Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Cloning a Virtual Machine DB System

This topic explains how to clone a virtual machine DB system that uses Logical Volume Manager storage management software. See Fast Provisioning Option for Single-Node Virtual Machine DB Systems for more information on these virtual machine DB systems.

Cloning creates a copy of a source DB system as it exists at the time of the cloning operation, including the storage configuration software and database volumes. When creating a clone, you can specify a new SSH key and ADMIN password.

Note

  • Cloning is not supported for bare metal DB systems or virtual machine systems using Oracle Automatic Storage Management.
  • You can't clone a virtual machine DB system in a security zone to create a virtual machine DB system that isn't in a security zone. See the Security Zone Policies topic for a full list of policies that affect Database service resources.

Required IAM Policy

To use Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, you must be granted security access in a policy  by an administrator. This access is required whether you're using the Console or the REST API with an SDK, CLI, or other tool. If you get a message that you don’t have permission or are unauthorized, verify with your administrator what type of access you have and which compartment  you should work in.

For administrators: The policy in Let database admins manage Oracle Cloud database systems lets the specified group do everything with databases and related Database resources.

If you're new to policies, see Getting Started with Policies and Common Policies. For more information about writing policies for databases, see Details for the Database Service.

Using the Console to Clone a Virtual Machine DB System

  1. Open the navigation menu. Under Oracle Database, click Bare Metal, VM, and Exadata.
  2. Choose the compartment where the source DB system is located.
  3. In the list of DB systems, find the virtual machine DB system you want to clone and click its highlighted name. Note that only system using Logical Volume Manager storage management software can be cloned.
  4. On the DB System Details page of your source DB system, click Clone. This opens the Clone DB System dialog.
  5. Select a compartment: By default, the DB system is created in your current compartment and you can use the network resources in that compartment.
  6. Display name: A non-unique, display name for the DB system. An Oracle Cloud Identifier (OCID) uniquely identifies the DB system. Avoid entering confidential information.

  7. Add public SSH keys: The public key portion of each key pair you want to use for SSH access to the DB system. You can browse or drag and drop .pub files, or paste in individual public keys. To paste multiple keys, click + Another SSH Key, and supply a single key for each entry.

    The clone will use the SSH keys specified during the cloning operation, and the source DB system will continue to use the SSH keys that were in place prior to the cloning operation.

  8. Choose a license type: The type of license you want to use for the DB system. Your choice affects metering for billing.

    • License Included means the cost of this Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database service resource will include both the Oracle Database software licenses and the service.
    • Bring Your Own License (BYOL) means you will use your organization's Oracle Database software licenses for this Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Database service resource. See Bring Your Own License for more information.
    Note that this license selection only applies to the clone, and does not affect the source DB system.

  9. Specify the network information:

    • Virtual cloud network: The VCN in which to create the DB system. Click Change Compartment to select a VCN in a different compartment. Note that the clone can use a different VCN and subnet from the source DB system.

    • Client Subnet: The subnet to which the DB system should attach. For 1- and 2-node RAC DB systems:  Do not use a subnet that overlaps with 192.168.16.16/28, which is used by the Oracle Clusterware private interconnect on the database instance. Specifying an overlapping subnet will cause the private interconnect to malfunction.

      Click Change Compartment to select a subnet in a different compartment.

    • Network Security Groups: Optionally, you can specify one or more network security groups (NSGs) for your DB system. NSGs function as virtual firewalls, allowing you to apply a set of ingress and egress security rules to your DB system. A maximum of five NSGs can be specified. For more information, see Network Security Groups and Network Setup for DB Systems.

      Note that if you choose a subnet with a security list, the security rules for the DB system will be a union of the rules in the security list and the NSGs.

    • Hostname prefix: Your choice of host name for the bare metal or virtual machine DB system. The host name must begin with an alphabetic character, and can contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens (-). The maximum number of characters allowed for bare metal and virtual machine DB systems is 16.

      Important

      The host name must be unique within the subnet. If it is not unique, the DB system will fail to provision. If the clone is created in a different subnet from the source, the same host name can be used for both the clone and the source DB system.
    • Host domain name: The domain name for the DB system. If the selected subnet uses the Oracle-provided Internet and VCN Resolver for DNS name resolution, then this field displays the domain name for the subnet and it can't be changed. Otherwise, you can provide your choice of a domain name. Hyphens (-) are not permitted.
    • Host and domain URL: Combines the host and domain names to display the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the database. The maximum length is 64 characters.
    • Private IP address: Optionally, you can define the IP address of the clone. This is useful in development contexts where you create and delete clones of the same source DB system over and over, and you need each new iteration of the clone to use the same IP address. If you specify an IP address that is currently in use within the subnet, the cloning operation will fail with an error message regarding the invalid IP address.
  10. Fault domain: The fault domain in which the DB system resides. You can choose which fault domain to use for your DB system. For more information on fault domains, see About Regions and Availability Domains.

  11. Provide information for the initial database of the clone:

    • Database name: The name for the database. The database name must begin with an alphabetic character and can contain a maximum of eight alphanumeric characters. Special characters are not permitted. You can use the same database name that is used in the source DB system.

    • Password: A strong password for the SYS user. The password must be 9 to 30 characters and contain at least two uppercase, two lowercase, two numeric, and two special characters. The special characters must be _, #, or -. The password must not contain the username (SYS or SYSTEM) or the word "oracle" either in forward or reversed order and regardless of casing. The password will be used for the SYS and SYSTEM administrator accounts.

      Important: The TDE wallet password is inherited from the source DB system.

    • Confirm password: Re-enter the password you specified.

  12. Clicking Show Advanced Options allows you to configure the following:

    • Tags: If you have permissions to create a resource, then you also have permissions to apply free-form tags to that resource. To apply a defined tag, you must have permissions to use the tag namespace. For more information about tagging, see Resource Tags. If you are not sure if you should apply tags, then skip this option (you can apply tags later) or ask your administrator.
  13. Click Clone DB System.