Since I had added ENABLEMONITORING in the GLOBALS file, I noticed that $OGG_HOME/dirbdb directory started growing.
That was OGG version 12.2.0.1.160517.
The size of this directory was 23G in the test environment and the ENABLEMONITORING option was set 3 weeks ago:
-bash-4.1$ du -sh dirbdb
23.8G dirbdb
From that 23.8G , 23.5G was occupied by the log.* files like below:
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 18:16 log.0000015971
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 18:28 log.0000015972
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 18:41 log.0000015973
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 18:55 log.0000015974
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 19:08 log.0000015975
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 19:20 log.0000015976
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 19:32 log.0000015977
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 19:43 log.0000015978
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 19:55 log.0000015979
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 20:07 log.0000015980
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 20:19 log.0000015981
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 16 20:31 log.0000015982
These files were generated approximately every ten minutes and each of them was 10M in size that made up 1.4G daily.
Having searched through MOS and Internet search engines, I stumbled across this MOSC Thread: Monitoring - Berkeley Database.
So I created a new DB_CONFIG file within the dirbdb directory and put this line into it:
Then I restarted my OGG processes and discovered that these log files were gone.
Now there are only two log files that are kept:
[oracle@host ggs]$ ls -ltr dirbdb/log*
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 28 13:31 dirbdb/log.0000017532
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 28 13:41 dirbdb/log.0000017533
[oracle@host ggs]$ ls -ltr dirbdb/log*
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 28 13:42 dirbdb/log.0000017533
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 28 13:51 dirbdb/log.0000017534
[oracle@host ggs]$ ls -ltr dirbdb/log*
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 29 07:21 dirbdb/log.0000017625
-rw-r----- 1 oracle dba 10485760 Nov 29 07:22 dirbdb/log.0000017626
Looks like another option that should be added in the environments in which ENABLEMONITORING is set.
Yet, MOS returns no hits apart from the aforementioned MOSC thread.
A couple of months ago I had to configure OGG IE (Oracle GoldenGate Integrated Extract) to exclude specific DDL from replication.
Having worked a lot with Oracle Streams, I decided to utilize DBMS_STREAMS_ADM.SET_TAG for that task.
I found a relevant MOS document How to exclude ddl in IE (integrated extract) issued from a specific user? (Doc ID 2107293.1) pretty fast.
The document suggested putting TRANLOGOPTIONS EXCLUDETAG into an extract parameter file and than all DDL statements preceeding with DBMS_STREAMS_SET.TAG should not be replicated.
Unfortunately the provided solution did not work for me.
I used OGG Server 12.2.0.1.160823 on Linux x86-64 (which means that I applied the latest bundle patch available at the moment).
The issue can be easily reproduced.
The database version used in this test was 12.1.0.2.160719.
Here are my extract and replicat parameter files:
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 112> view params etag
EXTRACT ETAG
USERIDALIAS db1_tc_ogg_extract
TRANLOGOPTIONS EXCLUDETAG 34
LOGALLSUPCOLS
EXTTRAIL ./dirdat/tc
DDL INCLUDE ALL
TABLE TC.*;
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 113> view params rtag
REPLICAT RTAG
USERIDALIAS db2_tc_ogg_replicat
MAP TC.*, TARGET TC.*;
Test schema TC will be used for demonstration and I setup the extract to exclude any LCRs with tag 34.
Then I am going to create and start the OGG processes with the following script:
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 138> alter credentialstore add user tc_ogg_extract@db1 password tc_ogg_extract alias db1_tc_ogg_extract
Credential store in ./dircrd/ altered.
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 139> alter credentialstore add user tc_ogg_replicat@db2 password tc_ogg_replicat alias db2_tc_ogg_replicat
Credential store in ./dircrd/ altered.
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 140>
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 140> dblogin useridalias db1_tc_ogg_extract
Successfully logged into database.
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_extract@db1) 141> add extract etag integrated tranlog begin now
EXTRACT (Integrated) added.
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_extract@db1) 142> add exttrail ./dirdat/tc extract etag
EXTTRAIL added.
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_extract@db1) 143> register extract etag database
2016-10-31 12:46:49 INFO OGG-02003 Extract ETAG successfully registered with database at SCN 39029510.
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_extract@db1) 144>
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_extract@db1) 146> dblogin useridalias db2_tc_ogg_replicat
Successfully logged into database.
