hot backup archivelog the online-redo files and Oracle locks up

HiYa

assuming that my database is in archivelog mode (verifyable from v$database), and that I have set the archiver process on by both the command alter system archive log start followed up by log_archive_start=true entry in the init$ORACLE_SID.ora file

I thought that this was all that was needed to get the database moving along the right path for everything to operate well. The arhiver process then should bump out stuff from the redo-logs (as they fill) into the archive automatically.

BTW when I do a ps -ef | grep $ORACLE_SID is one of these processes the archiver? hints on which one please??

LOCKUPS One of the reasons why am I asking these things, is that today, when doing a cold backup, the database hung on the shutdown immediate. This is strange, and the only process open on it could have been either or a SQLPlus command from my PC (Oracle is on a Linux machine) and perhaps a cron job that I run every minute to insert 5 records into the database to have some sort of growth load on the tables.

The process that ran the cold backup (shell script) hung on the commandline, and so did other SQL plus prompts that I ran up (from an Xterm on the host) rather strange.

I thought that perhaps the redo logs had filled (cant imagine why) and the server had come to a halt due to that. In desperation after some searches on this topic, I ended killing all the processes that were that $ORACLE_SID and that seemed to sort it out.

I fired it up again from the commandline (sqlplus /nolog and connect / as sysdba) and it seems to be running fine now. I am running Oracle 8.1.6 on Miracle Linux 1.0 (yes, its Japanese and I'm not able to read an awful lot)

Back on the subject of the redo logs, these get moved to the archive area by either the archiver proces when full, or when I issue an alter system switch logfile statement.

My present understanding of these is that I need to keep all of these from the time that the database is started in order to do recovery.

BUT IF I am doing a weekly shutdown, and full cold back up, it seems to me that I only need to be strictly worried about the newly generated archive logs from the point of startup again (assuming that after the weekly shutdown there was no problem) At the weekend (sunday) shutdown, can I then flush the redo logs to say off line storage and be able to start the week fresh?? Have I missed something here??

Finally, my filesystem, is raid 5 4 disks (striping and mirrored) so I feel more comfortable that I wont loose just a disk, thus taking out my archive logs or anything else (but will still copy them just in case.

Ok ... this is getting long ... thanks for your time folks.

See Ya

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(when bandwidth gets better ;-)

Chris Eastwood
Photographer, Programmer, Motorcyclist and dingbat

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