Redo

All the Oracle changes made to the db are recorded in the redo log files, these files along with any archived redo logs enable a dba to recover the database to any point in the past. Oracle will write all commited changes to the redo logs first before applying them to the data files. The redo logs guarantee that no committed changes are ever lost. Redo log files consist of redo records which are group of change vectors each referring to specific changes made to a data block in the db. The changes are first kept in the redo buffer but are quickly written to the redo log files. There are two types of redo log files online and archive. Oracle uses the concept of groups and a minimum of 2 groups are required, each group having at least one file. They are used in a circular fashion when one group fills up oracle will switch to the next log group. The LGWR process writes redo information from the redo buffer to the online redo logs when

user commits a transaction redo log buffer becomes 1/3 full redo buffer contains 1MB of changed records switch of the log files

The log group can be in one of four states Current Active Inactive Unused log group that is being actively being written too. the files in the log group are required for instance recovery the files in the log group are not required for instance recovery and can be over written log group has never been written too, a new group.

A log file can be in one of four states Invalid Stale Deleted <blank> the file is corrupt or missing the log file is new and never been used the log file is no longer being used the log file is currently being used

Log group and log files commands Configuration Creating new log group Adding new log file to alter database add logfile group 4 ('c:\oracle\redo3a.log','c:\oracle\redo3b.log') size 10M; alter database add logfile member 'c:\oracle\redo3c.log' to group3;

existing group shutdown database rename file Renaming log file in existing startup database in mount mode group alter database rename file 'old name' to'new name' open database backup controlfile Drop log group Drop log file from existing group alter database drop logfile group 3; alter database drop logfile member 'c:\oracle\redoc.log' Maintaining alter database clear logfile group 3; alter database clear unarchived logfile group 3; Note: used the unarchived option when a loggroup has not ben archived alter system checkpoint; alter system switch logfile; alter system archive log current; alter system archive log all; Logswitch and Checkpointing # Difference between them are switch logfile - will switch logfile and return prompt immediately, archiving will take place in the background log current - will switch logfile and return prompt only when logfile has been successfully archived log all - will only archiving full log files Note: I have discussed checkpoints select le.leseq "Current log sequence No", 100*cp.cpodr_bno/le.lesiz "Percent Full", cp.cpodr_bno "Current Block No", le.lesiz "Size of Log in Blocks" from x$kcccp cp, x$kccle le where le.leseq =CP.cpodr_seq and bitand(le.leflg,24) = 8 / Useful Views V$LOG V$LOGFILE displays log file information from the control file. contains information about redo log files.

Clearing Log groups

Display the redo usage

Archived Logs When a redo log file fills up and before it is used again the file is archived for safe keeping, this archive file with other redo log files can recover a database to any point in time. It is best practice to turn on ARCHIVELOG mode which performs the archiving automatically. The log files can be written to a number of destinations (up to 10 locations), even to a standby database, using the parameters log_archive_dest_n and log_archive_min_succeed_dest you can control how Oracle writes its log files. Configuration alter system set log_archive_dest_1 = 'location=c:\oracle\archive' scope=spfile; alter system set log_archive_format = 'arch_%d_%t_%r_%s.log' scope=spfile; shutdown database startup database in mount mode alter database archivelog; startup database in open mode Archive format options %r - resetlogs ID (required parameter) %s - log sequence number (required parameter) %t - thread number (required parameter) %d - database ID (not required) Disabling Displaying alter database noarchivelog; archive log list; select name, log_mode from v$database; select archiver from v$instance; Maintainance Display system parameters show parameter log_archive_dest show parameter log_archive_format show parameter log_archive_min_succeed_dest Useful Views V$ARCHIVED_LOG V$INSTANCE V$DATABASE Display the archived log files Display if database is in archive mode Display if database is in archive mode

Enabling