RMAN Virtual Private Catalog

In most of the organizations there are multiple dbas working.  A senior dba will keep the most important databases for himself and creates virtual private catalog to his team members.  Here each member will be given access to 1 or more databases to work.

In 10g we use to create separate db to each team member to grant access of a particular database. In 11g with the help of virtual private catalog we can stay in a single rman catalog and still manage individual user access.

catalogdb = rman
target db  = prod 
one more production db = db1

Here we will create a virtual private catalog and grant db1 to junior dba.

- create one more catalog user (vcat) in catalog db

export ORACLE_SID = rman

sqlplus / as sysdba

create user vcat identified by vcat
default tablespace catts
temporary tablespace temp
quota unlimited on catts;

grant resource, recovery_catalog_owner to vcat;
(recovery_catalog_owner role contains connect role)

Now login to rman main catalog and grant access of db1 to vcat user.

$export ORACLE_SID=db1

$rman target / catalog rman/pwd@torman

RMAN> register database;

RMAN> grant catalog for database "db1" to vcat;

RMAN> list db_unique_name all;

EXIT;

Connect to RMAN through VCAT user and create virtual private catalog.

$rman catalog vcat/pwd@torman

RMAN> create virtual catalog;

RMAN> list db_unique_name all;

Here we can see db1 only. "db1" database backup information will be stored in virtual private catalog (vcat schema) as well as base catalog (rman schema).