Grid Infrastructure 12.2 restore OCR, Voting File and mgmtdb when disk group corrupted

For some reason, Oracle desupported the placement of OCR and voting files directly on a shared file system from Grid Infrastructure 12.2 until rescinding the desupport for Standalone Clusters from 19.3. Therefore, when GI 12.2 is installed, OCR, Voting file, and OCR backup location are, by default, configured in the ASM disk group, and mostly likely in the same disk group. When the disk group cannot be mounted because of any issues, the cluster will not be brought up anymore.

Technically, GI has to be re-configured as like a new installation, that could be a big job. However, it may not be that bad. Although 12.2 does not allow you have OCR backup location out of ASM disk group, DBA still can copy the OCR backup file from ASM disk group to file system with command 'asmcmd cp'. I am going to demonstrate how we can maximize the opportunity of bringing the cluster backup without rebuild/reinstall it.

How to delete archive log files using PL/SQL

Although RMAN is always the first choice for most DBAs to delete archive log files, PL/SQL could be easier for this scenario,

User wants to switch an existing database from NOARCHIVELOG mode to ARCHIVELOG mode in order to increase the database availability because the database backup job has to shut down database when running in NOARCHIVELOG mode.

ORA-65500 When using DUPLICATE to Create Standby Database

Oracle Database - Enterprise Edition - Version 12.2.0.1 + RU 12.2.0.1.171017
Operation System - Oracle Solaris 11.3 SPARC

When running RMAN command DUPLICATE to create physical standby database as following:

RMAN> duplicate target database 
2>    for standby 
3>    from active database 
4>    dorecover 
5>    spfile 
6>      reset control_files 
7>      set db_unique_name='DBNEW' 
8>      set fal_server='DB01' 
9>    nofilenamecheck; 

using target database control file instead of recovery catalog

Starting Duplicate Db at 15-JAN-18
current log archived
... ...

Got error ORA-65500:

RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03002: failure of Duplicate Db command at 01/15/2018 11:46:19
RMAN-05501: aborting duplication of target database
RMAN-03015: error occurred in stored script Memory Script
RMAN-03009: failure of sql command on clone_default channel at 01/15/2018 11:46:19
RMAN-11003: failure during parse/execution of SQL statement: alter system set  db_unique_name='DBNEW' comment='' scope=spfile
ORA-32017: failure in updating SPFILE
ORA-65500: could not modify DB_UNIQUE_NAME, resource exists

Oracle reported this issue as Bug 20977794 which causes the ORA-65500 to be returned with any attempt to change DB_UNIQUE_NAME for database when a CRS resource for it exists. As RMAN attempts to make a change to db_unique_name, this error will occur.

Current system is configured with Oracle Restart (Grid Infrastructure - standalone) 12.2.0.1. Although it is supposed to be fixed in 12.2.0.1 base release, the error still happened. Anyway, we can safely try to remove database resource from crs registry as workaround,

[oracle@dbaplus]$ srvctl config database
DBNEW

The database DBNEW does exist in the crs registry, try to remove it

[oracle@dbaplus]$ srlvctl remove database -db DBNEW
Remove the database DBNEW? (y/[n]) y
[oracle@dbaplus]$

Then DUPLICATE can run successfully.

RMAN got ORA-00245 while backing up RAC control file

When backing up control file for RAC databases, you could got ORA-00245 as following,

RMAN> backup device type sbt current controlfile ;

Starting backup at 2016-03-20 19:08:49
allocated channel: ORA_SBT_TAPE_1
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_1: SID=1941 instance=racdb_1 device type=SBT_TAPE
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_1: starting full datafile backup set
channel ORA_SBT_TAPE_1: specifying datafile(s) in backup set
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03009: failure of backup command on ORA_SBT_TAPE_1 channel at 03/20/2016 19:08:50
ORA-00245: control file backup failed; in Oracle RAC, target might not be on shared storage

Insufficient archive log space caused ORA-03113

Oracle 11g database was shut down for hardware maintenance. Unfortunately, the database can not be started after maintenance because of error ORA-03113.

