Eugene, Just to add.. Arup Nanda has published an article before at OTN called "Project Lockdown - A phased approach to securing your database infrastructure" http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/project_lockdown/index.html See the links below: 3.1 Remove Passwords from Scripts http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/project_lockdown/phase3.html#3.1 3.2 Remove Password from RMAN http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/project_lockdown/phase3.html#3.2 3.3 Move DBA Scripts to Scheduler http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/project_lockdown/phase3.html#3.3 - Karl Arao http://karlarao.wordpress.com -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l