SYSDBA password

A couple of days ago I posted an entry about an issue I'd run into reseting the SYSDBA password. Today I noticed my hits had jumped, checking my refer log I noticed a lot from Peter Finnigan's blog, he'd posted an entry linking to the post.

In the entry he says that, if true, it was interesting. I don't know about interesting, but it's definately a true record of what happened. I'd be suprised if I'm the first person to run into this issue.

I did recieve a comment to the entry (from an anonymous user) saying that you have to shutdown the database before recreating the password file. I don't recall ever reading that or hearing it mentioned on a course, could be true or it could be one of the many Oracle myths going around. I found an example on orafaq.com that does include shutting down the database (after recreating the password file) but also talks about changing REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE in the init.ora file, which would require a database restart.

It is troubling that changing the password in the password file isn't immediately reflected in a running instance. If you're changing the password then, unless it's a scheduled prophylactic change, it's likely because you know or believe someone has the password who shouldn't have or you need to set a throwaway password to allow a consultant short term access then change back when they're done. In either case you want the password to be changed immediately and not requiring a database restart. In my experience getting the business to agree a database restart on a production system is like trying to get a straight answer from Oracle Marketing.

Comments

Anonymous said…
If you could do SYSDBA with OS authentication, why didn't you just ALTER USER SYS IDENTIFIED BY <password>? It would update the password file automatically.

Is the Oracle database running on UNIX?
Sunday, July 02, 2006 2:00:00 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Changing Oracle Database ID and Name (nid)

 Getting back into Oracle as a DBA I've been reading up and watching tutorials to try to get the old skills back and update to the new tools, last time I DBAed in anger we were still on Oracle 7 and 8i, 9i had been out a while and 10g was in early versions, but because much of our software was so old we weren't using it much.  I came across a tutorial on how to update the name and ID of a database.  This is useful if you have copied a database and want to rename the copy to stop it being confused with the old, or if you want to have it on the same machine as the old.  The database ID is an internal number used by Oracle to identify the database, it looks like the main reason you'd want to change the ID is if you use RMAN and want to have both in the same repository. PLEASE NOTE: The below is based on a tutorial I watched and has not been tested, errors and omissions are expected.  Before using in production do a few practice runs on sandbox databases.  Proc...
Read more

Oracle aims to secure future of Sparc, Solaris and Sun hardware

Interesting article on ComputerWeekly.com about how Oracle are looking to secure the future of Sparc, Solaris and Sun Hardware . They don't mention it but I wouldn't be surprised if we see 'Database as an Appliance' coming soon with Oracle Database running on Sun Hardware with management taken out of the hands of the local DBA and automated or made accessible only to Oracle themselves. This isn't a 'Death of the DBA' thing, the sort of sites that could go for something like that are probably the ones that don't have a DBA, just a support tech who has a couple of books, the sort of sites that probably run M$ SQLServer now. One thing they mention, as an aside, is that Oracle plan to OpenOffice.org to position it as a competitor to Microsoft Office. If they want to do that then I think the thing they really need to introduce to the suite is a desktop RDBMS to beat Access. Ideally something that can also act as a front end to Oracle with a tool that will...
Read more

Tablet PCs - Why so pricey?

Is touch screen really expensive to do or something. I've been tossing around the idea of getting a tablet PC to stick OneNote on to use for note taking, reading documents and some web surfing (including Gmail) via WiFi. I'm having to attend a lot of meetings/briefings where the ability to take notes and link them to documents and web pages would be incredibly useful. Looking around the web the options seem to be: iPad, around the £500-900 mark but won't multitask or run OneNote and from what I've heard from all but the most ardent Apple worshipper is basically crap (iPhone without the ability to make calls) Tiny and low spec (more of a PDA than PC) around the £400-700 mark Equivalent spec to a, non-touchscreen, laptop that currently retails for about £300-450 but costing £1500-2100 I think I'm stick with pencil and paper with printouts of docs I want to read for now. In terms of specification what I'm looking for is: 10-12 inch screen Run OneNote 2007, Acroba...
Read more