Oracle RMAN restore fails if the database is not mounted. (4042497)

Date: 05/2007
Affected NV Version: NetVault 7.4.x and greater
OS Version: All support platforms
Plugin version: Oracle RMAN 4.5
Application version: Oracle RMAN 9.2.x, 10.1.x, 10.2.x


Description:
Oracle RMAN restore fails with Oracle errors RMAN-03002, RMAN-06403, ORA-01034, ORA-27101

Symptoms:
Oracle error messages appear in the restore log:
RMAN-03002: failure to allocate command at [TIME]
RMAN-06403: could not obtain a fully authorized session
ORA-01034: ORACLE not available
ORA-27101: shared memory realm does not exist

The database is shutdown, or started but not mounted. To restore with RMAN, the Oracle database must be mounted.
Use Oracle commands to mount the database, the database should then be ready for restore.