Marking Backups as Available or Unavailable

If one or more specific backups are unavailable because of a temporary condition, such as a disk drive that is temporarily offline or a tape stored offsite, then you can mark those backups as unavailable. Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) does not use unavailable backups to restore or recover data.

Note:

Backups stored in the fast recovery area cannot be marked as unavailable.

RMAN keeps the record of unavailable backups in the RMAN repository and does not delete backups listed as unavailable when you delete expired backups. If the unavailable backups become accessible again, then you can mark them as available.

See Also:

Oracle Database Backup and Recovery Reference for the syntax used for multitenant container databases (CDBs) and pluggable databases (PDBs)

To mark backups as available or unavailable:

  1. Connect RMAN to the target database as described in "Connecting to the Target Database Using RMAN."
  2. Optionally, cross-check backup sets by using the following command: 
    CROSSCHECK BACKUP;

    Cross-checking backups before you delete expired backups provides RMAN with up-to-date information about which backups are expired.

  3. Display a summary of the available backups. 
    LIST BACKUP SUMMARY;

List of Backups
===============
Key TY LV S Device Type Completion Time #Pieces #Copies Compressed Tag
------- -- -- - ----------- --------------- ------- ------- ---------- ---
1 B A A DISK 24-FEB-07 1 1 NO TAG20070427T115348
3 B A A DISK 24-MAR-07 1 1 NO TAG20070427T115452
4 B F A DISK 24-APR-07 1 1 NO TAG20070427T115456
  4. From the output of the LIST command, identify the backup that you want to make available or unavailable. Use the value displayed in the Key column to identify a backup set.
  5. Change the status of the identified backup to unavailable by using the CHANGE command.

    The following command marks the backup set 4 unavailable:

    CHANGE BACKUPSET 4 UNAVAILABLE;

changed backup piece available
backup piece handle=/ade/b/191802369/oracle/work/orcva/RDBMS/backupset/2012_04_05/o1_mf_annnn_TAG20120405T075520_7qvdlrsl_.bkp RECID=23 STAMP=779788520
Changed 1 objects to AVAILABLE status

    To mark the backup set 4 available, use the following command:

    CHANGE BACKUPSET 4 AVAILABLE;