su: user oracle does not exist

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Article Type: General
Product: Aleph
Product Version: 20

Description:
When I try to do "su - oracle", I get the message:

su: user oracle does not exist

Resolution:
The instance is up, but in exclusive mode because it needs recovery. You have to be in the DBA group to fix by logging in AS SYSDBA.

With the upgrade to Oracle 10 and 11, sometimes replacement users were created, oracle10 and oracle11, respectively. You can “cat /etc/passwd” to verify the existence of one of these. The “su – oraclexx” command should work better then.

You can enter the command:

> grep ora /etc/passwd

In this case (with Oracle 9), it gave the response:

oracle9:x:501:502:://exlibris/app/oracle/product/920:/bin/tcsh

The first string (in this case, "oracle9") is the username you want to use.

Article last edited: 10/8/2013