Oracle in a Nutshell

Running RMAN

In order to run RMAN, you must have SYSDBA privileges, either through operating system authentication or by use of a password file. If you are using OS authentication, you must also properly establish the following target environment variables:

ORACLE_SID

ORACLE_HOME

To run Recovery Manager, you call the RMAN executable at the command prompt with the following command:

> RMAN

RMAN displays the following prompt:

RMAN>

You can connect to a target database and a recovery catalog within RMAN by issuing the CONNECT command, described later in this section.

You can specify the following options when invoking the RMAN executable:

TARGET

Specifies a string containing the connect string for the target database. If you do not include a connect string, RMAN connects to the Oracle database specified by the ORACLE_SID environment variable.

CATALOG

Specifies a string containing the connect string for the recovery catalog database. If you do not specify a recovery catalog when you connect or within RMAN, backup operations will proceed without a catalog.

NOCATALOG

Indicates that RMAN will not start with a particular recovery catalog. With Oracle9i, this is the default.

AUXILARY

Specifies a string containing the connect string for the recovery catalog database. Auxiliary databases are used to create duplicate standby databases (see the DUPLICATE command entry later in this section) or to implement tablespace point-in-time recovery.

CMDFILE

Specifies a string containing the filename specifying RMAN commands. ...