Used or allowed
Randy, December  27, 2001 - 4:57 pm UTC
 
 
Is that the number of password entries allowed or actually used? 
 
December  27, 2001 - 5:36 pm UTC 
 
 
number allowed.  number used = select count(*) from v$pwfile_users 
 
 
 
Good one
Randy, December  27, 2001 - 5:53 pm UTC
 
 
Oh yeah--completely forgot about the dictionary view for that.  I should have those things memorized by now!!
-Thanks 
 
 
How to do this in NT?
Lisa, December  28, 2001 - 11:08 am UTC
 
 
The answer 1, how do I come up the command if my password file is reside in NT box?
Thanks. 
 
December  28, 2001 - 11:31 am UTC 
 
 
use dir instead of ls, the math is the same. 
 
 
 
Nirmal, December  31, 2001 - 8:21 am UTC
 
 
Oracle 817 on WinNT4.
c:\> orawpd file=c:\orarep.ora password=oracle entries=2
The file was created and it's size is 2k.
now the calculation:
2k = 2*1024 = 2048
=> 2048 - 1024 = 1024
=> 1024/128 = 8.
So it's meaning that i can keep maxinum 8 user entries in the passwordword. It's not 2, since i created the file entries=2?.
Can you pls clear out this. 
 
December  31, 2001 - 8:40 am UTC 
 
 
do this:
C:\>orapwd file=c:\orarep.ora password=oracle entries=2
C:\>dir orarep.ora
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is F455-B3C3
 Directory of C:\
12/31/2001  08:42a               1,536 orarep.ora
               1 File(s)          1,536 bytes
               0 Dir(s)   7,823,032,320 bytes free
for me, its not 2k using 816 and 901 (and I seriously doubt 817 would be any different).
 
 
 
 
8.1.7 Password File Size
Mark A. Williams, December  31, 2001 - 10:22 am UTC
 
 
Tom:
Here it is on 8.1.7...
C:\Temp>c:\oracle\8.1\bin\orapwd file=orarep.ora password=oracle entries=2
C:\Temp>dir orarep.ora
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 6056-B9DA
 Directory of C:\Temp
12/31/2001  10:23a               1,536 orarep.ora
               1 File(s)          1,536 bytes
               0 Dir(s)   8,502,665,216 bytes free
Shock!  Horror!  It is the same.  Luckily I was sitting down.  Now, of course, if you just look at it from Windows Explorer it will say '2K' because it rounds in the display...
- Mark 
 
 
Password File Size Discussions
Vikas Khanna, February  16, 2002 - 7:31 am UTC
 
 
Hello Tom,
Even if you specified the size tobe 1536 bytes if the no. of enteries are 2 in the password file, then also by applying your formala the result is coming to be 4 entries which is not the right case??
1536 - 1024 =  512 bytes
512/128 gives u 4 instead of 2 entries.
Where is the problem??
In some cases it is coming to be true as per your formula. Why it is so differentiating ?? 
 
February  22, 2002 - 9:27 am UTC 
 
 
It is right -- you ask for 2, 3 or 4 and we give you 4.  It is rounded up. 
 
 
 
Pls Clarify
Anirudh, May       20, 2003 - 7:00 am UTC
 
 
Hi Tom,
could you please clarify this:
"It is right -- you ask for 2, 3 or 4 and we give you 4.  It is rounded up. "
Thanks
 
 
May       20, 2003 - 12:52 pm UTC 
 
 
it means regardless of whether you asked for 1, 2, 3 or 4 entries, we allocate 4 of them at a time. 
 
 
 
password file creation in oracle 9i
Mujib Kasem, October   13, 2003 - 1:25 am UTC
 
 
In the oracle8i we create pwd file by using ORADIM utility before database creation. But in oracle 9i how can we do that thing . 
 
 
password file
atul, February  12, 2004 - 12:19 pm UTC
 
 
Hi,
We are having a database running with ownership of oracle as
oracle  66568  1   0   Feb 09  -  0:03 ora_smon_test_154
I don't have oracle password,but through password file i can login as "svrmgrl" or as "sysdba".
When i logged in through my unix-id "t1test" and connected as svrmgrl and started the database it shows as follows:
t1test  66568  1   0   Feb 09  -  0:03 ora_smon_test_154
If you see its showing my id instead of "oracle".
Can i give this database to users to use,what ill effects are there to start with other id?
Thank,
ATUL
 
 
February  12, 2004 - 12:40 pm UTC 
 
 
probably means your install is wrong.  what are the permissions on the oracle binary?  it should look like this:
$ ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/bin/oracle
-rwsr-s--x    1 ora9ir2  ora9ir2  51500205 Nov 25 10:55 /home/ora9ir2/bin/oracle
if you do not see the 's' in there, your install is wrong, you did not run root.sh after installing. 
 