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 147> add replicat rtag , integrated, exttrail ./dirdat/tc
REPLICAT (Integrated) added.
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 148> start extract etag
Sending START request to MANAGER ...
EXTRACT ETAG starting
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 149> start replicat rtag
Sending START request to MANAGER ...
REPLICAT RTAG starting
I used two databases in my setup - db1 and db2 that I named SOURCE and TARGET in the rest of this blog post for the sake of clarity.
The extract configured to capture the changes from db1 database and write data to trail files.
The replicat reads the trail files and applies the changes into db2 database.
Next I am about to run the following code in the source database from which the extract captures changes:
Havind done that, I got next results in SOURCE database:
TC@SOURCE> select * from t;
ID MSG
---------- ----------
1 NO TAG
2 TAG 12
3 TAG 34
4 TAG 56
And that in TARGET:
TC@TARGET> select * from t order by id;
ID MSG
---------- ----------
1 NO TAG
2 TAG 12
4 TAG 56
Notice that an insert of a record with ID=3, MSG="TAG 34" was not replicated because we have filtered out that record on the extract.
That works flawlessly being executed for DML, but it does not work for DDL:
TC@SOURCE> exec dbms_streams_adm.set_tag( hextoraw('12'))
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
TC@SOURCE>
TC@SOURCE> alter table t add tag12 int;
Table altered.
TC@SOURCE>
TC@SOURCE> exec dbms_streams_adm.set_tag( hextoraw('34'))
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
TC@SOURCE>
TC@SOURCE> alter table t add tag34 int;
Table altered.
TC@SOURCE> describe t
Name Null? Type
----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
ID NUMBER(38)
MSG VARCHAR2(10)
TAG12 NUMBER(38)
TAG34 NUMBER(38)
I have added two columns to the table and the second one, TAG34, should not have been replicated.
But in fact, both of the commands were replicated:
TC@TARGET> describe t
Name Null? Type
----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
ID NUMBER(38)
MSG VARCHAR2(10)
TAG12 NUMBER(38)
TAG34 NUMBER(38)
GGSCI (misha2 as tc_ogg_replicat@db2) 168> view params etag
EXTRACT ETAG
USERIDALIAS db1_tc_ogg_extract
TRANLOGOPTIONS EXCLUDETAG 34
TRANLOGOPTIONS _dbfilterddl
LOGALLSUPCOLS
EXTTRAIL ./dirdat/tc
DDL INCLUDE ALL
TABLE TC.*;
Having added that, the same code adding two columns worked as it should:
TC@SOURCE> describe t
Name Null? Type
----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
ID NUMBER(38)
MSG VARCHAR2(10)
TAG12 NUMBER(38)
TAG34 NUMBER(38)
TC@TARGET> describe t
Name Null? Type
----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
ID NUMBER(38)
MSG VARCHAR2(10)
TAG12 NUMBER(38)
It means that TAG34 column, being added with tag 34, was not replicated.
There is also a new line in a ggserr.log file that was not present when I started the extract without _dbfilterddl:
Logmining server DDL filtering enabled.
2016-10-31 13:54:33 INFO OGG-00963 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Command received from GGSCI on host [172.16.113.245]:57437 (START EXTRACT ETAG ).
2016-10-31 13:54:33 INFO OGG-00960 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Access granted (rule #6).
2016-10-31 13:54:34 INFO OGG-00992 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: EXTRACT ETAG starting.
2016-10-31 13:54:34 INFO OGG-03059 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Operating system character set identified as UTF-8.
2016-10-31 13:54:34 INFO OGG-02695 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: ANSI SQL parameter syntax is used for parameter parsing.
2016-10-31 13:54:38 INFO OGG-03522 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Setting session time zone to source database time zone 'GMT'.
2016-10-31 13:54:38 WARNING OGG-04033 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: LOGALLSUPCOLS has set the NOCOMPRESSDELETES and GETUPDATEBEFORES parameters on.
2016-10-31 13:54:38 INFO OGG-01815 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Virtual Memory Facilities for: BR
anon alloc: mmap(MAP_ANON) anon free: munmap
file alloc: mmap(MAP_SHARED) file free: munmap
target directories:
/u01/app/oracle/12.2.0.1/ggs/BR/ETAG.
2016-10-31 13:54:38 INFO OGG-01851 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: filecaching started: thread ID: 140594853938944.
