oracleskill

author : Tim Hall , DBA/Developer , Birmingham, UK

OS authentication allows Oracle to pass control of user authentication to the operating system. Non-priviliged OS authentication connections take the following form.

sqlplus /
sqlplus / @service

When a connection is attempted from the local database server, the OS username is passed to the Oracle server. If the username is recognized, the Oracle the connection is accepted, otherwise the connection is rejected.

This article presents the configuration steps necessary to set up OS authentication on UNIX/Linux and Windows platforms.

First, create an OS user, in this case the user is called "tim_hall". In UNIX and Linux environments this is done using the useradd and passwd commands.

# useradd tim_hall
# passwd tim_hall
Changing password for tim_hall.
New password:
Retype new password:
#

On Windows, local users are created using the Computer Management dialog (Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Computer Management), or domain users can be created in Active Directory.

Next, try to connect to Oracle as an OS authenticated user. We expect this to fail! It may be necessary to set up a few environment variables so that SQL*Plus works correctly. Under UNIX or Linux you would expect something like the following.

# su - tim_hall
$ export  ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/10.1.0/db_1
$ export  PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/bin
$ export ORACLE_SID=DEV1
$ sqlplus /

SQL*Plus: Release 10.1.0.3.0 - Production on Wed Jun 7 08:43:30 2006
Copyright (c) 1982, 2004,  Oracle.  All rights reserved.

ERROR:

ORA-01017: invalid  username/password; logon denied

The following is the Windows equivalent.

C:\> set ORACLE_SID=DB10G
C:\> sqlplus /

SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.1.0 -  Production on Tue Oct 17 11:17:55 2006
Copyright (c) 1982, 2005,  Oracle.  All rights reserved.

ERROR:
ORA-01017: invalid  username/password; logon denied

In both cases, the connections failed because we have not told Oracle the users are OS authenticated. To do this, we must create an Oracle user, but first we must check the value of the Oracle OS_AUTHENT_PREFIX initialization parameter.

SQL> SHOW PARAMETER  os_authent_prefix

NAME                                 TYPE        VALUE
------------------------------------  ----------- ------
os_authent_prefix                    string      ops$

SQL>

As you can see, the default value is "ops$". If this is not appropriate it can be changed using the ALTER SYSTEM command, but for now we will use this default value.

Now we know the OS authentication prefix, we can create a database user to allow an OS authenticated connection. To do this, we create an Oracle user in the normal way, but the username must be the prefix value concatenated to the OS username. So for the OS user "tim_hall", we would expect an Oracle username of "ops$tim_hall" on a UNIX or Linux platform.

-- UNIX
CREATE USER ops$tim_hall IDENTIFIED  EXTERNALLY;
GRANT CONNECT TO ops$tim_hall;

The situation is complicated slightly on Windows platforms as the domain or machine name forms part of the username presented to Oracle. On Windows platforms you would expect an Oracle username of "OPS$DOMAIN\TIM_HALL" for the Windows user "tim_hall".

-- Windows
CREATE USER  "OPS$ORACLE-BASE.COM\TIM_HALL" IDENTIFIED EXTERNALLY;
GRANT CONNECT TO  "OPS$ORACLE-BASE.COM\TIM_HALL";

When using a Windows server, there is an additional consideration. The following option must be set in the "%ORACLE_HOME%\network\admin\sqlnet.ora" file.

SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES=(NTS)

With the configuration complete, we can repeat our OS authentication connection tests. First, in a UNIX or Linux environment.

su - tim_hall
export  ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/10.1.0/db_1
export PATH=$PATH:$ORACLE_HOME/bin
export ORACLE_SID=DEV1
sqlplus /

SQL*Plus: Release 10.1.0.3.0 -  Production on 
Wed Jun 7 08:41:15 2006
Copyright (c) 1982, 2004,  Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition  Release 10.1.0.3.0 
-Production With the Partitioning, Oracle Label  Security, 
OLAP and Data Mining options
SQL>

Then the same test in a Windows environment.

C:\> set ORACLE_SID=DB10G
C:\> sqlplus /

SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.1.0 -  Production on 
Tue Oct 17 11:47:01 2006
Copyright (c) 1982, 2005,  Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition  Release 10.2.0.1.0
 - Production With the Partitioning, OLAP and  Data Mining options
SQL>

As you can see, the database servers in both environments are now configured to allow the user "tim_hall" to connect using OS authentication