bypass ora-20

When you really need to run one script, at all cost, an annoying error is ORA-00020: maximum number of processes (40) exceeded, which can even occurs as sysdba.

Test case (21 is a not something to do in real life):

SQL> alter system set processes=21 scope=spfile;
System altered.
SQL> startup force quiet
ORACLE instance started.
Database mounted.
Database opened.
SQL> quit

From now on, sqlplus as sysdba is impossible.
$ sqlplus -s -L / as sysdba
ERROR:
ORA-00020: maximum number of processes (40) exceeded
SP2-0751: Unable to connect to Oracle. Exiting SQL*Plus

Okay, if you really really need to run one script, you could connect with sqlplus -prelim and restart the database.

if :|sqlplus / as sysdba|grep ORA-00020
then
echo shu abort|sqlplus -prelim / as sysdba
echo startup quiet|sqlplus / as sysdba
fi

If ORA-20 is detected, then the database will be restarted.