Oracle7 Enterprise Backup Utility Administrator's Guide

Library

Product

Contents

Index

CHAPTER 7. The Backup Catalog

Information Stored in the Backup Catalog
The ebutool Utility
Backing Up and Restoring the Backup Catalog
Creating or Upgrading the Backup Catalog

This chapter discusses the backup catalog component of the Enterprise Backup Utility.

Topics covered in this chapter are:

Information Stored in the Backup Catalog

The ebutool Utility

Backing Up and Restoring the Backup Catalog

Creating or Upgrading the Backup Catalog

Information Stored in the Backup Catalog

The backup catalog is a set of tables stored in an Oracle7 database, separate from all target databases. It can store information on multiple target databases, making it a central repository of configuration information for an entire enterprise.

Attention: Oracle Corporation makes the following recommendations regarding the backup catalog:

The backup catalog and the backup catalog database should be used for no purpose other than storing information for the Enterprise Backup Utility.

The backup catalog database should be on a different machine than all target databases to prevent the catalog from being affected by host failures that impact target databases.

You should have only one backup catalog per enterprise, although EBU supports having multiple backup catalogs.

Structural Information

The backup catalog maintains a history of the following structural information about all target databases:

all database files: data files, control files, parameter files, and archived redo log files when present

log sequence number

thread information

database name

ORACLE_HOME

ORACLE_SID

target database connection information

Runtime Information

The backup catalog also stores runtime information on backup and restore jobs in progress In case of the failure of a job, the information is used to perform cleanup operations on the target database, as well as the backup catalog. The following runtime information is stored:

types backups being performed

job IDs of the jobs in progress

Backup File Set names, and associated datafiles

start and end time of backup or restore operations

various information on disk I/O, tape I/O, and disk transfer rate

Updating Information for Target Databases

The backup catalog must contain information on the current physical structure of the target database(s), and therefore should be updated following any structural change to a target database. EBU does this automatically in all cases except offline backups (see "Autoregistration"

Types of changes which must be reflected in the backup catalog include:

adding or dropping a tablespace

moving datafiles to a different location

adding or dropping control file(s)

resizing database files (Oracle7 Server version 7.2 or higher)

changing file attributes

recreating the database or performing an OPEN RESETLOGS operation

The ebutool Utility

The ebutool utility is a tool for accessing and managing information in the backup catalog. It allows you to query information stored in the backup catalog and delete "old" backup information, keeping the catalog to a manageable size.

The usage for ebutool is shown below:

ebutool 
        { 
            -db_name=<database> 
                { 
                    -configuration[={all|current}]        |
                    -bfslist[={all|current}]              |
                    -tslist[={all|current}]               |
                    -filelist[={all|current}]             |
                    -delconf={all|<# of confs to keep>}   |
                    -purgejobs={all|<days older>} 
                } 
                [-at='MM/DD/YYYY HH24:MI:SS'] 
        |   -dblist 
        |   -job={all|<jobid>} 
        |   -migrate 
        |   -cretrgtusr 
        |   -deljobid=<jobid>  
        |   -catalog={all|<# of days back>} 
        |   -help 
        } 
        [{-ofile=<output file>}|<output file>]

Note: Do not insert spaces between command switches and the corresponding specifiers. The syntax is shown with newlines for clarity only.

Keywords:

-db_name

Specifies the target database name. Case sensitive; do not use quotation marks.

-configuration

Obtains a list of the current registered configuration. Also returns a list of files for which a backup job is not found. Current configuration is the default; all configurations can be specified using -configuration=all.

-bfslist

Returns the current configuration and a list of all backup jobs performed on the configuration. For each job, details of the job and Backup File Sets (BFS) are reported. Current configuration is default; all configurations can be obtained using -bfslist=all.

-tslist

Returns current configuration and a list of tablespaces. For each tablespace completely backed up by a job, the job number is displayed. If no backup job has completely backed up a tablespace, a "No Backup Jobs Found" message is reported instead. Current configuration is the default; all configurations can be obtained using -tslist=all.

