a0140 sams oracle dba survival guid morebook vn 0004

C ONTENTS

ORACLE
DBA
SURVIVAL GUIDE
®

Joseph B. Greene

201 West 103rd Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46290

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O RACLE DBA S URVIVAL G UIDE

ii

I came into this world knowing nothing. Therefore, this book is
dedicated to all the people along the way who took the time to teach
me something.

A CQUIS ITI ON S E DIT OR
Rosemarie Graham

D EVELOP MENT E DI TOR
Todd Bumbalough

C OPYRIGHT © 1995

BY

S AMS P UBLISHING

FIRST EDITION

S OFT WARE D EVELOPMEN T
SPECIALIST
Steve Flatt

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written
permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with
respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although
every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the
publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or
omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting
from the use of the information contained herein. For information,
address Sams Publishing, 201 W. 103rd St., Indianapolis, IN 46290.

P RO D UCT IO N E D I TO R
Nancy Albright

T ECHNICAL R EVIEWER
Byron Pearce
Mark Gokman

E D I TO RI AL C O O RDI N ATO R
Bill Whitmer

International Standard Book Number: 0-672-30681-6

T ECHNICAL E DIT
COORDI NATOR

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-67649

Lynette Quinn

98

97

96

95

4

3

2

FORMATT ER

1

Interpretation of the printing code: the rightmost double-digit
number is the year of the book’s printing; the rightmost single-digit,
the number of the book’s printing. For example, a printing code of
95-1 shows that the first printing of the book occurred in 1995.
Composed in New Century Schoolbook and MCPdigital by
Macmillan Computer Publishing
Printed in the United States of America
All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be trademarks
or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Sams
Publishing cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of
a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity
of any trademark or service mark.

PRESIDENT

AND

PUBLISHER

ACQUISITIONS MANAGER
DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
MANAGING EDITOR
MARKETING MANAGER

Richard K. Swadley
Greg Wiegand

Dean Miller
Cindy Morrow
Gregg Bushyeager

Frank Sinclair

C OVER D ESIGN ER
Tim Amrhein

B OOK D ESIGNER
Alyssa Yesh

P RODUCT ION T EAM
S UPERVISOR
Brad Chinn

P AGE L AYOUT
Louisa Klucznik
Brian-Kent Proffitt
Tina Trettin
Susan Van Ness

PROOF READI NG
Nancy Price
Brian-Kent Proffitt
Erich Richter
Susan D. Van Ness
Paul Wilson

INDEXER

Cheryl Dietsch

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C ONTENTS

Overview
Preface

xvii

Introduction

P ART I

OF THE

O RACLE DBA

1

The World of a Database Administrator

2

The Database Administrator’s Job Description

13

3

History and Development of Databases and Oracle

43

4

Oracle and Its Environments

55

5

The Tools of the Trade

75

P ART II

3

U NDERSTANDING H OW O RACLE W ORKS

6

How the Oracle RDBMS Works

7

Oracle Memory Structures

109

8

Oracle Files

123

9

Oracle Processes

137

10

Basic Oracle Database Objects

153

11

Oracle System Privileges

171

12

Oracle Object Privileges

191

13

Roles and Grants

205

14

Backup and Recovery

223

P ART III

I NSTALLING

AND

U PGRADING

97

THE

O RACLE S OFTWARE

15

The Life Cycle of an Oracle Database

251

16

Choosing Products and the Environment for
Your Oracle Database

261

17

Planning an Oracle Installation

277

18

Oracle Installations

295

19

Planning an Oracle Upgrade

311

20

Oracle Upgrades

321

P ART IV

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T HE J OB

xviii

DEVELOPING

A

D ATABASE A DMINISTRATION S CHEME

21

The Database Administration Scheme

329

22

Laying Out a Database

339

23

A Routine Maintenance Schedule

351

24

Developing Scripts to Automate Tasks

363

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iv

O RACLE DBA S URVIVAL G UIDE

P ART V

T HE D AILY R OUTINE

25

The “Typical” Day

383

26

User Account Maintenance

393

27

Tablespace Maintenance

409

28

Table and Index Maintenance

423

P ART VI

MONITORING

D ATABASE ’ S HEALTH

29

The Health of a Database

447

30

Routine Monitoring

457

31

Auditing

479

32

Tuning the Database

495

33

Looking Toward the Future

517

P ART VII

D EALING

WITH

P ROBLEMS

34

When Problems Occur

531

35

Space Problems

547

36

Instance and Application Crashes

563

37

When the Database Is Too Slow

575

38

Troubleshooting Checklist

585

P ART VIII

S UPPORTING U SERS

AND

D EVELOPERS

39

Sound Database Object Design

593

40

Query Optimization

611

41

Keeping Current as a DBA

629

P ART IX

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THE

A DVANCED O RACLE T ECHNICAL F EATURES

42

Rollback Segments

641

43

L oc ks

649

44

Parallel Processing Options

655

45

Packages, Procedures, and Triggers

663

46

Client-Server and Networking

673

47

Where To Next?

