Oracle Server database backup and restore requirements
Review the Oracle database backup and restore requirements for IBM Spectrum® Protect Plus.
To help ensure that backup and restore operations can be run successfully, your system must meet the hardware and software requirements. Use the following requirements as a starting point. For the most current requirements, which might include updates, see technote 304861.
Configuration
Application versions
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus | Oracle 11g R2* Enterprise Edition |
Oracle 12c R1* Enterprise Edition |
Oracle 12c R2* Enterprise Edition |
Oracle 18c* Enterprise Edition |
Oracle 19c* Enterprise Edition |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
V10.1.1 | -- | -- | |||
V10.1.2 | -- | -- | |||
V10.1.3 | -- | ||||
V10.1.4 | -- | ||||
V10.1.5 | |||||
V10.1.6 | |||||
V10.1.7 | |||||
* The base release and later maintenance and modification levels are supported. |
Operating systems
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus | IBM AIX® 6.1 TL9* | IBM AIX 7.1* | IBM AIX 7.2* |
---|---|---|---|
V10.1.1 | -- | ||
V10.1.2 | -- | ||
V10.1.3 | -- | ||
V10.1.4 | -- | ||
V10.1.5 | -- | ||
V10.1.6 | -- | ||
V10.1.7 | |||
* The base release and later maintenance and modification levels are supported. |
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus | RHEL 6.5* | RHEL 7.0* | RHEL 8.0* | CentOS 6.5* | CentOS 7.0* | CentOS 8.0* | SLES 11.0 SP4* | SLES 12.0 SP1* | SLES 15.0* |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
V10.1.1 | -- | -- | -- | ||||||
V10.1.2 | -- | -- | -- | ||||||
V10.1.3 | -- | -- | -- | ||||||
V10.1.4 | -- | -- | |||||||
V10.1.5 | -- | -- | |||||||
V10.1.6 | |||||||||
V10.1.7 | |||||||||
* The base release and later maintenance and modification levels are supported. |
Restrictions
- Oracle DataGuard is not supported.
- Databases must be in ARCHIVELOG mode. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus cannot protect databases running in NOARCHIVELOG mode.
- Oracle Database must be running to be protected by IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.
- Real Application Cluster (RAC) database recovery operations are not server pool-aware. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus can recover databases to a RAC, but not to specific server pools.
- RAC databases must be configured such that the RMAN Snapshot Control File location points to shared storage that is accessible to all cluster instances.
- When restoring an Oracle database that was configured for multithreading at the time of backup, the restored database is non-multithreaded. The restored database must be manually reconfigured to use multi-threading.
- Point-in-time recovery is not supported when one or more data files are added to the database in the period between the chosen point-in-time and the time that the preceding backup job ran.
Network File System (NFS)
The Oracle server must have the native Linux or AIX NFS client installed. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus uses NFS to mount storage volumes for backup and restore operations.
For database restore operations, the Oracle Direct NFS feature is required. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus automatically enables Direct NFS if it is not already enabled.
-
chown root:oinstall oracle_home/bin/oradism
-
chmod 750 oracle_home/bin/oradism
Database discovery
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus discovers Oracle installations and databases by searching the /etc/oraInst.loc and /etc/oratab files and the list of running Oracle processes. If the files are not in their default location, the locate utility must be installed on the system so that IBM Spectrum Protect Plus can search for the files.
IBM Spectrum Protect
Plus discovers databases and their
storage layouts by connecting to running instances and querying the locations of their data files,
log files, and so on. In order for IBM Spectrum Protect
Plus to
correctly discover databases during cataloging and copy operations, databases must be in
MOUNTED
, READ ONLY
, or READ/WRITE
mode. IBM Spectrum Protect
Plus cannot discover or protect database instances
that are shut down.
If a database is set to automatically start, but the database is not running at the time of discovery, the discovery process will be partially completed. In this situation, databases that no longer exist might appear in the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus user interface. To resolve the issue, either start the database or set the autostart column to N for that database in the /etc/oratab file.
Block change tracking
IBM Spectrum Protect Plus requires Oracle block change tracking to be enabled on protected databases to efficiently perform incremental backups. If block change tracking is not already enabled, IBM Spectrum Protect Plus enables it automatically during the backup job.
- If the db_create_file_dest parameter is set, the block change tracking file is created in the location that is specified by this parameter.
- If the db_create_file_dest parameter is not set, the block change tracking file is created in the same directory as the SYSTEM table space.
Software
- The bash and sudo packages must be
installed. sudo must be at version 1.7.6p2 or later. Run sudo
-V to check the version.Tip: The required bash and sudo packages are included in the supported Linux86_64 operating system installation packages.
- Install the most recent Oracle Server patches and updates in your environment.
- Ensure that a supported version of Linux x86_64 or AIX is installed with the most recent patches and updates.
- The International Components for Unicode (libicu) RPM package must be installed for the corresponding version of your operating system.
- Ensure that the user limit value ulimit -f is set to unlimited, for the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent user and the Oracle instance user. Alternatively, set the value to a sufficiently high value to allow copying of the largest database files in your backup and restore jobs. If you change the ulimit setting, restart the Oracle instance to finalize the configuration.
- In a Linux environment, depending on your version or distribution, ensure that the Linux utility package util-linux-ng or util-linux is current.
- For RHEL and CentOS 6 users: To ensure that the util-linux-ng or
util-linux package is current, run the following command:
where package_name is the name of the Linux utility package.yum update package_name
Connectivity
- The secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) subsystem for Secure Shell (SSH) is enabled.
- The SSH service must be running on port 22 on the proxy host server.
