Oracle Application Server: Forget IAS_ADMIN Password

Did you forget the password of the ias_admin user?

Your colleague installed an Oracle AS Environment, went on holiday and didn't tell you the password of the ias_admin user to access the administrative Web-interface Application Server Control (ASC) or you installed your Oracle AS long time ago and forgot the password of the ias_admin user? If you have an Oracle AS environment which is NOT connected to an Oracle AS Identity Management (IDM), here is a small trick to reset the password of the ias_admin user.

Just go to the directory $ORACLE_HOME/sysman/j2ee/conf. In this directory you'll find the configuration file jazn-data.xml. Inside this configuration file you'll find the definition of the ias_admin user including his encrypted password:

• snippet from jazn-data.xml

• <users>
  ...
  <user>
  <name>ias_admin</name>
  <credentials>{903}YdvTMA...</credentials>
  </user></users>

Inside the tag <credentials> you see the encrypted password of the ias_admin. To reset the password, just change the value inside the tag <credentials> as follows:

• snippet from jazn-data.xml

• 
  <users>
  ...
  <user>
  <name>ias_admin</name>
  <credentials>!mynewpassword1</credentials>
  </user></users>
  

The new password you have to provide in clear text has to start with a "!". Be aware that the new password must match the password rules: minimum 6 signs and one sign must be a number. After your changes, stop the ASC and restart it with following commands:

• emctl stop iasconsole
• emctl start iasconsole

Now you can login with your new password and inside the jazn-data.xml the provided password in clear text is automatically changed into an encrypted password.

Please note, this trick is only working with Oracle AS Instances, which are NOT connected to an Oracle Identity Management!