Grant sysdba to rmanuser did not work but later worked.Need explnatn pls...

Question

Hi Members,
I'm running a test 9i RAC. I'm trying to setup RMAN to backup data from RAC. One of the requirements to setup RMAN recovery catalog (database) is to grant/create a user on target database with sysdba privileges. Hence i created a user named 'RMANUSER' with default tablespace users and temporary tablespace temp.
When I try to grant sysdba to RMANUSER, it says granted but when i check v$pwfile_users, RMANUSER is not listed.
instance connected to is orcl1:
conn sys/pwd@orcl as sysdba
SQL> show parameters remote_login
NAME TYPE VALUE
remote_login_passwordfile string EXCLUSIVE
SQL> grant sysdba to rmanuser;
Grant succeeded.
SQL> select * from v$pwfile_users;
USERNAME SYSDB SYSOP
SYS TRUE TRUE
I tried the above even on orcl2 with no result. I read somewhere that I need to create a new password file with orapwd and hence i created new password file on both instances.
on orcl1:
orapwd file=/opt/oracle/product/9.2.0/dbs/orapworcl1 pwd=password entries=5
on orcl2:
orapwd file=/opt/oracle/product/9.2.0/dbs/orapworcl2 pwd=password entries=5
The good thing is I renamed the old files and created new orapw files.
After creation of new files, When I try to grant sysdba to rmanuser, I received the following error: ORA-01999:password file mode has changed from 'exclusive' to 'shared'
But show parameters remote_login was still "exclusive"
SQL> show parameters remote_login
NAME TYPE VALUE
remote_login_passwordfile string EXCLUSIVE
Now, there were no users in v$pwfile_users
SQL> select * from v$pwfile_users;
no rows selected
Also I was unable to connect to sys with sysdba privileges. I was only able to connect without sysdba.
SQL> conn sys/oracle@orcl
Connected.
SQL> conn sys/oracle@orcl as sysdba
ORA-01031: insufficient privileges
SQL> conn sys/oracle@orcl
Connected.
SQL> shutdown immediate
ORA-01031: insufficient privileges
I was also unable to shutdown the database. Hence I reverted back to the old orapw files on both instances(servers). Then I just tried if the grant sysdba to rmanuser would work, and luckily it worked.
SQL> grant sysdba to rmanuser;
Grant succeeded.
SQL> select * from v$pwfile_users;
USERNAME SYSDB SYSOP
SYS TRUE TRUE
RMANUSER TRUE FALSE
But I'm unable to understand as to how it worked now. The orapw files are attached below for your reference. Any inputs are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. orapworcl1 is the old one which works now. orapworcl1-new was the newly created file which does not work and gives insufficient privileges error.
[root@sunny1pub ~]# cat /opt/oracle/product/9.2.0/dbs/orapworcl1
]\[ZORACLE Remote Password file ORCL  INTERNAAB27B53EDC5FEF41 SYS 8A8F025737A9097A _�RMANUSED1C5D743B0B4A7F0
                                                                                                               �
[root@sunny1pub ~]# cat /opt/oracle/product/9.2.0/dbs/orapworcl1-new
]\[ZORACLE Remote Password file INTERNAAB27B53EDC5FEF41 SYS 8A8F025737A9097A
[root@sunny1pub ~]#

Answer 1

Thanks for your feedback. I think you got me wrong here. Even orapworcl1-new was orapworcl1 when i created and tested it. You could see the filenames in orapwd line. I just renamed it now after all the testing just to post it. I do understand that the file name needs to be orapworcl1 and orapworcl2 on both the instances for it to work. One more thing that i forgot to add is that all the below ones work:
sql> conn sys/pwd@orcl
connected
sql> conn sys/pwd@orcl as sysdba
connected
sql> conn rmanuser/pwd@orcl
connected
sql> conn rmanuser/pwd@orcl as sysdba
connected