Re: External tables. Security concerns.

On 19 Aug 2006 08:02:32 -0700, artmt_at_hotmail.com wrote:

>OK. I have Oracle database on one machine and files that contain data
>source for external tables on another.
>If FTP or NFS mounting are not recommended, what other options do I
>have?

 scp, SFTP and rsync are at least encrypted (including the credentials - unlike FTP which sends them in plain text) and score a bit better on the security front there.  

 I would guess the main point is that anything that lets end users directly modify files on the database server is something that needs to be set up quite carefully - not so much that it's hard to set up, more that it'd be easy to accidentally leave a hole that could potentially be exploited to gain wider access. A blunt but effective way of avoiding the risk is to have a blanket ban on filesystem access - which your DBAs seem to have chosen. But then that eliminates useful features - i.e. external tables.

>My understanding is that DBMS_FILE_TRANSFER is for transferring files
>between Oracle databases. Can it also be used for moving ASCII files
>from a non-Oracle machine?

 Your understanding looks correct; it's for transferring files between Oracle databases, and so would not be useful for this case.

-- 
Andy Hassall :: andy@andyh.co.uk :: http://www.andyh.co.uk
http://www.andyhsoftware.co.uk/space :: disk and FTP usage analysis tool