ORA-01031: insufficient privileges

[heloisa]

Hi I'm new to Oracle and computers and I need help.
I installed Oracle 8.1.7 and OEM2.2 on Win2K. I could connect to the database as sysdba but now I can't anymore (either through DBAStudio or using SVRMGR). I keep getting ORA-01031: insufficient privileges

I can connect using sys/change_on_install or system/manager or my own OS username/password, but not as sysdba.

I know that in order to start up an Oracle database using the connect internal or connect / as sysdba syntax, the currently logged in OS user must be in the ORA_DBA Windows group, if the operating system is Windows NT or 2000. And I double-checked it already, in fact it was working fine before. Any idea about what might be happening?

Thank you in advance.

[ndisang]

to invoke svrmgr you you need to be the owner of the software. Usually Oracle in group dba on unix.
Make sure that by the time you attempt to invoke svrmgr your id on the OS should be Oracle.
hope this helps.

[heloisa]

thanks for the reply.

I don't know about UNIX, since i'm using Windows, but I guess when you talk about the dba group in UNIX is this same as ORA_DBA group in Windows.

Here's some more information on the problem I'm having, if somebody can help...

The parameter remote_login_passwordfile is set to exclusive
and this is all I had in the password file were the users INTERNAL and SYS

Then I added my OS username (part of the ORA_DBA group)to the password file.

Now I am able to connect to the database as SYSDBA using DBA Studio and OEM, which I couldn't do before. Great!!!

BUT... I still get the “Insufficient Privileges” error if I try to connect as sysdba through Srvmgrl or Sqlplus… What am I missing? If these users (sys and hp) are in the password file, why can't I connect as sysdba then?

D:\>sqlplus sys/change_on_install
SQL> connect / as sysdba
ERROR:
ORA-01031: insufficient privileges
Warning: You are no longer connected to ORACLE.

D:\>sqlplus hp/password
SQL> connect / as sysdba
ERROR:
ORA-01031: insufficient privileges
Warning: You are no longer connected to ORACLE.

Thank you.

Heloisa

[ndisang]

I think when you use remote_login_passwordfile, you have to create a password file giving a password to both sys and internal. If you have then, you should be trying to connect to sqlplus/svrmgr as internal (sqlplus internal/XXX or simply sqlplus internal) and not sqlplus sys/change_on_install. Is this the password entered in you passwordfile?
2/ When you log through dbastudio, oem you are coming in from the client side and powerful privileges are not an issue as opposed to invoking svmrgr/sqlplus directly.
3/ Do you really need a passwordfile by the way? If you don't then comment it out in your pfile and recycle the instance and you can go back using INTERNAL OR SYSTEM

Hope this helps.

[vndba]

I had ran into this problem a couple times, and the quickest workaround solution is the change the pwdSID.ora file. This is found under Oracle_Home/ora81/database path.

Just simply make a copy of the pwdSID.ora file and delete the original one.

After that, go to the command prompt (Start/run/cmd) and issue the following command:

orapwd file=Oracle_home/ora81/database/pwdSID.ora password=pswd entries=n

The entries option is optional and you can leave this one out.
After that, you should be able to log in as internal/pswd. I normally restart the service just to make sure.

Good luck

John