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Oracle BBED Tips
Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting |
For using BBED in Oracle Forensics, see
Oracle Internals - Using
BBED Block Browser and Editor to Find Deleted Data.
Oracle has the BBED utility (block
browser and editor) is is all releases of Oracle, from Oracle7 to
Oracle10g. Designed for internal use only, BBED can be used
for several functions, both legitimate and illegal:
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The original intent for BBED is for use
by Oracle Technical support to browse, diagnose (and repair) data block
corruption issues.
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BBED is a great data block browser for
those interested in examining the internal structures with data and index
blocks. However, the "alter system dump" command can also dump
data block contents. You should NEVER use BBED
in EDIT Mode unless you are working with Oracle technical support.
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Some DBA's use BBED to corrupt data and
index blocks to test RMAN recovery from self-induced data corruptions.
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Hackers might use BBED to break into an
Oracle database. Tools like BBED can be used to view data directly
within their data block (bypassing the Oracle later), and because BBED
writes directly the data block, BBED could be used by hackers to update a
database without logging and auditing.
Using and linking BBED
This paper titled "disassembling
the Oracle data block" has complete instructions for installing and using
BBED. This make command tells how to linkedit BBED:
make -f
ins_rdbms.mk BBED=$ORACLE_HOME/bin/bbed $ORACLE_HOME/bin/bbed
This
page shows the BBED command syntax and usage options.
BBED Safety tip: When using BBED,
always stay in BROWSE mode, and only use BBED EDIT mode (with VER and REP) if
you know what you are doing.
The BBED password
Because of the huge power of BBED, it's been designed such
that only the worthy user can find it. Experienced software engineers can
find the BBED password in just a minute. If you cannot
extract the BBED password in 10 minutes, you are probably not experienced enough
to safely use the BBED tool.
BEWARE of BBED's POWER
The BBED utility can easily corrupt a
database and it should NEVER be used in a valuable database unless directed by
Oracle technical support.
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