Re: user "PUBLIC" not in All_USERS

Pete Finnigan wrote:
>>thanks Pete. I was looking at the TYPE#=0 but never looked in DBA_ROLES.
>>But ...
>>
>>Connected to:
>>Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.1.0.2.0 - Production
>>With the Partitioning, OLAP and Data Mining options
>>
>>SQL> sho user
>>USER is "SYS"
>>SQL> conn system/manager
>>Connected.
>>SQL> sho user
>>USER is "SYSTEM"
>>SQL>
>>
>>Daniel Morgan
>>

> 
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> You missed the "as sysoper", it is this bit that connects you to the
> public schema, but this is the misnomer!!. Its the same as "as sysdba"
> connecting you to the SYS schema.
> 
> kind regards
> 
> Pete

I did indeed.

Thanks.

I finally decided to do what I should have done in the first place ... RTFM. Here's what I found:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B13789_01/network.101/b10773/admusers.htm#1008126

"Privileges and roles can also be granted to and revoked from the user group PUBLIC. Because PUBLIC is accessible to every database user, all privileges and roles granted to PUBLIC are accessible to every database user."

So PUBLIC is not a schema. It is not a role. It is not a user. It is something entirely different ... it is a "user group".

Which of course leads immediately to the question "What is a user group". So I pursued that next.

http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B13789_01/server.101/b10743/security.htm#i15987 You can create both public and private synonyms. A public synonym is owned by the special user group named PUBLIC and every user in a database can access it.

Backs up the first statement but no explanation.

As does:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B13789_01/network.101/b10773/authoriz.htm#1007291 A user's security domain also includes the privileges and roles granted to the user group PUBLIC.

As does:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B13789_01/network.101/b10773/checklis.htm#1006151

Revoke unnecessary privileges and roles from the database server user group PUBLIC.

But try as I might I could not find a single reference that defined what a "USER GROUP" is in Oracle. So if anyone has an official statement I am all eyes.

Thanks.

Daniel Morgan Received on Sat Jul 17 2004 - 19:07:46 CDT