Ability to perform ALTER SESSION SET SQL TRACE but not all alter clauses

Question

I see that in order to run the ALTER SESSION SET SQL TRACE command, the user should be explicitly granted alter session privilege as the CREATE SESSION privilege alone is not enough. Is there a way to grant the ability to perform ALTER SESSION SET SQL TRACE but not the other clauses such as GUARD, PARALLEL & RESUMABLE?.
Thanks
Sathya

Answer 1

If you are using Oracle 10g and above, you can use DBMS_SESSION.session_trace_enable procedure,
it doesn't require alter session system privilege.
Simple example:
SQL> connect test/test@//192.168.1.2:1521/xe
Connected.
SQL> alter session set tracefile_identifier='my_id';
Session altered.
SQL> alter session set sql_trace = true
  2  ;
alter session set sql_trace = true
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01031: insufficient privileges
SQL> execute dbms_session.session_trace_enable;
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> select * from user_sys_privs;
USERNAME                 PRIVILEGE                    ADM
TEST                      CREATE PROCEDURE                NO
TEST                      CREATE TABLE                    NO
TEST                      CREATE SEQUENCE                    NO
TEST                      CREATE TRIGGER                    NO
TEST                      SELECT ANY DICTIONARY               NO
TEST                      CREATE SYNONYM                    NO
TEST                      UNLIMITED TABLESPACE               NO
7 rows selected.
SQL> execute dbms_session.session_trace_disable;
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> disconnect
Disconnected from Oracle Database 10g Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Productionand here is result from tkprof:
TKPROF: Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Production on So Paź 23 00:53:07 2010
Copyright (c) 1982, 2005, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
Trace file: xe_ora_176_my_id.trc
( ---- cut ---- )
select *
from
user_sys_privs
call     count       cpu    elapsed       disk      query    current        rows
Parse        1      0.08       0.08          0          0          0           0
Execute      1      0.00       0.00          0          0          0           0
Fetch        2      0.01       0.01          0         15          0           7
total        4      0.09       0.09          0         15          0           7
Misses in library cache during parse: 1
Optimizer mode: ALL_ROWS
Parsing user id: 61 
Rows     Row Source Operation
      7  HASH GROUP BY (cr=15 pr=0 pw=0 time=11494 us)
      7   CONCATENATION  (cr=15 pr=0 pw=0 time=4913 us)
      0    MERGE JOIN CARTESIAN (cr=4 pr=0 pw=0 time=1169 us)
      0     NESTED LOOPS  (cr=4 pr=0 pw=0 time=793 us)
      0      TABLE ACCESS FULL SYSAUTH$ (cr=4 pr=0 pw=0 time=592 us)
      0      INDEX RANGE SCAN I_SYSTEM_PRIVILEGE_MAP (cr=0 pr=0 pw=0 time=0 us)(object id 312)
      0     BUFFER SORT (cr=0 pr=0 pw=0 time=0 us)
      0      TABLE ACCESS FULL USER$ (cr=0 pr=0 pw=0 time=0 us)
      7    NESTED LOOPS  (cr=11 pr=0 pw=0 time=3429 us)
      9     HASH JOIN  (cr=9 pr=0 pw=0 time=2705 us)
      9      TABLE ACCESS FULL SYSAUTH$ (cr=4 pr=0 pw=0 time=512 us)
     63      TABLE ACCESS FULL USER$ (cr=5 pr=0 pw=0 time=914 us)
      7     INDEX RANGE SCAN I_SYSTEM_PRIVILEGE_MAP (cr=2 pr=0 pw=0 time=510 us)(object id 312)
Elapsed times include waiting on following events:
  Event waited on                             Times   Max. Wait  Total Waited
  ----------------------------------------   Waited  ----------  ------------
  SQL*Net message to client                       2        0.00          0.00
  SQL*Net message from client                     2       20.64         20.65
BEGIN dbms_session.session_trace_disable; END;
call     count       cpu    elapsed       disk      query    current        rows
Parse        1      0.01       0.00          0          0          0           0
Execute      1      0.00       0.00          0          0          0           1
Fetch        0      0.00       0.00          0          0          0           0
total        2      0.01       0.00          0          0          0           1
Misses in library cache during parse: 1
Optimizer mode: ALL_ROWS
Parsing user id: 61