Oracle – How to Manually Install Sample Schemas in Oracle 11g

PostgreSQL refuses to run under root, and the reasons there may be of interest in this question.

This approach allows you to essentially separate UNIX and db permissions as Phil mentions above, but there are a number of reasons why this is important especially when you have a programmable server like Oracle.

The first is that generally speaking you want to be able to contain the behavior of the system in the event of a bug in your stored procedures or otherwise. Bugs in stored procedures that allow the db to overwrite arbitrary files are really bad in a database, but they become far worse when you have the ability to overwrite operating system binaries. So this allows you to lock down and contain damage in a way you can't do if the db runs as root.

The second is that you can essentially give the DBA a smaller area of responsibility.

You need to grant the REFERENCES privilege on the reference table to user2. (See GRANT, Table Privileges section. Note that this cannot be granted to a role, must be granted to the user directly.)

Here's a demo:

SQL> create user user1 identified by user1;
User created.
SQL> grant create session, create table, unlimited tablespace to user1;
Grant succeeded.

SQL> create user user2 identified by user2;
User created.
SQL> grant create session, create table, unlimited tablespace to user2;
Grant succeeded.

SQL> create table user1.ref_table (id number primary key);
Table created.
SQL> insert into user1.ref_table values (1);
1 row created.
SQL> insert into user1.ref_table values (2);
1 row created.
SQL> commit;
Commit complete.

SQL> grant references on user1.ref_table to user2;
Grant succeeded.

SQL> connect user2/user2;
Connected.
SQL> create table oth_table (thing number, fk number);
Table created.
SQL> alter table oth_table add(constraint fk1 foreign key (fk)
  2      references user1.ref_table on delete set null);
Table altered.

SQL> insert into oth_table values (42, 1);
1 row created.
SQL> insert into oth_table values (256, 2);
1 row created.
SQL> commit;
Commit complete.

SQL> connect user1/user1;
Connected.
SQL> delete from ref_table where id = 1;
1 row deleted.
SQL> commit;
Commit complete.

SQL> connect user2/user2;
Connected.
SQL> select * from oth_table;

     THING     FK
---------- ----------
    42
       256      2

If you want admin to do all the work, it'll need the CREATE ANY INDEX privilege, and you still need the REFERENCES grant to user2.

Here's how that could work:

SQL> create user user1 identified by user1;
User created.
SQL> create user user2 identified by user2;
User created.
SQL> create user admin identified by admin;
User created.

--- Grants
----------------
SQL> grant create session, create table, unlimited tablespace to user1;
Grant succeeded.
SQL> grant create session, create table, unlimited tablespace to user2;
Grant succeeded.
SQL> grant create session, create any table,
  2        create any index, alter any table to admin;
Grant succeeded.

--- Create reference table as admin
----------------
SQL> connect admin/admin
Connected.
SQL> create table user1.ref_table (id number primary key);
Table created.

--- Do the "references" grant
----------------
SQL> connect / as sysdba
Connected.
SQL> grant references on user1.ref_table to user2;
Grant succeeded.

--- Create the second table as admin
----------------
SQL> connect admin/admin
Connected.
SQL> create table user2.oth_table (foo number, bar number);
Table created.

--- Add the constraint
----------------
SQL> alter table user2.oth_table add(constraint fk
  2      foreign key (bar) references user1.ref_table(id)
  3      on delete set null);
Table altered.