RMAN Archives » Musings of an IT Implementor

RMAN 10.2 Block Corruption Checking – Physical, Logicial or Both

It’s an old topic, so I won’t dwell on the actual requirements or the process.

However, what I was not certain about, was whether RMAN in 10.2 (10gR2) would perform both physical *and* logical corruption checking if you use the command:

RMAN> BACKUP VALIDATE CHECK LOGICAL DATABASE;
I kept finding various documents with wording like that found here: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/backup.102/b14191/rcmbackp.htm#i1006353

“For example, you can validate that all database files and archived redo logs can be backed up by running a command as follows:
RMAN> BACKUP VALIDATE DATABASE ARCHIVELOG ALL;
This form of the command would check for physical corruption. To check for logical corruption,
RMAN> BACKUP VALIDATE CHECK LOGICAL DATABASE ARCHIVELOG ALL;"

It took a while, but I found the original document from Oracle here: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/backup.102/b14191/rcmconc1.htm#i1008614

Right at the bottom, it confirms that ordinarily “BACKUP VALIDATE DATABASE;” would check for physical corruption.
The additional keywords “CHECK LOGICAL” will check for logical corruption *in addition* to physical corruption.

So RMAN doesn’t need running twice with each validate command combination.

Find RMAN Backup Statistics

You can query the view V$BACKUP_SYNC_IO (for synchronous tape devices) to obtain the average MB transfer speed from RMAN to the tape device (or intermediary software if using the obk interface):

SQL> select avg(EFFECTIVE_BYTES_PER_SECOND)/1024/1024 MB_per_s from V$BACKUP_SYNC_IO where DEVICE_TYPE='SBT_TAPE';
MB_PER_S ----------- 16.1589822

NetBackup Oracle Database bplist output columns

Scenario: When backing up an Oracle database using NetBackup and RMAN, the backup details can be listed using the NetBackup command bplist.

You wonder what the columns of output data represent.

Looking in the /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/dbclient directory in the log file created during the backup, and with “VERBOSE = 5” in the /usr/openv/netbackup/bp.conf file, I can see that the following data is stored for the backup:
14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> VxBSAGetEnv: INF - returning - 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - objectOwner.bsa_ObjectOwner: 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - objectOwner.app_ObjectOwner: 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - objectName.objectSpaceName: Oracle Database 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - objectName.pathName: /bk_986_1_806854642 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - createTime: 0 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - copyType: 3 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - copyid: 0.0 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - restoreOrder: 0.0 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - estimatedSize: 0.100 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - resourceType: Oracle Backup 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - objectType: 4 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - objectStatus: 0 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> bsa_printObjectDescriptor: INF - objectDescription: 14:17:22.370 [5210] <4> VxBSACreateObject: objectOwner: -default_user- 14:17:22.371 [5210] <4> VxBSACreateObject: objectGroup: dba 1 14:17:22.371 [5210] <4> VxBSAGetEnv: INF - entering GetEnv - NBBSA_IMAGE_PERMISSION 14:17:22.371 [5210] <4> VxBSAGetEnv: INF - returning -

Therefore, the bplist outputs the following:
> /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/bplist -C <clientname> -t 4 -k <policyname> -Listpolicy -R /

9175040 0 0 0 9175040 1 0 -1 -3 33200 orasa1 dba 9175040 1360333082 1360333042 1360333042 1360333042 2 18 POLICY_TST 30 /bk_986_1_806854642

These relate to:
9175040 : The size (bytes) of the TAR of the backup piece. 0 0 0 9175040 : The size (bytes) of the TAR of the backup piece. 1 0 -1 -3 33200 orasid : The UNIX Oracle username used to run RMAN. dba : The UNIX Oracle group name used to run RMAN. 9175040 : The size (bytes) of the TAR of the backup piece. 1360333082 : Epoch timestamp, possibly showing created, modified, accessed? 1360333042 : Epoch timestamp, possibly showing created, modified, accessed? 1360333042 : Epoch timestamp, possibly showing created, modified, accessed? 1360333042 : Epoch timestamp, possibly showing created, modified, accessed? 2 18 POLICY_TST : The name of the NetBackup policy used. 30 /bk_986_1_806854642 : The RMAN backup piece file name.
I don’t know what some of the columns are for. Maybe someone else knows more?