2016-10-31 13:54:38 INFO OGG-00975 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: EXTRACT ETAG starting.
2016-10-31 13:54:38 INFO OGG-01815 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Virtual Memory Facilities for: COM
anon alloc: mmap(MAP_ANON) anon free: munmap
file alloc: mmap(MAP_SHARED) file free: munmap
target directories:
/u01/app/oracle/12.2.0.1/ggs/dirtmp.
2016-10-31 13:54:58 WARNING OGG-02045 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Database does not have streams_pool_size initialization parameter configured.
2016-10-31 13:54:59 INFO OGG-02248 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Logmining server DDL filtering enabled.
2016-10-31 13:55:08 INFO OGG-02068 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Integrated capture successfully attached to logmining server OGG$CAP_ETAG using OGGCapture API.
2016-10-31 13:55:08 INFO OGG-02089 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Source redo compatibility version is: 12.1.0.2.0.
2016-10-31 13:55:08 INFO OGG-02086 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Integrated Dictionary will be used.
2016-10-31 13:55:09 WARNING OGG-02905 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: Replication of OID column in object tables may diverge.
2016-10-31 13:55:09 INFO OGG-00993 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, etag.prm: EXTRACT ETAG started.
tl;dr
EXCLUDETAG parameter does not work when a tag is set using DBMS_STREAMS_ADM.SET_TAG in OGG 12.2.0.1.160823 . It prevents replicating only DML commands and does not restrict DDL commands from being replicated.
We could use underscope parameter _dbfilterddl in the extract parameter file like in the following line:
TRANLOGOPTIONS _dbfilterddl
This way we may restrict both DDL and DML commands from being replicated when the appropriate tag is set (or any in case we use "EXCLUDETAG +" in the extract parameter file).
Today I have faced an interesting issue performing GoldenGate initial-load with a Direct Bulk Load to SQL*Loader.
The issue was related to incorrect handling of unused columns during such loads and can cause incorrect data getting loaded into a database under certain conditions.
I tried to reproduce the issue using one database in my setup but wasn't able to do that and stuck with two databases.
I used Oracle Database 12.1.0.2 with DBBP 12.1.0.2.160419 applied and GoldenGate 12.2.0.1.160419 Patch Set.
I'm going to use two database in my test case, let it be SOURCE and TARGET. Firstly, let's create a test schema with a single table populating it with some data:
Consider the scenario when we have decided to resynchronize data in TARGET database from SOURCE database.
I'm going to remove all rows from the table in TARGET database first:
Proceed with GoldenGate setup. I want to use GoldenGate Direct Bulk Load to SQL*Loader capability to move the data from SOURCE database to TARGET database.
Let's use IRTC - as a name of the initial load replicat and IETC - as a name of the initial load extract:
-- setup initial load replicat
GGSCI (ogg-test) 2> edit params irtc
-- UserIdAlias may be customized accordingly to your environment or simply use a username/password pair
Replicat irtc
AssumeTargetDefs
UserIdAlias target_ogg_replicat
DiscardFile ./dirrpt/irtc.dsc, Purge
-- I want to use Direct Bulk Load
BulkLoad
-- I used PDB "orcl" for my experiments:
Map orcl.tc.*, target orcl.tc.*;
-- setup initial load extract
GGSCI (ogg-test) 149> edit params ietc
Extract ietc
RmtHost ogg-test, MgrPort 7809
RmtTask Replicat, Group irtc
UserIdAlias source_ogg_extract
Table orcl.tc.direct_load;
-- let's create GoldenGate processes
GGSCI (ogg-test) 116> add replicat irtc SpecialRun
REPLICAT added.
GGSCI (ogg-test) 117> add extract ietc SourceIsTable
EXTRACT added.
The setup has been finished. Right now we can try to perform initial load:
GGSCI (ogg-test) 15> info i*tc, tasks
EXTRACT IETC Initialized 2016-09-01 08:54 Status STOPPED
Checkpoint Lag Not Available
Log Read Checkpoint Not Available
First Record Record 0
Task SOURCEISTABLE
REPLICAT IRTC Initialized 2016-09-01 08:54 Status STOPPED
Checkpoint Lag 00:00:00 (updated 00:00:28 ago)
Log Read Checkpoint Not Available
Task SPECIALRUN
GGSCI (ogg-test) 16> start extract ietc
Sending START request to MANAGER ...
