Administrative Privileges

Administrative Privileges

Administrative privileges that are required for an administrator to perform basic database operations are granted through two special system privileges, SYSDBA and SYSOPER. You must have one of these privileges granted to you, depending upon the level of authorization you require.
The SYSDBA and SYSOPER system privileges allow access to a database instance even when the database is not open. Control of these privileges is totally outside of the database itself.
The SYSDBA and SYSOPER privileges can also be thought of as types of connections that enable you to perform certain database operations for which privileges cannot be granted in any other fashion. For example, you if you have the SYSDBA privilege, you can connect to the database by specifying CONNECT AS SYSDBA.

SYSDBA and SYSOPER

-SYSDBA            

Perform STARTUP and SHUTDOWN operations
ALTER DATABASE: open, mount, back up, or change character set
CREATE DATABASE
DROP DATABASE
CREATE SPFILE
ALTER DATABASE ARCHIVELOG
ALTER DATABASE RECOVER
Includes the RESTRICTED SESSION privilege

-SYSOPER          

Perform STARTUP and SHUTDOWN operations
CREATE SPFILE
ALTER DATABASE OPEN/MOUNT/BACKUP
ALTER DATABASE ARCHIVELOGALTER DATABASE RECOVER (Complete recovery only. Any form of incomplete recovery, such as UNTIL TIME|CHANGE|CANCEL|CONTROLFILE requires connecting as SYSDBA.)
Includes the RESTRICTED SESSION privilege