Informix Error -952

Reasons / Common Causes

-952 fires when the password specified for a remote server connection (via ~/.netrc or a CONNECT statement's USER clause) is incorrect — per the official guidance, this message appears with Version 6.0 and later.

1. An incorrect password in ~/.netrc for the target host, per the official guidance.
2. An incorrect password supplied in a CONNECT statement's USER clause, per the official guidance.
3. A password that changed on the remote server without the local ~/.netrc/connection code being updated to match.
4. A PAM misconfiguration on the server, in practice — if the password is independently confirmed correct (it works for a normal OS login) and -952 still fires on every connection attempt through dbaccess/CONNECT, suspect the server's PAM stack rather than the password itself. Informix routes remote authentication through PAM, and a broken or misconfigured PAM service file for the Informix service name can produce this exact "password not correct" message even though the password is fine.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Check that your password is specified correctly, per the official guidance, in whichever location (~/.netrc or the CONNECT statement) supplied it.
2. Try again, per the official guidance, once the password is corrected.
3. If the password is genuinely forgotten/expired, have it reset by whoever administers accounts on the remote server.

Examples

Checking ~/.netrc's password entry

$ cat ~/.netrc
machine remote_host login myusername password ...

Confirm the password value is current and correct for remote_host.

Diagnostic Checks

1. Check the password specified in ~/.netrc or the CONNECT statement's USER clause against what's actually valid on the remote server.
2. If the password is independently verified correct and -952 still fires on every attempt, check the server's PAM configuration (e.g. /etc/pam.d/informix or whatever service name the connection uses) before continuing to suspect the password itself.
3. If the database server is running in a container, confirm the user's password hash in the container's /etc/shadow actually matches the host OS's — PAM authenticates against whatever user database is visible inside the container, and a container image with a stale or separately-managed /etc/shadow will reject a password that's genuinely correct on the host, with no indication from the error itself that the two have drifted apart.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -951 — "User username is not known on the database server." A related authentication error, about the username being unrecognized rather than the password being wrong.
• -950 — "User username is not known on the database server." A related authentication error, in the PAM-specific context.

Check the password specified in ~/.netrc or CONNECT ... USER — the same two locations -951 checks for the username.