Using RMAN Catalog in Data Guard Architecture (2/4) - GRANT REGISTER DATABASE Clause

Using RMAN Catalog in Data Guard Architecture (1/4) - GRANT CATALOG FOR DATABASE Clause

GRANT REGISTER DATABASE makes the virtual catalog owner has more power to choose databases to register, manage and unregister, which is not a good practice in my humble opinion. Here are the steps:

1. Drop the existing base catalog.
[oracle@primary01 ~]$ rman catalog catowner/password@smalldb
...
connected to recovery catalog database

RMAN> drop catalog;

recovery catalog owner is CATOWNER
enter DROP CATALOG command again to confirm catalog removal

RMAN> drop catalog;

recovery catalog dropped

RMAN> list db_unique_name all;

RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-00569: =============== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ===============
RMAN-00571: ===========================================================
RMAN-03002: failure of list command at 12/20/2012 14:21:54
RMAN-06428: recovery catalog is not installed
...

2. Drop the existing virtual catalog.
[oracle@primary01 ~]$ rman catalog vpcowner/password@smalldb
...
connected to recovery catalog database

RMAN> drop catalog;

recovery catalog owner is VPCOWNER
enter DROP CATALOG command again to confirm catalog removal

RMAN> drop catalog;

recovery catalog dropped
...

3. Create the base catalog.
[oracle@primary01 ~]$ rman catalog catowner/password@smalldb
...
connected to recovery catalog database

RMAN> create catalog;

recovery catalog created
...

4. Grant register database to the virtual catalog owner.
RMAN> grant register database to vpcowner;

Grant succeeded.

5. Create the virtual catalog by the virtual catalog owner.
[oracle@primary01 ~]$ rman catalog vpcowner/password@smalldb
...
connected to recovery catalog database

RMAN> create virtual catalog;

found eligible base catalog owned by CATOWNER
created virtual catalog against base catalog owned by CATOWNER

6. Register both the primary and standby database.
[oracle@primary01 ~]$ rman catalog vpcowner/password@smalldb target sys/password@primdb1
...
connected to target database: COMPDB (DBID=841830157)
connected to recovery catalog database

RMAN> list db_unique_name all;


RMAN> register database;

database registered in recovery catalog
starting full resync of recovery catalog
full resync complete

RMAN> list db_unique_name all;


List of Databases
DB Key  DB Name  DB ID            Database Role    Db_unique_name
------- ------- ----------------- ---------------  ------------------
2       COMPDB   841830157        PRIMARY          PRIMDB
...
[oracle@primary01 ~]$ rman catalog vpcowner/password@smalldb target sys/password@standb1
...
connected to target database: COMPDB (DBID=841830157, not open)
connected to recovery catalog database

RMAN> list db_unique_name all;


List of Databases
DB Key  DB Name  DB ID            Database Role    Db_unique_name
------- ------- ----------------- ---------------  ------------------
2       COMPDB   841830157        PRIMARY          PRIMDB
2       COMPDB   841830157        STANDBY          STANDB

The step of CREATE VIRTUAL CATALOG must be after the step of granting, either GRANT CATALOG FOR DATABASE clause or GRANT REGISTER DATABASE clause.

Using RMAN Catalog in Data Guard Architecture (3/4) - After a Switchover