ora_setup fails with "cannot activate parameter database" (4330170)

Running ora_setup results in the an error "cannot activate parameter database" ..Mentioned below is a screen content extact showing the same.


$ ./ora_setup

Welcome to the Oracle SharePlex setup process.This process creates tables and user accounts needed to run Oracle SharePlex replication.

Enter the Oracle SID for which SharePlex should be installed [dtedm01] : dtedm01

In order to create the SharePlex tables and user account, we must connect to the database as SYSTEM. The SYSTEM account must have SYSDBA privileges.

Enter password for the SYSTEM account, which will not echo [MANAGER] :


connecting--This may take a few seconds.

validating user name and password. . . This may take a few seconds.
/splex_var_edm/var_2105/log/event_log: Permission denied

SPLEX_2105.SHAREPLEX_ACTID already updated; continuing setup . . .
SPLEX_2105.SHAREPLEX_ACTID already updated; continuing setup . . .

Creating Conflict Resolution Package . . . Done.

Setup of SharePlex objects successful . . .

Changing SharePlex parameter database . . .
/splex_var_edm/var_2105/log/event_log: Permission denied

/splex_var_edm/var_2105/log/event_log: Permission denied
/splex_var_edm/var_2105/log/event_log: Permission denied
/splex_var_edm/var_2105/log/event_log: Permission denied


./ora_setup: cannot activate parameter database.

The event log portion shows the following:

clean_vardir.sh was carried out on Tue May 2 15:33:46 EDT 2006 by wdmadm for dtedm01
<date> Notice: Oracle env - dtedm01:/opt/oracle/product/9.2.0 [ora_setup(pdb)/29166]
<date> Error: 12035 - OCISessionBegin failed with ORA-1031. [ora_setup(osp)/29166]
<date> System call error: Permission denied open(/splex_var_edm/var_2105/data/statusdb.lck, O_RDWR.O_CREAT) [ora_setup(stt)/29166]
<date&

lack of write permission on data subdirectory or missing entry for the host in /etc/hosts file

There are two main reasons for this error to happen

1. It could be that the spadmin group does not have write permissions to either data subdirectory under the vardir.

To resolve this, do chmod 775 on the data subdirectory before re-running ora_setup.

2. If it still fails, the issue could be a missing entry for the hostname in /etc/hosts file. To confirm this, launch sp_cop as spadmin user even though the ora_setup failed. This is supposed to bring up sp_cop without any associated processes like Capture, Read, Export or Post. If the launching of sp_cop fails with the following error:

./sp_cop -u21001 &
20820
BTS-CFG-DB:cfgbtsdb1:oracle > gethostbyname(cfgbts) failed Parameter database initialization failed - exiting

If this is the case the problem has to do with missing entry for the host in /etc/hosts file. After adding the entry, you should be able to run ora_setup and then launch sp_cop.