How To Change SYS user password for oracle database instance

If you have ever tried to change the SYS of a normal or ASM database instance Password, you would get errors as below :

SQL> password
Changing password for SYS
Old password:
New password:
Retype new password:
ERROR:
ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [15051], [], [], [], [], [], [], []

SQL> select INSTANCE_NAME from v$instance; 

INSTANCE_NAME 
---------------- 
+ASM 

SQL> ALTER USER sys IDENTIFIED BY [new_password] REPLACE [old_password]; 
ALTER USER sys IDENTIFIED BY [new_password] REPLACE [old_password]
* 
ERROR at line 1: 
ORA-01109: database not open

The following error also might occur:

SQL> alter user sys identified by ;
alter user sys identified by 
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01031: insufficient privileges

The reason behind these failures are – The password should be the one provided when the password file was created, also REMOTE_LOGIN_PASSWORDFILE should be set to EXCLUSIVE on all instances. If you want to change the password then you would need to recreate the password file using the orapwd utility

Solution

Recreate the password file as follows:
1. Set the ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID
2. connect / as sysdba from sqlplus
3. If the value of the “remote_login_passwordfile” parameter in the pfile or spfile is EXCLUSIVE, you must shutdown your instance
4. RENAME or DELETE the existing password file orapw[SID]
5. Issue the command:

$ orapwd file=[ORACLE_HOME]/dbs/orapw[SID] password=[sys_password]

The passwordfile can be recreated for ASM while ASM instance is up. Usually, for normal DB instances, it is recommended that DB instances be shutdown before changing the passwordfile. In 11.2 you can use asmcmd to change the password for single instance environment as follows

$ export ORACLE_SID=+ASM
$ asmcmd

ASMCMD> passwd sys
Enter old password (optional): ******
Enter new password: ******

In Cluster environment

ASMCMD> orapwusr --modify --password sys

Enter password: ******
ASMCMD> exit

NOTE: This is not applicable for SYSASM privilege.

Solution

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