 
 
password file
atul, February  13, 2004 - 7:35 am UTC
 
 
Hi,
setting is as follows:
-rwsr-s--x   1 oracle   dba  37836717 Dec 02 2002  oracle
You can see 's' there.
One thing is that this base has been upgraded from 8.0.6 to 8.1.7..
Thank,
ATUL 
 
February  13, 2004 - 10:24 am UTC 
 
 
"base".  hmmm. whats that.  anyway.
if the setuid bit is on
AND
it is the actual binary you are using (eg: you are not confused over oracle homes)
AND 
the userid isn't showing as oracle
THEN
something is fishy in your system.
regardless of who I log in as, when you have a setuid program as the oracle binary is, it'll be running "as the owner"
tell me, what does ipcs -a show you, who is the owner of the shared memory segments associated with the SGA.  If that is not Oracle -- you are "getting confused" somewhere for the s bit would ensure that Oracle was the owner.
 
 
 
 
Password file
atul, July      27, 2004 - 3:55 am UTC
 
 
Hi,
I am using oracle 8.1.7.
My remote_login_passwordfile='EXCLUSIVE',
When i try to connect using "conn sys as sysdba" and provide
password, it gives error as 
"ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied",
But when i connect through svrmgrl and give the same passowrd,It will get connected...
Whats wrong?
Thank,
Atul 
 
July      27, 2004 - 7:24 am UTC 
 
 
show us a cut and paste, include the banners for sqlplus and svrmgrl.
 
 
 
 
Nice
Raju, May       25, 2005 - 1:18 pm UTC
 
 
Dear Tom,
I use Oracle under Windows NT.How to access the password file??
Can we write a procedure or function
to access those values 
 
May       25, 2005 - 3:29 pm UTC 
 
 
what password file?  the oracle one?  it is just a binary (not useful to you) file in the OS.  You would need OS access to it.
You can "query" it
 
ops$tkyte@ORA9IR2> select * from v$pwfile_users;
 
USERNAME                       SYSDB SYSOP
------------------------------ ----- -----
SYS                            TRUE  TRUE
 
 
 
 
 
How Many Users can be defined in PWFILE
Mark Harrison, August    10, 2006 - 10:57 am UTC
 
 
Tom, thanks. The thread entirely answered a previously unknown and "dark area". :-) 
 
 
 
John, June      02, 2009 - 5:43 am UTC
 
 
Hello Tom,
If an Oracle password file contains the password for Administrative accounts, then why is it that in 9i(9.2.0.6 and 9.2.0.8) the timestamp of the file $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapwSID change when a non SYS account is UNLOCKed ?
There is no change in the file size, just the timestamp is updated with latest one.
Thank you.
John 
June      02, 2009 - 7:48 am UTC 
 
 
does it really matter?
ops$tkyte%ORA10GR2> !ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapw$ORACLE_SID
-rw-r-----  1 ora10gr2 ora10gr2 1536 Mar 26 11:52 /home/ora10gr2/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/dbs/orapwora10gr2
ops$tkyte%ORA10GR2> alter user scott account lock;
User altered.
ops$tkyte%ORA10GR2> alter user scott account unlock;
User altered.
ops$tkyte%ORA10GR2> !ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapw$ORACLE_SID
-rw-r-----  1 ora10gr2 ora10gr2 1536 Mar 26 11:52 /home/ora10gr2/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/dbs/orapwora10gr2
I don't have a 9i instance with me today, but frankly, it would definitely fall into the "so what" bucket 
 
 
 
John, June      03, 2009 - 6:45 am UTC
 
 
Just curious on what oracle updates in the orapw<sid> file when an non sys account is unlocked in 9i.
Connected to:
Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.8.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data Mining options
JServer Release 9.2.0.8.0 - Production
SQL>  !ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapwfalcon
-rwSr-----   1 oracle   oinstall    1536 Jun  1 15:03 /u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.1.0/dbs/orapwfalcon
SQL> alter user falcon account unlock;
User altered.
SQL>  !ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapwfalcon
-rwSr-----   1 oracle   oinstall    1536 Jun  3 19:18 /u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.1.0/dbs/orapwfalcon
SQL> exit
Disconnected from Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.8.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data Mining options
JServer Release 9.2.0.8.0 - Production
Thank you. 
 
