3.0 - Production
NLSRTL Version 11.2.0.3.0 - Production

SQL> 

Below is the list of background processes for my test database "TGTDB":

[oracle@ogg2 ~]$ ps -ef|grep TGTDB

oracle    8249     1  0 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_pmon_TGTDB

oracle    8251     1  0 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_psp0_TGTDB

oracle    8253     1  0 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_vktm_TGTDB

oracle    8257     1  0 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_gen0_TGTDB

oracle    8259     1  0 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_diag_TGTDB

oracle    8261     1  0 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_dbrm_TGTDB

oracle    8263     1  0 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_dia0_TGTDB

oracle    8265     1  6 01:35 ?        00:00:02 ora_mman_TGTDB

oracle    8267     1  0 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_dbw0_TGTDB

oracle    8269     1  1 01:35 ?        00:00:00 ora_lgwr_TGTDB

oracle    8271     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_ckpt_TGTDB

oracle    8273     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_smon_TGTDB

oracle    8275     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_reco_TGTDB

oracle    8277     1  1 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_mmon_TGTDB

oracle    8279     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_mmnl_TGTDB

oracle    8281     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_d000_TGTDB

oracle    8283     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_s000_TGTDB

oracle    8319     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_p000_TGTDB

oracle    8321     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_p001_TGTDB

oracle    8333     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_arc0_TGTDB

oracle    8344     1  1 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_arc1_TGTDB

oracle    8346     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_arc2_TGTDB

oracle    8348     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_arc3_TGTDB

oracle    8351     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_qmnc_TGTDB

oracle    8366     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_cjq0_TGTDB

oracle    8368     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_vkrm_TGTDB

oracle    8370     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_j000_TGTDB

oracle    8376     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_q000_TGTDB

oracle    8378     1  0 01:36 ?        00:00:00 ora_q001_TGTDB

oracle    8402  4494  0 01:36 pts/1    00:00:00 grep TGTDB

[oracle@ogg2 ~]$ 

Let us kill all these processes at once as shown below: 

[oracle@ogg2 ~]$ kill -9 `ps -ef|grep TGTDB | awk '{print ($2)}'`

bash: kill: (8476) - No such process

[oracle@ogg2 ~]$ 

Make sure no processes are running for our database:

[oracle@ogg2 ~]$ ps -ef|grep TGTDB

oracle    8520  4494  0 01:37 pts/1    00:00:00 grep TGTDB

[oracle@ogg2 ~]$ 

Now, try to connect to the database using SQL*Plus:

[oracle@ogg2 ~]$ sqlplus "/as sysdba"

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Wed Mar 13 01:38:12 2013

Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Connected to:

Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production

With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options

SQL> 

Voila, I am connected. Not only you get connected to the database but you can query V$*, DBA* and other application schema views/tables. Let's give a try: 


SQL> select name from v$database;

NAME

---------

TGTDB

SQL> select name from v$tablespace;

NAME

------------------------------

SYSTEM

SYSAUX

UNDOTBS1

USERS

TEMP

TEST_TS

6 rows selected.

SQL> 

SQL> select count(*) from dba_tables;

  COUNT(*)

----------

      2787

SQL> 

SQL> select count(*) from test.emp;

  COUNT(*)

----------

      3333

SQL> 

Let us try to update a record. 


SQL> 
SQL> update test.emp  set ename = 'test' where eno = 2;

1 row updated.

SQL>        

Wow, one record was updated. But when you try to commit/rollback, the instance gets terminated. And it makes sense as the background processes responsible for carrying out the change have all died.

SQL> 
SQL> commit;
commit
     *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel
Process ID: 8917
Session ID: 87 Serial number: 7


SQL> 

Following is the error message recorded in the database alert log:



Wed Mar 13 01:41:44 2013
USER (ospid: 8917): terminating the instance due to error 472
Instance terminated by USER, pid = 8917

The user (client) session was able to retrieve data from the database as the shared memory was still available and the client session does not need background processes for this task.

Below mentioned MOS article discusses on how to identify and kill the shared memory segment(s) allocated to "oracle" user through UNIX/Linux commands. 

References:

1. Successfully Connect to Database Even if Background Processes are Killed [ID 166409.1]