I believe that it is a bug, that the dba group is hard-coded into the sqlplus executable. That is why I ALWAYS use dba as a SYSDBA group name. The strace command should be able to reveal the secret. May the force be with you, I'm off to the local 7 train to Queens. -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Janine Sisk Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 6:36 PM To: Kevin Closson Cc: Mladen Gogala; Oracle-L Freelists Subject: Re: can't connect '/ as sysdba' [oracle@goethals oracle]$ id uid=510(oracle) gid=506(devel) groups=506(devel),100(users),503(dba) [oracle@goethals oracle]$ ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/bin/oracle -rwsr-s--x 1 oracle devel 53734878 Sep 21 12:48 /home/oracle/ OraHome2/bin/oracle On Dec 6, 2006, at 3:29 PM, Kevin Closson wrote: > > remit : > > output from the id(1) command and ls -l $ORACLE_HOME/bin/oracle > > > >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx >>>> [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Janine Sisk >>>> Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 3:20 PM >>>> To: Mladen Gogala >>>> Cc: 'Oracle-L Freelists' >>>> Subject: Re: can't connect '/ as sysdba' >>>> >>>> I wish it would! But I think this part is correct. Of >>>> course, I've been staring at it long enough to be well into >>>> stupid mistake territory... >>>> > -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l