Redo

All the Oracle changes made to the db are recorded in the redo log files, these files along with any archived redo logs enable a dba to recover the database to any point in the past. Oracle will write all commited changes to the redo logs first before applying them to the data files. The redo logs guarantee that no committed changes are ever lost. Redo log files consist of redo records which are group of change vectors each referring to specific changes made to a data block in the db. The changes are first kept in the redo buffer but are quickly written to the redo log files.

There are two types of redo log files online and archive. Oracle uses the concept of groups and a minimum of 2 groups are required, each group having at least one file. They are used in a circular fashion when one group fills up oracle will switch to the next log group.

The LGWR process writes redo information from the redo buffer to the online redo logs when

The log group can be in one of four states

Current log group that is being actively being written too.
Active the files in the log group are required for instance recovery
Inactive the files in the log group are not required for instance recovery and can be over written
Unused log group has never been written too, a new group.

A log file can be in one of four states

Invalid the file is corrupt or missing
Stale the log file is new and never been used
Deleted the log file is no longer being used
<blank> the log file is currently being used

Log group and log files commands

Configuration
Creating new log group alter database add logfile group 4 ('c:\oracle\redo3a.log','c:\oracle\redo3b.log') size 10M;
Adding new log file to existing group alter database add logfile member 'c:\oracle\redo3c.log' to group3;
Renaming log file in existing group

shutdown database
rename file
startup database in mount mode
alter database rename file 'old name' to'new name'
open database
backup controlfile

Drop log group alter database drop logfile group 3;
Drop log file from existing group alter database drop logfile member 'c:\oracle\redoc.log'
Maintaining
Clearing Log groups

alter database clear logfile group 3;
alter database clear unarchived logfile group 3;

Note: used the unarchived option when a loggroup has not ben archived

Logswitch and Checkpointing

alter system checkpoint;

alter system switch logfile;
alter system archive log current;
alter system archive log all;

# Difference between them are
switch logfile - will switch logfile and return prompt immediately, archiving will take place in the background
log current - will switch logfile and return prompt only when logfile has been successfully archived
log all - will only archiving full log files

Note: I have discussed checkpoints

Display the redo usage select le.leseq "Current log sequence No",
  100*cp.cpodr_bno/le.lesiz "Percent Full",
  cp.cpodr_bno "Current Block No",
  le.lesiz "Size of Log in Blocks"
from x$kcccp cp, x$kccle le
where le.leseq =CP.cpodr_seq
and bitand(le.leflg,24) = 8
/
Useful Views
V$LOG displays log file information from the control file.
V$LOGFILE contains information about redo log files.

Archived Logs

When a redo log file fills up and before it is used again the file is archived for safe keeping, this archive file with other redo log files can recover a database to any point in time. It is best practice to turn on ARCHIVELOG mode which performs the archiving automatically.

The log files can be written to a number of destinations (up to 10 locations), even to a standby database, using the parameters log_archive_dest_n and log_archive_min_succeed_dest you can control how Oracle writes its log files.

Configuration
Enabling

alter system set log_archive_dest_1 = 'location=c:\oracle\archive' scope=spfile;
alter system set log_archive_format = 'arch_%d_%t_%r_%s.log' scope=spfile;

shutdown database
startup database in mount mode
alter database archivelog;
startup database in open mode

Archive format options
%r - resetlogs ID (required parameter)
%s - log sequence number (required parameter)
%t - thread number (required parameter)
%d - database ID (not required)

Disabling alter database noarchivelog;
Displaying archive log list;
select name, log_mode from v$database;
select archiver from v$instance;
Maintainance
Display system parameters show parameter log_archive_dest
show parameter log_archive_format
show parameter log_archive_min_succeed_dest
Useful Views
V$ARCHIVED_LOG Display the archived log files
V$INSTANCE Display if database is in archive mode
V$DATABASE Display if database is in archive mode

I have a more detailed section on redo in my Data Guard section called Redo Processing.