Preface

This guide includes the conceptual and task-oriented information you need to perform backup, restore, and recovery procedures using the Recovery Manager utility. It assumes that you are familiar with the basic concepts of backup and recovery described in the Oracle8i Backup and Recovery Guide.

The Oracle8i Recovery Manager User's Guide and Reference contains information that describes the features and functionality of the Oracle8i Standard Edition and the Oracle8i Enterprise Edition products. The Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition have the same basic features, but several advanced features are available only with the Enterprise Edition, and some of these are optional. For example, to use Recovery Manager to perform automated tablespace point-in-time recovery, you must have the Enterprise Edition.

See Also: Getting to Know Oracle8i for information about the differences between Oracle8i Standard Edition and the Oracle8i Enterprise Edition and the features and options that are available.

What's New in Oracle8i?

This section describes new features for Recovery Manager in Oracle release 8.0 and release 8.1.

Release 8.1.6

New features in release 8.1.6 include:

• The autolocate option of the set command causes RMAN to automatically discover which nodes of an OPS cluster contain the backups that you want to restore (see "set_run_option").

• The configure compatible command controls the compatibility of the recovery catalog packages with the RMAN executable (see "configure" and "Setting Recovery Catalog Compatibility").

• The resetlogs option of the alter database command allows you to open the database with the RESETLOGS option (see "alterDatabase").

• The change ... delete, delete expired, and backup ... delete input commands can now remove catalog records rather than update them to status DELETED (see Table 3-2, "Maintenance Commands and Scripts").

Release 8.1.5

New features in release 8.1.5 include the following:

• Oracle releases the Media Management API, Version 2.0. Support for the version 1.1 Media Management API is maintained. The following are features of the new API:
  • Through an enhancement called proxy copy, the media management vendor software is able to take over data movement involved in a backup or restore (see "Proxy Copy").

  • Some media management software allows backup media to be arranged into storage pools based on media type, retention period, or other criteria. The pool parameter of the backup command provides integration between such products and RMAN (see "backup").

  • When a channel is allocated, RMAN displays in its log a text message identifying the media management product used to take backups on that channel. When the media manager encounters an error, it returns a text error message explaining the error, which will be displayed in the RMAN log.

  • The new send command allows commands to be sent directly from an RMAN session to the media management software (see "send").

• The commands crosscheck backup (see "crosscheck"), change ... crosscheck (see "change"), and delete expired backup (see "deleteExpired") allow for the synchronization of the recovery catalog with the media manager's catalog. RMAN can determine whether backups and copies are actually on disk or tape and update their repository record if they are not.

• The output of the list backup command (see "list") now prints the list of backups belonging to a backup set in a separate section of the report from the list of data files or archived logs included in the backup set.

• A new command, report need backup redundancy (see "report"), alerts the user that a new backup is required when fewer than a user-specified number of backups of a data file exist.

• The create catalog command (see "createCatalog") creates the recovery catalog. It replaces catrman.sql and associated scripts in the dbs/admin directory.

• Previously it was necessary to run a SQL script to perform a recovery catalog upgrade. Now you can upgrade the catalog with the upgrade catalog command (see "upgradeCatalog").

• The drop catalog command (see "dropCatalog") removes the recovery catalog schema.

• The RMAN commands startup (see "startup"), shutdown (see "shutdown"), and alter database ... mount/alter database ... open (see "alterDatabase") have the same syntax as their equivalent SQL commands.

• The duplicate command allows creation of a replicated database using the backups of another database (see Chapter 7, "Creating a Duplicate Database with Recovery Manager").

• When backing up on multiple nodes of a parallel server, it is possible that some disks have affinity to certain nodes in the cluster such that access to those disks is faster from those nodes than from other nodes in the cluster. RMAN recognizes node affinity, if it exists, and attempts to schedule datafile backups on channels allocated at nodes that have affinity to those files.

• Recovery Manager can now create up to four concurrent copies of each backup piece (see "Duplexed Backup Sets").

• RMAN no longer requires that backup piece names be explicitly specified using the format parameter. By default, RMAN chooses a unique name for each backup piece.

• A backup piece is no longer overwritten if an attempt is made to create a backup piece with the same name as an existing one. RMAN now issues an error.

• You can perform TSPITR (Tablespace Point -in-Time Recovery) without a recovery catalog (see "Performing TSPITR Without a Recovery Catalog").

• Two new views are available to monitor the progress and performance of Recovery Manager backups: V$BACKUP_SYNC_IO and V$BACKUP_ASYNC_IO (see "Monitoring RMAN Jobs").

Structure

This book contains the following parts and chapters:

Part / Chapter	Contents
PART 1	Using Recovery Manager
Chapter 1, "Recovery Manager Concepts"	Describes the features and functionality of the Recovery Manager utility.
Chapter 2, "Getting Started with Recovery Manager"	Describes how to start using Recovery Manager, including whether you should use a recovery catalog, how you can execute commands, and how to connect to a target database.
Chapter 3, "Managing the Recovery Manager Repository"	Describes how to manage RMAN metadata using either a recovery catalog or the control file.
Chapter 4, "Generating Lists and Reports with Recovery Manager"	Describes how to generate lists of your backups and copies and reports describing which datafiles need to be backed up, which backups are obsolete, and the structure of the database schema at a specified time.
Chapter 5, "Making Backups and Copies with Recovery Manager"	Describes how to make backup and image copies of datafiles, control files, and archived redo logs using Recovery Manager.
Chapter 6, "Restoring and Recovering with Recovery Manager"	Describes how to restore backups and copies of datafiles, control files, and archived redo logs and perform media recovery on datafiles.
Chapter 7, "Creating a Duplicate Database with Recovery Manager"	Describes how to create a duplicate of your target database on either a local or remote host using backups of your target database datafiles.
Chapter 8, "Performing Point-in-Time Recovery with Recovery Manager"	Provides planning guidelines and step-by-step instructions for performing tablespace point-in-time recovery with Recovery Manager.
Chapter 9, "Recovery Manager Troubleshooting"	Provides suggestions for interpreting RMAN error messages and debugging output as well as an account of the most common RMAN problems.
PART 2	Recovery Manager Reference
Chapter 10, "Recovery Manager Command Syntax"	Provides syntax diagrams, parameter descriptions, and code samples for all RMAN commands.
Chapter 11, "Recovery Catalog Views"	Describes the views available with a recovery catalog.
"Glossary"	Defines terms relevant for backup and recovery.

