Changing the Response to Logged Alerts

The Oracle software logs alerts in a file that is identified by the alert_log_file extension property. The server fault monitor scans this file and performs actions in response to alerts for which an action is defined.

Logged alerts for which an action is preset are listed in Table B–2. Change the response to logged alerts to change the preset action, or to define new alerts to which the server fault monitor responds.

To change the response to logged alerts, create an entry in a custom action file in which the keywords are set as follows:

• ERROR_TYPE is set to SCAN_LOG.

• ERROR is set to a quoted regular expression that identifies a string in an error message that Oracle has logged to the Oracle alert log file.

• ACTION is set to the action that you require.

The server fault monitor processes the entries in a custom action file in the order in which the entries occur. Only the first entry that matches a logged alert is processed. Later entries that match are ignored. If you are using regular expressions to specify actions for several logged alerts, ensure that more specific entries occur before more general entries. Specific entries that occur after general entries might be ignored.

For example, a custom action file might define different actions for errors that are identified by the regular expressions ORA-65 and ORA-6. To ensure that the entry that contains the regular expression ORA-65 is not ignored, ensure that this entry occurs before the entry that contains the regular expression ORA-6.

The following example shows an entry in a custom action file for changing the response to a logged alert.

Example 4–6 Changing the Response to a Logged Alert

{
ERROR_TYPE=SCAN_LOG;
ERROR="ORA-00600: internal error";
ACTION=RESTART;
}

This example shows an entry in a custom action file that overrides the preset action for logged alerts about internal errors. This entry specifies the following behavior:

• In response to logged alerts that contain the text ORA-00600: internal error, the action that the server fault monitor performs is restart.

• This entry applies regardless of the state of the connection between the database and the server fault monitor when the error is detected.

• The state of the connection between the database and the server fault monitor must remain unchanged after the error is detected.

• No additional message is printed to the resource's log file when this error is detected.