Verifying Blocks in Redo Log Files

You can configure the database to use checksums to verify blocks in the redo log files. If you set the initialization parameter DB_BLOCK_CHECKSUM to TYPICAL (the default), the database computes a checksum for each database block when it is written to disk, including each redo log block as it is being written to the current log. The checksum is stored the header of the block.

Oracle Database uses the checksum to detect corruption in a redo log block. The database verifies the redo log block when the block is read from an archived log during recovery and when it writes the block to an archive log file. An error is raised and written to the alert log if corruption is detected.

If corruption is detected in a redo log block while trying to archive it, the system attempts to read the block from another member in the group. If the block is corrupted in all members of the redo log group, then archiving cannot proceed.

The value of the DB_BLOCK_CHECKSUM parameter can be changed dynamically using the ALTER SYSTEM statement.