Great Tips for Protecting Oracle Listener!!

Author: Alex McCarty

In this article we will discuss some great tips that will help you protect your listener by setting password on it. This will help you prevent unintentional stopping of your listener and prevent illicit access to your listener.

Adding Oracle Cleartext Password:

If you set the password manually in listener.ora using the PASSWORDS_ <listener
name> parameter then your password will be stored in cleartext. You can add below entry in your existing listener.ora file.  

PASSWORDS_MYLISTENER = (myPswrdVar1) 

After that you will stop the listener by running below command and then restart it. 

LSNRCTL> SET PASSWORD
PASSWORD: <Your password will be entered here> 
LSNRCTL> STOP
LSNRCTL> START

Adding Oracle Encrypted Password:

In order to add Oracle encrypted password you should set the password using LSNRCTL. LSNRCTL will encrypt the password stored in listener.ora.

LSNRCTL> SET CURRENT_LISTENER <Enter your Listener Name>
LSNRCTL> SET SAVE_CONFIG_ON_STOP ON 
LSNRCTL> CHANGE_PASSWORD

Old password: <Enter old listener password. Hit ENTER if no password is set.> 
New password: <Enter your new listener password> 
Reenter new password: < Enter your new listener password again>  

LSNRCTL> SET PASSWORD
PASSWORD:<ENTER LISTENER PASSWORD>
LSNRCTL> SAVE_CONFIG

The passwords you entered will not be echoed.  Now if you check your listener.ora file then you will see a new parameter as PASSWORDS_ <Your listener name>.

Now you will stop the listener by running below command. 

LSNRCTL> SET PASSWORD
PASSWORD: <Your password will be entered here> 
LSNRCTL> STOP
LSNRCTL> START  

Now if you check your listener.ora file then you will see new entries as follows

SAVE_CONFIG_ON_STOP_MYLISTENER = ON 
PASSWORDS_LISTENER = 2D6C48144CF753AC 

If cleartext password is set for your listener then first you will be required to comment out the line PASSWORD_ in your listener.ora file, then restart listener and finally run above LSNRCTL commands.

You can use the PASSWORDS_listener_name parameter to store an encrypted password for a listener. This will make sure that the privileges operations like SAVE_CONFIG and STOP are secure.

PASSWORDS_MYLISTENER = (myPswrdVar1)

Password protecting Listener with forgot password:

If you have forgotten your listener password then first you will need to log in to operating system and kill the listener password process from your operating system. Then you will have to modify the PASSWORDS_LISTENER parameter in the listener.ora file and restart your listener. Finally you can use any of the above methods to set up password protection of your listener.  Read Again!!

 More Database Articles
   Database Security: Step by step guideline
   The power of Oracle Diagnostic Tools!
   Is your Data Warehouse Protected??
   Quick & Efficient Switchover in a RAC Environment!!
   A Quick Guide to improve SQL performance!!