Why do I get this oracle password file error?

From: Guang Mei <zlmei_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2000 19:35:25 GMT
Message-Id: <10582.114004@fatcity.com>

Hi:

I am trying to understand why I got this "ORA-01991: invalid password file" error during my database creation process.

Here is how I got this error:

I installed Oracle8i (Release 8.1.5) on Sun SPARC Solaris 2.6 (clean installation). I chosed the default installation and let the oracle create an instance (called "areDev00") on the unix box. Everything is OK. There is a password file created by oracle automatically:

$ ls -l /u01/app/oracle/product/8.1.5/dbs/orap* -rwSr----- 1 oracle oinstall 1536 Aug 7 12:07
/u01/app/oracle/product/8.1.5/dbs/orapwareDev00

and in the initareDev00.ora file, the following is set by oracle default installation:

remote_login_passwordfile = exclusive

Everything is fine except that I don't like the the file size and storage that oracle defult creates.

So, I used svrmgrl to log in as internal, did "shutdown normal" and it shut down the instance successfully. I remove all the files in
/u02/oradata/areDev00
/u03/oradata/areDev00
/u04/oradata/areDev00

Now I planning to re-create the the database instance with more tablespaces (such as DATA and RBSBIG, etc) and with different storage clause. But I got this password file error:

$ ./svrmgrl

Oracle Server Manager Release 3.1.5.0.0 - Production

(c) Copyright 1997, Oracle Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Oracle8i Release 8.1.5.0.0 - Production
With the Java option
PL/SQL Release 8.1.5.0.0 - Production

SVRMGR> connect internal
Connected.
SVRMGR> startup nomount
pfile=/u01/app/oracle/admin/areDev00/pfile/initareDev00.ora ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area                         51830160 bytes
Fixed Size                                          64912 bytes
Variable Size                                    18030592 bytes
Database Buffers                                 33554432 bytes
Redo Buffers                                       180224 bytes

SVRMGR> create database areDev00
controlfile reuse
logfile
GROUP 1
(

        '/u03/oradata/areDev00/redog101.log',
        '/u03/oradata/areDev00/redog102.log'

) size 10M reuse,
GROUP 2
(

        '/u04/oradata/areDev00/redog201.log',
        '/u04/oradata/areDev00/redog202.log'

) size 10M reuse
datafile '/u02/oradata/areDev00/system01.dbf' size 50M reuse autoextend on next 10M maxsize 200M character set WE8ISO8859P1;

     2>      3>      4>      5>      6>      7>      8>      9>     10>     
11>     12>     13>     14>     15>     16> /

create database areDev00
*
ORA-01501: CREATE DATABASE failed
ORA-01991: invalid password file
'/u01/app/oracle/product/8.1.5/dbs/orapwareDev00'

---

At this point, I tried different ways, such as remove the password file and re-run the script, and it did not work.

Finally, I opened the initareDev00.ora file and changed "exclusive" to "shared":

remote_login_passwordfile = shared

and then :

$ ./svrmgrl

Oracle Server Manager Release 3.1.5.0.0 - Production

(c) Copyright 1997, Oracle Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Oracle8i Release 8.1.5.0.0 - Production
With the Java option
PL/SQL Release 8.1.5.0.0 - Production

SVRMGR> connect internal
Connected.
SVRMGR> startup nomount
pfile=/u01/app/oracle/admin/areDev00/pfile/initareDev00.ora ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area                         51830160 bytes
Fixed Size                                          64912 bytes
Variable Size                                    18030592 bytes
Database Buffers                                 33554432 bytes
Redo Buffers                                       180224 bytes
SVRMGR>  create database areDev00
     2> controlfile reuse
     3> logfile
     4> GROUP 1
     5> (
     6>         '/u03/oradata/areDev00/redog101.log',
     7>         '/u03/oradata/areDev00/redog102.log'
     8> ) size 10M reuse,
     9> GROUP 2
    10> (
    11>         '/u04/oradata/areDev00/redog201.log',
    12>         '/u04/oradata/areDev00/redog202.log'
    13> ) size 10M reuse
    14> datafile '/u02/oradata/areDev00/system01.dbf'

    15> size 50M reuse autoextend on next 10M maxsize 200M     16> character set WE8ISO8859P1;
/

Statement processed.

Then I preceed to create all the tablespaces, rollback segments etc without any problem.

---

So my questions are:

1. Why the "create database..." failed when the setting was "exclusive"?
2. Why it works now with "shared"?
3. Am I creating any potential problems by setting value to "shared"? (We are not using remote client to do startup or shutdown anyway).

I am trying to understand what this password file does (I read oracle documentation several times but still could not understand what is does)

Thanks.

Guang

---

Received on Mon Aug 07 2000 - 14:35:25 CDT