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AskSQLTeam
Ask SQLTeam Question
0 Posts |
 Posted - 2002-03-19 : 11:22:20
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| Anshu Kr. Jain writes "As you know in SQL server if anyone had access to MDF/LDF files, he can easily copy the the database files to another server and attach them. Then the person have access to the entire database without knowing any SQL Server passswords of the previous machine.Do any such thing is possible in Oracle also?" |
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robvolk
Most Valuable Yak
15732 Posts |
Posted - 2002-03-19 : 11:30:34
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| Don't know about Oracle, but I don't think so.Technically, unless the logins are also transferred along with the database files, a user CANNOT access the database by simply attaching it. |
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izaltsman
A custom title
1139 Posts |
Posted - 2002-03-20 : 09:43:27
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| It sounds like you are trying to address some security concerns...I'd like to put a slightly different spin on how things work with SQL Server, and venture a guess on how things might work with Oracle (admittedly I know very little about Oracle, so take my speculations with a grain of salt). When working with SQL Server, I would not be too concerned about somebody attempting to leech away the database files, because as long as the database is online, the files are exclusively open by SQL Server. This means that in order to copy the files a person would need to either detach the database from the server or stop the server. So as long as you don't assign people you don't trust to sysadmin or serveradmin roles and if you carefully limit users' NT priviledges, it will be pretty difficult for an intruder to steal the files of your live database. Moreover, in order to get at those files he's probably gonna have to take the database/server offline -- something that isn't likely to go unnoticed. Personally, I feel that it is far more likely that an intruder would go after your DB backups than your live files, especially since controls protecting backups are oftentimes pretty lax. Once again, it is up to you as a DBA to make sure that your data is properly protected even after it has been backed up. Now... As for Oracle, I believe their database architecture consists of a datafile (which contains a bunch of user databases/schemas), a redo log, a control file and init file. I would think that just like it is with SQL Server these files can not be copied while they are in use. However, I am pretty sure that they can be backed up, and restored on a different server. So just like it is with SQL Server, an Oracle DBA would need to take extra precautions to protect his backups. In other words, I think that the security concerns in this regard are pretty similar for both Oracle and SQL databases. |
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SQL Server / Oracle