But since he did say he was using a tnsnames file, I thought that this would be the best way. Ruth -----Original Message----- From: Michael Fontana [mailto:mfontana@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 3:08 PM To: rgramolini@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; george.rusnak@xxxxxxxx; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Resolving dblinks -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ruth Gramolini Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:19 AM To: george.rusnak@xxxxxxxx; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Resolving dblinks All databases which you want to access must be in the TNSNAMES.ORA on the host from which the request orginates. Just put an entry into your tnsnames.ora for this database. HTH, Ruth << This is not exactly true. You can actually put the full connect string into the "create database link....using" command, and make a connection to the remote database internally. So a tnsnames.ora is not actually required. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l