Re: RMAN restore and the location backupset is different

Joel Garry wrote:

> "Howard J. Rogers" <hjr_at_dizwell.com> wrote in message
> news:<3f8fece7$0$4845$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au>...

>> Domenic G. wrote:
>> 
>> > Your toast ... if you use RMAN without a recovery catalog, it stores
>> > the backup/recovery information in the controlfile -- you cannot use a
>> > backup controlfile and expect it to work.
>> 
>> 
>> The whole point of setting autobackup on, of course.
>> 
>> Which our OP did.
>> 
>> Therefore he is not toast.
>> 
>> However, under no circumstances can a backup done to /bin/bong suddenly
>> appear in /bing/bong and be expected to work.
>> 
>> Sym links are the only way I know of to make this work.
>> 
>> Regards
>> HJR

Not on Windows, they're not!! (Also not the OP explicitly didn't want to use them, for whatever reason).

(Another good reason to switch to Linux/Unix, I agree)

> An interesting exercise is to examine the actual contents of the
> original controlfile. Make a copy of it with the OS, called, say xxx.
> od -c xxx|grep "b o " (assuming your known backup dir is /bin/bong,
> and you don't have data files or arcs in a directory with bo in the
> path). This gives you most of the line numbers od would need, then
> you can od -c xxx|more , then slash to search for the first of those
> line numbers, then you can see the ASCII path encoded in the
> controlfile.
>
> So one can guess that the restored controlfile from the backupset has
> this same directory in it. I would go further and say that RMAN ought
> to be able to change it during a restore or duplicate, and if there is
> indeed still a lack of such ability, it is an obvious design flaw.
>
> And for those to whom it is not obvious, don't try to edit a
> controlfile on a running system :-O

I remember RMAN in 8.0, and it was horrid. I see it now in 9i, and love it. But this simple inability to directly re-locate the source for restores as you indicate, is a major PITA, frankly.

It's not a show stopper, but it means RMAN use is not as 'transparent' as it was supposed (and advertised) to be.

Regards
HJR

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