Oracle: how to specify non-default backup location during RMAN restore

Question

Oracle 19c on Windows. RMAN scheduled backups go to FRA here: D:\oracle\recovery. I have another backup in D:\backup\ which I want to restore. I need to be able to "tell" Rman to look into non-default location. Here is what I have so far:

shutdown immediate;
startup nomount;
show parameter control_files;
exit;
rman target /
restore controlfile from 'D:\BACKUP\';
alter database mount;

-- full recovery
run{
restore database;
recover database;
alter database open resetlogs;
}

At which point I specify backup location and how?

Answer 1

rman> catalog start with D:\backup'; -> Yes to comfirm and here we go

Answer 2

First of all, there is no default location for backup.

There could be locations RMAN is aware of and do not aware.

How to check it?

Via list backup command

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/rcmrf/LIST.html#GUID-2BAB704C-A3C9-4F76-8D96-4BD961FBEF2E

Where RMAN store information about backups?

• In catalog database or
• in controlfile

So in your case you use controlfile. I don't think RMAN is smart enough to find the best backup of controlfile so I guess you must provide the file to restore from and not just folder.

How to let RMAN know that some backups exists on D:\BACKUP ? by command CATALOG

https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/rcmrf/CATALOG.html#GUID-6E337759-9860-463A-BF7C-8512B272B8E1

As Duong mention you can catalog everything in D:\BACKUP by catalog start with

Beware it will prompt you for every file so you can suppress it via NOPROMPT parameter

After you catalog all backups, you can run list backup again to make sure rman aware of backups and perform full restore.