Oracle Database Discussions

Oracle 10.2.0.4 EE on OEL 5.4

Running through an exercise of setting up DG. Working with both the Oracle Data Guard Concepts and Administration as well as the book "High Availability with RAC, Flashback and Data Guard" (Hart & Jesse, Oracle Press) Doing this on a couple of VMs on my laptop. First time through I made copious notes and at the end had a working DG setup. Went away for a week, then blew it all away and started over, thinking I'd just be verifying/refining instructions and a few scripts I wrote along the way. Everything went like clockwork until the very end.

Did the duplicate database with this:

RMAN> connect target /

connected to target database: HOUSTON (DBID=541449409)

RMAN> connect auxiliary sys/halftrack@smyrna

connected to auxiliary database: HOUSTON (not mounted)

RMAN> run {
2> set until sequence = 29 thread = 1;
3> duplicate target database for standby dorecover;}

which ran without error. Next was to begin log shipping. On the primary I had log_archive_dest_2 set for the log shipping, and log_arch_dest_2_state=DISABLE during the setup. At this point I enabled the destination, did a switch logfile, then checked the status:

SQL> alter system set log_archive_dest_state_2=enable scope=both;

System altered.

SQL> alter system switch logfile;

System altered.

SQL> select status, error
  2  from v$archive_dest where dest_id=2;

STATUS  ERROR
--------- -----------------------------------------------------------------
ERROR  ORA-16032: parameter STANDBY_ARCHIVE_DEST destination string
  cannot be translated


SQL> show parameter dest

NAME     TYPE VALUE
------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------
<snip>
log_archive_dest_1     string LOCATION=/oraarch/houston/
       VALID_FOR=(ALL_LOGFILES,
 ALL_ROLES)
       DB_UNIQUE_NAME=houston
log_archive_dest_10     string
log_archive_dest_2     string SERVICE=smyrna
       LGWR ASYNC

NAME     TYPE VALUE
------------------------------------ ----------- ------------------------------
       VALID_FOR=(ONLINE_LOGFIL
 ES,PRIMARY_ROLE)
       DB_UNIQUE_NAME=smyrna
<snip>
log_archive_dest_state_1     string ENABLE
<snip>
log_archive_dest_state_2     string ENABLE
<snip>
standby_archive_dest     string ?/dbs/arch

I don't recall running into this the first time through, and none of my own notes, nor either of the reference publications make any mention of setting standby_archive_dest.

I'm open for some enlightenment.