681

48

Oracle Workgroup Server and Oracle 7.2

687

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C ONTENTS

A PPENDIXES
A

SQL Commands

695

B

Glossary of Terms

701

C

SQL*Plus Features

705

D

SQL*DBA Features

711

E

SQL*Loaders

715

F

Import and Export

719

G

Where to Get More Information

725

H

Sample System Configuration Analyses

727

The Disk Contents

731

Index

737

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768

UPGRADING

planning, 258-259
README file, 312-315
storing new
software, 314
support, 318
testing, 316
troubleshooting,
325-326
UPS (uninterruptable
power supplies), 270
USE_MERGE hint, 623
USE_NL hint, 623
user account maintenance, 394-408

adding new users, 399-402
changing privileges,
402-406
deleting user accounts,
406-407
granting privileges,
400-402
group accounts, 398
operating system logon
IDs, 396-399
passwords, 402
security schemes, 394-396
SQL*Net, 398
temporarily disabling
users, 407
users
administration (DBA job
description), 21, 28-32
expectations (database
speed), 578-579
future requirements
planning database
expansion, 520-522
groups (DBA continuing
education), 637-638
privileges, 177-178
processing schedules
(database administration
schemes), 355-357

requirements (database
administration schemes),
335-336
server processes
(Oracle), 101
service processes, 138-139
sessions, killing user
sessions (SQL*DBA), 713
support
(DBA job description),
21, 28, 39-42
DBA daily routine
overview, 387-388
User Manager, 65, 86
util_ck.sql script, 735
utilities, 63-65
at utility (UNIX), 374
Backup Manager, 64,
83-84
cron utility (UNIX),
374-377
Database Expander, 64,
85-86
Database Manager, 64, 83
Export, 63, 78, 90-91, 227,
238-239, 721
example, 721-722
selecting backup
schemes, 241
Import, 63, 78, 90-91, 703,

720-723
command line mode,
compared to interactive mode, 720
example, 722-723
parameters, 720-721
job submission utilities
(database administration
schemes), 373-377
Object Manager, 65, 86
ODBC Administrator, 84
Oracle Installer, 63

Oracle Network Manager,
63-64
Oracle Terminal, 63
Password Manager, 64, 84
Recovery Manager, 65,
86-87
Server Manager, 81-82
Session Manager, 64, 83
SQL*DBA, 63, 78, 78-81,
703, 712-713
command line
mode, 712
compared to SQL*Plus,
709
executing scripts,
370-371
functions, 80-81
killing user

sessions, 713
menu mode, 712
monitor locks option,
653-654
monitoring
capabilities, 713
SQL*Loader, 63, 78,
91-92, 716-717
badfile optional parameter, 717
example control file, 717
fixed column
formats, 716
load tables, 716
log file optional parameter, 717
population scripts, 716
SQL*Net, 64
listeners, 150
listeners process, 290
log files, 135
multi-threaded servers,
149-150
user account maintenance, 398


X

SQL*Plus, 61-62, 78,
88-90, 703, 706-709
calling, 706
compared to SQL*DBA,

709
executing shell scripts,
370-373
formatting columns, 89
output formatting,
706-708
reports, 367-369
scripts, 708-709
trace utility (optimizing
queries), 624-625
User Manager, 65, 86
utilization report
monitoring databases, 452,
462-465
troubleshooting
tablespaces, 548-551

V
varchar2 data type, 161
variables, environmental
variables, shell scripts,
371

VAX system, configuration, 271
vendor training programs, 632-634
vendors
purchasing products,
274-276
technical support, 30-31
views, 158, 164-166,

424, 596
auditing databases, 482,
490-491
compared to summary
calculation tables, 606
creating, 165
designing tables for
decision support, 600-601
monitoring tablespaces,
416-418
privilege sets, 403-406
privileges, 194, 197-198
querying about privileges,
207-208
synonyms, 166-167
virtual memory, 111

LOCKS

W
warm backups, 226,
236-238
database administration
schemes, 343
ending, 237
selecting backup schemes,
240-241
starting, 236
whenever clause (auditing
databases), 489

white papers, 30
Windows, Oracle 7 processes, 151
Workgroups Server, 688690
WorldWideWeb(WWW)
DBA continuing education,
636-637
technical support, 543
writing to data files, 101

X–Y–Z
X locks, 652

769