Suppose you’ve had to re-create your control file. The process of re-creating the control file wipes out any information regarding RMAN backups. However, you want to make the newly created control file aware of RMAN backups sitting on disk. In this situation, use the CATALOG command to populate the control file with RMAN metadata. For example, if all the RMAN backup files are kept in the /u01/O12C/rman directory, you can make the control file aware of these backups files in the directory, as follows:
RMAN> catalog start with '/u01/O12C/rman';This instructs RMAN to look for any backup pieces, image copies, control file copies, and archive redo logs in the specified directory, and, if found, to populate the control file with the appropriate metadata. For this example two backup piece files are found in the given directory:
searching for all files that match the pattern /u01/O12C/rman
List of Files Unknown to the Database
=====================================
File Name: /u01/O12C/rman/r1otlns90o_1_1.bk
File Name: /u01/ O12C/rman/r1xyklnrveg_1_1.bk
Do you really want to catalog the above files (enter YES or NO)?
If you enter YES, then metadata regarding the backup files will be added to the control file. In this way, the CATALOG command allows you to make the RMAN repository (control file and recovery catalog) aware of files that RMAN can work with for B&R.
You can also instruct RMAN to catalog any files in the FRA that the control file isn’t currently aware of, like this:
RMAN> catalog recovery area;Additionally, you can catalog specific files. This example instructs RMAN to add metadata to the control file for a specific backup piece file:
RMAN> catalog backuppiece '/u01/O12C/rman/r159nv562v_1_1.bk';Taking Backups of Pluggable Databases
Starting with Oracle 12c, you can create pluggable databases within a root container database. If you’re using this option, there are a few features to be aware of in regard to backups:
- While connected to the root container, you can back up all the data files within the database or just the root database data files; a specific pluggable database; or specific tablespaces or data files, or a combination of these.
- While connected to a pluggable database, you can only back up data files associated with that database.
The bulleted items are detailed in the following two sections.
