Re: svrmgrl's passwd

Hi Pete.

> If you use the orapwd utility you can pass only one password to it, this
is then used for SYS and INTERNAL.

Close. If you use the orapwd utility you can indeed only pass it one password. This is the password used for INTERNAL (not SYS).

If you execute the 'alter user sys identified by ...' command, that changes the password for SYS, but also has the side effect of changing the password for INTERNAL as well.

> Also you cannot use sqlplus or svrmgrl to change the internal password as
it then complains that the user does not exist.

True. As far as the database is concerned there is no INTERNAL user. When you execute the 'connect internal' or 'connect / as sysdba' commands you are basically authenticating yourself to the OS. You can do that because either A) the password you supply is the one contained in the password file or B) you are in the right OS group (defined when the Oracle software is installed). These are called password file and OS authentication respectively.

However, when you connect to a database you have to connect to a schema, so when you do 'connect internal' you are connecting into the SYS schema. If you were to 'grant sysdba to DAVE' and then 'connect DAVE/PASSWORD as sysdba' you would have the same privilege level as INTERNAL but be connected to the DAVE schema.

> Maybe i misunderstand you, how can you set the internal password
> different to the SYS password ?

Follow these steps. NOTE: the steps listed here are for a UNIX box. If you do this on a Windoze box you have to monkey with extra things like the Service.

1. make sure you are NOT using OS authentication. That means take the username (at the UNIX level) of the user you are going to do this with OUT of the UNIX group that controls OS authentication (it's usually called DBA, but doesn't have to be).
2. create a password file with the orapwd utility. pick the password you want to use for INTERNAL.
3. connect as INTERNAL and supply the password you just created.
4. connect as SYS and supply the password for the SYS account.
5. if the SYS password is the same as the INTERNAL password at this point, execute and 'alter user sys identified by ...' command (note that this will change the INTERNAL password as well). then go do step 2, 3 and 4 again and (as long as you picked a password for SYS that was different than the one you picked for INTERNAL) you'll see they are different.

HTH, Dave Haas Received on Sat Aug 04 2001 - 23:42:02 CDT