-filelist

Returns the current configuration and a list of each file. For each file, the BFS and backup job number are displayed. If no backup is found for a particular file, returns the message "No Backup Jobs Found."

-delconf

Deletes "old" configurations from the backup catalog. When a configuration is deleted, all information about it and the backup jobs performed is removed. When the jobs are deleted, the media manager removes the BFSs from the media. Once a configuration is deleted, no restore to points in time covered by the configuration is possible. Cannot be used with -at.

-purgejobs

Deletes jobs for the specified target database. When jobs are deleted, the media manager removes the BFSs from the media. All jobs for the specified database can be purged, or just those more than x days old.

-at

'MM/DD/YYYY HH24:MI:SS' gives configuration information for the specified time. When used with -configuration=all, returns all configurations starting with the specified time. Can also be used with any of the "list" command options (-bfslist, -tslist and -filelist).

-dblist

Returns current configuration for all target databases. Useful for determining the contents of the backup catalog prior to generating more detailed reports.

-job

Returns a listing for the job number specified. Job details and the BFSs comprising the job are listed.

-migrate

Migrates information stored in a release 2.0 backup catalog to the release 2.1 catalog. See page 2 - 7 for details on migrating from an earlier EBU release.

-cretrgtusr

Creates the EBU backup user in the target database. See "Authorizing Target Database Backups for details on this user.

-deljobid=jobID

Deletes a specific job, based on the jobID number.

-help

Returns a screen with ebutool utility syntax.

-ofile=output_file

Specifies the name of the output file. The output file is formatted at 66 lines per page. If no output file is specified the output of ebutool goes to standard error.

Backing Up and Restoring the Backup Catalog

EBU 2.1 automates the backup and restore of the backup catalog.

Catalog Backup

Each backup operation - database or subset, online or offline - backs up the backup catalog. The catalog backup file is written to the media device, after the BFSs from the target database backup. In the backup catalog database, only the contents of catalog tables are backed up: no control, archive, parameter, or other data file is backed up.

Catalog backup is the default, but it can be disabled by the catalog=none specifier in the backup command script. The catalog can also be backed up alone by using the backup catalog command.

Additional Information: See Also: "Backup" for command syntax.

EBU tags successful catalog backups with sequence numbers which can be used for identifying the backup more quickly. The sequence number is incremented for each catalog backup per day. The sequence for each day resets to zero, and has an upper limit of 100. The sequence number is recorded in the log file of the backup job.

If the catalog backup should fail, the backup of the target database is still marked as successful, but the backup job completes with a warning that the catalog backup failed.

No other backup or restore operations can be run when a catalog backup or restore is taking place.

Catalog Restore

The backup catalog can be restored using the restore catalog command. By default, restore catalog restores the most current catalog backup and overwrites the existing catalog in the catalog database. Command options are available to allow point-in-time restore and restoring the catalog to a new location.

When you issue restore catalog in a command script, EBU connects to the database specified in the $OBK_HOME/admin/catalog.obk file and checks the DB_NAME of the database against the DB_NAME you specified in the command script. If the two DB_NAMEs are not identical, EBU aborts. This means that if you are restoring the catalog to a different database, you must first update the catalog.obk file.

EBU allows the catalog to be restored to a different database by using the as specifier in the restore catalog script.

Additional Information: See Also: "Restore Catalog" for command syntax.

Creating or Upgrading the Backup Catalog

EBU release 2.1 requires release 2.1 of the backup catalog. There are three possible scenarios for creating or upgrading the catalog:

first-time EBU installation

all target databases are upgraded together to release 2.1

target databases are upgraded over time

Additional Information: See Also: Each of these scenarios is discussed in detail in "Setting Up the Backup Catalog"

Prev Next

Library

Product

Contents

Index