Mysterious behaviour with exp

[Quoted] I have cloned a production database to a "test" and a "development" version. These have been used for a while now.

I have put a cronjob to do an export. Essentially, a script file
(Solaris, Oracle 8.1.7) is called, and essentially something like this
is coded into it:

exp / consistent=y log=<logfile> etc.

(the options themselves are not relevant to the problem).

The script gets the ORACLE_SID as a parameter (an exported variable inside the script). Although the same script is used for all DBs, while using the "test" DB the script fails because it can't connect to it - it is just a login question.

If I manually start the script for the test DB, I get an error while trying to connect and am given the chance to put a username and a password. If these are correct, export succeeds, but just putting "/" as in the script does not work.

The script is run in the same machine hosting the DB. The only difference I found comparing to other DBs was a parameter in the init file relating authentication, and its value would be "" (empty) in one case, or OPC$ (or something similar, sorry I can't tell for sure since I am not at the office right now). This is a kind of prefix which, if prepended to the username, would allow anyone to connect bypassing Oracle's own authentication mechanisms (OS based). I just can't understand how this has to do with the login problem, since the script in the crontab is being executed by the user "oracle" (it is in his crontab).

Please help me understand!

Thanks

Rick Received on Thu Nov 15 2001 - 23:32:54 CET