Chapter 15. Managing Users

Terms you'll need to understand:

• CREATE USER

• ALTER USER

• OS_AUTHENT_PREFIX

• EXTERNALLY

• QUOTA

• PASSWORD EXPIRE

• ACCOUNT LOCK

• ACCOUNT UNLOCK

• REMOTE_OS_AUTHENT

Concepts you'll need to master:

• Create new database users.

• Alter database users.

• Drop database users.

• Monitor information about existing users.

Your database will be of little use if you are the only one who can log in to it. It will be highly unstable and unsecure if you allow everyone to log in as SYS or SYSTEM. Therefore, one of the other functions that will occasionally occupy your time is creating, deleting, or managing users. This chapter provides valuable insight into the care and feeding of your users from the standpoint of the database.

Naturally, the safest database is one that no users ever have a means of connecting to. However, with no users, there is little reason for a database to exist. The database administrator (you) defines the names of the users who are permitted to access the database, and a security domain defines the settings that apply to each user. This chapter covers how to create, alter, delete, and monitor users in your database.

Because you can do little with a user until you actually have at least one user defined to your database, we will look at creating users first.