Hi peter, Not a direct answer to your question as i believe the answer to have already been given, "alter session" If you go to my site i have a script that lists out all the privileges granted to a user including system, object and role privs. It also prints out hierarchically those privileges granted through roles. It can print out its results to either the screen or to a file. Follow the prompts. I thought you might like it to check your user and whether the privileges are granted direct or through a role. Here is an example for the user OUTLN: SQL*Plus: Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production on Fri Feb 13 22:21:27 2004 Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. Connected to: Personal Oracle9i Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production With the Partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data Mining options JServer Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production SQL> @find_all_privs.sql FIND_ALL_PRIVS: Release 1.3.0.0.0 - Production - (http://www.petefinnigan.com) Copyright (c) 2004 PeteFinnigan.com Limited. All rights reserved. get user input NAME OF USER TO CHECK [ORCL]: OUTLN OUTPUT METHOD Screen/File [S]: FILE NAME FOR OUTPUT [priv.lst]: OUTPUT DIRECTORY [/tmp]: USER => OUTLN has ROLE CONNECT which contains => SYS PRIV =>ALTER SESSION grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE CLUSTER grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE DATABASE LINK grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE SEQUENCE grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE SESSION grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE SYNONYM grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE TABLE grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE VIEW grantable => NO USER => OUTLN has ROLE RESOURCE which contains => SYS PRIV =>CREATE CLUSTER grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE INDEXTYPE grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE OPERATOR grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE PROCEDURE grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE SEQUENCE grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE TABLE grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE TRIGGER grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>CREATE TYPE grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>EXECUTE ANY PROCEDURE grantable => NO SYS PRIV =>UNLIMITED TABLESPACE grantable => NO TABLE PRIV =>EXECUTE table_name => OUTLN_PKG grantable => NO PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. SQL> hth Kind regards Pete -- Pete Finnigan email:pete@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Web site: http://www.petefinnigan.com - Oracle security audit specialists Book:Oracle security step-by-step Guide - see http://store.sans.org for details. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------