RMAN 2.1 Toggling Archivelog Mode

Problem

You attempted to use RMAN to backup your database and  received this error message.

RMAN – 03009 : failure of backup command on ORA_DISK_1 channel.
ORA- 19602 : cannot backup or copy active file in NOARCHIVELOG mode.

This message indicates that before you can create an RMAN online backup, you need to place your database into archivelog mode.

Solution:

Enabling Archivelog Mode

sql>connect / as sysdba
sql>shutdown immediate
sql>startup mount
sql>alter database archivelog;
sql>alter database open;

Displaying Archive Inforamtion

sql> select log_mode from v$database;

log_mode

Archivelog

Disabling Archivelogmode :

sql>shutdown immediate
sql>startup mount
sql>alter database noarchivelog;
sql>alter database open;
sql>select log_mode from v$database;
log_mode
Noarchivelog

Change archive log destination

sql>alter system set log_archive_dest=’c:\oracle\archive’ scope=spfile;

sql>archive log list
sql>archive log list
database log mode archive
automatic archival enable
Location ‘\orace\archive\’

How It works :

• Online backup — Archivelogmode should be enabled.
• Its allows you to recover all committed transactions.
• This mode protects your database from disk failure because your transaction information can be restored and recovered from the archive log files.
• Every online redo log switch that the contents of the logs are successfully copied to archived redo log files.
• Oracle will not allow an online redo log file to be overwritten until it is copied to an archived redo log file.
• If oracle cannot copy an online redo log file to an archived redo log file, then your database will stop processing and hang. so check your free space on directory.
• No need for log_archive_start when your changing noarchive to archive in 10g.