encrypted listener password

There a few major changes in the database administration and the database security between 9i and 10g.

In 9i, I used to grep in the listener.ora to find out the password.

LISTENER_LSC61 =
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=
(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=dbsrv85a.ex.zkb.ch)(PORT=10061)(QUEUESIZE=200))
))
PASSWORDS_LISTENER_LSC61 = 1234567890ABCDEF

this 64bit encrypted string can be used in 9i to stop the listener

$ lsnrctl

LSNRCTL for IBM/AIX RISC System/6000: Version 9.2.0.6.0 – Production on 05-DEC-2005 14:33:51

Copyright (c) 1991, 2002, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.

Welcome to LSNRCTL, type “help” for information.

LSNRCTL> set current_listener listener_lsc61
Current Listener is listener_lsc61
LSNRCTL> set password 1234567890ABCDEF
The command completed successfully
LSNRCTL> stop
Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=dbsrv85a.ex.zkb.ch)(PORT=10061)(QUEUESIZE=200)))
The command completed successfully

As a dba, it is quite handy, because you can use grep (or awk) to find out the password out of the listener.ora. As a security admin, you should make sure the listener.ora is not readable. Note that the default, when created by netmgr, is to be world-readable 🙁

However, this does no longer work in 10g

LISTENER_LSC62 =
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=
(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=dbsrv85a.ex.zkb.ch)(PORT=10062)(QUEUESIZE=200))
))

PASSWORDS_listener_LSC62 = 1234567890ABCDEF

the encrypted string can no longer be used

$ lsnrctl

LSNRCTL for IBM/AIX RISC System/6000: Version 10.1.0.4.0 – Production on 05-DEC-2005 14:37:24

Copyright (c) 1991, 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Welcome to LSNRCTL, type “help” for information.

LSNRCTL> set current_listener listener_lsc62
Current Listener is listener_lsc62
LSNRCTL> set password 1234567890ABCDEF
The command completed successfully
LSNRCTL> stop
Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=dbsrv85a.ex.zkb.ch)(PORT=10062)(QUEUESIZE=200)))
TNS-01169: The listener has not recognized the password
TNS-01189: The listener could not authenticate the user

As a security admin, you would think it is better so. But, how are you going to stop the listener in your script? Well, in 10g, we can use local authentification (default). So if the script is started as oracle, we would not need to use password

LISTENER_LSC63 =
(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=
(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=dbsrv85a.ex.zkb.ch)(PORT=10016)(QUEUESIZE=200))
))

PASSWORDS_listener_LSC63 = 1234567890ABCDEF

$ whoami
oracle
$ hostname
dbsrv85a.ex.zkb.ch
$ lsnrctl

LSNRCTL for IBM/AIX RISC System/6000: Version 10.2.0.1.0 – Production on 05-DEC-2005 14:43:33

Copyright (c) 1991, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Welcome to LSNRCTL, type “help” for information.

LSNRCTL> set current_listener LISTENER_LSC63
Current Listener is LISTENER_LSC63
LSNRCTL> stop
Connecting to (DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=dbsrv85a.ex.zkb.ch)(PORT=10016)(QUEUESIZE=200)))
The command completed successfully

I read in an Alex Kornbrust post on Pete Finnigan forum, that a LOCAL_OS_AUTHENTICATION “undocumented” parameter could be used to “avoid” local authentication, but in that case, it is going to be a nightmare to “stop” the listener in an automated script, well, we can still use “kill”, but it is not very beautifoul.