RMAN Terminology

Explanation of RMAN Terminology


RMAN TARGET DATABASE – An RMAN Target Database is the primary database that will be backed up for RAC Grid creation. In RMAN’s terminology, the term target database identifies the database that is undergoing a backup, restore or recovery operation by the RMAN Recovery Manager.


RMAN AUXILIARY DATABASE – An Auxiliary Database is a RAC Grid that will be created as a result of the duplication of the target database. In RMAN’s terminology, Auxiliary instance identifies an instance which RMAN connects in order to execute the duplicate command.


RMAN CHANNEL – An RMAN Channel is a communication pipeline between a RMAN executable and a target or auxiliary database. An RMAN channel consists of a server session on the target or auxiliary database and a data stream from the database to the backup device or vice-versa. RMAN console sends commands to the database using this channel, and the server session running on the database executes the command on behalf of the RMAN Recovery Manager.


RMAN AUTOMATIC CHANNEL ALLOCATION – RMAN Channels can be configured to use a set of default attributes for each operation when a channel is not allocated manually. By default, RMAN configures a channel of device type, DISK, to be used for automatic channel allocation.


RMAN MANUAL CHANNEL ALLOCATION - As the name suggests, a channel can be configured manually for special needs such as increasing the degree of parallelism. Channels can be allocated manually by using the ALLOCATE CHANNEL command in the RUN block of RMAN statement.

Connecting to an Auxiliary Database
To use the DUPLICATE command or to perform RMAN TSPITR, you need to connect to an auxiliary instance. In these examples, assume that these variables have the following meanings.

Variable Meaning
SYS User with SYSDBA privileges

oracle The password for connecting as SYSDBA specified in the target database's orapwd file

trgt The net service name for the target database

rman Owner of the recovery catalog having RECOVERY_CATALOG_OWNER privilege

cat The password for user RMAN specified in the recovery catalog's orapwd file

catdb The net service name for the recovery catalog database

aux The password for connecting as SYSDBA specified in the auxiliary database's orapwd file

auxdb The net service name for the auxiliary database


If the auxiliary database uses password files for authentication, then you can connect using a password for either local or remote access. If you are connecting remotely through a net service name, then authentication through a password file is mandatory.

Connecting to an Auxiliary Database from the Command Line
To connect to an auxiliary instance from the operating system command line, enter the following:

% rman AUXILIARY SYS/aux@auxdb


To connect to the target, auxiliary, and recovery catalog databases, issue the following (all on one line):

% rman TARGET SYS/oracle@trgt CATALOG rman/cat@catdb AUXILIARY SYS/aux@auxdb

Connecting to an Auxiliary Database from the RMAN Prompt
Alternatively, you can start RMAN and connect to the auxiliary database from the RMAN prompt:

% rman
RMAN> CONNECT AUXILIARY SYS/aux@auxdb


To connect to the target, auxiliary, and recovery catalog databases, issue:

% rman
RMAN> CONNECT TARGET SYS/oracle@trgt
RMAN> CONNECT CATALOG rman/cat@catdb
RMAN> CONNECT AUXILIARY SYS/aux@auxdb