EXTRACT IETC starting
The load has completed pretty soon:
GGSCI (ogg-test) 17> info i*tc, tasks
EXTRACT IETC Last Started 2016-09-01 08:55 Status STOPPED
Checkpoint Lag Not Available
Log Read Checkpoint Table ORCL.TC.DIRECT_LOAD
2016-09-01 08:55:27 Record 1
Task SOURCEISTABLE
REPLICAT IRTC Initialized 2016-09-01 08:54 Status STOPPED
Checkpoint Lag 00:00:00 (updated 00:02:09 ago)
Log Read Checkpoint Not Available
Task SPECIALRUN
ggserr.log file doesn't raise any concerns:
2016-09-01 08:55:11 INFO OGG-00987 Oracle GoldenGate Command Interpreter for Oracle: GGSCI command (velikikh): start extract ietc.
2016-09-01 08:55:11 INFO OGG-00963 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Command received from GGSCI on host [127.0.0.1]:54562 (START EXTRACT IETC ).
2016-09-01 08:55:11 INFO OGG-00960 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Access granted (rule #8).
2016-09-01 08:55:11 INFO OGG-01017 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: Wildcard resolution set to IMMEDIATE because SOURCEISTABLE is used.
2016-09-01 08:55:11 INFO OGG-00992 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: EXTRACT IETC starting.
2016-09-01 08:55:11 INFO OGG-03059 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: Operating system character set identified as ISO-8859-1.
2016-09-01 08:55:11 INFO OGG-02695 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: ANSI SQL parameter syntax is used for parameter parsing.
2016-09-01 08:55:12 INFO OGG-03522 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: Setting session time zone to source database time zone 'GMT'.
2016-09-01 08:55:12 WARNING OGG-00752 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: Failed to validate table ORCL.TC.DIRECT_LOAD. Likely due to existence of unused column. Please make sure you use sourcedefs in downstream Replicat, or the target table has exactly the same unused columns when using ASSUMETARGETDEFS or DDL replication.
2016-09-01 08:55:12 WARNING OGG-06439 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: No unique key is defined for table DIRECT_LOAD. All viable columns will be used to represent the key, but may not guarantee uniqueness. KEYCOLS may be used to define the key.
2016-09-01 08:55:12 INFO OGG-06509 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: Using the following key columns for source table ORCL.TC.DIRECT_LOAD: COLUMN1, COLUMN2, COLUMN3.
2016-09-01 08:55:12 INFO OGG-01851 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: filecaching started: thread ID: 7.
2016-09-01 08:55:12 INFO OGG-01815 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: Virtual Memory Facilities for: COM
anon alloc: mmap(MAP_ANON) anon free: munmap
file alloc: mmap(MAP_SHARED) file free: munmap
target directories:
/export/home/velikikh/oracle/12.2.0.1/ggs/dirtmp.
2016-09-01 08:55:16 INFO OGG-00975 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: EXTRACT IETC starting.
2016-09-01 08:55:16 INFO OGG-00993 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: EXTRACT IETC started.
2016-09-01 08:55:16 INFO OGG-00963 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Command received from EXTRACT on host [127.0.0.1]:58728 (START REPLICAT IRTC CPU -1 PRI -1 PARAMS ).
2016-09-01 08:55:16 INFO OGG-00960 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Access granted (rule #8).
2016-09-01 08:55:16 INFO OGG-01025 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle: REPLICAT task started by manager (port 7810).
2016-09-01 08:55:21 INFO OGG-00963 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Command received from RMTTASK on host [::1]:59974 (REPORT 3871 7810).
2016-09-01 08:55:21 INFO OGG-00960 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Access granted (rule #1).
2016-09-01 08:55:21 INFO OGG-00973 Oracle GoldenGate Manager for Oracle, mgr.prm: Manager started replicat task process (Port 7810).
2016-09-01 08:55:26 INFO OGG-01229 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle: Connected to ogg-test:50783.
2016-09-01 08:55:26 INFO OGG-00995 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: REPLICAT IRTC starting.
2016-09-01 08:55:26 INFO OGG-03059 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: Operating system character set identified as ISO-8859-1.
