When I deployed XE to an AWS instance I made a small script to backup the database once pr day (scheduled in crontab), and another to fetch the backupset to my server here on earth. Backup script looks like this:
#!/bin/sh ORACLE_SID=XE ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH export ORACLE_SID ORACLE_HOME PATH rman target / << EOF > $HOME/script/rman.$$ backup database plus archivelog delete input; delete noprompt obsolete; list backup of database summary; EOF
By default the XE is installed without archiving so you need to change that when you install your production XE database. I also turned on auto backup of the controlfile. The RMAN configuration for the XE database looks like this:
CONFIGURE RETENTION POLICY TO REDUNDANCY 2; CONFIGURE BACKUP OPTIMIZATION ON; CONFIGURE DEFAULT DEVICE TYPE TO DISK; # default CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON; CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO '%F'; # default CONFIGURE DEVICE TYPE DISK PARALLELISM 1 BACKUP TYPE TO BACKUPSET; # default CONFIGURE DATAFILE BACKUP COPIES FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 1; # default CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG BACKUP COPIES FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO 1; # default CONFIGURE MAXSETSIZE TO UNLIMITED; # default CONFIGURE ENCRYPTION FOR DATABASE OFF; # default CONFIGURE ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM 'AES128'; # default CONFIGURE COMPRESSION ALGORITHM 'BASIC' AS OF RELEASE 'DEFAULT' OPTIMIZE FOR LOAD TRUE ; # default CONFIGURE ARCHIVELOG DELETION POLICY TO NONE; # default CONFIGURE SNAPSHOT CONTROLFILE NAME TO '/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/dbs/snapcf_XE.f'; # default
It is mostly default values.
A script that runs on my own box simply does a recursive secure copy (scp):
scp -r -i ssh_key.pem ec2-user@42.42.42.42:/u01/app/oracle/fast_recovery_area/XE/backupset/`date +%Y_%m_%d` /home/alone/RMAN/backupset scp -r -i ssh_key.pem ec2-user@42.42.42.42:/u01/app/oracle/fast_recovery_area/XE/backupset/`date +%Y_%m_%d` /home/alone/RMAN/autobackup
This fetches today's backup and stores it locally.
I installed XE on my own box and executed the following in RMAN to restore the database. (If the instance is up, take it down with shutdown abort first):
rman target / startup nomount restore controlfile from '/home/alone/RMAN/autobackup/2014_10_21/o1_mf_s_861554053_b4dvq5pl_.bkp'; alter database mount; catalog start with '/home/alone/RMAN/autbackup/2014_10_21'; restore database; recover database; alter database open resetlogs;
That's it.
But don't trust me on this procedure without trying it yourself. Remember a DBA can make mistakes, except when it comes to backup AND recovery.
