RE: RMAN without a repository

I'll respond to the last few posts for this topic in one.

• The dbid shouldn't be switching unless you switch it. Resetlogs or recreation of a controlfile shouldn't change this (not to say that you can't force it to change if you really wanted to though...) So if you have it once, you should 'have it'. In Andrew's example, yes, you will also need to know the exact format that RMAN used to autobackup the controlfile (the utility needs to identify the controlfile... it won't scan your disk for you). The potential downfall is that this value can be changed with the configure command.
• Regardless... if your backupsets are on tape (and got there via RMAN sbt), then the 3rd party catalog should tell you what tapes it needs for the restore. However... if you've backed up your RMAN disk backups to tape without RMAN knowing about it... then you won't know which backup (assuming you mean backupsets) to restore... (that's the cost of not paying the 3rd party vendor's Oracle license fees), but the controlfile will. So once you've got the controlfile restored, then you can query the v$ backup tables to find out which sets are needed.
• I don't think you can set the control_file_record_keep_time parameter to 1000 days (max should be 1year).
• The control file can get fairly large... and that can affect functions that update the controlfile (rman backups, standby/dataguard actions, log switches, etc...), but I was more concerned about simply having headroom. If the mountpoint that just one of your controlfiles lives on hits 100%... you've locked or crashed your instance (depends on OS... I think). You'd think that this would be rare since only "a few Mb"... but you'd be surprised how many people have their controlfiles on the same mountpoints as their datafiles and they maximize their datafile space availability by packing them in to just shy of 100% disk space usage (clarification: I'm not arguing packing in the datafiles to almost 100%... I'm arguing controlfiles living in the same place).
• If you REALLY want to know how large your controlfile can be... start playing with a lab instance, add lots of small datafiles, do lots of backups, etc... other init parameters increase the size too (eg. maxdatafiles).
• My favorite solution to your original question is to backup controlfile copies with (after) your backupsets (and necessary archivedlogs). Then (the basics) on restore (if current controlfile is too old), you can pick up the controlfile copy and place it where your init specifies, startup mount, (query for & restore the backupsets if you've bypassed the 3rd party licenses), restore database;(rman), recover database;(rman).

Raj.  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of ryan_gaffuri_at_comcast.net
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 3:10 PM
To: Allen, Brandon; oracle-l_at_freelists.org Subject: RE: RMAN without a repository  

yes, but I still have to know a sufficiently old DBID to pick the right controlfile to restore and I would need to know which backup to restore.  

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