Connecting to Oracle

The subject of this thread is the same as one I posted in the Linux forum, but now I'm having a differnt problem connecting to Oracle. My DBA is a very interesting person to say the least. For some reason, he doesn't know the password to get into my oracle. In order to even run Oracle, I have to log into Linux as "oracle" and use a password the gave to me. Then I run SQL*Plus and it opens and asks me for the username and password. I tried the same username/password as what I had to use to log into Linux, but it doesn't work. My DBA's solution was to try and use orapwd to change the password so that I can log in. I ran orapwd and it wanted filename, password, and something else that I didn't even understand. So now I'm asking you guys. I have root access, so how can I reset the Oracle password so I can actually log in and do some work?

Did you try the usual default passwords? Your "funny" dba might have left them unchanged ...

What are the usual defualt password. I wouldn't be surprised. I've gotta so this whole experience (moving from Windows and MySQL to Linux and Oracle) has been a learning one. With all the difficulties I've had to surpass in order to get things working, I should be able to help anybody with problems they're having. Seems like I've faced everything. Hopefully, this will be the last obstacle and I can finally go back to working on the actual site.

Well, notice that you can work with oracle remaining on windows, sqlplus and all management tools can control from Windows an Oracle server running on ANY platform. Just add the appropriate entry to tnsnames.ora and no need to stay in a cold, noisy server room

Anyway the default username/password are:
scott/tiger
system/manager
sys/change_on_install

Hope this helps!

Well none of the default usernames/passwords worked. I looked into tnsnames.ora and saw the database I'm supposed to connect to, but I don't know what to change in order to control from Windows. Wouldn't I have to load some stuff in windows as well? I'm not actually working in the server room. I SSH from a windows computer.

So there's nothing I can do to like "reset" Oracle?

Thanks for your help so far. I really do appreciate it.

If you have the right entry in tnsnames.ora in your windows PC, you can use sqlplus or any other thing from your machine on that db server. Even create another db for test.
What was the reaction to those user/passw ?

At worst try http://home.earthlink.net/~adamshal...ssword_cracker/

Okay, what would be the "right" entry? And how exactly would I go about all of this. What would I use to connect from the Windows PC. When I was trying to connect to SQL*Plus, it just said invalid username/password for all the three tries.

I'll take a look at the link, and judging from the name of the link, it sounds...interesting.

The right entry identifies correctly your db (SID ...), and gets a positive answer from a tnsping. So if user/pass are wrong from windows they won't work from linux too!
You should consider that Oracle is more "structured" than MySQL or other, and that you NEED support from your dba (but the username/password to connect and the tnsnames entry are considered standard stuff, not support).