Encountered RMAN-03002 and RMAN-06091 when Deleting Obsolete Backups

Symptoms

When attempting to delete obsolete backups from RMAN using the following command:

RMAN> delete obsolete;

the following error occurs:

RMAN-00571: =======================================
RMAN-00569: ===== ERROR MESSAGE STACK FOLLOWS ====
RMAN-00571: =======================================
RMAN-03002: failure of delete command at 05/07/2008 22:04:21
RMAN-06091: no channel allocated for maintenance (of an appropriate type)


Cause

Tape channel had not being allocated when attempt to delete obsolete backup on tape.

Using the following command to verify that there are backup sets on tape.


RMAN> list backup;
List of Backup Sets
==============

BS Key Type LV Size Device Type Elapsed Time Completion Time
------- ---- -- ---------- ----------- ------------ ---------------
1 Incr 0 113.25M SBT_TAPE 00:08:35 01-MAR-08
BP Key: 1 Status: AVAILABLE Compressed: NO Tag: HOT_DB_BK_LEVEL0
Handle: bk_4_1_648250152 Media:
List of Datafiles in backup set 1
File LV Type Ckp SCN Ckp Time Name
---- -- ---- ---------- --------- ----
5 0 Incr 1342657 01-MAR-08 /u01/oracle/app/oracle/undotbs2
75 0 Incr 1342657 01-MAR-08 /u01/oracle/app/oracle/USER_DAT_08_vg3_002
91 0 Incr 1342657 01-MAR-08 /u01/oracle/app/oracle/USER_DAT_12_vg3_002

==>The Device Type is SBT_TAPE.
Solution

To implement the solution, please execute the following steps:

Please run the following commands to delete obsolete backup sets on both disk and tape:

RMAN> allocate channel for maintenance type disk;
RMAN> allocate channel for maintenance device type 'sbt_tape' PARMS '...';
==>Please change '...' to your actual tape params

RMAN> delete obsolete;

If you want to delete obsolete backup sets on disk, you can use the following commands:

RMAN> allocate channel for maintenance type disk;
RMAN> delete obsolete device type disk;
RMAN> delete expired backup of database archivelog all;