Backup testing

Question

I want to test our RMAN backup's. We really cannot test it by restoring to a test machine, as we dont have any test servers available.
All we want is know that the backups taken to tape are intact and if at any point we need to restore, RMAN can read it from there.
We have a retention period of 7 days and we need to Validate all the backups taken in the last 7 days.
Is there any work around ? something like a fake restore.
we are on oracle 11.1.0.7 on Linux.

Answer 1

You must use validate command.
Validate specific tablespace
RMAN>validate tablespace users;
Validate specific datafile
RMAN>validate datafile 5;
Validate all archivelogs
RMAN>validate archivelog all;
Validate specific archivelogs
RMAN>validate archivelog sequence between 150 and 180;
Validate specific backupset
RMAN>validate backupset 3;
Validate all recovery related files
RMAN>validate recovery files;
Validate blocks
RMAN>validate datafile 5 block 1 to 10;
Validate everything
RMAN>backup validate database archivelog all;
And there is restore..preview command to chack the availability of files.It does not actually restore but checks the availability of files.
RMAN>restore tablespace users preview;