Alter user sys account lock; And hopefully you have an orapwSID file with entries in it which then enables the unix user oracle to be able to log in as '/ as sysdba' which puts you in the DB as SYS even though the account is locked.... If you try to log in as sys while in sqlplus you get=20 SQL> conn sys/password ERROR: ORA-28000: the account is locked Warning: You are no longer connected to ORACLE. SQL> From UNIX command line you get rydsup11:/home/oracle> sqlplus sys SQL*Plus: Release 9.2.0.6.0 - Production on Thu Dec 9 11:54:56 2004 Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. Enter password: ERROR: ORA-28000: the account is locked Enter user-name: / as sysdba Connected to: Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.6.0 - Production With the Partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data Mining options JServer Release 9.2.0.6.0 - Production SQL> SQL> show user USER is "SYS" SQL> INTERESTING no/yes???? So you still get in as sys...you just use '/ as sysdba' =20 I do have *.remote_login_passwordfile=3D'EXCLUSIVE' in my initSID.ora and I do have a orapwSID in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l