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Password Device Fun
By Eric Gross | August 31, 2007
Each Oracle database (or ASM instance) can have a password file associated with it to allow users to connect as a privileged user (SYSDBA) through the listener. Even when connecting from the same host running the instance, you will not be able to make a SYSDBA connection through the listener, if a password file is not configured properly. For some reason the DBCA uses a listener connection when performing activities on databases, which require ASM for access to storage. When there is a problem connecting to the ASM instance or to the database being manipulated, there is little information in the log directing you to the specific problem; rather you get a message like this:
Supplied ASM SYSDBA password is invalid.
Unfortunately there are many problems besides an incorrect password that results in this message. The file or device that contains the Oracle password device must obviously be readable by the user running the Oracle processes, but there is an additional requirement that is more difficult to spot, especially if you don’t realize that it is a requirement: the file or device must be owned by the Oracle user. It is not sufficient for the Oracle user to have permissions to access (or even write to) the file or device, it must be the owner.
Topics: 10gR2, Create Database, DBCA