Today I found an interesting little issue when trying to use RCU to create schemas for a middleware installation.  RCU could not connect to the database with the SYS user.  I could connect with other users, like SYSTEM for example, and I had the password correct.

Turns out the database in question did not have an Oracle password file.  You can check this by using the following query, which should return a row for SYS:

SQL> select * FROM v$pwfile_users;

no rows selected

As it did not, the solution was the create the password file, as follows:

[oracle@ebs ~]$ orapwd file=/oracle/VIS/db/tech_st/11.1.0/dbs/orapwVIS