Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Backup and recovery is one of the most important aspects of a DBAs job. If you lose your
company's data, you could very well lose your job. Hardware and software can always be
replaced, but your data may be irreplaceable!
Normally one would schedule a hierarchy of daily, weekly and monthly backups, however
consult with your users before deciding on a backup schedule. Backup frequency normally
depends on the following factors:
Carefully plan backup retention periods. Ensure enough backup media (tapes) are available
and that old backups are expired in-time to make media available for new backups. Off-site
vaulting is also highly recommended.
Frequently test your ability to recover and document all possible scenarios. Remember, it's
the little things that will get you. Most failed recoveries are a result of organizational errors
and miscommunication.
Export/Import - Exports are "logical" database backups in that they extract logical
definitions and data from the database to a file. See the Import/ Export FAQ for more
details.
Cold or Off-line Backups - shut the database down and backup up ALL data, log,
and control files.
Hot or On-line Backups - If the database is available and in ARCHIVELOG mode, set
the tablespaces into backup mode and backup their files. Also remember to backup the
control files and archived redo log files.
RMAN Backups - while the database is off-line or on-line, use the "rman" utility to
backup the database.
It is advisable to use more than one of these methods to backup your database. For
example, if you choose to do on-line database backups, also cover yourself by doing
database exports. Also test ALL backup and recovery scenarios carefully. It is better to be
safe than sorry.
Regardless of your strategy, also remember to backup all required software libraries,
parameter files, password files, etc. If your database is in ARCHIVELOG mode, you also need
to backup archived log files.
A hot (or on-line) backup is a backup performed while the database is open and available for
use (read and write activity). Except for Oracle exports, one can only do on-line backups
when the database is ARCHIVELOG mode.
A cold (or off-line) backup is a backup performed while the database is off-line and
unavailable to its users. Cold backups can be taken regardless if the database is in
ARCHIVELOG or NOARCHIVELOG mode.
It is easier to restore from off-line backups as no recovery (from archived logs) would be
required to make the database consistent. Nevertheless, on-line backups are less disruptive
and doesn't require database downtime.
Restoring involves copying backup files from secondary storage (backup media) to disk. This
can be done to replace damaged files or to copy/move a database to a new location.
Recovery is the process of applying redo logs to the database to roll it forward. One can roll-
forward until a specific point-in-time (before the disaster occurred), or roll-forward until the
last transaction recorded in the log files.
SQL> connect SYS as SYSDBA
SQL> RECOVER DATABASE UNTIL TIME '2001-03-06:16:00:00' USING BACKUP CONTROLFILE;
RMAN> run {
set until time to_date('04-Aug-2004 00:00:00', 'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS');
restore database;
recover database;
}
This is probably not the appropriate time to be sarcastic, but, recovery without backups are
not supported. You know that you should have tested your recovery strategy, and that you
should always backup a corrupted database before attempting to restore/recover it.
Nevertheless, Oracle Consulting can sometimes extract data from an offline database using
a utility called DUL (Disk UnLoad - Life is DUL without it!). This utility reads data in the data
files and unloads it into SQL*Loader or export dump files. Hopefully you'll then be able to
load the data into a working database.
Note that DUL does not care about rollback segments, corrupted blocks, etc, and can thus
not guarantee that the data is not logically corrupt. It is intended as an absolute last resort
and will most likely cost your company a lot of money!
DUDE (Database Unloading by Data Extraction) is another non-Oracle utility that can be
used to extract data from a dead database. More info about DUDE is available at
http://www.ora600.nl/.
[edit] How does one backup a database using the export utility?
Oracle exports are "logical" database backups (not physical) as they extract data and logical
definitions from the database into a file. Other backup strategies normally back-up the
physical data files.
One of the advantages of exports is that one can selectively re-import tables, however one
cannot roll-forward from an restored export. To completely restore a database from an
export file one practically needs to recreate the entire database.
Always do full system level exports (FULL=YES). Full exports include more information about
the database in the export file than user level exports. For more information about the
Oracle export and import utilities, see the Import/ Export FAQ.
Alternatively, add the above commands into your database's startup command script, and
bounce the database.
log_archive_start = TRUE
log_archive_dest_1 = 'LOCATION=/arch_dir_name'
log_archive_dest_state_1 = ENABLE
log_archive_format = %d_%t_%s.arc
NOTE 1: Remember to take a baseline database backup right after enabling archivelog
mode. Without it one would not be able to recover. Also, implement an archivelog backup to
prevent the archive log directory from filling-up.
