We had an issue where our database was giving one of our application IDs an “ORA-28011: the account will expire soon; change your password now” warning on logon. Oracle will still allow for you to connect though.
When we first starting getting this error we did not know the ORA error that was being produced. Our application server would just state that the connection failed (even though it didn’t). Usually I will log in with Toad to see if the ID can connect. Toad would connect without a problem…apparently ignoring the warning (which complicated my troubleshooting process because I was lead to believe the ID was working properly).
Does anyone know how to enable Toad to display these logon warning messages? The way I determined the specific message was because PowerBuilder would display the warning. Without that I may still be trying to troubleshoot the application server.
Toad does not have a way to enable a message like this. It does, however, give a
message when the password has expired, and gives the opportunity to change it
then.
Honestly, I get such ‘password will expire soon’ messages when I log
on to my Quest VPN. They start about 2 weeks before my password will expire. I
find them quite irritating. I’d much rather get a ‘password has
expired’ when it actually does expire, and have the opportunity to set it
then.
I’m not sure exactly what oracle defines as ‘soon’, but if
your user has a profile with PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME set, and the time since the
users password has changed is approaching that amount, oracle will give a
‘success with info’ result. The application (Toad or your app) can
ignore it or act on it.
True, I hadn’t considered it that way. There is always the
password_grace_time in the profile to account for that though. I believe
Toad’s warning will come up during the grace period.
I don’t generate a strong password manually anymore. I use lastpass.com
for all internet passwords and Keepass.info for all local/server passwords. They
both have generators that are so much stronger than I could do on my own. I
really only know those initial passwords. I just use those tools to submit the
right password to the right place.
I did a little more research into this issue. The ORA error started when the password lifetime had expired and the grace period began. The problem is that since the password was never designed to expire the grace period was set to unlimited. Still not sure how this happened…but probably has something to do with how the database was created after a refresh.
During this time Oracle will allow you to connect but gives the the warning message. The problem is that some applications don’t handle the warning gracefully (like PowerBuilder) and other completely ignore the warning (like Toad). This makes it a little more difficult to troubleshoot. If Toad would have displayed the warning I would have immediately knew what needed to be fixed.
I have since found out that this error is given when the PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME has expired and the Grace Period time begins. This warning will be sent during the grace period time.
My situation was complicated because this happened after a refresh. The password life time and grace period were both set to unlimited, so somehow Oracle thought the PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME was expired and it was in the grace period time (which as I said was unlimited). What a pain it was to figure out that this is what happened!
You answered my main question though (can Toad display this message). Thanks for the info.