2016-09-01 08:55:26 INFO OGG-02695 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: ANSI SQL parameter syntax is used for parameter parsing.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 INFO OGG-02679 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: The Replicat process logged on to database ORCL and can only apply to that database.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 INFO OGG-06451 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: Triggers will be suppressed by default.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 INFO OGG-01815 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: Virtual Memory Facilities for: COM
anon alloc: mmap(MAP_ANON) anon free: munmap
file alloc: mmap(MAP_SHARED) file free: munmap
target directories:
/export/home/velikikh/oracle/12.2.0.1/ggs/dirtmp.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 INFO OGG-00996 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: REPLICAT IRTC started.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 INFO OGG-03522 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: Setting session time zone to source database time zone 'GMT'.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 INFO OGG-02911 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: Processing table ORCL.TC.DIRECT_LOAD.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 INFO OGG-06495 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: OGG created a session pool with SESSIONPOOLMAX 10, SESSIONPOOLMIN 2 and SESSIONPOOLINCR 2.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 WARNING OGG-02760 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: ASSUMETARGETDEFS is ignored because trail file contains table definitions.
2016-09-01 08:55:27 INFO OGG-06506 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: Wildcard MAP resolved (entry orcl.tc.*): Map "ORCL"."TC"."DIRECT_LOAD", target orcl.tc."DIRECT_LOAD".
2016-09-01 08:55:28 WARNING OGG-06439 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: No unique key is defined for table DIRECT_LOAD. All viable columns will be used to represent the key, but may not guarantee uniqueness. KEYCOLS may be used to define the key.
2016-09-01 08:55:28 INFO OGG-02756 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: The definition for table ORCL.TC.DIRECT_LOAD is obtained from the trail file.
2016-09-01 08:55:28 INFO OGG-06511 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: Using following columns in default map by name: COLUMN1, COLUMN2, COLUMN3.
2016-09-01 08:55:28 INFO OGG-06510 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: Using the following key columns for target table ORCL.TC.DIRECT_LOAD: COLUMN1, COLUMN2, COLUMN3.
2016-09-01 08:55:28 INFO OGG-00178 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: owner = "TC", table = "DIRECT_LOAD".
2016-09-01 08:55:28 INFO OGG-00991 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: EXTRACT IETC stopped normally.
2016-09-01 08:55:33 INFO OGG-00994 Oracle GoldenGate Delivery for Oracle, irtc.prm: REPLICAT IRTC stopped normally.
Yes, I had a warning like this:
2016-09-01 08:55:12 WARNING OGG-00752 Oracle GoldenGate Capture for Oracle, ietc.prm: Failed to validate table ORCL.TC.DIRECT_LOAD. Likely due to existence of unused column. Please make sure you use sourcedefs in downstream Replicat, or the target table has exactly the same unused columns when using ASSUMETARGETDEFS or DDL replication.
But I obviously didn't violate it as the source and the target table has the same unused columns.
Let's see what has loaded into TARGET database:
Clearly the data from COLUMN2 got loaded into COLUMN3 and I didn't get any errors afterwards leaving my database with "wrong" data.
That's the worst scenario. Originally I faced the issue while I was moving a bunch of data from one database to another using GoldenGate.
The load got ABENDED with ORA-01840 as in my case COLUMN3 had a DATE datatype which may be easily reproduced by the following code:
SQL> select to_date('2', 'yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss') from dual;
select to_date('2', 'yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss') from dual
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01840: input value not long enough for date format
Of course, if you are lucky, you may get some other datatype conversion errors. If you are not, you may end with wrong data in your database and it may take a while before you find the problem.
A few words about workarounds.
In this simple scenario, which I have written just for demonstration purposes, it was enough to drop unused columns in TARGET database:
TC@TARGET> alter table direct_load drop unused columns;
Table altered.
This morning while applying recent DBBP (Database Bundle Patch) the datapatch invocation finished with an error:
SQL Patching tool version 12.1.0.2.0 on Thu Jun 2 10:58:41 2016
Copyright (c) 2015, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Log file for this invocation: /export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log
Connecting to database...OK
Bootstrapping registry and package to current versions...done
Queryable inventory could not determine the current opatch status.
Execute 'select dbms_sqlpatch.verify_queryable_inventory from dual'
and/or check the invocation log
/export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log
for the complete error.
Prereq check failed, exiting without installing any patches.
Please refer to MOS Note 1609718.1 and/or the invocation log
/export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log
for information on how to resolve the above errors.
SQL Patching tool complete on Thu Jun 2 10:58:50 2016
Here are the contents of sqlpatch_invocation.log file:
SQL Patching tool version 12.1.0.2.0 on Thu Jun 2 10:58:41 2016
Copyright (c) 2015, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Log file for this invocation: /export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log
SQL Patching arguments:
verbose: 1
force: 0
prereq: 0
upgrade_mode_only:
oh:
bundle_series:
ignorable_errors:
bootstrap:
skip_upgrade_check:
userid:
pdbs:
Connecting to database...OK
catcon: ALL catcon-related output will be written to /export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_catcon__catcon_12392.lst
catcon: See /export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_catcon_*.log files for output generated by scripts
catcon: See /export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_catcon__*.lst files for spool files, if any
Bootstrapping registry and package to current versions...done
verify_queryable_inventory returned ORA-20001: Latest xml inventory is not loaded into table
Queryable inventory could not determine the current opatch status.
Execute 'select dbms_sqlpatch.verify_queryable_inventory from dual'
and/or check the invocation log
/export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log
for the complete error.
Prereq check failed, exiting without installing any patches.
Please refer to MOS Note 1609718.1 and/or the invocation log
/export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_12392_2016_06_02_10_58_41/sqlpatch_invocation.log
for information on how to resolve the above errors.
SQL Patching tool complete on Thu Jun 2 10:58:50 2016
SQL>select dbms_sqlpatch.verify_queryable_inventory from dual;
VERIFY_QUERYABLE_INVENTORY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORA-20001: Latest xml inventory is not loaded into table
Well, it was nothing new. Then I queried OPATCH_XML_INV external table because it is used internally by the aforementioned function:
SQL>select * from OPATCH_XML_INV ;
ERROR:
ORA-29913: error in executing ODCIEXTTABLEFETCH callout
ORA-29400: data cartridge error
KUP-04004: error while reading file
/export/home/velikikh/oracle/12.1.0.2/home1/QOpatch/qopiprep.bat
no rows selected
Ok, at least I got some steps for further investigation. qopiprep.bat script simply executes opatch command with some additional processing:
SQL>!opatch lsinv
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM warning: PICL (libpicl.so.1) is missing. Performance will not be optimal.
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM warning: PICL (libpicl.so.1) is missing. Performance will not be optimal.
Oracle Interim Patch Installer version 12.1.0.1.12
Copyright (c) 2016, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.
..skipped...
Please note that this warning just indicates that the JVM could not load the PICL library so it won't be able to turn on some of the JIT Compiler optimizations that require the cache line data size information.
It does not stop the Java process, or impact the process in any other way.
Also, note that this is not a Java bug. The warning message is just intended to inform the user that the platform it is running on does not have the PICL library.
Well, nothing critical was in those messages but Queryable Opatch Inventory (hereinafter QOpatch) was not working.
To verify my assumption about the negative effect of libpicl message on QOpatch, I made a quick and dirty correction to qopiprep.bat file - I redirected the stderr to /dev/null :):
Allright, at least it started working. I didn't try executing other commands but instead asked the SA (System Administrator) team to install the libpicl.so library.
They installed pkg:/system/libpicl and I finally got datapatch working:
[velikikh@gsmcat OPatch]$ ./datapatch -verbose
SQL Patching tool version 12.1.0.2.0 on Thu Jun 2 13:26:15 2016
Copyright (c) 2015, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Log file for this invocation: /export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/sqlpatch_6653_2016_06_02_13_26_15/sqlpatch_invocation.log
Connecting to database...OK
Bootstrapping registry and package to current versions...done
Determining current state...done
Current state of SQL patches:
Bundle series DBBP:
ID 160419 in the binary registry and not installed in the SQL registry
Adding patches to installation queue and performing prereq checks...
Installation queue:
Nothing to roll back
The following patches will be applied:
22806133 (DATABASE BUNDLE PATCH: 12.1.0.2.160419 (22806133))
Installing patches...
Patch installation complete. Total patches installed: 1
Validating logfiles...
Patch 22806133 apply: SUCCESS
logfile: /export/home/velikikh/oracle/cfgtoollogs/sqlpatch/22806133/20067756/22806133_apply_GSMCAT_2016Jun02_13_28_31.log (no errors)
SQL Patching tool complete on Thu Jun 2 13:32:19 2016
So the conclusion is, while using Oracle Database 12c on Solaris 11 SPARC64, you will definitely need to install the libpicl.
