Re: oracle password file?

Well, if you don't know ANY passwords, including passwords for INTERNAL and SYS, this is bad. There is no way to extract the passwords from Oracle datafiles of password file. However, it is very possible that the previous DBA left over some scripts (like scripts for backup, export, import, etc) and the password are somewhere within. So, look for scripts.

Password file contains list of users with special privileges (known as OSDBA, OSOPER), the passwords are in coded form.

The undocumented way mentioned exists for becoming a user (CREATE USER user IDENTIFIED BY VALUE '...., ALTER USER user IDENTIFIED BY VALUE ...), however, it does not help with your problem.

If you reinstall Oracle without creating the database, you just reinstall the software, it does not help with passwords. If you create new database, you delete all data.

E-mail me if you have any questions.

Seva

Sweth Chandramouli wrote:
>
> + i just "inherited" an oracle database at work, to which no one
> seems to know any of the passwords. is there some easy way to (with root
> access on the machine) reset these manually, or will i need to reinstall
> oracle? someone suggested to me that the passwords were stored in the
> /opt/oracle7/dbs/orapwWG73 file, which could be edited with root access;
> if so, i can't figure out the format of that file. any suggestions would
> be appreciated.
>
> -- sweth.
>
> --
> .
  Received on Tue Oct 14 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT