sqlplus password version

https://support.oracle.com/knowledge/Oracle%20Database%20Products/2668605_1.html

Password Version Changed After Changed Password By Alter User Identified by <Password> Command

 

• In customer environment, SQLNET.ALLOWED_LOGON_VERSION was set to 8 in Oracle Home of DB server.

sqlnet.ora:
SQLNET.ALLOWED_LOGON_VERSION=8

• DB user password version was "10G 11G 12C".
• After changed password By Alter User Identified by <Password> command, the password version of target db user was changed to "11G 12C".
• This problem can be reproduce as following:

/<ORACLE_HOME>/network/admin/
sqlnet.ora:
SQLNET.ALLOWED_LOGON_VERSION=8

/<PATH1>/
sqlnet.ora:
SQLNET.ALLOWED_LOGON_VERSION=12

export TNS_ADMIN=<PATH1>

$ sqlplus <DBA USER>/<PASSWORD>

SQL*Plus: Release 12.2.0.1.0 Production on Tue Apr 21 03:37:23 2020

Copyright (c) 1982, 2016, Oracle.  All rights reserved.

Last Successful login time: Tue Apr 21 2020 03:35:27 +00:00

Connected to:
Oracle Database 12c Enterprise Edition Release 12.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production

SQL> select username,password_versions from dba_users where username='<USER_NAME>';

USERNAME   PASSWORD_VERSIONS
---------- -----------------
<USER_NAME>       10G 11G 12C

SQL> alter user <USER_NAME> identified by <PASSWORD>;

User altered.

SQL> select username,password_versions from dba_users where username='<USER_NAME>';

USERNAME   PASSWORD_VERSIONS
---------- -----------------
<USER_NAME>       11G 12C

SQL> quit

Which sqlnet.ora or password version is fetched can be found by strace as following:

strace -ftttT -o /tmp/strace1.log sqlplus <USER_NAME>/<PASSWORD>
The abstract of strace1.log:
7005  1587440243.885264 access("/<PATH>/network/admin/sqlnet.ora", F_OK) = 0 <0.000008>
7005  1587440243.885296 open("/<PATH>/network/admin/sqlnet.ora", O_RDONLY) = 8 <0.000007>
7005  1587440243.885320 fcntl(8, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) = 0 <0.000004>
7005  1587440243.885338 fstat(8, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=32, ...}) = 0 <0.000004>
7005  1587440243.885361 mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7fb08d2c9000 <0.000005>
7005  1587440243.885377 read(8, "SQLNET.ALLOWED_LOGON_VERSION=12\n", 4096) = 32 <0.000006> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<