Oracle backup and restore

[Jiang Li_1]

Hi here,

I'm new to oracle, but I need do a backup job for one oracle 8i server here. The server is running HPUX11.0 OS. I have some ideas about exp/imp backup method and cold database backup. But I don't know how to recover the database server if the server need to be reinstalled. I do have a make_net_recover backup for vg00. But I found there are a lot of logical volumes in vg01 which are used by Oracle for raw devices.

I can't use other commercial backup tools for the backup at this stage. I have dump files created by exp command, I also have cold backup files created by the script which is easy to get from internet.

Can anybody here give me suggestions on how to restore the server after make_net_recovery ? I know how to recover OS but not sure how to recover Oracle and the database.

Thanks in advance.

[Chris Evans_5]

Hi there,

Once you have the operating system back you will need to recover or reinstall the oracle software.

When this is back you can recover from your cold backup tape.... do you know how to do this? if not what commands are you using to backup the database? (tar, cpio, fbackup???, once we know the commands used to do the backup we can let you know the commands to do the restore)

Do your cold backup tapes include the init file(s) for your database(s)? If not you will need to recreate these files.

Once the all the files are back you can then bring the database up in your normal way.

To recover from an export it is slightly more difficult. You will need to create the database structure first, ie datafiles and tablespaces. You can then use the imp command to import all of the data, using the full=y option.

Hope this helps you a little.
If you need anything clearing up then yell.

Chris

[Jiang Li_1]

Hi Chris,

Thank you very much for your prompt response !

I use a script on the webpage http://www.informit.com/isapi/product_id~%7B5595BE3C-AD4C-4F5E-8922-43AF3D17B744%7D/element_id~%7B5946EA3D-7970-4F68-87DD-BFB2685113DC%7D/st~%7BA119F4FC-560E-4B4E-9F88-C6E969331D73%7D/content/articlex.asp to do the cold backup job. It use 'cp' command for the backup.

I am not familar with the installation and setup of oracle. I just want to find a very simple way for me to do the backup & restore. This oracle server may be re-installed in the near future, after that, I need restore it to current stage. I can afford shutdown of oracle on this server whenever I want. Do I need care for the raw devices ? I don't know how important for these devices in oracle. After I restored OS, Do I need recovery vg01 volume configuration which contains a lot of raw devices on it ?

By the way, I am familar with HPUX. Thanks again !

[Chris Evans_5]

If you are using raw devices as your datafiles then you will not be able to back them up using this script.

If you are using normal filesystem datafiles then this script will just copy them to another directory, not to tape. How are you backing them up to tape?

You can back the oracle software up using any standard backup tool and recover it without any problems. We do it on oracle 8.1.7.4 and 9.2. The software does not like being recovered to a different host. So as long as you are recovering back to the same one you will be ok.

Chris

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi,

For Oracle Database, one simple way of recovery is by using RMAN.

If you have access to metalink, you will find tons of information over there.

if you need any further help, let us know.

regards
Yogeeraj

[Jiang Li_1]

Hi Chris,

Firstly, I use the script to backup files to hard disk, then I can use OmniBack software to backup them to tape. (I don't have license to backup oracle database)

How can I find if our oracle use datafiles on raw devices ? Thanks.

[Chris Evans_5 · Accepted solution]

OK :)

you can tell of you are using raw files by running the following SQL in SQL*Plus

select name from v$datafile;

if the file names that come up are in /dev/vg01/r.... format then you are probably using raw files. If they are in /filesytem/filename format then you are probably using datafiles (unless the datafiles are just symbolic links to raw files) Things are never easy... :)

[Jiang Li_1]

Hi Chris,

Do you mean the backup script will not help if we have datafile on raw device ? If this is case, How about RMAN utility ? Can it be used to backup datafile on both raw device and ordinary unix file system ?

Thank you !

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

with rman you connect to the database and it knows, where your data is, regardless whether on raw device or on file system and puts it where you configured it to do. A normal backup script would only backup file systems.

greetings,

Michael

[Chris Evans_5]

No, that script uses cp so it will not be able to deal with raw files.

You can use omniback directly to do the backup.

Create a backup specification containing all off the files in the database (raw files or file systems). Then bring the database down, run this backup and bring the database up afterwards.

