OS authentication in Oracle 10g via jdbc:oracle:oci

Question

I'm very much a newbie to Java / JDBC and I am trying, but failing, to connect with the database using OS authentication via jdbc, and hoping someone may help.
My questions are:
1. Is OS authentication supported for jdbc:oracle:oci with Oracle 10g ? I couldn't find a general statement of whether it works or not.
(NB.The only information I managed to find, on another forum, is that it should be supported but there is a bug and so it does not work, but the author did not post all of his/her platform details, so the bug may only affect his/her situation. )
2. If it is supported and works, could some one suggest what is wrong with my syntax . I could not find an example in any Oracle 10g/JDBC documentation.
The details are as follows: -
Database : - Oracle 10g Enterprise Edition 10.2.0.2.0 running on Solaris.
Development platform : - NetBeans 6.1, JDK 1.6.
Runtime environment: - JRE1.6 on Windows XP professional.
OPS$ authentication : - the OPS$ accounts have been set-up and we use these successfully for PL/SQL and SQL Plus access.
JDBC : - I can connect to the database with both jdbc:oracle:thin ( linking in ojdbc14.jar) and jdbc:oracle:oci by using username and password, so I know my JDBC library linkage is OK, eg. this works fine :
final String url = new String("jdbc:oracle:oci:" + uname + "/" + pword + "@" + environment);
where environment is the SID
I have trawled the Oracle documentation which tells me that OS authentication is not supported for Oracle 10g for the jdbc:oracle:thin driver, so I have tried to connect with jdbc:oracle:oci driver using the following code :
final String url = new String("jdbc:oracle:oci:/@" + environment);
final Driver driver = new oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver();
DriverManager.registerDriver(driver);
final Properties props = new Properties();
conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url);
but this gives the following error :
java.sql.SQLException: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied
Other info: - The tnsnames.ora file contains nothing but there are entries in the ldap.ora and sqlnet.ora files.
My questions are:
1. Is OS authentication supported for jdbc:oracle:oci with Oracle 10g ? I couldn't find a general statement of whether it works or not.
(NB.The only information I managed to find, on another forum, is that it should be supported but there is a bug and so it does not work, but the author did not post all of his/her platform details, so the bug may only affect his/her situation. )
2. If it is supported and works, could some one suggest what is wrong with my syntax . I could not find an example in any Oracle 10g/JDBC documentation.

Answer 1

If you specify the SID/service_name in the url, you are attempting to connect via SQL*NET and REMOTE_OS_AUTHENT must be set to true in the database. If you are connecting from the same host the database runs on, then just leave the SID off and make sure the ORACLE_SID environment variable is set.
You can reproduce the same error you get in java with
sqlplus /@SID
SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.2.0 - Production on Fri Nov 7 12:14:08 2008
Copyright (c) 1982, 2005, Oracle.  All Rights Reserved.
ERROR:
ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon deniedSample Code:
import oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleDataSource;
import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.SQLException;
public class conn {
  public static void main(String[] args) throws SQLException {
    OracleDataSource ods = new OracleDataSource();
    ods.setURL("jdbc:oracle:oci:/@");
    Connection conn = ods.getConnection();
    conn.close();
}