The following features are new in this release:

• Support of Oracle Home User on Windows

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle Database supports the use of Oracle Home User, specified at the time of installation. Oracle Home User is used to run Windows services for the Oracle home. Oracle Home User is associated with an Oracle home and cannot be changed post installation. On a system, different Oracle homes can share the same Oracle Home User or use different Oracle Home User names.

  Oracle Home User can be a Windows built-in account or a Windows User Account. For enhanced security, Oracle recommends that the standard Windows User Account be chosen as the Oracle Home User for Oracle Database installations. The primary purpose of Oracle Home User is to run Windows services with Windows User Account. This user account (Oracle Home User) must be a standard Windows user account (not an Administrator). Windows User Account can be a Local User, a Domain User, or a Managed Services Account.

  Group Managed Services Account (gMSA) and Virtual Accounts are the new options for Oracle Home User.

  Note:

  See the Microsoft documentation for more information about different types of Windows user accounts.

  This release has also introduced a new Windows utility called the Oracle Home User Control. This is a command-line tool that displays the Oracle Home User name associated with the current Oracle home and updates the password for the Windows User Account (used as Oracle Home User).

  See Also:

  • Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows for more information about Recommended File System

  • Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows for more information about Configuring Environment Variables for the Software Installation Owner

  • Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows for more information about Managing User Accounts with User Account Control

  • Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows for more information about Operating System Groups Created During Oracle Database Installation

  • The Specify Oracle Home User screen in "Table 5-1 Oracle Universal Installer Windows" in Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows

  • Step 5: (Windows Only) Create an Instance and Step 14: (Optional) Enable Automatic Instance Startup in Oracle Database Administrator's Guide

• Oracle ASM File Access Control on Windows

  Oracle Automatic Storage Management (Oracle ASM) File Access Control restricts the access of files to specific Oracle ASM clients that connect as SYSDBA. An Oracle ASM client is typically a database, which is identified as the user that owns the database instance home.

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), Oracle supports the use of standard Windows User Account instead of Local System Account to run Oracle Database services that lets you use separate users for different Oracle databases. This release also supports Oracle ASM disk group file-level access control and privilege separation.

  The Oracle ASM File Access Control feature helps to replace the current user with a new user and allows the user to change ownership, group membership, and permissions of a file while the file is open by one or more Oracle ASM clients. This release onwards, the Windows User Accounts used as Oracle Home Users are restricted from directly accessing Oracle ASM storage devices and can be accessed through the Oracle Database services that have sufficient privileges to run that service.

  Oracle ASM disk group users now manage ASM disk group user replacement with new ASMCMD commands and SQL statements.

  See Also:

  • Oracle Automatic Storage Management Administrator's Guide for more information about Managing Oracle ASM File Access Control for Disk Groups

  • Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows for more information about Preparing Disks for Oracle Automatic Storage Management

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c

  Oracle Database 12c introduces Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c, a web-based management tool built into Oracle Database without any need for special installation or management. Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Express 12c, you can perform basic administrative tasks such as user, performance, memory, and space management. You can also view performance and status information about your database.

  See Also:

  • Oracle Database 2 Day DBA for more information about Configuring Authentication for External Procedures

  • Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows

• Support of Oracle Home User for Oracle Net Services

  Oracle Database 12c supports Oracle Net services such as Oracle Listener, CMADMIN, and CMAN Proxy Listener to run under Oracle Home User account specified during Oracle Database installation. In earlier releases, Oracle Net services ran under the high-privileged, Windows built-in Local System Account (LSA).

  See Also:

  • Oracle Database Net Services Administrator's Guide for information about User Accounts and Security

  • Oracle Database Net Services Reference for information about START

• Securing External Procedures

  Starting with Oracle Database 12c Release 1 (12.1), a LIBRARY object can be defined using either an explicit path or a DIRECTORY object. You can also use the CREDENTIAL clause to specify the operating system user.

  See Also:

  • Oracle Database Security Guide for more information about Configuring Authentication for External Procedures

  • Oracle Database Concepts for more information about Overview of Commonality in a CDB

• Support for Separation of Database Administration Duties

  Oracle Database 12c provides support for separation of database administration duties for Oracle Database by introducing task-specific and least-privileged administrative privileges that do not require the SYSDBA administrative privilege. These new privileges are: SYSBACKUP for backup and recovery, SYSDG for Oracle Data Guard, and SYSKM for encryption key management.

  See Also:

  • Oracle Database Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows

  • Oracle Database Administrator’s Guide for more information about Database Administrator Authentication

    Oracle Database Security Guide for information about Managing Administrative Privileges

The following feature is deprecated in this release, and might be desupported in a future release:

Windows NTS Authentication Using the NTLM Protocol

The NTS authentication adapter no longer supports the use of the NT LAN Manager (NTLM) protocol to authenticate Windows domain users. Thus the NTS adapter cannot be used to authenticate users in old Windows NT domains or domains with old Windows NT domain controllers. However, local connections and Oracle Database services running as a Windows Local User continues to be authenticated using NTLM. A new client-side sqlnet.ora boolean parameter, no_ntlm (default value is FALSE) allows you to control if NTLM can be used in NTS authentication. When the parameter is set to TRUE, NTLM cannot be used in NTS authentication.

The following features previously described in this guide are no longer supported by Oracle.

• Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control

• Oracle COM Automation

• Oracle Objects for OLE

• Oracle Counters for Windows Performance Monitor

• Raw Devices