NOTE 2:' ARCHIVELOG mode was introduced with Oracle 6, and is essential for database
point-in-time recovery. Archiving can be used in combination with on-line and off-line
database backups.
NOTE 3: You may want to set the following INIT.ORA parameters when enabling
ARCHIVELOG mode: log_archive_start=TRUE, log_archive_dest=..., and
log_archive_format=...
NOTE 4: You can change the archive log destination of a database on-line with the ARCHIVE
LOG START TO 'directory'; statement. This statement is often used to switch archiving
between a set of directories.
NOTE 5: When running Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), you need to shut down all
nodes before changing the database to ARCHIVELOG mode. See the RAC FAQ for more
details.
[edit] I've lost an archived/online REDO LOG file, can I get my DB back?
The following INIT.ORA/SPFILE parameter can be used if your current redologs are corrupted
or blown away. It may also be handy if you do database recovery and one of the archived
log files are missing and cannot be restored.
NOTE: Caution is advised when enabling this parameter as you might end-up losing your
entire database. Please contact Oracle Support before using it.
_allow_resetlogs_corruption = true
This should allow you to open the database. However, after using this parameter your
database will be inconsistent (some committed transactions may be lost or partially
applied).
Steps:
Shut down the database from sqlplus or server manager. Backup all files to secondary
storage (eg. tapes). Ensure that you backup all data files, all control files and all log files.
When completed, restart your database.
Do the following queries to get a list of all files that needs to be backed up:
select name from sys.v_$datafile;
select member from sys.v_$logfile;
select name from sys.v_$controlfile;[/code]
Sometimes Oracle takes forever to shutdown with the "immediate" option. As workaround to
this problem, shutdown using these commands:
Note that if you database is in ARCHIVELOG mode, one can still use archived log files to roll
forward from an off-line backup. If you cannot take your database down for a cold (off-line)
backup at a convenient time, switch your database into ARCHIVELOG mode and perform hot
(on-line) backups.
Each tablespace that needs to be backed-up must be switched into backup mode before
copying the files out to secondary storage (tapes). Look at this simple example.
It is better to backup tablespace for tablespace than to put all tablespaces in backup mode.
Backing them up separately incurs less overhead. When done, remember to backup your
control files. Look at this example:
ALTER SYSTEM SWITCH LOGFILE; -- Force log switch to update control file headers
ALTER DATABASE BACKUP CONTROLFILE TO '/backupDir/control.dbf';
NOTE: Do not run on-line backups during peak processing periods. Oracle will write complete
database blocks instead of the normal deltas to redo log files while in backup mode. This will
lead to excessive database archiving and even database freezes.
If a database was terminated while one of its tablespaces was in BACKUP MODE (ALTER
TABLESPACE xyz BEGIN BACKUP;), it will tell you that media recovery is required when you
try to restart the database. The DBA is then required to recover the database and apply all
archived logs to the database. However, from Oracle 7.2, one can simply take the individual
datafiles out of backup mode and restart the database.
One can select from V$BACKUP to see which datafiles are in backup mode. This normally
saves a significant amount of database down time. See script end_backup2.sql in the Scripts
section of this site.
From Oracle9i onwards, the following command can be used to take all of the datafiles out
of hotbackup mode:
This command must be issued when the database is mounted, but not yet opened.
When a tablespace is in backup mode, Oracle will stop updating its file headers, but will
continue to write to the data files.
When in backup mode, Oracle will write complete changed blocks to the redo log files.
Normally only deltas (change vectors) are logged to the redo logs. This is done to enable
reconstruction of a block if only half of it was backed up (split blocks). Because of this, one
should notice increased log activity and archiving during on-line backups.
Recovery Manager (or RMAN) is an Oracle provided utility for backing-up, restoring and
recovering Oracle Databases. RMAN ships with the database server and doesn't require a
separate installation. The RMAN executable is located in your ORACLE_HOME/bin directory.
In fact RMAN, is just a Pro*C application that translates commands to a PL/SQL interface. The
PL/SQL calls are stallically linked into the Oracle kernel, and does not require the database
to be opened (mapped from the ?/rdbms/admin/recover.bsq file).
RMAN can do off-line and on-line database backups. It cannot, however, write directly to
tape, but various 3rd-party tools (like Veritas, Omiback, etc) can integrate with RMAN to
handle tape library management.
RMAN can be operated from Oracle Enterprise Manager, or from command line. Here are the
command line arguments:
Here is an example:
[edit] How does one backup and restore a database using RMAN?
