pfile - client parameter file - starting an instance remotely
The procedure is described in the Remote Startup of a Database Instance part of admin guide for BS2000/OSD (I can't find this part in the Linux docs...).

Essentially what you do is:


Create an Oracle password file for your database if you haven't already done so
Add a static registration for your instance in its listener
Set the instance parameter REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE to EXCLUSIVE
Restart the listener and the database.


Once you've done that and granted sysdba to a user, you can connect to the instance using sqlplus directly from another machine

c:\foobar&gt; sqlplus /nolog
...
SQL&gt; connect mat/mat@SOMETHING_REMOTE as sysdba
...
SQL&gt; startup pfile='c:\foobar\init.ora'


That last command reads the pfile from the machine where sqlplus is running, not from a directory on the server.

But I'd generally say you probably shouldn't be doing this. Have your database all use spfiles on the server. Otherwise you never know how they were started.