Changes to This Book

The following aspects of this manual are new in release 8.1.6:

• In release 8.1.5, all the backup and recovery documentation was located in the Oracle8i Backup and Recovery Guide. In release 8.1.6, this documentation is divided into the following books:
  • Oracle8i Backup and Recovery Guide

  • Oracle8i Recovery Manager User's Guide and Reference

  • Oracle8i Standby Database Concepts and Administration

• Chapter 9, "Recovery Manager Troubleshooting" gives tips for debugging RMAN as well as descriptions of common problems.

Audience

This guide is for database administrators (DBAs) who administer the backup, restore, and recovery operations of an Oracle database system using the Recovery Manager utility.

Knowledge Assumed of the Reader

Readers of this guide are assumed to be familiar with:

• Relational database concepts and basic database administration as described in Oracle8i Concepts and the Oracle8i Administrator's Guide.

• Basic backup and recovery concepts and strategies as described in the Oracle8i Backup and Recovery Guide.

• The operating system environment under which they are running Oracle.

Conventions

This section explains the conventions used in this manual including the following:

• Text

• Recovery Manager Syntax Diagrams and Notation

• Code Examples

Text

This section explains the conventions used within the text:

UPPERCASE Characters

Uppercase text is used to call attention to tablespace names, initialization parameters, and SQL keywords.

For example, "If you create a private rollback segment, the name must be included in the ROLLBACK_SEGMENTS parameter of the init.ora file. You can view this information by issuing a SHOW PARAMETER statement in SQL*Plus."

Italicized Characters

Italicized words within text are book titles, new vocabulary, emphasized words, or variables in SQL or Recovery Manager syntax.

For example, "An archived redo log is an online redo log that has been copied offline. You must run your database in ARCHIVELOG mode to enable this feature. If you are using Recovery Manager, you can specify an archived redo log in a backup command by using the archivelog like '/oracle/archive/arc_*' sub-clause."

Bold Characters

Bold words within text are Recovery Manager keywords or operating system-specific commands.

For example, "Use the Recovery Manager backup command to back up your database. Alternatively, use the UNIX cp command to copy files."

Monospaced Characters

Filenames and directories appear in a monospaced font. Also, monospaced characters in text preceding a code example indicates a filename or keyword used in the sample code.

For example, "This command backs up the tablespace TBS_1:

run {
     allocate channel c1 type disk;
     backup tablespace tbs_1;
}

Recovery Manager Syntax Diagrams and Notation

For information about Recovery Manager syntax conventions, see "Conventions Used in this Reference".

Code Examples

SQL, SQL*Plus, and Recovery Manager commands and statements appear separated from the text of paragraphs in a monospaced font. For example:

INSERT INTO emp (empno, ename) VALUES (1000, 'SMITH'); 
ALTER TABLESPACE users ADD DATAFILE 'users2.ora' SIZE 50K; 
run {
     allocate channel ch1 type disk;
     backup database;
}

When you run RMAN from the command line, the command prompt appears as RMAN>. When you issue commands from the SQL*Plus command line, the prompt appears as SQL>. These prompts are displayed in the code examples only when they are necessary to prevent confusion.

You can execute SQL, SQL*Plus, and RMAN commands in different environments on different platforms. As much as possible, this guide attempts to provide generic documentation, that is, documentation that is not specific to any operating system or interface. Nevertheless, it is sometimes necessary for illustrative purposes to show how the syntax works at the operating system level. In these cases, this book uses examples from a UNIX command-line interface and employs the % symbol to indicate the operating system prompt. For example:

% rman target / rcvcat rman/rman@inst2
RMAN> startup

How to Use This Guide

This manual contains the following basic types of information:

• Conceptual (Chapter 1, "Recovery Manager Concepts")

• Procedural (chapters 3 - 8)

• Reference (Part II, "Recovery Manager Reference")

• Troubleshooting (Chapter 9, "Recovery Manager Troubleshooting")

To acquaint yourself with the basic features of RMAN, read Chapter 1, "Recovery Manager Concepts" and then Chapter 2, "Getting Started with Recovery Manager". Refer to the procedural chapters for information about specific tasks. Finally, refer to the reference chapters for clarification about RMAN syntax or the columns in the catalog views.

Your Comments Are Welcome

We value and appreciate your comments as an Oracle user and reader of our references. As we write, revise, and evaluate, your opinions are the most important input we receive. At the front of this reference is a reader's comment form that we encourage you to use to tell us both what you like and what you dislike about this (or other) Oracle manuals. If the form is missing, or you would like to contact us, please use the following address or fax number:

Server Technologies Documentation Manager

Oracle Corporation

500 Oracle Parkway

Redwood City, CA 94065

FAX: 650-506-7228

You can also e-mail your comments to the Information Development department at the following e-mail address: infodev@us.oracle.com