Re: difference between sys and sysman

From: Howard J. Rogers <howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 05:44:16 +1000
Message-ID: <3f60d102$0$28119$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>

roger wrote:

>
> "Howard J. Rogers" <howardjr2000_at_yahoo.com.au> wrote in
> news:3f5e340f$0$14559$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au:
>

>> 
>> "Fly" <FLAVYK_at_YAHOO.FR> wrote in message
>> news:3603986d.0309090647.52f1b2bb_at_posting.google.com...
>>> Which is the principal difference between the account sys and sysman?
>>> TIA
>> 
>> That's a bit like asking what's the differences between apples and...
>> space rockets. SYS is a privileged database account, and SYSMAN isn't
>> a database account at all. SYSMAN is the administrative account for
>> the Enterprise Manager's Management Server, which isn't a server in
>> the usual sense, but merely a process (or, on Windows, a service).
>> 
>> About as dissimilar as two completely dissimilar things in a pod could
>> ever hope to be.
>> 
>> Regards
>> HJR
>> 

>
> Not so fast there - maybe.
>
> One of the (not so) great things about Oracle is the fundamental
> coupling between a "user" a schema.
>
> They are one and the same and there's nothing you can do about it,
> except for create all of these things that look for all the world
> like user accounts but really are only there to define a schema,
> and/or (worse) try using synonymns (gak)
>
> Off hand, I don't know if SYSMAN falls into that category or not,
> but you've described one as a "database account" and the other as
> an "administrative account" which would seem to have at least
> some degree of similarity.

SYS is a database account, created with every Oracle database that's ever existed (at least since Version 7!). It has an entry in DBA_USERS. It owns tables (the data dictionary, actually).

SYSMAN is not a database account. It doesn't have an entry in DBA_USERS. It doesn't own tables. It isn't even remotely associated with a database, and therefore there's no schema associated with it. It happens to be the administrative user for starting and stopping an *operating system* process/daemon/service, call it what you will.

Would it help you understand if I said SYS is to SCOTT what SYSMAN is to root? Presumably, you wouldn't expect to find a schema for root within the database?... and you won't for SYSMAN either.

Please try not to confuse the original poster with, er... shall we call it "speculation"?

What I wrote was correct.

Regards
HJR Received on Thu Sep 11 2003 - 14:44:16 CDT