- Firewalls are configured to allow IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to connect to the proxy host server by using SSH.
- Firewalls must be configured to enable the Oracle Server to communicate with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server using HTTPS via port 443.
- IBM Spectrum Protect Plus uses the Network File System (NFS) protocol to mount storage volumes for backup and restore operations. Ensure that the native Linux NFS client is installed on the proxy host server.
- All servers, proxies, applications, and hypervisors that are added to the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus environment must be registered by using a Domain Name System (DNS) name or Internet Protocol (IP) address.
- If DNS names are used, they must be resolvable by the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server and from the vSnap server. All IBM Spectrum Protect Plus components must also be resolvable by their DNS names.
- If DNS is not available, you must add the server to the /etc/hosts file on the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server by using the command line.
- Oracle RAC nodes are registered by their physical IP or name. Do not use a virtual name or Single Client Access Name (SCAN).
- The Oracle server must have a consistent fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or the user must set
the overrideHostname flag to the desired FQDN in the
unixagent
section of the /etc/guestapps.conf file.
Authentication and privileges
Authentication
- The Oracle Server must be registered in IBM Spectrum Protect Plus by using an operating system user that exists on the Oracle Server. The user is then referred to as the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent user.
- Ensure that the root user password is correctly configured and that the user can log in without other prompts, such as prompts to reset the password.
Privileges
- Privileges to run commands as root and as an Oracle software owner user (for example,
oracle
orgrid
) by using sudo. These privileges are required for tasks such as discovering storage layouts, mounting and unmounting disks, and managing databases and Automatic Storage Management (ASM).- The sudoers configuration must allow the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent user to run commands without a password.
- The !requiretty setting must be set.
- The ENV_KEEP setting must allow the ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_SID environment variables to be retained.
- Privileges to read the Oracle inventory. These privileges are required for tasks such as
discovering and collecting information about Oracle home directories and databases.
To achieve these privileges, the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent user must belong to the Oracle inventory group, typically named
oinstall
.
For information about creating a new user with the required privileges, see Sample configuration of an IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent user.
Sample configuration of an IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent user
The following commands are examples for creating and configuring an operating system user that IBM Spectrum Protect Plus uses to log in to the Oracle Server. The command syntax might vary depending on your operating system type and version.
- Create the user that is designated as the IBM Spectrum Protect
Plus agent
user:
useradd -m sppagent
- Set a password:
passwd sppagent_password
- If using key-based authentication, place the public key in the
/home/sppagent/.ssh/authorized_keys directory, or in the appropriate file,
depending on your
sshd
configuration, and ensure that the correct ownership and permissions are set. The commands are structured as shown in the following example:chown -R sppagent:sppagent /home/sppagent/.ssh chmod 700 /home/sppagent/.ssh chmod 600 /home/sppagent/.ssh/authorized_keys
- Add the user to the Oracle installation and to the operating system (OSDBA) group:
usermod -a -G oinstall,dba sppagent
- If you plan to use ASM, also add the user to the OSASM group:
usermod -a -G asmadmin sppagent
- Place the following lines at the end of the sudoers configuration file,
typically /etc/sudoers. If the existing sudoers file is
configured to import a configuration from another directory (for example,
/etc/sudoers.d), you can also add the following lines to new file in that
directory:
Defaults:sppagent !requiretty Defaults:sppagent env_keep+="ORACLE_HOME" Defaults:sppagent env_keep+="ORACLE_SID" sppagent ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
Prerequisites and operations
Prerequisites
Ensure that the Software, Connectivity, and Authentication and privileges requirements are met.
Operations
Before you start a backup or restore operation, take the following actions:
- Register the providers that you want to back up. For more information, see Adding an Oracle application server.
- Configure a service level agreement (SLA) policy.
- Assign appropriate roles and resource groups to users who will be running backup and restore operations. Grant users access to resources and roles by using the Accounts pane.
Review the following information about creating backup and restore jobs:
- You can use backup jobs to back up Oracle environments with snapshots. Review the information in Backing up Oracle data.
- You can use restore jobs to restore an Oracle environment from snapshots. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus creates a vSnap clone from the version that is selected during the job definition creation and creates a NFS share. The IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent then mounts the share on the Oracle server where the restore job is to be run. For Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), the restore job is run on all nodes in the cluster. Review the information in Restoring Oracle data.
For an overview about protecting Oracle databases with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, see Backing up and restoring Oracle data Protecting Oracle
Log backup
- The cron daemon process must be enabled on the application server.
- The IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent user must have the necessary privileges to use the crontab command and create cron jobs. Privileges can be granted through the cron.allow configuration file.
Ports
The following ports are used by IBM Spectrum Protect Plus agent users.
Port | Protocol | Initiator | Target | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
22 | Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) | IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server | Oracle Server | Provides access to troubleshoot and maintain remote proxy host servers running guest application components by using the SSH protocol |
Port | Protocol | Initiator | Target | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
111 | TCP | Oracle Server | vSnap server | Used for NFS data transfer to and from file systems mounted from vSnap servers during backup and restore operations |
443 | TCP | Oracle Server | IBM Spectrum Protect Plus server | Port that allows the agent to communicate with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus for sending alerts in case of log backup failures |
2049 | TCP | Oracle Server | vSnap server | Used for NFS data transfer to and from file systems mounted from vSnap servers during backup and restore operations |
20048 | TCP | Oracle Server | vSnap server | Used for NFS data transfer to and from file systems mounted from vSnap servers during backup and restore operations |
Hardware
System | Disk Space |
---|---|
Compatible hardware that is supported by the operating system and Oracle Server | A minimum of 500 MB of disk space is required for product installation |