oracle 10g xe install on ubuntu. problems logging in and creating database

Question

objective: to install oracle 10g xe on ubuntu. method followed :www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/install/xe-on-kubuntu.html problem: The installation went fine and at 1 point it asked me for a password for the system account and I gave it lets say 'securepassword' that. Now, I have 2 problems:

1. I want to create a database. There is a createdb script in the bin directory, but everytime I run it, it says :

ORACLE_HOME must be set and $ORACLE_HOME/dbs must be writable

So I set the ORACLE_HOME but i still get the problem. I figure that since all files in the dbs directory are owned by the 'oracle' user and the dba group, I'll su to oracle and run the command. Turns out 'securepassword' doesnt work for the oracle user. The Oracle installation created a user called 'oracle' but gave it some passwod I dont know about. Whats this password ?

I also tried adding my current user to the dba group and trying it again. Didnt work either

1. When I run ./sqlplus from the bin directory, I try to login as sys\'securepassword'. Didnt work! Tried system\'securepassword'. Didnt work either.

The only place system/'securepassword' worked was to get into the apex web interface. Can someone tel me the default password for the oracle user and how to login to sqlplus ?

Answer 1

Can you log in as sys with os based authentication? Then you should be able to set passwords, etc. sqlplus / as sysdba ?

After re-reading the question, it sounds like you are trying to find the password for the OS user "oracle"? If you installed the software as root, you should be able to set a new password for the user "oracle" using the passwd utility.

Answer 2

you helped me out with the 2nd part, sure enough I changed the password for the oracle user and created the database. But I still don't know how to log into sqlplus. Could you elaborate on this :

"Can you log in as sys with os based authentication? Then you should be able to set passwords, etc. sqlplus / as sysdba ?"

Answer 3

I can think of three reasons why

sqlplus sys\'securepassword'

wont' work:

1. You're using backslashes. Use forward slashes instead.
2. Don't put quotes around the password.
3. If connecting as SYS, you'll need to add as sysdba as otherwise you get the following error message:

ERROR:
ORA-28009: connection as SYS should be as SYSDBA or SYSOPER

So, assuming that securepassword is the password for both SYS and SYSTEM, both of the following lines should work:

sqlplus sys/securepassword as sysdba
sqlplus system/securepassword

In Oracle, 'OS-based authentication' means that if your Ubuntu user account is a member of the dba group, then you can log in as SYS without a password by typing

sqlplus / as sysdba

in a shell window. This is handy if you forget your SYS password and need to reset it.

Incidentally, I ran into a completely non-obvious issue installing Oracle 10g XE on my openSUSE box. I needed to run

chown oracle /var/tmp/.oracle

as root to clear up a permissions error which prevented the database from starting.