What will be the Archived Redo Log Destination in Oracle

As a sysdba privilege issue "archive log list" to see your present archival destination settings.

SQL> ARCHIVE LOG LIST
Database log mode Archive Mode
Automatic archival Enabled
Archive destination USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST
Oldest online log sequence 1
Next log sequence to archive 2
Current log sequence 2

•Based on the destination you can see the physical destination of your archived redo log file in the v$parameter. You can use,

SQL> SHOW PARAMETER DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST

NAME TYPE VALUE
------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------
db_recovery_file_dest string /oradata2/flash_recovery_area
db_recovery_file_dest_size big integer 2G

Now a question is for which parameter settings my archived destination affects. In the following I will try to clear the idea.

•If you set LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST parameter then this parameter is used to locate the archived redo log destination.

•If you set DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST and and no LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n is specified, then LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_10 is implicitly set to archival destination. However if you set LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_10 explicitly empty then this behavior changed. Like,

SQL> select DEST_NAME,DESTINATION from v$archive_dest where dest_name='LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_10';

DEST_NAME DESTINATION
------------------------------ ------------------------------
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_10 USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST

Though you can implicitly change DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST to another destination like LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_9.

SQL> ALTER SYSTEM SET LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_9='LOCATION=USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST';
System altered.

SQL> select DEST_NAME,DESTINATION from v$archive_dest where dest_name='LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_10';
DEST_NAME DESTINATION
------------------------------ ------------------------------
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_10

SQL> select DEST_NAME,DESTINATION from v$archive_dest where dest_name='LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_9';
DEST_NAME DESTINATION
------------------------------ ------------------------------
LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_9 USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST


•If you set any local destinations for LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n, then archived redo logs are stored only in the destinations you specify using those parameters. In this case, redo log files are not archived in the flash recovery area by default. Though if you want to archive redo log to flash recover area then use LOCATION=USE_DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST as in previous example.

•If you do not set any value for LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST, LOG_ARCHIVE_DEST_n, or DB_RECOVERY_FILE_DEST, then the redo logs are archived to a default location that is platform-specific. On Solaris, for example, the default is ?/dbs/arch.

SQL> alter system set log_archive_dest_9='';
System altered.

SQL> archive log list
Database log mode Archive Mode
Automatic archival Enabled
Archive destination ?/dbs/arch
Oldest online log sequence 1
Next log sequence to archive 2
Current log sequence 2