$ srvctl sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL*Plus: Release 11.2.0.3.0 Production on Mon Apr 27 14:10:05 2015

Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Connected to an idle instance.

SQL> startup
ORACLE instance started.

Total System Global Area 835104768 bytes
Fixed Size 2226096 bytes
Variable Size 532678736 bytes
Database Buffers 276824064 bytes
Redo Buffers 23375872 bytes
Database mounted.
ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel
Process ID: 33947688
Session ID: 749 Serial number: 3

Apparently, something happended while instance status is changed to OPEN from MOUNT. Check alert log file:

ARC3 started with pid=30, OS id=51183782
ARC2: Becoming the 'no FAL' ARCH
ARC2: Becoming the 'no SRL' ARCH
ARC1: Becoming the heartbeat ARCH
Errors in file /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/db01/DB01/trace/DB01_ora_45220056.trc:
ORA-19815: WARNING: db_recovery_file_dest_size of 10737418240 bytes is 100.00% used, and has 0 remaining bytes available.
************************************************************************
You have following choices to free up space from recovery area:
1. Consider changing RMAN RETENTION POLICY. If you are using Data Guard,
then consider changing RMAN ARCHIVELOG DELETION POLICY.
2. Back up files to tertiary device such as tape using RMAN
BACKUP RECOVERY AREA command.
3. Add disk space and increase db_recovery_file_dest_size parameter to
reflect the new space.
4. Delete unnecessary files using RMAN DELETE command. If an operating
system command was used to delete files, then use RMAN CROSSCHECK and
DELETE EXPIRED commands.
************************************************************************
ARCH: Error 19809 Creating archive log file to '+FRA2'
Errors in file /u01/app/oracle/diag/rdbms/db01/DB01/trace/DB01_ora_45220056.trc:
ORA-16038: log 3 sequence# 32464 cannot be archived
ORA-19809: limit exceeded for recovery files
ORA-00312: online log 3 thread 1: '+REDO1/db01/onlinelog/group_3.310.857090421'
ORA-00312: online log 3 thread 1: '+REDO2/db01/onlinelog/group_3.310.857090421'
USER (ospid: 45220056): terminating the instance due to error 16038

Instance is terminated due to error 16038: log 3 sequence# 32464 cannot be archived. Redo log cannot be archived because the recovery area is 100% used.

Backup archive log and release space by running:

$ rman target /

Recovery Manager: Release 11.2.0.3.0 - Production on Mon Apr 27 14:17:52 2015

Copyright (c) 1982, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

connected to target database (not started)

RMAN> startup mount

Oracle instance started
database mounted

Total System Global Area 835104768 bytes

Fixed Size 2226096 bytes
Variable Size 532678736 bytes
Database Buffers 276824064 bytes
Redo Buffers 23375872 bytes

RMAN> backup archivelog all delete all input;

... ...

Try to open database:

RMAN> alter database open;

database opened

Database is opened successfully.

Got 'database incarnation not set' while using RMAN with catalog

RMAN> run {
2> allocate channel oem_backup_sbt1 type 'SBT_TAPE' format '%d_%U' parms "ENV=(NB_ORA_POLICY=oracle_rman, NB_ORA_SCHED=Default)";
3> backup as BACKUPSET tag 'BACKUP_REVQAS1_121814161014' recovery files;
4> release channel oem_backup_sbt1;
5> }
new incarnation of database registered in recovery catalog
starting full resync of recovery catalog
full resync complete
allocated channel: oem_backup_sbt1
channel oem_backup_sbt1: SID=162 device type=SBT_TAPE
channel oem_backup_sbt1: Veritas NetBackup for Oracle - Release 6.5 (2009050106)

Starting backup at 2014-12-18 16:11:33
released channel: oem_backup_sbt1
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03002: failure of backup command at 12/18/2014 16:11:33
RMAN-03014: implicit resync of recovery catalog failed
RMAN-06004: ORACLE error from recovery catalog database: RMAN-20020: database incarnation not set


RMAN> exit;

Recovery Manager complete.

select * from dual;