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Saving Oracle trace file's question.

 
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Gino Castoldi_2
Honored Contributor

Saving Oracle trace file's question.

Hi,

HP-UX 11.0 Oracle 8.1.7.3 MC/SG OVO 6.14

On our installation of Oracle in the directory
$ORACLE_HOME/admin/openview/udump/* there are
currently 1927 files (ora_xxxxx_openview.trc).
These files take up 1.7GB of space so far.
Average file size is 963KB.

Should we just keep only a few days worth of files or should we archive them all just in case? I want to free up disk space.

10 points to any good answer.
TIA, Gino
8 REPLIES 8
Pete Randall
Outstanding Contributor
Solution

Re: Saving Oracle trace file's question.

Gino,

I think you're the best one to answer that question. Have you ever referred to them? Have you had to go back more than a few days? Would fetching them off a backup tape be reasonable if the need arises. If you're answers were no, no and yes, then I would definitely remove all but the most recent, probably via a nightly cron job.


Pete

Pete
Volker Borowski
Honored Contributor

Re: Saving Oracle trace file's question.

Hmm,

1927 files is quite a bit.
May be it would be better not just to get rid of them by delete, but read them, analyze the error that causes their creation and get rid of this error.

May be they do not show up any more if you patch to 8.1.7.4 (which is an easy action).

Regards
Volker
Michael Schulte zur Sur
Honored Contributor

Re: Saving Oracle trace file's question.

Hi,

not all traces are due to errors. Have a look at them and if they do not contain vital information, keep a couple of days and mv the rest to the digital nirvana. You also might want to check the level of tracing.

greetings,

Michael
Mic V.
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Saving Oracle trace file's question.

I'd say the answer is "it depends." In a business environment, say on a finance/ERP/payroll server, there might be company policy or input from an auditor that you should keep them. In a development environment, it may not matter. If you're not the DBA, s/he may have an opinion.

Going by the SID, I'm guessing this is your OVO/NNM system. (and oh, duh, I should read :) It seems less critical. But I have to admit I'm a packrat. I tend to throw stuff like this onto tape and hang onto it for a while (deleting all but the latest originals). Tape is cheap. :)

Mic
What kind of a name is 'Wolverine'?
Yogeeraj_1
Honored Contributor

Re: Saving Oracle trace file's question.

hi,

I agree with Volker.

Read your alert.log and analyze. If there is any critical issues (ORA-0600 etc) then you will have to contact Oracle Support. In that case, you will be required to upload those trace files for analysis by them.

You may later compress or delete them all.

regards
Yogeeraj
No person was ever honoured for what he received. Honour has been the reward for what he gave (clavin coolidge)
Sanjay Kumar Suri
Honored Contributor

Re: Saving Oracle trace file's question.

Hello Gino

Apart from whatever has been said:

1. Background trace files are used to log errors that have been encountered by a background process, such as SMON, PMON, DBWn and other background processes.

2. These files exists only when an error requires writing to the trace files.

3. One should use these files to diagnose and troubleshoot problems.

Check the cause for the recent creation of trace files. Older ones definitely can be deleted.

sks
A rigid mind is very sure, but often wrong. A flexible mind is generally unsure, but often right.
Hein van den Heuvel
Honored Contributor

Re: Saving Oracle trace file's question.

So far we the replies have be assuming the trace files are a result of errors Oracle detected. As indicaed, you should line up the dates for those file with events in alert.log to help determin which files might be usefull for oracle problem submission.
If you are going to ignore errors, or may know that hundreds of them where caused by a poor database setting (like low shared pool :-) and that this situtation has since been cleared, then a bulk delete is appropriate. As long as you have some just tification.

Now, couldn't those trc file not also be actual sql traces? maybe someone/something on your system enabled sql tracing! CHeck the Oracle docs (or google) for the various ways to set and influence trace.
Some hints:

initXXX.ora (event 10046)
sqlnet.ora (... sql_trace=true..."
sqlplus glogin ... alter session set
(oradebug) event 10046 trace name context forever, level...

Cheers,
Hein.
Sanjay Kumar Suri
Honored Contributor

Re: Saving Oracle trace file's question.

Hello

As the name suggest udump, they are Background trace files only whose location is set by the parameter background_dump_dest.

Whereas User trace files (used for SQL tuning) will be in a directory like cdump and set by the parameter user_dump_dest. The size of these files can be controlled by max_dump_file_size.

sks

A rigid mind is very sure, but often wrong. A flexible mind is generally unsure, but often right.