Issue/Symptom/Question

How are the databases backups being run?

Applies To

Oracle Databases

Linux server

Resolution/Fix/Answer

The RMAN backups are configured to run via the 'oracle' operating system user’s crontab.

You can see this by:

• • Log into the Linux server as the 'oracle' user.
  • Type crontab -l (lower case L) at the command prompt and you will see something like the following:

00 00 * * * /u01/app/oracle/local/rman/bin/backup_database.sh -t full -s 'PROD PROD_H TEST TEST_H TRAIN TRAIN_H' 
00 4-22 * * * /u01/app/oracle/local/rman/bin/backup_database.sh -t archive -s 'PROD PROD_H TEST TEST_H TRAIN TRAIN_H' 

• • In this example, the first job is the backup script which runs every night at midnight. It is a full backup and will back up all of the databases listed in the command.  This is a ‘hot’ backup which means the database is not shutdown.
  • The second job is the same backup script, but now it is only backing up the archivelogs. It is run on the hour between 4AM and 10PM.  When this job runs, it takes a backup of any existing archivelogs and then removes the archivelog from the archivelog directory. 

We recommend the following be configured with your backups.

• • Configure the backup logs to go to an email address.  You can get all the logs or just the ones from failed backups.
  • Synch the backups files to write to a windows share.

Log files are written to the /u01/app/oracle/local/rman/log directory. If there is an error during the backup you will see one of these in the log file:

• • ORA-
  • RMAN-
  • error
  • fail