Joords Oracle DBA blog

Prior to Oracle Database 12c, the password file was always located under $ORACLE_HOME/dbs file structure, even for RAC instances and for RAC ASM cluster. For RAC the DBA organisation had to managed to keep the password file in sync on each node. See for a solution in an earlier blog on my site " Password file maintenance on Clustered ASM and RAC databases 11gR2 and before " Oracle 12c Now in Oracle 12c, it is possible to store the password file on ASM. Wonderfule this means a shared password file for Oracle RAC databases , it is shared for all instances in the cluster.

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. Fo...