2. Allow empty username & password so Oracle can do non-password based
authentication, i.e. "External Authentication".
http://news.php.net/php.internals/37545
[DOC]
A new OCI_CRED_EXT flag can be passed as the "session_mode" parameter
to oci_connect(), oci_new_connect() and oci_pconnect().
This tells Oracle to do external or OS authentication, if configured
in the database.
OCI_CRED_EXT can only be used with username of "/" and a empty
password. Oci8.privileged_connection may be On or Off. OCI_CRED_EXT
is not supported on Windows for security reasons.
The new flag may be combined with the existing OCI_SYSOPER or
OCI_SYSDBA modes (note: oci8.privileged_connection needs to be On for
OCI_SYSDBA and OCI_SYSOPER), e.g.: