I think these are controlled within RMAN - at least that's where I have typically configured the settings for them. If you issue the command: RMAN> show all; you'll see the below settings. CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP ON; CONFIGURE CONTROLFILE AUTOBACKUP FORMAT FOR DEVICE TYPE DISK TO '/backups/oradata/SID/ctrlfileWWT2_%F'; The default for AUTOBACKUP is typically "OFF" when a database is first registered with RMAN. If it's "ON", then you can specify where the control files go, as well as their format, in the second "AUTOBACKUP FORMAT" line - possibly $ORACLE_HOME/dbs is the default location if no other location is configured? For us, the previous c-files get deleted every night, so if you modified the location, they might get deleted automatically from $ORACLE_HOME/dbs after the next RMAN backups are run... -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mandal, Ashoke Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 5:27 PM To: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RMAN question on the copy of the controlfile under $ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory We are having c- files under the ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory on regular basis and these are pretty big to fill up the filesystem. -rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall 15564800 May 22 18:08 c-3963933903-20110522-03 -rw-rw---- 1 oracle oinstall 15564800 May 22 23:09 c-3963933903-20110522-04 Q1. Are these created by RMAN? Q2. How to stop these files being written to ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory? Q3. What will be the impact if we delete these files from ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory? Q4. Why these c-* files are not generated under ORACLE_HOME/dbs directory for other ORACLE_HOME? Appreciate your help in advance, Ashoke -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l