I have got frequently the error "Error 1017 received logging on to the standby", while trying to enable the archivelog transfer between primary and standby.
The majority of tips on the net and the entry in the alert.log would tell You:
- check Your remote_login_passwordfile - should be SHARED or EXCLUSIVE
- check Your password file - it should exist and a password for SYS should be the same.
I have done as suggested, still no progress.
The solution was actually trivial - just copy the password file from the primary to the standby. Not sure why previously it did not work - I am sure the SYS password was the same and I checked connection in both directions (i.e. PRIMARY->STANDBY, STANDBY->PRIMARY) using the same entries in tnsnames.ora as specified in the archivelog transfer configuration.
It seems, there is a huge difference between versions 10g and 11g in this case - previously it was enough to create new password file with the same password. Now it must be the same file (ie. copy from the original on the primary).
And here is a very good article on the password files in Data Guard environment.
