Should we know the randomly generated database password?

[sclind]

I was reading this post:

https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/Has-the-default-admin-password-for-nbdbadmin-change-in-v7-7-1/t...

that quoted from the admin guide:

"Changing the NetBackup database password
The database password is set to a randomly generated password upon installation."

Is that a password I would have seen and should have recorded at the time?  (I dont recall seeing a password or I think I would have saved it).

The reason I ask is that I had to run a command that needed the password - so I had to run the utility to set it to somthing I knew.  ('nbusql' not longer worked).

Makes me wonder what other shops do.

[RiaanBadenhorst]

You only need that password when, and if, you (but only really support) need to connect to the database. And in that case you can just reset the password to xyz. It used to be default password (nbusql) but i suppose they made it random for security reasons, meaning you need to be authenticated and loggen on to the master to change the password, and you can't just remotely connect using the default password. 

[sclind]

I did have to reset it to run what my support vendor wanted me to run. But was the random password ever shown to me?

[RiaanBadenhorst]

I believe that is the point. Its randon and default but without being default i.e known to everyone.

[sclind]

But is the random one known to anyone?

Somewhere along the way I was warned that when I changed the password I needed to make sure I saved it or Veritas may not be able to support me.  I have done that.  But it makes wonder if the random password was ever displayed to me (so I could save that one).

Or are we saying there is a difference between Veritas needing to know the password if I have changed it vs they dont need to know it if they randomly generated it?

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

I'm saying, they have to give some password, but if they make it "password" then every Tom, Dick and Harry knows its "password" or "nbusql" as it used to be. Not even Veritas know the password, its not shown anywhere. The hash of it would be in the server.conf file (if i recall correctly).

If support needs to connect they'll change it to something and connect. Whether you remember it or not is irrelevant since you can just update / reset it when you want to. But as I said, you need to be on the master to do so.

[sclind]

"Not even Veritas know the password, its not shown anywhere."

That is what I was curious about. So I didnt miss it somewhere in the upgrade.

[mph999]

No, you didn;t miss it.

As Riian corrrectly explains it's set to something random which doesn't matter as the only time we need to reset it to something 'known' is if we request the nbdb_backup -online output.  We then need the passwd to allow us to assess the NBDB, for example using SQLAnywhere.

It can be reset without knowing the original passwd, but only from the master.