Can ORAARCH folder be deeleted in NW2004s SR1 installation.

[Former Member]

Hi Friends,

I have installed NW2004s SR1 on windows 2003 server with Oracle 10.2 database.

During installation I was prompted to give the drive name for Redolog archives and OraArch archives. I specified this to be G drive in my system

G:Drive totally has 33GB of space in my system.After installation , the ORAARCH folder has taken up 26GB and its still consuming.Literally no objects are created as of now after installation.

I have checked out the contents of the folder ORAARCH and it contains so many .DBF files.

a)What is the purpose/use of these REDOLOG archives & ORAARCH archives in the system.??

b) Is it possible to delete the files in ORAARCH folder?Do I really need them to be maintained in my system?Does the deletion affect my NW2004s SR1 installation? If so in what way??

c)How can i delete these .DBF files in ORAARCH folder? How can I make sure that this folder does not get filled up further??

Please let me know in detail as I have little knowhow about this.

Appropriate answers will be surely rewarded.

Thanks

mv_d

[Former Member]

Dear Mv_D,

You can very well delete the files in the folder. It wouldnt affect the system functioning at all. You can go ahead and delete the .dbf files that are more than 7/10 day old.

As samrat has said you can turn off the archive mode using either SAPDBA or BRTOOLS.

regards,

sri srirangam

[Former Member]

Hi,

you can delete contents of oraarch but not orarch folder if you dont want to data to be papulated in ORAARACH set the sytem to no archive mode.

D.samrat

[Former Member]

Hi Srirangam & Samrat,

Thanks very much for the usefull information you have provided.

Sri--I dont want to delete the folder itself,but instead i would like to delete the files in the folder. Please make it clear that my system will not have any problems once i delete the .DBF files.

Samrat-- How to delete the files in the folder?? Is there any separate procedure for the deletion or just deleting(Windows mode of deletion).

Also how can i set the Oraarch folder to no archive mode? What will be the effect of setting to No archive mode? My oracle version 10g i..e 10.2

Please let me know.Its very critical for my system as it is losing the space and the server is not coming up.

Thanks

mv_d

[Former Member]

Hi,

In oracle10g we dont have SAPDBA

do it in BRTOOLS

else directly edit in ini<sid>.ora file

but be careful,<b> DO THIS IF YOUR SYSTEM IS NOT PRODUCTION SYSTEM</b>

DONT DO IF IT IS PRODUCTION SYSTEM SINCE THESE FILE ARE HELP FULL IN POINT TO TIME RECOVERY (http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2005vp/helpdata/en/8c/09503e30a9d549e10000000a114084/frameset.htm )

SAMRAT

[Former Member]

Hi SRI & SAMRAT

Can you please putforth your ideas on what could be wrong in the Frontend patch installation?

You can find the problem in the below thread.I am actually stuck at this point.

I really thank you very much for the help you have provided.

Thanks

mv_d

[Former Member]

Hi

with which username/pwd should i login to my Oracle 10.2 database to execute shutdown database, alter database noarchivelog and alter database open commands?

when i tried to ecexute these commands using the username 'system' the oracle database says that it has insufficient privileges? what is the default password for user sysdba?

Please let me know all the commands in detail as i have little knowledge about Oracle.

there is no parameter like log_archive_start in the INIT<sid>.ora file to modify its value to 'false' for making making my 10.2 database to noarchive mode. or do i need to add this parameter afresh in the INIT<sid>.ora file ???

Please let me know. I have been told to use brtools for setting. But that is not working

Thanks

mv_d

[Former Member]

normaly you are doing you db-administration using <sapsid>adm user.

you than can use "/ as sysdb" as db-user which tells the database to authenticate the user via operating system groups. members of the local windows user group ORA_DBA or ORA_<DBSID>_DBA are then able to administrate the database using the DBA role.

we have two scripts ARCHIVE_ON.BAT and ARCHIVE_OFF.BAT which should exactly the job you are trying to do.

log_archive_start parameter did only determine wether the database internal log_writer thread will be started or not, but it will not enable/disable archivelogs at all. As far as I can remember this parameter becomes obsolete in Oracle10.

regards

Peter

[Former Member]

Hi Peter,

So where exactly is the parameter should be set?

I checked out in INIT<DBSID>.ora file and i was not able to find any parameter like log_archive_start.

Can you please let me know stepwise what should be done in order to switch off the database archiving. Ii would be helpfull if you can give me commands in 10.2 which i need to execute.

Thanks

mv_d

[Former Member]

1. login as <sapsid>adm,

2. open a comand prompt (dos-box)

3. just run archive_off.bat.

That's it.

After that you may delete all archive files in oraarch subdirectory

regards

Peter

[Former Member]

Hi Peter,

Thanks a lot for your help.

I have disabled the archiving on my database.

Thanks

mv_d

[Former Member]

Hi,

The purpose of ORAARCHs is that they record all the actions performed on the database/sytem as they take place. These files are essential for the system to maintain the integrity of the database.

No it is not possible to delete to delete the ORAARCH folder as it is a standard oracle folder. Yes it is very important to maintain this folder, but it needs little maintenance from a user point of view. All the data is written by the datbase itself using its work processes. Deletion of the folder would not be possible.

The problem you are facing is pretty normal and the way to get around this problem is to delete the .DBF files that are more than 10days old. In real time commercial usage it would require a backup perfomred before one can proceed to delete these files. But because you seem to be using the SAP on a standalone machine for training purpose, you can go ahead and delete the files that are more than 10 days old.

rm -f <filename>.dbf would delete a DBF file. but for this action you would first need to logon into the database host from the OS level with root user

dbhost>sudo su -

password:<your db password>

root@dbhost ~>cd /oracle/<SID>/oraarch

root@dbhost ~>ls -alrt ---> this command allows you to view all the DBF files with time stamp

now execute the delete command with filename of those files which are 10 days older.

root@dbhost ~>rm -f <filename>.dbf

the more the file you delete more the free space should be available on you drive.

make sure you perform this task weekly once atleast to maintain free space on ur drive.

regards,

sri srirangam