Not putting SYS password in a backup script

Question

I have a small database to backup and I plan to use a simple unix script to do it. For example,
expdp system full=y content=all dumpfile=$dfile 2>&1 | tee $efile
mv $dfile .
bzip2 -9 $dfile $efile
# Copy files to remote server
scp -pq ${dfile}.bz2 ${efile}.bz2 $scpremotepath || (echo Backup - scp copy of backup files failed ; exit 1)
I want to add the script to cron job so that it can run automatically.
A question I have is how can I avoid putting the database password in the script? Is it possible to put the password in an Oralce "wallet" ?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Nobody is suggesting you are doing wrong. You asked for a way to avoid writing a password for the user at the shell script, and you were suggested to use OS authentication.
Now I understand you want an evaluation of the way you perform the backup. It is important to have a backup and you should assess if this backup meets the recoverability goals of your company. A logical backup, such as exp or expdp will allow you to recover data up to the time the backup was performed, but you won't be able to recover beyond that point, does it work for your company? Otherwise, if you are concerned about a mechanism to recover data up to the time of failure, then you should consider a physical backup with a database configured in archivelog mode, that is what recovery manager is for.
IMO not knowing how to use recovery manager doesn't justify not using it, you should go to the backup and recover manual and learn about it. Since you mentioned you are using expdp I assume you are currently working with a 10g database, you can enter the Enterprise Manager Control and schedule a backup procedure from it. It can schedule a recovery manager managed backup for you, meanwhile you can start learning how to manually use recovery manager.
You can start here --> Oracle® Database Backup and Recovery Basics
10g Release 2 (10.2)
Part Number B14192-03
~ Madrid
http://hrivera99.blogspot.com/