Overview of Users and Security

For users to access your database, you the database administrator must create user accounts and grant appropriate database access privileges to those accounts. A user account is identified by a username and defines the user's security attributes, including the following:

• Authentication method

• Password (encrypted) for database authentication

• Tablespace access

• Tablespace quotas

• Whether the account is locked or not

User accounts are usually created by a database administrator or a person specifically assigned to create accounts and administer security. After you create a user account, you must grant basic privileges to the account to enable the user to connect to the database and to view and create database objects, known as schema objects. The name of the schema is identical to the name of the user.

All databases include the SYS, SYSTEM, SYSMAN, and DBSNMP administrative accounts. Other accounts are included depending upon what features or options are installed.

The administrative accounts provided by Oracle Database should be used only by authorized individuals. To protect these accounts from unauthorized access, these accounts are initially locked with their passwords expired. As the database administrator, you are responsible for the unlocking and resetting of these accounts as described in "Unlocking Accounts and Resetting Passwords". Table 7-1 contains descriptions of some of these accounts.