Securing external program execution (EXTPROC)

Some database applications can use external dynamic libraries implemented in a language such as C or C++. Usually these external libraries are developed for performance reasons, but they can also represent a major security threat by being replaced with ones that contain malicious code. Therefore this feature must be used with maximum precaution.

The listener process allows executing external programs using a dedicated program named extproc, which is located by default at $ORACLE_HOME/bin. The access to these external libraries can be configured within the listener configuration file listener.ora.

The following is a configuration example from listener.ora that allows executing a specific library:

 (SID_LIST ...

Get Oracle 11g Anti-hacker's Cookbook now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.