Expert: Peter Choi - 4/21/2009

Question
Sir ,
My orcle 7.3 database is in Sco open server 5.6
RAM is 4GB

while starting the oracle database i am getting error

SVRMGR> startup
ORA-07252: spcre: semget error, could not allocate semaphores.
SCO System V/386 Error: 28: No space left on device
Additional information: 1

will u plz help me

Answer
Hi Shinil,

Your problem may be related to how much memory is allocated to the SGA vs. what RAM is physically allocated/available by your operating system.

On your operating system, you allocate memory segments where the SGA (among other memory type processes) will be run and accessible to your programs. If you don't allocate enough memory within your OS, when you try to start your DB it will fail with errors similar to those that you've encountered.

Possible Solution:

1. Review your Oracle memory (SGA) allocation.
2. Review your SCO Unix shared memory allocation. Please refer to the section 3, Task 1 in reference 3 (below) for tuning and configuring your Shared Memory Segments.

Hope this helps.

Peter


Reference:
1. http://www.orafaq.com/node/8
2. http://www.dba-oracle.com/unix_linux/semaphore_management.htm
3. http://download.oracle.com/docs/pdf/A58794_01.pdf