[Veritas-bu] restoring oracle RMAN backups from an imported tape

Ugh.

Ok, here's the deal:

NetBackup DataCenter 3.4.1
Solaris 8 master/media servers
DLT tape library

We have a tape given to us by another facility.  They used RMAN to backup
some Oracle database directly to the tape via the Oracle extension for
NetBackup.

We don't have the Oracle extension for NetBackup here.

I've imported the tape, and I can see the images.  When I try to restore,
I get:
Restore started Thu Nov 20 14:21:41 2003

14:21:43 (33330.xxx) Restore job id 33330 will require 1 image.
14:21:43 (33330.xxx) Media id 200793 is needed for the restore.

14:42:31 (33330.001) Restoring from image created Tue Sep 23 13:37:09 2003
14:42:32 (33330.001) INF - Waiting for positioning of media id 200793 on
server mixed1.prod.audible.com.
14:43:04 (33330.001) INF - Beginning restore from server mixed1.prod.audible.com
 to client cdl3.prod.audible.com.
14:48:33 INF - Server status = 25
14:48:33 (33330.001) Status of restore from image created Tue Sep 23
13:37:09 2003 = cannot connect on socket

14:48:33 (33330.001) /al_22767_1_505489021 was not restored.

14:48:34 (33330.xxx) INF - Status = cannot connect on socket.

I think this makes sense, since we don't have the Oracle piece of
NetBackup.

So, what I'd like to do is just pull the file off the tape and then use
RMAN to recover it separately.  Can we do this?  I've tried using tar
directly on the tape, but I can't get anything except:

Blocksize = 2 records
Hmm, this doesn't look like a tar archive.
Skipping to next file header...

This was after using tpreq to load and mount the tape.

I tried using the tape device directly (tpreq creates a link to
/dev/rmt/0cbn -- I tried /dev/rmt/0n):
tar: blocksize = 2

This is more promising -- it sits there for a little while reading the
tape, and then exits when it hits the next file mark.  However, I'm not
getting anything off the tape.  The command I used was:
tar xvf /dev/rmt/0n

Does anyone have any advice for getting the files off this tape?  There
are seven of these images on the tape.

Thanks very much,
-Adam

Adam Levin, Senior Unix Systems Administrator | http://www.audible.com/
Audible, Inc.                       He'd never realized that, deep down
Wayne, NJ, 07470                       inside, what he really wanted to
973-837-2797                               do was make things go splat.