Helen,

Thanks. I have this working now.

I'd not realized that sysdba can still do everything even with a shut-
down database. The tools I was testing with were connecting as
sysdba. I'd assumed that the only operations they could do were
maintenance related, backups, validations and the like.

> The idea of shutdown is to give the SYSDBA or owner exclusive access for a
> period of time. Shutdown doesn't prevent you or anyone else from logging in
> once the timeout period is finished.

The behaviour doesn't seem exactly as you describe.

# ../bin/gfix -sh -at 10 -user sysdba -password masterkey
employee.gdb

I think that once the timeout is finished, assuming the shutdown
succeded, other users are prevented from logging in, untill the
database is brought online again.

regards
Richard

--
richard@...