Today I was a bit surprised – being always under the impression that Oracle RMAN should accept “backup backupset not backed up to destination ‘xyz'” AND work with it successfully. But I learned that in 11.2.0.4 the Oracle RMAN “to destination” containing variables restrains the “not backed up” clause. No error thrown, but just does not work as I would expect it to. Could not find something in the docs, guess we just have to accept it as a fact.
Oracle RMAN destination with variable restrains “not backed up” clause
What I tried is, to back up the same backupset twice, but with a “not backed up” clause at work. I’d expect that to work once at max, and a skip for the second turn. But as you can see, not:
RMAN> backup backupset 4954 not backed up to destination '/u03/orabackupNAS/sun/backupset/%Y_%M_%D'; Starting backup at 13-FEB-17 using channel ORA_DISK_1 channel ORA_DISK_1: input backup set: count=17295, stamp=935838125, piece=1 channel ORA_DISK_1: starting piece 1 at 13-FEB-17 channel ORA_DISK_1: backup piece +FRADG1/sun/autobackup/2017_02_13/s_935838125.6660.935838127 piece handle=/u03/orabackupNAS/sun/backupset/2017_02_13/SUN/backupset/2017_02_13/o1_mf_ncsnf_TAG20170213T110205_db31gdh2_.bkp comment=NONE channel ORA_DISK_1: finished piece 1 at 13-FEB-17 channel ORA_DISK_1: backup piece complete, elapsed time: 00:00:03 Finished backup at 13-FEB-17 Starting Control File and SPFILE Autobackup at 13-FEB-17 piece handle=+FRADG1/sun/autobackup/2017_02_13/s_935838557.6796.935838559 comment=NONE Finished Control File and SPFILE Autobackup at 13-FEB-17 RMAN> backup backupset 4954 not backed up to destination '/u03/orabackupNAS/sun/backupset/%Y_%M_%D'; Starting backup at 13-FEB-17 using channel ORA_DISK_1 channel ORA_DISK_1: input backup set: count=17295, stamp=935838125, piece=1 channel ORA_DISK_1: starting piece 1 at 13-FEB-17 channel ORA_DISK_1: backup piece +FRADG1/sun/autobackup/2017_02_13/s_935838125.6660.935838127 piece handle=/u03/orabackupNAS/sun/backupset/2017_02_13/SUN/backupset/2017_02_13/o1_mf_ncsnf_TAG20170213T110205_db31h5yd_.bkp comment=NONE channel ORA_DISK_1: finished piece 1 at 13-FEB-17 channel ORA_DISK_1: backup piece complete, elapsed time: 00:00:03 Finished backup at 13-FEB-17 Starting Control File and SPFILE Autobackup at 13-FEB-17 piece handle=+FRADG1/sun/autobackup/2017_02_13/s_935838583.5200.935838585 comment=NONE Finished Control File and SPFILE Autobackup at 13-FEB-17
Solution – without dynamic path name
The “to destination” clause with a date pattern generated by RMAN looked unusual enough to remove it for a try, and en voila:
RMAN> backup backupset 4954 not backed up to destination '/u03/orabackupNAS/sun/backupset'; Starting backup at 13-FEB-17 using channel ORA_DISK_1 skipping backup set key 4954; already backed up on 13-FEB-17 Finished backup at 13-FEB-17 RMAN>
Bad, but still good to know. I’ll have to try that with 12c ASAP.
Take care!
Martin