Changing Oracle Account Passwords Without 'ALTER USER'

[BChico]

So i was reading that Oracle doesnt support using alter user to change passwords, if you are using password management, and they recommend using OCIpasswordchange. You cant call it though from PL/SQL, you have to write a program on C or Java i guess.

Anyone with any experience with this?

 

[notfred]

I don't know where you read that, but you should throw away the book or block the website:

alter user user_name identified by new_password;

 

[BChico]

Hold on a sec...

Oracles 8i administrator guide:

NOTE: Oracle recommends that you do not change passwords using the ALTER USER statement because it does not fully support the password verification function. Instead, you should use OCIPasswordChange() to change passwords.


We are also concerned about passwords showing up in the trace files...upper management is more concerned about this than i am....

Search for OCIPasswordChange

 

[notfred]

Well, everyithing on the internet looks like this, which is what I've done in the past, although I'm not an Oracle admin, so don't take my word as infallible. However, the DBMS definitely does support using "alter user", regardless of whether or not it's recomended.

 

[BChico]

Oh yeah of course...i am a DBA, i was just seeing if anyone has used it to any level.