title: How to authenticate Oracle login using encrypted password
body: <p>We are connecting to Oracle using KornShell (ksh) scripts, which use SQL*Plus to connect to Oracle. The Oracle database is on the same Solaris box. Currently, we are storing Oracle user id and password (plain text) in a file in the .ssh folder of the connecting user, with 400 permission bits.</p>
  
  <p>The DBAs are objecting to this way of working, citing the fact that we are using plain text password for authentication. When we offered that we would encode the password using base64, they still did not like the idea, citing that we would still decrypt the password in the shell script and transmit the password over network.</p>
  
  <p>Now, I want to understand this- </p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>I have been reading that Oracle encrypts/hashes the password string, before transmitting it. I can not find the reference right now though, however, I still want to confirm my understanding. Is it really like this? We are on 11g r2, would that make a difference?</p></li>
  <li><p>Would I be able to login to SQL*Plus without decrypting the password hash? e.g., DBAs set a password, pass on the hash to me. I put that in a file, and supply to SQL*Plus as a parameter.  Is there some way by which this kind of authentication work? I know some tools do allow that, if you encode using their tool, they are able to decrypt the value and use it for authentication. Does Oracle?</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Help me fellas.</p>