4
ConText Server Executable and Utility

This chapter provides reference information for using the ConText server executable and control utility provided with ConText.

The following topics are discussed in this chapter:

• ctxsrv Executable
• ctxctl Utility

ctxsrv Executable

The ctxsrv executable starts ConText servers. You execute ctxsrv for each ConText server that you want to start.
 

Note:  ctxsrv can only be executed by the Oracle user, CTXSYS.

   

You can also use the ctxctl utility to start and shut down ConText servers.
 

See Also:  For more information about the CTXSYS user, see "CTXSYS User" in Chapter 2, "Administration Concepts".  For more information about ctxctl, see "ctxctl Utility" in this chapter.

   

Syntax

ctxsrv -user ctxsys/passwd[@sqlnet_address]
      [-personality RQDML]
      [-logfile log_name]
      [-sqltrace]

where:

-user

specifies the username and password for the Oracle user CTXSYS.

The username and password may be immediately followed by @sqlnet_address to permit logon to remote databases. The value for sqlnet_address is a database connect string. If the TWO_TASK environment variable is set to a remote database, you do not have to specify a value for sqlnet_address to connect to the database.
 

Note:  If you do not specify user in the ctxsrv command-line, you are prompted by ConText to enter the required information in the format: 'CTXSYS/password' where password is the password for CTXSYS.  This is useful if you wish to mask the CTXSYS password from other users of the machine on which the ConText server is running.

   

-personality

specifies the personality mask for the ConText server started by ctxsrv. The possible values can be any combination of:

• R (Loader personality)
• Q (Query personality)
• D (DDL personality)
• M (DML personality)
• L (Linguistic personality)

The default is QDM.
 

Note:  Oracle does not recommend assigning all the personalities to a single ConText server. This will result in the server bearing the majority of the processing load.

   

-logfile

specifies the name of a log file to which the ConText server writes all session information and errors.

-sqltrace

enables the ConText server to write to a trace file in the directory specified by the USER_DUMP_DEST initialization parameter.

Before you specify -sqltrace for ctxsrv, you should specify a value for USER_DUMP_DEST in your initsid.ora file.
 

See Also:  For more information about SQL trace and the USER_DUMP_DEST initialization parameter, see Oracle8 Administrator's Guide.

   

Examples

The following example starts a ConText server with a Query and DDL personality mask and writes all server messages to a file named ctx.log:

ctxsrv -user ctxsys/ctxsys -personality QD -log ctx.log &

 

Note:  In this example, the server is run as a background process in a UNIX-based environment. This is useful if you need to use the window/screen from which you started the server for other tasks.

   

The following example starts a linguistically-enabled ConText server with a Linguistic personality and writes all server messages to a file named ctx.log. Because -user is not specified, ConText prompts you to enter a user:

ctxsrv -personality L -log ctx.log

...
ConText: Release 2.0.6.0.0 - Production on Sat Jun  7 14:06:26 1997
...
Copyright (c) Oracle Corporation 1979, 1998.  All rights reserved.
...
Enter user:

At the prompt, enter 'CTXSYS/password', where password is the password assigned to the CTXSYS user.
 

Note:  In this example, the process is not run in the background.  In environments where you can run processes in the background, if you do not specify -user in the ctxsrv command-line, you must run the server process in the foreground or pass a value for -user to ctxsrv from an operating system file.  For example:  ctxsrv -personality L -log ctx.log < pword.txt  The file must contain a single line consisting of the following text: 'CTXSYS/password'  If you pass a value to ctxsrv from a file, ConText does not prompt you to enter a user.

   

ctxctl Utility

The ctxctl utility is a shell script that can be used to start up and shut down ConText servers on the system from which you run ctxctl. It can also be used to check the status of all the ConText servers currently running on the system.

To start ctxctl, at the operating system prompt, type:

ctxctl

Commands

Once ctxctl is running, you can issue the following commands from the ctxctl command prompt:

help [command]

Provides online help for the specified command. If called without a command, it provides a list of all the commands you can use in ctxctl.

status

Provides a list of all the ConText servers and their personality masks currently running on the server host.
 

Note:  The ConText servers listed in the status output may be connected to different database instances.

   

start n [load query ddl dml ling]

Starts n number of servers, each with the personalities specified. The personalities can be typed in any order, but must be typed in lowercase and exactly as they are named (e.g. load, query, ddl, dml, ling).

If you do not specify a personality, ctxctl starts the specified number of servers, each with the query, ddl, and dml personalities.

The first time you type the start command for a ctxctl session, ConText prompts you to enter the password for the ConText administrator (CTXSYS). After you enter the password, ConText starts the specified number of servers.
 

Note:  The ConText server(s) are started on the host machine from which the start command is issued.

   

stop pid | all

Shuts down the ConText server identified by pid or shuts down all ConText servers (all).

The status command can be used to obtain the pid for all currently running ConText servers.
 

Note:  ctxctl does not use CTX_ADM.SHUTDOWN to shut down the ConText server. Instead, it aborts the server process running on the host machine.

   

quit | exit

Terminates ctxctl and returns you to the command-line of the host machine.

Examples

The following example starts two ConText servers, each with a DML, DDL, and Query personality mask:

command> start 2 query dml ddl

The following example shuts down a ConText server with a pid of 230454:

command> stop 23054

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