Files in Support of Backup and Recovery Operations - Oracle RMAN for Absolute Beginners - page 35

You can verify that the archive location is using a FRA:
SQL> archive log list;
If archive files are being written to the FRA, you should see output like this:
Database log mode Archive Mode
Automatic archival Enabled
Archive destination USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST
You can display the directory associated with the FRA like this:
SQL> show parameter db_recovery_file_dest
When you first implement a FRA, there are no subdirectories beneath the base FRA directory (specified with DB_
RECOVERY_FILE_DEST ). The first time Oracle needs to write a file to the FRA, it creates any required directories beneath
the base directory. For example, after you implement a FRA, if archiving for your database is enabled, then the first
time a log switch occurs, Oracle creates the following directories beneath the base FRA directory:
<SID>/archivelog/<YYYY_MM_DD>
Each day that archive redo logs are generated results in a new directory's being created in the FRA, using the
directory name format YYYY_MM_DD . Archive redo logs written to the FRA use the OMF format naming convention
(regardless of whether you've set the LOG_ARCHIVE_FORMAT parameter).
If you want archive redo logs written to both a FRA and a non-FRA location, you can enable that, as follows:
SQL> alter system set log_archive_dest_1='location=/u01/oraarch/O12C';
SQL> alter system set log_archive_dest_2='location=USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST';
The archive destination of USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST indicates a FRA is in use. If you want to disable the use of
a FRA, simply set the db_recovery_file_dest parameter to a null string:
SQL> alter system set db_recovery_file_dest='';
I'm not going to discuss all aspects of enabling and managing a FRA. Just be aware that once enabled, you'll
need to take care when issuing RMAN backup commands and ensure that you have a strategy in place for regularly
removing old backups. Chapter 4 contains more details on the use of a FRA and RMAN backups.
Enabling Archivelog Mode
After you've set the location for your archive redo log files, you can enable archiving. To enable archiving, you need to
connect to the database as SYS (or a user with the SYSDBA privilege) and do the following:
SQL> shutdown immediate;
SQL> startup mount;
SQL> alter database archivelog;
SQL> alter database open;