Beksalur,
A frequent cause of "ORA-01031: insufficient privileges error" is when you are trying to effect a DBA-level command or program, but are logged into the operating system with an o/s account that is not a member of the o/s-known DBA group.
To determine the o/s "group" to which a login must be a member to avoid "ORA-01031":
On Unix, first look at the contents of the "config.s" file:
$ cd $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/lib
$ tail -10 config.s
.L12:
/* 0x0008 15 */ .ascii "dba\0"
/* 0x0014 20 */ .align 8
.L13:
/* 0x0014 22 */ .ascii "dba\0"
Notice that "dba..." appears following the ".ascii" entries. This means that an authorised DBA (from the o/s perspective) must be a member of the o/s group, "dba".
To then confirm the group membership of a specific o/s user (on Solaris, for example):
$ id -a <username>
For example:
$ id -a dhunt
uid=10177(dhunt) gid=40(keytex) groups=1417(mysql)
** Notice that "dhunt" is not a member of the "dba" group.
$ id -a oracle
uid=10034(oracle) gid=105(oracle) groups=105(oracle),104(dba)
** Notice that the "oracle" login IS a member of both the "oracle" group and the "dba" group.
(on Windows2000, for example):
First, you must connect to Windows as a user with "administrator" rights for that machine.
Then, <right-click>My Computer..Manage..<right-click>Computer management..Action..Connect to another computer (Enter target computer name)..System Tools..Local Users and Groups..Groups, click [ORA_DBA] to see the names of Windows users that have permission to use Oracle DBA-level software.
Let us know if these o/s-permission issues are at the root of your "ORA-01031" problems.
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Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA @ 17:20 (27Feb04) UTC (aka "GMT" and "Zulu"), 10:20 (27Feb04) Mountain Time)