Script to back up database controlfile

The script will enable DBAs to backup the database controlfile in binary and ASCII format. When a DBA issues the command "alter database backup controlfile to trace;", the result is a trace file written to the location defined by USER_DUMP_DEST, similar to mdl1_ora_25524.trc (which is in the format ORACLE_SID_ora_SPID.trc). This script will find the trace file just written and rename it to controlfile.backup. Therefore, if you backup the controlfile to trace a million times, you will still only have one controlfile.backup versus a million trace files. Since it is a shell script, it should work on all versions of Oracle running Unix (and probably Linux) but it has only been tested on Oracle 8i running Solaris.

#!/bin/sh
 
# Michael Dinh - August 2002
# Backup controlfile - binary
# Backup controlfile to trace - ascii
# Rename trace file to controlfile.backup
 
umask 077
ORACLE_SID= ; export ORACLE_SID
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle ; export ORACLE_BASE
ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/8.1.7 ; export ORACLE_HOME
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib ; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
 
USER_DUMP_DEST=`$ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus -s "/ as sysdba" << END1
    SET PAUSE OFF
    SET PAGES 0
    SET ECHO OFF
    SET VERIFY OFF
    SET FEED OFF
    SELECT value
    FROM   v\$parameter
    WHERE  name = 'user_dump_dest';
    EXIT
END1`
export USER_DUMP_DEST
 
TRACEID=`$ORACLE_HOME/bin/sqlplus -s "/ as sysdba" << END1
set pause off
set pages 0
set echo off
set verify off
set feed off
alter database backup controlfile to 'controlfile.backup' REUSE;
alter database backup controlfile to trace;
select p.spid
from   v\$session s, v\$process p
where  s.paddr = p.addr
and    s.machine = name of the server
and    s.username = 'SYS';
exit
END1`
export TRACEID
 
mv $USER_DUMP_DEST/${ORACLE_SID}_ora_${TRACEID}.trc $USER_DUMP_DEST/controlfile.backup
exit

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This was first published in November 2002

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