To start up the ASM instance

To start up the ASM instance, I then simply issue the STARTUP MOUNT command. Here is how a successful ASM instance startup appears in the Linux environment:

$> export ORACLE_SID=+ASM

$> sqlplus "sys as sysdba"
SQL*Plus: Release 10.1.0.2.0 - Production on Tue Dec 13 16:58:17 2005
Copyright (c) 1982, 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Enter password: ********

Connected to an idle instance.

SQL> startup mount;
ASM instance started

Total System Global Area 100663296 bytes
Fixed Size 787648 bytes
Variable Size 99875648 bytes
Database Buffers 0 bytes
Redo Buffers 0 bytes

ASM diskgroups mounted

Waiting for Oracle CSS service to be available before starting

Despite knowing the problem, I wasn't able to find a solution until I came across Jeff Hunter's Oracle blog. In it, he correctly noted that due to a known bug, the /etc/inittab file must be manually modified to support Oracle ASM auto-start on RHEL.
Specifically, the respawn line for the init.cssd process must fall between the wait for runlevel 2 and runlevel 3

l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
h1:35:respawn:/etc/init.d/init.cssd run >/dev/null 2>&1 l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3


comment eny like
h1:35:respawn:/etc/init.d/init.cssd run >/dev/null 2>&1