Make EXPIRED RMAN backup set UNAVAILABLE?

Let's try this again. Sorry about the previous gibberish.

AIX 5.2L, 9.2.0.5 (upgraded from Tru64, 8.1.7)

Is it possible to make an EXPIRED RMAN backupset AVAILABLE in the RMAN repository database if the backupset files are no longer on the system?

I copied a production database backupset to a test box (same directory structure) with the intention of performing a DUPLICATE to refresh the test database. Before I did the DUPLICATE, the backupset was removed from the production box by our nightly RMAN-to-disk backup of that database. (These RMAN-to-disk backupsets are picked up afterward by an OS file system backup.) As a shortcut (in retrospect I now know I shouldn't have), to make backupsets unavailable before making the desired one AVAILABLE, I ran a CROSSCHECK BACKUP - which EXPIRED all backupsets but the most recent. I then tried to run CHANGE BACKUPSET AVAILABLE to make this older EXPIRED backupset available for the DUPLICATE. Unfortunately, I got the following errors and could not make the older backupset AVAILABLE until I actually put them back on the production box.

RMAN-06481: backup piece cannot be found on the storage medium RMAN-06486: changed backup piece expired

I swear that I could previously use the CHANGE BACKUPSET AVAILABLE in 8.1.7 to make the EXPIRED backupset available even if it was no longer on the production box. But I no longer have an 8.1.7 environment on which to test it.

>From what I can tell, this CHANGE BACKUPSET AVAILABLE functionality has
changed since 8.1.7. It looks like it now physically checks for the existence of the backupset on system. The RMAN-06481 and RMAN-06486 errors don't exist in the 8.1.7 docs and a TAR with Oracle Support hasn't really answered my question yet. And the 9.2 docs aren't clear to me.

So, does anyone know if it's possible to make an EXPIRED RMAN backupset AVAILABLE in the RMAN repository database if the backupset files are no longer on the system? And can anyone confirm that this CHANGE BACKUPSET AVAILABLE functionality changed from 8i to 9i? If it did change, why would they have changed it to physically check for the backupset when it did not before?

Thanks for any insight you can give me.

Bob Stauffer
DBA
D&E Communications
Ephrata, PA, USA
717-738-8737
rstauffer_at_decommunications.com

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