Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
Jump-Starting RMAN
This chapter is for those who are fairly new to Oracle and RMAN. The purpose of this material is to show you how
simple it can be—even for a novice—to back up, restore, and recover a database using RMAN. You'll see that it's
possible to use RMAN with little or no training. This chapter will walk you through critical tasks, such as how to
connect to your database, start it, enable archiving, and then perform basic backup and recovery tasks.
If you're a seasoned Oracle DBA and are already somewhat familiar with RMAN, this chapter is not for you. As an
experienced DBA, the recipes that come after this chapter contain the information you need.
This chapter starts with simple examples of how to connect to your database, how to start/stop it, and how to
enable archiving. Once your database is in archivelog mode, then you can use RMAN to take online backups, restore,
and recover your database.
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This chapter is not intended to demonstrate how to implement RMAN backup and recovery for a production
environment. Rather, this chapter is meant only to help get you started with RMAN. If you're new to RMAN, we feel it
is very instructional to see how RMAN operates with out-of-the-box default settings. This will provide a foundation for
understanding material in subsequent chapters.
Note
Connecting to Your Database
Problem
You're new to Oracle and wonder how to connect to your database via SQL*Plus so that you can perform basic
commands, such as starting and stopping your database and enabling archivelog mode.
Solution
Before you connect to an Oracle database, you must establish operating system variables before connecting to the
database, and you also need access to either a privileged OS account or a database user granted the appropriate
privileges (via a password file). These topics are discussed in the following subsections.
