Database Userid and Password

How AQT uses Userids and Passwords

When you sign onto a database, if either the Userid or Password fields are blank, AQT will signon without specifying either the userid/password.

If you need to signon on with a userid which has no password (only Sybase and SQL Server allow this), enter a userid and check Advanced > No Password.

What Userid and Password?

You may be unsure about what userid and password to use for your signon.

This is a surprisingly non-trivial issue; it depends on what database you are accessing, where it is located and how it has been configured.

As a generalization:

for Oracle, Sybase and SQL Server, it is the userid and password with which you have been defined to the database. The userid may be the same as your Unix/LAN userid, but the password will be the one you have been set up in the database with.
for DB2, it is the userid and password valid for the machine where the database resides (DB2 links into the security system of the operating system on which it is running). In other words, use your normal z/OS / Unix / NT userid and password.

If you are in doubt about which userid/password to use, contact your friendly Database Administrator, or if you don't have one, any Database Administrator.

Client Security / Integrated Logon

Some databases do not require you to sign on; instead the database uses the security system of your PC. With this method, the database assumes that your identity (eg. userid and password) has been authenticated by your client (which may be NT/2000/XP) or LAN server. When this is in effect, you do not need to supply a userid and password.

This is known by various descriptions, depending on the database type:

Description	Database type
Client Security	DB2
Integrated Logon	Sybase
NT Authentication	MS SQL Server
OS Authentication	Oracle

Whether these methods are used with your database will depend on your database type and how it has been configured. To find out whether it is used, contact your DBA.

To use client security with Advanced Query Tool, leave the password field blank. AQT will sign on specifying neither userid nor password.
If this succeeds you will be signed on to the database with the same userid you are signed onto your PC or LAN with (not the one in the userID field on the Signon window).

What ID are you to the database?

As a further complication, for some databases the ID you are known to the database may be different to the ID you signed on with (some databases map IDs from external IDs to internal IDs). To see what ID the database knows you as, see Help > Database Details > User Name from the Database Explorer window.

Database Signon problems

If you are having problems signing on, or if you need to enter some database-specific parameters, you should do a Prompted Signon. Prompted Signon invokes the logon system supplied by the database vendor, giving you better control of the signon process.

Changing Your Password

AQT has no ability to change your password, as this is not part of the ODBC Specification.

However, many ODBC Drivers (such as DB2) provide this function as part of their signon dialog. To do this, from the AQT Signon window, click on Advanced then check Prompted Signon. The subsequent dialog may offer the ability to change the password.

The Oracle ODBC Driver only offers you the ability to change your password once you receive the Password Expired message (ORA-28001).