What causes the problem?

Oracle installer does not always follow specific rules

of a particular OS platform. Starting up is straight forward: the OS executes a
script in /etc/rc.d unconditionally. Shutting down is more tricky. When stoppin
g processes and services the host OS wishes to make sure the service has actuall
y been started before it tries to stop it. This is achieved by checking for a sp
ecial file in the /var/lock/subsys directory (on Linux and some UNIX platforms).
If the file is there the OS will proceed to execute an appropriate /etc/rc.d sc
ript. If the file is not found the OS will bypass shutdown script. Since Install
er did no take care of this part, on most installations the proper shutdown is b
ypassed.
This problem does not exist on Windows platforms as Oracle is properly configure
s itself as a service. Surprise!
How to overcome the trouble? The details of setting up shutdown script for Oracl
e database are described in this article. The explanation applies to Oracle 10.2
(10g Enterprise Edition) on Linux platform (Red Hat and alike).
Oracle database can be treated as a service on Linux as well and as such, being
properly controlled when server is moving from one runlevel to another. Unfortun
ately, there is still no cure for server being unplugged from power or some hard
ware failure (we are not talking here about standby, RAC or other high availabil
ity solutions so do not try to catch me).