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi again

rman (recovery manager and not backup manager) is the tool of choice of Oracle. It does not only simplify the backup, it also helps greatly if you have to recover the database full or incomplete.

greetings,

Michael

[Indira Aramandla]

Hi,

If you are restoring the Server from make_net_recovery, You will need to re-install the Oracle 8i Server RDBMS for HP-UX 11.0 software from the oracle software CD's. Or as you mentioned you backup the filesystem to disk and then use Omniback to backup to a tape, you can restore the filesystem that had the Oracle software from the tape.
Now after the software has been restored / installed successfully, you can restore your database.

You said that you do cold backup (shutdown the database and copy the datafiles to a disk). You can use Omniback to backup the datafile from this backup disk to tape. You will need additional license to backup Oracle provided you are integrating RMAN with OmniBack. If you cannot get the license now, you can just backup the datafiles, redo logs and the control files from the backup disk to the tape using Omniback. You can define the backup specification in Omniback to backup the datafiles, redologs and controlfiles. As chris suggested run the query and find out the datafile paths, to define the backup specification.

Then you can write a script and schedule in cron to execute the script.

The script will have the following.
1. set you environment variables
2. set your oracle SID
3. login to svrmgrl
4. connect internal
5. shutdown
6. then call /opt/omni/bin/omnib -datalist with the datalist and other parameters. And makesure the datalist is the backup specification that you defined to backup the datafiles, redologs and controlfiles.

Make sure the tape is marked for permanent.

Then restore the database from the backup tape and startup the database. Since the database backup was a cold backup, there is no need to recover to a point in time.

I hope this helps.

IA

[V.Tamilvanan]

Hi,

This is the rman script we use to take Level 0 (Full Database Backup including the control file).
U can modify the script to take incremental backup also by changing the level 0 to 1 or 2.

. /u02/home/ora1/ora1_env
rman nocatalog target system/manager <run {
allocate channel d2 type disk;
backup incremental level 0 format '/u02/oracle/backup/rman/%d%s%p.ora1.rman'
filesperset 200 (database include current controlfile);
sql "alter system archive log current"; release channel d2;

[Chris Evans_5]

I agree with Michael if you can get the license for oracle/omniback integration then rman is the best way to go forward, but if you can't then you are going to have to carry on with your manual scripts.

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi,

With tools like RMAN to do backups -- raw vs cooked doesn't come into play!

regards
Yogeeraj

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi again,

we prefer to do our RMAN backup to DISK then backup the "RMAN backup files" to TAPE.

Well, you can choose this way if you have enough disk space available.

regards
Yogeeraj

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi again,

can you post:
select name from v$datafile;

thanks,

Michael

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Hi there.
Just my 2 ct to this.
We use OmniBack for a long time now.
We use to do cold backups ( yes, we take the time to shutdown the database, do the backup and startup the database again ).
If you have the chance to do so, do it.
It makes your life easy. If your database then crashes, you can do a recover until time.
A few things you should do :

- backup your controlfile as sql script
separately to know, where all your files
are

- then create a backup specification under OmniBack inlcuding file systems and raw devices ( both possible )

- check, that you have scripts to shutdown and startup your database.

- do a test backup and verifying the data written to tape.

If you want to transfer your data to a different server, do an export of your old database ( full export ).
Setup your new software.
Create a new database and import the data from the old system.

Hope i could help.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[T G Manikandan]

RMAN is the best way for Oracle backup's and restoration,

it can use third-party media management software in your case omniback.

It has many features like it can automate lot of procedures

/*
Use server sessions to back up and copy the database, tablespaces, datafiles, control files, and archived redo logs.

Compress backups of datafiles so that only those data blocks that have been written to are included in a backup.

Store frequently executed backup and recovery operations in scripts.

Perform incremental backups, which back up only those data blocks that have changed since a previous backup.

Use the recovery catalog to automate both restore and recovery operations.

Perform automatic parallelization of backup and restore operations.

Restore a backup using a backup control file and automatically adjust the control file to reflect the structure of the restored datafiles.

Find datafiles that require a backup based on user-specified limits on the amount of redo that must be applied for recovery.

Perform crosschecks to determine whether archived materials in the media management catalog are still available.

Test whether specified backups can be restored.
*/