Re: Changing Oracle passwords by end users

Re: changing Oracle passwords in a 'unix-like' way.

I assume the major problem in your mind is how you avoid getting the user to a position where they are stuck without a logon.

One approach (based on something I once did for v6) is as follows: Create a package that does all the serious work. This package should be owned by SYS, and execute rights given to a suitable role so that end-users can execute it.

The critical function in the package should accept the users Oracle id, the old password and the new password; the steps are then:

select encoded password from user$ into memory; alter user identified by old_password;
select encoded password from user$ into memory;

compare the two encoded values: if they match proceed. if they do not match, issue:
alter user XXX identified by values :old_encoded_password;

    to put the password back to what it was.

Then do the
alter user XXX identified by :new_password;

The bullet-proofing, and cosmetics are left as an exercise.  

Hope this gets you started.

-- 
Jonathan Lewis