RMAN connect to Auxiliary Fails With ORA-01031: INSUFFICIENT PRIVILEGES (Doc ID 1076656.1)

Last updated on APRIL 20, 2017

Applies to:

Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition - Version 9.0.1.0 and later
Information in this document applies to any platform.
***Checked for relevance on 18-July-2015***

Symptoms

Connecting to an auxiliary instance via RMAN fails with ORA-01031 errors. The same is seen when properly testing a connection via SQL*Plus to the auxiliary instance.

RMAN-04006: ERROR FROM AUXILIARY DATABASE: ORA-01031: INSUFFICIENT PRIVILEGES

Changes

You may have tried to add the connecting user to the password file but that has failed:


SQL> select * from v$pwfile_users;

No rows

SQL>  grant sysdba to sys;

grant sysdba to sys
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01109: database not open



Because the auxiliary is nomounted, the addition of a user to the password file for the auxiliary is not allowed, nor does it resolve this problem.

You have verified the same problem happens in SQL*Plus as does RMAN.  For example, if in RMAN you are issuing:
 

RMAN>  connect auxiliary <user/password>@<auxiliary_db>



then for testing SQL*Plus you'd have to issue this from the operating system prompt:
 

% sqlplus "<user/password>@<auxiliary_db> as sysdba"



also shows the ORA-1031 error.

(connecting in two steps to the auxiliary is not a valid test).

Cause

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