What are Administrative Files?

Every Oracle database has several administrative files associated with it. Among these files are
configuration files, core dump files, trace files, export files, and other related log files. You need to
store these files under separate directories for ease of maintenance. Assuming you have about ten or
so of these directories for each database, you can see why it’s imperative that you have a simple
means of organizing them. Oracle recommends the following directory structure for clarity: /h/
admin/d/a, where h is the Oracle base directory (e.g., /u01/app/oracle), admin indicates that this
directory holds administration-related files, d refers to the specific database, and a refers to the
subdirectories for each specific type of administrative files. For example, the /u01/app/oracle/
admin/prod1/bdump directory will contain all background process trace files as well as the all-important
alert log files for the prod1 database.
Table 9-1 lists some of the standard administrative directories that you’ll need in most cases. Of
course, you may add to the recommended list or modify it to fit your circumstances


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Directory         Contents
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adhoc         Contains ad hoc SQL files
arch         Contains archived redo log files
create         Contains SQL scripts that you can use for creating your databases
dpdump         Contains the Data Pump Export files
pfile         Contains instance parameter files (such as init.ora)
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