Using Oracle RMAN to duplicate a database

Today, I was working with a code base still in development, but really wanted to use it against the latest production data. To achieve this, I used Oracle 11g’s Recovery Manager, “RMAN”, to duplicate the latest content of my production database onto a development Oracle server that I have set up to work with my development code. Let us assume that my production database name was “prodDb” residing on server “prodServer”, the database I was creating is “devDb” residing on “devServer”.

First, I needed to create some directories on devServer.

mkdir -p /u01/app/oracle/admin/devDb/adump
mkdir -p /u01/app/oracle/flash_recovery_area/devDb
mkdir -p /u01/oradata/devDb

Then, on devServer, I used the scp command to copy the prodServer password file to devServer.

scp prodServer:/u01/app/oracle/product/ver_no/db_1/dbs/orapwproddb $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/.

Next, I created a dummy init file so we can mount this empty devDb database.

echo 'DB_NAME=devDb' > $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/initdevDb.ora
echo 'control_files=(/u01/oradata/devDb/control01.ctl,/u01/oradata/devDb/control02.ctl,/u01/oradata/devDb/control03.ctl)' >> $ORACLE_HOME/dbs/initdevDb.ora

I mounted devDb, then restarted the listener.

(From terminal prompt, log in to SQL*Plus as sysdba)
sqlplus /nolog
conn / as sysdba

(SQL*Plus command to mount database)
startup nomount pfile=$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/initdevDb.ora;
exit;

(Back in terminal prompt, restart the listener)
lsnrctl stop
lsnrctl start

My work on the devServer was then done. I moved on to the prodServer machine; from the terminal prompt of the prodServer, I started RMAN.

(From terminal prompt, run "rman")
rman

(In RMAN prompt, connect to prodDb as target, and to devDb as the auxiliary)
connect target sys@prodDb
connect auxiliary sys@devDb

(In RMAN, run the following script; you may wish to modify to suit your needs, of course)
run {
   duplicate target database to devDb from active database
   spfile
           parameter_value_convert 'prodDb','devDb'
           set db_unique_name='devDb'
           set service_names='devDb.mydomain.com'
           set log_file_name_convert='prodDb','devDb'
           set log_archive_config=''
           set fal_client=''
           set fal_server=''
           set log_archive_dest_1=''
           set memory_max_target='1200m'
           set memory_target='1200m'
           set sga_max_size='800m'
           set sga_target='800m'
           set db_recovery_file_dest_size = '20G'
           db_file_name_convert 'prodDb','devDb'
        ;
     }

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