June      04, 2009 - 10:14 am UTC 
 
 
it just seems to 'touch it', doesn't update it
Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.6.0 - Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data Mining options
JServer Release 9.2.0.6.0 - Production
SQL> @test
SQL>
SQL> !ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapw$ORACLE_SID
-rwSr-----  1 ora9ir2 ora9ir2 1536 Jun  4 09:00 /home/ora9ir2/dbs/orapwora9ir2
SQL> !sum $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapw$ORACLE_SID
17552     2
SQL> exec dbms_lock.sleep(60)
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> alter user scott account unlock;
User altered.
SQL> !ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapw$ORACLE_SID
-rwSr-----  1 ora9ir2 ora9ir2 1536 Jun  4 09:02 /home/ora9ir2/dbs/orapwora9ir2
SQL> !sum $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/orapw$ORACLE_SID
17552     2
 
 
 
 
A reader, October   03, 2009 - 4:50 pm UTC
 
 
Hi Sir;
why pwd file necessary for oracle? I dont need a sysdba password if I need to access the database directly from server.
I notice that hexadecimal sys password can be seen in dba_users
Does it mean that this is an external table?
 
October   08, 2009 - 6:15 am UTC 
 
 
... why pwd file necessary for oracle?..
because it isn't - trick question.  go ahead, erase it, see what happens (on your TEST SYSTEM PLEASE)
 
 
 
A reader, October   10, 2009 - 2:14 am UTC
 
 
I notice that hexadecimal sys password can be seen in dba_users
Does it mean that this is an external table?
 
 
A reader, January   11, 2010 - 3:01 am UTC
 
 
I notice that hexadecimal sys password can be seen in dba_users
Does it mean that this is an external table?
 
January   18, 2010 - 6:21 am UTC 
 
 
how did you get from point A to point B??????
what you see in dba_users is the hashed (not encrypted) representation of the password.  I don't know why you would think that would imply "this is external table"?
For the sysdba connection as sys, the password can be stored externally from the database in the password file.  Normally the password stored in there is IN SYNC with the password in the database, but it doesn't have to be.  If you do an alter user identified by - it'll sync them up, but if you just create a new password file, you can put whatever you want in there and it could be different from the database (dba_users) information. 
 
 
password file location
A reader, February  21, 2010 - 4:39 am UTC
 
 
Greetings thomas,
and thanks like always.
if someone create a password file in a none default location, can i know where or not. 
 
A minor clarification
Kumar, June      08, 2010 - 8:54 am UTC
 
 
Tom,
Any data dictionary view exists which logs the time of password changes for an user? 
 
Last password change
Greg, June      09, 2010 - 9:37 am UTC
 
 
The time of the LAST password change is in the PTIME column of SYS.USER$   But doesn't the SYS.USER_HISTORY$ table have the list of changes?  I don't know if it's 100% accurate, but it seems to be there. 
June      10, 2010 - 12:04 pm UTC 
 
 
that only works if you have the password functions in place. 
 
 
Password History
Greg, June      10, 2010 - 2:05 pm UTC
 
 
Ahh - that explains that!  We've been running some version of password verification for the last 7 years... that's why it seems "standard" to me.
Thanks
Greg 
 
Entries=1 that equal to 4
Saravanan, June      21, 2013 - 10:42 am UTC
 
 
Thanks Tom for your valuable reponse.
If I specify entries=1, you are saying that will be equal to 4.
So Can I include 4 account as sysdba, even If I secify the entries=1 
July      01, 2013 - 4:05 pm UTC 
 
 
up through 11gr2 it is still 4
then... in 12cR1:
[tkyte@localhost ~]$ orapwd file=x.ora entries=1
Enter password for SYS:
[tkyte@localhost ~]$ ls -lag x.ora
-rw-r-----. 1 tkyte 3072 Jul  1 11:59 x.ora
[tkyte@localhost ~]$
it jumped to 16 - but that might not be true on all ports, it is tied to the OS block size in some fashion (but always a multiple of 4) 
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E16655_01/server.121/e17636/dba.htm#sthref128