The biggest advantage of RMAN is that it only backup used space in the database. RMAN
doesn't put tablespaces in backup mode, saving on redo generation overhead. RMAN will re-
read database blocks until it gets a consistent image of it. Look at this simple backup
example.
rman target sys/*** nocatalog
run {
allocate channel t1 type disk;
backup
format '/app/oracle/backup/%d_t%t_s%s_p%p'
(database);
release channel t1;
}
The examples above are extremely simplistic and only useful for illustrating basic concepts.
By default Oracle uses the database controlfiles to store information about backups.
Normally one would rather setup a RMAN catalog database to store RMAN metadata in. Read
the Oracle Backup and Recovery Guide before implementing any RMAN backups.
Note: RMAN cannot write image copies directly to tape. One needs to use a third-party
media manager that integrates with RMAN to backup directly to tape. Alternatively one can
backup to disk and then manually copy the backups to tape.
[edit] How does one backup and restore archived log files?
One can backup archived log files using RMAN or any operating system backup utility.
Remember to delete files after backing them up to prevent the archive log directory from
filling up. If the archive log directory becomes full, your database will hang! Look at this
simple RMAN backup scripts:
RMAN> run {
2> allocate channel dev1 type disk;
3> backup
4> format '/app/oracle/archback/log_%t_%sp%p'
5> (archivelog all delete input);
6> release channel dev1;
7> }
The "delete input" clause will delete the archived logs as they as backed-up.
RMAN> run {
2> allocate channel dev1 type disk;
3> restore (archivelog low logseq 78311 high logseq 78340 thread 1 all);
4> release channel dev1;
5> }
sqlplus sys
SQL> create user rman identified by rman;
SQL> alter user rman default tablespace tools temporary tablespace temp;
SQL> alter user rman quota unlimited on tools;
SQL> grant connect, resource, recovery_catalog_owner to rman;
SQL> exit;
Next, log in to rman and create the catalog schema. Prior to Oracle 8i this was done by
running the catrman.sql script.
You can now continue by registering your databases in the catalog. Look at this example:
[edit] How does one integrate RMAN with third-party Media Managers?
The following Media Management Software Vendors have integrated their media
management software with RMAN (Oracle Recovery Manager):
The above Media Management Vendors will provide first line technical support (and
installation guides) for their respective products.
When allocating channels one can specify Media Management spesific parameters. Here are
some examples:
Netbackup on Solaris:
Netbackup on Windows:
or:
The first step to clone or duplicate a database with RMAN is to create a new INIT.ORA and
password file (use the orapwd utility) on the machine you need to clone the database to.
Review all parameters and make the required changed. For example, set the DB_NAME
parameter to the new database's name.
Secondly, you need to change your environment variables, and do a STARTUP NOMOUNT
from sqlplus. This database is referred to as the AUXILIARY in the script below.
Lastly, write a RMAN script like this to do the cloning, and call it with "rman cmdfile
dupdb.rcv":
run {
set newname for datafile 1 to '/ORADATA/u01/system01.dbf';
set newname for datafile 2 to '/ORADATA/u02/undotbs01.dbf';
set newname for datafile 3 to '/ORADATA/u03/users01.dbf';
set newname for datafile 4 to '/ORADATA/u03/indx01.dbf';
set newname for datafile 5 to '/ORADATA/u02/example01.dbf';
Notes: the "set newname" commands are only required if your datafile names will different
from the target database.
[edit] Can one restore RMAN backups without a CONTROLFILE and RECOVERY
CATALOG?
Details of RMAN backups are stored in the database control files and optionally a Recovery
Catalog. If both these are gone, RMAN cannot restore the database. In such a situation one
must extract a control file (or other files) from the backup pieces written out when the last
backup was taken. Let's look at an example:
Now, let's see if we can restore it. First we need to start the databaase in NOMOUNT mode:
Now, from SQL*Plus, run the following PL/SQL block to restore the file:
DECLARE
v_devtype VARCHAR2(100);
v_done BOOLEAN;
v_maxPieces NUMBER;
-- CFNAME mist be the exact path and filename of a controlfile taht was backed-up
DBMS_BACKUP_RESTORE.restoreControlFileTo(cfname=>'/app/oracle/oradata/orcl/control0
1.ctl');
SQL> ! ls -l /oradata/orcl/control01.ctl
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 3096576 Aug 20 16:45 /oradata/orcl/control01.ctl[/code]
Database altered.
Database altered.