Changing the NetBackup database password
The database password is set to a randomly generated password upon installation. This password is used for NBDB and BMRDB and for all DBA and application accounts. (For example, EMM_MAIN.) You can use this procedure to change it to a known password.
The password is encrypted and stored in the vxdbms.conf file. The permissions for the vxdbms.conf file allow only a Windows administrator or a root user to read or write to it.
To change the database password
- Log on to the server as a Windows Administrator or as root.
- To change the password for the first time after installation, run the following command. The command updates the vxdbms.conf file with the new, encrypted string:
On Windows: install_path\NetBackup\bin\nbdb_admin -dba new_password
On UNIX: /usr/openv/db/bin/nbdb_admin -dba new_password
The password needs to be an ASCII string. Non-ASCII characters are not allowed in the password string.
- To change a known password to a new password, you can either use the nbdb_admin command or the NetBackup Database Administration utility. You must know the current password to log into the NetBackup Database Administration utility.
See Using the NetBackup Database Administration utility on Windows.
See Using the NetBackup Database Administration utility on UNIX.
If the NetBackup environment has NetBackup Access Control (NBAC) enabled, keep in mind the following items before you run nbdb_admin -dba new_password.
Only the minimum services should be running: NB_dbsrv, nbatd, nbazd, bprd, bpdbm, bpjobd.
Users without root or administrator permissions need to have read and write permissions to vxdbms.conf. Windows users can use the security Permissions tab in NBAC to allow a non-administrator user read and write permissions to vxdbms.conf.
To generate nbdb_admin logs, make sure that users have read and write permissions to the following directory:
On Windows: install_path\Veritas\NetBackup\logs\nbdb
On UNIX: /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/nbdb
To troubleshoot a situation where only the database server can be started, NBAC must be turned off.