Password file maintenance on Clustered ASM and RAC databases

A recurring question during Grid Infrastructure and RAC courses I teach is “How do you manage Oracle password files in a clustered environment?”. The answer isn’t as straight forward as you might think because there are significant differences between ASM and RAC (==clustered database) environments. Additionally, in recent releases changes were made concerning password file [...Original article...]

A Posted by Harald van Breederode on January 14, 2011

Summary Password file maintenance on Clustered ASM and RAC databases

For ASM releases prior to 11gR2 password files should either be placed on a shared filesystem (and symlinked from $ORACLE_HOME/dbs) or password file changes should be performed manually on all instances in order to keep the password file contents synchronized on all nodes.

For ASM releases from 11gR2 onwards there is no need to place the password files on a shared filesystem because password file changes are automatically propagated to remote instances.

For RAC environments password files should either be placed on a shared filesystem (and symlinked from $ORACLE_HOME/dbs) or password file changes should be performed manually on all instances in order to keep the password file contents synchronized on all nodes.