Oracle Restore archive logs

[MOwens]

I've run into a situation after upgrading BE from 12.5 to 2010 and updating the Oracle agent(s) on the oracle servers. We are running oracle data guard and have been taking the backups from the standby database, but there were errors this past weekend with the backups to where it did not get the files listed for the oracle backup to the BE catalog. I'm trying to get just the archive logs. Nothing else. I'm not going to restore Oracle using these "corrupted" backups for the fear of the unknown state they are in, but I want to know if anyone knows of a way to search for just archive logs on tape?

I know they are there, somewhere, because RMAN reports that the logs have been backed up to tape. They just are not listed in the catalog, so want to get to the tapes themselves. Any ideas?

Mike

[MOwens]

Apparently not possible.

[Hemant_Jain]

Well, you may want to make sure all your relevant tapes are cataloged on the media server. In order to catalog a tape, you can run a catalog job. Once the tapes are catalog, you would see all types of data in restore selections and look for Oracle database items under the respective oracle server name. If you find such an item in the restore selections, you can go to properties of the particular backup set and identify the media to which it belongs.

Thanks

[MOwens]

I tried to re-catalog the relevant tapes, but to no avail. It will only allow the selection for an Oracle restore using archive logs to update to a point in time or most recent time. I moved on to attempting to restore the archive logs via RMAN (DBA-initiated) and ran into several errors. The first in the series of errors, RMAN would start the request, but would receive messages from BE that the files did not exist in the BE catalog. This was strange as I could see that the files were backed up via RMAN output logs and we're visible (not selectable) through the restore GUI, which meant they were in the catalog. I then tried different tape parameters in the script, such as:

run {
 allocate channel t0 type 'sbt_tape';
SEND 'BSA_SERVICE_HOST=192.168.1.11,NBBSA_TOTAL_STREAMS=1,NBBSA_JOB_COOKIE={3D14434D-99EF-4671-9C2B-8BF862B8FB01},NBBSA_DB_DEVICE_NAME=Oracle-Win::\\myserver.mydomain.com\myoracleservice';
 restore archivelog from logseq=55870 until logseq=55878;
 release channel t0;
}

This lead to errors about the user "0xe000fe29 - Authentication failed on connection to the server. Make sure that the user account has the appropriate permissions and that the password was typed correctly". Strange at first because the backups of this server run under the same user. I then reviewed the user and login permissions that were being used. I noticed that the user had login permissions to the primary server, but not login permissions to the standby server, where I was initially trying to restore to. I verified that the user had login access to the server and the password was correct. and that the user was running as an admin/oradba (group)/oraoper (group). Next I verified the Oracle agent on the server was using the same user credentials under the "Database Access" tab. Still the errors persisted. On the agent, I set the "Use the full computer name or IP address for Oracle and DB2 operations". This needed to be identical to media servers Tools\Options\Oracle\Modify List, Server\Logon Account information with full domain tacked on. I.e., MyServer.xDomain.com in both places. In my case, the media server was listed just as MyServer without the full domain specified. I then tested the above RMAN script. It worked, but I still didn't know what all the "SEND 'BSA_SERVICE_HOST...." rhetoric was all about. At the same time, I got a call from Symantec support and it was somone who was familiar with Oracle, yeah! I asked about this "SEND 'BSA..." stuff and he didn't know either. He said he usually Googles it. I felt comfort in that. So I tried the RMAN script again without that info and it worked just fine. So it boils down to making sure the domain user has the correct permissions (if a domain user is used for the backup/restore) and then make sure the correct parameters for the machine names are specified fully on the media server and client agent.

run {
 allocate channel t0 type 'sbt_tape';
 restore archivelog from logseq=55870 until logseq=55878;
 release channel t0;
}

I don't normally post on forums as most my problems have aleady been asked and answered by someone else. I hope this helps someone out there that may run into a goofy situation like this as well.