This requirement has not mentioned either in Oracle Database documentation or MOS articles (at least I have missed something) but it is present.
From Oracle Database Installation Guide for Oracle Solaris:
The following packages must be installed:
pkg://solaris/system/dtrace
pkg://solaris/developer/assembler
pkg://solaris/developer/build/make
pkg://solaris/system/xopen/xcu4 (if not already installed as part of standard Oracle Solaris 11 installation)
pkg://solaris/x11/diagnostic/x11-info-clients
pkg://solaris/compress/unzip
Although I'd had these packages installed, the datapatch execution completed with the errors till I installed system/picl:
-bash-4.1$ pkg list dtrace assembler make xcu4 x11-info-clients unzip
NAME (PUBLISHER) VERSION IFO
compress/unzip 6.0-0.175.2.10.0.4.0 i--
developer/assembler 0.5.11-0.175.2.13.0.2.0 i--
developer/build/make 0.5.11-0.175.2.0.0.34.0 i--
system/dtrace 0.5.11-0.175.2.12.0.4.2 i--
system/xopen/xcu4 0.5.11-0.175.2.13.0.1.2 i--
x11/diagnostic/x11-info-clients 7.7-0.175.2.0.0.42.1406 i--
-bash-4.1$ pkg list picl
NAME (PUBLISHER) VERSION IFO
system/picl 0.5.11-0.175.2.9.0.3.2 i--
I think Asynchronous Global Index Maintenance is one of the most exciting features in Oracle Database 12c.
I would like to blog about one particular case when that feature can cause performance problems.
Let's create some test data:
SQL> create table t
2 partition by range(owner)
3 (
4 partition values less than ('SYS'),
5 partition values less than (maxvalue)
6 )
7 as
8 select *
9 from dba_objects;
SQL>
SQL> create index t_name_i on t(object_name);
Consider the following query:
SQL> explain plan for
2 select max(object_name)
3 from t;
SQL> select *
2 from table(dbms_xplan.display);
PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 2886567490
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | 25 | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 25 | | |
| 2 | INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX)| T_NAME_I | 1 | 25 | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's quite simple and the queries like that are common in my environment. For instance, they are used to monitor application activities: "select max(date_column) from some_table" and the stuff alike.
Now I'm going to drop a partition of that table:
SQL> alter table t drop partition for ('X') update indexes;
The index is marked as having orphaned entries after that:
SQL> select index_name, orphaned_entries
2 from ind
3 where table_name='T';
INDEX_NAME ORPHANED_
------------------------------ ---------
T_NAME_I YES
Causing some important changes in the plan:
SQL> explain plan for
2 select max(object_name)
3 from t;
SQL> select *
2 from table(dbms_xplan.display);
PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 3249307143
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | 25 | 148 (1)| 00:00:01 |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 25 | | |
|* 2 | INDEX FAST FULL SCAN| T_NAME_I | 96566 | 2357K| 148 (1)| 00:00:01 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
2 - filter(TBL$OR$IDX$PART$NUM("T",0,8,0,"T".ROWID)=1)
The filter clearly was occured due to orphaned index entries which is confirmed by looking into the CBO traces (event 10053):
Added Filter for Orphaned Entries of Index T_NAME_I:
TBL$OR$IDX$PART$NUM("T",0,8,0,"T".ROWID)=1
The IFFS (INDEX FAST FULL SCAN) would cause a huge amount of I/O being executed against large indexes.
For instance, some queries started scanning multi-gigabyte indexes in my database after I had dropped a single small partition while executing periodic maintenance tasks.
Of course, in such case Global Index Maintenance can't be delayed and an index synchronization procedure must be executed ASAP:
SQL> alter index t_name_i coalesce cleanup;
SQL> select index_name, orphaned_entries
2 from ind
3 where table_name='T';
INDEX_NAME ORPHANED_
------------------------------ ---------
T_NAME_I NO
SQL> explain plan for
2 select max(object_name)
3 from t;
SQL> select * from table(dbms_xplan.display);
PLAN_TABLE_OUTPUT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plan hash value: 2886567490
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | 25 | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | 25 | | |
| 2 | INDEX FULL SCAN (MIN/MAX)| T_NAME_I | 1 | 25 | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
