RMAN commands

To enable control file autobackup
RMAN> CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON;



To change the default format for autobackup file name
RMAN> CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE disk TO '/u1/oradata/cf_ORCL_auto_%F';

where %F is mandatory and translates into c-IIIIIIIIII-YYYYMMDD-QQ being:

• IIIIIIII the DBID
• YYYYMMDD timestamp of the backup
• QQ a sequence that starts with 00 and ends with FF

Use the SHOW command to list current settings
RMAN> SHOW CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT;
RMAN> SHOW EXCLUDE;
RMAN> SHOW ALL;



Use the CLEAR command to reset any persistent settings to its default value
RMAN> CONFIGURE BACKUP OPTIMIZATION CLEAR;
RMAN> CONFIGURE MAXSETSIZE CLEAR;
RMAN> CONFIGURE DEFAULT DEVICE TYPE CLEAR;





Configure the default device type for automatic channel allocation
RMAN> CONFIGURE DEFAULT DEVICE TYPE TO sbt;

or manually allocate a channel

RMAN> RUN {
2> ALLOCATE CHANNEL c1 DEVICE TYPE disk;
3> BACKUP DATAFILE '/u0/oradata/user01.dbf';
4> }





Configure parallelism
RMAN> CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE disk PARALLELISM 3;




Specify the maximum backup piece size
RMAN> CONFIGURE CHANNEL DEVICE TYPE DISK MAXPIECESIZE 2G;





Format the name of the generated backup files
RMAN> RUN {
2> ALLOCATE CHANNEL d1 DEVICE TYPE disk
3> FORMAT '/disk1/backups/%U';
4> BACKUP DATABASE PLUS ARCHIVELOG; }





Some backup options (more on Administration Workshop II 3-9)
RMAN> BACKUP device type disk tag '%TAG' database include current controlfile;
RMAN> BACKUP database plus archivelog;
RMAN> BACKUP datafile '/u0/oradata/user01.dbf';
RMAN> BACKUP AS BACKUPSET TABLESPACE hr_data; (AS BACKUPSET can be omitted if RMAN is configured in mode BACKUPSET)

After a online backup, remember to archive current redo logs using:

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM ARCHIVE LOG CURRENT;
or all archive logs:
SQL> ALTER SYSTEM ARCHIVE LOG ALL;
or a specific redo group:
SQL> ALTER SYSTEM ARCHIVE LOG GROUP n;

More on backups at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/itss/docs/oracle/9i/server.920/a96519/backup.htm

See backup constraints at Administration Workshop II 3-10
See parallel backup commands at Administration Workshop II 3-11

To create a clone database or a standby database from backups of the target database
RMAN> DUPLICATE database to auxiliaryDb;



To flashback a database

RMAN> FLASHBACK DATABASE
2> TO TIME = TO_DATE
3> ('06/25/03 12:00:00','MM/DD/YY HH:MI:SS');

after you have performed flashback database you should remember to reset logs:

SQL> ALTER DATABASE RESETLOGS;





To restore/recover
RMAN> RESTORE/RECOVER database;
RMAN> RESTORE/RECOVER tablespace
RMAN> RESTORE/RECOVER datafile





Reporting commands

• LIST
• REPORT

For catalog maintenance (Administration Workshop II 3-8)

• CROSSCHECK
• DELETE
• CHANGE
• LIST

RMAN command-line arguments

(Administration Workshop II 2-27)
First set the ORACLE_SID env
$ export ORACLE_SID=orcl

Writing RMAN output to a log file
$ rman TARGET sys/oracle LOG=$HOME/oradata/u03/rman.log APPEND

Executing a command file when RMAN is invoked
$ rman TARGET sys/oracle CMDFILE=$HOME/scripts/my_rman_script.rcv

Establishes database connections on RMAN startup (both TARGET and CATALOG DBs)
$ rman TARGET sys/oracle@orcl CATALOG rman/rman@rcat

Note: NOCATALOG is the default mode (rman will use the control file as rman repository) unless a CATALOG database is specified.

Administration Workshop II. 10-3. Table types

• Ordinary (heap organized table): Data is stored as an unordered collection (heap).
• Partitioned table: data is divided into smaller, more manageable pieces.
• Index-organized table (IOT): Rows (key and non-key values) are sorted and stored in a B-tree index structure.
• Clustered table: related data from more than one table are stored together. In other words, a cluster is a group of tables that share the same data blocks because they share common columns and are often used together.
  

Administration Workshop II. 4-14. re-creating indexes

Use options to reduce the time it takes to create the index:

• PARALLEL
• NOLOGGING

SQL> CREATE INDEX rname_idx ON hr.regions (region_name) PARALLEL 4;

WARNING: if you created the index with PARALLEL option 4, then you'll need to change it back to PARALLEL 1 after the index is created so that it doesn't use 4 CPUs every time it access the index later!

Administration Workshop II. 2-16. Monitoring the Flash Recovery Area evolution with EM

Go to Enterprise Manager -> Related Links -> All metrics. Click on Recovery Area link then again on the percentage number to see the chart.

Administration Workshop II. 2-5. RMAN Performance Enhancements

• Automatic parallelization of backup, restore, and recovery operations
• No generation of extra redo during online database backups
• Backups that are restricted to limit the number of reads per file per second to avoid interfering with OLTP work
• The use of multiplexing, which can prevent flooding of any one file with reads and writes while still keeping a tape drive streaming
  

Administration Workshop II. 2-5. Use RMAN to detect block corruption

You can use RMAN to detect block corruption. The information relating to the block corruption that is detected during backup can be obtained by using the V$BACKUP_CORRUPTION and V$COPY_CORRUPTION dynamic views.