ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied

I was setting up standby database in RAC environment. Obviously my first step was to clone the primary database as a single instance  in standby RAC node.

I tried to connect the target database  from auxiliary database and getting below error.

Target database(RACTEST1) = Primary database
Auxiliary database(RACTEST4)  = The location where we clone the database.

[oracle@RACTEST4 usben]$ sqlplus sys/admin123@usben as sysdba SQL*Plus: Release 12.1.0.2.0 Production on Thu Mar 24 22:25:33 2016 Copyright (c) 1982, 2014, Oracle.  All rights reserved. ERROR: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied Enter user-name:

Here is the tnsentry for usben

usben =   (DESCRIPTION =     (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = ractest1.localdomain)(PORT = 1521))     (CONNECT_DATA =       (SERVER = DEDICATED)       (SERVICE_NAME = usben.localdomain)     )   )

hmmm...  It is interesting!  The password is correct. Why it is failing?

After more research, i found the solution.

The password file is on local file system on RAC environment.  Starting Oracle12c, it should be in ASM storage centralized location.

Created the password file on ASM disk as below.

[oracle@RACTEST1 dbs]$ orapwd file='+DATA/USBEN/PASSWORDFILE/orapwusben' entries=10 dbuniquename=usben password=admin123

[oracle@RACTEST1 dbs]$

Let me try to connect the target database again on auxiliary instance.

[oracle@RACTEST4 ~]$ sqlplus sys/admin123@usben as sysdba SQL*Plus: Release 12.1.0.2.0 Production on Thu Mar 24 23:48:48 2016 Copyright (c) 1982, 2014, Oracle.  All rights reserved. Connected to: Oracle Database 12c Enterprise Edition Release 12.1.0.2.0 - 64bit Production With the Partitioning, Real Application Clusters, Automatic Storage Management, OLAP, Advanced Analytics and Real Application Testing options SQL>

Perfect. The issue is resolved after moving the password file to ASM disk!

Hope this post helps!